FF4 DS MBO - Part II: Octomammoth
11MBO = Mandatory Battles Only
MBO implies that the game is completed with as few battles finished as possible. There are no restrictions as to how the experience from mandatory battles is distributed and divided between party members. The challenge is played from a new game, not a new game plus.
Octomammoth is the first hard battle in the challenge. Why do octopus bosses always pose a difficulty in FF challenges? Can't complain though.
Tellah joins the party just before this boss and it's a great thing that he does, because it might have not been as possible without him (I'd have to activate the Auto-Potion augment and put Cecil in the back row; but thanks to Tellah I can keep the augment for later use). Though still oblivious to his most powerful magics, Tellah knows some spells that make the battle easier.
First of all, Tellah can already cast Blink. This is the perfect spell to keep Rydia alive, as in the later stages of the battle a single attack will kill him, even at full health, in the back row and with the best defensive equipment available at this point.
Tellah can also poison the boss. I usually manage to poison Octomammoth on the first attempt, but on one of my attempts to beat the boss I needed half a dozen castings of the spell to see it finally connect. This must be some mechanics thing that I'm unaware of, because I doubt it's a coincidence. Poison will do slow damage to the boss that is nothing spectacular but is still nice as it's continuous and lasts in the periods when the party is forced to defend instead of attacking.
Octomammoth doesn't do anything but attack physically in this battle. When he has many tentacles, which is in the beginning of the battle, his attacks are weak, but it seems like he attacks non-stop. Is he in permanent Haste status or something? I've no clue, but even if you fight him at the lowest possible battle speed it literally takes him an instant to prepare the next attack. My guess is that he is just programmed to attack without having to wait when he has a lot of tentacles. Good thing is that his attacks don't hurt much at this stage.
Cecil should keep himself in Darkness state and attack at all times. Even in the later stages, when the damage dealt by the boss's physicals gets especially hard, the damage Cecil does to himself by attacking under Darkness is not a reason to act defensively - we want this over as soon as possible.
When the battle is interrupted by Tellah's monologue (warning that the octopus is weakened and will hurt us harder as a result), the strategy should be adjusted. Rydia should be defending, because otherwise a physical will be an instakill for her. A critical attack will kill her even when she is defending, by the way. We only want her alive at this point to ensure that the boss doesn't attack either Cecil or Tellah twice in a row. Two attacks in a row kills either.
In this phase, Cecil should keep attacking non-stop, and Tellah should keep casting Cura on the whole party. The boss's attacks become gradually slower, but until he has one tentacle left he's still fast enough to double-turn Tellah (let's not forget that magic needs time to be cast). Casting Blink is not a good idea at this point because the boss can take out a character who isn't under Blink and Tellah should keep healing the party without stopping. Really, Blink only works when you get Draw Attacks.
When Tellah is about to run out of MP, Cecil should interrupt his attacking to restore Tellah's MP with an Ether (Octomammoth has no MP to Osmose). At this point, the boss is close to being defeated.
An intense battle, but very doable after you figure it out. I fought this at the second fastest battle speed, which is generally a good idea in this game, because everybody keeps charging their ATB bars when the enemy is performing an action, whereas everything halts when one of your characters is acting (even when it's a normal physical).
Antlion is the next boss battle in this challenge, but I think I'll upload something from my BoF2 folder next.
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