Bravely Second - 0 Exp Run+ Part 12: Merchant Profiteur

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MoogleBoss

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Published on July 12, 2016 6:13:14 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20jrLaYc3A

Game:

Bravely Second: End Layer (2015)

Duration: 8:54

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13

In chapter 2, one of the quests involving the first game's asterisk holders brings us to choose between White Mage and Merchant. I kinda want to be able to Spellcraft WM's Holy spell later on but besides that WM appears to be largely redundant when Bishop already exists and offers more useful abilities. The ability Angelic Ward provides a way to halve damage, but it's luck-reliant and like I said fatal damage halved is still fatal damage most of the time in a low level game.

0 Exp / Low Level Game+ (Hard Mode) challenge playlist (read for full rules):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c0ShrxNBNo2fTL8ueFn45rS

On the other hand, Merchant, while also not particularly essential, provides a critical buff (which is party time for Hammer Spellcraft) and a possibility to get more money while JP grinding. I thought about this a little bit, even postponing the sidequest and defeating Aimee first so that I could think more, and settled for Merchant. White Mage's Holy likely makes this a tie, but I just find myself digging the 400% critical buff more since you can apply it to any spell when using Hammer.

Profiteur is accompanied by 3 mooks, one of whom is lightning-weak but since we hadn't got Thundara in shops yet a neutral -ara spell works in its place better. Instead of using multi-target Spellcraft like I did against Mephilia, I focus on taking them one by one individually with Hammer and that appears to be more effective than the old method. Removing the shield to wield an extra rod also paid off dividends, boosting the magical damage output.

I played with the Summoner job a bit, mastering some skills, and while the MP cost is too much to really use it over -ara spells, in spite of the power boost, Summon Substitute is easily learnt at job lv. 3 and casts a weak summon (~400 damage here) everytime the user is KO'd, which believe it or not happens rather frequently in this fight. Without many better skills to take its place at this stage, it provides some chip damage.

When alone, the boss will exert pressure by Defaulting, decreasing the damage suffered greatly and then unleashing two Takeovers on 2 seemingly random targets - 'seemingly' because the girls do get attacked more often. There's an accessory that affects the likelihood of enemies attacking a certain character, its description implying that there might be reasons why foes would target some units over others. I'm guessing it's like FF12 with its hate mechanic causing the most active attackers to be hated and targeted by enemies more, which would explain Edea/Magnolia getting attacked more often and at the worst times too (they also don't like proccing Stand Ground in this fight it seems).

I did try to figure out if there's a pattern behind when Profiteur Defaults, because it's crucial for a quick victory not to waste spells on his Default turn, but there doesn't appear to be any strict order of actions. He will always double-attack after Defaulting once however so the turn after Default is the safest if we want to not see our Hammer attacks severely cut in damage. At the same time, it's also the most dangerous turn and girls kept dying here non-stop, it seems.

So this all made the battle quite jarring, but it's only a matter of time until Profiteur falls and the Merchant asterisk is ours.

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