Phantasy Star 4 Rika Solo - Garuberk Tower

[ladyabaxa]

With Lashiec dead I got kicked to Gumbious Temple, received the Eclipse Torch, then went to Jut next door to use the inn and sell a bunch of stuff still in my inventory from goofing off with hacking item properties. (I really don't need half a dozen Perolymates.) Then I loaded up on Trimates because I knew I was going to need an enormous amount of healing to beat Dark Force 2.

 

Speaking of Dark Force 2 here's the stats on his main weapon, Shadow Breath:

In hexadecimal it looks like this:  01  05  08  70  07  01  00  00
-deals damage, modifier based on attack power
-base power of 112 vs. save of magic defense and is a factor 1 (physical) ability
-actually has equal power to Black Wave and 8 less than Light Shower (which is 120)
Dark Force 2 has an attack power of 176
thus 176 + 112 = 288

So, yeah Rika needs to grind some levels in order to withstand Dark Force 2's attacks because her stats at level 45 simply aren't going to cut it. Shadow Breath is really, really devastating against one target who doesn't have Barrier thanks to its modifier being the user's attack power. Knowing this I headed to Garuberk Tower, destroyed the carnivorous forest to gain access, and began grinding on the bottom floor next to the exit in case I needed to make a hasty retreat.

The best group for Rika, xp and time wise, is a formation of 4 Ghouls who can be wiped out in a single Disrupt for 8584 xp. This isn't the best experience possible per group as a few other formations are better in that respect. For example, a formation of 4 Hakenlefts are actually worth more but have more health and thus take longer to defeat. This grinding was actually pretty dangerous and I was careful to always cast Deban if the encounter included Hakenlefts.

Rika ground up to level 50 then retreated to Meese to recharge. During this I noticed the Genocyclaw's instant death function wasn't firing against the Hakenlefts. Is this related to how Crash always fails against them? I didn't have any trouble with Rika's Eliminate and when I was leveling Hahn in here during Gryz's playthrough his Eliminate and Savol abilities killed them without issue. Maybe one of these days I should load up a full party of instant death stuff and throw the whole book at them to see what works.

At level 54 I decided to run around opening paths and raiding chests. Then I went up and tested Rika's level 56 stats against the boss and it was a complete no-go. Rika couldn't even squeeze in any attacks with the stats and equipment setup available at that time. I escapiped out to rest and buy a Reflect Shield in Meese.

level 54 mental: 54 (Rika just doesn't get much mental growth)
magic defense from items:
    Silver Tusk: 2
    Laco Crown: 6
    Reflect Mail: 14
    Reflect Shield: 16
Total mdfs: 92
Projected Shadow Breath damage: 196
The actual damage will vary over time because it gets run through an equation to randomize it within a range. The important thing to remember is that this is a baseline estimate. The actual damage ceiling will be higher.

Lightshower 01  01  09  78  07  07  00  00
-deals damage, modifier is strength, power is 120, checks against mdfs, factor 7 attack
-DF2's strength is 99
Projected Light Shower damage: 118

It is theoretically possible to survive at level 57 based on projected damage but runs extremely close. While looting chests I picked up the Power Shield for later. It has no magic defense and is inferior to the Guard Shield but offers +10 str and +10 atk so I figured I might want to play around with it just for those bonuses.

At level 57 Rika has 20 charges of Double Slash. At an average of 300 damage per attack (rounding down to make a conservative estimate) those 20 charges translate into 6000 damage. DF2 has over 7000 hit points so some of Rika's damage output will have to come from normal attacks meaning the last 1,000 hit points or so will take longer.