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Messages - Lady Ladile

1
FFT: Parted Ways / Re: FFT: Parted Ways Battle Logs
October 29, 2013, 10:34:22 pm
I've been busy, but I've managed to make it to the beginning of Chapter 2!

Up until Ft. Zeakden, I hadn't really had very much trouble with any of the other fights.  I was able to clear the Thieves Fort, Lenalia Plateau, and the Windmill Shed all within one or two attempts, mainly by playing defensively and letting the enemies come to me.  Ft. Zeakden wasn't really *hard* so much as really really irritating since I wanted to steal Algus' goodies before dispatching him.  After probably 5 or 6 tries, I finally won by luring him on top of the fort and blocking him in in order to steal his stuff.  I had one character with First Aid and another with Esuna to clear any instances of Berserk or Disable that he happened to hit anyone with; once I had taken what I wanted, I simply beat him down while his buddies were stuck on the ground and helpless to intervene.

General Impressions
Sentinels are still pretty dang awesome.
Poison continues to be useful.
Holy crap there's a lot of equipment options.
Still digging the emphasis on buffs and debuffs.
2
FFT: Parted Ways / Re: PW 2.0: What's In Store
October 29, 2013, 07:21:55 pm
Actually, there are now four people waiting...  ;)
3
FFT: Parted Ways / Re: FFT: Parted Ways Battle Logs
October 16, 2013, 06:03:45 pm
Well, when you're playing defensively, Poison seems to be a good way to whittle the enemy down until you can reliably take him out.  In vanilla, Poison was such a booger to land that it wasn't worth the effort  :)
4
FFT: Parted Ways / Re: FFT: Parted Ways Battle Logs
October 16, 2013, 11:37:39 am
It's pretty late in the game, what with PW 2.0 in the works, but I thought I'd post my impressions of PW 1.0 as I work my way through it!

Gariland - Poisonous clothes?  :shock:

Having not read anything about PW prior to starting, this is obviously the point where I discovered that I'd better get used to being poor for the forseeable future

Mandalia - Didn't really have much difficulty here; Freelancer seems nifty (I like First Aid) and Alchemist is about what I was expecting.

Sweegy - My reaction to Gerard = OH COOL!  However I was a little dismayed to see the Lamias (argh CCP) and kinda had an "Oh s***" reaction to the Werewolves.  Ended up Taming one of them, so now I gots a Werewolf of my own.

Dorter - By this time I'd opened up Sentinel on a couple of my generics so I put them to good use here; this battle didn't give me too much trouble though it was slightly time-consuming.

Sand Rats - I basically blocked them all in the house and sloooowly whittled them down with Bio/Poison and Algus taking potshots from the top of the walls.  Not being able to take the Time Harp off of one of the female Freelancers made me sad, though.

General Impressions
You've managed to make Yellow Chocobos even *more* annoying, somehow.  *slow clap*
Maybe I'm just bad, but it seems like early battles involve a lot of sandbagging and playing super defensively.
Good job on making Freelancers actually have some useful skills compared to their vanilla counterparts!
I always liked the Alchemist/Chemist but with money and items in short supply, I'm not sure that I'll be using them much.
Sentinels are really really cool so far and I could see them being useful all the way to the end.
Scholars are nice, but I've always been a fan of mages; Poison is actually useful for a change!
Good job in general on making buffing and debuffing actually matter!

I've opened the Devout, Magus, Brigand, Shinobi, Berserker, Barbarian, and Sniper classes but I've not really had a chance to explore them in-depth yet.
5
FFT: Parted Ways / Re: PW 2.0: What's In Store
October 15, 2013, 02:35:27 am
You can do it~!  Now, to go play PW 1.0 >.>  *scurries*
6
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: Goodbye, Farewell and...
October 15, 2013, 02:33:53 am
I'm not around much, but CCP is the first Tactics patch/hack that I ever had the pleasure of playing and I've enjoyed it greatly.  Thank you for taking the time to make it.

Abyssinia, Celdie - don't be a stranger :)
7
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 22, 2012, 09:54:17 pm
Yeah, I'm definitely not giving up, but until I win, I can only take a few rounds of restarts before I need to take a break.  Thanks for the information though, since you've got my gears turning again!
8
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 22, 2012, 09:25:40 pm
My challenge run isn't dead, but it's kinda been on hiatus the past few days due to work and being out of town most of this weekend.  I've also run into a wall on the Velius fight (surprise surprise) and until I can figure out a way past it, I probably won't make any other posts concerning the challenge.  I've been working on a normal playthrough however, so I may make occasional posts about it in the meantime.
9
FFT+ / Re: About monsters & elements
July 19, 2012, 11:05:58 pm
For what it's worth, I'd agree with giving most monsters at least one elemental affinity and one elemental weakness; perhaps the highest tier of each monster class could get two elemental affinities or something, if it seems fitting for the monster.

As to the second question, I'd say that if most monsters have an affinity, then they should have a weakness and the rest halved.

Of course I haven't played the patch and I have no idea how this would actually work in practice, so you might want to play around with it a bit and do some testing.
10
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 18, 2012, 12:31:15 am
Grog Hill - Squad #2 (0 resets)
These guys here weren't too much of a threat; more of an annoyance.  The biggest threats were the two Alchemists, one of which knew Phoenix Down and the other that had two guns equipped with some break abilities.  However, Celine didn't find it too difficult to clean house with Storm Ring once my guys were able to close the distance.  On a lark, I had Gavin try to invite the remaining Butler and it actually worked with just an 11% chance of success.  I sent the guy on his way afterward, but not before relieving him of his equipment, including a Whisperwind Cloak.


Yardow Fort City - Squad #3 (0 resets)
Loremasters certainly don't mean an automatic victory, but they sure do make it easier most of the time.  Tyris was able to drop an Ice Storm on two of the Gunslingers almost right away and take them out of the fight.  Being able to control Rafa here makes things much easier as well, since I was able to simply move her out of the way and use her as a healer when needed.  Ramza, Estellise, and Darian were able (once hasted via Ambush) to drop Malak before he had a chance to do much more than cast a couple of moderate-damage Blizzard spells.  The remaining Gunslinger and the two Ghaeles didn't pose much of a problem; I've been getting lucky so far with practically every enemy Ghaele I've run into not appearing to know White Wind or Revivify.  The only real casualties of this battle were a few pieces of equipment, broken thanks to the aforementioned Gunslinger.

Random Comments
If this were a normal playthrough, I'd actually be looking forward to the end of this chapter since Rafa's changed abilities means that she's actually a good healer.  Alas, all I can look forward to is taking their equipment and then giving them the boot.


Yuguo Woods - Squad #3 (0 resets)
White Wind.  That pretty much sums it up.  Oh, toss in a few regular melee attacks, a Quiet, and a Meteor Strike (for funsies).

Random Comments
This is another situation where I'm altering the usual order of battle; since this battle started a new rotation and I'm aware of the (probable) pain that lies ahead, I opted to start with Squad #3 since they do the least damage as a team.
11
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 17, 2012, 03:00:36 am
Goland Coal City - Squad #2 (0 resets)
Seeing as Galaxy Stop remains unchanged, so too does this battle.  My guys were at a height disadvantage since none of them can jump very well aside from Ramza's flying antics, but that was really all that was needed up on the roof.  The rest of my guys were free to take potshots at the incapacitated enemies on the ground.


Lesalia Castle - Squad #1 (0 resets)
Since Zalmo has access to Revival and a more-or-less unlimited supply of MP, there's not much point in taking down the other bad guys since he's just going to stand them back up again.  Lissa stayed hidden behind the wall using Wheel Formation, while everyone else hacked and slashed their way to Zalmo.  For the most part, it was easy to just ignore everyone else and focus-fire on Zalmo once my guys were close enough to him.  Nothing really special for this fight.


UBS #2 - Squad #2 (0 resets)
I know I really shouldn't complain since they didn't have/use Terminar, but Toreros are *such* annoying little twerps.  Right away, they first tried Berserking various members of my team, with little success.  When that didn't work, they switched to Slowing everyone down.  The Loremaster wasn't an issue since Ramza was able to OHKO him mid-charge (dumb AI).  The Vanquishers were more of a nuisance than a threat.  None of my guys were in a good position to do a lot of damage in a hurry, so we had to dink people down as we could.  Aubrey used Poison Cloud for the first time here to poison a couple of the Toreros, so that helped whittle them down a little faster.


UBS #3 - Squad #3 (0 resets)
My compulsive desire to kill everyone almost cost me a reset here.  Taking out the two Lapidaries wasn't an issue thanks to Tyris' spells and Ramza's mobility (thank you Holy Wings) and the two Ghaeles weren't that big of a concern to me either.  My main worry was Izlude himself and the Tactician hiding all the way across the map.  Darian's use of Ambush helped him to cross the map quickly and work on taking out the Tactician while everyone else focused on the two Ghaeles and Izlude.  Unfortunately, the Tactician did get off a few Wheel Formations and an Extended Rations before I could bring him down, so that made things more difficult.

Izlude alternated between rapid-jumping the weaker team members (Tyris and Janus) and swinging his sword at Estellise, breaking both her helmet and shield in the process.  Tyris finished off one of the Ghaeles with a spell, but the other proved to be tenacious, dodging several incoming attacks.  First, Janus went down and then Tyris.  Ramza has no more MP to use Revivify and Estellise is having a hard time making her way over to use Lay on Hands.  Darian, now finished with the Tactician, makes his way over to assist his friends.  They manage to take out the remaining Ghaele, but then Izlude drops Estellise with a melee attack.  No more revival.  At this point, I figured I'd try to go all-out with Ramza and Darian and see if I could beat Janus' countdown timer.  Ramza takes a swing at Izlude, misses, and gets countered into critical status.  Darian gets lucky though and nails him with two crossbow attacks and manages to end the fight with Janus' timer on 0.  Whew.


UBS #1 - Squad #1 (1 reset)
My first attempt was ended pretty quickly by Wiegraf hitting three of my guys with Stasis Sword and then getting mauled by a Vanquisher who happened to know Hydro Storm.  Ouch.

My second attempt went much more smoothly.  Wiegraf's opening Stasis Sword only did moderate damage to Nella and Korin and neither Vanquisher knew Hydro Storm or any other major attacks.  Normally I'd just focus fire on Wiegraf here and call it a day, but I knew that it would take me a few rounds to bring him down and I'd have all of his other friends beating on us in the meantime.  So I decided to take them out first.  Nella dropped one of the Red Mages right away with a Flowing Strike  and a combination of attacks from Ramza, Korin, and Sabrina dropped one of the Vanquishers.  Lissa did her Tactician thing and made sure everyone was kept Hasted.  The Ghaele blew all of her MP to revive the first Red Mage and then spent the rest of the battle being useless.  That same Red Mage was quickly dispatched again with a Howling Rend and the second Red Mage was dropped by a Terran Thrust (that missed Wiegraf, grr).  By this point, the second Vanquisher as well as the Ghaele had wandered into attack range and were both dispatched.  With Wiegraf being the only enemy left, my guys were free to take him out.  Terran Thrust proved very useful against him, much more so than any of the other Mystic Knight skills, so I'm assuming he was equipped with something that gave him a weakness to Earth (but I forgot to check what he had, sigh).


Random Comments
Ugh....I won't lie, my last few posts have been sporadic because I hate Chapter 3.  Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in the next day or two and get to the fun stuff in Chapter 4.  I'm also playing with my "normal" CCP file intermittently as well, so I don't get burned out/bored with my challenge and so I can play some of the classes that didn't make the cut for the squad run.

12
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 14, 2012, 06:01:59 pm
Lionel Castle Gate - Squad #3 (7-8 resets)
This battle turned out to be a bigger stumbling block than the Golgorand fight.  Since Ramza could just fly over the top of the gate to join the rest of the team, Gaffy wasn't the problem.  It seemed that no matter which squad I tried, they would get destroyed by the Lapidaries or berserked/poisoned/slowed to hell by the Toreros.  Even on the battles where I made some headway and dropped a couple enemies, the Tactician would just use Crane Formation to stand them back up again.  Grrrrr!

I finally ended up winning with Squad #3; although they did just fight at Golgorand, that battle was the last one of a rotation so this battled started a new rotation.  I pretty much won by getting lucky with Tyris' charge time on Fireball so I was able to drop one of the Lapidaries and two of the Toreros in one go.  It also really helped that the Tactician didn't stand back up on his timer counted down, which meant there was no one else that could revive the enemy.  From there, it was fairly smooth sailing for the rest of the fight.

Random Comments
The Tactician dropped his Ox Pole, which would become *immensly* useful in the next fight, though I didn't realize it at first.  I also appreciated the deliberate heal/revive setup on the enemy Tactician here; nicely done.  Gaffy's Speed Saving was also a surprise and a little worrisome near the end.


Inside Lionel Castle - Squad #1 (10+ resets)
I really thought that this was where my challenge run was going to end, because it seemed that no matter which squad I used (#1 or #2) Queklain simply moved too fast for my guys to keep up with the healing and reviving.  My guys are only average level 11-13ish at this point, so they don't have a lot of HP or MP.

After a brief discussion in chat with Celdia where she reminded me of a weakness that I'd noticed earlier but hadn't given a lot of thought to and me remembering the Ox Pole that I'd picked up in my last fight, I altered my strategy and equipment somewhat and tried again...

Squad #1 takes the field again!  Lissa now has the Ox Pole in addition to her Tactician's Shoes and Winged Cap, so she can still use Wheel Formation as well as Call the White Wind (heal) and Crane Formation (raise).  Nella loses her robe and borrows some Rainbow Mail, plus she gets the Jade Hairpin we stole from Ovelia earlier and some Dried Herbs as her accessory.  This lowers her MP some, but she gains a ton of HP and two points of MA for boosting her swordskills.

The winning fight involved heavy use of Wheel Formation to keep people Hasted and keeping everyone spread out as much as possible, so Nightmare or Bio3/Bio could only hit a limited number of targets.  Sabrina stays close to Lissa at the bottom of the map, while Ramza and Nella chase Queklain around the top part of the map.  Korin moves about as necessary in order to use his bow attacks or occasionally get in a Far Shot.  He also managed to lower Quek's speed at one point (every little bit helps).  When a unit would get hit with Death Sentence, I usually had them start moving back towards Sabrina so she could revive them once they fell.  If they died too far away, Lissa would use Crane Formation to stand them up again.  One of Nella's swordskill attacks (not saying which) took huge chunks of HP out of Quek until she ran out of MP (Sabrina doesn't know Tincture yet, which is my mistake).  Ramza floated around and did respectable damage with melee attacks, Korin used his bow, and Sabrina even got in a few shots with her gun if Quek happened to be in range.  It was actually a critical hit from Sabrina that finished the fight.  So....sandbagging yes, but more dangerous since not everyone could revive and aside from the one item-user, nothing was a 100% guarantee.

Chapter 2 is complete!






13
Female Thief - As has been said, she looks like a chemo patient or something
Time Mage - Either one really; what's up with the stupid hats?
Calculator - Either one; big winter coats are not my thing.
14
I'm assuming all the current sprites are the vanilla ones, yes?
15
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 14, 2012, 12:16:39 am
Golgorand Execution Site - Squad #3 (5 resets)
This was a big roadblock the first time I played CCP, and this time was no different.  For the first several tries, no matter what my squad placement was, I would either get overwhelmed by sheer numbers or fall prey to the Demagogue's Sadomasochism or the one Champion's Mystic Knight skills.
On my winning run, I started Ramza, Darian, and Janus as far towards the ramp leading upward as I could and had Estellise and Tyris standing under the archway.  The contributors to my win were:

(1) Ambush - Hasting anyone was helpful, but especially so for Ramza and Janus
(2) Quiet - As soon as it was feasible, Janus used this to take most of the bite out of the Demagogues
(3) Fireball - Tyris got lucky on her first turn with her charge times and dropped one of the Demagogues and sent both Gaffy and one of the Champions into critical status.  Later, she took out one of the enemy Vanquishers with it as well.
(4) Hamstring - Darian put this to use to keep the Champions/Vanquishers/Demas locked into place and away from my guys
(5) Gamble - Janus proc'ed Charm on one of the Demagogues which kept her out of my hair for a few turns

Ramza mostly flew around and took chunks out of people with his sword, although he did have to use Revivify to stand Janus back up at one point.  Estellise mostly did the same, though she spent more of her time using Lay on Hands to stand people back up or Healing Touch to give someone a boost.

Random Comments
What the Bandit lacks in health, he makes up for in speed and versatility of skills.  Hamstring and Ambush were lifesavers in this fight.
16
Random comment from the peanut gallery, but I like that idea as well (and I've not even played the patch yet).  I hate redundancy in skills and I love Agrias, so it'd be nice to see her be her own class and not a weaker version of TG Cid.
17
Fantactic1316 ?
18
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 10, 2012, 01:09:05 am
Bariaus Hill - Squad #2 (0 resets)
I remember the Lapidaries here giving me some trouble when I did my first normal playthrough, so I was expecting this to be a more difficult fight.  However, neither Lapidary used any of their abilities, instead opting to attack me with their books.  The two Nomads tried their best to pincushion people, with moderate success (poor Aubrey).  The two Demagogues also flailed around more or less uselessly, with only one of them doing any serious damage with Red Magic (poor Aubrey, again).

Random Comments
I'm really starting to like my own Lapidary, Celine.  I knew they could be a nuisance from my previous playthrough, but I'd never really bothered playing one of my own.  The targetting on the skills still takes me some getting used to, but they seem reasonably powerful rather than cheesy or cheap.


Zigolis Swamp - Squad #3 (0 resets)
Now that all squads can actually heal and revive themselves, monsters don't concern me quite as much.  Those Malboro enemies still kinda make me nervous though, as they seem to have a larger movement range now and that Acid Spit can hurt.  Thankfully, the marshland restricted the movements of the enemies aside from the Malboro and the Ghoul so my guys were basically able to take long-range potshots at them until they got close enough for melee.

Random Comments
At this point, Darian knows the Ambush skill, so it proves very useful for getting people moving in a hurry.  Tyris also swiped Alma's Royal Tome and thus has access to Bless and True Resurrection.  I....am not sure if I should consider this an overpowered item or not.  Even though both spells cost a chunk of mana, a full resurrection spell and a powerful buffing spell are pretty amazing to have access to.  Ramza being able to fly over enemies and objects never ceases to amuse me.


Goug Machine City - Squad #1 (0 resets)
This battle is where I started getting a taste of my own medicine regarding Mystic Knights.  One moved up immediately and dropped Nella, who is pretty squishy due to wearing robes instead of armor.  The other smacked Ramza pretty good, but not enough to kill him.  One of the Bandits here had Ambush and used it to keep himself and some of his buddies hasted, while the other had access to Nomad skills and trapped Korin in place for a time with Updraft.  The two Lapidaries were still more or less ineffectual, though one of them did kill Mustadio with a Relic Ring after one of the Bandits had softened him up a bit.

Thankfully for my guys, Lissa was able to wind up Wheel Formation, Take Cover, and Extended Rations which helped to swing the odds back in my favor.  It also didn't hurt that Ramza sometimes hits like a truck and took out one of the enemy Mystic Knights almost immediately.  Nella was finally able to go to town as well once Sabrina finally got her revived and healed up.


Bariaus Valley - Squad #2 (0 resets)
Aha, here we have some enemy Tacticians who are geared to rumble.  It was definitely entertaining to be on the receiving end of some Tactician shenanigans; they seemed to stick with Extended Rations (Regen) and East Wind Prayer (Faith).  The last one might have proved useful for Aubrey's offensive spells, but she was busy casting Aura/Aura Wave every turn to help keep people alive.  Gavin flailed around uselessly for most of this fight due to being rather slow, which could prove to be a liability on down the line; must keep an eye on what equipment I give him.

The two enemy Red Mages went down first and in a hurry, but the two Tacticians and the two Demagogues were harder to drop due to some amazing evasion and the aforementioned regen shenanigans.  There were also some alchemy tricks employed as one of the Tacticians and one of the Demagogues hit Prier and Agrias (respectively) with Venom, which slowed me down as well.  The only real tense moment was when a Tactician took Prier down on the other side of the river from any reviving magic, forcing Aubrey to race/wade across to Raise her before her timer ran out.

19
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 09, 2012, 12:46:19 am
Araguay Woods - Squad #2 (0 resets)
This is a fight against a bunch of goblins, so there's not really much to say here.  Squad #2 came, saw, kicked some ass, and saved Boco (with some assistance from Gaffy and Agrias.)

Random Comments
Although everyone is still pretty low level (8-10), they're definitely becoming more powerful now that they've been able to learn a few more skills.  Healing and reviving is becoming much easier to manage now, so I don't have to worry so much about some of the battles.  Ramza learned Holy Wings after the last fight, so he can fly now.  Woo!


Zirekile Falls - Squad #3 (0 resets)
Since I'm making an effort to play things legit, I didn't strip Gaffy of his belongings before this battle like I normally would.  However, I saw that you anticipated such a scenario and made sure he was geared (he also jumped about two levels as well).  If I'd have known that, I would've taken his gear after all.

Even with his gear, Gaffy really wasn't a threat.  Ramza, Estellise, Agrias, and Janus took care of him and his buddies on one side of the bridge, while Tyris blew up a couple of on the other side of the bridge.  Delita helped a little.  Tyris is definitely Squad #3's MVP - I'm amazed that Fireball does as much damage as it does.


Zaland Fort City - Squad #1 (0 resets)
The two enemy Alchemists here surprised me by using Adrenaline on themselves right off the bat; they certainly hit a little harder, but since only one even had a gun, they basically took themselves out of the fight.

I experimented a bit with my Tactician and the Phantom Vial this time around, so I finally got to try out Call the White Wind.  Definitely very useful, but I have to be careful since it'll damage Lissa in her undead state.  Nella continues to melt faces with her Mystic Knight skills; I like the fact that she's got both long-range and short-range attacks, as it makes her more versatile in combat.  Ramza works well as a back-up healer/buffer with the ability to deal a decent amount of melee damage if needed.

20
Celdia's Complete Patch / Re: CCP - Battle Logs
July 07, 2012, 04:28:22 am
Lenalia Plateau - Squad #1 (0 resets)
This battle proved that the Alchemist + Tactician combo is truly a force to be reckoned with....either that, or they're a rather cheap combo.  All it takes is Sabrina dropping a Venom on Lissa to give her access to Extended Rations (regen for all), Wheel Formation (haste for all), and Take Cover (protect + shell for all).  If Lissa happened to use Lie in Wait before this, she also has access to Stone Maze Trick (Don't Move on enemies) on her first turn before poison status takes her out of Transparency.  That's a huge deal, especially in these lower level battles!

With everyone hasted as a result of Tactician shenanigans, it was no problem for Ramza, Delita, Korin, and Nella to lay waste to Miluda and her friends.  Now that Nella has a little more MP and a few more moves, she's proving to be the biggest damage-dealer for Squad #1, frequently OHKOing or sending enemies to critical status.  Ramza also has a little more MP now and can actually make use of a few of his spells as a Ghaele; mainly reserving White Wind for emergency healing if needed.  At this point, Korin is still mainly just a guy with a bow; he has few abilities and low MP.  On the bright side, this battle netted him enough JP to learn Concentrate.  Eeeee!


Windmill Shed - Squad #2 (0 resets)
Now that gems are finally availble in shops, Celine finally got her chance to head into battle!  This one wasn't too horrible, though I decided against attempting to kill *everyone* like I did with the two Miluda battles.  Right off the bat, Wiegraf took Prier down with Crush Punch, but Celine's Relic Ring dropped one of the Red Mages and sent one of the Brawlers into critical status; Delita walked up and finished her off.  Meanwhile, Wiegraf and the other Brawler decide to try and beat up on Aubrey, who spent most of her time trying to keep herself healed and trying to get Prier back on her feet.  The other Red Mage made the foolish decision to charge a long cast time spell on Ramza, so he just walked up and dropped her mid-charge.  After this, I decide to go ahead and just kill Wiegraf since I'm uncertain of my ability to kill them all before Aubrey ends up getting unlucky with a Crush Punch.  Relic Ring did 60 damage a pop to him and Aubrey sent him into critical with a well-placed Freeze.

Random Comments
From previous experience with CCP, I'm aware that Lapidaries and their gems function like Draw Out in regards to cost with Engraving being even more expensive since the gem always breaks.  Between this and trying to keep everyone's equipment up-to-date, I'll have to be sure to do a few random battles between story missions.


Fort Zeakden - Squad #3 (0 resets)
Tyris to Algus:  "Fireball + you = dream come true."

Random Comments
Yeah, I'll get mine once I start running into enemy Loremasters.  Even so, blowing stuff up is awesome.


At this point, the level range amongst the entire group ranges from 5-8.
Onwards to Chapter 2!

Now that we're in Chapter 2, it's time strip Rad, Lavian, and Alicia of their equipment before giving them the boot.  Hey, some of it is an upgrade for various people, while the rest can be sold - gotta get money for those gems somewhere!  And now, on with the adventure...


Dorter 2 - Squad #1 (0 resets)
This battle wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been for the two Nomads that climbed to the top of the buildings to take potshots at everyone.  Gaffy immobilized the two Bandits at the start with Updraft and Agrias pummeled people with Stasis Sword.  Sabrina and Lissa got the usual Tactician shenanigans rolling, but over time they took a lot of fire from the two Nomads and eventually went down.  The two Red Mages first tried keeping their friends healed with Aura Wave, but once the two Bandits went down, they switched to more offensive spells and took Ramza down.  The battle eventually came down to just Gaffy, Agrias, and Korin standing, racing against the timer to kill the last Nomad before Ramza or anyone else crystallized.  Kind of a sloppy win, but a win just the same.

Random Comments
*This* battle proves that even with a pretty powerful combination such as the Alchemist & Tactician, some high ground and a little long-range weaponry can almost ruin your day.  Although Updraft is annoying when used against me and useful when I use it on the enemies, Nomads don't really seem super impressive at this point....kinda like the vanilla Archer.  Oh well, I still have a soft spot for bow-users.