[Old] Need Help with Velius!

[skiploom188]

Should the battle with Velius be really long? He keeps on trolling Awakening everytime I kill 1 or more of his 3 demons. Velius isn't the problem, it's his damn rez ability. I can't even lay an offensive on him because those damn demons keep Giga flaring and Dark Holying the shit out of me x3. Or maybe because I just suck at this game.

[Dome]

Tell us your levels/set up/abilities, and we will try to help you

[skiploom188]

ramza lvl 20. generics and other chars ranging from lvl 16 to 17. Used mercenary ramza, a thief mustadio for stealing brave from Velius(Less Damage Split Yeeahhh), accompanied by Black and White mages with Boco, I renamed him Normandy lol. I have Ninja Agrias and another female generic capable of being a ninja as well. Didn't use them in this battle.

Note that only Ramza, Mustadio, and Boco are the only male units in my team. the remaining units are female. Yeah, I wanted to make a playthrough with dominant female presence. Just to shake things up hehe.

Maybe that's the problem...
I exchanged the ninjas for mages.

[Dome]

Random tips:
- Giga Flare hits everyone in range, you can use that at your advantage by moving near other demons/Velius
- Dark Holy's damage depends on faith (=low faith unit means lower damage)
- Dark holy costs 20 Mp. No Mp means no Dark Holy
- Velius can only directly damage you with Lich. Hit% is based on Faith
- Lich costs Mp (Musty and Knights can reduce MP)
- Velius can't heal statuses, and nor can the demons. Use this at your advantage (But remember, demons are immortal flagged)
- Enemy units in this fight rely almost only on MA in this fight. You can reduce MA using Knights or Mustadio
- Magic Evasion

:-)
P.s: Awakening is random flagged...you are getting unlucky if Velius spams it
p.p.s: Edited the post/topic

[skiploom188]

Read your tips.
-Guess I needed to use that thief ninja after all, she has 45 faith. I should use her in my next attempts.
-And yes, I'm unlucky. He spams Awakening.
-I should've left the Mind ruin scheme on. Damn!

My setups on this battle was waaaay against the equations for victory. ow.


...


Can those Demons be petrified? heehee just wondering.

[Dome]

Nope >_>

[krilz]

I had similar problems with the fight where I would kill the demons repeatedly yet Velius would spam Awakening all day long. Instead of my tactic which was a buffed up Ramza killing the demons and my generics handling Velius, I switched it around.

Ramza - Mercenary with Blood Sword (important!)
Agrias - Knight with MA break
Mustadio - Engineer with MA break
Rad - Oracle/White Magic
Boco

Everyone has MagDefUP.

Ramza starts against Wiegraf where I buff him up to about 20-25 PA and with speed save until I have 15 or so (more is not needed).

When the second part starts, Ramza will start pummeling on Velius as much as he can. Because of the Blood Sword and his speed, it doesn't matter to much if he gets hit by damage split as he'll easily heal himself up in no time.
Meanwhile, Agrias and Mustadio are busy reducing the MA of the demons. This allows me to let them cast freely and pretty much ignore them if I want. Rad and Boco are busy healing people. Rad has Oracle because I didn't want him to run out of MP which is why I also brought Boco.

My levels were around 35-ish.

[skiploom188]

I forgot to tell you Dome that I have one saved state battle which is set halfway in the Velius battle. I am yet to find out the outcome of that battle. But still the tides of that battle is equal. So I may have chances of winning. And I'm not even sure if save stating halfway and continuing later is still a valid FFT victory. Cuz you can't do that on the real PS1.

Oh, and as for krilz...

Did you win the battle?

[Dome]

I forgot to tell you Dome that I have one saved state battle which is set halfway in the Velius battle. I am yet to find out the outcome of that battle. But still the tides of that battle is equal. So I may have chances of winning. And I'm not even sure if save stating halfway and continuing later is still a valid FFT victory. Cuz you can't do that on the real PS1

Save-stating is bad, but no one is going to bite your neck if you do

[krilz]

Oh, and as for krilz...

Did you win the battle?

Yes, it was pretty much a breeze with a 15-speed Ramza chugging away on Velius for 300 per hit and the demons only doing around 50-80 damage per Gigaflare/Dark Holy. As long as I had the rest of my crew killing one or two demons a turn, Velius would never cast Lich or Corruption.

[skiploom188]

Yes, it was pretty much a breeze with a 15-speed Ramza chugging away on Velius for 300 per hit and the demons only doing around 50-80 damage per Gigaflare/Dark Holy. As long as I had the rest of my crew killing one or two demons a turn, Velius would never cast Lich or Corruption.

Great stuff. Can't wait to see Velius die on my own hands

[skiploom188]

Just finished the battle today. I have to admit, I was expecting more HP from him. But he died sooner that I thought. Stupid 1.3 mindset of mine.

[Dome]

Just finished the battle today. I have to admit, I was expecting more HP from him. But he died sooner that I thought. Stupid 1.3 mindset of mine.

Eheh, don't worry...Happens to almost everyone at least once, 1.3 has been the only complete, rebalancing patch for a very long time

[Neophyte Ronin]

spoiler

It took me two tries.  The first was an unmitigated failure because I failed to keep up with that Death-Sentence spamming.  I heard Death Sentence is now bypassing of Cancel: Dead so Ramza was between restoring his buddies and dealing killing blows to this twit.  It began to give me quite the headache.

So here was my line-up:

Ramza hit the ground running for the second attempt with Speed Save instead of Abandon, after I discovered Wiegraf bypasses evasion via innate Concentrate.  Move-Health Up and a Light Robe kept Ramza alive and kicking against repeated Lightning Stabs.  After I was sick of hearing Wiegraf talk, I gutted him and awaited the next battle.

Velius is a dick.  Dome may claim Awakening is random-flagged, but once an ally goes down, it stood a high chance of happening because it was far more reliable to cast it than to cast Lich; the demons are guaranteed to deal blows while Lich is a percentage of success.  If allies are rigged with heavy defenses like Aegis Shields and Abandon, no chance can Velius mow through the ranks.  Anyway, I had to devote time juggling some insufferable Archaic Demons, which involved Mustadio's Super-Sniping and Agrias's Dancing (yes, dancing; Perform does the same trick that the Knight does, but takes a little longer), keeping them busy and incapacitated so my offensive line could end the fight somehow.

To hammer it home, I also dispatched a Squire (Ramza's Aide-de-Camp with perfect zodiac compatibility) with White Magic, Abandon, Short Charge, and a Red Panther Coeurl companion for insurance.  The speedy creature, with the Squire's innate Monster Skill in place, can deal Shadow Bind and further incapacitate the Archaic Demons, leaving Ramza to nail Velius.

Being the insufferable jerk I am, the ladies equipped ribbons while I kept Ramza at arm's length between Mustadio and the Panther to ensure Inspiration happened on frequent occasion.  That horrible Fear technique (add Charm, Innocent and Death Sentence from any point on the fucking battlefield?) is miserable beyond belief; if you are susceptible to Charm or Death Sentence, Velius will go for it every time.  An alternate strategy is to equip Finger Guard/Earplug and an N-Kai Armlet.  It defends against the worst offenders and the half darkness is a big bonus against the demons if you're having trouble with crowd control.  If you prefer having Ramza Speed Save his way with the requisite Blood Sword, then the creature will target him exclusively.

Above all, don't be tricked by getting three Jade Armlets in a row prior to entering this fight.  Believe me, it's a dirty trick because it creates expectations in the player about what the next fight will be like.  They will think "Oh! Petrify!" and get suckered like mad.  That's the very last fight, which is nowhere near as horrible as Chapter Three's penultimate.  The good news is that beating Valius bestows a Defender Knight Sword into your inventory after all your trouble, which is better than whatever Vanilla gave you (not a whole lot).

Got him in Round Two.

Expecting more HP?  Just how difficult was 1.3 anyway?  I seem to have missed that one.  This one is proving to be pretty good so far, but what was 1.3 about?

[Dome]

Expecting more HP?  Just how difficult was 1.3 anyway?  I seem to have missed that one.  This one is proving to be pretty good so far, but what was 1.3 about?

1.3 is a patch that makes the game HARD, rebalances it and adds content (Like Marche from FFTA as a special character)
It's a good patch, but I think it's too focused on the -difficulty- part, and turns down many new players that would want to experience a rebalanced game with some extra content.
You must be very good / Have a lot of patience to play 1.3, expecially if you haven't played Vanilla (And by played, I mean completed SSC challenges and such) a lot

Plus, during the development, was known as 1.4, because I wanted to make a patch that allowed newbs to enjoy what 1.3 had to offer without being oppressed by difficult (And I also wanted to change some things I didn't like of the patch). Needless to say, I changed so many things I ended up with something very different from 1.3 XD

P.s: IIRC (And I might be wrong) Velius in 1.3 spams cyclops (With huge MA) and status skills like seal (100 petrify) the whole fight. The demons are much stronger, and can use shock-like skills (Damage = Max hp - Current hp)

[Neophyte Ronin]

Thank God you tinkered with a more palatable version.  Overemphasis on difficulty just to be difficult is the mark of a sadist and not a game designer.

[skiploom188]

You don't want to mess with Velius on 1.3. At least Plus gives players breathing room when we finally face him in combat.

[Otabo]

1.3 was good until the Onion Knight patch, then it just started getting ridiculous, IMO. Main reason why I stopped playing it.

[Dome]

Please, let's stop talking about 1.3
Everyone has his own opinion on the matter and has a lot to say, but this is the FFT: Plus section
Ok? :-)

[skiploom188]

Sorry about that, my bad for bringing that up indirectly.