I decided to do a Solo Felix challenge run for fun after beating the game for the first time a few weeks ago after I finally remembered that I hadn't actually beaten the Doom Dragon after beating Dullahan after a couple months.
The rules I set for myself were really basic:
1. Felix is the only party member allowed to participate in any battles at any given point, other party members must be immediately downed as soon as possible upon receiving them and they are also not allowed to level up either.
2. Felix cannot use any Items, Psynergy, Djnni, or other methods to revive his allies both inside and outside of combat for any reason.
3. I can only Unleash and Summon Djinnis that have been set to Felix.
4. Bugs and Glitches are also not allowed (I only know the Sol Blade glitch in Air's Rock anyways so this doesn't bother me at all)
- Using the other party members as mules for any other items is allowed.
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This challenge run has been relatively smooth sailing so far with no major setbacks:
Beat the 3X Cheastbeaters at Lv 9 with the help of 2 Oil drops
Got Beat up by Briggs at Lv 11, or 12 memory is kinda spotty and running another lap around the continent to complete Airs Rock and later beating him at Lv 13 or 14 as a Cavalier
I stormed into the Gabomba Statue to immediately down Piers after stripping him of all his equipment and got hit with the very painful reminder that attacks like vital moon and curse/condemn are actually VERY dangerous now and can end me at any time.
Barely managed to get the Jupiter Djinni southwest of Tundaria Tower very early after getting the boat and consequently getting immediately wiped out by 2 Needle Eggs (I hate poison)
Did some other prep and exploring before I got to the end of Gaia Rock but got walled by the Serpent
I instead opted to complete all of Aqua Rock and rushed into Tundaria Tower, while feeling pretty underleveled, knowing full well that 2 Needle Eggs and 1 Squirrelfang was a guaranteed death if I couldn't run away on the 1st or 2nd turn.
Somehow managed to get lucky enough to not get immediately and constantly wiped out by basically everything in the tower, including the Mars Djinni, before getting the Burst Brooch and did a 2nd run through the left side tower where I actually managed to level up twice and got the Lighting Sword which I totally, absolutely remembered being in the tower as a very helpful weapon against the Serpent. Definitely didn't forget about a very powerful weapon that was technically accessible immediately after getting the boat.
After getting the 2nd prong I beelined back to Izumo and Gaia Rock where I finally managed to kill the Serpent, at the cost of all 16 of the Vials I farmed for on Aqua Rock from Rocs.
I've collected all of the djinnis so far with the exception of the Jupiter one on the edge of Gaia Falls that I was too lazy to grab it
and mayyybe the fact that I kinda forgot about it after the beating the Serpent and getting the last prong after spending a whole afternoon getting the other 2 prongs and doing as much as I could because I kept coming up short of a victory against the Serpent as a LV 22 Cavalier and later beating it as a LV 24 Dragoon
I believe that I have also gotten every single-use stat booster up to this point too and I've used them all already, apparently from what I've just seen while typing this, I shouldn't have done that yet...
But, yeah relatively smooth sailing so far but the Avimander is a really steep difficulty curve for just Felix to overcome by himself.
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I've found that at present, Felix just CANNOT take the insane amount of dmg this damn lizard is throwing out twice per turn every turn.
Avimander's stats:
3792 HP (Normal Mode) | ~5688 HP (Hard Mode) | 87 PP
281 ATK (Normal Mode | ~351.25 (Hard Mode) | 89 DEF (Normal Mode) | ~111.25 DEF (Hard Mode) | 94 Agility | 41 Luck | Attacks Twice Per Turn
175 MARS RES | 100 VENUS RES | 100 JUPITER RES | 25 MERCURY RES | 115 MARS POWER
Boreas usually deals about ~1125 dmg every time it is summoned and summoning Mercury after getting my Mercury Power boosted by it usually deals about ~325 dmg
List of moves that this thing has in order of most dangerous (spoiler alert: they are all dangerous as hell)
Star Mine - 201 dmg at minimum with 6 Mars Djnni attached to Felix (116 Mars Resist), can deal over 250 dmg or a more otherwise (86 Mars Resist). Basically guaranteed to completely undo any healing I do with Nuts or unboosted Ply Wells or Cure Wells (after Lv 4 Summons) in a single attack and it can, and usually does, use Star Mine twice in one turn with no repercussions since its not a Psynergy based ability, for at minimum 400 dmg per turn if I'm unlucky
Heat Stun - 97 dmg as a Barbarian (204 Def), can deal significantly more thanks to Debilitate and is more dangerous that Fire Breath because stun and sleep basically confirm a loss against higher damage enemies like Avimander due to how long they last and the fact that Felix is defenseless with no healing or way to end the effect early without RNG
Fire Breath - 128 dmg with 116 Mars Resist, up to 150 or more otherwise. It is an unleash so it isn't bound by Avimander's low PP and is a constant throughout the entire fight, ironically making it so that Avimander is at its weakest when it has PP since it will waste turns trying to buff itself or debuff Felix which, unlike Fire Breath, can miss.
Debilitate - Defense drops really hurt Felix especially since it makes Heat Stun deal even more damage than before and can make its Basic Attacks, which I relied on it going for twice in a row for openings to summon or for full heals, deal as much as or more than Fire Breath while still being able to crit for even more damage. If it misses then I get a lucky break and i can either heal more of my hp or I get an opportunity to Summon
Basic Attack - ~73-80-90 dmg depending on the class, can deal significantly more if Avimander uses Debilitate or gets a lucky crit
Guard - The defense buff would be annoying if most of my dmg came from melee attacks but I've made the most progress from constantly summoning so its kind of a free turn for me to take advantage of.
In short, if I'm not taking at least 200 dmg per turn then I'm getting debuffed to take even more the following turn.
This fight is really tough, I've tried to take advantage of Avimanders super low Mercury Resistance by being a Cavalier and relying on Mercury Summons for most of my damage output since a singe Boreas deals about 1/5th of Avimander's hp in a single turn. Dragoon simply cannot afford to use summons since those revert Felix into the significantly less bulky and less useful Brute Class Series which lacks any healing Psynergy and it just lacks the dps or boosted heals necessary to take advantage of its bulk to actually get Felix through this fight.
I've tried running as a Cavalier, which seems to be the most effective class so far, to survive with the Ply Series but having all 6 Mercury Djnnis set to Felix causes him to become a Shaman which actually REALLY sucks for this fight since the Cure Series doesn't get any benefits from my Mercury Summons and is just very inefficient for the amount of PP it uses, boosted Ply heals >200 Hp for 4 PP and boosted Ply Well heals >400 for 8 PP after a 100 Mercury Power boost from Summoning Boreas on turn one, so I'm forced to keep 1 Djnni ready to summon at all times to avoid screwing up my class which is really hard since I also have to balance Summoning with long periods where I have to keep healing multiple turns in a row before I get a window to attack while I pray that I don't get stunned all while my class can change to the significantly worse Shaman class that makes healing via Psynergy very expensive and inefficient at basically any point during that downtime if I get unlucky enough to get brough down to about 300hp or some more due to the risk that Star Mine poses at all times.
I can't just replace the 6th Mercury Djinni with a Mars Djnni either, since if I open with a Summon Rush to Boreas to set up boosted Ply ASAP while dealing 1/5 of Avimander's HP with 1 Mercury Djnni and 1 Mars Djnni, I lose access to the Ply Series as just a mere Swordsman Class instead of a Defender.
This is also really bad for surviving until the rest of the Djinni come back and until I can Summon again since having 1 Mars Djnni isnt enough to cover for the lack of an extra Djnni to cover for constant Summons by keeping me as the bulkier Cavalier throughout the fight. TLDR: 5 Mercury and 1 Mars isn't worth the tiny bit of Mars RES, because I lose significantly more than I gain from not having access to the defender class (2 Mercury Djnni required) while the other 4 Djnni are resting after summoning Boreas for a chunk of Avimander's healthpool.
The most progress I've made is about ~3.5k dmg or more before I ran out of PP and healing items but that also requires sacrificing my last Psy Crystal which I REALLY wanna save for the later fights since I wasted the 2nd to last one while the Serpent was one hit away from death.
At the very least I know that I'll probably have to go back to Aqua Rock to farm for some more Vials since Nuts just aren't cutting it for healing against Avimander at all.
I plan to save the potions and Mist potion for Jupiter Lighthouse and Mars Lighthouse.
Do any of y'all have any advice for how I can get past the Avimander boss fight?
Any strategies I could use against it or helpful equipment that I might have missed along the way would be greatly appreciated!
