Magi Master

[Kyra_Evermoon]

So I am playing this version as a no esper run, and i want to do everything. I know in the cultists tower i'm probably going to be only using Terra, Celes, Gogo, and Umaro. I read online that in the SNES version if i use Celes's Berserk to make a genji gloved Terra with the Rune Edge and Soul Sabre attack, and Gogo with a Heal Rod, i could deplete Magi Master's MP and thus, avoid the Ultima death cast. But I also read that in the Pixel Remaster, his death cast happens whether he has 0 MP or not. Is this true? And if it is, is there any way to still defeat him in my run without Life 3? I REALLY want that Soul of Thamasa.

[SC_Nikki]

I thought I heard that casting Berserk on the Magi Master himself will prevent him from casting Ultima, though I'm not 100% certain.

[Watcher Rat]

The death cast does happen regardless of whether or not you use the 0 mp kill on him here, so be prepared for that. Without ReRaise on, you will need to hope for a magic evade, which is...not likely. I believe that casting berserk on him does not work to prevent it on this one, but I'm not sure (I killed with the Rasp strat). If getting Berserk on him does not work, then TBH, I don't know that a No Esper run would be able to complete this boss. I suppose you could power level up to 99 and equip everything you can find to max out magic defense, but Ultima will probably decimate you otherwise. Unfortunately, neither Celes nor Terra learns ReRaise just through leveling, so that's out, and naturally Gau can't Rage, so he's not an option either.

[Creep Gnome]

Ultima ignores Magic Defense and Magic Evasion. It's raw hp or reraise.

[Phoebe]

Casting Berserk on him will prevent him from casting Ultima. Trust me, it's how I did it.

[Sakurya]

I just fought the magi master and he does ultima even with berserk.

[Super]

Wear down the Magimaster, then:

Real method that could work:
Have characters equipped with DragonBoots. When Magimaster is about to die, berserk your own team with Celes (learns it at level 40) and pray one of them is off the screen at some point.

Theorycrafting:
Muddled characters still use any of their available abilities, right? Muddle Celes, have her cast Runic, throw a remedy on her, and then kill the Magimaster with previously berserked characters.

[Melodia]

"But guys, it's just like the original!"

[Veszerin]

Originally posted by Melodia:

"But guys, it's just like the original!"

It is in almost all cases. Challenge playthroughs are hardly normal playthroughs, and those of us that actually do challenge playthroughs rather than simply trolling posts where they are discussed like you are here, don't expect the devs to design rebalancing efforts in support of our edge cases.

Did you expect them to leave in the vanish/doom exploit as well?

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Veszerin:

[
It is in almost all cases. Challenge playthroughs are hardly normal playthroughs, and those of us that actually do challenge playthroughs rather than simply trolling posts where they are discussed like you are here, don't expect the devs to design rebalancing efforts in support of our edge cases.

Did you expect them to leave in the vanish/doom exploit as well?

This isn't just an issue of a challenge play through. There's so many things that are simply different about the way the game (and the other PRs) behave that simply don't represent the originals, as designed.
How abiout how the game forces you to watch the "m-m-magic" scene even if you never use magic? How you can't just pummel Vargas without being forced to do it again for the tutorial? In the original, Mage-Master would, specifically, not be able to cast Ultima because he's out of MP. This wasn't a bug. Here they forcibly allowed it anyway.

[Veszerin]

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by Veszerin:

[
It is in almost all cases. Challenge playthroughs are hardly normal playthroughs, and those of us that actually do challenge playthroughs rather than simply trolling posts where they are discussed like you are here, don't expect the devs to design rebalancing efforts in support of our edge cases.

Did you expect them to leave in the vanish/doom exploit as well?

This isn't just an issue of a challenge play through. There's so many things that are simply different about the way the game (and the other PRs) behave that simply don't represent the originals, as designed.
How abiout how the game forces you to watch the "m-m-magic" scene even if you never use magic? How you can't just pummel Vargas without being forced to do it again for the tutorial? In the original, Mage-Master would, specifically, not be able to cast Ultima because he's out of MP. This wasn't a bug. Here they forcibly allowed it anyway.

...Those evil, conniving bastards.

How dare they force us to sit through previously optional scenes that take 10 seconds.

[Minneyar]

Originally posted by Melodia:

"But guys, it's just like the original!"

Have you ever considered not posting in tangentially related threads just to make up a strawman to get angry at? Is it just too hard to not try to turn every thread into a fight?

[Xeal-San]

I just berserked him, and then used rasp/osmose. Then he still attempted Ultima but due to the "0 MP" he was defeated after 10 min. No reraise, etc.

[Veszerin]

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Have you ever considered not posting in tangentially related threads just to make up a strawman to get angry at? Is it just too hard to not try to turn every thread into a fight?

imo, the only thing that is turning "Melodia's" response "into a fight" is the subsequent responses that don't really understand the vaguely communicated statement.

To be fair, it's a bit terse & vague but beyond that I don't really see the problem with "Melodia's" post.

I mean really, at least "Melodia" is at least commenting about the game.
What can you say about your response which is instead commenting about "Melodia"?

There's more to this game than mindlessly roaming a tower, praising Kefka's glorious pixel form. There's also the loss of life, dreams, and hope! :D:


:seewhatyoudid:

I think you're the one who didn't understand what Melodia said...either that or you're being disingenuous here.

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Veszerin:

...Those evil, conniving bastards.

How dare they force us to sit through previously optional scenes that take 10 seconds.

It's not about them being 'bastards'. Rather, it's just so many ltitle things that are different that are changed for no seeming reason. Take FF1 -- why did they not put in the Peninsula of Power which was clearly left in previous versions due to it being a 'good bad bug'. But they also took out the 'Hall of Giants' which wasn't even a bug (or doesn't seem like it anyway).

[Veszerin]

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by Veszerin:

...Those evil, conniving bastards.

How dare they force us to sit through previously optional scenes that take 10 seconds.

It's not about them being 'bastards'. Rather, it's just so many ltitle things that are different that are changed for no seeming reason. Take FF1 -- why did they not put in the Peninsula of Power which was clearly left in previous versions due to it being a 'good bad bug'. But they also took out the 'Hall of Giants' which wasn't even a bug (or doesn't seem like it anyway).

Well, if you understand how the 'peninsula of power' glitch works, you'd realize that it actually makes a lot of sense that it no longer works, because they remade the world map from the ground up.

The way it works is the map is divided into squares, and each square has a table of encounters. On the NES, the squares were massive. The entire world map was split into an 8x8 grid. Some of the later versions kept this because they never modified the map at all. So when you touch the very tip of land next to Pravoka, you are actually walking on tiles that are in a different section of the grid, and that's why you get encounters that are meant for the strip of land on the other side of the water.

For the Pixel Remaster version, the old map was scrapped entirely and a new one was made in Unity that looks just like the old one with locales in the same place.