Part 40: Obligatory Tournament Arc, Part 1
Update 40: Obligatory Tournament Arc, Part 1In This Update:
- Camoa, Graszton and Moorabella!
- Mysterious jewelry!
- Overpowered mages!
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The first step in the tournament is the Camoa Cup, appropriately enough.
As the quest description says, we have to clear three battles in a row.
We'll be seeing some familiar NPCs for these battles. You remember the Yellow Wings, right? They were the first bandits we fought.
All three battles have the same law, which makes planning your team a bit easier. "Using MP" means no mages, unless you have Blood Price.
Because this is the first of three battles, we can't use Bonus AP 3. I chose Luck 1 instead, for no real reason.
We're also stuck with the same team for all three battles, so plan accordingly! This one is easy enough, since we're overleveled, but future tournaments are going to be rough.
Of course, pre-match trash talking is very important.
: Bwah hah! What luck! Finally, a chance to make them pay for every minute we were behind bars!
: Hey, don't blame us! You weren't sent to prison for doing good deeds, you know!
And we're off!
Jalia is training as a Spellblade. Not the best choice for this tournament, because her Spellblade abilities and Assassin abilities all cost MP. But she hits really hard!
Zoe is a Hunter. (It's the only gria job she hasn't mastered yet.) Ranged units are quite useful in these battles! The small battlefield can make it hard for melee units to get into good positions. Ranged units have a much better time of it, but it can be hard for them to get anything but a front facing.
Zoe will mostly be using Sneak Attack, if she can get to the back or side of an enemy. The damage is unreal.
Adelle will be doing the Heritor thing, when she isn't slicing faces off.
Al-Cid is here as another ranged unit. In terms of raw damage, he's actually not too bad.
Vaan is here too.
Like Adelle, Frimelda will be slicing people up with her swords.
I'll be fast-forwarding through most of these fights. While they're pretty fun to play, I can't imagine you'll enjoy a blow-by-blow of every fight. So I'll just show off the deaths and anything interesting that happens.
Like Al-Cid straight-up executing this Black Mage, for example. He had it coming, he hit Zoe with a Blizzard and Al-Cid won't stand for that kind of thing.
Vaan does a thing! Everyone clapped.
Frimelda falls asleep from this. I promise I'll finally give her a Ribbon soon.
Is Al-Cid actually the best person on this team?
I mean, he's just cleaning up after everyone, it's not like he's doing the majority of the damage here.
That's the first round won!
The crowd starts cheering for you when you win.
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We're thrown into the next bout, with no chance to change the team or our equipment.
We do get to choose a new privilege. I grab Regen this time, because we don't really have any healing. We'll be using it for most of the bouts.
We don't even get to reposition our team, they're just thrown into random spots.
Why are you scared? They're mages, they have no defense and we're all physical damage dealers.
Look, one's dead already!
And they're happy to make useless attacks, too.
Alright, so they do hit a little hard. But we'll hit harder!
We don't have any kind of buff repellent, unfortunately.
Besides death, of course.
Sneak Attack is my favorite ability right now! If Zoe attacked from the front, this would be about 30 damage. The bonus damage is amazing.
Vaan swoops in and gets the kill.
See? I remembered the Ribbon! (Al-Cid was not as lucky.)
The last two enemies are trapped in the corners.
I'm guessing this Black Mage only had the -ara and -aga spells, which cost more than 12 MP to cast.
We don't have that problem.
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The last match is always against the most important or noteworthy NPC clan in the area, in this case the Camoa Braves. You may remember them from the Camoa Nightwatch quest, when we teamed up with them to fight crime.
Since this is the last bout, we can finally use Bonus AP 3!
: I hope you're hungry, because you're gonna eat those words!
Last bout set, execute!
Er, wrong game, sorry.
Here's why you don't Sneak Attack from the front. The damage is greatly reduced, which makes perfect sense, really.
Thieves: still useless.
Even when they use Archer abilities.
These enemies are pretty beefy. Unlike the mages we just fought, the bangaa actually have a ton of HP and defense, and we can't use spells to hit their weaker magick resistance.
On top of that, their evasion is actually a thing.
But Dual Wield goes a long way towards overwhelming their defenses. Never doubt the power of two blades!
Bonecrusher is similar to Counter, but with some caveats. It only activates for basic attacks, and you have to actually take damage for it to activate. In return, you get a 1.5x damage multiplier on your counterattack.
Things are starting to pick up a bit. Two down, three to go.
Al-Cid goes for another execution, but can't quite do enough damage.
Viola deals AoE damage equal to how much damage Adelle has taken. The low accuracy is probably supposed to balance it if you use it at low HP, but it really just makes it not worth using.
Still, that's another unit down.
The remaining Thief chooses his own destiny, I suppose.
The Black Mage quickly follows.
It only gets harder from here.
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Our reward for finishing the Camoa Cup is the Gigas Pendant, a scion-summoning item like the Earrings of the Damned. It deals heavy fire damage to every enemy.
Spoiler alert: We'll be getting more of these from the tournaments.
Up next is the Graszton Cup! Like the Camoa Cup, it's three battles in a row, but this time we can only bring 4 people.
I think this team is supposed to be showing off the breadth of hume jobs.
New quest, new law. This one is way better than the Camoa Cup.
Not even a named enemy, who cares.
We actually get to use magick now! Jalia could be using Blood Price, but without a dedicated healer and no self healing, it's not really worthwhile.
It's immediately noticeable that these enemies are taking way less damage than the Camoa Cup ones. Mostly that's because they're at our level.
Try to kill the White Mage first, or he'll make this battle twice as long as it should be. The Black Mage is less of a threat, but try not to group up too much.
Conditions are really useful here! Stone, Stop and Sleep are as good as killing an enemy. Slow merely tilts the odds in your favor. (Both mages were hit here.)
Keep in mind we're healing roughly 30 damage per turn from Regen.
Mages can't cast if they're silenced! This missed every time I tried it.
Hey look, I learned a lesson from the Camoa Cup.
That's one down. The White Mage didn't manage to actually heal anyone, thankfully.
Not much happens for a few more rounds, then the Black Mage falls. He was a bit more successful than the White Mage.
The Blue Mage is on the ropes and Adelle is throwing out big damage, this can only go well.
Wait, what.
Oh.
Hurdy avenges Jalia, and the Soldier falls not long after.
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Again, the law forbids Opportunity Commands. You don't need to see the banner every time, right?
Hey look, Jalia is alive again! Between rounds, units are fully healed and dead units are brought back to life. (Unless you break the law, I believe.)
She revived with 1 HP, and Regen gave her another 30. Bets on how long she lives?
Well, none of the enemies can hit her, thanks to a totally intentional, well-planned R-Ability that blocks all basic arrow attacks.
Meanwhile, Adelle is beating people up.
Hurdy lands an alright Sheep Count, putting one Archer out for a few turns. Adelle follows up by killing the hume Hunter.
Seriously? The one time they're illegal.
We'll make up for it by using Ultima Masher instead.
This battle is pretty boring. The archers keep trying to shut us down with status effects, but they keep missing because everyone has a Ribbon or just really high Resilience.
Meanwhile, we're running around beating them up.
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Remember the Veluga Pirates? We've run into them a couple times. Lord Grayrl, their leader, taught us the Viking job. They're really stupid.
: Yar! Come to cross cutlasses with us, have ye!? Yer either passin' brave, or itchin' for the grave! To them who loves life: walk on home, 'fore ye walk the plank!: Not after we've made it this far!
I thought MP resets between matches, but apparently not.
Jalia's getting punished for moving up so far. She isn't at full health and we don't have a healer...
Look we made a friend!
Oh no, Jalia's really weak! Whatever will we do!
Magick, of course! Undo is a new Time Mage ability that reverses changes to the target's HP and MP since their last turn. It's somewhat unreliable -- 50% accuracy, for some reason -- but can be very useful in the right circumstances.
Our new friend is not very useful.
More damage, more criticals, good times.
One down. Wait, two down, the Stone guy counts.
The Juggler was not as helpful as I hoped. At least he hasn't been able to hit us with his attacks.
The Thief stole an Antidote. Frimelda apparently doesn't believe in proportionate punishment and kills him.
Oh well, buddy, it was fun while it lasted.
: I kinda got a little carried away there... Wouldn't have liked to be in their shoes! Well, I guess that's life! That Graszton Cup is ours!
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The Corsage of Corruption deals heavy ice damage to all enemies. Not bad, in some circumstances.
Our last tournament for today: the Moorabella Cup!
We learned the Cannoneer job from the Bangaa Brotherhood. They're pretty cool in my book.
I've used items maybe twice so far? Not counting Mirror Items, of course, which this law does forbid.
We're back up to a full team of six people, primarily chosen because they need some XP.
Notice anything funny about the enemy team's formation?
They're in the perfect position to get hit by a Summon. The Templar on the side absorbs Holy damage, but everyone else is about to eat 200+ damage.
Only a few turns in and someone's already dead.
Finally, confirmation that Gladiator's elemental abilities are actual magick.
Strikeback is another ability like Counter, except it blocks all basic attacks. Unfortunately, like Bonecrusher, it only activates for basic attacks.
Lenolia reminds the enemy why ganging up on her is a bad, bad idea.
That's 2 down in one turn.
And now only two left.
This Templar absorbs holy damage, and Adelle is wielding a holy katana. The solution? Hoarfrost Blade. It equals a Dual Wield attack in damage and inflicts Ice damage.
Sometimes we need a little more... precision, shall we say.
Adelle cleans up the last bangaa.
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Unsurprisingly, the Bangaa Brotherhood is followed by their rivals, the Nu Mou Nobles. You may remember them as the clan that unlocked the Scholar job for us. I haven't quite forgiven them yet.
A few too many of them resist holy damage, so instead Lenolia is going to heal and buff everyone.
Specifically, she's summoning Carbuncle to grant us all Reflect.
This strategy is somewhat flawed, unfortunately.
You see, only certain spells can be reflected. The exact list is unknown, but the general consensus is that healing magick and spells that don't target individual units, such as Illusions and the Scholar spells, can't be reflected.
On top of that, many of the mages here have the Pierce P-Ability, allowing their spells to bypass Reflect. So really, it was all for naught.
This battle is a mess. Can you tell what's going on? I hardly can, and I was there!
Adelle pulls off the coveted quadruple Lennart.
Penello follows up with a well-executed Heathen Frolic.
And Cid gets the first kill.
I really need to take out those support units, but they're so clustered up!
And to top it all off, the Illusionist in the corner has Blood Price! And he absorbs holy damage, so he can use Adelle's counterattack to undo a little of the damage.
Lenolia insists that she is the only one allowed to traumatize large groups of people at once.
The White Mage finally falls. We're building up momentum here!
Cid is using the Blood Sword, an unusual blade that heals the wielder equal to the damage they deal. It's pretty useful: Cid uses the Unscarred P-Ability, granting him a 50% boost to his physical and magickal stats as long as he's at full HP. The Blood Sword helps him keep that excellent boost.
This battle feels like the longest of the lot, doesn't it?
No worries, it's finally over.
Anyone else slightly creeped out by these victory lines?
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Finally, the final bout! The Arbiters of Death have come up a few times as a kind of boogeyman clan.
We aren't afraid though.
You'll notice this doesn't break up the formation that Lenolia can exploit.
Not bad, maybe she'll be more useful than that Juggler.
This time, Lenolia's the only one who absorbs holy damage.
Penello claims the first kill. Henri helped by nailing a very strong Cross-counter the turn before.
Looks like the Charm paid off.
Oh look, they're grouping up around Lenolia again.
The Berserker succumbs to the poison at the start of his turn. Perfect.
That's not enough to save you.
I figured Slow would be more useful than Charm in the short term, since the rest of the enemies are already pretty weak.
She immediately retaliates by... getting within perfect range of Lenolia?
Oh well.
A glorious 4k to end the cup!
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The Raging Broach summons Adrammelech, who you may remember from FFTA. It deals massive lightning damage to all enemies.
Well! That wraps up the first episode of the tournament arc. I took over 670 screenshots for this update and ended up using about a third of them.
Next update: More thrilling action! More mysterious jewelry! More deadly Summons!