Is it worth farming gil in Chapter 9, or better to wait to get to Gran Pulse?

[Jamers]

I'm amazed that I'm playing this again, because I blew 100 hours nailing all the achievements on Xbox years ago, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, here I am again. Game's just too pretty I guess.

Anyhow, I know that things really open up when I get to Gran Pulse, but at the moment I'm in Chapter 9 (SPOILERS AHEAD)










aboard the Palamecia, at the hallway with all the PSICOM soldier groups, with another group of 3 and a save point on the platform outside the hall. I figure this is likely the "sweet spot" for farming gil at this stage of the game. I haven't upgraded a single thing yet because of how stupid and obtuse the upgrade system in this game is (seriously, WTF was the designer thinking?), but IIRC there may be some tough stuff ahead, and since I already have a few of the weapons I plan to take to the endgame, I figure I may as well get started.

Is this hallway worth farming, or am I better off just waiting to get to Gran Pulse to farm gil?

Also, what's the best "mechanical" (?) upgrade material to invest in at this point? Turbojet? In other words, which materials should I be spending my gil on to upgrade efficiently?

Thanks for any info here!

[Yukimura]

it's a pretty good spot if you want to rack up gil fast before mission 14 on pulse. around how much gil do you have at the moment?

[Jamers]

Originally posted by Yukimura:

it's a pretty good spot if you want to rack up gil fast before mission 14 on pulse. around how much gil do you have at the moment?

Thanks. Have 37,500 currently and plan to do at least a few runs at the hallway.

[Madcowdizeez]

chapter 9 isn't bad for some early gil farming with the credit chips and incentive chips that vendor for 500 and 2500 respectively. as for upgrading, i don't remember if they are available at this point but superconductors give 400xp and cost 840 from lenoras garage. if you can't buy them maybe crankshafts? you know to use 36x sturdy bone, vibrant ooze, or barbed tail to get the multiplier to 3x first right?

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Jamers:

Is this hallway worth farming, or am I better off just waiting to get to Gran Pulse to farm gil?

If you really want to farm extra gil, this area is the best you're going to see until Chocobo digging or Mission 24 farming in chapter 11. Depending on how quickly you're able to finish the battles (and which battles you're farming), it's roughly equivalent to Mission 7 farming in chapter 11, giving you somewhere around 100k-200k gil/hour. To put that in perspective, Chocobo digging and mission 24 can get you nearly 500k gil/hour, Summon/'toise farming can get you ~900k gil/hour, straight 'toise farming gets you 1.2-1.5 million gil/hour, and Sacrifice farming can exceed 1.8 million gil/hour.

That said, I don't think it's worth farming yet. Just the drops you get and the treasures you pick up are sufficient to let you do a decent amount of upgrading. You should be able to max out a couple of Black Belts, a Power Wristband and a Magician's Mark and get a decent number of levels on an inexpensive weapon like Blazefire Saber. If you really want to push for more raw power at this stage, sell off most of your excess weapons along with the Royal Armlet you can find in this chapter and the Entite Ring you'll get for beating the chapter 9 boss. That should give you plenty of gil to play with until chapter 11. Yes, you'll need to repurchase the weapons at some point if you want Treasure Hunter, but it's still cheaper in terms of time spent to recoup the "wasted" gil through late game gil farming than it is to spend time farming in chapter 9.

Also, what's the best "mechanical" (?) upgrade material to invest in at this point? Turbojet? In other words, which materials should I be spending my gil on to upgrade efficiently?

Thanks for any info here!

The best mechanical component at this point is Crankshaft.

[Jamers]

Originally posted by tiornys:

Originally posted by Jamers:

Is this hallway worth farming, or am I better off just waiting to get to Gran Pulse to farm gil?

If you really want to farm extra gil, this area is the best you're going to see until Chocobo digging or Mission 24 farming in chapter 11. Depending on how quickly you're able to finish the battles (and which battles you're farming), it's roughly equivalent to Mission 7 farming in chapter 11, giving you somewhere around 100k-200k gil/hour. To put that in perspective, Chocobo digging and mission 24 can get you nearly 500k gil/hour, Summon/'toise farming can get you ~900k gil/hour, straight 'toise farming gets you 1.2-1.5 million gil/hour, and Sacrifice farming can exceed 1.8 million gil/hour.

That said, I don't think it's worth farming yet. Just the drops you get and the treasures you pick up are sufficient to let you do a decent amount of upgrading. You should be able to max out a couple of Black Belts, a Power Wristband and a Magician's Mark and get a decent number of levels on an inexpensive weapon like Blazefire Saber. If you really want to push for more raw power at this stage, sell off most of your excess weapons along with the Royal Armlet you can find in this chapter and the Entite Ring you'll get for beating the chapter 9 boss. That should give you plenty of gil to play with until chapter 11. Yes, you'll need to repurchase the weapons at some point if you want Treasure Hunter, but it's still cheaper in terms of time spent to recoup the "wasted" gil through late game gil farming than it is to spend time farming in chapter 9.

Also, what's the best "mechanical" (?) upgrade material to invest in at this point? Turbojet? In other words, which materials should I be spending my gil on to upgrade efficiently?

Thanks for any info here!

The best mechanical component at this point is Crankshaft.

Hey, thanks so much for the info! I haven't spent a single component upgrading a single thing yet, so yes, I probably do have enough laying around to upgrade a few things. I've had a couple Black Belts since early game -- are they really good enough to upgrade? Mitigating physical damage does seem pretty great.

Also, I'm at a point where I can already buy the second tier of +STR and +MAG accessories (Brawler's Wristband (?) and Shaman's Mark), and have done so. Should I just upgrade those instead of their weaker counterparts, or is there some transformation down the road that makes the weaker versions a better investment?

I have a hangup about wasting the boni in the upgrade process, which is why this is such a silly system to me and why I haven't spent any materials yet. I guess it's safe to just blow through everything I have so far once I choose my final weapons, eh?

Speaking of which, since you seem very familiar with the game, which weapons would you recommend sticking with for each character?

I went with the Axis Blade on my first playthrough, but am leaning toward Lionheart this time around. Otherwise, will def want Vanille's Belladonna Wand for debuffs / Death later on, and I'm assuming Hawkeye for Hope due to its magic stat. Thoughts, and recommendations for other characters?

Thanks again, guys!

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Jamers:

Hey, thanks so much for the info! I haven't spent a single component upgrading a single thing yet, so yes, I probably do have enough laying around to upgrade a few things. I've had a couple Black Belts since early game -- are they really good enough to upgrade? Mitigating physical damage does seem pretty great.

A maxed Black Belt gives 20% physical damage reduction, which is basically identical to increasing your HP by 25% against physical attacks. The great thing about the Black Belt upgrade is that it's pretty cheap (it only takes 4,380 XP to max) and stays relevant throughout the entire game, unlike +HP bangles which diminish in value as your HP total grows.

Also, I'm at a point where I can already buy the second tier of +STR and +MAG accessories (Brawler's Wristband (?) and Shaman's Mark), and have done so. Should I just upgrade those instead of their weaker counterparts, or is there some transformation down the road that makes the weaker versions a better investment?

The stronger ones are definitely better to have upgraded, but it's a lot cheaper to max the weaker ones, so really it depends on how much you want to spend. Power Wristband costs 4,720 XP to max, whereas Brawler's Wristband costs 29,480 XP to max. It's arguably better to invest in a couple of weapons before investing in the Brawler's Wristband and Shaman's Mark; you can get more bang for you buck if you pick the right weapons, although the accessories have the advantage of being transferable.

I have a hangup about wasting the boni in the upgrade process, which is why this is such a silly system to me and why I haven't spent any materials yet. I guess it's safe to just blow through everything I have so far once I choose my final weapons, eh?

Speaking of which, since you seem very familiar with the game, which weapons would you recommend sticking with for each character?

I went with the Axis Blade on my first playthrough, but am leaning toward Lionheart this time around. Otherwise, will def want Vanille's Belladonna Wand for debuffs / Death later on, and I'm assuming Hawkeye for Hope due to its magic stat. Thoughts, and recommendations for other characters?

Thanks again, guys!

Well, if you're planning to do Treasure Hunter, then any upgrading you do on a tier 1 weapon is useful in the long run since you need to get all of them to tier 2 eventually. That's why I don't mind doing partial upgrades on cheaper weapons early on. I don't consider any investments under 20,000 XP or so to be all that significant, really.

These are the weapons that I consider best to upgrade for each character:

Lightning: Edged Carbine and Gladius
Sazh: Rigels or Antares Deluxes
Hope: Hawkeye
Snow: Feymark and Power Circle
Vanille: Belladonna Wand
Fang: Taming Pole

Extended thoughts about weapons here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/292120/discussions/0/620700961073640948/#c616198623979196068

Various good upgrading info here: http://etrosgate.com/xiii/inventory/upgrading

[talgaby]

While it is very inferior to later farms tiornys mentioned, as someone who did all of the "currently-best" farms, I have to add that chapter 9 farming to the point where you can max out your current equipment can make life in chapter 10 significantly easier if you decide to take all fights. I have to add though that I did it because I had enough time (was in windowed mode, the fights were in almost autopilot, so just watched series/streams in the meantime), and because I was setting up a set of saves to share with the public, where I wanted to make life as easy as possible to anyone by having parties with enough unused CP/gil to max them out if they want to.

[Bloodhawk]

I wouldn't waste your time. There is very little reason to spend much gil until at least chapter 12. It's not until that late in the game that you start getting weapons worth upgrading. There's better ways to get gil then, too.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Bloodhawk:

...chapter 12. It's not until that late in the game that you start getting weapons worth upgrading.

Uh, what? Most weapons worth upgrading are acquired well before chapter 12. In fact, most of the weapons that you pick up in chapter 12 (Lionheart, Rebel Heart, Otshirvani, Punisher, Antares Deluxes, and Mistilteinn) are crap or at best niche. Antares Deluxes are actually good, but that's because of their ability, not the extra stats from upgrading (which are crap).