More Final Fantasy

[Sullla]

Thanks to a lot of prodding from my Livestream viewers over the past few weeks, I went back and finally finished this project. The Solo Mimic writeup is up on my website, and it contains a bit of a twist over the normal solo run. Enjoy.

[Merovech]

Thanks to a lot of prodding from my Livestream viewers over the past few weeks, I went back and finally finished this project. The Solo Mimic writeup is up on my website, and it contains a bit of a twist over the normal solo run. Enjoy.

Great write-up, and very interesting to read.

[Dp101]

This playthrough is completely hilarious to me. I'm currentlyin Japan as part of a school trip, and have had endless trouble trying to read literally anything that isn't in katakana. It's nice to know that someone else is sharing a little of my pain, even if it's in a much more limited fashion.

[T-hawk]

Can't mimic breaking a rod - what happens if you try?

アクアブレス = "Akua Buresu", which looks closer to "Aqua Brace" than "Aqua Rake"

That's Aqua Breath, which is how that attack is named in the GBA translation.

The actual Excaliber pictured above has the name エクスカリバー = "Ekusukaribaa" while the fake one that Gilgamesh wields is named エクスカリパー = "Ekusukaripaa". As expected, the whole thing is a pun with the last katakana particle being "PA" instead of "BA".

Where's the pun - what's the meaning of the "pa" particle? Is it just the same "bad" or "poor" as in English or is there another meaning there?

[System Error]

Okay, finally got around to reading Solo Mimic proper! I should've expected this was the twist honestly, given you shouting "KISAMA" during your fiesta run at one point. Extremely interesting though, I do like these kinds of things, like on Legends of Localization and stuff. Wish the FF4 one there wasn't proceeding at a plodding pace, though. Also reminds me I should get around to learning a bit sometimes. Are a few series that I like that are Japanese exclusive (SRW).

One general comment to make: jeez, I think you used more broken rods in this variant then you have in all other variants of yours put together. Though I guess that's what happens when the class doesn't have a lot of other options. :P Lots of neat tricks with timing mimicking Elixirs, too. And if you really want an annoying official translation, check out FFT PSP. The original PSX version may have been a humorously bad translation in places ("Stop Bracelet"), but at least it wasn't riddled with forced ye olde English.

Further specific comments in a spoiler tag...

(that would have been some of the earlier Fire Emblem games)

Which ones, out of curiosity? :P I assume 4 since you were bringing that up a bit, also during the fiesta.

Moving the cursor around to attack yourself can be a little tricky sometimes, and it does each up a few tenths of a second of wasted time on the ATB gauge

Kind of, but not really. Unless you set the battle speed option in the menu to 1, you have a pause in-between a character getting their turn and ATB resuming. You still need to be quick, but there's leeway.

I always wonder why these book enemies only drop 200 XP per battle, while the very easy critters outside are giving you double and triple that.

This is a bug of some kind. You only get the EXP/Gil from the last monster. A similar thing happens with Archeoaevis - you're supposed to get one of each Chemist potion from each of its forms, but you only get the last one from the last form. The mobile ports/deriviatives fix both of these, although those also make a host of other questionable mechanical changes.

I wondered if the new name of the Ruined Town (Gohn) had been present in the original Japanese game.

I looked further into this. From what I found, this does in fact have a name in Japanese (ゴーン). So it may have been something that was added later in the GBA rerelease even in the Japanese version.

the rockets bit

Shoutouts to silly strats that take ages, made possible by emulator speedup.

Marcel could destroy the Lanchers with two broken Thunder Rods, so if both of the initial missiles missed their shots, it was doable. However, the odds of that were very low (each missile having over 90% odds to hit)

Huh. Was that even with magic evade?

One more note from Bal Castle: the Epee is another one of those misnamed items from the RPGe fan translation. It's actually the グレットソッド = "Guretto Soddo" or Great Sword. I wonder why they rendered this as the Epee in their translation (?)

The only thing I can think of is how that translation does borrow a lot from FF6's official English translation, for saving space (one other possibility), or...reasons? Guardian is another example of this, I believe.

When I reached the boss, I equipped the Bone Mail, Lamia's Tiara, and the Elf Cape.

Probably misremembering here, you can only get Lamia's Tiara in World 3 unless you have a Thief: regular Lamias don't drop it, you can only steal it from them. And Bone Mail stops confusion on its own.

Both of the fan translation's "Guido" and the official translation's "Gheedo" are roughly accurate

Official calls it Ghido, but close enough. PSX calls it Gil, wonder how they even got that one?

FF5 has a nonsensical plot for the most part

It's for this is why I can kinda see where they were going with the GBA translation's tone. It doesn't take itself too serious, and sometimes outright revels in the insanity of it all.

As expected, the whole thing is a pun with the last katakana particle being "PA" instead of "BA". The official GBA translation cleverly renders the Gilgamesh sword as the "Excalipoor", which captures the intention here quite well.

I think it's also supposed to be something that can be easy to misnotice, given how similar they look. A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game does the same thing. If I remember correctly, the fan-translation tries to capture that intent by rendering it Excailbur.

The untranslated name is ストーカー = "Sutookaa", which I suppose literally translates as "Stoker" but is very clearly intended to be "Stalker". The GBA translation gets the one correct, while the RPGe fan translation winds up being overly literal and results in a name that makes no sense. The horrible Playstation translation comes up with "Wendigo", which is a pure invention that has nothing to do with the actual name at all.

Actually, the awful PSX translation is the one that calls it Stoker, and GBA is the one that just makes up Wendigo. Literal but technically correct - the best kind of correct. So...p-plus one point for PSX? 

omniscient

Very interesting strat here. Dispel is a pretty nifty spell, too bad there's few ways/times to take advantage of it.

neo exdeath

Very bizarre strategy, but I guess the important thing is that it worked. Although that said, the "Ether on an enemy to reduce their MP to 9999" trick could've saved some time here, but no risk of dying is no risk. The ending/slipup at the end was really amusing, though.

##########

So anyway, inspiration/motivation. It's another day, so let's answer another question. By which I mean kill stuff. That actually is really overbloated, given how many fiesta party compositions I've seen delete it. But we're going solo here. Is this suicide? Not really. Is it masochism? Probably at least a little.

Also consider this a preview for now, rather than a proper first update. And I know that I won't be able to complete it with all of them, but regardless, I'm going to try with all of them. And yes I blatantly teleported to the end of the game instead of playing through to it proper, like I did before.

_____

The Gladiator
With all its weapon variety, enough to match the Freelancer, this certainly seems a great job to pull this off with.


Thanks to being a job that equip shields, the opening Tidal Wave is not an issue. And unlike when T-Hawk fought this with Free!Rathma, the weapon of choice for the Gladiator is in fact the Dragon Lance. It can hang in the back row without incident thanks to its Long Reach ability, dealing very reasonable damage at level 65, without needing to worry about the random madness of !Finisher.

Gladiator doesn't have to worry about physicals overly much thanks to Protect and the back row. Diamond Helmet neutered Lighting, Aegis Shield is its old useful self, and Power Sash was just to kill faster. That left Atomic Ray (painful but survivable), Roulette (not a sure thing), and Snowstorm (dead and nothing I could do at level 65 except hope it gets blocked).


The winning fight turned out to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen. That 20% evade of Shinryu's just kept on triggering. Erdrick also kept on failing to use his Aegis Shield. However, at the same time, Shinryu was also being pretty dumb - he kept on using Atomic Ray and rarely Lightning, never the lethal-at-this-level Snowstorm. Not even Mighty Guard was an obstacle during the fight due to lack of use. It was five and a half minute affair that saw twenty Elixirs get gulped down.


But I won out. Not the most eloquent or demonstrative fight, but Gladiator does not have problems with Shinryu.
_____

The Time Mage
Sullla's favorite solo. Can it take down the uberdragon?! Well yes, otherwise I wouldn't be posting it here.

As usual, the big annoyance with Shinryu is its opening Tidal Wave. You kind of really want Hermes Sandals on when you're solo. Time Mage of course doesn't need them, but I went with them anyway for a specific reason. Thankfully, there's ways to not use Coral Ring - blocking with Aegis Shield, Wonder Rod Shell, and sheer levels where possible will do.


But I (am going to say) there are, again, no holds barred. That part never really came up against Gil Turtle, but it can and will here. Shinryu shows us no mercy, so I'm going to treat it with the same respect. It has a vulnerability to Berserk, which the Time Mage can inflict through the Power Staff, The big problem with doing this of course is being murdered by the absurdly overpowered physicals from there, so this can end up more of a creative way to commit suicide than way to stop its attack pattern. But Time Mage has a counter - Protect out of the Wonder Rod!


These statuses were inflicted on the first turn via Quick. And from there, the Time Mage could use that, as well as Elixir and Meteor on the same turn to devastate Shinryu. Or, not. The idiot has 87 speed, and 95 magic evasion to make inflicting Slow a complete 1% pain. This is high enough to occasionally double turn Erdrick. At level 65, this was a one-two puunch. The solution was to use the Defend command when this was going to happen.

It was actually best to do the fight without Chicken Knife. This way, Shinryu's ATB lined up perfectly with Erdrick's. He could get two turns of Elixir-Meteoring for every one turn of Elixir-Defending. It took 25 Elixirs over the course...


...but it's gone!

What about without the lack of mercy? That would require higher levels and is a question for when I keep going proper. The general strategy should be similar to how I described, though. It'd need at least enough levels to survive the opening Tidal Wave after Shell. And would probably want to strongly consider bringing the Rod back around to Protect.
_____

The Berserker
One of the worst jobs vs. a superboss. What the h*ck am I thinking. Does it stand a chance?!


Berserker would absurdly enough be one of the easier jobs to take this thing down with, except for one issue: you can run from the Shinryu battle, stopping it from completely slaughtering the dragon with Chicken Knife (which does 7000~ a hit). I have no idea why this is the case - it's possibly a mercy, but most people wouldn't think to run from it, and many would die instantly to Tidal Wave before they could anyway. If it weren't for this, it'd just take some love from lady luck.


And I guess it still does, just a whole lot more luck because it can't rely on that for semi-consistent insane damage. So instead, it has to choose between Thor's Hammer and Titan's Axe. The former is weaker and less accurate, but can be used from the back row which can help protect against the physicals. Reverse those for the latter. And of course it does not ever want to see Mighty Guard. Damage is variable between these two, but varies enough so that I'd slightly prefer the Titan's Axe.


The ideal set of equipment is one of those weapons, Aegis Shield, Diamond Helmet, Bone Mail, and Hermes Sandals. However if you're dipping into the postgame, you can try Earthbreaker Axe. It has the same advantages/disadvantages of Titan's Axe, only it's significantly more powerful. Bone Mail of course gets healing off Roulette, and can even save you if Poison Breath goes off after a lethal physical during its 2nd no interrupt sequence.


It's far from the most ideal circumstances, but Berserker of all classes can get the job done. It'll even reasonably be at those high levels (97) to pull it off! Also if I had this on tape, I'd post it. I succeeded when I wasn't recording when testing the Earthbreaker, though - which is where it dying here is from! Haven't been able to get it since in about three dozen tries (came within 10k HP once, though). Possible is possible, though - no matter the odds or what you need, even though I am going to try to be staying away from GBA postgame stuff where practical. BERSERKER!!

[T-hawk]

Probably misremembering here, you can only get Lamia's Tiara in World 3 unless you have a Thief: regular Lamias don't drop it, you can only steal it from them.

The Thief Knife can steal for most classes including Mimic, although I forget when you can acquire it.

Official calls it Ghido, but close enough. PSX calls it Gil, wonder how they even got that one?

I read the story somewhere. I forget the details, but it goes something like Gilgamesh = Gilgame = Gil Game = the area where you find the Gil Turtle miniboss, therefore the sage turtle's name is also Gil.

[System Error]

Can't mimic breaking a rod - what happens if you try?

Was curious about this myself, and ended up doing it during the process of this report - you end up reusing whatever's presently in the hand with the broken rod. Assuming you don't replace it, this is just "Unarmed" which does nothing.

The Thief Knife can steal for most classes including Mimic, although I forget when you can acquire it.

Mirage Village. So World 3.

##########

All right, so the proper introduction to this new report. I said in my Gil Turtle report that I would consider seeing what other jobs could defeat FF5's other superbosses. Now is the time to do this.

The target in this series is Shinryu, the frankly overbloated dragon that's hiding in a treasure chest. I've seen many a fiesta run crush this thing like a bug, so it in fact really isn't that much to be feared. People have found ways to kill it and Omega with many different party compositions . So now I'll be throwing every party composition that consists of a single character in a single job against it.


The name for the character this time comes from the main character from Dragon Quest III, Erdrick. Technically his main oppressor wasn't a dragon, but as far as I know, his descendant featured in the first game is only officially known as...Erdrick/Loto's Descendant, in Dragon Quest Theatrhythm. And yes, I very blatantly just teleported to the end of the game again. This is actually the same savefile even, I just renamed the main character with memory editing.

As before, the big dragon will be fought as if it is a solo in mind. This mainly means no Genji Helmet if I wanted to use it, and no Lamia's Tiara for Oracle/White Mage. And as before, there will be no holds barred. Shinryu is a superboss, and the job can do anything in its power - namely exploiting its Berserk weakness, to defeat it. Is it dirty? Maybe, but no more than any other cheap strategy on a boss, like Magic Lamping NeoExdeath or gibbing a boss with instant death. And unlike those, this just turns one danger into another anyway - and even some classes that can do it this way might not necessarily want to. Also for this report, I have no level limits on a class' level when defeating it, either - although that said, I won't be crazy about it where possible.

There will be two main levels I fight the big dragon at: 65 and 97. Their reasonings: 65 is a fairly reasonable level to be at the very end of the game. I would go 64, but it can be hit by L2 Old. 97 is an "if all else fails..." level that's mostly for the sake of seeing if a job class can beat Shinryu under any circumstances, also immune to that and L3 Flare. However, do expect to see levels in-between for certain job classes - there will be two secondary levels in 73 and 85, for jobs that need a bit more breathing room, and for jobs that need more levels but not the full 97.

I'll be disregarding GBA postgame content for the most part. Shinryu is part of the base game, so I'll try to stay away from the extra pieces of equipment - but they're there and on the table, if a class must use them to win or it's too painful to do so without. Whatever it takes to beat the dragon, after all.

Unlike the previous report, I'll be doing these in whatever order for various reasons, generally in a rough order that I do or think about doing them in, although they'll be sorted when they're uploaded to my journal based on level.
__________

The Necromancer

Maybe all it took for Rathma to do this was to believe in himself.


Feelin' lucky? Curse can inflict darkness status, which goes a long way to take the heat off you in this fight, but the odds aren't that great. If you can manage to land it though - although that is a really big if - it does a lot to tilt the odds in your favor. It is actually a very good idea to gamble on this, because there's a very good chance you'll have to eat two physicals in a row otherwise. Or even three.


That said, Necromancer isn't in a totally bad spot here. It gets fully healed from Roulette, without needing to worry about the fire weakness from the Bone Mail. However, it conversely needs to worry about Poison Breath - poisoning plus Maelstrom can be almost as lethal as HP Leak. Necro will want Wonder Wand Shell - Maelstrom is just too much of a threat to go without, even with the physicals able to 1-2-3 it. Even so, when it does it, it sometimes big plays need to be made, like I had to here.


Damage is no issue. The spell of choice was Meltdown, since all the elemental ones do the same amount, and the only potential status of relevance was its HP Leak.


Okay, so maybe Rathma was sane. But he technically could've done it.
__________

The Dragoon

Maybe Kain just wasn't trying hard enough to win here.


Actually yes, that's more or less what it was. To do it optimally though is a bit tricky. Dragoon ideally wants to be in the air during the last part of its AI script, with the high chance of the double physical. With good timing, it can dodge this AND the no-interrupt that comes before.


The biggest threat was Snowstorm, which could just potato Erdrick. The only thing to do is hope it didn't show up, and if it did, that Aegis Shield blocked it. Atomic Ray wasn't nearly as painful (although could open Erdrick up to dying to a physical), and Lightning of course was neutered by Diamond Helmet.


Once the timing was down, and it didn't use Mighty Guard too early, it was just another statistic. Another job that can kill Shinryu, and at reasonable levels to boot - although it does admittedly demand a lot in the timing and repetition when things go wrong. Instead of 65, if you're really out to kill the dragon, you'd probably want to get slightly higher to have enough HP to survive Snowstorm.
__________

The Ranger

It's already failed miserably against one superboss. Will it disappoint again?


Well, this is world 3, so Ranger has what it takes offensively. Chicken Knife Rapid Fire is in full force here, and oh boy, it did 17272 damage every time at max level. Brute force is the way to go here. It's defense that's the big issue here - Ranger does need the Coral Ring, sadly - even at 97, it can't survive a Tidal Wave naturally.


Bone Mail is the big trick to getting through this. Shinryu's fourth normal turn is incredibly deadly, but if it uses Poison Breath, you'll survive no matter what (even if the previous physical technically killed you). Here's the lowdown on every turn Shinryu will get and what you want to see during them.

- Turn 1 (Attack/Roulette/Maelstrom): Obviously Roulette or a failed Maelstrom is ideal here.
- Turn 2 (Lightning/Atomic Ray/Snowstorm): If Attack or successful Maelstrom happened last turn, Atomic Ray must happen this turn. Otherwise, anything.
- Turn 3 (Attack/Roulette/Maelstrom -> Mighty Guard/L2 Old/L3 Flare): Don't want to see Attack if Erdrick was hit. Don't want to see Mighty Guard.
- Turn 4 (Attack/Attack/Evil Eye -> Attack/Attack/Poison Breath): Really want to see Poison Breath last on this turn.
- Turn 5 (Attack/Roulette/Maelstrom): Roulette is ideal. Maelstrom can work too.
- Turn 6 (Lightning/Atomic Ray/Snowstorm): Again, hoping to see Atomic Ray here, although anything should do if Roulette healed last turn.
- Turn 7 (Attack/Roulette/Maelstrom -> Mighty Guard/L2 Old/L3 Flare): As long as Attack doesn't kill or Mighty Guard doesn't happen, it's dead next turn.


A bit of luck here really isn't all that demanding compared to other jobs - high levels aside (although it should be able to get away with mid 80s/low 90s). Ranger is one of the few that can get it done without Aegis Shield or Shell too, so it has that much going for it. Any job that can't get Haste is in for a bad time against this boss.
__________

The Ninja

Some people say there's a law that says the more ninjas you have the worse off you are. So can just one Ninja absolutely dominate here?


No, not necessarily. This is another job that can't get enough HP to naturally survive the Tidal Wave. So it would ordinarily have to use Coral Ring and be savaged by the regular attacks. Except this is a job where postgame content comes to the rescue. It's possible to accumulate enough magic defense with the new Vishnu Vest and Royal Crown to potentially survive Tidal Wave! It's not a sure bet and high levels are still necessary, but we're here to kill this dragon under any circumstances with a solo job.


From there, the strategy is to just throw Fuma Shurikens. Use Image to protect against the physicals, use Elixirs as needed, and hope not to get tagged by Evil Eye or something. Sasuke's Katana is also really nice here to guard against physicals from time to time - and it stacks with Main Gauche if you don't want to use Chicken Knife for the additional 5 points agility.


There's at least one other class that can't do it ordinarily but can with these two handy items, but I'll get to that one when relevant.
__________

The Cannoneer

Well, I said it could get the job done at reasonable endgame levels in my own report. Now to put my money where my mouth is.


The strategy is no different whether the Cannoneer is in the 60s or the 90s: start off by hitting Shinryu with Slow Cannon. Use Aegis Shield to block the opening Tidal Wave...


...and then rip it a new one with Dragon Cannon! Even at this level, it was outputting fantastic damage.


Which was still enough to kill it before that second no-interrupt section. Cannoneer can just delete Shinryu, it just needs to survive the turns beforehand, which isn't demanding at all.
__________

The Freelancer

And T-Hawk said that a natural Freelancer could get this done on its own. Time to prove him right!


Freelancer is one of four jobs that can use Coral Ring while not needing to worry about losing Haste, thanks to Masamune's Haste and instant ATB starting effects. Although actually, it wants the Flame Ring instead - the opening Tidal Wave can be blocked with Aegis Shield. Flame Ring takes care of Atomic Ray and the annoying Snowstorm. Diamond Helmet was used to neuter Lightning - although Ribbon is an option as well. The armor slot is open - Bone Mail's big perk is turning Roulette into a nonthreat/full heal, although Rainbow Dress lets you use Elixirs to heal instead of relying on that and the finnicky Assassin's Dagger self-stab.


Plenty of weapons see action here - in addition to Masamune, Defender (Protect), Wonder Wand (Shell), Sasuke's Katana/Main Gauche (put on for blocking when healing if using the Rainbow Dress), Assassin's Dagger (healing if using Bone Mail), Judgment Staff (cancels Mighty Guard), and finally the attacking weapon of choice, the Dragon's Whisker. It deals full damage from the back row making it better than Dragon Lance, and can be equipped with the Aegis Shield making it better than Apollo's Harp. I was fighting this at level 85, because I misrembered the Necromancer report and thought it said mid-80s rather than mid-70s.


Which of Bone Mail or Rainbow Dress is preferred? That's up to the player. I used Bone Mail on this, partially to vary it up, and partially because I did not actually do these in the order I'm listing them and just got off a couple annoying ones where Roulette was being a thorn. It's really a question of whether you trust in Aegis and Shell to block Maelstrom or not. It does bring the advantage of making Roulette and Poison Breath irrelevant, and in fact on my winning run, Erdrick was technically killed by a physical, only to survive with minimal HP because of Poison Breath. If you go with Rainbow Dress, Ribbon might be the better option for the head slot, especially if Roulette is giving you grief.


So yup. Don't underestimate the Freelancer and its ability to equip anything and everything.
__________

The White Mage

Well it can Berserk the thing all right, but does it have enough healing and defenses to make it through the fight alive?


I fought this with White Mage at level 73, particularly since its expected levels would be higher. Could've done it at 71 (anything that isn't a multiple of 2 or 3 would work), but I shrugged and decided on giving it the two extra. And for reasons that will be made apparently shortly, it really wants those levels. Defense is no problem, although it does need an ideal setup to get going - starting off with Shell to neuter the Tidal Wave, healing, then trying to get up Protect, Blink, and Berserk.


...except Shinryu absorbs Holy, for seemingly no reason other than to flip off people who dare use White Mages offensively against it. Luckily, not all is lost - White Mage can use the Magic Lamp for some extra damage. Bahamut, Leviathan, and Syldra amounted to around 6000-7000 damage, which is good...


...because it'll take a while once those three summons are exhausted. Swings that connect will do anywhere from low 100s to high 700s. With good timing, it was possible to trap Shinryu in a loop where it couldn't deal any damage. Blink immediately after it attacks, and Shinryu will only get one turn in-between. Quickly get an attack in, and Shinryu should again only get one turn in-between if you menu fast enough. Get Blink back to two uses after it has just attacked - you need to get Blink ready while the attack animation is in-progress. "Pause" buffering by going into the magic menu repeatedly helps, but as long as you're quick and go as it starts flashing to attack, you should be fine. Refresh and repeat. A lot. It'll look like this with perfect timing.

Mornstar -> Attack -> Blink -> Attack -> Attack -> Blink -> Attack -> Wait, Blink -> Repeat

Obviously wear the Gold Hairpin and use an Elixir in place of the Morning Star bonk when low on MP. This happened for the first time in my fight with Shinryu at 33894HP. The second and last was used at 14615HP. Blink costs only 3MP after halving, which is nice.


Just those levels and those two Elixirs was all it took. And an hour and 17 minutes in my fight. Pft, only 1:17? A solo White Mage has to deal with way worse.
__________

The Beastmaster

This was a very bad job when it came to taking down Gil Turtle. How about this other overbloated reptile instead?

This is of course starts with the right monster to catch, and it just so happens Beastmaster has an excellent option I mentioned in the vs. Gil Turtle report - Crystelle (aka Thing), the Seal Guardian lookalike found in the crystal section of the Void. That said, catching this thing is kind of difficult, due to it having 3HP and all. The answer is to release a monster on it that uses ???? or Vampire, such as Mercury Bat. Make sure the Beastmaster has only 2HP missing and let it rip, hopefully getting by its magic evasion. Then make the catch.


It's all worth it, because that means the Beastmaster can get away with not using Coral Ring. It just needs enough HP to survive the Tidal Wave with Shell, which it has at level 65.


So defense isn't a problem. And of course, this class also brings the offense in spades. With the Dragon Whisker, the Beastmaster has the offensive might of that weapon and the defense power of the back row. Beastmaster can get it done at reasonable levels, but is a job that would appreciate slightly higher ones just to give itself some breathing room both offensively and defensively. I tried this at level 73 since I just came off White Mage with that level.

This was a complete pain in the ass to get down in practice, though. Shinryu seemed that it had embarked on an epic quest to catapult Roulette to the very top of its worst attacks list. It was almost to where I'd say Plumed Hat might have been the best headwear for the extra magic evade, rather than Twist Headband for the extra strength. Case in point, one time I lost a fight when it had just over 3000HP remaining because of Roulette. The dragon also loved used Mighty Guard early, similarly annoying. As long as Erdrick was careful about timing his attacks, everything else (save Evil Eye occasionally getting in on the action) wasn't a threat.


Did get it done though. Technically doable at lower levels, but higher (80s?) is definitely better when it comes to fighting Shinryu with Beastmaster. Isn't it fascinating how a job that is atrocious against one superboss can do just fine against another superboss?
__________

The Samurai

Speaking of which, let's look at the opposite case now...is what I wrote, but then it turned out this job does fine after all.


Just like Freelancer, Samurai has an esoteric setup, based around Flame Ring, Bone Mail, Diamond Helmet, and Aegis Shield - Masamune bringing the Haste. You really can't underestimate that defensive equipment.


With that in mind, Samurai is a job class that appreciates every level you can give it. 65 isn't really sufficient due to Giltoss only doing 2250, but the 73 I was using was doing 3450. Oh, and that Mighty Guard? Completely irrelevant! It does not affect Giltoss' damage. This method of attack also opened up the weapon slot to keep Main Gauche on alongside the Samurai's natural evade skill to make the physicals less of a concern, switching to Assassin's Dagger when damage started to add up. Or when Maelstrom got through.


The dragon is dead again. Samurai a beast.
__________

The Mime

It's a worse Freelancer when solo.


Though that said, there is a strategy that both are capable of using, one that Mime does have to fall back on: minishield! Go in small with the Genji Shield, Berserk that bad boy with Power Staff, and start busting up rods.


I did this at level 85, mostly because I set it to that for Freelancer and was too lazy to go back and redo all the setup with this job at 65 (since my main saves had everything mastered) but...really, any level works if you're using this strategy. The added levels would just potentially give more buffer in case an attack does slip through minishield, which shouldn't be often. For this reason, it's also a good idea to get Protect up just in case, from the Wonder Wand in Mime's case.


Popped out of Mini after it had just moved so I could show it dying as a Mime.
__________

That's 13 jobs that have killed Shinryu solo so far, 14 if you count Chemist - which will be different on this version because of not being able to hit level 255 with mixtures! More next time.

[System Error]

The Blue Mage

Blue, blue.


A fun thing about assuming level 97: it happens to be Shinryu's level. If you're that high up/don't mind getting to absurd levels, Goblin Punch will absolutely slaughter the dragon with Enhancer or Excalipoor on. 9999 every time, and even with Mighty Guard it's still 6.5k. This is a nice "if all else fails" strategy, but of course, given my own rules, I need to fight it at a lower level where possible, and it is here.

It really is too bad about Shinryu's stupid magic evade. The Blue Mage has a grabbag of things to otherwise unleash on the dragon - Flash to cripple its accuracy, Vampire, Dark Shock into L2 Old, and from there into L5 Death if you really want to play dirty.


Minishield is an option here. Berserk out of the Wonder Wand and go crazy with...Mind Blast? It's not the most damaging (Aeroga is), but it isn't half-bad in its own right, is much cheaper on MP, and lets the Blue Mage use the Main Gauche as backup on the blocking.


That strategy can also be used to set up something dirty in spite of said stupid magic evade. So if Blue Mage really wants, it can cross the streams and employ both strategies in the fight - Berserk it with minishield, land the Dark Spark/L2 Old and whatever else, and get that Flash too if you want, and just kill it from there. Even with L5 Death if you want - not even Shinryu is safe against Death By Math. Or send it into its routine proper with Dispel after a few more Wonder Wand uses.


Finally, a straight-up fight is more than possible to achieve, too. Mighty Guard brings the defense alongside Aegis and maybe Main Gauche, and Mind Blast or Aeroga can be used on offense. But of course this is not nearly as fun as just stepping on the thing. Doing it this way, prepping the Wonder Wand for Dispel is ideal, just to get rid of one instance of Mighty Guard.

Blue Mage can and really should even use minishield anyway here - it really doesn't affect the big physical damage too much while blocking even more of them outright, and the Blue Mage doesn't rely on physical damage anyway unless it's using level 97 strats. The big annoyance doing it straight-up is Roulette - Bone Mail can counter it (as well as weaken Snowstorm, while making Atomic Ray more annoying), but it makes healing awkward, even with your own Roulette. It may well be the best, though - this fight isn't quick, so that's less chances to get screwed over. As long as you can land those self-Roulettes (or Assassin's Dagger stabs), which the game doesn't always let you easily do.


That's four ways to bring death to Shinryu with Blue Mage: "fairly", with absurd levels and Goblin Punch, minishield berserk, and by math. And you thought the Red Mage was versatile.

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The Red Mage

Who isn't too versatile in this game due to peaking early. Still, it's no slouch, so let's see what it can do here.


This is not a pretty fight, even with Berserk - which is more or less the only way for Red to do this. It should be technically possible without, but it's way less painful given its lack of defenses and damage output that give Roulette and/or Evil Eye more opportunities to catch up with it. I sent Erdrick to level 85 for this fight, which provided enough of an HP buffer to survive two physical attacks in a row. To get going, opening with Shell from the Wonder Wand is required to survive Tidal Wave. Then Protect needs to be gotten up, followed by Berserk out of the Power Staff.


From there, the same basic principal as with the White Mage applies. By popping an Elixir immediately after it lands an attack, and Erdrick could get in an attack - in this case, a broken rod - getting his next turn with Shinryu only having a chance to get two in-between and therefore no chance of killing. Only without the benefit of Blink, that means a bunch of Elixirs. Red Mage did have its own benefit, that said - Main Gauche allowed it to block attacks from time to time, saving it some Elixirs and giving it some extra rod breaking turns.


Hey, and it didn't even need "max" level. Just like 20 rods and 40 Elixirs. For the record, level 85 is 5017223 experience and 97 is 8934635 experience. So yes, quite a step up - it takes very roughly double the effort to get from 85 to 97 than it does to get to 85 from 65.

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The Summoner

May as well keep going with the rest of the magic jobs.


And unlike previous instances, Summoner can't get up Protect. The White and Red Mages can do it on their own. Blue Mage can as well. All three can also get Shell. Time Mage can get Protect too, through the Wonder Wand, and doesn't need to worry about Shell/being instantly destroyed by Tidal Wave thanks to Quick. But Summoner needs to use the Wand for Berserk. Which is problematic when the dragon can instantly move to kill you from there!


Erdrick had to go to level 85 for this one to be consistent. I wanted Golem to be able to consistently take two hits. The formula for its HP is (20 + Level) * 50, and it can easily hit for way over that amount at lesser levels. By putting on Circlet instead of Gold Hairpin, if I calculated it correctly, Shinryu's Berserked attacks do 4522-5130 damage. At level 85, Golem's HP is 5250. It also gave Erdrick himself 5890HP - enough to survive a hit with some change.

Luckily, thanks to an ATB mechanical quirk, it is possible to forgo an adventure in starting off with Shell to survive Tidal Wave and working the Wand down to Berserk - if Erdrick Berserked Shinryu right away, he'd eat two attacks and die horribly before getting his next turn. But if he waited a bit before doing so, the Berserk would reset Shinryu's ATB and it would only get in one turn, enough to get up Golem. As long as you're not on mobile/derivatives. ATB doesn't reset on Berserk/Confusion in that version, so...yeah, don't play the mobile version if you're doing challenge runs for this and other reasons.


But I'm on GBA here, so it's all good. From there, it was much like it was for the Red and White Mages. Use Golem immediately after the dragon had moved, it'd get one turn, then the Summoner would get a turn, followed by Shinryu again - no double turn nonsense, and Golem could be refreshed once more from there ad infinitum.

The spell of choice was Bahamut - it and Syldra were doing roughly comparable damage, and this allowed Erdrick to equip the Main Gauche as well, which gave him some extra turns like it did with the Red Mage.


Repeat this enough and it dies. It's interesting that even though some of these are formulatic, they all have their own twist on their formula.

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The Black Mage

And the last magical class. Okay, now let's actually look at a job that has a much harder time than it did against Gil Turtle, for real this time. Black Mage could rapidly murder the last superboss with an elemental weakness. This time, it's not so lucky.


Every other magical class can follow a Berserk-based strategy against Shinryu. All of them however had some way to counter the monstrous attack power it gains as a result - being able to survive two hits and sometimes block them outright. Black Mage has no such luck, so inflicting the status is simply a creative way to commit suicide in this instance. So instead, it has to fight the dragon with its natural AI scrpt, beginning with Shell out of the Wonder Rod. It'll weaken the magical attacks and help mitigate things like this from happening.


As with the Summoner, Flare was cleanly outdamaging boosted third-tier elemental spells. And if the Main Gauche wasn't preferred for defense, the weapon of choice would therefore be the obscure Lilith Rod. This gives the highest magic power boost of any equipable rod, including the postgame Demon's Rod.

This super-technical fight is all about three things: first, having a general idea of Shinryu's ATB. Second, knowing Shinryu's script and knowing what you can potentially get away with and when. And third, praying or making a demonic sacrifice so you don't get ruined by Roulette or Evil Eye, or seeing Mighty Guard too early.


And maybe for Main Gauche to make some saves. I fought it this time at my max of 97. I'm pretty sure I could've done it lower than this though - Black Mage in any case benefits a lot from having enough HP to survive two physicals in a row should the need arise. Assuming Circlet and Black Robe, the most Shinryu could do in a single attack should be 3268. Meaning in the worst case while remaining safe from the level spells...95 for Bartz (6679HP).

Although that is the very worst case, so 91 (6323HP) should work fine as well for most instances (and save you from having to get over two million extra experience). Of course, the more levels you have, the stronger you are and the faster it dies, and therefore the less opportunities it has to screw you over. Didn't feel like doing it at that level again though after figuring out 91 was possible - once was annoying enough.


Didn't expect calculating what you would need via the algorithms guide to come into effect here, did you? Well, neither did I.

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The Chemist

They live in cyberspace and want to destroy the network system.


As I was mentioning in the postscript of my previous post, Chemist was nerfed in this version by not allowing you to exceed level 99 with your mixtures. So overkill damage on this version - and more importantly evading Evil Eye via excessive level as Sullla did with Newton - is out of the picture.

The usual mixtures for a Chemist came into play all the same - drinking a Goliath Tonic to double HP, Dragon Defense for Protect/Shell (first turn since it allowed Erdrick to survive Tidal Wave at 65, lower levels want Coral Ring/Speed Drink for haste), Dragon Power to increase level to mitigate Evil Eye some, and so on. I was hoping to use Resist Element, but these eventually wear off, so Dragon Shielding is superior. Life Shield and Dragon Kiss are also wanted. It was just a matter of getting these mixtures up before Shinryu could get Erdrick with Roulette or Evil Eye. As you should know by now, anything that takes a while in this fight makes you liable to eventually get horribly killed.


Without the benefit of absurd levels to make Drain/Succubus Kiss all-powerful, the offense of choice was Dragon Breath to deal Erdrick's current HP in damage. It's is still an option, but again, ideally want to kill it fast before Evil Eye can horribly kill you. SNES would want the former, as well as the Judgment Staff to remove Mighty Guard whenever it shows up. Turtle Soup/Split Shell can also be used to weaken it further.


There was a hilarious moment in my winning run. I forgot to consider the effects that boosting your level with mixtures would have on the level spells. So Erdrick was nailed with L3 Flare for 5000 damage! And that was with Shell too!! Furthermore, I learned that the elemental Resist mixtures do in fact have a time limit - and had just been hit by Atomic Ray a moment before. Luckily, he survived with just over 1000HP. So uh, yeah. Watch that on GBA. And maybe exploit this fact yourself next time you have a Blue Mage and Chemist in the same party.


Chemist is not in fact a member of a self-inclusive club that can defeat Omega and Shinryu on its own, but it certainly won't disappoint you if you try.

__________

Separating here, because the last few jobs have trouble to contend with. Some more than others.

[English Language]

Any plans to do the same for Omega? I've long since lost my Blue Mage solo file, but would love to see if there's a better way than the "use 1000 Needles 56 times and hope he doesn't Encircle you" strategy I came up with.

[System Error]

Any plans to do the same for Omega? I've long since lost my Blue Mage solo file, but would love to see if there's a better way than the "use 1000 Needles 56 times and hope he doesn't Encircle you" strategy I came up with.

Yup. Although as I'll state as part of this final part, it will be a bigger issue.

Lost motivation for several days, and also due to general busyness and it being just too damn hot in my room. But got it together because both my 3DSes and my phone were charging and I was bored, needed something to do while dinnner cooked.

So finish him.
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The Monk

Shinn Ryuu's Punch-Out!!


A fun if screwy one. It at least needs enough levels to survive Tidal Wave. It needs to equip Bone Mail, and hope Shinryu uses Roulette a lot. Hope it uses Mighty Guard never. And then pound away. It sounds dumb. And it probably is to some extent. But it's fun in practice.


One critically important thing - it needs to defend before the big potential double physical. Because if both go off and the Monk is in the front row as it should be, that's dead. Of course, Monk has a counterattack, and Shinryu's physicals will occasionally trigger them for extra damage.


The Monk does need the levels, but if it has them, it should be able to pull this one off. By the way, an interesting fact - I try to capture Shinryu with the name there as it's dying because of Crystal Dragons existing, but it can be annoying to get that since sometimes the name will stick around for half a second, other times it vanishes almost instantly.
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The Knight

And now for the classic duel of the brave knight vs. vicious dragon. At level 85, although I'm sure 73 is possible with this one..


Most classes fear this thing's absurd physicals and want to stay in the back if possible, and those that don't are playing with fire when they do - usually at the cost of killing it faster. This is a common factor with several of these last few jobs, although Knight has a counter - Guard! Yeah, that's a nice physical attack Shinryu has, and it's a shame that something happened to it.


This one's about switching the shield in and out as needed. Use it when healing or Guarding (especially before a potential Evil Eye), take it off when attacking. Knight can engage Shinryu in the front row with relative safety because of this and Defender to give itself Protect. And with Brave Blade, Erdrick tore through this one relatively quickly.


Fairly reasonable one as far as fighting Shinryu is concerned, although repeated Maelstroms can be annoying.
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The Mystic Knight

Arabian KniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiights


Perhaps moreso than Berserker, Mystic Knight is affected by the issue with running from this fight being possible and the Chicken Knife. The difference is not pretty - my 2014 fiesta run used Chicken Flare Mug and was doing over 9000 each time, coincidentally at level 65. The next best thing would be Rune Blade, except it doesn't work with Spellblade. That reduces Mystic Knight to using Enhancer or Assassin's Dagger, depending on whether it desires slightly higher power or the evade-halving properties of the latter since it's a knife. These did 2900~ and 2500~ each time from the back row without Mighty Guard. Or gambling with the Dancing Dagger (2100, but like 5600 if Sword Dance goes off like here).


One big advantage Mystic Knight has over any other physical class that completely stupid aspects about this fight can't take away with it is the presence of Shell. As soon as Shinryu lands a successful Maelstrom, Erdrick picked up the handy status. This helps reduce the odds of it happening again, helps stop Roulette, and weakens the really annoyingly damaging Snowstorm.

Besides this, there's nothing to do but hack and hack away and hope it dies before you do. This is really quick and fun if you can do 9999 each time, but even if I assumed 97 (this was at 85), it couldn't hit those heights - not without Dancing Dagger Sword Dance going off in the front row, at least. No Lamia's Tiara on this class to boost the odds of it triggering, either.


In a plain old solo game with no job restrictions, Mystic Knight is an excellent offensive powerhouse option for tackling Shinryu if you want to avoid Mix and the like. That running issue though...it plagues Mystic Knight on its own.
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The Thief

Of course being "treasure hunters" who want things they can't use, they have to rip Shinryu's lungs out.


This job is the other one I meant when discussing Ninja when I said there's a job that needs postgame content to stand a chance against Shinryu.


Unlike that one though, this is significantly more painful. Chicken Mug only does 3800, and that's if you're in the far too dangerous front row. It's halved from the back, and halved again once Mighty Guard goes up. The odds of Thief making it out alive is not that great - it has no defensive options besides Main Gauche and its theoretically overwhelming offense turns out to be not that great.

I guess this one is technically possible? It can get by the opening move, and there's nothing standing in the way but luck. Luck in dodging tons of lethal moves that it has no defense against except said luck. I'm not going to try it though, because believe it or not, there are in fact limts to my patience/masochism.


This death is simulated. But you know a job has it bad in any situation when Berserker outclasses it in said situation. It's just barely removed from insurmontable depths, though. I thought it would do better than this.
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The Dancer

Oh god not another class with no way to guard against the opening Tidal Wave and bad vitality


This is the setup Dancer wants to take, or optionally Coral Ring instead if avoiding postgame content. Either works - Sorceror's has much more magic evade though, while protecting against all elements including halving Tidal Wave to survivability and not making Lightning take off half your max health. Anything to tilt things your way. Hope for a lot of Sword Dances and Roulettes and nothing to screw you over! This is why Lamia's Tiara is desired over Ribbon.


The really fun part about this? If we're assuming a fully powered Chicken Knife at 97, Mighty Guard does nothing to reduce the damage in the front row. Feel free to let it use it! See how much you care. Front vs. back is an interesting dilemma - the former lets you laugh that off, but the latter is the only way to reliably survive a double physical attack, by defending during one. Considering this dickbag can occasionally get three turns to your own; I was not kidding at all when I said any job that can't get Haste is in for a bad time.


Just like Thief, the odds aren't great for this job. But it's possible. Probably more possible than Thief, actually. I actually didn't have much faith in this job at first, categorizing it with the three that are to follow, but it proved me wrong.
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The Bard

Sing a song about how this dragon is so dead~


A great job for fighting this thing, it has no problems doing damage thanks to Apollo's Harp! And it has Hide to-


-wait, GODDAMMIT. This ruins everything!! The Bard is the great Shakespearian tragedy of fighting Shinryu. If it wasn't for not being able to Hide past the Tidal Wave and tons of other threats, this would be a top class solo dragon slayer. And unlike Dancer, Bard can't equip Bone Mail to gamble on Roulette pulling it through. 


Its HP is too low to tank it even with postgame content, and fighting it without Haste is suicide. Ranger could manage it due to sheer overwhelming power and Bone Mail, as could Dancer thanks to the latter. But lacking that option makes that very impractical here. Bard, or at least Apollo's Harp, is excellent for fighting this thing. In a regular party. Solo Bard is pretty much screwed, though. I guess it might be possible if Shinryu's turns line up perfectly enough so it never instantly kills or forces to constantly heal, but this is otherwise impossible for a Bard.

If it could survive though, the strategy would be to just shred it with Apollo's Harp, and heal with Main Gauche on as needed. Still, the lack of Hide hurts and limits its options.
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The Oracle

Seriously, what were they on when they thought this one up?


This job can barely survive the opening Tidal Wave while maintaining Haste with postgame equipment. But from there at 97, using Predict with Bartz will produce Eruptions. Maybe Level 99, where Bartz will have 860? Well, you saw what Shinryu's L3 Flare can do to a Chemist with Shell. It would not end very well. And though it would be badass just for thinking outside the box, you can't use Lenna or Krile here - they would indeed have MP ending in 0 for Cleansing at level 97, but they would also have less HP (6376) and I'm pretty sure that makes them unable to survive even with Royal Crown/Robe of Lords.


So how about Berserk? It can inflict it with Power Staff, but unfortunately, it has no way to lower or prevent the damage so it's not a one-two combo. This one is in the same boat as Bard - unable to win here without TASing it and even so it'd be a nightmare.
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The Geomancer

It's a good thing it's in those pyjamas, because Shinryu is about to send this godawful job to sleep right away. Permanently.


...wait, it's alive? Huh. Didn't even need postgame equipment for that. So it can use Hermes Sandals here.


Still, this fact changes nothing. Geomancer's offense is absolutely pathetic - almost all of its Terrain abilities don't help you here, attacking with the Rune Bell is feeble, you can't use Chicken Knife in this fight, and even if you could it'd disappoint. It can't get Shell to mitigate the likes of Evil Eye and Roulette, it can't get Protect to dampen the physicals, it can't wear Bone Mail, it's completely worthless!!

In this fight, everything I hate about Geomancer. It's fine for clearing trash in parties, but when it comes to bosses, it can be helpless or reduced to item duty due to the unreliability and non-Heavy hitting centralness of Terrain abilities. And in fights like this you can't afford to get away with it.
__________

So of every job class that went up against Shinryu solo, 23/26 are able to get the job done - although some of these are unlikely wins. One more than I was expecting, actually. Maybe even some of the other three can theoretically done, but if so require a simply inexcusable amount of luck. Like, way way worse than Thief and Dancer.

It just goes to show that just about every class has some sort of way of dealing with this thing. Shinryu is not nearly as terrifying a fight as some make it out to be! Many different party compositions can take this thing on, relevant when it comes to fiestas. In particular I heard of a fellow who did like nine fiesta runs one year, and he was able to defeat Shinryu with all nine of them. And they don't even necessarily need to be horribly overleveled like some of the classes had to go to here to win.

Due to that fact though, a proper tier list when it comes to solos fighting Shinryu is difficult to put together, unlike with Gil Turtle. Nevertheless, you can get an idea of what it takes to defeat Shinryu from this and what each job can do. One special case - any party with Berserk access can fight it by doing so and reviving faster than Shinryu can kill. And even if you have to push your way through, it's not that bad. Simply things like Protect/Shell access, ways to deal damage quickly, and especially ways to employ Haste, can do a ton for you.

This isn't to say the fight is free. But this is where Shinryu is fairly well-designed in that regard. Like most of FF5, there's often a solution to a problem. You simply need to know what you're doing and in the case of variant or otherwise restricted parties, what it's capable of. All it takes is some knowledge and maybe some perseverance, and you can make it through.

And that's where the next superboss comes in. The requirements there are going to be stricter - said person who did a ton of fiestas and beat Shinryu on all of them? He did beat Omega with all of them too...except one. So yes, I'm going to try that fight too with all solos. Sometime. But no guarantee that as many will be able to pull this off.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this edition of all vs. one.