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.

[KiTA]

I did it in the last dungeon. Equipped the character with the Ancient Blade and a Broadsword. Everyone else defended, while he attacked a worm. Ancient blade makes the enemies super weak. Took 4 fights to go from 12 to 16.

[Falcus]

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

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.

This is correct.
There's a formula (may have been posted already but I didn't read every message) where essentially the higher your weapon level gets, the more hits you need to do in a SINGLE encounter to get any exp at all.
If you do not do the minimum amount of hits, you get ZERO exp.
Fighting higher rank enemies means that the amount of hits you need is lower.
Generally you'll want to fight higher rank enemies that are tanky, with the weakest weapons you have available. This way you can get as many attacks in a single fight to level them up.
Also focus one character at a time so only one is attacking and that will also help.

Also equip 2 of the weapon you want to level up, so you get double hits per turn.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Black Flans - kill all but 1 or 2.

Attack using weak weapons on 1 character, defend for the rest.

To get the higher levels (14-16), you could put a heal staff on someone to attack the black flans so there's no possibility they die from HP damage, but could still flee. You need a huge amount of attacks with a weapon to level up at that point, so I think using the heal staff is better. Also, the heal staff method could also work on something that's not a black flan, you could pick some other enemy for this, like a golem or something, they seem to rarely flee.

[MonkehMaster]

Originally posted by crimsonedge11:

Black Flans - kill all but 1 or 2.

Attack using weak weapons on 1 character, defend for the rest.

To get the higher levels (14-16), you could put a heal staff on someone to attack the black flans so there's no possibility they die from HP damage, but could still flee. You need a huge amount of attacks with a weapon to level up at that point, so I think using the heal staff is better. Also, the heal staff method could also work on something that's not a black flan, you could pick some other enemy for this, like a golem or something, they seem to rarely flee.

completely forgot to mention that in my comment... (heal the enemy).

[Coxatris]

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

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

That's not how it works. Getting XP is based on the number of attacks, the rank of the enemy, the weapon level, and a modifier (in the case of weapons the modifier is +1).

The formula for gaining xp is: Number of hits + enemy rank - weapon level + 1

The highest rank enemy in the desert is normally rank 5 (rank 6 later in the game). That means 1 attack results in:
1 + 5 -15 + 1 = -8 (which rounds up to 0 xp gained)
You would need to attack with same the character at least 10 times (in one battle) to gain xp against a rank 5 enemy with a level 15 weapon.

[mOnocularJohn]

Originally posted by MonkehMaster:

Originally posted by Matthew Farron:

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.

I played WoW for nearly 14 years 8-12 hours a day grinding rep, mounts and gold, but this grinding is somehow worse. I mean if you try to get a single spell to level 16 for each character, you'll hit 999 MP for them all by the time you hit 12.. And 12-16 will take around 5x as much as 1-12. So far I have Ultima to 12 and it slows down so much I've cast it over 100x and have 10% of the bar full. I mean we're talking going from enjoyable grinding to deep vein thrombosis level grind time here.

Thank goodness magic isn't super useful in the game and I only have to do it once for the achievement with a single spell.

[mOnocularJohn]

Originally posted by Coxatris:

Originally posted by One Eyed Leftist:

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

That's not how it works. Getting XP is based on the number of attacks, the rank of the enemy, the weapon level, and a modifier (in the case of weapons the modifier is +1).

The formula for gaining xp is: Number of hits + enemy rank - weapon level + 1

The highest rank enemy in the desert is normally rank 5 (rank 6 later in the game). That means 1 attack results in:
1 + 5 -15 + 1 = -8 (which rounds up to 0 xp gained)
You would need to attack with same the character at least 10 times (in one battle) to gain xp against a rank 5 enemy with a level 15 weapon.

Went from giving me noticeable xp to giving me none, even with wimpy weapons and hacking away at mobs in several minute battles, but going into the dungeon worked.

[Coxatris]

The highest rank enemies in the game are 7. That's only one rank higher than the Rank 6 Scissorjaws and Sand Worms in the desert, which means one less hit to get the xp.

As far as XP goes, if you end the battle with a positive number (based on the formula in my last post), then you get noticeable xp, otherwise you get none. The amount of XP you can get from the earliest monster (rank 1) to the latest monster (rank 7) is exactly the same. You just have to do 6 more hits to get that xp on the earlier monster.

EDIT: I just tested myself going from 15 to 16 in the desert and it worked exactly as expected.

[ztdk]

Not to mention there's not much point. If you want the achievement for spells you can just alternate teleporting out of a town and then healing your self. Cure will hit 16 in no time. For weapons after you unlock ultima there's some wild horn or similar enemies near fynn. They're tanky, just equip a weak weapon and go ham, You'll get half a level per fight at least, more at lower levels.

Getting one weapon up that high won't take long. If you want more than that... Well, at about level 12 with weapons and spells you're already a bit overpowered for the final boss, so there's not much point in grinding it out if you don't simply enjoy the grind.

[mOnocularJohn]

I figured out the Cure thing.. And it also seems that Cure gives less xp in combat than if used on the field out of combat.

Now to beat the game.

[Space Pirate Yara]

I'm left wondering why anyone would need or want to grind out sixteen levels of a weapon or a spell in this game, but then someone went and put achievements in for doing so. Game just made a brilliant case for the Protect spell when I couldn't think of one. I guess Blink would also work if you leveled it high enough?

[mOnocularJohn]

The problem with grinding spells in this game is if you try grinding a bunch to high level, you become so powerful spells basically become useless. Once you learn the tricks, it's much faster to make 4 godlike tanks. Just grind Esuna and Basuna to 7 and Cure to 10 just in case. Early in the game you might need some elemental spells, but after that, useless.

[The Gosh Dern Batman]

I found a very fast way to do it. I equipped the Sleep Blade and the Gaia Blade and fought White Dragons in Jade passage. Set your Sleep Blade wielder to attack and everyone else to defend, the White Dragon will stay asleep the whole battle and it’s almost a full level up every battle

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

Originally posted by The Gosh Dern Batman:

I found a very fast way to do it. I equipped the Sleep Blade and the Gaia Blade and fought White Dragons in Jade passage. Set your Sleep Blade wielder to attack and everyone else to defend, the White Dragon will stay asleep the whole battle and it’s almost a full level up every battle

That's grinding smart. Maybe also have someone else hit the monster with a healing staff to keep the monster alive longer.

[GamingMasterRyken]

If you want to level up weapons especially later in the game you should use the weakest weapon your trying to level up, for example, when I got done with the main game I had swords equipped to him, and when fighting the strongest enemies I noticed that the sword was leveling up very slowly, so I equipped the weakest sword I had which was the broadsword, and it started leveling up faster, even in the higher levels, and in my opinion i think that using the weak weapons levels them faster, as far as leveling your hands goes I think using the opposite hand helps a little, I'm currently stuck on leveling Holy and Ultima, after I got them to level 10 it has slowed down dramatically, and so far the only thing I have found out is that weapons and armor effect how much damage they do. Without anything equipped your other stats level up as well, however you still need to attack yourself to level up your stamina.