Final Fantasy VII Strahl Community Challenge - 13 - Stinger, Gi Nattak

Rules Reminder:
Low Level
Solo Character
No Non-Mandatory Inns
No Independent Materia
No Scavenging
No Attack Command
The Stinger is vulnerable to both Poison and Mini, and I'll use both since it's not a boss. Sticking Poison first is risky since it can counter with Sting Bomb, which deals 75% of our health, and then finish us off on its turn. But it makes the battle go a bit faster, so we may as well. Since Sting Bomb doesn't kill, we don't really need to heal once it's Mini'd, despite the low HP.
To kill Gi Nattak, we just need to throw a Phoenix Down, and that's exactly what I did during the playthrough since I wanted to save Hi-Potions. But that's boring, so I went back to the save after beating the game and recorded this fight.
On every odd turn, Gi Nattak will use Take Over to command a Soul Fire to possess us (if we aren't already possessed) and use Spear Attack otherwise. On even-numbered turns, he'll use Drain or Spear Attack, occasionally throwing in a useless Aspil in addition. Spear Attack is the nasty one, as it does a lot more damage than Drain and might crit us. Crits are the one way we lose here, so it's a bit scary each time he uses it.
On top of that, the Soul Fires will use Fire 2 on us while we're possessed, but thanks to the Elemental-Fire Materia combo, it doesn't hurt too badly. Still, we can't quite take two Fire 2s, a Drain, and a Spear Attack, so we need to heal almost every turn. Early in the fight, we can only attack when Gi Nattak gives up a turn to use Take Over. What we're waiting for is the Soul Fires to run out of MP. They get ten casts each, and will helpfully deplete their MP by casting Fire 2 on themselves to heal even when they aren't possessing us.
Once the Soul Fires run out of MP, we get more turns to attack. We can't tank a Drain and a crit Spear Attack, so we're hoping that it doesn't crit every time we attack. Luckily, I never had an issue with crits here. While we're not cheesing the fight with Phoenix Downs, it's still pragmatic to exploit Gi Nattak's undead property by using Hi-Potions for offense. As a general rule, it's best to wait until we see whether Gi Nattak misses or crits before deciding what to do with our turn.

[@MrLemmy82]

Not cheesing Gi Nattak with a Phoenix Down certainly makes for an interesting fight in this challenge, I honestly never had considered the fact he has a pattern to his actions.
There's definitely a bit of stress every time he does a Spear Attack when a single crit could end the run, but I guess it's not overly common, thankfully!

[@Lockirby2]

The crit rate is 4% if I calculated correctly, which is certainly more common than I'd like! I think I was pretty lucky to get a first try victory here. Definitely felt some stress near the end though.