Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level (Tough Going) Part 8: the Mild Bunch & the Mighty Pip

Challenge playlist:    • Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level Ha...   After some rigorous Lucky Panel farming, it's time to take a break and utilise all the glorious new weapons and gear we got from it. Having any copies of Metal Slime Shield makes the party so much more durable, while Metal Slime Sword (or Metal Goomerang for multi-target damage) and Staff of Sentencing are formidable sources of damage in the upcoming fights for both physical attackers and staff users, which is potentially any of them depending on your choices, though it certainly makes sense for Ruff to attack physically while Maribel casts item magic. 0:00 The Mild Bunch The Mild Bunch are the next mandatory battle, consisting of as many as four enemies. They can drain your MP, paralyse your party members (one character at a time), with most of the foes here also having some access to MT damage. The primary target would be Rogue, who is capable of casting Sizzle repeatedly, though he generally doesn't do it nearly as often as he does in this video. Add to that the fact that he can restore the whole enemy party's health and you have all the reasons to prioritise him above everybody else. Equipped with a Metal Goomerang, Ruff can target every single enemy on the field, even though the damage will be reduced for each subsequent one and only the first one will incur the Monk vocation's guaranteed critical, and this is best done after self-buffing Ruff's attack with the basic Monk skill. Meanwhile, Maribel uses the Staff of Sentencing to cast what seems to be Sage's Kaswoosh spell for wildly varying damage. Auster can do the same provided that nobody in the party requires any healing, which is most certainly the case in this recording - Troubadour's Soothing Song is used extremely liberally. On average, this battle is nowhere as dangerous as this video makes it out to be. 03:58 The Mighty Pip The little critter is primarily a single-target physical attacker, despite knowing Boom and having just enough MP to use it... once. I make the choice to abandon Troubadour and go Sailor with the MC - besides the let loose! skill of boosting the party's attack and agility, it comes with the Mean Sweep skill at base, inflicting damage and sometimes proccing dazzle against the target. Dazzle seems to go off on him very frequently, so Sailor is a worthwhile choice for this one. What's irregular about the recording in this video (again!) is the combination of the single-time use Boom followed by a fatal blow on Auster. Luckily, Buff being such a good spell for this fight, Maribel has no reason to switch from the Priest vocation, and Born Again can resurrect the fallen when she gets pepped up. The wind magic of Staff of Sentencing is often very underwhelming here, even though it does occasionally proc for higher damage from time to time. This makes Ruff the best damage dealer by far once he's buffed himself up, and his Leg Sweep knocks the boss down absurdly enough, so it helps with survival as well. Outright domination is handed thanks to the two earliest Monk abilities - the only ones we know so far after having avoided all of the non-mandatory battles. A change to my equipment from the previous battle is Ruff getting the monster heart that restores his HP with a Strong Medicine each time he's under 50% HP. This makes it less necessary to cast Buff and heal him when he's already bulky enough without an extra accessory granting him 20 or so defence. Overall, the roll of the dice makes these two battles a lot more exciting than they usually are. Probably, not something to complain about.