Insane Difficulty: FFT Solo Temple Knight Challenge - Insane Difficulty

So... 3 and a half years. And right after I said I'd intended to finish it.

*cough*

Well, strictly speaking, this still counts.

https://www.youtube....h?v=Eur7--_VD8g

And here's something explaining the state of my channel and the like.

https://www.youtube....bed/27kScaqrspI

I can't say where it'll be going from here. I do want to finish. Right now, the biggest problem is the editing. I loved making the run itself again, but my mood was significantly darkened when I spent twice as long just editing my sniffs and snorts out of the video. If you don't remember, this isn't a cold, I always make those sounds. Stupid broken sinuses. So it's not a temporary thing. I may just have to settle for doing whatever the automated noise cancelling will do. Any help on the audio will be appreciated.

Right now, I'm going to engage in some power leveling and item hunting, before going into Goug Machine city. Golgorand is going to be one of the nastiest battles in the game, I think, if I'm not over-leveled. A good shield and mantle are really my best hope there. As I said earlier (3.5 years earlier) I'm not opposed to hacking in the needed items. However, I do enjoy the leveling itself, and if I find any items along the way, all the better. I will also engage in a 'demo' of sorts.

I'm going to record myself collecting the crystal or treasure box of one human enemy, once I manage to find one during power-leveling. This will demonstrate my ability and tactics in collecting items. As I said, farming the right item is just doing that exact same process over and over again for eternity, so I feel it's well within the spirit of the challenge to hack it if the Random Number Gods don't favor me. I will also use this video to see what people think of a video whose sound is purely automatically edited. If it's too bad, then I'll go back to full editing, but if people are okay with it, my upload rate should be much more often (perhaps once every 2 years!)

Anyway, good to be back, and I hope I stick around for longer!

So, made my audio test and item hunt demo video. Went rather well, actually.

https://youtu.be/WVSfzeWln9A

Right now, I'm going to be determining what gear to try to get before going to Goug.

Sword
- Platinum Sword (Level 28)
- Ice Brand (level 34 is pushing it though)

Shield
- Platina Shield (Level 29)
- Elemental and Aegis shields are below that level as well

Head
- Crystal Helmet (Level 27, best helmet I can get)

Body
- Carabini Mail (level 30)
- White / Black Robe (level 26 / 31)
- It seems Chameleon Robe can't be equipped by NPCs. Damnit Queklain.

Accessory
- These all drop at very high levels. As such, there are none to farm. The Elf Mantle doesn't drop until 40.

So it looks like I'll aim for level 30, as that's not quite at the level cap, and everything but the Ice Brand can be found before there. Ice Brand and Black Robe would be powerful, but Ice Brand is so close to 35, that I'd probably break the level cap before the end of the chapter, so I won't do it unless I end up absolutely flummoxed, which I don't really see happening.

Boards seem to be pretty quiet these days. As I probably won't be needing the same amount of help with this run as I did with Geomancer, I'll probably not be posting here anymore. I say pretty much everything I do in my videos anyway. I might make additional posts here if I feel I do need assistance, though.

If you haven't seen my videos, I've now reach Chapter 3, and am in the process of power-leveling so I can get the best gear. Check out my videos to see where I've gone since this post!

Still editing the footage, but I've run into my first wall. Velius is turning out to be very difficult. Worse, I can't even think of a way I MIGHT beat him. And it's actually due to something I can't change without hacking. My Zodiac. Normally, you want good zodiac with enemies, but Beowulfs big damage guns are Drain and Shock, neither of which do more damage based on Zodiac. Drains success rate is improved, but that's not the important bit.

Since I never really 'decided' to go with Capricorn for any good reason, and I haven't really made use of it in any battles before now, I think I'll have to change it. Bad Zodiac is going to be important, moreso than good zodiac. Bad Zodiac will help me trade drains with certain enemies more easily. While my success rate will go down, if I can keep draining the damage back with each hit I take, I'll just have to keep playing until I get lucky. That's better than now, where I'm just guaranteed to lose (you'll see in the video, the Velius battle is 100% deterministic, which is why I think winning might actually be impossible). Likewise, Bad Zodiac with a boss will allow me to stay at low HP for longer for more Shocks. For this reason, I'd like to be at Bad or Neutral Zodiac with as many Zodiac beasts as possible. Non-Zodiac bosses aren't that much of a threat, as they're pretty much guaranteed to go down to a Shock and one other attack.

The exception to this is Celia, Lede and Elmdor on the rooftops, who I'll probably only have one turn to kill anyway. And really, after Weigraf and the Rooftop, there are no Zodiac Beasts before I get the Excalibur, which should make everything easier anyway, and I might actually be able to double drain my HP back. Being able to do that reliably is nice, but a Bad Zodiac for taking damage from them will add more 'swing' to the fights, and might be the selling point.

So, Sagitarius, Gemini and Pisces have bad Zodiac with Velius. Pisces has Best Zodiac with Celia, which would maybe make a difference when I try to sword stab here, I think it might be enough to win the battle. It would also give me bad Zodiac against Zalera and Altima, Neutral with Hasmalum, and Good with Adremelk. Well, nothing is perfect.

Sagitarius gives me no bonuses against the Rooftop Battle, however that's not too important, as a Crit or proc off of an Ice Sword with Black Robe and Gauntlet should be enough with Neutral zodiac. Sagitarius only gives me bad with Zalera and Altima.

Gemini gives me a Best with Lede, and Neutral Zodiac on everything else but Altima. Gemini appears to be an improvement over Pisces, but Ademelk is the fight where you get to work with Zalbag, so maybe that'd shake things up.

Fortunately, Altima is the same Zodiac as Velius, if you hadn't noticed, so those two go together. With Bad for Zalera, Sagitarius seems to be the winner. Regardless, I won't make the next video for another week or two, so I'll see if anyone has thoughts to share here on what they might pick.

STILL-----

The one issue I have here is with Gafgarion. He's also Virgo, and if I had bad Zodiac with him, that fight would have gone differently, as I'd have needed a second attack to kill him... so I can't change my Zodiac in total good conscience here. Golgorand would have gone much worse without good Zodiac. It might have even become a total nightmare, as not being able to one-shot him, would mean he'd drain the health back and I might end up having had to 3 shot him or something. I MIGHT have been able to one-shot him with an Ice Brand Crit or Ice Proc, but that's about all I can think of.

As such, I'd really prefer to find a way to beat Velius without resorting to Zodiac changing. Alternatively... I think I still have a save file from around that time. If I can beat Gafgarion as a non-capricorn, then I'd be able to do this guiltlessly.

Turns out Velius has variable faith. I might turn that in my favor by encountering him with low faith, and then be able to out-drain his Clops attack...

He's also silenceable... which stops Clops.. but not the 100% confusion of Loss.

Still, these give me new alternatives to try before hacking my Zodiac. We'll see where this goes. I've prepared a save file from before Gafgarion. If I need to change my Zodiac, I will go back and fight Gafgarion with that changed Zodiac first, to prove that I can. Once I win that battle, I'll return to the fight with Weigraf with that Zodiac.