The FFO Final Fantasy Tactics Challenge Thread

[Amnesia Vertigo]

Okay, Lionel Castle sucks. Here's the plan:

Everyone outside the gate has rubber shoes to neuter the Archers. It's 4 on 4 now, but that summoner sucks. Stop and Petrify simply are not proccing on him. Ramza's dead in four turns. This seemed to work last time: battle boots on Ramza, get him to the patch of grass and cast Hell Ivy. I bunch the rest of my team up near the gate, on top of grass, trying to proc Stop on Gaf from Hell Ivy. From there, he's open to melee from Ramza. He goes down after a few swings and some Elementals. The problem with this is I usually run itno a casualty or two and the clock runs out before I can clear the field. I suppose I'll try again later tonight, trying to draw the summoner out so he can get raped by melee.

The Execution Site was easy. Cut Gaf out of the picture quickly, then took care of the archers. Status ailaments were proccing (Don't Act, Don't Move, Stop) all over the place for this fight, so it was a cinch.

[Veers]

Finished chapter 1 well under the level limit. Took me three tries to finish Fort Zeakden because that idiot Deltia kept on throwing rocks at Algus which did 5-10 damage and kept triggering his auto-potion which caused my two samurai who died to the black mages to crystallize.

Won on the third try... it was quick and messy, for them. Key was starting my second pair of characters behind the building and joining them up with Ramza rather than trying to outflank them (and get magic in the face in the process).

[Tenshi Kain]

Man, Veers, AV, kjones...everybody's ahead of me! The sooner I finish this paper the better. Anyway, just noticed we had Jackal04 join up!

Jackal04 - Cavalry Challenge

Riovanes Castle is going to be interesting on that one. =O

[Veers]

Got whopped at Bariaus Hill on the way to Lionel Castle... going to see if a couple level ups help (still around level 11 and that encounter is level 15 enemies with magic users, the bane of samurai!). Just don't have the HP yet to survive long enough to close the distance between my troops and the two summoners.

[Amnesia Vertigo]

I beat Chapter 2 at level 15. Queklain was easy, as always, someone got hit with a sleep, and then he headed to the back of the room. He ate a few elementals before I could surround him, and by the time that happened, it was game over. He went for a bio 2, which went off, hitting squad members for around 70 a piece. His big mistake was getting hit twice mid charge for bio 3.

The gate was a bit of luck. Gafgarion always closes the distance to use Night Sword. On the first round of moves, Stop didn't proc, and the summoner came forward and cast Titan on three of my party members outside the gate. Gaff then moved back, cast another Night Sword, which made it possible for Ramza to hit the gate lever by bee-lining it. Before I moved, I went for Hell Ivy, which procced Stop on Gaff. Went straight for the lever and opened the gate, and started moving troops inside to help deal with Gaff if he popped out of Stop. The summoner moved forward again and cast Titan on two Geomancers within the gate. Now that the Summoner was vulnerable, I gambled on it, risking getting cut down by two nearby Knights, to get a shot in on the Summoner. Turns out the gamble paid off, the attack put the Summoner in critical, and he retreated, placing a Moogle summon on a targeted location near the two Knights to where he moved to reap the benefits of the Moogle. The Knights, strangely, didn't take this opportunity to gang up on the lone Geomancer, but instead elected to bask in the glory of the Moogle summon. By casting Moogle, the Summoner was all out of juice, and could no longer really contribute to the fight. Two of my critical Geomancers, one who ate two Titans, and a second who got caught by a Knight while escaping through the gate, made their way to the roof where Ramza starts out and started raining Carve Model on multiple targets trying to pass through the gate. The battle was over when the Summoner ran out of mana.

I've run into a cash problem at the beginning of Chapter 3; I outfitted my entire squad with Twist Headbands, Flame Shields, and Ancient Swords and some back-up Ice Shields for wherever I may need them. I've been drooling over some of the Accessories, mainly N-Kai Armlets and Magic Gauntlets, but there's no way I can afford them for the entire team.

[Tenshi Kain]

Originally Posted by Amnesia Vertigo

Two of my critical Geomancers, one who ate two Titans, and a second who got caught by a Knight while escaping through the gate, made their way to the roof where Ramza starts out and started raining Carve Model on multiple targets trying to pass through the gate.

That is all kinds of awesome.

[Rain]

Fuckin' a.

Started out with the Delita powerlevel of doom in the first fight, but he only made it to level six before critting the hell out of the chemist. Given that I've restarted at that fight something like four times now just trying to get Delita to torture the poor bastard, I say 'fuck it, six is good enough' and head out.

I managed to open up Wizard in that fight, so Ramza went in with the full array of low-level elemental spells. Algus handles the squire and thief near him as Ramza Bolts two squires into oblivion. Delita, for once, doesn't really have to do anything.

After making it to Igros, I decide to do some leveling in Mandalia before I hit Sweegy. Given that this is an SSCC, I don't really worry too much when my generics hit the ground--they're all getting cast away soon enough. By the time I get to Sweegy, Ramza has made Summoner, Delita is a Time Mage, and Algus is sitting pretty in his Squire role.

Sweegy - 0 resets. All but two of my generics--Summoners, to help get Ramza some extra JP--turn to crystals and boxes. The fight goes pretty straightforward--Ramza handles the right side enemies with his summons, and Delita/Algus tag team the goblin and the bomb on the right. Nothing special, nothing cool.

Dorter - 0 resets. Delita has gone back to the Squire job for the extra HP--and he needs every bit of it. Ramza's HP is pathetically low--he is a Summoner, after all--so it's a rough ride keeping him alive long enough to actually be worth something.

Delita makes his way up the tall tower, throwing rocks at the longbowman like a Palestinian at an Israeli. He gets to the top and lays a beat down on the bowman. Algus and Ramza follow him up. I keep Ramza back and let the enemies congregate at the squeeze point on the tower side, intending to fry them. Algus ruins it by charging head-on into a knight, the punch bowman and the other archer, and two wizards. He promptly dies, and the knight and archer make it through the squeeze. Ramza drops a Ramuh and puts the Wizards and the weapon-holding archer to sleep, which was the main goal.

Delita comes down and starts wreaking havoc on the remaining enemies. His DASHES are hitting for 30 damage and his sword doesn't miss once. Ramza also has incredibly low MP at this point, so he's got on good Moogle summon left in him before he gets useless. Delita takes out the last archer and knight on his own thanks to the well-placed Moogle from the rapidly retreating Ramza.

On to Rat Cellar. Everyone is at Lv 7 or 8 at this point. I really hope Ramza finds some MP buried in the sand out there, or else it's going to be a pretty short trip.

[Jackal04]

Started my Cavalry Challenge last night.

Here is my set-up within the parameters of the challenge. Ramza and my one female generic are to be Archers scc style. During each battle, Ramza and the Female Archer can not do anything until they have mounted a chocobo, which really has some definite implications for the first round of combat. The gamefaqs version of the challenge allows for one of each type of chocobo in battle, this provides one extra unit for attack (the chocobo without a rider). While this would lead to some interesting tactical situations, with switching mounts to exploit each chocobo's unique skill set, I decided to go the more difficult route and take only two chocobos into battle. The only time a chocobo may fight/use skills, if its rider has been killed. This means that anytime my archers are killed I have three turns to finish the battle with my chocobos before they crystalize.

On to chapter one. I got Delita to about level six on the opening battle, not paying attention, I left him as a squire for the battle at Mandalia Plains. Everything was pretty uneventful until Dorter. Trying to open up Mediator while keeping Ramza and my other Archer at a reasonable level did make things a little tricky. It also didn't help that I had a generic Chemist still in my party that I had power-leveled so that Delita would get Auto-Potion. Consequently, my random encounter battles had fairly high level monsters compaired to my level 3/4 Ramza.

After numerous resets to avoid random encounters while breeding my chocobos, I headed to Dorter (Algus as a Squire, Delita as a Wizard). Delita cleaned house with basic elemental attacks, while my Light Cavalry headed up the tower to rain arrows over the battlefield. This was a really easy fight for me, as I the only thing I had learned for my Archers was Arrow Guard. Luckily, one of the enemy archers dropped a long Bow for Ramza.

I switched Delita over to a Time Mage and Algus to a Knight for the Rat Cellar. Then had to restart, more because I was a moron than anything else. Algus lasted maybe two rounds, which didn't cause me any heart-ache as I hadn't leveled him at all. Delita kept Ramza and Archer in haste and it turns out that a chocobo can reach the top of the ruins; so Ramza sat up there the entire battle and had almost 3/4 of the entire map in his target range.

The Thieves Fort was the first place I ran into trouble. On the opening round of combat one of the thieves would almost always steal heart on one of my chocobos, making it impossible to mount. Unless I could hit it with a physical attack before it was my turn to mount them, I would end up chasing them all over the battlefield and getting my ass kicked.

On to Lenalia Plateau, with Delita finally having some skills to use as a Summoner. Really had no problems here. Shiva followed by some Ice1 cleared all three of the enemy mages.

That's where I sit right now. So far, my two mounted archers are having a fairly easy time, mainly due to the tactical advantage they get from higher move/jump abilities. But, I see problems down the road. Battles in confined areas will definitely be a problem. Also, the lack of a really powerful bow (even if I get lucky and somebody drops an Ultimus Bow) will make things tricky.

[Veers]

Goug City: Round 1. Thieves stole 4 pieces of my gear in a row (with 14%, 16%, 14%, and 16%.............................), and charmed one of my samurai. And apparently, in lieu of what seems like normal FF "random" number generation, the archers landed 4 shots in a row on my front line of samurai, each with a 20-24% chance to hit. I reset out of sheer irritation.

Goug City: Round 2. Summoners owned Mustadio pretty fast and took a chunk off Ramza's HP. I rushed the summoners and took one down to 1 HP. He cast Moogle and the thieves started pumping potions into him which gave me some time to recover and get into some of the better positions on the rooftop. And somehow one managed to dodge TWO attacks, EACH with 85% chance to hit. How's that for gay?

Finally, I felled one summoner on the roof, but this was kinda bad because my whole group was in one spot and if that other summoner, who still had half his mana, were to take advantage of that... But he didn't and started healing the other characters. Fine with me, thanks to Blade Grasp melee is not a threat. Somehow, though, archers are CONSTANTLY hitting my samurai while they dodge 90% chance-to-hit attacks -_- I got into a good spot with one of my samurai and smiled as 90% chance to finish off this annoying summoner showed up, but he DODGED IT AGAIN. How the hell does this game do its math, anyway?

So finally I worked the remaining three into a corner. Even then it wasn't a quick finish. The summoner managed to dodge ANOTHER 85% chance-to-finish-off attack and the thief stole another helmet (14% again) before I beat them into the mud and rescued Mustadio's father~

So anyway, finally made it to Warjilis and bought some katanas, so now the real fun begins.

[Rain]

You know, it's pretty easy to see that Delita is a commoner.

I mean, his decisions are just so goddamned simple. Grah. Details once I finally beat Ch 1.

[Veers]

Golgorand Execution Site was a breeze thanks to my (finally!) newly acquired katana collection. G-whateverhisnameis was gunning for my girls since they were more vulnerable to his blade spells, but that worked out for the better, really. They gathered 'round so my girls just did a couple Draw Outs each and he and his two knight guards went down. The rest was just mop-up (though one of those time mages did almost kill Fernando!).

[Rain]

Ok.

The two fights before Zeakden were breezes. Delita charges in, draws everyone into a big group. Ramza fries them. Two turns per fight.

Zeakden...

Six resets. Delita just kept fucking dying, and not doing enough damage for my summons to kill Algus. My setup was:

Ramza
Rod
Red Hood
Silk Robe
Battle Boots

Delita, Squire with Item

Iron Sword
Some shield--Black Shield, I think?
Bronze Helmet
Bronze Armor
Battle Boots

Delita would do about 36 damage with a strike and Ifrit did 90. Titan only did 1 hp more. Delita would charge in, do his damage to Algus, get killed by a bunch of Fire 2s and swords, and then Ifrit would hit and Algus would run. One of the mages heals him with a Hi-Potion and I'm well and fucked.

What actually won it is somewhat amusing, actually--Algus had auto-potion on, and it finally set off after my Ifrit. Now, instead of running back for healing, he was at ~70 hp and came after Ramza instead. I got a 1-turn charge on my next round, and down he went.

Basically, I got saved by Algus healing himself. Ironic.

Ch 1 complete. Here we go, Chapter 2.

[Tenshi Kain]

That's the weirdest thing about that fight at Zeakden- given the weather, you wouldn't expect Fire2 to be such a threat, but it can really turn the tide of the fight (I can't remember if any of those Wizardesses carry Flame Rods, that might explain it) in or against your favor. Regardless, congratulations to you guys, these are pretty rousing victories (and I cracked up at Veers' screencap of the "corner of carnage" at Golgorand).

I can't wait until we all get to Riovanes.

[Veers]

Lionel Castle Gates almost got ugly. Samurai Ramza, even with Battle Boots, took 3 turns to get to the gate switch and passed out as soon as he opened the gate. Luckily, my other four samurai had wrecked the rest of the enemy team so ol' Gaffy got torn up pretty quickly.

Edit:
Once inside, an intimidating looking but easy battle awaited. Everyone was left standing, though a few katana were broken in the process.

Edit 2: So I guess that means I finished chapter 2 with a level 17 party. I bought some gear upgrades but ran out of money before I could restock my katana stash so I'll be doing a few random battles to get some gil before moving on with the story.

[Amnesia Vertigo]

Underground Book Storage

First level took a bit. One of the Time Mages had Item and kept reviving the Chemist after I put him down twice. I got lucky with Demon Fire and put a Lancer to sleep for well over four turns before a Time Mage popped him and woke him up. Ramza got knocked down by a Lancer so I had to speed things up and mob up the injured enemies.

I had one reset for the second level, mainly because I went after the Summoner first and underestimated the jump range Izlude has (jumped one of my girls for ~190 damage!). The second time, I went straight for Izlude, but Knight was in the way. He moved out of the way after Don't Act procc'd on him. I can't remember if it was an Elemental or a sword swing that brought him down, he ate 4 elemental attacks during the first turn.

I bought a stash of Chameleon Robes, but they did no good against Stasis Sword, which completely obliterated one of my girls (~240!). Someone whiffed a 75% side-shot swing on him, so I was forced to throw Elementals from my severely injured Geomancers. Equipping the shields and having my wizard mantles from ealier helped out immensely and kept the Archers at bay. I couldn't remember if you had to injure Wiegraf or KO him... an elemental attack would injure him with 100% chance and a physical attack would KO him but with only a 63% chance of landing. Figuring my kharma was due back from the 75% strike, I took my chances with a head-on swing and cut him down. The Aries Stone later corrupted him outside.

I'm out of cash. The stores have Germinas Boots, Power Sleeves, Black Hoods... all of which I want, in addition to the N-Kai armlets I still don't have. Red Shoes won't be available for a few more story battles, so I'll probably do a few random battles and get the armor... Battle Boots have lasted me two and a half chapters, I think I can get a little more mileage out of them.