card modding questions

[~Sound Sage~]

First of all, what is card modding?
How do you card mod?
What are the benifits?
What are possible drawbacks?
any usefull or needed information?

[Chaos Residue]

Originally posted by ~Nocturne Saint~:

First of all, what is card modding?

The Card Mod ability turns your Triple Triad cards into items (also known as refining).

Originally posted by ~Nocturne Saint~:

How do you card mod?

You can learn the Card Mod ability from Quezecotl after learning the Card ability. Once you've learned the Card Mod ability you can access it from your Ability list in your menu.

Originally posted by ~Nocturne Saint~:

What are the benifits?

You can get OP pretty easily, even early on in the game.

Originally posted by ~Nocturne Saint~:

What are possible drawbacks?

Time consuming to gain cards, and it might make the game boring being OP.

Originally posted by ~Nocturne Saint~:

any usefull or needed information?

None that I can think of.

[Vagrant]

1 - It's an ability your first GF has which allows you to transmute Triple Triad cards into items.

2 - Once Quezacoatl has learned Card Mod, go into the "Ability" menu and select Card mod.

3 & 4 - One card player in particular has high level cards right at the start of the game. It's the woman in Balamb town dock walking her dog.

See, if you get high level cards, then transmute them, it's the equivalent of getting an item from said monster very early instead of having to hunt the monster and get his spoils, which would be much later in the game.

The benefits would be to obtain high level spells and maybe even upgraded weapons very early. The drawback is that you absolutely, indisputably and undeniably break the game, making every fights brain-dead easy.

i.e.: The Abyss Worm enemy can only be fought in Centra or Galbadia. If you get the card, you can transmute it into a Windmill. By using Quezacoatl's Thunder/Wind transmute, you can transform a Windmill into 20 Tornado spell. Get 15 Abyss Worm card and you get 3x100 Tornados. 100 Tornados junctioned to a lvl10 Squall's STR will insta-kill almost anything... Yep, it's that broken.

5 - If you plan on farming cards, go see the Queen of Cards in Balamb town. She can modify the Trade rule of the region. What you want to do is get the All trade rule. It'll make farming easier. All you have to do is start a match, then quit, you don't have to play her. Start and quit a match until the trade rule changes to All. Then it'll spread in the region you're in.

Second, when you change region, you'll bring the rules of the previous region with you. Players of the new region will ask to play with both region's rule. This is ok for most, but the one rule you don't want to spread is RANDOM. To prevent rules from spreading, keep answering "No" when asked to mix both region rules. After 6-7 times of saying No, the player will then skip the region rule mix question and play straight away. Prevent spreading the Random rule at all cost.

Third, should you need AP for your GF ability, go fight some Fastoticallon on Balamb's beach. Use Quezacoatl's Card ability to turn monsters into cards (not Card mod ability, the "Card" character ability). This will prevent XP gain, but it will still give you AP.

Fourth, to keep winning in Balamb, it's a good idea to get a decent card deck as early as possible. This is the deck I used: Ifrit, Cactuar King, Krysta, Elnoyle and Tonberry King.

Ifrit: By getting Ifrit GF, super easy
Cactuar King: Turn Glacial Eyes into cards. Rare drop chance. Hug the mountains while you walk outside the Garden to fight them.
Krysta: Turn Buel or Bomb into cards. Rare drop chance. Hunt them in Ifrit's cave.
Elnoyle: Won from Balamb Dock Girl mentioned above.
Tonberry King: Same as above; Balamb Dock Girl

I'll stop for now. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Vagrant:

1 - It's an ability your first GF has which allows you to transmute Triple Triad cards into items.

2 - Once Quezacoatl has learned Card Mod, go into the "Ability" menu and select Card mod.

3 & 4 - One card player in particular has high level cards right at the start of the game. It's the woman in Balamb town dock walking her dog.

See, if you get high level cards, then transmute them, it's the equivalent of getting an item from said monster very early instead of having to hunt the monster and get his spoils, which would be much later in the game.

The benefits would be to obtain high level spells and maybe even upgraded weapons very early. The drawback is that you absolutely, indisputably and undeniably break the game, making every fights brain-dead easy.

i.e.: The Abyss Worm enemy can only be fought in Centra or Galbadia. If you get the card, you can transmute it into a Windmill. By using Quezacoatl's Thunder/Wind transmute, you can transform a Windmill into 20 Tornado spell. Get 15 Abyss Worm card and you get 3x100 Tornados. 100 Tornados junctioned to a lvl10 Squall's STR will insta-kill almost anything... Yep, it's that broken.

5 - If you plan on farming cards, go see the Queen of Cards in Balamb town. She can modify the Trade rule of the region. What you want to do is get the All trade rule. It'll make farming easier. All you have to do is start a match, then quit, you don't have to play her. Start and quit a match until the trade rule changes to All. Then it'll spread in the region you're in.

Second, when you change region, you'll bring the rules of the previous region with you. Players of the new region will ask to play with both region's rule. This is ok for most, but the one rule you don't want to spread is RANDOM. To prevent rules from spreading, keep answering "No" when asked to mix both region rules. After 6-7 times of saying No, the player will then skip the region rule mix question and play straight away. Prevent spreading the Random rule at all cost.

Third, should you need AP for your GF ability, go fight some Fastoticallon on Balamb's beach. Use Quezacoatl's Card ability to turn monsters into cards (not Card mod ability, the "Card" character ability). This will prevent XP gain, but it will still give you AP.

Fourth, to keep winning in Balamb, it's a good idea to get a decent card deck as early as possible. This is the deck I used: Ifrit, Cactuar King, Krysta, Elnoyle and Tonberry King.

Ifrit: By getting Ifrit GF, super easy
Cactuar King: Turn Glacial Eyes into cards. Rare drop chance. Hug the mountains while you walk outside the Garden to fight them.
Krysta: Turn Buel or Bomb into cards. Rare drop chance. Hunt them in Ifrit's cave.
Elnoyle: Won from Balamb Dock Girl mentioned above.
Tonberry King: Same as above; Balamb Dock Girl

I'll stop for now. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

I'll add some details to this.

Cards don't directly turn into magic. Cards turn into items that you can then use various GF refine abilities (most GF's have at least one so you might be able to turn useful items into better stuff with certain GFs as you progress so check those items with new refine abilities) to create the magic.

The Tonberry cards (both King and normal) can be turned into death with the right GF refine ability. Junction this to status attack (Siren notably) and you have 100% chance to cause instant death to anything not immune to it (almost every non-boss mob is not resistant to it in the game).

Ifrit Card has uses for obtaining Rinoa's card from her father. You must lose it to her father (on purpose generally) then he can play Rinoa's card. You can recocver Ifrit after at a later point in the game from Fisherman Horizon guy at docks (I forget who specifically). Generally, it is a good early card for the mini-game.

Diablos converts to Demi which is a fairly weak junction but is a powerful card for use in the mini-game so keep it when you get it.

You can make Curaga for junction with life refine I believe it was from Tents (not involving cards, but worth mentioning). Good for HP tho Tornado is better, but very good for Spr (spirit, aka magic defense).

IIRC you can get Triples from Zell's card's morphed item (Zell's mother plays his card after Seed test, definitely by the time you go to get on the train). This can be turned into a +60% str effect you can equip IIRC. Quistis' card turns into Triples. You get her card at the very start of the game if you want (I suggest before train to Timber, but honestly you don't need to rush for it until after Seed test and by then should have your refine abilites learned and Siren/Diablos). It is from either of the two Trepie Groupies in cafeteria back area, on the right.

All of this can make you so ridiculous OP (like crush boss of game immediately OP) it might make the game excessively boring with regards to battle so up to you if that will be an issue or not.

It does, however, have no other drawbacks and saves you a TON of time from not having to draw weaker spells (100x per char in battle, eventually replacing them with even better ones rinse and repeat) and cutting battles shorter in general. Due to the junction system leveling is pretty much pointless for most part in the game meaning the earlier you do this the more OP you become since you will be even more low level while enemies scale to your active party's average level +/- a slight variation (few exceptions with set/random levels in the game, very few though)