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* Lufia II -- Rise of the Sinistrals *
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* A Guide to Defeating EVERY Enemy in the Ancient Cave *
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Version 1.00 -- Completed 30 March 2005
1.01 -- Completed 23 April 2005
Added information about harvesting
Enhanced section on Fatal Pick
Cleaned up formatting on bullet points (Thanks, Chad!)
Fixed numerous typos attributable to nosy kittens climbing on
the keyboard.
1.02 -- Completed 07 June 2005
Refined information about harvesting
1.03 -- Completed 21 Aug 2005
Additional information about the movement of Genies
Added information about Capsule Monster Darbi
1.04 -- Completed 03 September 2005
Added "Defense first" paragraph in Section XII
1.10 -- Completed 17 Sept 2005
More detailed information about Genies
1.11 -- Completed 12 November 2006
Corrected some factual errors and add a bunch of other stuff
1.20 -- Completed 30 November 2006
Revised Section IV, replacing Dekar with Artea and updated
other sections to allow for this change.
Written by Bill Russell
This FAQ is copyright 2005 -- Bill Russell
This publication is protected by United States copyright law.
Permission to post this FAQ is granted solely to GameFAQs.com.
It may not be placed on any other web site or otherwise distributed publicly
without advance written permission of the author. 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. If you wish to post this FAQ or any portion of it
to any other site, please write to me. My email address appears at the end of
this FAQ along with guidelines for messages.
==============================================================================
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Basics
III. A Word About "Harvesting"
IVa. Your Optimum Party
IVb. Agility Rules! -- This is REALLY important, so please read this!
V. Capsule Monsters
VI. The Iris Items
VII. Blue Treasure Chests
VIII. About Providence
IX. The Big Picture
X. Starting Out
XI. Speed Collecting
XII. The Final Descent
a. Overview
b. Floors B01 - B29
c. Floors B30 - B39
d. Floors B40 - B49
e. Floors B50 - B59
f. Floors B60 - B69
g. Floors B70 - B79
h. Floors B80 - B89 (Dragon Mayhem)
i. Floors B90 - B98 (The Final Approach)
j. Floor B99 -- The Giant Jelly
XIII. Closing comments/credits
===============================================================================
I. Introduction
When Lufia II -- Rise of the Sinistrals hit the gaming world in February of
1995, it immediately became an immensely popular game and, in the eyes of many,
an instant classic. Although hampered by two-dimensional characters and the
limited graphics quality of the day, the game was light-hearted, rich with
puzzles ranging from the simple to the insanely difficult, and -- well -- just
plain fun to play. As is the case with many RPG's, though, the replay value of
this game is directly proportional to the quality of its side quests. The
Ancient Cave side quest of this game is one of the most famous and challenging
ever created, and it is one of the primary reasons that gamers are still
playing this game nearly 10 years later. Often imitated (in Parasite Eve and
FFX-II for example) but never duplicated, the Ancient Cave stands alone as an
RPG icon -- lengthy and challenging without being boring or repetitive. Or
repetitive. Or boring. In fact, this is one case where a side quest within an
RPG actually requires more time to complete than the main quest of the game
itself!
On the surface, the quest seems simple -- hack and slash your way through 98
floors of monsters of ever-increasing difficulty so that you can face a boss on
floor #99 and, hopefully, receive a reward. In fact, though, there is much
more to this dungeon than that. As much as anything else, the Ancient Cave is
about collecting extremely powerful items which will aid you in the game's
primary quest. In addition, the Ancient Cave quest is intertwined with the
pursuit of the ten rare Iris items which can be found only in this Cave. Above
all, the Ancient Cave has uniquely high replay value because every run is
different. In most games, you find the same items in the same chests in the
same locations time after time. Not so with the Ancient Cave. For example,
sometimes you will find a healing spell on the first floor; other times you may
have to find ways to survive 60 or 70 floors without any healing spells
whatsoever. Such is the beautiful randomness of the Ancient Cave. It
challenges you to use your wits and your knowledge of the game in different
ways every time that you play it.
The difficulty of this quest in the original SNES game was truly imposing, for
there was no place to save your progress during your descent. Sadly, the ROM
version of the game allows you to save anywhere, taking much of the excitement
-- and potential sense of accomplishment -- out of this quest. Knowing that
losing a single battle could mean forfeiting 8 - 10 hours of battling, those of
us who played the SNES version proceeded with much more thought and
deliberation than is necessary today in the ROM version. Nonetheless, even
with the save-anywhere feature, reaching and defeating the Giant Jelly in B99
is no simple task, and the purpose of this guide is to help you do just that.
Primarily, my guide is directed toward the novice spelunker who has not yet
completed the Ancient Cave. The strategies that I describe are designed to
maximize your probability of success while increasing your knowledge of how the
Ancient Cave works. Not all of these strategies are absolutely necessary. For
example, the systematic accrual of Blue chest items described in Sections X and
XI is not necessary for completion of the Ancient Cave. In fact, there are
those who eschew this approach as making the quest too easy. However, time-
consuming though it may be, I absolutely feel that accumulating Blue chest
items is the best way to ensure success and therefore should be used until you
gain more familiarity and are ready to attempt more challenging approaches.
For the record I have personally cleaned out the Ancient Cave of every single
treasure and monster in the SNES version multiple times. In so doing, I have
necessarily developed my own patterns and strategies for addressing the
challenge of the Ancient Cave. I have subsequently found that there are
several other FAQs posted for the Ancient Cave, some of which are very good and
thorough indeed. However, I have yet to find another FAQ that takes the same
approach to this side quest that I do. I consider it a testimonial to the
enduring quality of Lufia II in general and to this side quest in particular
that so many gamers can take different tacks on this dungeon. Thus, I am not
claiming that my FAQ is any better or worse than others, only that it is
different.
I would like to make one last point before proceeding. I have read "Tips" from
other gamers who exploit the "Save-Anywhere" feature of the ROM version to
expedite the exploration of the Ancient Cave. While this approach may appeal
to some, I am definitely NOT an advocate of such methods. I consider myself
more of a purist who believes that the game should be played the way the
designers intended. I similarly eschew the use of Game Genies or similar
adjuncts which lessen the challenge of games. Personally, I play games for the
challenge of accomplishing something difficult, and I feel that this sense of
accomplishment is directly proportional to the effort you invest in the game.
Those of you who seek only to get to the end as quickly as possible will
probably find little of use in this walkthrough and would probably do better
looking elsewhere. Having said that, I feel much better and am ready to
proceed.
===============================================================================
II. The Basics
The following points describe the basic way that the Ancient Cave works.
* As mentioned earlier, the dungeon consists of 99 floors. The only thing on
floor #99 is the boss, to which I will henceforth refer as the Giant Jelly
(although in the actual battle he is designated as "Master").
* The layout of each floor is randomly generated and will differ with each
trip into the Cave. So for example, on one trip, the tenth floor may have
several rooms and treasure chests, and on the next trip it may consist of a
single room.
* You enter the Ancient Cave with all of your characters at level 1,
regardless of their levels in the outside world. You have access to any
capsule monsters that you have acquired, but they too are at level 1.
* When you enter the Cave, you leave virtually all items, weapons, and armor
outside. The only items you bring with you are 10 potions plus any BLUE
treasure chest items that you procured either in the game's primary quest or
during previous trips into the Cave.
* Items collected from RED treasure chests in the Cave may be used during the
particular trip through the Cave in which they were found but are forfeited
when you exit the Cave. The only exception to this rule is that Iris items,
which are found in red chests, may be taken with you when you exit.
* BLUE treasure chest items are yours to keep even after you exit the Cave
provided, of course, that you exit the Cave alive. If your whole party dies
in the Cave (prior to B99), you relinquish ALL items you picked up during
that trip down -- even Blue chest items and Iris items.
* The one and only way to exit the Cave alive is to use an item called
"Providence". Providence is generally found in a red chest somewhere after
B20 but before B30. For more information about Providence, please refer to
section VIII of this guide.
* As originally designed for the SNES, the Ancient Cave has NO save points or
Inns. You will occasionally encounter a health-restoring icon beneath a
bush (it will look flatter than normal bushes.) To the best of my
knowledge, there are no magic-restoring points in the Cave, despite what
others may tell you. I have spent well over 200 hours in the Ancient Cave,
and if these things existed down there, I really believe that I would have
found one. (Actually, I would really like to know how these green "bushes"
manage to photosynthesize hundreds of feet below ground and far away from
the Sun. I think somebody needs a refresher course in Biology.)
* There are no hidden passages behind vines, so don't bother looking for them.
* Although enemies on the Dungeon screen cannot move "through" a treasure
chest (that is, the chest will block their passage), you will occasionally
find a screen where the enemy BEGINS in the SAME space as a treasure chest,
so look closely before attempting to open such a chest.
* When you step on the stairs and are transported to the next lower floor, it
IS possible for you to be deposited adjacent to an enemy and thus be thrown
immediately into battle, so always be prepared before stepping on stairs.
===============================================================================
III. A Word About "Harvesting"
Several gamers have written about a technique that they call "harvesting" as a
method of improving your chances of surviving the Ancient Cave by elevating
your characters' experience levels above that which you would normally acquire
by merely defeating all of the enemies. They suggest doing this by prolonging
those battles where enemies "Call Companions", thus giving you more enemies to
defeat and therefore increasing the amount of experience that you receive.
I have gone through the Cave both using this technique and not using it. Based
on my experience, I would like to suggest that harvesting is neither necessary
nor a good use of your time. Consider the following points:
* If you do not harvest enemies but do fight every available battle and defeat
each enemy as quickly as possible, you will arrive at B99 with your party
somewhere around level 82. This is MORE than adequate for reaching and
defeating the Giant Jelly. In fact, you really need the increased levels
for getting to the Jelly more than for defeating it. Specifically, you will
have trouble defeating the Silver and Gold Dragons that inhabit the last 20
floors of the Cave if your characters' levels are too low. However, even if
all of your characters are at level 99, there is still a very real chance
that a pair of Gold Dragons can wipe you out. Thus, any additional levels
that harvesting might provide are of very little benefit to you anyway.
* Secondly, I would like to suggest that in most instances it takes huge
amounts of time to increase your final levels significantly by harvesting.
At best, an hour's harvesting can yield enough EXP to raise your FINAL
levels by only 4 or 5 (I know that your CURRENT level will go up by more
than that, but this spike in your levels evens out as you get closer to the
final floor.) Enemies that can be harvested generally are worth around
500 - 1000 experience each. The difference between level 82 (where you
would end up anyway) and level 83 (the next level up) is around 150,000
experience points! That is, you would have to harvest 150 - 300 extra
enemies to raise your final level by 1. This does not seem like a good use
of your time.
* I will admit that there is one place in the game where it is possible to
gain EXP at a significantly higher rate than this by harvesting, and when
you get there, I will notify you of this opportunity and will give you
directions about how to do so. If you are curious, you can go there now by
searching this document for the words "Wizards (B50-B52)" (without the
quotation marks). Feel free to try harvesting if you wish, but keep in mind
that the additional EXP you will receive by doing so is completely
unnecessary.
* Finally, harvesting is just plain boring. There are plenty of enemies to
fight in the Ancient Cave -- I see no reason to go looking for more.
Overall, if you use the strategies that I discuss in this FAQ, you should have
no trouble accomplishing your goals without using harvesting, so basically why
bother?
===============================================================================
IVa. Your Optimum Party
Assuming that you are tackling the Ancient Cave in the normal flow of the
game's primary quest, I firmly believe that you will have your best chances of
surviving the Ancient Cave using the party of Dekar, Guy, Selan, and Maxim.
Dekar and Guy are the two strongest characters in the game, and both can wield
the necessary weapons to finish off the Giant Jelly in B99. Selan has modest
physical attack power, but she has very high intelligence (which translates
into strong magic) and will have over 500 MP by the time you get to your last
real battle on B98. Maxim is a good balanced character who can use magic but
also has better attack power than Selan. It is possible to complete this quest
with other parties, and you may want to try other combinations of characters if
only for challenge and/or variety. However, the general consensus seems to be
that this is the best possible party.
If want to use this awesome assemblage of powerful characters, you have a very
narrow window of opportunity in the normal progress of the game. You will need
to take on the Ancient Cave sometime after you get your ship from Jyad in Aleyn
but before you complete the Karloon North Shine, since Dekar becomes, um,
unavailable after the Karloon Shrine. Of course, if you have completed the
game twice and have the "Gift" option, you may take almost any party that you
wish into the Cave. (I say "almost" because you are required to have Maxim as
a member of the party.)
IVb. Agility Rules! -- This is REALLY important, so please read this!
UPDATE --It has been over a year and a half since I originally posted this FAQ,
and during that time I have spent literally hundreds of hours in the Ancient
Cave. This additional spelunking and my conversations with Ancient Cave
enthusiast Squeeealer have led me to re-think my above comments about your
optimum team, primarily because of one consideration -- Agility.
You will probably have trouble believing what I have to say next (as I myself
doubted it when Squeeealer wrote it to me) but I now firmly believe beyond any
doubt that the most important statistic that your characters possess is
AGILITY. That's right -- not Strength or even Defense (which is a distant
second) but Agility. Here is why.
Agility determines the order in which your team members and your enemies act in
each turn. This is of paramount importance in your decisions! If all of your
enemies are faster than all of your team members, then they will all get their
turns before any of your members do. Think about the ramifications of this.
Suppose, for example, you are confronted by two Archfiends, an enemy with very
high Agility and one that get two attacks each per turn. You program all of
your team members to attack one of the enemies. You will then be attacked four
times before you get to do your attacks. Assuming that you do not kill both
enemies, you will then get attacked at least twice more before you have the
opportunity to heal the damage that you took in the first round. One way to
counter this is to program Selan to heal in the first round (I call this
pre-emptive healing), but who do you have her heal? You haven't even been
attacked yet, so how do you know who is going to need healing? You can have
her cast a healing spell on all four members just to be safe, but then you are
giving less healing to each member. What if one member of your team is the
recipient of all four attacks? Do you see the problem?
Now, replace Dekar with Artea, the character with the highest Agility in the
game. Play the first round as before -- you tell all four of your team members
to attack. Artea will attack first because of his high Agility, then the
Archfiends will pound you four times, then your last three team members attack.
Now, at the beginning of the second round, you can have Artea heal the team
member(s) that need it most, knowing that this healing will occur BEFORE you
get attacked again. This dramatically reduces the likelihood of having a team
member die off.
High Agility allows you to do something that is possibly even more important
than healing, and that is escaping from battle. I don't mean permanently, but
rather temporarily. Allow me to explain.
First of all, understand that you are only guaranteed of being able to escape
from a battle if ALL of your team members (except your Capsule Monster) have
Agility that is higher than ALL of your enemies' Agilities. You may get away
sometimes if only three out of 4 members have higher Agility, but don't count
on it. You want to have guaranteed, safe escape from battle as an option as
often as possible.
Consider your battles against the Metal Dragons of the last 20 floors. You
have a tremendous advantage over them if you "Get in First" AND have higher
Agility than they do, for this gives you a total of EIGHT actions before the
Dragons get to do anything. However, positioning yourself so that you can move
directly into the back of these enemies and get a sneak attack is something of
an art -- it can be done fairly reliably if you are very patient, but if you
are inexperienced or impatient it is likely that you will engage them either
from the side or head-on and will not get that extra round of attacks before
they act. Trust me when I tell you that you really don't want to run the risk
of engaging Metal Dragons without the advantage of a sneak attack. If your
Agility is lower than theirs and you try to run, they will get to attack you
before you escape and could very easily kill off your entire team in the
process! However, if you have superior Agility, you will not be attacked
before you escape. This means that it is okay to engage the enemies from the
side, which is relatively easy to do. This will give you a sneak attack about
half of the time. However, if you do not "Get in First" you needn't worry.
Your superior Agility will allow you to escape from this battle without being
damaged so that you can try again.
This strategy of engaging the Metal Dragons and then escaping from battle has
an additional benefit. As detailed in section XIIh, the Silver and Gold
Dragons have certain weaknesses but, due to a glitch in the game, the Copper
Dragons do not share this weakness. This means that you need to have different
weapons equipped for fighting Silver or Gold Dragons that you do for fighting
Copper Dragons. Unfortunately, these enemies look identical on the Dungeon
Screen. Doing a risk-free engagement on the enemy allows you to see what you
will be fighting before you commit to battle, thus allowing you to escape and
then change weapons if necessary. (BTW, in case a Copper Dragon is paired with
either a Gold or Silver Dragon, equip weapons that are most effective against
the more powerful Gold or Silver Dragons, as you are primarily concerned with
eliminating them first.) Again, I cannot begin to tell you what a HUGE
advantage it is to be faster than the Metallic Dragons. With superior Agility
and a little bit of luck in finding a Lizard Blow and/or a Flying Blow in red
treasure chests, you can dramatically increase your chances of killing off all
Metallic Dragons and getting to the last floor of the Ancient Cave.
Hopefully, I have convinced you of the important role that Agility plays in
your quest to complete the Ancient Cave. You now need to understand that
Dekar, powerful though he is, is the one member of your team who will never
have sufficient Agility to be faster than the Metal Dragons (or much of
anything else), no matter how you equip him or build his levels. Consequently,
for your first attempt at completing the Ancient Cave, I now reverse my
original suggestion that you include him in your party and strongly recommend
that instead you take your final party of Maxim, Selan, Guy, and Artea. Put
Maxim and Guy in front and keep Selan and Artea in back for most battles.
Besides his awesome Agility, Artea's other stats are very similar to Maxim's
except that his Intelligence is nearly as high as Selan's. This makes him a
very effective magic user, especially if you equip him with a Spark Staff (+50
INT). For enemies who are just ridiculously fast, you can equip him with a
Dragon Spear and increase his Agility by another 50 points, thus keeping him
faster than just about anything else in the game. He also has the ability to
use bows, which can attack all enemies in a single turn and are especially
effective against flying enemies. Overall, Artea is easily your best sidekick
in the Ancient Cave.
Now that we have established that Agility is the key to success in the Ancient
Cave, the next question is, "What can you do to increase Agility?" Well,
Agility rises with levels, but unless you undertake the boring process of
harvesting, there is a limited amount of Experience available for leveling up.
I have already mentioned the Dragon Spear, but only Artea and Selan can equip
it and their Agility is already pretty high. What about your other team
members?
The best item in the game for boosting Agility is the largely overlooked Twist
Jewel. It can be equipped by anyone and boosts Defense by 35, but moreover it
boosts Agility by a whopping +30! This may not seem like much, but remember
that your Agility stat is one of the lowest in the game. While your
characters' Attack and Defense stats will easily top 500, Agility of 145 is
sufficient to be faster than all Metal Dragons. You can see that +30 Agility
(compared to a "normal" value of 120) is comparable to +125 Attack (compared to
an ambient level of 500 or so) -- just do the math!
Twist Jewels can be procured from a couple of different sources. They are
found in Blue Chests, but since there are over 50 different Blue Chest items,
your chances of finding one there is pretty low. Fortunately, Brinz Lizards
drop them fairly regularly (about 30% of the time). Brinz Lizards can be found
on floors B45 - 47 of the Ancient Cave or in the Divine Shrine in the game's
primary quest. Remember that if you get Twist Jewels -- or any Blue Chest
items -- in the game's primary quest, you can take them into the Ancient Cave
with you. Thus if you are attempting the Ancient Cave from "normal" mode (as
opposed to Retry or Gift mode), then it is well worth your while to go to the
Divine Shrine (which is located just south of Eserikto) for a few minutes
before you undertake the Ancient Cave. The first enemy sprite that you will
encounter -- sort of a blue flying salamander thing -- is a pair of Brinz
Lizards. Equip fire-based weapons and defeat the enemies. Carefully read the
screen at the end of the battle to see whether or not they dropped a Twist
Jewel for you. If they did, equip it right away. (Due to a glitch in the
game, if there is already a Twist Jewel in your Items inventory -- not
equipped, but in the inventory -- you may receive one after battle but it will
not show up on the after-battle screen. Squeeealer and I call these "Phantom
drops". The point is that if all of your Twist Jewels are equipped, then you
will always be notified at the end of the battle if you received one.) Exit
the Shrine to reset the enemies, re-enter, and repeat until you have 4 Twist
Jewels -- quick and easy!
If you are playing in Gift Mode, you might do well to venture to floors B45 -
47 in your later "Speed Collecting" efforts (see Section XI) in hopes of
procuring Twist Jewels for all party members. In light of my current
information about the power of high Agility, I would strongly recommend that
you have a Twist Jewel for each party member before attempting the final
approach. The IP attack of the Twist Jewel is relatively useless, but the bump
in Agility makes it the item of choice to equip in that last slot for each
character.
There are five jewels that will give your characters a +20 Agility boost. They
are the Silver Eye, Black Eye, Bee Rock, Mysto Jewel, and Hidora Rock. The
first two can be found in Blue treasure chests, although the Silver Eye is also
very rarely (about 4%) dropped by Silver Dragons, which is probably too late in
the game to do you any good. Bee Rocks are dropped by Armor Bees (about 30% of
the time); Mysto Jewels are dropped by Asashins (about 5%); and Hidora Rocks
are dropped by both High Hidoras and Sea Hidoras (about 30%). In a pinch, you
can equip any of these on your faster allies (Artea and Selan), but you really
want Twist Jewels for the guys in your party. They are easy enough to get and
are well worth the effort, so one way or another take the time to accumulate
them and equip them.
Finally, be aware of other items that you can equip to increase Agility. The
Sea Ring (found in Blue Chests) increases Agility by 10, and the Magic Scale
armor (a red chest item that can be equipped by anyone except Guy and Dekar)
provides excellent Defense (+110) as well as a +10 Agility boost. Remember
that you can afford to sacrifice a few defense points for the extra agility --
it can make the difference between survival and extinction!
===============================================================================
V. Capsule Monsters
The Capsule Monsters that are available to you in the Ancient Cave are those
that you have discovered in your journey to that point in the game. If you are
playing in Normal mode and have made the decision to use the party that
includes Dekar, you will be limited to four capsule monsters -- Jelze, Flash,
Gusto, and Blaze. Which Capsule Monster to use is very much a matter of
personal choice and it changes the "flavor" of each run. I will give you my
preferences and let you decide for yourself which direction to take.
I nearly always begin the game with Flash as my CM because he is the only CM
with healing powers. Although you won't suffer much damage in the first 30
floors or so, as you level up, your characters' maximum HP will go up, and it
is handy to have Flash filling those in for you. Once I find a healing spell
(such as Strong or Stronger) or item (such as a Tough Hide or a Light Dress), I
generally dump Flash and switch to a CM who can help more with the attack. Of
the other three listed above, Gusto has to be my first choice. He has very
high agility, allowing him able to act early in each turn and dodge many enemy
attacks. As with many CM's, his Class I and Class II forms don't have a lot of
oomph to their attacks, but at Class III and above he rocks.
If you are playing later in the game using Artea instead of Dekar or in "Gift"
mode, you can use any of the seven Capsule Monsters. In this situation you may
want to consider using Darbi. His first two forms are pretty useless; he
doesn't have a lot of HP; his Gut stat is low, so he tends to flee from battle
as soon as he gets hit just once; and his Dark attribute makes him unable to
damage undead enemies. However, his Class III and Class IV forms have some
really awesome attacks that can either cause instant death or damage an entire
party of enemies. Best of all, the Gold and Silver Dragons in floors B81 - B98
are light-based and consequently are especially vulnerable to Darbi's Dark
attacks. Be patient with his untimely exits from battle and his
ineffectiveness against the many undead enemies that you will face, and you
will soon find that Darbi is your favorite CM.
In many ways, Sully is the most powerful CM in the game. He has high gut so he
hardly every runs from battle, and he has lots of HP and ATK. Even his Class
II form has a couple of significant attacks, and his Class III and Class IV
forms are simply awesome. Unfortunately, he has very low agility and he seems
to choose "Defend" about 50% of the time, meaning that when you really need him
to do something he will either do nothing at all or will not get a turn until
it is too late. Nonetheless, when you witness Sully's raw power, you will be
very tempted to use him as your travel companion. However, be aware that if
you have Artea in your team instead of Dekar and are using Sully as your CM,
you may have a very difficult time defeating the Master of the Ancient Cave in
the final battle. I will explain why when we get to Section XIIj), but suffice
it to say that Sully's tendency to Defend may prove to be your undoing. If you
have Artea in your party and are serious about winning that final battle, I
strongly advise against using Sully.
It is no secret that each Capsule Monster can morph into a "Master Class" by
feeding him the proper fruit when he is in a certain form. The list below
gives the particulars.
Change to Master when the CM is To change him back,
CM Class by feeding a Class feed him a
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jelze secret fruit IV secret fruit
Flash dark fruit II holy fruit
Gusto earth fruit IV wind fruit
Zeppy flame fruit III charm fruit
Darbi holy fruit II dark fruit
Sully wind fruit IV earth fruit
Blaze charm fruit III flame fruit
Let's be sure that we understand the third column. In order to transform a CM
to Master Class, you must first elevate him to Class IV, at which point the box
that normally displays his preference for food will read, "I'm not hungry."
Only then can you transform him to Master Class by changing his class to the
required level and feeding him the designated fruit.
I bring this up because I am going to advise you NOT to change your CM to
Master Class. In the first place, there is little to suggest that a Master
Class CM is markedly better than a Class IV version of the same CM. True, most
Class V CM's have at least one unique and devastating attack. However, it
seems that they will use that attack very rarely. Moreover, since fruits are
very difficult to get in the Ancient Cave, this change to Master Class may well
be irreversible. In many ways, I prefer the Class III Darbi to his Class IV
counterpart, largely because Class III Darbi has the "Destruction" ability
which brings instant death to one enemy with a very high likelihood of success.
Raising Darbi to Master Class denies you access to this attack; keeping him at
Class IV allows you to switch back and forth at will.
As far as feeding goes, you want to remember the primary rule for feeding
Capsule Monsters which is to always feed them the weakest items that they will
accept. Once they get a taste for the finer things in life, they will shun
these lesser items with a contemptuous, "Ughh -- Yuk!" and the item will go to
waste. As I will describe later on, this is only a problem on your final
descent to the very bottom of the dungeon.
===============================================================================
VI. The Iris Items
The quest for the Iris items overlaps with the quest to complete the Ancient
Cave. Nine Iris items are rarely and randomly found in red treasure chests
exclusively within the Ancient Cave. These are as follows:
Iris Ring Iris Armor Iris Helmet
Iris Shield Iris Sword Iris Tiara
Iris Pot Iris Staff Iris Jewel
Each of these items can be collected only once per game.
The tenth Iris item is the Giant Jelly itself.
The Iris items cannot be equipped by any of your characters, nor do you receive
any tangible reward for finding them all. (I have read rumors to the contrary,
but have yet to see any substantiated report of a benefit of collecting all ten
items. Thus, in the absence of any concrete proof to the contrary, I will
proceed, assuming the accuracy of my original statement.) So why, you might
ask, should you spend your time looking for them? Well, the only possible
reason would be bragging rights. Collecting them all is very time-consuming
and to accumulate all ten is a great honor. Beyond that, there is really no
reason to try to find them.
Should you encounter one of these rare items and successfully exit the dungeon
with it, take it to the woman in the basement of the tavern in Gruberik. She
has two tables where she displays them for you. When you collect all ten, she
will say, "You brought back all the Iris Treasures!? You must be the best
treasure hunter in the world!", but sadly that is all that you get for your
efforts.
If you decide that you want to accumulate all of these treasures, keep in mind
the following:
* When I say that they are found "randomly", I mean that they are just as
likely to be found on B1 as they are on B91. I will explain later how this
factors into our strategy.
* When I say that they are found "rarely", I mean that even if you open every
red treasure chest from B1 to B98, you most likely will NOT encounter all of
the Iris treasures that you are missing.
* From the previous two points, it follows that you should avoid the rationale
that if you go just a couple of floors deeper that you will surely find that
last Iris item. This is faulty logic, somewhat akin to reasoning that if a
tossed coin comes up heads ten times in a row, then the eleventh toss is
bound to be tails.
* From my experience, there can be HUGE stretches of time where you find NO
Iris items. Sometimes you will find two of them in the first twenty floors,
and other times you can make multiple trips covering hundreds of floors and
not find a single one. Such is the nature of these rare items, and it this
very scarcity that makes it all the more exciting when one of these items
appears. Once recently, I had found 7 of the 9 red chest Iris items in a
reasonable span of time, but it took me probably 30 hours to find the eighth
one. Once I found the eighth one, number nine came quite quickly. My point
is that it may sometimes be a LONG time between Iris items sightings, so be
patient and resist the urge to cross over to the Dark Side and join those
who would procure these items by less than ethical means.
===============================================================================
VII. Blue Treasure Chests
Fortunately, as you search for Iris items, you will also be collecting items
from the Blue treasure chests. As mentioned previously, you get to keep these
items even after exiting the Ancient Cave and can use them for subsequent
forays into the Cave as well as for continuing your quest beyond Gruberik. In
many cases, these items are among the most powerful of their kind available
anywhere in the game. Take for example the Gold Eye which can only be found in
the Ancient Cave. In addition to raising your attack power by a whopping +40,
your defense by +30, and your magic resistance by +20, its IP attack (Stardust
Blow) causes major damage to all enemies. Many of these items also have unique
qualities against specific enemies. For example, the Fry Sword is highly
effective against undead monsters. When you begin your final descent into the
Ancient Cave, you want to have all of your characters equipped exclusively with
these Blue chest items if possible, so one of our goals is going to be to
accumulate as many of them as possible.
There are 41 different items that can be found in the Blue chests. These items
and their attributes are listed in the table below:
Weapon name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Blaze sword S Celestial 400 | | | | 20 | | 20
Gades blade G,D Octo-strike 200 | | | | | |
Snow sword S,T Deep freeze 380 | 50 | | | | | 50
Fry Sword G,D Sizzle 410 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10
Sky sword M,G,D Skysplitter 450 | 25 | 50 | | | |
Sizzle sword M,S Firestorm 400 | | | | | 20 |
Mega ax G,D Thundershriek 400 | 20 | | | | |
Air whip S,T Arctic freeze 400 | | | | | | 20
Water spear A,L Torrent 400 | | | | 20 | |
Dragon spear S,A Flood 380 | 25 | | 50 | 25 | | 25
Spark staff S,A,T Phoenix blow 350 | | | | 50 | | 50
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Armor name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Ruse armor S,T Regeneration |140 | | | | |
Mirak plate M,G,D Magic rebirth |120 | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shield name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Water gaunt S,A,T,L Waterscreen | 75 | | 10 | | | 10
Flame shield M,G,D Flame block | 80 | | | | 10 |
Cryst shield S,T Holy shield | 80 | | | | | 10
Bolt shield G,D Thunder block 10 | 85 | 10 | | | |
Dark mirror All |150 | | | | |
Apron shield M,G,D Holy wall 10 | 85 | 10 | | | | 10
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helmet name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Agony helm M,G,D Flame return | 80 | | | | 10 |
Boom turban S,A,T,L Thunder turn 10 | 85 | 10 | | | |
Ice hairband S,T Ice mirror | 80 | | | | | 10
Hairpin S,T Dark mirror | 80 | | | 10 | | 10
Aqua helm S,A,T Aqua mirror | 85 | | 10 | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ring name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Dia ring S,T Zap 30 | 30 | | | | | 20
Sea ring All Vortex | 25 | | 10 | 10 | | 20
Earring S,T Thunder | 5 | | | | | 5
Engage ring S,T Courage | | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jewel name Equip IP ATK |DEF |STR |AGL |INT |GUT |MGR
Water jewel All Frost | 10 | | | 20 | 10 |
Thundojewel All Voltage bolt 30 | 5 | 10 | | 10 | |
Earth jewel All Ground shock | 20 | | | | | 20
Twist jewel All Twister | 35 | | 30 | | |
Gloom jewel All Dark force | | | | | | 50
Tidal jewel S,T Tidal wave | | | | | 20 |
Catfish jewel All Mega quake | | | | | 20 | 20
Camu jewel All Buster attack 20 | | | | 20 | | 20
Spido jewel All Spider web 10 | | | | | | 20
Gorgan rock All Combo attack 20 | 50 | 20 | | | | 20
Black eye All Gloomsplash 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | | 20 | 20
Silver eye All Diamond dust | 10 | | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20
Gold eye All Stardust blow 40 | 30 | 20 | | | | 20
* IMPORTANT NOTE: The Dark Mirror is cursed. However, if you lift the curse
on it, its protective power is cut in half and, moreover, you will lose it when
you exit the Ancient Cave! Since it is the strongest shield in the game (+150
Defense!), you definitely do NOT want to lose it! The only benefit of lifting
the curse is that an uncursed Dark Mirror protects the user against instant
death, such as Perish and Destroy. Other than that, there is no down side to
leaving it cursed. When you exit the Cave, it will automatically be un-
equipped and available for future use if you so desire.
Frankly, I don't understand why some of these items are dignified by being
designated as blue chest items, which one associates with highly desirable
equipment. Specifically, I consider the following to be essentially useless
items: the Earring (as if you would notice +5 on DEF and MGR); the Spido Jewel
(only marginally better than the Earring. At least all 7 characters can equip
it); the Tidal Jewel (+20 GUT for the girls only? Please!); Gloom Jewel (MGR
is just not that big an issue in the Ancient Cave or in the game's main quest
for that matter); and the Catfish Jewel (combines the worst of the Gloom Jewel
and the Tidal Jewel). The Earth Jewel is borderline -- +20 DEF is helpful if
you don't have a better Jewel, but Tartonas drop these pretty regularly, so
you'll end up with a bunch of them anyway. I hate to waste a perfectly good
blue treasure chest on garbage like the Earth Jewel. The Engage Ring is very
helpful in the game's main quest, but it is completely useless in the Ancient
Cave itself. I guess my point is that all blue chest items are not created
equal. You want to accumulate the useful ones and may feel free to sell or
merely sneer at the lesser ones.
In addition to being found in Blue treasure chests, some of these items listed
above are dropped by enemies at the end of a battle in the Ancient Cave. For
example, the aforementioned Gold Eye can be found in a Blue chest but it is
also occasionally dropped by a defeated Gold Dragon. You still get to keep
these items after exiting the Cave even though you won them in battle rather
than finding them in Blue chests. You should also be aware that you can collect
more than one of each of these items. Blue chest items are also randomly
distributed, so you may end up with 3 sets of Ruse Armor (which, of our four
chosen adventurers, only Selan can equip) yet no Mirak Plates (which the three
dudes can equip.) Sometimes there is simply no equity in the world.
Observant reader Laurens Stormer reminds me that some of the Blue chest jewels
can also be found outside of the Ancient Cave in the game's primary quest.
These upper world items MAY be taken into the Ancient Cave with you. These
jewels are the Earth Jewel, Twist Jewel, Gloom Jewel, Thundo Jewel, Gorgan
Rock, Water Jewel, Catfish Jewel, Camu Jewel, and Spido Jewel. Some of these
are very rare in the upper world, some are not available until after you lose
Dekar. Only two of these (the Gorgan Rock and the Twist Jewel) will be among
our list of preferred items to equip for the final run. Also notice how many
of them are on my garbage list in the previous paragraph! However, any of
these that you can use during your first few runs through the AC will
facilitate your passage, however minimally, so let's not look a gift horse in
the mouth. Finally, if you are playing in "Gift" mode, this information is not
relevant as you will be unable to collect these Jewels prior to descending into
the Ancient Cave.
===============================================================================
VIII. About Providence
As previously mentioned, Providence is your only way of escaping from the
Ancient Cave, and it generally appears between floors B21 and B30 inclusive.
Being good, thorough explorers, you and I always make sure that we pick up
Providence and hold on to it until we need it. However, I've always wondered
what would happen if one were less conscientious.
For example, if you were careless enough to not open the chest containing
Providence, I wondered, would it then appear later on in another chest or would
you just be unable to exit the Ancient Cave and therefore be screwed? To
answer this question, I proceeded down to B21 in a ROM version of the game.
I saved as soon as I arrived on B21, then I walked around opening chests. When
I found the one containing Providence, I re-loaded the game and proceeded as
usual but I purposely avoided opening the chest that I knew contained
Providence. Around B29, I was convinced that it was gone forever, but much to
my surprise, it appeared in a chest on B29! Even if you miss Providence, it
seems that it will show up again later.
The next obvious question is, if you miss Providence a second time, will it
then appear on a floor below B30 (which is considered to be the lower limit for
its appearance)? The answer to this is, "Yes". I bypassed Providence three
separate times between B21 and B29, and darned if it didn't show up on B31. So
apparently as long as you do not open the chest containing Providence, it will
continue to show up in a red treasure chest somewhere else.
Finally, I have read elsewhere that if you drop Providence or feed it to a
Capsule Monster that it is gone forever. To test this hypothesis, I picked up
Providence on B31 (as described above) and then went to my Item inventory and
dropped it. I then proceeded all the way to B99. Before fighting the Giant
Jelly, I checked my inventory and Providence was still not among my Items. I
defeated the Jelly, got the Ancient Key, checked my Items, and was rather
surprised to see that Providence had magically reappeared in my inventory! I
repeated this process except that I lost the battle with the Giant Jelly, and
once again, Providence was put into my inventory at the end of the battle.
Apparently, you just cannot go wrong. If you are strong and virtuous enough to
make it to B99 and fight the Giant Jelly, you will be allowed to exit the
Cave. The one exception to this is if you are stupid enough to throw away
Providence after battling the Giant Jelly, it will not reappear in your
Inventory and you will be stuck in the Ancient Cave for all eternity or until
you push Reset. Interesting stuff, n'est-ce pas?
===============================================================================
IX. The Big Picture
It is inadvisable to try to complete the Ancient Cave in a single descent.
While this may be possible (especially if you are playing the ROM version),
doing so will deprive you of many powerful items found solely in the Ancient
Cave. Rather, you will want to make several trips down to about B21 - B30
accumulating Blue chest items and Iris items as you go, and then use Providence
to return to the surface. The number of times you do this depends on what you
are trying to accomplish as well as how lucky you are, but 50 or more trips
into the Cave would not be uncommon. Your strategies for these initial
descents will differ depending on what items you have found. For purposes of
describing these different strategies, I will divided these descents into three
groups which I will categorize as "Starting Out", "Speed Collecting" and "The
Final Descent".
Throughout your spelunking, you should remember two of the basic principles
from the main quest. The first is the front row - back row concept. Remember
that allies in the back row will give and receive less damage than those in the
front row. This will pretty much take care of itself when you initially
position your party members as described in the next section. If you should be
so unfortunate (or careless) as to be the victim of a surprise attack, remember
that your front and back rows will be automatically interchanged. You can put
them back to their original configuration (after your enemies thrash on you for
one full round!) without using up a turn and you are strongly advised to do so.
However, keep this same concept in mind when you are planning your attacks.
Make note of which enemies are in the foreground, for they will be easier to
dispatch than those in the back. This can help you minimize the damage that you
suffer while maximizing the damage that you inflict. (Note -- sometimes it is
not so obvious whether an enemy is in the front or the back. If you are
uncertain about this, simply look at the enemies' shadows and their positions
should become clear.) For the record, this front row - back row concept
applies only to physical attacks and not to magic attacks, which are basically
independent of position.
The other concept to remember is to be constantly aware of the elemental
properties of your equipped items and of the specific enemies that you are
facing. The "best" weapon for a particular battle is not necessarily the one
with the highest ATK stat but rather is the one to which the particular enemy
is most vulnerable. For example, the Thunder-based Sky Sword (ATK = 450) is
generally useless against undead enemies, but the light-based Silver Sword (ATK
= 314) will slice through them easily. Similarly, it will take you a long time
to whittle down a fire-based Salamander with a fire-based Sizzle Sword (ATK =
400), while the humble Mist Rapier (ATK = 283) will make short work of him.
More specifics will be given as we progress, but in general, before entering
into any battle take a moment and make sure that you have an appropriate weapon
equipped for the enemy that you are facing. Try to learn the elemental
weaknesses of enemies and the elemental properties of weapons as you progress,
either by trial and error or by referring to a guide such as Iron Knuckle's.
A corollary to the above point is this: do not automatically feed Red chest
weapons to your Capsule Monster just because you have a weapon with higher ATK.
For example, the only Blue Chest weapons available for Maxim are the Sizzle
Sword (fire) and the Sky Sword (Thunder). Therefore, you should also keep the
following for Maxim if you can find them: Silver Sword or Silvo Rapier
(light),Freeze Sword(ice), Mist Rapier (water), Flying Blow or Lizard Blow (for
Dragons), and Zirco Sword, Myth Blade, or Old Sword (neutral). Try to
accumulate a similar variety of weapons for your other party members and
remember to equip them for the appropriate battles.
If we were being really thorough, we would be applying the same logic to
equipped armor, but if you follow the guidelines outlined in this FAQ, you
should be able to survive handily by merely equipping the "strongest" defensive
items and keeping them equipped. Our accumulations of Blue chest shields,
rings, jewels, and headgear will have our characters over-protected against
most dangers that lie ahead, so there is no reason to overly obsess about
equipping the most appropriate defensive equipment.
It should be noted that certain elemental defensive items can adversely (or
positively, for that matter) affect the elemental attack properties of your
weapon. For example, the water properties of an equipped Sea Ring -- a
generally recommended piece of equipment -- will negate the special attack
properties of the awesome Lizard Blow. Therefore, for maximum effectiveness
the Sea Ring should be de-equipped prior to using the Lizard Blow against
Dragons. A comprehensive discussion of this concept is beyond the scope of this
guide. However, if you are interested in learning more about this, please
check out Iron Knuckle's Walkthrough (also on GameFAQs.com) for better
information on how best to equip armor, rings, and shields.
===============================================================================
X. Starting Out
Your first few trips into the Ancient Cave will be tough, since you start with
nothing except 10 potions and any Blue chest jewels collected in the main quest
(which will likely be few in number). Place Guy and Dekar in the front row
with Maxim and Selan behind them. Even without armor, Guy and Dekar have
naturally high defense and their strong attacks will do more damage from the
front row. You may want to adjust this arrangement as you find items. For
example, if you find the Ruse Armor, equip it on Selan and place her in the
front row instead of Guy -- low-level enemies won't be able to even scratch her
when she has +140 defense!
Obviously, you want to open every treasure chest that you see. Immediately
equip any weapons or armor that you find. Remember also to read the script
that goes past at the end of each battle. You may find that the defeated
enemies dropped a useful rock, armor, or weapon that you can equip.
During these first few trips, you definitely want to fight every enemy that
you encounter, PROVIDED that you can easily defeat it without taking a lot of
damage. This is because you will need the experience to survive until you find
Providence. OUR OVERALL GOAL HERE IS TO GET PROVIDENCE AND THEN GET OUT! If
you are fortunate enough to find both the Absorb spell and the Strong spell
within the first few floors, you should fight everything you see. Otherwise,
go after the low-hanging fruit (easy pickings) and avoid enemies that can hurt
you. Be patient -- you'll get your chance to beat up on them soon enough.
***IMPORTANT NOTE***
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* From here on, I will be citing relevant statistics about many of the *
* enemies that you will encounter in the Ancient Cave. I did not figure *
* these out on my own. All of the stats mentioned from here on were *
* provided with kind permission by Iron Knuckle, who reminds me that HIS *
* enemy lists were compiled with the assistance of Relnqshd. I thank you *
* both for allowing me to use this information. For a link to Iron *
* Knuckle's FAQ and more shameless groveling by me, see section XIII at the *
* end of this FAQ. *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Here is a quick rundown of the particularly pesky enemies that you will
encounter in the first 30 floors:
Mimics (B7-B9) -- Until you get some serious protection, these guys can cause
you some major damage. They look like red treasure chests only somewhat
brighter and will chase you if you get too close. Avoid them until you can
crank up your stats a bit.
Wispy (B13-B15) -- These enemies have high agility (160) so their turns will
always precede yours. Their "Flash" attack can damage your entire party and
they can call replacements if allowed to do so. On a positive note, they are
vulnerable to ice. Overall, I would avoid these until you get to section XI,
"Speed Collecting".
From about B20 - B30, you will encounter many enemies with particular elemental
weaknesses. You should take the time to learn these and capitalize on them.
For example, many of the enemies (Deadly Swords, Deadly Armor, Skull Lizards,
Sand Gorems, and Pugs) are weak against ice. If you are fortunate enough to
find a Freeze Sword, be sure to equip it for these battles. Failing this, a
water-based weapon (such as the Dragon Spear) is generally your weapon of
choice against these enemies. Most of the sea creatures (Drill Shells,
Cancers, Ammonites, etc.) are weak against fire, so if you have a Burn Sword or
Red Saber, use this in conjunction with Maxim's Sizzle Sword. Eventually,
you should be powerful enough to overpower any enemy even if you use the exact
wrong weapon. However, you will find that the battles proceed more quickly if
you equip the proper weapon. Besides this, if you ever decide to attempt a
"challenge" run, you will need to be familiar with these vulnerabilities. If
you are interested in pursuing such a challenge, I strongly recommend the "Gift
Mode Challenges FAQ" by Squeeealer, found right here on GameFAQs. The author
is the most fanatical Ancient Cave enthusiast I have ever encountered, and I
guarantee that his FAQ will give you a whole new perspective on the game!
Winger (B19-B21) -- Like Wispy, these guys have high agility, have an attack
("Twister") that can damage your whole party, and can call in other Wingers.
Unless you can get in first, I would avoid these guys until the next section as
well.
Sand Gorems (B20-B22) -- Can be tough to damage if you have the wrong weapon
equipped, but are vulnerable to water and ice. Their Sandstorm can damage the
whole party.
Bees (Bee23-Bee26)--High agility and can damage and/or paralyze all members of
your party. Bee-ware! You would bee well advised to steer clear of these
pests until you get some defensive Blue chest items lest you get stung.
Pugs (B25-B27) -- Easy to kill if you remember that they are fire-based and are
vulnerable to ice. They can damage the whole party with Incendiary and can
call other Pugs to join the fray. Some gamers use them for harvesting, but at
only 592 EXP each, I wouldn't bother.
Blue Mimics (B29-B31) -- Look like Blue treasure chests. Unlike their red
counterparts, these will not pursue you. However, they are truly formidable.
With high agility (132), high attack and defense, an attack that targets your
whole party, no weaknesses, and plenty of HP (365), these guys can cause you
beaucoup damage before you even unsheath your sword. Avoid them until you are
better equipped.
When you get about 15 floors down, you should pause for a moment and feed your
Capsule Monster all the extra junk in your inventory that you do not need to
equip. I advise AGAINST doing this prior to B15, for two primary reasons.
First, there is no sense in taking the time to feed him until you can bump him
up a class. Moreover, if you wait until you have collected more items, there
is a higher probability that you will have in stock the item that he requests,
thus giving him more growth from fewer items. Do NOT under ANY circumstances
feed him a Blue chest item, even if it is a duplicate item that you do not
need. Those items are worth LOTS of cash up on the surface, so save them and
sell them topside instead. (The only exception to this rule is if you are
playing in Gift mode, in which case the money you would receive from selling
these items would do you no good anyway.)
What we are hoping is that by the time you find Providence you will find at
least one and possibly two Blue treasure chest items so that we can take them
to safety and then go down again a little better equipped than the time before.
Resist the temptation to descend beyond where you find Providence!
If your party dies, you will forfeit any Blue chest or Iris items that you
found, so take no chances here. You are weak now, but your growth -- from
finding increasing numbers of Blue chest items -- will be slow but perceptible.
Continue covering floors B1 - B21, killing most enemies in your path, until you
can equip each of your characters with at least two good defensive items
(armor, helmet, shield, ring, rock) from Blue treasure chests. Then proceed to
the next section.
===============================================================================
XI. Speed Collecting
Now that you have two good defensive items -- and hopefully a Blue chest weapon
as well -- equipped on each party member, you will find that most enemies on
the first 20 floors cannot harm you. Therefore -- and here is where my
thinking diverges from the conventional wisdom -- THERE IS REALLY NO REASON TO
FIGHT THEM! Even though you will be at Level 1, your ATK and DEF stats will
more closely resemble a character whose level is in the 20's to 30's. Thus,
you can now easily make it all the way to Providence without having to worry
about raising your levels. If you don't need experience, then why fight?
Realistically, some encounters will be unavoidable. In those cases, go ahead
and fight and get it over with. The one battle that you will want to actually
fight is against the Red Cores that are found on B11 - B13. The 2222
experience each that you can get if you are lucky enough to kill one of these
things before it runs away makes this a good use of your time. Otherwise, your
goal here is MAXIMUM TREASURE CHESTS IN MINIMUM TIME. We really want two
things from these descents: enough Blue chest items to completely equip all
four party members and (if you are pursuing this quest) Iris items. That's it.
Since you do not need experience, don't seek it out. Basically, leave no chest
behind but do not engage enemies unless absolutely necessary or unless, as with
the Red Cores, a very brief battle will significantly raise your stats.
A corollary to this is that I see little reason to take the time to try to beef
up your Capsule Monster on these intermediate trips. You really don't need him
anyway, either for offense or for healing, so again why take the time to feed
him items? Let him rest for now -- you'll give him plenty to do on your Final
Descent.
Once you find Providence, you might consider continuing for a couple of more
floors, with the understanding that you do NOT want to fight ANYTHING. The
battles will become more difficult and therefore more time-consuming and
therefore will be lowering our ratio of chests opened to time spent. If a
cluster of red chests is protected by a swarm of enemies, leave it be. Most of
them probably contain junk like Potions anyway. Remember -- those Iris items
you lack are just as likely to be on floor B1 on the next time through as they
are to be on B29. The best use of your time is to exit and start over again
when you will be among enemies that cannot harm you. If you would like to see
this principle quantified, please refer to the table in section " XII a.
Overview:" for more specific information on how your progress slows as you
descend deeper into the Cave.
One last warning is that on floor 28, you may see things that look like Blue
treasure chests except that the yellow bands are suspiciously light and shiny.
These are the Blue Mimics I described earlier, and you would be wise to avoid
them for now. They have very high agility (132), HP (365), attack power (222)
and defense (240). They will therefore get in all of their turns before you
get even one, and some of their attacks will hit all party members. These
things can bring an untimely end to your quest, so I would postpone fighting
them until we are better prepared.
I know that my pacifistic approach is unconventional, but when you think about
what you are trying to accomplish, it makes perfect sense. More than half of
your time will likely be spent in this phase of your quest, so it is only
logical to try to Maxim-ize your efficiency. Continue covering floors B1 - B30
or so until you have as many Iris items as possible as well as a more-or-less
full complement of Blue chest items. At the very least, make certain that you
have the following Blue chest items before beginning your final descent:
* Gades Blade -- Its IP attack will allow Guy or Dekar to attack 8 times in
one turn. If you want to be absolutely sure of defeating the Giant Jelly in
B99, have two of these. These are also your best weapons against Silver and
Gold Dragons.
* Spark Staff -- Although this is not always Selan's best weapon for physical
attacks, it does raise her intelligence by a whopping +50! This will
enhance her curative powers as well as the effectiveness of her attack
magic.
* Fry Sword -- For battling undead enemies, of which there will be many. Get
two of these if possible.
* Blaze Sword -- Essentially a Fry Sword for Selan.
* Ruse Armor -- Selan's best armor in the entire game. Its IP ability is a
souped-up version of Valor, restoring over 500 HP to each character and
occasionally reviving the fallen.
* Mirak Plate -- Besides being one of the best Armors that the male characters
can equip, the IP for this armor completely restores one member's magic. If
you do not find Absorb or if it appears very late in your descent, you will
definitely need this. Again, you want 2-3 of these if possible.
Really the list could go on and on, but the preceding items are definitely
"must-have" items. You also need 4 good jewels -- any four (including
duplicates) from this list: Twist Jewel, Gold Eye, Silver Eye, Black Eye,
Gorgan Rock. As mentioned in section IVb of this FAQ, the Twist Jewel is
definitely the jewel of choice. In addition, each character will need a good
ring, helmet, and shield. You are not likely to find good rings, helmets,
jewels, or shields in red treasure chests (these will only appear on floors 1 -
10), so keep seeking these items from Blue chests until you find enough to go
around.
I am going to suggest that you be able to equip your characters as follows.
This is not set in stone, but it is certainly a good place to start:
Dekar Guy Maxim Selan
Weapon: Fry Sword Fry Sword Sizzle Sword Spark Staff
Armor: Mirak Plate* Mirak Plate* Mirak Plate Ruse Armor
Shield: (still-cursed) Dark Mirrors are preferred for all; if not, see below
-----------Apron Shield or Flame Shield ----------- Water Gaunt
Helmet: Agony Helm Agony Helm Agony Helm Boom Turban
Ring: Sea Ring Sea Ring Sea Ring Dia Ring
Jewel: -Any of the five mentioned above but preferably Twist Jewels for all-
Extras: Gades Blade Gades Blade Sky Sword** Snow Sword
-------Mega Ax or Sky Sword ------ Blaze Sword
* If you don't find 3 Mirak Plates, you can equip Dekar and/or Guy with
whatever armor you find during your descent. There will be plenty.
** Be aware that despite its apparent strength on paper, the Sky Sword is
unable to damage many enemies, including undead enemies. I only recommend
this as a backup weapon that Maxim can use on Fire-based enemies who will
not be harmed much by the Sizzle Sword and as a primary weapon against
enemies such as the Earth Genies who are weak against Thunder. You will
likely find many other useful weapons in red chests as described in section
IX above.
Once you have your party members equipped more or less as described above, you
are ready for your final descent into the Ancient Cave!
===============================================================================
XII. The Final Descent
XII a. Overview:
OK, we have completed all necessary preliminaries, and we are ready to try to
make it all the way to B99 and defeat the Giant Jelly. This Final Descent will
take somewhere around 8 - 12 hours, so we want to be prepared. You should
have most or all of the equipment detailed above, and hopefully the first nine
Iris items as well. Originally, I wrote that I had personally experienced
difficulty with finding Iris items after beating the Giant Jelly. However,
after posting this guide I soon heard from T. Oreochimaru who reported finding
the Iris Helmet after defeating the Giant Jelly. Since hearing from him, I
myself found the Iris Pot after collecting the Giant Jelly's carcass, so I can
now say with confidence that my original theory doesn't hold water and, in
fact, it is NOT necessary to collect the first nine Iris items before making
this Final Descent. I know that I am glad that we got that resolved.
Before beginning your Final Descent, please be aware of the following dictum --
The second most important component (behind Agility) to a smooth and successful
passage through the Ancient Cave is DEFENSE. By cranking up your defense
through equipping Blue chest items, you are taking a crucial step towards
completing your quest. I KNOW that it requires massive amounts of time to
accumulate enough Blue chest items, but you must believe me when I tell you
that it is worth it. For example, a level 50 Maxim with only his best body
armor equipped has a DEF stat of around 285. However, if he adds Sea Ring,
Gorgan Rock, Agony Helm, and Dark Mirror to his equipment, his DEF stat jumps
to an impressive 590! Properly equipped, you will never again fear a Blue
Mimic, a Bee, a Mega Cyclops, or much of anything else. You will be tempted to
try your Final Descent before you accumulate the necessary gear, and I would
encourage you to be patient. I have received many emails from adventurers
whose journeys ended prematurely, and the vast majority of these aborted
missions are attributable to insufficient preparation. If you really want to
make it to B99, invest the time to get the gear.
A typical timetable for going all the way to B99 while defeating every enemy on
the way (but without harvesting) is shown below. Of course, your actual pace
will vary from this depending on a number of factors, such as the particular
floor configurations that you get and how long you spend wandering around after
clearing a floor trying to remember where the stairs were. However, the
following should give you a good general idea.
At the end You will be Average
Of Hour # on Floor # EXP Level Floors/hr* Levels/hr*
1 B23 22 23 22
2 B37 31 14 9
3 B50 38 13 7
4 B57 45 7 7
5 B68 51 11 6
6 B74 58 6 7
7 B82 63 8 5
8 B89 68 7 5
9 B93 75 4 7
10 B97 81 4 6
10.5 B99 85 4 8
*These numbers represent rates for the current hour, not averages for the
entire trip. For example, for Hour #2, the rate of 14 floors/hr means that
you covered (37 - 23) = 14 floors in the one hour span from t=60 minutes to
t=120 minutes.
Notice that you can clear out the first 23 floors roughly 2 - 3 times as fast
as you can clear out subsequent floors. If you are "Speed Collecting", you can
actually get all chests from the first 23 floors in about 45 minutes. This is
why I encourage you to return to the surface as soon as you find Providence in
the first two phases of this quest.
Anyway, for this phase of our quest, these are going to be our strategies:
* You now definitely want to kill everything in your path with the possible
exception of those pathetic creatures on the first few floors. If you miss
out on a couple of hundred experience points, it really won't make much
difference compared to the 150,000 or so that you would need to advance
another level. On the other hand, perhaps you should take the few minutes
necessary to obliterate them just so you can say that you killed EVERY enemy
and opened EVERY chest. In any event, this time through you really want the
experience.
* The fundamental rule for the Final Descent is going to be, "Know Your
Enemy". Become familiar with each enemy's weaknesses and attack patterns,
and especially with which enemies are faster than you are. This way you can
equip the proper weapons and also plan your moves so that you can maximize
damage to your enemies which minimizing damage to your party.
* You are going to pause periodically to feed your capsule monster because
somewhere around B60 or so you want it to reach the Master Class. However,
be very careful not to part with red chest items that you are going to need.
For example, be sure to retain at least one good neutral weapon (that is,
one not associated with fire, ice, light, or any other special attribute)
for each member of your party. This is because you are going to encounter
enemies that are resistant to all elemental weapons. Likewise retain one
each of the following (if you find them): Silver Sword (Maxim's best Light
weapon), Dekar Blade (really helpful in the final battle), Lizard Blow
and/or Flying Blow (powerful against Dragons). Also, as I advised in part
IX above, hang on to any strong elemental weapons (such as the Freeze Sword
and the Mist Rapier) that have no counterparts in blue chests.
* If you don't have some kind of recovery spell (Strong, Stronger, Champion,
Valor) by about B30 - B35, you are going to consider using Providence and
trying again. It is preferable to have Strong and either Valor or Champion.
I have completed the Ancient Cave when Strong was my only recovery spell,
but there were definitely some exciting moments.
* Contrary to the conventional wisdom, once you get Absorb, you are no longer
going to worry about conserving magic because there will be plenty
available. In a recent descent into the Ancient Cave, I found Absorb
around B40. From that point on, I used magic nearly every turn, often
having both Selan and Maxim cast spells repeatedly. I arrived at B99 with
around 20 Hi-Magics, 10 Ex-Magics, and about 20 Miracles. Follow my tips
and you are in no danger of running out of magic as long as you have Absorb.
Don't be shy about using support magic such as Trick as well as attacking
magic such as Firebird in addition to your healing spells. When you get to
the metal Dragons, you will often want to have both Selan and Maxim cast
Destroy in the same turn. That is OK -- you can easily afford 16 MP per
turn, trust me.
* After about B30, you will start taking some damage, which means that your IP
gauge will fill up. Don't be shy about using it. The gauge will fill up
again fairly quickly after you spend IP, so get the most from your IP. Use
it to attack an especially loathsome party of enemies or use it to fill
Selan's magic gauge. Remember that if a character dies, his/her IP meter
goes to ZERO, so use it or lose it.
* As you open chests and defeat enemies, you will pick up stat-building
potions such as Brave and Life Potions. Remember to use these right away
and use them on the most appropriate character. I would recommend that you
give any Brave potions to Maxim (for reasons that I will detail below).Selan
gets the Mind Potions and the Spell Potions for obvious reasons plus the
Life Potions since her HP will be the lowest. You can decide whether to
give Power Potions to Guy or Maxim (don't waste them on Dekar -- his ATK
stat will max out at 999 anyway.) Give any Speed Potions to Guy, especially
if you are using Artea instead of Dekar. Getting his AGL above 145 before
B81 will be a challenge, but a necessary one. While I'm on the subject, use
your Charred Newts and Magic Jars just to get them out of inventory, and
unless you are the only person on Earth who uses these things, you might as
well ditch any items containing the word "Gourd" or the word "Ball." The
only possible exception is the Terror Ball which can work like the Perish
spell (and about as infrequently) but is probably better fed to your Capsule
Monster who may occasionally request one.
Brave potions are the only way -- other than equipping certain items -- to
increase a character's Gut stat, and there is some controversy about just what
the Gut stat does. The official Lufia 2 Instruction Booklet claims that, "it
also will increase the effect of the IP of any weapon or item." However, it
also claims that "Guts increases with experience," which is a bunch of hooey.
Gut absolutely does NOT increase with levels, so I have my doubts about the
Booklet's other statement about Gut. Iron Knuckle states, "Guts, the higher
the number the faster your IP bar will grow," and I tend to believe this
interpretation. Iron Knuckle has done extensive investigating into the
underlying code of the game, so although I have personally collected no data on
the matter, I put a lot of faith into his conclusions.
There is one additional strategy that I would like to include and leave to your
discretion. During your descent, you will almost certainly find in a red chest
a weapon called "Fatal Pick." Its attack power is 0 (yes, zero), only Selan
(and Arty and Tia) can equip it and it is cursed, making it, you would think, a
prime candidate for food for your Capsule Monster. However, it can cause
immediate death to virtually any enemy (except undead monsters), it requires no
MP to use, and it works more consistently than either Perish or Destroy! (The
best information I have received on the effectiveness of these instant death
spells is that, when cast on a single enemy, Perish succeeds 25% of the time
and Destroy succeeds 50% of the time, regardless of the caster or the enemy.
When the spell is cast on multiple enemies, these percentages go down
considerably.) By contrast, the Fatal Pick's success rate is a solid 80%! As
with most things in life, however, this weapon has its positive and negative
qualities. To wit:
* Once you equip it you do not want to un-equip it. To un-equip it, you must
lift the curse on it, and once you lift the curse on this weapon, its
instant-kill ability is severely diminished. I have personally collected
data that confirms the 80% success rate for the cursed Pick. Uncursed, it
seemed to work less than half of the time. This would indicate that if you
want to get maximum benefit out of it, you need to commit to keeping it
equipped on Selan.
* If you are planning on harvesting, do not equip the Fatal Pick until you are
finished doing so, around B53. The enemies you will be harvesting are
immune to this weapon, and you will need Selan (with her high AGL stat) to
do much of the harvesting for you with her Blaze Sword.
* On the positive side, the cursed version of this weapon is highly effective
against the most dangerous creatures in the Ancient Cave. Archfiends,
Genies, and Metallic Dragons are all susceptible to this powerful weapon,
and using it can seriously quicken your descent and improve your chances of
survival through the last 20 floors or so. In fact, it really almost makes
these battles TOO easy. I would guess that the Fatal Pick can account for at
least 80% of your Dragon killings in the final 20 floors.
* As previously mentioned, though, it will not cause any damage to undead
enemies. However, when confronted by undead enemies while equipped with the
Fatal Pick, Selan can either replenish her magic with Absorb, use her
Diamond Ring IP attack to cast Zap, increase her allies' ATK by casting
Trick, or heal the other party members. All of these options are preferable
to having her launch a fruitless physical attack.
I have gone through the Ancient Cave both with and without using the Fatal
Pick. Using it reduced my time from 10.5 hours to just over 8 hours -- a
pretty significant reduction and the journey seemed much easier. Still, I sort
of felt as if I were cheating, and ultimately my success was somewhat less
satisfying as a result. As with most such matters, gentle reader, I leave to
you the decision of whether or not to use the awesome power of this weapon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the following section, I will rather casually discuss the wisdom in certain
circumstances of using the spells Absorb and Destroy. Of course, if you have
not yet found those spells, you will have considerable difficulty following my
advice. Although the locations vary considerably, Absorb and Destroy (or its
weaker counterpart Perish) have been available in almost every journey that I
have ever made to the bottom of the Ancient Cave, so take heart (although,
admittedly, I once got Destroy on B97 -- thanks a lot!) They will probably
appear eventually, and you won't really need them until the last twenty floors
or so. Until you find them, you will have to use Magic Rebirth (from the Mirak
Plate) for replenishing MP instead of Absorb and use good old physical attacks
(or the Fatal Pick) instead of Destroy. For what it's worth, I recently made
it all the way to the Giant Jelly without using any of these three spells (or
Rally, for that matter), so don't think that all is lost if you do not find
these particular spells.
There will be more, but we can discuss the rest as we go. For now, decide on
ONE Capsule Monster that you want to accompany you to the end, equip him, and
stick with him. Then proceed through the first 30 floors.
XII b. Floors B01 - B29
You should be very familiar with these floors by now, as you have done them
many, many times already. By the time you get to B29, you really need to have
a recovery spell of some kind, preferably Strong (as it takes the least magic).
If you have Absorb and any of the 4 recovery spells, you are good to proceed.
In a moment, you are going to feed all excess items to your Capsule Monster.
However, before you do, please READ THIS. Do NOT under ANY circumstances feed
your CM any of the following: Dekar Blade, Lizard Blow, Myth Blade, Fatal
Pick, Myth Blade, Deadly Sword (the one that has an IP attack called "Battle
Cry" when the curse is lifted), or Hidora Rock. The Lizard Blow expedites
your passage through the last 20 floors as it is awesome against Dragons. The
Fatal Pick is a surprisingly useful weapon as explained above. The other items
are potentially useful against the Giant Jelly in B99, so you want to keep them
around just in case. Also let me remind you that you should never feed Blue
chest items to your CM, so make sure that you know which items those are.
Assuming that you are going to continue, feed your Capsule Monster, beginning
with the weakest items first. If he has a special request, think carefully
before accommodating him -- you don't want to spoil the creature as you have a
long ways to go still. If he snubs an item that you think he should accept,
you can lower his standards by feeding him three pieces of junk from your
inventory. I consider junk to be items such as Rapier, Knife, Apron, Frypan,
Magic Guard, and Freeze Ball that you will simply never use but also no self-
respecting Capsule Monster will EVER accept as growth food. You should surely
be able to promote him to Class II and possibly to Class III. Having bumped
him up, let's proceed.
I will divide the next part of this narrative into groups of 10 floors each,
describing the more insidious enemies that you will encounter as well as some
tips on how to deal with them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII c. Floors B30 - B39
Overview:
You will encounter a lot of undead enemies on these floors, suggesting that you
should equip Fry Swords on Guy and Dekar. The Fatal Pick can still be a useful
weapon for Selan, or you can equip her with her Blaze Sword. Remember to
adjust your weapons according to the enemies you encounter. For example,
Tengus are weak against ice, so Selan should equip her Snow Sword for these
battles. In general, if you find that one of your characters is causing
considerably less damage than usual, it is probably because his/her weapon has
the same elemental attribute as the enemy, suggesting that a change is in
order.
Key Enemies:
Dark Skulls (B30-B32) -- Can cast Perish, but it seldom works. These guys are
vulnerable to fire and light. Remember that you Sky Sword will not damage
them. Fry Swords, on the other hand, make short work of them.
Necromancer (B32-B35) -- Can cast Perish (although it seldom works) as well as
Bolt and Dark Aura which can damage all party members. They can be tough to
eliminate as they tend to call companions. Fry them with your Fry Swords.
Asashin (B37-B39) -- These enemies are very hard to avoid as they move much
faster than you do, and their high agility (168) gives them a big advantage in
battle as well. Their "Terminal Blow" attack can wipe out one of your
characters (AND all of his IP!) and actually does so with alarming accuracy.
Hope for the best when they attack and then make short work of them with your
Fry Swords and other Light-based weapons.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII d. Floors B40 - B49
Overview:
First of all, you should pause for a moment and feed your Capsule Monster
again, hopefully elevating him to Class IV. Follow the guidelines described
above in section XII b.
Enemy-wise, these 10 floors are a stroll through the park, especially compared
to some of the floors ahead. Most enemies aren't that bad, but my two least
favorites of the lot are:
Key Enemies:
Bone Gorem (B41-B43) -- These don't jeopardize your health much even though
each attacks twice per turn, but their high HP (330) and high defense (261)
make them tough to wear down. Thunder is their weakness so you can equip Sky
Swords and make short work of these twerps. (Is it just me, or do these guys
look like they are carrying tennis rackets?)
Iron Gorem (B46-B48) -- High defense (271), plenty of HP (377), and no
weaknesses make taking down a group of three of these foes a tedious task.
The Fatal Pick is useful against them, but remember that equipping it now
necessarily precludes harvesting. If you use the Fatal Pick, be sure to have
Selan target one enemy and have everyone else target another. That way, if the
Fatal Pick is successful, then your other three characters will all target the
same enemy as each other. Using the Pick, a group of three Iron Gorems should
go down in two rounds. Otherwise, you will be hacking away at these guys for a
while. One last thing -- these guys, like the Gold Gorems that you will
encounter later, are very resistant to elemental weapons, so try to equip your
strongest neutral weapons. The Crazy Blade, (uncursed) Lucky Blade or Luck
Rapier, and Pounder Rod are all good choices. However, remember that if a
member of your party has a Sea Ring equipped, its elemental properties override
the neutral quality of your weapon and you will not be able to do much damage
to these enemies. Consequently, always remove Sea Rings before attacking Iron
or Gold Gorems.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII e. Floors B50 - B59
Overview:
Now things start to get more interesting. You will find that these floors will
take longer to clear than those before. If you haven't already done so, you
should also take a couple of minutes to feed your Capsule Monster up to Class
IV. Remaining low-level items can be discarded or fed to a different CM so
that your inventory does not fill up. Occasionally I like to equip a different
CM (who is at Level 1) just for one fight around B50 to see how many levels he
can go up -- provided, of course, that he survives the battle. However, keep
one of your Capsule Monsters at level 1 -- we will need a uselessly weak
Capsule Monster when we get to B98, as I will explain when the time comes.
Key Enemies:
Wizards (B50-B52) -- If you are going to try "harvesting" (see section III of
this guide), this is the place to do it. There is actually little to lose
except maybe some time, all of your MP, and possibly your sanity, so you might
want to try it and see what you think. Harvesting during battles against
Wizards is especially fruitful because they can call two companions per turn,
and the most of the "Called Companions" are worth around 2400 EXP each and can
be taken out with a single blow of a Fry Sword, Blaze Sword, or Sizzle Sword.
Although I am not an advocate of harvesting, I tried it again recently and
found that in these particular battles you can reap in excess of 1,000,000 EXP
per hour without breaking a sweat. If you want to give this a try, here are
some tips:
* First of all, be aware that for this process to work with any semblance of
efficiency, you absolutely MUST have a Fry Sword for Guy and a Blaze Sword
for Selan. For optimum efficiency, you must also have an agility-increasing
rock (Twist Jewel, Black Eye, or Silver Eye) or spell (Fake) and the spells
Absorb and Trick. If you lack any of these items, you can harvest enemies,
but your EXP yield per unit time will be noticeably diminished.
* Put Guy and Selan in the front row because you want them to do most of your
fighting for you. Equip Guy and Dekar with Fry Swords, Selan with a Blaze
Sword, and Maxim with a Sizzle Sword. You will need to boost Guy's agility
above 84, so equip him with a Twist Jewel (+30 AGL) if you have one. If
not, use a Black Eye or a Silver Eye for +20 AGL. Selan is going to need
all of the ATK that she can muster, so equip her with a Gold Eye or a Gorgan
Rock. If you do not have Absorb, you may want to equip Selan with a Bat
Rock instead so that she can Absorb all of the Wizard's MP, but this will
lessen her probability of killing Nosferatos in a single blow.
* Replace your designated Capsule Monster with one who has been sitting on
the bench and has about 10 HP and hardly any ATK power. You want to
carefully control your attacks lest you slay the "golden goose" here, so it
is best to have your CM die off early, even though that means that he will
miss out on all the EXP you will garner.
* When the battle begins, kill off all enemies except ONE Wizard, preferably
one in the BACK row (I'll explain in a minute), but be absolutely sure that
you do leave one of them alive. It is better to launch fewer attacks and
take some damage than it is to accidentally kill that last Wizard. If he
dies, the whole purpose here is lost.
* Why do you want the surviving Wizard to be in the back row? Suppose the
Wizard summons two companions, one in the front row and one in the back row.
If you then kill the front row companion first, the remaining companion will
be considered to be in the front row now and will be easier to kill. If the
Wizard is in the front, it will take a heavier hit to clear that last
companion from the back row.
* If you have Absorb or equipped a Bat Rock, have Selan Absorb all 365 of the
Wizard's MP away (Maxim will not be much help here, as he will only Absorb 1
MP at a time). Otherwise, the Wizard will cast Perish and might wipe out
one (or more!) of your party members. You do not want this to happen.
Meanwhile, if you have Trick, have Maxim cast it repeatedly on all party
members until it has little or no effect. The first time you cast Trick it
boosts each player's ATK by 20% of its initial value and each successive
casting produces one-half the effect of the previous casting. In all, you
will be able to boost each character's ATK by 40% of its initial value
(because, as we all know, the sum of an infinite geometric series with
initial value x/5 and common ratio 1/2 is 2x/5 and x + 2x/5 = 7x/5 = 1.4x =>
a 40% increase. QED!)
* On most turns, the surviving Wizard will summon two companions. Our plan is
to kill off the "Called Companions" BEFORE they get a turn. Given a chance,
Hades Skulls will try to Confuse your characters which can really louse up
your plans, and Nosferatos will Absorb away your MP and/or your HP. This is
especially annoying if you do not have Absorb, because it makes you use Hi-
Magics and Ex-Magics to regain the MP you will need for healing. Thus, you
must walk a fine line here. Too few attacks will allow these guys to have
turns; too many attacks will kill off the Wizard. The general rule is this:
the number of attacks that you input in any one turn should be equal to --
but NEVER greater than -- the number of "Called Companions" you are trying
to kill. Following this philosophy, your enemies may occasionally get a
turn, but you run almost no risk of killing off that last Wizard.
* Now let's consider the dynamics of the harvesting process. Wizards only
call four different companions -- Hades Skulls, Demises, Jurahans, and
Nosferatos. Refer to the chart below for the relevant stats of each:
Name HP DEF AGL EXP
Jurahan 205 142 42 780
Demise 402 285 82 2458
Hades Skull 362 305 70 2389
Nosferato 614 300 84 2455
The DEF stat isn't that relevant because of the enemies' vulnerability to
the weapons you will be using, but I threw it in anyway. Clearly, Jurahans
aren't a problem. They are slow and have few HP, so any of your characters
will beat them to the punch and take them out in a single whack, even from
the back row. (Also note that you don't get as much EXP for them.) Also
note that you need to be sure that Guy's AGL is above 84 so that he is
faster than the Demise and the Nosferato. Properly equipped and placed in
the front row, Selan and Guy should each be able to easily dispatch the
Demise and the Hades Skull. The real problem is the Nosferatos. Their
614 HP each is not a problem for Guy, but it is a bit of a stretch for
Selan. Since Guy is the stronger character and hopefully has higher AGL
than any of these enemies, our general rule is to assign him the tougher
enemy. Any time you are facing a Nosferato, let Guy handle him. If you are
facing two Nosferatos (probably the toughest combination you will face),
assign the one in the back row to Guy because he will be harder to kill.
If you are facing a Nosferato and a Hades Skull, assign the latter to Selan
and the former to Guy, even if the Hades Skull is in back and the Nosferatu
is in front. You get the idea.
* Soon, you should get in a smooth rhythm where in each turn Selan and Guy
each kill an enemy and Dekar and Maxim Defend. If the Wizard attacks, you
can have Maxim periodically heal rather than Defend. Occasionally, when you
face two Nosferatus, Selan may fail to hit it for the requisite 614 HP and
it will survive (as long as Selan is not trying to kill a back-row
Nosferatu, though, this event should be extremely rare). The Nosferatu will
then perform two actions, probably two rounds of either Absorb or Contact
(basically Absorbing HP rather than MP). This will slow you down a bit, but
just take it out in the next turn and have Maxim replenish any lost HP. If
you get a round where you are facing at least one Hades Skull, you can have
Maxim and Selan change positions and Maxim can take out the Hades Skull from
the front row with his Sizzle Sword while Selan Absorbs back any lost MP.
* I suppose if you want to speed things up, you can kill off Dekar and then
bring him back to life just before you conclude your harvesting. He really
isn't going to be doing anything anyway, and he will get the full amount of
experience as long as he is alive when the battle concludes. If he is dead,
at least you won't have to keep entering a command for him to defend nor
will you have to wait for him to do so each round. It seems kind of cruel,
but I guess it improves your efficiency a bit.
* If you are using Artea instead of Dekar, you may need to re-think your
strategy slightly. Artea can help Absorb away MP during the setup, but he
probably won't be as effective as Selan at killing off enemies. His
Strength stat will probably be a bit higher, but unfortunately there are no
light-based weapons in Blue Treasure chests that he can equip. If you are
fortunate enough to find him a Rune Rapier in a red chest, you might check
his stats and see if he has more ATK than Selan, but her Blaze Sword will
probably trump anything that you will find for Artea. Sadly, you may just
have to have him Defend every turn once the harvesting begins.
* Since the setup for harvesting -- killing off excess Wizards, casting Trick,
Absorbing the Wizard's MP, etc. -- takes a certain amount of time, your
overall efficiency (EXP gained per hour) will increase the longer you
harvest in a particular battle. Therefore, it behooves you to stick with
one harvesting encounter for as long as you care to harvest. If you find
that Selan is having difficulty taking out a front-row Nosferatu with a
single hit, you can harvest for a while, finish that battle (leveling up
your characters significantly), and start again with a different group of
Wizards. However, if you followed our plan and killed all enemies in the
first 49 floors, this should not be an issue.
* I admit that it is really gratifying at the end of the battle to see those
huge EXP numbers, but I am going to predict that at the end of the day most
of you will agree with my original premise that harvesting is simply not
worth the effort. At risk of bludgeoning you mercilessly with my aversion
to harvesting, let me give you an example. I recently spent an hour and a
half harvesting, and in so doing amassed roughly 1.2 million EXP. When I
reached the Giant Jelly, my characters were at Level 91 rather than Level 83
or so. However, I cannot think of a single time in those last 46 floors
(B53 - B98) where the battles seemed easier or my progress seemed faster as
a result of this additional EXP. There are many factors that influence the
facility with which you pass through the Ancient Cave, but I would put EXP
(above and beyond that which you would normally acquire) low on this list.
* One last thing to keep in mind is that Wizards only appear on 3 floors (B50-
B52 inclusive), so these battles are rare and are not to be wasted if you
are planning on harvesting. It is possible that you will encounter only one
or two such battles, so be prepared and use them prudently if you are
planning on harvesting.
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Nosferato/Vampire combination (B50-B52) -- These suckers (ha, ha) are really
obnoxious, not because of their attacking power but rather because they will
absorb your MP from you. Nosferatos can use this "Vampire" spell twice in one
turn. Selan's high MGR makes her more resistant to this spell, and her high
INT makes it easier for her to Absorb her MP back. However, if these enemies
target Maxim, they can wipe out his MP entirely in one turn. Try to "Get in
First" (which is fairly easy), and focus your attacks on the Nosferatos so that
you can take them down before they drain your carefully conserved MP.
Fiend (B51-B53) -- A royal pain, these guys. Each has over 800 HP, they can
attack twice per turn, they cast Perish on a regular basis, and sometimes it
even works. The good news is that they are even slower than Dekar, so you
should get all four of your turns before they strike. The Fatal Pick takes one
out about half of the time, and they are vulnerable to Light, so equip your Fry
Swords and whale away on these pests.
Serfaco (B53-B55) -- No weaknesses, I don't think that it is possible to "Get
in First", and each one attacks three times per turn. Despite the fact that
they look like birds, they do not seem to be weak against the attacks of the
Flying Blow. Just use your best weapons and/or IP attacks and try to take out
one of them ASAP, because otherwise you are facing SIX attacks every time that
they get a turn.
Brokion/Green Dragon combination (B57-B59) -- Both enemies have plenty of hit
Points (1290 and 680 respectively). Brokion is vulnerable to water and the
Green Dragon is weak against fire. With any luck you can take out one of them
with the Fatal Pick or Destroy.
Sea Hidora/High Hidora combination (B57-B60) -- These guys have 600-700 HP
each, and if you fail to take them out in time, the High Hidora will attack you
FIVE times per turn (the Sea Hidora merely attacks your whole party at once)!
They are weak against Ice and are pretty easy to get behind so that you can
"Get in First", something that I definitely recommend trying to do. In fact,
you should practice Getting in First on Hidoras because their movement on the
Dungeon Screen is identical to that of the Dragons of floors B81 - B98.
Venus Fly (B59-B61) -- These usually arrive in groups of 4 and have nearly 500
HP each. Their only real threat is that they can confuse your characters,
causing them to attack each other. Their weakness is fire, so a good round of
Stardust Blow will eradicate them tout de suite.
Magma Gorem (B59-B61) -- Really high defense (332) and 480 HP each make these
guys a real nuisance to take out -- unless, of course, you equip the Fatal
Pick on Selan. They are also vulnerable to Water/Ice, so one good hit with a
Freeze Sword or Mist Rapier will usually cool them off for good.
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XII f. Floors B60 - B69
Overview:
As you get ever closer to B99, you will notice that the enemies are getting
increasingly tougher. Your key to success is to be ever aware of your enemies'
strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly. Equip the proper weapons for
each battle and watch out for enemies that are faster than you are, and you
should do just fine.
Key Enemies:
Salamander (B60-B64) -- Beware! These things have agility of 188, which is
probably even higher than Selan's. They can hit you with two Firebird spells
before you even get a turn, and, if you do not plan ahead, they can hit you
with four whole-party attacks before you have a chance to heal. This can be
sufficient to bring a premature end to your quest! Therefore, I advise you to
equip Selan with the Dragon Spear and check to make sure that this boosts her
agility above the Salamanders' 188 agility. If not, you can equip the Twist
Jewel (+30 AGL) or a Silver Eye (+20 AGL) to reach the desired level. As an
extra bonus, the Dragon Spear is water-based thus targeting one of Salamanders'
weaknesses. A Flame Shield can also lessen the damage to Maxim, Guy, and
Dekar.
Gold Gorems (B64-B68) -- So you thought that the Magma Gorems were tough?
Well, their Gold counterparts have more HP (521), higher defense (342) and NO
weaknesses. As if that isn't enough, you can run into them on FIVE floors
rather than the usual 3. Their physical attacks are quite powerful and they
can perform two physical attacks per turn. Their "Golden Mist" attack hits all
party members, and if all three enemies do it, this can seriously sap your HP.
If you have found some Apron Shields, they will protect Maxim, Guy, and Dekar
from Golden Mist, so equip those if you have them and aren't too lazy.
Offensively, you have three main options -- the Fatal Pick, instant death
spells such as Destroy and Perish, or physical attacks. If you choose physical
attacks remember to equip neutral weapons, as Gold Gorems, like the Iron
Gorems, are highly resistant to weapons with any elemental attributes. Again,
remember to remove and Sea Rings that you have equipped before fighting them.
The good news is that it is really easy to "Get in First" on these enemies, as
they move exactly like the Genies that will be found on B72 - B88. For more
detailed information on how to get in a sneak attack, scroll down a few
paragraphs or perform a search for the words, "So how should you actually
battle these annoying pests?"
White Dragon (B64-B68) -- These are the "cold" counterparts to the Salamanders.
With agility of 190 and an attack (Cold Stream) that can damage your entire
party, these guys can cause you lots of damage before you even have a chance to
heal unless you are prepared. Equip Selan with the Dragon Spear to put her
turn before theirs, and have her cast Firebird or Incendiary (IP attack of the
Flame Jewel) on all three White Dragons. Coupled with physical attacks from
your other three characters (Maxim's Sizzle Sword can take one out in a single
hit), this should finish tthese fiends off in one round. If you "Get in
First", you can swat these oversized flies before they can launch a single
attack.
Squid (B65-B67) -- These guys will either attack your whole party with "Ten-
Legger" or try to confuse you. Fire is their weakness. (I'll bet that you
didn't know that squid have 10 legs, did you? It's true, it's true!)
Leech/Nosferato combination (B67-B71) -- What a fun pair these guys are!
While the Leech is casting spells like Black Thunder (which damages your whole
party)and Destroy on you, the Nosferato is sucking away your magic points.
Leeches also have very high agility (220), and their physical attacks can cause
sleep and/or confusion. Both are weak against Light, but don't expect them to
go down easily as each has over 500 HP.
Mega Cyclops (B68-B73) -- These guys hit hard with physical attacks and carry
1533 HP each, but fortunately they only attack once each per turn. On the down
side, they have no weaknesses. Fighting Mega Cyclops is a good way to fill
your IP meter or to use Absorb to fill your MP without much danger of dying,
although I would recommend killing off one of them before doing either of the
above.
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XII g. Floors B70 - B79
Overview:
For the last 30 floors, you aren't going to get many breaks. Most of the
enemies from here on are going to be a royal pain. The battles will take
longer, and you will have to use more recovery magic. Delay in dispatching
your foes can be very costly, so be sure to equip the best weapons for a battle
before initiating conflict. If you get the enemies pared down to just one, you
can have Selan cast Absorb to replenish her MP.
Key Enemies:
Orky (B70-B72) -- It takes a lot of sword-swinging -- or one good swat with the
Fatal Pick -- to whittle away all 2800 HP that one of these beasts carries.
Thunder is it weakness, and Stardust Blow does considerable damage to it. When
it attacks, it usually attacks EIGHT times, and although each attack costs you
only a few HP, an Orky's turn takes forever. Bring a book to read while you
are waiting for Orky to finish pounding you. The good news is that each Orky
is worth nearly 19,000 EXP. Fight a pair for twice the fun!
Genies (B72-B88) -- Few enemies are as annoying as the various Genies that will
plague your descent for the next SEVENTEEN floors. Each has over 1200
HP, defense of over 300, an attack that will hit all of your party members, and
a fondness for using a very powerful Absorb spell that will drain your magic
users of vital MP. Although Genies present minimal threat of wiping out your
party, these guys are a royal pain. It is really irksome to carefully conserve
your precious MP, using them ever so wisely for battle after battle, only to
have one of these lugs suck 100 MP away from you in one turn. This is no major
problem for Selan, since her INT is high enough that she can Absorb them back
quickly. Dimbulb Maxim, however, loses MP by the hundred and regains them 20 -
30 at a time. I usually don't bother refilling his MP until I get past all
genies around B89, preferring not to give the Genies the satisfaction of
Absorbing them all away within a couple of turns. As if all that is not bad
enough, you get a lousy 4500 EXP or so for each Genie in these tedious and
costly battles. About the only good thing about these pests is that they tend
to waste a lot of turns either defending or trying to Absorb from someone who
has no MP.
Be especially wary of Wind Genies. With an AGL stat of 182, these guys are
probably faster than everyone in your party except possibly Selan, and their
Voltage Bolt attack can cause considerable damage to the entire party.
Since Genies are elemental, each type of Genie has a particular weakness, but
it can be tricky equipping weapons which will capitalize on this for two
reasons. First of all, you cannot tell from the Dungeon Screen what type of
Genies you will be facing as they all have the same Blue "Cyclops" image.
Secondly, Genies often appear in mixed groups, for example two Earth Genies and
one Flame Genie.
Fortunately, magic, unlike weapons, does not have to be chosen prior to battle.
Thus, Selan can use elemental magic to target the weaknesses of the individual
Genies (detailed below):
Type of Genie Weakness Spells to use Weapon for Maxim
Earth Thunder Flash, Bolt, Thunder Sky Sword
Flame Ice Gale, Snow, Ice Valk Freeze Sword
Wind Water Droplet, Vortex, Dragon Mist Rapier
Well Fire Spark, Fireball, Firebird Sizzle Sword
One Thunder spell, for example, can cause about 300 HP damage each to a group
of 3 Earth Genies. If you get a mixed group -- for example two Earth Genies
and one Flame Genie -- have Selan target only the Earth Genies, and deal them
each around 400 HP damage. Obviously, there are also numerous IP attacks that
have these elemental properties. Use these if you like, but I prefer to use
magic for these attacks and save my IP. When you get to the Dragons from B81
on, you will want your IP for fighting them, so get in the habit of using your
magic.
So how should you actually battle these annoying pests? First of all, learn
how to "get in first" on Genies. Observe that if you stand at least five
spaces away from them and swing your sword, they will not chase you but rather
will stay in place and slowly rotate, facing each of the four cardinal
directions for three swings of your sword. When they are not facing you, they
cannot "see" you and consequently will not chase you. You can use this to
sneak up behind them rather easily. Stand five paces away (that is, with four
spaces between you and the Genie), swing your sword, and wait until the enemy
turns from facing you to facing 90 degrees to either side of you. Walk
straight up to the Genie, and by the time that you get to him, his back will be
towards you, and you will get in first. Needless to say, this gives you a HUGE
advantage! If you mess up and the Genie begins to chase you, you have two
options. First, you can lure him into a bush or a treasure chest, which will
stop his movement and allow you to regain the necessary buffer. Alternatively,
you can duck into a doorway and back off a bit to get the Genie to start his
rotations. You can then begin your advance when he is facing to the side and
will get in just about right.
Now that you have a free turn, use it to see what type of Genies you are
battling. You probably have the wrong weapons equipped, but that is okay.
Simply escape from battle, equip the proper weapons, back off the necessary
five steps, and repeat the procedure described above to get in a sneak attack,
this time properly prepared for battle. (You will probably have trouble
finding the correct elemental weapons for Guy and Dekar because neither of them
can equip a water-based or ice-based weapon. In that case, equip them with the
best neutral or light-based weapon you have. Maxim's best weapons are listed
above.) Have your guys hammer away at the Genies while Selan either attacks
with a (still-cursed) Fatal Pick (probably your best option) or casts Destroy
or the appropriate elemental spell (detailed above). With any luck, you can
take out at least two Genies before they ever get a turn -- and, may I add, you
will find it immensely satisfying to do so.
Now that we have mastered the art of ridding the Cave of Genies, let's continue
our discussion of noisome enemies.
Archfiend (B72 - B87) -- The game designers were so proud of this creation that
they used it for SIXTEEN floors, pairing it with various other enemies for
variety. Archfiends have 1735 HP, high (166) agility (meaning that they will
beat everyone to the punch except maybe Selan), and get two actions per turn.
These actions are generally either powerful magic that targets everyone or
Destroy or, just for a change of pace, Stronger just to prolong the battle. The
good news is that the Fatal Pick is 80% effective against Archfiends. If you
are not using the Fatal Pick, equip everyone with Light weapons and, especially
if you are facing two Archfiends, consider using your Light-based IP attacks on
these guys. Your IP will replenish quickly enough, and you really do not want
to face the possibility of these guys casting Thunder on your party four times
in one turn. Archfiends are occasionally paired with Ice Rogues, but they are
relatively easy to knock out (only 565 HP) and are also vulnerable to Light
attacks, so focus your attention on the Archfiends first.
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XII h. Floors B80 - B89 (Dragon Mayhem)
Overview:
The game designers saved the best for last, for the final twenty floors of the
Ancient Cave are infested with the infamous Copper, Silver, and Gold Dragons,
Collectively referred to as the "Metal Dragons". There are those who advocate
running from these beasts, and I must admit that I myself did just that in my
early adventures. In time, though, I have found that although there are no
guarantees here, it is not only possible but it is in fact desirable and not
that difficult to defeat every one of these scaly fiends. In the following
paragraphs, I will describe just how to do so.
Dragons may appear solo or in pairs, and the pairs may be matched or not. The
attributes of all three types of Dragons are very similar. The most important
numbers are that each has about 2400 - 2780 HP, 328 - 370 DEF, and Agility of
around 140. The big difference in their attacks is the number of actions per
turn -- Copper Dragons only get one, Silver Dragons take two, and Gold Dragons
get three actions per turn. Thus two Gold Dragons get a total of SIX actions
per turn! These actions may be straight physical attacks, offensive magic such
as Zap (Gold Dragons only) or support magic such as Trick, Mirror, and Bravery,
but these don't really worry us much. What DOES concern us is that each has a
deadly attack that targets all four characters, these being Cinder Blast
(Copper), Diamond Dust (Silver), and Stardust Blow (Gold). When fighting
Dragons, you must be constantly aware that IF YOUR PARTY GETS HIT BY DIAMOND
DUST AND/OR STARDUST BLOW A TOTAL OF THREE TIMES IN ANY ONE TURN, THEN YOUR
PARTY WILL SURELY DIE REGARDLESS OF YOUR LEVEL OR EQUIPMENT! I doubt that
there is any more common cause of premature ending of an Ancient Cave quest
than these multiple all-party attacks by Dragons. What we want to do to
maximize our likelihood of success is make the probability of being thus
demolished as low as possible.
Why do I advocate fighting these deadly beasts rather than letting them be?
Well, for three main reasons:
1. Experience -- You get from 18,980 - 26,980 EXP per Dragon. This can bump
you up one level for every 3 - 4 battles.
2. Inevitability -- Some of these encounters are unavoidable. By battling
every Dragon you encounter you will build both levels and confidence so
that you will be better prepared both physically and mentally for those
encounters that you cannot avoid.
3. Bragging rights -- Don't you want to be as boastful as I was at the
beginning of this guide and be able to say honestly that you wasted every
single enemy in the Ancient Cave?
Besides, you do get to work your way up -- Gold Dragons do not appear until
B87, giving you time to practice on their less lethal brethren. Are you
convinced now? Good -- here are some tips:
* First and foremost -- always assume that you are about to encounter your
worst nightmare combination of two Gold Dragons. Enter the battle with all
characters at maximum HP and preferably with one least one of your front-
line fighters having a full IP gauge.
* Always try to "Get in First". Dragons move slowly and with fairly
predictable movements, and with a little practice, you should be able to
accomplish this over half of the time. However, under NO circumstances
should you allow yourself to be the victim of a "Surprise Attack", for
obvious reasons.
* There are at least three strategies for defeating Metal Dragons: Instant
death, Dark Power, and Dragon-specific weapons. Instant death weapons
(especially the Fatal Pick) and spells (Destroy and Perish) are quite
effective against these beasts, but when they miss you do zero damage.
Dark weapons (Gades Blade) and attacks (Darbi's Terminate, Sizzle Smash,
and Evil Aura) do tremendous damage to Silver and Gold Dragons. Dragon-
specific weapons (Flying Blow and Lizard Blow) and attacks (Swoop) are
likewise very effective against Silver and Gold Dragons. Be aware that due
to a glitch in the programming, Copper Dragons do not share the others'
vulnerability to Dark attacks or to Dragon-specific weapons. However, since
Copper Dragons aren't going to wipe out your party unless you simply are not
paying attention, it is best to equip yourself for the more threatening
Silver and Gold Dragons and just hack away at the Coppers as best you can.
* In case you missed this before, I will state for the record that far and
away the easiest way to defeat Dragons is to equip Selan with a (still-
cursed) Fatal Pick. If you do this, you can pretty much ignore most of the
rest of these bullet points because Selan will single-handedly wipe out
virtually every Dragon that you encounter without even getting her hair
mussed. If, for whatever reason, you do not use the Fatal Pick, then skip
the next bullet point and read on from there.
* If you are using Artea instead of Dekar, have a Fatal Pick equipped on
Selan, and everyone on your team has AGL of at least 145, you can defeat all
the Metal Dragons with virtually no risk whatsoever. Engage the Dragon
sprite from the side or the rear. If you do not "Get in First", then escape
from battle and try again. Once you "Get in First", try a round of attacks.
If there is more than one enemy remaining after the first round (that is, if
the Fatal Pick attack failed as it will do 20% of the time), escape and try
again. If there is just one Metal Dragon left, then continue on to the
second round confident that unless things go just horribly wrong there is
practically NO chance that you will be wiped out. This is the advantage of
superior agility that I described in section Ivb) at the beginning of this
FAQ. In theory, this same strategy can be used with the Destroy or Perish
spell instead of the Fatal Pick, but since the effectiveness of those spells
is 50% and 25 % respectively, completing each battle will require many tries
and great patience. The beauty of the Fatal Pick is that its success rate
is so high.
* Equip your characters with suitable weapons. Conventional weapons -- even
Blue chest weapons -- will have little or no effect on Dragons. The best
weapons for Guy and Dekar are the Gades Blade and the Lizard Blow. Despite
its apparent low attack power, the Gades Blade has a dark power to which
Silver and Gold Dragons are especially susceptible. These weapons also have
your best IP attacks (Octo-Strike and Dragon Rush respectively) against
Dragons -- remember to use them whenever your IP gauge fills up! If you
happen to have a duplicate of one of these weapons, you can equip Maxim with
a Lizard Blow. Otherwise, his Sizzle Sword or a Flying Blow (if you found
one) will do fine -- we really aren't going to expect much offense from him
anyway. Unless you are using the Fatal Pick, keep Selan equipped with the
Spark Staff for maximum INT -- she won't actually be performing many
physical attacks anyway. The one exception is that you occasionally want to
equip Selan with the Lizard Blow so that she can put her IP to good use.
* Remember that an equipped Sea Ring will negate the special properties of the
Flying Blow and the Lizard Blow. Consequently, you should probably un-equip
Sea Rings from anyone using these weapons before proceeding. You will lose
10 AGL points which is a shame, but any other losses will be more than
offset by gains in damage done to enemies.
* Remember that for the most part, only Selan and Maxim will be faster than
the Dragons. Therefore, their actions are crucial! If you took damage on
the previous round, have Selan or Maxim cast Champion or Valor so that your
characters have maximum HP before the Dragons start their next round of
attacks. Otherwise, have Selan cast Destroy every chance she gets. Destroy
is amazingly effective against Dragons! If you find yourself in an
especially difficult battle (such as against two Gold Dragons), have Maxim
cast Destroy also. Remember that, as is the case with most spells, Destroy
is more effective if you target a single enemy rather than the whole party.
However, . . .
* Watch the Dragons' actions carefully. If a Copper Dragon casts Mirror (as
they will do quite frequently), do NOT cast Destroy on that Dragon or your
spell may backfire on you!
* Concentrate all of your efforts on the most dangerous Dragon until he is
eliminated, then turn your attention to the other one. If the two are
identical, pick one to attack and stick with it.
* When you reduce your enemies to a single Copper or Silver Dragon, don't be
in a hurry to finish him off. You will be completely safe from extinction
unless you just are not paying attention. In this case, you may want to
prolong the battle long enough for Selan to cast Absorb (to replenish her
magic) and perhaps even let the Dragon cast Cinder Blast or Diamond Dust
to fill up your IP gauge for the next battle. I know that it is counter-
intuitive to invite damage, but it does serve a purpose and, as mentioned,
your chances of being wiped out are virtually nil.
* If you have the spell(s) Perish and/or Destroy, these will be your primary
slayers of Dragons. If you do not have either of these spells, it is still
very possible to defeat every single enemy, but you will have to adjust your
strategies a bit. Try to ensure that at least two of your characters go
into every Dragon battle with full IP and make sure that each has either a
Gades Blade or a Lizard Blow.