Breath of Fire 3 - 0 Exp Run Part 20: Dragon Lord

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MoogleBoss

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Published on August 13, 2015 7:51:52 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nRw5v8pRFc

Game:

Breath of Fire III (1997)

Duration: 8:43

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52

Time has come for the decisive battle against Ryu's rival and friend!

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c3B4PywC9BZi6DB276WM3gE

There's a very good reason why Dragon Lord should be treated as one of the key boss battles of this game. Though only the penultimate battle, he has higher attack and defence scores than the final boss herself, not to mention more powerful when attacking physically (Dragon Lord has Triple Blow; Myria has absolutely nothing in terms of physical skills... not that she minds the lack thereof).

Dragon Lord's move list is also extremely wide, featuring physical attacks (frequent regular attacks AND Triple Blow, MT confusion status with Howling, and fire/ice-elemental magic with Inferno/Blizzard. When the boss gets low on HP (less than 50% to be precise), he'll sharply cut down on the usage of physical attacks (Triple Blow still somewhat frequent) and add the dual fire/wind-elemental spell Sirocco, the harshest of the MT elemental spells to his arsenal.

Now that's quite a lengthy list of dangerous moves to try to preserve yourself against.

Dragon Lord's not too fast - a speed stat of 41 lets Rei EX-turn him pretty easily after a single Speed boost, which is more than we could permit ourselves in the Arch Mage battle I uploaded a little while ago. Since Rei will be using every single non-EX turn to cast Resist on himself, taking in 62,5% of the physicals sent in the direction of the party, the only protection we care to have on him would be status, and inoculation + Protectors shield guarantees complete immunity. It's not possible to keep Rei speedy enough to EX-turn while buffing him up to take a physical attack, let alone a Triple Blow that doesn't whiff a single of the strikes, so you either choose defence (and go all the way) or speed (and use Resist on non-EX turns). 37,5% of physicals will still target Garr/Ryu, and they'll be OHKO'd by them every time provided that they do not pull off a dodge.

Now, as for our means of attacking... Normally the Weretiger spammer on this run, Rei utilises his sky-high speed to provide support to the party, leaving the attacking to Garr and Ryu, whom we've got used to seeing in support roles throughout this run (though prior to Rei joining, Garr was a mighty fine frontliner himself). Garr and Ryu both possess access to dragonslaying weaponry for this battle; however, Ryu wants Rei to Pilfer the blade for him at the start of the battle. 2x damage makes these weapons the best they can use in this fight.

Since Ryu was revealed to be a user of Last Resort/Triple Blow in the previous fight, Garr takes over the duties of the Berserker, with a single Soul Gem equipped to trigger the exploit that lets him resurrect controllable with any skills invested at his disposal.

Soul Gems/Manly Clothes are technically cheesy and abusable as you can keep re-equipping them over and over until the enemy fails to kill you. They render each battle possible under any challenge settings you can think of assuming you can have an extensive enough stock to keep re-equipping them over and over. However, in my endgame strats I don't actually use a Soul Gem to guarantee survival as my worry is maximising offence in a run with a lousy Ryu who can't become a dragon effectively. From that point of view, I find the usage of the exploit justified in this run (since I've also abused just about everything else that's abusable in the game for maximum success and ownage of the bosses found in this game).

Garr fits the role of the Berserker more than Ryu does due to his high HP, which allows him to take an elemental magic spell with one accessory slot 'wasted' after the Soul Gem breaks (equipping a different item there mid-battle causes the exploit to lose its effect, no longer tripling the caster's attack), and using a Force Armor (item magic that casts Barrier) lets Garr endure even more magical damage. Of course, Garr is also naturally resistant to fire, which helps severely limit the destructive potential of the dual-elemental Sirocco.

Garr can be expected to be greatly outdamaging (when he's not whiffing his Blitz attacks that is) Ryu in damage output, yet the contribution of both to the dishing out of pain is greatly appreciated regardless. After Ryu runs out of AP for more Triple Blows after the first two, he can stick to gambling on Jump for continued damage. As a skill that costs absolutely nothing AP-wise, it sure is handy in a long fight due to the fact that it will do less damage than a regular attack only 25% of the time and considerably more damage 50% of the time.

Garr's lack of AP however means he'll be relying on Blitz which deals 1,5x normal damage with 3 strikes, and apprenticed under D'lonzo, he'll have an accuracy of 95%, so some misses aren't entirely unlikely considering the number of total hits landed.

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