Breath of Fire 3 - 0 Exp Run Part 6: Dolphin
19Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c3B4PywC9BZi6DB276WM3gE
Another boss, immediately following the lighthouse dungeon and the Gazer battle.
Dolphin is one of the toughest bosses during the earlygame portion of BoF3, with a powerful attack, big AoE damage with Tsunami, a Reprisal counter and what appears to be some very hard defence. In a normal game, you'd just place Ryu up front (or your Last Resort Peco if that's your thing), transform him into a Thunder Dragon and spam Thunder Claw, finishing him off with little trouble (D'lonzo-built Ryus can even hope for an EX-turn, especially if Momo already knows Speed). Players opting for a magical Ryu build can enjoy the option of using Mjollnir by splicing in the Eldritch gene.
Here, none of these options exist. Dolphin easily OHKOs Ryu and Nina, does quite a number to Momo as well, and Momo can hardly retaliate, even though her guns do have the highest attack of all weapons at this point of the game.
Why are we using Momo and Nina in the first place, when we have Garr? The party is fixed when you're in the Faerie Village for the first time, and you're forced to use these two. I suppose Nina is the only one who's the nuisance in the party (and Ryu is a nuisance just about all the time).
If Momo attacks the boss, he'll retaliate with Reprisal, and, should the player choose to solo the boss with Momo since Ryu and Nina are so fragile, it will be a very long and tedious test of endurance as Momo will have to be in defence formation, cast as many Protects on herself as she can, and then play its safely lest she get killed.
But there's another way! Failproof and really quick, in fact.
On every turn not divisible by 3, Ryu and Nina target each other with Ammonia. If Ryu dies, Nina revives him; vice versa for Nina. If neither one dies, the Ammonia isn't wasted as it's only used when necessary (when the selected target is KO'd). Ryu is placed at the peak of the formation, making the boss 62,5% likely to target him. The chance for one of the girls to be targeted is roughly 19%, and ~5% of that is Intimidate, which my cancel their turn but will never kill.
So Momo has pretty good chances of staying alive this way. We're quick to start getting some damage in, so Momo uses Last Resort right away - now is the time to start attacking! However, the boss's reprisal will OHKO Momo in a counter now that her entire defence stat is gone. What do?
Simply put, use Blitz. This is a physical move that ignores enemy's capacity to counter and, what is more, it lands 3 hits, which helps Momo land hits in spite of her awful natural accuracy stat (85% with the Artemis Cap + D'lonzo apprenticeship).
On every turn divisible by 3, the boss will use Tsunami, halving everyone's current HP. This move cannot kill. His every other kills one character at a time, so there's no way to lose the fight as long as we have Ammonia, and even if we are terribly unlucky, a huge amount of Ammonia and time aren't exactly necessary with this strat.
If Momo just dies at some point, both Ryu and Nina attempt to revive her next turn, and since nobody can possibly die on turns 3/6/9 etc. the whole party will be back on their feet by the next turn, allowing Momo to begin by casting Last Resort again. If KO'd, both the Last Resort bonus to attack and any possible Vodka Shot / Ginseng bonuses she received are cancelled out - the latter do tremendously improve her damage output and are best used on those turns divisible by 3 when Ryu and Nina are in no danger of dying and have a free turn they needn't spend targeting each other with Ammonia.
As you can see, I was lucky here with Momo not dying (and nobody else whatsoever for quite a while too, but having Ryu or Nina die is something you can afford here and have a battle of the same length still), and the battle was over very soon.
The strat is very much recommended for low level games where Ryu is unable to contribute to the damage output by being a frontline attacker (here, I can't even cough up the AP to transform into a non-whelp dragon).
This victory earns the party Faerie Village access in the second half of the game. I cannot overstate how significant this access is for the sake of this challenge.
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