INTERMISSION!
Okay, this whole SORCERER vs. ProRing thing has me a little frazzled. Can it be possible that my knowledge of FF1 is... imperfect? Was Zef's experience just a freak occurence, an improbable happenstance off at the far end of the bell curve? Is Zithuan onto something with his unfeeling, almost robotic mathematical analysis? Is DeeMeer right about the FF1 programmers being inept, and possibly intoxicated? After all, these are the guys who gave us weapons that don't work, spells with no function and an exploitable overworld encounter area exactly two tiles out of range.
In the name of SCIENCE I did the unthinkable: I went back into the Ice Cave.
SORCERERs don't appear on the first floor, and as you can see some of their curious little cousins came out to see what all the commotion was about. Remember, a team of these fellas did me in on my last pass through the Ice Cave; look at the difference some new gear makes.
Here we are, the perfect test subject. For the first time in my playthrough I used a savestate here; due to the way FF1's encounter list works, this means that every time I open state and take a step I will encounter this exact same fight. After I've collected my data I'll open state one last time and EXIT the cave, so I won't actually have made any progress in my real game by using emulator tricks.
Note that FF1 doesn't have a Defend command or anything similar; the only way to pass a turn is to use an Item with no effect.
I threw out rounds in which the SORCERER used TRANCE and only counted the ones he attacked me. I played four battles each with ProRings on and off, and kept track of which rounds he landed a hit and whether that hit did damage or dealt instant death. Xs below indicate that, on that round, the SORCERER killed someone with his attack. An O indicates that, on that round, the SORCERER hit me but dealt damage instead of death. There were no ocassions in which the SORCERER atacked but missed.
Trial One: ProRings
Fight 1: XOOXXOOOX (nine rounds)
Fight 2: OXXXX (five rounds)
Fight 3: OOXXXOOX (eight rounds)
Fight 4: XXXOX (five rounds)
Results: average life span of 6.75 rounds
Trial Two: NoRings
Fight 1: XXXOOOOOOX (ten rounds)
Fight 2: XXXOOX (six rounds)
Fight 3: XOXOXX (six rounds)
Fight 4: XXOOXX (six rounds)
Results: average life span of 7 rounds
The results are surprising! I actually lasted longer on average without ProRings than with! You guys were right, the ProRings do NOTHING to stop the SORCERERs from kicking ass. I guess this means that the Ribbon also does nothing to keep ASPs from Poisoning you, or COCTRICEs from killing you, etc.
Note that even though I was wrong wrong wrongity wrong-wrong about the whole ProRing thing, it doesn't actually change my advice on how to deal with these monsters: RUN like hell!
With that out of the way, I put my ProRings back on and have SKUB EXIT us out of the Ice Cave. (I'm not counting this as a UST because without SKUB along I would have simply saved my game before going into the cave and then RESET after I was done. Actually, I don't know why I didn't just do that in the first place.)
Even after all these years I'm still learning new things about FF1! And you guys wonder why I still play it? =)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled adventure (next installment coming later tonight!).
/intermission