It's like chocolate in my peanut butter. Let's Play Final Fantasy V: The Ancient Cave

Not that it would help with the physical beatings, but if I remember correctly the full stats of the flame and coral rings are:
Flame= weak to water, absorb fire, null ice
Coral= weak to lightning, absorb water, null fire

I was thinking you would have flame, coral, and reflect rings equipped to minimize any firey death, but I wasn't expecting him to be such a brutal attacker, and he heals himself more than enough without the reflect ring helping.

Blaze bypasses Reflect anyway, and the reflected spells will only heal him. WallRings are not such a great idea here.

In that case, yeah. Put Farris in the back and have her cast blink on Butts and then heal and you've basically won. He's only going down to physicals with a flame ring and even if it spends the entire time self-healing it can't keep pace with a two handed Ice Brand (and your mages will live long enough to chip in, too). The damage she's dealing with barehanded and a kaiser isn't really relevant next to the ice brand/shiva/Ice 2. Though !Kick could actually be pretty good with that setup to take down the claws. Humm...

We start the update on a high note with the Chemist job in the first chest we find. Plus we (I) get to listen to Battle on Big Bridge. Double score!



We also find a Kaiser Knuckle from a random enemy drop. This greatly increases our party's offensive output.



We come across yet another healing floor where we continue to fill out our magic list and gather AP. Some of the battles here are dropping 5 AP apiece into our pocket. Unfortunately, we don't find any endgame magic or equipment yet. At this level, everything but endgame gear is more or less a wasted chest, so we want to fill up our magic lists ASAP so the game has to pull more and more from the equipment list when we open chests (spells and jobs don't show up more than once, although you can find the summon-teaching items and the summons themselves in separate chests - I found both Ifrit the spell and Ifrit the item in this run).



Well, imagine that.



We still have a long ways to go towards mastering our jobs, however, so it looks like Party Punchalot will continue to roll for a long time to come.



We find Dragoon on the very next floor, which Lena will take up immediately once she finishes Black Mage. That Dragon Spear we found earlier is just itching to be used.





Our first truly threatening enemies this run are these Biosoldiers on Floor 28. As you can see, they do a massive amount of damage, so I run when I am unfortunate enough to encounter them. You know, except the fight in this picture.





Floor 29 is a massive floor with a hidden passage to one of the treasures. This one happens to be trapped with a Blue Dragon who hands over 17 AP when defeated. Lena and Faris are closest to mastering their current jobs at 286/450 and 230/300 respectively.



Floor 30 is a tiny treasure floor where we find some more Blue Magic and this Hayate Bow.



Faris finally, finally, finally masters Monk on Floor 32! Like any good FFT fan, she immediately switches to Barehanded Ninja, but then opts out to carry !Smoke and our two Air Knifes for 112 total attack.

Good thing too,





because she single-handedly carries us past the boss floor on Floor 33. These Jackanapes aren't worth the trouble so we Smoke it up on the first turn every time.







We get another Flame Ring plus that Ramuh item I mentioned earlier. I also decide this is the best time to pick up !Mix, so Krile and Faris take a detour over to Chemist.



Then, Lena finishes Black Mage and becomes a Dragoon in order to get Lance. Since we got Monk so early, we don't have to rely on Lance for as much this run. It's still better to have it than not, so Dragoon it is. We also get the amazingly awesome bonus of using the Dragon Spear.



Floor 37 is yet another healing floor. I don't know if I hit some sort of easy mode switch back in the bar, because coming across this many healing floors is highly unlikely.









Butts polishes off Monk and heads over to Magic Knight. The girls pick up Mix and head back to their original paths. Since both of them have Kaiser Knuckles, Butts is 2-handing a Greatsword, and Lena has the Dragon Lance, our offensive output is extremely high for this level.



Floor 40 is, of course, a healing pot floor. We make the biggest find in ten floors...

with our first Golden Hairpin! The Golden Hairpin, as you know, halves MP consumption. Combined with Lance and Mix, we will soon be able to throw out the most powerful spells in the game as much as we want to. We also score Syldra to go with our Air Knives.

Nothing much happens for the next few floors. We won a Crystal Shield, and with the trouble we had on Floor 44 last time...



this is our party makeup this time around. Will our spoony friends have the chance to Requiem their way to relevance?







NO. Instead, Lena takes care of business with Air Knife-boosted Syldra summonings. This boss floor is quite lucrative, so we stick around for a while.





We also encounter these goblin groups. The back three all go down with one casting of Syldra, then the front one goes down on our first attack.



Time to SHINE!



Oh...oh, you didn't kill anyone. Okay. (The second shot of Requiem finishes the fight.)

The other fight was against three chimeras who we just run away from. I have a failsafe strategy for those guys: Run away!



Lena goes into Chemist to pick up Mix.

A few floors later, we make a major find!



YES. Auto-haste on anyone we want, baby! This will probably be equipped for the rest of the dungeon.

The only thing better than a Hermes ring? TWO OF THEM.



Lena takes advantage of the enemies that actually have MP to keep our team alive and to be ready for more Syldra castings.



Floor 50 is...yeah. You know.





A spiked treasure chest on 51F puts us up against another dragon, who dumps a whole truckload of AP into our pockets. Krile tops out Black Mage, and we win the ultimate Time Magic for our efforts. I mean Quick, not Demi.





On 54F, Faris masters Ninja in the nick of time. Now, it's time for the Gil Turtle floor! Unless someone can suggest a surefire way to take the Gil Turtle...we won't be fighting him! Yeaah!

The best tactic for the Gil Turtle has always been Float, Golem, Blink, and the best ice-elemental attacks you can muster. And it's never worth bothering if you can bypass it, since the Gil Turtle is worth practically nothing.

Requiem works on the Gil Turtle too, and is probably a better option for the hack just because it doesn't cost any MP.

It's probably not worth the time, though. You already have all of the really important items, so the money's pretty unnecessary.

No kidding, my last run was ended on floor 58 or so by one of these guys called by a summoner. They do not fuck around and I've been underestimating them this whole time.

I had a run where I found one in a chest on floor 3 and got a second in a random battle on floor 5. That was a good run (my best so far, ended on 68 when the timer ran out on a chest fight).

Oh, the thing with Biosoldiers (The normal ones, not the summoned ones) is that they only cast Bio as a counter while they're alone. You should kill all the enemies at once or kill them first or whittle down their HP so you can take them out in one attack once they're alone.

Summoned ones will cast Bio normally and as a counter on death, so you're always going to eat at least one there. You can Control them though, so you can use it to help you take out the Zephyr Zone if you need it.

Does the summoner not count for being 'alone', because I ate a hell of a lot of Bios. Three or four at least. I had a wall ring on Farris, as I know I was a floor or two away from the executor level 5 death a go-go and I was at 30 at the time (or 35 possibly) but they just absorb poison damage. Ended up with the rest of my party dead and just not able to get her to run, burned through an elixir or two trying to kill the summoner but ate to many critical for it to matter.

The summoned ones are completely different monsters with completely different AI. They cast a 1/3 chance to cast Bio every turn, and will always cast it on death.

And IIRC, it's actually impossible to kill them through damage if you have a Reflect Ring equipped*. They only have 2000 HP, so that might have been your problem. What happens is once you bring them down to 0 HP, the Bio counter reflects back and heals them before they actually get flagged as dead. Break and other instant death spells will still work, since they just bypass HP entirely.

It's a pretty crazy and very specific situation that you stumbled into, and the only encounter I can think of that can end up like that. So congratulations on running into it!

*Technically you can also run them out of MP for Bio, but you probably aren't going to be able to burn through 5000 MP within the hack's time limit.

The Gil Turtles will wreck you and aren't worth the trouble, but you should totally abuse a savestate just to show off how much they'll wreck you.

When we left off, we had just reached floor 55 and Faris mastered Ninja.



Last time around, we had trouble coming up against Quake attacks, so I take a moment to cast Float on everyone...only to find I don't have it.

Yes, I forgot Float was Time and not White magic. Ha! Ha ha! So we don't cast Float after all.

Faris starts on the long, winding road of the Kaiser-Knuckled Barefisted Samurai, and we dive on in.



We have no trouble whatsoever with the normal enemies on this floor. Perhaps we will find a greater challenge through this goofy door.



Nice!



All right!



AHHHH!

The true boss of B55F is the dreaded, stinking, damned, invincible Gil Turtle. There is little point in fighting this guy because he's almost impossible to kill and there's no reward. We won't be bothering with trying to take him.



Rather, we hightail it to floor 56 and find one of the two useful Blue Magic spells, White Wind. This will probably never be cast!







We continue to find some useful stuff during our descent, and along the way Krile takes up the mantle of the Red Mage. The Kaiser-Knuckled, Barefisted Red Mage. See a pattern yet?







Butts is wielding dual Assassin Daggers and Krile is still hitting harder than him. Since the Doom effect of the Assassin Daggers goes off pretty often, he still manages to pull his weight, but it's obvious that powerful offensive tactics are making this run.






By floor 62 our guys are progressing quite nicely, and we pick up another endgame spell. Hopefully we'll start getting some endgame weapons to go along with it before too long!





That'll do. Yes, that'll do nicely. Lena masters White Mage on this floor and heads over to Summoner. We want to start shifting our strategy from barefisted fury to boosted Syldra summonings, backed up by !Lance and the Air Knife...



but a couple of random battles (this time it's a trapped chest) tip me off that the undead floors are coming, so Lena heads over to Bard instead.





And not a moment too soon.



On B65F, our Black Magic list is as full as it probably ever will be. Fittingly, our last spell was Flare. Unless I posted that I found it earlier, in which case it was not.

At any rate, we have hell of Black Magic now.



Before we know it, we're at another boss floor. That solitary treasure chest is quite suspicious. It's almost guaranteed to throw an unbelievable nightmare at us, meant to shatter hopes and controllers with unerring efficiency.



Let's have a look anyway!



Why, it's our Fork Tower friends, Minotaur and Omniscient! Together!

I changed our party makeup slightly for this fight but the biggest change is that Krile is a White Mage and not a Red one. Our strategy is simple: Butts and Faris get to work on Minotaur while the mages hit Omniscient with Holy and Flare. Holy and Flare hit for 1500 apiece and we don't have X-magic yet, so Omniscient takes three thousand damage per turn while Minotaur takes up to six thousand.

GRRR BAAAH!!!

Doesn't that feel good!





Omniscient gets the last word but we are still victorious! We win a measly 15 AP and a Coral Ring! I think that makes it our fifth one.



Lena gets back on crowd control with Syldra for these Fork Tower fights.





We find another healing spot on Floor 67 and Lena picks up the last few AP she needed to master Bard. There was no good reason whatsoever for her to master Bard, but I did it anyway. So there.



Lena quickly takes the lead in damage and almost single-handedly carries us through the next floors. Of course she's using Requiem here, which does nearly as much damage as Syldra, but is free.



Floor 73 is a Boko floor. Let's see what he has for sale!



I reroll his inventory a few times and come up on a winner! It's the Excali...pur? Wait a minute, that's not what I want!

It's...it's a Brave Blade!!
But look at what else is there, a Brave Blade! I don't remember what I set my fight counter to back in the pub, but that just means we have a 50/50 chance of this being the best weapon, right?

Except no, I canceled out of the shop menu so many times that I did it again here, and before I knew it, that Brave Blade was gone forever.

Damn you Boko floor!





We roll up a Gold Hairpin and a little insurance as a consolation prize and get on our way.



We finally start to roll some of the good stuff. Sure, this could have been an Excalibur or a Masamune, but I'm still not complaining.



Close but no cigar.



Now that's what I'm talking about!



On the very next floor we find the best weapon for Blue Mages and Magic Knights, the Enhancer sword. It has the same oomph as the Excalibur, but without the Holy elemental.





We find what I believe is our third Hermes Ring and Ribbon on Floor 77, another boss floor. As for the boss...



I have no idea. I hightailed it off of that damn boss floor as soon as I could. I don't remember what was there, but I'm certain it wasn't pretty.







We're getting to the final depths of the dungeon now, but our offensive output is still strong to handle these random mobs.



Butts masters Ninja on this floor and becomes a double-fisted Masamune-wielding Samurai. He is one bad mother...whenever Lena doesn't wipe the enemies on her first turn.





Shortly thereafter, Faris masters Samurai and gets started in a new career as a Magic Knight. The Assassin dagger is as useful as ever with its Doom effect, more than making up for her slightly-decreased damage output.

Hmm, this gives me an idea. DON'T YOU MAKE FUN OF ME



As you can see, I have made Butts our first on-duty Dancer. What you can't see is he is hitting this enemy for over five thousand damage!

Lena soon masters Summoner and gets started on Red Mage. She and Krile start to swap off !Lance and Air Knife-Syldra duties. We also pick up a second Enhancer, but Faris sticks with the Assassin dagger because we're still seeing an instant kill nearly every fight.





A few floors of Sylda-and-Asswhoopin' later, Krile finishes up Red Mage. In retrospect, I didn't take a single shot of the fights in these early-to-mid-80s floors because our summons were tearing things up so well. Krile becomes a White Mage to pick up the last few skill levels there.



Before we know it, we're at another boss floor. Will we finally get to stop running away and stand up like the hard dudes we set out to be?!



Hell no. Even with our best equipment and our best jobs, the risk of losing one to one of these fights - one of each Mech, the strongest being Omega - is just too great to bother. Each mech on the map represents one that appears in the fight, so that's not actually three Omegas. One Omega is still waaaay too much for our little ragtag group of weenies to even think about attempting, unless I was some sort of reckless fool.







Instead, we decide to farm up the random fights on this floor. Faris makes short work of them with her Flare Sword.











This far in, we're starting to see that we could theoretically make up for any poor decisions regarding AP growth with a little work.







You can even find these guys! Soon, Faris and Krile master their jobs and are ready to go onto the next thrilling adventure.



There is one last chest here, which contains the other super boss. Even with the Dragon Spear and a fistful of Coral Rings, he still could wipe the floor with us.



Well, let's get on with it then! Onto the the last little bits of dungeon! These endgame bosses are too much for us, so we're not going to waste a good run on them.

OR ARE WE



The first thing you do when you fight Shinryu is cast Berserk. This locks him into a pattern of hitting each of your party members for 9000+ damage, but we can deal with that with a Blink and our stock of Phoenix Downs.











Our next step is to get Faris ready for some industrial-strength ass-whoopin'. She is dual-wielding Enhancers and is ready to make them sing. We also buffed her up with the Kiss of Blessing (Maiden's Kiss + Holy Water, grants Berserk, Blink, and Haste) so she is ready to go knucking futs.



Butts also puts in his fair share of damage with massive critical hits. Between the constant Flare Swords and katana flurry - both fueled by the Phoenix Down + Potion combination of Rezzerexshun - it's not too long until...







the lizard is completely drained!





We reap our just rewards. NOW we're ready to get on with the dungeon.

There just ain't no gettin' off this train we on.

Butts, Lena, and Faris have taken back up their favorite roles as neet ol' Freelancers while Krile is backing them up with Bard. Lena and Krile have Haste Rings on and both have Sing and White equipped as skills. Faris has the Ragnarok and an Enhancer with Magic Sword and !Image (which ultimately goes unused), while Butts is ready to Dance it on down. Naturally the three Freelancers are wearing Ribbons.





Deep within Omega's mechanical heart we awaken bittersweet memories of endless summer evenings and oaths made from tire swings under the willow tree by the brook. Meanwhile Butts dances the 9999-point Dance on Prototype and Mechhead (he's two-handing the Masamune) because he has become a hot dancer.







Of course Omega doesn't give a shit about the art of Dance. He promptly erases Butts from the fight, which leaves the three ladies to deal with the demonic melancholic robot. The girls keep up the constant Whitney Houston while Faris chops it up.



A Flame Ring and an Aegis Shield keep us from getting wiped by his ray attack. I take a gamble and leave Krile on the floor, instead focusing on the attack...











The Omega Seal can be equipped on any class for +99 to all stats and bonuses with automatic Haste and !Rapidfire.

I lied. No, no it can't. In fact, it doesn't do a damn thing!

So what did we go to all that trouble for?



Something we should've bought 20-something floors ago!

GRRR BAAAH

Some fun facts about Omniscient:

He starts the battle in Shell status, which you can Dispel to double magic damage. He's one of the few enemies that's weak to wind damage, so Syldra will tear him in half. He's also vulnerable to Silence, so someone can Spellblade up a Silence Sword and hit him with physicals all day long.

I've seen his chest drop Flare, Holy, and Meteo too, so I think you just get a Coral Ring if you already have all three.

And I'm pretty sure Omega's chest will give you whichever weapon is stronger in your game. I've never seen a Brave Blade from that chest, even if I keep opening it through savestates, presumably because I always set my escapes to 255.

Wait, no! Bad TK!

Break Sword has a 100% chance to instantly kill almost every enemy in the area, for much less MP than Flare Sword. The only thing you need Flare Sword on is the Crystal Dragons. Movers are immune to Break too, but Firaga Sword is better there.

Are these versions of Omega and Shinryu the same as from the original game? (Well, besides having sidekicks.) Because I remember beating Shinryu in one of my play-throughs, but I don't think I ever beat Omega in the original. (Admittedly, I never really mastered the exploits of this system.) I'm impressed that you seemed to do it here rather straightforwardly.

They're the same. (I've never seen Ancient Cave Omega use Encircle, though, so either that was removed or I never gave him the chance.) Romeo's Ballad/Love Song will stop Omega, but only briefly. You need something like two hasted singers to keep him permastunned.

If you (ab)use Mix, you can use a similar Berserk strategy on Omega. Omega seems to be significantly faster than Shinryu, though -- at least in my experience.

You're doing it wrong, then. The way chests work in this game is their contents change based on time. So if you save state, wait a few seconds, and then open the chest, the contents will be different.

When I beat Omega and pals, I save-stated before the chest and could get either weapon. And I don't even remember which one would've been stronger. >_>

~DS

I did do that, though.

Did you use the barrel to set your escapes to anything on that run? It might just set the reward based on what the barrel was set on and randomizing it if you ignored it.

It's either that or I've just gotten lucky every time I've opened the thing.

Ooh I need to try this...

Ah, is that where that name comes from? What about that 7th Saga character?

It's a traditional Elven name.

I didn't mess with the barrel. Maybe that's it? I'd go back and check with save states using my time trick just to make sure (the time thing works even when you're on boss floors).

~DS

I seem to recall there being minor differences. One thing I noticed different is that Omega doesn't have his usual 95% evasion. Its slightly easier than the one in the real game in that sense. Don't remember if there are any other meaningful changes.

I'm not sure I dare play this; I love FFV but am also really bad at videogames (re: I am very experimental as opposed to crafting a cut-throat/powergamer strategy). Still, this is a fantastic LP and I've greatly enjoyed following it so far.

And I read your titles, TK Flash! I do!

I know the feeling there, I was always the person who would grind a ton of exp/AP/whatever and just annihilate the game, or I would run through, kill everything I came across, and never grind at all. unfortunately, something like this would screw me over for both points, so I'm likely never to play it. Still, it's pretty interesting to watch.

We've taken on Omega and Shinryu and picked up the most powerful equipment we've found to date. We're ready to take on the final floors of the dungeon and finish building our characters.





Faris heads over to Knight, where our endgame equipment makes her our most powerful fighter yet. Krile knows all the magic she'll ever need to know, so she becomes a Ninja to work towards that speed bonus and help our team avoid back attacks.





Unfortunately for us, we don't find anything useful for several floors. The enemies from here on out give no experience points. Instead, they give us boatloads of AP. With no good treasures and no EXP, the only way for our team to get any stronger is to max out the classes with skills and stats that will help us when we become Freelancers and Mimes.



We meet Boko one last time, but lack the funds to get any of the really good stuff. I stock up on as many status items as I can afford.











We find some !Throw ammunition and rack up AP by the truckload. Our guys are mastering new jobs every two floors or so.









Dum de dum de dum grind grind grind. We can win most of the fights here, but there are some enemies far too dangerous or time-consuming to take down, so we !Smoke it up and find easier enemies.

Here's how hard Butts hits with the Ragnarok and Brave Blade. If we combine this with Flare Sword it will do even more damage.



More garbage, unless we decide to use !Throw in the final battle.



I don't think I've ever mastered this many jobs before. At these bottom floors, all we have to do is pick and choose our fights, and keep our fingers crossed that we don't hit any particularly nasty trapped chests.





Floor 97 gives up some good stuff, but we might end up not needing it. I wish there had been an Excalibur or Sage Staff instead, but what can you do.





There is literally nothing left for Butts to do by now, so he becomes Death on Two Feet while the girls finish up Monk.







Our very last treasure is an Aegis Shield.



We made it.

What abyssal nightmare awaits us?



My greatest nemesis -- an old man!

Prepare to die, fiend.









For skills, Butts has Magic Sword and Throw. The mimes each have X-magic, White Magic, and Mix. Faris has Magic Sword and Mix.



Ten hours, five minutes to get to the bottom of the dungeon. Our levels are quite high, and everyone but Lena is sporting an impressive amount of HPs. We have one super-hard hitter, plenty of mixing ingredients, and enough !Throw ammunition to fall back on in case dual-wielded Enhancer swords don't swing it.

I think we're ready.