I made it to level 20 yesterday and decided to give the wizards another shot. My first encounter was with three wizards and I managed to kill one of them before I died. That gave me hope, so I went in again and ran into the optimal two wizards. I managed to beat them down with plenty of health to spare! Victory! I took the crown, drank to full, and went to leave the dungeon. On the way out I ran into some monsters who can paralyze me. They went before I did, paralyzed me, and then slowly beat me to death while I couldn't take any actions. I'd won the battle but not the war, it would seem.
That was discouraging, but I went back in again. A couple tries later I ran into two wizards and they beat me. I tried again. Two wizards, and I won! And then I got paralyzed on the way out and died. I made it down to two wizards twice more, and they beat me both times. At this point I'd spent a couple hours trying with nothing at all to show for it, so I gave up. I played some League of Legends games, watched some Battlestar Gallactica, and then came back. I looked up the stats for the monsters that were paralyzing me and determined another level or two and they'd probably start running from me before they managed to beat me to death so I went to level up some more. This would also help solidify beating the two wizard fight since I was only 2 for 5 as it was.
I gained one level, and then took note of how fast I was gaining experience at level 21. It seemed like it would take an hour and a half to level which was depressing. (It turns out anything I have a chance at beating is scared to death of me and runs away, so not only is my tnl going up by huge amounts but the amount of experience I get per fight is nosediving.) So I went and gave the wizards another shot. This time I beat the two wizard fight and actually ran away successfully from the ghouls in the dungeon and made it to the surface. Victory! I have my crown! I'm one trivial boss fight away from getting the mystic key and with it a huge weapon and armor upgrade, along with access to more places to potentially level up.
Only it turns out that one trivial boss fight is absolutely not trivial for one thief. Normally I have to level up to beat the marsh cave, so when a normal party is good enough to get the crown it's more than good enough to kill Astos. But he's nigh invincible against a thief. I'm not sure it's even plausible to win, though I will look into the numbers further tomorrow to see if I even have a shot at level 28...
4 comments:
Man, thieves are bad. I was doing the solo fighter strategy and I beat the marsh cave at level 12. I probably could have done it a little earlier if I was really desperate but levelling at that point was still relatively painless. Astos was a total joke, I resisted his RUB and then pushed him over in 3-4 rounds. Both he and the wizards did a fair bit of damage but it was clear I was going to clobber them. I then restarted with a full party to see how different it felt and honestly I am not even sure it is faster that way. The solo fighter has infinite money and is stupendously tough, not to mention being an insane beating. My Fighter/BB/WM/RM party is so slow to level in comparison... the big advantage to a big party is that they don't get autokilled vs. 8-9 mobs that have stuns. The solo Fighter has to reload a lot when those show up but otherwise he is a total smashing.
I wonder if I would be better off with a Fighter/RM two man party. Even more damage, good survivability and does not autolose to random undead. I would save a lot on Pure and Heal potions too!
I wouldn't be surprised if the game is not appreciably easier with a full party than it is with a single fighter - and if it was actually harder with a full party that didn't contain a fighter.
"Challenges" in FFI really come down to two fights: the wizards in the Marsh Cave and Atmos, depending on your composition. One thief may also have a challenge with Lich. If you can get past Lich, though, you can become a ninja and it should be smooth over-leveled sailing from there.
Leveling to 28 to beat Atmos seems like a high price to pay for this challenge, but it may be the only way.
Yeah, I bet a party of black belt, thief, white mage, black mage is a lot less powerful than a single fighter. Though it probably has less auto-losses since you just stand around grinding that party up to a point where it's unstoppable.
I found a FAQ that breaks down pretty much every mechanic in the game along with which bugs were fixed in Origins so I have a better idea of what I'm up against. Sad as it it, I think I can speed up my leveling by reordering my party after every fight to stick a corpse in the first slot. Turns out mobs aren't afraid of a dead level 1 black mage...
I'm not sure if that defeats the spirit of a 1 character challenge or not. The corpse certainly isn't doing anything except abusing stupid game mechanics which just provide more tedium and not any increased chance of success. And I'm not even sure it will speed things up, since getting into the menu to switch every fight would also be pretty tedious.
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