endgame content without AP trick

[CrimsonKing]

So assuming i dont want to use to the overdrive AP grind tricks, how would i progress to the endgame ?
Im currently "farming" Omega ruins and two of my guys are stuck at 9999 damage. I have a single double AP weapon (Ascaron) and only Aurons celestial geared. I have most area and original creations unlocked.

Im thinking i should do the species unlocks and then in some way to try to get more double AP weapons. Is that right ?

[JackSamEss]

There are probably plenty of different ways on how to tackle going about gearing up for the endgame content but I think you have the right idea on completing the monster arena unlocks.

One of the unlock rewards should be some dark matter, and if you bothered to get Attack Reels for Wakka I say make him a good break damage limit weapon; his celestial weapon is probably the hardest to get as far as time is concerned so it might end up being his final weapon anyway.

Pump Wakka's strength and utilizing Attack Reels, Entrust, Banishing Blade or the appropriate break, Triple Overdive and the appropriate mode, you should be able to take out most if not all the species unlocks and some of the area unlocks.

AP comes pretty naturally once you start farming stat spheres, and if you get AP too fast you just end up having to farm spheres to activate nodes on the grid.

[Hinnyuu]

NOTE: Celestial Weapons have a hidden ability that makes them ignore the enemy Defense stat when attacking. No weapon you make yourself, even with identical (visible) modifiers, will be as good for attacking as a Celestial Weapon - especially against the hard bosses, which have huge stats.

Getting as many Celestial Weapons as you can should definitely be a priority during postgame. Some are easy to get, some take more work.

Auron and Rikku are very simple to unlock. There's no real skill-testing minigames, as you get Auron's automatically for capturing enough monsters and Rikku's with a minigame you can do while capturing monsters (which you need to do anyway).

Yuna isn't hard either provided you've gotten the secret loot from temples during your story play (you can go back to get the loot you missed, but Besaid and Macalania are blocked by superbosses you need to defeat before you can enter).

Tidus isn't hard to get per se, but requires the dreaded Chocobo Race which many people find highly irritating.

Wakka is primarily about patience - a good Blitzball team can basically never lose, so all you need to do is slog through those ~30 games.

Kimahri requires you to do the Butterfly Chase in Macalania, which depending on your personal skill can be fairly straightforward or a never-ending exercise in frustration. Luckily Kimahri is the second-worst character in the game so many people just skip him.

Lulu's weapon is definitely the most difficult to get, as Lightning Dodging is one of the worst minigames ever made for any game ever. Much like Kimahri, though, Lulu is the worst character at endgame and so you can just skip her if you don't feel like sitting there for 2 hours only to miss on your 195th dodge.

Your next priority is capturing 10 of every fiend for the Arena. You'll earn AP along the way there, so that's something, but it'll take a while. Some enemies are quite rare (Tonberry in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth comes to mind) but the Arena is going to be the main source of your endgame grind so you need to do it eventually. Capturing 5 of every fiend from every area unlocks x99 Dark Matter as a reward, so you might want to do that before you start fighting in the Arena to not waste incidental Dark Matters you win there.

As for AP, if you don't want to use the Don Tonberry trick then just keep grinding away in Omega. It's the best place for AP, and will earn you good money to boot (Rikku's Celestial Weapon has the Gilionnaire ability which will double money from fights if she is on the field when the fight ends, meaning 50,000 gil per Mimic killed). Of course it'll take more time to grind out those AP, but it's totally doable.

Spheres you can get in large amounts by using distill abilities on Fafnir in the Arena - he drops 20 items (40 on overkill) which will all be converted into the respective spheres if you distill, providing a quick and easy source of large amounts of spheres as you max out all your stats.

My personal postgame plan looks something like this:

• (buy capture weapons on first visit to Calm Lands and capture everything in Calm Lands/Cavern of the Stolen Fayth/Mount Gagazet/Inside Sin when you're there for the story anyway)
  
• Finish the story up to the last save point
  
• Acquire the Celestial Mirror
  
• Unlock Auron's Celestial Weapon (combined total of 10 area and/or species creations in the Arena)
  
• Unlock Rikku's Celestial Weapon (Cactuar Hunt minigame in Bikanel)
  
• Clear Omega Ruins, capturing 10 of everything and defeating Omega (may be hard for beginners right away, you can leave Omega for later if you like)
  
• Capture 10 of everything in all other areas
  
• Unlock Yuna's, Wakka's, Tidus' Celestial Weapons
  
• Tell Lulu and Kimahri it's been a pleasure, but you'll never be using them again for anything, ever
  
• Make first set of endgame armor (Auto-Haste/Auto-Phoenix/Auto-Protect/Stoneproof)
  
• Fiend Arena grind: Juggernaut -> Tanket -> One Eye -> Hornet -> Fenrir -> Pteryx -> Earth Eater/Greater Sphere
  
• Defeat all Arena Creations
  
• Defeat all Dark Aeons
  
• Make second set of endgame armor (Auto-Haste/Auto-Protect/Auto-Potion/Defense +20%)
  
• Defeat Penance

[JackSamEss]

Everything you said Hinnyuu is pretty much a perfect by-the-book guide on what should be done, you really know your stuff. Forging your own path is part of the fun too.

[CrimsonKing]

Tidus weapon is blocked by dark behemoth...

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by CrimsonKingXXX:

Tidus weapon is blocked by dark behemoth...

Yes, if you don't pick up the item the first time you are there, Dark Bahamut will indeed block you off.

[CrimsonKing]

Coming back to this.
I know have Auron, Kims and RIkku weapons. I have captured every fiend 10 times, missing 3 tonberries and 4 don tonberries. Killed Omega Weapon with bribe for 80 pendulums.
My guys have 9999 HP and i have damage limit break on Auron and Kim, though only my Auron does 12k ish per Hit to most Omega ruins bosses while Kim is more of a support guy, so the break damage limt from his weapon isnt helping.
I tried taking on single Arena creations, but they are still far out of my league.

Whats my priority here, crafting 1 or 2 armours, leveling even more ? Or bribing some guy ?

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by CrimsonKingXXX:

Killed Omega Weapon with bribe for 80 pendulums.

That's Ultima Weapon, not Omega Weapon. You can't bribe Omega Weapon, and it's a significantly more difficult enemy.

Whats my priority here, crafting 1 or 2 armours, leveling even more ? Or bribing some guy ?

I would get started on crafting the endgame armor #1:

Auto-Haste (bribe Machea, Omega Ruins)
Auto-Phoenix (bribe Alcyone, Bikanel)

Get those on empty 4-slot armors for every character you want to use for Arena Creations or Dark Aeons. Those are the most important mods for now. Later you will add:

Auto-Protect (drop from Fafnir, Monster Arena)
Stoneproof (reward for capturing all Djose Highroad)

You can make money for bribing by killing Mimics in Omega Ruins, making sure that Rikku is in the active party when the fight ends. Her ultimate weapon doubles gil rewards, so you'll earn 50,000 gil per Mimic fight.

Fight in Omega for gil and AP (it's the best place for AP without using a trick). Get your Strength up on the characters you want to use, that's your priority. Auron/Tidus/Wakka paths on the Sphere Grid work well for that. Also get the ability Quick Hit (end of Tidus' path).

Don't worry about your HP. You never need more than 9,999 and every character will get that easily.

Once you have people hitting in the 15-20,000 range consistently, you can start farming Juggernaut in the Monster Arena - make sure to cast NullBlaze before it fireballs you, and you'll be fine. Do that until you have 255 Strength on every character you want to use, then you can move on to the rest of the Arena.

[CrimsonKing]

sounds good. I already know about the gil, thats how i got the 2 million for the Pendulums.
Also i made a lot of money from selling random gear drops, most yield 7 to 15k with the rare 25k.

thanks for your advice. On to crafting armour. I already picked up empty 4 slots for most everyone.

Would you advice to craft master thief on a separate armour ?

p.s. i thought the game would be more interesting if the monster groups per reason werent locked, but they could shuffle, i.e. omega ruins instead of fixed x y y group, game spawns a group of 1 vareth ? 1 demonlith ? 1 winged eye.

Do you know a way to achieve that ?

[CrimsonKing]

Alright, i think im getting there. Have everything but Sin fiends at 10 now and managed to kill my first Juggernaut for 2 STR spheres. Wasnt difficult, but i was lacking damage still.

I noticed something weird tho.
My auron when at full HP did 6k damage. When i revivedd him after he died, and he was at half health, he did 15k. When i healed him up, he was at 6k again. I didnt try hitting him with one of my guys to test it further, because he counters.

i dont wear any gear that would cause such an effect...or is mind playing tricks on me ?

[JackSamEss]

His celestial weapon is different from everyone else's. He gains a bonus to damage the lower his health gets.

[Hinnyuu]

Auron's weapon gets stronger the lower his HP. You can go into a random battle and kill him, so he will be at 1 HP the next time you're in battle. Leave him on 1 HP for Juggernaut and he'll do a lot more damage than normal.

Most other characters are at full power when their HP or MP is full (varies with character). Auron is special in that his power increases past your regular STR level, everyone else just goes down as their HP/MP drop.

You can also use Auron's overdrive Banishing Blade to inflict Full Break on Juggernaut (and several other Arena bosses, like e.g. Fafnir). This will increase your damage substantially. Use Entrust on other characters to refill Auron's overdrive gauge before you go into the next fight, and you can always start off with a Banishing Blade.

[CrimsonKing]

wow, i didnt know HP effects damage, one way or the other. Dont think i ever heard that, even back when i played it on PS.

Banishing Blade has an innate Full Break, but unlike stock Full Break it cant be resistated by some bosses ?

EDIT: is this (hp effect) just when using Cel weapons, or even without cel weapons ?

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by CrimsonKingXXX:

wow, i didnt know HP effects damage, one way or the other. Dont think i ever heard that, even back when i played it on PS.

EDIT: is this (hp effect) just when using Cel weapons, or even without cel weapons ?

It's only for Celestial Weapons. HP has no effect when using other weapons. It's not a new concept either, there's been other FF games where a character's HP influences the ultimate weapon's power (e.g. FFVII for Cloud).

Originally posted by CrimsonKingXXX:

Banishing Blade has an innate Full Break, but unlike stock Full Break it cant be resistated by some bosses ?

It's important to distinguish between break resistance, and break immunity. Some of the Arena bosses are resistant to breaks - they are not immune, but the chance to apply them is normally very low. Banishing Blade, however, will always apply breaks with 100% chance, regardless of resistance.

However, many bosses are also IMMUNE to breaks (this includes all Dark Aeons and Penance, for example). They can never be affected by breaks, and Banishing Blade does NOT get around that.

Juggernaut and Fafnir are probably the two bosses where it's most relevant. They're also armored, which Banishing Blade (through Armor Break) removes from them. That is a large part of the damage increase.

Against most other bosses it doesn't matter much. Their defense is either irrelevant at 255 STR, or they're outright immune to breaks.

[CrimsonKing]

Alright, got it.
I tried Armour break a bunch of times vs Jugger, but it was neither showing "immune" nor did i do more damage. So i guess that indicates while he wasnt immune, he was resisting at that time.
thanks.
One last thing, again: Masterthief yay/nay ?

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by CrimsonKingXXX:

One last thing, again: Masterthief yay/nay ?

Useless. Practically nothing at endgame is worth stealing because it's such low amounts. You almost always use Bribe instead.