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Stabbey_the_Clown
Sep 21, 2002

Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?

Feels like I aged fifty years waitin’ for ya!




Paris has taken over the “Learn Rejuvenating Water” slot. I swap Roberto back in for Allan, and for the sake of variety, make Gabriel the leader. I have forgotten to disable Gaou’s Hexes, though. Now, to Base 5!




Music: Clash of Opposites


Mission: Defeat the command squad and assault their base!


- Battlefield Video: Base 5


This time we start out right outside Base 5, with a wave of enemies in immediate range.










We’ll creep beside them – then charge!




Watch this.




Yeah, let’s kick some tail!








Crush is the ultimate 2H staff art. It is pretty unique among combat arts because it does not hit a single unit, but EVERY unit in the union. That makes it much more effective on multiple-unit unions, and less so on tough, single-unit unions.




Try this on for size!

It did about 6000 damage combined.




Yeah!




Fine! You’ll face me!




Even we can be worn down by grunts. Paris going down is not useful, because he’s the one I need alive to learn the art.




Torgal comes in though to wipe out the threatening union. That’s the last one of the first wave.






Yeah! This is our big chance!

They leave the door open so we can come in. They won’t come out. But I’m going to waste a couple of turns seeing if they will. There’s a reason for this, other than filling my AP reserves. The second turn Paris will heal himself.








The rest of the fight will take place here.






Watch this.

Gabriel finally upgrades that. It didn’t do much damage, though.




Torgal’s become a powerhouse with his intense focus on quad-wielding.




Maledict hits every unit in a union, and those attacks tend to do massive damage. It also has a chance to inflict curse, although anything which is likely to be vulnerable to curse is unlikely to survive the damage in the first place.




Nice hit!

This wasn’t enough to finish that union off, though.




But Darien’s got this.









The reinforcing wave appears here.







This one’ll leave a mark!

As it turned out, nope!




What? Why?!
Well done.









At the far end, A qsiti Beastmaster and Dragon appear. Unfortunately, they are so far away that it’s impossible to target them, and they won’t advance on their own. So it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’ll never join the fight. There’s only one or two things I can think of that can even hit them.




And the boss union has appeared, so while I have ordered all my unions to stay on their toes and avoid fighting, I can’t stall the fight forever.










More reinforcements show up as soon as the turn starts, the cheaters.




The boss union Raidlock’s Rush, adds a Bluff to move the morale meter in the wrong direction, but they take a lot of damage from the Confuse art.




Bring it!



Oh, this is neat. I think that once I mentioned that once you have learned an Arcana, all you need for that leader to cast it is two mystics-capable units in the union. Well, the great news is that since whenever a unit has asked to learn something, I’ve said yes, I have a lot of units who are mystic-capable. I could not get Paris’s Class to do a manual Fatal Eclipse (No Invocation user), but with max morale, he can do it on his own. An arcana (since it hits the entire battlefield) is one of the only things which can even hit the dragon at the far end. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough to kill it.








If I hadn’t ordered Rush’s Troop to Defend, they would have died.












And that does it! Paris clears the board in one swoop, including the Dragon. I’m pretty sure very few Arcanas could have done that. We don’t even get damage numbers. I reach BR 48.


learned:
  • Crush!
  • Revitalize III!
class changed to Master Druid!
learned Nimble Double Slash!


- BOSS Video: Young the Belligerent





Music: Slipping Through your Fingers





Finally. Feels like I aged fifty years waitin’ for ya!






At least you didn’t get pounded by the other guys, ‘cause Young the Belligerent’s the only one worthy enough




to beat the livin’ crap outa ya!




So get ready to enjoy some good old-fashioned lovin’ from Mr. Young!




I’ve been lookin’ forward to this moment for ages!




Hope you can put up a good fight, because I wanna savour this as long as I can!


Music: Press to Victory


Mission: Defeat Young!




Not really any gimmicks to speak of this time, just a big fight.






Stay strong!

That’s okay, as normal attacks go.






Paris didn’t quite finish them off.




But a dodge-counter from Violet does the trick. Normally, I try to miss those on purpose, but these fights can be tricky, so it’s better to not take chances.






Do you require assistance?




Oh good. Brawl is Young’s special, and fitting for someone who loves to fight, Young will always use it at the end of the turn. Always.
















Ouch. Brawl can hit every union, but it’s not guaranteed to hit them all. But the bright side is that it happens at the end of a turn, so you can prepare healing to go off before it, and it doesn’t usually do enough damage to one-shot a union.




I won’t let bullies like you get in my way!
Niiice… this one looks loaded.

The goal is to heal and eliminate the remaining mooks. Once they are dead, Brawl should be a lot less of a threat. Paris’s Class is going to stand by and build up AP, because I still want to get him to learn Rejuvenating Water.








Boom!

Blocter and Darien team up to do 8882 damage.




You okay?

Luckily the silence didn’t take, or else Rush would have been in trouble.




Young dodged the Dispirit, but Pagus healed Kate’s Pack back to full.








I’ll slice you to ribbons!




We’re still in good shape. But to ensure that continues, everyone moderately injured will keep their HP up.






Every third turn (I’m guessing), Young gets a free turn to cast Victory Cry, lowering your morale.






For once, Torgal does not do freakishly insane amounts of damage, and this union can survive another turn.











Try this on for size!

With only one unit, you can see how the damage is drastically reduced.




Good!




I’ve chosen Kate to be the sacrificial union which gets resurrected to force-trigger the reassessment into the Rejuvenating Water Arcana. Looks like it’ll still be another turn or two before that comes up, though.




Well done.






Exactly as planned.






Don’t push yourself!
I am ready to fight!

NOT as planned. It turns out that this union configuration is a little faster than the others. If Paris’s union acts first, I can’t force-trigger the arcana. So that plan is out the window, it will have to wait until later, when I can change his union to make it slower.




Zuido was actually more threatening, because he used combat arts in addition to his special. Regular attacks just aren’t that damaging.




Don’t let a punk like that take you out!








Let us duel – to the DEATH!




Come on! COME ON!!




Oh, that made it more interesting.










He’s almost in critical now.




There we go.




Ohhhh!

It looks like Gabriel will be healing Kate, so he’s toast.




Nice, that saved his life.




Rain down destruction from their flank!

The union proceeds to heal everyone else.




I’ll slice you to ribbons!






It ain’t over yet… I still got plenty of rear end-kickin’ left in me. …Damnit, where did all my strength go? You weren’t… supposed to… be that strong... Ugh…




learned Smash IV!
learned Nimble Thunderclap II!
learned Hartshorn III!
learned Restorative Tincture II!






Roberto can get the Frostblade Sword, which also has a weapon art. Umm… Snowblind. Snowblind has the same obnoxious conditions as Zeal’s Virtue, which means we’re not likely to see it. Roberto is still kinda crappy.




Try something new!
You are right… I am far too old for pusillanimity!
Oh man, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope they find a cure for it soon!




Music: The Crumbling Fortress







If we cannot even control ourselves, how can we presume to control them?
I don’t know.

Humility… It is something that must not be forgotten. …Even if you lot are the only ones who remember it.


Before we move on to Base 6, I really want to get Rush into the Ninja class. He needs STR 59, and he has STR 57, so we’re doing a little dungeon crawling.






I came here hoping to find some Chimera things for Blocter or Torgal, and found this rare instead.




Note the morale bar. Robelia might be a low-level dungeon, but Caligula is a high-level rare monster. Unfortunately, while I did record this on video, he spent most of the fight missing or casting debuffs, and wasn’t that threatening. So it’s probably not worth watching.




When bosses get the question marks, it’s a special art. When we get them, it’s a new art or an upgrade.






He had a lot of HP, this took 5 turns to wear down.

learned Nimble Thunderclap II!
learned Mighty Double Strike III!
learned Knee Splitter!
learned Wind Shear III!
learned Swift Resonance Edge III!
learned Nimble Double Slash II!
learned Mystic Missile III!

But where I really want to go is to a tough dungeon, and one of the toughest new dungeons around is the Second Path, near Fornstrand.






The second path is a maze of over-passing paths and one-way connections. Of note, a large chunk of the entire eastern side is inaccessible from this side.




Obtained Kardia Morsel! …or so you thought – Mr. Diggs ate it!
The Digs Count has increased by 1! The Digs count has been restored to max!




The door is sealed tightly with Remnant power. The appropriate Key Remnant is needed.

In the far northwest corner of the Second Path is this mysterious door. We won’t find the key here, I’ll tell you that. During this dungeon, I reach BR 49. I didn’t record much video, I only got a blooper, where I died after engaging too many enemies at once and not taking them seriously enough.

class changed to Legendary Cavalier!
learned Bluff II!
class changed to Ninja!
learned Vivification Herb III!
class changed to Lordly Bard!

Once I got Ninja, I thought that I was done and could now safely go to Base 6. If I had actually bothered to READ the description of the Ninja class, I would have learned that I was terribly mistaken.





New Arts Summary
learned:
  • Crush!
  • Revitalize III!
  • Mighty Double Strike III!
class changed to Master Druid!
learned:
  • Nimble Double Slash!
  • Restorative Tincture II!
  • Nimble Double Slash II!
learned:
  • Smash IV!
  • Vivification Herb III!
learned Nimble Thunderclap II!
learned:
  • Poison Gas!
  • Hartshorn III!
class changed to Lordly Bard!
learned Spark!
learned Nimble Thunderclap II!
learned Knee Splitter!
learned Wind Shear III!
learned Swift Resonance Edge III!
learned:
  • Mystic Missile III!
  • Bluff II!
class changed to Legendary Cavalier!



Battlefield: Base 5
BOSS: Young the Belligerent


Next Time: You are but poor, ignorant fools, to dare challenge someone with such sublime power!