Part 99: DS Treasure Hunting

DS Update 41: Treasure Hunting

Hello, folks! We're within spitting distance of the bottom of the Lunar Subterrane, so let's get going!


Last time, we collected the last of our characters' ultimate equipment. Things are looking up!


I toss Safe Travel back on Cecil so I can get back to where I left off last time.




And here we are! Seriously, Safe Travel is such a time-saver.


Can you believe we've gone through 8 floors of this place? I told you it's huge!


Now then, for Cecil's attack. The random encounters down here are pretty much exclusively single monsters. That means Rosa's Love will be much more useful than Kick.


Case in point, Behemoths. I fought a lot of these down here. I didn't bother capping most of them.


Just assume that every time you see a level up screen, another Behemoth died.


There are still some minor treasures to grab on the way to the bottom. I'll never say no to more of these!


These are helpful as well.




Oh, did I mention Red Dragons are a random encounter now?

Well, they are!


Unfortunately, Bronze Hourglasses do not work on them.


Oh well. It was worth a try, I guess.


Kain switches back to his Wyvern Lance to put some effective damage hurt on this thing.


Oh boy, here we go.




Yeah. That still stings. A little!


Yes, keep doing your normal attack. I very much prefer that!


Unfortunately, Cecil whiffed his counterattack.


Fortunately, Bahamut never misses.


Uh oh.


She took one for the team.


Ah! Finally!


Red Dragon, status: shut down.


From now on, it's smooth sailing.


Sure, his normal attacks do more damage now, but Cecil's good for it. As long as I keep him healed up, I'm golden.


Not helping, Cecil!


Cecil can afford to play backup healbot on occasion.


OK, now make this one count!


Oh. Right. Holy resistance. I forgot.

Actually, an awful lot of monsters down here resist holy. Kind of a dick move when two of your characters' ultimate weapons are holy elemental!

Fortunately, we do have backup in the form of the Defender and the Wyvern Lance, but still!




Rosa does what she does best.


Oh goddamn it, Kain! That was your chance to be the guy, and you blew it!


Forgot if I mentioned this, but Red Dragons do have an elemental weakness: to ice, appropriately enough. Never got a chance to do some Blizzaga/Shiva/Bahamut damage comparisons. Maybe later.


Now, one other thing of note.


Red Dragons have a rare Steal.

But it's stupidly rare. (1% chance, compared to the normal 40% of yoinking something.)


Try again, Kain. I believe in you!


Bah! Once again, KO'd right as Rosa's spells were about to go off. That really pisses me off when it happens!




Well, at least he's slowed now, so I should have plenty of time to revive him before the rest of the party takes much of a beating. Still irritating.


Ah, there we go, Kain! Much better! Still not at much as Bahamut, but close.


Another failed stealing attempt.


See? I managed to get Cecil back on his feet before anyone else bit it.


We should be fine for awhile.


Kain keeps doing his thing.


And now it occurs to me to switch back to the Defender so Cecil can do some decent damage.




And more gratuitous spellcasting. Try and hit us now!


Ugh. This reminds me of trying to steal from bosses in FF9, especially the rare steals. Telling Zidane to steal, over and over and over while the rest of the party whales on the boss. It feels like you're on a timer, because without fail, eventually...


your time is up!

The sad part is, the fact that I failed so many times probably means he had the rare steal on him.


But it's not a total loss! He has a rare drop, too! (Full disclosure: this one I did cheat for. Fuck those 0.04% drop rates!)


There are several of these colored tails. Most of them were newly added in the DS version. They drop from specific enemies at a 0.04% rate. What do they do? Well, we'll find out at the end of the update! We're going to collect 'em all!


Next encounter, Rydia burns an Elixir.


Her MP was almost out, and I need her to keep slinging those Bahamuts.


Hey, more level ups! That's what I like to see.




Kain joins the level 70 club at last!


And so does Edge!


That's another map complete.

Obtained 3 Light Curtains.

Ehhh. Not very exciting. At all. If I want to put Reflect on anybody, I can just have Rosa do it!


Onwards to the penultimate floor! We're almost there, guys!


I'll murder my way to the bottom, step by step, if I have to!


Our MP started running low again, so I fed the girls the last of my Ethers. I have Dry Ethers and Elixirs aplenty, so I'm not worried.


Ooh yes. Zemus is going to get a facefull of these, mark my words!


Murder makes us stronger.


I see the game is finally breaking out the good prizes. About goddamn time!


Ethers don't cut it for long, I see. Time to break out the Dry Ethers! (Still not worried. Look how many I have left!)


Woo hoo! We're almost there!

Obtained 3 Stardusts

Ah hah! More of those. I'll take it. I promised I'd show off A Thing with those, didn't I? Don't think I forgot! It's coming up. Very soon.


Last floor! Here we go!


Ooh. And a new enemy has come out to greet us!


This is called Zemus's Malice. They have 20,000 HP, resist all elements but earth, and they absorb fire.


They have two counterattacks. Counter: Shell in response to magic attacks,




And Counter: Protect to physical.


Other than that, they're not all that interesting. Their defense is pretty crap, and they don't hit that hard. They're even vulnerable to Stop! (Slow works fine to, of course.)


They can also cast a full party Confuse, but


3/5 of the party is straight up immune to that shit, and one of them spends most of his time in the air.


So long, sucker!


More level ups.


Good good. Just what he needs.


That strength gain is pretty crap, son. Come on! (I blame the Augments.)


We get some new thought bubbles at this point, as well.


Enough, already!


That's the spirit, Kain! You tell that bastard what for.


This is a continuation of Edge's previous thought bubble. He said he won't abandon the party because he likes them too much. "That one" I assume refers to Rydia. Awwww.


Rather generic.


One last level and-


final floor, complete!

Obtained 3 Lunar Curtains.

Lunar Curtains cast Reflect and Blink all at once. (Big deal. Rosa can do that too!)

But that's not all!





Yes, dude, yes!

This is the part where you hold your breath, cross your fingers, and pray. If you missed any map completion points, even one pixel, anywhere, you don't get this. And if you didn't complete all of the one-off areas? Too bad! You're SOL. Try again in New Game+.

Needless to say, I am relieved.


This is the very bottom of the dungeon. The Final Boss is just ahead.


But we're not tackling that juuuust yet.


First of all, let's use this shiny new Augment.


Another one from -ingway. Remember, he was the one who gave us the map in the very first dungeon. I think he even mentioned we would get a prize for completing them all.


Treasure Hunter is a completionist's best friend. It doubles all item drop rates!

That means the rarest drops will have a whopping 0.08% drop rate with this thing equipped. Golly, that's like, almost 1%.

I'll still be cheating the bullshit rare drops, because fuck that noise!

Again, you'll want to give this one to Cecil, because it affects the whole party, and Cecil is never not in your party.


Now, back on the 8th floor, I want to show off a little trick.


Make sure Cecil is packing heat if you do this.


Use a Siren, and...


Red Dragon! On floors B8-B10, you can use a Siren to attract Red Dragons, without fail. Want to farm them for their rare steals and drops? Here, equip Treasure Hunter and go to town. In addition to the Red Tail, they can also drop the Wyvern Lance (10% drop rate with Treasure Hunter).




Just do your usual and-


Fuck you, Edge!

Annoyingly, if you get the common steal, you can't keep trying to get the rare one. Enemies carry one item, and one item only.

Bah.


Anyway, I already got a Red Tail from those things, so let's just mosey along.


A quick jog back up to B7. By the way, if you want to Teleport out of here, you can't do so from B8 and beyond. You must hoof it back up here at least. (Do yourself a favor and equip Safe Travel, for the love of all that's good!)

But we're not leaving, not quite yet.


There's another rare drop to get.

Remember this room? This where we got the Red Fang (and also the only place where you can find Flan Princesses). I told you to remember this room.

You will recall from a previous update, I demonstrated the wrong way to fight Flan Princesses, and said I'd come back to it later. Well, it is now officially "later." Let's do it!

There are three methods that I've come up with. I'll go through them, from least effective to most.

If you want to follow along at home, make sure you have enough Sirens before you even start. I recommend burning through no more than 10 at a time. Save, use 10, and re-load your save. As I mentioned before, fighting these things is not self-sustainable. Sirens cost 3,000 gil a pop, and the Flan Princesses only drop 1,500. Nope!

Option 1: Beat them at their own game.

You wanna Berserk my whole party? Fine. Suffer the consequences!

First, prep.


Equip everyone with their strongest weapons.


Rosa should have the Yoichi Bow and Arrows,


and a Minerva Bustier.


Give Rydia a Whip,


and also a Minerva Bustier.

(Also, I made a bit of a blunder here. Can you spot it?)


Holy is one of two elements that the Flan Princesses don't absorb. (Dark being the other), so Cecil should equip the Ragnarok.


And Kain can rock the Holy Lance.


Next, put Cecil in the back row,


and change up his abilities a bit. Cecil's job is to take damage. Give him abilities that will keep him alive as long as possible. He doesn't need an offensive ability at all. Draw Attacks and Counter will cover that just fine.

Brace works fine. HP +50% works beautifully as well. It's up to you!

Make sure his Auto-Battle command is set to Defend (or Brace) before you begin.


Once everything is set up, use your Siren!


The Flan Princesses will duly Berserk your whole party.


Except Cecil, that is.


In the back row, Cecil will only take half damage from the Flans.


and he'll counterattack each time he's hit. The damage isn't that great, but who cares?


If you give him HP +50%, he'll be able to last even longer.




You can just sit back and watch as the rest of the party pummels the Flans to a pulp. Slowly. They'll go down eventually... maybe even before you die of boredom!




Brace cuts the damage even more. Cecil can weather that, no problem!

If you want, just turn on Auto-Battle and go make yourself a sandwich.


Eh? Oh goddamn it! Stupid lousy elemental weapons and their stupid lousy elemental affinities!


Well, we can't have Rydia healing them every time she attacks, now can we? Change of plans!




There we go!


Ow! Of course, without the benefit of Brace/Defend, Cecil will take more damage now.


Before I do anything else, let me swap out her equipment.


Cecil continues taking a beating while I tell him to use an Elixir. I'm not messing around with X-Potions this time!


Oh goddamn it! So close!


Well, death by a thousand cuts, and all that.


Ouch! This is not the situation I wanted to be in.


Hurry up and charge that Bahamut, Rydia!


Oh goddamn it argh!


So much for that...


Well, there's only two of them left. We should be able to kill the last two without taking many more losses...


The girls notwithstanding.


Well, at least if Kain bites it, he'll revive everyone else!


That's two down! We've got this.


It decided to dance again, for some reason. Maybe it's on a timer?


And, yes! There we go!


Yes... not the most elegant way to go about it, hmm?

This method is the easiest, but also the least interesting, and it takes forever, to boot. I really don't recommend it.


Let's get everyone healed up, and we can move on to the second method.

Option 2: Here there be dragons!


For this, give the girls their standard equipment.


I need to heal everybody up after that last one. Yeesh.


Now, this time, let's give Cecil an actual attack. (He remains in the back row, though.)


Let's do this!


Ho hum.


Now, here's what we're going to do. Cecil is going to pop a Unicorn Horn.




Unlike the last time I tried to use one of these in a tight spot,


this time I know it works! Berserk cured!


Unfortunately, the girls still had regular attacks queued up. Bah. We're on borrowed time here!


We need to get Kain into the air immediately.


Cecil takes a beating while Rosa charges her spells. Hurry it up already!


At least he's dishing out better damage now.


Your first order of business should be to heal Cecil. Have him heal himself if you have to!


That'll work as a stop-gap.


OK. Good. As soon as Rosa gets to act, you want her to start flinging her spells.


Slow the Flan Princesses. This'll give you some breathing room,


And get healing!


As for Rydia, you'll want to start charging a powerful Summon at the earliest opportunity. Bahamut will do the most damage (in fact, it can nearly one-shot them), but Dragon will put significant hurt on them too (and at about one-third the MP cost)!

Then pray. Rydia should be able to get the Summon off before they cast Samba de Flan again...


Aha! Yes! See that? Yep. That's a beautiful sight!


This way is much cleaner than the first.

However, there's one more method I'd like to show off.

Option 3: The Nuclear Option

For this, we're going to get a bit wacky. Set up Cecil and the girls like normal, but on Cecil, in his top slot:


Put one of these puppies. Weird? Yes. Bear with me.

You'll need about 3 of these for every Siren you intend to use, so plan accordingly. You can always pop back to Tomra and stock up if you need to.


Watch this. You'll like it!


For this, all you have to do is switch on Auto-battle,




and watch the magic happen!


Remember, Counter uses whatever ability you have in the top slot. In this case,


Comet. How about those damage numbers?


But why stop there?


Yes!




Yes!


Down in 3 attacks. Man, that feels good!

This is the quickest and most effective way, but also the most resource-intensive. (It's also the most satisfying.)

Now, you may be wondering, "Why in the world would I want to bother with this?" Well, the Flan Princesses drop some interesting things. They can drop Dry Ethers, Elixirs, Rainbow Puddings (at a 1% drop rate- the highest in the game),


and the super-duper rare Pink Tail. (Usual 0.04% bullshit drop rate. Hello, AR codes!)

Pink Tails can be traded at the Adamant Grotto for a really sweet piece of armor. You'll want at least one, trust me.


But for now, we have what we came for.


Let me just put Cecil back in the front row,


and blow this Popsicle stand!


And go right back in. There's one more thing I want to point out.


Use a Siren on B2,


and you can fight these. In addition to the Wyvern Lance, these things have another unique weapon they can drop, in the third slot (5% chance): the Dragon Whisker. The Dragon Whisker is Rydia's best whip, and it deals effective damage to dragons and beasts.

Unfortunately,


although on every previous playthrough, I've managed to get one no problem, no dice this time. I guess I kind of blew my rare drop wad on that Wyvern Lance...

I think I got the better end of that deal anyway! Still, if you like using whips, it'd be well worth your time to farm Blue Dragons for a bit. The Dragon Whisker is non-elemental (meaning you can use it against Flan Princesses).


Anyway, that's that. On to the next stop!


With Safe Travel, we're able to make it back to the Lunar Whale in record time.


Next, we mosey on over to the Lair of the Father.


Specifically, B2.

Use a Siren...


Tah dah! An Armored Fiend!

"So what?" You say?

Well, Armored Fiends have another rare steal, for one.


Which I once again wasn't able to get.

But that's not all!


They can drop another rare Tail!


Clearly, Rosa's as happy about this as I am!


We have a nice assortment of Tails already! (Ignore that second Pink Tail. I'm keeping it in my inventory for demonstration purposes later on.)

How about we get some more?


The rest of the Tails can be found back on the surface.


Well, kinda.


They're actually in the underworld!


If we use a Siren, right outside the entrance to the Sealed Cave,


a Green Dragon comes out to play.


It is slaughtered effortlessly.


Bam! A Green Tail.


Next stop, outside the Passage of the Eidolons.


Using a Siren here attracts... hey wait a minute-


This is, in fact, an enemy we've never encountered before! Nothing too exciting, though. It's called a Yellow Dragon. 18,889 HP, no elemental weaknesses, absorbs lightning.


Their main attack is... Lightning, and it's not too scary.


It is easily dispatched.


They can drop Yellow Tails.


Now, the last Tail can be found within the Passage.


I'll just throw up Safe Travel,


and give absolutely zero fucks!


OK here. B2. This is where we want to be.


Traipsing through the lava left us a little worse for wear. Cecil patches everyone up.

Now, what happens if we use a Siren here?


Thunder Dragons!


A nice Blue Tail for us.


And a level for Edge.


Now, let's get the hell outta Dodge,


and out of the underworld. It's time to cash in our Tails!


For that, we'll need the hovercraft again.


Back to the Adamant Grotto!














Why yes. We have rather a lot of Tails, in fact!


"Incredible! Let me give you this in exchange!"


Awww yeah!


But that's not all! Let's see what we can get for the rest.




Huh. Interesting!


What about this one?




Ah. Of course.






I'm picking up on a theme here...






Yep.


Last one!




And that completes the set!

Let's have a look at our prizes:


Ohhh yes! This is the Adamant Armor. Yes, you're reading that right. That's a +15 stat boost across the board!

The best part? Anybody can equip this. Edge, the girls, anyone!


I think Kain deserves it the most, but I'm willing to listen to you guys' input on it.


One other thing about the Adamant Armor. Remember the Cursed Ring? Well, it lowers all stats by 15, exactly cancelling out the Adamant Armor. Why would you want to do this? Well, the Adamant Armor halves every single goddamn element. As you may recall, the Cursed Ring converts any elemental resistance into an absorb. Yep. Equip both at once, and you absorb every element in the book, all with no net loss in stats!

Oh, and the Adamant Armor also provides the same status effect protection that the Ribbon does! (All except Berserk, Slow, Sap, and Doom.)


Now, let's have a look at our onion-y stuff.

The Onion Gloves boost Spirit and Evasion.


The Shield boosts Stamina and Defense, but it's not so great on the magical end of things.


Oh, did I mention anyone can equip Onion stuff too? Yeah, they can!

The Onion Helm boosts your Defenses and Speed.


The Onion Armor, bizarrely, raises Intellect and gives nice bonuses to your Defenses.


The Gloves raise Spirit, and make you slightly more evasive.


And the Onion Sword. Even more powerful than the Holy Lance.


Edge can't equip it, sadly.


But Cecil can! At the least, this gives him another option to use against enemies that resist holy.

Important Note

The stat bonuses you see from the Onion equipment scale to your level. The higher your level, the better they are. Since we're at endgame levels, the Onion stuff is pretty darn good!

So. What do you think?

Viewer Participation

Use the Onion stuff, or not? Who gets what? Should Kain keep the Adamant Armor or should I give it to someone else?

If you have no opinion, I'll decide for myself, but that's boring!


With that, I will close this update.

Don't forget to vote on who gets all this sweet gear we just picked up! I'll see you next time for The Final Boss!

(And try and get to a new page, for gods' sakes!)