optimizing sphere grid....

[RPG Gamer Man]

So i am trying to get it good for alot of my characters. I want to know where to farm the ones specifically for the stats on the sphere grid. I already have alot of magic defense ones..i think from one eye in the monster arena. What are the other monsters that drop them in the monster arena or around the world?

Also, i know about the clear sphere...you need to get like 5 of every monster in the world...minus the bosses in the monster arena..right?

Also, since im having trouble with killing yojimbo 5 times, i am going to think i will have trouble with penance...best i can do is kill yojimbo 3 times in a row...

[Hinnyuu]

To unlock the Clear Sphere you need 5 of all monsters that can be captured - so no bosses, no arena monsters, etc.

The +4 stat spheres all drop in the Monster Arena, usually from species creations:

Accuracy - Hornet (Bees)
Agility - Fenrir (Wolves)
Defense - Tanket (Helms)
Evasion - Pteryx (Birds)
Magic - Jumbo Flan (Flans)
Magic Defense - One Eye (Floating Eyes)
Strength - Juggernaut (Horned Beasts)

HP - Ironclad (Iron Giants)
MP - Vidatu (Devils)

Luck is a little special in that both the +4 stat sphere AND the activation sphere drop from special creation bosses (Earth Eater and Greater Sphere).

How to optimize the grid depends on what you mean by "optimize". You don't need all stats at 255 to beat all the superbosses. You also don't need more than 9,999 HP/more than 999 MP.

Some stats are fairly straightforward to just max at 255: Strength, Defense, Magic Defense.

Agility effectively maxes out at 170. Assuming you're always starting with Auron and his CW (and there is no reason not to), Agility beyond 170 will do nothing whatsoever.

Accuracy/Evasion/Luck all synergize with each other, so how much of those you need usually boils down to how much Luck you are willing to farm. Since Luck is very time-intensive to farm, you might not want to go for 255 there. A good compromise is 114 Luck, which will allow you to always hit Dark Yojimbo and Penance. You won't always hit Dark Mindy (hardest enemy in the game to hit) but you can kill her using overdrives since those always hit. If you get 114 Luck you won't need any extra Accuracy. If you want to dodge every dodgable attack, you need a total combined 290 Evasion + Luck, so with 114 Luck you'd need 176 Evasion.

Magic isn't needed at all for postgame content.

Since the grid's layout is irrelevant, you can just put your spheres wherever you like. You have more than enough space to get all the stats you need, and you can't delete skills - so there's no way to screw anything up.

You need about 63-ish spheres with +4 to get a stat to 255, given that characters have some base stats (+- a few extra depending on character). You can also use existing spheres with less than +4 if you want to save on Clear Spheres/+4 Spheres, there's plenty of space to get everything you need.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Thank you for the help. Will start fine tuning my sphere grids.

[Casurin]

Some small extra-infos:

1 - power/mana/.. spheres can best be farmed in the monster-arena once you are decently strong: Kottos
He drops 40 items when overkilled - use one of the conversion-abilities to get the spheres you need.
This only becomes relevant if you got some weapons to gain AP faster as up to that point you normally get more spheres than you need.


2 - do NOT clear the board randomly when farming those spheres.
Just fill out the empty spots first, think about clearing the +1/2/3 only after you have filled most of them, otherwise you might have a stat really tank and the special-monsters become insanely hard.

3 - do the dark aeons after you have mostly maxed out the stats. While they can drop some great equipment at the point you can beat them you can also easily make that armor.