More bit from my 2.0 run

Two more things

1. I think Dullahan is a little too tough. Well, not Dullahan itself, but the game around it, I guess. I had the stars misalign for the battle and I had to rely on luck way more than I'd like. My characters were right at level 20, maybe one or two at 21. None of my characters had any HP esper bonus, yet. I had not bought any wall rings when I was in Thamasa.

So Dullahan's S. Cross would wipe Edgar and Setzer, even at full health. Celes and Sabin could survive only if they were very close to full health. After some trial and error, I discovered that S. Cross is fire elemental. The only fire elemental thing I had access too was Sabin's Tiger Mask. So, I put that on and geared up the rest of my party to maximize 'Fight' damage (Edgar with Fire Lance, Power Armor, Dragon Helm, Dragoon Seal and Power Glove = <3). After the standard slow + dispel ritual, I just let my party all die, except Sabin. The other three became zombies and I just crossed my fingers that they wouldn't hit Sabin. His job was solely to throw a tonic at himself after an S. Cross. After five or so tries, the RNG gods smiled at me and let Setzer hit with some good dice rolls and Edgar got in a couple of double jumps for ~7000 damage.

My only suggestion would be to add Wall Rings to a shop that we have access to at this early point in the WoR. Kolighen would obviously be preferred. Maybe for 2.1?

2. When you get Terra back, I think she said "awhile" instead of "a while". I could be mistaken because I read and smash A pretty quickly sometimes...

BNW fights in general are about finding the right setup to deal with whatever it is you're facing.  In the case of Dullahan, you're dealing with a fire attack where you have limited Fire mitigation (Tiger Mask) and don't have access to Shell.  You also only have access to one thing that provides death immunity, assuming you found the Ribbon.  And then the party is Forced to boot.

I think these situations are really interesting to solve and what makes BNW fun.  Thinking of a solution and then watching that solution actually work the way you would expect is good design.

You couldn't figure out how to mitigate the fire damage, so you just ate it and hoped the zombie army would work in your favor.  That's a perfectly viable (albeit RNG-reliant) strategy.

I don't think adding Wall Rings to Kohlingen is a good idea personally.

I hear what you're saying. And I don't really disagree. It's just that if I didn't have the Tiger Mask (if I sold it or didn't get it), I don't think the battle would have been (reasonably) winnable without just excessively grinding levels. That's what bothers me.

I feel that there should be *something* for a player to exploit to build a strategy for the boss that doesn't require planning way ahead. I.e., next time I play, I'll surely grab some Wall Rings in Thamasa, but that's not fair to expect a player to do. It doesn't take away from the planning and strategizing, IMO, to realize you need some extra magic defense or fire defense. Put something in a shop nearby or in a treasure chest that gives mdef/shell/fire-defense.

I did have the Ribbon. I decided to forgo it because it didn't keep anyone up and useful or prevent me from losing. Thus my (bad, IMO) Zombie Army strategy.

PRE-EDIT: I guess the Tiger Mask is for sale in Tzen, so maybe one could trek all the way back to Tzen if they realize they need fire protection. But how do you even figure out that S. Cross is fire elemental without the Tiger Mask (that's how I knew)?

8 hours ago, pogeymanz said:

But how do you even figure out that S. Cross is fire elemental without the Tiger Mask (that's how I knew)?

That's why I changed its color to red. It was blue in vanilla >.>