Dark Aeons seem to be a wall

[Unseen]

I managed to beat FF10 pretty easy on PS2, but this version... Well I didn't get all the destruction spheres the first time, so I decided to go back at the last dungeon to get them like I did on PS2, and ran into a dark aeon. Needless to say owned...

Seems kinda hard to complete the game without aenima and the sisters. So, am I pretty much done should I restart the whole game over again or is there any kind of way I can beat these guys?

[Hinnyuu]

What do you mean by "complete the game"? The final boss is very easy, you don't need Anima or the Magus Sisters to do it, not even close.

The Dark Aeons are meant to be extra challenges outside of the regular game. Most will require you to have incredibly high stats, often at the 255 maximum or thereabouts. The way you get that is via the Monster Arena, where you can repeatedly fight challenging superbosses (though not as challenging as the Dark Aeons) in order to earn stat spheres.

If you want to tackle the Dark Aeons, start by completing the Monster Arena first. That means capturing 10 of every fiend in every zone in the game, and then repeatedly fighting the extra bosses you unlock in the Arena. At the same time, try and unlock as many Celestial Weapons as you can. It sounds intimidating, but it doesn't actually take THAT long to max stats after you've captured all the fiends. Several stats (like Luck, Magic, or Agility) you don't need to completely max out in the first place.

If you're not interested in the extra superboss content, then don't worry too much about the Dark Aeons. You can easily beat the regular story without ever touching them.

[Unseen]

Originally posted by ;1744479063995355660:

What do you mean by "complete the game"? The final boss is very easy, you don't need Anima or the Magus Sisters to do it, not even close.

The Dark Aeons are meant to be extra challenges outside of the regular game. Most will require you to have incredibly high stats, often at the 255 maximum or thereabouts. The way you get that is via the Monster Arena, where you can repeatedly fight challenging superbosses (though not as challenging as the Dark Aeons) in order to earn stat spheres.

If you want to tackle the Dark Aeons, start by completing the Monster Arena first. That means capturing 10 of every fiend in every zone in the game, and then repeatedly fighting the extra bosses you unlock in the Arena. At the same time, try and unlock as many Celestial Weapons as you can. It sounds intimidating, but it doesn't actually take THAT long to max stats after you've captured all the fiends. Several stats (like Luck, Magic, or Agility) you don't need to completely max out in the first place.

If you're not interested in the extra superboss content, then don't worry too much about the Dark Aeons. You can easily beat the regular story without ever touching them.

But in order to unlock one celestial weapon I read I have to defeat that one summoner ladies summons, all 8, which means sisters and aenima right, but I can't get that weapon without aenima and sisters.

And I know the last bosses aren't impossible or anything, but I love having the optimal stuff for the end game. I like the addition of the dark aeons tho.
But basically if I got all the destruction spheres during the playthrough and didn't have to go back to the temples I could theoretically get aenima and sisters without fighting the aeons right?

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

But in order to unlock one celestial weapon I read I have to defeat that one summoner ladies summons, all 8, which means sisters and aenima right, but I can't get that weapon without aenima and sisters.

That's just that one weapon, though. Unlock the others, then do that one once you can.

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

But basically if I got all the destruction spheres during the playthrough and didn't have to go back to the temples I could theoretically get aenima and sisters without fighting the aeons right?

The only two temples that are blocked by Dark Aeons later on are Besaid and Macalania. All the others you can just go back and finish if you didn't do it the first time around.

[Unseen]

Well I just looked up a missable item walkthrough and it seems nothing good is really missable, just useless junk like tidus starting weapom.
So I suppose I'll just try and struggle through the dark aeons. I have seen aenima before so its ok i guess. I kinda was looking more forward to the sisters as I find them to be way more entertaining than aenima. But I can wait and try and figure out this system.

To be honest I'm not in a huge hurry to win the game yet I ove the battle system and wanna fully powerup as much as I can, any tips you could give me to be the most effective party would be helpful..

Of course, there is one thing I doubt I'll ever get, tidus best weapon. This catcher chocobo minigame imo seems utterly impossible, due to how annoying it is (not even a restart, if you lose watch the chocbo flail about till it loses). Really one of the worst minigames I've ever seen in FF, guess I'll just get aurons weapon.
Thanks for the advice by the way.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

any tips you could give me to be the most effective party would be helpful..

Characters are largely identical at endgame, since everything is calculated purely based on stats and they can all have the same ones and learn all abilities.

The only differences are in their overdrives, and in their celestial weapons - but neither of those is SUPER relevant.

Theoretically the best party is probably Tidus, Wakka, Rikku, but the difference is very small. Rikku might be the most relevant, as her overdrive can save you a ton of time buffing. Wakka is the next-best, since his Attack Reels overdrive is the highest single-move damage output which can be very useful (but is by no means required); Tidus is third because of his Blitz Ace overdrive, which is only slightly less damage than Attack Reels.

Auron is also very useful because his celestial weapon has First Strike, meaning that as long as he is in the party he will always have the first turn, no matter what (even on an ambush). While this isn't all that relevant against superbosses, it can be very useful during leveling in Omega/Sin. Additonally, his weapon gets stronger the lower HP he has - again this is not really relevant with max stats, but can be abused during leveling to make him do ridiculously more damage than everyone else (by keeping him at 1 HP).

As for the celestial weapons, they vary greatly in how easy or hard they are to get.

EASY: Auron (basically free), Rikku (easy minigame)
MODERATE: Yuna (need all aeons), Wakka (takes some time)
HARD: Tidus (frustrating), Kimahri (super frustrating)
GO AWAY: Lulu (god-tier frustrating, long, and boring)

Note that the celestial weapons are special in that they ignore enemy defense when attacking. No other weapon can do this, no matter what. So even if you build a custom weapon with the same stats, it will be significantly worse than a celestial weapon because its damage will be reduced by enemy defense.

If the minigames are too frustrating for you (and the top 3 definitely are, a lot) you can use an editing tool to just skip them. Beauty of PC gaming.

As for armor, I don't know how much help you're looking for. There's basically two sets:

Set 1 (for superbosses and Dark Aeons)
Auto-Haste, Auto-Phoenix, Auto-Protect, Stoneproof

Set 2 (for Penance, the final superboss)
Auto-Haste, Auto-Protect, Auto-Potion, Defense +20%

Don't waste your time on Break HP Limit, you don't need it at all.

General hints:

- use Cheer! At five stacks (maximum for all buffs) it gives +5 Strength and reduces incoming physical damage by 5/15
- you can use Rikku's overdrive mix Ultra NulAll to get x5 stacks of every buff instantly
- use Provoke on Marlboro/Great Marlboro to prevent it from ever using Bad Breath
- focus on the Monster Arena first, and get the CWs on the way

[Unseen]

Thanks for the very descriptive advice, I'll go over it all but one you majorly helped me out with was cheer, I had no idea it staked like that I thought it was just a one time buff.

Also with the HP Break, because I was just about to do that but as you say its a waste so I'll focus on the abilities you said are best, and yea I'm terrible at blitzball so i don't know if I'll be getting wakkas either.

I guess the celestial weapons are just hard to get lol... Besides good old auron or rikku.

[Eredar]

Every dark Aeon can be farmed with Yojinbo and 1-1.5 mil gil.
Yojinbo actually has a hidden favor stat that increases with its use and the gil you spend on him. if he likes you (nowhere to be seen but just spend something around 1-2mil gil on him) he will have a high chance to insta kill the dark aeons for 1-1.5 mil gil.
Now just keep in mind, they can drop very good weapon and armor. But as the CW are better, no weapon they drop is worth. And there are only a few Armorskills that are worth.

And saying the hp break is not nessecary is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. For the game endboss yes, for the endcontent of the game you need the hp break.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by paul.weinmann:

for the endcontent of the game you need the hp break.

No you don't. No fight in the game requires BHPL, period. And farming BHPL materials and the extra HP spheres takes a very, very long time - time you never get back by saving it on actual fighting. BHPL is inefficient and a waste of your time to get.

[Unseen]

The yojimbo strategy might be nice tho, just grind about 2 or 3 mil gil.
My biggest issue so far with ten is these crazy hard minigames and celestial weapons. it almost feels impossible to do some of these. Given tidus horrible bird dodging to wakkas horrible blitzball games... To dodging lightning... Its all a bit much and I've mastered many FF's from the golden chcobo in 7 to the ionheart in 8 as well as optional bosses, and some of this stuff in 10 just seems crazy difficult to me.

I think maybe I can get auron, rikku and khimari's celestials but as for everyone else, doubtful, yuna's maybe cause its just beat other aoens but even that one looks time consuming.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

I think maybe I can get auron, rikku and khimari's celestials

Imo Kimahri's is the second most difficult in the game, after Lulu's. Butterflies will drive you INSANE. But as always, ymmv.

Honestly Tidus isn't as bad as people make it out to be. You just have to accept the fact that some configurations are unwinnable, and focus on winning the ones where you can snag most of the starting balloons. After that it's just a bit of practice.

Auron and Rikku are the easiest by a mile for sure. Wakka is also easy, it just takes a lot of time.

[Unseen]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

I think maybe I can get auron, rikku and khimari's celestials

Imo Kimahri's is the second most difficult in the game, after Lulu's. Butterflies will drive you INSANE. But as always, ymmv.

Honestly Tidus isn't as bad as people make it out to be. You just have to accept the fact that some configurations are unwinnable, and focus on winning the ones where you can snag most of the starting balloons. After that it's just a bit of practice.

Auron and Rikku are the easiest by a mile for sure. Wakka is also easy, it just takes a lot of time.

So far I'm terrible at blitzball, but it does get easier right I mean you can't suck forever eventually you lvl up enough to handle the matches right? (please say yes).

On a side note I actually unlocked Tidus weapon on playstation long ago, but I had to use the dpad, which was better on PS2 than these PC controllers, logitech dpads are absolutely awful I want to find a decent dpad on PC for fighting games and other stuff but currently don't have a good dpad and keyboard didn't work well for the baloon catching game either.

For some reason analog is terrible for that minigame.

And yea HP tends to be kinda useless in most FF's if you focus on magic defense/defense. But it sure looks nice having 99999 HP. I'd rather have damage break, and since the celestials are mind numbing I'll probably just use darkmatters.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

So far I'm terrible at blitzball, but it does get easier right I mean you can't suck forever eventually you lvl up enough to handle the matches right? (please say yes).

BB is all about having the right team. If you get strong players, you are basically unbeatable right from the start (assuming you wait with BB until you can get all those players, which takes until the airship; but Wakka's weapon isn't available earlier anyway). The most important player is Brother - his insane swimming speed means you can "fish" the enemy team into a pack and have them all follow him without ever catching up. Once you got the entire team on the opposite side of the field, simply pass to a forward and shoot for the goal without any defenders. It's trivial to win 30 matches that way. It doesn't work against the Guado, but they have terrible stats on their players so it doesn't matter.

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

I'd rather have damage break, and since the celestials are mind numbing I'll probably just use darkmatters.

Be aware that customized weapons will never be as good as celestial weapons. CWs have a hidden property that allows them to attack any enemy as though that enemy had Defense=0. No other weapon can copy that property, and as a result customized weapons with Break Damage Limit deal SUBSTANTIALLY less damage than CWs. You won't get 99,999 hits with a custom weapon against superbosses; expect 50-60% less damage or more (depending on enemy).

[Mikasa Ackerman]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Originally posted by FinalFantasyLore:

I think maybe I can get auron, rikku and khimari's celestials

Imo Kimahri's is the second most difficult in the game, after Lulu's. Butterflies will drive you INSANE. But as always, ymmv.

Honestly Tidus isn't as bad as people make it out to be. You just have to accept the fact that some configurations are unwinnable, and focus on winning the ones where you can snag most of the starting balloons. After that it's just a bit of practice.

Auron and Rikku are the easiest by a mile for sure. Wakka is also easy, it just takes a lot of time.

my strat for tidus is to just put the controller down unless i get one of the two patterns where the ballons are in front of me ( one has all at the start in front , one has 1 ballon in front of the trainer and the rest in front of me , helps putting her behind me at the start already ) then i avoid all birds , even if that means missing a balloon or two
i am always in the 0- 8 seconds range with this , then its just a matter of getting lucky with some balloons and birds near the end