Leveling Flare and Ultima past 10

[jincy]

How? I'm in Pandemonium and even with spamming the magic level goes impossibly slowly. Is there some way to speed it up?

[eltoncdb]

it's very hard to get high level in spells while playing normally. If you want to go out of the way to level attack spell to 16, you need to reduce spell dmg so you can spam more without killing the enemy or your own party. Equip 2 shields, and use Ancient Sword to curse yourself, also target all enemies/party to reduce dmg. The rest is just auto-battle.

I do grind it on world map outside of Jade Passage, so I can use cottage to refill MP. My Ultima does 7000-9999 single target damage and about 2000 multi target, it was tedious but I just like to max out everything. My stats are max except evade at 14-15, weapon lv are max, spells are on going, had 16 on a few most are around 8-12.

[jincy]

Thanks so much!
"Tedious" is right, and, having tried your strategy, I'm going to give up on trying to level up Flare past 10 or Ultima past 9. My only 16 is cure. I usually don't mind grinding, but this is excessive, and I hope that the designers, if they're working on more FFs, tone this down. FF2 is a good game, but it would be greatly improved if they fixed this.

[三Akiyama]

That's because max level spells are useless so there's no point trying to get them to max level. Well... pretty much all spells are useless in fact, outside of those who heal/debuff you.

[jincy]

I was beginning to figure that out, yes. If I had it all to do over again, I'd have focused more on Esuna & etc. It's a design problem, I think.

[Juwude]

Originally posted by jincy:

How? I'm in Pandemonium and even with spamming the magic level goes impossibly slowly. Is there some way to speed it up?

i have been leveling magic in the first floor of the jade passage. i encounter a white dragon (since they cant run away) and sap/osmose their mp away so it doesnt slow the process with their ice storm xvi.

use barrier and wall on everyone and a few shells. blink/protect helps with the dragon's attacks too. at that point all your spells should give you exp and just auto battle away.

i found wall to be extremely useful for leveling black magic since it completely blocks any lower level black spells (except osmose for some reason), negating all damage that would go out and also skipping the cast animation while still giving you exp, making the grinding process so much faster.

oh... also if youre gonna level ultima level that first lol. it gets kinda dicey when your ult starts doing 1000+ to every member... wall cant block white magic x.x

[Atomic Kid]

easiest would be loading up on heavy armor and stuff to lower magic power and equip things that tanks spell damage to the ground then spam spells on enemies until they level up. If you want them to do good damage you cannot use weapons that lower spell damage and be in full cloth and not use armbands or shields.

[Topaz Light]

I wouldn't say magic is useless, though damaging magic could certainly stand to be buffed.

You really don't need any spell or weapon proficiencies exceeding level 8 or so for endgame, though. In my experience, most RPGs can be comfortably completed when you're around 40% ~ 60% of the way to the maximum power level the game permits, and Final Fantasy II is no different. Go for really high spell levels if you want to, but just know that you really don't need to, like, at all.

[Mike "D-Rex" Dierickx]

Originally posted by jincy:

Thanks so much!
"Tedious" is right, and, having tried your strategy, I'm going to give up on trying to level up Flare past 10 or Ultima past 9. My only 16 is cure. I usually don't mind grinding, but this is excessive, and I hope that the designers, if they're working on more FFs, tone this down. FF2 is a good game, but it would be greatly improved if they fixed this.

Great news, they made more FFs after 2

[admiral1018]

Quick tip to add here. If you cast Wall and Barrier on the enemies, all offensive spells aside from Ultima and Holy will miss. Even Flare and the elemental spells. You can basically just select one character to cast Wall and Barrier in the first round, then have the other (or others) cast the offensive spell(s), then select Auto-Battle. Do something else for 10 minutes, come back, end the battle, and see the spell level increase.

Ultima and Holy ignore Wall, so it's much more difficult to get to high levels. I usually use the same tactics above to reduce spell damage, then cast the spell on my party (split by 4) while the other 1-3 characters cast level 16 Cure. I'll first defang the enemies with Osmose or Blink, then just let the Auto-Battle do its thing.

Used this method to get all characters to level 16 with 16 spells. Huge waste of time, but the game is comical when you're at that point. Even the final boss dies in a single round.

[mtnetsurfer]

Originally posted by Topaz Light:

I wouldn't say magic is useless, though damaging magic could certainly stand to be buffed.

You really don't need any spell or weapon proficiencies exceeding level 8 or so for endgame, though. In my experience, most RPGs can be comfortably completed when you're around 40% ~ 60% of the way to the maximum power level the game permits, and Final Fantasy II is no different. Go for really high spell levels if you want to, but just know that you really don't need to, like, at all.

That's true, plus you really only need one spell at Rank 16 for the Magic Tactics Achievement, and by the end game you've likely already done this with the Cure Spell assuming you're using it constantly to heal HP after most battles or when you get a boost to your health.