Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, Run 2-07

Picking up right where I left off last time, I'm treated to a miniature boss rush type thing.  In order to enter the Ronka Ruins I need to defeat the 4 outer turrets, which are one of 2 fights.  The first, Flameguns, have 2500 HP apiece and attack endlessly with a fire elemental attack, single target.  Nothing too threatening.  The other set use only Gravity based moves, meaning they'll never kill me-but my confused party members might!

 Both sets of enemies died in a couple of Thunder Scroll tosses.  I'm not a member of Team 750 (price of a rod) but Team 200 is much more powerful AND economical!  Before taking on the big bad boss of the ruins I bought more Scrolls at 200 apiece, as well as healed up and saved.  I also switched Bartz and Galuf so I have more powerful overall Thunder damage.  Pretty sure Bartz's final build will be a Ninja with !Summon to boost Scroll damage, maybe !Dance or !Mug.  Not sure on the overall yet.

That is the high end of my damage output, especially since Reina got hit with Old before she could act again.  The Old/Aging status is nasty in this game, gradually dropping your level, used in pretty much EVERY calculation, to 1.  Probably didn't help that I threw 2 empty slots and stole 99 Ethers during this fight, but I did skip Surge Beam (deals 1/2 Max HP).  Overall, not a very difficult fight despite having to blow through 10,800 HP.  Related: that's a neat death animation Sol Cannon has.  I used 1 Potion on Reina in case Sol Cannon went off, but it proved unnecessary.

The Ronka Ruins served up a huge pile of new treasure, nearly all of which would be immediately sold or wasted.  A Hi-Potion, Ether, Elixir, Cabin, 5000 gil, Gold Armor, Gold Shield and Ancient Sword were in the useless pile, and money and Cabin less so.  In the useful pile there was a 2nd Full Moon weapon-meaning it was time to make a back-row safe Ninja.  I picked Reina for this position due to her !Summon.  Find Passages helped me to find a few things, but I already knew where the big treasures in the ruins were.  I also brought Bartz up to Level 1 Summoner for 15 AP to massively boost Scroll damage.  At this point I did a bunch of job menuing, switching around 3 characters classes.

Faris is now training as a Summoner to make her not!useless as a Thief, Bartz is a summoning Ninja, Reina is a summoning Thief and Galuf remained where he was.  Bartz has both Full Moon weapons equipped as well, leaving Reina with the short end of the stick, a Mage Masher.  I'd feel worse about having 1 support character but I have 2 godly Ninjas on the battlefield.  I reached the boss at Level 17, and gave it a try.

Oh, well that was easy wait it's not over yet.  To get to the "2nd" (actually 5th) phase/form of ArcheoAvis, you have to kill aech of the other forms which have 1600 HP and are weak to a different element.  They're all neutral to Water though, so rather than fumble around with weaknesses I don't know I just spammed Water Scrolls.

Last form was no tougher.  I just threw 2 Shurikens and attacked once and it died.  I did get hit with a Breath Wing, but that deals 1/4 Max HP damage anyways so it's not a threat.

Earth Crystal shatters, and I get Dancer!  Team Sidequest is a go.  Oh, and Krile shows up, Galuf gets all his memory back, King Tycoon recovers, Exdeath arrives, Bartz swears, King Tycoon sacrifices himself to save Team Sidequest from Exdeath controlling the Earth Crystal shards, Galuf anf Krile go back to their own world.  You know, usual stuff.  and yes, from this point forward I'm calling this Team Sidequest, due to how many things I'm doing to have to do off the beaten path, like Phoenix Tower and all this thieving.  Here's my projected endgame setup if you're interested.

Bartz	Reina	Krile	Faris
Ninja	Dancer	Summoner	Thief
!Summon5	Dual Wield	!Throw OR Artful Dodger	EqRibbon/!Dance/!Mug

Proceeding with the plot down 1 awesome old guy, I elect not to have anyone as a Dancer just yet.  I know to proceed with the story I have to find Cid, but I just couldn't find the guy.  He's not in the Light Warrior base, Karnak, the Library of the Ancients, Crescent OR Tycoon.  Nope, he's in Tycoon meteor.  It turns out we need more adamantium to reach Galuf's world, so Team Sidequest has to beat up 3 minibosses guarding the pieces of adamantium.  Since Galuf stole my Guardian Dagger AND Kunai, Reina's damage is going to be pretty bad here.  That's why she has !Summon equipped though!  I put Flame Rings on everyone to guard again Chimera Brain's Flame attack, and went to Karnak meteor.

Karnak was Titan, whose dying Earth Shaker move nearly wiped the party.  Faris had 7 HP left at the end there O_O.  If I had died I would have gone to North Mountain and used !Dance to confuse a Gaia Cat to cast Float on my party, then tried the fight again.  Chimera Brain never used Aqua Rake and as a result was never a threat.  The Puroboros, normally a huge pain, are actually easy for this party!

Even despite countering my summons with Cure2 (an interesting behavior) I still defeated them all at the same time with my Water Scrolls.  Ninjas are really overpowered in this game, surprised I never used one in my first playthrough.  With Team Sidequest still sitting at Level 17, will I be able to dominate World 2?  Or will the myriad of bosses within and my being down a Ninja result in my defeat?  Find out next time!