Game:

Final Fantasy Tactics S (2013)

Duration: 12:40

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I think this is the hardest fight in the game (EDIT: I was wrong. It's not even close to as bad as Altima). I have hours of failure footage, from so many different RNG conditions.

First of all, Zalbag can't come with something stupid as his secondary, like Geomancy or Punch Arts. If he does, he won't attack Dycedarg, and he won't do enough damage to get me where I need.

What I need is for Relm to be able to finish Dycedarg with a casting of Holy. But Relm needs to have more than 200 HP, or Dycedarg will go straight for her with Lightning Stab because he can OHKO her. So that means in addition to her Angel Ring (which is essential because she has to have two turns, one for each phase of battle), she has to have the Black Costume. This means her MA is drastically lower than her norm here, so she has to get two hits from Zalbag to help her out.

Leprue spends the entire Dycedarg battle trying to get to the upper level, so he'll be in close when Adramelk finally shows up. I also need Leprue, on this walk, to be reduced to 50% HP, or even outright killed. If he has full health, he can't kill himself with Demi 2, and I can't win without XP.

As for my other three characters, I spread them around so that they'll waste Dycedarg's and Adramelk's turns, but won't rack up kills too rapidly. Aveni tends to be too delicious to pass up, because the game never factors in his MP Switch and always sees him as an easy OHKO.

There are other failure conditions, too. Zalbag can die before hitting Dycedarg enough times, or he can get blocked in by the other Knights and not be able to reach Dycedarg. Dycedarg can Silence Leprue with that initial casting of Lightning Stab. Dycedarg can get to heights where Relm can't line up a decent calculation. You'll see that actually almost happens here. I only need Relm (with a move of 3) to make a 4-space Teleport to get onto a Height that's a multiple of 3... and yet she fails. I thought that was going to be the end of the run, and yet on her next opportunity she makes a Teleport much further out of her range. I guess sometimes things balance out.

Because I didn't plan for it, this second Teleport puts me in a situation where Relm can only hit herself, Dycedarg, and additionally Leprue. You'll see me freeze up for a minute here trying to think through my options. If I hit Leprue with Holy, he'll be restored to full health because of Excalibur. Healing him to full health is actually far more detrimental to my run that killing him. But Relm's HP being as high as it is prevents her from killing herself with Fire 3. If I had an elemental wand on I probably could have managed it, but I don't. Finally I settle on Flare. I don't know if this would have worked out in most runs, but by a stroke of luck in this run, Zalbag had actually managed to attack Dycedarg three times instead of the requisite two, thus bailing me out of an unwinnable scenario.

Once Adramelk appears things are more straightforward, and yet this is probably actually the hardest phase of the battle. Four castings of Demi 2 have to land, and they don't have a particularly forgiving rate across the board. I don't remember all of the exact percentages, and have no way to determine Relm's percentage against Adramelk, but suffice to say, it took hours to get a run where all four finally connect.

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