Anyone did a 122333 game?

[lte]

Personally I just finished the low lv challenge (http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/459841/46465) and I have to say after getting the firefly it wasn't really that hard, just time consuming when you had to gain extra Gil and LP. I did 90% of the hunts with lv1-3 chars, and even aquired Turnesoul in that game.

Mimic queen, Vossler, Tiamat were propably the toughest bosses but all bosses/hunts went with 1-3 tries. So anyone else done this challenge?

[sirlaguna]

No but it does sound like a good idea thanks for that lte :)

[Shiva_]

I'm doing it right now. It's been very fun and quite challenging. It was really difficult at first and rough at times, though.

I'm about to start the Pharos. For some time, I've been doing the available marks and also getting all the items, equipment, accessories, etc. I need before heading into the Pharos.
I've done the first 3 storyline espers, zalera, and cuchalain so far.

The hardest battles so far have been Firemame (just didn't bring enough potions so I had to farm for some), Judges on the Leviathan, and Mateus. These battles took at least 3 tries.

Mimic Queen wasn't too bad. I suprisingly defeated Vossler on the first try. I remember him taking 2 tries on my original playthrough because he in his Enrage state wiped out all of my guys the 1st time. Tiamat was just long.

I was so relieved when I got my first Firefly. It took me like at least 30 tries to get it as I could never get the chest to spawn, and even when it spawned, it wasn't in there. The journey to the chest was long, and getting mobbed by zombies on the way there got quite aggravating at times. Fortunately, once I got it, I was able to get out a different way, and that way out was less unpleasant. Once I got it, I was finally able to License everyone up by having the Firefly-equipped character chain Dustias while everybody else had Golden Amulets.

All of the other battles haven't as hard since licensing everyone up.

[lte]

I'm doing it right now. It's been very fun and quite challenging. It was really difficult at first and rough at times, though.

I'm about to start the Pharos. For some time, I've been doing the available marks and also getting all the items, equipment, accessories, etc. I need before heading into the Pharos.
I've done the first 3 storyline espers, zalera, and cuchalain so far.

The hardest battles so far have been Firemame (just didn't bring enough potions so I had to farm for some), Judges on the Leviathan, and Mateus. These battles took at least 3 tries.

Mimic Queen wasn't too bad. I suprisingly defeated Vossler on the first try. I remember him taking 2 tries on my original playthrough because he in his Enrage state wiped out all of my guys the 1st time. Tiamat was just long.

I was so relieved when I got my first Firefly. It took me like at least 30 tries to get it as I could never get the chest to spawn, and even when it spawned, it wasn't in there. The journey to the chest was long, and getting mobbed by zombies on the way there got quite aggravating at times. Fortunately, once I got it, I was able to get out a different way, and that way out was less unpleasant. Once I got it, I was finally able to License everyone up by having the Firefly-equipped character chain Dustias while everybody else had Golden Amulets.

All of the other battles haven't as hard since licensing everyone up.

I guess I got lucky getting firefly on my 4th try (But I was panicing because the zombies almost raped my entire party and I almost died on the 3rd last zone when the boms were chasing me). And even getting a second one after the LP farming when I returned to kill mateus.

And yeah the leviathan judges were a pain. I remember using hi-potions on the imperial soldiers and even pushing the soldiers away from vossler so he wouldnt kill them ( he got nearest visible attack gambit I think D: ). And for Mateus it helps a lot if you immobilize the ice azers

[Shiva_]

I guess I got lucky getting firefly on my 4th try (But I was panicing because the zombies almost raped my entire party and I almost died on the 3rd last zone when the boms were chasing me). And even getting a second one after the LP farming when I returned to kill mateus.
You were pretty lucky. I must've have bad luck or something. :p
The chest has a 55% chance of being there.
Then there's a 55% chance that it's going to be an item and a 45% chance that there will be gil in it.
If it's an item, there's a 50% chance that it's a Knot of Rust and a 50% chance that it's the Firefly.

So your chance of getting the Firefly from that chest is around 15%

As far as fleeing, the best way I found to flee is:
1) Un-equip everybody's weapons/shields.
2) Turn OFF all gambits. Buff up if you want to.
3) Have only one person active at a time and use him to flee.
4) When that person gets KO'ed, switch in someone else to continue fleeing.
5) Whenever you enter a new zone, stay right in the same spot to full heal & revive, and then continue fleeing.



And yeah the leviathan judges were a pain. I remember using hi-potions on the imperial soldiers and even pushing the soldiers away from vossler so he wouldnt kill them ( he got nearest visible attack gambit I think D: ).
After failing a few times in that battle, I ended up re-loading my save file at Bhujerba (I had made another one for when I went on the Leviathan). I teleported to Rabanastre and did the Thextera hunt, and Montblanc gave me two Warp Motes for part of my reward. I then went back to the Leviathan. Before entering the fight this time, I KO'ed Vossler so he wouldn't mess with the other soldiers. At the first part of the fight, I used my Warp Motes to get rid of all the surrounding soldiers. Once the two Judges were left, I revived Vossler so he could help. Whenever you use Warp Motes or the Warp spell to get rid of foes, you won't gain any experience.


And for Mateus it helps a lot if you immobilize the ice azers

Immobilize kept missing half of the time for some reason.

In this battle, overall, having my guys put to "Sleep" and the Ice Azers' casting Curaga on Mateus were the biggest problems. Sleep was actually the worst because time was being wasted, and turns were being wasted as well to throw Alarm Clocks or wait until your guys get hit so they could get woken up. I ended up getting some Nishijin Belts and equipping them on two of my allies and having my third one equipped with the Dawn Shard so he could take 0 damage from the Ice Azers.

I also got a Nihopalaoa right before I tried him again. Using a remedy on him with it on was able to inflict him with Slow. I had done a total of 10 hunts before trying him again so it could become available.

Those Nishijin Belts and being able to put Mateus in Slow status using Nihopalaoa + Remedy, along with my guys being Haste'd, made the battle go more smoothly, and I was able to take him down ok. Swapping Ice Shields or a Shell Shield on my allies right before Blizzaja helped as well. Sap was never anything I had to worry about as everyone was giving out Hi-Potions as needed anyway.

[leader of mortals]

I've been thinking of doing a 122333 challenge, but how do you get liscense points before you get fireflys

[lte]

I've been thinking of doing a 122333 challenge, but how do you get liscense points before you get fireflys
From bosses and such which don't give any exp. You won't have much LP at all (most LP was used for having up-to-date light armor). You'll get quickenings when you get Ashe and Penelo at leviathan and you'll have to do with those until you reach the firefly.

[leader of mortals]

whats the earliest you can get fireflies

[Shiva_]

whats the earliest you can get fireflies
You can get the first one from a chest at the miriam stilshrine. Chance of it being in that chest is around 15%, so it may take multiple tries to get it.

You can then purchase a couple more Fireflies once you get to the phon coast camp as they are available at the shop there.

Also, you can get a Firefly as a bazaar item. Sell the following to make it available:
Tomato Stalk x2
Magick Lamp x1
Snowfly x1

[Sword]

What is a "122333" challenge? Do the numbers stand for the character levels or something?

[f f freak]

What is a "122333" challenge? Do the numbers stand for the character levels or something?

Yes it does.

[Shiva_]

The pharos subterra is brutal on 122333.

I couldn't fight anything to obtain the orbs, or else, I got wiped out quickly. So I had one character solo equipped with the Esanguined Shield and a Deathbringer (it adds 5 evasion). This way, he would block nearly all attacks. In the main ring of the Penumbra, I used a Viking Coat as well so Waterga wouldn't affect him. I used that character with an Indigo Pendant equipped to throw Warp Motes on the Reavers and Bunes in the wings.

Whenever each dropped a black orb, I let it go to a given direction. I then found a massive orb and picked it up. The # of black orbs a massive orb gives is 3x the cumulative # of orbs dropped by foes. So, if you had a total of 4 black orbs dropped, then you get 12 black orbs from the massive orb.

Necrofiends, which the Reavers and Bunes turned into upon being defeated, were the biggest problem. I temporarily put a Black Belt on my guy so Hawk Glare wouldn't cause Disable. When I got hit with Confuse from Phantasmal Gaze, I took the shield and weapon off so he could kick himself to get rid of that status effect because he couldn't get hit at all with the shield on. Then I put them both back on. I switched a Black Mask on at times to let Darkra cast by some of the foes in there heal me.

I farmed for all of my black orbs in the Penumbra because that floor was the least hardest.


After getting all of the pedestals activated and floors unlocked, I decided to do the Shadowseer. He had to be the hardest one, and at times, I thought I was going to die. The battle took around 45 minutes or so. The worst part was with Fenrir along. I barely scraped a victory in that whole battle and won on the 1st try. I ran out of X-Potions before it was over so I had to find an alternative way to heal. I had Vaan, Fran, and Ashe in the party. I ended up giving everyone Black Masks (eventhough it lowered max HP) and equipping Dark Shot on Ashe's Fomalhault. I set Ashe's gambits to:
Ally:HP<100% - Attack
Ally:HP<100% - Hi-Potion
Black Masks absorb Dark element, and Dark Shot is Dark element.
The reason for the gambit below was because he used Holy at times, and I had to switch to a White Mask on someone upon using it. So I turned the gambit above that off. Then I put the Black Mask back on that person and then turned that gambit above back on.
I basically set Ashe to exclusively heal while the other 2 characters attacked. I used Gil Toss at the end when his defense went way up.

Curaja and Curaga are useless in boss battles because Curaga heals for no more than 650 HP at levels 1-3, and Curaja for not much more than around 800 HP.

[lte]

Did you try sleep+knot of rust on Fenrir?

[Shiva_]

Did you try sleep+knot of rust on Fenrir?
I didn't try that although I knew you could put him to sleep (I used the Nihopalaoa + Remedy). I didn't know knots of rust didn't wake up foes, but I'll try using some with a foe asleep sometime when I'm in a tough battle.

Is the damage of knots of rust based on Max HP or Current HP?
which is randomly by 1-10.

If it's based on Current HP, then I didn't think I could do too much damage with them since my current HP was lower much of the time (the max HP for my guys was around 4500).

I charged up a Dark Matter once, and I did a total of around 130000 HP of damage with 99 Knots of Rust. That was with max HP of around 4500 and with current HP full.


Overall, when I fought Fenrir right before leaving the 2nd ascent of the pharos, I so owned him. With Mud Shots equipped on everyone's Fomalhauts, he went down in no time. I looked in my guide, and based on his stats, he's actually a little bit weaker & his HP is less in the Shadowseer hunt (despite his level being somewhat higher) than when I fought him the first time in the 2nd ascent.

[Shiva_]

I just defeated Zodiark. I have to say he was the hardest boss of all on this challenge so far. The fight took me 4 tries.

Because guns are no good against this boss, I had to rely on Gil Toss for much of the battle as that would do the most damage. Whenever his physical immunity shield went up, I would have to rely on Balance Motes. I spent hours farming for them until I got 99.

Anyway, on the 1st try, I had to stop since I had something to do. The next two times, I had a Game Over. First time was because I ran completely out of Phoenix Downs. The second time was because, two times in a row, my guys couldn't get the Phoenix Downs out in time to the other fallen allies before being killed themselves. Arise was too slow.

I had used so many Phoenix Downs that other time mid-battle because I got caught in a vicious cycle where all Zodiark was doing was using Darkja a lot and after each Darkja, just beating the crap out of my guys and because he had gotten so fast (upon using Limit Break), he was 1-2 hit killing them a lot.
I had found that the best thing to do when getting into this bind was to use Quickening Chains as I had a lot of Ethers on hand. With Quickening Chains, I'm guaranteed to get hits in w/o getting knocked out by him constantly and having constant Phoenix Down cycles. I had noticed that when his HP gets below a certain %, then he does the Shift and then Paling.
When he put the Paling up, I had set everyone to use Balance Motes (if self HP is below 70%).


The way I managed to beat him this time was the following:

I had Balthier, Ashe, and Penelo in the party. Ashe and Penelo had the most MP, so that's why I used them.

I started out having everyone use Gil Toss at the beginning. Everyone entered the battle with Protect(ga), Shell(ga), and Haste(ga). I didn't bother using gambits to get rid of the Blind caused by Darkja because Blind isn't going to affect your ability to use Gil Toss, Quickening Chains, and Balance Motes. So I turned all status removal gambits off so I could spend more time dealing damage. I did have a Vaccine gambit because his attacks can randomly inflict Disease. I manually gave remedies to anyone affected by his Lvl# status attacks.

In dealing with Piercing Graviga, I temporarily took Bubble Belts off of everyone so they wouldn't take as much damage from the attack.

After he did "Limit Break" and I got into the cycle where he was using Darkja a lot and hitting my guys really hard, I starting doing Quickening Chains quite a bit. I had everyone set to use Ethers at Self:MP<10% so they get their mist bars filled quickly and then I could start another chain.
Also, after he did "Limit Break", I turned some of my buffing gambits off so I could focus more on dealing damage.

Once he readied "Shift", I had someone use a Dark Matter. It dealt 42000 HP of damage.

After I used the Dark Matter, he was almost dead. After one of my guys used his Ether to get his mist bars filled, I started another Quickening Chain as he was readying Battle Cry (meaning he's about to put up the Paling), and I managed to defeat him with that.

I only used 3 Phoenix Downs and 26 X-Potions this time. I didn't have to use any Balance Motes.