Insane Difficulty: FFT Solo Temple Knight Challenge - Insane Difficulty

So, I've started up a new SSCC challenge. My Heaven Knight SCC was simply too simple for me to comment on. The idea of manipulating the terrain for better Truth Skill use wasn't as interesting as I thought it might be. There's not THAT much you can do to manipulate position, and even without it, there's still getting lucky. Overall, it wasn't un-fun on a personal level, but it just didn't provide commentary fodder.

SO! Temple Knights! Or should I say Temple Knight. Because, y'know, it's a solo challenge.

*cough*

Anyway, I'm processing the video now and I'll upload it soon. I don't know how regularly I'll be updating, but I should be playing this one to the end, barring some excessively difficult fight, but I don't see any part of the challenge being worse than Solo Geo Zalbag. Although Zalbag WILL be immune to Drain Sword.

In short, here's the perks of the class for quick review...

Equipment:

No clothes or hats. Shucks. We do have armor and helmets, which provide lots of extra health, although given drain sword, that isn't as important. On the other hand, more max health means more Shock! damage. Also, late game gives me Reflect Mail. Yay. Alternatively we can wear robes. Mostly, those will be used early on for the extra MP, and later on only for the White and Black Robe, as the White Robe halves elemental damage, and the Black Robe will empower my Ice Brand. Oh and hey, shields. Yay.

For weapons, two choices stand out. Ice Brand will, thanks to 108 Gems and/or Black Robe be our choice for most physical damage. However, that will only see so much use, as Beowulf can equip Knight Swords, and Excalibur has haste and an effective 15 WP. An empowered Ice Brand has a WP of 16, and has the Ice 2 proc, so it can put out more damage, but only in very short time periods, thanks to Excaliburs haste. But given that I'm going to be using spells more than physical attacks, the haste is more important. Still, Ice Brand may see use against Zombag.

RSM:

Squire RSM. But still, they're well used here. Counter Tackle will give me a 37% chance of knocking an enemy one space away, letting me run better, and use my ranged attacks. Defend will be working with Shields and Mantles to make me pretty hard to hit later on. And Move +1 works with a base move of 4 to give me 5 movement before boots. That kind of movement will let me run mantles very easily, without worrying about outrunning enemies. It's not the best RSM I could want, but they do work well with the theme of keeping me safe.

Magic Sword:

Five spells of note here. Drain Sword, which sucks 1/4th of the life out of an enemy and give it to me. Handy for staying alive, and great for zodiac beasts.

Shock! which deals damage equal to missing HP. With Armor and Helmet on, this spell can deal massive damage, and it does so at a range of 8.

Sleep, Chicken, Break. These are the three disables. Break is more of an instant kill spell, but it has a low success rate. And enemies with enough brave can shrug off a chicken relatively quickly. Sleep is the most reliable of the three, but it's also the weakest. Which one to use will be situational, with Break used against good compat, high faith enemies, Chicken used against enemies with Brave no higher than 58, and Sleep on the rest.

Downside of Magic Sword. It's got a range of 4, meaning I can't kite very well, unless I use the terrain. Shock has a range of 8, but I have to have been in range, gotten beaten up, and elected to not drain that health back in order to use it. Also, I can't target myself with Faith, Innocence, or Berserk, all of which might have come in handy at points. Especially innocent.

Given that Beowulfs best abilities are ranged, but not enough to kite properly, I'm not sure how fights are going to proceed. Disables will be pretty solid though, but if Break isn't going to work, all I'll do is turn off the enemy for a bit, so I may have to mix together some straight forward sword whacking with some kiting when I can use Shock well, or need the health from Drain Sword.

I expect a nice breeze through the game. Maybe some deaths on Zodiac Monsters and some of the later fights where if you miss once, you're dead.

Faith status and Break are going to be insane.

First video should be uploaded any minute (And unless you're obsessively watching these forums, easily by the time you read this).

It'll be here

Still being processed. I guess I do watch these forums obsessively~

This is an epic SSCC.

Just sayin'.
Peace ya'll.

(How's he gonna get faith status though? You can't use Temple Knight techs on yourself. Unless that's different in WotL... Been playing that recently and I couldn't faith myself as beowulf and got all flustered. :l )

I only just now realized that Beowulf and Ch1 Wiegraf have the same outfit.

Yeah I screwed up. I have not used Beowulf in so long. He can't faith himself. Break has pretty good accuracy anyway.

Heck yeah it does.

I think most of beowulf's attacks have increased accuracy. (Not hard to get much better than vanilla ying yang magick though... It kinda sucks without faith status.)

I have a feeling this job can annihilate the game by itself.

Does Beowulf start with 70 Br/Fa? Or did you just neglect to change Ramza's Br/Fa? XD

Stictly speaking this is a Temple Knight Challenge, not a Beowulf challenge So I'm leaving the 70/70 Br/Fa.

But yah, I don't see this as being a particularly hard challenge. I think difficulty might cap out at Weigraf, thanks to that fight having a human part, and a 'zodiac w/ friends' part. Combine with this being the part of the game where I could have a Thief Hat in most SSCCs, but I don't yet have the Excalibur, that's about as hard as it's going to get.

Oh, and fair warning, I've hurt my tongue recently, so no videos until it heals properly. I mean, I could do an entire video in grunts, but I don't think I'm funny enough to pull that off.

Sines, on 01 March 2012 - 02:02 AM, said:

Do it!

And no Stan, Beowulf has really crappy brave, it'd be better to just start with ramza's stats anyway.

Archael, on 29 February 2012 - 08:51 PM, said:

Excalibur, 5 move, ranged attacks, and high percentile statuses...yeah
I'm going with Golgorand, Yardrow, and maybe Poeskas being the hardest.
Finath can be difficult but a Feather Mantle or Crystal Shield, or hell both, would make it hilariously easy as long as you avoid Reds.

Oh right, I forgot about the undead fights. Bleh. No lifestealing, so I'll have to rely on going straight for Petrify.

That's still not so bad, it just means I won't have a renewable source of health.

Still, I definitely prefer being someone who likes easy challenges, rather than a crazy poet, or a blizzard employee!

...wait...

onionknight777, on 01 March 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

Sure, but it's a challenge, right?

Video going up as we speak!

http://youtu.be/MhQuVGoFqmU

Overall, a fairly simple run. Nothing of note to say, I'm afraid. Any problems were more due to luck or positioning, and the occasional bad call. Chapter 1 is completed. Hopefully, chapter 2 will provide me with more to talk about!

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

...*ahem*. Yah, it's been a while. I wouldn't say I've been busy but...

...nah, I really have no idea what caused the break. But, for whatever reason, it was there. And I don't really know if I'll go on another long break, or if I'll start pumping out videos again. If you guys want more regular videos from me, get my average view count higher. You'll be more likely to guilt me into it!

But that's not what your here for. I'm not sure if this is either, but hey, gotta include it sooner or later...



Overall, a mostly boring run. Dorter, Araguay and Zirekile all went as expected, except I didn't power-level Agrias. After that long break, I decided I didn't want to slow down my game and engage in 'chore' activities that might make me stop again. Zaland was a bit tricky, but that was generally more often due to suicidal Mustadio, and cowardly Agrias. I was also somewhat underleveled, level 8 to most enemies 11-12.

A quick run on Barius didn't reveal any glaring problems, though I didn't finish it. I should be able to complete it with some luck, clever play and/or leveling. After the video finished, I took some time off to level, though I forgot to show one of those fights, which I normally try to do. Of particular note was leveling in Sweegy, petrifying the skeletons, and then using Aspel to drain all of the MP out of the goblins for the extra XP. Not a bad way to do it.

So, a fairly dull video, challenge wise, although I didn't realize just how very high Breaks base success rate is. I think I was running 70%+ against neutral zodiac, low faith enemies. It's a hell of a thing.

STILL I do have one fight I'm afraid of this chapter. As I said before, human boss fights scare me. And Golgorand is a human boss fight where you are also massively outnumbered. Of particular note is my inability to wear Power Sleeve, Twist Headband, or Green Beret. Simply put, I won't be doing that much damage to Gaffy, and I'm pretty damn sure I can't petrify him. I'm not sure about his susceptibility to lighter hexes. Perhaps a Don't Act will protect me from him and cause him to run away far enough to buy me lots of time.

As far as 'farming' goes, I think I'll make sure to get the best gear I can manage before I go to Goug. I'm not sure whats available though. Nothing in particular, as Armor doesn't generally do anything too interesting, so just the highest stuff I can get. If anyone knows what I can farm for before level 35 in terms of Sword, Shield, Helmet, Armor, and Robes go, I'd appreciate that. As far as the actual farming goes, I'm just going to hack it. I've already farmed once, and I do not wish to repeat it. However, what I AM going to do, is do a single battle (recorded) for each needed enemy. So, I will find a do-able battle with a knight with the best gear available, and playthrough the fight until I can secure the drop (or crystal). In the end farming just means doing that over and over again until you get lucky, so as long as I can do the challenge once without too much trouble (Kill or petrify everyone but a chickened enemy, wait at leisure) I'm not really adding any more challenge by doing it properly, just agonizing tedium. And of all the things that made me want to quit my Geomancer playthrough, it was the farming. Not even Zombag was that discouraging.

Anyway, I'll need to do some leveling before Goug, since I think I'm going to be criminally underleveled (And not just because of the gear farming), what with Petrifying 2-3 enemies per fight. I'll make sure to show a fight or two of that once I get there, in addition to any farming videos I'll do.

Just in case if you don't know, I'll say it now. I don't have Beowulf available, but at least with Spell Absorb, you can drain targets with 0 mp and still get mp back. This was very useful when I was playing an Oracle SSCC during Finath River. I needed like 500 mp to kill those bastards. Petrify kept missing.

So, I target some enemy I've leached dry, but I still get back 1/3rd of their max MP?

Yeah. What I did at Finath was Blind everything, then try and Petrify everything. I just got Beowulf in a file quickly and tested it. It's the same as Spell Absorb.