Part 149: Flight 1: Kitty Hawk

Dragoon Flight 1: Kitty Hawk

So, I decided to jump on this bandwagon myself. And what better class to "jump" with than Dragoon, my favorite class in the series? I'm a newbie to LPs, and I've never bothered with a solo character OR class challenge (unless you count the Four Job Fiesta for the latter), but we'll see if I can go the distance with everyone else.

(Yes, you can expect to see a lot of flight, air, and jumping puns.)

(No, I will not apologize. Unless it's a really bad pun.)

(Yes, I'll probably botch this whole thing but good by a combination of impatience, incompetence, and a crappy sense of humor.)

(...Yes, feel free to point and laugh.)




Our adventure starts with a man. A man who desires nothing more than to ride with the dragons.

This is not that man. He already has a dragon. Jerk.



This is the man we're looking for. We find our hero warming his hands, dreaming of dragon-riding and hanging out with his chocobo friend, Not-A-Dragon. He takes offense to that name, for some reason. Couldn't imagine why.



Suddenly, a meteor descends! The sky belongs to our hero, so he will tolerate none of these bastards flying through his airspace. Dragoon away!

...wait, hold on.



Much better. Can't be a Dragoon if you don't dress the part.



Sadly his equipment options are not up to scratch at the moment. Dragoons can't equip swords, like the Broadsword that we started with. The traditional weapon of Dragoons is the spear, but we're not going to see any of those for a good long time, seeing as, you know, we're not supposed to have this class yet. So I guess we'll stick with beating things to death for the time being.



Anyway, time to investigate this flying chunk of rock.





But first, goblins! They're as weak as they've been for everyone else in this thread. Dragon-boy here punches out the first one, then shows off his unique skill, Jump, for the second one. I'll go into this a bit farther down. Anyway, we rescue some corpse girl, who asks our hero his name. You'll have to take my word for it because I keep forgetting to screenshot stuff. I think I'm really bad at this gig, guys.



Behold, "Air" Jordan!

...OK, I'm actually sorry for that one. Still, I'm rolling with it.



Jordan and the girl find another corpse, this one crushed by the meteorite apparently person. He wishes to go to the Wind Shrine, which is coincidentally the destination of the girl.



Our hero totally didn't choose to bugger off at first and later change his mind. He is all into that shit right off. So away we go!





...After he loots the bodies of his new corpses comrades corpses because this joke is already wearing thin. So screw it. I also move Jordan to the back row. Now, for those of you who have somehow gotten this far in the thread without reading any other posts and have never played a Final Fantasy game before, the back row normally offers less damage given and taken for physical attacks. A character in the back row will take half damage from all physical attacks, but also deal half damage with their own physical attacks, barring the use of long-range weapons like bows. This also applies to enemies; any enemies that have other enemies between them and your characters will both give and receive half damage (I'm not sure if they have long-range physical attacks themselves). Rows also stack effects, so a back-row player character attacking a back-row enemy will do a quarter of their normal damage.

Anyway, Dragoons only use short-range weapons like his new knife. So why am I moving Jordan back there, you ask?





Simple, really: because Jump ignores row positions entirely. That first screenshot is from a normal attack by Jordan in the back row. The second is from a Jump, which for now does the same damage as their normal attack, but again ignoring Row. Highly useful! This happens to make Dragoon one of the best physical tanks in the game; they are VERY difficult to kill with physical attacks if played right.

Jump has a few more solid advantages too. First of all, I don't think it can miss, unless you're using certain weapon types. Rods have their normal hit rate, generally around 80%, though a few have 70% and 90%. The Wonder Wand has a 100% hit rate, but it's a special weapon and misses entirely when used with Jump (For the record, any weapon that does magic-based damage, such as harps or the Healing Staff (for a given definition of "damage") will also miss every time). Jump can also get criticals with weapons that are able to do so (one of the early-game goblins took a critical damage Jump-Punch from Jordan). And if you're using a Spellblade-capable weapon, they'll still get the Spellblade effect.

The only real downside to Jump is that weapon procs cannot trigger on a Jump. No silencing Mage Masher jump, guys, sorry.



Anyway, we kill some monsters and find a ship. It's still no dragon, but maybe it can help us find one. Or, uh, get us to the Wind Shrine. Right. If we don't get captured by pirates first. Which we totally did and I just forgot to screencap it again Which we didn't. They decide to join our cause with no fuss. So yay for that!







Is that a sea dragon

Is that a sea dragon Faris

GIVE IT TO ME



No? Oh, fine. We'll worry about it later. Since, you know, corpses can't argue or own dragons.



Speaking of things corpses can't own, YOINK!



Jordan appreciates the massive increase in damage.







So, Wing Raptor! The challenge for the right to rule the skies goes fairly smoothly for Jordan, who even manages to time a Jump to avoid the Breath Wing that Raptor fires off when it opens its wings. Which was neat. I really should be taking videos of this shit. Maybe starting next update. Anyway, Jump-timing to dodge big attacks is something I plan on doing a lot of, so get ready to see more of it, hopefully!

Final level: 6
Deaths: 0



But Jordan already owns the wind. How redundant.

Anyway, we need to find the king or something. We'll get right on that!



After some downtime. Ladies love celebrities like Air Jordan. No autographs, girls.



Jordan diligently practices his piano skills, even though he really doesn't like stringed instruments. He's more into woodwinds. (Nope, not sorry this time.)



So, after we kick back for a bit, I head back to the Wind Shrine, to get some levels for the next boss (y'all know what's coming, obviously) and to farm Elixirs for the same reason. While there, I learned a little something.



Black Goblins are level 7, as was Jordan here.

After that I make sure to focus on them first until level 8.





While leveling, we get our first job level! Neat!



JUMP AND JUMP AGAIN





After a while, I head back to town and buy some potions, selling off any equipment I'm not wearing (since most of it is the same or weaker as what I already have, or stuff Dragoons can't use or don't need, like an Ether I picked up somewhere).

Feeling like taking a chance, I decide to try my luck at level 11.



THIS asshole. We've all come to hate him by now. With one move that can paralyze you, another that can drop you to single-digit HP (and even a back-row Dragoon with full armor takes about 16 damage from this jerk's attacks) and enough speed to make three full moves between paralyzing you and getting your next turn.



Obviously I did not make the smartest choice in taking him on at this level. Jump does about 80-90 damage at this level. Karlabos has 650 HP, meaning I'd have to land 8-9 Jumps to bring this jerk down. I was getting off two or three before he waxed me. After a few tries, I went back to the Wind Shrine to level.

Unfortunately, I once again forget to screencap my progress during any of my grinding, as well as the fight where I actually won. To put it simply, I got to level 14 to get another Attack multiplier, as explained by Kyrosiris above. This put my Jump damage at about 110-130, which left me only needing to score 6 Jumps on Karlabos, or even 5 if I'm really lucky (I am not a lucky person, so I should've known better). After a few more deaths, I got a bit lucky and either block his Feelers several times, or he went with mostly physical attacks, and the few Tail Screws came while Jordan wasn't paralyzed, allowing him to down one of my 4 Elixirs (Potions ended up being ineffective; a few of my deaths came because I tried to save my Elixirs, only to get Paralyzed two or three times in a row, whittling down my weakened Dragoon, so I started chugging Elixirs instead). After downing all 4 of them while landing 4 Jumps, he hit me with a Tail Screw again. I could've tried a Potion and hoped for a physical, but instead I chose to take a gamble. I Jumped, hoping that a 5th hit would bring him down. Bad news: It didn't. Good news: After I landed, he chose another Tail Screw as his next attack.



So a 6th and final Jump put him down.

Final level: 14
Deaths: 6 (I really expected much more too)

Anyway, that's all for me tonight. Next time: Jordan drags three bodies through a graveyard and, if I have enough time, MEETS HIS DESTINY.

Also I will remember to resize to PNG from now on. Sorry about the crappy quality.