Part 87: Walker, Texas Ninja

New intro for the OMNI RANGER I'm still playing the game blind except form what I learn form the other LPS in the thread, and from what I look up after the fact online. I played FFV over ten years ago, so I remember some stuff but no important detials, and certainly no AI scripts or anything that would help me substantially in a solo run. But now that I'm using other job abilities with the Ranger, I'll pause at the end of each episode to ask the goons to choose how I use those options at the start of the next episode. I'll switch things around to keep things interesting and moving forward in the middle of my posts, but I want to have some reader participation.

Anyway, let's go to the Walker, Texas Ranger Lever again:



Solo Ranger, Episode Eight:
Walker, Texas Ninja

Last time I got stuck at Purobolos using only Ranger options, which means !Aim and either !Rapid Fire or !Animals. Having run dry at that well, I turned to the goons for help in choosing how I can get by the Purobolos. Here are the results:

!Throw (Ninja): 5 votes
!Combine (Cannoneer): 2 votes
!Call (Summoner): 1 vote (I added this even though it wasn't on the list. The Purobolos react to summons, so I deliberately left summons off the list).
!Zeninage (Samurai): 0 votes
!Mix (Chemist): 0 votes

So, mercifully, we're going with !Throw.



Before we get too far into this, let's take a look at what Walker has lying around to chuck at bad guys:



I haven't sold anything, mostly because I haven't had to. Knowing that I'd eventually get to this point, I kept everything in case I needed to use them or throw them or eat them or snort them or whatever crap other classes do. So I have a bunch of sharp things /to hurl. Unfortunately, the challenge with Purobolos is killing them all simultaneously, in about three actions. Everything here except for the scrolls will hit only one target, so it looks like I'll be using the scrolls. I go stock up on Water Scrolls to use against Purobolos:



I buy 10, thinking, "Surely this will be more than enough." It isn't.

So now we're back to Purobolos with a new plan of attack.

code:

Purobolos
HP: 1500
MP: 100
Vulnerable to Death, Stone, Poison, Blind, Old, Sleep, Berserk, Silence, Stop, Slow.

AI Script:
Nothing,Nothing
{Fight,Specialty,Exploder}
React:Death{
     Change Target:All Dead Enemies
     Life2
     }
React:Summon Magic{
     Change Target:Self
     Cure2
     }

Based on the script, they give Walker a couple rounds to bathe them in murder before they start acting, so theoretically I just need to do at least 750 damage to each of them twice.







Shit.

I make the mistake of picking one off with !Aim instead of killing both with another Water Scroll, which just gives me one more of them to deal with when the dust settles:



Then they finally start acting. I get another scroll down before one explodes and Walker gets beaten to death by the rest of them.



Boooooo.

!Throw damn near worked, and it could possible work as-is. I'm doing 720-800 damage per scroll by the look of it, so I just need to luck into averaging 750+ on each of them with both attacks. If I don't then one or more of them survives as above, and then I'm in for a shit show all over again.

But rather than just trying my luck, I try to make my own luck by playing with the numbers. I don't know how !Throw calculates damage, so I bet that Magic might factor into it. Walker's Magic trait isn't great, but it's passable, so I look for everything in my inventory that can give me a boost to Magic. All I have is the Mage Masher (+1) and the Elf Mantle (+1). I made the mistake of going into the first fight with the Angel Ring on instead of the Elf Mantle. It might have saved me from the physical attacks that finished me off, but that's the least of my problems. Still, the Angel Ring and it's immunities and Magic Defense are useless here, so I equip both the Mage Masher and the Elf Mantle and hope that the +2 Magic is enough to get that 720-800 damage up closer to a consistent 750+.







GOD DAMNIT

The Magic boost didn't do a thing, so !Throw either runs on a different trait or its damage is calculated by the item as a static number (my guess is the latter). In any case, I'm basically in the same boat as before, so I dig in for a dog fight with Purobolos. I have the Elf Mantle now, so that might save me form some of the physical attacks, for what little its worth. My real problem remains the same: it's a race to kill them before they explode. I start chucking Water Scrolls like they're going out of style, and I even use !Aim twice when it is more adventageous to do so. Then, this happens:



Arise runs them out of MP in about four cycles. It's so expensive that it even runs them low enough that they can't use Self Destruct either, which saves my bacon as they finally catch up to me right near the very end:



I'm not taking any chances with how much MP each individual one has, so I finish the last two off with one more Water Scroll.



Purobolos
Walker Level: 33
Deaths: 1

Oh, and remember when I said 10 Water Scrolls would be "more than enough?" This was my inventory after the battle:



Those two !Aims may have saved me.

I toy with the idea of farming more XP and Dark Matter from Prototypes before I leave, but I decide not to and move onto the teleporter.



"I'm going back to my home planet now" BWOOOOOP (Poochie died on the way back to his home planet)



Galuf's World, like Bobby's World and Beakman's World, is full of madness and death.



MODE 7 IS ATTACKING!

Because I'm dumb, I forget that I'm still packing a Mage Masher and !Throw, so this dumb guy on the island gets a back attack on me and wrecks my shit before I throw a broadsword at him to make him shut up.



I switch back to !Rapid Fire, because why pay for !Throw when you can go postal for free? Consequently, the Abductor is not granted the dignity of a screen cap. But, after some truly Wile E. Coyote shit form some goofy knockout gas, we're on to Exdeath's Castle.



Still going with that name, huh? Really? Really?



Man, you guys really suck at names around here.









Now I have a level 1 Galuf to use. I go with the tried-and-true "throw money at the problem until it stops screaming" approach.





Holy shit. I have so much money from not having to equip four characters and from the Ranger having no available equipment options for the last, oh, ten years or so. This is exhilarating.

Gilgamesh meets the business end of... money... yeah.



With Walker back in the saddle, I heartlessly murder Galuf reactive my code and we're off and running again. I stick with the !Rapid Fire load-out because it mows down everything here quickly, and for free:





Big Bridge goes uneventfully. Enough of the enemies use physical attacks that I can finish most of the battles without taking damage. Between being in the back row, using the Elf Mantle, and blinding everything with !Rapid Fire and the Dark Bow, enemy physical attacks are basically inconsequential. Speaking of physical attacks (and lots of them!):



Oh, Gus! You card!

code:

Gilgamesh (Human, Heavy)
HP: 6500
MP: 1000
Vulnerable to Blind, Old, Berserk, Silence (only in SNES/PS1 versions), Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=01{
     {Fight,Jump,Electric Shock}
     {Fight,Fight,Jump}
     }
Fight
{Fight,GblinPnch,Specialty}
{Fight,Aero 2,Fight}
{Fight,Wind Slash,Specialty}
React:Death & V00=01{
     Display Text: Gilgamesh:  Hey!
     Display Text: I remembered urgent business!
     Display Text: I'll be back!!
     Escape
     }
React:HP < 2500 & HP Damage & V00=00{
     No Interrupt{
          Display Text: I was wrong...
          Haste
          Display Text: I can't fight four people...
          Armor
          Display Text: I don't stand a chance...
          Shell
          Display Text: ...did you believe me!!?
          Jump
          Set V00=01
     }

Gilgamesh absorbs four !Rapid Fires before the real fight starts. Before he uses Haste, Protect, and Shell, !Rapid Fire is doing 1,000-1,200 per action. Now it's doing 500-600. Now it's just a race to slog through what's left of his HP before he kills me with Jump. Everything else he does is too weak for me to care (Electrocute) or a physical attack that doesn't land, but Jump hits Walker for 400 and doesn't miss. All I have to do is stay ahead of his damage with judicious use of Hi Potions, which I am able to do and finish him off shortly thereafter.





Godspeed, you ridiculous bastard.

Gilgamesh
Walker Level: 33
Deaths: 0

After getting flung into the middle of nowhere, the random battles become a slog. I'm sticking with !Rapid Fire, because it mows down enemies fairly well, and it keeps me safe by blinding the whole battlefield in an action or two. The pink.... things have bizarrely high HP and I decide they're not worth my time to fight. other battles are fine, except then this happens:



The zombies contribute to the slog by wasting my time with their ineffectual attacks. they also absorb the occasional attack that I ought to be dealing with. Worse yet:



THAT'S MY XP, YOU DEAD ASSHOLES

I have no way to fix the status with what I have on me, so I book it to the next town and stock up on Holy Water (and Hi Potions!). I also pick up new magic (most of which I may never use). There are still no new armor options for Walker. He's been using the same Green Beret and Ninja Gear since the Library of the Ancients. He must be ripe. If no for shooting the eyeballs out of everything I see, I'd be worried about how much damage they do. I literally don't know how much damage some of the enemies in this area deal with physical attacks. Walker has yet to be hit by one of the giant centipedes or by a Fairy Ork. There's no new weapons either, but I could pick up a Dark Bow if I didn't already have one.

Heading south, I stop by the Castle That The Townsfolk Specifically Asked Me Not To Visit. There, I find the Twelve Legendary Weapons, and I fight a single Shield Dragon for five minutes before it fucking runs away. BOOOOOO.

Then I run into this:





Welp. Revenge (or whatever it's called in FFV) doesn't appear to miss, so this looks like a battle I can run from to pump up the Chicken Knife.

But wait. Walker doesn't have to take this crap. He's an--

OMNI RANGER

I'm going to run from them in the future, but if only for the principle of the thing, let's get this done.



"Kuza Beast, do you like Huey Lewis and The News?"



"Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor."



"In '87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip to be Square", a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself."



"TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW, YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD!"

Anyway, it's Moogle Time. I find a Moogle in the woods and deliberately fall in a hole in the ground. (videogames.txt). The enemies in the water aren't a threat. Acrophies have a ton of HP and high defense, but they miss me more often than not and !Rapid Fire ignores defense. The Moogle Eaters have an Eight Arms attack that I literally never saw hit me. If the Blood Slimes have crazy physical defense like slimes do in Final Fantasy games, I sure as shit don't know it because !Rapid Fire doesn't care. the Blood Slimes to have Vampire, which can get nasty with how !Raid Fire randomly sprays the battlefield, but I don't run into any trouble with it. I take level 35 in the process and with it I get another damage bump.

Next up, it's this thing:

code:

Tyrannosaur (Dragon, Undead)
HP: 5000
Weak to Fire.
Immune to Ice.
Vulnerable to Death, Blind, Old, Berserk, Slow.

AI SCRIPT:
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
React:??{
     Poison Breath
     }
React:Physical{
     {Fight,Specialty,????}
     }

Just used a Phoenix Down.

Tyrannosaur
Walker Level: 35
Deaths: 0

I loot Moogle Village and Galuf's Castle uneventfully. The Dancing Dagger is potentially nice and might do insane things with !Rapid Fire. Otherwise, there's still no help for Walker's increasingly deficient and smelly armor. Luckily, the Werewolf Village is like Christmas:



A murder bow? Don't mind if I do.



With the new duds, Walker's defense is passable again, even if his magic defense went down. That's something I can adjust easily with an Angel Ring if I run into a magic-heavy boss. For now, I'm still going to stick with the Elf Mantle.

I got outside to try out the Murder Bow to see if it's death effect will work with !Rapid Fire. I notice a couple things: the death effect can go off with !Rapid Fire, but it has a low rate of success (my guess is about 10-15%). My dreams are dashed, but it does about 1500 total damage per !Rapid Fire, so that's hard to pass up. I'm definitely going to keep the Dark Bow handy in my golf bag to switch to in certain situations. I still have the elemental bows for the same reason.

On the way up Drakenvale, the Bone Dragons still die to the death effect of the Murder Bow, despite their undead-ness. At one point, I wish I captured video of the moment because I get three death triggers in a row against one (you can see it trigger when Walker does not appear to fire an arrow but fires the bow anyway). OH MY GOD, WALKER. STOP. HE'S ALREADY DEAD! (In more ways than one).

Speaking of dead, I have a flash of memory form ten years ago about this area. When Golem shows up, sucker punches me, and runs away, I remember that he eventually shows up with some undead jerks. I just got the Requiem Song from the Werewolf Village, and I remember using it here when I played the game a long time ago. Soooo...







Eventually, I do find Golem, and my foresight pays off:







And then, BONE MAIL:



Since I don't often heal in combat anyway, I'll probably make a ton of use of this. I'm surprised Walker can even use it, considering its name. But the Bone Mail must be tagged in such a way that anyone can use it. And because I haven't made enough weird fashion choices in the last ten minutes, I throw on the Hypno Crown when I pick it up because it boosts my magic defense at the cost of the defense I don't need because of the Bone Mail.

I'm going to make a run at the Dragon Grass with !Rapid Fire. I don't remember if it has any particular.... vulnerabilities, but we'll see what happens.

code:

Dragon Pod (Human)
HP: 12000
Vulnerable to Death, Blind, Old, Berserk, Stop, Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=01 & Alone{
     Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (All)
     }
Condition:V00=01{
     Nothing
     Nothing
     Nothing
     Nothing
     Nothing
     Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (All)
     }
Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (1,4,5)
Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (1,3,4)
Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (2,3,5)
Unhide Monster: HiryuuFlowr (All)
Set V00=01
Nothing

!Rapid Fire targets things randomly, so I don't have great control over Walker's ability to manage the little satellites. My opening volley takes out all of them though, and the main body spends its turn reviving them. If that's how it's going to be, I definitely want to control the satellites and hope that a hit or two from !Rapid Fire finds its way into the main body now and then. I keep the pressure on and nothing happens to me until the main body goes through a third round of reviving the satellites and it gets five instead of three. Since there's no way I can take all of those out in one !Rapid Fire, things are about to get real. My next !Rapid Fire hits the main body three times, so I have four satellites starting to launch attacks at me. Nothing too scary happens to Walker, and I open up with another !Rapid Fire, hoping to kill more sat--



Oh. Yeah, is it turns out, the main body is vulnerable to death.

Dragon Pod
Walker Level: 37
Deaths: 0

This is a pretty good place to stop, so it's time for goon input. This time, I'm not up against anything that's stumping me at the moment, so I'm going to give you choices just based on what I'm interested in trying. I'll switch to that on my next boss, like I did with !Throw at the top of this update. Here's the new options to vote on:

!Gaia (Geomancer)
!Dance (Dancer)
!Time (Time Mage)
!Dark Arts (Necromancer)

Walker's Current Level: 37
Total Deaths: 51
Animal Friends: 6
(Rabbit, Squirrel, Bees, Nightingale, Flying Squirrel, Falcon)