FFXII - NLBLLG Part XXI: Bergan & Stop/Reverse Explained

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MoogleBoss

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Published on January 9, 2008 8:38:47 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NwlJMCAHDg

Game:

Final Fantasy XII (2006)

Duration: 7:42

6,639 views

35

Having received a bunch of messages encouraging me to keep recording the "impossible challenge", I've created yet another video in the series.

Following a very difficult storyline boss Mateus, fighting against whom required both tactical strength and patience in powering up a Dark Matter, the next compulsory combat against Judge Bergan and his minions easily surpasses everything seen so far in NLBLLG in terms of difficulty and effort necessary to advance further in the game.

What exactly makes it so complicated? Sure, the judge magister's got minions, but so did Mateus! The difference is simple: whilst the Ice Azers could be made toothless with (a lot of) effort from the player, the 3 Imperials supporting the boss surround your party quickly and cannot be stopped. Regular physical blows, instant Lunge attacks and the deadly full-party Water Spout (non-reflectable, being a special technique rather than a spell) in addition to persistant offense of Bergan make this battle seem impossible and make the boss pretty much demand another powered up Dark Matter.

It took ages to come up with a strategy for this, and what we had come up with was a surprise to most of us. Frioniel2006, not an NLBLLGer himself yet a most valuable creative mind in the GameFAQs challenge topic, suggested to use the plan he had prepared for Omega in his regular NLB challenge.

The plan is to get a number of characters into the Stop status by engaging in a battle against an enemy that inflicts it, then stepping into a trap that gives Reverse and bringing the nearly invincible dummies to the boss battle. Since the Imperials start the fight far away from both Bergan and yourself, leaving a stop/reversed character in the middle allows you to have a much more convenient battle against the boss without being interrupted; however, we are only leaving ourselves two characters for this part.

Balthier should be in haste and berserk and shooting with his best ammunition (I don't know why I had Onion Shot equipped in the beginning). Ashe (magical armour setup)should help by tossing Aero Motes. Bergan attacks not the closest target and instead opts to slay those causing the most haste. Inevitably, Balthier will die and it's only a matter of time when. In this video, I had insane luck and managed to hurt him quite a bit before Balthier had been killed.

At that point, I was pretty much stalling for time, as I had beaten the boss 2 months ago with a Dark Matter (you can see in the end of the battle that it was strong enough to rid Ivalice of him in a second), so I was just depicting what you'd expect from the boss as opposed to being genuinely interested in getting a flawless victory.

The video also shows a mistake you should fear like fire. When you switch someone in or out, pay very close attention to who the party leader is - this is vital. Switching a healthy unit to accompany the reversed dummy means you are going to lose the healthy unit in question and possibly also fail to survive against Bergan. This mistakes leads to Vaan being surrounded by everyone including Bergan himself - a situation that leads to a quick game over. I switch Penny out, try to use a DM, get Water Spouted, then manage to achieve the desired with Basch.

I have never heard of anyone beating Bergan without a DM, but it should be possible with 3 characters in Stop/Reverse (possibly even 4 if you don't berserk Balthier and have him revive the fallen companion when he's alone), haste, around 50 Aero Motes (which will replace Balthier's shots in effectiveness when the boss reaches critical HP and his defence skyrockets) and a crapload of luck.

bmxer31000, so far the most successful NLBLLGer recording his progress, has a longer Bergan video up than mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Km_4r6qK2s (part one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwVDIw2XNyg (part two)

However, he, too, had to use a Dark Matter to finish the boss off, so if you want to be the first to do it without one, study his experience to think of an improvement.

I do suggest powering up a DM at least to 10K, as doing the battle over and over means getting stop/reveresed over and over. The video doesn't show the monstrosity of the method, but it's essentially the gaming equivalent of being tortured by... I digress, if you do want to pull this off, make sure you've got at least three hours of spare time, nerves of steel, around 20 Warp Motes (Vanishga Motes could help to get to avoid the Feywood enemies; to be honest, I've never tried) and, once again, luck, luck and some more luck. You *could* break the NLB rule to get those statuses on yourself either by using Niho or casting the necessary spell... that's up to you.

Music used: FFXII OST - "The Feywood", Mahavishnu Orchestra, The - "Birds of Fire" (from the album titled "Birds of Fire").

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