Part 9: Warpserker

Zerky! the Omniserker

Part 8 - Warpserker



So many weapons, so few passive slots...





This guy isn't even a worthy boss for a normal team. Hell, I'm sure many casual players have killed this guy in the solo Bartz battle at the start of World 2.



Yeah, not worth a video.



So, one side effect of having permanently-dead party members is that they can be zombied.



Curing them is trivial but I reset anyway because I like them being perfectly low level.



Pictured: Zerky! trying to formulate a thought.



Drakenvale's not really worth fighting encounters in unless you can wreck undead or have a Chemist with a thirst for Dragon Fangs.



Even with Zerky!'s high offense, these guys and their brethren take too many hits to be worth the effort.





The Bone Mail is usually ignored by many people because you can't revive dead people wearing it and because it makes healing harmful to the wearer.

On the other hand, instant death attacks restore the wearer to full HP, it has some of the highest defenses in the game, and it has a ton of very useful status immunities. And of course, as a Berserker, Zerky! isn't able to heal himself during battle anyway. This greatly reduces the damage Zerky! takes and blocks a lot of nasty status effects as well. Very, very great find.



A katana that can proc Wind Slash. Probably the closest Zerky! has to crowd control. Too bad most of the fights that have multiple parts from this part on require dying at the same time, with the Wind Slash proc being too unreliable for that to really happen.



Anyway, grass is attacking us.

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

The Dragon Pod does nothing. That's right, no attacks, no special abilities, nothing.

Well, it does one thing.

code:

Dragon Flower
HP: 100
Vulnerable to EVERYTHING.

AI Script:
{Specialty,Specialty,Nothing}

It can summon up to five Dragon Flowers. All five flowers are actually distinct, though there's only one difference between each of them.





The specialty attack for each flower is Vacuum Wave. The game doesn't say this, but in the code it's the same attack that Exdeath uses to wreck your shit. This attack will always hit barring stuff like Golem and pierces defense, though thankfully their attacks are pretty weak to begin with.

Each flower also adds a status effect for each hit. From left to right, there's Confuse, Paralysis, Blind, Old, and Poison. Most of these are pretty nasty for a solo character, with Poison being the only non-threatening one.

That said, the Bone Mail protects from four of these status effects, which makes the fight significantly easier. And even if it didn't, Berserkers are immune to Confuse to begin with and Angel Ring blocks Old. That said, blocking Blind is huge for a character that uses generally inaccurate weapons to begin with.



My first strategy is to try for Wind Slash procs to kill all the flowers at once.



When it procced, it worked, but it did crap damage to the actual Pod. And when all flowers are dead, the pod is much quicker in respawning them than if there was one alive.



Paralysis is the one thing we can be hit with, and it's still nasty enough to lose attacks and eventually wear us down.



Plan B.



The Dragon Pod proper is vulnerable to instant death. A lot of bosses in World 2 are, really. That's why the extra levels aren't as big a deal as they'd normally be, since I'd be cheesing a lot of this stuff anyway.

Still have to clean up the flowers but since they won't respawn it's a non-issue.

[video type="youtube"]VFNX2WmBGoc[/video]

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 44
DEATHS: 1



Also I don't have to backtrack thanks to Teleport. Being Omni is sweet.





I was going to make a "If you're dumb enough to eat poison you're dumb enough to drink this!" joke but turns out I already made that joke in my last LP.



I then did some encounter manipulation to get more gold for crap.



Because screw fighting Gil Turtle for it.

I lose out on EXP I would've gained grinding for it anyway so it's all good.



Surgate has Float, which is very handy for an Omni run. We can ignore damage floors and ignore earth attacks for foes like Exdeath and Catastrophe.



Next up, Gilgamesh.

code:

Gilgamesh (Human, Heavy)
HP: 8888
MP: 888
Vulnerable to Death, Blind, Old, Berserk, Silence, Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=01{
     {Fight,Missile,Fight}
     {Fight,Fight,Specialty}
     {Fight,DeathClaw,Fight}
     }
Condition:HP < 6000{
     No Interrupt{
          Unhide Monster: Enkidou
          Display Text: Gilgamesh:  What took you so long?
          Display Text: Enkidou:  That  old man...
          Display Text: Gave me a bit of trouble...
          Display Text: Gilgamesh:  First aid...please!
          Change Target: Enkidou
          No-Damage Magic
          }
     }
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
{Fight,Missile,Fight}
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
{Fight,DeathClaw,Fight}
React:Death & Alone{
     No Interrupt{
          Display Text: Gilgamesh:  Enkidou!
          Display Text: I'll leave the rest to you!
          Reverse Polarity
          Display Text: Enkidou...
          Display Text: Hey, don't leave me!!
          Nothing
     }

Gilgamesh has all sorts of nasty attacks. Missile will significantly weaken us, and Death Claw's pretty much a game over.





Fortunately, Greg's attacks are laughably weak at this point with Bone Armor, while our attacks tear through him.

Of course, then there's that trigger for under 6000HP.

code:

Enkidu (Human)
HP: 4000
MP: 1000
Immune to Earth.
Vulnerable to Death, Blind, Old, Berserk, Silence, Slow.

AI Script:
{Fight,Aero 2,Specialty}
{Vampire,Missile,Wind Slash}
{Fight,Fight,Specialty}
{Vampire,Thread,Wind Slash}
{Fight,Sonic Wave,WhiteWind}
React:Magic:No-Damage Magic{
     Set V00=01
     WhiteWind
     }

When Gilgamesh goes under 6000HP, Enkidu shows up.



And when Enkidu shows up, he immediately casts White Wind and heals Gilgamesh. He also has some annoying attacks like Wind Slash, Sonic Wave, and Web. Fortunately his most annoying attack, Vampire, will heal us since we're undead.





Or I can just ignore their gimmicks because both are vulnerable to instant death and both have the HP of tissue paper.

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

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 44
DEATHS: 0



Next up, Barrier Tower. This place is a pain for two reasons.



One is because we need to grind for a Reflect Ring. This gives auto-Reflect and will be very important for a few bosses.



I loot the Red Dragon chests because I have a Fire Ring. Blood Sword's alright I guess.



It takes a decent grind to get one. Not too horrible, but enough to gain a level.



As for the other reason, Atomos is kind of a roadblock. In many of his solo runs, Sulla had to revive characters and kill them off one by one just to have enough time to kill Atomos. I wanted to avoid doing that.

code:

Atomos
HP: 19997
MP: 10000
Vulnerable to Sleep.

Condition:Status:Party Member1:Dead & Party Member1 Position=80{
     Change Target:Party Member1
     Wormhole
     }
Condition:Status:Party Member2:Dead & Party Member2 Position=40{
     Change Target:Party Member2
     Wormhole
     }
Condition:Status:Party Member3:Dead & Party Member3 Position=20{
     Change Target:Party Member3
     Wormhole
     }
Condition:Status:Party Member4:Dead & Party Member4 Position=10{
     Change Target:Party Member4
     Wormhole
     }
Condition:Status:Party Member:Dead{
     {Pull,Pull,Pull}
     Pull
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Slow2}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Demi}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Qrter}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Old}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Pull}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Demi}
     Pull
     {Pull,Pull,Qrter}
     Pull
     }
{Comet,Comet,Nothing}+{Comet,Comet,Nothing}

Here's the big thing. While you still have party members down, Atomos can't kill you. Worst he can do is use gravity attacks and inflict Slow and Old. And honestly Zerky! won't even make it past the Slowga round before his companions are devoured.



My first strategy is to spam Sleep Sword and go for the sleep proc. Problem is that Atomos will wake up from a hit anyway, and the damage is too weak for this to work.

After Atomos eats your companions, he has two rounds in a row each with a 2/3 chance of Comet.





Zerky! can't last long in that phase. That leaves him only a few rounds to kill Atomos.



First idea is to boost his speed and see if the extra turns help.



I also give him the Dancing Dagger for those sweet Swords Dance procs.



His regular damage is similar to the Sleep Sword's, though with more speed.



Also, for those who want to see a Berserker boogie, there you go.



Nice, but the Dancing Dagger only has a 1/2 chance to even trigger !Dance, and !Dance only has a 1/4 chance to proc Swords Dance. Pretty bad odds, and there's no way I'm going to score 1/8 odds in four rounds when I only have maybe ten tops.





I experiment a bit with Dual Wield, with decent results.

I was discussing this in the Fiesta IRC when Kyrosiris suggested going for Swords Dance procs with Dancing Dagger + Death Sickle, since Swords Dance would boost the damage to both. From his calculations, it'd require three such attacks to down Atomos, which was still more than I thought was doable, but no harm in trying, right?





And am I glad I tried, because he forgot the 50% damage boost Berserkers get. So with a Swords Dance I was dealing over 10k damage, meaning I only needed two rounds of 1/8 odds, which was very much attainable.





So much so that I won it shortly after that.

[video type="youtube"]nZyMktVIis0[/video]

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 45
DEATHS: 7



Truer words have never been spoken.

Next time, I'll probably finish off World 2 maybe.