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Welcome back. The last time we saw Rune he had cleared out all the optional stuff he's ever going to worry about as well as trounced the guardians on Rykros. One task remained: securing Elsydeon. The sword is useless for Rune but plot flags demanded it be retrieved from the depths of the Esper Mansion.
By the power of wizardry Rune cloned himself and parked said clone right outside the cave as a healing bot for himself. A shame he never thought to do that for any other dungeon. It would have saved a lot of time! Or, ya know, a lot of pain and aggravation against previous bosses.
Downstairs was what I'm sure was an awkward reunion. Cutscenes don't change in the party select hack but we can use our imagination. Plot flags taken care of Rune stuffed the sword into the dimensional box so Chaz could drool all over it and flew back to Motavia for the final grind. (Okay, so technically Elsydeon auto-equips to Chaz but since Chaz was in the dimensional box throughout the entire cutscene and it would require wizardly power to auto-equip across dimensions like that let's just say Rune did it as resident wizard. Gotta keep the kids in the box from getting any wild ideas.)
With Rune being level 57 and still rather squishy I assumed he'd have some deaths to Stasis Ball in Vahal Fort. That's pretty much a given. I did the usual: put Chaz into the party as the leader (which moves Rune into the second slot but also left in the battle menus), set up half a dozen macros for various spells as well as the Guard Rod, got into a random encounter to get Chaz killed, ran away to avoid any xp glitchiness, then dove into bot junking.
Life Deleters killed Rune several times. No one was surprised.
Four levels in at 61 I snapped this screenshot to try to keep track of how Rune's stats were progressing. Dexterity and Strength will be useless for the final battle but Agility and hit points can still go up. Rune's only got 280 max hit points at 61 which I knew were nowhere near enough for the Profound Darkness. One Shadow Breath or Megid would wipe out most of those.
Eventually I wised up and started using Negatis more aggressively to wipe out formations with Life Deleters in it. Negatis is another instant death attack but is group wide and unlike Vol or Diem it works on robots. Its usefulness in the late game is something of a mixed bag. Rune learns Negatis at level 32 (and I actually had to go look that up because it's such a marginally used skill) putting it between Efess and Legeon. In a game with an actual player team that's pretty late in the plot so Rune is likely not going to have many charges in it.
For the record I do NOT use the level up tables in order to plan my runs. I like to be pleasantly surprised by character growth.
At level 75 Rune hit the 330 max hit point mark I was shooting for. I didn't particularly want to grind him all the way up to level 99 just for hit points and given he'd be hitting the Profound Darkness's factor 6 weakness with Efess I thought that maybe he could squeak out a win at a lower level. I wasn't quite sure how considering he needed to save as many Efess charges as possible for the third form. At this stage of planning I still expected to have to use a lot of Nawats to fill in gaps in Rune's offense. I know some people prefer Tandle but I'm just used to going for Nawat.
On a side note in that screenshot above Rune's sitting just shy of 4 million experience. His 3,998,050 is 1,784,765 more experience than he had at level 61. That's an average of 147,483 experience needed per level. It scales up over time in what becomes a pretty dramatic arc!
Rune was able to stay alive through the flurry of breath weapons but it wasn't anything to be happy about. Even Ray Breath, which would slice off a third of Rune's health, was painful to see. Shadow Breath wasn't taking any prisoners like always. That was expected.
Rune plowed through the first form but it wasn't easy or quick. (Okay so it was six minutes of fighting but for the first and second forms that's actually a long time to be fighting either of them. Rune does not have Raja's staying power!)
Rune was healing himself with Trimates. Getting through that first stage drained most of them. I didn't scroll to the bottom of Rune's inventory in the above screenshot but I didn't need to in order to have a decent sense of how many he had left. With Rune's trimate supply rapidly dwindling I decided to abort the fight a round after this. I had to consider my strategy going forward.
He could plow through the first form faster with Efess but at level 75 Rune only had 27 Efess charges. PD1 would require at least 10 charges leaving less for the third form. Again, I wasn't all that worried about the second form but it was still shaping up to be a damage sponge. Even though it isn't as dangerous as the other two it does require a solo character to heal themselves and the game's inventory limit is utterly merciless. As much as it pained me I decided the prudent thing to do would be to resume grinding hit points.
Back to Vahal Fort, back to grinding, back to building up Rune's meseta total. It was overall rather dull with deaths here and there to Stasis Ball. I didn't take any screenshots or even notes of the process since it had become so routine. Use Hewn, Gra, and Flaeli to kill the weaker bots. If Life Deleters show up use Negatis or, if Rune got the drop on them, use Tandle followed up in the following round by another spell. Sprinkle in Legeon here and there to make things a bit less tedious. Retreat to town to rest as needed.
At level 82 Rune was almost at the meseta cap so I went ahead and coverted his trimate stash to a sol dew stash.
On a lighter note sand worms live on the Vahal Fort island. Why yes this particular sand worm did indeed use Earthquake to kill Chaz while Rune chuckled. It's little things like this that help break up the monotony.
Around level 90~ish (I didn't bother noting the exact level) I got bored of Vahal Fort and decided to move to The Edge to try to make things a bit more interesting. Since macros weren't going to be helpful I deleted all of them and kicked Chaz out.
There are several reasons I don't bother grinding in The Edge. The first is that enemies have more hit points compared to the bots in Vahal Fort. Only Life Deleters are as beefy. Battles thus take longer and enemies have more chances to attack.
They also only ever give 1 meseta per monster which is the absolute minimum the game will allow. Rune's already filled up his inventory with sol dews so he doesn't need money but it would have been more difficult using The Edge from the outset. Experience awards per battle are about the same as Vahal Fort but since it takes longer to finish some battles the overall total tends to be lower. Volume really does count when grinding levels.
There's also the small matter that Negatis isn't very effective against Imagio Mages and Gi-Le-Farg. Sometimes Diem can kill a Gi-Le-Farg but it is finicky. These monsters have enough Mental to basically shrug off status effects and lots of instant kills. Efess is effective in The Edge (everything is weak to it) but the tougher monsters take at least two shots before dying. Gi-Le-Fargs have 999 hit points each to chew through so when the death magic doesn't work it takes quite a bit of nuking to down one of them.
In case you are wondering no, I never fight Prophallus when grinding. It isn't worth the hassle especially not when it would cost sol dews meaning I'd have to fly back to Dezolis to buy more.
As a consequence of Negatis not working Rune got targeted by quite a few Death Spells during his grinding. Thankfully with a Mental of 104 none of them worked. He took little damage in battles, dodging most attacks and laughing at enemy magic, but there was always a chance Death Spell would work. That or the Vol spells that Soldierfiends are able to cast.
Death Bringers are able to cast Seals. That too didn't work. If it had Rune would have fled for his life! Death Bringers can also cast Shift to pump up their attack power. Rune needed to kill them quickly before they could get out of hand.
Oh and Imagio Mages can show up in formations of three. A Legion + Efess combo killed this trio. These enemies occasionally drop sol dews but Rune had no room to carry any more. He just used them on the spot to top up his health.
At level 96 I was pretty well burned out on grinding. The game took a back seat for several months and I went back and forth on whether or not I should finish the job and take Rune to level 99. Going from level 75 to 96 required 4,425,852 experience points. Those three remaining levels mean Rune was looking at anywhere from 780,000 to 1,000,000 more experience needed. Quite frankly it didn't seem at all worth it. He'd only gain a few hit points, some tech points, a point or two of Strength, and maybe a skill charge somewhere. If he couldn't win at 96 then either my strategy was wrong or it simply wasn't doable for him.
Fortunately the level grinding had brought Rune to the Agility cap. He was going to win initiative every round against the Profound Darkness. He had also gained 15 more defense since his last attempt. That wasn't a huge difference but with only 420 max hit points Rune didn't exactly have a whole lot of room for complaint. His gear going into the final battle didn't change: the Dezo Ring, two Psy Shields, and the Guard Robe.
Right out of the gate things started going badly for Rune. He got Shadow Breathed twice at the outset taking him down to 10 hit points. Still trying to conserve Efess charges he was Nawating for around 220 damage per cast.
A few rounds later PD1's first kill shot came in like a freight train. Shadow Breath cares not one wit who it's hitting. It just tears them up real good.
It also forced Rune to use sol dews when he could still easily survive Firebreath or Ray Breath. With the game's inventory limits I don't like having to do this. If he hadn't though he would have died the same turn. PD1's action was Shadowbreath for 170 damage. Several rounds later I took a chance at not healing and Rune was, of course, promptly squished by another Shadow Breath.
On the third attempt Rune made it to the second form. I wasn't exactly optimistic about his chances given how many sol dews he had already used but he wasn't in bad shape. Rather than Nawat I went with Tandle. It does a bit more damage than Nawat.
All of PD2's attacks dealt damage in the 100 - 160 range except for low-rolling physical attacks. There was little to worry about.
With PD2 being the tame form of the bunch Rune advanced to the third and final form soon enough. He and the Profound Darkness proceeded to nuke the hell out of each other.
Alas though the attempt was not to end in victory. A Megid went for high damage when Rune had 173 hit points and the battle was over.
Seeing as how Rune had 37 Efess charges I decided on the fourth attempt to just burn the Profound Darkness as fast as possible. Thus the first form received a flurry of Efess spells.
The second form though I used Legeon 11 times (bringing Rune down to 10 charges) at 320~ish damage each. Then Rune downgraded to Tandle. I knew based on a quick estimate that he didn't have enough Efess charges left to kill the third form. He'd have to use his remaining stock, move to Legeon when that ran out, then Tandle or Nawat if Legeon wasn't enough.
When the third phase began Rune Efessed then PD3 began a barrage of Megids. When I say barrage I mean exactly that. Rune was hit by Megid five times in a row right at the start! He was nuking just as hard in return between heals but PD3 made for a strong start.
What I was more worried about though was Rune getting Evil Eyed around the 200 hit point mark. Several times he had to survive sleeping for two rounds. Fortunately he wasn't caught at low health by an Evil Eye. As rounds ticked by I got more cautious about healing up and it paid off. Rune was at 164 health, I sol dewed and PD3 hit him with a 177 damage Megid. Earlier in the fight I probably would have let a risk like that slide to try to conserve resources.
In the end Rune had just barely enough Legeon charges. On the ninth the Profound Darkness perished and proved that the fifth generation of Lutz never needed the help of some scrawny blonde kid and his ragtag band. Algol was safe again thanks to wizardry.
How was Algol saved? A wizard did it! No, seriously. A wizard did it all!
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huiaiCiIUTo
Then I sat back and watched a well-earned ending.
Rune: I'm still lacking in training and experience.
That's a blatant lie Rune and you know it.
DEATH TALLY: 96 (97 if you include the attempt against the Profound Darkness I aborted.)
- Piata: 6
- Krup: 1
- Tonoe Basement: 1
- Grinding around Kadary: 36
- Plate System: 1
- Gy-Laguiah: 1
- Zio: 1
- Dark Force 1: 11
- Farming star dews: 4
- Air Castle: 1
- Xe-A-Thouls: 8
- Lashiec: 1
- Garuberk Tower: 1
- Dark Force 2: 2
- Silver Soldier job: 2
- Dark Force 3: 4
- Final grind: 13
- Profound Darkness: 3
BONUS: a fail reel showing deaths in boss battles from the Xe-A-Thouls onward.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4_v1OL6cr8
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Also, have you seen what happens either of the first two forms of the Profound Darkness when their HP drops to 0 before they can transform? Their death sprites are there, and are similar to the third form (minus the white rays) but they're rather garbled and the screen glitches a bit. They even have XP-Meseta rewards (the third one also has one, but it's completely impossible so that). Unusual occurence.
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