Insane Difficulty: Kain's LLG for BNW Beta 1.7-AD+ - Insane Difficulty

Because before my dream team for end game, Sabin was my MVP for the WoB, hands down.


Hey, so, figured I'd make a new thread and transport my other posts from the Beta thread/discussion to here, so I'm not cluttering that and can just have my own topic for it, sort of like how Dr. Letha and some others have done.

Anyway, I'm gonna copy/paste my previous posts in this part, and spoiler them. Any new progress will be posted as new posts here out.

I don't have any posts up from the beginning till about heading to Zozo, but there wasn't much to report on, difficulty wise. A lot of it was Pummel for Sap, fight, use Slim Jims or Dried Meat, repeat. Most bosses and such up till Dadaluma were pretty basic, even in the mod.

Introduction, basic comments and up to Zozo


Doom Train and El Nino fish fun


Macho Man Dadaluma


Ultros at the Opera


Number 024


Number 128 and Mine Cart Madness


Crane Nightmare


Nightmares end, though


Sealed Cave, Battle on the Bridge, Imperial Banquet


Heartfire and kids playing with fire


Draw me like one of your French girls


Imperial Air Fuck You with Ultros and Friend


Yo dog, we heard you like Atma Weapon, so we put one in Atma Weapon so you can get Atma Weapon while you fight Atma Weapon


Celes is in a coma for a year, her hygiene...ugh. Collapsing House+Phunbaba+Tentacles fun.


Daryl's Tomb and a nice easter egg


I accidentally the whole Zone Eater


Gau, farming, equipment, misc


Fanatic's Tower (no Magi Master) and White Dragon


Poisons your family and king, hide in a mountain city of thieves while reading dirty mags and writing to strange women (Cyan get, and attempt at Storm Dragon)


Storm Dragon defeated


Relm's Sketches end the world, or summon/draw demons, Setzer can summon Espers that deal 9999 via a slot machine, Kefka is the villain, right? (Owzer's Mansion, Magi Master experimenting, and Phunbaba)


Mog, Umaro, Ice Dragon and Tritoch


That's where I'm at right now. New posts will list my progress. Remaining to do:

-5 dragons (Holy, Storm, Ice dead)
-Cyan's Nightmare
-Cave on the Veldt
-Phoenix Cave
-Magi Master
-Hidon's Rock
-Ancient Castle
-Doom Gaze

And anything else they added into the mod I'm not aware of yet.

Kain_Stryder, on 11 March 2016 - 10:24 AM, said:

I'll see your post and raise you this:


Quality reads though, it's fascinating to see us both LLG similar versions of the beta (1.7B-u for me, 1.7B-ad for you) and have such wildly different results based on how we each personally guage and prepare for each section of the game.

I still can't cannot praise you enough for that fantastic Crane battle where you didn't have to rely on manipulating the RNG for dual Ragnarok summons. Seriously, I had given up all hope on taking them down in a quasi-legitimate fashion and you pull a Sabin victory out from underneath the rug like a fucking badass.

Keep on truckin', broski. I love reading your posts and comparing our differing tactics, it's mesmerizing to me.

Plus it's nice to know that I'm not alone in this hell

Thanks sir. Sabin suplexing stuff has been a thing since I was a kid, when my friend and I discovered the Phoenix Down trick for Doom Train, we also tried fighting it legit and found that, laughing hysterically. My version of the beta started on a few prior to AD but I'm upgrading as I go, so ours isn't too much different (just bug fixes).

Yeah the Cranes had me stumped for a good while and I did try the Setzer thing and I know allllllll about RNG manipulation with Save States (like also manipulating RNG for Steal; Multiguards were fun). I had little success, so I looked into just surviving somehow while Sap did work and sure enough it was easier than I figured. Once Sabin can get set up, he can't die. What's funny is, I think the only other fights so far to have me on edge like that were Atma Weapon and Storm Dragon, just sheer surviving while trying to deal damage. Granted, Happy Fun Balls make life easier, but I'm really trying to see or show stuff in 1.7 can be done without. Sadly, Holy Dragon can not be done without them due to White Wind.

Yeah, how I usually gauge a battle is I play it like FF11 or any other game. Dry run it, get a feel for the monster and I take notes on its attacks and see what it does. Sometimes my dry runs I win, where I'll comment like "really would've been better to have Sabin with Life Bell here" or something, but when I'm doing so well in a fight, I'm NOT gonna reset just to swap something if it goes so well. Sadly, most strategies in WoR really call for "Celes tanks, Gogo is God, Gau is Jesus, and Strago is right next to them both", with a few others being interchangable depending on the fight. You really can't take like, Setzer, Cyan, Umaro and Locke to a dragon fight and expect good results. Shit I don't think I've used Cyan since Sabin's scenario, it's pretty bad.

Anyway, good luck yourself, I'm VERY interested to see how you handle Magi Master, as I have a few ideas for myself but I feel like he's the stonewall for LLG right now, but we'll see.

So, quick update for myself:

The Cave on the Veldt

Went and found Allosaur and some other stuff, finished Rage hunting short of the Phoenix and Ancient Cave encounters. I went to go get Shadow back, and had a rude awakening in opening a treasure chest to find Bonelord I think was his name? Some undead. Well, not too bad but I had to reset and gear myself for resist Death, but X-Zone would still land sometimes. Otherwise, complete push over, despite a boss theme. I felt like he only had 10,000ish HP or so, because I buckled in for a fight and he was dead before I knew it. New claw for Sabin, though.

Tiamat and Tiamat Z, ugh. Not...too bad of fights, but Meteo was annoying, especially back to back at one point. I had to reset after doing a dry run and went full magic evasion for just THAT attack, as well as for Z, him doing Bio if Celes wasn't Runicing. Even if he did it couldn't kill anyone but Gogo but yeah, Poison (Celes/Strago/Gogo/Gau). Haymaker was annoying but I had Gau doing Cerberus Rage for Image/damage, while Gogo helped with Smoke Bombs, Strago did Blow Fish whenever he could, and Celes did Dispel-> Slow followed by helping Reraise/Tincture/Phoenix Down when necessary. Tiamat went down decently fast, and then onto Tiamat Z. Same strategy, again he was pretty much the same fight. Meteo was the only thing that hurt or killed me here, but I was avoiding it most the time with 2-4 shield blocks. Always nice to see all 4 of my guys shield it. Soon enough, he died and then after a cutscene, I went to the Colosseum for Shadow.

I don't recall in vanilla him being this easy, but I threw Gogo at him, who did Bio Blast Rage with Marlboro, 87 damage killed him. I reset for fun to test and did it again, Gogo did Peeper Rage and killed himself, Shadow still joined. Again not sure if the mod did this or if it was like this in vanilla. It's been a long time and I honestly always won the fight.

With Shadow back, all that remains is Locke. For now though, my next stop is gonna be Cyan's Nightmare to make him more useful if I ever need him for a fight. Maybe tackle Doom Gaze while I'm at it (the option to find him is nice).

One thing I forgot to mention; I played with Umaro while Rage hunting. He is super strong at Level 7. Testing Rage Belt+Hyper Wrist, they stack nicely, and Blizzard Orb was doing 1160... god damn. However, if I don't need magic damage with him, I'm going Rage Belt+Hyper Wrist. I could go Sprint Shoes over Hyper Wrist, but I can easily throw him a Slim Jim with anyone, instead of wasting a turn Berserking him, especially if he dies. One thing I did note; Hyper Wrist is canceled if Zombied->Holy Water. Noticed it in the Dullahan fight with Sabin with a strategy I tried. Does not wear off with Green Cherry or death though. So, Umaro is definitely an option for damage, especially since he can resist Fire/Ice/Thunder/Wind with gear choices, and his defense is BEEFY.

Might as well keep this train rolling.

Brave Sir Doom Gaze and Cyan's Nightmare

Alright, decided to tackle Doom Gaze, since I got sick of seeing the option on the airship. My party set up was Celes/Gogo/Gau/Umaro. Yes, Umaro. Why? Because he hurts bad men with violence. Doom Gaze only does Thunder/Wind attacks, and 1 physical, as well as a Doom move. Equipping everyone with a Death resist, Multiguard and giving Umaro Rage Belt meant he was immune to all but physical. Other characters had Death resist with Magic Evasion, Gogo got the other Snow Muffler+Life Bell, and Gau Raged Mantodea to resist Wind himself. Gogo focused on Smoke Bombs, effectively making Doom Gaze a joke, while Celes Berserked then Slim Jimmed Umaro and herself after, then did Reraise for safety. Between Gau and Umaro, damage was pretty damn good. Sadly, Doom Gaze bravely ran away constantly, but after a few attempts I noticed he stopped running, or maybe I got lucky. Not sure. In either case, a snowman throwing people at you, you don't last too long and now Bahamut magicite is mine. Go go Relm.

Went to the Veldt to learn her magic with it, as well as learn anything I missed with Terra. Celes was all up to par, however. Next stop after resupplying on some medicines (still have 45 Slim Jims...haven't had to farm them yet. Which is odd, I used sooooo many at the start of the WoR and barely any ever since I got the airship. Let's hope that lasts), I decided to tackle Cyan's Nightmare.

Since Terra's been nerfed in this mod, I'm not taking her with me for this. Celes, Gogo, Strago I figured would be my best bets. We'll see how right I was, but I made a hard save outside Doma incase of any fuck ups. The Dream Stooges were...interesting.

Setting up after a dry run, the Stooges magic couldn't harm me, except for the occassional Muddle/Sleep and then obviously Delta Hit, which seems to bypass defense/magic defense, so that strategy for Celes having Death Guard went out the window. Honestly, the best strategy I found was having Strago do Bad Breath to set Sap on Curly (I think; the floating one) and then just spam Phoenix Downs till he died, while Gogo spammed Conjurer to help with that. What was funny, though, was Curly doing Head Bonk over and over after a while on Moe, making NO ONE physically hit me anymore and the only deaths coming from Delta Hit. Gogo managed to X-Meteo Larry for 9999, which also set Sap and didn't cause Moe? I think, to cast Regen on him (he did it after Bad Breath, but not after that. I dispelled it off both of them so Curly's Head Bonks for 700 would add up).

Once Curly died, the other two Stooges went into classic Stooge mode and attacked each other, with Larry running away. Moe was pretty simple then, except he did Reflect which killed my chances for Blow Fish damage. Same deal with Step Mine. Luckily, his HP was pretty low from Curly fucking him up, and some help from Moe, so since he was Reflected, he wasn't Regening...I think. Unless it was Moe doing that. Either way, Sap did work while I had Gogo throw Shurikens and Strago/Celes focus on healing. Eventually, he died and Moe came back, surprisingly, with some new spell called Dark. That was fun.

In hindsight, giving Gogo here the Snow Muffler would've helped, but thank god I had Death Ward on Celes for Shell. Once I realized I could survive Storm with her guarding, I had her keep Reraise on herself and 1 other, then defend, someone Tinctured her, repeat. Luckily, Sap remained on him, as well as Haste, so I opted to let him stay Hasted (in hindsight, would've been safer to Slow him) so Sap ticked away at him. Strago would Blow Fish and Gogo would Mimic it, for an easy 2000 damage when possible. Otherwise, lots of sacking, and lots of hoping for magic evades or the like, while Sap murdered him.

Stressful fight but he eventually died, then seeing Shemp (lol) appear made me worry I'd have to fight yet a 4th boss, but this wasn't the case. With the Stooges dead, onto the rest of the nightmare, then Wrexsoul. Also spent some time stealing Lazy Shells. Not bad armor, but not sure when I'll use them.

So far, I haven't found a solid strategy for him. (Also the opening with Shemp, lol and SotN reference) I played with Happy Fun Balls in a method to see if killing the Soulfires was an option, but after like....25,000ish damage, and worrying they'd just come back, not to mention, I'm sure this time Wrexsoul MUST be killed, I decided against it. Problem is, Wrexsoul likes to appear and then possess someone immediately, about one turn's worth of attacks. And if their ATB bar is empty, they're not gonna be able to attack before he does Gi Nattak.

My strategy right now is doing Blow Fish, then Mimicing with Gogo, and trying to set Sap, hoping that remains on him (it should). Otherwise, a fucking headache of a fight and my concern is Phoenix Down supplies. May have to just Happy Fun Ball this one as I have very little options, especially if he possesses Strago, I won't get his turn in to Blow Fish, even with Sprint Shoes on. I threw on full magic evasion here for fucking Meteo and Reflect Rings on Celes/Strago for Flare also, but ugh. This fight is annoying especially with only 3 people. So yeah, sadly, I may have to resort to Happy Fun Balls, since BTB mentioned he fixed them a bit and I have no solid way of doing damage unless Strago/Gogo are up and ready since Wrexsoul is an asshole.

I'll report back later with the results.

#rektsoul

So, after experimenting with this boss for a while, I can safely say short of taking 2 hours, Happy Fun Balls, luck and barring which party members you took for the entire trip, you're gonna run out of Phoenix Downs here. Edgar and Celes can help with Life, but it's a complete sack fest. Wrexsoul doesn't stay out for very long, and he loves to quickly buff then possess someone again. So, fuck that. Decided to try and kill the Soulfires instead, but this also equally annoying. To help, Reflect Rings do work here, but I only have 2, and not sure where there's more if at all. This is fine though and I can have Strago just Refract Gogo. Each Soulfire from what I saw has about 35-40,000 HP? Give or take. One has regen I believe or they both do, I didn't really pay attention to that.

Slow helps, but if Wrexsoul appears he'll just HasteX and then I have to do it all over. Slim Jims for Haste, and then once ready, Happy Fun Ball spam. Again there was really no way around this. I feel like maybe Umaro would've been nice for here, but his magic evasion is bad and one Meteo, especially if Wrexsoul picked him, would suck. That and I really can't afford any berserked characters for this area. I have to deal 80,000 damage and with about 60 Phoenix Downs, and limited choices for raising, especially since Reraise fails due to Reflect, I'm short on options.

Now the other cool part of this is, once one dies, you really need to focus and pray. Since Doomy Doom is a counter attack, keep Image up, and the only thing that can kill anyone is Meteo. Full magic evasion here, NOTHING else matters. Can even use Fireguards I believe, as they give better boosts over Multiguard. Anyway, when one dies, if Wrexsoul appears, he revives it IMMEDIATELY. There's no chance to do anything. Once you manage to kill the other, the fight ends and happily, I got a Genji Armor (it was some relic in the original. Pod Bracelet? Yeah.) which was nice.

Straight up fuck this battle though, second one I had to resort to Happy Fun Balls to win. In hindsight, there was little else you can do. I mean if I had an unlimited supply of Phoenix Downs and no Regen to deal with, I could widdle stuff down but really, this fight was just horrible. If it is possible without Happy Fun Balls, I'm curious to see, because sooner or later, Meteo will hit everyone and without Reraise, it's game over, especially if you 1 at a time kill the Soulfires and Wrexsoul reappears.

So with that, Cyan is complete, Alexander get and one less thing to worry about. At least now if I need Cyan, he's pretty well equipped with some stuff and god damn at the Bushido bar filling up. So much better.

Next stop, I think will be Hidon because I want to finish Strago for any other boss fights I bring him along for, and I want his other Lores, since I'm missing 3. After that, probably Ancient Castle.

Looks like there was an error in the Stooge scripts... corrections will be emailed to Synchysi for the next beta.

Quote

If I had to guess, a Throw strat with both Shadow and Gogo could probably do the trick, but I really have no idea just how weak their offense is in a LLG. You'd still have to deal with the the risk of a Meteo spell hitting everybody, but there's really nothing to do about that.

Throwing Shurikens isn't enough damage, as they have Regen for 240ish. To give an idea, Shurikens and Sakura do about 300ish damage, and maybe 500, respectively. Again sooner or later you will die to Meteo, and if one remains when that happens and Wrexsoul reappears, you're done. You have 2 major boss fights here with Phoenix Downs, so unless you bring Edgar and such for non-Phoenix Down raise spam, it's gonna take forever or you will just eventually run out the RNG luck. Happy Fun Balls are sadly needed.

Ebot's Rock and Hidon. What are Cranes/Atma Weapon? This is far, FAR worse...



I am a broken man.

Almost 4 hours for this fight.

One hour or so was spent trying to figure how in the fuck to survive the first 1-2 rounds of his attacks. He has 4 Hidonites which all have various levels of HP. 8000, 6000, 4000, 2000 or so I believe, from left to right. Each one has different attacks, like Kappa Claw for Imp, Stone Claw for Petrify, etc. They also all have Raid and a normal basic attack. Hidon himself does either Raid, Acid Rain, Virite, or Quasar. Amazingly fun, let me tell you. My first idea was to go full evasion and just evade everything, as well as Safe Guard everyone for even more Defense. I had Celes/Gogo/Strago/Relm. This party wasn't cutting it, period. I decided I NEEDED high HP or defense characters here, and since Strago has to be here, he sadly comes but he also gets to learn Shield and Black Omen.

So, changing my party to Celes/Edgar/Mog/Strago, Edgar over Sabin because Sabin can't equip heavy armor like Edgar can, or a shield. Same deal with Cyan. I tried the Safe Guard strategy, with Black Hearts to counter Acid Rain and Virite. This helped but Raid and Quasar would still end me, period. Quasar was not avoidable and there is little chance of getting Reraise up with anyone due to fucking Raid spam. Gogo or Gau spamming Conjurer I feel wouldn't work either as sooner or later, it'd be down to one of them and you can't sack this fight, at all. Not to mention, how in the fuck can I damage him on top of surviving?

Happy Fun Balls.

Ugh. Well, these got nerfed I think, and the damage is more fair now, but still, these are needed, there is zero way around it yet again. Still, trying to dodge or survive Quasar, I got to thinking and seeing Quasar seemed to be timed. Hidon would do 1-2 attacks it seemed, followed by Quasar. If I could do old school FF4 strategies with Kain and Jump...Edgar and Mog. Now, problem being, how do I constantly avoid damage, heal, and mitigate all or most of what they do to me? I have to be able to take physical hits or 1 and I'm dead, I can't block Raid either, 1-2 of those I'm dead. Slim Jims were my first thought, but again with the constant wave of damage and the first 1-2 rounds of the fight being the most crucial, where do I have time? Not to mention, Condemn. One of my relic slots is forced to be Dragoon's Seal, so the other HAS to be critical here.

Then it hit me. Ghost Rings. They absorb Poison, Doom etc have NO effect on the dead. If Edgar or Mog died it was game over anyway, so I don't need Phoenix Downs here. This would also allow me to ABSORB Acid Rain, Virite, AND I get healed from Raid while the enemies are hurt. This takes care of fucking EVERYTHING besides physical attacks. So next I geared them both out the ass with HP, Defense and some Evasion where I could, but HP and Defense were the most important. Also, Fire Lances for some more damage, however you can opt for Staves or a Sword for some stat boosts instead. I tested with Edgar, Fire Lance was doing 640ish, Mog with I think a Quarterstaff was doing 400-440 or so. Your call, every little bit helps counter his Regen, but for sure do Lances for HP boost.

So, I tested it. I timed the Jumps and was able to dodge Quasar. Ok, now I figured 2 turns, each uses a Happy Fun Ball, next turn Jump, rinse repeat, right? WRONG.

Speed is key here and due to nATB stuff gets really critical. It's hard to explain unless you're doing the fight but I'll try my best to do so. Basically, after a certain point, Hidon stops using Quasar and uses Black Omen. This changes nothing, you're still dead. You can't avoid it. His script goes:

1. Raid or Acid Rain or Virite or physical hit+a physical hit MAYBE if he does the first three
2. See above
3. Black Omen
4. Repeat

He will also do a counter attack at a low rate called Spellbind or Spellbound, something, for 100ish damage. This happens from Jumping him, but he can't kill you with it, since he rarely does a physical attack and prefers a water attack in his script. Just he LOVES to do a water attack+physical after. Hence, gear for evasion/defense like crazy.

Basically you'll start noticing Edgar and Mog don't even have time for Happy Fun Balls or a 2nd turn before he's doing Black Omen, due to time Jumping. You'll occassionally gain some ground with the nATB but every other round you're pretty much sacrificing turns and waiting for him to do his 2nd attack, then Jumping to "reset" your speed so you can continue damage here. Also, Haste on Edgar/Mog is a must. I gave Edgar the Aegis Shield here, and my first turn with Celes is Slim Jim. In hindsight, I'd rather she did Slow on Hidon and Strago, who I had do Bad Breath (it doesn't help except Sap for the first part), should Slim Jim Mog instead....EXCEPT, sadly, this inflicts Sap and/or kills Mog....he's undead. Ugh. So, Celes MUST cast Haste and Strago can throw a Happy Fun Ball instead and hope for a good result. Celes MUST land Haste or restart, it's that crucial.

Once the beginning is over, and Celes and Strago are face planted for the entire fight, see above. Lot of save state scumming here, like badly, especially studying him and his 4 little bitch's attacks.

What I noticed though and I'm starting to see, is how this mod is getting around HP limits. I lost track over 4 hours of wanting to stab my eyes out but I believe Hidon resummoned his Hidonites 4? maybe 5 times but it was...weird. The first time they died, they returned immediately. After the 2nd time, they....stopped. They came back after a LOT of damage, and I tested it, it wasn't a random "oh I decided to call them with my script". I took note because he did this a few more times each time the 4 were killed. I started realizing when he did this, he had a full HP restore. How much HP does he have? I don't know. Regen fucks with it and I'm not sitting here counting each time. His helpers were easy to notice after a while, especially after the far right would die super fast and the others somewhat shortly after.

From 99 Happy Fun Balls I was down to 31 or so remaining at the end. The hardest part of this after getting into a pattern and all, was when he'd resummon his helpers and trying to evade/tank their attacks, while praying for a Raid/Virite/Acid Rain to heal me. Funny thing, though; the helpers have like no MP or so. They ran out for Raid VERY fast and apparently their MP isn't restored when he resummons them. Saw a lot of "Need MP" messages throughout the battle.

Best part of this was, Strago learned his spells while dead, thank god. I never knew that was a thing, I was always certain you had to be alive to learn; it's how it is in other games I believe and definitely the case in FF11. Problem though, is he NEVER did Black Omen I guess in the sense, the animation never went off for it. Him just "using" it and not hitting anyone doesn't count. So I had to reload, and I let Edgar die to one, then had Mog finish him off, and got Black Omen+Shield.

Fuck this battle. Cranes/Atma Weapon are fucking Whelk compared to this fight.

Oh and cool rewards for Relm, nice touch.

Ancient Castle is next, then all that's left is Magi Master, Phoenix Cave and Kefka's Tower, and some Dragons. Which reminds me, Dirt Dragon at the Opera House...I should probably go do that, since the Water one is at the Ancient Castle, and the Fire one is at the Phoenix Cave. Yeah side stop for Dirt Dragon first before Ancient Castle.

Hidon has 120,000 HP, for the record; one of the few high-HP bosses who wasn't nerfed for 1.7.

Also, it's the Brown Dragon now. "Dirt Dragon" sounds like a brand of vacuum cleaner.

Dirt Devil Brown Dragon's night at the Opera



Glorious return of Gau.

This was probably, well I wanted to say easiest Dragon, but I'll settle for 2nd. Ice Dragon was easier, solely because of no Quasar. Real run ender here, but beyond that and Meteor, which I can Runic, barring I'm not casting Float, this guy's a joke. Celes/Gogo/Strago/Gau dream team.

Sadly, Shield and Black Omen don't shine here; my new toys are wasted. Strategy is Float, Smoke Bomb everyone, Runic, and Blow Fish/Brain Pan. Avalanche can ruin someone's day, but it's rare. When Gogo is done Smoke Bombing, he switches to Conjurer for Reraise at least 2 people or more. It's risky due to Runic/Meteor but I do it. Couple of resets due to G-Force, and I Float, only to eat Meteor before I can Runic again. Fun times. Everyone here gets Sprint Shoes and whatever else. Doesn't matter. They're hit by Earth Claw, they're dead anyway, so Smoke Bombs are all they need. Repo Man for Step Mine would be fine here, as any magic that does hit/go through Runic is a death anyway, but yeah. Mine's doing 3000 or so now; I guess with how much HP these guys have, it's not a bad idea. Just earth dragon, I figured earth resist and if Gau ate a Quake he'd be fine.

Anyway, that's dead and Force Shield with Shell effect now. Nice. Next up, Ancient Castle. We'll see how that goes.

Ancient Castle, Phoenix Cave, and Magi Master, oh my!

Firstly, fuck this guy. Fuck him hard and good. Him and Hidon make Cranes look like Whelk.



Ok, this'll be a rather large post, since originally, I had written up a summary for Ancient Castle only, submitted it and lost it due to ID's server going down for a few days. Awesome timing, heh. Kinda sucks, but oh well, I'll retype what I did. In the downtime, I cleared Phoenix Cave and Magi Master, refarmed some gil and supplies, getting ready for Kefka's Tower.

So, let's begin with Ancient Castle.

This place wasn't too bad truthfully. Master T was another Tonberry fight, spamming Happy Fun Balls with Reflect Rings and Refract on the other two to avoid Step Mine counter. When he got close, like the Tonberry, he'd do Gank 2x, and I'd revive, he'd do it again then step back and repeat his script. Wasn't too bad, just annoying.

So he died, and next up was Katanasoul. This guy was more annoying than anything. After seeing him do Wind Slash then basically favor GP Rain, I went with a full magic defense/evasion set up, with Gogo/Gau doing Repo Man for damage, Celes Reraising a few people while she could and Strago throwing out whatever I needed. Blow Fish if I could afford to. What was godly, is Vanish protects from GP Rain, and as I said above, he spams it. Without Vanish, you're pretty much done. There's no time for recovery, especially if he attacks normally or does Wind Slash and you don't evade. So after Slow, Celes was pretty much trying to keep people up while Gogo/Gau did work. Strago with full magic defense and Shell barely could survive Wind Slash, as well as Gogo/Gau with Snow Mufflers, so best way to set up so no one dies. Oh and feed him and Celes a Slim Jim, too.

Eventually he went down, but it took a few tries and a test run to see what he'd do.

Next up, Blue Dragon. Test run, he did SleepX or Sleep or Blow Fish which was fun, so I opted for another set up with Reflect Rings and Strago doing Refract, as well as everyone with...I believe White Capes, to block Sleep. Since he uses water, and I can't really null that, I went with full evasion and Repo Man again, while Celes put Reraise on the 2 non-perma Reflected. Strago would Blow Fish if he could, but it was rare. Honestly I had an easy time here, and didn't see Tsunami till the end, which I panicked cause I wanted Strago to learn it. Luckily he did, I recovered and just knocked him down.

Next up, was finally recovering Locke, since I had no reason to with Gogo for a while, and wanted to knock out Red Dragon while I was at it.

Firstly, I got the last two Rage formations for Gau/Gogo, went and got them unlocked (Witch is very nice and managed to steal a Magic Bone finally for Umaro (he can't use...derp me), after I got one for Gau way back on the Floating Continent), and then looted the cave of what was left. Red Dragon was also a push over, honestly. Same deal with him doing Blow Fish, except he liked to use Berserk. Reflect Rings/Refract again. I had Gogo Smoke Bomb Celes/Strago before he and Gau did Repo Man (3100ish damage now, by the way). Really nothing much to tell otherwise about this fight. Gogo/Gau being kept Refracted trivialized everything, as he never attacked Celes or Strago, who kept Smoke Bomb on the entire time. Strago would Blow Fish if he could, otherwise, Celes really just sat on her hands for this fight.

2 Dragons left now, Phoenix Cave cleared, Locke's back, and all that remains is Magi Master.

Oh, fuck this guy hard.

So originally, I wanted to do a Celes/Strago/Gogo/Gau set up where Gogo/Gau were full immune to everything he did, I'd Rage Chimera for Fire/Water damage, and literally set my PSP down and check back in a day or whatever. This may work but due to Regen and low damage, other variables it's not possible, yet it'd be hilarious. It'd work if he had no Regen, plausibly.

Anyway, he likes to spend 2 turns in his current Wallchange before swapping to a different weakness. Also, Dispel would immediately make him swap I found, as sometimes I'd throw it out to 100% cancel his Haste if I didn't want to risk Slow failing, which honestly, Slow him, because fuck Regen. My new set up was Celes/Terra/Strago/Relm, all magic users decked out in magic defense/evasion/null/absorb as they could be, with Float also, but minus Shell. Why? Because if anyone apparently has Shell, he likes to spam Purge, Quasar or Meteor. Pretty fun times, so none of that.

Happy Fun Balls are out, also, because ANY non-elemental damage attack makes him counter 1 hit KO you and he uses an Elixir on himself for 9999, so don't do it. So with my new team, Terra is the only one with T3 spells, minus Bolt 3, 2 MP shy of using. I opted to pray he was weak to Fire or Ice, as I also have Rods for those, and Terra doing either did about 1600-1800 damage, while Rods would do 500-700 or so. It wasn't worth casting spells with Strago, Relm or Celes, sadly. if I could do 3000 or so a wave, and barring he only recovered 500-1000, it'd be possible, but a lot of save stating or having Celes/Strago constantly on stand by to Scan/Dispel if it was anything dangerous. If he did Fire or Ice attacks, I'd have everyone do what they could and someone Tincture Terra for her T3 goodness.

Sadly, all of this took about 3-4 hours. Little of it was planning, and test runs for damage, because Poison Rods or Thunder Rods weren't cutting it too well. Wind, Water and Holy weaknesses were the scary parts, as Wind/Water could end my guys, hence Celes or Relm focusing on Reraise when they could, taking away from damage a bit, but it's necessary. If he did any of those three, Dispel. I'd constantly have Scan go off asap, followed by Dispel if necessary, but sometimes he was just too quick and would get an attack in and wipe everyone. So barring 4 hours of slowly whittling him down with all my Rods, constant Reraising, Tinctures, Slim Jims if he did Giga Volt or whatever set Sap, I won. I was down to 10ish or so of the Rods and 20 Tinctures and just relieved he died when he did.

Straight up, him and Hidon, along with Atma Weapon are the trifecta of pain in this mod. I cry for Kefka's Tower, cause I have no idea how bad it'll be or if it'll even be possible. Guess we'll find out. I went and farmed gil afterwards, refilled my stock of Rods and such, as well as refilled Slim Jims for the anticipation of horror that will probably come. I'm currently barely into Kefka's Tower and about to rematch Atma Weapon. I'll report back when I win if I win.

The Finale: LLG Complete

After several days of nerve-wracking fun, and the boss rush gauntlet that is Kefka's Tower, my LLG has ended in victory. It took so long because I kept escaping after each fight to restock, refarm gil and traverse the tower all over for each path. They also changed the map layout so for normal plays, each team had a fair amount of bosses. Oh and Kaiser's a thing now, which was pretty badass. Every boss in here was a nightmare, except Myria, who people keep telling me she is brutal, but I just didn't see it. Some fights, like the Dragons that I felt were a joke, or Isis, suddenly got hectic VERY fast, and turned into sandbag raising while desperately trying to deal damage. My entire party through the tower was Celes/Strago/Gogo/Gau except for 1 fight where I swapped Gau for Shadow.

So, let's get to it, then.

Atma 2.0

I forgot to take a picture of him, sorry. I had one saved and I overwrote the file. He wasn't much different than Atmaweapon, just WAY more beefy. Celes/Strago/Gogo/Gau for this. I can't remember if I wanted to swap someone out here, but I think I liked this team. I want to say I wanted to replace Strago with Shadow...that may've been another fight. Him or Gau, I don't remember. Anyway, this was mostly Conjurer/Smoke Bomb spamming, and HFB like crazy. He's too damaging and sooner or later you'll eat one of his attacks, Meteo I think. Flare Star was a joke, dealing 22 damage on the phase change, and Mind Blast was pretty easy to manage. Overall, this wasn't as bad as some of the later fights, and I don't have much to comment on him.

Guardian



Sweet fuck this guy. He has 6 programs and a "hidden" 7th. First was Ultros, which floored me and I couldn't survive it with anyone but Celes theoretically. After some test runs I wanted to leave and come back with all the HP tanky characters (Edgar, Mog, maybe Sabin or Cyan) and just turtle up and spam HFB, but I decided to see if Celes could just solo him. Sure enough, she could, as nothing he did once I got her set up could kill her. However, to help with Tentacle and such, I'd time it perfectly to get Gogo up, Smoke Bomb me then continue. Soon enough, he fell and Soul Train was next. This one was really, really easy to manage and I actually had to reload him when he got close to death so I could get some people alive for the next program: Dadaluma. Dadaluma summoned 2 Androids, one would always Explode for 3000 damage, the other did Delete, some physical attack, while Guardian would Jump.

Having someone eat the Explode, while I threw HFB at the other, worked nicely. Defend on Celes cause Guardian seemed to favor her for Jumps and Defend was the only way to survive him. Luckily, Guardian doesn't recall his friends like the real Dadaluma does, and the rest of the fight went smoothly, except for Spoon, which seemed to be on a timer. Celes would solo him again and when possible, raise people to hopefully eat said Spoon. Otherwise, he wasn't super bad. 4th program? Cranes. PTSD kicked in but hilariously, how the tables have turned. Now with Multiguards, they could do nothing to me and Magnitude, its timed ability I believe, canceled by Float. I used this time to revive everyone, Smoke Bomb all, Slim Jim up, everything. Fully buffed and then I just massacred Cranes, followed by Doom Gaze who got a whopping 1 attack off (Doom, blocked), and the same for it's 6th program, Hidon. I freaked seeing Hidon and just went full damage hoping I'd win.

Thank you god for HFB, and as you can see in the picture, I risked the end with Celes throwing one hoping he was low on HP. He only got 1 attack off; Quasar, and then he was dead. Fuck him. Hilariously, 7th program was Gato, our favorite robot cat from Chrono Trigger, who beat himself up then promptly gave me my Silver Points. Hurray.

Gold and Green Dragons, with Inferno

Next up, the last 2 Dragons and Inferno. No pics again, sorry. Firstly, Gold is the Thunder based Dragon and as easy as he appeared...he really wasn't. Starlight is on a timer and it's basically a blockable Quasar but it's really not much better. This was a constant sandbag fight, getting people up, trying to get Image on people, trying to Reraise, trying to throw HFB, it was just stressful. Besides this, he wasn't too bad but man, fuck Starlight.

Green Dragon, again, appeared like a joke except for his timed attack, Nightmare. Giving everyone Black Hearts here to stop Poison attacks, (I originally did Ghost Rings stupidly thinking he had nothing else for me, then I saw Nightmare) his only attack that hurt was Nightmare. Basically an unavoidable Quasar with a fancy name. Yet again, sandbag and survive, Reraise up and try to deal damage. Just stressful and nerve-wracking but he went down eventually. Cool part? Sap works on this asshole; Gogo did X-Meteo and he never removed the Sap.

Finally, Inferno. This guy was just fucking annoying more than challenging. His arms would near instant recover anytime I killed them, he was fast as hell, constantly attacking me, and he has access to HasteX. Not fun. 2 Reflect Rings on Celes/Strago, Gogo and Gau doing Repo Man with Celes focusing on Reraising them, with Strago Refracting them after, otherwise, sandbag anyone who died, HFB if I could (which most of the time hit the damn arms) and rinse/repeat. Long winded fight, stressful and annoying. Nothing really much else to comment on as most of the strategies for him and others are Conjurer or Repo Man, Reraise with Celes or Runic if able/can't avoid instant death magic, Refract and HFB spam. Sorry for not much detail; these fights were pretty basic/the same at least for me.

Kaiser



This guy, was pretty rough. Having no experience due to him being dummied content originally, he felt like Magi Master 2.0 with all the Wallchanges and other fuck you moves he'd do. Yet again, mostly Image, Reraise, HFB and just survive. Sadly, I'm blanking on remembering a lot of these fights cause I did them days ago, they all kind of meld together and it's really the same strategy for most barring a few equip and relic changes here and there. I really should've typed up a summary immediately after fighting them, so that's my fault. He was challenging though, truly, and had a LOT of HP. What was cool was he was Sapable, which helped with damage. Give or take for these fights, 40-50 HFB and other damage is needed; it's pretty staggering.

Asura, Isis and Myria





Good god. These 3 weren't super bad but they were annoying. Firstly, Asura. Meteo and Tsunami would fuck me, usually Tsunami. So again, Reraise spam and try to deal damage. If anyone got Cold Dusted, Fire Rod them. Luckly it was only ever single target and not everyone (I can hear BTB wringing his hands now evil-like). Besides that, he wasn't much of a fight; like a buffed up Blue Dragon. Float also for Magnitude.

Isis I originally figured was a god damn joke, even with Charm, which I shield blocked often and if someone was hit, Shuriken to face (Poison Rod if Gogo). That quickly changed when she went into Haste->Qausar->Starlight->Quasar faster than I could even do anything. It also as you can see didn't help I had Gogo/Gau on the same side and Rages can't assist opposite sides, sadly. I did contemplate restarting and changing that but wanted to see if I could win without it. To survive her bullshit, I'd Reraise Gogo/Gau get up, have 1 do Conjurer, other throw HFB and try to survive. Once she settled down, I worked on getting Celes up, who would Reraise herself, followed by Strago if able. This worked, just it was still hectic with Quasar. I'm pretty sure Quasar is my most hated move in the game now.

Finally, Myria. She was honestly a joke, but from what chat told me after I fought her, she really isn't. I'm guessing Flare Star is the killer here, since of Overcast/Zombie. Since my levels were low, it was only 22 or 67 damage each time. For this I opted to use Shadow over Gau as an extra Thrower and his sheer speed, since the fight was Image+Holy Water, and because Reraise was useless, so why not. What was really nice was Slim Jims still working even after Zombie->Holy Water. This made the fight really, really easy. Otherwise, HFB her and she went down very quickly.

With all 3 goddesses dead, the finale was at hand. I exited and spent time farming more Slim Jims, making sure I had max Phoenix Downs and HFB, and other necessities. Then, it was time to tackle the tower of pain.

Tower of Pain with Kefka

So. This was fun. The first part of the tower are a face and two hands. Upon starting, they act first and royally fucked me. Lot of testing here but I went with an evasion set up+Sprint Shoes and Back Guards on everyone but Celes, who got a Death Guard over Sprint Shoes. I REALLY regret not giving Gogo a Snow Muffler (I don't know WHY I didn't, because I gave Gau one) but it would've made the 3rd boss so much easier to handle. Black Hearts, which would've been useful for Poison/Holy negating, are worthless because of the first boss spamming Demi/Quarter. Otherwise, Multiguards and such out the ass for all. Celes/Strago/Gogo/Gau for the entire way. I had Terra as #5 solely for Kefka over Strago because 1. Ragnarok free 9999 and 2. Gogo Mimicking that. I feared I'd run low on HFB and a quick 20,000 damage option would be very useful. I put Relm as #6 for Reraise incase Gau wasn't cutting it and as an option. I didn't set anyone else.

So for the first boss, once I could survive the initial wave of attacks, I have Gau doing Conjurer, Gogo doing Smoke Bombs and Celes doing Slow (I fucking derped hard, but rebounded for 2nd boss onward; have someone Rage Vaporite for SlowX) and Strago doing Bad Breath/Raze/Blaze for Sap. Blaze's chances seem low, Raze was pretty high and Bad Breath seemed even better. Once Sap/Slow were on, it was all about survival and throwing HFB to get ONE of them dead. I did Short Arm first, then Face died, followed by the last hand, which I made sure I buffed before killing.

The second boss, 4 people this time (there's like...5 there, always confused me) but much more "friendly". They like the spam magic which I could absorb except for Bio, Break and such, but it was doable. Hit was brutal with 2-4 attacks it seemed, so again my first order of business was to Slow them asap. Gogo or Gau did that, while the other did Conjurer. Once Slowed, Green Cherried and put on Reraise duty also, Gogo if able to Smoke Bomb while Strago did Bad Breath and Celes threw HFB. Extremely nerve-wracking. Once I got 1-2 down it was pretty easy, and again I had the middle one alive, who wasn't much of a threat. Used her or him to buff myself, and move onto the third boss.

Oh, fuck this duo hard. This was the fight of the mod right here.

It's only 2 but the girl part likes to do Moonlight I think or Starlight, or both. Either or, fuck her. Even better, she likes using Holy Wind for 9999 nearly every other turn just about. Then, the guy likes using Quasar or a Condemn move. So nice combo going on here. I'll be honest, my heart sank here seeing this because 1. I didn't think I could deal enough damage inbetween Holy Wind and Quasar and 2. Fucking SURVIVE. However, each boss up to here had...20-30,000 HP or so, and I figured if I could deal 5000+ or so with each HFB at her, she may die and leave Mr. Quasar Fuck to deal with, which I can HOPEFULLY survive.

So, I started doing so and luckily enough, she died after 20,000ish damage, and he did Quasar after. I recovered and slowly worked him down with just Gogo/Gau again, one spamming Conjurer, the other doing HFB. I got Strago to Sap him to help, also, but him and Celes were mostly dead for the fight after the girl died. Near the end I managed to recover with some lucky Peace or other shield blocked Sandstorms (this is where I wish I had Snow Muffler on Gogo) and killed him, but not before a final Merton farewell, which fuck him, it only healed me.

Just to show how bad I was going into Kefka, here's a tally of my meds and inventory, because this fight got bad, very quickly.



So with that, onto Kefka.

Kefka was...pretty difficult, I'll say that. I think the hard part was his speed, he was very fast, and he had Regen which didn't help. Couldn't Slow him, and Dispel seemed to do nothing, either. Due to my supply of HFB I quickly ran out and he wasn't dead yet, and this was mixed in with Repo Man here and there. For the most part, it was another sandbag fight, and at the end I was down to 2 Phoenix Downs and 3 Tears I believe. I had been using Celes as nothing more than a Life/Reraise slave, while Strago did Blow Fish to try and cancel 4 ticks of his Regen, with Gogo and Gau both doing Repo Man if possible, otherwise one would do Conjurer. Kefka would counter sometimes with Goner, Meteor or other fun stuff, which I had to use Runic to cancel the Meteor, but Goner was basically pray I had Reraise on. Luckily, he'd follow up each time with Fallen One which really was a free turn, and then he'd do something basic like Havoc or a tier 3 spell that would only heal me.

Image helped for Havoc counters, because at the end he was double attacking with it. This fight took a couple hours, I think each boss was 2 each give or take of slowly killing them and surviving. Kept at it with Repo Man and raising and before long, I got the "I'll be back" speech which scared me at first cause that's not in vanilla and I thought he was going into a 2nd phase, but nope:



And with that, the LLG is completed. My nerves are just done, but I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, I did this to myself.

Just want to thank BTB and Synchysi for a very well made mod to one of my favorite games of all time, and in my opinion the best FF game. I'll play it normally next time, but for 2.0 release I will LLG it again, barring enough was changed; otherwise, normal play through. The challenge is definitely here, even in normal play and I love every change and difficulty ramp up made to things, even if I was hating it at some points.

Good luck to anyone else who decides to do a LLG of their own, and if anyone can manage different strategies or ways to win without HFB or different party set ups, I encourage you to post/write them, or even post it here for me to see.

Total clear time: 99 hours, 59 minutes and whatever+ the game couldn't hold. To quote Zelda from Robot Chicken "Wow, you suck".

MVP: Celes, hands down.



Gogo/Gau were very useful, Strago closely behind, but having an unkillable tank for almost anything not Meteo/Quasar/Goner etc, way too good.

My MVP go-to team set up was definitely Celes, Strago, Gogo and Gau, bar-fucking-none. Sabin as an absolute honorable mention for the WoB section. Shadow, Relm, Mog and Edgar as runner ups in few select fights, Terra, I can't comment on but like a lesser Celes except for the final part where Ragnarok may've been very useful, and she was my saving grace for Magi Master, and Umaro as amazingly useful for Doom Gaze in my opinion. Cyan, Locke, Setzer, I wish I could've used Cyan more but bleh. Locke as a Throw-less Shadow and meh, and lolSetzer sadly in LLG.

That's all. Hopefully anyone reading was entertained by my mindless rambling and "derp I used Reraise a lot and bouncy balls" but this was to show the game is beatable LLG and anyone complaining the fights are too difficult, take a step back and use strategy; they are very much so winnable.

Thanks again everyone.

Edit: MVP items:

Congrats on beating the LLG!

So in the end, the HFBs ARE fun! Grats for winning. Do you think it'll be theoretically possible to beat LLG without HFB?

Kefka's quote is a throwback to the battle against him in Narshe, where he said the same thing.

As far as I'm aware, some fights are not winnable without HFB. I'm more than happy to be proved wrong, but stuff like the tower bosses+Kefka, good luck. Hidon, Wrexsoul (Dr. Letha proved this winnable without them but he's crazy and it's extreme RNG luck) and White Dragon and mostly everything in Kefka's Tower need them, in my opinion.

To be fair, the only thing that posed any legitimate threat in the Hidon fight–after the initial clusterfuck that the first few turns were–was a critical Mega Claw landing. Everything else was a non-issue with the proper timing.

The Soul Fires were RNG assholes just waiting to rear their ugly sphincter-heads, but Celes doesn't give a solitary fuck about the RNG.

Celes <3

Just as a side note and for a future thing, I do plan on eventually streaming a LLG of BNW on my twitch account, but I'd like to wait till 2.0 for that. If 2.0 is like, 10 years off I'll do another 1.7.2-ish run live and save it to Youtube, but not sure anyone wants to watch hours of me fighting bosses.

I'm back and doing the promised live stream of LLG. Started last night, and going every night or so till completion. If you missed a run, you can catch it on Youtube.

Click here for my Twitch channel.

Link to my Youtube and video #1.