What level do I need for Cid to play TOWER OF ZOT without problems ?

[Brother MEX]

Currently I am grinding for the rainbow pudding for the rabbit in Agart, and Cid just reached level 35.

As my party was too weak for playing Tower of Zot or to loot Elban Castle, I decided to use black chocobos to explore the word a bit more and accepted the quest from Puddingway. After using Cids abilty to analyse enemies I havnt analysed before, I decided to go to the Antlion Cave for grinding a bit for leveling up my party and MAYBE get the rainbow pudding or goblin summon too ...

[Lezark]

If you already have Treasure Hunter, ok. If not, I recommend trying to drop the Goblin only when you have it. About the level, it is difficult to get a level to pass through Eblan. It is recommended to use Break with Tellah on Eblan's enemies and get the large amount of XP they give. It will help when you go to Tower of Zot. Go on Eblan, kill some monsters with Break. Then go somewhere and sleep. Then come back with full MP to kill more monsters.

[Brother MEX]

As I play the GERMAN version, I dont know BREAK until now ... is this a special ability of Tellah or a magic spell ?

I visited Elban the first time when I explored the world after getting the Enterprise & Cid. As I died too easily in the battles at Elban, I decided to kill the Dark Elf before looting Elban Castle ... but now I have the same problem in the Tower of Zot as I had in Elban.

PS: As my airship is locked to the the Tower of Zot, I cant go to Elban right now as black Cocobos can only land in forests and there isnt any in Elban.

[Lezark]

It is a Tellah spell that serves to turn enemies into stone. It kills the enemy instantly.

[Brother MEX]

I found a spell "Stein" for 20 MP and considered to set it to AUTO instead of "First Aid" but the MP cost is too high ... I will try this black mage spell in Elban later, many thanks for this advise.

PS: Didnt get Treasure Hunt until now. But as I needed to grind the levels of my party, I decided to try it anyway as I had been lucky enough to get CAT CLAWS from a fight in the forest around the Dark Elf cave

[Brother MEX]

Tried Tower of Zot after grinding Cid to level 35 and reached the saving point without any problems
Now all my party members have at least level 40+ and I need to decide if I give any augment to Tellah before he dies.
If I give him the Curse & Tsunami augments before he dies, does he still have these abilities in the next run, or am I wasting a usefull augment ?
Which are the most useless augments ?
Currently I seem to have Auto-Potion, Bardsong, Counter, Curse, Item-Lore & Tsunami in my inventory.

[Lezark]

The augments left by Golbez's elemental demons are important in case you want to reach 99 in all character statuses. As a skill, I was not interested in any. If you augment a character, you don't need to give augment for him again in a new game. The character will remain with it. If you give the 2 augments to Tellah, you will receive the augment that he would naturally drop and 2 more augments. When he plays again, he will already have the 2 augments he learned in the previous game and will leave 3 augments again.

[Lezark]

Thinking only about gameplay, the best augment you have is counter. I suggest equipping in Cecil.

[Brother MEX]

As I asume that Cecil is staying all the time in the party, I wait with equiping any augments to him until I need to do that in the first run ... Because of that habit I seem have to missed the 2 extra augments from Edward and the magic twins ... or do these 3 rejoin the party before the end of the first run in normal mode ?
I intend to do at least a 2nd run in hard mode for the steam archivements, but I asume a 3rd run would be too much effort for me as I have lots of other games to play too

[Lezark]

Playing a third time is for perfectionist players who want to make the most of everything (like me). I can't say who stays, who leaves, who comes back ... It would ruin the experience. Since you only want to play until the second time to get the achievements, don't worry so much about the augments. As the opportunity to get the augments from Palom and Porom has passed, try to give 2 augments for each character. Just to make sure you get the 3 augments.

[Brother MEX]

I think I will try to play the 1st run without using any augments at all.
In the 2nd run I intend to give at least 2 augments to everyone before leaving the party.
Will I miss any steam archievement by doing so ?
Or will I ruin the perfectionist 3rd run by not giving any augments to anyone in the 1st run ?

[Lezark]

You will achieve Steam achievements when playing a second time. But if you are looking to be a perfectionist, you need to start the game again, since you missed the important augments of Palom and Porom.

[Brother MEX]

But I could correct that with a 4th run instead of backtracking to a old saved game in my current run ?

[Lezark]

You can only play 3 times. If you want to play again, you need to start a new save file from the beginning.

[Brother MEX]

I wont start a new save file for maxing out the stats of my party, and I sincerely doubt that I will do more than 2 runs anyway ... maybe I wont even finsih the first one !
All this hassles seem to justify my opinion that FFIII is better than FFIV

[Lezark]

Each Final Fantasy has its own peculiarities. You just need to get used to them. Augments are not mandatory and it is possible to end the game without them. The game will only get more difficult.