Part 18: Bonus Update: Vivian Kills Everything
All right, so we've beaten the emperor, restored peace to the half of the world that still exists, and saved the day I guess. But I think we can do better than to just cherry tap the final boss to death. No, we need overwhelming force. So let's call this Operation: Punch the Emperor to Death.
First off, all the restrictions I've placed are gone. Grinding up weapon levels or toad levels would take too long and be kind of pointless, so instead I'm gonna pick up berserk. Go to hell, flare!
And I'm going to use that snazzy black ninja suit I kept around. This set-up brings Vivian's evasion to 16-57%. Nice! You might also notice the Masamune there. I'd rather not have to grind both Berserk and Haste, so the Masamune's level 11 Haste will substitute.
Oh and I finally completed my elixir swimming pool! Unfortunately, I ended up having to throw a few out. It turns out 22 (plus the six or so my characters are holding) elixirs is a bit excessive.
With the prep out of the way, time to go back to the final dungeon.
And now begins the process of grinding a level 1 spell up to something useful. Now because Berserk is a low level spell, it'll get a decent amount of experience per battle. The calculation is rank + times cast - spell level + 3, and many monsters in this area are rank 6 or 7, so level 1 Berserk is getting around a minimum of 9 or 10 experience per battle. Still kinda slow, but it's gonna reach level 3 by the end with little fuss. I actually grind it up to 4, just to make sure Vivian gibs the shit out of the emperor.
Here's a sneak peak at what just a level two berserk can do; without it, Vivian does well under half that damage to Death Riders.
And combined with haste? Yeah, the results are nasty. Also, in case you were skeptical about whether or not you can buff something past 16, here you go. And speaking of haste, I was playing around with the Masamune's haste, just for funsies, when suddenly...
Where the fuck is my masamune?
It's gone.
So I guess it turns out that spells proc'd from weapons can break the weapon. Or I accidentally threw it away, somehow. Shit. Okay, reset.
Other than that unsettling development, the journey was uneventual. Vivian ended up with roughly the same stats as she had the main run, just with level 4 berserk, level 12 unarmed, one extra agility, and a little bit of extra strength.
You poor sod.
Vivian spends the first couple of rounds blinking and aspiling. The emperor takes a couple of aspils to drain entirely, but in the meantime he just fires off a few meteos and status spells. Since I'm wearing equipment for this battle, none of the status spells matter.
Excellent. Now that the emperor is completely impotent, time to apply berserk and haste.
And there was the wind-up, and here's the pitch.
Boom. Four more turns, and he's down.
That was oddly satisfying.
Now that we've ripped the emperor a new one through reasonable means, you might be thinking, "how could we demolish him through unreasonable means?" Let's find out!
Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not grinding that much. Even I have too much of a life for that.
There we go! Now that Vivian is a goddamn goddess, how much damage can she do with maxed out fists, strength, level 16 Berserk, and level 16 Haste?
Nice. Still requires two hits, though. Can we kill him even harder?
What do you say, blood sword?
That was two rounds; one to cast haste, the other to swing the sword. Yup. Actually, Vivian did so much damage it's not displaying correctly; I was confused at first, but the game is truncating the first digit, not the last. 16299 damage. We just killed the emperor so hard he's in, like, hell's hell's... cellar.
All right, I think Mr Emperor is dead enough. Next up on our agenda: finding the Iron Giant. The Iron Giant is a rare enemy that only shows up in a few areas of Pandemonium. It's a bit like FF1's WarMech, although the Iron Giant shows up in more than one map.
The Iron Giant shows up in the fourth and fifth floor. The fourth floor is the one with the chests containing the genji gear. The fourth floor seems to be divided up in separate areas, not all of them sharing the same encounter table. Meaning the giant is in some parts of that floor and not others. But I know he's on the fifth, so let's just hunt there.
Unfortunately, it has a less than two percent chance of showing up on either floor. Not quite as bad as trying to get a pink tail, but still a pain in the neck. So I had to spend a looooot of time trying to find this damn thing.
But this gives me a chance to talk about a very special magic scroll. The Charm scroll is absurdly rare; only two enemies, the Fire Gigas and the Thunder Gigas, drop it, and there's only a 5% chance for it to drop. Unless you grind drop the ones in Mysidia Tower, you're quite unlikely to get one before now. But since I got the scroll, if I'm stuck here looking for this stupid giant I might as well play with this spell. It got up to level 4, which should tell you how long I was searching.
But, oh, the petty revenge! Yeah, how do you like it?
But it gets better.
Say, do you remember what property the Couerl's attacks have?
Oh that makes the whole frustrating hunt worth it.
Anyway, I did eventually find the stupid giant.
Iron Giant
Rank 7, HP 3,500, MP 240, Attack Power 180, Attacks 12, Accuracy 100%, Defense 180, Evasion 0, Magic Resistance 14-100%
Holy shit twelve att- oh wait I can just use blink.
Yeah, if I do this run again I'm forbidding that spell.
Anyway, the Iron Giant does have a spell, a poison spell, but the scariest thing about it is definitely the attack. It doesn't get drain touch, though. While it has a really high defense and resists all status ailments, it does have a weakness.
Namely, bolt and ice. Its high magic defense means we're not quite doing massive damage, but it's not a repeat of the emperor slog.
That was disappointing.
The Iron Giant can drop any piece of the genji set, the aegis shield, or another excalibur! This giant was boring to the end and just dropped money.
And with a unimpressive plop we're done with the original FF2. Next up, Dawn of Souls!