Insane Difficulty: Garet's playthrough - Insane Difficulty

So, I've been back at work two days now, and my holidays are at an end sadly. Though the amount of food, drink and partying I packed into those few days would have choked an elephant. Hope everyone here had a good Christmas!

Anywho, my little cousin was in on both Christmas Eve and the night before when my friends and I where getting drunk on Christmas cheer (and very strong red-coloured stuff in a bowl that tasted like a weird fruit mixture). He played the absolute shit out of Hot and Cold for me and I now have a Robe of Lords in addition to the Protect Ring he had already gotten me. I picked up with the story after upgrading my fleet-footed red-feathered birdie into a dirty-feathered oceanic blue-coloured one. Once I did that I travelled around completing the Chocographs bar those on the Forgotten Continent, whilst having Choco chip his beak on the many cracks throughout the world currently accessible to me. Then I hit the bubbles scattered throughout the oceans. With all that out of the way I went along with the story and my party is now split and the Forgotten Continent beckoned! I completed the two Chocographs on the Forgotten Continent and grabbed the two cracks there as well. That means the only Dead Pepper treasure I have to grab now is the Ultima Weapon for Zidane on Disc 4.

The party I took to Oeilvert consisted of Zidane, Freya and Steiner. Garnet came along too but once I was inside Oeilvert she amounted to little more than a wall. The Light Robe I got from one Chocograph came with the much-needed Half MP and a major defensive boost. Garnet can throw out nearly 2000 damage for only 20MP now. Yes, please. That was my strategy for the things outside Oeilvert. Garnet looked at them sideways and things died. When she could be bothered to look that is. Steiner shut down mobs with Sleep and Silence whilst Zidane ran with the Butterfly Sword. Major cut to his attack I know but Darkness was invaluable for dealing with those Ogres inside Oeilvert. They're Trouble Knife was wrecking me! The set-up I went with meant the only thing they had of consequence was Flame. Reis Wind and Restore more-or-less made that obsolete too.

I breezed through Oeilvert surprisingly easily. My easy run-of-things though ended when I reached Ark. I had a bit of forewarning so I took extra care preparing my equipment and abilities. Here's my level, equipment and abilities for Ark:

Zidane: Level 33. Equipment: Angel Bless, Green Beret, Egoist's Armlet, Power Vest, Rosetta Ring. Auto-abilities: Distract, Bird Killer, Master Thief, Gamble Defence, Auto-potion, Clear Headed and Bandit.

Garnet: Level 32. Equipment: Whale Whisker, Green Beret, Egoist's Armlet, Robe of Lords, Aquamarine. Auto-abilities: Chemist, Ability Up, Auto-potion, Clear Headed.

Freya: Level 30 (Enough MP for Dragon Breath without MP boost). Equipment: Dragon's Hair, Lamia's Tiara, Gauntlets, Shield Armour, Promist Ring. Auto-abilities: Accuracy +, Distract, High Jump, Gamble Defence, Chemist, Auto-potion, Clear Headed.

Steiner: Level 29. Equipment: Diamond Sword, Genji Helmet, Thunder Gloves, Shield Armour, Rebirth Ring. Auto-abilities: Accuracy +, Distract, Bird Killer, Chemist, Auto-potion, Clear Headed.

This meant that my defences where solid enough in the face of everything that Ark could throw at me without sacrificing the abilities I was trying to learn. Everyone was in the back row except for Steiner. Zidane focused on Stealing until I grabbed everything of note, then he shifted to keeping Steiner's MP high with Ethers. Garnet healed when necessary. Freya threw up Reis Wind and then Jumped. Steiner focused on Thunder Strike. Freya and Steiner where clocking roughly 1500 damage each which Zidane matched with Meo Twister when he went Trance. Photon surprised me though -- instead of knocking me down to only 1 HP it fragging killed me outright! That was definitely an annoyance and one that kept coming back to bite me in the ass. Propeller Wind was a wasted turn I was thankful for at some points. Whirlwind and Boomerang where of no consequence either -- Chemist, Auto-potion, and the back row mitigated both fairly well. I actually didn't bother with a poor man's Mighty Guard. All-in-all far more difficult than the vanilla version, but nothing that wasn't tolerable. Did a number on my Hi-potion supply though and my Ether's have seen better days too

I'll pick up the Desert Palace at a later time.

So, I've finally found some time in the post-Christmas rush to pick this up again. Amarant, Vivi, Eiko and Quina are holding together easier than I though in the Desert Palace to be honest, especially since Quina's Level 5 Death ain't working. Oh well, I'll manage. Amarant is easily the MVP by far though that doesn't come as much of a surprise. Chakra to keep my mage-strong party in MP and Empower to soar the strength of his Rising Sun throw. The mage enemy -- Driad? -- are vulnerable to Sleep. So everyone in my party has Insomniac so Quina can throw out Night. Amarant uses Empower and then Rising Sun to clock 4000+ damage! I haven't seen figures like that in this game yet! Not even Garnet or Eiko with their Summons. The tiger-looking things die to a single Flare from Vivi or a Rising Sun/Water combination if MP is an issue. The boy that switches between states are susceptible to Night as well, meaning I can easily shut down 2/3's of the enemies inside the Palace without effort. Quite nice. It allowed me to catch the others up in both level and abilities, which has took a little time (no Level Up).

The Chocographs treasures meant that my party -- especially the mages -- are decked out in brilliant equipment for this point in the game. One Black Robe, One White Robe, One Light Robe and the one Robe of Lords my little cousin got me playing Hot and Cold over Christmas. Zidane and Amarant have Power Vests apiece which helped their defence no end, whilst Steiner and Freya are using Shield Armour. I could give them the Demon's Mail for extra defensive power but the elemental protection helped no end against those Ogres with Flame. So I'm in a good place equipment and ability-wise and looking forward to Ipsen's Castle so I can grab Zidane's strongest dagger.

But I've gotta kill the boss in the Desert Palace first

The fucking ridiculous power increase you get from chocographs at this point make Desert Palace a snooze.

I sort of get the impression that this point (Oilvert to entering Terra) were balanced around minimal hot and cold... Which is a mistake. Being both pretty-fun-for-a-minigame and the source of all of the best loot in the game, I feel like everyone who plays this mod is making a beeline for chocobo air garden as soon as it is available.

Kjata, on 09 January 2016 - 02:47 AM, said:

Getting the "secret" ocean ones aswell kinda imbalances the game since i dont believe landon has modified summons power formula, as far as i can tell its still BASEPWR+(#of gems in inventory) for alot of summons & it feels like only the initial basepower is lower, i havent bothered grinding out 99 topaz's for fenrir in this mod but if im correct in that been unchanged it gives eiko a cheap(ish) 100+ power boostable wind elemental attack.

You get 40~ lapis lazulis for one of the ocean digs, arks full sequence is boosted by lapis lazulis aswell.
Not that anyone actually casts ark for damage anyway.. (dat regen <3)

You only need 71 amethysts to cap out atomos's damage formula in vanilla, and i believe thats the same here ((30+amethysts)*HP/100))
(101*hp/100 = overkill)
Doing this^^ gives you a guaranteed 9999 vs all non-boss/non-grav immune enemies(random encounters)
Havent got around to testing that here because im operating under the assumping everything is going to be grav immune on disc4 because of this^^

Theres still that 38% chance to not game over /w eiko in the party if you have 99 pineons aswell, rebirth flame OP.

Anyway on topic, Goodluck when you get to emo zidane phase, that bit gave me a decent amount of trouble even with the prep i'd done for it!

Garet980, on 28 December 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

Ribbon + Tent = 800g Elixir!!

/e: Tested boosting /w ramuh & peridots because i had 99 of them and i dont like ramuh.
With 99 peridots full animation & nothing affecting elemental damage he hit 4.6k
With 0 peridots, full animation & nothing affecting elemental damage he hit 600 damage.
Also peridots heal for alot more hp than i remember them healing for when used on party members, 9.9k hp heal? OP plz nerf!!

Sorry for the delay. Work's been keeping me busy. That and the fact my boss is an ass.

Anyways, killed the boss in Desert Palace rather easily. Didn't even bother with Vivi's Osmose: all I did was throw up Carbuncle and watch as the fool bugger killed himself. The monotony was broken occasionally with Amarant using Empower followed by Rising Suns up the wazoo. Vivi bounced Flare's at him and Quina stood and looked hungry. The Desert palace party are between levels 33-35. Zidane's party are 31-33. I'll probably run with Zidane, Vivi, Freya and Quina (to learn Twister) for Mount Gulug. Once I have Twister I'll back-track and switch Quina for either Amarant or Steiner, though saying as how the monsters in there are weak to a number of status ailments in the vanilla game I'll probably run Steiner. Sleep Sword + Vivi's magic sounds like a hellish combination to me. Also because Steiner is a solid source for damage. Thunder Slash empowered by Thunder Gloves and Rejuvenation to restore his MP afterwards did wonders in Oielvert.

Nice!

The dragons in Mt Gulug shouldn't give you much trouble (or maybe yeah, they can be pretty frustrating at times.)

As long as you prepare for Meltigemini's damage from Virus Breath, the rest is cake.

Works been hectic, so I've only been able to pick this up infrequently; not enough to warrant an update, until now. I'm through Mount Gulug and I found it far more difficult than it should have been. Though most of that boils down to poor planning and even poorer execution on my part. I ran with Zidane, Vivi (mandatory), Freya and Quina. When I encountered my first Red Dragon I succeeded in eating it for Twister, which is overpowered at this point. I also picked up Bad Breathe which wasn't too bad an addition. I back-tracked in order to switch Quina for Steiner.

That was when the poor planning and execution began plaguing me.

I was able to deal good damage -- Vivi's Flare, Steiner's boosted Thunder Slash and Freya's Jump -- but I had no real way of healing. I managed to beat the twin Red Dragons at the bottom of the well after some difficulty, by using an approach that amounted to little more than shock and awe blitzkrieg! Freya was the only one to survive the battle and went up four levels as a result, overtaking Zidane. I quickly switched Steiner out for Garnet before tackling Meltigemini.

Oh. My. God.

Hardest fight by far thus far in the mod. His opener offed Garnet and Eiko in one go and I forgot to equip Antibody. But I'm stubborn as a mule so I rolled with the punches, happy that I had plenty of Antidotes. Once I got a strategy in place things became far more manageable. Zidane got all the steals, Eiko threw up Carbuncle (wouldn't have won without this), Freya used Reis' Wind when needed, with Garnet chucking out Summons for 2000+ damage. I definitely underestimated Meltigemini. If he had Auto-Regen I would not have won that fight without more preparation.

Anywho, gonna finish up Hot and Cold now that I have my Airship, then pay the water place a visit.

Edit:

Freya's become a mainstay, alongside Garnet. That may change in favour of Eiko in the future as things start to get difficult, but for now Garnet's putting out way too much party-wide damage for me to shelve her. I'm also going to go towards regen-based healing during summoning sequences so I can focus more on damage. My low-level runs through the vanilla game worked well enough with regen and Bahamut, so that's the plan going forward. I'm honestly not sure who to run with alongside Zidane, Freya and Garnet however. Quina's got awesome utility and potential damage. It also has auto-life which would have solved a lot of my problems against the Mount Gulug bosses. Amarant hits very high damage with Empower and Throw, but it takes some time to build up to those larger numbers, and he's great for restoring MP. Vivi's far too MP intensive even with Half MP, though Flare is hard to ignore simply because its hitting very high numbers. Eiko has amazing skills -- a lot of my victories lately can be laid solely at her feet. Steiner, however, is a frigging beast! Self-heals, impressive damage whenever I need it without preparation, and he can hit the entire enemy party if need be.

So, yeah, I'm in a bit of a dilemma at the moment

Congrats, I actually had more difficulty with Meltigemini than I would care to admit, most of which came from me trying to kill it without reflect because I'm not very smart and forgot that Eiko had Carbuncle.

I can see him being a problem on a non-grindy playthrough. He was kind of RNGish on my end, because of my purposefully non-grindy playthrough, and yet, what you described pretty much fit my situation. Except in my case, iirc, my Eiko did not have Carbuncle (or I didnt see it as viable because of reasons.)

You're getting closer to the best parts! I'll be cheering!

Tray1990, on 16 February 2016 - 01:01 PM, said:

I forgot about Carbuncle myself if I'm being honest. It could very well be that reflect that sways my decision to swap Garnet for Eiko in the near future. Carbuncle, when Boosted, throws out a party-wide Protect as well. Combine that with Freya's Reis' Wind and you've got a cheap-man's Mighty Guard. Protect would solve a lot of my defensive problems, especially with Steiner in the front row.

Laith, on 16 February 2016 - 01:22 PM, said:

I mentioned this before but the random battles are killing/troubling me more consistently than the bosses themselves. The twin red Dragons and Meltigemini were the first bosses to really make me scratch my head and go: "Now how am I going to deal with this? The first slaps me with party-wide damage, whilst the second's opener kills half my team and I was stupid with my auto-abilities". The last boss I had that gave me a real run for my money was Lani on Disc 2.

Though I'm actually relishing the challenge when I hit Terra. Unless he buffed the Earth Guardian I don't imagine that fight will be too much trouble, considering Quina rocks in this mod. Again, that sounds so strange

Earth Guardian is fun, I actually remembered one thing: when you get there, let us know the details to see if the same thing happened to you as when I tried to approach this battle. I shat bricks.

Laith, on 18 February 2016 - 11:22 AM, said:

In summary I should be on the lookout for a new pair of trousers then I've still got Ipsen's Castle to do, but I'll let you know what happens with the Earth Shrine.

Shouldn't be necessarily hard, but I was surprised and laughed my ass off.

That's funny I don't remember Earth Guardian being all that interesting, he died pretty easily without doing anything all that interesting on my end but it's been a little bit and I might just be forgetting. The Terra bosses weren't too bad it's the 3 forced encounters with Zidane that really screwed me up mainly because, as far as I know, you can't change half your party's setup once you get to Bran Bal (I think I said something about this before so if I did, sorry for repeating it) and I think the last chance you have to save before that is on Gaia. But yeah, that part was probably the roughest in the game for me.

There are certain characters you have to prepare before entering the Shimmering Island. I believe they might be Freya and Steiner, and well Dagger (not entirely sure).

That was a pain for me in a way because I had to be nitpicky, considering I was probably around the mid 20s by that point, and I couldn't fuck around at any moment, with equipment, skills, and battle choices.

Tray1990, on 18 February 2016 - 12:32 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure you can change nearly everyone's shit around at some point in terra. I think garnet may be the only one you can't.