ladyabaxa ◾ ◾ Rune Solo Part 1

After the low damage fest that was Seth I decided if I was going to continue with PSIV solos I should go with a character who specializes in making things explode.

First things first let's take a look at how Rune enters the game in the party select hack. Statwise the closest comparison would be to Raja. Rune starts with two less Strength, 1 more Mental, two more Agility, and 1 more Dexterity. Rune is the only person on the roster who can compete with Raja in Mental (although Seth is no slouch compared to them). Rune also has two more max HP and two more max TP. Both start with identical gear: one Wood Cane and no armor. They use the same gear set. Rune, however has a starting defense of 6 while Raja had 4 because of the difference in Agility. Seeing Rune with no armor to start with worried me since I clearly remembered the many deaths of Raja to gain that first experience award.

Beyond that the two diverge completely. Raja has all defensive magic except for Holyword and St. Fire. Rune has all offensive magic except for a few utilitarian techniques. He is good at nuking enemies and nuking them for sustained periods of time. Without healing techs he's completely reliant on items but at least he doesn't have to worry about splitting his TP pool.

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Rune's resistances didn't look promising. There are no weaknesses but no standout resistances or immunities. He is vulnerable to Evil Eye and Stasis Ball and that means one thing: his future is going to be full of pain.

I started by buying 5 monomates. The Wood Cane has a weak Res effect when used in battle but Rune would need expendable items for healing between battles. Down in the basement the first death came quickly when two Zoran Bults ambushed him.

It wasn't quite record time but I wasn't exactly surprised.

A two point difference in Agility between Rune and Raja turns out to quite literally be the difference between life and death at this stage of the game. Not only was Rune ambushed less but he also won initiative enough that some of his Wats killed enemies before they could attack. That made a huge difference in terms of survivability. It doesn't matter how fragile a character is if no enemies live long enough to attack them!

Because staying at Piata's inn cost 5 meseta but a monomate cost 40 Rune did a whole lot of walking back and forth. He's not expensive to equip but I'm in the habit of penny-pinching after so many solo runs. I kept the monomates on hand for emergency healing though just in case.

At level 5 it was clear just how lopsided Rune's stat growth is. Mental is by far the highest at 20, Agility and Dexterity are the same at 9, and Strength falls in the rear at 7. Hopefully he'll never need to equip a weapon and attack anyone. Rune needs his high Mental to do as much work for him as possible.

With the random encounters well under control and a rapidly increasing amount of needed experience per level Rune stared at Igglanova ready to fight. On the way down the basement I made sure to grab the monomate, the antidote, and the 100 meseta out of chests.

For Igglanova itself Rune went with Flaeli rather than Foi or Wat. I was mindful that Rune still had a walk back up the basement to reach safety and that being out of TP was not a great way to make that walk. I was also well aware that Rune had low defense and no way to manage the damage he would be taking other then using his Wood Cane periodically. His max health was low enough that the Wood Cane would still fully heal him no matter how low his health was.

Flaeli 04 2A9D40 01 02 11 30 07 03 --deals damage, mod is mental, targets one enemy, 48 base power, resisted by magic defense, factor 3 ability

Foi has a base power of 24 and Wat has a base power of 32 so Flaeli was always going to do more damage based on raw stats. With Rune's low defense he needed to hit hard and fast. The Xanafalgues would add a little damage but with only 32 hit points to play with Rune couldn't ignore them. The threat was Igglanova's potential critical hits. The fewer chances Igglanova got to attack the better. It still took some luck to win but Rune got through on his first try.

Rune hurried to Mile where he picked up a Leather Band (woohoo +1 defense!). He then ran his butt off to Krup making it on the first try but at the cost of two monomates due to brief hiccups in running away from random encounters. Thankfully none of those battles had Locustas or Sand Newts.

Once he was in Krup Rune bought two Carbon Shields and consigned his starting cane to his backpack. Then it was out into the field to grind. At level 6 Rune picked up his first group-wide spell, Gra. The Gra line is the only factor 4 attack players can get.

At level 9 Rune picked his next skill by learning Hewn. It was the second group-wide spell he would get and a welcome addition as Rune was going through a lot of Flaeli charges per encounter. His tech points were limited and although Flaeli wouldn't hit that factor 5 weakness most Motavian bio-critters have its base damage was high enough to kill or almost kill anything around Krup.

Hewn 0A 2A9D70 01 02 12 40 07 01
--deals damage, mod is mental, targets all enemies, base power is 64, resisted by magic defense, factor 1 ability

(Note that previous discusions of Hewn stated that the Hewn ability of the Tornado Dagger checks against physical defense. I went through all versions of Hewn in the game and confirmed that the player version and the enemy version check against magic defense. The dagger checks physical defense. I just wanted to quickly note that in case there's any confusion.)

At level 12 and with Hinas and Ryuka mastered in case Rune needed to make a hasty retreat Rune ran around doing all the necessary work to flag him ready for Tonoe. Thankfully blowing the rock to the Passageway open does not consume a Flaeili charge so if I had chosen to stand and fight Rune wasn't forced to waste some of his resources thanks to the plot. The Passageway to Tonoe ended up being no problem thanks to having enough Agility to run away from everything.

Hi Rune! Bye Rune! Also, Chaz is here because of party swapping hijinks. Rune leaves the party during this scene so Chaz was the helpful placeholder until Rune could be summoned to take his place again. Thanks Chaz! NOW GET BACK IN THE BOX!

The Basement under Tonoe was also pretty tame.

Of course less than a minute after I took this screenshot Rune was killed when I foolishly tried to fight a 3x Toadstool formation. Let's just say he didn't last long.

The second Igglanova didn't even warrant a screenshot. Hewn made it impossible for the enemy to do anything of note. After the carnage was over Rune ran over and bought a Circlet and his first piece of body armor, a White Mantle. The mantle alone was worth 10 points of sorely-needed defense power.

The Bio-Plant was next which meant Rune had his first run in with the many deadly killbots scattered across Motavia. He definitely wasn't sticking around to fight any of them. None of his spells were well suited for thrashing them yet and Rune had a bit of a shortage on hit points with which to soak their attacks.

Such bots continue to be the bane of solo characters early in the game. They are a significant step up in agility and attack power.

I wasn't particularly eager to fight the Guilgenovas because of the drain on TP and skill charges.

Still, I decided to give one a try figuring Rune could run away if it looked like he was about to be overrun. Flaeli was the go-to skill for the Guilgenova itself.

Hewn killed the little Gicefalgues in one shot which made for a simple way to keep the Guilgenova under control. If either of the two side slots are open then Fission has top priority (this is just the way conditional behavior is coded for all enemies, it always gets top priority). Spamming Hewn and killing at least one Gicefalgue each turn before the Guilgenova's turn comes up thus prevents it from ever attacking. If I was feeling spunky I could alternate Flaeli and Hewn since it takes two turns for a Guilgenova to fill its minion slots.

Deeper into the Bio-Plant Rune had a few close calls. Good thing I brought some monomates along!

Then it was time to get to Aeido. Rune was level 12 and looking thoroughly lopsided in stats. His Agility wasn't as bad as Raja's had been (although not much better) and the small difference in that stat made for a world of difference between them. Rune wasn't having much trouble fleeing from random encounters he did not want to fight. Knowing Aiedo and Kadary awaited him I pressed on.

Here's the world map, with Rune in the preceeding screenshot standing just outside of Zema. I didn't bother staying in the inn in Zema since I knew it was a short way to Aiedo and Alys's house where he could rest for free. I just had to make sure to save before crossing the bridge just in case there was a bad roll of the random encounter dice.

Wat could really do a number on the Scorpirus but couldn't kill them in one shot. They had too much health for that. Rune didn't want to fight them anyway because of the risk of poison which was just as well because the xp reward wasn't worth the effort. Rune pressed on to Aeido where he rested and prepared for the dangerous journey to Kadary.

Luckily he managed it on the first try. He encountered three groups of enemies and all three were 3x Speard formations. Rune ran from the first two without incident while the third was... an ambush by Rune. He fled before they even realized what was happening. Once on the other side of the cave there was still a perilous walk to Kadary but Rune managed to not trigger a random encounter.

The item shop in Kadary sells Dimates - items Rune would need soon enough. His trusty Wood Cane was still doing most of the healing work and Monomates between battles were sufficient but reaching Kadary meant it was time to begin the dreaded experience grind in order to fight Juza. Once his hit points went up he'd need to upgrade his medicine supply.

Easier said then done. The many deaths of Rune ensued.

Gradually I settled on a specific strategy that at least worked on 2x Tech User formations: Flaeli one at the start. Optimally Rune would go between the two Tech Users taking a nuke from one and prompting the other to heal their injured comrade with Res. On his next turn Rune would then cast Hewn. Hewn on its own couldn't do enough damage to kill either Tech User but their Res spells couldn't fully cover the damage from Flaeli. If things were working according to plan the still mildly injured Tech User would die and the survivor would heal themselves with Res. Rune would then heal himself with his Wood Cane. He couldn't afford to start a battle at low health. Once he was topped up he could Flaeli the surviving Tech User to death.

If you're wondering why Gra was never mentioned in that paragraph it is because Gra didn't do enough damage. Neither did Foi or Wat. Gra could keep them in healing mode until Rune ran out of tech points but it couldn't finish the job. It could finish off a wounded Speard (after a Hewn or Flaeli) if Rune could win initiative. Speards, however, just weren't really manageable at all until Rune gained some more levels. He didn't have the hit points or defense.

With some persistance and a whole lot of reloading Rune inched his way up to level 16 picking up Arows at level 15. Arows is useless for a solo character but he knew it anyway. At that point his odds of winning fights tilted more in his favor. His hit points weren't enough to even think of stepping inside Zio's Tower. I kept grinding until Rune reached level 18. Then I decided to make some quick loot-grabbing dashes inside.

The reason why? Rune learned Giwat at level 18 and suddenly had a way to one-shot any one enemy around him.

That didn't mean the real trip up the tower was going to be easy but at least he could defend himself. Sort of. (This screenshot is from after Juza in case it isn't obvious.)

Juza himself is a mage but the only major threat to Rune was Forceflash. With only 95 max hit points Rune still had to be careful. The Wood Cane could heal 30~ish hit points but Rune still needed some dimates when his health dropped dangerously low.

Hewn and Flaeli did ok damage but Juza has 1523 hit points and would not be dying to those spells before Rune's charges ran out.

Giwat to the rescue! The odd thing is, Rune learns Giwat first but Gifoi is actually slightly weaker. Gifoi has a base power of 72 and Giwat has a base power of 80. It makes sense in terms of story progression since enemies with fire weaknesses don't appear until later but looks a little strange if you just look at the base stats.

Total death count by this point: 44

6 in Piata, 1 in Krup, 1 in Tonoe's basement, and a whopping 36 during the grind around Kadary

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21AQSX6iX_Y

Part Two | Index