FFT Oracle SSCC Part 6 - Gafgarland Concentration Camp

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MoogleBoss

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Published on November 26, 2011 3:42:27 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9gl_ea5VdI

Game:

Final Fantasy Tactics S (2013)

Duration: 13:43

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8

or whatever this map was called lol.

Hellish map here.

First of all, the location where you start is as disadvantageous as it gets. You are welcome to choose from starting in the corner where Gafgarion and the Archers can't reach you until the second turn (but on the second turn, all of the units mentioned above plus TWO Knights will reach you anyway), or start to the right side, get Slowed by the Time Mages while the third Knight blocks your way, letting the enemies stack their attacks on you, quickly overpowering Ramza. Petrifying the Knights might seem like a good idea, but its accuracy is usually low plus it charges so slowly that you'll probably lose a half of your health to Gafgarion and the archers girls (and that's in spite of having the worst compatibility with Gaf and Defense UP). There might be some very astronomical chance of winning this battle without the use of the Loss strategy but I simply couldn't see it.

So the Loss strategy is necessary to win here. What is the Loss strategy? Some might remember that Lucavi bosses can be forced to use Loss on one of your units, confusing them. It's been observed since a very long time ago that confused units cause enemies to behave strangely when the Loss is in effect. Namely, they'll ignore you while you keep running around the map and performing random actions. Or they won't, who knows. Confusion never runs out without some active participation of either party, like a Remedy or a good whack on the head.

This is what Ramza is supposed to pull off here - confuse himself so that the enemies forget about him, while he runs around the map and pokes them to their eventual demise with his deadly stick.

Certain problems arise. Namely, Gafgarion will use Night Sword on a confused Ramza anyway if the health of the former is low. That's how the AI works. This means Zombie should be cast on the first turn, and only then Confusion Song. The first has a 50 or so percent chance to connect, the second 69%. A lot of the resets come from Ramza's inability to connect BOTH statuses on the first attempt. If he takes an extra turn to do so, the Knights will be swinging their swords, and even if he does confuse himself, his health will be too low that the AI will finish him off disregarding the fact that he is confused.

It's been noticed that the Loss strategy demands that the soloist can't be killed in TWO attacks. The enemy will attack a confused character if the latter has a negative status on him, too. This matters a lot, because when confused, Ramza can cast something like Blind or Don't Act on himself. This doesn't remedy confusion or anything, but it causes the enemy to start attacking immediately. Just the way the AI works in this game, I suppose.

Even if Zombie and Confusion Song are cast on time, a number of things can go wrong:

Knights have Speed Break - Ramza's speed will go down to 1, meaning he'll wait forever to get a turn. He'll be surrounded by Knights and Gaf and his attacks will barely hurt.
Knights have Armor Break and Head Break - Ramza's gear will be crushed, reducing his max HP. This will most likely mean somebody on the map can 2HKO him, and Knights will attack him immediately.
Knights have Mind Break - Ramza's MA and the damage he does with a stick will become negligible. If any of the enemies has Potion learnt and Item equipped, he'll never finish the battle and it will go on forever.
One of the Time Mages has either Summon or Cure 2, and a high Faith stat - they'll attack Ramza (Cure 2 hurts zombied characters).
Too many characters have Item - Ramza will have difficulty killing anybody because they'll be healed on time.
Somebody has Phoenix Down - they'll get rid of zombie Ramza quickly.
Somebody has Counter or Counter Tackle (more likely) and Ramza attacks them from 1-range, getting countered and losing the confused status.

It should also be noted that Confusion has the same effect as Blind, multiplying the evasion of the blinded character's target when they're being attacked. Ramza's frontal attacks will have around 30-40% chances to connect on the Knights most of the time, but the real horror is if somebody has Defend - Ramza will see 0% chances to hit the character with Defend from the front or the side, and will have to rely on attacks from behind to win. If I could un-confuse Ramza and control him myself, this wouldn't be a problem, but he's in auto-pilot mode for the whole battle after Confusion Song.

In this video, he has trouble with an Archer with Defend who has 100% evasion against frontal and side attacks, but Ramza's still 60% likely to pierce her with his stick when attacking from behind. The trick is that Ramza is faster so eventually he should double-turn the Archer when she has her back open and hopefully the AI will go for the attack from behind.

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