First Tip: Save Often
Why Bother?
It's true that there are better pieces of equipment and it is hard to get.
There may be better things to waste your time doing. So what? Everything
Elmdor has equipped, the Genji Equipment, is unique. This Battle is the
only time you can get the equipment. He has the only Masamune sword in the
game, which is the best Samurai Sword in the game.
- The Genji Equipment -
Masamune:
- A Samurai Sword. The Masamune Draw out ability will cast Regen and Haste on all
characters within a three-block range. The skill cost 740 JP.
Atk Power: 18
Phys Evade: 15
Genji Shield:
- This shield has good physical evade but no magic evade.
Phys Evade: 43
Mag Evade: 0
Genji Helmet:
- A solid knight helm, one of the best you can get.
HP: +130
MP: 0
Genji Armor:
- The second best knight armor.
HP: +150
MP: 0
Genji Gauntlet:
- Bonus magic and attack stats, complements both the draw out skills of a samurai
and their attack power with a sword.
+2 Atk
+2 Mag
- The Battle: Battle 43, "Inside of Limberry Castle" -
This isn't the hardest battle in the game, in fact, it is incredibly easy
to win assuming you aren't after the Genji Equipment. If you plan to walk
away from this battle with the entire set of Genji gear though: Prepare for
bloodshed and constant "Game Over" screens. This will become a very tedius task.
The assassins can kill any of your characters with a single blow at a hundred
percent accuracy. Elmdor can turn your entire team into vampires with "Blood Suck".
Don't forget, if you kill the assassins, they become Ultima Demons. But at least
know that when you kill them off as Ultima Demons, you have finally rid yourself
of those accursed assassins, permanently.
Elmdor - Arc Knight
This vampiridic Zodiac Stone bearer is one very mean sword wielder. His main
skills Sword Spirit (otherwise known as "Draw Out") is amazingly powerful in the
capable hands of Elmdor. Blood Suck is just plain annoying. He can move to
any point on the map, so no character he targets is safe.
/----------------------------------\
| Elmdor Lv 41 |
| Arc Knight Gemini |
| HP 563 Brave 70 |
| MP 81 Faith 70 |
| Move 3 Speed 10 |
| Jump 5 |
| |
| Masamune Sword Spirit |
| Genji Shield Blood Suck |
| Genji Helmet Blade Grasp |
| Genji Armor Martial Arts |
| Genji Gauntlet Teleport 2 |
\----------------------------------/
Lede and Celia - Assassins
Their stop bracelets (Shadow Stitch attack) can kill any member of your group
OR put the "stop" status effect on your characters. The assassin class has
an innate "2 Swords" and "Equip Knife" abilities. ONE is amazingly deadly,
but you are up against TWO! Don't forget, as you kill them off, they become
Ultima Demons.
Lede and Celia - Ultima Demons
As Ultima Demons they are nothing compared to their former assassin selves.
They can do a moderately weak attack (weak in that it won't kill your
characters), cast bio spells, and cast ultima. Honestly, these guys are
nothing to worry about, just finish them off to be rid of them.
- What you need for battle -
Your Party: All your guys should be at or above Elmdor's level with the best
equipment you can afford. And yes, a group of five units would help.
Party Type and Skills: This is a list of suggested units that could help.
Whether the unit is actually useful or only the ability noted is usually up
to your own common sense. If you have no common sense, I do not see the point
in you reading anyfurther, as you would get very little of what I have to say
and would therefore be wasting your time.
Thief - If you plan on stealing from Elmdor, having one of them with the
entire collection of "steal" abilities never hurt.
* At least one party member must have "Steal" as an ability in order to
gain the genji equipment.
Timemage - either having Time Magic as a secondary or having a Timemage, you
really should have it so you can use Haste.
* "Time Magic" - Mainly for Haste, get more chances to steal before Elmdor
attacks again.
Knight - For their break speed, don't really have any other reason. Let him
steal as a secondary ability or something.
*"Break Speed" - As above, knocking Elmdor down to 1 speed lets you try to
steal from him about 8-12 time before he moves.
Archer - Get one high enough to buy your thief "Concentrate".
*"Concentrate" - Definite MUST, this ability drastically raises your 3% to
almost 20%! If you plan to take his stuff, have this learned.
Monk - Purely for their "Revive" skill.
*"Revive" - It's free to use, the only risk is that it doesn't have a 100%
ratio, which with our luck, would come out at the worst possible time...
Nonetheless, a great skill to have in this battle.
Ninja - They are fast and make good thieves.
*"2 Swords" - A great side ability, both for killing assassins and for 2x
break speed.
Chemist - Raise the dead and curing Blood Suck is their main use. If they
have a free turn, they can do moderate damage if equipped with a gun.
*"Holy Water" - To cure "Blood Suck". Make sure you actually buy them...
*"Phoenix Down" - To raise the dead. A bargain at only 90JP, in fact most
of you already have several characters that know this, right?
Mediator
*"Talk" - Use "Threaten" to lower brave. This is really important because
"Blade Grasp" greatly affects your stealing percentage. But "Blade Grasp"
is weakened with lower brave, so you get the point, right?
Oracle - Another class with Brave lowering skills.
*"Yin Yang Magic" - Allows you to lower Elmdor's brave.
Calculators - They suck in general but if you raised one early enough for this
battle, you might as well make the best of it and put their skill to work.
DO NOT KEEP THEM IN THE CACLULATOR CLASS. The assassins will kill them LONG
before their first turn.
*"Math Skill" - Almost useful as a second to Ninja's mainly to do stat
anomalies such as "Sleep", "Haste", "Slow", etc.
Engineer - Stops assassins on the spot.
*"Snipe" - Assassin stopper, don't bother stopping their movement, just their
Act.
Party Member Setup: In the most part, it doesn't really matter which characters
you end up using, but besides Ramza, you may want to keep some others in their
original job class or have that class's skill as a second because they are
relatively useful that way.
Ramza - You kind of have to have him, but he does have his uses.
*"Guts" - Mainly for his ability to raise speed.
Beowulf - All sorts of assassin stopping skills and brave lowering for Elmdor.
*"Chicken" - This will greatly decrease the brave of Elmdor.
Agrais - She should be one of your strongest female units and will remain that
way for most the game. Being the strongest female unit at this part of the
game, she is the ideal person to lend your Chantage to.
Items/Equipment-wise: Armor and weapons are self explanatory, just have the
best possible for the given class and take speed over anything else. When it
comes to accessories and items, the following are a good idea.
Phoenix Down - Have a healthy supply of these.
Holy Water - Just to cure "Blood Suck".
Barette - This is a very special item. Hopefully you took the time to relieve
Alma of it before she left your group. With it you can't be "Stopped" or
"Blood Sucked". Since its a light helm and not an accessory, you can put on
a powerful perfume or Sprint Shoes in the accessory area instead of 108 Gems.
108 Gems - You can avoid the whole "Blood Suck" ability with these. Generally
useless to a point that you may never use them for the rest of the game. In
fact, this may be the only time in the game you will ever use them.
Sprint Shoes - You need as many turns as you can get so every speed point
matters.
Chantage - This is one awesome perfume. This will allow for any female unit to
have haste and reraise, very awesome indeed.
- Other Strategies -
Currently, these are only notes of what to expect in the battle with Elmdor and
other things I thought note worthy.
** When starting this battle, even your set up is important. Start off by
placing all your units as far apart as possible.
** During your first turn spread your party out even further. You want to make
it so that you won't lose more than one unit at a time but at the same time
keep them close enough to revive eachother.
** The easiest way to approach this task is to just pick a handful of the units
and abilities asked for above and have them properly equip for this battle.
Stop the actions of both assassins as soon as possible (preferably first turn-ish
before your party starts dying), and knock off a few notches of Elmdor's speed
(leaving him at 1 speed is a very wise idea). Feel free to kill the assassins
when you have free time between keeping your party alive and trying to organize
your troops. In the end, you know you're done when both assassins are gone
(along with their demon counter parts) and Elmdor has 1 speed. From here on feel
free to break his attack, magic, etc. for easy exp. and JP (mainly just for
revenge for being such a pain).
** Unlike most battles, HP of your own party is something of very little
concern. Since most attacks will kill you anyways, the major skill is to just
revive your characters.
** Until you go in to steal, keep all your party separated, Elmdor can do quite
a bit of damage to an unsuspecting group of characters no matter where they are
huddled.
** Do NOT at any point during the fight set your party up in a straight line or
you're just asking to take 200+ damage and status affects from Elmdor's "Sword
Spirit" skill.
** If you had to choose between something like the "X-Potion" skill and any
other skills of the Chemist class, just pick the other because HP shouldn't be
that important.
** You lose control of units that are "Blood Sucked" until the end of battle,
they are cured of it, or when that unit dies.
** Blood Sucked members "Blood Suck" the closest character, more often then not
they just attack Elmdor. As nice as that is, by some twist of fate a strong
knight could quite easily take Elmdor out. If you have most but not all of his
equipment when Elmdor dies, I know you'll cringe because if you plan to have it
all, you have to start all over again.
** Understand that at any given point in time that you could lose a party member
to an assassin, like earthquakes there is nothing you can do about it, just be
ready to deal with the aftermath.
** Keep in mind that Elmdor can move any distance with his "Teleport2" skill.
** Brave at 0 vs. A fast Thief with "Concentrate" equals a +45% steal ratio.
Also will weaken Elmdor.
** Get rid of assassins, they have nothing worth stealing
(not even their hearts).
** Can't Steal hearts of an assassin.
** On the other hand, once you kill their assassin halves, you CAN steal the
hearts of the Ultima Demons. It's weird though, if your female unit tries to
steal the heart of the assassin, it won't work, but you can if they are in
demon form... does that mean they have a change of preference? Never mind, it
all makes sense I guess...
** MUST have someone to resurrect the dead. Suggest the Agrais Combo.
** Agrais Combo - Monk Skill "Revive", Barette, Excalibur, Chantage.
** That combo will turn Agrais into a makeshift god. She will be a very fast
character that can resurrect the dead at a whim, while still being able to cheat
death by coming back to life every time she dies. Combo that in with the fact
that the Barette prevents "Blood Suck" and she will be able to completely control
this battle.
** If you want to really be safe, you might want to make a medic. A medic is
just a character with good HP and about 6-8 movement with "Item" as a secondary.
As long as he can use Phoenix Down's he'll be fine.
** Priest are pretty good to have in that they have a slight speed advantage to
any other spell casters you may have. If you have a wizard or something without
a good second ability, turn him into a priest and let him use "Black Magic" as a
second (or what ever else it may be) because they will do almost the same thing
but get a turn sooner.
** Can't Pouch Ultima Demons
** Steal the Genji Shield first! This will allow you to steal with a much
larger percentage.
** You might want to take the Masamune next so he can't use it on you.
** Until you completely control the fight, don't steal his armor, you don't want
him to be so easily killed.
** To sum things up simply you want to neutralize the assassins quick then
lower brave, break speed, and steal the shield somewhat at the sametime. If
that isn't possible, do them in that order.
** With a base speed of about 4, NEVER EVER use a calculator vs Elmdor inco.
Why? Because Elmdor, Celia, and Lede will all get at least two attacks in
before you make your first move.
** If by chance you don't have enough 108 gems for your party nor can your
chemist use Holy Water, then remove all armor from the character before the
battle. This way, if they get "Blood Sucked", you can kill them to cure it
or hope that "Blood Suck" itself would kill on contact. Now WHY would I put
this note here? Well, like I have mentioned before, "Blood Sucked" characters
can very well kill Elmdor, you don't want that to happen yet, so to stop this
you just get rid of the character and bring him back to life...
** Here is an unorthodox approach to take on the monotonous task of thieving
Elmdor's gear. 2 ninjas with Math Skill. By having a fast turn, you try to
sleep one or both assassins (if possible). After which, haste your characters
and slow Elmdor, then lower his brave (he has blade grasp) 3 persons of any
class or equipment (since the assassins do not bother you anymore) with the steal
ability to steal everything. Get rid of the assassins first and the Ultima
demons next. With his brave lowered, it is generally easier to steal his shield
first. The two casters with Math Skill is to stay away form the battle field as
they need to calculate to heal or revive.
** The skill "Speed Break" is amazingly useful at any point in the game you wish
to gain exp. or level up. Just leave one enemy alive and lower his speed to 1,
then freely harass him anything that won't kill him or have your team beat
each other up for exp. and JP.
** After stealing all of the Genji gear, SAVE. Then don't forget to rearrange
you party so that you get back in the swing of regular combat.
- Other Advanced Tactics -
For those of you whom are manic obsessive about making this as easy as possible
and are willing to go the extra step to completely controlling Elmdor and are
lucky enough to have everything match or will go out of your way to set it up so
that things will go in your favor, here it is, the final touch to the ownage of
Marquis Elmdor.
The Zodiac signs and how they play into this battle. I bet many of you go "Doh!
"I can't believe I forgot about that!" or "Who care's the signs are too
insignificant to the game." Well, for this battle, every little bit helps, and
when you talk about changes in percentages every little bit makes a major change.
At one point, I had completely forgotten that this would affect the game. This
section is thanks to SagaSlayer86 for reminding me of such a thing.
In the world of Final Fantasy Tactics, all of your units are assigned one of the
12 signs of the Zodiac to live with. These "Guardian Constellations" can really
influence a character's affinity with other units on the map. If the units
share good affinity, they will do more damage with attacks, anything magic
related will increase (damage, life healed, percentages, etc.), and percentages
of different effects increased (aka rate of stealing). If the units have bad
affinity, then the damage will and effects will occur vice versa. In the
extreme ends of affinities gender will affect the relationship drastically.
Affinities are formed by putting all the Zodiac signs in order in a circle (Think
of a clock). All of the signs that can be connected by an equilateral triangle
have "Good Affinity." Those that form a square when connected have "Bad Affinity."
Those that are straight across from each other have extreme affinities, which is
gender related. If both members are same sex, then that is the worse possible
affinity, if they are different in sex, then it's the best possible affinity.
Did that make any sense? I doubt it, for a more direct aproach, you can refer to
the in-game help section for exact affinities and relationships.
Marquis Elmdor is a Gemini Zodiac. Aquarius is strong against Gemini and would
therefore raise the stealing chances. Also Sagittarius's best compatibility is
a Gemini of the opposite sex. This means a female Sagittarius thief would have
great percentages of stealing and can also equip a Barette and a Chantage. With
this strategy, during certain parts of parts of battle stealing from behind with
that special thief the percentage for a piece of equipment can go up to and
possible more than 75%, without concentrate.
What would suck is if you are like most players out there who make their main
character the super great ninja thief god type and your birthday happens to
make you a Sagittarius, well your odds of stealing from him are much
diminished. If that happens, just make your god-like character be the one
controlling the assassins and Elmdor instead of acting lead thief.
To be honest, as much as this may make it easier to steal the gear, if you don't
have a female Sagittarius in your party, then raising one may be more work than
it's worth. But if you just have to do it, just to say you have, so be it.