Post Zanarkand, how to level best ?

[CrimsonKing]

So i beat Yunalesca and currently im catching some monsters.
Im using the adv grid and i messed up pretty badly. Basicly, for the entire game, my plan has always been to cast Haste (from Tidus or Kima) on Wakka, because Wakke has been carriying the entire run so far (he outdamages everyone greatly, including Auron).

Rikku has Ful Life, Regen, Curaga...

Anyways, im looking for a lot of XP so bring my party back on track.
I have the double AP weapon for Tidus.

So far, the best source for XP i found is the Tonberry, which gives me 9500 (or double that for Tidus) for a single kill.

Is there a more "efficient" way to level at this point ?

[Chakes]

The most common way to grind AP in FFX is the so called "Don Tonberry Trick"

For this, you'll need the following:

- all monsters from Lost Fayth Cavern captured at least once

- the ability "Overdive -> AP" on your weapon(s)

- a formation of three charakters you want to grind AP for, including one charakter with a lot of monster kills total (usually Tidus, for you maybe Wakka)

- optional: double/triple AP/overdrive on your weapon(s)

So here's what you do:

You equip your formation with the weapons mentioned above. Then you set the overdrive mode of your "revivers" to comrade and the mode of your "attacker" to stoic. You start a fight against Don Tonberry at the monster farm in Calm Lands. Then the charakter of your whole party who has slain the most monsters total, usually Tidus, for you it might be Wakka, will attack Don Tonberry, and only that charakter will attack him.

Don Tonberry will counter with an attack that will deal 40.000 - 99.000 damage to your attacker, effectively killing him. Your whole party now gets a great amount of overdrive filled, although because of your "overdrive -> AP" abilities on your weapons you will get AP like crazy instead.

Revive your attacker, rinse and repeat until Don Tonberry stepped up close and attacks with his knife and doesn't counter anymore. You can now Flee the fight and gain all the AP.

Good Luck!

[Hinnyuu]

While the above is certainly the best way to get AP, it does require a lot of stuff. Since you'll be using that for super endgame leveling, it's better not to waste materials making bad AP conversion weapons - save them for triple AP ones, which you can very easily farm once you get your Monster Arena underway.

Until then, focus first on acquiring the Celestial Weapons for everyone, and on catching 10 of every fiend in every area. One of these areas is Omega Ruins, which can be found via the airship - the area is full of high AP enemies, though they're also no joke to beat. Since you need to capture 10 of everyone there anyway, you might as well do that and collect on the AP in the process. Having Auron's Celestial Weapon helps avoid ambushes by Great Marlboros (remember to use Provoke on them so they don't use Bad Breath).

Other than that, you will also collect some AP finishing off all the other areas. If you're planning to do superbosses in any way, this is something you need to do anyway.

Once you've captured your heart out and have Celestial Weapons on a few people, kill Juggernaut in the Arena repeatedly to get +4 Strength spheres. Once your attack is at a point where you can reliably hit for 99,999 you can fight One Eye in the Arena (eye species creation) - it dies in 1-2 hits and drops weapons with Triple AP traits. Not only do these sell for exorbitant amounts of gil, but you can keep the ones with 2 empty slots and use them to make your AP conversion weapons by putting Double Overdrive (or Triple, if you have the mats) and Overdrive->AP on them. Then proceed as outlined above with Don Tonberry. Trust me, having Triple AP instead of Double AP makes a hell of a difference, and as I said, you need to do the whole capturing etc. anyway.

[Alt Q Q]

Mount Gagazet is a pretty easy level spot for AP worth, most enemies still have weaknesses that you can abuse to shorten the battle time, plus the free steal kill against machinas.

To start stat boosting, you need a overdriver->AP weapon first.

For overdrive->AP weapon mentioned by chakes, you can get the poor man's version if you have access to One eye. I don't recall the exact health it have now but 2x99,999 will kill it, so if you can burst that amount, farm One Eye for the overdrive-AP weapon for your characters first.

The most efficient way will still be the don tonberry trick, so make sure you consciousely get one character to get most of the last hit kills. They will be the fodder for the tonberry trick, with a few runs, your stats should be boosted pretty quickly.

For stat boosting, i recommend focus on the fodder character's agility to land more hits on tonberry, to get more karma attack returns. The other character's role is to phoenix the fodder character or def, auto-phoenix for their armor mean you won't need to do it manually.

Alternative you can use a tonberry for a similar effect but a tonberry's karma attack is 10x weaker though so you are progressing at a much slower pace.

Ultimately, it all goes back to the monster arena, so you might as well start capturing some monsters and pile up some free APs first.

[Kitsunerune]

A note for the Omega ruins, and calm lands to a lesser extent, make sure someone with Flee has a first strike weapon. Until you get the Don Tonberry trick going the Omega Ruins are your best bet for AP farming. The Great Malboro will destroy you though as it always ambushes and uses Bad Breath. First strike lets you get ahead of it and evac.

For the Don Tonberry trick a few things I found.
1. Lulu is best, her base hp is lowest. So erase her learned hp nodes and try to keep her low through the game.
2. Give Lulu a first strike weapon and spam accept at the monster arena after catching a Dingo in Besaid. She will cast Fire on it and will slowly kill it and stack her kill count.
3. Roughly 1000 kills and she will cap everyone's AP in one attack from Don Tonberry, assuming you use at least a double and triple for overdrive and AP.
4. Auto-phoenix on the allies armor and Auto-haste on Lulu's gives chance for the others to swap out letting you level the whole team in one fight.
5. Ultima Buster can drop PERFECT training weapons (1 slot free, triple AP, triple Overdrive, Overdrive -> AP) but he can be a PAIN to kill early on but aeons can work wonders on him.

[CrimsonKing]

Yeah, i wont bother with the Don Tonberry trick. Its dumb and i consider it kind of cheating or at least abuse.
For now, im just hitting arena cactuars for 10 to 20k xp (overkill + double ap).

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by Kitsunerune:

The Great Malboro will destroy you though as it always ambushes and uses Bad Breath. First strike lets you get ahead of it and evac.

Use Provoke on Great Marlboro and it will never use Bad Breath. It'll still ambush you, of course, so First Strike is great - it comes on Auron's Celestial Weapon by default, which is arguably the easiest CW to get, too. But you don't need to flee.