FFX-2 Low Level Part IX: Baralai & Learning the Blue Bullet Skill Drill Shot

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MoogleBoss

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Published on May 4, 2009 8:25:58 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuaBmcW2qkw

Game:

Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)

Duration: 6:09

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Watch more videos of this challenge in the FFX-2 Low Level Game playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A28F9981DC9F9DC7
Yuna - lv. 4
Rikku - lv. 5
Paine - lv. 6

Those who witnessed the destructive power of black magic cast by a character equipped with Minerva's Plate and Soul of Thamasa will guess correctly if they assume killing Baralai is no problem. He has just over 3K HP which is two castings of -aga spells with said combo, and who cares that he's so quick and strong when he dies quickly.

Well, that's true, but we can't allow to kill Baralai so fast. See, though he has nothing to be stolen that we'd like to possess, he's the only enemy in the game from whom the unique Gun Mage skill - Drill Shot can be learnt. Now, Drill Shot is definitely useless. Fractional damage equal to 75% of the target's max HP is essentially of no value in an LLG, as we fight bosses with immunity to Gravity and if my memory serves me correctly (I think this is the FF game I played the most out of back when it was first out, but there was quite a break before I started this challenge so I'm rusty) that's what fractional attacks check if they are to succeed. But I wanted to get as much as I can on this file, so of course I wanted all Blue Bullet skills for every girl as well.

This, surely, makes the battle hard. As you can see in the start of the battle, Baralai hits hard: 200+ damage to every girl. He has a special skill that hits everybody surrounding him, meaning it can potentially connect on all three girls. And when he's attacking with regular physicals, he may decide to combo as many times as FOUR. Blue Mages have poor defences so we can't afford confronting him without any cunning involved.

What's more is that Baralai likes to spam a special that rids the targeted girl of all her MP and also inflicts Stop, unless immune. Highroad Winds Garment Grid has a node that activates Stopproof when passed. This is what we need. But only on two girls, not Paine.

I'll explain. Even with Mighty Guard on all girls, Baralai attacks too damn much. He's literally everywhere, there's no way we can get him to use his Blue Bullet skill when we need to heal all the time. Checking negative statuses that can be exploited, we'll find that he's susceptible to both darkness and poison. Poison won't limit his offence much, but darkness will. He isn't immune to any of Warriors' breaks either - BUT, breaks often miss his evasive character, and if they do connect they're not likely to reduce any of his stats. That's what playing a low level game does to you.

We need an alternative way of inflicting said statuses, that's guaranteed. The solution is found in Paine's special dressphere. As you can see in the video, I put no time into mastering it because in an LLG special dresspheres are a waste of time, good on defence early on and having massive HP but offering little of value in terms of aggression. They will occasionally help us in purely tactical ways however.

One of the parts of Paine's special dressphere can inflict darkness, which should be done ASAP. Now to reduce Baralai's attack all the way down to -10. Pay attention to how much this castrates his otherwise dreadful 4-hit combos, it's a miracle.

Blinded and reduced to -10 in attack, we might as well bring back our usual part of three on the field. Drill Shot is used when Baralai has been touched 10 times, and it is used on the girl to do it last. We want all three to learn the move, and I don't think my actions done to achieve this need much explanation.

Once Drill Shot has been learnt, Rikku and Yuna should change to Alchemists and Paine should go back to Black Mage. She's probably out of MP now, so Yuna must grant Stash Ethers, and Paine must focus, as she's lacking Soul of Thamasa - we had to replace it with a stopproof accessory to prevent her from being stopped. Rikku heals, but seeing how Baralai does like 10 damage every hit she's mostly idle.

We need to kill Rikku and Yuna with a lv. 1 spell once done with the skill learning and at full MP, and finish the boss off with a couple of good old Firaga spells.

I nearly gave up on the idea of learning Drill Shot, but finding out that Paine's SDS is guaranteed to inflict those statuses when it's theoretically possible helped me find a way out. Hooray for a useless Blue Bullet!

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