Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Embrace The Glass.
Since my last update, I learned of an important change to Vampire from the GBA version. In the GBA version, Vampire deals damage equal to your missing HP, heals you for that amount, and works on any enemy. Yes, a full heal plus damage for only 3 MP. In the iOS version, though, Vampire deals damage equal to half of your missing HP, heals you for that amount, and is programmed to fail on bosses and certain other “heavy” enemies. On one hand, yeah, it probably needed a bit of a nerf. But on the other hand, this team now has very little sustainability against bosses or other “heavy” enemies. A lot of fights in this update get real dicey because of this. On a positive note, with ??? and Spellblade I hit pretty damn hard.
So, when we last heard from Team Blue Mage, we were climbing up Walse Tower in order to watch helplessly as the Water Crystal gets destroyed. Apparently, we’re not that good of a superhero team. I totally forget to get Pond’s Chorus on the way up, so I struggle a bit against Garula. I do manage to blind him with Flash after 5 tries (totally justifying my decision to use a precious Ether), and by putting everyone in the back and sucking him dry with Nerfpire, he falls. This will be the last boss fight in a while that doesn’t get dicey. As you can see from the tweet, I got Mystic Knight as my Water job, and as I’m an equal-opportunity employer, I immediately give Faris and Lenna the job.
Next, we head to Karnak and I pick up my next significant offensive spell, the questionably-named ????, from the Wild Nakks in the forest. After a little misunderstanding in Karnak, I’m thrown in jail, and after meeting Cid (who is required by law to appear in every Final Fantasy game), I get the wonderful opportunity to travel to the Fire-Powered Ship. Oh goody.
The Fire-Powered Ship has an annoyingly high encounter rate and you frequently get thrust into additional battles with Motor Traps after you finish a fight. The only benefit from the Traps is that you get Self-Destruct from them if you hit them with a lightning attack. I’m not sure when I’d actually use Self-Destruct, but it feels kinda good to have it. I don’t know why. Just in case, I guess.
The boss here is Liquid Flame, and he’s rough for this party because of Blaze, which hits everyone for pretty good damage, and as I mentioned before, I can’t use Vampire to heal up. So I take the wimpy way out and break two Frost Rods on him. I’m not proud. Okay, I am. Okay, I’m not. But I really am.
My healing options are now Vampire, which won’t work on bosses, and hoping I get Nightingale. Fantastico. Anyway, the escape from Karnak Castle is fun with a virtual D-pad. And by “fun”, I mean “awful”. I do manage to pick up Aera from Gigas and Death Claw from IronClaw and escape with two minutes remaining.
So now that the wall is destroyed, I head down south to the Library of the Ancients. I get everyone to level 16 and leave Faris at 15 so I can pick up L5 Death, and I break yet another Frost Rod on the Dhorme Chimera so I can pick up Aqua Breath, further increasing my impressive glass cannon-ness. Ifrit sucks hard, and I win pretty much by luck. I managed to Silence him with Spellblade early in the fight and from there Bartz and Lenna whittle him down with Blizzara Spellblade while Galuf pretty much sits there and throws Potions that do practically nothing. Way to go, old man. Byblos, on the other hand, eats a Death Claw and then dies horribly.
Next time, we finally get my Fire job!
Steve's Space 