Breath of Fire IV - Ershin's Best Equipment

Mass Driver - 104 attack.  Steal from Chopam in Fou-Lu's tomb.

Chopam Plate - 50 defence and "resists both physical and magical attacks".  Dropped by Chopam in Fou-Lu's tomb.

OR

Mithril Rig - 50 defence (but is heavier than Chopam Plate).  Forge at the Smithy from Iron Scraps x 3.

As you can see, there is only one enemy with whom you need to be concerned here.

To find Chopam;  he's in Fou-Lu's tomb.  You remember the block which took you down into the depths of the tomb, and then, eventually out in Mukto?  Ride that back all the way up, and Chopam will most commonly appear on the steps right in front of them.  Yes those little 2 x 1 steps.  Stay on them.

Getting the Chopam Plate from the Chopam is relatively easy - as long as you can kill him, you've got a very fair chance of getting it.  I've done a bit of levelling with the Bots, which helped.  Getting the Mass Driver is quite a bit harder.


To defeat Chopam; he will be invulnerable for two turns, so just try to steal or guard.  Maybe cast Charm, though you probably don't need to.  On the third turn, I found that a combo of Nina using Oracle, Ershin using Spray and Cray using Triple Blow worked very well, and did over 10,000 damage.

To steal from Chopam: use characters who are faster than he is - that is, with an agility of 140 or more - in order to steal from him twice on the fourth turn, before he is able to run away.  I used Nina and Ursula, one with Pilfer, one with Steal.  That gives you eight chances per battle, rather than six. 

Staying on the stairs heavily increases your chances of running into him, to the point of roughly every other battle. This makes a huge difference to how much this takes.  Even though you do have to look at the screen more and can't watch TV or read quite as much (trust me, you will want to be doing something else at the time).

I finally managed to steal one off, roughly, the tenth Chopam I faced.  Finally!