How to level weapons after hitting level 12?

[mOnocularJohn]

Are Black Flans the only mob in the game that give weapon xp after hitting 12? I got Leon and even all the new high rank mobs in the overworld give diddly ♥♥♥♥ at level 12.

[Matthew Farron]

One easy way to level weapon levels is equipping weak weapons and attacking a higher level monster repeatedly while someone else heals. The reason you probably get xp from black flans is because they are more durable against physical attacks.

[mOnocularJohn]

But if I murder 1000 enemies it should still go up eventually, not just stay the same forever.

[Matthew Farron]

In other words, essentially, the goal is to attack the monster with the weapon as many times as you can. Hitting them more times = more exp. If you use strong weapons, the battle probably ends before you get a decent amount of exp.

[Matthew Farron]

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

But if I murder 1000 enemies it should still go up eventually, not just stay the same forever.

Sadly, that is not how the game works. And the tedium in which you have to level certain stats is part of the reason FFII is disliked by the fanbase. The game wants you to hit the monsters multiple times within one battle. If you simply grind enemies, it will likely take forever to level the weapon to 16.

[mOnocularJohn]

I'm gathering that perhaps each level of weapon probably requires a minimum amount of hits, increasing with level, so eventually just killing things doesn't give any xp.. annoyingly dumb.

[mOnocularJohn]

Just trying to level every little thing in this game is worse than trying to get the Master Materia in FF7

[Liam]

Here's what I did after beating the game and needed to max out Firion's sword skills from 10/11 to 16:

Equip two longswords on him, 2 of the weakest swords in the game I think.

Get into a battle in the beginning area of the game, where Captains/Generals spawn now because of Ultima and the cyclone. Kill all the enemies except for one in a group, to make it faster.

Equip someone with the ancient sword and curse Firion with a hit. This will weaken him considerably. Have everyone else defend, and have Firion attack on auto attack. You can alt tab out of the game and it still runs, which makes it easier. Eventually, the enemy will either flee, or be killed by the small, gradual damage--and with any luck you'll have ranked up, and can repeat the method all over again.

I believe weapon ranks don't level up multiple times in a single battle so once you hit the threshold it won't count until you've ranked up after, which makes things slightly more tedious, but since enemies are prone to fleeing anyway it should provide natural end points for each battle.

You can substitute the swords with whatever weapon you might be highest at of course, but I found this method to work really fast and gives you a great, rapid way of fighting things with tons of hits with minimal damage. Curse turned out to be a lifesaver not only for boss fights, but for levelling weapons, too!

[mOnocularJohn]

I can't do that.. my evasion multiplier is 14x, none of my characters can land a successful hit on themselves.

I'm just fighting scissorjaws in the desert with wimp weapons. Since they can't hit me, working ok.. Just sloooooow.

[Liam]

Oh, jeez, lol. I hadn't even considered that. Oh no ;~; So nothing can hit or curse them at all then? I assume attacking with the weakest swords will still largely work--but he'll be doing a lot more damage so it's not as optimal.

[Liam]

As a thought--does the evasion multiplier determine how many hits from an attack you dodge? Or do I have it wrong. And haste increases hits a character can land? So maybe if you sped up someone enough they could still potentially hit themselves? That's only if I understand the system right.

[Matthew Farron]

I just equipped a longsword to Firion and attacked an enemy in Pandemonium while another character cured. So, then I was leveling cure and weapon levels. And usually Firion would either gain an entire level or half the level. I was also leveling shield with Firion so I didn't equip two longswords.

[Matthew Farron]

Because the higher rank an enemy, the faster it will level too if I understand correctly? And enemies there are all rank 7.

[mOnocularJohn]

Hmm one thing I noticed while doing all of this is str gear still invisibly increases your str even if your str is 99.. Still shows 99 but you still get the damage increase.

[mOnocularJohn]

And the desert monsters stop giving xp at level 15. Damn.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by Matthew Farron:

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

But if I murder 1000 enemies it should still go up eventually, not just stay the same forever.

Sadly, that is not how the game works. And the tedium in which you have to level certain stats is part of the reason FFII is disliked by the fanbase. The game wants you to hit the monsters multiple times within one battle. If you simply grind enemies, it will likely take forever to level the weapon to 16.

grinding may be disliked by the younger gen, but true FF fans loved grinding, having to work to gain those levels was more fulfilling, then just being handed the win.

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

But if I murder 1000 enemies it should still go up eventually, not just stay the same forever.

pretty much how you have to do it, or find other ways to make the enemies die slower to get more xp from them, or finding and grinding in high level monster areas, also depending on the game, you could revive a dead enemy by having one character kill them and then next character revive them.

edit: or constantly heal the enemy (which i forgot to mention, but someone else did below).

tho considering how they changed the game, im betting some of these things might not be possible.