Part 6: Why Not Just Use Cure?
Update 6: Why Not Just Use Cure?In This Update:
- Guns: Not as good as swords?
- More side quests and a successful dispatch!
- The bazaar is kind to us.
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: Unnh...
: I knew I should have gone with him! Grr... who could've done this!?Adelle walks up the stairs.
: How is he? He sleeping well?: Yeah, I guess. Seems like he's still in some pain though.: I certainly didn't expect to lose our leader so soon after joining the clan! I'm glad he's on the mend, of course, but it was quite a shock.: ...: Unh...: Cid?Cid moves weakly on the bed.
: ... Cid!: Samuel...: Cid! I'm sorry! This is all my fault! You never would have gone if-: Heh... Sorry, but this had naught to do with you. E-Except, I did learn his whereabouts... the mage.: What?: The mage you seek makes his home in the Aldanna Range. Go... find him.: The Aldanna Range?: I'm... sorry I can't join you. I'll need to rest more...: He's sleeping again. So, off to the Aldanna Range then, is it?: I can't go now! Not when Cid's like this!: Really? I'd think you'd want to leave as soon as you can. There's no guarantee that the mage won't pack up and move while you waste your time here.: Yeah, but... I can't!: Cid found this information for you and now you're just going to sit on it?: ...: Huh, suit yourself. I suppose I'll go and hunt something while you cool your heels.Which reminds me! There was a bill posted for some trouble out Aldanna way. Something about monsters in the foothills, barring passage into the mountains. Not that I care about some dusty old mage. And if there's money to be made, it matters little to me whether the road's open or not. There isn't much I can do just hanging around here, anyway, is there.
Adelle, if people can't get through because of closed roads, there's no trade and therefore no money.
: Hmm... Maybe she has a point. It's not like I can do much for Cid by waiting around here, either. The Aldanna Range, huh? Okay, let's go find this mage! But first, a little monster cleanup.---
Great idea, Samuel! Let's do some side quests instead.
: It's supposed to be good for you, right? What's it like?
: Aside from being succulent, you mean? It's actually quite a potent magick restorative, and even serves as an antivenom. Few people realize it's the skin that holds the greatest quantities of active ingredients. Most people peel it off without a second thought. Still, word will get 'round eventually.Now that I think of it, I'm not sure my employer will get much benefit from it. Well, he'll have to settle for enjoying the flavor, I suppose!
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This is actually the first step in a short but extremely important quest chain.
: Will you press the Star Seal to the Stone with No Name and discover its true nature? I'd go myself if only I were able...: Right, just give me the seal and I'll go check it out!
The pink thing is the Stone with No Name. A lone baknamy is guarding it.
An Investigate quest means all we have to do is interact with it.
Easy. Though be careful, the Atomo Blade deals lightning damage!
Seems like overkill, doesn't it?
This mission gives no AP, so we're taking Speed 1. It'll make it go by slightly faster.
Yeah so all that's happening is people walking towards the stone. These three are just going to stand here because seriously we don't need everyone checking out the stone.
Also I forgot to bring Adelle.
Anyway, before too long, Lenolia reaches the Stone.
And we're immediately teleported to the actual battlefield.
: Whoa! Where are we!? Maybe this is the hidden land with the guardians?
: Leave...: Those must be the guardians. Something tells me we're not very welcome.: No forgiveness... none!: Let's deal with these monsters, then worry about where we are.
Every time you see that no AP will be given, you can assume it's a multi-part quest.
Also note that the law changed.
Time for a brawl! This is a pretty fun mission, we're only slightly stronger than the enemy.
We picked up a Firewheel Staff along the way, which teaches Fira to Black Mages. All our MP (and HP) carries over from the first battle, and Talf will make full use of that. Fira is 1.5x the damage of Fire for slightly less that 2x the MP cost.
Confession: I use Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga so much because I like the animation better than Fire and Blizzard.
There's a new enemy here: the Werewolf. They're like Wolves but stronger, and can really pack a mean punch! They have a special ability called Roar that strips away everyone's buffs. This is also a Blue Mage ability.
This is probably one of the easiest to learn. The AI will use Roar if any of your characters has a buff. Samuel just needs to be hit by the attack to learn it.
First, Imino gives Samuel the Astra buff.
The Werewolf will attack very weak targets instead of using Roar, but there's only other monsters near him.
Instead of missing him, Roar dispels the Astra buff.
And Samuel learns his first ability!
The Blue Magick version is identical to the monster version: every unit loses all of their buffs. This spell is pretty situational at best. Be careful if you have any self-buffing characters on your team!
The battle continues. I'm loving those Fira numbers.
(Ignore the continuity error, I'm showing the highlights of the battle so some things are out of order.)
A beautiful double KO from Talf, courtesy of Fira.
Samuel bags the last Wolf.
And Imino takes down the Werewolf, who really didn't get to attack. We distracted him for a couple turns by buffing people, since he really was all too eager to remove those buffs. By the time he was close enough to attack, we already had all the momentum on our side.
We were a little overleveled, so we only get 40 XP instead of 60.
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Henri masters Exorcise, so I switch him to Air Render. I should just push him over to Dragoon, but I really like having Air Render available.
Lenolia is back to Green Mage for a bit. She could use the stat growths, and we have a couple good maces for her to use.
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While we're in Targ Woods, might as well pick up this mission.
It's another delivery: Take an item from Targ Woods to Graszton.
Ta-dah. They made this quest sound a lot harder than it was. The bangaa were very impressed by our ability to deliver wood, for some reason.
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Beetle in a Haystack is back now, and we're going to take another stab at it.
This time, everyone is going! Adelle and Samuel can't be sent on Dispatch missions, because they are very special units.
While they're doing that, we'll pick up another quest.
Kids These Days is set in Targ woods. If we take a longer route, we'll complete Beetle in a Haystack on the way there.
We take a very long road, exploring the other two areas we haven't seen yet.
: I think I've seen enough.What mysteries could lie in this mysterious alpine cabin?
Everyone who got dispatched gets XP.
I stopped at the Camoa shop on the way over. Check out the Shop Update at the end of this post!
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We spawn in at the door of the pub.
We catch the kids in the middle of a story.
: That was nothing. You should've been there when he found that case of rabbits.
: That's not the half of it! The look one Criek's face when he found out... priceless!(Criek was the one who posted the bill for this quest.)
: That it was, that it was. That's why I always say -
: Hm?They finally notice our clan.
: Look what the moogle dragged in. This here is by invitation, and I don't recall sendin' one our to you. Get lost!: We're not going anywhere.: Just who do ya think you're talkin' to? Let's get 'em, boys!: So much for talk. Looks as though a fight is the only thing that will get through to them.
This is a fight over the stairs. It's not quite a bottleneck, but we'll be able to protect our casters. Adelle, Samuel, Imino and Henri can get stuck in, while Lenolia and Talf hang back.
The Archer immediately ruins Henri's day with a well-placed Blackout. This will end up being surprisingly ineffective.
Action economy! It's better to hit 3 enemies for half the damage we would do to one. Plus, we wouldn't be able to reach the enemy this turn.
Sometimes, Counter feels like a free turn. Sure, you'll almost always be attacking the front of the enemy, but I'm not complaining about free attacks.
I'm focusing the Archer. Payback for blinding Henri!
Thieves are gonna thieve.
Anything that turns a 6v6 into a 6v5 is useful, no matter how temporary.
Anyway, the rest of the battle is spent like this.
Henri is off to the side, throwing Air Renders at the enemy. They all stay on the right side of the staircase, so it works perfectly. The enemy Soldier tries to accost him, but he doesn't really manage to do anything.
Henri drops as many Firas and Thunders as he can, which is many.
Samuel does the same, though he does knife some people too.
Adelle and Imino are our front line right now, and they focus on melee attacks and keeping the enemy from getting too far up the stairs.
Nice! This is required for another delivery quest.
Finally, Lenolia is handling crowd control. She sleeps some people and hits others.
We're getting pretty stuck in, and we definitely have this one in the bag.
Featherblow is a low-damage, high-accuracy attack. A few jobs have abilities with these characteristics, but they're rarely worth using.
They fall pretty quickly.
A pretty easy battle. I'm picking out quests that are lower rank than we are for a few reasons. One is that we're getting the full XP from them, so nothing is wasted. Another is the game kind of expects you to have the loot from these missions.
One example: Waltwood, the reward from this mission, is used in three staves, two of which teach White Mage spells. You'll find it's required for a couple of other magickal items too.
We already have the rest of the ingredients for one of the staves, thanks to other quests we've been taking.
Pretty soon, we'll be too high-leveled to really make these quests worth it. Hopefully this doesn't make these updates too boring.
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One last quest! Let's put that Prima Petal to good use.
It's not useful to us in the Bazaar right now, unfortunately.
Well, my script doesn't have the text for this mission.
The short version: These are very nice and fancy flowers, these particular ones are perfectly pink and nicely heart-shaped. They're the perfect gift! Give yourself a pat on the pack, and give thanks to the corpse you looted them from.
Trusty Frying Pan is an ingredient for some neat gear, but we don't have the other reagents necessary yet.
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And that's it! Thanks for reading. Next time, we'll be tackling some more story missions and edging ever closer to the fabled Auction House.
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Shop update!
Our first katana! These blades are used by end-game jobs like Ninja, Assassin and Paravir.
The Druid Mace is a pretty standard weapon. Blind is a nice debuff, though not really a game changer like Sleep and Stop are..
A Dragoon breath weapon! Excellent. Henri will be switching to Dragoon fairly soon.
Oh hell yes! Not only does the Firewheel Rod teach Fira, the level 2 Fire Black Mage spell, but we also get Haste!
Unfortunately, we need 5 Black Mage A-Abilities to be able to train as Time Mages.
This immediately goes to Talf. (We used it in the Star Seal quest!)
This Circlet is not worth it.
After Beetle in a Haystack:
This knife teaches Loot Lv. 1, which Adelle already knows and I don't care if Samuel does.
We're starting to see more weapon types. Knightswords are used by Paladins and Defenders, and they are some of the strongest weapons in the game.
I never really liked this weapon's sprite. It's too cartoonish to me, for some reason.
All equipment can have additional effects. For example, this Greatsword makes the unit immune to the Stone condition.
Greatbows are used by Hunters and Snipers. They're both the upgraded version of Archer, but only viera can be Snipers. Hunter is the hume job.
Gria, the draconic race we haven't really seen yet, can also be Hunters, but they don't need to be Archers first. For them, it's a starter job.
After Kids These Days:
Why are we getting this so late? What the hell, game. This is so beyond useless it's not even funny.
We already have one of these, too. They aren't bad for mages at this point in the game, but meh.
Item Lore doubles the effects of items. That doesn't mean much for simple curatives like Eyedrops -- you can't double heal a condition! But for Potions and Elixirs that restore a fixed number of points, it's very useful. 400 HP from an X-Potion is killer in the late game, not to mention 60 MP from an Ether!
Not all items that use Waltwood are useful.
This is a piss-poor use of the Prima Petal. Kunai teaches Throw, which has some funny uses, but we're better off saving the loot.
Finally! A second White Magick staff! It's just Cura, but it's better than nothing. This unlocks so many opportunities for us -- Illusionist, Seer, Elementalist, to name three.
I switch Lenolia back to White Mage for a bit. I'm chomping at the bit for those advanced viera jobs.
After The Perfect Gift:
This would be useful if we had a Blue Mage. And if Blue Mages learned anything from weapons, besides Learn.