FF6 BFLLG - Segment 44: Cranes are Made for Killing, Right?
Channel: Lockirby2
Date: 2015-03-26

This was the hardest segment up until this point in either run, no questions asked. In fact, it still has the highest blooper count in either BNW or this run (provided we exclude that stupid segment where I try to ride a chocobo), even compared to BNW's Atma Weapon (which had about half as much). Blooper counts are hardly a perfect metric though. It's still certainly not the hardest by any means, but it's probably still third. While normally I recommend reading video descriptions, the video is almost somewhat of a tl;dr here, so I really only recommend reading this if you like reading things. Anyways...

Basically, they have some relatively strong offense, so it's best to kill them quickly. I don't have Bolt 2 out of laziness (although surprisingly, it wouldn't have been worth the time to grind it out anyhow), nor do I have the Thunder Rod because I chucked it at TunnelArmor. It would have been likely worth the time to save the Thunder Rod for here, but honestly I'm not sure. A Tek Laser on Locke can end a TunnelArmor run easily, and restarts through the Cave of South Figaro are both much longer and more dangerous than the restarts from the Save Point here. The Anguiform Rage would have helped a lot too, but getting that would have been even worse than either of the above options. So while I may seem stupidly unprepared, in reality my short term gains were likely greater than my long terms losses. It doesn't hurt either that this is more interesting than watching me grind out TunnelArmor, or having me say "I did off-screen grinding and now it's easy".

Despite having a bunch more HP, the right Crane dies more easily thanks to the fact that I can exploit a weakness. One Giga Volt boosted to the max with Earrings can almost do it alone. The Thunder Rod would have had the same effect, and so would three Bolt 2s, without having to deal with the 1/4 chance of it going off properly. Locke does just enough damage to finish the Crane off after the Giga Volt. Or at least, he usually does; he will for sure though if I get a proc or a crit. This Crane has to die fast for me to beat this, as this will cut their offense significantly. Between the lack of Pincer attack allowing for evades and nobody getting hit from behind for extra damage, and only having one opponent who will also waste a turn casting TekBarrier, and whom is likely to waste yet another turn in the near future with Fire 2 due to the mechanics of the battle, the danger from their attacks gets nerfed by perhaps three quarters.

This first part is the hardest, as the blindfold makes ST healing require some tricky guesswork, and I have to weigh a ton of different factors quickly. I need to make decisions based on which characters can survive what, which characters are at what HP, what moves will give me a better indication of what is going on, which characters should have gotten a turn recently but didn't, where my cursors need to be to tell Locke/Setzer apart, how much lightning the left Crane has absorbed, how many hits the left Crane has taken (he counters with Fire 2 after three), where my cursors are already and whose turn should come up soon (or else I may not move fast enough), and which characters have done their jobs at the start of the fight. The run-on sentence there was deliberate for emphasis, BTW. :P In the successful run I nail it nearly 100%, but if you want to see runs where I don't get it right, there's at least one in the bloopers where all of my "deductions" are horribly wrong. Of course, there's always those runs where I played well, but Gau decided to punch the Cranes over and over, and there's at least one of those in my Bloopers too.

(continued in the comments)