Is it true that you don't want to break HP limit?

[Rich Mahogany]

I've seen something to this effect pop up while skimming through various strategy guides and whatnot, that keeping your characters at 9999 is a better idea in most instances. What is the logic/strategy behind this, and in what specific instances do you want to go over 9999HP?

[shinra07]

People say this because Titus' celestial weapon is based on your percentage help, and because auto-potion with x-potion will heal you fully. If you can get up to 99,999 then it's best to have auto-regen, but if you're not going to take the time to farm HP spheres it's best to stick with auto-potion and 9999hp

[Kuro]

I just wonder... how the fug you are suppose to beat dark aeons when they deal 9999 dmg with one hit and without HP Limit Break you are basically will be 1 hit K.O. like it happened to me on my previous playthough... for me HP Limit Break is a must if you want to fight the dark aeons

[Protoman]

This happens because of a few things:
1 - perhaps because of an oversight, items only heal up to 9999 HP, even if you have more than 9999 HP. Yeah, X-Potions, Elixirs and Megaelixirs only go up to 9999.
2 - even at 255 Magic, Curaga doesn't heal even 40,000 HP
3 - the best way to heal in BHPL is wih Regen, but it only becomes reliable once you go past 70,000 HP
4 - you can make even Penance's attacks do below 9,999 if you use Protect and cast Cheer 5 times (the mix Ultra NulAll does this automatically)
5 - farming 300+ HP spheres from Ironclad takes a loooooong time

Shirou, you're supposed to tank the Dark Aeons' overdrives with a summon, or by casting auto-life beforehand.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Z-Gradt:

This happens because of a few things:
1 - perhaps because of an oversight, items only heal up to 9999 HP, even if you have more than 9999 HP. Yeah, X-Potions, Elixirs and Megaelixirs only go up to 9999.
2 - even at 255 Magic, Curaga doesn't heal even 40,000 HP
3 - the best way to heal in BHPL is wih Regen, but it only becomes reliable once you go past 70,000 HP
4 - you can make even Penance's attacks do below 9,999 if you use Protect and cast Cheer 5 times (the mix Ultra NulAll does this automatically)
5 - farming 300+ HP spheres from Ironclad takes a loooooong time

Shirou, you're supposed to tank the Dark Aeons' overdrives with a summon, or by casting auto-life beforehand.

hmm... btw. last time I remember I don't think I ever saw dark aeon overdriver as my battle with them looked like this "Start -> dark aeon has the first round -> instant KO to everyone before I can do anything, or 3 hit KO on each of party member (1 hit = 1 member) I dont remember exactly".

[Protoman]

IIRC, the Dark Aeons' physical attacks don't deal 9,999 damage if you have max defense, Protect and Cheer x5. That's one of the reasons why having 9,999 or 99,999 HP is almost the same. The other reason is that the Dark Aeons have special attacks and overdrives that can kill you even at 99,999, so BHPL isn't going to help you.

A few of those fights indeed benefit from BHPL, but they're so few that getting BHPL for 3 characters isn't worth it. A few examples:
- Dark Bahamut's overdrive does a little over 40,000 HP
- Dark Yojimbo's Wakizashi does 30,000 damage
- Penance's attacks range from 15,000 to 30,000 damage

And even with that, you can mitigate damage from Penance's attacks by having Auto-Protect, Defense+20% and Cheer x5.

[Purplefairy22]

Personally i use a mix Of BHPL and not.

I love wakka and re-jects overdrives. I set their overdrives to comrade or stoic meaning their overdrives fill depending on how much damage a party member or themselves take.

If my HP is 9999 and i'm hit for only 20 000. = Garanteed overdrive.
If my HP was higher i'd need several punches to the face to get the overdrive.

Other party members like Yuna might be a good idea to BHPL.
The only purpose of aeons in the late game is to take abuse anyways. also their overdrives become far less usefull once they do 99999 for a standard hit.

[E|E]

BHPL + Autoregen is the best only if

- you optimize your sphere grid and HP nodes. Which is painstakingly long and mundane.
- For it to be slightly effective, the bare minimum is getting 70k HP which is still not that good
- Getting 80k to max HP will be slightly better than no-BHPL
- It is generally not worth the time and effort to get from no-BHPL to max-BHPL

Basicallly if you dont plan to Max-BHPL , don't do it
Max-BHPL is only slightly better than no-BHPL
Not worth spending the time and effort.

If you really want to do it, make a new save file. When you reach 40k you probably feel like quitting

[cerebus23]

255 luck helps dark ixion could not even touch my tidus. thunder spell hit for 2k and celestial weapon with counter hitting for 99999 each time it chain cast it.

So luck spheres lots of em delete all your accuracy spheres substitute luck until you hit 255.

Also read drain > all if you use break hp limit. But not had a chance to test that.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Z-Gradt:

IIRC, the Dark Aeons' physical attacks don't deal 9,999 damage if you have max defense, Protect and Cheer x5. That's one of the reasons why having 9,999 or 99,999 HP is almost the same. The other reason is that the Dark Aeons have special attacks and overdrives that can kill you even at 99,999, so BHPL isn't going to help you.

A few of those fights indeed benefit from BHPL, but they're so few that getting BHPL for 3 characters isn't worth it. A few examples:
- Dark Bahamut's overdrive does a little over 40,000 HP
- Dark Yojimbo's Wakizashi does 30,000 damage
- Penance's attacks range from 15,000 to 30,000 damage

And even with that, you can mitigate damage from Penance's attacks by having Auto-Protect, Defense+20% and Cheer x5.

Something been bugging me off, for example "cheer x5" care to explain? is that a cheer level 5 I have to cast once at start of fight (I dunno how is that possible though because from what I remember before you can do something in the fight I was put against I was instantly KO by aeon) or you have to cast cheer 5x times? I will have to also watch so video guide for those or something. Thank god I'm still long way from those aeons xD (Kilika temple right now)

[Ghoulsly]

Originally posted by Shirou:

Originally posted by Z-Gradt:

IIRC, the Dark Aeons' physical attacks don't deal 9,999 damage if you have max defense, Protect and Cheer x5. That's one of the reasons why having 9,999 or 99,999 HP is almost the same. The other reason is that the Dark Aeons have special attacks and overdrives that can kill you even at 99,999, so BHPL isn't going to help you.

A few of those fights indeed benefit from BHPL, but they're so few that getting BHPL for 3 characters isn't worth it. A few examples:
- Dark Bahamut's overdrive does a little over 40,000 HP
- Dark Yojimbo's Wakizashi does 30,000 damage
- Penance's attacks range from 15,000 to 30,000 damage

And even with that, you can mitigate damage from Penance's attacks by having Auto-Protect, Defense+20% and Cheer x5.

Something been bugging me off, for example "cheer x5" care to explain? is that a cheer level 5 I have to cast once at start of fight (I dunno how is that possible though because from what I remember before you can do something in the fight I was put against I was instantly KO by aeon) or you have to cast cheer 5x times? I will have to also watch so video guide for those or something. Thank god I'm still long way from those aeons xD (Kilika temple right now)

One of rikku's mixes grants nullall + cheer x 5, so the idea would be to have her overdrive ready at the start. As for the aeons attacking before you, you need to raise your stats/first strike weapons if that keeps happening to you.

[ShinkuTear]

Cheer and some other skills grant stacking buffs, up to 5 uses. Cheer is +1 STR and -1/15th Physical damage taken, which is +5 STR, and reducing physical damage taken by 5/15th, 1/3rd, or just plain 33%. Focus is the MAG and Magical damage version.

Not a small boost at all :P

[Rich Mahogany]

Originally posted by ShinkuTear:

Cheer and some other skills grant stacking buffs, up to 5 uses. Cheer is +1 STR and -1/15th Physical damage taken, which is +5 STR, and reducing physical damage taken by 5/15th, 1/3rd, or just plain 33%. Focus is the MAG and Magical damage version.

Not a small boost at all :P

Anyone know if cheer remains on a character if they die?

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Originally posted by Jack Hoff:

Originally posted by ShinkuTear:

Cheer and some other skills grant stacking buffs, up to 5 uses. Cheer is +1 STR and -1/15th Physical damage taken, which is +5 STR, and reducing physical damage taken by 5/15th, 1/3rd, or just plain 33%. Focus is the MAG and Magical damage version.

Not a small boost at all :P

Anyone know if cheer remains on a character if they die?

It doesn't. Death and Stone both remove the buffs.

[Arisu]

I don't quite remember the enemies in FFX, but in FFX-2, at some point, a huge bunch of enemies have either an instant kill attack, a reduce HP to 1 attack, or a reduce HP by X% attack. This makes lots of HP next to useless against these enemies.

[Theologamer]

Reviving thread due to more information.
this thread here: http://www.ffxii.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2084
I'll copy and paste the significant data.

========================================
• You can't heal more than 9999HP to everyone at once, except with Rikku's
Overdrive. Items are capped at 9999. Trio of 9999 and Pray will fully heal a
party that doesn't use BHPL.

• Stoic/Comrade will give slower Overdrive gain with higher max HP.

• Proportional damage attacks (e.g. Hydraulic Press, Demi, Mega Graviton, Fangs
of Chaos, etc) will do more damage with higher max HP. With 9999 HP, you can
fully heal in one shot. A BHPL character would have to waste more turns
healing.

• Celestial Weapons for four of the characters will be weakened if they don't
keep HP topped up.

• You never need BHPL. There are no attacks in the game that hit the whole
party for more than 9999 damage that cannot be predicted, blocked, reduced
below 9999 with Defensive measures or avoided altogether. Auto-Phoenix takes
care of attacks that hit a single character.

• Break HP Limit is useless if you haven't activated enough nodes to go over
9999 HP yet. Auto-Phoenix is useful throughout the whole game. Having two
characters with Auto-Phoenix in the active party makes you almost invincible
against attacks that hit just one character, no matter how powerful.

• Auto-Phoenix restores 9999HP max, so BHPL characters revived by it will be
near . Using Full Life to revive means wasting more turns, for both the
KO'ed character, and the character casting Full Life.

• BHPL won't make any difference if you get hit for 99,999 damage or instant
. Auto-Phoenix will. Powerful attacks will hit low Defence for 99,999
damage, so you need to raise Defence/Magic Def for BHPL to be useful. But if
you do raise them, you won't need BHPL, and they are easier to raise than HP.
Tanket and One Eye can be killed more easily and quickly than Ironclad.

• Getting Break HP Limit is tedious and time consuming.

• Collecting HP spheres from Ironclad is tedious and time consuming.

• Auto-Potion is good for maintaining full HP in some tough battles, but if you
have BHPL, it'll only keep you just above 50% HP.