#FinalFantasyV

I've got Exdeath's Castle coming up. Some of the fights I expected to go poorly didn't. !Sing kept Dragon Pod manageable and all the over-leveling earlier gave me reason enough to keep fighting in the Castle Bal basement after I had stolen a twin lance, so I was level 25 by the time I got to the end of the not-very-interesting Forest of Moore (and survived thanks to flame rings). Atomos, however, I hoped would be put to sleep by dream harp, but that doesn't work because of the heavy creature type. So, I got hit by comet, gravity, and slowga spells and barely won with my dragoon getting a sword dance.

#FinalFantasyV

Flame rings or angel rings? Why not both? I just had to spend some time after the first set stealing from Bio Soldiers and Harvesters.

Sandworm went very smoothly. Then I picked up Bard and it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. Cray Claw can't be hit by a silver harp, but !Sing works well against it. Adamantoise's 25 defense slows down a Thief with the moonring blade, but a silver harp can outdamage that until it only has about 1/4 its max HP. However, Adamantoise does have 50% magic evade. Then there was the assault on Ronka Ruins exterior. While I had flame rings, I only got the rocket launchers, but that turned out to be fine because they're vulnerable to stop. I actually switched 3 of my party members over to Bard since silver harps could do more damage and I could guarantee they wouldn't get turns. Back to 3 Thieves, 1 Bard for Soul Cannon. Launchers can be stopped, but Romeo's Ballad can miss. 1 Thief had !Hide, but I fumbled a bit. The difficulty spike ends soon.

#FinalFantasyV

...so I ran Byblos out of MP. I ran myself out of phoenix down and used about 50 hi-potions. I was also level 23 which allowed a more comfortable max HP for surviving a physical attack and a wind slash, plus a slightly higher chance of drain, discord, web, and confuse failing. The discord targeting was a bit more forgiving on the final attempt, with Faris still doing 100 damage with the moonring blade when I let her get KO'd because I wanted to be rid of slow status and thought I could still bring her back up. I used the emulator's ability to read the memory and checked SamuraiGoroh's memory map; Byblos had 16 MP left when I made that mistake, so I just continued plinking away for 52, 30, or 13 damage with the remaining party members.

After I replenish my hi-potions I can go and get Bard and do even less physical damage. I can also nearly buy 4 rings. Flame or Angel?

#FinalFantasyV

I got through Karnak, now I have 4 Thieves. Ifrit was slower but fine. I've given Byblos 2 long attempts at level 17, and while I saw very few discords and they mostly hit 1 character, I'm doing 120 damage less than drain replenishes at full level and it gets worse from there. Sure, sometimes I don't get the drain counter or it will miss, but I can't run Byblos out of 1,000 MP. In order to get through that last 800 HP I need to over-level and ruin the challenge of my off season Fiesta rules for the rest of World 1.

#FinalFantasyV
#FourJobFiesta
#FF5FJF2025

#spoilers

I opted for HP+30% on Lenna and Faris, while Krile used Equip Bows to help out with trying to get darkness on Exdeath's first form and used the Artemis Bow against the Almagest part in case Bartz couldn't land Catoblepas. It took a few more tries, but with !Dualcast they went by about the number of turns as during the Classic Jobs run with the less-accurate Break spell. Neo Exdeath did get to cast Grand Cross once, but only after I passed a damage threshold to skip the first. It was a bit more annoying than usual, with Krile zombified and Bartz berserked. Fortunately, Golem doesn't block damage when you attack your own party, so I could KO and revive to clear that.

That's it for my first Onion Jobs run and my Four Job Fiesta runs for this year. I'm glad I chose Fifth Job since I got to combine Ranger with Monk and keep things more interesting by getting rid of Black Mage.