Part 41: Obligatory Tournament Arc, Part 2
Update 41: Obligatory Tournament Arc, Part 2In This Update:
- Jalia sweeps the Fluorgis Cup!
- Scions disrupt the Goug Cup!
- We beat up some old friends in the Loar Cup!
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Welcome back! Last time, we triumphed in the Camoa, Graszton and Moorabella Cups.
In today's update, we'll handle the last two city cups and the Loar cup.
Have I mentioned there's one tournament per month? They're supposed to be relatively spaced out, since you can easily do four quests in a month.
You may have noticed something odd in the quest description: the team size is 1.
Instead of bringing a team of 4 or 6, we can only field one unit at a time -- our "champion".
Inspired by Cid's use of the Blood Sword last update, I decided Jalia will be Clan Sawyer's Champion. She has incredible sustain with the Blood Sword's healing, immunity to conditions thanks to the Ribbon, and plenty of powerful abilities. Even better, the Angel Ring ensures she'll get a second chance if things go poorly.
To top it all off, she'll be boosted by Regen, which does not count as a buff!
: Do you truly think you can stand against a lifetime of conquests?
She's so badass.
Looks like those Assassin abilities are going to be useless: Immunity is basically a Ribbon, plus he's wearing Wygar, which blocks Instant KO moves.
And on top of all that, Jalia keeps missing him.
The only thing I'm really worried about is getting him down to low HP and having him pull out Limit Glove again.
It's not like he can do much else to us.
After a few turns of beating each other up, Jalia can summon Belias!
Belias (from FFXII) posted:
Scion of darkness and guardian of the Holy Realm, made by the gods in opposition to the Transcendent Loghrif, scion of light. Called the Gigas for his appearance: man and monster fused as one. Considered a mistake upon his making, and receiving not his intended role, the Gigas challenged the gods and lost. Scorned by his masters, he found another: the Dynast-King, whose tomb he swore to protect for eternity.
Pretty awesome.
Hopefully all the rounds are this easy.
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The laws change every round here, which is annoying.
I appreciate that she has all red-colored gear, but the Ribbon and Counter are quite annoying.
Neat.
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Thankfully, Jalia only has Archer's Bane as her R-Ability, so we're safe here.
Probably not the best idea, but we could really use the AP and she's been surviving just fine with just the Blood Sword.
This guy is pretty scary. Master Monk, so expect plenty of strong attacks. Orb of Minwu is a slightly worse Ribbon, not sure what it blocks. I know it won't block Berserk but that is a terrible idea. "Destroyer" is a flat-out boost to all stats, which is completely fair.
Well, it was a long shot anyway.
We can't survive more than a couple attacks like that, but at least he took some damage in return.
Jalia's terrible R-Ability pays off once again! This would have killed her if she had Counter, and the law would have been broken after the first round.
Jalia's had a few good turns, of course. Without the Blood Sword, she would be in much worse shape.
She got very, very lucky here.
I think she would have been fine though. The Angel Ring would have revived her, and she would have been able to finish him the next turn anyway.
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As usual, we get another Scion-summoning accessory. This one is worn by Ritz from FFTA, though I don't really see it myself.
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Up next: the Goug Cup! This returns to the normal 6-person teams.
I'm already regretting this.
Annoyingly, the law does not change. Grouping is one of my least-favorite laws, considering how it nullifies melee characters.
To compensate, we're bringing some hard hitters, like Leed and Talf. MP Channeling gives them 20 MP per turn, ensuring they'll have plenty of juice for their spells.
There's so much more to talk about now!
Henri is going to be kind of useless. Unless he can guarantee a kill, he can't attack anyone. I'm hoping he'll be useful in later rounds.
Imino (Black Mage/Juggler) and Talf will be two of our strongest attackers, thanks to their great ranged damage. (Penelo had put those three chocobos to sleep, and I'm not sure why I decided to wake them all back up.)
Alright, now we just have the chocobos left. They're actually easier to handle, because they're weak to lightning, water and holy damage.
On the other hand, they have plenty of defensive buffs to pass around.
That's two down. We're pretty overleveled, so this won't take too much longer.
And three. I could have gotten away with Thunder Assault, but there's no kill like overkill.
Four. See? It's going quickly now.
And Talf finishes off the last two.
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Round two! The law hasn't changed.
As usual, I highly recommend focusing on the enemy White Mage first.
Oh right, Henri has the Master Monk abilities. I don't like spending HP just to attack, but the damage is worth it.
And of course Penelo can easily heal him up.
Al-Cid continues executing fools. This battle still has a way to go though. (I'm skipping so many turns right now.)
Talf weakened the enemies with the Stardust Illusion, and Henri gets a followup kill.
Leed finally gets a kill, too.
That gives him enough Smash to summon a Scion. A few turns later and he finally gets a chance.
Zalera (from FFXII) posted:
Heretic scion who wrapped the world in dark energies, seeking to take the souls of all living things unto himself. Created in opposition to Emet-Selch, Angel of Truth, and scion of light. Originally tasked with the judging of men upon their deaths, his soul was tainted by the curses of those who raged against the heavens, and seizing one of the gods' servants, a shamaness, as a hostage, he rebelled against his creators. Even now, in defeat, he clutches the shamaness to him in his right arm, and with the aid of her death-wail does he summon the soul of darkness to do his bidding.
We've seen this Scion before, but the thread asked me to include the bios of each one as we summon them. Figured this was a good chance to revisit Zalera, the Scion summoned by the Earrings of the Dead. Mewt Randell from FFTA wears them in his concept art.
Only one left.
Might as well blow our other summon.
He just uppercut the map in half!
Hashmal (from FFXII) posted:
Scion set by the gods to wield and manipulate the laws of this world, and with holy power lead mankind to order. Created in opposition to Fandaniel the Protector, scion of light. Desiring to bring order to all things, he joined with Ultima in her battle against the gods. He gave his body to the Thousand-Years War, and when his strength was spent, down into the burning inferno he fell.
Hashmal is summoned by the Pin of Order that we just picked up.
This order was deliberate: the Sniper absorbs Earth damage, so Hashmal would have healed her. The Spellblade was merely immune to Dark damage, making Zalera the better first choice.
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Same law as before, still not allowed to stand next to people.
We've beaten you at least twice now, Prima Donna.
We still out-level them, so we get plenty of turns before they can move.
Unfortunately, the Fencer manages to heal her before we can land a finishing blow.
That doesn't stop Al-Cid though. That's a pretty lucky crit!
Well this sucks.
Our one hope is Leed will get lucky on his damage rolls and kill at least one of them, allowing him to walk away.
Oh well. We don't need the law anyway!
Two left.
At least Henri can finally attack. I've missed his huge damage.
Imino follows up with the kill.
And Talf finishes it off with a lucky Toad. Apparently that counts as a KO, same as Stone.
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Famfrit was the moogle Totema in FFTA. Hurdy carries the Ewer in his character portrait.
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Last one for today: the Loar Cup! It's actually in Moorabella.
And it's a doozy: 5 bouts instead of 3.
Most of the matches will see us facing the top opponent from the earlier cups.
We'll be seeing the same laws, too.
A mix of powerful friends (Zoe, Henri, Leed) and units who need some XP (Talf, Penelo, Frimelda).
No MP means Leed can't use Magick Frenzy and Penelo is kind of useless. She'll be way more useful in later matches though.
I think this is the first time a normal ability (i.e. not Mirror X-Potion) has dealt over 300 damage!
Zoe is a Hunter right now -- it's the only job she hasn't mastered yet. Most of the Hunter kit focuses on fighting monsters. Sonic Boom is one of her best abilities, giving her a mid-range AoE attack.
Thieves: still useless.
Monks: still very evasive.
Hopefully we won't get hit by too many attacks like this. Almost all healing is from magick.
Actually I just realized how magick-focused healing is.
Sure, there are some physical heals, like Soldier's First Aid. Paladin even provides an AoE heal (albeit melee-range) with Nurse.
Those abilities heal maybe 30 HP at most. Don't forget Parivir's Unburden Soul (and other similar abilities) which fully heal your team at the cost of the user's life. Compare that to over 100 HP healed for 9 MP that Curaga gives us.
Of course, you could use Items instead. X-Potions are a solid 200 HP of healing, which is better than Curaga at this point.
But then you're giving up your second ability set for single-target healing. Not worth it at all. Magick is basically your only choice when you need serious healing.
At least all that damage charged Zoe's Smash gauge.
Mateus (from FFXII) posted:
Scion of darkness ruling and protecting those who live in the underworld, in opposition to Lahabrea the Abyssal Celebrant and scion of light. In the course of his rule, he submitted to avarice, and the darkness took his heart, transforming him until he was both evil and corrupt. Then in his cowardice did he bind a Goddess of the Demesne of Ice, and using her as a living shield, he challenged the gods. Defeated before their might, he fell screaming into the depths of hell, there to be imprisoned for eternity.
Mateus breaks the map with a blast of ice. Samuel wears the Corsage of Corruption as a pin on his hat.
Alchemist makes items somewhat worth using, since they always have the Items command available.
First bout done!
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Keep in mind that Penelo counts as a viera.
: Go home now, 'fore we cut yer feet and leave 'em to soak in the brine! Hrrm? Ye look... familiar. Have we crossed blades before?
Hooray for being able to use magick again!
These enemies are around level 41, only a level or two below us. So this is mostly Master Monk being awesome rather than us being overleveled.
Here's why Sneak Attack is so good for gria. They can just fly behind the enemy if they want to.
Just the two moogles left now.
Easy enough.
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Finally, some new opponents!
Magick Frenzy is still really good against mages, who should have the Resistance to negate magick attacks.
Usually I'd avoid triggering Critical: Quicken, but he's a Sage. He won't have enough MP to cause any trouble on his free turn.
See? Frimelda handles him just fine.
I'm starting to run out of things to say and we're barely halfway through this cup.
At least this match is going relatively quickly. Squishy, squishy mages.
Of course the Illusionist has Blood Price! Really wish we could get that on our team.
Zoe follows up on a Magick Frenzy from Leed to take out the White Mage. Just the Illusionist left now.
The thing about Blood Price is it's useless when you don't have any HP. Talf and Frimelda are more than happy to illustrate this lesson.
See, Zoe? Mage clans aren't so hard.
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Another repeat opponent, this time featuring a law we're guaranteed to break.
The law applies to each individual attack, so this 48 damage counts against us even though it's part of Magick Frenzy. Never mind that Leed dealt well over 300 damage in one turn.
Oh well. There goes our law bonus and free regen.
Guess we'll just have to kill everyone quickly.
Or just put them to sleep for a while instead.
Of course, they refuse to just roll over quietly. The Sniper doubles as a Green Mage, apparently.
Penelo somehow has buckets of HP, so she'll be safe for a bit longer.
The Illusionist and Sage still don't have enough MP to cause us any trouble.
Zoe woke up the Hunter with a Sneak Attack. Henri gets the KO and weakens the Berserker with a good Aurablast.
Sometimes the AI pulls out something like this. I mean, it's not really enough to save the Sage, but it's neat.
You can't really see it, but that's Talf killing the Sage with Protometeor.
The Illusionist finally has enough MP. As much as I like that job, it really needs MP support or Blood Price to be effective.
Awesome double kill from Zoe. The zero damage on the Sniper is annoying but ultimately doesn't matter.
And now just the Sniper's left.
Awesome.
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Seriously? These tournaments have some really awful laws.
House Bowen, as we know, can be a pretty tough opponent. Even better, I'm using Bonus AP 3 instead of Regen.
This pretty much confirms that the game cheats and forces Veis to the front of the turn queue.
But we're pretty fast ourselves.
We need to strike hard and fast. Bowen himself is a big threat, Tweigel will have Blood Price-powered Illusions, and the other two are no slouches.
And we're still injured from the last bout.
So we're actually somewhat threatened here. Especially with the law forcing us into melee range.
And, of course, the NPCs don't have to worry about the law!
We'll avenge you, Zoe.
Confuse is one of those conditions that is removed when the unit takes damage, and the melee part of Magick Frenzy counts as a separate attack. Oh well.
OK, so having a White Mage is pretty nice sometimes.
That's one down! Bowen is weak, Tweigel's at around half HP, Veis has disappeared again.
We still have a ways to go yet, since we can't do anything about Veis being invisible. (Can you see her standing next to Henri and Bowen?)
She doesn't stay invisible for too long, thankfully. This is our chance to finish her off.
Trying to delay the inevitable, Tweigel?
We really needed this damage to ensure we finish her off.
Still, we came close. We can focus Tweigel now and wait for Veis to stop hiding.
Despite his attempts to slow us down, all Tweigel did was waste his own HP.
Here's a really good reason to use a White Mage. Esuna handles a lot of common status effects, but you need Refresh to handle the rest. (Or the Sage's Esunaga, which combines the two.)
I'd love to use Judgment Bolt here, but we can't target Veis through her invisibility.
Two deaths in one battle? That's a first.
Talf does not like what you did to Henri, Veis.
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Yet another piece of powerful jewelry for the pile.
No one wears the Ring of the Wheel, unfortunately.
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Whew! That was a pretty rough battle. They're only going to get harder from here. I think we have one or two updates left, depending on how rough the next few cups are. I don't want to bog down the updates with 15 tournament bouts.
Thanks for reading!