Phoenix Downs

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Greetings, I purchased this not long ago and it is my first FF game, can't say it is not tedious but it is definately fun. However I ran into a problem. After the chapter in which my airship becomes chained and I must journey to a mansion to speak with its owner I encountered several powerful mobs and had to revive several party members more than once. Basicly I am not that far from the village with no Phoenix downs. Did I pretty much ruin my own little adventure or should i just boldly tread forth? What say you FF veterans?

[LilG]

I'd say grind a bit so those powerful mobs aren't killing your group so easily. Phoenix downs are really rare & until you get the raise/arise spell or you're close to an inn you'd best be careful.

You didn't ruin your adventure you just made it a bit harder for yourself.

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Originally posted by LilG:

I'd say grind a bit so those powerful mobs aren't killing your group so easily. Phoenix downs are really rare & until you get the raise/arise spell or you're close to an inn you'd best be careful.

You didn't ruin your adventure you just made it a bit harder for yourself.

Thank you my good sir. I shall commence the grinding soon.

[Ottomic]

This is my first serious final fantasy as well, ff2 being the only game in the series I've played for reasonably long like 15 years ago. I knew about the Phoenix Down situation when I was informing myself about what game would suit me better, and I've always been super conservative with PDs, always having a teleport handy to fall back and recover if a run didn't go as planned. Just reached OP's point in the story, and I'm a bit antsy though I hope I'll be able to keep that tactic up.

Dem Phoenix Downs tho. Can't say I'm a fan of that mechanic. You are going to get 1-shotted a lot of times on bosses and spend about 4-5 of them per boss encounter, and since you can't buy them you'll either have to scour every possible PD up for grabs and be ultra conservative or you'll run yourself into a corner. My backup tactic, in case things go horribly, horribly wrong will be to use the save editor.[forum.xda-developers.com]

I'll try to keep it fair by picking the price I find more balanced and "buying" them by taking Gil away per every Phoenix Down I add to myself. I wouldn't like to "cheat", but if it comes down to not being able to progress anymore or balancing the game I own myself, I know where my choice stands.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by LilG:

I'd say grind a bit so those powerful mobs aren't killing your group so easily. Phoenix downs are really rare & until you get the raise/arise spell or you're close to an inn you'd best be careful.

You didn't ruin your adventure you just made it a bit harder for yourself.

Actually they are not as rare as you think. If you take a thief to the mountain after the "opening" (trying not to spoil things but you get sent there as part of the story) You'll run into some bird type mobs. You can steal phoenix down one at a time from them easy. It's a nice way to build job levels with little exp gain to your actual character level. Simply have your team defend while the thief steals. Then have them continue to defend while the thief picks them off one at a time. But at job 25+ I was successfully stealing within 3 attempts. Took me a little over an hour to max out at 99, and had the jobs I was currently using at 50+ and only having gained 4 character levels so as to not let the grind mess with my HP growth.

Hope that helps.

[LilG]

Oh yeah I forgot about farming them off those mobs, thanks for the reminder. I think I'll farm more of them at some point.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by LilG:

Oh yeah I forgot about farming them off those mobs, thanks for the reminder. I think I'll farm more of them at some point.

Yeah, I recommend it as I mentioned above it is a great way to build up job levels without letting your character level getting in the way of things. I know there are only a billion guides that suggest it, but this is just a nice way to dove tail your activities so as to kill two birds with one stone.

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Originally posted by LilG:

Oh yeah I forgot about farming them off those mobs, thanks for the reminder. I think I'll farm more of them at some point.

Yeah, I recommend it as I mentioned above it is a great way to build up job levels without letting your character level getting in the way of things. I know there are only a billion guides that suggest it, but this is just a nice way to dove tail your activities so as to kill two birds with one stone.

I actually did, I realized the village fountains revive me which makes me feel a bit like an idiot. I breezed through the Gold Manor with zero effort. Now however after my airship was shot down I faced the King's adviser who is some big eagle monster and he oblitarated my party.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Yeah, I recommend it as I mentioned above it is a great way to build up job levels without letting your character level getting in the way of things. I know there are only a billion guides that suggest it, but this is just a nice way to dove tail your activities so as to kill two birds with one stone.

I actually did, I realized the village fountains revive me which makes me feel a bit like an idiot. I breezed through the Gold Manor with zero effort. Now however after my airship was shot down I faced the King's adviser who is some big eagle monster and he oblitarated my party.

In town I can't remember which portion you go to but there is the Dragoon's Tower. Complete it for a set of gear. You can level up dragoon a bit in the forest on easy mobs outside.. or you can fight the actual mobs in the tower.. your call on if you want to level or just job level. But you can cheese that fight spamming jump with 4x dragoon. It's one of the few times in the game they "recommend" a class for a situation like they did Heihn.

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

I actually did, I realized the village fountains revive me which makes me feel a bit like an idiot. I breezed through the Gold Manor with zero effort. Now however after my airship was shot down I faced the King's adviser who is some big eagle monster and he oblitarated my party.

In town I can't remember which portion you go to but there is the Dragoon's Tower. Complete it for a set of gear. You can level up dragoon a bit in the forest on easy mobs outside.. or you can fight the actual mobs in the tower.. your call on if you want to level or just job level. But you can cheese that fight spamming jump with 4x dragoon. It's one of the few times in the game they "recommend" a class for a situation like they did Heihn.

Do you recommend using magic or physical attacks? Since I re-assigned my Black Mage as a Knight.

[LilG]

I used a mix of dragoon, monk, white mage & Geomancer. But that fight against Garuda is really annoying.
It will take a few tries since that boss can use the lightning move several times in a row if you're unlucky.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

Originally posted by Nicholai:

In town I can't remember which portion you go to but there is the Dragoon's Tower. Complete it for a set of gear. You can level up dragoon a bit in the forest on easy mobs outside.. or you can fight the actual mobs in the tower.. your call on if you want to level or just job level. But you can cheese that fight spamming jump with 4x dragoon. It's one of the few times in the game they "recommend" a class for a situation like they did Heihn.

Do you recommend using magic or physical attacks? Since I re-assigned my Black Mage as a Knight.

I was personally running a Knight, Dragoon, Viking, and White Mage group when I fought him in my late 20s. I was 29. With a fairly high job level on my white mage I could toss out Curas every single turn. I got unlucky a few times and he used lightning twice in the same turn but I brought him down. Most find it easy to equip the dragoon equipment from the tower, kill enough to remove the stat penalty for changing and then having everyone jump. Should take 3 - 4 rounds tops to kill him with that method.

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

Do you recommend using magic or physical attacks? Since I re-assigned my Black Mage as a Knight.

I was personally running a Knight, Dragoon, Viking, and White Mage group when I fought him in my late 20s. I was 29. With a fairly high job level on my white mage I could toss out Curas every single turn. I got unlucky a few times and he used lightning twice in the same turn but I brought him down. Most find it easy to equip the dragoon equipment from the tower, kill enough to remove the stat penalty for changing and then having everyone jump. Should take 3 - 4 rounds tops to kill him with that method.

I also had a Viking, Dragoon, White Mage and Knight Combo :D Turned my Black Mage who along with my White have been at it since the beiginning. I then turned the Knight Black mage into a dragoon and now I bought Shiva and two high level spells, but why are all my Black Mage's spells at zero now? Did I teach him too much or? I had the same problem with my Red Mage early on, his spell count just dropped.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

Originally posted by Nicholai:

I was personally running a Knight, Dragoon, Viking, and White Mage group when I fought him in my late 20s. I was 29. With a fairly high job level on my white mage I could toss out Curas every single turn. I got unlucky a few times and he used lightning twice in the same turn but I brought him down. Most find it easy to equip the dragoon equipment from the tower, kill enough to remove the stat penalty for changing and then having everyone jump. Should take 3 - 4 rounds tops to kill him with that method.

I also had a Viking, Dragoon, White Mage and Knight Combo :D Turned my Black Mage who along with my White have been at it since the beiginning. I then turned the Knight Black mage into a dragoon and now I bought Shiva and two high level spells, but why are all my Black Mage's spells at zero now? Did I teach him too much or? I had the same problem with my Red Mage early on, his spell count just dropped.

Your MP supply is tied into your job levels. For example you could be lvl 99 character and level 1 black mage and have basic mp while a level 99 character level 99 black mage will have more MP than you could shake a stick at. It's important to keep your jobs you want to use current in some way. Gain some job levels and you'll see your mp start to build back up.

[IYI Кума Лиса IYI]

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Originally posted by Gundorf the Wizard:

I also had a Viking, Dragoon, White Mage and Knight Combo :D Turned my Black Mage who along with my White have been at it since the beiginning. I then turned the Knight Black mage into a dragoon and now I bought Shiva and two high level spells, but why are all my Black Mage's spells at zero now? Did I teach him too much or? I had the same problem with my Red Mage early on, his spell count just dropped.

Your MP supply is tied into your job levels. For example you could be lvl 99 character and level 1 black mage and have basic mp while a level 99 character level 99 black mage will have more MP than you could shake a stick at. It's important to keep your jobs you want to use current in some way. Gain some job levels and you'll see your mp start to build back up.

Thank you. For a moment I panicked my Black Mage is useless now. Final Fantasy is a really interesting experience.

[Nicholai]

Originally posted by Adelbert Steiner:

Originally posted by Nicholai:

Your MP supply is tied into your job levels. For example you could be lvl 99 character and level 1 black mage and have basic mp while a level 99 character level 99 black mage will have more MP than you could shake a stick at. It's important to keep your jobs you want to use current in some way. Gain some job levels and you'll see your mp start to build back up.

Thank you. For a moment I panicked my Black Mage is useless now. Final Fantasy is a really interesting experience.

No worries. The system was set up this way to try and keep people from swapping jobs on a wim for every single situation. Being say, a Dark Knight or Summoner for mass group damage spamming for battles leading to a boss, only to instantly swap to another high single target damage dealer only to swap back to something else. It artificially adds time to the game as you'll grind classes out to keep them relevant. A Geomancer is an amazing example of a class that needs to be kept up in order to be useful.