Has anyone tried FF12 yet? **SPOILERS**

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Damn, you must be a great tactician Contrary to my well-thought out BG strategies, here all I do is buff and bash. Cast regen, bubble, bravery haste on my people and then go to town

Of the marks that've been available to me so far, I have 2 pending, I can't find that damn gil snapper because of the stupid weather restriction (but when I do, I will turn it into turtle stew for making me wait so long) and I can't take on the Roblon yet because I think I may get thrashed at the Nabreus Dreadlands. Every other hunt at this point I've nailed.

Based on the spells and equipment available to me at this point in time, which hidden Espers do you think I can take on already? I have Addrammalech and I checked the forums at ffxii.net (awesome board, the people are great, like SP but for final fantasy) and Zalera is listed as the next lowest level at level 40ish, you think I should give it a go? Vaan and Basch are at 53 and everyone else is at 37. I have no "ga" spells but curaga though..

Also, how many "rare" marks have you run into? Yes, I know it's kinda stupid complaining that I don't run into many (that's why they're rare, yes ) but I've only run into around 8(?) so far Also, what's your experience with stealing from rare marks? I know stealing from espers nets you good stuff and stealing from marks is useless.

Also, do you have a "generic buff set" like the one I just mentioned? Feel free to include magicks I don't have access to yet.

 

To tell you the truth I tend not to worry about buffing all that much. Instead I use the team cleric approach. I have gambits set up to ensure rapid fire healing, raise and status ailment removing. They can hit me as much as they like - I just heal it all as fast as they can dish it out. I normally use a two melee and one ranged combination with the melee fighters equipped with shields to get the high evasion score. Enemy attacks missing or being blocked very frequently helps a lot.

Against tougher foes I use dispel to strip any buffs and then try using blind or slow. If those don't work I would change accessories to something combat oriented and start buffing. I don't normally bother with bubble actually - I just raise my characters when they are KOed.

When I run into a caster who is using a lot of spells I will switch to a reflect with opal ring configuration.

If you have dispel then I would say that Exodus is probably a suitable next esper - if you dispel his reflect he will almost always recast so you can take advantage of that to limit his attacks.

I think I was at a lower level than you are when I took out Zalera so you should be fine fighting him too but there is a time limit on that fight and I made it with only seconds to spare.

Roblon is probably the second hardest mark I have fought (after Gilgamesh) - not because of Roblon itself but because of the horde of constantly respawning powerful undead mages that are all over his area. Having reflect on your entire party and using opal rings is almost madatory. You get completely swarmed - it is not fun. You will want aga type black magic spells to clear out the undead horde so you should probably wait before trying that hunt.

I am actually currently working on hunting down the rare creatures - I have taken down 31 of them so far but only 11 of those were trophy one. I have found that stealing from marks and rare monsters tends to net you some very nice stuff actually. It will often take multiple attempts but it is worth it. My best weapons are a pair of deathbringer swords that I stole from a rare mark in the Barheim Passage.

 

But "Rare" and "Mark" are different categories, aren't they?

Rare creatures, the ones I was asking about, give good stuff? I haven't been able to steal from them yet as sometimes I get giddy and kill them before I know it.

Marks are what you get the bounties for. I always used to steal from them, get some mundane stuff like a couple of hi-potions and then suddenly it says "nothing left to steal". With these marks you always get the "exotic ingredient" the moment you beat the thing (cactuar flower) or the moment you claim the bounty (marilith) right?


Righto, I'm staying away from Roblon for now. Will probably try and take Zalera on first. Are there ally: status=ko, ally: status=silence, ally: status=confuse and ally: status=blind gambits? Bec. these are the status effects that I want to counter all the time. If you have time, could you post what one of your standard gambit sets looks like. I don't have a very good one :/

 

Yes rare and mark are different categories but both can have some pretty good loot for stealing - of course in some cases both can have nothing significant too so it does depend on which mark or rare creature you are stealing from.

It really helps to have Thief's Cuffs equipped - you have a much better chance of getting rare stuff when you steal plus you can get multiple items. You can only successfully steal one time for any critter - except Gilgamesh who you can steal from in every stage of the fight. Gilgamesh is the perfect example of a must steal from mark - in the first fight you can steal gengi gloves and shield. In the second you are supposed to be able to steal gengi armour and helmet but I got wiped out in the second fight well before I could steal them. This is supposed to be the ONLY place you can get the gengi items.

Yes there are Ally KO, confuse, silence, blind, slow etc. gambits. I have most of my characters set up with a huge list of status effect curing gambits. I will post the exact list tonight.

 

Thanks JSBB.

per person or per party?

are the gambit shops like the hunting boards? like, if i go to one, will i see all of those available? because i still cant find any of those i mentioned

 

One time per party. If you run into the same type of creature you can of course steal from that one too.

I think all of the shops have the same gambits but some of the gambits are not available in shops and you have to find in treasure chests.

My gambit configuration on Vaan is
Ally Status KO - Raise
Ally HP<40% - Curaga
Foe HP 100% - Steal <turned off when he isn't my active thief>
Ally Status Confuse - Esuna
Ally Status Silence - Esuna
Ally Status SAP - Esuna
Ally Status Sleep - Esuna
Ally Status Slow - Haste
Ally Status Blind - Blindna
Foe Flying - 1000 Needles
Foe Lowest HP - Attack <changed to Foe: Party Leader's Target - Attack when he is not the active thief>
Self - Libra

The other party members are fairly similar in set-up but with some different status ailments. The two status ailments that they all have at the top of their lists are confuse and silence though as those are the ones that can really mess you up. I will generally use Esuna instead of a status specific remover as that will take care of multiple status ailments.

My ranged weapon wielders do not have the 1000 Needles for flyers and only Vaan and Bosch have Libra (more Status ailment cures get insterted instead).

I wish there were an Enemy HP<100%. If so I would stick it before the Steal command so that the thief would help finish off enemy #1 before trying to steal from enemy #2.

As it is it works fairly well though. The thief/party leader steals and the others attack that target knocking the HP<100%. The thief moves on and tries to steal from the next enemy and the others attack that enemy etc. Eventually all the enemies have been stolen from and have less than 100% HP at which point the characters all go after the enemy with the lowest HP. This is fine when there are only a few enemies around but when there are lots of spawning enemies it tends to cause the thief to wander and pull more and more enemies into the fight at which point I cancel the stealing gambit and let them finish off the lowest HP enemies until the situation is back under control..

 

THanks JSBB, good stuff. Mine would look similar to yours if I could find those ally:status= <> gambits. As it is, I have confuse, slow and the hp ones but not the others. In my case, blind and ko are the ones I really need to get.

Also, you mentioned that you've taken down 5 espers? I'm assuming they are: Belias, Mateus, Addrammalech, Zalera and Exodus?

I may take on Cuchulainn next. He is the 3rd lowest-level esper at level 45. I don't know if I'm ready for Exodus yet, he's listed on ffxii.net as level 52.

I've just gotten Zalera and stopped playing after returning to Rabanstre through the sewer path. I'm planning on going after the Earth Tyrant in the Wyrm's Nest area in the Westersand when I play next. Is this doable with Basch and Vaan at 55 and the others on 38? Is his head already hanging on your wall?

 

Yeah, finding the ko gambit is very useful.

Those are the five Espers that I have done.

The Earth Tyrant should be a joke at your characters' levels. I think I took it out when my character were in the mid 20s.

Tracking down the rare monsters sure is slow work. I managed to hunt down another three of them last night.

 

@JSBB

how do you locate them? do you have a strategy guide?

 

No I just found them by luck. I think the chests' contents are randomized actually so I don't think a strategy guide would help.

Edit: Hm, reading that again I don't know if you were talking about the rare monsters or the gambits. The above is about gambits. For the rare monsters I have been wandering around trying variations of killing off everything on a screen or chaining critters.

Edit2: I checked a gambit shop tonight and all of the ones I use appear to be available for sale. You probably have to be past a certain point in the story to get them to show up in the shop.

[ December 02, 2006, 07:42: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

I was talking about the rare creatures

Hrm, I only have like 11 on my beastiary, sucks. Anyway, I just thrashed the Earth Titan as easily as you predicted and am planning to take on Cuchalainn as I'm still in Rabanastre. Whether or not I can take him, afterwards, I guess I'll continue on with the story and port back to Tchita Uplands and go through Sochen Palace. When I find the Gil Snapper eventually I will boil him

 

11 is not bad really. I gather that 30 of the 80 rare critters do not even show up until you finish the Draklor Laboratory. Also, I have spent quite a bit of time doing nothing but looking for rare critters. As of right now I am up to 39 so I am almost half way there. Given how long this is taking me I probably should try to find a guide.

Edit: I have not found Cuchalainn but after getting bored of rare monster hunting (I seem to be stuck on 41 - I will probably have to look for a guide before I try more hunting) I did go back to the Stillshrine today and took out Zeromus the Condemnor.

It was a fairly easy fight - my magic was cancelled so I reset my gambits over to using equivalent items and equipped everyone with mirror armour to bounce back their spells. With that in place I hacked Zeromus up fairly easily.

I used up around 15 x-potions out of the 31 I had and a half dozen or so pheonix downs but that is no big deal.

Now all my characters have one esper - not that I ever use summon. I think I summoned Belial twice after I got him and then wrote summon off as being useless. Maybe I should give it another try.

[ December 03, 2006, 00:05: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Yeah, I agree that so far summoning has been pretty useless unless you're trying to exploit an elemental weakness (in which case it'd probably still be more effective to have 3 chars casting a spell in conjunction). Also, what determines the Esper's growth rate/level? Do they share the level of the char they're assigned to and get stronger accordingly?

May give Cuchlainn a pass for now. Posts in the ffxii.net forums have intimidated me from facing him until I can get my 4 other members to at least lvl 45 first Have just passed Sochen Palace and stopped playing at the save point in Old Archades.

Are you planning to complete the beastiary and stuff? I was thinking about it but since I heard that all you get is some trophies, I've decided not to bother. Not enough of an incentive as I've never really been obsessive-compulsive in my FF gaming.

In other news, we seem to have hijacked the thread It's probably because we're (particularly you) are much farther along than the others and no one wants to check for fear of a spoiler, kinda like the "most upsetting character death" thread in booktalk

 

Yeah I am planning on completing the bestiary and all that. It doesn't seem to me that there is much in the way of incentive to replay this one so I am going to do as much as possible on the first run.

Getting the Zodiac spear is not enough of an incentive for me to start over. The way that finding the spear is supposed to work really annoys me actually - who on earth wouldn't open those chests if they had not been told about it making the Zodiac spear disappear?

Two of my characters completed their entire license grids yesterday and the others are not far behind.

 

Exactly! I've always wondered how people without strategy guides have been able to know all the roundabout things in the FF games, like the turtle island posters in FFVII. Thank god for FF help forums

Haven't played since my last post, going to start right after posting this though.

 

I just bought the accessory that gives you double hit points but I'm not sure I want to use them. There are a lot of other useful accessories that I like to keep my characters equipt with all the time. In FF10 you had two slots for accessories and now there is only only. As I remember it, the double XP was earned as a skill when wearing the ladyluck dress-sphere.

 

Yeah except for when you are going to be fighting a specifically tough battle I really can't see using the bubble belts on your active characters.

If you are going to be stealing then Thief's Cuffs are an essential for the thief. For the other regular party members I can't see not having them wear XP doublers.

Since I have just about completed the license grids and thus do not need LP doublers I have equipped my out of party ranged attacker with a bubble belt. That way that character will already have the double HP if he/she has to be brought in for a tough fight. For the melee fighters I would rather they had a shield and gauntlets to maximize their blocking so I can't see giving them bubble belts.

 

The Zodiac Spear definately helps out a lot for almost all the boss fights I've been in. But yes I do have to agree, not opening those chests is a stupid way to have to get it... The only reason I went back and started over was because I had been playing without a memory card, and of course I died. When I got back the memory card though...man is that spear great. I fought Exodus at level 45, hasted, bubbled, shelled, protected, casted bravery on all my party members, then cast berserk on Vaan, (has the Spear), and it probably took about 2 minutes to finish him.

 

In an FF game? Insanity!

Anyways, have just hit Balfonheim and upgraded magics and have all the gambits I was complaining about lacking earlier. Here's the thing though: should I upgrade weapons and armor here already or wait until I get to Giruvegan? Because stuff is getting really expensive and I only have around 450k gil left. Also, the notice board here has unlocked a whole slew of Rank V and VI hunts so I'm planning on doing a few of those first too.

Accessories-wise, I always customize with bosses. If they always use disable, I use black belt, etc. But normally, I've got golden amulets on reserve members and embroidered tippets on the 2 active members and thief's cuffs on Vaan.

 

Personally I would upgrade now but then again I still have not made it to Giruvegan. I came to a point in the Feywood where the exit takes you back to the entrance and after a couple times I decided that I would rather go back to hunting rare monsters than bother trying to figure out how to break the loop. Eventually I will have to put in the effort to figure it out but I have other things to do right now.