Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta

Getting level 5 death is an utter bitch and a half. If memory serves there is no defense against it so you have to have your party at odd levels to survive it.

I would have said that mixing a Phoenix Down with Holy Water to grant the Life Shield buff would've done it, but Level 5 Death appears to bypass this.

In any case, you need to actually get hit by a spell to learn it as Blue Magic. There's no way to learn Level 5 Death without allowing it to kill your Learner.

As far as I know, Level 5 Death bypasses everything. If you or the enemy has a level divisible by 5, Level 5 Death is going to hit. Even against bosses with the Heavy flag that would normally shield them against instant death.

So technically, with a lot of finagling of enemy levels through Chemist mixes, Old, Dark Spark, etc., anything in the game can be hit with it. I've seen a screenshot of someone who even managed to take down the final boss with Level 5 Death.

...man, I love this game and the ways it can be utterly broken.

I was fighting Castle Exdeath Gilgamesh, and after hitting him with Dark Spark and Level 2 Old, I managed to somehow cast Level 5 Death on just the right moment, such that his Old status had drained him to some level divisible by 5.

No morphing time for you.

What, no mention that I told you to do level 5 death?

Anyway, playing as a bard and mystic knight has shown me just how susceptible everyone is to statuses. I've pretty much defaulted my bard to sing romeo's ballad at all times. I've rarely come across an enemy who wasn't vulnerable to it. I should see what bosses are weak to sleep. Earlier, I had Lenna and Galuf sleep stun Atomos.

Right now, I'm just before the Forrest of Moore.

Romeo's ballad works on EVERYTHING

The only difference is sometimes it lasts longer on certain monsters than other. 3 bard can make the game rather boring.

I got me a party of two Blue Mages, A Mystic Knight, and a Geomancer.

Not too shabby. Having at least two sources for White Wind is certainly nice, and I believe Geomancers have a decent Magic stat with which to avail of it, too.

As for me, I was initially having trouble against Omniscient as my only traditional caster class is Red Mage, and I discovered that neither Chemist mixes nor broken rods were accepted to damage him. Then I discovered that I could just have my Mystic Knight hack away at him with Silence. Now I'm about to climb Phoenix Tower for the AP gains. After all, I may not have much in terms of magic spells to work off, but the ability to cast Raise twice in a row has helped me out of binds before.

edited 9th Jul '15 7:31:28 AM by TheHeroHartmut

Protip: try berserk.

Welp, fighting Xdeath for the first time was a pain. Knight, mystic knight, time mage, and bard aren't exactly heavy hitters. I got so fed up with Xdeath that I went and set my battle speed to 6, just to make things easier.

I've finished 3 runs for four job fiesta. Normally, I usually do 2 runs per fiesta. Anyway, I plan to do one more, though it will be unofficial. I will play the entire game using the four bonus classes. I plan to commentate on my run to ensure that everyone knows that I played as those classes. It will be interesting to see how the game handles me playing four end game classes.

Looking forward to it. I've never used the bonus jobs, so I know little about them.

Ooh, that should be interesting. I imagine a lot of your playthrough will amount to "put !Finisher on everyone and hope for the 9999 damage attack." (I've only used the bonus GBA jobs in the one normal playthrough I've done on the GBA version, and I didn't really use any of them other than Gladiator.)

I just finished my third playthrough for this year as well. Will probably sign up for another Chaos run next week because I can never get enough of this game.

I'm still deciding on which order I want the classes to be in. I do know I want necromancer either first or second, mainly because I want to know if I can get Liquid Flame.

This is a text let's play (of sorts) of my adventures in Final Fantasy 5. In this run, instead of doing a typical run in the Four Job Fiesta rules, I plan to make my own rules. I will be playing as the four bonus classes in the GBA port; Necromancer, Oracle, Cannoneer, and Gladiator. How will I do that? By using our favorite hacking shark, of course! Now, while I am using a hack, I am only using one that allows me to use all the jobs. Otherwise, this will be a clean run. Without further waiting, lets' get started!

To begin, my run starts off right outside the wind shrine. Since you only have freelancer and no jobs, I see no point on covering the early game. Anyway, for my first job, I went and pick Cannoneer for no particular reason. I start my run by going to the town of Tule and... oh, ooooh... oh boy. I can tell this run will be fun. I think I should make Galuf my leader. Anyway, I get the key to the canal and I fight Karlabos. I decided to use Open Fire and- HOLY CRAP! Nearly 500 damage this early?! I shouldn't be surprised since these are post game classes, but wow!

Well, with Karlabos down, time for the ship graveyard. I go fight Siren and she's dead. No, I don't care if these jobs are easy mode. Everything's fair game. Includeing Magissa! Yup, she's dead too. At least Forza will live. So I rescue Lenna's wyvern and head to Castle Tycoon and grab some loot. Mostly pointless since I won't be able to use those weapons. Now off to Castle Walse. Rocks fall, the water crystal is in danger but first, Shiva! She and her guards weren't any trouble. She only got one attack on me. Since I'm still in Castle Walse, I'm going to take on Jackanapes and... Nope, I died. Even on easy mode, I can't take on Jack.

Oh well, onto the water crystal. I go after Garula and I just now realized I didn't heal from my fight with Shiva. No matter, he went down in 2 hits. And now for my second job! I'm going for Necromancer and this time there is a reason. I want to see if I can get Liquid Flame... I'll explain later. Anyway, Necromancer is pretty useless. I have no dark art abilities so I have to use open fire for the time being. I get to Karnak and get arrested for capitalism. I then escape and perform more capitalism by upgrading my team's equipment. Not wanting to be arrested again, I head to the fire ship and hope to use it as an escape vehicle. I run into my cellmate, Cid, and he asks me to save the fire crystal. Not wanting to let down a fellow criminal, I oblige. At this point, I got oath for my necromancers. I give it a shot and... Oh boy! This is powerful!

With my new found power, I take on Liquid Flame and... HA! I confused him! Open fire can cause random status effects along with the damage it does. Apparently Liquid isn't immune to confusion! Who knew? Anyway, I mentioned I wanted to get Liquid. I first need to kill him, but I also need to have my Necromancer get the kill. Unfortunately, I didn't get him. Looks like Necromancer's dark arts will be useless until the third world. But first, I need to escape Karnak. The army of Karnak came to arrest me for my excesses use of capitalism. I escape and in my haste, I never got to fight Death Claw. And with 3 crystals down, I will now apply my third class, Oracle. I head off to the fire ship again and find out that Cid has been put on house arrest at the pub. I guess there’s worse ways to be sentenced.

And with that, I’m taking a break. I’ll resume from the Ancient Library and explain how Oracle works.

Post game job classes are not balanced.

Oh you have no idea.

Now at the Ancient Library and I just realized, I think I sold my healing staff. I'm must have gotten carried away with my excessive capitalism. No matter, the Oracle can cast rejuvenation. It's a healing move that will take 20 seconds to complete and it heals the target for well over 1000 health. That's the Oracle's main theme; timed moves. It's condemn will give you a list of moves. Pick one and the target will be given a timer and once the time expires, that move happens. Anyway, I go through the library to find Mid. I fight Ifrit, but stupid me, I didn't take a picture. Just imagine a necromancer Lenna snapping an ice rod. I continue through the enchanted library and encounter Biblos. Notice that thing below the book?◊ That's a counter from the Oracle. You can't tell, but that number kept shaking as the boss disintegrated.

I save Mid and head back to Karnak. I promptly boot down the door to the pub and save Cid from his arrest. Blah blah, fire ship, blah blah, black chocobo, blah blah,... Oh Sandworm! And here is why you should use oath.◊ Never mind the fact that it took me several times just to get this blasted creature. Never mind the fact that in every other attempt at oath, they would never hit the worm. Oath is totally worth it, for realz. Anyway, I travel through the desert and make my way to the abandoned city. I fall through a hole, get teleported, and find myself back at Crescent with an airship. I end up fighting Cray Claw and Lenna takes it out by breaking a thunder rod. Nothing to really note about it. No comment about food or stuff. Oh, and it's just now that I realize I still have the healing staff. Galuf was just hiding it from me. That would explain away my idiocy.

To punish Galuf for his thievery, I put him under house arrest in his meteor. However, that judgement was overruled when we found a giant space◊ turtle living there. I take its space rock and give it to Cid and Mid. They then use the space rock and send me into low earth orbit. There, I find a giant space fortress and knock out its defenses.◊ I also forgot that necromancers have the undead status. Trying to heal Lenna killed her. Oops. Still, I head into the space fortress. At this point, I realized I'm no longer on easy mode. My attacks don't one shot my enemies anymore. I think I need to start using strategy... ew. Before I do, I should point out Oracle’s condemn moves are now starting at 10 seconds instead of 20. I’m not sure why. Well, I try this new found strategy on the Archeoavis◊ and it goes like this; open fire, open fire, heal, heal, kill Lenna, repeat until dead. I find the earth crystal, it breaks, and the ultimate evil of super bad destruction is released.

The space fortress blows up, but I somehow live. I get my last job, Gladiator. Then, Karnak shows up and arrests Galuf and puts him under house arrest on his home planet. I head off to rescue him, but first I need more space rocks. I go to the first meteor and encounter many bombs. I test out gladiator's finisher move and... Dead. ◊ It helps that I had the oracle stop the last bomb from using arise. I go to the next meteor and... Dead again.◊ Yeah, this is the Gladiator’s main gimmick; if you use the finisher move, one of three things will happen. Either the user will do nothing, attack for critical damage, or deal 9999 damage. However, this isn’t like a typical 1/3 chance all around. The odds are based on the Gladiator’s job level. The higher the level, the better the odds. Also, the 9999 damaging move is also elemental. What element it is, is based on the character using it. Bartz is wind, Lenna water, Faris fire, and Galuf/Krile earth. Sound familiar? Finally the last meteor and... I forgot to take a picture. Just imagine Lenna surviving with everyone else dead this time. Anyway, I have enough space rocks and fly to Galuf's home world.

And with that, I will stop for today.

The GBA jobs sounds... rather powerful.

You're meant to pick up 3 of them after collecting all 4 sealed weapon tablets.

And the fourth after beating the bonus boss.

So I continue at the start of world 2. I land on an island, get arrested by Exdeath, used as ransom, and Galuf has to bust me out. Looking at his skills, I didn't realize I had earned the Predict command. It's an Oracle skill that says "Foretell cataclysms." I try out the 3rd rank prediction and... well it's not something I can sum up in a picture. Imagine the screen going black, the animation of mega flare happening on the enemies, and Galuf getting curaga'd. The enemies took about 600 damage and Galuf got back 2000 health. It seems the ranks are a complete crapshoot, but I'd imagine 3rd rank being better than 2nd, being better than 1st. I try the 3rd rank prediction again on Gilgamesh. This time I got a move called Cleansing.◊ I try the second rank and got Starfall◊. That looks like a blue skin meteor and it hurts like one too... what...◊ So, this move hurts the user if it doesn't heal them... why? I tested the move out some more and it kept killing Galuf. I got one move, rockslide, and it dealt 4000 damage to Galuf... Well, fuck this move.

So I start over, replace Predict with Condemn since it won't kill me. I go after Gilgamesh and use Open Fire and kill him. No, really, I got the killing move from Open Fire. I make my escape and thankfully Exdeath has no standing military to stop me. Nope. None at all. I make it to the bridge that spans a quarter of the earth's circumference and bolt through it. I find Gilgamesh 2.0 and he misjudged◊. Yes, that did kill him and he still went through his spiel. Get used to that move. I will abuse the ever living crap out of Finisher. Anyway, I make it to the other end of the bridge and Exdeath summons the power of Karnak's anti-capitalistic wrath and knocks me off the bridge. I land on the other half of the world and go about my merry way. Wanting to heal Lenna, but not kill her like before, I use the doom move from Condemn and... it kills her. God damnit. Looks like whoever is the Necromancer is just plain screwed. Still, I make it to Regole. I buy stuff and move on with this place.

Actually, since I'm in world 2, it's a good time to comment on the classes. They have very unusual HP amounts.◊ Necromancer and Gladiator in particular I take a problem. The Necromancer, a mage type class, has more HP than the Gladiator, a warrior type class. I also compared Faris's HP to Knight and Dragoon and got about 850 and 750 HP respectively. Also, now that easy mode is over, I am starting to realize how weak these classes are. I lack any good crowd control for fights. I do have Oath and Predict, but Oath lacks damage and Predict can be a crap shoot if you don't understand how it works. Oh well, complaining aside, I move on in the game.

I eventually find a moogle. Karnak arrests him and prisons him underground. Being the good criminal I am, I go and rescue him. I fight a zombie Tyrannosaur and thinking myself funny, I use the Oracle's doom move. It... worked?!◊ What? Shouldn't it be revived because it is undead? Whatever, I save the moogle and he takes me to his home. I find out they are talented summoners as they call a wyvern for me. I take said wyvern and end up in Galuf's castle. However, I can't stay because Exdeath is at it again. He sends a single lonely Abductor and I go and kill it. Since I have nothing better to do, I head north. I find the village of Quelb. A wearwolf doesn't like my capitalism and tries to kill. Bartz, who is a toad at this point, easily dispatches him. With no one to challenge me, I instate a law of commerce in Quelb. For no reason, I go to Drakenvale to kill a plant.◊ In my hike to said plant, I find out the zombie dragons aren't immune to the instant death moves from Oracle and Cannoneer. I have a feeling the instant death moves don’t work like they do in the later games.

I head back to Bal Castle only to find Karnak has taken over. Galuf comes up with the brilliant idea to take over the castle through the mote. Somehow, this works and Galuf is king again. Anyway, Krile's moogle friend summons the wyvern again and we are told to find Ghido. I ignore this and go to Xezat's fleet. Good thing too. Looks like Exdeath got the Gilgamesh v3.0 update. I used Open Fire and got the instant kill◊ move... Oh boy. So Xezat and I bust into one of Exdeath's towers in the hopes to negate Karnak's wrath. I encounter a Red Dragon and... well, this answers my question◊. I was wondering if the elemental influence of Finisher had any impact. And yes it does. Time to swap my classes! Anyway, I make it up the tower, and face Atomos. Easy fight.◊ With the tower destroyed and Karnak's wrath quelled, I take the fight to the other side of the world!

And I will call this a day. Next up, Ghido!

-Addendum- Ok, two things I should point out. First, despite my bitching about Predict, I did look up what it actually does and it is a fascinating read. I have to say, Predict is probably one of the most complicated abilities in the game. This can be a fantastic ability or a scrappy ability depending on how you look at it. Here’s how it works; there are 10 possible outcomes you can get. You can tell which one you will get based on the single digit of the caster’s MP. I don’t remember which one is what, but I do know that 0, 5, 6, and 7 are the safe moves while the others can cause damage to the team. Rank 1, 2, and 3, cost different MP (1, 3, and 7 respectively) and will have a different timer for the upcoming move (5, 4, and 3 ticks respectively). This might be worth investing in, but there are a few problems. Firstly, the moves that heal will still hurt my Necromancer. Secondly, to survive some of the moves, I will need the right equipment to absorb or neutralize the effect.

Secondly, I missed getting something at Bal Castle. Remember when I said I lack crowd control? I won’t say what it is, but hopefully I won’t have to worry about fights once I get it.

edited 22nd Jul '15 9:19:52 AM by OrionAurora

Any advice on how to take on Soul Cannon without any lightning techniques? I've got WM, Beastmasterx2 (with WM as the second skill), and a Berserker, all level 19. I'm loathe to go level grinding because of how the Wave Cannon works - so far I've tried catching Defeaters for Electrocute, but they didn't do much more damage than a normal attack. Right now I'm catching Goblins for Flare. Any other ideas?

Catching Zuus for Breath Wing?

Also, I think Beastmaster can equip a thunder-element whip...

Ooooh, I thought the Blitz Whip wasn't available yet, but it's right in Jachol Cave! Thanks for the reminder. And I'll give Zus a go if the goblins don't work out.

So I think I might try the Fiesta this year.

In the meantime though, having just completed FF 3 on Steam, why the hell is there no FFIII Four Job Fiesta? The remake specifically balances Jobs so all are endgame viable. FF 5 meanwhile has some jobs which are just plain shit, apparently. Like Berserker.

I would gladly play FF 3 4JF.