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Part 12 - WhydidIdothiswhatthehelliswrongwithmeserker

So I actually did all this over two months ago and am just now finishing this LP because holy crap was I burned out on FF5 by the end between this and all the fiestas. I've got four bosses left to cover so let's jump to it.



Gilgamesh is of course a non-issue so I'm not even going to bother. I did snag the Genji Shield from him which is nice for situations where physical attacks are nasty.





I'll go into more detail with Necrophobe in a minute, but he's way too much for me right now.



And if he's too much for me, Shinryu and Omega definitely are as well.





I can actually beat tree Exdeath, but Neo? Ahahahahaha, nope.



I knew I'd have to grind to L99 at some point for Neo. There's no way I'm not going to try seriously at L51, and I'm going to need levels for the rest of the bosses as well.

I cheat to make it faster, of course.



One nice perk is Zerky! has 9999HP at L99. He'll need all of it.



Omega is still a pain due to its various moves. I'll go into more detail later.





It has high evasion and defense, so the only way I can reliably attack Omega is Sword Dance procs. However, the Dancing Dagger does 0 to Omega with Sword Dance since SD only doubles the Attack and Multiplier and Omega's defense is an insane 190. This IS enough for Chicken Knife to do its magic though, so I'd NEED Dual Wield to damage Omega. The only other option are axes, which will pretty much never hit anyway due to Omega's crazy evasion.

That means I'd need to rely on 1/8 SD odds to trigger six times without Omega killing me with an insane assortment of nasty attacks. I'm lucky if I can even get six attacks off. The only plus is that the second attack doing 0 damage doesn't trigger Omega's nasty counters, which is nice but not nearly enough. So it's theoretically possible, but very very unlikely. I had to use a hack to beat Omega. I'll go into that later.

Anyway, let's get to Necrophobe.



code:

Barrier
HP: 8800
MP: 300
Immune to Earth.
Vulnerable to Death, Stone, Silence, Stop, Slow.

AI Script:
Change Target:Single Enemy with Wall
{Flare,Holy,Flare}
Change Target:All Allies
{Fire3,Bolt3,Ice 3}
Change Target:Single Enemy with Wall
{Holy,Flare,Holy}
Change Target:All Allies
{Fire3,Bolt3,Ice 3}


code:

Necrophobe
HP: 44044 (effectively 34044)
MP: 10000
Weak to ALL ELEMENTS.
Vulnerable to Blind, Silence, Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=02{
     No Interrupt{
          {Fight,Fight,Hurricane}
          {Fight,Fight,Specialty}
          }
     No Interrupt{
          {Fight,Fight,Specialty}
          {Fight,Fight,Specialty}
          }     
     No Interrupt{
          {Fight,Fight,Hurricane}
          {Fight,Fight,Specialty}          }
     No Interrupt{
          {Fight,Fight,Specialty}
          {Fight,Fight,Doom}
          }
     }
Condition:Alone{
     Display Text: 'M... my invincible barrier...
     Display Text: 'Then I have no choice...
     Display Text: 'Have a taste of...
     Display Text: 'My real power!!
     Set V00=02
     Flash
     }
Condition:V00=01{
     Nothing
     }
Display Text: 'With these four barriers...
Display Text: 'I am now invincible!
Display Text: 'Can you defeat me?
Set V00=01
Nothing
React:Death & Condition:Alone{
     Display Text: 'E...  Ex... !!!
     Nothing     }


I snipped all the Gilgamesh stuff from Necrophobe's script since it's already pretty long.





The Barriers are issues because Flare does nasty damage and Holy does even nastier damage, like 1000/2000 for each spell. The extra levels are huge here because now Zerky! can survive twice as many attacks and he can one-shot the front barriers and two-shot the back ones.



Necrophobe is invincible until the Barriers are destroyed.



Necrophobe himself is nasty because he attacks twice and he has a combination of Hurricane (reduce to single-digit HP) and an attack that inflicts HP Sap. He can even cast Doom to ruin your day.



It takes a couple attempts and a lot of lucky blocks to trigger Gilgamesh saving the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6SmmDnqf6Y

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 99
DEATHS: 2



So Necrophobe is no big deal. That leaves only the two superbosses and Neo. Joy.



Let's go ahead with Shinryu.



code:

Shinryu
HP: 55000
MP: 51000
Absorbs Holy.
Vulnerable to Blind, Berserk, Silence, Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:V00=01{
     {Maelstrom,Fight,Roulette}
     {Snowstorm,Atomic Ray,Thunder}
     No Interrupt{
          {Maelstrom,Fight,Roulette}
          {MghtyGrd,L2 Old,L3 Flare}
          }
     No Interrupt{
          {Fight,Fight,Demon's Eye}
          {Fight,Fight,Poison Breath}
          }
     }
Nothing
No Interrupt{
     Set V00=01
     Tidal Wave
     }
React:Magic:No-Damage Magic{
     Set V00=00
     Zombie Breath
     }
Condition:HP < 20000 & HP Damage{
     {No-Damage Magic,Nothing,Nothing}
     }


Shinryu is a monster. Let's go over his various moves and how they effect Zerky!.

Tidal Wave: Always happens for the first move. I either use Coral Ring to absorb it or hope for an Aegis block. Latter's the better option since Tidal Wave only happens once a battle anyway.
Fight: Painful, of course. Genji Shield helps evasion but Aegis is probably better for all the other moves.
Maelstrom: Bad, of course.
Roulette: Thanks to Bone Mail, it's a 50% chance of a full heal for Zerky!. Definitely something to look forward to.
Snowstorm: Either an annoyance or a non-issue.
Atomic Ray: Either horrible due to the Bone Mail's fire weakness or great if the Flame Ring is equipped.
Thunder: Diamond Helm reduces the damage from this.
Mighty Guard: Bad since it reduces Zerky!'s damage output and prolongs the fight.
L2 Old: L99 makes this a non-issue.
L3 Flare: L99 makes this instant death for Zerky!. Only thing that can stop it is Reflect Ring.
Demon's Eye: Aegis blocks it and even the attempts I did without Aegis didn't affect Zerky!.
Poison Breath: A small heal due to Bone Mail.

The problem is trying to take care of all this stuff at once. I do a few attempts and (may have been at the suggestion of Kyrosiris or someone else, it has been over two months so I don't remember) decide to try something.



Shinryu has a rare steal that is very effective against him. The plan is to attack once and then run away until I get the rare steal. Tidal Wave will heal any attacks Shinryu gets off in the previous battle.



The Dragon's Whisker is a whip that deals x8 damage to dragons. Shinryu is a dragon.

As a plus, this means I get a small agility boost from Equip Whips and I can hide in the back row.



Damage is fantastic (though goes down to ~5000 if Mighty Guard is in play). That said, I still lose a lot trying all sorts of various options.



This is my final loadout. It takes me awhile to even bother trying Hermes because Flame and Reflect Rings give me a lot more defensive options. The problem is I'm a fucking Berserker, I should always be trying to end the fight as soon as fucking possible because Zerky! cannot win battles of attrition.



So after a few more attempts I finally down the dragon, and only taking a third of the deaths of the fucking Chemist to boot. So yeah, a L99 Omniserker can take down Shinryu. I assume a regular solo Berserker could too with a bit more luck needed due to Chicken Knife !Flee procs and the extra damage from physical attacks. I'm happy about this, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIr1yNBdQzs

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 99
DEATHS: 52



Alright. Let's do this.



code:

Exdeath
HP: 49001
MP: 30000
Vulnerable to Slow.

AI Script:
Condition:HP < 10000{
     {Meteo,Fight,Nothing}
     }
Condition:HP < 30000{
     {Flare,Holy,Fight}
     {Fight,Fight,White Hole}
     {Fight,White Hole,Nothing}
     {Fight,Condemn,White Hole}
     }
{Fight,White Hole,Nothing}
{Fight,White Hole,Fight}
React:Death{
     No Interrupt{
          Change Music
          Display Text:  The Void begins to
          Display Text:  devour Exdeath!!
          Display Text: Exdeath:  W  H  Y?
          Display Text: 'I had the power of 'Void'!
          Display Text: 'What IS 'Void'...?  Arrrgh!!
          Unhide Monster: NeoExdeath (All 5 parts)
          }
     }


Exdeath is a pain, but still easily dispatchable if I don't get unlucky. The only issue is how much damage I take before reaching Neo. Reflect Rings help against Holy and Flare, White Hole is a non-issue with the Aegis Shield (and if I go with Genji Shield the level difference still makes it a non-issue), and Exdeath's physical attacks aren't too bad. Condemn and Meteo are both nasty, but Zerky! has to really whiff to trigger those.

There are still a lot of attempts lost to Exdeath, but even L51 Zerky! could beat him. The only issue is how much damage he can put out before you reach Neo.



I'll go into Neo in a bit. Neo has actually been beaten in the SNES version with a solo Berserker, but in the SNES version you can exploit the magic underflow glitch and that was using the "million monkeys with a million typewriters" approach. Due to how I record the gameplay, I didn't want to have hundreds of GB of video just for the very low chance Zerky! could pull it off.





I was streaming a lot of these Neo attempts and even got goofy at times. No luck.

So at this point, I decided it's time for Plan B.



Can of Worms has made a mod patch that rebalances a lot of jobs. Appropriately, this patch gives a ton of buffs to Berserkers. One big thing is they now have three passive slots. The other is now they have a 25% of using certain commands in battle like !Jump or !Aim. Or, you know, !Rapidfire, which is crazy huge due to getting four hits and bypassing the Chicken Knife's !Flee proc.

Ignore the "super" passives, they're part of the Hero job the patch adds and I end up not using them in the end.

Before I get to Neo, let's test this out on Omega (ignoring the fact that I did Omega after Neo).



code:

Omega
HP: 55530
MP: 60700
Weak to Lightning.
Absorbs Water, Air, Earth, Holy, Poison, Ice, Fire.
Vulnerable to Stop, Slow.

AI Script:
{Atomic Ray,Delta Attack,Blaster}
Surge Beam
{Rainbow Wind,Emission,Atomic Ray}
Surge Beam
No Interrupt{
     {Delta Attack,Blaster,Surge Beam}
     {Maelstrom,Quake,Rainbow Wind}
     }
Targeting
{Rainbow Wind,Emission,Atomic Ray}
Surge Beam
React:HP Damage{
     No Interrupt{
          {Rocket Punch,Rocket Punch,Mustard Bomb}
          {Rocket Punch,Rocket Punch,Circle}
          }
     }


Wave Beam does 4999 damage to Zerky! always. The other attacks are also nasty.



Even with the added passives and access to !Rapidfire, my damage output isn't enough to kill Omega immediately, so I eat an Encircle counter and die.



His level's so high Delta Attack is still an issue without Aegis.





So I dual Brave it (yeah I cheated those in while doing Neo attempts, I'm already using a hack so what's more cheating).



That ends up working out well enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k43SpODNpKc

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 99
DEATHS: 3 (post hack only)



I really don't want to copy all four AI Scripts and stuff. I'll summarize:

The top-right form does physical attacks. These wear down Zerky! a lot since he can't heal reliably. The middle-top form does Grand Cross, which can end runs depending on how nasty it is. The bottom-right form does Almagest, which hurts a ton with Bone Mail, though Aegis can block it. The back form casts magic and is either a pain or a non-issue if Zerky! has the Reflect Ring.

I alternated a lot of strategies. Reflect vs. Hermes was a big one, front vs. back row was another, as was Aegis vs. Genji shield. If I got really lucky, I could reflect Delta Attack onto the Almagest part to kill it, though that's very unreliable. I don't remember what all else I did because I did a lot of attempts, so much I didn't even bother counting them for deaths because I'm fucking done with this shit.



So I was streaming attempts again and go down to my apartment complex's basement to do some laundry. When I came back, Neo was almost dead. And then Zerky! won. Go figure.

The abilities I had equipped were !Rapid Fire, Long Reach, and Equip Ribbons. Long Reach so I could stick in the back row and reduce the damage from physical attacks, and Equip Ribbons because Ribbons gave nice stat boosts and protected me from a couple Grand Cross effects like Toad.

Equipment was Chicken Knife, Aegis Shield, Ribbon, Black Garb, Reflect Ring. Black Garb gave a couple stat boosts and saved me from taking extra damage from Almagest due to it being Holy, which the Bone Mail makes you weak to. Aegis to block some Almagest attacks, Reflect to nullify the back part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDy1h7VjKvM

Video

FINAL LEVEL: 99
DEATHS: WAY TOO FUCKING MANY WHO CARES I'M FUCKING DONE

And with that, I am done. Sorry for taking two months to actually finish this update, but again, I kinda burned myself out with the end of this run. It's done now, at least.

Anyway, having passives definitely helps out the Berserker and made normally run-ending fights like Sandworm and Sol Cannon a lot more manageable, though still not very fun. That said, Berserker's pretty obviously not that well-thought-out a job compared to the others and is very flawed, though it's still probably not the worst job in the game. It was fun to try out different strategies, and streaming the Neo attempts was still pretty damn fun since everyone watching was pretty into it.

Glad I did this run though because it led to a ton of fantastic runs by many other people and resulted in a great thread. Thanks to everyone who followed along and to everyone contributing to or keeping up with the thread. It's been (mostly) fun!