_ , _ , ,- - ,, ,- - , _||_ ' _ || _||_ _ || _ ' || \\ \\/\\ < \, || ' || < \, \\/\\ =||= < \, _-_, '\\/\\ || || || || /-|| || || /-|| || || || /-|| ||_. || ;' |, || || || (( || || |, (( || || || || (( || ~ || ||/ _-/ \\ \\ \\ \/\\ \\ _-/ \/\\ \\ \\ \\, \/\\ ,-_- |/ ( -_- ___ - ---___- , (' || _ || ' (( || < \, _-_ =||= \\ _-_ _-_, (( || /-|| || || || || ||_. (( // (( || || || || || ~ || -____- \/\\ \\,/ \\, \\ \\,/ ,-_- ___ - -_, |\ .. ( ~/|| \\ ; _ .. ( / || / \\ \\/\ < \, \\/\\ _-_ _-_ \/==|| || || || | /-|| || || || || \\ /_ _|| || || || | (( || || || || ||/ .. ( - \\, \\/ \\/ \/\\ \\ \\ \\,/ \\,/ .. __________________ _________ ________ .__ .___ / _____/\_ ___ \\_ ___ \ / _____/ __ __|__| __| _/____ \_____ \ / \ \// \ \/ / \ ___| | \ |/ __ |/ __ \ / \\ \___\ \____ \ \_\ \ | / / /_/ \ ___/ /_______ / \______ /\______ / \______ /____/|__\____ |\___ > \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ Version 1.08 Table of Contents: 1.00 Introduction 1.50 Legal & Contact Info 2.00 Rules 3.00 General Strategies 4.00 Guide to the Guides 5.00 SCCs 5.01 Thief 5.02 Paladin 5.03 Fighter 5.04 Soldier 5.05 Ninja 5.06 White Mage (C) 5.07 Black Mage 5.08 Illusionist 5.09 Blue Mage 5.10 Archer 5.11 Hunter (C*) 5.12 Warrior 5.13 Dragoon 5.14 Defender 5.15 Gladiator 5.16 White Monk 5.17 Bishop 5.18 Templar 5.19 Time Mage (C) 5.20 Alchemist 5.21 Beastmaster (C) 5.22 Morpher (C) 5.23 Sage 5.24 Fencer 5.25 Elementalist 5.26 Red Mage 5.27 Summoner 5.28 Assassin 5.29 Sniper (C*) 5.30 Animist 5.31 Mog Knight 5.32 Gunner 5.33 Juggler 5.34 Gadgeteer 6.00 Monster SCCs 7.00 Recommended Laws 8.00 Recommended Mission Items 9.00 Item/Mission Info 10.00 Glossary 11.00 Updates/Version History 12.00 Thanks ============================================================================== [1.00] Introduction ============================================================================== I'd like to start by thanking the FFTA board on GameFAQs. Without their aid, this guide would not have been possible. What is an SCC and why should I care, you ask? Well, let's start from the beginning, with this game's predecessor, Final Fantasy Tactics for PS1. One day, a bunch of people got bored and decided to play the same game a new way, and thus, the Straight Character Challenge was born. The first SCC FAQ was written by MunkiBleedsGreen, and is still up under the FFT FAQs and Guides section. I have decided to apply the same concept to FFTA, a game most people consider to be very, very easy, as far as today's videogames go. Hopefully, this should revive interest in a game many found to be far too easy for their tastes. I have renamed the Straight Character Challenge to Single Class Challenge, mainly because that makes far more sense to me than the former name, and a Straight Character Challenge is not necessarily possible with all classes. The basics are simple. Use one class throughout the game, and one class only. Up to 5 members can be used, and any Action, Reaction, Support, and Combo Abilities may be used from that class set. Read on for the exact rules, or skip straight to the individual guides if you know what you're doing. Mind you, this FAQ is not meant as a walkthrough. You are expected to have played through the game once at least conventionally, so you can understand some elementary strategies. ============================================================================== [1.50] Legal ============================================================================== This document may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Copyright 2006 Kevin Kao, aka chocomog In other words just ask before you put it up somewhere. I'll pretty much say it's ok. My email address is chocomog4000@yahoo.com, feel free to contact me with any comments, corrections, critiques, or suggestions you might have. ============================================================================== [2.00] SCC Rules ============================================================================== Many rules are made up by Chronic PokeAbuser, so a lot of the credit for this section goes to him. -All SCCs must have 5 fighting units, Marche included. So for a White Mage SCC you'd have White Mage Marche and 4 other WMs, but for an Alchemist SCC you'd have 5 Alchemists. -If Marche is not participating in an SCC, he may not use any actions that influence other units, including allies. Once he takes damage, he may not act, period, nor can he be healed. Marche can equip abilities like Damage > MP, but not Counter or Return Fire and the like (if he is not participating). -Marche must be used if possible. Montblanc, however, can be used if you wish; it is not required to use him. -Marche MAY be used as a meat shield to absorb damage. This may be necessary in some SCCs where your units are very weak, like the Time Mage SCC. -All units used for the SCC must be in their classes before The Cheetahs. -You may recruit units through any method you want, including Race Wanted missions. The exception is NO trading units from another save. -Units can be recruited in any class, so if you wanted to recruit a Fighter for the White Mage SCC, that would be perfectly legitimate. -Your average clan level can be whatever you wish. That means you can let random characters join you after missions, but you can't use them. The exception follows below. -No secret/semi-secret characters (e.g. Eldena, Palanza, etc) may be used. -The goal of all SCCs is to beat all the story battles, i.e. beat Royal Valley. -Dispatch missions may only be done by those in the SCC, with the exception of before The Cheetahs. -Mithril weapons are needed for SCCs marked with a (C). Since getting them is a major pain, you may use a cheating device to get one, and only one Mithril weapon. For SCCs marked with a (C*), you can get past some R-abilities with bare fists, but that's a major pain as well. You may cheat a Mithril Weapon into your game for the Sniper SCC only, for Hunter you must use Combat Combo. For Snipers, only one Sniper may learn Snipe Combo through the cheated weapon. -As an alternative to the previous rule, for SCCs with a (C) or (C*) next to them, Marche's Combat Combo MAY be used for any human available class. -Totemas are not to be used unless you can't beat the battle any other way. Jagd Hunt in a Time Mage SCC is one example. Combos, however, may be used whenever, though you should try not to if you don't have to. -Guest characters like Ritz and Shara can do whatever they want. -Only the Alchemist can use the Item command. -Level Caps, courtesy of Chronic PokeAbuser: Hot Awakening - Level 15 Scouring Time - Level 25 Present Day - Level 35 Royal Valley - Level 45 -No trading anything from one save to another. -Have fun! That's the whole point of video games, right? If an SCC is boring you or is too hard, you can make some exceptions. Just don't make an exception for the entire game and come bragging about it ;) Emulator use: Emulators are probably necessary for retaining your sanity for some of the SCCs, like the White Mage SCC. The ONLY uses of emulators that the normal GBA doesn't have that are permitted are the turbo function, cheats for mithril weapons (see Rules), and Savestates, but only where the game permits you to save normally. You may NOT savestate in battle, even though the game lets you. A warning about combining savestates and normal states: If you savestate, then normal save, then quit without savestating, your data will be lost. If you're gonna normal save only, don't savestate. I'd recommend the VBA (VisualBoy Advance) as your #1 emulator. ============================================================================== [3.00] General Strategies ============================================================================== ***CONSULT THE RECOMMENDED LAWS SECTION BEFORE BATTLES!!!*** -Use the laws to your advantage. This is probably THE most important thing to note about SCCs, in comparison to normal games. General recommended laws for each battle are given in its own section. ***USE MISSION ITEMS (SECTION 9)!!! -Use status effects to their maximum potential. Almost every class has them, and Blinding or Stopping someone is almost as good as killing them, most of the time. -Running away from a battle counts as fighting a battle. Use this to both get shop upgrades and beat dispatch missions. -Race Wanted missions: They are triggered by having 5 or less members in your party, Montblanc and Marche included. They're 5 day missions with pretty much a 100% chance of success. The race you get depends on the month. To trigger these missions, you must ENTER BATTLE with 5 or less units. I suggest saving on the 4th day, walking 1 square, and resetting if you don't get the correct unit. -Most challenges start out very hard and get significantly easier as the game goes on. So if it's too difficult at first, don't worry, thing'sll get better. -In challenges where you can't use marche, here's the easiest way to beat Babus and Llednar: Babus: The best setup is Mirror Mail + Flame Shield. This way, you are effectively invincible, and can level up Marche as you like. You can do without Mirror Mail, but then you'll need Item and some x-potions if you want to kill Babus. A Blaze Robe works if you wish to use this strategy, and don't have a Flame Shield. Llednar: A Mistle Robe is key here. Even with it though, you'll want Item as your secondary. Damage > MP as your reaction works as well, as does equipping an Angel Ring. With the latter two strategies you'll want Dash Boots on Marche. -Hard to find a place to level? DDragoon writes: "Need to level up, but don't have a status class? No problem. Koring Band has a White Mage equipped with a Cure Staff, and that White Mage doesn't know Life. Therefore, kill off his buddies, and level up to your hearts content. As long as you don't kill him/your other units, you can level up without having to worry." -Enemies tend to target your WEAKEST character. In SCCs where Marche isn't used, use this to your advantage. Damage > MP + lower level Marche allows him to take a whole bunch of hits. -If your SCC doesn't use items from treasure hunts, putting all the opening lands at the bottom of the map can speed up recruiting. -Can't find the item you want? There are two occasions where you can easily and quickly get level 5/7 items: After Scouring Time, BEFORE moving anywhere, save. Then when you see the cutscene and The Big Find opens up, see if it has what you want. If it doesn't, reset. You can do this again after Present Day. -Easiest way to beat Ultima: Charm Law. ============================================================================== [4.00] Guide to teh Guides: ============================================================================== Overview: A breakdown of the class. Generally what you'll expect to see in the SCC. Difficulty: This is a rating out of 10 which judges the, well, general difficulty of an SCC. 10 is the hardest. Amount of resets, time spent, luck (damage) required, are all factored in here. Frustration: This is to measure the tedium of an SCC. SCCs where you sit there and attack 45 times to finish an enemy are extremely boring, and that is factored in here. An easy SCC can be very frustrating. Recommended Party: This is what's best, IMO, to recruit your party in. Starting stats matter a lot. So if I said 5 thieves, then you could use the Race Wanted mission to get 5 thieves in your party, then change them to whatever you needed. Recommended Map: The recommended area placement for Treasure Hunt purposes. I tend to reference Astroblues Region Create FAQ, like Viera Homeland. Advantages: Good attributes about the class. Disadvantages: Poor attributes about the class. How to Level: Occasionally, you may feel the need to level up, but random battles are either too tedious or too difficult to fight at your own level. So these are skills that can be used over and over again for 10 EXP a pop. Differences: The changes made from FFT to FFTA, if applicable. This is meant to help those who have done some SCCs in the original. Items to go for: Items that teach abilities that you'll probably need some time or another, and where to find them. It's Item (ability) - location. The "Type x" rewards should be found in TFergusson's excellent Quest Guide. ****** Laws: These are laws you should never enter battle with on. You can guess what the ****** means, I don't think i can say it and still get this FAQ posted. Dmg2: Animal while fighting animals is implied under pretty much every SCC. Bad Laws: Laws you should try to avoid, but most battles are still winnable with them on. Good Laws: Mainly for classes which need Combos, this lets them accumulate JP easier to use them. General strategies: Useful for every battle, or just some notes that make the SCC easier. Battles strategies: Walkthroughs for really tough battles, sometimes step-by step accounts of what me or other users did. More for hard SCCs, less for easier ones. On to the guides!!! ============================================================================== [5.00] SCCs ============================================================================== ============================================================================== [5.01] THIEF ============================================================================== Overview: Much more fun than their FFT counterparts, Thieves in this game can take apart a group of fighters quickly with their Steal moves. Knife damage, plus Counter, actually makes Thieves quite capable fighters. Things get far easier once you get Steal: Weapon; until then this is somewhat of a difficult challenge. Difficulty: 6/10 Frustration: 3/10 Recommended Party: Marche, Montblanc, starting soldier, Thief, Fighting class (I used Fighter). You can replace montblanc if you want, but getting another theif would be troublesome, wouldn't it? Recommended Map: Anything that gives you two Cinquedeas, the first one ASAP. Advantages: Counter, High evade, high speed, decent attack, easy leveling, counter, counter, steal 1337 stuff Disadvantages: Mediocre Defense, crappy HP and resistance, difficult time vs. monsters How to Level: Find a low EXP clan, turn off Counter, let them act on you, Steal EXP them for 40 EXP ^_^ Differences: No steal Heart makes monsters harder, can't steal shoes, get Counter instead of those crappy R-abilities (Gilgame heart?!), no Poach or move pluses in this game, Knives do much more damage due to the revised damage formula. Items to go for: Rondell Dagger, Jambiya, Kard, Khukri, Brigandine, Adaman Vest - all buyable Orichalcum - Type 7 Mission Reward, Hidden Vein Juggler, Negotiation Skill lvl 25 reward, Help Aisen! Juggler Sword Breaker (Steal: Weapon) - Type 6 Mission Reward, Wanted mission in the desert Cinquedea (Steal: Ability) - Forest-Forest-Desert-Desert Treasure hunt, Negotiation Skill lvl 30 reward ****** Laws: Knives Fight Bad Laws: Steal Copycat General Strategies: -Getting around Strikeback and Reflex: You have to make them use the fight command and hit them with your counter. It's a pain, but getting a Mithril Knife is much more of a pain. Makes things easier if you surround the enemy. -If you want, you can get Steal weapon even earlier, using the strategy outlined in the Steal guide. I found that time consuming and unnecessary though, and the battle guides will assume you didn't do it either. -Steal their swords: Fighters without weapons hit like girls. Use that strategy as soon as you get steal weapon. -Steal armor and sell to get money early game to finance Rondell Dagger purchases -Steal and kill: It's usually a good idea to steal the opponent's armor before killing them. They take a ton more damage. -Get Brigandine ASAP, counter is sweet. -Keep enemy levels low if you want to level up later; in other words let random units join you early in the game. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: You should all have Counter before this battle. It's tough at low levels, so I just leveled up. The monsters are more powerful than you, so you'll have to gang-stab your way to victory. The dude in "A Challenge" mission has Thief Armlets. You can steal em. -FAMFRIT: You should all have dash boots by now, so three units can attack him on the first turn. ignore the ahrimans, they'll hurt themselves attacking you. if you're around level 8 (yes you need to level that much), you'll be ok. I only had two units left when I won, but it was over in 3 rounds. -CADOAN: Steal the Hunter's Wygar. -DIAMOND RAIN: this one's pretty tough. Don't attack the countering dragon until last. As you figured Ice forbidden is a necessity. -HOT AWAKENING: Stand in front of them - counter will pwn! -EMERALD KEEP: Rob Babus of his Mirage Vest, its pretty sweet this early. The other units' stuff would be good if you weren't doing a Thief SCC, but as it is, ignore them. -PALE COMPANY: The dragons can kill you in two hits. That's, uh, bad. Even so, you need to get close to Andra and make him use physicals so you Counter. You need to be powerful enough to kill him in 3 turns, if not, level up. My levels were 13, 11, 12, 10, and 9. Khukri is a good choice for weapon. -JAGD HUNT: This one's tricky. If the assassin and ninja team up to kill you first turn, then you're screwed, so reset. Hopefully they'll miss or use Aphonia or something though. You should kill the assassin first, stealing her Wygar if you want. Then steal the Ninja's Genji armlets and kill him. So at the end of the 2nd round, the Assassin and Ninja should both be dead. You just need to hope they don't kill you before then - use your high evade to your advantage. If you get hit by resonate, just wait it out; you can out move the unaffected monsters. Took me 4 tries to win this one. -THE BOUNTY: Pre-battle preparations: You have two ways of getting through Strikeback and Reflex: Mithril Knives and your counter. Since MK's take forever to get, I chose the latter method. Go into battle with Target Area banned, which disables a huge amount of enemy skills. You'll also want to level some before this mission, so you can survive to Counter. I was levels 13-15. Whatever Area you fight in, save before, and reset if the Paladin doesn't start right next to you; you can't deal with his Life spell. For the battle itself, kill the Paladin first, then surround the fighter. You should kill the Red Mage if she gets close, but don't let up your surround. You should be able to kill him in two counters after stealing his Armor and Bracers. Surround the sage next, who should die in 3 counters. Then its mop-up work time. A lot of this is luck in dodging attacks. Took me 5 tries to win, not including battles where I reset cuz the Paladin was too far. If you did things right, you should have access to a Cinqueda now. -SCOURING TIME: Level up Marche to at least 20 before this. Give him the Cinquedea. Ban Spears. Easy battle; rob them before attacking. Babus is hard, and you've nothing to stop Explode or Demi. That's why I told you to level up. With Marche at level 20, you should be able to kill Babus in two hits, but you need either his counter or attack to miss. Some luck required here, but the stats are on your side. -THE BIG FIND: The most important thing here is to Steal Steal: Weapon. After you get it, you can steal the Fighters' blades. Whee!! One of them can re-equip though. Take care of the Theives, then the spellcasters, then kill the Bonecrusher - do it in 2 hits, hopefully. Youll have to surround or combo the Strikebacker. This battle can be hard if you're at a low level, so if it is, just level up some, as the thief SCC is one of the easiest to do so in. -DESERT PATROL: It's all about the Steal:Weapon. Steal as many as you can - all the units except the Bishop are physical based. My Marche took down the last 4 guys, because 3 of them were unequipped. -MATEUS: Believe it or not, this isn't as hard as it sounds. Marche should move before the Vamps or Mateus, send him with the Cinquedea after her. He should be doing around 80 damage a hit at level 22. The rest of your members should gradually move toward the back of the room, and distract the zombies from Marche, your main damage dealer. You just have to hold off the Vampires. Mateus will eventually retreat into a corner where only Marche can hit her, but she only has a 20some% chance of hitting him. Marche's counters and attacks should wear her down. You can get another CinQuedea now. -PRESENT DAY: If you ban Blades, you'll have to steal both Strikebacker's weapons. -OVER THE HILL: Damn, so many monsters. USe counter and your high evade to your advantage - face front as much as you can. For whatever reason, I kept having the worst luck here - wrong characters attacking, counters missing, attacks hitting the front, etc. I don't know how, but that Thundrake cheats; Bolt Breath hits every time. Still only took 2 tries though. Final Stats: Marche lvl 25 ATK: 346 DEF: 341 POW: 246 RES: 249 SPD: 145 Orichalcum, Thief Hat, Bone Plate, Genji Armlets, Dash Boots Montblanc lvl 23 ATK: 257 DEF: 309 POW: 243 RES: 292 SPD: 140 Sword Breaker, Thief Hat, Wygar, Thief Armlets, Dash Boots Guin lvl 24 ATK: 338 DEF: 325 POW: 233 RES: 243 SPD: 144 Orichalcum, Thief Hat, Wygar, Genji Armlets, Dash Boots Bensom lvl 24 ATK: 326 DEF: 297 POW: 254 RES: 232 SPD: 162 Cinquedea, Headband, Mirage Vest, Thief Armlets, Dash Boots Safra lvl 24 ATK: 340 DEF: 303 POW: 231 RES: 233 SPD: 147 Cinquedea, Headband, Power Sash, Thief Armlets, Dash Boots Playtime: 20hr, 5 min FINAL BATTLE: -LLEDNAR: Steal his Excalibur and he hits like a 6-year old. -REMEDI: Surround and stab; pretty much all there is to it. Of course you'll need luck to evade her attacks though. Should only take you 2-3 rounds. LI-GRIM: Somehow, I won in one try. You gotta get close ASAP. which isn't too hard considering you go first and have 5 move. Her Alpha/Omega should be dodged. The Mateus's will use Spellbind, which hurts a ton, but there's nothin you can do about it. Just always face Li-Grim and your evade will carry you through. Good luck, this challenge is always about it :) ============================================================================== [5.02] PALADIN ============================================================================== Overview: Slow, slow, Defensive Machines. They get good damage though, and some limited healing. They are safe early game though, and can equip Robes to null some of the tougher enemies. They don't get too much MP to abuse their powerful moves with though. ***Everything by Darkknight326 and zypher11788, if anything in this section does not have credit given it was written by Darkknight326*** Difficulty: 7/10 Frustration: 6/10 Recommended Party: when recruiting the guys, you must use Marche, and he's a very good choice because of his starting stats. Some good jobs to use are hunter, paladin, and blue mage. Ninjas die too quickly. Recommended Map: Get Genji Armor for Reflex (F-F-C-C). Excalibur for Holy Blade is also good (M-M-D-D). zypher11788 used Perfect Ivalice, which seemed to be ok for him. Advantages: Holy Blade, Very good defensive stats, Possibly the best weapon type in the game (Knightsword), good attack power, Reflex, can heal statuses Disadvantages: Hard to combat reflex and strikeback until later, Best abilities cost a lot of MP, slow How to Level: Usually, Nurse is good, but if you're surrounded (while levelling?) then Defense is a good option Differences: They're really nothing like Knights or Holy Knights, n/a Items to go for: Defender, Ragnarok - Buyable Arch Sword (Saint Cross) - Type 6 Mission Reward, Combat and Magic Level 10 reward Excalibur (Holy Blade) - Mountain-Mountain-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt, Type 7 Mission Reward, Combat and Magic Skills lvl 20 Diamond Armor (Weapon Def+) - Type 2 Mission Reward Genji Armor (Reflex) - Forest-Forest-Cave-Cave Treasure Hunt ****** Laws: Fight Knightswords Bad Laws: Holy Healing Greatswords Chivalry Target Area General Strategies by Darkknight326: -To start off, get the second shop upgrade to get the Defender, which gives you nurse. The other moves you should get early are Defense, Drop Weapon, and Subdue, yes Subdue. Why? For braking charm, mostly. -when recruiting the guys, you must use Marche, and he's a very good choice because of his starting stats. Some good jobs to use are hunter, paladin, and blue mage. Ninjas die too quickly. General strategies by zypher11788: -Abuse the ability to wear armour and robes especially the one tht absorb elements. Shields are are your friends again epsecialy the elemental absorbing ones. It is a good idea to have one of your paly's equiped with a scarab so your paly wont be affected by disarm and heable to cure anyone who has. -Toughskins and rock beast are hard to kill early-mid-game just be patiant and try to knock them off a cliff if possible. FLANS SHOULD BE AVOIDED LIKE THE PLAGUE but if you have to fight one use a law card of the same element the flan is. If you dont you will not kill them because they will be able to heal themselfs. -Nurse is just as important as your sword. DO NOT NEGLECT SUBDUE, yes it is one of the weakist attacks your paly has but it is very useful against people with reflex and strikeback. Especialy if you dont have combo, saints cross, holy blade, or out of MP, or JP. Disarm is valuble, especialy against people with high attack power and those with bonecruser Battle Strategies by Darkknight326: -Desert Peril, Diamond Rain: Just make sure the element of the flan is forbidden. Just destroy everyone except the flan after, then take out the flan. -FAMFRIT: Equip all your guys with mistle robes. This prevents Roulette from killing you. Now just charge Famfrit, taking out the Ahirmans as you please. -ULTIMA: Charm Antilaw + Paladins high defense = instant win. Or use Subdue to uncharm your guys. -ANDRAMALECH: Quickly move in, maybe with fire resistant stuff. Just focus on Addremalech, and the dragons if they get in your way. Use defense every turn you don't attack to be safe. -JAGD HUNT: Take out the assassin, Ninja, Hunter, Blue Mage, Rockbeast, and Antlion in that order. If you take damage, heal if possible! You can win this with a little ease. -BABUS: Just equip fire resistant stuff and/or the mirror mail. Once Babus is gone, you shouldn't lose. -MATEUS: When going in, make sure none of your guys are lv 22. Then, forbid Poison. Now all they can do is fight. Just concentrate on Mateus, and hope the stupid vampires zombify your guys. You could also try without fight until all five paladins are zombified, then get rid of it. Zombify will make your guys rise after 3 turns with half their HP. If you concentrate on Mateus you should win. -Final Battle preparations: Make sure all holy weapons are off. Holy blade and Saint cross are really useless. -LLEDNAR: Very easy. Focus on Llednar, and you should win. If you have problems here, you need to train. -REMEDI: Just attack Remedi. If you have Reflex, kill Famfrit and Addremalech first. You're guaranteed to win then. -LI-GRIM: This is it... Ignore the Mateuses, go all out on Li-Grim. If you have an Angel Ring, when the guy gets up, Totema with him, and hope to kill. If you lose here or are unable to inflict 50+ damage with 1 or more guys, train a couple levels, until you can inflict around 60 on Llednar. Then you're ready. This challenge was really fun, and I had a lot of fun with it. This was my first SCC, however I think it is a little more advanced. If you're really confident, go for it, but this was a fun SCC. Battle Strategies by zypher11788: -FAMFRIT: I beat famfrit with paly's lvl 5 to 8 and I lost all but one pally after taking out the one eyd bats. I won with one pally who had 8 hp left, it was real close. -HOT AWAKENING: I beat hot awakening with lvl's 9-11. It's so easy with the charm law in effect ^_^ -THE BOUNTY: Crap, batteling agaisnt people with reflex and strikeback is very annoying especialy using subdue when they have over 100 hp and i'm only doing 7 a hit. I beat The Bounty with lvl 12-16 paly's zypher11788's Final Stats: Zypher(Marche) lv 30 HP 269 MP 79 ATK: 382 DEF: 387 POW: 270 RES: 364 SPD: 125 Dwight lv 30 HP 269 MP 76 ATK: 382 DEF 385 POW 265 RES 364 SPD 135 Hardy lv 30 HP 266 MP 85 ATK 364 DEF 384 POW 283 RES 379 SPD 125 Darcy lv 29 HP 255 MP 83 ATK 365 DEF 386 POW 276 RES 374 SPD 123 Isaac lv29 HP 250 MP 83 ATK 369 DEF 379 POW 279 RES 379 SPD 128 *Difficulty, General Strategies and Battle strategies contributed by Darkknight326 and zypher11788* ============================================================================== [5.03] FIGHTER ============================================================================== Overview: The staple of the typical early game party; Fighters do very, very well early game. However, this advantage largely disappears later, as many of their skills are based on a fixed WATK number. However, the better Blades are rather easily acquired, and Bonecrusher lets them punish a foolish enemy for attacking you. -A handful of Fighter SSCC videos made by EnigmaGamer can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D2FBCDB0D1F87AF3 Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: Marche, your Starting soldier, and 3 Fighters, for convienience. However, if you have the patience, recruiting one or two as Thieves isn't a bad choice. Recommended Map: You can try for Venus Blade, but the chances of beating Exploration (it's got a Flan in it) without going insane are rather low. I just put the places down wherever. Advantages: High Physical Attack, excellent weapons available, good skillset, Bonecrusher pwns n00bs Disadvantages: Not overly fast, lowish HP for physical units, Beatdown can be unreliable if you're unlucky How to level: There's no real good way. Blitzing your characters kinda works, but even then you'll kill each other pretty fast. The best way is to just keep your Clan Level up by not accepting recruits. Differences: Share some moves with Monks, but no real similarities to other classes Items to look for: Ogun Blade, Shadow Blade, Sun Blade, Atmos Blade, Air Blade, Kwigon Blade, Flametongue - all buyable Ayvuir Blue - Twin Swords mission reward (Hero Gaol) Ayvuir Red - Salika Keep mission reward (Hero Gaol) Pearl Blade - Type 6 Mission Reward Venus Blade (Doublehand) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Combat skill lvl 15 reward, Forest-Forest-Jagd-Jagd reward Ninja Gear (Bonecrusher) - Type 5 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Blades Techniques Bad Laws: Target Area General strategies: -Air Assault: Early game, Air Render works very well in dispatching enemies, doing greater damage than Fight from a 3 panel range. Use liberally. -Backdraft actually kinda sucks: Yeah. It hardly does anymore damage than your physical attack, and hurts you. Don't bother with it. -AoE pwn: Far Fist is your bread and butter move for a lot of the fights later game. Generally, if you can hit two enemies, do it. Hardly anything can withstand 4 or 5 of these anyway. -Take your chances: Beatdown does amazing damage. For some reason, all these types of moves (Beatdown, Mog Attack, etc) seem to have much greater chance of success than indicated. If you're attacking from the sides or the back, and the enemy won't die with a normal attack but will with a Beatdown, don't hesitate to use it. -Fighters are actually kinda fragile HP wise. You may want to stay back and Far Fist sometimes against stronger enemies instead of letting your guys get double and triple teamed to death. -Generally, Air Render > Air Blast > Far Fist in terms of damage. Battle Strategies -FAMFRIT: I put three guys to the left, 1 on the right. Pwn those Ahrimans, they're pretty weak so they die quickly. They like confusing you, though, so I had 3 guys fight Famfrit. I owned him with Beatdowns; you have to get kinda lucky, but Beatdowns from the back have around a 50% hit rate, for 35-40 dmg per hit. Pretty good. Didn't take me any resets at lvl 6. -CADOAN: Beatdown the Azoth'd units FTW. Lol. -HOT AWAKENING: Air Render the crystals. This is a good stage to level up if you need it - blitz them for EXP. You'll probably want to do Tower Ruins now, to get the Hero Gaol missions rolling. -Also as soon as you feel you're ready, do Village Hunt to activate Twin Swords, which gives you the awesome Ayvuir Blue sword. They're around lvl 9 or 10. -MAGIC WOOD: Probably easier to sit back the first turn and let them come to you. The Theives, being Thieves, go down easy enough. Then the Black Mage and Summoner. Not too difficult, though you'll take some damage. -PALE COMPANY: Well, I got a Target Area and Fight banning card, and used my R2 antilaw to cancel the Missile law. This made things really straight-forward Andra falls easily to a couple Beatdowns, and some Air Renders. My levels were between 7 and 11. -JAGD HUNT: Fairly tough. They'll all go before you; you need to figure out who you can eliminate most efficiently. If anyone bunches up, hit that group with a Far Fist, otherwise, go after the Ninja. Of course, you'll want the Assassin dead after the first turn. After the humans are down, send 3 to kill the Antlion. The Bladebiter is extremely dangerous with his Matra Magic; retreat anyone it hits. It takes a while to whittle down the Antlion's HP, play it cautiously. This battle took me 3 tries. -SCOURING TIME: A toughie. I had to level up to be able to beat this one, try to be at least 12-13. For the first part, I couldn't find a Spears card, so I banned Fight instead. Split up your forces, two to go after the Templars and the Gunner, the other three to take out the Paladin first, then the rest of the enemies. -BABUS: Definitely hard. You'll want a card banning either Fire or Target Area. He'll probably get 1st turn, so you need 110+ HP to be able to survive Explode. After that, stay out of reach of his physical attack, and Air Render or Far Fist the crystals to death. He CAN kill you with enough Demi's, so stay facing him to reduce his hit chances. -THE BIG FIND: Ban Knives, Far Fist the Fighters; they should bunch up together. -DESERT PATROL: You want to stay back a little the first turn and kill off the White Monk with Far Fists. Then move left and draw the enemies toward you. Far Fist works wonders on the bunched up enemies, as does Beatdown when they get close. -PRESENT DAY: The first part is easy. The second part, though, is pretty damn hard. You have to get very lucky; it took me 4 tries just to survive it. Damn that Llednar. Final Battle Stats: Marche Lvl 24 ATK: 373 DEF: 345 POW: 195 RES: 245 SPD: 132 Equip: Ayvuir Red, Acadia Hat, Bone Plate, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Beatdown, Blitz, Air Render, Far Fist, Air Blast, Backdraft, Bonecrusher Kemal Lvl 23 ATK: 346 DEF: 314 POW: 186 RES: 237 SPD: 135 Equip: Venus Blade, Headband, Power Sash, Dash Boots Abilities: Wild Swing, Beatdown, Blitz, Air Render, Far Fist, Air Blast, Bonecrusher, Doublehand (210 AP) Silac Lvl 21 ATK: 330 DEF: 294 POW: 170 RES: 233 SPD: 130 Equip: Ayvuir Blue, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Rush, Wild Swing, Beatdown, Blitz, Air Render, Far Fist, Air Blast, Backdraft, Bonecrusher Evor Lvl 21 ATK: 332 DEF: 260 POW: 172 RES: 212 SPD: 134 Equip: Kwigon Blade, Headband, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Rush, Wild Swing, Beatdown, Blitz, Air Render, Far Fist, Air Blast, Backdraft, Bonecrusher Benton Lvl 18 ATK: 309 DEF: 265 POW: 151 RES: 196 SPD: 126 Equip: Pearl Blade, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Rush, Wild Swing, Beatdown, Blitz, Air Render, Far Fist, Air Blast, Backdraft, Bonecrusher Play time: 16 hr, 2 Min NOTE: If you're wondering why some of my equipment's missing (Like Evor's Power Sash), it's because it got stolen/broken and I forgot to re-equip them. Nevertheless, this is the exact setup I entered the final battle with. -LLEDNAR: Enter with Beserk/Katana/Skills banned. He's easy. He's killed in 3 hits. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Hit her with Beatdowns. You'll need to get a bit lucky; if the chance of success is below 37 or so don't bother. -LI-GRIM: Frustrating. At least Descent has a 40% chance of doing nothing. Get near her - the first turn you'll probably have to Air Render or Far Fist. If you're still alive, surround her and use Beatdowns. Doing around 130 per Beatdown, she won't last too long. Took me 4 tries to beat this battle. ============================================================================== [5.04] SOLDIER ============================================================================== Overview: You rarely hear Soldier, FFTA, and good class in the same sentence without a "not" or some hint of sarcasm. No one would keep a Soldier past Famfrit or so. But, you're forced to use em the whole game here, soo... The break moves tend to help a lot; you're often forced to disable or break an enemy before killing them. They get a Mythril Sword to somewhat make up for their crappiness though. ***EVERYTHING HERE (Cept some formatting changes) by DDragoon*** Difficulty: 6/10 Your units are tankish, not too awfully slow, can lower enemy Speed and Power, and can get through Strikeback/Reflex with Mug. All in all they aren't lacking much of anything, but won't be killing things untill they get in 1 range. They also get an automatic Mythril Sword from Nono. Greatswords ironically end up being better weapons endgame(barring Chirijiraiden), especially since with Monkey Grip you can still equip a Shield. Frustration: 5/10 Soldiers have to mine missions for a lot of their good equips. Mirror Mails, Hardedges, etc. The only break you get is a free Chirijiraden from a mission where you beat a L32 Fighter senseless. The missions themselves aren't too horrible, they just get drawn out due to the 1 range, and since you have no healing (without mass Vitanovas), a lot of battles will require a few enemies by speed and powerbreaked before you get too run down. Recommended Party: Soldiers or Fighters are fine. Fighters have better Speed and slightly higher attack, and fulfill the tankishness requirement good enough. Soldiers have good growth anyway, the key is survivability. Paladins are a bit too slow for my liking, Soldiers are a happy medium and fighters are for a little better attack output. Recommended Map: Get Genji Armor (F-F-C-C), the rest doesn't matter Advantages: Self-contained class, Fairly tankish, can get through Strikeback and Reflex without combos, can lower enemy stats, has Self-Esuna. Disadvantages: Can only attack at 1 range, requires mining missions for good equipment more than others. How to Level: First Aid works, Banning a Flans element, using Speedbreak and Powerbreak, and then just diminishing its HP. There is also KBWM. Differences: The closest FFT class is Knight. Unlike Knight, Soldier doesn't get to use Badass Knightswords with Auto-Haste. However, Soldier has 4 move and therefore has more mobility. Also, Given FFTA's different Evade calculation formula, if both were to stick to the mechanics of their respective games, Soldier would probably win out. (what is the purpose of this section anyway?) Items to look for: Diamond Sword (Mug) [1 neccesary!] Mirror Mail (reflects Black, White, and Time Magic) [5 neccesary!] Vitanova (helps nerf Llednar) [1 neccesary!] Hardedge (best easily accessable attack power) (3-5) Flame Shield (helps with Addy, part of Babus nerfing) (1-5) [1 neccesary!] Vigilante (Monkeygrip) (1) Sacri Shield (Awesome Shield with great Evade and Status Protection) (1-5) All other weapons are either provided by clan levels or always appear in their missions (ex. Blood Sword, Chirijiraiden, the best greatswords) ****** Laws: Swords (Early game) Greatswords (Late Game) Bad Laws: Greatswords (Early game) Swords (Late Game) General strategies: -Speedbreak is a godsend because it is like a permanent slow, use it whenever outnumbered to get more attacks in. Use Powerbreak on Physical Units, and Provoke stops mages from doing anything important. You may Powerbreak a Provoked unit if you feel like it. When low on HP, you can run and First Aid. It will take a few turns, but if your enemies have been hit with Speedbreak, you'll have plenty of time to heal your units. General Strategies: -All of soldiers attacks are usefull at some point except Sensor. -The two you will use most often are Speedbreak and Powerbreak. These make engagements so much easier. Speedbreak is like a permanent slow, use it in fights where you're facing enemies that could draw you out for a bit. Its especially evil on slow enemies, allowing you to doubleturn them easily. -Nothing is immune to the breaks, so using them can only help you. -Fighting Rockbeasts and Flans: Provoke, Powerbreak, and Speedbreak are your best friends. -Mage Mashing: Provoke mages you'd rather not deal with, alternatively, you could magicbreak their MP away. Magicbreak also prevents Ultimas or Holy Blades from coming your way. -Meh mindbreak: Some enemies use MPow in their attacks(like Mateus), Mindbreak is usefull for lowering those abilities. It won't be used as much as Powerbreak, but it does exist and its quick enough to learn. -Hide and Heal: When at low health, try first aiding in a corner before rejoining the battle. Battle Strategies: -FLAN BATTLES: Ban Flans element. Kill other enemies. Speedbreak and Powerbreak Flan. Kill. -FAMFRIT: Slash the Floateyes/Ahrimans and then beat up on Famfrit. -ULTIMA: Charm banned + Physical attacks = win. -ANDRAMELECH: Flame Shields are extremely helpful if you have a few of them. Ban Target Area to avoid the Dragon's Breath Attacks (Addy will still Flamestrike you) JAGD HUNT: Marche is going to get whaled on before your Soldiers can move, pray you survive Last Breath and the Ninjas Double Swords, then retreat the maximum number of panels South and First Aid (A Shield and Green Beret will help raise your evade, and Wygar can prevent Last Breath). Kill the Assasin and the Ninja, and go after the Hunter. Keep First Aiding Marche untill he can take an attack or two. It is recommended you Speedbreak, Provoke, and Powerbreak the Rockbeast to avoid Matra Magic and the physical threat. -THE BOUNTY: Mug units with Strikeback, Powerbreak the Physical units, and take out the Bishop that has Cura. -SCOURING TIME: Powerbreak the physical units and go after the Gunner. Speedbreak any Unit you can, its worth it. -Vs Babus: Soldier Marche, Flame Shield and Mirror Mail equiped. Speedbreak Babus, then kill him with your Double-turns. -DESERT PATROL: Speedbreak and Powerbreak are your friends again. KO the Bishop swiftly, and retreat to heal your units if their HP gets to low. -MATEUS: No Unit at Lv 21 or 22, Mirror Mail equiped on All Units. Angel Ring on your "best" Soldier(likely the one with Chirijiraiden). Ban Fight and Target Area. This means the Vampires will only use Zombify, and since Angel Ring nulls all your units being made Undead, you cannot lose. Then just Speedbreak Mateus and whale on her untill she falls. -PRESENT DAY LLEDNAR: Equip Marche with a Vitanova (absorbs Holy) and an Angel Ring/Sacri Shield. This leaves only Abyss to harm you, and blocks Poison damage. Speedbreak Llednar, Mindbreak him[lowers Abyss power), and then Run. He shouldn't be able to defeat you in time(or catch you). -OVER THE HILL: The Assasin will move first, then Ban Rapiers and Missile. Gang up on Ritz and KO her to end this sillyness. DDragoon's Final Stats: Marche Lv27 ATK: 372 DEF: 372 POW: 219 RES: 286 SPD: 134 Equip: Hardedge. Headband, Power Sash, Sacri Shield, Fairy Shoes Tennesey Lv27 ATK: 379 DEF: 366 POW: 217 RES: 277 SPD: 135 Equip: Hardedge, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boosts Brean Lv28 ATD: 402 DER: 363 POW: 226 RES: 286 SPD: 143 Equip: Chirijiraiden, Power Sash, Acacia Hat, Angel Ring, Fairy Shoes (Brean is my official 00ber, I gave him my best stuff) Hodges Lv26 ATK: 268 DEF: 359 POW: 215 RES: 275 SPD: 131 Equip: Restorer, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Grandi Lv26 ATK: 359 DEF: 357 POW: 215 RES: 275 SPD: 131 Equip: Restorer, Power Sash, Headband, Gauntlets, Dash Boots FINAL BATTLE: -LLEDNAR: The first part was easy since Katanas and Skills were banned, I just threw on a Missile Law to nerf the Gunner, and for some reason the Assasin didn't feel like using Last Breath. LLednar was quickly pwned with no support. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: The second match was a Mad dash to rush Remedi, a few Slashes and Grandi Combo'd for the finish. -LI-GRIM: Next was Li Grim, I changed my armor to Mirror Mail(I only had 4) to screw Mateus' Thundaga. Then I just lux haxed through Li Grim's Magi. Brean Slashed, she hid in the corner, I eventually caught up with her, another Slash, Marche moved up and Combo'd, and then Brean teleported behind her and finished with his Combo... it made me LOL because it did 627 Damage, which would have OHKO'd Li-Grim. God Bless Chirijiraiden. ============================================================================== [5.05] NINJA ============================================================================== Overview: Everyone's favorite class in real life, Ninjas are almost as fast and evasive in the game as their real life counterparts are. A fun SCC; it's kill first or be killed, as Ninjas are quite fragile, but once they get Nosada, are deadly. They can also be counted on to dodge attacks fairly often, even from the side. Of course, Metal Veil helps a ton, when it works, especially against bosses. Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 1.5/10 Recommended Party: This is one SCC where the convienience of recruiting a whole party of Ninjas is offset by the fact that your Ninja party will die in one hit. Therefore, I recommend recruiting 2 or 3 members as higher HP/DEF units, to minimize frustration. I went with Marche, my starting Soldier, a Paladin, a Blue Mage, and a Ninja. Recommended Map: Do whatever, no good Katanas are found through Treasure Hunts Advantages: Good to amazing attack power, good Status capabilities, Double Sword, Throw does pretty good damage, excellent Speed Disadvantages: Die easily, low DEF, going first can get you screwed occasionally if not all members are fast How to level: Um, with difficulty? Water Veiling each other kinda works. Differences: Gained Veil abilities in addition to Throw. No more innate Double Sword, no more good R-abilities Items to go for: Ninja Knife, Kotetsu, Ashura, Osafune, Kikuichimonji, Murasame, Heaven's Cloud - all Buyable Masamune - Type 7 Mission Reward, you can also free a ****load of turfs, but its not really necessary as this challenge isn't that hard Charfire - Spring Tree mission reward Nosada (Double Sword) - Type 6 Mission Reward, Smithing Skill lvl 20 reward Ninja Gear (Last Haste) - Type 5 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Katanas Bad Laws: Status Skills General Strategies: -Physical attacks are your bread and butter. Throw should be used sparingly, and Veils are used pretty much only to inflict statuses. -Throw pwns flans. Hard. -Kaiser Throwing: Kaiser Knuckles are excellent choices to throw. I usually kept a few of them on hand, once I got a lot of gold, to throw in case I needed a long range kill. -Metal Veil is your veil of choice, mainly because of Blind. Blind + Slow works well on bosses. -Equipping your entire party with Heaven's Cloud's means you can heal yourself by attacking each other. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: Throw a half-decent weapon (I used Ninja Knife) at the Flan to pwn it. You should blind the Blue Couerl if you can...he does a ton of damage. This mission is really hard at low levels, but i was around 6-7 when I beat it, and I was fine. -FAMFRIT: Target the closer blue Ahriman on the left side first, and have the guy + Marche on the right target another Ahriman. The remaining character should use Metal Veil on Famfrit to Blind him. Then kill the Ahrimans in succession. This battle shouldnt be too hard. -MAGIC WOOD: First round, go for the thieves (dont have to kill, just damage), then split your party in two to kill the Summoner and Black Mage, because they hurt a ton. Assuming you banned Missile, the rest of the battle is cake. Metal Veil helps, if it hits. This can be a tough battle, I was level 8-11, with most guys being 9, and I won with 2 characters left alive. -ANDRAMALECH: Blind everything is the key. The hardest part is surviving the first two rounds. Then go off into the sides where they can only target you from the front, giving the blinded enemies a 5% hit rate. You can also slow them if you'd like. This isn't too hard provided most of your characters have Metal Veil. I ended up killing all the dragons cuz they got in my way. Mighty Guard on Andramalech makes the battle tougher, so try to go after the Blue Dragon first. -JAGD HUNT: Ugh. Hard. Kill the Assassin, largely ignore the Ninja for a bit, Blind the Hunter, kill the Blue Mage. That's the basic strategy, all the while staying out of the way of the two monsters. Took me 5-6 tries, a lot of its luck hoping your characters don't die. -THE BOUNTY: Kill the Black Mage, then Paladin. Earth Veiling the Paladin helps a lot so you can kill him without him doing much. The fighter and Sage should be targeted last, as you'll need Throw or Veils to kill them. -SCOURING TIME: Equip Marche with a Kikiujimonji or whatever the hell its called. The first part is easy with the correct laws banned. For the second part, you'll want either Fire or Target Area banned in case things go wrong. You'll take first turn, so get behind Babus and Metal Veil him. If he's blinded, the rest is easy, if not, just keep trying it; without Explode babus is pretty powerless. -THE BIG FIND: You'll want Knives Banned. Send 1-2 guys to Metal Veil the Fighter on the left, while the remaining characters Blind the Fighter in the middle. Blind the Bishops too if they get in range. You'll probably want to Throw things at the Fighters to kill them, but by now you should have plenty of spare weapons. This battle took me 2 tries, as Blind isn't failproof... -DESERT PATROL: You'll want Greatswords banned. Blind and kill the White Monk first. Then if the Bishop charges you, kill him, else wait for them to come to you and Blind everyone. Don't be afraid to Throw for a quick kill either. One of the enemies needs to be dispatched via veils or throw, but Wood Veil takes care of him. I was level 15-16 near the END of this battle, so you don't need to be high leveled to win. -MATEUS: Banninate teh Poison. Blind teh Mateus. GGNORE nubs. Actually it's not quite that easy, but that's how you start :P I had marche go into the corner with Mateus (no, not that way :(....) and attack her, while the other 4 blinded and distracted the Zombies. Finding a Nosada should be first priority from here to the end of the game. I had two in the final battle. The Masamune is also amazing, if you can find it. FINAL BATTLE STATS: Marche Lvl 26 ATK: 387 DEF: 323 POW: 265 RES: 279 SPD: 156 Equip: Nosada, Acadia Hat, Bone Plate, Kikuichimonji, Dash Boots Abilities: Throw, Fire Veil, Wood Veil, Earth Veil, Metal Veil, Last Haste, Double Sword (520AP) Kemal Lvl 24 ATK: 360 DEF: 309 POW: 242 RES: 262 SPD: 152 Equip: Masamune, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Throw, Fire Veil, Wood Veil, Earth Veil, Metal Veil, Water Veil, Oblivion (40 AP), Last Haste Cassidy Lvl 23 ATK: 357 DEF: 279 POW: 264 RES: 263 SPD: 170 Equip: Nosada, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Kikuichimonji, Dash Boots Abilities: Throw, Fire Veil, Wood Veil, Earth Veil, Metal Veil, Water Veil, Last Haste, Double Sword (0 AP) Angell Lvl 24 ATK: 322 DEF: 313 POW: 261 RES: 284 SPD: 144 Equip: Kikuichimonji, Thief Hat, Ninja Gear, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Throw, Fire Veil, Wood Veil, Earth Veil, Metal Veil, Water Veil, Last Haste Neksu Lvl 23 ATK: 318 DEF: 290 POW: 268 RES: 282 SPD: 143 Equip: Kikuichimonji, Headband, Ninja Gear, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Throw, Fire Veil, Wood Veil, Earth Veil, Metal Veil, Water Veil, Last Haste (290 AP) FINAL BATTLE: -LLEDNAR: Give Marche two swords. Pwn. That's pretty much it, you should be able to kill Llednar in two rounds. Make sure you have non-elemental swords equipped though. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Metal Veil everything. You should have em all blinded in two rounds, they can do some serious damage before then, but you should have enough to take down Remedi easily after that. -LI-GRIM: You know the drill: Blind 'em all! Or at least 2 of 3. You'll be fast enough to go before Li-Grim, meaning get as close as possible so she doesn't use Descent. Once Blinded, she's very easy to kill. Ninjas pwn hard ^_^ ============================================================================== [5.06] WHITE MAGE ============================================================================== Overview: While it seems impossible at first glance, a closer look tells you that a team of white mages is as good as invincible. Revival is a bit overpowered in this game. The toughest part is the early game, where your physical units won't heal for crap, and your magical units won't do any damage. After that, it becomes an excercise of survival. Barely cracking double digits isn't too fun. Difficulty: 3/10 Frustration: 9/10 Recommended Party: You want a mix of physical and magical units. White Mages are decently fast, so speed isn't that big a factor. A Blue Mage, Assassin, Elementalist, Red Mage, and any type of Nu Mou aren't bad choices. However, this being my first SCC, i was a bit nubly and chose 1 Human Soldier, 2 Viera Archers, and 1 Nu Mou White Mage. Recommended Map: get Nirvana Staff, may also want a ribbon. Advantages: Almost invincible once Life is gained. MP almost never runs out, unless you use Turbo MP. Disadvantages: Extremely low damage. You'll have to critical to break 40 most of the time, unless fighting very weak units. Healing power is poor for the fighting units in the early game. Extremely tedious SCC. How to Level: Pretty much any move :P Differences: Life/Full-Life has a 100% hit rate now!!! Holy taken away. Protect/Shell formula changed - you need a high WDef in Advanced to make good use of it. No level 2 defense spells. Items to go for: White Staff, Cure Staff, Pure Staff, Bless Staff, Judge Staff, Guard Staff, Garnet Staff - all Buyable Spring Staff (Curaga) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Magic Skill Lvl 10 Reward Nirvana Staff (Full-Life) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Cave-Cave- Jagd-Jagd Treasure Hunt Cheer Staff (Auto-Life) - Type 6 Mission Reward White Robe (Turbo MP) - Magic Skill lvl 5 reward, Type 4 mission reward ****** Laws: Forbidden: Color Magic Holy Fight Target Area Healing Bad Laws: Copycat Ganging Up General Strategies: -Defense, defense, defense. In most battles, your goal will simply be to outlast the enemy. This is one of the few SCCs where beginning class makes a difference - pure white mages would be far, far more challenging. Beat them to death, heal/revive when necessary is the strategy for pretty much every battle. -Turbo MP: Your choice whether to use it or not. It only really helps the cure line of spells, but makes Esuna, Auto-Life, and Full-Life almost uncastable. I ended up having it on Marche and my former Soldier only. Battle strategies: -FAMFRIT: a really tough one. you'll need that Life spell. I killed one Floateye quickly, then struggled to stay alive as i killed an ahriman. i caught a lucky break when the remaining ahriman killed himself with roulette. i didn't get to kill the last floateye til much later, but he isn't much of a threat. suprisingly, famfrits physical attack only does 20-25 damage with protect on. hope he doesn't use breath of God too often, because that = 1 or more dead white mages. once the flying eyes are gone, surround and beat him to death. this is certainly a hard, long battle, but if you die the first time, DON'T GIVE UP! its definitely winnable. -MAGIC WOOD - AKA "how come i never get a @#$%ing turn???" there's way too many characters here, it takes forever. enter the battle with "Forbidden: Missile" as the law, which takes care of the sniper and the archer. problem is, that law is grouped right next to no copycat and no protect, so pick your poison. I went with no protect, its not that important here anyway. i sent two units left and three right so the summoner and black mage can't hit too many characters at once. try to take care of them first, after that the battle's easy. if either of them gets hasted, you might as well reset, cuz your gonna get pwned. -PALE COMPANY: this battle is tough, but not as bad as you'd think. i entered battle with fire banned, and used a "Forbidden: Ice" card to help out. set up protect, shell first turn, retreated marche to form the cross shape. firestream hurts. a lot. i let the dragons come to me and hoped no one got killed too fast. i broke formation to finish off the blue dragon. the red dragon died shortly after. once all three dragons are dead, its time to go after adramelech himself. he goes down suprisingly easy once surrounded. congrats on beating the third totema! it's off to baguba port, then jagd dorsa. -JAGD HUNT: Surpisingly, not that hard. If the Assassin gets in a few lucky "Last breaths" you'll have to reset, but otherwise, the other enemies aren't bad. stay in the center area and go after the assassin first, then the blue mage. go for the toughskin last, all he does is use matra magic which won't do much to you because of white mages' high MP. -THE BIG FIND: i killed off the two thieves first, because thieves are easy to kill. leave the fighter with strikeback for last; if you have another "Forbidden: Swords" card, use it, but you probably don't, so you'll have to kill your party members for combo jp. -DESERT PATROL: going in with "Forbidden: Knightswords" helps. the enemies here do a ton of physical damage, and one of them has strikeback. there isn't much i can say except use life and cura a lot... -MATEUS: Remember that "Forbidden: Poison (or status)" card i told you to get? Use it when Mateus appears. This prevents the zombies from using their painful Miasma attack. Mateus likes using star cross, which does around 30 damage to your entire party. Ignore the vampires, because they just come back if you kill them. try to surround mateus. if they get in your way though, life damages them heavily, as does curaga. once you get past the zombies and near mateus, she starts using thundaga. this is something to worry about, doing about 100 damage. have a life or curaga spell handy after this. zombies, once revived, can be killed in one life spell, so all you have to worry about is mateus. i didn't find this battle to be too difficult; my levels were around 23. -PRESENT DAY: Battle preparations: Turn off Turbo MP if you have it on, you can't support it this battle. IMPORTANT!!! Your speed must be >134!!! Otherwise, Llednar will take the first turn, and slaughter you with Omega! You DON'T want to repeat the first part of this battle. The templar nearest to you uses Rasp and has Bonecrusher, which is a really, really painful combo. kill him before you run out of mp, have three characters hit him while one cures. the two gladiators have strikeback, so marche'll have to combo them to death...that's why the no blades law is so important. one of the gladiators uses a 60 some dmg elemental blade skill. this is easily healed though. the mog knight is useless, as is the other gladiator. -LLEDNAR: I hope you listened to me and took the first turn. Cast protect and run away. This leaves him with Abyss, which isn't really a problem, your Cura will heal more than it does. Survive a few turns like this, and you've won. -HIDDEN VEIN: Go into battle with "Forbidden: Skills" as a law. Most importantly, this knocks out the Sage. This is important because he has the Reflex R-ability, so you'll have to kill him last. Pick a side to go for and send everyone to that side. The white monk can revive units, so be careful. -TO AMBERVALE: We're almost done! Try to go in with "Forbidden: Status" as a law. Its right next to Forbidden Color Magic though, so you might not be able to get it. Its no big deal if you can't get it, just makes things a bit easier. The enemies have a lot of health, but you should be able to win by limiting the amount of characters they can hit at once. -OVER THE HILL: I entered battle with "Forbidden Missiles", which is next to "Forbidden: Techniques". The assassin is deadly, so this helped a bit. It also disables Shara. It also reduced the Fencer to a weak physical attack, which makes Ritz, the Summoner, and the Elementalist the only units to worry about. Of these, only the first two can deal good damage, so you'll be fine. Curaga heals more than either of them do anyway. ritz and the assassin will charge you; meet them headon. the assassin likes to use rockseal, but esuna fixes that up. go right at ritz if you can, kill the assassin first if you cant. i lost a few units, but then ritz put herself in front of two of my units so i finished her off. For the final battle, you'll need some heavy Law Card abuse. Get a no katanas card, a no missiles card, and a forbidden target all card, or manage to enter battle with one or more of those as laws. I did the challengers mission to get a Forbidden: Techs law card. Entering battle with Forbidden: Target all lets you get JP by using cure, which lets marche damage him with combos. you can revive faster than he can kill, so this is no problem. FINAL BATTLE: Forbidden: Katanas and Forbidden: Skills are really imporant here. they allow you to focus on llednar. the bastard ain't that tough - omega is an instant kill, but you've got 3 other units with life/full life. -REMEDI: You have to count on Famfrit/Andra bein stupid here. Remedi has a physical attack that does around 150 dmg to your characters. You'll need a Life/Curaga after this one. Suprisingly, Famfrit and Andra aren't too bad, so don't worry about them. the most important thing is keeping your characters alive. again, you can heal faster than they can kill. DONT KEEP YOUR CHARACTERS IN CROSS FORMATION, or you'll go down faster than an 8-year old at Neverland (sorry). Breath of God will pwn you hard if you do that. -LI-GRIM: She's tough, no question about that. Magi, in particular, knocks off 130-150 HP of a whole bunch of your units. Keep Curaga handy, and don't go below 150 HP if it can be avoided. Descent is more or less instant death to a weak unit; it takes off around 230 health. There isn't anything you can do about this, but shell seems to help a little bit. Life the dead units after she uses this, obviously. Alpha is instant death. Period. You can't survive 320 dmg. Just Life after this. Surround her as soon as you can while keeping your units alive. She uses Magi and Descent far less when surrounded. Be patient and persistent, and eventually victory will be yours. For reference, I had one guy doin 30 per turn, one doing 40, one doing 25, and the other two healing. Before I had her surrounded, I had one guy attacking, and the other four healing. The mateus' Breath of God does about 110, but is easily Curaga'd. Don't worry about the mateus's, they take waaay too long to kill. CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU'VE DEFEATED ONE OF THE HARDEST SCC'S!!! Final Stats: Marche, Lvl 31 ATK: 325 DEF: 369 POW: 311 RES: 339 SPD: 142 Equip: Garnet Staff, Power Sash, Theif Hat, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Cure, Cura, Esuna, Life, Shell, Protect, Auto-Life, Turbo MP Guin, Lvl 29 Human ATK: 319 DEF: 349 POW: 294 RES: 315 SPD: 144 Equip: Cheer Staff, Power Sash, Headband, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Cure, Cura, Esuna, Life, Shell, Protect, Auto-Life, Turbo MP Lenny, Lvl 28 Nu Mou ATK: 258 DEF: 309 POW: 330 RES: 367 SPD: 138 Equip: Nirvana Staff, White Robe, Headband, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Cure, Cura, Esuna, Life, Shell, Protect, Curaga, Turbo MP (290AP), Full-Life (120AP) Candice, Lvl 28 Viera ATK: 287 DEF: 296 POW: 310 RES: 328 SPD: 145 Equip: Spring Staff, White Robe, Ribbon, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Cure, Cura, Curaga (160AP) Esuna, Life, Shell, Protect, Turbo MP (280AP) Nanette, Lvl 28 Viera ATK: 294 DEF: 309 POW: 313 RES: 301 SPD: 146 Equip: Cheer Staff, Power Sash, Headband, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Cure, Cura, Esuna, Life, Shell, Protect, Auto-Life (40AP) ============================================================================== [5.07] BLACK MAGE ============================================================================== Overview: Absolute destroyers. 3 Black Magic spells will pretty much kill any normal enemy. These guys can heal as well, and they'll dominate pretty much every normal battle. Problem is, bosses, having pretty good RES, and you having very low HP and DEF, generally present a big problem, especially the final boss. ***Almost everything important here was submitted by Chronic PokeAbuser*** Difficulty: 5/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: "Marche sucks as a Black Mage. He has almost zero MPow due to his levels as a Soldier. Montblanc, however, rocks. Too bad he is slow. I recruited a Beastmaster, a Time Mage (Nu Mou) and a Ninja for the other three members of the team. The former Ninja has the same problems Marche has, low MPow, but his speed is excellent." -CPA Recommended Map: Don't THINK it matters, Princess Rod (Town-town-desert- desert) is availiable if you want it Advantages: Good attack power vs. most enemies, can heal, excellent attack power with Black robe/Geomancy Disadvantages: Weak in the physical stat department, trouble vs. magic resistant enemies/bosses, Marche's terrible, getting past Reflect is trouble How to level: Elemental Robes + Return Magic, levels a ****load, credits to CPA for coming up with it Differences: No more Level 4 spells, lost all status spells, no more Flare, lost MagicPow+ Items to go for: Rod, Firewheel/Thunder/Sleet Rod - all Buyable Flame Rod (Firaga) - Type 4 Mission Reward Thor Rod (Thundaga) - Type 5 Mission Reward Chill Rod (Blizzaga) - Type 6 Mission Reward Black Robe (Return Magic) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Magic Skill lvl 15 reward. Sage Robe (Geomancy) - Forest-Forest-Mountain-Mountain Treasure Hunt Elemental Robes - Type 1/2/3 Mission Rewards (Fire/Ice/ Thunder) ****** Laws: Color Magic Target Area Bad Laws: Copycat Healing Fire/Ice/Lightning if that's all you have Rods, kinda Good Laws: Fight General strategies by Chronic PokeAbuser: -(Early game) I was originally going to go with Power Sashes for everyone, but realized that Thunder Robes and Blaze Robes (and Flurry Robes, if I ever get my hands on one) would serve me better, due to the healing possibilities. Base weapon is a Force Rod right now, just in case I need to do any melee-ing. Fortune Rings, Magic Rings and Dash Boots round out my equipment choices, with Wizard Hats for those who don't get Magic Rings (I only have two right now). -Fight is by far the best law to ban this early in the game. It also looks like the best solution is leveling up to near the level caps, at least for making Marche and the erstwhile Ninja useful. -(After Diamond Rain) I decided that Geomancy would be a good idea, so I took a long interlude of just freeing areas to raise my Clan's Magic level. It added many hours to my play time, but the damage boost for the human mages has made it worth it. As soon as I spread Geomancy to all five units (two have it already, one is in the process, and the other two are waiting patiently) I'll move on to Addramelech. There is one thing I need to test yet. All of my units wear Thunder Robes, since everyone has Thundaga and the healing is nice. But I'm fairly certain Geomancy will run counter to this. What I'm not sure about is whether spells that are bounced back on the original caster with my units Return Magic will also be affected by Geomancy. If it does affect it, I'll have to ditch Geomancy in missions where I might need healing. Other than that, I am just waiting to gather full sets of the advanced rods. Thor Rods, Flame Rods and Chill Rods boost the respective elements. Add in Geomancy, and the damage becomes sick. The accuracy still sucks, though. Battle Strategies by Chronic PokeAbuser: -THE CHEETAHS: Ban Fight. The White Monk knows Air Render, and the Black Mage can also hurt. Everyone else is pretty well bottled up by the Fight law. Ritz can still use Swarmstrike, and Shara will try to Blind or Disable the enemies. Not much strategy here. -DESERT PERIL: There is one huge advantage that the Black Mages have over most other SCCs: Flans are pathetic enemies. Again, ban Fight. Take out the Flan first, and one of the Antlions knows Sandstorm. Once those enemies are gone, nothing else can touch you. Easy. -FAMFRIT: DEAR GOD! That was NOT easy. I went up against Famfrit with five fully healthy Black Mages. I emerged crushed and broken. Four dead Mages, and Montblanc with a mere 10 HP left. But I did emerge triumphant, so that was good. Levels were 8 (Marche), 8 (Montblanc), 7, 7, 7. It didn't help that Famfrit's ranged attack (I have the attack names turned off, so I wasn't sure what the name is) could take out any member of my team at will, or that the Ahriman managed to score three crit hits in the battle. For the record, I went in with a Confuse law. I thought it better to maintain control of all my units then to keep the Ahriman from attacking. In retrospect, a Fight law might have worked better. -ANTILAWS/DIAMOND RAIN: Antilaws was far easier than I thought it would be. I don't think I even banned anything important. Diamond Rain was also pretty easy, ban Ice to keep the IceDrakes from hammering multiple mages, then spam Fire spells. I've managed to acquire five Thunder Robes, so my favorite spells are Thunder and Thundara. I might try to bump my clan Magic level up a bit. Black Robe at level 15 sounds awfully enticing. Thor Rod at level 25 sounds good, too, but that is probably a bit far away, yet. Sage Robe at level 45 is decidedly out of reach as of now, but Return Magic would be nice. -JAGD HUNT: Jagd Hunt was tough, but beatable. Take out the Assassin first and foremost. The Ninja knows both Metal Veil (Blind) and Water Veil (Silence), and both can screw any of your mages. The Hunter is next most dangerous, with his good range and Sonic Boom attack. The Blue Mage didn't really scare me (he used Night for me, twice). Stay away from the monsters and you'll be fine. Took two resets, the first because I forget to get rid of Geomancy. Healing is far more important. Levels were 14, 13, 12, 12, 12. -LI-GRIM: Black Mage SCC is finished. I went crazy on the leveling, bumping everyone up to level ~40 before attempting Royal Valley again. Made the final fights much easier than at level 20. I'm sure there's a happy medium in between there somewhere, but I never bothered to find it. Only one note on the final battles. I discarded the Elemental Robe healing and equipped Geomancy, for the damage boost. I figured if the Mages were going to get one or two HKO anyway, might as well dish out as much damage as possible. I did go against Li-Grim wearing Thunder Robes, though. ============================================================================== [5.08] ILLUSIONIST ============================================================================== ***This Entire Section (Except differences) was written up by ecyc333. I only applied a few formatting changes.*** Overview: Phantasm Skills are pretty sweet looking at first, but get intensely boring after the 20th time in the same battle. The basic strategy for each battle is the same - hide in the corner and spam your Phantasms. Ridiculously low HP makes things difficult if the enemy actually does manage to reach you though. Bosses linear spells and high RES makes this SCC only for those with an eye out for a tedious, difficult challenge. Difficulty: 8/10 Frustration: 6/10 Advantages: Hits whole field, making battles like Ultima simple Disadvantages: Very low healing capabilities, Low accuracy, Low damage. How to Level: KBWM, "Challengers?" Mission Differences (By DDragoon): About the closest thing in FFT to Phantasm Skill was Math Skill. Math Skill was broken, Phantasm Skill is not. Math SKill could use nearly any spell you had learned from Black, White, Time, or Yin-Yang magic. Phantasm's spells all have 17-20 Mpow and have no additional effects. Math Skill could hit enemies or ally's, but due to most units being able to equip robes(Chammy Robe absorbed Holy), it was easy to SPAM CT5 Holy and kill everything in sight while leaving your allies virtually unharmed if not fully healed. Never mind the ability to Haste your entire party instantly, with no charge time or MP cost. Phantasm can only hit enemies, which has more rewards than it does risks. I repeat: Math Skill was broken, Phantasm Skill is not. Items to look for: Terre Rod, Firewheel Rod, Thunder Rod, Sleet Rod - Buyable Princess Rod (Star Cross) - Baguba Port after 4th shop upgrade, Town-Town-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt Blaze Robes - Type 1 Mission Reward, random Failure Treasure Hunt reward White Robe - Type 4 Mission Reward, Magic Skill Level 5 Reward Heretic Rod - "Flan Breakout" Mission ****** Laws: Skills Target All Bad Laws: Rods(early game) Copycat General Strategies: -Enhance elements. Sit there, try not to move until you need to, and keep using spells. Firewheel Rod+Blaze Robe/Sleet Rod+Flurry Robe/ Thunder Rod+Thunder Robe are the most common ways to heal. Don't try Terre Rod+Gaia Gear, it doesn't work. The enhancement of earth drops it from ABSORB to NULL. -Any battle not mentioned is done using the normal strategy: -Flan Battles: Spam Soil Evidence, or use the Flan's weak element if there isn't all 3 elements there. Battle Strategies: -ULTIMA: Soil Evidence, and use Marche for whacking the stones too. -PALE COMPANY: Ban Fire/Lightning/Ice, or leave one out and ban Fight, and use Blaze Robes or White Robes. Soil Evidence. -JAGD HUNT: Switch to Mistle Robes, the Null:KO is necessary. Soil Evidence. -SCOURING TIME: Ban Fight. Maybe Spears too. -VS. BABUS: Blaze Robe on Marche. Soil Evidence. -MATEUS: Spend 1+ Hours leveling your units. Try to get them to about 25. Ban Target:Area(You'll get JP for that, too), Mistle Robes and spread out your units. -LLEDNAR: Mistle Robe. -OVER THE HILL: Ban Rapiers and Missile, Soil Evidence OR any other spell you have that is enhanced. You should have another one by now (Chill/Thor/Flame Rod). -ROYAL VALLEY: Ban Fight, ban Katanas. Mistle Robes. Try a Combo or 2. I had to level my people up to 38 to [beat the challenge]. Llednar was no challenge, I had to reset once from the Queen, and 3 times from Li-Grim. Final Battle: -LI-GRIM: Hope she doesn't change the laws to bad ones. Hope she doesn't hit you with Descent. There's alot of hoping in this mission, I was left with 2 of my 5 units alive. ============================================================================== [5.09] BLUE MAGE ============================================================================== Overview: Ordinarily versatile to the max, Blue Mages will likely only see a few spells throughout the game due to a lack of Control. Even so, the ones that they get are very self sufficient. Damage > MP and Immunity is absolutely unbeatable at keeping you alive, and Night lets you neutralize enemy threats before they can get up. A Light, easy SCC. For Blue Mage SSCC videos, check out http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7A4F2937EEF9FEEF courtesy of MoogleBoss. He does a great job explaining various tactics. Difficulty: 1.5/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: 1 Human Soldier, 3 Blue Mages Recommended Map: Anything that nets you a Tulwar Advantages: Very versatile, Damage > MP makes it very, very hard for a single enemy to kill you, Night + Immunity/Fortune ring is almost dirty. Disadvantages: It's really annoying to get Blue Magic without a Beastmaster, you have to punch in the beginning, really, really hard to get healing, mediocre stats, they're just crappy fighters without MP. How to Level: Magic Hammering yourself works, if you face the back. You're not likely to get any friendly Blue Magic though, so it's kinda hard to level up efficiently, not like Blue Mages need it. Or just have units with similar speed hit each other with Damage > MP on. Differences: n/a Items to go for: Blue Saber, Aqua Saber, Judo Uniform, Survival Vest - Buyable Harpe - Type 6 Mission Reward Soulsaber - Voodoo Doll mission reward Tulwar - Town-Town-Plain-Plain Treasure Hunt ****** Laws: Fight Sabres Copycat Bad Laws: Target All General Strategies: -Buy everyone Fortune Rings after you get night, use it, kill, lather rinse repeat. Yawn. Matra Magic fighters. Damage > MP keeps you protected. -Magic Hammer + Matra Magic: This will kill many enemies with low MP. Pretty funny. -Up teh butt: To learn blue magic, it has to hit. It won't hit too often with your high evade if your facing the front, so turn your back to the enemy that has the skill you want to learn. To be honest, this isn't a difficult SCC, so I won't be writing too many walkthroughs. -Useful blue magics: Goblin Punch: Your staple for getting around annoying R-abilities. Learn it in the White Flowers mission. Magic Hammer: Used in conjunction with Matra Magic. Learn from a red goblin. Night: Equip Fortune Rings for instant cheapness. First available in Jagd Hunt. Twister: Good for high HP enemies. Personally, I'd get it from the BM in Clan Hounds. Matra Magic: Use on 0 MP units for an instant kill. First obtainable in Jagd Hunt. Poison Claw: Meh, but more reliable than Goblin Punch. Learn in Village Hunt or Desert Peril. Battle Strategies: -EMERALD KEEP: You can kill Babus in two hits. Just wanted to let you know :P -JAGD HUNT: Get Night here. very important. You'll probably learn Matra Magic in the process. Not TOO tough of a battle. -THE BOUNTY: Use Goblin Punch to get past Strikeback and Reflex. Matra Magic is very effective here -SCOURING TIME: <3 night. For the second part, just ignore Babus and go after the crystals. -DESERT PATROL: Matra Magic is sooo good here. The Bishop is immune to Water, so you may want to think about switching from those Aqua Sabers, but you can kill him via other methods too if you want. -MATEUS: Get Fight AND Poison banned. Trust me on this one. Well, you know that a single enemy can't possibly kill you with Damage > MP on, right? So just use anything else to kill Mateus, Poison Claw, Goblin Punch, etc, since the Zombies can't do anything. If you have Lvl3 Def-less, you can use it on her to make things a bit faster. -OVER THE HILL: Magic Hammer + Matra Magic combo on Ritz. Final Battle: -LLEDNAR: Immunity doesn't protect vs. Doom, so keep those Fortune Rings on. lvl3 Def-less works on Llednar, so use it if you have it. You should be able to kill him in 4 hits though, especially if you use Night at the start of battle. -REMEDI: Surround and Slice! Damage > MP keeps you protected well enough. She killed two of my units, but I didn't really care. -LI-GRIM: Equip thunder robes, and ban Holy. Level 3 def-less works on her. You'll do 70-80 a hit on her with it, which is quite a bit. I had her dead in a few rounds, even though she killed two of my characters. Final Play time: 18hr, 30 min. Levels: 23, 22, 21, 23, 20 ============================================================================== [5.10] ARCHER ============================================================================== Overview: Enemy Archers are craptastic, but you'd be suprised how much havoc Archers can wreak given the right equipment. Blackout. Aim: Arm, and Cupid let you control a battle from afar, and they get conentrate earlier than Gunners get it. Low damage early, but it gets better as the bows get better. Things can get frustrating when enemies hit through Blind, or statuses simply miss. -This guide is for the original Archer SCC. An *excellent* set of videos made by ArchaelN7 for the Archer SSCC can be found here: www.youtube.com/Archael7 He says: "Archer SSCC IS possible its just a pain in the ass and hard as hell. 10/10 frustration 10/10 difficulty" Now onto the team SCC info: ***Pretty much everything below was written by Chronic PokeAbuser*** Difficulty: 2/10 Frustration: 3/10 Recommended Party: Two Viera Assassins and 2 Human Ninjas. Any units are fine, though you probably want to stay away from mages. Recommended Map: Get Perseus Bow (D-D-J-J), otherwise just get Ribbon or other Viera equips. Advantages: Long Range, Blackout, CONCENTRATE!!!, Aim: Arm, Faster Disadvantages: Lowish stats, die quickly when surrounded, enemies hitting while blinded is annoying How to Level: Boost. Differences: Almost unrecognizable. Got useful abilities instead of godawful charge ones. Can now bypass reaction abilities. No more speed save. Does more damage this game, but only slightly. Items to go for: Thorn Bow, Nail Bow, Char Bow, Green Beret - all Buyable Artemis Bow (Cupid) - Type 3 Mission Reward Crescent Bow - Reaper Rumors Mission Reward Perseus Bow (Faster) - Type 6 Mission Reward, "Desert-Desert- Jagd-Jagd" Treasure Hunt Target Bow (Concentrate) - Type 5 Mission Reward Yoichi Bow (Take Aim) - Type 4 Mission Reward, Track Skill lvl 5 reward ****** Laws: Missile Aim Status Bad Laws: Bind Fight General Strategies: -Blackout! Blind every attacking enemy on the field, and they'll be rendered harmless. Bosses can be blinded, and with Concentrate, you'll have no problem hitting most enemies. -Disable and kill: Aim: Arm is buyable, and is useful to prevent enemies from using annoying reaction abilities. -Concentrate! You want to get this ASAP. It's a level 5 reward, so it shows up in the middle of the game. *Strategies by Chronic PokeAbuser* -MAGIC WOOD: Two of the enemies used bows, so Block Arrows came in handy, Color Magic is a nice law, and a Time Magic law card also helps. Two Take Aims will take out the Summoner, leaving only the Thieves that can hurt you (actually, the Thieves come into range before the Summoner; They'll probably be dead by the time you even think about that Summoner). -MATEUS (PREPARATIONS): I've picked up two Perseus Bows and the Crescent Bow, I'm going to try and nab two more Perseus Bows via missions (Wyrms Awaken, The Bell Tolls and Lost In Mist all give Type 6 random items, and I haven't done any of them yet). Meanwhile, I have been using the two Perseus' that I already have to spread Faster to all my units. Marche and two generics have it already, so the other two can pick it up through dispatches, saving me from having to actually fight. My average level is around 21 now. I'm hoping the extra levels and the increased strength of the Perseus and Crescent Bows will help out. It should. -MATEUS: once I spread Faster around to all of my units, Mateus became easy. Fight and Poison laws and the Vampires can only do Zombify. Which was fine with me, since I had no way of healing my units anyway. -FINAL BATTLE: Llednar and Remedi were easy, simple rush forward and pepper them with arrows. Li-Grim slaughtered me in my first attempt. She cast Descent on her first turn, 300 damage to everyone. Second time through, I played it smart and used Blackout on everyone first turn. All five units survived the fight. Final stats: three units at level 24, two units at level 23. All units mastered every ability except Bow Combo. Everyone was using Perseus Bows except Marche, who had the Crescent Bow. Desert Patrol, Quiet Sands and Royal Valley each required two attempts (Desert Patrol was because Blackout missed far too often in the first round, and I got overwhelmed). Overall, Archer is probably one of the easiest SCCs out there. ============================================================================== [5.11] HUNTER ============================================================================== Overview: Hunters are ike heavy duty archers - they don't mess with the status crap, and focus on simply destroying the enemies. They do have kind of low HP, but Auto-Regen help a bit. Then again, most enemies don't survive long under focused fire from Hunters. They won't see much move variety though - Sonic boom and an occasional Sidewinder are pretty much all you need. Difficulty: 2/10 Frustration: 3/10 Recommended Party: Marche, 3 Hunters, and your starting Soldier, for simplicity's sake Recommended Map: Do Plain-Plain-Plain for the Gastra Bow, nothing else matters Advantages: Sonic Boom, massive range, very high attack power, good speed, own monsters hard Disadvantages: Can't get past Block Arrows well, don't last long in melee How to Level: Advice Differences: N/A Items to go for: Cranequin, Twin Bow - Buyable Fey Bow (Aim: Vitals) - Type 4 Mission Reward Gastra Bow - Plain-Plain-Plain Treasure Hunt Hades Bow (Sidewinder) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Track Skill lvl 15 reward Marduk Bow - Dog Days mission reward Master Bow - Type 7 Mission Reward Nike Bow (Weapon Atk+) - Type 6 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Missile Hunt Bad Laws: Fight, though it can be good Target Area (generally) Ganging Up, if Combo is necessary Good Laws: Color Magic Target All Defend General Strategies: -Sonic Boom: Always use this when you see any kind of a cliff between you and your target, regular shots won't hit sometimes but Sonic will. It's pretty safe to use Sonic Boom all the time actually, unless there's friendly fire. -Crappy abilities: A lot of them aren't worth your time. Oust, Capture, and Advice to be exact, although you'll get Advice anyway. Aim: Vitals will see very limited use. -7th Heaven: You need the 5th shop upgrade to get the Seventh Heaven, which gives Ultima Shot. Honestly, its not worth it, this challenge is easy enough. -Combo it up: Assuming you're only using Combat Combo to get past R-abilities, banning Color Magic really helps. Everytime you combo you'll get another JP, which lets you combo again. -Focus Fire: Spreading your guys out and letting the enemies bunch up on one target lets you own them pretty bad; with dash boots you'll be able to outrun most enemies. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: Kill off all the Ahrimans first, they'll die in 2 hits, Sonic Boom is very good when they group up, and they will. Famfrit's easy to finish. -MAGIC WOOD: This one's tougher than you're used to. Ban Color Magic. You'll need Combo to kill the archer, and Color Magic gives you JP. Kill the Summoner first, she does a ton of damage. The enemies are rather clumped usually so make good use of sonic boom. I went after the Thieves and the Archer after that. Use Sonic Boom to kill the Sniper. -ANDRAMALECH: Decidedly tough. You'll need em to miss a few times; in other words luck. You should be able to get in a few good hits on the first turn, sonic boom the blue dragon and andra. Andra is your main target this battle; Sonic Boom the dragons if you can but don't go after them unless its a kill- shot. Use the sides and spread out after the first couple of rounds. Took me 5 tries, my levels were 10-11. Everyone had a Twin Bow equipped. -JAGD HUNT: If marche survives the first turn, this isn't so bad. Sonic Boom kills the ASsassin and Ninja first turn, then the Hunter and Blue mage second. After that it's not hard. -SCOURING TIME: You need to go into battle with Fire banned to stand a chance. The first part is easy, just ban spears. The second part, babus will pwn you 1v1. You need to stay out of his range, and he'll kinda stop chasing you. So after his first hit, retreat and start shooting Exodus fruits - your 5 move beats his. I won this battle starting at lvl 12 with a Fey Bow. -MATEUS: Beat her at the hilariously low levels of 14-15. Banned Fight and Poison, of course. Space your guys far enough apart so they don't all get killed by Thundaga; I had three Hunters killed rather early, but they'd taken off around 1/2 her HP. I kept on the sonic booms, and with some luck, I won on my first try. Marche had a Fey Bow, Kemal had a Hades Bow and the rest had Twin Bows. -PRESENT DAY: First part is easy with the right laws. VS llednar, you'll have to hope he doesn't use omega the first turn. -HIDDEN VEIN: Ban Skills and Call, i used an antilaw/law combination to ban Fight as well. This is an annoying battle...Kill the White Monk first turn. Go to the left side of the field and kill the BM. If you don't have mithril weapons, you'll have to let Marche get kills in order to bypass Block Arrows. After killing everything else, i had to do an antilaw/law combination again and ban Items, killing my own characters for JP. w00t! a Gastra Bow! -DETI PLAINS: Jesus, two enemies with Block Arrows. Go into battle with Color Magic banned for easier JP gainage. Sidewinder is very very good for enemies without Block Arrows. -OVER THE HILL: Ban Summon. Move everyone directly left. Assuming you survive Doublecast, you should be able to kill Ritz in the next turn. FINAL BATTLE: PREPARATION: You should have a Target Area or Lightning card. I leveled up a bit; everyone had Weapon Atk+ available, and I had 3 Nike Bows. I had no Auto- Regen though. Final Stats: Marche, Lvl 23 ATK: 330 DEF: 298 POW: 214 RES: 269 SPD: 140 Equip: Nike Bow, Acadia Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Kemal, Lvl 21 ATK: 327 DEF: 280 POW: 195 RES: 258 SPD: 142 Equip: Gastra Bow, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Norbert, Lvl 20 ATK: 307 DEF: 251 POW: 197 RES: 257 SPD: 151 Equip: Hades Bow, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Rober, Lvl 20 ATK: 307 DEF: 252 POW: 202 RES: 256 SPD: 148 Equip: Nike Bow, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Rockwell, Lvl 21 ATK: 319 DEF: 260 POW: 209 RES: 267 SPD: 153 Equip: Nike Bow, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Everyone had Weapon Atk+, no one had Auto-Regen Play Time: 14 Hr, 21 Min -LLEDNAR: By far the hardest battle, because your elemental bows are the most powerful ones, and he absorbs them all. Only your Gastra Bow can do any damage to him. Ban Katana, Skills, and Missile if you can; Katana and Skills are teh important ones. Keep your character with the Gastra Bow alive at all costs, the others can do whatever, kill for EXP or something. Took me 4 tries I think. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Hades Bow is not a good choice here. Other than that, just shoot her to death. Should only take 3.5 rounds or so, she does a lot of damage but can only hit one at a time. -LI-GRIM: You should have 1st turn, get as close as possible and shoot. Ban Target Area. I had some luck dodging spellbind. Her first turn she used Omega, I shot her some, then she used Alpha, killing two characters, but at this point she only had some 70 HP left so I killed her. Pretty easy battle. ============================================================================== [5.12] WARRIOR ============================================================================== Overview: When you think Godawful class, you think Warrior. And yes, they kinda suck here. But, because of their really high HP, they can outlive pretty much any enemy in an SCC setting. The "breaks" work well on most bosses, and good weapons are readily availiable. They also have the distinction of having one of the easiest final battles out of all the SCCs. If you take this challenge, be prepared for a doable, but boring, SCC. Difficulty: 4.5/10 Greased Bolt and Downsize combine to make this challenge easier than the Soldier SCC. Frustration: 6/10 It's really not very fun... Recommended Party: 4 Dragoons and a Warrior looks good. Compared to other Bangaas, Dragoons have good speed, and high ATK works to thier advantage too. Recommended Map: Something that gets you Estreledge (Town-Town-Mountain Mountain), though I forgot to do this Advantages: Most HP growth in the game, good ATK, powerful weapons easily available, get Downsize Disadvantages: No range whatsoever (seriously, WTF?), crappy skillset, get pwned by magic attacks, like no MP available to use Downsize How to Level: First Aid Differences: See Soldier, heh Items to go for: Shortsword, Samson Sword, Falchion, Silver Sword, Striborg, Opal Shield - Buyable Chirijiraden - Challengers? mission reward Gale Sword (Greased Bolt) - Type 2 Mission Reward Laglace Sword - Frosty Mage mission reward Restorer (Downsize) - Type 4 Mission reward, Combat Skill lvl 10 reward Claymore (Monkeygrip) - Type 6 Mission reward El Cid Sword - Type 5 Mission reward Estreledge - Town-Town-Mountain-Mountain Treasure Hunt Flame Shield - Type 3 Mission Reward Ice Shield - Type 1 Mission Reward Mirror Mail - Type 5 Mission Reward General Strategies: -Buying tips: Vary your breaks first - split them among Power, Speed, Mind, and Body Slam. This saves some money too. Next get Dash Boots, which gives you a pretty decent 5 move. Buying 5 Curiass's instead of real armor is kinda helpful early; they're cheap, and 28 DEF is better than nothing. -Dem's the Breaks: You'll want to Powerbreak heavy physical damage dealers, and Speedbreak anything with high HP. Magic and Mindbreak are both largely useless, Mindbreak has some use against bosses, but normal mages are usually easily killed. None of the Breaks wear off. -Ice Blade: The Laglace sword has amazing attack power early game. Have some- one learn Body Slam, then Give them the Laglace Sword. That's a formula for tons of damage. -Combo it up: After Jagd Hunt, go buy a Mythril Sword from Nono's shop. It makes the rest of the SCC a bit easier. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: The enemies are much stronger than you, so this can be some- what difficult. Kill the Red Panther that comes closes to you first turn. Gang up on the enemies one by one - the other Red Panther, then the Antlion. The Blue Panther should be Powerbreak'd then killed. Finally, Power/Speed Break the Flan, and wear him down. If this fight is giving you trouble, level up to 5 or so before attempting again. -FAMFRIT: Not too bad, even at levels 5-6. Kill all the Ahriman thingys, it should only take 2 hits per Ahriman. Then Power and Speed Break Famfrit, and pwn him with Fight and Greased Bolt, if you have it. -DIAMOND RAIN: Don't advance first turn; move up a couple spaces but not enough for them to attack. Kill the Bomb with your Laglace Sword user, Powerbreak both Dragons. Body Slam is quite effective against the dragons, seeing as its fire based. You should have enough units left over after killing the dragons to wear down the flan. -MAGIC WOOD: I banned Knives as well as Missile to make things easier. Greased Bolt takes care of the Moogle with Counter nicely - the other one tends to retreat. Split your forces, two to go left and own the summoner, and the other two to go right and pwn the Black Mage. The rest is mop-up work - the trick is getting there quickly. -PALE COMPANY: You'll really, really want either a Target Area law card or the Ice and Lightning law cards, going into battle with Fire banned. The R2 law card you got from Antilaws will take care of the Rapiers law, giving room for the third element. Hope his Firestream misses your Warriors, and go up and Speedbreak Andra. Marche makes a pretty good wall against the Dragon attacks; that is if he survives. Powerbreak the dragons, that reduces their damage output to a more manageable amount. Just pwn Andra; you'll have enough HP to survive a few dragon attacks, and Andra isn't much when he's forced into close range combat. -JAGD HUNT: Sheesh, this battle is hard. Marche will need to take a few hits here, so he should be at least level 10. or have Damage > MP. Kill the Assassin first. Throughout the battle, immediately retreat any units in critical and have them First Aid themselves back to a decent amount of health. The Ninja and Hunter should be Powerbreak'd, then kill the Blue Mage, as he tends to be more accessible. By the time it takes you to do all that, the two monsters will almost be there. Powerbreak them both, and Speedbreak the Rockbeast. Matra Magic is absolutely lethal. Then kill the humans while sending a unit or two to hold off the monsters, and finally mop up. A very tough battle. -THE BOUNTY: Target Area law is a must. Powerbreak the Fighter, Red Mage, and Paladin, then kill the paladin. You'll lose a few units doing that, but its ok. After he's down the rest of the battle is easy. -SCOURING TIME: Equip your most powerful weapons - the Restorer is good if you have it, as is the El Cid Sword. You may wish to Ban Blades here instead of Spears; it makes the fight somewhat simpler, as Templars need to be within melee range to be effective. Anyway, kill the Paladin first; Downsize works well here. Powerbreak is good against the Templars; use that, then bring one of them down; the other one tends to stick to Lifebreak even when at full HP. The sage will probably be drawn down by now, kill him fast, as his magical attacks are deadly. The rest of the battle should be just mopup, I beat this at starting levels 11, 13, and 3 14's. -DESERT PATROL: Wow, all these units are much better classes. WTF unfair. Anyway, ban Greatswords, as Techs doesn't work for you. Kill the Bishop first, then the White Monk; you have to hope some attacks miss here, especially ones like Bolt Sword. Don't waste MP on these two, regular attacks will do just fine. The other three non-Soldier enemies should be Downsized first though. I beat this at levels 13, 15, 15, and 17. You can combo if you want, but I recommend saving those JP for Mateus, next. -MATEUS: Your goal is to get to her to Combo her, doing lots of damage. The thing is, she likes to hang back and use Star Cross, hitting you for some 40 damage. Combos only have 1 range (your comboing units need to be adjacent to Mateus), and the Vampires like to protect the panels around Mateus if you do an all out blitz. So here's the plan: Drop 3 units back in the starting location to block the Vampires; think of them as the offensive linemen protecting Marche. Have the other two units (preferably with Mirror Mail) advance on Mateus, but not get quite within range. The vampires totally fall for this play and all teleport to your three starting units, leaving Mateus unprotected. So sack her with combos. Pwned. go get a Chirijiraiden now. -HIDDEN VEIN: Banning Skills is a must, as the Sage does ridiculous damage if he's allowed to use his spells. The hard part's getting through the first turn without heavy damage. They all go first (except the sage and mogknight). After that, your ridiculously high HP will allow you to win. Kill the White Monk with a Downsize and some Greased Bolts, then the Animist or Juggler. Greased Bolt gets through Damage > MP nicely too. Alternate Strat: Kill the Blue Mage First turn with Greased Bolts. This requires some luck hitting him from the front, but the rest of the battle is easier without him casting ****ing cheap White Wind. Final Stats: Mackenroe Lvl 25 ATK: 370 DEF: 348 POW: 205 RES: 244 SPD: 130 Equip: El Cid Sword, Flame Shield, Thief Hat, Opal Armor, Dash Boots Abilities: First Aid, Powerbreak, Speedbreak, Greased Bolt, Monkey Grip, Shieldbearer, Combat Combo Rayton Lvl 25 ATK: 372 DEF: 342 POW: 205 RES: 245 SPD: 131 Equip: Claymore, Choco Shield, Thief Hat, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: First Aid, Powerbreak, Mindbreak, Speedbreak, Greased Bolt, Monkey Grip (60 AP), Downsize, Combat Combo Malchelo Lvl 23 ATK: 374 DEF: 321 POW: 198 RES: 232 SPD: 126 Equip: Chirijiraden, Ice Shield, Thief Hat, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: First Aid, Powerbreak, Mindbreak, Body Slam, Greased Bolt, Combat Combo Largo Lvl 24 ATK: 359 DEF: 347 POW: 199 RES: 240 SPD: 131 Equip: El Cid Sword, Ice Shield, Bangaa Helm, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: First Aid, Powerbreak, Speedbreak, Greased Bolt, Downsize, Monkey Grip, Shieldbearer, Combat Combo Dickens Lvl 24 ATK: 351 DEF: 349 POW: 209 RES: 249 SPD: 119 Equip: El Cid Sword, Sacri Shield, Thief Hat, Dragon Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: First Aid, Powerbreak, Mindbreak, Speedbreak, Greased Bolt, Downsize, Monkey Grip, Shieldbearer, Combat Combo Play Time: 21 hr, 35 min Final Battle preparations: Get as many Mirror Mails and Thief hats as you can. Also, try to get a Claymore and teach Monkeygrip to anyone with a 2 handed weapon. Also, get everyone 10 JP. -LLEDNAR: Easy -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: A Target Area Law helps a lot. Speed and Powerbreak her. Then just attack her; you should be doing a solid 60 damage or so a hit, more with Chirijiraiden. -LI-GRIM: The tough part's surviving the first turn. After that, move but don't do anything - that should let you go before Li-grim goes again. Speedbreak her with one of your characters, then surround her if you can. Combo with as many characters as possible - I had 3, and it did 384. The 2nd combo, with Claymore, did 400+. Pwned. ============================================================================== [5.13] DRAGOON ============================================================================== Overview: Another pretty sweet class; the Best Bangaa class IMO. Jump gives them a very nice ranged attack; you'll be spamming that move from the beginning of the game. With generally good stats besides MRES, and Mirror Mail to protect you from a lot of magic, Dragoons stay safe and effective throughout the game. ***EVERYTHING HERE IN THIS SECTION BY DDRAGOON*** Difficulty: 3/10. Untill you get Mirror Mail, Black and Time mages can mess with you, otherwise Jump can beat the stuffing out of your threats, you even get a 45 Wattack purchasable spear at Upgrade 2 for chrisakes. You can also evade most enemy counterattacks, just by the nature of being able to attack from two panels away. Frustration: 3/10. Despite a need to horde 5 or 6 Mirror Mails and a recommended Vitanova(for dragonheart) before Mateus, Dragoons can basically plow through enemies with a little leveling up, if you're having difficulty. Its a fun SCC, but a bit repetitive since usually you just Jump enemies or Spear-stab them when they line up right. The ranged abilities make it fun. Recommended Party: All my Dragoons started as Dragoons. Recommended Map: Don't think it matters Advantages: Highest Base Wattack in the game period, Highest Base Wattack in the game that is RANGED, a form of healing based on Wattack, Multi-targeting ranged abilities, a great R-Ability. Disadvantages: Craptastic MRes, poor equip options(read: no Hats or Clothes/Robes). How to Level: Random Battles involving Jumping on enemies to death. After you get Dragonheart on 1 or more units, you can use KBWM. Basically setting off Dragonheart with your Wattack based abilities and repeatedly killing off your characters, only having them revived instantaneously immiediately afterward. Differences: Jump is now a single 4 range ability, instead of multiple range and height increasing abilities. No more waiting for the Lancers to come down, which is...weird. Gained a whole bunch of other abilities. Dragoons are far superior early game(2v2), and far inferior late game(8v8). On the other hand, Lancers couldn't heal. Items to go for: Javelin, Lava Spear, Ice Lance, Dragon Whisker - buyable Bangaa Spike - "Sword Needed" reward Beastspear- "Old Friends" reward, Plain-Plain-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt reward Trident - Level 7 Mission Reward, Combat Skill Lvl 25 reward Vitanova (Dragonheart) - Level 5 Mission Reward Restorer (Lancet) - Level 4 Mission Reward, Combat Skill lvl 10 reward Chirijiraden - "Challengers?" reward Flame Shield - Type 3 Mission reward Mirror Mail - Type 5 Mission reward ****** Laws: Spears Techniques Bad Laws: Swords Target Area, sometimes General Strategies: -Jump, Bangaa Cry, Wyrmkiller, Breaths. That is the order you should learn moves in IMO. Otherwise, your main strategy for battles is reigning Death from above with Jump, and killing elemental enemies with the Breath that will do the most damage. Bangaa Cry for multi-targeting, Lancet when your HP is getting low. Wyrmkiller with Lance to bypass an alliy that is adjacent to an enemy. Move notes: Everybody in Da House is Jumpin': Its the first ability you'll ever learn and the last ability you'll ever need. Jump is good from start to finish. Bangaa Cry/Fire Breath/Ice Breath: Depending on your enemy, these Wattack based skills will do the most damage at a range. Bombs don't like Ice Breath, if they are at a slighly lower level they get OHKO'd. Grenade's aren't as fragile, but range is range. Otherwise, use Bangaa Cry, multi-panel targeting and good damage;. 2 Dragoon attacks kills basically everything except Totemas (and Flans/Rockbeasts, obviosuly). Sadly, no enemy is weak to Bolt, so Bolt Bretah loses out to non-elemental Bangaa Cry, that has a higher power stat. Lancet: I didn't use it a ton, but its always good to have a healing attack that drains HP. And since it works off Wattack, it still does quite a bit of damage. Effective for setting up Dragonheart on your allies. Wyrmkiller: Not just good for killing Dragons, you can also use it to strike an enemy next to your ally with your spear, without hurting your ally. Got used a bit. Wyrmtamer: AWESOME! (at comic relief). Dragonheart: It's basically insurance that is usually needless. Dragoons have a nasty habit of sweeping the floor with enemies once they get their turns. I can count the number of enemies on one hand that can survive 5 consecutive hitting jumps with the best spears: 0. Equip Notes: Dragoons have bad Mres. Mirror Mail reflects Black, White, Red, and Time Magic. You don't have White Magic or Time magic to use on yourself. Do the math. Scarabs are usefull against enemy Archers who outrange you or evil Fire Whipping Elementalists. Avoiding Immobilize and Disarm is good, and Frog, which is substantially less frequent. As is general in most SCCs, equip the best weapon readily available unless you are learning a skill. Battle Strategies: -FLANS: Ban Flan element, kill its allies, Kill Flan. -FAMFRIT: Jump on Ahrimans/Floateyes. Jump/Attack on Famfrit. -ULTIMA: Ban Charm. Jump/Attack. Win. -ANDRAMELECH: Arguably the only tough battle in the SCC other then Li-Grim. Ban Target Area, Wyrmkiller some of the Dragons to Death, and Jump or Stab Addy. -Vs. Babus: Soldier Marche with Flame Shield and Mirror Mail. Speedbreak. Slash babus to death. -MATEUS: No Units at L21 or 22, Ban Fight and Target Area. Mirror Mail on all Units. Angel Ring on "Best" Dragoon. Jump Mateus to Death. -Vs. Llednar: Blue Mage Marche, (Soldier Secondary), Mistle Robe, Damage > MP, and Immunity. (Speedbreak Llednar), Just run, Llednar can't do jack to you. -OVER THE HILL: Ban Missile and Rapier. Jump Ritz to Death. FINAL BATTLE: Ending Equips: Raol L32 Bangaa Spike Mirror Mail Genji Armlets Dash Boots Angel Ring Randorf L32 Beastspear Mirror Mail Bracers Dash Boots Scarab Crowe, Sandath, and Caines (Kain :D) All L32 Trident Mirror Mail Bracers Dash Boots Scarab All: A- Dragon Tech A- -- R- Dragonheart S- -- C- --(I never got a Mythrill Spear, Sadly) Why the Mirror mail spamming? Good old Mateus(x2) with Li-Grim have Thundaga. Mirror Mail reflects Thundaga. Erego, Mirror Mail = equipped armor. -LLEDNAR: Go in with Katanas and Skills Banned, Jump Llednar to Death. -REMEDI: Mirror Mail on all units, Jump on Remedi. The physical skills just makes Dragonheart go off, and Famfrit's Demi gets Reflected. -LI-GRIM: Mirror Mail on all units, just Jump on Remedi and pray for a bunch of hits. With Trident or better on all your units, a hit from each unit should KO her. Mirror Mail can buy a turn if Mateus is dumb enough to Thundaga. Basically you just have to hope for a lot of hits and maybe some Magi/Totema Misses. ============================================================================== [5.14] DEFENDER ============================================================================== Overview: The safest class this side of White Mage; Defenders are all but invincible in almost every battle. They have ok weapon attack, and get Estreledge early to enhance their attack power. They have very crappy other skills though; every battle will be using Aura then Fighting the enemies. Kinda boring, but effective. Difficulty: 1.5/10 w/o final battle, 2.5/10 with final battle Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: I used 2 White Monks, 2 Defenders, and a Gladiator. The Gladiator has higher ATK than the rest of the party, while not sacrificing too much DEF. The two White Monks gave my party a bit of extra speed. Recommended Map: Get Estreledge (T-T-M-M) ASAP, the rest doesn't really matter. You can actually get 2 Estreledges, the other one just comes much later. Advantages: Good WATK, Excellent WDEF, Aura, easily accessible abilities, Estreledge available very early How to Level: Aura, hitting Expert Guard'd party members works too Disadvantages: Slow, 3 move for a fighter is absolutely ridiculous, lack good offensive A-abilities, awful R-ability for an SCC, annoying to get around some R-abilities Items to go for: Ragnarok, Striborg, Lohengrin - all Buyable El Cid Sword (Tremor) - Type 5 Mission Reward Vajra (Meltdown) - Jagd-Jagd-Jagd Treasure Hunt, Smithing Skill lvl 30 reward (you'll probably never see this sword) Estreledge - Town-Town-Mountain-Mountain Treasure Hunt SaveTheQueen (Expert Guard) - Type 5 Mission Reward Diamond Armor (Weapon Def+) - Type 2 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Knightswords Fight Bad Laws: Broadswords Defend General Strategies: -Defender weapons are EXPENSIVE AS HELL. Even so, you'll want to get 4 Lohengrins and 1 Ragnarok while raising your Defenders. You should get Aura on all party members by Desert Peril. The best way to raise money is just to do missions; freeing Giza Plains then fighting to get it back gets you around 4000 gold each time. -Aura FTW: Aura is pretty broken in this game. Auto-Raise + Regen on yourself; no MP cost, and Lohengrin is buyable. This is pretty much a first-turn move every battle. -General strategy can be summed up as: Aura, advance, slash/stab/lunge, Aura again when killed. -No R-ability?!?: Don't use Last Berserk. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy not to equip an available ability, but when you're critical'd, you'll want to use Aura, despite the damage Berserk gives you. Trust me on this one. -Disarmed: The Ragnarok's ability Drop Weapon comes in handy when fighting guys with the Strikeback or Reflex R-abilities. In other cases you should just stick to hitting the enemies. Learn it on one or two guys, don't bother with it otherwise. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: I went with 3 on the left, 2 on the right, Aura first turn and charge. You should have Dash Boots on all your Defenders by now to help that awful 3 move. Then just beat the crap out of Famfrit; hit the Ahrimans only when Famfrit's not in range. Of course, Aura if they manage to kill one of you. -ANTILAWS: Using Drop Weapon on the sleeping enemies leads to some pretty LOL results. -EMERALD KEEP: You can kill Babus in 1 hit with your Estreledge unit; start him nearest to babus (upper-left corner). Pwned. -PALE COMPANY: Defenders can equip Robes, so equip them with as many Blaze Robes as you can find (I had 3). Assuming he kills none or 1 of your guys with his initial Firestorm, Aura and charge forward. Their second turn will be a big mess, but you should be fine; Aura should only activate for 1 or 2 characters. After that, I managed to kill Andra in 1 round. Go figure... -JAGD HUNT: Suprisingly, not tough. Have your Estreledge user kill off the Assassin first turn, everyone else should Aura. Your Estreledge user should continue killing off opponents; he'll be scoring 1 hit kills on the human opponents. Even if everything goes wrong (2 guys were blinded, the rockbeast used Resonate 3 TIMES), you'll still probably win, just because of Aura. That and the enemies can do nearly no damage to you if you have Weapon Def+. -THE BOUNTY: Alright, by this point you probably have 1 or 2 A-Abilities, and none of them are gonna pass Reflex or Strikeback. So what I did was buy 4 Striborgs, containing the Mow Down ability. Equip everyone except your Estreledge user with Striborgs, and kill everyone except the Fighter and the Sage. You'll have to Mow them Down to win the fight. -SCOURING TIME: Even without special laws, this one's easy. Its simply too tough for the enemies to kill Defenders with Aura. Have your Estreledger go right and pwn some enemies, starting with the paladin. One of your other Defenders should help him finish the enemies, while your two others take down the Templars. The Gunner does a pitiful 10 damage per hit, so don't even bother with him til the end. -THE BIG FIND: This time, equip one or two guys with Striborgs (unless you've actually mastered Mow Down, or have Tremor, use those instead), and kill all the enemies except the Strikeback Fighter. Use Aura first turn; it looks tempting to be able to kill one of those Thieves in one turn, but you may pay the price for that later, as I did my first try. After killing all enemies, Mow Down or Tremor the Fighter to death. -DESERT PATROL: I went on a Law binge here, banning Spears and Greatswords. Then I just met them head-on. As before, you'll need Mow Down or Tremor to beat one of the enemies. Not too tough with Greatswords banned, a bit tougher without it. -MATEUS: Ban poison but not fight. The vamps tend to block you off in the middle, so I sent two guys to the left, and the others to bust through the middle. Zombify is kinda trouble, as it prevents you from Aura-ing. They don't tend to use it too often though. Keep your Aura up, and this battle becomes as easy as any other. -TO AMBERVALE: I would actually forgo the use of Aura unless you have nothing else to do, because the Malboro spams Soundwave on anyone with Aura, dispelling it. Even without Aura you have the firepower to win this one easily. Final Battle Stats: Morry Lvl 26 ATK: 383 DEF: 370 POW: 251 RES: 266 SPD: 140 Equip: Estreledge, Diamond Helm, Mirror Mail, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Aura, Expert Guard, Weapon Def+ Cox (LOLOLOL his name is Cox say it out loud LOLOLOL) Lvl 26 ATK: 363 DEF: 384 POW: 223 RES: 266 SPD: 117 Equip: Arch Sword, Cross Helm, Mirror Mail, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Tremor, Drop Weapon, Aura, Expert Guard, Weapon Def+ Nansen Lvl 25 ATK: 351 DEF: 376 POW: 226 RES: 262 SPD: 116 Equip: Arch Sword, Cross Helm, Dragon Mail, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Tremor, Drop Weapon, Aura, Weapon Def+ Rober Lvl 26 ATK: 378 DEF: 383 POW: 222 RES: 255 SPD: 123 Equip: Arch Sword, Diamond Helm, Gold Armor, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Tremor, Aura, Expert Guard, Weapon Def+ Kilov Lvl 25 ATK: 383 DEF: 370 POW: 251 RES: 266 SPD: 140 Equip: El Cid Sword, Cross Helm, Gold Armor, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Tremor, Aura, Weapon Def+ FINAL BATTLE: go into battle with Berserk/Holy/Katana banned, de-equip any SaveTheQueen swords you may have on. -LLEDNAR: He goes down in 3 hits. Don't even bother Aura'ing unless you can't reach him. If you want you can equip Mistle Robes to protect yourself from his attacks, but really, it's not even necessary... -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Just like any other boss fight: Aura and attack Remedi. Easy... -LI-GRIM: She's much, much tougher. You gotta hope for Exodus or Ultima when she uses Descent; the only thing you can really do is Aura (and Expert Guard if you're already Aura'd and not in range helps a TON). I banned Lightning, so Mateus was stuck with the slightly weaker Breath of God and Spellbind. The first turn, two of my guys were fast enough to use Aura before she got Magi off, but she managed to miss the three without Aura and wound one of the others. From there I just charged forward and kept Aura up as best I could; the Mateus's targeting one of my Expert Guard'd guys helped a ton. I had to use a Totema once to cement the victory; it did around 100 dmg. This battle took me 3 tries; there's a lot of luck involved. ============================================================================== [5.15] GLADIATOR ============================================================================== ***Alternator has written the battle strategies, except the little note I put in at the end.*** Overview: One of the most powerful physical classes in the game in terms of sheer damage. They also have probably the best overall Bangaa stat growth (arguably Dragoon), and an Ultima move. However, their good moves require MP, which you'll be lacking in the early game. Regardless, high attack power should be able to carry you through the game. Difficulty: 3/10 Frustration: 4/10 Recommended Party: 4 Gladiators and a White Monk should do. Alternator used Two Gladiators, two Dragoons, and one White Monk, which seemed to work out fine for him. Recommended Map: Get two Materia Blades - Looking at Astroblue's Region Create FAQ, Sphrom should be in slot 14, the first two forests you get in 12 and 17, and the other two forests you get in 24 and 25. Advantages: Good moveset SCC-wise, Ultima Move, good overall stat growth Disadvantages: Lowish MP for Ultima, slow, NO range How to Level: Hit each other with Air Blades Differences: N/A Items to look for: Ogun Blade, Shadow Blade, Sun Blade, Flametongue, Air Blade, Icebrand - all Buyable Ayvuir Blue - Twin Swords mission reward (Hero Gaol) Ayvuir Red - Salika Keep mission reward (Hero Gaol) Materia Blade - Town-Town-Forest-Forest Treasure Hunt Pearl Blade - Type 6 Mission Reward Venus Blade (Doublehand) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Combat skill lvl 15 reward, Forest-Forest-Jagd-Jagd reward ****** Laws: Blades Techniques Bad Laws: none really General Strategies: -The elemental swords do a TON of damage early game. Use them to run over everything in your path. -Ayvuir Red and Blue are VERY powerful - blue especially, as its available pretty early. more to come? Battle Strategies by Alternator: -FAMFRIT: Got past Famfrit, so far my tactics have been simple: Rush if the enemy has counter or you need to move him to set up a shot, Fire Sword if you need pure damage, and Blitz if you have low accuracy for an attack. Even Famfrit's Breath of God couldn't drop a Gladiator (level 6/7 at the time) in one shot and they could axe down his allies quickly. I've kept on trampling enemies, most of the Energy Swords have been learned and I got a Materia Blade to slowly start teaching Ultima-don't have the MP to use it yet, of course, but better now than later to start learning. The Energy Swords are great with the low attack power of the Materia Blade, and still a good boost to firepower. Marche was level 3, and the Bangaa all level 9, after beating Hot Awakening. Nothing yet has been able to seriously threaten my team; they just roll over anything with massive damage. The two biggest weaknesses of a Gladiator SCC are clear now, though: Even attacks from the front have a 55% hit chance, and I have no ranged attacking ability. Healing has yet to be an issue, and status effects are only just beginning to show up as a problem. -PALE COMPANY: Level 10 as I trampled Addrammalech, a few guys reached level 11 during the fight. Marche went down in one shot, but only one Gladiator fell during the entire bout, while I dropped two of the dragons before taking out the big guy. Getting a bit harder with my low evasion and the rising enemy damage, but I don't have to power level yet. Lack of a range attack was really evident here-even though I banned Target Area to avoid dragon breath, I wasn't able to focus everything on just one guy. I suspect this is going to bite me in the *** soon, though I'm trying to avoid it. -SCOURING TIME: Flattened Scouring Time at level 13, moving on now. I'm gonna assume the rest of the challenge would play out similarly to a Mog Knight SCC - with one exception, no Mog Lance. Either way, Ultima Sword should be enough to own most bosses, including the final boss. ============================================================================== [5.16] WHITE MONK ============================================================================== ***Gangsta Jesus was the first to report finishing this SCC, though I wrote everything here. DDragoon and ecyc333 also contributed.*** Overview: The Monk SCC was one of, if not the easiest SCC in the original FFT, and not much has changed in the class's transition to the GBA. White Monk is also very easy. You get pretty much a dream ability set - healing, revive, range, Counter, Reflex, Esuna, and half decent speed to boot. The only drawback is you might get bored easily. Difficulty: 1/10 Frustration: 1/10 Recommended Party: Gangsta Jesus beat this SCC using only 4 white monks. LOL. 4 Dragoons and a White Monk looks good though. Recommended Map: You can get Death Claws (Mountain-Mountain-Marsh-Marsh) if you want, though it's only got 1 higher ATK than Kaiser Knuckles (which are buyable). Advantages: Revive, Chakra, good evade, Counter, High Speed (for Bangaas), decent weapons, long range capabilities, Reflex Disadvantages: Low HP, Low ATK growth for fighters, low total stat growth How to Level: Chakra Differences: Its easier to name the abilities they kept. Spin Fist (Whirlwind), Wave Fist (Air Render), Earth Slash (Earth Render), Chakra, Revive. Chakra was changed to recover status, but no MP. Lost Hamedo, HP-Restore, gained Reflex. This is, however, one of the more recognizable classes from FFT. Items to look for: Hard Knuckles, Kaiser Knuckles, Cat Claws, Rising Sun, Brigandine - all Buyable Cat Claws (Chakra) - Type 2 Mission Reward Death Claws - Type 7 Mission Reward, Mountain-Mountain- Marsh-Marsh Treasure Hunt Godhand (Far Fist) - Type 5 Mission Reward Survivor (Revive) - Type 3 Mission Reward Mirage Vest (Reflex) - Type 6 Mission Reward Tiger Fangs (Earth Render) - Collection Skill lvl 25 reward, Type 6 Mission Reward Gaia Gear - Type 3 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Techniques Bad Laws: Fight (sometimes) Target Area (sometimes) Healing (sometimes) Good Laws: Fight (sometimes) Color Magic Target Area (sometimes) General Strategies: -Counter pwns. Get Brigandines after you've finished buying your first weapons teach it to everyone. you'll often end up doing more damage than your enemy does - during their turn. -Use your healing well. Both Chakra and Revive are available very early. -Earth Render + Gaia Gears = Mass healing!!! Battle Strategies Hmm...level up to 5 or 6 or so by Desert Peril; you shouldn't have any trouble with anything...According to Gangsta Jesus, ecyc333 and DDragoon, this challenge is very, very, very easy. If you have any troubles, feel free to ask on the FFTA boards on GameFAQS, as specific strategies are not needed for this one. ============================================================================== [5.17] BISHOP ============================================================================== *from here to battle strategies were written by dablackbelt* Overview: Bishops are the only Bangaa class completely devoted to magic. Templar and White Monk both use a small amount of magic, but are both mainly physical jobs. A large group of people view Bishops as crappy characters, but when used right, they can wreak havoc on enemies. Difficulty: 5.5/10 Frustration: 7/10 Recommended Party: Fully grown Bishops are okay for the magic, but they'll be lacking physically. White Monks are relatively crappy with magic, but their Speed is godly. Personally, I prefer Templars for the balance of magical and physical stats. I went with 1 Bishop, 1 White Monk, and 3 Templars. Recommended Map: Get Nirvana Staff (Cave-Cave-Jagd-Jagd) Advantages: Break is instant death vs. most enemies, can Cure, Aero/Water have more vertical range than other basic spells Disadvantages: Incredibly sucky early game, poor buyable spell selection, Break isn't availiable til later, poor physical attack, DEF, horrible speed and HP, worst evade, low AoE range compared to other mages How to Level: Cura, Barrier, Dispel Differences: Eh...they share Break with Oracles, but Oracles lack damage dealing abilities, except for the inconsistent Life Drain. Oracles are also far more adept physically. Items to look for: Cure Staff, Bless Staff, Garnet Staff, Judge Staff - all buyable Nirvana Staff (Holy) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Cave-Cave-Jagd-Jagd Treasure Hunt Snake Staff (Break) - Type 4 Mission Reward Light Robe (Half MP) - Type 6 Mission Reward Black Robe (Return Magic) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Magic Skill lvl 15 Reward ****** Laws: Wind Holy Healing Target Area Bad Laws: Fight (sometimes) Status Petrify Prayer Good Laws: Fight (sometimes) Skills/Techs, if necessary General Strategies: -Keep in mind Aero and Water have less range than Black Magic. You have only 3 range, as opposed to the usual 4. -Remember that Aero and Water have higher vertical range than Black Magic. -Unlike every other element in the game, you cannot absorb Wind and Water. Also, there are no Staffs that enhance these elements. This puts you at an elemental disadvantage when compared to other SCCs. -Keeping the above in mind, make sure you never have a Bishop standing so that he'll be hit by Aero and Water. -Half MP is a lifesaver. Pnce you get your hands on a Light Robe, send that Bishop on a series of Dispatch missions, then hand the Light Robe on to the next guy. The same goes with all new abilities. -Don't bother rushing to master Water. It has no advantages over Aero. -If an enemy hits you with an AoE spell and you have Return Magic, all of your guys will return it, probably pwning them. Works well against Summoners. -For your White Monk started Bishops, staff whacks will often do more damage vs. magical enemies than Aero will. Keep that in mind while advancing. -Once you get Break, just petrify everything in sight FTW. This should be obvious. -In terms of dispatch missions, petrifying an enemy doesn't count as killing one. so for Dispatch: 7 enemies, you'd actually need to kill them instead of using break. -Around Jagd Hunt, hunt down a Snake Staff before moving on. It is very easy to completely miss the weapon. Battle Strategies: I luckily found a Mythril Staff while training my characters. Just FYI... -DESERT PERIL: Fairly difficult at low levels. I won with one guy left. Take care of the Flan first, then the Red Panthers, as they tend to bunch up. You'll have a couple turns before the Blue Panther comes with his huge damage; kill the antlion as well. Your tank-esque characters should be able to take a couple hits while the pure Bishops cast Aero. -FAMFRIT: This has to have been the lowest level I've attempted this at - 4,5 and 6. lol. Don't start all your guys on the left; go 3 and 2. Aero Famfrit, but this only does some 8 or 9 damage. I had Fight banned to null the Ahrimans. I did two combos, doing about 80 damage total, then whittled down Famfrits HP with Aeros. -ANTILAWS: This is the only SCC I've played where this is hard. Ezel tends to die; you're in big trouble if it's you versus all awake enemies. You'll want to be at least lvl 7 or so; or Aero won't do ****; not that it's good anyway. Hit the Defender first, then the Fighter should come into range. Hopefully they're put to sleep. These two do tons of damage, so kill them. The Dragoon, unfortunately, is immune to Wind. I took him out with a combo and 2 normal attacks. Ezel will help you out here. The rest of the battle isn't too hard; it's the beginning that's painful. -DIAMOND RAIN: Target the Bomb and Lamia first, as they're together. Try to avoid the Dragons first turn, they do a ****load. After that, Focus Fire on the each Dragon; you'll take a lot of damage but they'll go down. Luckily, the flan is a joke for Bishops. This is a good bit easier than Antilaws. -MAGIC WOOD: A tough battle. You'll probably be able to kill one or two of the thieves with Aero first turn, which helps a lot. Your next target should be the black mage. Physical attacks tend to do more damage to him than Aero does. Kill the summoner or other thief if he's in range next, Cura'ing if necessary. -PALE COMPANY: Goddammit Bishops suck. Gotta rely on Firestream missing your guys; hard considering Bishops incredibly crappy evade. I banned Fire, Ice, AND Lightning. I killed him with 4 combos, lol. I have no idea how you'd beat this without them, heh...Try to stay alive with Cura, you'll probably have to level til you can survive a Firestream. Banning Fight over Fire might also be a good idea. BTW, Mighty Guard isn't Dispellable, so if the Blue Dragon uses it on Andra that's huge trouble. -JAGD HUNT: Keep your guys healed; that's most important. 2nd is killing the Assassin. The Ninja could be huge trouble or just a nuisance; sometimes he goes in with two swords, spelling your doom, other times he just stays back and attacks with veils. Hope for the latter. I killed the Ninja last out of the humans actually; he chased after Marche with Veils. If you get rid of the very damaging units and keep your guys healed, this shouldn't be as bad as it is in other SCCs. I beat this at level 11-12. -SCOURING TIME: A very tough battle without Break, which I didn't have, even with Spears banned. It'll probably cost you at least one Bishop while killing the Paladin, as they have tons of HP relative to Aero damage. The Sage should be your next target, and next the Mog Knight. When the dust settled, it was my lone bishop versus a sage in Critical, a Gunner and Mog Knight at full health, and the two useless Templars. I killed the Sage with a staff thwack. If it gets down to something like this, send whoever's left down to the starting point, by the house. The house will shield you from the Gunners attacks, and it'll take quite a few turns for him to get into position, so you can have your MP restored and heal up. Once you get the Gunner into critical, he'll run away, so don't worry about him for a bit. The Mog Knight is very annoying, with his mog lance and the like. You should have a slight evade advantage vs. him (he'll always be attacking from the front, as he Mog Lances and retreats), so get him into critical too. The tough part is he Mog Aids. Eventually I chased down both the Gunner and Mog Knight, and pwned the Templars. Very long battle... You'll want to seriously start looking for a Snake Staff now, if you don't already have one. -MATEUS: The hard part of this battle is that Bishops, being sucky, do very crappy damage to Mateus, probably 10-20, maybe 25 if you're higher leveled. So it takes frickin' forever to kill her. Slap on some Thunder Robes so she doesn't use Thundaga; she tends to use Star Cross a lot. This is easily Cura'd though. It's probably a good idea to keep a guy out of Zombify range, so you're effectively invincible. Another long battle, but good for EXP. -SCOURING TIME: 5 Breaks, 5 kills. LOL. First time i've been so lucky at this SCC... You can get your Nirvana Staff now. -HIDDEN VEIN: You can get totally RAPED by AoE first turn; just reset if that happens. It's not cool to start the battle with 3 members Sleeping or Dead. After that, just go around petrifying everyone, saving the Blue Mage til last. Not too hard. Funny note: Bishops can't beat Missing Professor or whatever the hell that mission is in Tubola Cave. The Fairy blocks the direct path to the statues, and their stupid Jump levels won't let em go around. Stupid sucky bishops. -OVER THE HILL: You actually WANT Ritz to pwn you with Doublecast here, because that plays right into Return Magic's strengths. So Barrier up and advance, as bunched up as you can. You'll probably have to Cura up after the first turn, so do it, and hit her with some spells. You should win not too long after. Final Stats: Watoo Lvl 31 ATK: 334 DEF: 323 POW: 350 RES: 344 SPD: 145 Equip: Garnet Staff, Thief Hat, Mistle Robe, Ruby Earring, Dash Boots Abilities: All except Judge Istavan Lvl 32 ATK: 335 DEF: 324 POW: 362 RES: 359 SPD: 124 Equip: Garnet Staff, Thief Hat, Mistle Robe, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: All except Holy and Judge Devoe Lvl 28 ATK: 309 DEF: 289 POW: 324 RES: 316 SPD: 115 Equip: Garnet Staff, Headband, Mistle Robe, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: All except Judge Yuri Lvl 32 ATK: 332 DEF: 318 POW: 366 RES: 351 SPD: 126 Equip: Garnet Staff, Acadia Hat, Mistle Robe, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: All except Judge Deen Lvl 32 ATK: 341 DEF: 326 POW: 358 RES: 348 SPD: 136 Equip: Garnet Staff, Thief Hat, Mistle Robe, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: All except Judge Play time: 25 hr, 52 min Final Battle: -LLEDNAR: Equip Mistle Robes all around and ban Katanas and Skills. I Break'd the assassin, then nothing can really hurt you (you can easily Cura past the Gunner and Abyss). You'll have to beat Llednar to death, as your elemental magic is useless here. Try not to use combos or totema, as you'll need em later. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: I switched from Mistle robes to Blaze robes and White Robes here to protect against Firestream. Have whoever can go before remedi barrier up and go to the sides; Remedi will likely kill or wound Marche her first turn. After that, wail on her with Water or Aero. 2 Curas should heal you up to full health after remedi's attacks; if she can kill you in one hit you probably need to level a bit. Not too tough. -LI-GRIM: Switch to Thunder Robes to protect vs. Thundaga. That spell hurts a ton. A Mirror Mail for Marche is a good idea too. You can survive Magi, but not Descent. So hope for Magi, and Cura up immediately afterwards. You'll want to surround Li-grim and beat her with staves, even though Bishop is a Magical class, its better that Li-grim doesn't use descent. So close the distance between the two of you. Agh...I tried to beat this battle normally, but it's quite difficult. I ended up giving up after 5 tries, and after that unleashed massive combos and owned her. God bless the Mythril Staff :P I'd just recommend leveling up to 40 or so if you don't have Mythril Staves. dablackbelt used a different strategy, but it requires the clan wars: "Yay, I finished the Bishop SCC. Thanks to Dmg2: Bangaa. And in only 2 tries. The first time, I was really close to winning, Li-Grim had under 200 HP left, and she used Lawshift. The Mateuses went crazy with Spellbind, OHKOing my Bishops. I came back the 2nd time with an extra Dmg2: Bangaa card, and when Li-Grim was in the double digits, she used Lawshift, but luckily for me, I got to use the extra card before the Mateus's go. Luckily, she only used Descent once, and got Exodus. Half MP saved my ass that time. On to Summoner!" ============================================================================== [5.18] TEMPLAR ============================================================================== Overview: Templars have a very good skillset, along with balanced stat growth. You won't have much trouble finding the required items either, with most spears being buyable. Cheer and Haste should be the backbone of an attack; you'll be able to overwhelm your enemies, especially if you can get Bonecrusher to connect. Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 3/10 Recommended Party by Musourenka: My five Templar all have varying abilities, as I recruited two from White Monks (decent speed, but fall relatively quickly compared to my other units. Also have low MP), a Warrior (gobs of HP and high attack, but little MP) a Gladiator (decent MP, a good balance between Templar and Warrior recruits), and a Templar (Phenominal stats everyone except for average HP and horrid speed). As I'm going through the challenge, I'm trying to see how each of my characters fare. So far, I can't recommend any one type over another, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The only type I wouldn't recommend is Bishop (lots of MP, but poor physical stats; you're way better off choosing a pure Templar). Chronic PokeAbuser used a White Monk, a Dragoon, a Templar, a Defender, and a Warrior. Recommended Map: Get Beastspear (Plain-Plain-Desert-Desert) early, and Excalibur (Marsh-Marsh-Desert-Desert) a bit later. Advantages: Powerful weapons, good skillset, 2 panel spear range, enough MP to actually use their skills, can pwn mages Disadvantages: Slow as molasses, not as high attack power or tankish as the other Bangaa classes How to level: Cheer Differences: N/A Items to look for: Javelin, Apocalypse, Partisan, Ragnarok, Lohengrin - all Buyable Beastspear - Plain-Plain-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt, "Old Friends" Mission Excalibur - Mountain-Mountain-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt Carabini Mail (Bonecrusher) - Type 4 Mission Reward Trident (Weapon Atk+) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Combat Skill lvl 25 reward Save The Queen (Astra) - Type 5 Mission Reward Arch Sword (Soul Sphere) - Type 6 Mission Reward, Combat and Magic Level 10 reward Kain's Lance (Lifebreak) - Type 6 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Fight Spears Knightswords Techniques Bad Laws: Target Area (note that Spear attacks are NOT counted as Target Area) Haste General Strategies: -Haste and Cheer if you have nothing else to do -Bonecrusher skewer with a spear is pretty sweet -Cheer greatly raises attack -Rasp/SoulSphere on mages if you can't kill them in a hit works well Battle Strategies: *All except Emerald Keep by Chronic PokeAbuser* -MAGIC WOOD required a reset, average level was 7 -PALE COMPANY is tough if you're not prepared, average level was 10 -EMERALD KEEP: My Templar challenge hasn't been very difficult so far. My team is currently between levels 14 and 15, all armed with Dragon Whiskers (with the ArchSword being handed down the line for Soul Sphere). I just completed "Emerald Keep", which was surprisingly easy; Haste + Cheer = Babus dead in one hit. -THE BIG FIND: Pretty easy overall, one Templar was reduced into critical status. Spears work much better than Knightswords there, since you get to avoid nasty Bonecrusher and Strikeback counters. -DESERT PERIL: I'm convinced Desert Peril is one of the hardest missions in any SCC. There is such a variety of units, abusing laws and law cards becomes difficult. All of the enemies are pretty good at pounding you into submission. And your starting location leaves a lot to be desired. My Templars (avg level 16) needed 2 restarts to get through. I'm almost ready to take on Mateus. I've picked up two Kain's Lances and a Trident, so I'm busy learning Lifebreak (VERY nice, finally a way to take out Reflex enemies) and Weapon ATK+. The rest of the challenge should be easy. Not that it was terribly hard before. -MATEUS: Mateus gave up quite a fight. A Poison law card worked well (couldn't ban fight, as my units would suffer greatly, at least at first). Mateus used her Target All ability three times, and one of the Vampires used its Target All ability as well. I didn't even know Vampires had a Target All ability. Some sort of Dark attack, as the Vamps were healed by it. Note: (Its Shadow Flare, it hits if your level is 22 or 23, depending on the Vampire that uses it). Anyway, Haste, Cheer and Lifebreak were just too much for poor Mateus. The most difficult thing was to actually get close enough to her to attack. I do believe Haste, Cheer and Lifebreak are probably too much for any enemy in the game, but that remains to be proven. -FINAL BATTLE: Final levels looked something like: 25, 23, 23, 23, 22. Equipment never really changed throughout the game. Power Sashes, Dash Boots, Fortune Rings, and either a top-notch spear or knightsword. I ended the game wielding one Trident, two Kain's Lances and two Dragon Whiskers, though for most of the game I kept SavetheQueens and an Excalibur equipped on someone. Overall, every ability in the skillset saw some use except Astra. Never used that one. Soul Sphere was useful against mages and Damage > MP enemies. In the final analysis, Haste, Cheer and Lifebreak are all you truly need. Cheer saw more use than Haste. And Lifebreak was a godsend against Remedi and Li-Grim. Speaking of the final battles, Llednar and Remedi didn't really put up much of a fight. Li-Grim did much better, reducing me down to two units, one critical. But a critical unit just meant a better two-panel Lifebreak. Towards the end I even stopped manipulating the laws, as long as they weren't handcuffing my units. Pretty easy SCC all around. ============================================================================== [5.19] TIME MAGE ============================================================================== Overview: Very challenging. However, it's pretty fun seeing what strategies work against far more powerful opponents, and playing with the CT gauge. You'll find a lot of difficulty in facing a group of well balanced enemies, like Jagd Hunt or The Bounty. It certainly doesn't help that Stop and Demi aren't availiable til very late. Prepare to reset a lot. NOTE: I have yet to beat this one. Battle Queen Remedi and Li-Grim are almost impossible, seeing as your statuses don't work. Difficulty: 9/10 Frustration: 5/10 Recommended Party: Time mage's spells don't rely on magic power. Therefore, you'll want high attack power over magic power. Moogle ATK > Nu Mou ATK. So go with at least 3 units that start with relatively high attack power. i went with montblanc, 2 thieves, a juggler, and a black mage. Alternatively, you COULD get a Mog Knight, but their low MP may prove to be a bigger problem than they're worth. In retrospect, Jugglers and Gadgeteers would have been a better choice; the speed bonus wasn't really worth it. Jugglers have serious MP problems, but are much faster than Gadgeteers. I think Montblanc, 2 Jugglers and 2 Gadgeteers would have made a better party than mine. Recommended Map: Doesn't matter Advantages: Quicken chains can get you anywhere you need to go, Stop is amazing, slow will help a lot early game, Last Quicken is a sweet R-ability, since most melee units will land you in critical in one hit, Reflect slaughters mages. Disadvantages: Awful attack power, poor HP, good spells (Stop, Demi) aren't available til late game, **** evade. How to Level: Quicken chains, Haste until then; this is one SCC where you'll really need to level. Differences: No Meteor!?!?!? Whaaaaa??? No don't act or don't move either??? AND no Teleport??? This challenge just got much harder. Items to look for: Firewheel Rod, Terre Rod, Thunder Rod, Sleet Rod, Force Rod - all Buyable Chill Rod (Stop) - Type 6 Mission Reward Thor Rod (Quicken) - Type 5 Mission Reward Stardust Rod (Demi) - Type 7 Mission Reward Lordly Robe (Last Quicken) - Type 7 Mission Reward ****** Laws Forbidden: Fight Time Magic Ganging Up (some fights) Status Bad Laws Forbidden: Haste Stop Target Area Copycat general strategies: slow is your friend. Slow everything in sight if you can. in the beginning, haste is waaay too costly to be used regularly - time it like quicken. quarter is kinda crappy, i mainly just used it on flans. the strategies for most boss fights include getting a lucky Slow in. -Thor Rod is available right after Scouring Time, Chill Rod right after Mateus. -Avoid: Flans. Time consuming. Physical units are your bane; they should be law disabled if possible. -The Ban Haste/Stop/Holy combo - it takes out so many of your weapons. -you want to keep your party level LOW. random battles are uh, really hard with same level enemies -jagds are your worst enemy here. -quicken chains are amazing for battles in which you need to destroy switches. -You NEED Mithril rod. Takes a long time, but this challenge is impossible without it. -You can Quicken yourself if you have Reflect on. Useless usually, but it gives you unlimited move, kinda. -FAMFRIT: damn, he's hard. took me 4 resets, and that was lucky. basically, you need to hit him with slow. that's the bottom line. too bad it has a ****ing 20% hit rate; you'll have to get very lucky. after that, it comes down to beating him to death. ignore the ahrimans. force rods should be used due to their leet attack power. i was level 10 after the battle, so that gives you some idea of where you should be. a VERY good strategy in the Famfrit battle is the patented "Rafa battle naked strategy"; in otherwards, unequip marche, and let him take a few hits. he should be able to take 3-4, depending on your luck. this helps a lot. -ADRAMALECH: he's 3x as hard as famfrit. go into battle with two of three elementals banned, and as many robes as you have of the third. you need to get a lucky slow in - the problem is, him and the dragons will form a cross formation often, which makes it very hard to hit him, and the judge doesn't help matters. if the dragons cast mighty guard, reset. alright, i'll be honest: I really, really, really, don't think this battle is possible with current levels (13-14) without Heavy abuse of Time Combo. I'll admit, i had to use it to win ;_; The first TC did around 70, and the second did almost 100. Both combos had two members involved in it. -JAGD HUNT: I had to "cheat" :( this is my least favorite SCC mission in the whole game, so after several resets, i got pissed and unleashed two famfrits on everyone. -THE BOUNTY: need to fight them with something recommended that you can use; silence was the only one i found. time combo is a necessity here. you'll need everyone to master reflect, and NO EQUIPPING THUNDER RODS. the enemies have protection vs lightning. fight them at roda volcano; and have the mages toward you, and the fighter/paladin to the back or sides. this alone takes a few resets. on your first turn, have everyone cast reflect on themselves. the black, red, and time mage will hurt themselves this way. silence the sage. now, you have to worry about the paladin and the fighter. slow them both. get the paladin down to around 80 hp, then combo him with at least 3 members in range; one with the mithril rod. this should hopefully kill him. then, quarter the slowed fighter down til around 50 hp, combo him too. the rest of the fight is mop up work, though you'll have to combo the sage too. this is by far the hardest fight so far (besides jagd hunt), took me tons of resets. RANK 5 MISSIONS NOW AVAILIABLE!!! YES!!! go get yourself a thor rod if you can. -SCOURING TIME: you better have the right laws, or this will be very, very hard. I banned spears with a card, antilaw'd some current laws, and then passed the forbidden: blades law. this frees up rods, so you can do combos much easier. send two units to kill the paladin, and two to kill the gunner. the rest is easy. -DESERT PATROL: This is the Time Mage's worst enemy - lots of physical enemies. I leveled up to 22-23 just to beat this one. This was my setup Laws: TargetAll Spears Petrify I nulled petrify and put in greatswords and techniques. this nullifies three enemies. Also, Fight + Techniques screws over the enemies, but you'll need the Target All cards there to get JP for combos. I used a quicken chain to quickly kill the bishop - you need to kill him first; he heals. Silence is probably necessary. Then I killed the white monk. You'll definitely need combos to kill the defender and gladiator, the latter in particular does tons of damage. This is one of the battles i needed to level up for; its one of the hardest. Good luck; this battle is really all about the right law setup. -MATEUS: you need to not be level 22. Here's the plan. Set up your units in a cross formation. Give them all mistle robes. Cast reflect first turn. Your opportunity to damage mateus comes when she uses thundaga. you can quicken her to speed the process. There's a lot of luck involved. Took me around 5 tries, but I didn't have anything to nullify the zombies, except Fight was forbidden. you can now get a chill rod. DO IT. -PRESENT DAY: My levels were around 26, with a level 24 and 22. All TM spells except Demi were available to me. Playtime: 32 hr, 33 min As for the Battle itself, Forbidden: Blades + Techniques = GGNORE. FINAL BATTLE: Llednar: Gotta combo. Took me two of them; there's no other choice. -Haven't beaten last two fights ============================================================================== [5.20] ALCHEMIST ============================================================================== Overview: The only SCC that gets to use Items. Yay. This provides for pretty much unlimited healing. They're rather weak physically though, that is until they get flare. Frog will help out against normal enemies, and Poison + sit there and heal works until you get there. ***Almost everything in this section was written by MarioGolfMaster*** Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 5/10 Recommended Party by DDragoon: My strong recommendation is to start one of your units as a Beastmaster for some physical tanking ability, or a Morpher for some slightly better starting Speed, MP and MPow at a cost of a small amount of Wattack and WDef. Recommended Party by MarioGolfMaster: I decided to recruit as Alchemists because I didn't want to bother doing all the White/Black Mage leveling, but for my 5th Alchemist, I couldn't because I have too many clanners for Race:Wanteds. Instead, I recruited a White Mage and will just make him an Alchemist the legitamate way. Recommended Map: Forest-Forest-Plain-Plain nets you a very high WATK Cactus Stick, doesn't really matter though Advantages: Item, multi-range Poison, MPow+, good attack power spells Disadvantages: Slow, weak early, high MP costs How to Level: Potions/other healing items Differences: (Compared to Chemist) They get access to the whole item set in the beginning, get attack magic, can't use guns Items to look for: Energy Mace, Druid Mace, Adamant Vest - all Buyable Life Crosier (Death) - Type 5 Mission Reward Scorpion Tail (Meteor) - Type 7 Mission Reward Vesper - "Staring Eyes" Mission Reward Morning Star (Magic Pow+) - Type 3 Mission Reward Mandragora - Type 4 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Status Skill Bad Laws: Frog Target Area Fight (in the beginning) Poison (in the beginning) Healing Holy Items Maces General Strategies: -Items: This is the only SCC where you can use items. It'll be pretty tough for most enemies to kill your entire party in a turn, so this means you'll near invincible if you stay with in a move range of each other. -Poison and Survive: Alchemists have very high survivability with their item command, but lack anything really offensive early game. The solution is to poison every enemy before doing some serious attacking. You'll win eventually, it'll just be slow. -The Fun Starts: This challenge has a steep curve- it starts out difficult but gets easier eventually. The shop stacks Battle Maces, Druid Maces, Energy Maces, and Sage Crosiers. Of these, the Druid Mace is the most important. You'll want one early on (but maybe just one, money is a factor). Get the other maces too for other units. Astra really isn't ever useful in my experience. Rasp is nice sometimes for a magic user who is really killing you, but I barely used either one. I didn;t even bother teaching Rasp and Astra to 3 of my Alchs because it would be time consuming. Anyway, you'll want Poison and the Fight command, they are your biggest allies. Poison does about 1/4 of a unit's HP under perfect conditions. Sometimes it does quite a bit less than that. It seems to be more consistent at higher levels- it would sometimes only do 1 at lower levels. -Getting Lotus Mace (By DDragoon): Since your Marche can be anything in your Alchemists, I recommend making him a thief and "accidentely finding" Babus' "dropped" Lotus Mace if you can manage it. -Random Frog Note: Casting Frog on a Frogged unit will turn that unit back to normal. Pretty useless, but eh...maybe you'll fight a Lamia with Poison Frog or something. -Hero Gaol Staves the day: You can get Mandragora (and other type 4's) from some of the Hero Gaol missions. Takes awhile, but worth it. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: Beat Desert Peril. I finally have 5 Alchemists with Poison and decent weapons (Lotus Mace's and 1 Vesper) so hpefully things should speed up soon. I'm 9.5 hours in, BTW. Assuming the strategies used were poison and potions. -FAMFRIT: Beaten at levels 10-12, a bit high...Famfrit is immune to poison, and those ahrimans are resistant to statuses. Try to poison anyway, beat famfrit to death while healing with potions/hi-potions. -ADRAMALECH: if you have Frog, you should win. Frog the minions, attack Addy with Fight. Heal when necessary. -JAGD HUNT: Jagd Hunt is fun with Toad and Item. I beat it with ease. <3 Toad The no-revive problem that plagues most SCCs is non-existant here... -MATEUS: A tougher battle. Try to get Flare for this one. I had Flare and MPow+ on one unit, and this was a tight battle. It took about 6 flares to kill Mateus. Luckily, I had great sucess frogging the Vamps (hit some low percentage Frog attacks, they have good Status evade) and then, my Flare unit survived long enough to win me the battle. Final Stats: Level 26- Ford, Matias Level 28- Soala, Watoo Level 29- Gerome It could be said that Gerome was my uber. He was recruited as a White Mage and had the highest speed by far. I gave him my Angel Ring. However, Watoo got the Acacia Hat (+1 move, notably) so Gerome didn't have it all. -LI-GRIM: Law Stack. You should have 2 Status law cards, 2 Target Area cards, and 2 Target All cards. If you null the current laws (unless one of them helps you, leave that, then) put in 1 of each of each Status and Target card. Use Fight also if you want, it isn't cruical, though. This basically nerfs the Mateuses. If Grim Lawshifts, use the back-up cards. Hope for Lawshift and Amber Gleam. Get enough HP to survive Magi (my levels worked well enough for that). Flare her to death. Good luck. :) Summary- Use Fight and Poison to start. Transition to Death, Toad, Flare, and maybe Meteor (it's okay. Does less damage than Flare usually, though. Use it to hit multiple enemies). I didn't master all Alch abilities- Flare was the only one I needed for the final battle, the others I just mastered as needed (everyone had Death and only 1 was missing Toad, IIRC). If you need more info, ask! ============================================================================== [5.21] BEASTMASTER ============================================================================== Overview: Boy, you're in for a challenge if you pick this SCC. Beastmasters completely pwn monsters - but they get owned by Human units and bosses. They have crappy weaponry to choose from, but they do get exceptionally good physical stats for Nu Mous - ATK, HP, and DEF growth are all in the top 10. Even so, without good abilities or weaponry, much of this challenge will rely on luck. Difficulty: 9/10 Frustration: 7/10 Recommended Party: 5 Beastmasters - you'll need all the physical stats you can get Recommended Map: Doesn't Matter Advantages: Decent stats, pwn monsters, good evade, gets Immunity Disadvantages: NO good abilities vs. Humans, NO range, weak weapons How to level: Give everyone an Earth Bell and whack each other Differences: They're a bit similar to Mediators I guess, but Mediators get lots of range, and aren't powerless against Humans. Then again, Mediators get owned at close range, where Beastmasters can hold up for a while. Items to go for: Glass Bell, Earth Bell, Satyr Flute, Survival Vest - all buyable Heal Chime - Type 6 Mission Reward, Craft Skill Level 15 reward Ninja Gear (Last Haste) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Track Skill lvl 20 reward Mythril Bell - random clan encounter ****** Laws: Instruments Fight Copycat Bad Laws: Control General Strategies: -You'll be needing at least one Mythril Bell to get you past enemies with Reflex and Strikeback. Beast Combo makes things a lot easier actually; if you want to keep the challenge purer, I'd suggest not using it unless you really have to. -Earth Bells on everyone is a decent healing alternative. -more to come Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: Banning Lightning, controlling the flan, and making it hurt its allies and getting sent to jail is pretty funny. -more to come ============================================================================== [5.22] MORPHER ============================================================================== *Chronic PokeAbuser has finished the Morpher SCC! The Battle Strategies were written by him. Muchos gracias.* Overview: The Calculator SCC of FFTA, the Morpher is extraordinarily powerful in a normal game, but ridiculously weak in an SCC. You don't get any Hunters or Souls (except possibly Mythril Souls), so you'll either rely on your bare fists or spend lots of time farming random battles for Mythril Souls. Ugh. At least they have Damage > MP to let them live a bit longer. Difficulty: 10/10 Frustration: 10/10 Recommended Party: I'd go with 5 Beastmasters here. You'll need the physical toughness, and its not like you're gonna use MP for anything (except Damage > MP, but HP is better for R-abilities) Recommended Map: Doesn't matter Advantages: Damage > MP Disadvantages: No weapons -.-, have to farm Mythril Souls, very crappy How to Level: Geez, they don't even get this. Probably find a battle, ban everything the enemy has, and hit each other for a while - DMG > MP will soak up the hits. Differences: It's comparable to a calculator SCC. However, Morphers are FAR faster than Calculators, and they get Damage > MP, which is a lot more useful than Damage Split. Calculators get sticks though, which do more damage than fists. Overall, the calculator SCC is much, much, much harder than this is. Items to go for: Mythril Soul - random clan battle Dread Soul - "Last Stand" Mission ****** Laws: Ganging Up Fight Copycat Bad Laws: none Good Laws: Knuckles General Strategies: -Be really lucky. -If you can't find all those Mythril Souls, I think people would be willing to look the other way if you GS'ed a couple in... -Doing the Redwings sidequest to get a Dread Soul is time consuming, but it makes the rest of the challenge MUCH easier. -Be ready to level up way more than you would in any other SCC. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: "The fight wasn't too hard. Ban Confuse, obviously. I went ahead and took out the Floateyes, to keep my MP healthy. Famfrit's direct damage wasn't an issue, but the damage from Counter hurt BAD. The only problem with taking out the Floateyes were the bodies littered around, it became difficult getting my units into position. Everyone survived, Famfrit only has 180 HP, so it took 10 successful attacks to take him down." -HOT AWAKENING: "With the Charm law just waiting to be put into play, is there an easier mission than Hot Awakening. Not for any Damage > MP units. The Morpher that fell behind in Diamond Rain got a chance to catch up, level wise. Ending levels: 8, 8, 8, 8, 7." -MAGIC WOOD: "I went in with a Missile law, nerfing the Sniper and Archer. Concentrate on the Thieves first, then take out the Summoner and Black Mage. The Time Mage is an annoyance at best." -JAGD HUNT: "I put Item on one Morpher, and bought a single Phoenix Down for Marche. It was just easier than the alternative of levelling him up for pointless hours till he could withstand more than one hit. ANyway, that slight infraction aside, the Morphers have roared on past Jagd Hunt and Golden Clock. Jagd Hunt is easily the hardest mission thusfar. The Assasin goes down pretty quick, and the Ninja doesn't have great defense, either. The problem is the monsters. The Antlion likes to blind units, and Matra Magic is a killer on a Damage > MP unit that has no MP. That, and the Rockbeast's defense makes melee attacks relatively ineffective. It took somewhere around 8-10 resets to get Jagd Hunt right. Just a difficult mission all around. -SCOURING TIME: That Was ****ing Brutal I'm referring to Scouring Time. I went in with my ever-increasingly underleveled Morphers and a poor choice for laws. I have to remember to manipulate the laws in this SCC. Others have spoiled me. Speaking of laws, I highly, HIGHLY recommend banning Techniques, Spears and Blades for this fight. It will keep the Templars and Mog Knights out of harms way, for the most part. There are a few reasons this fight sucks, and most of this is well known, but I'll restate it anyway. Both Marche and Montblanc are forced into your party. There's two wasted slots right there. But to add nsult to injury, only five units are allowed. Which now makes the fight seven on three. With the three laws mentioned, four of the seven are almost completely neutralized. Of the other three, two can cause major problems. The Alchemist is flat out dangerous. He likes to Poison your units. With no means to heal, this usually means a reset. Take out the Alchemist ASAP. The Gunner's Fight and Elemental Shots aren't anything to worry about. But Blindshot is almost certainly a killer. He's not a priority, but I wouldn't leave him alone too long. The Paladin has a strong attack, but no nasty status effects. Leave him for last. Among the two Mog Knights and two Templars lie a hidden problem: one of the Templars has Bonecrusher. Seeing how my Morphers rely completely on melee attacks, this is just plain unfair. Combos can get around the problem, but I am loathe to use Combos, so I went toe to toe with him. Bad mistake, many, MANY resets. If you want to avoid Combos, make certain that the three Morphers you use have at least 140 HP. This will allow them to take one Bonecrusher and survive. My general strategy during my winning run. Send all three Morphers straight for the Alchemist in the back. If I couldn't reach the Alchemist, I started to work on the Paladin. The Gunner kept himself busy attacking Marche and Montblanc. Once the Alchemist is gone, mop up the Paladin and Mog Knights. The Mog Knights liked to use their bodies protecting the spellcasters flanks. So much for the AI being really stupid. After ridding myself of the fodder, I swarmed the Gunner. Again, Blindshot almost gaurantees a Reset, so hope the RNG is nice to you. Take out the Bonecrusher Templar last. Since my Morphers were underleveled, I had to hope BC missed, and I still needed a Crit hit in there to win. I lost two of my three Morphers to BC counters. The second half was almost too easy. Marche as a Soldier with the Mirror Mail and a Flame Shield. Took a while, though, since he was way underleveled. Those fruits have decent WDef. *EDITOR'S NOTE*: Montblanc *can* actually be removed from the party during Scouring Time and Present Day. You just have to go to his position in your starting characters and press B a bunch of times. -DESERT PATROL: "Two Morphers were killed, but otherwise the mission is very possible, even at an average level of 16." *sidequest time* -KRAKEN: "Basic strategy: kill all other units, then start taking out the Flan. Kraken didn't start healing itself until it reached 20 HP, or about 1/3 of it's total. I kept three Morphers bunched together to keep him occupied, and to waste his MP. The other two went to work stripping his HP, one at a time. When he got to around 20 HP, I had to rely on a bit of luck. He tried healing himself, so I had to hope he missed. By keeping his MP low, he only could cast Blizzard, but that was almost enough to heal him completely :( Aside from hoping his Blizzard missed himself, I also needed luck to finish him off. I had backed him up to the edge of a cliff. I needed to wait until the Flan was below 20 HP, and then hit him with a Crit hit to finish off the remainder of his HP. It was faster than hoping all his Blizzard healings missed, but it still took an inordinate amount of time." *end sidequest* -MATEUS: "Law - Any except Fight and Soul When excepting the job at the pub, I assigned the Tonberry Lamp and Old Statue as Mission Items. I gave preference to the WAtk stat. Four of my five Morphers were level 35, the other was level 34. First chance I got, I threw up a Poison law card. At level 35, the Morphers got their turns before any of the enemy units. I moved everyone up to get ready for my second turn. Mateus went next and unleashed a Lightning attack. Decent damage to two Morpher's (and Marche's) MP. The Vampires all choose relatively weak melee attacks. Then I received the shock of the fight. The Morpher carrying the Dread Soul took his turn, and walloped Mateus for 170 points of damage. Woohoo!, a Morpher CAN be an physical offensive powerhouse. The other Morphers were averaging around 80 points with the Mythril Souls. Mateus went down very surprisingly before her second turn." -FINAL BATTLE: "Llednar was more difficult than Remedi or Li-Grim. And that's only because it took longer to get to him. Mythril Soul Morphers averaged 50 points against Remedi and Li-Grim, and the Dread Soul unit averaged 110. She never had a chance. I suppose I should throw some strategy out there. Color Magic law for Materite Now!, Present Day had a Haste Law and Combos for those annoying Strikeback enemies, for Hidden Vein I made sure Status was banned, then threw out a Blades law card. I rushed the Blue Mage first and saved the Reflex Nu Mou (I can never remember if he's a Sage or an Alchemist. One of those, at least) for last. No special laws for To Ambervale, a Missile Law for Over the Hill, and nothing special for Royal Valley. Aside from the Borzoi/Redwings sidequest, the SCC was actually fairly easy. Damage > MP goes really, REALLY far in this game. Final levels: 36, 36, 35, 35, 35 (<==Dread Soul Morpher) ============================================================================== [5.23] SAGE ============================================================================== Overview: A fun SCC. Sages are the cream of the crop in combining both magical and physical talent. They get everything an SCC skillset would ever want - Revival, Blind, and damage. You'll have no problems defeating pretty much anything, especially after you get Raise. Difficulty: 1.5/10 Frustration: 1/10 Recommended Party: 3 Sages, 2 White Mages. Recommended Map: Get either the Zeus Mace or the Cactus Stick. In reality, neither one actually helps much, but eh...you take what you can get :P Advantages: Can Revive and Heal, Physical Attacks aren't too bad, high HP for Nu Mou, Giga Flare does pwnzor damage, Blind, Water/Aero aren't shabby, Reflex Disadvantages: A bit slow, stuff is kinda expensive early, good moves require hard to find items How to Level: Raise, though trading Drains works as well Differences: N/A Items to look for: Energy Mace, Druid Mace, Battle Mace - all Buyable Life Crosier (Raise) - Type 5 Mission Reward Lotus Mace (Giga Flare) - Babus, Type 6 mission reward Mandragora (Bio) - Type 4 Mission Reward Mirage Vest (Reflex) - Type 6 Mission Reward Zeus Mace (Ultima Blow) - Plain-Plain-Mountain-Mountain Treasure Hunt Vesper - "Staring Eyes" mission reward ****** Laws: Skill Target Area Bad Laws: Maces Wind Status, sometimes General Strategies: -Well...basically just kill the enemies with Aero/Water early. Drain isn't too useful, unless you really need the health. -When you get Raise, Raise whoever dies ASAP. Duh. -Blind bosses, tough enemies. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: Easy. Go after Famfrit, the Floateyes will get in your AoE line of fire, and die in their own time. I was level 6-7, everyone attacked with Water. -ULTIMA CRYSTALS: Beat up up with maces and drain to heal when you need it. It's more leveling that way...or if you want to beat the battle fast just Water them to death. -MAGIC WOOD: Blind both mages (the real ones, not the time mage), ban Missile. -ANDRAMALECH: A tough battle, by far the hardest so far. Blind all the dragons and andra, and target whatever with Water/Aero. Blind is your first priority though. You'll likely take some casualties while trying to blind... I finished the battle with 1 sage killing 3 of the dragons - if you go into the upper right corner, you'll find that only one enemy can hit you at a time, and if that enemy is blinded, you can pretty much pick them off. -JAGD HUNT: A toughie, as always. What I did was survive the first turn, then kill the Assassin. The characters who didn't act Blinded the Ninja and the Hunter, which required some luck. Then I proceded to kill the blue mage. By then I was getting low on HP, so I used Drain to kill everyone else. Drain usage is key in this battle. I was level 10-13. -SCOURING TIME: Ban Spears + Tech. Killing the Paladin and Mog Knight should be your first priority, they set themselves up nicely for AoE spells. Once that's done with, even though you'll probably lose a member, the rest is really easy. 2ND PART: If you want, you can turn Marche into a Thief and take Babus's Lotus Mace and Robe. This makes the rest of the challenge considerably easier, however it makes the battle considerably tougher to win. I don't really like leveling Marche in non-human SCCs, so I didn't steal the mace. -THE BIG FIND: Owned with a combination of Bio, Water/Aero, and my "The Wanderer" acquired Giga Flare. -DESERT PATROL: Banning Fight + Tech pretty much F's all the enemies. And they set themselves up so nicely for AoE...how kind :P -MATEUS: Blind her. Use whatever is at your disposal to kill her, of course disabling the Vamps with laws. I used Drain because Target Area was banned; I had to break the law a couple of times to use Raise. A long battle, perhaps, but not a difficult one. -HIDDEN VEIN: Go with the Instruments/Tech/Target All set of laws, I banned Call as well. Not too tough a battle, assuming you have raise. Blind isn't bad either, but not really necessary. Got my hands on 2 Mirage Vests and a Zeus Mace. Everyone has access to Giga Flare now. -OVER THE HILL: Just charge up the hill. 3-4 Giga Flares takes care of Ritz. Got yet another Mirage Vest. My lucky day SCC-wise lol. Fought Random battles til everyone had Reflex, it makes Remedi much easier. Final Battle Stats: Rockwell Lvl 22 ATK: 269 DEF: 262 POW: 278 RES: 295 SPD: 127 Equip: Scorpion Tail, Ice Shield, Headband, Mistle Robe, Dash Boots Staring Lvl 19 ATK: 277 DEF: 257 POW: 261 RES: 231 SPD: 102 Equip: Mandragora, Choco Shield, Headband, Mirage Vest, Dash Boots Zwingley Lvl 21 ATK: 279 DEF: 276 POW: 282 RES: 262 SPD: 107 Equip: Scorpion Tail, Flame Shield, Headband, Mirage Vest, Dash Boots Clay Lvl 21 ATK: 297 DEF: 256 POW: 284 RES: 267 SPD: 106 Equip: Lotus Mace, Ice Shield, Headband, Blaze Robe, Dash Boots Gotwald Lvl 22 ATK: 266 DEF: 273 POW: 292 RES: 284 SPD: 136 Equip: Scorpion Tail, Flame Shield, Headband, Mirage Vest, Dash Boots Everyone had: Drain, Blind, Water, Aero, Giga Flare, Reflex Rockwell, Clay, Gotwald and Staring had Raise and Bio as well Zwingley had Ultima Blow Battle preparations: Ban Katanss, but not Skill. -LLEDNAR: Giga Flare pwns him. It took me 3 of them; Raise if you need to. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: You can majorly level up here; blind at least one of the Totemas, then proceed to kill them, the slower the better ;P tons of EXP this way; Remedi can't hurt you if you have Reflex. -LI-GRIM: If anyone's faster than her, and someone should, go up and Blind Remedi. If no one is or you miss and survive the first turn, keep trying to blind her. I blinded the Mateuses as well, and several Giga Flares later, I won. You always have Raise at your disposal if necessary. Shouldn't be too tough. ============================================================================== [5.24] FENCER ============================================================================== Overview: The only Viera SCC with a higher degree of difficulty; Fencers get a skillset that's very nicely suited to them. They're quite fragile early on, but once you get Nighthawk for some range, and Reflex for defensive purposes, the SCC becomes a good bit easier. Shadowstick works pretty nicely for slowing down bosses too. You won't have TOO much trouble against any individual clan, though the fights are a good bit tougher than in other SCCs. A fun one, nevertheless. Difficulty: 6/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: I used 4 Fencers and a Sniper, things are easier that way. Recommended Map: Get as many Ribbons, Rubber Suits as you can, as well as an Epeeprism. Madu isn't necessary though. Viera homeland works, but you should edit it to get an Epeprism as early as possible. Advantages: High Evade, decent HP, good skillset, get Shields, Reflex, all good skills available early Disadvantages: Meh ATK, DEF for fighters, die easily, Reflex not available til late, Weapons don't get high attack, no armor or robes How to level: The best way is probably to get a Flame Shield and a Scarlette on two different characters you want to level, then have the Scarlette user (the one who's leveling) keep attacking the Flame Shielder. Its kinda hard to get the enemy to stay put; its best to do so with a law that bans their weapon. Items to go for: Stinger, Estoc, Mage Masher, Flamberge - all Buyable Djinn Flyssa (Swallowtail) - Type 2 Mission Reward Aerial Hole - One More Time mission reward Epeeprism - Marsh-Marsh-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt, Type 7 Mission Reward Gupti Aga (Checkmate) - Type 6 Mission Reward Silver Rapier (Shadowstick) - Type 1 Mission Reward Joyeuse (Nighthawk) - Type 3 Mission Reward Flame Shield: Type 3 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Rapiers Techniques Bad Laws: Fight Copycat General Strategies: -It's Raining Nighthawks: After you get the Joyeux, which should be relatively early, this move is fit to be spammed. You should be able to kill an enemy on the first turn pretty much every battle. Also used to evade counters. -Piercethrough!: It's a Godsend early game. Use it to get around those nasty counters, and to give yourself an extra range of attack. You'll also learn to attack with it first if your other character is going next, so you'll have two characters attacking from behind. -Elemental Shields: Hard as they are to get, these are great to boost your evade. Accumulate as many as possible. -Hawk'n'run: For fights against tough melee fighters, its better to use your superior movement to wear them down. Nighthawk-move, rather than the other way around. -Djinn Flyssas rule. Accumulate at the start of the game. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: You should level up to around 5 or 6, and purchased Estocs or Flamberges for everyone. Use Piercethrough to avoid counters. Swarmstrike the Flan and wait it out. -FAMFRIT: Not too hard. Shadowstick him once so that he loses one turn. I was level 6-7; you should have Flamberges or Mage Mashers equipped for more damage. Piercethrough should allow you to hit first turn. The Floateyes will die in two hits, so kill them if they get in your way. I had no armor for this fight, so I took a lot of damage, but luckily Famfrit stuck to crappy moves like Demi. -HOT AWAKENING: Piercethrough! -JAGD HUNT: Need luck here to survive the first turn. You should have a Ribbon and Barette now; equip them. The Bladebeast will use Resonate, which buys you time to kill the Hunter. This is plenty to turn the tides of battle. When mopping up, poison the Bladebiter and then run away. You won't do crap damage, and Matra Magic is really painful. -PALE COMPANY: He does a ****load of damage on the first turn if you don't dodge it. You should be able to Piercethrough or possibly Nighthawk him though. I was level 11-12 here, your HP should be high enough to survive a Dragon attack; Andra goes down in 3 turns at most so you should be able to survive til then. -SCOURING TIME: Kinda hard. Gotta ban spears for sure. If you have rubber suits, that helps too. Send one Fencer to fight the gunner and draw attention from the Sage, while the other 3 kill the Paladin and Mog Knight. Chances are you'll still have the Sage, other Mog Knight and Gunner to fight after the first few rounds. After this, there's no real strategy, just try to pwn the enemies. NOTE: If you Piercethrough like this: FET where, F is fencer, E is enemy, and T is templar, the templar will Bonecrush you - and his ally. It's pretty funny to get the Gunner killed this way, though its risky. Took me 4 tries to win this battle. -DESERT PATROL: You'll want to level up to at least 15-16, if you're not there already. Frankly, these units are much better at fighting than you are. You want to kill the White Monk first turn, hes a major pain. He's got high evade though, if you can't kill him or he doesn't run away i'd just reset the battle. Stay in your starting corner and Nighthawk til they come to you. Then move left, Nighthawking as you go. Keep using hit and run tactics, hopefully you'll only be fighting one enemy at a time. -MATEUS: As you figured, ban poison/Target Area and Fight. I was between 18-20 in levels. You should be doing 30-40 damage a hit, with most members doing around 35. If you keep always facing her, her hit% will be around 25 if you have elemental shields, which is very low. She shouldn't get a hit in besides Star Cross. Should only take you 3-4 rounds, 5 at max if she kills some of your Fencers. Oh, and if I didn't say it before - always use Nighthawk as your attack. -HIDDEN VEIN: This one's tough. Get Skills banned. Kill the white monk by the second turn, as he's annoying with his healing. After that, the Juggler, BM, Animist, and Mog Knight, in that order. I had Reflex on all my girls at this point, which made the fighting units far less dangerous. -TO AMBERVALE: DEFEND THE FORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 Heh, seriously, stand on your side of the river and use nighthawk. After the Dragon is gone, nothing else has killing power. Send one across the river, because only 4 have the range. Final Stats: Kelly, Lvl 25 ATK: 327 DEF: 320 POW: 261 RES: 281 SPD: 157 Joyeuse, Flame Shield, Thief Hat, Rubber Suit, Dash Boots Eunice, Lvl 25 ATK: 326 DEF: 315 POW: 265 RES: 271 SPD: 154 Gupti Aga, Flame Shield, Barette, Power Sash, Dash Boots Miriam, Lvl 24 ATK: 316 DEF: 303 POW: 248 RES: 264 SPD: 150 Gupti Aga, Flame Shield, Ribbon, Minerva Plate, Dash Boots Marion, Lvl 25 ATK: 345 DEF: 305 POW: 268 RES: 286 SPD: 146 Aerial Hole, Flame Shield, Tiara, Power Sash, Dash Boots Vivian, Lvl 25 ATK: 329 DEF: 315 POW: 267 RES: 271 SPD: 150 Joyeuse, Sacri Shield, Rubber Suit, Gauntlets, Dash Boots 20 hr, 36 min ffl2and3rocks's Final Stats: Etoile, lv28 Aerial Hole, Brigandine, Flame Shield, Angel Ring, Dash Boots Nina, lv28 Last Letter, Bone Plate, Sacri Shield, Acacia Hat (only did Swim Meet once), Dash Boots Hilary, lv27 Gupti Aga, Brigandine, Opal Shield, Scarab, Dash Boots Janeth, lv27 Gupti Aga, Brigandine, Opal Shield, Thief Hat, Dash Boots Delia, lv27 Djinn Flyssa, Brigandine, Opal Shield, Thief Hat, Dash Boots -LLEDNAR: Kinda hard. Ban something they use - Skills, Target All, Corner, something...Gotta hope Llednar sticks with physical attacks rather than Omega, or you're in trouble. At least its only one battle to do again if you lose instead of 2, like Li-Grim. Basically just hit him from the back; don't use the Aerial Hole as Llednar absorbs all elements. Don't bother with Featherblow unless frontal attack is your only option; the ****ty damage isn't worth it. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: ROFL, she can't hurt you one bit with your Reflex. I went ahead and killed the two Totemas for levels. Shadowstick them first. Once the totemas are dead, you can level up well on remedi with Shadowstick or Manastrike. I leveled up to 26-27. -LI-GRIM: You should get 1st turn, so move up as close as possible. You should have her surrounded by the second turn. Shadowstick her then too, it helps just a little. The Mateuses hurt like a *****, but there isn't really anything you can do about it; you should have enough HP to survive a couple of attacks. Always be facing Li-Grim. Took me 5 or 6 turns to win. good luck - this is all about speedily killing her. w00t! ffl2and3rocks's FINAL BATTLE strategies: LLEDNAR: I just went into battle with Missile against the law, then used a Skill card. Then only the Assassin (whom I killed right away) and Llednar could do anything. REMEDI: Target Area made it REALLY easy. Famfrit just kept using Demi, and Addramalech kept attacking (which did nothing because of Reflex) and used Lightspeed once in a while for some fair damage. LI-GRIM: Target Area and Target All made the Mateuses only able to use that lower-speed-and-damage attack. Li-Grim only got one attack in; she used Alpha on one of my Fencers, but it missed. Then I used Shadowstick on her and killed her before her next turn came up. ============================================================================== [5.25] ELEMENTALIST ============================================================================== Overview: Like Archers, elementalists rely completely on statuses to disable their enemies before killing them. However, Elementalists are forced to get in range of their enemies, so if the status misses, you're in trouble. With only 3 base move, they often find themselves in the situation of being faster than the enemy, but out of range. Blind and Don't Act are very effective, but it can get frustrating when a powerful attack gets through the Blind hit% penalty. Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 5/10 Recommended Party: 4 Elementalists, 1 Fencer OR 3 Elementalists, 1 White Mage, 1 Fencer Recommended Map: Viera Homeland Advantages: Shining Air is debilitating, Fire Whip is available really early, can heal Disadvantages: Healing sucks, low MP early on, need to get lucky statuses in How to level: White Flame/Earth Heal Differences: Elementalists have the advantage over Geomancers in that they're not forced to rely on what type of ground their standing on. Elementalists also seem to have a better chance of inflicting status effects. However, Geomancers get better physical stats. Items to go for: Scarlette, Fleuret, Flamberge, Estoc - all Buyable Epeeprism (Elemental Shift) - Marsh-Marsh-Desert-Desert Treasure Hunt, Type 7 Mission Reward Djinn Flyssa (Shining Air) - Type 2 Mission Reward Silver Rapier (Sliprain) - Type 1 Mission Reward Joyeuse (Evil Gaze) - Type 3 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Wind Copycat Elementals Status Bad Laws: Fight Rapiers Fire Bind General Strategies: -Shining Air is your friend!!! Blind is one of the most debilitating status effects in the game; halving hit percentage for offensive attacks. And, it doesn't wear off! Not only that, it makes them easier to hit. You'll want to get a Djinn Flyssa ASAP. When entering battle, try to blind two enemies the first or second turn. Let them come to you. -Scarlette (Don't Move) is also availiable almost as soon as the game starts, so use Fire Whip before you get Shining Air. -Neither of the healing moves heal for too much, don't bother unless you can cast two in a row. -Use your elementals for statii, attack for damage. -The Djinn Flyssa rapier is amazing here. After you've learned the abilities you want, stick with this. It's the most powerful in the game, AND it enhances Shining Air's damage. Battle strategies: -FAMFRIT: my girls were level 7, marche was level 4. go after whatever floating eye dares get in your way first; they appear to be immune or at least resistant to statuses, but at least you'll damage em. marche'll die quickly here, there isn't anything you can do. i managed to win with one character alive at 8 hp...that was because my characters refused to dodge breath of God though. -PALE COMPANY: Try to enter battle with one of Fire/Ice/Lightning banned, and a law card banning one of the other two. That helps reduce the damage taken from the dragons. To tell the truth, Firestream will probably kill you in one hit, that is if it hits. So waste no time blinding the dragons, then go right for the boss. Andramelech, while resistant, is vulnerable to Slow. So if you're out of range, use Sliprain. I've also managed to Blind him, but that was pretty lucky. Obviously, if he's blinded, the battle is won. You'll need luck evading Firestream the first two turns, but once you get that, it's an easy battle. Blind is almost TOO cheap... My levels were 10-11, and I did around 35 dmg per hit to Andra. -JAGD HUNT: I hate this battle. If one of your party members dies, reset. Same goes to Marche, who seems to like dying on first turn. If you're a lvl 10 soldier though, you should be fine. Blind the Assassin and Ninja first, then the Hunter. The hunter is important because he is the only painful enemy that isn't affected by Resonate, which the Rockbeast will use his first turn. This inflicts Don't Act on everyone except himself, the Antlion, and the hunter. Just wait it out. The Blue Mage can use Night, but otherwise he isn't a threat. It took me 7 resets to beat this battle, so be persistent. -THE BOUNTY: Go after the Paladin first, and Blind the fighter as well. If you don't kill the Paladin first he will use Life, which is annoying. Without the right laws, you'll have a much tougher time of it. You'll have to use Elemental abilities to kill the Fighter and Sage. -SCOURING TIME: You have to use Montblanc, which sucks. This means you only get 3 fighting units. With some luck, you can Blind three enemies in your first turn. On the flip side, if you're not 2 for 3, reset. After that, it all comes down to luck. Go around Blinding everyone, yes even the Gunner, before you start doing any real damage. I had to reset 16 times before I won, as I said, its all about luck. Specialized Strategy: Blind every unit on the field. Then retreat back to the area you started from; in the corner there's space for three units where they can only be frontally attacked. Go there and heal up (you'll be hurt bad by then), and patiently attack when you get the chance. BTW, I got with with a 5% CHANCE Holy Blade in one of my resets. 5%!!! The enemies definitely cheat with hit rate. Be prepared to reset. A lot. -MATEUS: you need to get lucky here and Blind Mateus. It's really hard to win otherwise. Then get close to Mateus as best you can. You should be doing around 50 damage per hit to her. Fire Whip the Zombies if you can't reach Mateus, but otherwise don't bother hitting them. I was level 18-19 (with one level 14), and managed to win on my first try. -MATERITE NOW: The WM uses full-life, so Fire Whip her ASAP, though the first turn all you'll be able to target is the Assassin, so kill her if you can, though you'll probaly just be able to disable her. -HIDDEN VEIN: Meh, this one can be hard. Get Skills banned, you don't want to be dealing with a Sage with Reflex. I also had a card banning Sabers, which was of tremendous help. Disable and kill the White Monk first, because he has revive. Then take out the Blue Mage's MP (he has Damage to MP), and he becomes useless. then disable and kill the rest as you see fit. Took me 3 resets to win. STATS: Prisya, lvl 26 ATK: 329 DEF: 301 POW: 296 RES: 291 SPD: 148 Hildegard, lvl 26 ATK: 334 DEF: 311 POW: 300 RES: 319 SPD: 147 Cecile, lvl 26 ATK: 348 DEF: 297 POW: 296 RES: 303 SPD: 141 Adelaid, lvl 25 ATK: 321 DEF: 312 POW: 287 RES: 291 SPD: 146 Jeanne, lvl 24 ATK: 286 DEF: 282 POW: 296 RES: 293 SPD: 143 FINAL BATTLE: -REMEDI: she can be blinded and slowed. Abuse this. Blind the two totema as well. As usual, Blinded units are no match for you. have 4 units surround remedi, and the other one cast White Flame to heal from lucky hits. -LI-GRIM: this is really, really tough. Magi will put your units in critical in one hit. get close to her, and use white flame a lot, absorb MP will help keep your stores up. Li-grim CAN be blinded and slowed, just keep trying Shining Air and Sliprain. They have a low success rate, but eventually you'll get it. It's much easier going from there. I beat her with one unit alive at 44 HP, lol. no resets required this battle!!! ============================================================================== [5.26] RED MAGE ============================================================================== Overview: Another good mix of physical and magical adeptness. They're a bit weak until Doublecast though - the part of the game where all the enemies have level 2 spells and weaponry can get frustrating. However, they have a well balanced skillset. A pretty fun SCC. Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: Go with a balanced Physical and Magical party here, there are some enemies that are rather resistant to magic although it'll be your main damaging move. I went with 2 Fencers, and Elementalist, an Archer, and a White Mage. Recommended Map: Viera Homeland Advantages: Doublecast, can heal, decent physical damage, 4 move mages, 50 evade isn't bad Disadvantages: Hard challenge early game, last boss can be a *****, Doublecast takes forever to learn, have to find Colichemarde How to Level: Cure Differences: N/A Items to go for: Mage Masher, Fleuret, Estoc, Chain Plate, Stinger, Scarlette, Flamberge - all Buyable Aerial Hole - One More Time mission reward Colichemarde (Magic Pow+) - Negotiation Skill lvl 20 Reward, Type 5 Mission Reward Madu (Doublecast) - Forest-Forest-Marsh-Marsh Treasure Hunt Silver Rapier (Poison) - Type 1 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Color Magic Bad Laws: Fight Rapiers Lightning General Strategies: -Lawbreaker: Doublecast lets you get around laws like Lightning, Dmg:2, Holy, Target Area, etc. However, it DOESNT let you get around Color Magic. -Get as many black robes as you can. These things increase your damage to incredible levels. Prior to that, elemental robes are good. -ZZZ...put everything to sleep. Seriously, a general strategy is to Sleep everyone but one or two enemies, and kill them off. Sleep is a godsend for this challenge. Poisoning sleeping targets is good for damaging them without waking them up. -Thunderstorm: Thunder's my favorite of the elemental spells because of its short animation. Just a personal choice... Battle Strategies: -MAGIC WOOD: Sleep the Thieves, and ignore them til the end - kill the Summoner then the Black Mage, as they're the most damaging units. Of course, Missile should be banned. Afterwards is mopup work. -PALE COMPANY: Sleep some dragons the first turn, preferably at least two. The second turn, sleep remaining dragons. Andra by himself isn't too much of a threat, though your damage output will positively suck. He loves using Soul Sphere on you, but you should have enough MP to survive. Use the R2 antilaw you have to null the Rapiers law, if its there. By the time the dragons wake up, Andra should be down to around 1/4 HP. Ignore the dragons from there and finish off Andra. I was around level 11. -JAGD HUNT: Kinda have to pray for misses here first turn. Assuming everyone survives, sleep the Ninja and Hunter (they should be adjacent), and kill or sleep the assassin. Poisoning the Ninja and Hunter is a good idea as well. Go after the blue mage now, as he's immune to sleep. He has fairly good RES so just whack him if you can get to the sides with your higher ATK characters. Kill the Ninja then Hunter next. The two monsters you should stay away from til the end, finishing them one at a time. Its probably easier just to let the rockbeast die of poison. This mission took 2 resets. -THE BOUNTY: Fight them in a small arena and Sleep as much as you can. Then wake and kill the Paladin. The other enemies should fall without too much effort. -SCOURING TIME: I sat back the first round and Barrier'd. Even with Spears and Techs banned, the remaining enemies can do a crapload, so Barrier helps. You can just go for the kill here instead of Sleep + kill, but either way works. Took me 1 reset because stupid Marche died once. Go get your Madu now!!! -DESERT PATROL: Banning Fight and Techs was necessary for me. Careful with the Bishop though, he has return magic. I had to break the Fight law several times to kill the mirror mail soldier and lost a whole bunch of items, but eh... -MATEUS: My levels were 17, pretty much. Ban Fight and Poison/Status. You should have a few black robes by now, if not, refresh missions til you get some. The basic strategy is to spread out and hit mateus with spells - magic pow+ helps you do half-decent damage. I won this in one try even though two of my girls were hitting for single digits. -HIDDEN VEIN: Kinda tough. I put everyone to sleep except two enemies the first turn. The Blue Mage is immune, so go after him first. Doublecasting is good. Then the White Monk. Took me 1 reset. Final Stats: Lotte Lvl 24 ATK: 316 DEF: 301 POW: 276 RES: 286 SPD: 148 Equip: Aerial Hole, Tiara, Bone Plate, Scarab, Dash Boots All RM learned except Doublecast Annette Lvl 22 ATK: 285 DEF: 266 POW: 268 RES: 283 SPD: 139 Equip: Madu, Barette, Black Robe, Scarab, Dash Boots All RM learned or available Delia Lvl 22 ATK: 300 DEF: 258 POW: 260 RES: 278 SPD: 154 Equip: Gupti Aga, Acadia Hat, Black Robe, Gauntlets, Fairy Shoes All RM learned except Doublecast Nan Lvl 22 ATK: 279 DEF: 265 POW: 270 RES: 282 SPD: 143 Equip: EpeePrism, Headband, Black Robe, Scarab, Dash Boots All RM learned Ingrid Lvl 24 ATK: 287 DEF: 280 POW: 294 RES: 305 SPD: 156 Equip: Gupti Aga, Wizard Hat, Black Robe, Scarab, Dash Boots All RM learned Play time: 19 hr, 7 min FINAL BATTLE: -LLEDNAR: First off, you should have the right laws. I had Katana/Skill, and I banned Missile. He nulls/absorbs all your spells, so you'll have to stab him to death. Don't use any elemental weapons. Mistle Robes are a good idea. This is part of the reason you shouldn't start with all mages... -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Doublecast your way to victory: Don't use any spells that aren't Thunder (or Fire or Ice). Just go after Remedi, some of your units will die, but as long as it isn't your doublecasters (keep them farther back), you'll be ok. -LI-GRIM: She's really hard. First off, if she uses Descent, you lose. All your units should charge toward her first turn, doublecasting. I had Holy banned, and banned Lightning (Doublecast lets you cure). Li-grim used Lawshift first turn though, but at least it wasted her turn. Marche with Damage>MP should be your shield against at least one of the Mateuses. Doublecasts should do around 80 if both spells hit. Don't bother with Barrier or Sleep, just attack. You'll need some luck to win, but be persistent. Took me 5 resets. ============================================================================== [5.27] SUMMONER ============================================================================== *dablackbelt provided numerous tips and battle strategies* Overview: Possessing one of the best and most versatile skillsets in the game, Summoners will plow through pretty much every enemy until the final boss (cept Andra, he's a beast). They have slight MP problems until they level up some though, and they're one of the slowest units in the game. Still pretty easy though, they're one of the best units for clearing random battles quickly. Difficulty: 3/10, would be 1 or 2 except for final boss Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: 4 Summoners and a White Mage. Recommended Map: Viera Homeland, though you may want something that gets you Nirvana Staff quicker Advantages: Elemental summon + matching robe, Mateus is really damaging, wipes out groups of enemies, 100% full-life 2 square area for 12MP??? I'LL TAKE IT!!! Disadvantages: Kinda slow, crappy HP, freindly fire without Elemental robes How to Level: Unicorn Differences: No extremely powerful spells, really, aside from Madeen. Losing Golem hurts. You don't really have to worry about MP costs, with the 5 MP regen and all. Losing Lich hurts a little bit, but not really. Items to go for: White Staff, Guard Staff, Judge Staff, Cure Staff, Garnet Staff - all Buyable Cheer Staff (Madeen) - Type 6 Mission Reward Nirvana Staff (Phoenix) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Cave-Cave- Jagd-Jagd Treasure Hunt Snake Staff (Shiva) - Type 4 Mission Reward Light Robe (Half MP) - Type 6 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Summon Target Area Bad Laws: Holy Healing Good Laws: Gunmanship Target All General tips: -Recruitment: Use the Viera: Wanted mission for your first 4. You can save on the fourth day, and if a summoner joins, great, if not, reset. Gotta get the fifth one the normal way though, unless you're feeling lucky and want to get one after a mission. You can use the same method for walking dispatches, but it takes many, many more resets. I did 131 resets (no joke, I counted), and no summoner. Then I gave up. -Elemental Robes: You can easily get 5 Blaze Robes early on. With Blaze Robes, you don't need to worry about friendly fire. You'll be doing a good amount of damage to your enemies while at the same time healing a good chunk of an ally's HP. Stick with Blaze Robes over Thunder and Flurry Robes, because more enemies use Fire based attacks than Ice and Thunder. Once you get Madeen, you can switch over to the buyable Mistle Robes for even greater damage and healing, but you end up losing out on enemies healing you due to the fact that there are very few damaging Holy elemental abilities. -Black Robes: Black Robes turn you into killing machines. But you'll no longer be able to heal and damage at the same time. Because of that, it's for the most part better to stick with Blaze Robes. Besides, Madeen should be your main damaging ability, and the Black Robe doesn't enhance Holy. -Use Carbuncle when up against mages; they'll rip themselves apart. Just make sure you're not reflecting magic that the enemy absorbs. At times, the AI makes a smart move and moves an injured White Mage right next to someone with Reflect so that they heal themselves once, then the Summoner's reflect bounces another dosage of healing onto the enemy. Make sure to watch out for both cases. -Watch out for tonberries. They cheat and get 2 turns to your 1. Battle Strategies: -DIAMOND RAIN: Ifrit pwns hard here. -MAGIC WOOD: Use Carbuncle on everyone, and the Forbidden: Missile law is good. The only enemies that can hurt you then are the Summoner and two thieves. Take out the Summoner ASAP though, and the rest is easy. The Summoner and BM both absorb elements (Ice/Fire), so target carefully. -PALE COMPANY: By now you should have gotten 5 Blaze Robes. This'll keep Firestream from killing your girls. This battle requires some luck. Kill the Thundrake on your first turn, it's got Geomancy. The other 2 dragons can probably kill you in 1 or 2 hits. The ironic thing is that Addremelech is barely a threat without Firestream. Just focus on getting rid of the dragons, and the rest will be a cakewalk. -SCOURING TIME: Ban two of Spears, Techs, and Blades. Use Marche as a decoy for the gunner, with only three characters, you'll need it. The Paladin and the close mog knight should be your first targets. With thunder robes, the other mog knight can't hurt you. As usual, just summon a lot, this battle isn't as hard as you'd think with the right laws. My levels were between 10 and 13. -DESERT PATROL: If you can ban Fight and Techs, then you've got this battle won. Otherwise, it's harder, cuz they're so damn fast. I got Fight, Prayer and Greatswords banned, because I couldn't find a Tech card. Took me 3 tries, but I won. -MATEUS: What irritates me is that you don't get Pheonix until AFTER this battle. You'll have to resort to Unicorning the Vampires until they die. After that, leave 2 Summoners to kill the Vampires when they revive, then let the other 3 focus on Mateus. Watch out for Spellbind, it'll kill you in one hit. Thundaga isn't that big of a deal, but since nobody uses Fire elemental abilities, switch to Thunder Robes for as many Summoners as possible. -PRESENT DAY: Technique/TargetAll/Blades lawset pwns. Now you can get Cheer/Nirvana staves. Madeen + 5 Mistle Robes coupled with Phoenix makes you more or less invincible, so I won't bother to go into detail about the next few battles. Final Clan Stats: Suzanna Lvl 25 ATK: 262 DEF: 251 POW: 353 RES: 329 SPD: 115 Natalia Lvl 25 ATK: 266 DEF: 257 POW: 345 RES: 326 SPD: 113 Phoebe Lvl 25 ATK: 256 DEF: 253 POW: 347 RES: 325 SPD: 111 Cici Lvl 26 ATK: 270 DEF: 254 POW: 362 RES: 329 SPD: 120 Prisya Lvl 26 ATK: 264 DEF: 271 POW: 338 RES: 321 SPD: 147 24hr, 30min Final Battle Preparation: Marche should have Damage>MP, and a high evade. You'll be using him as a decoy. Everyone should have access to Phoenix, as well as Shiva. Get an Angel Ring (Craft 20), and equip it on your highest MP character. -Final battle LLEDNAR: Go with Techniques, Skills, and Corner laws to completely own this fight. You'll have to kill the others first, but it shouldn't take you all that long. Llednar absorbs all elements, so you'll need to beat him to death with your Staffs. However, you can endure this battle, no matter how long it is, thanks to Pheonix. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: You'll want to switch to Blaze/Thunder/Flurry Robes before this battle. She absorbs holy, so Madeen's out of the question. Honestly, I wouldn't bother healing except with Phoenix, as she does way more damage than you have HP. Ignore the other totemas, and cast use one of the 3 main elements, depending on what robes you have equipped. Takes awhile, but you can't really lose with 5 Phoenixes. -LI-GRIM: Carbuncle first turn to negate Mateus's Thundaga. She, like Remedi, absorbs Holy, so you'll have to resort to the 3 main elements again. She can kill EVERY one of your members with Magi; but chances are she won't hit everyone. Descent REALLY hurts, so pray for Ultima or Exodus. Half MP will save you in this one. If Li-Grim does end up using Famfrit, Addremelech, or Mateus, hopefully you've got an Angel Ring. Use that remaining Summoner to Pheonix the other 4, then hope she doesn't use Descent again. Again, watch out for Spellbind, it still kills you in 1 hit. Your only defense against Descent and Magi is to surround her, preferrably backing her into a corner. She'll switch over to Alpha and Omega. Alpha is deadly, so try not to group anyone together. However, Omega does pitiful damage. She was Omegaing my Summoners for under 30 damage. You basically want Omega or Fight. This is pretty much the only hard fight in the whole game for summoners. It took me at least 6 or 7 tries to finish. ============================================================================== [5.28] ASSASSIN ============================================================================== Overview: The epitome of IMBA. High evade, fast, and possessing amazing stat growth, assassins will destroy every non immune enemy with Rockseal from the start. High attack from Greatbows doesn't hurt either. A very easy SCC, even if you don't get Ultima Masher. Difficulty: 1/10 Frustration: 1/10 Recommended Party: 4 Assassins and a Red Mage or Elementalist Recommended Map: Viera Homeland Advantages: Rockseal is buyable, amazing speed, petalchaser easy to find, very good other stats Disadvantages: A bit fragile How to Level: Can use Ague over and over again, though it has a decent chance of failure. Shouldn't need to level much in this challenge anyway Differences: Now a legitamitely obtainable class. They lose range from their abilities though (Shadow stitch was ranged, for example) Items to go for: Kikuichimonji, Ranger Bow, Kotetsu, Power Sash - Buyable Fey Bow (Shadowbind) - Type 4 Mission Reward Last Breath (Petalchaser) - Type 5 Mission Reward Masamune (Oblivion) - Type 7 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Petrify Corner Bad Laws: Missile General tips: -Rockseal: Your bread and butter move for destroying opponents, until you get Last Breath. You'll have to flee from random battles until you get 2nd shop upgrade though -Greatbow or Katana?: Go with Bows. Your girls are weak defensively, and if you're in melee range you can rockseal anyway. -Bosses: Slowing them (Ague) works, though you probably will barely even need it. Petrify their minions and shooting them to death usually works perfectly fine. Battle strategies: None needed. This is pathetically easy. But for good measure, here's a very brief overview by Flubunga: "I had a severe flan problem before I got rockseal. The way to beat them is to sit and level up to around level 10 by letting them recover themselves, and then leveling up some more... I got one 'sin to level 10 off of a flan on the first lutia pass mission. I had one assassin keep watch on each zombie, two flank the flan to damage it, and one to shoot with some crap bow. The archer-assassin finally finished it off, and she got to level 10 by hitting so much and it healing. Marche got to level 12 that same mission by first-aiding in a corner. After that, I was overleveled for the rest of the game, so there was no problem except for exodus, where I had somehow forgotten to update marche's equips." ============================================================================== [5.29] SNIPER ============================================================================== Overview: Masters of stealth, even more so than Assassins. Almost every battle is winnable through Conceal + Beso Toxico, especially if the enemy lacks range. They also have just about the best ATK in the game, and powerful Greatbows help them out there too. They're very fragile though; often it takes just two hits to bring them down. ***General strategies and battle strategies contributed by moogle_dude, with some formatting changes by me*** Difficulty: 4/10 Frustration: 4/10 Recommended Party: Assassins for the speed DDragoon adds that Fencers might've been a better (and easier) choice, because the speed isn't too necessary since many enemies are slow anyway. Recommended Map: Viera Homeland, get Gastra Bow Advantages: Good range, Conceal + Poison, Aim: Weapon, good ATK, Death Sickle Disadvantages: Can't bypass Block Arrows well, Conceal + Poison takes awhile, die easily, Aim: Weapon available late How to Level: Conceal? Not too sure on this one, I never really used Snipers Differences: N/A Items to go for: Twin Bow, Cranequin, Windslash Bow - all Buyable Hades Bow (Death Sickle) - Type 5 Mission Reward Fey Bow (Aim: Armor) - Type 4 Mission Reward Gaia Gear (Auto-Regen) - Type 3 Mission Reward Master Bow (Aim: Weapon) - Type 7 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Missile Sharpshoot Bad Laws: Poison Status Fight Good Laws: Color Magic Call General Strategies by moogle_dude: -Sunken State: For the first few missions just conceal to a safe place and attack. When they get close enough to attack conceal away. The only problem with conceal is that the panther kind can see you. -Slow and painful death: Then start using Beso Toxico and like the Alchemists watch them die slowly and painfuly. Those with damage to Mp you better hope you got death Sickle. Some of them were imune to doom so just gang up on him untill he goes down.The marduk bow helps out alot becouse of its range. -Other: Equip Auto-Regen as it's the only way to heal, make sure to buy dash boots. Battle Strategies by moogle_dude: -FAMFRIT: This battle was quite hard have two units attack the red ahriman and another two attack the other red one while your last unit takes care of the Blue Ahirman. Then stay away from being near each other when Famfrit uses breath of God and just keep hitting him from different angles. -ANDRA: This was the hardest one. I pulled his friends away from him, poisoned them and kept using Doubleshot to maKe sure i hit them at least once out of the two shots. After i killed them i had two units left so each of them went to a different side of the field and waited to auto-regen my life back while hitting him with my bow. -SCOURING TIME: This one was simple i attacked the gunner first by concealing up behind him and poisioning then i doomed or poisoned them all untill they died. -MATEUS: This was easier than i thought it was. Get poison and target area banned. One of vampires has Block arrows so de-equiped one of my units and sent him right in the middle of them and just distracted them while the others went up to mateus and attacked her with the strongest bows you got. if you cant get poison disabled then dont worry about conceal becouse poison hits through it. Final Battle: -LLEDNAR: Go around dooming and poisoning all of Llednars defenses and then all of you gang up on Llednar with conceal, and try to break his weapon which seems to help alot. Now Llednar killed my guy's plenty of times untill i made him chase me in to a corner and i concealed around him and hit him with 4 arrows then drag him to another corner repeat untill he is dead. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Don't worry about the Totemas and just break her weapon (? she doesn't have one...) then attack from a distance (duh there snipers you're gonna attack from a distance. -LI-GRIM: Take and have Three of your units attack one of the Mateuses While the other conceal around to Li-Grim. When one of the Units that is attacking Li-Grim send one of the ones attacking the Mateus over to help out. Once she got missile banned and screwed me over but it was pretty easy. ============================================================================== [5.30] ANIMIST ============================================================================== Overview: Often named the lowest of the Moogle classes because of their inability to actually kill anything. Animists are really a support class, and they don't do TOO well on their own. They're really not THAT weak though, and can survive for a fairly long time once you get Cuisine. Recruiting as Jugglers is almost a must for the raised DEF. The ability to take out enemies from long range with Chocobo Rush helps them out too. Difficulty: 3/10 Frustration: 2/10 Recommended Party: I recommend Montblanc and 4 Jugglers. Juggler's higher Speed is an asset in this SCC, as is their higher WATK. Thieves have high speed but are too lacking in the other categories to make it worth it. Mog Knights aren't a bad alternative to a couple of the Jugglers if you want some higher ATK power. Recommended Map: whatever Advantages: Very good status inflicting power, very long range attack, decent speed for mages, can heal Disadvantages: Low damage dealing capabilities, moderate MP problems, can't Blind, on the fragile side, friendly fire issues How to Level: 100% Wool Items to go for: Glass Bell, Earth Bell, Satyr Flute, War Trumpet, Green Beret - all Buyable Aona Flute (Frog song) - Type 5 Mission Reward Fairy Harp (Tail Wag) - Type 4 Mission Reward Heal Chime (Cuisine) - Craft Skill lvl 15 reward, Type 6 mission reward General Strategies: -Buying tips: Start with Glass Bells and Conch Shells. They're the cheapest for what they're used for; status's and attacking, respectively. Work your way up to Satyr Flutes for Chocobo rush when you can afford it. -I catch arrows with my bare hands. Really. >_> Block Arrows is one of the l33ter R-abilities, Green Berets should be bought right after your initial weapons (that is, before Satyr Flutes). -1, 2, 3,...99, 100...: Sheep Count is your bread and butter spell early on. Use it on anything that poses even a vague threat. Ganging up on enemies is your friend. -For whatever reason, Animists SUCK at dispatch missions. Don't really know why, but its not just your game messing up if you fail a bunch of em. -Catnip works really well on units whose weapons are banned, or if fight is banned. Thier weapons are not taken into effect if you frog them though. -Later in the game, Frogsong is a lifesaver. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: By now I had 3 Satyr Flutes, 2 bought and 1 from a mission. They have good attack power. I sent everyone to the left side, and killed two Ahrimans in the first turn with instrument hits, although a Roulette killed Marche. Next turn I killed a third Ahriman and the remaining one killed himself with roulette. LOL. Then focus on Famfrit. Chocobo Rush won't see much use in this one; the friendly fire damage is too high. Just beat Famfrit to death with the Fight command. -ANTILAWS: Chocobo Rush ignores height, so you can use it to pwn the Ninja and Hunter hiding there on the ledge. An easy battle. -DIAMOND RAIN: Ugh, I almost lost this battle. The dragons hurt a TON. Try to hit the one with Counter with Chocobo Rush, or he'll do a lot more to you that you do to him. Use Sheep Count here on the Lamia and Bomb, and take out the dragons first, hitting the other enemies if they get in the way. At the end of the battle it was my lone remaining Animist, Lexi, vs the Flan. i ended up having to play hit and run games with it. not fun u.u -MAGIC WOOD: You can take out the Summoner REAL quick with 2 chocobo rushes; you might take some friendly fire damage, but its worth it. You can actually take out most of the enemies here from range with Chocobo Rushes as well. -ANDRAMMALECH: You wanna dodge the first Firestream; just reset if it kills two of your guys. I banned Target Area; that makes things quite a bit easier, though it disables your chocobo rush. Get Andra to a position where the dragons cant team up on you as easily, like the left side, and just beat the crap out of him. His physical attacks are weak, so you'll be able to wear him down FTW. -JAGD HUNT: OMG this battle is HOMOSEXUAL. Now that i've got that out of my system, let's proceed. It took me 7 tries to win, because Marche kept dying. Equip him with your highest evade shield (probably Choco Shield) to give him a slightly higher chance of surviving. You'll want to kill the Assassin first turn, because she's deadly. If the BM casts Night, that kinda throws a wrench in your plans, play things by ear if he does that. Kill the Ninja second, you'll probably have to dodge at least one of his sword attacks. The hunter is worthless this battle so avoid the monsters and kill the Blue Mage, then Chocobo rush the Antlion from your high position. After all this, there's still the matter of that Rockbeast. It's hard to get double digit damage on him even, and he likes to cast Matra Magic then kill you. Alternate Sheep Counts with Chocobo Rushes and attacks, it takes friggin forever, but you'll get him eventually. -SCOURING TIME: I actually had a very LOL way of winning this fight. I banned Fight, then proceeded to use Catnip on all the enemies. very lol. You can't stand up to physical units like these with Instruments, so this is probably the way to go. -THE BIG FIND: Used the Catnip + Fight law strat again. pretty leet strat. Marche can be used as a meat shield, so don't be afraid to use him as so. -MATEUS: Although Fight now does more damage than Chocobo Rush, you'll still want Fight and Poison banned (not Target Area!). As the fight begins, spread out to the sides and back, and assault her with Chocobo Rush. Those who can't do anything should use 100% Wool or Frogsong the Vamps. Mateus will then retreat to the back and hit you with Star Cross; if you advance on her she'll use thundaga, which hurts like a mofo, so you should retreat. Chocobo Rush does crap for damage, but you have much higher evade, so you'll be able to outlast her Star Crosses. My afterbattle levels were 14, 15, 17, 17, and 19, so you don't need especially high levels to win. -HIDDEN VEIN: Frogsong and Tail Wag are your friends. Assuming you survive their first moves, this shouldn't be too hard. Charm the Blue Mage and kill him last, as he is immune to Sleep and Frog. -OVER THE HILL: Get Summons banned; the summoner does a ****load. Send 3 guys left and 2 right; you'll want to be attacking with mainly Chocobo Rushes, with Instrument attacks when they close in. Just chocobo rush Ritz to death; she's the only one who can really do anything against you this battle. Had to level a ton before the final battle. Final Battle preparations: Holy/Berserk/Katana is a solid choice for laws. Sadly, Satyr Flutes with their uber leet 35 attack power is the highest weapon power you can use here. So equip your party with them. Final stats: Montblanc Lvl 27 ATK: 288 DEF: 356 PWR: 281 RES: 341 SPD: 135 Equip: Satyr Flute, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Sheep Count, 100% Wool, Cuisine, Tail Wag, Chocobo Rush, Frogsong, Catnip, Block Arrows Hastings Lvl 28 ATK: 341 DEF: 396 PWR: 256 RES: 313 SPD: 142 Equip: Satyr Flute, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Sheep Count, 100% Wool, Cuisine, Tail Wag, Chocobo Rush, Frogsong, Catnip, Block Arrows Javet Lvl 29 ATK: 341 DEF: 399 PWR: 271 RES: 319 SPD: 151 Equip: Satyr Flute, Acadia Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Sheep Count, 100% Wool, Cuisine, Tail Wag, Chocobo Rush, Frogsong, Catnip, Block Arrows Raif Lvl 28 ATK: 335 DEF: 395 PWR: 257 RES: 307 SPD: 146 Equip: Satyr Flute, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Sheep Count, 100% Wool, Cuisine, Tail Wag, Chocobo Rush, Frogsong, Catnip, Block Arrows Lex Lvl 29 ATK: 341 DEF: 407 PWR: 264 RES: 319 SPD: 151 Equip: Satyr Flute, Headband, Bone Plate, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Abilities: Sheep Count, 100% Wool, Cuisine, Tail Wag, Chocobo Rush, Frogsong, Catnip, Block Arrows Play Time: 20 hr 21 min -LLEDNAR: Frogsonged the Ninja, waited, beat up Llednar, Frogged the Illusionist, beat up Llednar. Not too hard unless he uses Omega. -REMEDI: You'll either want to use 100% Wool or run away from Remedi first turn, probably both. Send 2 or 3 guys, all with 100% Wool on to hit remedi with instruments, and the rest should heal or use chocobo rush. Once 100% wool wears off, you'll want to totally spread out. Putting one or two of the totemas to sleep if you get a chance is a good idea too. This fight isn't as bad as you'd expect. -LI-GRIM: Heh, this battle's really hard, but I managed to win on my second try. I can't guarantee this'll work, but this is what I did. My first character went up and tried a 20% sheep count, which amazingly worked. This let all my characters use 100% Wool and get up to li-grim. So I got a free round of attacks against her, doing around 150 or so. The next couple of rounds she used Magi, and the Mateuses used Spellbind or Breath of God; I kept everyone alive with my evade rate and Cuisine. After that I started losing characters, but pressed the attack. I kept going until I had two characters left, and finally won with a Chocobo Rush, killing the other character :P So, despite Animist's long range capabilities, you'll want to close in on Li-Grim. Descent is simply too painful. ============================================================================== [5.31] MOG KNIGHT ============================================================================== Overview: Mog Knights are possibly one of the most boring classes. They're like Squires with good stats. Mog Lance is the go-to move from start to finish, that is if the enemy isn't in range of an Ultima Charge. They're one of the only two classes to make good use of an Ultima Move. Mog Knights also have good stat growth all around, so no type of enemy clan poses a huge threat. Expect a team of low level Mog Knights to be quickly ganged up on and killed though. Difficulty: 5/10 Frustration: 2.5/10 Recommended Party: There are two obvious classes to choose from - Jugglers and Mog Knights. Mog Knight enjoys a large advantage in RES, and a medium advantage in HP, MP, and ATK. However, Jugglers have more DEF and vastly more speed. Speed is mildly important though, so I'd go with at least 1, possibly 2 Jugglers, Montblanc, and the rest Mog Knights. NOTE: Montblanc makes an awful, awful, awful Mog Knight. The challenge is still doable with him in your party, but it's a good bit easier if you don't use him, even though you'll have to spend time getting and training an Animist or Thief. Recommended Map: Dutch Ivalice works well; you get a bunch of Genji crap along with your Materia Blade. It's not worth suffering through "Exploration" to get another Venus Blade. Advantages: Pretty good ATK, good total stat growth, MP could be a lot worse, only class (Gladiator is arguable) to make full use of Ultima Move in SCC Disadvantages: Slowish (could be worse though), kinda boring How To Level: Mog Aid, Ice Brand + Ice Shield works too if you want to level a particularly low level member quickly Differences: They actually remind me of Squires. Mog Aid is like Heal, and Mog Attack is like a stronger Dash. Mog Knights, however, have undeniably better stats, and are generally much more effective. Items to go for: Atmos Blade, Flametongue, Shadow Blade, Icebrand, Gold Armor - all buyable Ayvuir Blue - Twin Swords mission reward (Hero Gaol) Ayvuir Red - Salika Keep mission reward (Hero Gaol) Materia Blade (Ultima Charge) - Town-Town-Forest-Forest Treasure Hunt Pearl Blade (Mog Shield) - Type 6 Mission Reward Venus Blade - Combat Skill Lvl 15 reward, Forest-Forest-Jagd- Jagd Treasure Hunt Ice Shield - Type 1 Mission Reward Flame Shield - Type 3 Mission Reward Mirror Mail - Type 5 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Blades Charge Bad Laws: None, really Good Laws: Status General Strategies: -Buy everyone Atmos Blades first, even if you need to sell some crap. Mog Lance gives some much needed range. -Mog Lance and Fight can be used interchangably - they do the same amount of damage. -Buying Order: I went with Atmos Blades, Dash Boots, Icebrands, Opal Shields, Gold Armor, then Opal Helms. Armor helps a lot though, so you may choose to buy it before Dash Boots. -Move notes: Mog Aid, Mog Lance, and Ultima Charge are the only moves worth learning. Mog Attack is occasionally worth using to avoid a counter, but in most situations Mog Lance will do fine. -Even though you won't have nearly enough MP for Ultima Charge, it's best to equip the Materia Blade right away so you can start learning it. Ultima Charge comes in very handy once you master it. -Ice Brand + Ice Shield is a great way to heal - the tricky part is getting a bunch of Ice Shields. Venus Blade + Flame Shield is good too, later game. -Sidequests: This is one of the SCCs where you should do a bunch of dispatches and random battles. Learning Ultima Charge takes tons of AP, and Mirror Mail and Flame/Ice Shield hunting gives lots of AP. Plus the Hero Gaol quests are worth doing. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: I leveled up to 5 or so before this fight, and it's probably a good idea for you to do so too. Atmos Blades don't work so well here; get some Icebrands; they do very good damage, though you'll have to do some missions and random battles to raise the money. It's worth it though. The battle itself isnt hard; you can kill each of them in two hits. Save the Blue Panther for last though, and keep away from him; he's tougher than the Red Panthers. -FAMFRIT: Mog Attack, if you have/need it, helps you avoid Famfrits counters. But you should be using Mog Lance anyway; just go after Famfrit and ignore the Ahrimans. Not too hard of a battle. -DIAMOND RAIN: Switch your Icebrands with Atmos Blades, or Flametoungues are even better if you have one of those lying around. I wouldn't spend money on those just for this battle though. Kill the Bomb, then Lamia/one of the Dragons, then the other dragon, then the flan. You'll take some casualties, but should be able to outlast the enemy. -MAGIC WOOD: Kill whatevers in your way to the Summoner and Black Mage; split your forces in two to go after them. The rest is mop-up work. Keep in mind the Summoner absorbs Ice, so you may want to swap in an Atmos Blade or other Blade for one of your characters. -PALE COMPANY: Flame Shields are sweet here, if you have a couple. Get as close to Andra as you can; you want a couple units attacking physically. At levels 11-12 you should be doing 30-40 damage per hit to him; the Ayvuir Blue sword in particular does a large amount of damage. As expected, own Andra while ignoring the dragons. -JAGD HUNT: This battle can go many ways, depending on your luck. Night and Resonate can seriously turn the tides of battle in your favor or against it, depending on luck. The basic strategy though, is to kill the Assassin and Ninja first; they only take 2 hits to kill. Move out of the range of the monsters and get the other humans; Blue Mage first. Leave the Bladebiter for last; you might have to run when he casts Resonate, but it wears off. A Thief Hat blocks Don't Act if you have one. -DESERT PATROL: The Bishop absorbs Ice, so all Ice Brands isn't the way to go. A good stage to level up on. -MATEUS: The easiest way to win is just to let Mateus Thundaga your Mirror Mail'd units; it does a lot. But if she chooses to wipe you out with Breath of God the first turn, it's still not over. Get close to her as possible and Mog Lance; she won't do much besides Star Cross and attack. Montblanc actually isn't too bad here; if one or more members get Zombified, Montblanc can hide in the corner and Mog Aid, as Mog Aid heals for only slightly less than Star Cross for Montblanc. Other unit's Mog Aids heal for much less. Ultima Charge does a whole bunch of damage here too, though you'll only be able to use it once. -PRESENT DAY: A Blades law is obviously out of the question, so go with the Skills law. This sets up a 4v4, in effect. With your Ultima Charge and ganging up on the enemy, you should be able to win. I was level 19-21, just for reference. -HIDDEN VEIN: Sabers/Hunt/Status is a good set of laws. Go after the white monk first; he's highly annoying and Revive is too. It's pretty much an all out melee after that; just focus your fire and you'll pull out the win. -OVER THE HILL: Got those Mirror Mails? Good. Ritz will pwn herself with her Doublecast. Final Stats: Montblanc Lvl 25 ATK: 304 DEF: 353 POW: 246 RES: 326 SPD: 125 Equip: Pearl Blade, Flame Shield, Thief Hat, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: Mog Attack, Mog Lance, Mog Shield, Mog Aid, Last Haste Noman Lvl 27 ATK: 354 DEF: 406 POW: 232 RES: 295 SPD: 144 Equip: Venus Blade, Flame Shield, Diamond Helm, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: Mog Attack, Mog Lance, Mog Aid, Ultima Charge, Last Haste, Shieldbearer Thomson Lvl 23 ATK: 331 DEF: 351 POW: 201 RES: 288 SPD: 123 Equip: Pearl Blade, Flame Shield, Thief Hat, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: Mog Lance, Mog Shield, Mog Aid, Last Haste, Shieldbearer Higgins Lvl 24 ATK: 357 DEF: 373 POW: 213 RES: 290 SPD: 132 Equip: Ayvuir Red, Choco Shield, Acadia Hat, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: Mog Attack, Mog Lance, Mog Aid, Ultima Charge, Last Haste Norbert Lvl 26 ATK: 358 DEF: 389 POW: 212 RES: 319 SPD: 128 Equip: Ayvuir Blue, Flame Shield, Diamond Helm, Mirror Mail, Dash Boots Abilities: Mog Lance, Mog Aid, Ultima Charge, Last Haste, Shieldbearer Play Time: 21 hr, 8 min Final Battle Preparations: If you don't have Ultima Charge on at least two members WTIHOUT the Materia Blade equipped, I suggest you do it now. Get the Feather Badge from "The Deep Sea", and do a bunch of dispatches. Also, get the Ayvuir Red and Blue swords from the Hero Gaol missions. Final Battle -LLEDNAR: Ayvuir Red + Ultima Charge = GG. LOL. Even with a different weapon, the following Mog Lances should finish him off. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Yep, those Ultima Charges sure do a lot...I killed her in a turn. It should take 2, MAYBE 3, at the most if you have 2 ultima charge capable users. -LI-GRIM: The tough part is the first two turns. If you started with at least one Juggler, as I suggested, you should have at least one member faster than Li-Grim. Start him as close to LG as possible, that means in the same column. Move him up and Mog Lance her. This often causes her to move up and Alpha that member and Marche, killing them. It's ok though, better than everyone being killed by Descent. Don't put 3 or more members in Alpha'able position the next turn; and hope she physically attacks or uses Omega, the chances of those two are much higher in close range. A couple attacks and Ultima Charges later, and she'll fall. ============================================================================== [5.32] GUNNER ============================================================================== ***Credit for this section goes to linid0t; he completed the SCC and wrote out the Difficulty, Frustration, General Strategies, and Battle Strategies.*** Overview: Gunners possess a very long range Blindshot. It's not out of the question to have every enemy blinded on the first turn. This makes the challenge very easy, even with the limited shot selection. Gunners are really only hampered by low Weapon ATK, and crappy stats around the board. Difficulty: 2/10 Only difficulty is the lack of guns and general low damage. Fustration: 1/10 Blindshot+Concentrate owns. Recommended Party: Any Moogle class besides Black Mage, Time Mage, or Gunner. 4 Gunners and Montblanc would actually work, though, because this challenge is easy. Recommended Map: Doesn't Matter Advantages: Long range Blind, Concentrate, other pretty useful statuses Disadvantages: Worst overall stat growth IN THE GAME, hence, bad stats across the board How To Level: One of the hardest classes to level...hmm...any suggestions? Differences: Gunners are similar to FFT's Engineers, of who Mustadio was the only playable character (Without teh haxxors). Engineers had Leg Aim (Don't Move), Arm Aim (Don't Act), and Seal Evil (petrified the undead). Interestingly, Gunners lose both Arm Aim and Leg Aim (they were given to Archers), and there is no Breakshot or anything like that. Instead, Gunners were given more useful statuses, like Stop and Blind. Items to go for: Aiot Gun, Riot Gun, Chaos Rifle, Silver Cannon - all Buyable Giot Gun (Iceshot) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Appraise Skill Lvl 15 reward Longbarrel (Concentrate) - Type 5 Mission Reward, Appraise Skill lvl 25 reward Outsider (Stopshot) - Type 7 Mission Reward Peacemaker (Charmshot) - Type 4 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Gunmanship Missile Status Bad Laws: Charm Stop General Strategies: Move notes: -Blindshot: This is the only REAL move you need to learn. Blind them and watch their vain attempts to attack you... -Fire/Ice/Boltshot: Not very useful as it still does low damage to Flans. -Confushot; Only really usefull if you confuse Flans that keep healing themselves. They sometimes physical attack with this on :) -Silenshot: Good against mages. -Charmshot: I didn't get this, but it would have helped ALOT. Probably more than Stopshot, but that's questionable. -Stopshot: I didn't get this either.... but stopping units 8 squares away would have been fun! -Concentrate: This actualy isn't that useful. I mean, blinded units will get hit more. Sure, Concentrate would speed up the blinding, but...... Whatever, this ability is one of the more useful abilities Gunners can learn. -Equip Notes: -The only real problem is that guns are very expensive in the beggining of the game and that they aren't very common mission items either. You will probably use the Chaos Rifle for most of the game. -As is general in most SCCs, equip the best weapon readily available unless you are learning a skill. Battle Strategies: -FAMFRIT: Easy if you have blindshot. Blind Framfrit and he'll never hit you. Remember that blindshot (and all the other shots, for that matter) can travel through anything at all so just make a line and start blinding. Marche should be able to hold up against a few blinded Floateye things. -ULTIMA: This woulda been easy even without Charm law. Blindshot+95 percent hit rate=Totema doesn't move+Blindshot travels through anything=win -anything else: Basically you blind them then you shoot them I guess... ============================================================================== [5.33] JUGGLER ============================================================================== Overview: THE ultimate support class, Jugglers handle things pretty well on their own too. They can inflict a good variety of status effects, everything from Stop to Confuse to Don't Act. Oh, and did I forget that the Orichalcum lets them do good physical damage too? A fun, easy SCC from start to finish. Difficulty: 2/10 Frustration: 1/10 Recommended party: 4 Jugglers, Montblanc. Jugglers have great stats, so there's no reason to pick another class. Recommended Map: Doesn't matter Advantages: Best DEF in the game, good Speed, good ATK for moogles, one of the best movesets in the game, good weapon choices Disadvantages: Damage output is a bit low, HP is mediocre How to level: Smile chains!!! before that, It's actually pretty tough. Your best bet is to equip Jack Knives and use KBWM. Differences: N/A Items to go for: Jambiya, Jack Knife, Rondell Dagger, Khukri, Chain Plate, Power Sash, Scramasax - all Buyable Orichalcum (Smile) - Type 7 Mission Reward, Negotiation Skill lvl 25 reward Tiptaptwo - Town-Town-Marsh-Marsh Treasure hunt ****** Laws: Bind Status Bad Laws: Knives Berserk (in a couple fights) Copycat Stop (rarely) Good Laws: Fight (in a couple fights) General Strategies: -Early Smile: You can use the same method for getting the Cinquedea early to get the Orichalcon early. Personally I feel this is unnecessary, but MajinZidane did it, so the strategies will assume you did too. The challenge is still perfectly possible without early Orichalcon though. -Gil Toss PWNS so hard early game. Use it on bosses especially, and Flans (and Rockbeasts). 30 dmg vs a boss is nothing to lol about. -More move notes: Dagger also does amazing damage early. Probably a better choice than Gil Toss, unless you need exactly 30, or are fighting a tough enemy. -Get Jack Knifes, then Jambiyas. Both are very cheap, so you'll have Gil Toss and Dagger, both amazing moves, very early. -Stunt moves pass through walls, over cliffs, etc. So you don't have to worry about obstacles, like you would with arrows. -Later in the game (Past lvl 11 or so), the Fight command does more than Dagger or Gil Toss. -Smile chains let you destroy any single enemy on the field if you can kill him in 5 knife hits, no matter what range you're at. Smile then move, then repeat. It pwns. Battle Strategies: NOTE: I was lucky enough to find a Mythril Knife early game. Lol. As if this wasn't easy enough...I didn't use Juggle Combo once though, for the purpose of the guide. -DESERT PERIL: The Flan can be killed with one Gil Toss. Pwned. Dagger the enemies that aren't the blue panther; this should disable them all. It'll take two turns for that blue panther to reach you; once you Dagger him, it's pretty much over. -FAMFRIT: 6 Gil Tosses. That's all it takes to pwn Famfrit. Shouldn't take more than 2 turns. -ANTILAWS: Chuck Daggers at everyone to start with, then start Gil Tossin. Ganging up on one enemy at a time is a good strat here. -DIAMOND RAIN: Ignore the Flan, throw Daggers at everything else. That should buy you a bit of time. It's ok if the Lamia isn't disabled; she's kinda resistant to it anyway. Concentrate your Gil Tossing on one of the Dragons. Once he's done with, you'll have the upper hand, and the rest of the battle should be easy. -PALE COMPANY: Kinda tough, mainly luck involved. I did win with starting levels of 8 and 9 though, pretty lol. You need to dodge the first Firestream, which takes some luck, but just reset if you die there. Run up and Dagger the Dragons. Get them all disabled first thing. Proceed to scatter to all directions so you're not bunched up, and own Andra with Gil Tosses. He has enough HP to last for 9 Gil Tosses, and Don't Act lasts 3 turns. so you've got around 4-5 turns before you're annihilated; have to kill Andra by then. Good luck; persist and you'll win eventually; I won on my 2nd try. -JAGD HUNT: Not as bad as you'd expect. Dagger all the humans on the first turn, except the Hunter, for who Ring has a higher success rate. The Blue Mage can also be disabled. Kill the Assassin first, then the Hunter, as he'll be unstopped faster than the Ninja. Proceed to kill all the humans - Dagger should do more by this time than Gil Toss. Gil Toss, however, works better for killing off the monsters, who are also very vulnerable to status effects. -SCOURING TIME: The easiest way for a low level party to win this one is to get a Fight Law card and Firebomb the enemies. But there's way too many of them, and you'll probably get killed. So here's the plan: Firebomb the Gunner and Paladin first turn, who will get themselves carded and sent to jail. Then Firebomb the Sage, who will also get himself sent to jail. Then you'll probably have not too many characters left, so kill the Mog Knights using Dagger/Ring. Be sure the Templar that knows Lifebreak is Stopped/Don't Acted before you attempt to finish him off, as Lifebreak hurts a ton if he's in Critical. -THE BIG FIND: Firebomb + Fight law works pretty well here. -MATEUS: Easy. Gil Toss your way to victory; I won on my first try with lvl 16-17 guys. You'll need 14 Gil Tosses to win here. -HIDDEN VEIN: Get that White Monk first, before he can do anything nasty to your party. Dagger, then kill. Focus everyone on the left side of the map first. The Blue Mage is next. Strangely, Immunity doesn't protect against Don't Act, so Dagger works fine and disables Dmg > MP too. Destroy the other enemies however you wish. if you don't have an orichalcum by now you should look into getting one from missions. It's great for leveling. Once you get it, have everyone learn Smile. It's definitely worth it. Final Battle Stats: Montblanc Lvl 23 ATK: 272 DEF: 336 POW: 240 RES: 262 SPD: 146 Equip: Tonberrian, Acadia Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Lex Lvl 26 ATK: 353 DEF: 398 POW: 227 RES: 244 SPD: 153 Equip: Orichalcum, Thief Hat, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Smyth Lvl 25 ATK: 354 DEF: 382 POW: 221 RES: 232 SPD: 157 Equip: Orichalcum, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Euver Lvl 24 ATK: 347 DEF: 377 POW: 217 RES: 225 SPD: 147 Equip: Orichalcum, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Syrus Lvl 24 ATK: 323 DEF: 386 POW: 215 RES: 229 SPD: 167 Equip: Tiptaptwo, Headband, Power Sash, Gauntlets, Dash Boots Playtime: 15 hrs, 9 min Final Battle: -LLEDNAR: Easy. Smile your way to him, and stab him with your Orichalcums. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: Spend your first turn Smiling your way to to Remedi, but not actually attacking until everyone's in range. She does a ton of damage, but you should be able to kill her within 3 rounds. Keep Smiling the guy who does the most damage. -LI-GRIM: Smile your way up and don't stop until Remedi is surrounded. Orichalcum hits should do around 80-85, which is solid enough. I banned Lightning to avoid the Mateus's deadly Thundagas. Magi is the tough part; hope Remedi wastes her turn to Alpha Marche or something like that. The chances of her using Descent lowers when your near, so that's why you should surround her. Just keep beating on her and hope you survive some magis; I think it took me 4 rounds to kill her, with one guy left at the end to do the final hit. ============================================================================== [5.34] GADGETEER ============================================================================== Overview: Reviled for having one of the least effective skillsets in the game, Gadgeteers actually fare very well in normal battles. Chroma Gem + Black Ingot owns everything - if it actually works. They do get Damage > MP if things turn out too badly though. They can also pack a pretty good punch with their claws, if need be. Other statuses (besides CG and BI) are far too inconsistent to be used regularly. Difficulty: 2/10 without final battle, 4/10 with Frustration: 6/10, 8/10 with final battle Recommended Party: Montblanc and 4 Gadgeteers, for simplicity, although 5 Thieves is far, far better Recommended Map: Get Death Claws (Mountain-Mountain-Marsh-Marsh) Advantages: Chroma Gem + Black Ingot, decent WATK, Damage > MP Disadvantages: Sloooow, can screw yourself over early, very luck dependent How to level: Hmm...Red Spring? KBWM is your best bet, you can heal yourself Differences: The closest class would be the Bard/Dancer series. Unlike them though, Gadgeteers can fail, but get to choose which statuses they inflict. Dancers/Bards can also inflict HP/MP damage, whereas Gadgeteers cannot. I'd say Bards/Dancers are better, but the Gadgeteer SCC is far easier than a Bard/Dancer SCC. Items to go for: Kris Knife, Silver Disk, Sick Knuckles, Dream Claws, Judo Uniform - all Buyable Death Claws (Black Ingot) - Mountain-Mountain-Marsh-Marsh Treasure Hunt, Type 7 Mission Reward Gaia Gear (Auto-Regen) - Type 3 Mission Reward ****** Laws: Status Target All Bad Laws: Copycat General Strategies: -Buying Order: Gadgeteer crap is EXPENSIVE. Here's the order in which I recommend buying things: Rising Suns (for winning early battles), Judo Outfits, Dash Boots, Dream Claws, Fortune Rings, Power Sashes, Headbands -Don't use Silver Disc. You will pretty much lose the battle automatically if it hits you, or at least have a very, very drawn out battle deeply dependent on luck. The only battle where its viable is the last one. -Use Red Spring only when you have 2 gadgeteers going in a row. That way, the worst that can happen 75% of the time is both parties are hasted. -Chroma Gem and Fortune Rings are both buyable. Abuse this. -Chroma Gem + Black Ingot + Fortune Rings = instant win; you won't have to bother with a lot of the other abilities after getting Death Claws. Battle Strategies: -DESERT PERIL: It helps if you bought Sick Claws before the battle, otherwise you'll have to punch the flan to death. Either way, Damage > MP makes this battle easy. -FAMFRIT: Don't bother with any Pandora spells here. Just beat the Ahrimans to death, then kill Famfrit. -DIAMOND RAIN: Let them taste the awesome power of Chroma Gem + Fortune Rings. Mmhmm.... -ANDRAMALECH: Not as bad as you'd think. Spam CG first turn with whoever has MP left after Firestream. Hopefully you'll get 1-2 Dragons. Just beat up Andra, Dmg > MP should keep you pretty safe. Use Chroma Gem whenever you're not in attacking range. I beat him with levels 10-11 and almost everyone with Kaiser Knuckles. -JAGD HUNT: Quite an annoying battle. You'll have to rely on Chroma Gem to keep the enemies at bay. Assuming it hits, split your forces between the Blue Mage and the Assassin. They should both be dead in two rounds. You need to be careful with the Ninja and the Hunter though; they shouldn't be awoken at once. Make sure you can kill the ninja in one turn after awakening him. Took me 4 tries to win this one. -THE BOUNTY: You'll have to CG - Attack - CG - Attack...etc to kill the Fighter and Sage. Its probably a good idea to kill the paladin first though. Get your Death Claws after Scouring Time, an easy battle. -THE BIG FIND: Your first use of Chroma Gem + Black Ingot should yield hilarious results. Easy win. -MATEUS: Not too hard, actually. I got in a lucky CG at the beginning of the battle (after banning target area, of course), and put all the enemies to sleep. Then I blinded almost everyone, including my own members, with Silver Disc. From here the battle was pretty much won, even with my lowered hit rate (they were blinded too so it wasn't so bad). I ignored the vamps and went after Mateus with 3 of my Gadgeteers. I beat her at lvl 15-16, lol, though i leveled up a bunch during the battle. -OVER THE HILL: Ritz and Shara are immune to status effects. Darn. So, stay in your little corner, and CG/Black Ingot the other enemies as you normally would. 5v2 with Damage > MP is still a pretty easy fight though, even though they'll double turn you sometimes. Ignore Shara and go after Ritz. Final Battle Stats: Montblanc Lvl 17 ATK: 231 DEF: 275 POW: 219 RES: 276 SPD: 118 Equip: Death Claws, Headband, Power Sash, Fortune Ring, Dash Boots Zeeman Montblanc Lvl 18 ATK: 261 DEF: 305 POW: 225 RES: 293 SPD: 103 Equip: Sick Knuckles, Headband, Power Sash, Fortune Ring, Dash Boots Connor Lvl 18 ATK: 270 DEF: 313 POW: 228 RES: 297 SPD: 107 Equip: Survivor, Headband, Power Sash, Fortune Ring, Dash Boots Frantz Lvl 19 ATK: 271 DEF: 317 POW: 230 RES: 304 SPD: 113 Equip: Cat Claws, Headband, Power Sash, Fortune Ring, Dash Boots Duler Lvl 19 ATK: 260 DEF: 322 POW: 235 RES: 303 SPD: 113 Equip: Hard Knuckles, Headband, Power Sash, Fortune Ring, Dash Boots Play Time: 17 hr, 47 min Final Battle: Preparations: Go into battle with Holy/Berserk/Katana as the laws. Get a Skills banning card, and a Target Area card if you can. -LLEDNAR: Kind of a toughie. Equip your highest attack power claws that aren't Death Claws (probably Kaiser Knuckles), and the proper status bannage here is key (get a Skills banning card). CG/Black Ingot the enemies as normal, and it'll be 3v1. Poison still hurts though, so be quick about finishing him. This took me several tries to beat. -BATTLE QUEEN REMEDI: There are three ways this battle can go: Really well, ok, and awful. If you get both Chroma Gem AND Silver Disc to hit on the first turn, then it's really good, and you won't have a problem. However, chances are that won't happen, and both sides will end up blinded. In this case, you'll want one member (probably montblanc) to keep the totemas distracted, preferably far away from Remedi. The rest of the party should surround Remedi and beat her to death. Use Chroma Gem whenever you can't get a hit in to disable the Totemas for a bit. If Silver Disc just hates you, then you're kind of screwed, and should just reset :P -LI-GRIM: Goddammit, this battle is frustrating: You need to get CG and Silver Disc to hit Li-Grim. If she uses Descent first, or Silver Disc hits you, you're screwed. Once you fulfill those two conditions though, the battle becomes pretty easy. Surround Li-Grim, use your weakest member to draw off the Mateuses. There's still some luck involved, but you should be able to pull it off. This stage took around 10 tries because Li-Grim was faster than me somehow, and Silver Disc kept owning me. Oh, and when I finally won, the enemy hit 2 5% chance attacks, and I missed 2 95% attacks. I swear the random number generator is rigged... ============================================================================== [6.00] Monster SCCs ============================================================================== This is my invention, the Single Monster Class Challenge. The basic premise is to play through the whole game using a party of all monsters, like all Dragons, all Goblins, all Lamia/Lillith, etc. This isn't possible without a CodeBreaker or emulator, but I've figured out the cheats that allow you to play as a monster. Monsters don't get to equip items, and have a limited skillset, so this should be harder than most SCCs. Also, Marche can't be turned into a monster. The reason is his sprite doesn't seem to be changable, and if you try to do monster animations with Marche sprite, the game freezes. So during story battles, Marche can do whatever he wishes. No other non monster party members though, except when you're forced to use Montblanc. Oh, there are a few things about this challenge I haven't been able to perfect: 1. Elemental weaknesses and absorbs aren't accounted for. I don't know how to do this yet. This makes some challenges much harder. 2. Your monsters won't start with stats like they're supposed to have, but rather stats that the character you had before you turned him into a monster had. So they can start with Soldier stats, White Mage stats, or whatever. However, as they level up, monster stat gains are used, so Flans will have crazy high defense as they're supposed to. Standard SCC rules apply, with a couple extra for monsters: -All level caps have been raised +5. I'd imagine some monsters need it. -You can choose any classes for your monsters to start off as. This means you can use Race Wanted missions to recruit for your class. -You MUST de-equip everything before applying cheats. -You must attain the items that would teach humans/bangaa/whatever skills before you can equip them for monsters. So you'd need a Diamond Armor before you could equip Weapon Def+, for example. -No using abilities your monster class doesn't have normally, even though you'll have access to some. -You may use monsters from either class. For example, if you pick the Lamia SCC, you can use both Lamias and Liliths. -THE GAME OFTEN FREEZES AFTER BEATING MATEUS. So if you beat her legitimately with your monsters and it freezes, you can turn on invincibility codes and beat her with humans. Just remember to change things back afterwards. This also applies to other battles where the game freezes. -Monsters can't use laws/anti-laws. It makes their sprite disappear, and if they make another move, the game crashes. Damn. Without further ado, here's how to cheat to change your characters into monsters. These are all CODEBREAKER codes. If you have gameshark advance, pro action replay, or anything else like that, then these won't work for you. Enter in these codes for each unit, where XX is the monster you want to play as from the following list. for those of you with emulators and are lazy, there's a mass copy and paste list below - in VBA you can just paste the whole thing in. Or, if your really, really lazy, just e-mail me and i'll email you the cheats for VBA, which are stored neatly inside their own file. IMPORTANT!!! after you apply the cheats the first time, add on 820007BE XX01 cheat. then have your P8 enter the change job screen, and turn off the 820007BE XX01 cheat. otherwise you won't be able to access some skillsets. p3: 32000295 00XX 420002D0 EEEE 00000048 0002 82000296 XX06 p4: 3200039D 00XX 420003D8 EEEE 00000048 0002 8200039E XX06 p5: 320004A5 00XX 420004E0 EEEE 00000048 0002 820004A6 XX06 p6: 320005AD 00XX 420005E8 EEEE 00000048 0002 820005AE XX06 p7: 320006B5 00XX 420006F0 EEEE 00000048 0002 820006B6 XX06 p8: 320007BD 00XX 420007F8 EEEE 00000048 0002 820007BE XX06 3200039D 00XX 420003D8 EEEE 00000048 0002 8200039E XX06 320006B5 00XX 420006F0 EEEE 00000048 0002 820006B6 XX06 32000295 00XX 420002D0 EEEE 00000048 0002 82000296 XX06 320004A5 00XX 420004E0 EEEE 00000048 0002 820004A6 XX06 320005AD 00XX 420005E8 EEEE 00000048 0002 820005AE XX06 320007BD 00XX 420007F8 EEEE 00000048 0002 820007BE XX06 820007BE XX01 ***Credit to Labmaster for the below codes*** 2C Goblin 2D Red Cap 2E Jelly 2F Ice Flan 30 Cream 31 Bomb 32 Grenade 33 Icedraje 34 Firewyrm 35 Thundrake 36 Lamia 37 Lillith 38 Antlion 39 Jawbreaker 3A Toughskin 3B Blade Biter 3C Tonberry 3D Masterberry 3E Red Panther 3F Coeurl 40 Marlboro 41 Marlboro Great 42 Float-Eyeball 43 Ahriman 44 Zombie 45 Vampire 46 Sprite 47 Titania These are the secondary abilities you should equip. Don't use any abilities that the monster isn't supposed to have, or you'll crash the game, and besides, that'd be breaking the challenge rules anyway :P Sprite: Hunt Titania: Hunt Goblin: Battle Tech Red Cap: Battle Tech Lamia: Ninja Skill Lillith: White Magic Jelly: Battle Tech AND Chivalry (see note) Cream: Fighter Tech Ice Flan: Chivalry Bomb: Fighter Tech Grenade: Steal Icedrake: Steal Thundrake: Ninja Skill Antlion: White Magic Jawbreaker: White Magic AND Black Magic Toughskin: Black Magic Blade Biter: Black Magic Tonberry: Phantasm Skill Masterberry: Phantasm Skill Red Panther: Blue Magic Couerl: Blue Magic Malboro: Blue Magic Big Malboro: Blue Magic Floateye: Blue Magic Ahriman: Blue Magic Zombie: Aim Vampire: Aim NOTE: for classes with more than one skillset, the character must start as one of the classes. so a jelly must be a soldier first before you apply cheats. I haven't done a lot of these, but here's some basic notes: Fairy: 4/10 Its really hard early on when you don't really have enough MP to cast spells, especially meteorite. Dying in "Snow in Lutia" is not cool. Lvl ?D Holy will pwn if used right though, you should be able to do it with proper planning. Evade is 70 for titanias, which is really high. Fairies have poor attack growth overall though, so stick with Meteorite and Lvl? D Holy for damage dealing. Setup: 2 Sprites, 3 Titanias Tonberry: 1/10 ... ... ... Voodoo does 999 damage with 100% hit rate. 'nuff said. The only hard part is that some enemies like playing keepaway, and the final boss can kill you before you get to her. Setup: 5 Masterberries until i get the zombie status code the zombie challenge is hard...but... Zombie: 2/10, 4/10 without elemental cheats Once you die, you come back in three turns. This is about as easy as it gets, and besides, vampires are really powerful in the first place. Setup: 5 Vampires Bomb: 7/10 without elemental Cheats, 4/10 with elemental cheats Chill is worthless without elemental cheats, as it hurts you. So you're limited to Bombs with Flame Attack, which does mediocre damage, and bombs have crappy stats. You're in for a tough time here. Setup: 5 Bombs without elemental cheats, 5 Grenades with elemental cheats Goblins: 5/10 They actually have pretty decent physical stats, and mutilate heals for a good amount. You'll have some troubles versus bosses, but proper law management should make this challenge possible. Setup: 5 Red Caps Flans: 3/10, 2/10 with elemental cheats You'll absolutely own physical units, but mages, especially summoners, cause big problems. so you'll have to kill them before they get to you. I can imagine Mateus being near impossible though. Setup: 1 Jelly, 1 Cream, 3 Ice Flans Dragons: 1.5/10 The cream of the crop, statwise. Mighty Guard makes attacks do far, far less damage. This challenge shouldn't be trouble til the end. Setup: 3 Icedrakes, 2 Thundrakes Lamias: 4/10 Regular battles are incredibly fun, bosses are incredibly frustrating. Kiss and Poison Frog are possibly two of the most awesome moves in the game. You can use either one then let the enemy kill itself. Sweet. That said, there's no good way of doing damage to bosses. Setup: 3 Lamias, 2 Liliths, the other way works as well Bugs: 3/10 Good stats, and bosses often happen to be multiples of 3 leveled. Sandstorm is a great move for disabling an enemy. Setup: 3 Antlions, 2 Jawbreakers Panthers: 3/10 Have the excellent, free Blaster, which petrifies. They're also highly mobile, and have good stats. Setup: 4 Coerls, 1 Red Panther Malboros: 2/10 Bad Breath is amazing, and they have good stats to boot. Setup: 5 Big Malboros Floateyes: 5/10 They have amazing move and can Jump, but their HP is awful. Roulette is far too unreliable to be relied on. Bosses will likely be tough, although Devil Gaze probably helps a lot. Setup: 3 Floateyes, 2 Ahrimans Rockbeasts: 1/10 Resonate absolutely destroys fighting units, as does Matra Magic and high defense. Like Flans though, Rockbeasts get owned by magical units. Limit Glove does ridiculous damage when they're in critical though, so this is a very easy challenge. Setup: 5 Bladebiters ============================================================================== [7.00] RECOMMENDED LAWS ============================================================================== These are the Laws which, should it be possible, should be forbidden in every challenge. So, for example, Lightning should be forbidden in Desert Peril because it pretty much disables the flan. Of course, you'll need to be creative if your class relies on a law NOT being forbidden like Archers with Missile. Laws: Desert Peril: Lightning - necessary to disable the Flan Diamond Rain: Ice - again, to disable the Flan and Ice Breath Ultima Crystals: Charm - makes the battle cake Koringwood: Missile, Knives, or Target Area (I prefer Missile) - Missile takes out the Archer and the Sniper, Knives takes out the Thieves, and target Area takes out the Summoner and Black Mage. Pale Company: Target Area or 2 of 3 main elementals, or Fight if you have elemental protection equipment - lessens the threat of the dragons, especially their breaths The Bounty: Color Magic/Target Area or Skills - The former two somewhat disable the Red Mage and Black Mage, while the latter disables the Sage Scouring Time: Spears + Tech, Blades or Missile as well if possible - Spears disables the Templars, Blades disables the Mog Knights The Big Find: Knives or Prayer - Knives disables the dangerous, fast moving thieves; it's better than Blades or Techs because without both blades and Techs disabled, fighters are still dangerous Desert Patrol: Fight + Tech, or Prayer + Greatsword - Fight + Tech disables every enemy except the Bishop and the Defender, who can't do much, while Prayer + Greatsword disables the Bishop and the two Soldiers Quiet Sands: Poison/Target Area/Status and/or Fight - Poison is ESPECIALLY important to crippled the Vamps, Fight + Poison/TA/Status almost disables them entirely Materite: Missile and/or Color Magic and/or Summon and/or Target Area - takes out the Assassin and Sniper/Red Mage and partially White Mage/ Summoner/Summoner and White Mage and Red Mage, respectively Present Day: Blades - All the enemies except the Templar and Alchemist use Blades Hidden Vein: Skills (if possible), Fight + Call is good too - This one's a toughie, as the enemies are well balanced, but the Sage is arguably the most dangerous Over the Hill: Missile (Summon is helpful, not necessary) - disables the uber-damaging Shara and the Assassin's Fight command Royal Valley: Katana/Skill, along with target all, lightning, holy cards - Katana/Skills disables almost all the enemies VS Llednar ============================================================================== [8.00] RECOMMENDED MISSION ITEMS ============================================================================== ***This section courtesy of DDragoon*** For making SCC's easier, I've got just a small note: Use Mission Items. Mission Items do not get used up in any mission they are not required for, and have some have extremely good properties. A list of good ones: Sprinkler: [enhc] Ice and Water Recieved VERY early game, if your unit has Ice or Water Elemental attacks it will boost their damage by 1.5 against almost everything with no Ice element affiliation or equipment. Other element enhancing Mission Items: Helje Key: [enhc] Fire Telaq Flower: [enhc] Lightning Blue Rose: [enhc] Dark White Flowers: [enhc] Holy Edaroya Time: [ehnc] Holy, Dark Justice Bagde: [enhc] Holy Thunderstone: [enhc] Lightning Stormstone: [enhc] Wind Ahriman Eye: [enhc] Dark Wyrmstone: [enhc] Fire Topaz Armring: [enhc] Earth Cyril Ice: [enhc] Ice Gedegg Soup: Wder/Mres + 12% Gives an extra boost to defenses that amounts to a 6% reduction in all damage. Other good stat boosters during SCC's: Loaded Dice: 9% increase in Wattack. Tonberry Lamp: 12% increase in Wattack ============================================================================== [9.00] MISSION EQUIPMENT LIST ============================================================================== ***DDragoon provided the random mission equipment list, and Chronic PokeAbuser provided the repeatable missions list. All credit for this section should be given to them.*** These are useful equipments for certain SCCs. Used in conjunction with Chronic PokeAbuser's list, they should be able to let you find what you need quickly. TYPE 1: Silver Rapier (A must for Fencer/Red Mage/Elementalist) Kaiser Knuckles(can be purchased later, but why wait?) Blaze Robe (usefull in magical SCCs, nerfs Jelly) Ice Shield (not as useful as Blaze Robe, but can be used against enemies like Dragons or Ice Flans) Wizard Hat(marginally good for magical classes) TYPE 2: Gale Sword (a must for Warriors) Djinn Flyssa (a Must for Fencer/Elementalist) Cat Claws (White Monk!) Diamond Armor(Paladin, Defender) Thunder Robe(see Blaze Robe, nerfs Cream) Magic Ring(marginally usefull for magical classes) TYPE 3: Blood Sword(Soldier, Dragoon) Diamond Sword(Soldier) Joyeuse (Fencer/Elementalist) Artemis Bow (Archer) Survivor (White Monk, Gadgeteer) Flame Shield (1st half of Babus Nerfing for Marche) Gold Hairpin (very useful hat for magical classes) Gaia Gear (Hunter/Sniper/Gadgeteer)[also not bad with Earth Render in White Monk SCC] Flurry Robe(See Thunder Robe, nerfs Ice Flan) Thief Armlets (Thieves want this!) TYPE 4: Restorer (Dragoon) Hardedge (Bangin' weapon for Soldier) Snake Staff (Bishop!, Summoner) Flame Rod (Black Mage!) Mandragora (Sage, Alchemist) Yoichi Bow (Archer) Fey Bow (Hunter, Assasin!, Sniper!) Fairy Harp (Beastmaster, Animist) White Fangs (White Monk, Gadgeteer) Peacemaker(Gunner!) Carabini Mail(Templar!) Minerva Plate(marginally useful for Viera) White Robe(marginally usefull for Robe-equip classes) TYPE 5: Vitanova (Dragoon!) SavetheQueen (Paladin, Defender!, Templar) El Cid Sword (Defender) Colchimarde (Red Mage!) Petalchaser (Assasin!) Spring Staff (Bishop, White Mage!) Thor Rod (Black Mage!, Time Mage!) Life Crossier (Sage!, Alchemist!) Target Bow (Archer!) Hades Bow (Hunter!, Sniper!) Aona Flute (Beastmaster!, Animist!) Godhand (White Monk!) Mirror Mail (Part 2 of Babus Nerfing, All Armor-weilding Classes[especially Armor Only]) Ninja Gear (Beastmaster!, Ninja, Fighter!) Black Robe (Black Mage!, Illusionist!, Bishop)[Do always use this for Illusionists] TYPE 6: Harpe(Good Weapon for Blue Mage) Arch Sword (Paladin, Templar!) Sword Breaker (Thief!) Gupti Aga (Fencer!) Nosada (Ninja!) Cheer Staff (White Mage!, Bishop, Summoner!) Chill Rod (Blace Mage!, Time Mage!, Illusionist) Lotus Mace (Sage!, Alchemist!) Perseus Bow (Archer!) Nike Bow (Hunter!) Kain's Lance (Templar!, Dragoon) Heal Chime (Animist!) Tiger Fangs (White Monk!) Longbarrel (Gunner!) Dragon Mail (marginally usefull armor) Mirage Vest (Fencer!, White Monk) Light Robe (Illusionist!, Summoner!, Bishop!) TYPE 7: Venus Blade (Fighter, Gladiator) Excalibur (Paladin!, Defender, Templar) Orichalcum (Thief!) Epeprism (Elementalist) Masamune (Ninja!, Assasin!) Nirvana Staff (White Mage!, Bishop!, Summoner) Stardust Rod (Illusionist) Scorpion Tail (Sage!, Alchemist!) Master Bow (Hunter!, Sniper!, Assasin) Trident (Templar!, Dragoon) Blood Strings (Beastmaster!, Animist) Death Claws (Gadgeteer!) Outsider (Gunner!) Sacri Shield (Kickass Shield with great Status nulls and Evade) Maximillian (Awesome Armor, use this if not using Mirror Mail) Bone Plate (Best Clothing Wdef in the game) Fairy Shoes (Teleport!) Aegis Shield (Decent Shield with Petrify immunity) Lordly Robe (Time Mage!, Elementalist) note that these are all REPEATABLE missions. There are other, non-repeatable missions for each Type. Type 1 Reward Missions Chocobo Help! Materite Giza Plains Lutia Pass Swords in Cyril Type 2 Reward Missions Seeking Silver The Wormhole Metal Hunt The Nubswood Eluut Sands Type 3 Reward Missions Sprohm Meet Magic Cloth Into the Wood Malboro Hunt Ulei River Aisenfield Roda Volcano Type 4 Reward Missions Swimming Meet Cadoan Meet Ruins Survey Chocobo Work Magic Vellum Travel Aid The Salikawood Gotor Sands Type 5 Reward Missions Mage Tourney Dig Dig Dig For a Flower Nargai Cave Kudik Peaks Jeraw Sands Uladon Bog Jagd Helje Brown Rabbits Type 6 Reward Missions Battle Tourney Prison Break Water City A Barren Land Bread Woes One More Tail Delia Dunes Bugbusters Jagd Ahli Blue Geniuses Type 7 Reward Missions Clan League Gulug Ghost Mirage Tower Tubola Cave Deti Plains Siena Gorge Jagd Dorsa Ozmonfield Yellow Powerz Wenqi Yang adds an easy way to get the mission item you need: "Hi. I think I have found a fairly easy way to get any high rank mission awards instead of doing them randomly and hoping the correct one shows up - through the turf capture dispatches. Basically, look for the current turf capture dispatch in the pub. If it doesn't give a good type mission award, accept and cancel it immediately. Keep on doing this (walk around the map for a bit if one has to) until the one with the correct type mission award shows up. For example, if I want a Lotus Mace (type 6), and the current one only gives a type 5 (but I know I have a turf with type 6 mission award not freed yet), I accept and cancel the current turf dispatch, and keep on doing so until either there's no more dispatches (in which case I walk around for a day or two and see if it showed up yet), or until I find a good one (say, Bugbusters). Now, look at the reward for the mission. Chances are it's not going to be one you want (say you need Lotus Mace but it turns out to be a Longbarrel). Now, accept and cancel the mission, then walk around for four days. At the fourth day, save. Now go to any pub and the mission should have showed up. If it doens't give the reward I want, reset. Keep on doing this until the corret one shows up. This works for other random missions too, but most of them have long timeout periods and they are not really guaranteed to show up, while I've never failed to get a reward I want with dispatches. I know that was confusing and probably needs rewording, but I think I got the idea across." ============================================================================== [10.00] GLOSSARY ============================================================================== A list of terms I use in this FAQ. AoE: Area of Effect skill/spell. Examples include Aero, Summons, Tremor, and all Black Magic. In otherwords skills that would be penalized by the Target Area law. ATK: Weapon Attack DEF: Weapon Defense dmg: Damage FTW: For the win CG: In Gadgeteer SCC, Chroma Gem. KBWM: Koringband White Mage. Refer to the general strategies section (3.00) Lvl: Level OHKO: One hit Knockout; to kill something in one hit or ability. POW: Magic power pwned/pwnt: To damage or win by a large margin, see Wikipedia for general usage RES: Magic Resistance SCC: Single Class Challenge, the main point of this FAQ. Treasure Hunt: Putting lands next to each other to find items. You search the land in the center to get the item. For more detailed information, see Astroblue's FAQ (the third one down). ============================================================================== [11.00] Updates/Version History ============================================================================== 5/3/08: Version 1.08, added a tip on how to get mission items, Archer SSCC video link, Fighter SSCC video link, Blue Mage SSCC video link 5/17/07: Version 1.07, edited Summoner SCC 3/19/07: Version 1.06, edited Bishop SCC 9/15/06: Version 1.05, added Morpher SCC 4/29/06: Version 1.04, added Templar SCC 4/9/06: Version 1.03, corrected a few issues with the Templar SCC. 3/8/06: Version 1.02, Added Recommended Mission Items, changed the general strategies a bit, added a few FAQ writers to Thanks, expanded upon the Recommended Laws section 2/23/06: Version 1.01, a few law updates, minor general strategies changes, added this section 2/11/06: Version 1.00, first posting ============================================================================== [12.00] Thanks ============================================================================== Much thanks to these FFTA message board users: DDragoon, for work on Sections 8 and 9, providing helpful information on the boards, and write-up of the Soldier and Dragoon SCCs ChronicPokeAbuser, for work on Section 8, starting the whole SCC trend, and his work on the Morpher, Templar, Black Mage and Archer SCCs. Hope your Challenge FAQ is posted. ecyc333, for his constant presence on the FFTA Challenge Topic board, and his write up of the Illusionist SCC linid0t, for saving the original challenge topic at times, and his write up of the Gunner SCC, and a few grammatical corrections MarioGolfMaster, for being an original FFTA SCC enthusiast, and his write up of the Alchemist SCC dablackbelt his work on the Bishop, Summoner SCCs ArchaelN7 for a great set of Archer SSCC videos EnigmaGamer for Fighter SSCC videos MoogleBoss for Blue Mage SSCC videos Alternator, for his work on the Gladiator SCC, which no one else seemed to want DarkKnight326 and Zypher11788 for their work on the Paladin SCC Moogle_dude for his work on the Sniper SCC Gangsta Jesus for his work on the White Monk SCC Musourenka for his advice on the Templar SCC Flubunga for his work on the Assassin SCC ffl2and3rocks for general advice early on Anyone else who supported the FAQ and FFTA All names above are GameFAQs message board usernames unless otherwise indicated. And these FAQ writers: DBM11085 and AstroBlue for their excellent FAQ Astroblue for his Treasure Hunt FAQ NeoBlitz for his Ability FAQ, very handy for a quick Ctrl+F Labmaster for the Patch Codes FAQ, and letting me use some of his codes here And the rest: SquareEnix for making this game http://www.network-science.de/ascii/ for the title ASCII art my parents for being my parents