Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: Nerds in Paradise > Final Fantasy V > Final Fantasy V Low Level 0 ABP 0% Challenge (This whole thread may contain spoilers)

[Vivi22]

Originally Posted by Necronopticous ^

Escape From Karnak Castle:

The guide tells me to steal two Gaia Gears on the way out. This is incredibly difficult, and since this guide offers absolutely no explanation on most of its instructions I have absolutely no clue how important it is. I tried many times before finally pulling it off. I really hope that it doesn’t turn out to have been a wasted effort.

I've never known to much about the items and such in this game (probably because I've never actually finished the game and it wasn't released when I was ten like it should have been), but does the Gaia Gear defend against earth attacks in this game like it would in some others? It could be for use in the fight against Titan if that's the case.

[Necronopticous]

That is probably the intended use, but I know it is possible to buy Gaia Gears in a shop later on. I'm just hoping these really come in handy before that.

[Ultima Shadow]

Oooooh, cool! Haven't even heared about this challenge before! =O

Good luck Necro, might try it out as well if I can find the time.

[Necronopticous]

Misery loves company. Get in there.

[Vivi22]

Yeah I knew you could buy the Gaia Gear later, just not sure if it's before or after you fight Titan. Hopefully they do come in handy before you can buy them because I would think stealing items and selling them for gil so you could buy some would be either less time consuming or less of a hassle, or both.

[Marshall Banana]

[Necronopticous]

Preparation:

Changed Lenna and Galuf to Beastmasters and caught an Aegir and Grass Tortoise before heading back over to Karnak. Set up my party configuration:

Bartz 2 Blue Mage   F MythrilS MythrilS
Lenna 2 Beastmaster F Whip
Galuf 2 Beastmaster F MythrilK
Faris 3 Knight      F MythrilS MythrilS

I took Bartz, Lenna, and Galuf down to Near Fatal status, and saved just outside of the castle.

Learning Blue Magic: Moon Flute

Jackanapes is down in the basement of Karnak Castle. The key to this guy is the abuse of the Rainbow Wind enemy skill that is used when Aegir is released. It works like a reverse regen—the enemy's HP will start counting down continually over time for three full rounds (I believe it stops once the Beastmaster that released it gets hit third turn afterward). This skill can be exploited by changing your battle and message speed to 6 in the Config menu. By doing this, the battle will move much slower, but the rate of HP loss caused by Rainbow Wind is unaffected.

In order to learn Moon Flute, I released Aegir and waited a few seconds before giving each following Defend command. Finally, I released Grass Tortoise for a heavy attack. Jackanapes will retaliate with Moon Flute, which puts everyone into Berserk status. The key is to time the release of Grass Tortoise so that Jackanapes will die after using Moon Flute, before he has time to kill off the remaining members of the party. It took me a few tries to get the timing down.

There is no worry of gaining EXP or ABP from Jackanapes. Killing him only nets a single gil.

Preparation:

Set up my party configuration:

Bartz 2 Free  B MythrilS MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Lenna 2 Black F MythrilK
Galuf 2 Free  B MythrilH MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Faris 3 Ninja F MythrilK Dagger   PlumedH  CopperC  Silver

Saved once again outside of Karnak Castle.

Shiva:

I was tempted to use a Flame Rod here, which I'm sure is a viable strategy, however I decided to go with the strategy listed in mog07's guide. Had Faris throw the Flame Scroll right off the bat. Lenna followed up with Fira. Killed off Lenna and Faris and ended the battle with a couple of swipes from Bartz and Galuf.

Preparation:

Made my way to the Library of the Ancients and set up my party configuration:

Bartz 2 Free  B Frost Rod MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Lenna 2 Free  B Frost Rod MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Galuf 2 Free  B Frost Rod MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Faris 3 Black B Rod       -        PlumedH  SilkR    Silver

Saved outside.

Ifrit:

Used Blizzara a couple of times with Faris until she was dead, then finished him off by breaking a Frost Rod or two with the others.

Preparation:

Made my way back outside and set up my party configuration:

Bartz 2 Free  B Flame Rod MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Lenna 2 Blue  B MythrilS  MythrilS PlumedH  SilverP  Silver
Galuf 2 Free  B Whip      MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Faris 3 Time  B MythrilK  -        PlumedH  SilkR    Silver

Saved outside, then made my way to the save point before Byblos and saved again after using a tent to heal up.

Byblos:

This fight required dozens of resets. The key is to put Byblos in Hold status with Galuf's whip so that you can focus on taking his HP down and killing off Bartz, Lenna, and Faris before finishing him off with a Flame Rod. The problem is that he needs to hit Lenna with Magic Hammer at some point during the fight.

The guide recommends simply retrying if he doesn't hit Lenna with Magic Hammer as his very first attack, which is one way to approach it, but I just went ahead and focused on taking his HP down on each try, healing up with Potions and Phoenix Downs where necessary until he decided to use Magic Hammer on Lenna. Either way it is bound to take many tries.

For damage, I had Faris focus on getting two Gravity spells off before killing off Bartz, Lenna, and Faris, making sure to get Byblos in Hold status just beforehand, so that he could not interrupt Galuf breaking a Flame Rod and ending the battle.

Preparation:

Switched everyone back to Theives and took the Fire-Powered Ship down to the two small islands south of Crescent Island. On the island without a forest, there is nothing but Prototype enemies, which is great because they have Ethers as their common steal. On the forested island there are Harvesters and Bio Soldiers, with Silver Bows and Battle Axes as their common steals, respectively. For hours I stuck around these two islands, raising my stock of Ethers and Silver Bows to 99 and returning to Karnak to sell them all off. I repeated this process with a goal of about 900,000 gil and a full stock of 99 Ethers.

I finally hit my goal, and headed to Crescent to progress the story and grab my Black Chocobo. From here, I flew to Istory, Jachol, and Lix, ensuring I had four of just about every piece of equipment. 600,000 of the gil I raised went straight toward the rings sold in Istory. While I was in these towns, I made sure to get whatever songs or spells were available to me at this point as well.

Now that I'd learned the Alluring Air song, I flew back to the forests east of Karnak and set up my party configuration:

Bartz 2 Blue  B MythrilS MythrilS PlumedH  CopperC  Silver
Lenna 1 Free  B MythrilS MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Galuf 1 Free  B MythrilH MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
Faris 3 Bard  B SHarp    -        PlumedH  GaiaG    Angel

Learning Blue Magic: ???

Encountered Wild Nack x5 in the forest. I had Faris sing Alluring Air nearly every turn in order to keep the Wild Nacks in Confuse status in order to get them to Flee. Sometimes they will simply attack each other instead, in which case I had my other three members keeping them all healed up with potions to ensure none of them got killed. When I was down to just one Wild Nack remaining, I allowed him to go without Confuse status until he hit Bartz with ???—now, it is not completely obvious when the Wild Nacks use ???, as there is no message signifying its use. It looks slightly different from the regular attack, though, so it can still be spotted. Once Bartz had been hit with ???, I killed him off and used Alluring Air to put the last Wild Nack back in Confuse status, killing off Faris immediately after. If he decided to attack himself instead of Flee, Faris would have to be brought back with a Phoenix down to repeat the process until he decided to Flee.

Preparation:

Once all of this was taken care of, I flew back to the Karnak area and changed everyone to Beastmasters, catching an Aegir with each member. With my Aegirs, I flew back to Walse, ready to exchange them for Jackanapes. Set up my party configuration:

? ? BM     B Whip     -        GreenB   NinjaS   Silver
? ? Thief  B MythrilK -        GreenB   NinjaS   Silver
? ? Knight B MythrilS MythrilS MythrilH MythrilA Mythril
? ? Thief  B MythrilK -        GreenB   NinjaS   Silver

Doesn't matter who is who, since this process must be repeated 4 times with each member getting a chance to be Beastmaster to exchange their Aegir for Jackanapes. However, everyone except the Knight should be in Near Fatal status.

Catching Jackanapes:

Once again, this required taking advantage of Rainbow Wind, but this time a great deal more precision is required. This took many tries for me to get the timing down. Of course, Battle Speed and Messages should be set at 6, with ATB set to Wait.

Unless you get lucky with a Preemptive Attack, Jackanapes will attack before the Beastmaster can release Aegir. This attack has to be blocked, or else the timing will be off. When the Beastmaster finally got his turn, I waited for the ATB bars of the rest of my party to fill, and then immediately released Aegir. Then, until the Beastmaster's third turn afterward, I used Defend with the Beastmaster, Steal with both Theives, and Guard with the Knight, waiting for about 6 seconds before making each selection. It took me many tries to get the feel for how long I needed to wait, but eventually I got it down, and was able to catch the next three rather quickly, saving after each successful catch, obviously.

Now it was time to put the captured Jackanapes to use.

Learning Blue Magic: Goblin Punch

Changed Bartz to Blue Mage, Lenna to Blue Mage, Galuf to Freelancer, Faris to Beastmaster, and optimized everyone.

Flew to the very first area on the World Map for the encounter with a single Goblin. Let him do his thing until he hit one of my Blue Mages with Goblin Punch, then killed my blue mages off and released Jackanapes with Faris and killed her off before the Doom counter hit 0.

Learning Blue Magic: Vampire

Changed Bartz to Freelancer, Lenna to Bard, then back to Blue Mage, Galuf to Beastmaster, and left Faris as Beastmaster.

Walked up to the first cave and saved outside, then went inside until I encountered Steel Bat x 3. Due to Lenna's change to Bard before Blue Mage, she is missing 9 HP. Because of this, casting ??? on herself took her down an additional 9, to 18, just enough to use cast ??? on two of the Steel Bats, allowing them to be caught by Faris. Provided Faris is at full HP, they could then be released immediately with no consequence. When only one Steel Bat remained, I allowed him to act freely until he hit Lenna with Vampire, and then killed off everyone except Bartz and Galuf. Finally, Galuf released Jackanapes, and was killed off before the Doom counter reached 0.

Learning Blue Magic: Pond's Chorus

Left Bartz as Freelancer, changed Lenna to Beastmaster, left Galuf as Beastmaster, and changed Faris to Blue Mage.

Flew to Walse, seeking the Elf Toad x 3 encounter at the beginning of the secret waterway. Followed the same strategy as I did with the Steel Bats here, except having Faris use Goblin Punch twice with the Mythril Sword equipped to do the necessary damage for catching the first two Elf Toads.

Learning Blue Magic: Dark Spark

Changed Bartz to Beastmaster, left Lenna as Beastmaster, changed Galuf to Freelancer, and left Faris as Blue Mage.

Flew back to the forested island just south of Crescent, where I stole my Silver Bows earlier. Encountered Black Flame x 2, Harvester x 2. Right away I put my focus on giving Frog status to both of the Harvesters, using Pond's Chorus with Faris. Once this was done I followed the same strategy as before to get rid of one of the Black Flames except using Goblin Punch twice with the Mythril Sword equipped and using it an additional two times with the Mythril Knife equipped to do the damage necessary to allow him to be caught. Once Dark Spark had been used on Faris, I followed the same steps to get rid of the second Black Flame as well. With just the Harvesters left, in Frog status, I simply pulled my calculator back out, and starting from their max HP of 580, I attacked one with everyone until he was below 73 HP and then caught him. Finally, I killed off everyone except Galuf and Bartz and had Bartz release Jackanapes and kill himself off before the Doom counter hit 0.

[Marshall Banana]

This challenge is so complex.