Trying to Understand the "Leveling" System

[Zerro0713]

Greetings,

I am having difficulty understanding this leveling system.

For example: I got through battles spamming physical attacks however I don't see the bar for the weapon/shield increase. Is there a reason for why they don't increase or is the increase so small that it doesn't register?

Also, if I have a character spam the same spell over and over again in battle, does that cause the spell to level up quicker or do I only have to use the spell once in battle to register progress?

Any quick tips on leveling things up in this game?

Thanks

[Goilveig]

Leveling in general is... weird.

For each fight, there's a given "fight level", and if that is below your current weapon level, you will gain slower, and if it's above your current weapon level, you gain faster. Your current weapon level is subtracted from the fight level (so if, say, you have a level 2 fight and your weapons are level 6, you start off at -4). Each time you use your weapon, you increment this value. So in the above example, you'd need to hit a minimum of 5 times to gain any weapon XP at all. Then, at the end of the fight, if you finish with a positive number, you gain that number plus 10 "bonus points".

So if you did 5 hits in that theoretical battle, you'd get 11 weapon XP, but if you did 10 hits in that battle, you'd only get 16.

Leveling spells has a similar formula, but you gain 2 XP per cast, there's less penalty for using magic in a lower-rank fight, and magic doesn't gain the 10 bonus XP.

[jincy]

I'm in Pandemonium and trying to get the Flare spell up past 10 and the Ultima spell up past VIII. What's the best way to speed this up, assuming there is one? (If I try spamming in the overworld just outside the Jade, it looks like I'd have to use Flare about a thousand times to get to 11. That can't be right. Right?)

[Goilveig]

Originally posted by jincy:

I'm in Pandemonium and trying to get the Flare spell up past 10 and the Ultima spell up past VIII. What's the best way to speed this up, assuming there is one? (If I try spamming in the overworld just outside the Jade, it looks like I'd have to use Flare about a thousand times to get to 11. That can't be right. Right?)

If this is like earlier entries, fights cap at around rank 6-7, meaning at rank 10 the first 2 casts per battle are essentially wasted. After the first 2, it's 2 XP per cast and level 11 needs 70 XP so 35 casts. If you had an enemy that could survive 37 casts, you could do this in one battle.

Haven't done this myself, but you could get into a fight with red soul (or one of the other souls that absorb all magic) and you could just auto battle until your MP drops to the level indicating you have cast enough times.