Part 85: Walker, Texas Pilot

This is a half-blind LP! I am going to bring in research about FFV only when it's necessary for me to get over hurdles in this solo run. I'm going to talk about stuff with a lot of assumptions and guesses based solely on observations. This is partly for the challenge, partly in the interest of time, and partly for the hell of it. Feel free to correct me after things come up, as there are a bunch of people ITT that are way more knowledgeable about this game than me. I don't care if I learn stuff by reading people's corrections, so don't worry about that.

I'm running out of comical excuses to pull the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever, soooooo--



Ranger Solo Episode Six:
Walker, Texas Pilot

With the Sandworm dead, Walker moves on to the Ruin Town and some stupid jerk makes him fall in a hole in the ground. Luckily, his ol' pal McGuyver Cid and Mid end up down there as well and we end up with an airship. A teleporter is also involved for no reason because FFV makes no sense. So, we've gone from a ship to a Black Chocobo to an airship in under an hour of gameplay. But, just when I expect the A-Team Van to roll out of the airship's cargo bay, Karlabos MKII attacks.

code:

Cray Claw (Creature, Heavy)
HP: 2000
Weak to Lightning.
Absorbs Water.
Vulnerable to Death, Stone, Poison, Blind, Old, Sleep, Paralyze, Confuse, Berserk, Silence, Stop, Slow

AI Script:
{Tailscrew,Tailscrew,Fight}
{Tailscrew,Tailscrew,Fight}
{Tailscrew,Mucus,Fight}

With a Thunder Bow and about 900 damage per !Aim, Walker only needs three actions to kill it. I need to luck out and hope that he misses with at least one of his attacks and/or spams Tail Screw pointlessly. He does, and I kill him in one try.

Cray Claw
Walker's Level: 26
Deaths: 0

I have the airship now and I'm free to roam, but this is FFV so that doesn't matter. There isn't much to do in this world that I haven't done already. I give Ramuh another shot and get stomped twice before I decide to move on.

MacGuyver Cid says he needs paper clips and twine Adamantine to make the airship go higher, so we're on to this douche bag:

code:

Adamantoise
HP: 2000
Weak to Ice.
Vulnerable to Death, Poison, Blind, Old, Berserk, Silence, Slow.

AI Script:
No Interrupt{
     Fight
     Fight
     }
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
No Interrupt{
     Specialty
     Specialty
     }
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}

Between the back row and the Elf Mantle, that should be enough to manage the deluge of physical attacks Adamantoise can lay down. Walker has Frost Bow, and thank god because every other weapon is dealing about 60, and !Animals is capping out at about 150. Luckily, The Frost Bow has something to say about all this nonsense. It deals about 400-430 damage.

Five of those should be all I need. Simple enough. However, at level 26, Walker needs just a bit of help from the Elf Mantle and/or Nightingale to stay ahead of Adamantoise's damage. One Nightingale ought to do it. !Animals screws me by not giving me Nightingale even once in my first three tries, so Walker dies three more times in what should be a simple fight. Finally, I get the tiniest bit of help from !Animals and I'm able to finish the job.

Adamantoise
Walker Level: 26
Deaths: 3

With our airship all decked-out with duct tape and spit Adamantine, we're off to THE DANGER ZONE.





Riiiiiiiide innnnn-toooooo tha danger zo--- OH FUCK



You lied to me for the last time, Kenny Loggins..

Danger Zone's defenses prove to be arithmetically too much for Walker at his current level. I need to take out each flamethrower in two attacks, not three, and I simply need more HP to survive the onslaught of flamethrowers. Even worse, I know the flame throwers aren't even the worst part of the Danger Zone. The Rocket Launchers can confuse Walker, so I'm going to need more HP to make more of my own luck. It's time to grind, which means it's time for a training montage.

[video type="youtube"]siwpn14IE7E[/video]

So, this is what Walker looks like at level 28:



Just to rub it into Zerky!'s face, here's what I picked up after just two encounters on Crescent Island:



I ended up with three of them in an hour of grinding, too. It's a shame I can't use it... yet. As I start grinding, I'm at 150/405 ABP to the next Ranger level. I'm still not looking ahead and being smart about it, so I don't know what I'll get at that level, if it will help (it probably won't), or if it's the last level. The best thing it can do for me is be the last Ranger level, though, since I've promised not to go Omni-Ranger until I've mastered the class. Unfortunately, that might be what it takes to get past the Danger Zone. I haven't even gotten to the Soul Cannon yet, but I doubt that Walker can put out enough damage fast enough to deal with it using only !Aim and !Animals.

Speaking of damage, Walker gets a damage bump at level 28 and is doing about 100 more damage per attack. I don't know if that'll be the difference against the launchers in the Danger Zone, but we'll see. the next damage bump should be at level 32 or 33, so I'm no looking forward to grinding all the way up to that level.

At level 30, another curious thing happens:



It's Goose Falcon!







My new wing man is pretty lame. Falcon hits one target and does about twice as much damage as Squirrels, which means it still does less damage than !Aim. It's doing about 450, while !Aim is hitting for 500-550 against most enemies. Unless there is a spectacular proc effect from Falcon, it is stunningly disappointing for something to get at character level 30. It's a new animal friend for the count, but it isn't going to help me in the Danger Zone.

By the time an episode of This American Life the training montage is over, Walker is level 31.



Unfortunately, the battles on Crescent Island where I'm getting tons of XP and GP aren't getting me much ABP. The damage bump is letting me save a bit of time, but it's still a slog. There aren't any great places to go to get ABP easily for Walker. Black Flames dole out ABP, but more than a couple of them become more trouble than they're worth because of the level-halving bull crap. Walker can't kill Skull Eaters very easily , but the Nut Eaters in Jachol Cave are stupid and hand out 2 ABP for about as many actions (3) as the battles on Crescent Island. It's crap XP and GP, but it doubles my ABP gains. At only 210/405 ABP at level 31, I need ABP more than anything else at the moment. Spending time killing squirrels sacrifices level gains over that time, but it's worth it if it gets me closer to mastering Ranger faster.

But then I found a better option.

A minute of research on World 1 ABP farming suggested, amongst other places like the Jachol Cave, the Ship Graveyard. Easy battles like the Nut Eaters, and an average of 2 ABP per encounter. What wasn't mentioned was what I discovered just a few battles into grinding for ABP there: both the ghosts and Undead Husks drop Elixirs on a fairly consistent basis. Now it's worth it. Walker needs Elixirs more than most classes because he has no good healing options. nightingale has long since been outpaced, and I can't count on it to boot. I'm going to need a few Elixirs for the Danger Zone and later I'm sure.

So, one more episode of This American Life training montage later, we finally, mercifully, get this:

quote:

Job level up!

quote:

Gained Rapid Fire!

I now have nine Elixirs as well.

So what is Rapid Fire?



(Never mind all the other abilities there. I had to take this screen cap later, after I punched in the Omni Ranger codes, because my original screen cap didn't save for some reason).

"Weaker attacks" here means half damage. I'm fairly certain it halves the damage after calculating the attack, rather than halving his attack power from the start (because that would make it hot garbage). But for halving the damage, you get four attacks. Against one target, Walker will hit four times. Against multiple targets, he'll just pick random targets. The catch is that it will not trigger procs on whatever weapon you're using. That blows. I tried using a Mage Masher to test this and it didn't take long to figure this out. It's too bad for Walker, but I can see why they did this. Shit could get real silly later in the game if this was not the case. So for now, Rapid Fire will give Walker a good room-sweeper option, since Bee Swarm isn't a reliable way to mow through random encounters. It's also effectively a way to double !Aim's damage against a single target, which is kind of nice. the bows' elemental effects still work even if other weapons' procs don't, so I should be able to get some use out of it.

But probably not a whole lot, because Walker is now...

OMNI RANGER

I'm going to punch in the hex codes soon enough, but I want to at least make a run at Soul Cannon with just Ranger shit.

But first, I go pick up an Angel Ring, because I have a huge pile of money from the grind and why not?



Alright, back to The Danger Zone:



Between the damage bump from level 28 and !Rapid Fire, Walker makes short work on the Flamethrowers. I'm more worried about the Missile Launchers.





Two launcher hits and a successful confusion can kill Walker as long as he had his bow equipped, and unlike other jobs, he needs the bow to have half a chance of destroying the launchers. Like with a lot of things in the Ranger run, I have to just roll the dice and hope confusion doesn't stick when Walker is low on HP. After one death because of exactly that, I take out the left launchers and the flamethrowers. Walker heads over the the right to take out the flamethrowers, and I heal up to take on the last missile launcher. Then, I get this:



I'll take it. I just assumed it was a flamethrower/launcher pair on each side, but apparently each of the four encounters is random. Welp.

Now it's time for the main event.

[IMG]

code:

Soul Cannon (Heavy)
HP: 22500 (effectively 12500 HP)
Weak to Lightning.
Immune to Water, Air, Poison.
Vulnerable to Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=01{
     Display Text: Filling Multi-Surge Beam energy
     Nothing
     Display Text: Explosives pressure increased
     Nothing
     Display Text: Energy Level 128-
     Nothing
     Display Text: Fire!!!
     Surge Beam
     }
Display Text: Filling Multi-Surge Beam energy
Nothing
Display Text: Cross Gauge luminosity set to 20
Nothing
Display Text: Safety Lock released
Nothing
Display Text: Explosives pressure increased
Nothing
Display Text: Anti-Shock Anti-Flash Shield on
Nothing
Display Text: Energy Level 128-
Nothing
Display Text: Fire!!!
Surge Beam
Set V00=01
Nothing
Condition:HP Damage & HP < 10000{
     Change Target:All Enemies
     Punishment
     }

This battle was actually kind of a thrill. My whole strategy was trying to guess how many !Rapid Fires I could get in before the cannon fired. It's four !Rapid Fires, as it turns out, which was enough to kill the satellite units as well in the process. I lucked out a bit of !Rapid Fire's targeting because had it not hit the satellites as often, I would have been in trouble when Wave Cannon went off.



Because I'm flying blind and I didn't look at the AI script during my play, I was guessing at Soul Cannon's HP. This second phase was another race, with the action amped up a bit. There were no more satelites to hit, but Soul Cannon was on a shorter cycle. With four attacks hitting Soul Cannon, !Rapid Fire is doing about 1900-2000 damage (with the Thunder Bow). It got off one more Wave Cannon shot amidst three more !Rapid Fire barrages finish the job.

I also think I lucked out here because Soul Cannon's Punishment attack never went off. I must have had it close above 10,000 with one of my !Rapid Fires, and then hit it hard enough with the next few that ti didn't get a chance to use it before it died. It was still just warming up for another go-round with the Wave Cannon when it exploded.



Soul Cannon
Walker Level: 31
Deaths: 0 (+1 to the launchers)

So the verdict on !Rapid Fire so far is that it's pretty good. It was the difference betwene life and death for Walker in the Danger Zone because it let him hit Soul Cannon's satellites in one fell swoop, and it doubled his damage. I shudder to think what Punishment would have done to Walker if I had to dig in for a battle of attrition instead of a race, doing 900-1000 damage instead of 2000 per action. I'll stick with it for at long as I can stand it, and then switch to my Omni Ranger options when that gets impossible and/or boring.

In the Ronka Ruins, !Rapid Fire continues to serve Walker well. My choice of weapons doesn't give me any great exploit options like the Thunder Bow did against the machine opponents outside, but I'm still able to double my damage output. If nothing else, it makes the battles twice as fast (usually). Actually, most of the encounters are a joke with !Rapid Fire. I'm able to grind a couple levels by accident while I'm wandering around like a jackass. At level 32, Walker gets another damage bump, which is nice.

Better yet, I get a rare drop from either a Ronka Knight or a Literal Fucking Fan That's Evil:







The Dark Bow procs blindness, and boy does it love to do that. Like, 70-80% of the time. Even better yet, I find that !Rapid Fire procs Blindness with it. Remember when I said that !Rapid Fire didn't proc Silence with the Mage Masher? Well, something changed. Maybe it was a fluke with the Mage Masher before (I doubt it; I used !Rapid Fire with it five times, so that's 20 attacks, and it didn't proc Silence once), or maybe !Rapid Fire will only proc bow attacks. I dunno... but now I'm drunk with power. Between blinding virtually every opponent before they act and the 30 damage bonus from my elemental bows, the Dark Bow is making the battles here even more of a joke.

Oh, and then there's this clown:

code:

Form 1:
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Breath Wing,Specialty} (Specialty is Slip, a physical attack that inflicts HP Leak)

Form 2:
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Blaze,Specialty} (Specialty is Wing, a physical attack that inflicts Poison)

Form 3:
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Flame,Specialty} (Specialty is Tail, a physical attack that inflicts Blind)

Form 4:
AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Thunder,Specialty} (Specialty is Claw, a physical attack that inflicts Paralysis)

Form 5:
AI SCRIPT:
{Breath Wing,Maelstrom,Specialty}
{Entangle,Fight,Specialty}
{Flame,Maelstrom,Specialty}
{Entangle,Fight,Specialty}
{Thunder,Maelstrom,Specialty}
{Entangle,Fight,Specialty}
{Blaze,Maelstrom,Specialty}
{Entangle,Fight,Specialty}

See all of that nonsense? All of that AI script? Yeah, forget about it. I spammed !Rapid Fire nine or ten times and it died. After five or so, it "revived" itself to go into the fifth form and some more HP, but I just kept mashing the win button and it died anyway. I never healed. I never took an action that wasn't !Rapid Fire. It hit me with two Breath Wings for about 250 of my 1106 HP and missed with every one of its physical attacks. It has the Heavy tag, but I was spamming !Rapid Fire with the Dark Bow so often that if it ever recovered from blindness, it would be right back into the status before it got an action. Oddly, the Dark Bow (and bows in general, it seems) aren't affected by Walker's Strength or the enemy's defense. Equipping the Power Wrist did nothing for my damage, and Archaeoveis' different forms did not increase or decrease the Dark Bow's damage throughout the fight. "Curiouser and curiouser..."



Nice try, scrub.

Archaeoveis
Walker level: 33
Deaths: 0

Up next: a bunch of bombs, and probably me moving on to my Omni-Ranger options.

Walker's Current Level: 31
Total Deaths: 47
Animal Friends: 6
(Rabbit, Squirrel, Bees, Nightingale, Flying Squirrel, Falcon)