Dragon Warrior 3 – Solo Journey Journal 2 – Defeating Zoma

This is part 2 of my SOLO Journey Journal. The first one described in detail my battle with Baramos.  Part 1 here.  This one describes the battle with Zoma.  However, I never would have been able to defeat Zoma if it wasn’t for one major mistake I’ve made earlier in part 1… and that was equipping the Noh Mask to defeat Baramos.  Although I was successful at the task, Getting up to Zoma proved easy enough but his attack power left me reeling.  I would simply run out of Magic Points from casting Healall on myself and not enough chances to cast it on Zoma.  Therefore, I had to replay a backup copy of the save file I had before getting to Baramos and attempted to defeat him without the Noh Mask in hopes of having it around for fighting Zoma.  You can check the video out below.

In my preparations for fighting and defeating Baramos and Zoma down the line, I felt that my strength had to increase.  The term “farming” eluded me.  I thought it meant something in that farm animals phone game-ah’something.  I farmed for strength seeds originally from Goategons near the village of Tedanki.  I’ve had moderate success and even picked up a good amount of Luck Seeds from Witch Doctors, but my real success (luck) was fighting Fierce Bears near Jipang.  They dropped the amount of Strength Seeds necessary for me to feel confident enough to go up against Baramos.

You may have seen the vid and saw that I equipped the Unlucky Helmet.  Why, do you ask?  Every point towards defense matters to the hilt (10 extra Defense Points).  Besides, other than Chaos, Baramos doesn’t cast any spells that can be evaded with high luck.  I would Stopspell him anyway-so none of that would even matter.

The actual battle versus Baramos was long (12 minutes).  Longer than fighting Zoma (7 minutes)!  In the clip, you’ll notice some crazy moves I’ve done.  In the end, however, you’ll realize the luck I possess.  Luck.  Nothing more.  I should have lost that battle, but I’ll take the win…!

I will talk about the things I feel are important that will help one defeat Zoma SOLO.  Please bear in mind-this is NOT an attempt to beat the game for “the fastest time” or to give lessons on manipulating the RNG “Random Number Generator”.  This is dedicated to simply playing this great classic game for pure fun.

Now’s The Time to Equip The Noh Mask!
I began to equip the mask right after defeating Baramos Gonus.  With it, Zoma’s attacks won’t hurt as much, yet his attacks are still pretty strong!  Still, I’d rather 65 points of damage instead of 135.  With the mask, my defense went up to 507.  And don’t worry.  After you defeat Zoma, you can get to the ending without any obstacles from being confused.

If it really bothers you to walk around confused, leave the treasure chest with the Stone of Life inside located in the third level of what will be Erdrick’s Cave.  Open the treasure chest after you’re flown out of the chasm while escaping Zoma’s Castle.  Replace the Noh Mask with the Stone of Life.

Have About 224 Maximum Magic Points!
Healall takes 7MP to cast.  Having 224MMP means being able to cast Healall 32 times.  You should be able to weather all of Zoma’s attacks by this time to get off about 3 rounds of casting Healall on him before having to cast it on yourself.  I can average around 5 rounds of straight Healall attacks, thanks to Zoma also shooting beams of light from his finger.  My vid shows I was left with 11 Magic Points when Zoma was defeated.

At first, I thought I had to farm for Intelligence Seeds to increase my MMP during a level up.  However, I found that although my MHP will not go up anymore, my MMP does go up between 2-4 points after a level up without trying to manipulate my Intelligence.

A Thought on Inventory
If you do a freeze frame and check my inventory out, you will not see the Sacred Amulet.  From my understanding, it’s suppose to guard the Hero from Beat/Defeat spells.  Other than that, I put the amulet in the bank in Aliahan.  In its place, I took a Wizard’s Ring to replenish my MP after just a few battles in Zoma’s Castle I would choose to fight in order to get lucky and get more seeds.  If I got a seed, I would high-tail it back to Dhama, quickly save my game, use the seed to its greatest potential, save the game again, then head back through Zoma’s castle again.  Should I make it to Zoma, I’ll use the ring and hope it don’t break…!

Don’t laugh, In the clip where I fight Zoma, you will see I do have a Falcon Sword in my inventory.  At first, I thought it was good strategy to fight Zoma with the Falcon Sword.  It didn’t work… but I didn’t take the weapon out of my bag.  Mentally-I was thinking about defeating a Metal Babble with it.  BTW – I never defeated a Metal Babble during this run.

My One-on-One Fight With Zoma!
There really isn’t much to say here that I already haven’t said.  I’ll summarize it.

• Have enough MP for Healall.
• Try to ensure your MHP is over 455-I’d say.
• Find a pattern that will open you up for multiple casts of Healall against Zoma.  The Noh Mask and Zoma’s finger beam (which does nothing to you) helps greatly to take down Zoma’s attack power.
• Before using the Sphere of Light on Zoma, he is very strong.  He may act first.  Don’t let that take you off your square.  After you remove the robes of darkness from the fiend, he should rarely (once in a blue moon) be able to act before you in battle.
• Do not rely on any buff and debuff spells like Defense.  Zoma’s finger wave not only cancels you own added buffs, but dispells any debuffs you put on him!  (That’s how I learned the Orochi Sword’s effect would be useless on him.)

Well-that’s it!  I’m very happy I fought and defeated Zoma!  Before I officially close, I want to drop this on you.  I love Dragon Warrior / Quest I, II, and III (My most favorite!!)  Out of all the DQ storylines, the story of Erdrick and Alefgard has been the most interesting to me.  I always thought the writers of DQ’s storyline could have been more consistent with the weapons and armors that supposedly belongs to Erdrick.  In DW3 where you ARE Erdrick, there’s no “special” helmet for you to get.  (Now remember-I’m referring to the NES version-not the SF version where you can get Ortega’s Helmet.)  In DW1, the descendant of Erdrick never finds Erdrick’s Shield, and in DW2, more descendants of Erdrick down the line with find his helmet-which I always thought was a fake.  All up for debate but still a great series of Dragon Quest!  Questions?  Comments?  Then drop a statement.