Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4OWBJBaJW0

...and Juza had nothing to threaten the priest with. Once again Foi was no match for Raja's high Mental.

With Demi in tow Raja claimed the Land Rover and headed to Monsen. With the armored vehicle he had a way to grind xp fairly safely. Raja then completed the optional Plate System dungeon with a whole bunch more deaths because the monsters could just about 1-round him at any time. This was done just for completion-sake. The Plate System had no gear Raja could use and he certainly wasn't going to fight anything inside.

With that completed it was apparent grinding would have to be done in the Land Rover. Fanbites and Caterpillars can proc paralysis. Paralysis is more likely to take hold the lower the target's Agility is. If the entire party is paralyzed the game is over. Thus for Raja (or really any solo character who isn't an android) any battle with an enemy that can cause paralysis is usually a game over almost immediately. Vehicles cannot be paralyzed (even if any of the enemies appearing in vehicle-only formations could inflict that status effect) so rolling around shooting at wildlife was the practical choice.

But Raja still couldn't get away from the dangerous fire attacks. This isn't any special property of the Land Rover. All three vehicles have the same defenses and Forced Flys' Flame Bolt just does a lot of damage. Vehicle-only formations do have to present some sort of risk, after all.

At level 23 Raja learned his final skill, St. Fire. Now there was some hope of defeating the upcoming boss. With that skill in hand he headed to Ladea Tower to make a beeline to the Frade Mantle.

The Frade Mantle is in a chest near the top so that meant a whole lot of fighting and running away to get to it. The enemies inside the tower are some of the first evil type monsters in the game and Raja finally could get some use out of his holy skills. (Rippers and Shadowsabers also appear in Ladea Tower but only at this point did Raja stand a decent chance of beating them.) Holyword was saved primarily for Haunts since their high defense and ability to cast Corrosion made Holyword an ideal solution.

Of course all his holiness didn't do jack about packs of centaurs ambushing Raja and cleaving him in half with their energy blades. Then again if Raja can't handle a 3x Centaur formation he doesn't have any hope of killing the boss at the top of the tower so these groups were a good benchmark of how he was progressing.

There were also groups of Fly Screamers. They can cause confusion and proc paralysis. Raja's only response to seeing them was: run away, RUN AWAY!

Eventually he reached his coveted target, the Frade Mantle (32 more defense and 2 more mental? SWOON!).

Raja broke 100 hp at level 24 so I went up to see how bad Gy would be. Raja was promptly 1-rounded by Gy-Laguiah's Fire Breath at full health. Well everyone else hit a wall at Ladea Tower and had to grind. I never expected Raja to be any different. Unfortunately none of Raja's equipment offers factor 3 resistance. Fire Breath is resisted with magic defense which, for player characters is their Mental stat plus the magic defense of whatever they are wearing. There were no equipment upgrades available so he was just going to have to add hit points by leveling up.

I settled in for the long grind on the first floor of Ladea Tower, mostly killing Shadowsabers since they're relatively easy prey while eliminating Rippers first in mixed groups to avoid Fire Breath.

At 26 Raja took the Land Rover back to Aeido (to get some grinding in on the trip) for the Sandworm job. The Miles Sandworm was unable to do more than 1 damage with Blessing up so Raja never even needed to heal himself. He got an easy 25,000 experience which put him at level 27 and added Nares to Raja's technique pool. Crisscrossing Motavia in the Land Rover tracking down the lost dog yielded another level. (If I have to grind I might as well make it interesting.)

He then returned to Ladea Tower at 28 after first trying one fight against a real, full-powered Sandworm just to see how badly he'd get squished. I wasn't disappointed to be decisively 1-rounded. After some more grinding Raja could finally survive some ambushes and even win against solo Shadowsabers and Centaurs without Blessing as long as he didn't have have to take more then 3 hits. This was good because Blessing charges were the limiting factor in how long he could go between inn stays, not tech points.

When Blessing charges were almost gone Raja started using the shiny button at the top of his skill menu. (Yeah I know I haven't mentioned Ataraxia. Shh, all in good time...)

The result of said St. Fire button is finding out evil type monsters blow up good. It was a guaranteed I WIN button against one random encounter in Ladea Tower provided Raja lived long enough to actually use it. Just like Holyword, however, St. Fire was essentially useless against machines and anything that wasn't evil-type.

At level 31 Raja completed his technique list by learning Regen. It was yet another technique he would never use in solo play since it is a revive + full heal for one character at the cost of 30 tech points. By the time Raja would need Regen to fully heal himself at low health he would have better options. Raja then tried Gy-Laguiah again at level 35 but the survival buffer against Fire Breath was too tiny. When combined with an uncertain turn order thanks to slow Agility growth it made it unreasonable to win without a lot of luck. Raja tried again at level 36 and could survive for a long time but just one instance of Gy going first meant fiery death.

At level 39 Raja had 5 charges of St. Fire and enough hit points he could withstand Fire Breath such that he wasn't likely to be killed by Gy-Laguiah's critical hits. Raja would still need a whole lot of healing to survive but it was at last looking possible to win. I know 'go grind twenty some odd levels' isn't much of a strategy but there wasn't anything else Raja could do.

Here are Gy's stats:

2580 hit points, basic attacks are factor 1, 100 strength, 26 mental, 23 agility, 227 dexterity (auto-crit range), 150 attack power, 20 defense power, 15 magic defense, and is weak to factors 5, 6, and 13 (x3)

This means the best things to use on Gy-Laguiah are Wat techniques, Rayblade, St. Fire, and Efess.

Raja had St. Fire which did a respectable amount of damage per charge but 330 - 350 times five charges is not equal to or greater than 2580. Raja needed to attack with his Force Cane to deal the difference. That meant Raja couldn't get a defense boost by equipping shields. (By this point a Force Cane is available normally. Rune rejoins the party in Ladea Tower with one equipped.)

I was disappointed by St. Fire's damage. It has a base power of 144 and Gy-Laguiah's factor 13 resistance is 3 so even using the most basic damage formula possible, base damage - magic defense * multiplier comes up with 387 which was considerably higher then St. Fire would deal in game. The damage was consistent over time but obviously didn't line up with any damage formulas listed in the mechanics guide. I did some testing via savestate hacking later in the game and St. Fire does use Raja's Mental while enemies use only their magic resistance against it. However the game would have to be using a range of 50% - 60% of St. Fire's base power plus half of Raja's Mental to get the numbers I was seeing in game.

Given how few options Raja has for dealing damage, seeing St. Fire's high base power getting nerfed in game was demoralizing. Well there was nothing to do about it but soldier on.

At 6 TP per cast Gires was an economical way to ensure Raja was put at maximum health every time he healed himself, without fail. He would have at least 40 uses of Gires available against Gy. Every use of Fire Breath would have to be countered by healing but even if I hadn't been conserving energy Raja would have had plenty of juice for the battle.