Breath of Fire 4 - 0 Exp Part 9: Ershin Rambos
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We are almost near the end of the second chapter, but before it's over Ershin has to take his ultimate challenge. The difficulty of this segment is impossible to notice in a regular run because the soldiers attacking Ershin (who is on his own here) are so weak, but when Ershin is at his base level of 3 it's suddenly him that's weak here.
This part can sorta be totally cheesed through with items, such as the farmable Icicle which causes 700 dmg to all targets, which is more than what archers and pikemen have. As long as Ershin goes first in the battle thanks to Rwolf proccing (the rate is pretty reliable but will eventually backfire in a longer battle), going first and using item magic like Icicle overkills everyone and ends the fight in one turn.
...but as you might expect from me, I abstain from this strat to make the strategy-crafting (and executing) harder for myself.
In the first of the two battles, Ershin is up against an archer and a pikeman. The archer can proc Lucky Strikes on his attacks, dealing additional defence-piercing damage. The extra damage as well as Rwolf failing to give Ershin the first action can easily lead to a game over rather quickly (possibly on the 1st turn).
One really important action to undertake before this fight (and actually, before Ershin leaves the party) is to use the game's faerie village to grow some Hard Seeds. These are temporary stat boosting items that last until the next time the player opts to rest, affecting a great range of stats (not only strength and speed, but, say, dodge rate as well) and things like elemental/status resistance. It would be an error to think that they stack however - neither seeds of the same kind nor different ones do, so you should choose what you want to bolster carefully.
In this case, Ershin just dies too quickly without a Defence Seed granting +10 def. Long Boots need to be unequipped in favour of Ershin's special accessory Red Cape (from 0 to 50% counter rate) and so Ershin's starting defence is otherwise really poor and we need to chuck a Browntail or two for a slight increase to increase the chance of our survival a little.
The goal is to deal most of the damage to the enemies in counters while healing and, in the few times possible, use Browntails for extra bulk. There's a risk that Ershin will KO both the enemies in one turn without regaining full HP first - we want to be at max HP when the second, harder, battle starts. That's the reason I unequip the cape and finish the last enemy enemy standing manually after putting it to sleep with Knockout Gas and then restoring Ershin's HP. Artemis Cap just guarantees the crucial attack connects (Ershin's hit rate is imperfect). The number of turns sleep is in effect seems random, and the item can miss too - we have enough to succeed regardless.
In the 2nd fight, there are now 2 pikemen and one archer, so Ershin just needs to go first and take a Browntail so that he most likely doesn't die when at full health and hope Rwolf keeps him going first while the Red Cape takes care of the enemies.
Pikemen have 500 HP while the archer has 600, and with Ershin rolling around 500 dmg per attack, you can expect to occasionally OHKO the pikemen, though this occurrence isn't particularly high. When weakened but not quite killed, the foes can heal themselves with Healing Herbs and, since these restore only 300 HP, the next attack will kill them anyway, so what it does is make Ershin's survival during said turn a bit more likely.
And thus, Ershin fulfils the last task posed before him (his potency has been running low for a while). Quite timely with Ursula joining the party soon. I hope Cray's solo battle in the 3rd chapter won't be such a huge problem, though.
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