Part 119: Yamato

Rock the Omni-Blue Mage - Part 8: Yamato

When we last saw Rock, he blew up an entire city in the sky.



Now he's keen on chasing down Exdeath to Learn him a few lessons in !Blue magic superiority.

But first, he's got a few bodies standing between him and the next world.



Unfortunately, it seems Rock had a rather... moment, and flubbed the Mute spell a few times. This lead to him eating a full power Self Destruct for 1500 damage.

Then he realized he was overthinking it, and just used Aqua Breath two times to simultaneously wipe out all the Purobolos while they were still getting their acts together. Arise doesn't work when the dead are still on screen.

DEATHS: 1



Titan fell under the weight of Rock's 1000 Needles and felt the bite of Vampire healing him back up to full before Earth Shaker went off.
I have no clue as to why Faris was up for this fight, as I could have sworn I only allowed Galuf to have HP at this point. I had reset and did the fight with Faris down, but apparently this is my only screenshot of the fight.

DEATHS: BOW DOWN UNDERDWELLER! (UNDER THE WEIGHT!)





RockZerky!

DEATHS: 0



-One booby-trapped treasure chest later-



Well, that could have gone better. Let's hope old man Galuf can bail you out of this one, Rock.



Luckily, he's right around the corner.



Pictured: the giant mirror.



Psst, you can wake up now.



Oof, Galuf's got some work to do if he's to spring Rock from the clink.



After some false starts and changing gear around, Galuf gets into the swing of things, suffering only 4 deaths total while building up strength.



Level 8 is the target number, as it gets his total MP above 50. Remember, levels are especially important to Blue Mages in more ways than one.



Galuf gradually makes his way to the brig, coming across a peculiar, naginata-wielding warrior guarding the area.



Turns out it's none other than Exdeath's captain of the guard, Gilgamesh! Galuf blasts him with two shots of 1000 Needles, which costs 25 MP per cast.



Despite all his posturing and battle cries, Gil doesn't actually deal a whole lot of damage if he hits, and runs off if he takes more than 1500 damage.

More importantly it allows Galuf to bail out Rock so that the solo Omni-Blue adventures can resume.

TOTAL GALUF DEATHS: 4
ENDING GALUF LEVEL: 9



"From here on out, it'll be nothing but monsters until the end!"



Rock blasts his way through the enemy hoard through judicious use of Aqua Breath...



...and discovered that Gilgamesh was a step ahead.



Unlike his first appearance, he can actually deal damage and has some new tricks - one of which being the fact that he can use some !Blue spells as well.
It's possible to pick up Aera and Goblin Punch from him if you wait long enough.



Despite being level 28, he is immune to Level 4 Graviga.



Even with Equip Axes, Rock's best damage dealing options at this point would be through 1000 Needles and the occasional Vampire.
Using Dark Spark and Off-Guard doesn't improve Goblin Punch much beyond 500 a hit. And with all those techniques combined, it's a significant drain on MP, leading to the use of some Ethers.



And here's where Gilgamesh gets particularly mean, even for Omni-mages. He'll cast Haste, Protect, Shell, and then follow it up with a Jump. The first two aren't so bad as there's several things a Blue Mage can do to mitigate their effects, and Jump deals ~350 damage, which isn't that bad.



It's the fact that Shell can cause Vampire to start failing . This puts the hurt on Rock, as outside of a Hi-Potion, he can quickly find himself out of viable healing options.
White Wind in this case would heal him for too little and its MP cost would do nothing but drain his already low reserves further.




Eventually Gil dunks Rock for a fatal blow. This calls for a shift in strategy.




First, Rock cripples Gil's stats and lowers his defense with Dark Spark and Off-Guard, respectively.




Next is to deplete his MP reserves. Note that Magic Hammer is very cheap in comparison to the previous two and relative to its effect (halves target's current MP)










Rock can now reliably use Vampire as needed now that Shell is no longer an obstacle.



Continuing the 1000 Needles barrage or even breaking rods will quickly whittle whatever HP Gilgamesh may have left.




And with that, the Benkei wannabe dashes off again. Rock takes this chance to reach the end of Big Bridge -



- only to get blown off course to some middle-of-nowhere wilderness. Looks like Exdeath will have to wait for some other time.

BOSS DEATHS: 1
ENDING LEVEL: 33
TOTAL BOSS DEATHS: 5

Next time: Gettin' spooky.