Breath of Fire 4 - 0 Exp Challenge Part 2: Maman
13Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c3ilm03NGBn_GGmnY7aukpm
2nd battle in this challenge series. As our levels haven't grown at all (and hopefully never will) since the game began, we're dealing with more serious threats, but we've had a chance to update our equipment and we also got a new character in Cray, who is (slightly) higher-levelled than the other members of the party.
Just to illustrate the statistical differences between the playable characters available so far, here's a quick stat comparison at base levels:
Ryu (lv. 1) 230 hp, 6 ap, 3 cp, 10 pwr, 10 def, 8 agi, 7 int
Nina (lv. 5) 301 hp, 21 ap, 3 cp, 14 pwr, 12 def, 25 agi, 26 int
Ershin (lv. 3) 313 hp, 5 ap, 5 cp, 15 pwr, 4 def, 21 agi, 5 int
Cray (lv. 7) 460 hp, 16 ap, 1 cp, 27 pwr, 20 def, 14 agi, 9 int
Ryu's unfortunate for being the lowest-levelled controllable unit. Luckily, he can somewhat compensate for his poor stats by transforming into a dragon (which costs very little since transformation and maintenance costs are tied to level, but he hasn't got much AP to use powerful skills while in it either). His stats are the lowest in the party for obvious reasons, though he does beat Ershin in AP and (surprise) base defence. The good thing about Ryu is that he isn't required to be in the party and can be switched out in favour of a more competent ally any time (or right away). Cray joining as the 4th member permits this finally.
Nina is overpowered in a playthrough with levelling up, dominating the field with disastrous wind magic, and is likely the most useful reincarnation of Nina in the Breath of Fire series (not sure if DQ players would disagree, as I do rely on Nina a lot in that game and give her all my AP until Lin becomes the party's main attacker, and I've no clue whatsoever how good Nina is/will be in that new mobile game BoF6). She doesn't level up here, so her worth drops sharply, but 21 base AP is a lot and she is also fast for priority healing purposes; however, it's not cool if she gets felled in one hit due to her frailty.
Ershin's displayed stats are deceiving in that he (it?) actually doesn't have low base speed and high base defence but actually quite the opposite, but the armour glued on Ershin for a while creates this impression. It's not for a while that Ershin gets better armour, and while we could always get really fast by equipping the Lightning armour or something, would we like having near 0 defence? Time will show I guess.
Cray's the party's slow, beefy, powerful attacker and physical tank, following in the footsteps of Ox (not sure if Rand would count, but Garr and Peco definitely do). He and Ershin are generally the weakest links in a regular playthrough, but here he is statistically superior to a good half of the party. Even his AP seems pretty high in comparison! Until Scias and Ursula join that is.
Now, speaking of the boss in this video, there are generally two ways to go about it, sorta like there are two ways to do the Phantom Train in FF6 - you either cheese it out and use an Apple to make it lose 2 turns each time, or you face it in a manly manner... Should I even clarify which path we're taking here? Even if it's a run where we'll be abusing a ton of things.
Cray is the party's biggest damage dealer now and should be given Flame Strike to penetrate the boss's weakness to fire. Transformed Ryu technically beats him in Pwr because his weapon is better (Cray's weapon options are nowhere as good as those of the swordsmen and Ursula in this game), but the transformation and the AP costs related to its maintenance make it troublesome to rely on Ryu for attacking or even use them for a double Flame Strike assault, because it takes more turns to buff them up with RainbowTrouts and keeping people alive is a problem when the boss has a multi-target earth-elemental spell to hit us with, and we've only got one Earth Ward for one ally to halve the damage (Cray does have an innate 25% resistance to earth).
Though I do have the Shadowwalk skill at this point already, Flame Strike does comparable damage at 1/6th its AP cost so it's best left untouched here, and coincidentally for most of the rest of the game too. In a regular run, Shadowwalk makes Ryu absurdly powerful against single-target threats in random battles as his impressive AP stock allows him to use it over and over even if you screw Ryu's AP up with suboptimal physical master builds (a bad idea considering what the dragons bring to the table). It's a shame that it's hard to find some practical use for such a criminally good skill here!
Also, this battle marks the time Nina starts getting OHKO'd by enemy attacks. The Protect Cray casts on her on the first turn serves its function of helping Nina stay alive during this fight to continue functioning as the party's priority healer, outspeeding the boss without Rwolf's shenanigans.
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