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I am very happy that some other people have become interested in this run.  It felt like an echo chamber in here for the last couple months Smiley

I used to carry teleport wings, but I figured they were wasted space.  If I had to teleport, the run was shot.  You make good points for including at least one.

I still think spell books are too random to depend on them significantly, but I can definitely see the point of using them early game.  The dungeons in between GotW and GotL may benefit from a stack of books if they all happen to drop together.

The idea of leveling down to the bottom of the GotF is interesting.  I will have to play around with that idea.  As long as you can get Level 3 and a bunch of ethers it should be pretty safe to go down.

Minicactuars first appear on floor 21 of GotW and they do not give a lot of JP (I think 300 or 400).  They give ridiculous amounts of JP in the dark dungeon and the 100 floor dungeon, but that is not very helpful in this context.

The PUD card stuff is still arguable in my mind.  I definitely think picking up the Ifrit card is super important.  Other ones maybe not so much.  I will take a look at your link when I get home.

I do not stream, although I have contemplated it.
I am going to be spending some time getting the stats of various enemies recorded.  If you know of sources for this information etc, please drop a link.

Poxner and FFGamer86 have a pretty good start up through the flame dungeon:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgMwmHO-MvtydGc1aExMd2xYcjdBb2VFWHlqUTJuMlE#gid=8

If you would like to help, please feel free to add more to it.  If someone can find a source on algorithms for damage calcs in this game that would be amazingly helpful as well.
Looks like the linked spread sheet is read only,  I have made a copy of it that is editable through the following link if you want to help out:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlJ_n03KYDwPdGxNNUYxWXF4SkpMRjZnUnZJWFhsakE&usp=sharing
Edit history:
Crow!: 2014-04-17 04:19:04 pm
Crow!: 2014-04-17 03:41:45 pm
What's that gemma?
I think that fake item names are randomized each time you enter a dungeon, so notes like "uncool collar" are probably unnecessary.

Scouting out GotW has left me with the impression that, within a given dungeon, only specific enemies will have a JP range outside of some default.  Every single enemy apart from Water Elementals and Ice Dragons appears to have a JP range of 7-13.

Anyway, I've filled out most of GotW's data.  I'm not 100% certain on the upper bounds of enemy floors, I never had some enemies drop Gil, and there could always be rare drops I didn't get.  I also never encountered Shiva after trying to do so ~12 times.


Each +1 increases the selling price of a piece of equipment by 10%.  Equipment with negative stats still sell for the full value.  Cursed items sell for 10g.
What's that gemma?
Added Shirma 1 and "Amouri."

To be more precise than what I said last time, each enemy seems to have a base JP value which the game randomly increases or decreases by up to 3.

---

I'm presently working with an emulator, as I loaned my disk to my niece, so it's impossible for me to gauge how my testing times compare to Messenger's atm.  But here's the route I'm currently leaning toward:

- At earliest opportunity, get Freja to "push the envelope" with Wood Talons.
--- Honing Wood Talons back to +8 is cheap enough that failure isn't that big a deal, and +13 Wood Talons are amazing this early.
- Have Fire seal on your saddle (for first 10 floors, this means just straight up equipping a fire saddle).
- Go through GotF to the final floor.
--- Get the Apple.
--- +10 Bronze Talons are inferior to +13 Wood Talons, so don't bother with that "upgrade".  +10 Bronze Saddle with Fire Seal is legit.
- Farm Ifrit for a few fights.
--- The goal here is to get money for forging; depending on in-dungeon luck and Ifrit drop luck, different amounts of fights will be needed.
- Continue on through the game, using Dia instead of Holy.
--- Without Holy, 2 bosses are slightly slower, as are Big Scissors Gigantoad.  Nothing else warrants a Holy anyway.
- In GotW, skip floor 3's teleporter.  Flan Princess and Big Scissors are not profitable fights.
- Head in to floor 10's teleporter so long as you have enough resources (say, extra Poisons or Thunders) to fight Adamantoise.
- Farm floor 21's Mini Cactuars until you have Holy.
--- If you encounter Shiva, use a Teleport Wings.  This means saving ~2 Teleport Wings before this.
--- When you get a Mog shop, buy as many Ethers as you can carry.
--- These Mini-Cactuars ONLY drop JP, and they pose no threat of any kind.
Edit history:
messenger: 2014-04-21 10:52:45 pm
messenger: 2014-04-21 10:52:20 pm
I always discounted the idea of risking the over hone in a single segment, but I suppose it is happening at such an early point in the run that it isn't so bad.  It is nice to farm Ifrit for money only as that is much more stable and job point drops aren't a bad thing either!  How much do you farm until?  I think 20,000 is a good minimum.

I never noticed that the mini-cactuars on floor 21 only drop JP, or maybe I just forgot it because it has been so far removed from my routing.  They can drop nothing still right?  I will have to investigate. 

I am interested to know what your time is after beating Leviathan and how many ethers do you have?
Also I think it will be critically important to know the minimum level to kill enemies in GotD with holy.  I am not 100% sure in how to figure this out.  I think maybe we can cast holy at higher levels and then do a linear regression to get back to the minimum level necessary (hopefully its linear?). 
I got some more info in for Shirma 2.  It may be useful to figure out what items are specific to a dungeon vs just being globally available.
Went through the light dungeon and filled out everything that seemed pertinent.  I should have used the church portal because Croma wasn't there (derp).
I did a test run of your route and I was able to beat Leviathan at Lvl 19 with a time of 2:33, 18k gil, and around 1400 Job points to lvl 8.
Compared to my run which was lvl 20 at 2:45, 24k gil, 1600 job points to lvl 8.

I tried to get a mog shop on floor 21 after I got holy to stock up on ethers, but I ended up getting another mini cactuar fight so I decided to just go for it.  Floors 21 - 30 were super sketchy because of that, but it is in the first half of the run so I guess it isn't so terrible to have some sketchy floors.  I still think getting a mog shop on floor 21 is critical in order to get steel talons because you can't get talons from Harry due to eternal night next chapter.  I ended up only needing to fight one mini cactuar to get my requisite JP so maybe I got really good JP drops up to that point.  I think it may be more normal to get less JP and more money, so the floor 21 mog shop is much more likely to happen.

I also had an idea, I am thinking of going into the fire dungeon to procure more ethers after the water dungeon.  This takes away a lot of the risk and time spent getting beaten over the head to charge mana.  Worst case is you get Ifrit and then have to go down to floor 15 to get the mog shop to spawn, which should not take more than 3 - 4 minutes.  Best case is around 1 - 2 minutes.
Edit history:
Crow!: 2014-05-07 01:11:11 am
Crow!: 2014-05-07 01:10:12 am
What's that gemma?
How many mini-cactuars are needed is going to be a function of how many of the Ifrits dropped JP rather than magicite.  In theory, the law of large numbers should keep the gold to JP ratio of the common enemies you fight fairly consistent.

I suppose revisiting GotF after Leviathan might be a decent backup strategy should you run out of resources, but that is a rather lengthy detour to restock without any compensation should you encounter duels twice in a row.  Trying to be space efficient with your bag from the GotW Mog shop through GotL should be "plan A", I think.

If you happen to get Iron Talons earlier in GotW, are those sufficient to handle the Coeurl Shades later on?  If so, the Steel Talons might not be always essential, though the Ether supply is still going to be a big deal.
I will not say that you cannot get a dueling room on floor 15 of GotF, but I have never gotten one, ever and I have gotten into the habit of expecting the floor 15 portal to give me a mog shop.  Iron Talons are viable to handle the shades, although I think they only give 1 or 2 more attack than +13 wood talons so maybe those are viable as well. 
I added dark dungeon floors 1 - 10.  Can't seem to fight Croma anymore after beating her the first time.  If Crow! or someone else has a save close to before fighting Croma, I would appreciate it if someone could figure out stats on her and the Croma Shade.  I am thinking the gold seals are a waste of money, as the most times rust will happen in a run is like 1 - 3 times and most of the equipment used is not able to be rusted.
Edit history:
Crow!: 2014-05-19 05:35:00 pm
Crow!: 2014-05-19 05:32:48 pm
What's that gemma?
From watching your previous submission:

Croma Shade's max HP is somewhere in the range of 529-643.
Croma's max HP is somewhere in the range of 547-808.

I think I agree with abandoning the gold seals.  Something you might want to think about is, what saddles or talons are there that, if you happen to obtain one, you would want to fuse that seal into your weapon during your next trip to the forge?  Floater Bashers come to mind, as do Sleep Talons and maybe Treasure Talons.  Are there any elemental resistances (aside from fire, which we're already getting) that would be worth it?
Derp of course the video :-)

Water resistance is kind of useful against Leviathan, Croma,  and a couple of the enemy types (Sahagins).  Lightning resistance is nice against Croma and Ramuh I guess.  Sleep, treasure, happy, and elemental bashers are the first ones that spring to mind as useful.  I can't imagine treating floaters any different from other enemies unless you have some reasoning I am not aware of.
I finished off the bulk of the spreadsheet.  A couple interesting observations:

- Magic Pots and Elementals tend to alternate (pots on even, Elementals on odd).
- I am pretty sure the "boss" fights on floors 20, 30, and 40 of the GotD can be skipped entirely by just walking to the stairs *derp*.  This is pretty huge because they are a big drain on resources.
- Scholar is a pretty fun class between alchemy, analysis, and truth ( too bad those skills take forever to get )
Alright I just got a test run that has Leviathan dying at 2:20. 
I had not nearly as much money (8k I believe), but I think I have removed a lot of the money pressure into the endgame, and worst case scenario I can just farm in the fire dungeon if I really need money.
I am toying with the idea of fusing fire into the talons and then fighting Shiva, but her AI is much more random than Ifrit.  The strategy I have right now is to shell until I can corner her, then protect and beat her to death.

Fusing fire also makes the ice flans easier to deal with and it gives me an excuse to upgrade to steel on floor 21.

Also it seems like minicactuars always drop job points, or at least I have not had one not drop them anyways.
I had a run attempt fail at 3:28 on floor 28 of the GotL.  I got killed by a Simurgh after doing 149 of its 150 hp :-(

Ah well the run had some bad luck anyways.  I am still pretty excited that I am able to be about 20 minutes faster than my original run.
I am thinking it is probably worth the cost of over honing the wood saddle.  That way the GotW up to floor 21 is doable and wood is immune to rusting.  I think I got hit by rust like 10 times in my run attempt -.-

I still am having issues getting the right mix of potions to ethers.  I think early game you want a potion heavy mix due to all of the undead things to throw at, but once holy is gotten it should skew heavily to ethers because undead things can be reliably holied anyways.
Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner
Hey, progress is progress. Even if you got stopped there on this run, being that far ahead is a good thing.
Edit history:
Crow!: 2014-06-06 08:28:02 am
Crow!: 2014-06-06 08:27:30 am
What's that gemma?
If you push the envelope with the wood saddle, you would not have fire resistance for the Ifrit fights and for Phoenix, correct?  I suppose that might not matter so long as you survive the fight anyway.

Actually, I guess there might be a way to re-order things so you could have both, but it would probably be expensive.  The trouble is that fusing over-honed equipment reverts it to only max honing, and you can't fuse until you reach floor 10 of GotF, so you'd have to put off the overhone until then if you want fire resistance still, or else you'd have to overhone twice.
Edit history:
messenger: 2014-06-06 10:03:25 pm
Correct, my plan is to complete the fire dungeon with just a +8 saddle anyways because there is not enough money to reliably overhone both of them before then.  The extra defense is only really helpful into the water dungeon.
Edit history:
messenger: 2014-08-13 08:18:40 am
messenger: 2014-08-12 11:55:27 pm
messenger: 2014-08-12 11:55:15 pm
messenger: 2014-08-12 11:53:50 pm
I had a really good attempt and I finally was able to get all the over honing and costs to work out in a single segment.  I swear the first half of the game gave me everything I wanted except for like poison, but the last half was rather unlucky.  I ended up dying at Floor 37 of the light dungeon at 3:53 because of an alarm trap three steps from the exit portal.  I was about 13 minutes ahead of my last run at that point.  I should have just rolled the dice with an escape, but I was pretty sure I could tank two hits and make it to the exit.  Sadly my brain failed to process that dragons like to breath fire sometimes diagonally and that ended the run.  I had a couple really bone head mistakes so maybe it is for the best.  I also came up with a strat on the fly to kill elementals on floor 20 of the water dungeon without poison because I had none.  You can manage to lead them around and clump them up through the middle pretty easily and only have to tank 1 or 2 hits.

Oh really funny thing, I got rusted a grand total of once and that was after I had switched to rustable gear.  Talk about random.
Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner
Well, don't let that get ya down. You'll get it.
What's that gemma?
Also, don't get down on yourself during your play for mistakes you made earlier on in the run, unless it's so early in the run that you can afford to reset and try again immediately.  A run of this length is going to have a few serious errors, and that's okay so long as you don't get flustered and drop your general play quality.
Maybe I am being too critical.  The mistakes in question were accidentally going to the next floor vs escaping due to button mash.  I did that one twice and it cost around 15 - 30 seconds each time.  The big blunder which I think endangered the run is I ended up fighting a master tonberry in a dueling room on floor 10 of the light dungeon.  It took way longer than I expected it to take (5 holies I think)  and after the first cast I felt so invested that I had to finish the battle.