Rune Solo Part 3

[ladyabaxa]

In part two of Rune's solo journey he made it to Ladea Tower, encountered the wall that is Gy-Laguiah and had a rather easy fight against Zio thanks to some advance planning and preparation. After doing the whole run around to acquire the Landale, during which nothing of note happened to our intrepid magician, I had to figure out if Rune was actually ready to face Dark Force.

I'll be brief: the answer was "not even remotely ready."

Here we have a glimpse of The Future (from the perspective of this point in the report but seriously did you expect DF1 to be easy?)

First though Rune ran around Dezolis upgrading his head and body slots to silver level gear. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things but even small upgrades help. He located the Landale and took possession of it. At that point the dying could really begin! Rune made it to Dark Force without too much trouble for what I knew was likely going to be his death in a test battle. Burst Rockets and Flare Shot both proved way too damaging to keep up with via dimates. He was going to have to farm star dews. Farming star dews is rather boring. I got about ten in and then other things demanded my attention which meant the run stopped for a good seven months.

When I came back though I immediately remembered what he was doing last since the most up-to-date savestate was down in Nurvus. I continued farming until Rune had fifteen star dews before deciding to have another go at Dark Force. I do try to keep these characters as low level as I can when I do these runs! Honest!

So that's what Rune's stats looked like at level 33. The most worrisome thing, after hit points, is Rune's lagging Agility. I've played more than enough solo games to know that low Agility is a killer.

I mentioned this back in Seth's run but thought to get an actual screenshot of it this time around. When the player first arrives on Kuran there's a conversation between the party. In the middle of that Raja has this line:

Raja: My head is out of whack! Man am I dizzy!

This is the first hint of Raja getting sick. In the final game this line comes a bit out of nowhere. Raja becomes deathly ill because of the Black Energy Wave on Dezolis but without the Ice Digger (which the player doesn't get until after Kuran is purged) Raja doesn't come into range of said wave. If he did the player would see actual effects in the towns on Dezolis accessible at this point. It is only later when the player reaches Reshel and Meese, which are the closest settlements to Garuberk Tower, that tangible effects from the Wave appear. This is something of a plot hole in the game since as-is there's no reason Raja should be so sick.

Anyway, back to Rune! His Agility ran into immediate problems as he had trouble escaping from random encounters like this 4x Siren386 formation here.

Siren386s couldn't hurt Rune as their attacks and Flare Shot both dealt 1 or 2 points of damage but I was still aware that this was a problem. None of the enemies on Kuran were a mortal risk to Rune. That was true. What they could do, however, was wear down his health and drain healing items. Rune already had problems keeping himself healed against Dark Force. He needed to get to Dark Force in as good a condition as possible.

All things considered he did better than I expected although being down 32 hit points when your max is 159 stings.

Rune cannot equip the Plasma Field so Flare Shot was Dark Force's big hitter. This 103 damage shot was actually in the low end. It could hit in the 140s. That meant that star dews couldn't get Rune completely out of the threat range if Rune was in single digit or teens level of health. That threat was always on my mind.

Phononmaser hurt but in a manageable way. (Even though the screenshot above shows Rune dying of it.)

Let's look at something more cheerful! Efess did around 350 damage per charge.

Next up was Legeon which hit for less but dealt about 300 damage per shot which meant it still packed a nice punch. (Also, The Future waves hello!)

Rune didn't have enough Efess charges to handle the fight. That meant Nawat was going to have to see some use. It only hit for 220 damage per cast but that would suffice so long as Rune could keep himself alive.

Keeping himself alive was the problem though. Every Flare Shot had to be met with a heal and given the game's inventory limit and DF1's love of Flare Shot that meant strings of just burning items waiting for an opportunity to attack. The attempts at level 33 were a bust. Rune ran out of items multiple times without making it close enough to victory for me to keep trying. He returned to Nurvus to grind out some more levels and increase his maximum hit points.

At level 35 he picked up his final skill: Legeon. We've already seen Sa Lews use this ability. Rune is the only player character who learns it.

Legeon 01 02 12 E0 07 02 --deals damage, mod is mental, targets all enemies, base power is 224, resisted by magic defense, factor 2 ability

Legeon has the highest base power of any of Rune's spells so it does pack a punch. Nothing is weak to factor 2 though so it will never hit a weakness like Efess does. At the same time factor 2 resistance is rare so just like with Hahn's Astral skill it is a reliable if unspectacular source of damage. I was already counting on Legeon to be a vital workhorse against De Vars and Sa Lews.

I ground another level putting Rune at 36 and 173 max hit points before resuming the hunt for star dews. Once he was up to 20 I decided it was time for another attempt at Dark Force.

First though Rune stopped by the Hunter's Guild in Aeido to pick up the one trimate that can be found prior to getting the Ice Digger. Sure it's only one but it was certain to fully heal him. (The chest to his left had 1000 meseta in it. The chest to the right is always open and has nothing.)

Rune flew back to Kuran and walked back up to the control room. He managed to make it without getting mauled! Actually he had fewer instances of being ambushed and usually succeeded in running away thanks to the small increase in Agility since his last attempt.

Rune attacked and once again struggled. I was starting to wonder if I shouldn't grind out 15 to 20 more hit points for him. His odds of success weren't good. The best he had managed was dealing 4398 damage. (Dark Force 1 has 4540 hit points.) That seems close but given how long it took to get that far and how often Rune had to heal himself I was under no illusions that victory was right around the corner. If the RNG was favorable and served up more Phononmasers then... maybe.

At least that one lonely trimate found some use! Rune had trouble getting back up to full health even with star dews. That was a big deal to me because it could mean the difference between getting an attack in after Phononmaser/Burst Rockets or having to heal again.

Finally, after 11 losses, Rune managed to claim victory.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zpy7Wune-0

There's the video of the fight in all its near-death glory.

It was over. He had the Ice Digger! HE COULD BUY TRIMATES! Oh yeah and I suppose he managed to finish the fight with 1 dimate and 2 star dews left and therefore managed to avoid cutting it as close as Seth did.

But, seriously, TRIMATES!! Gimme, gimme, gimme! Rune ignored everything else to get to Meese and pick up ten of 'em.

He also bought a Reflect Robe and a Laco Circlet. The Reflect Robe has less Mental than the Silver Mantle but is still superior. The Silver Mantle offers +3 Mental, 49 defense, and 8 magic defense. Meanwhile the Reflect Robe has 58 defense, and 20 magic defense but no stat bonuses. Rune thus took a small hit to his offense with the Mental loss but increased his defenses.

Unfortunately this was a waste of meseta because I forgot there's a free Reflect Robe in a chest in the Esper Mansion. Whoops! Oh well. Rune didn't have a big pile of things to buy anyway so it's not like he needed to pinch pennies.

Rune made it through the Air Castle at level 37 but even in The Future when he had to make the trip again at level 44 it wasn't easy. On his initial trip he died once just steps past the northern wing's main entrance to a pair of Shadowsabers. He had a worrying amount of ambushes and Can't Escape!s on the way up but he couldn't get lazy. There was treasure to collect. I figured the Swift Helm was a must-have and the sol dew was kind of "eh, Rune might actually scrape up enough hit points to need it soonish." I never bothered to grab the sol dew in Gumbious although I did get the trimate.

I figured that by the time Rune actually needs sol dews he'll have killed Dark Force 2 and reopened the dew shop in Meese.

So... the Xe-A-Thouls. They're mean, they're purple, they have 1520 hit points each and they take about 330 damage each from Efess. Should be straightforward, right? I had my worries going into the battle.

The first thing that happened was Rune's Efess. The trio countered as they always do with Thunderblast which dealt 92 damage to Rune. He only had 175 hit points max at level 37 so that stung. Next up was an electric fingertip. Attacks dealt anywhere from 30 to 60 damage per hit - manageable but not that great. Giwat though was the big problem. Those hit from 70 to 95~ish. Gizan (screenshot came from a later attempt) ran right in the middle with damage around the 50 point mark. All in all not terrible...

...but still very lethal for Rune. How was he going to get out of his latest jam? Well I bet it's pretty obvious how but I'll leave the details for the next update since this one is getting long.

Part Two | Index | Part Four

Comments

[shining-armour.livejournal.com]

Dark Force 1 looked a lot harder than I thought it would be, but the Xe-A-Thouls didn't look too hard.

Also, at this point in the game, is there anytime when Rune would need to use his earlier skils like Flaeli and Hewn?

[ladyabaxa.livejournal.com]

Flaeli and Hewn have at this point in the game been relegated to grinding tools. They just don't pack as much of a punch as other things at Rune's disposal.