Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level (Tough Going) Part 6: Allblades Arena Matches

Challenge playlist:    • Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Low Level Ha...   The four consecutive arena battles at Alltrades Abbey. Everybody must be wondering what everybody has been reclassed into, as these are the first fights where job experience in non-default vocations is accumulated. That marks the second significant watershed moment in the challenge at this point, the first one being the ability to do Pilgrim's Rest's Lucky Panel minigame for gear and other prizes mostly towering above what the shops and dungeons offer in potency. There are certainly multiple ways of deciding what to do with the vocations. One very bitter realisation to accompany us here would be the mere fact that we're probably never going to master any jobs with any of the three starting permanent characters, even if we do the irrational and maintain a laser focus on the subpar default vocations, though I have a feeling we will be returning to some of them in the future - Fledgling Fisherman in particular offers benefits that other vocations just do not have an alternative for, as enemy attacks grow progressively more fatal. Going with the assumption that Maribel should be tapping into her innate magical capabilities, I turned her into a Priest. Her heals will be more potent than her male competition's, though there's an item expected to allow the casting of stronger midheals quite soon, and since she isn't going to strike physically with her statline she may as well be delegated to using item magic, and what a glorious duty that turns out to be. Ruff goes Martial Artist to capitalise on physical attacking, where he is best right now, Clap Trap allowing him to self-buff his attack when nobody is learning Oomph or Oomphle any time soon and Leg Sweep giving an unreliable way to stun bosses and helping ease the defence for just 1 MP. That leaves Auster, and here I considered a number of options, among them Fledgling Fisherman for the let loose skill, and Sailor for an early source of dazzle against bosses, not to mention a way to buff the party's attack while pepped up. As you can see, I ended up with... Troubadour, who gets the Soothing Song skill Lala used to great effect in the preceding Florin battle. The vocation gets it early at job lv. 2, so I can always slap the Troubadour skillset unto whatever the MC is running and emerge with some ways of nullifying (?) elemental damage on top of that. Hopefully, I won't regret not having dazzle for a couple more compulsory fights to come. 00:30 Numpton's Nummies The trend in all four battles is having a "boss" character of sorts be accompanied by a group of weaker enemies, lending itself well to ways of hurting an entire group thereof. One method of targeting a group is by using a Shiverstick staff we acquired from Lucky Panel's first reiteration, whose Crackle spell is immensely powerful compared to other options we have at our disposal. The untrustworthy slime stick we've favoured for a while stands out in a negative light in contrast, never proccing when you most need it and giving rather poor damage on average. I could go back to Lucky Panel and grind prizes until I could get another Shiverstick, but I thought, what if the one I have is enough for the next two portions of the game when I coincidentally get access to Lucky Panel's second version with more superior prizes? As you can see by the existence of this video, it's worked well enough, though having two or three shiversticks (it IS equippable by everybody in the party) would've been preferred here. The drake slimes may not seem like much when they're striking our defences with single-digit damage, but when they all decide to use their fire breath instead, things drastically change. You're dealing with around 15 damage on every party member, and there's an irregularity here where one of the drake slimes (I'm not sure if it's a specific one) suddently decides to fire-breathe for a whopping 35-40 damage on everybody. GG to the attempt. I've discovered that abandoning attempts to buff magic resistance with the Magic Shield Maribel is equipped here (crucially, it can cast Magic Barrier) and focusing on all-out offence, healing just enough to not die, and hoping for that king slime proc is the best way to leave the 'boss' alone. 02:42 Bronson and the Bristles More physical AoE action in this battle. The same strategy works here, except there's no magic damage to worry about. 06:46 Hans and the Hands The Hands multiply like there's no tomorrow, making it troublesome to take them all out before another one (or two!) enters the fray. Hans himself is capable of casting Swoosh, but you can worry about buffing resistance when the hands are down. 10:21 Nava's Knaves The real boss here, and you can truly tell by the sheer damage output from persistent Crackle castings. Buffing magic defence is the priority here, and I push my luck, switching to shiverstick too early and then hitting Defend with Maribel.