Strategies Against Seles

Today was a very good day. I woke at 8:40 and played on my computer and Pokemon Ruby for a good portion of the morning. I was surprised while playing Pokemon Ruby as I happened upon a shiny Pokemon. I was pretty shocked as I have never found a shiny on Pokemon Ruby before nor have I caught one without a device since the second generation of games. Okay sure, you don't have to believe me and I'm sure you don't, just keep in mind that nothing that is said can change the truth, so there's no purpose in lying, plus I know it's true so that's all that matters. It was a Shiny Spoink so it wasn't a Pokemon I particularly cared about but I caught it anyway as I was just happy to have caught a purely legit shiny. I don't even know if half the shinies I've managed to trade for are real but I at least know this one is.

Shortly after catching that shiny Pokemon and training my Sawblu a bit I went to get me some breakfast, shortly after which my sister woke up. After we both ate we started up on playing Tales of Symphonia. We were ready this time to venture into Neiflheim to train our characters to level 80 so that I could get my character, Presea's, Gaia Cleaver. We planned that after we accomplished that I would use it to defeat Seles to get the Last Fencer for my sister's character, Zelos.

Well, needless to say, the path to level 80 was definitely not easy. Sure we only had 5 levels to go but with crappy experience from all possible monsters aside from the few bosses left, that isn't easy to do and is way time consuming. We used Neiflheim as we believe the experience is somewhat highest here, plus, we are trapped in there until we do one of three things:

1. Beat the entire dungeon, which we had no intention of doing as we wanted to just use it for training, plus we knew we weren't strong enough to take it down yet.

2. Find a large green flame on one of the many ignitable candlesticks throughout the dungeon. This being our favored choice as if we were lucky, we wouldn't have to fight the mini-boss nor worry about having to beat the entire thing which we had little to worry about with that as we took actions to make sure we never had enough soul fire to do that till we were ready to beat the dungeon.

Then there's the third option. Die. Definitely not a convenient choice as this option would mean redoing any and all training we had done before then since saving.

So yeah, we were careful never to take the third option and training was tough. Many times we got away with exiting the dungeon before the end of floor 10 in which we would have to fight the first boss, the Hell Knight. One time we were not so lucky and had to fight him. We used an all-divide on him and it made him a piece of cake to fight. This was good as he would have slaughtered us otherwise. We got out of the battle with little trouble and even leveled up. Shorlty after beating him, we found a large green flame and was allowed to exit the dungeon. As we always do upon leaving that place, I saved like crazy. I saved before using the inn, after using the inn, then after purchasing replacement items. And sometimes once more after that.

We did try going to Mitho's castle to train a bit but we discovered since we were at level 78 and needed about 15k just to level up and the fights there gave us 400-600 exp at best, this was not the best choice. So back to Neiflheim we went. This would have gone better had we had some Demon Seals on us all so we would get 100% more experience, but my sis and I decided that they were so convoluted to get, that by the time we would finally get those, we'd be level 80. This time in Neiflheim, we decided not to fight random monsters unless we were forced to fight all monsters on a floor to move to the next floor. We had several of these actually but it was good as it seemed to have either leveled us up to 79 or nearly did. We were aiming to fight the Hell Knight. Neither me nor my sister were confident we could fight it and beat it without an all-divide but we had to try. We had only one all-divide left but we were saving it for Abyssion if we ended up needing it when we got ready to fight him.

Without the all-divide this fight was fiercely different. Only about 10-20 seconds into the battle we began to be killed off very quickly. So quickly I had to abandon playing Presea, my usual character and play my secondary character, Raine. Luckily I had figured out how to switch the character I am playing in the middle of the battle else we would have been up shit creek without a paddle. We nearly were as it was. When I started playing Raine it wasn't so bad, I even had time to use Field Barrier and Acuteness without having to worry about using Revitalize too quickly. However shortly after that the battle took a turn for the worse and the Hell Knight kept slaughtering us. At first I used Life Bottles to take care of bringing people back but we started to run out quickly. I equipped Raine's Resurrection to a button command and used it myself, I wasn't about to allow Raine to be computer controlled again for that battle, especially not with Resurrection on, she's just not smart enough with that spell, no matter what we set her strategy to.

Using Resurrection was very efficient in reducing the amount of Life Bottles being used but it was still bad and I had to issue Lemon Gels while I waited to use Revitalize. It doesn't take too long to cast but it's long enough that without the use of lemon gels to prevent death while I cast it we would have been smeared. This struggle went on since about the time he was at about 76k. Somehow we managed to keep up the struggle for a long time. We were determined to win as we had A LOT to lose if we didn't beat him. We were lucky and w BARELY scraped by the battle and won. Really, if my sis was not helping me heal with Zelos's Healing Wind and if I had not gotten really good at playing Raine during the first half of the game, we would have been royally screwed. We were also very lucky we managed to have everyone alive at the end of the fight so everyone was able to get experience points. We barely didn't make that though as we only had one life bottle left and I used it to bring Genis back to life just before Presea landed the finishing blow. Even if someone had not been alive at the end, we would have just let it be and use a Demon Seal to get the caught back up.

Both of us were jittery after that fight as we never expected to win although we were determined to. We were freaked out the entire time as we sought out a large green flame to let us out. We were almost unlucky though as on one of the floors we had hit after the fight had left us around 50 soul fire. We bout panicked as we were afraid we would have managed to beat that thing only to die due to loss of soul fire. We were lucky though and managed to get it back up to a comfortable level during the three levels we searched for an exit on. When we finally found the green exit flame we were so overjoyed and ran straight to the Sybak inn to save, sleep, save, buy items then save about 5 times from paranoia.

Sometime in the midst of all this, my mom was so nice and cooked chicken strips in the deep fryer for supper. It was REALLY good and even though it was frozen chicken, it actually looked like real chicken and was very juicy. It is Great Value brand and it only cost 5.20 for the bag and all three of us were able to eat for that price and get full. I am pretty impressed with Great Value products. Well, except their bread, cause it just sucks. But aside from that it's pretty good it seems. My mom also, before this, brought my sister and I a couple small brownies. So sweet of her. =3

Upon viewing our stats we noticed we were level 80 so I was happy in thinking I would now get my Gaia Cleaver. We went to Ozette to get it but after talking to the guy, leaving and going back in, he was gone. I was upset and freaked out. So much so I looked up why this happened. Apparently we had not looked at the scene behind the Vinheim door. Afraid doing so may keep us from getting to fight Abyssion or complete Neiflheim, we were reluctant to save until we view the scene behind the door, then went to Sybak and the Temple of Darkness to make sure both were available. Neiflheim was easy to tell as we just had to click on it then say we didn't want to enter. We were glad it was safe but wanted to check Abyssion too. We got the the Temple of Darkness and found him standing there but just seeing him there was not enough for us so we decided we needed to get into the fight to make sure. We had no plan to defeat him as we feared defeating him would make Neiflheim unplayable so we let him kill us. We were shocked at how long it took him to kill off two fully stationary characters and two poorly defensed spell-casters. Genis survived the longest oddly enough. I guess Hell Knight slaughter makes us think everything else is just slow.

Satisfied, we reloaded the game and plodded back to Mitho's castle to view the door scene again, travel back to Ozette to get the Gaia Cleaver, save, then head off to Meltokio to finally try to face off against Seles. I was actually convinced she'd be easier than Hell Knight. Well, probably is since you have to beat her with one character, but she was no push over. I actually tried several times within an hour or two to beat her and failed. I slaughtered the advanced class but she kept killing me. Of course, every time I fought her I learned something new on what I could do to fight her so almost every fight I got closer to beating her in one war or another. For awhile I just gained strategy pieces which although the loss was annoying, it made it worth it. I got very frustrated however and it began to affect my battles on advanced match. So much so, I would actually let my enemy kill me if my hit points got too low to heal myself to full health with cooking Miso.

I kept losing so many times or I would end up not being able to wing through it with enough health to put me at full health for beating Seles. It really needs to heal you before fighting her since it doesn't allow the use of items. I kept my Extreme Symbol on the entire time but I tried some different secondary items to try to help me. At first I thought borrowing Raine's Faerie Ring would help, then I decided it didn't and tried something else, though I cannot remember what I used. I finally decided I needed the Faerie Ring when I suddenly did very well against Seles but lost just as soon as my tech points ran out. Trying the ring again I went back into it. I did lose several times but I noticed the ring helped as it made it so I could abuse Earthly Protection more often since it didn't cost 46 points to use and was reduced to just 23.

At first I kept trying to use Earthly Protection to guard against not only Freeze Lancer, but also Absolute. I found this was a mistake as I always got hit by Absolute no matter my timing. I also learned soon after that when she casts it, I can just run from the spot and avoid it instead of defending. I found I could do this with all her spells aside from Freeze Lancer as they all either come from the ground, or the sky, while Freeze Lancer has to be defended against as it come from right in front of her and fires horizontally across the screen making it impossible to dodge.

So I learned that while she cast Freeze Lancer, I should defend then against all others I should run up and attack her while she cannot move. I used Endless Infliction at first but it wasn't very effective alone and I kept dying over and over. I finally got so frustrated I decided to get my Ipod and play some music. I tried Manafest first. This helped immensely to calm me down and I felt great. Unfortunately the effect of it wore out quickly and I still became frustrated. Though during my battles with that I learned I could double attack Seles during any spell but Freeze Lancer by using Eternal Devastation, following up with Endless Infliction then running like hell away from her before she was able to hit me.

I kept thinking about her one attack Absolute. Ever since my sister starting singing "Absolute" by Thousand Foot Krutch, my favorite band, that thought always enters my head when I see the spell. Thinking of that I decided to listen to their Album, "Welcome to the Masquerade". It was incredible how much happier I felt listening to that and I calmed immediately. My advanced match fights became cake since I was so relaxed and having fun. I was overjoyed when I realized I actually managed to beat the Dragon Knight at the end and have enough hitpoints that I could heal to full health and tech points for my battle with Seles. I knew it would make a difference as many times I nearly beat her with about 3300 hit points and my full health was 5301.

For the battle against Seles I was set on listening to my favorite TFK song, E for Extinction. I started the song then started the battle. It was crazy how fluid the battle felt when I was pumped up to that song. I really felt like I was dealing the whipping instead of me being the one with their ass being handed to them. Now I did end up getting fairly low on HP but I managed to fairly easily avoid Absolute and block Freeze Lancer while using Eternal Devastation followed by Endless Infliction. After I knocked her hat off her head, I also easily avoided her Mini Meteor and her other attacks as well as avoided her added spells, Ray, and Prism Sword. As I said, even though I did end up with around 900 hitpoints I managed to beat Seles fairly easily, or so it felt. Go figure I manage to beat her the first time listening to my favorite TFK song while fighting. I was so happy when I finally won and had wished my sister could have been there to see that she now had her weapon, although I have to wonder if I would have been able to win had I not been being watched and therefore able to just have fun without comments about how weird I'm acting because I seriously think that being happy and just having fun because of the songs really helped a lot in winning.

I was tempted to try to get Raine's best weapon while I was up though I felt that even though I won, I was still nerve-wracked and trying that that lat at night would not have been easy and rather frustrating. So I just gave Raine her Faerie Ring back and equipped Zelos with his new weapon so it will be ready for use tomorrow. One reason I was determined to get that done tonight was my sis had gone to bed around 9 and told me I could keep trying for it even though she wouldn't be there and I didn't want to be taking up however long to beat her and leaving my sis unable to play for awhile. She knew she couldn't beat it herself as most of her character's strength is in spells so casting would be out of the question against Seles and I'm good enough with Presea to whoop through battles solo. It helps though when you have the Ex skill "Savior" and the combo ex skill "Nullify".

Anywho, I saved and turned the game off then packed my stuff up to come in here and write this god-awful long post. I know most of you, if any of you would really not care a lick about any of this I'm writing but I found it most fun and would like to remember it again sometime. I probably left out some details but I believe I got the majority of them and I'm not about to re-read this post to see if I forgot anything from my day. I didn't mention it earlier, but I also randomly got a friend request on Facebook from an old friend from school whom I have grown indifferent towards. I am not too sure what to make of the request but I accepted it as I do not want to hurt her feelings. I'm just not that kind of person. I'm just not sure why she's suddenly FRing me after all this time. Whatever. We'll see what happens.

Anywho, aside from standing around and talking to my mom about three fourths into this post, I have little more to write here. I'm sure any of you still reading is thinking "THANK YOU" right about now as I wrote on and on about nothing anyone but I would care about. Hahahaha, I think this is definitely my longest post yet. I pray never to beat it. It's taken me about an hour and forty five minutes just to write this all. So yeah, I'm going to wrap this up here, grab my Pokemon Ruby, and head off to bed before all my fingers break off.

Night! @.@