FFX Leveling Discussion

[Lambs2Lions]

So i remember way back when in the glory days of the PS2, i had all third tier spell such as Firaga by the time i face Evrae and curaga by the calm lands, all my characters reaching the end of their grids.

This time around, i didn't do any farming really, just what i encountered each time in the zone i was in. I just hit calm lands with Fira (2nd tier spells), not even close to Firaga or Curaga.

The interesting thing is that the game still feels too easy. All regular mobs die in a single attack, might not be an overkill but they die regardless.

How far did you guys get before you got Firaga or around 40 STR on auron/wakka?? :)

[Moridin]

I got a -aga spells just before the boss at the top of gagazet.

I find that ffx is a little on the easy side for a FF, mostly due to the excess in information given to players who have a weapon with scan. dose not diminish the story however.

[Mythanotos]

I don't recall, but I felt that my last playthrough, ps4 remastered version,is pretty much getting more difficult without me doing any grinding or leveling and the omega dungeon is killing me. I need to level up. I fired up my old game on the ps2 and my characters just walk through anything like a hot knife through butter. Even huge bosses in the arena. I feel like I have so much grinding left to get close to my mastery from before. Crazy!

[Lambs2Lions]

Originally posted by Myth34:

I don't recall, but I felt that my last playthrough, ps4 remastered version,is pretty much getting more difficult without me doing any grinding or leveling and the omega dungeon is killing me. I need to level up. I fired up my old game on the ps2 and my characters just walk through anything like a hot knife through butter. Even huge bosses in the arena. I feel like I have so much grinding left to get close to my mastery from before. Crazy!

I think when i was a kid, i didn't pick up on the strategies you could use against each boss and i leveled until i was able to brute force them to death LOL.. Because i looked at my old save and i have 160 hours played without even maxing the sphere grid.

[Mythanotos]

Wow, that's crazy, but awesome. I had just over 200 hours, until I returned to the game. I actually play both my different games on both platforms. PS2 and PS4. PS2 is just soooo far advanced. The time to get my PS4 game up to par would be.... 130 more hours at least, lol. Maybe less cuz I know better now how to play, but meh, still a huge investment.

[Lambs2Lions]

Originally posted by Myth34:

Wow, that's crazy, but awesome. I had just over 200 hours, until I returned to the game. I actually play both my different games on both platforms. PS2 and PS4. PS2 is just soooo far advanced. The time to get my PS4 game up to par would be.... 130 more hours at least, lol. Maybe less cuz I know better now how to play, but meh, still a huge investment.

I just hit 30 hours in my recorded play through on PC, got to calm lands.

It's a huge help to be able to increase my speed to 4x and double the encounter rate for monster collection. I don't use any other buffs, just don't want to waste 5 hours collecting 10 of each in a zone when i can do it in 30 minutes with the buffs.

[Lambs2Lions]

On a side note: I just got a No Encounter armor for auron out of Cavern of the Stolen Fayth before i even touched Mt. Gagazet.

I just collected 10 of each in Calm Lands and 10 of each in Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, i found a Peaceful bracer. This is game changing because now you can easily backtrack and get some ultimate/celestial weapons, I'm not sure which monster dropped it because i wasn't paying attention until i ran out of inventory space and realized i had to go to shop to clear out.

I have a 3 hour recording tho so i might watch and update here later on.

[Mythanotos]

Originally posted by G4mBi7:

Originally posted by Myth34:

Wow, that's crazy, but awesome. I had just over 200 hours, until I returned to the game. I actually play both my different games on both platforms. PS2 and PS4. PS2 is just soooo far advanced. The time to get my PS4 game up to par would be.... 130 more hours at least, lol. Maybe less cuz I know better now how to play, but meh, still a huge investment.

I just hit 30 hours in my recorded play through on PC, got to calm lands.

It's a huge help to be able to increase my speed to 4x and double the encounter rate for monster collection. I don't use any other buffs, just don't want to waste 5 hours collecting 10 of each in a zone when i can do it in 30 minutes with the buffs.

I never knew that you could do buffs like that on PC version. Never even tried any PC version. I feel like I'm doing it all wrong!

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by G4mBi7:

I'm not sure which monster dropped it because i wasn't paying attention

Ghosts in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth have a chance to drop No Encounters armor.

Originally posted by G4mBi7:

This is game changing because now you can easily backtrack and get some ultimate/celestial weapons

You cannot get Celestial Weapons before having the Celestial Mirror, which requires the airship. There also isn't really anything worthwhile in earlier areas that you would backtrack for, not to mention that you could easily do that without No Encounters anyway as all the mobs are trivial.

As for out-leveling, it does become a problem once you get a bit of experience and know how to handle the Sphere Grid effectively. Black Magic is certainly one culprit, as -Ra and -Ga spells in particular scale incredibly well at early game and will allow you to easily overkill just about anything.

Another big culprit is Attack Reels. If you get that overdrive at the earliest opportunity (just after Luca), it can easily ruin the game because you can oneshot most story bosses with it, or close to it. It's ridiculously powerful.

I'm also a big fan of Holy. While it's not available early on (needs lvl. 4 Sphere Key), you can get it by Gagazet and it will still have crazy scaling then. It can absolutely obliterate Yunalesca, for example, and it can also make short work of Sin when you fight it, ensuring overkills against its various parts (which drop very nice spheres and can be difficult to overkill if you fight them immediately without leveling first).

It's sort of funny how stupidly powerful black magic is for most of early/mid game, and how UTTERLY useless it becomes past that (to the point of ignoring the MAG stat completely for endgame).

[Mythanotos]

I personally never found magic all that useful (besides healing) until doublecast became available, as well as 1mp cost on weapons. Then spamming anything (Ultima mostly) became more effective or at least par with quick hit attacks. Made my magic users useful again.

[Hinnyuu]

One big reason why spells like Ultima are sort of dead on arrival is that their animation takes FOREVER - basically disqualifying them from any sort of farming/grinding effort, which is a big part of the game at the point you get that spell.

That being said Ultima is not without its uses. Hitting everything with non-elemental damage can be great for capturing in areas like Sin or Omega (though I also like Demi for that a lot).

[Mythanotos]

Doing the money making system by killing Kottos and using the items he drops to customize armor and selling that armor for a great price... I find double casting Ultima with 3 mages kills him easy... as long as you have the damage maxed and uncapped. Also good for leveling if you use your overdrive to AP and AP maximizing armor while fighting. But that's just one technique to get stuff done in game. I'm sure Flare will also get up to 99999 damage as well, but its not there yet. Its animation is much faster than Ultima.

[Lambs2Lions]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Ghosts in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth have a chance to drop No Encounters armor.

Cool, didn't know that :)

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

You cannot get Celestial Weapons before having the Celestial Mirror, which requires the airship.

You get the cloudy mirror from Remien Temple and upgrade in Macalania Woods, doesn't require airship at all. It's a 3-5minute walk from Calm Lands to Macalania Woods to upgrade.

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

As for out-leveling, it does become a problem once you get a bit of experience and know how to handle the Sphere Grid effectively. Black Magic is certainly one culprit, as -Ra and -Ga spells in particular scale incredibly well at early game and will allow you to easily overkill just about anything.

BLM, -ra series was really useful early game, when Tidus, Auron and Wakka couldn't overkill their mobs, lulu was doing just fine. She fell off by calm lands because she didn't get -aga series yet whereas auron was hitting for 4k while lulu was doing 1.9k even thought she was swapped in for exp every time. Now after the cave she got -aga and became useful again. I actually think my Auron was under level'd because he needed 4.5k to overkill mobs but wasn't able to overkill, but still able to one shot the fodder.

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Another big culprit is Attack Reels. If you get that overdrive at the earliest opportunity (just after Luca), it can easily ruin the game because you can oneshot most story bosses with it, or close to it. It's ridiculously powerful.

Every overdrive makes the game too easy, i don't use them at all in boss battles. Just the aeon one after the i get the boss to under 1k because i want the overkill item bonus.

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

I'm also a big fan of Holy. While it's not available early on (needs lvl. 4 Sphere Key), you can get it by Gagazet and it will still have crazy scaling then. It can absolutely obliterate Yunalesca, for example, and it can also make short work of Sin when you fight it, ensuring overkills against its various parts (which drop very nice spheres and can be difficult to overkill if you fight them immediately without leveling first).

That's wrong, holy is blocked by a single level 3 key sphere that you can get in calm lands via one of the chocobo races. My Rikku is a utility character, she was used to get Displey and Regen early, then kept by Holy until Calm Lands, she unlocked it and Yuna got it with the WHM Spehere you get earlier in game. My Yuna is still only Cura, doesn't have Curaga but can cast a 9999 Holy :), she has enough mp to cast it 2 times but doing the Remien Temple Races you can customize a One MP Cost weapon for her so she became my biggest hitter. Rikku became useful as well with copy cat since she does 7k damage copying Holy from Yuna.

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

It's sort of funny how stupidly powerful black magic is for most of early/mid game, and how UTTERLY useless it becomes past that (to the point of ignoring the MAG stat completely for endgame).

Very true, BLM the single reason for all my regular monster overkills pre Evrae. That encounter is where i noticed physical attacks outlevel my magic. But Holy is now top dog, I just need to figure out how to get Lulu Holy as well. I had a friend and teleport sphere but no return speheres and i didn't feel like grinding.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by G4mBi7:

You get the cloudy mirror from Remien Temple and upgrade in Macalania Woods, doesn't require airship at all. It's a 3-5minute walk from Calm Lands to Macalania Woods to upgrade.

I don't really remember, but isn't it impossible to do the quest for the Celestial Mirror before the airship simply because the related NPCs aren't there?

[Lambs2Lions]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Originally posted by G4mBi7:

You get the cloudy mirror from Remien Temple and upgrade in Macalania Woods, doesn't require airship at all. It's a 3-5minute walk from Calm Lands to Macalania Woods to upgrade.

I don't really remember, but isn't it impossible to do the quest for the Celestial Mirror before the airship simply because the related NPCs aren't there?

No, the NPC is generated once you leave the campsite and transition into the Calm Lands. Rememebr there is a wife and child looking for their husband. Once you find the husband, you look for the child and that unlocks the zone, at which point you're able to upgrade the Cloudy Mirror to the Celestial Mirror.

Usually tho you wouldn't be able to do some of the tasks without a No Encounters weapon and backtracking through all those monsters is a pain and a half.

Airship locked in some way are Tidus, Yuna, Lulu, Rikku

Wakka, Kimari and Auron can be done without an airship. Kimiari last piece is on top of Gagazet. Wakka is all in Luca and Auron is backtracking to collect monsters.

In fact you should definately backtrack and get some pieces before beating Yunalesca because of the Dark Aeons blocking your path.

[Mythanotos]

Jeez I wish I knew all this. I would have totally done this for my 2nd play through on the ps4. Grrrr, and I don't want to start over. I just might have to though. ugh.