New FFV challange

[Shin Gouken]

Siren: Went down incredabley easy because of the leveling in preperation for Karl boss. I used a Monk.

Siren: Slow
Me: Attack (Critical) 200dmg + 400dmg
Siren: Cure (60hp)
Me: Attack (K.O's her)

I headed straight for the nearest town and indulged in a long sword and the spells sleep, silence and protect. I didn't buy armour because there was nothing available for a monk and after the next boss there is another town to buy armour

I rushed throgh Hiryu mountain but still gained a level on the way up

Magissa: Another easily won battle

Magissa: Blizzard (50dmg)
Me: Attack (critical)
Magissa summons Faltzer
Faltzer: Attacks
Me: Counters Faltzers attack and gets a critical hit, Attacks, Faltzers dies
Magissa: Regan
M: Attacks (attacks average from 205dmg - 215dmg) Magissa dies

I cruise on my dragon and its awesome music straight to the next town, buy a kenpo-gi (for my monks defence) get through the scenes and head for Walse tower. Pick up the spoils inside (silver armlet adds to my defence) and confront Garula.

Garula: Attacks
Me: Counter attacks, Attacks
Garula (Counters, Attack, Rush) Attacks, Attacks
Me: Counter Attacks, Attacks, Garula dies.

I saved after the tower sank

[Shin Gouken]

Help! I cannot learn doomclaw. My blue mage can't beat Ironclaw. When will i have another chance to learn it?

Yes that means i beat Liquidflame. A black mage threw one "Frost rod" for a one-hit-KO

[Shin Gouken]

I tried for doomclaw a few more times but eventually had to accept i wasn't going to learn it.

I opened almost every treasure chest during the escape (i think i just left the one behind actually, a fire ninja scroll near the exit) I started to panic when the mages started to cast confuse on me and my monk nearly KO'd himself so got out and saved.

Ancient library went OK. The enemies went down taher easily. I used a blackmage, held a Frost rod and cast Blizzarra 3times to beat Ifrit (barely surviving) Byblos felt a a few shattered Flame rods (again i barely survived... stoopid windslash)

Got the fire ship, went to crescent island, got my chocobo and new job abilities and bought one of each of the elemental bows. Then levelled in the area surrounding Ramuh gaining ABP for my hunter. Between Gold needles for the stone golems and an Aim attack for the black flames its reletively quick to level here. I got bored of leveling and decided to beat the Sandworm. Stood in the back row with a hunter and Ice bow and timed my attacks. I learned aquarake when i had the chance earlier but didn't fancy a one-hit-KO battle... i wanted ABP for my hunter and didn't want all my boss battles to be boring one-hit-KO ones. So sandworm fell to the Hunter. And now i return to leveling. I will need a hunter, bolt elemental bow and X-fight to beat Sol cannon later...

[Zeromus_X]

Great job, it seems you're making great progress. Make sure to pick up the Healing Staff and the Elven Mantle in Tycoon Castle, the former being a great healing aid and the latter being a great tool for evasion for lighter armor classes. Having low equipment weight really helps during some battles when every turn counts.

[Shin Gouken]

The elven mantle is glued to my relic slot at the moment lol it really is a great relic. I only just picked up the healing staff... thanks for the reminder

Ive been having some fun with it today.

Lets see where did i leave you... i was leveling my hunter. I still need 400 ability points until i learn X-fight lol but im leveling up for EXP and Gil too so three birds to one stone. Between leveling ive been off to fight bosses here and there....

Shiva died in three hits with my fire elemental bow. Her gaurds fell to one hit each.

Adamantaim took a few more hits with the Ice elemental bow and the elf cloak and back row formation kept me safe.

Ramuh i went crazy and charged in with a geomancer lol. It was close but i won on the first attempt (unless you count my even crazier attempt with a beserker lol) I don't remember the names of the attacks my Gaia attacks but there was a puny one which hit for 40-50dmg, a branch one hit for 400dmg and a better branch attack for over 1000dmg

Im on a very unimpressive level 33 which takes the awe out of challenge so far. But think of it this way... i wouldnt of struggled in the first half of the first world anyway and the extra levels wont help me dramatically come world two.

[Zeromus_X]

Oh! And don't forget to pick up a Doom Axe from those axe-wielding enemies on Crescent Island. It's the only way level 1 Galuf can defeat Gilgamesh.

[Shin Gouken]

Oh! And don't forget to pick up a Doom Axe from those axe-wielding enemies on Crescent Island. It's the only way level 1 Galuf can defeat Gilgamesh.

REALLY??? I have to level another character to fight Omniscient/Minotaurus anyway but i wanted to use Faris. Now i can leave Galuf alone and use Faris instead

Are those axe wielding enemies Bio soldiers? Coz those guys are nasty... Bio inflicts 400+ damage

[Shin Gouken]

Doom axe? Axe wielding enemies? no my friend they give battle axes. It's their friends wielding sickles that drop death sickles you mean. I found this out after an hour of fighting them. At first i thought you meant to steal from them so i eqquiped a thief with the thiefs glove and stole silver bows from them (stealing and fleeing without getting hit :P) I stole from 50 of them expecting it just to be a rare steal... then i actually killed one and it dropped a death sickle straight away! Not to worry though... those 50 silver bows sell for 750gil each! Im rich again

Todays big event though is Sol cannon and his mini-minions.

The rocket launching cannons went down easily as they cant actually kill me (or so i thought after i beat the first set) I stood in the back with a hunter using a bolt elemental bow.
For the flame cannons i wore a Flame ring and just attacked.
After, more rocket cannons beat me... this time they confused me! I hate confusion lol no physical attacker is safe
I got lucky after that... two more flame cannons which obviously went down easily.

Sol cannon was a tough oponent

After an initial hunter attemp... oops i mean "Ranger" lol i tried a ninja three times. Throwing ninja skills did great damage fast, but it steadily got worse because the side cannons "aged" me. Eventually Beam cannon killed me when i ran out of high potions.

From this i was going to try one of two thing...

Saving some Gil to buy an Angel ring to protect from aging which would have taken forever but i would of had it for the rest of the game and gained lots of ABP along the way

Or Buy a ton of bolt rods which i hoped would hit for more damage (the damage is halved when attacking multiple targets so after the side cannons were dealt with i hoped i was looking at higher damage)

I opted for the quicker choice of stocking up on bolt rods and tried a black mage. The rods indeed inflicted higher damage but it still wasnt enough to finish him before my high potions ran out. And the healing staff only heals 200-300hp back a turn and beam cannon hit for a perfect 570dmg so two turns at least to heal by which time i was being twatted again.

Then came the winning strategy... Time mage using bolt rods. Haste spell first, then Bolt rod the side cannons, then cast "slow" on Sol cannon and comftably heal and attack until he dies. lol got there eventually

[Shin Gouken]

Archeoavis killed my hunter. For some reason my Bows couldn't hit for more then 200-250dmg

I picked myself a ninja and charged in. This really was quite extraordinary. I used all five of my shurikens and killed him before he could land a single attack. Was this a glitch or what? He got revived and i stupidly threw a fire skill doing 0HP dmg. He used a fire attack and cured me (yay flame ring) a couple of dagger throws and physical attacks and he was toast

[Shin Gouken]

For titan it was Hunter in the back row with the dark bow. Easy

Pyuroboros is another easily won battle... one-hit-KO with zeninage. Exept i didn't want another cheap win when i can do it without zeninage. I opted for a ninja and his scrolls. It left two alive who revived the others when they died. and in turn the revived lot then revived the two who i killed last. After a few revives they had no MP to revive and fell to my moonring one by one. Elf mantle saving me from many physicals

Kimabrain was a simple battle. My flame ring protected me from his ice attack (i hit him with my ice bow and healed him... whoops) Aquarake hit for 300dmg which i dont think was doubled by me wearing the flame ring.

Now.... what to do before i depart for world 2?

I am level 35 (about the same level as i was in my first single player challenge i think.) I have nearly 70,000gil (primarily i want this to zeninage Atamos and X-death, but i am also goin to spend much of this on elemental rods before i leave) My hunter has 225 of the 405ABP he needs for X-fight so i may master it before i leave

I am currently fighting very low level enemies to gain ABP quickly (1 or 2 per battle) and so as not to level anymore. I think im high enough for now. Im also picking up free tents occasionally (from tatou's and gatlings near walse town) I will buy my elemental rods, double check i have bought all available magic, steal some more silver bows for quick money (again avoiding leveling) and then i think i am ready. I wont level another character now if indeed galuf can beat gilgamesh at level one. Im guna use a seperate save file incase i forget anything though.

[Shin Gouken]

I'll make this a quick update because im goin out in a few mins. Ive still made a bit off progress but not as much as i have recently, been busy the last 2 days. (dvd charity launch gig last night was fookin awesome )


SO! I levelled against really low level monsters to gain ABP (loading times or should i say lack of, made this REALLY quick.) about an hour had my hunter mastered. I only bought ten of each elemental rod before departing. I ran into some hardcore enemies along the way though. Most nothen part of the map in the water were two enemies with about 4000HP each who windslash for 300+ damage never seen them before. Got 3ABP no experience and 2000Gil for that :/

Anyway THANK YOU zeromus! Level 1 Galuf one-hit-KO'd Gilgamesh with the death sickle

Gilgamesh battle two was touch and go. Took about 6-7 "Rapid fire/barrage/Sshot/X-fight" (honestly choose a name and stick to it!) to kill him!!!

Used the last of my ninja scrolls in the moogly cave place and beat the boss Tirasaurus with a pheonix down to get ABP for my ninja. He beat my Ranger first attempt! Rapid fire with Fire bow, then ???? finished me !

Am in moogle village now. The true challenge probabley begins from gilgamesh batle 3 onwards.... so the easy part is almost over

[Shin Gouken]

I beat the abducter looking "boss" outside Bal castle. I had the dancing dagger and scored a swords dance against him.

Looted up in Kelb, buying some more ninja scrolls. I forgot how much ninja's rocked. The amount of pre-emptive strikes you get with one in your party is insane. I learned a couple of ninja abilities in on dragon mountain (Smoke and image)

Golem appeared much sooner then im used to him appearing and i still had my ninja. Every time i attacked, the dancing dagger made me steal MP or confused a target which doesn't stop the enemy attacking Golem in this battle. So Golem was killed and i started from the bottem of the mountain again. This time i switched for a Bard and sang Requiem twice to obtain him.

I switched to a summoner, used two ethers and charged in to fight dragon grass. I forgot to activate Golem so i knew the battle would be a close one. I summoned Titan (wearing the gaia robe) and it kills all the weeds and damages dragon grass. As soon as he summoned more, my Titan wiped them out again. Seven summons later and dragon grass was still standing. I broke my only Poisen rod (casting Bio) to finish him. BUT the weeds were still alive! First i was hit by paralysis. Then Blinded. Then aged, confused and stopped. At least i think thats right. With so many status bein hurled at me it got very confusing. They were only hitting for 40HP so i watched for many turns as i very slowly died... i was paralysed every turn so could not do a thing!

I came back with Golem and used two extra ethers. Summoned Golem and then cast Titan till he went KAPLOOEY

I am level 37 and i have 58,460 Gil

[Shin Gouken]

A quick visit to Bal (picking up a few items and gaining a few ABP in the dungeon for my ninja, Gold needles and first strikes ) Went to ghidos (or whatever hes called) island to see it sink. The went to land my dragon on Xezats ship.

Gilgamesh! I attempted him with a knight with 2-handed, hitting him twice for around 1666HP a shot. Enkidu appears and quickly helps end the battle with windslash 350HP and Aera for 250+HP. I tried again with the same strategy hoping Enkidu wouldn't go so hardcore this time. I was right, Him and Gilgy spent a few turns using physicals which did little damage. Gilgy used a missile attack pinching 3 quarters of my HP!

I switched for a monk in hopes of finishing Gilgy before he could summon Enkidu. I got the series of attacks i was after... I used "Focus", Gilgy hit me for 70HP and i counter-attacked with a critical hit, then unleashed my two turns worth of attacks in one shot. Gilgy survived though and enkidu healed him up with Whitewind. Both used physical attacks the next turn and i countered them both, then attacked myself gaining another critical. Gilgy used Missile, takin 3 quarters of my HP and the elf cloak saved me from Enkidus next physical. My next attack finished Gilgy. Enkidu uses His windslash leaving me with 24HP!!! The elf coak saves my neck while i attack again. Then Enkidu uses Vampire... which should have healed me for 800HP because im wearing Bonemail, but it failed dammit!!! One more physical attack from me finishes Enkidu anyway

I didn't have very many Hi-potions left so couldn't fight many battles in the barrier tower. But I fought as many as it took to aquire a Reflect ring. I used a ninja and his ninja scrolls to quickly win battles. Ninja scrolls really do rock! I ran from all the Gigas's... i despise attacks which knock you instantly down to single digit HP!

Atamos was reletively easy... Because i used the same method to kill him as in my last solo player challenge. A samurai with Zeninage. It's the only way i can beat him. (can't learn level 5 Doom, and only have a few turns to inflict enough damage to kill him before being repeatedly pelted by comet) I used Zeninage twice, my reflect ring reflected a gravity spell (which missed him) i got another zeninage, he used comet, i used my fourth and final zeninage to finish him.

Catoblepas was easy peasy lemon squeeezy I used a dancer to be able to equip a ribbon. Elf cloak for random evasion, and Bonemail. Swords dance appeared a couple of times which was beautiful. His akumas eye auto misses thanks to ribbon. His drain attack heals me thanks to ribbon and his physicals mostly miss.

I have attempted Gilgame some twenty times but i just can't figure out a way to beat him. I can either go CRAZY with defense - Ninja, back row, two Main Gauche blades, elf cloak and Image.... im completley untouchable but cannot hurt him, attacks do zero damage, he absorbs ninja skills - Or sacrafice all defence just to be able to hurt him - Black mage, blizzaga or any class who can equip frost rods. I'll come back after Moore forest.

I ventured halfway into Moore forest killing enemies with Ninja scrolls... a complete waste because the game went flashy and froze! Will pick up tomorrow

[Shin Gouken]

Elderly tree gaurdian is goin down bitch!

[Shin Gouken]

NOW THIS IS WHAT THIS CHALLENGE WAS ALL ABOUT!!!!!

Defeating the elderly tree gaurdian with a NINJA!!!!

It took a few attempts to pull of but after some tweaking it was an amazing strategy.

To begin with i made a Time mage, cast Float on myself, then switched back to Ninja. I equipped a main gauche (randomely evades physical attacks) in each hand, a diamond plate, and my Wall ring. I had Image as my ability.

Those gaurdians are fast little buggers arent they! They would attack 6times or more between them between my turns. The one in the back row only hit for 30-60HP, then the ones in the front ranged from 90-150HP depending whether they used a basic attack or a critical. I used a hi-potion every two turns to keep on top of the damage, unless i got lucky and blocked attacks with my gauches.

My first attempt i forgot to cast Float. My second attempt i used Fire scrolls to damage three of them. It takes about 7 or 8 to bring them down to the amount of health where they begin using their elemental skills (thats 16 or so turns with all the hi-potions for healing too) It was aqua rake that put an end to me, it hits for a lot of damage (i think it was 300-400 or more... i was busy dying at the time)
My Final attempt was switching which ninja scrolls i used. I instead used water scrolls to attack the other three gaurdians and leave the water elemental guardian alive. This only made it slightly easier tbh as the water elemental gaurdian is in the front row and hits for the most physical damage. It was still hugely tricky... When the three other gaurdians began using their elemental skills, they bounced off my reflect and often hit themselves healing them back enough HP to return to their physical attacks. It was mostly a case of persistence and wait them out. Eventually the Firaga reflected to hit the Wind elemental and the Aera reflected to hit the fire elemental and More water scrolls managed to finish them. The Earth elemental died first from reflected Firaga, then the Fire and Wind elementals next. With the water elemental i got a miracle!!! I switched for the dancing dagger and after two attacks i got Swords dance which hit for 3000+HP finishing him.

It was beautiful you should of seen it

X-death took my level 1 galuf a billion zillion million trillion brazilian turns :/ I broke rods in the end which still only reached 700HP dmg at most. Galuf has departed for the afterlife and ive saved....

... i will probabley level many levels now hoping it will make a difference to my Gilgame struggle. Im on level 41 at this point