Final Fantasy V

Fuck this fight, fuck that final dungeon, fuck FFV.

Shit's free if you have any of:
>samurai
>bard
>summoner
>time mage
>blue mage
>chemist

Git gud

He's the hardest final boss in the series but he's not THAT bad unless your party is complete shit. Which I can understand if we're talking about FJF, but in a normal playthrough you should be able to switch around to counter him no sweat.

And if that's not enough for you: the back part is vulnerable to instant death so you can instakill it with Magic Lamp Odin, the bottommost part is vulnerable to Stone but has high magic defense so !Spellblade Break kills it in one shot. That should cut the fight's danger level in half right there. Just keep Shell up and you'll be fine. If that's not enough for you, just roll a Bard and stall out Exdeath's first form while you buff your party massively.

My party is
Bartz:Knight/Sorcerer
Reina:White Mage/Time Mage
Krile:Monk/Hunter
Faris:Black Mage/Summoner
All mastered jobs, and had them on the Bare job so that they'd get the stats and abilities of both, as I was told.
Neo Exdeath still fucking shitstomped me hard, with how much damage he could deal, any attack he did that targeted a single person would instantly kill them.

Yeah, his single target attacks are a pain. You do need to keep protect/shell on at all times to survive Almagest though. (blue mage's mighty guard might be better but >finding mighty guard by chance)

Hopefully you ground for/bought 4 hermes' sandals too.

This year was my first 4JF, got blue mage/time mage/ninja/dragoon so I was never in real danger of wiping.

Spam Quick, keep Protect/Shell/Haste on your party at all times. Bartz can instantly kill one of the pieces so do that then transition into Flare blade spam once it's dead. Golem also helps a ton if you have it.

If you have at least one Blue Mage or secondary with the good spells, you should be pretty good with whatever combination you like for everyone else.

I don't have any hermes' sandals, and I can't find time to put protect and shell on everyone, since Reina would need 8 turns to do so, and I need her healing almost every turn, I can't even prepare it beforehand, since regular Exdeath can oneshot my people too.
Plus I don't even think Shell would do that much since one of the parts, I don't know which, can cast Bolt3 and deal 3500 to Faris, I'm pretty sure the damage reduction from Shell would do little to prevent that from being an instant kill on any of my party members.

Quick gives you 2 turns in a row. Why aren't you abusing that if you're having trouble?

One of the chests in the rift has a pair. You can buy more pairs in the hidden Armor shop of phantom village for I want to say 50k Gil apiece. Buy them and equip them - they give you auto-haste and immunity to several ailments.

I'm fairly sure but not 100% positive that protect/shell can be group-cast - tap to the right when aimed at one party member. Use Quick to do it if you must. It won't save you from bolt3 but WILL save you from Almagest and give you a chance to spam Cure 3 until the sap expires.

Between time mage and black mage I feel like you should be able to get some kind of quick-leak kill, but I'm not sure of the setup.

I had no idea that Quick did that.

Do you have the Magic Lamp or did you ignore the NPCs telling you to check behind the waterfall?

>they give you auto-haste and immunity to several ailments
Fuck me, are you serious? In the version I'm playing (PS1) they're called Winged Shoes, and I just assumed all they would do is give me auto-float.
Also Protect/Shell can't be group-casted, I tried that.

Unfortunately the PS1 version has a shit translation.

I don't have it, where was it supposed to be? I dropped FFV for a good year after I first reached the final dungeon, so I don't remember what any NPCs said anywhere.

Yeah. Auto-haste, +3 MDef, +5 M Evade, and immunity to slow, stop, paralysis, and sleep. They're very much worth the price tag.

In addition to the 1 pair you find, the "Cherie" enemy in Phoenix Tower has them as a rare (1 in 16) drop.

I thought Quick was only a spell in VI though?

Get behind the waterfall with chocobo.
No, it was introduced in V.

Immunity to paralysis sounds like a godsend, I have 350k gil, so I'll go buy 4 of them.
I was running away from a lot of encounters in the final dungeon for fear of being paralyzed among other things, and progressively getting more and more pissed off at how little the ribbons actually protect against.

Nope, it's in 5. Also in the Phantom Village, the Hidden Spell shop.

An NPC tells you that each shop has 2 merchants, you have to work a bit to find each second.

Okay, but where is this waterfall?

Fly around in the chocobo, it'll be pretty hard to miss.
I believe in 5 ribbon is bard only.

>running away all the time
Did you at least get the Chicken Knife?

The ribbons can be equipped by anyone, and I'm not sure if I have the Chicken Knife, I might have it if it goes under a different name on PS1, but I don't have anything specifically named that on there.

What's great about FFV is that there are tons of solutions to any given problem. I kinda fucked up and Faris only mastered one class so it wasn't worth it to go bare with her. I gave her chemist and had her chug hero potions to up her level during the first part of the battle and she ended up being the strongest party member.

I thought the Emperor from 2 was if you don't know the Blood Sword method?

>haven't trouble with neo exdeath
FFV is overall pretty EZ with how free everything is.
Enuo though, enuo is a pain in the dick

>get mighty guard and hastega
>game becomes piss easy now save for superbosses

I keep getting raped by a dragon in the cave after the first final dungeon boss
I should probably revise my team so they can take hits but I really don't feel like grinding

You could have gotten mighty guard off azulmagia which is protect, she'll and float partycasted. Dunno what you can do about that now

In fairness mighty guard isn't trivial to pick up.

Shinryu? That's an optional boss and the hardest in the game. You can be capable of taking on ExDeath and still get fucked up by Shinryu

Dragon in the cave isn't shinryu I don't think. Shinryu's the Worst Item in the Game (TM)

Haha no, he does pitiful damage and can be bulldozed with Berserk+Haste, both of which can be cast from items you get in the final dungeon.

Shinryu is actually easier than Neo-Exdeath if you know his weakness.