Breath of Fire 3 - 0 Exp Run Part 8: Garr (Solo at Angel Tower)
22One of the really peculiar battles in this challenge run, it's Ryu facing Garr solo. He has to do it at lv. 1, too, since that's the level he'll stay in for the entire duration of the challenge playthrough, meaning we don't really have the AP to transform into any useful dragon form out of those available - and we're getting OHKO'd by the boss here!
Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c3B4PywC9BZi6DB276WM3gE
It's been noted that even if the defence stat can't be raised anymore to make characters' tanking capability better - something crucial in this challenge - there are still ways to take even less damage. One is making use of the Defence formation and sacrificing some of the party's speed to lower both the physical and the magical damage the party receives. Since Ryu is soloing this one, this one is out of reach for this battle. There's another method however...
Many viewers should know that characters' defensive capabilities actually increase when they get poisoned. Even if damage from poison taken each turn may keep accumulating with time, it can still be a good idea to get a character poisoned if you're really that desperate for some more defence.
This is especially useful considering how Garr's attacks ignore the defence stat - being poisoned still reduces his damage output when nothing else can. And, with Garr's regular physical attack ignoring defence, we can use Last Resort right away without worrying, and just wait for an opportunity to attack when Garr just wasted a turn whiffing / using a fire-elemental attack that Ryu can absorb with the Ring of Fire / Magma Armor.
Garr has a 75% chance to use the regular physical blow, and a 25% chance to use one of the fire-elemental moves (hardly matters which, but Fireblast doesn't whiff and therefore gives us 20 HP at the end of the turn after recovering Ryu's health). He's got an agility stat of 11, meaning 7+10 (from Speed Boots) - 1 (holding the lightest sword) Ryu has no hope of EX-turning him, yet he should be able to outspeed him - for some odd reason, he will occasionally be outsped even with 16 agility against Garr's 11 (this game loves being random in terms of turn order to a larger extent than one would have liked, and I believe BoF4 is also an offender in this regard).
Why I'm mentioning Garr's speed is that, depending on the situation, Ryu will need to either go first or go last. Ryu should be outspeeding when he was weakened last turn and needs to restore back his HP before Garr possibly kills him on the next blow, and he should go last when he's at 18/20 HP (20 HP only possible on the first turn and if Garr restored Ryu's HP; poison knocks him down to 18 HP otherwise), equipping the heaviest armour to make use of Last Resort, both Titan Belts and Barbarossa, the hardest-hitting weapon at this point of the game. Since Garr has innate Reprisal, Ryu can only afford to attack with Blitz to avoid being killed in the counterattack.
Though poisoned, Garr will occasionally deal well over 20 damage - more than enough to secure a OHKO against Ryu, and 18 damage is still enough to end the battle in a failure if Ryu took poison damage the previous turn.
It took some resets to get this right, but not as many as one may suspect. Having Ryu travel all the way to that part of the Angel Tower was a bit bothersome, however.
Since we don't have to worry about Ryu getting awful growths from Meryleep apprenticeship, we just leave him with this master for that +10 boost to evasion. One of the more useful master boosts in-battle, no doubt, and a favourite until Ladon becomes available (who's not that useful when you have double Ivory Charms available anyway).
And so ends the first half of the game where Ryu is still young. Some very serious changes occur shortly afterwards, including an incredible new character joining the party, equipment options greatly expanding with the advent of the Faerie Village and Ryu suddenly becoming a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield for what seems like the first time in the challenge. The second half of the game is pretty fun, I gotta say! Aside from two more bosses we have to solo, but these are always interesting in a run like this.
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