Guide on optimal Garment Grid setup and ability learning order [FFX-2]

[TheOne320]

Like the title says, are there any good guides on optimising the garment grid and which abilities to learn early on?

[LadGaga]

Garment Grid setups?

Use whichever grid gives you defence boosts, or even that one with First Strike. And use 3X Alchemists as soon as you unlock the job.

Game over man.

[aaaaargwarbl]

There are actually dozens of Garment Grids in the game, not just the ones you start out with. As for the best way to equip them, it's really a matter of preference. Just think of the order that you're most likely to want to change jobs in a given battle, and string them into a path that'll run through as many bonuses as possible.

As for abilities, I don't know of a guide, but I can give some suggestions.
Gunner: Max out Trigger Happy to Lv. 3, since this dress is most useful for racking up combos.
Thief: Pilfer Gil -> Pilfer HP -> Sticky Fingers -> Master Thief. The first two abilities aren't that useful, but they're prerequisites for improving item steal rates. Item Hunter is also good.
Warrior: Even though Paine starts as a Warrior, put Yuna in Warrior mode instead (or as well). Sentinel for tanking, Armor Break and Mental Break for increasing damage rate. Also, sometime before you get the Mascot dressphere, invest in SOS Protect.
Songstress: Learn one of the three Sing abilities first (it doesn't matter which.) After that, concentrate only on the Dance abilities. For faster AP gains, use Sing on turns when you don't need to maintain buffs or debuffs. The remaining Sing abilities (which all raise the party's stats by 1 until the end of battle, a la Cheer, Focus, Aim, Reflex) can all be saved for later.
Black Mage: Start by learning MP Absorb to reduce your reliance on Ethers (which can't be bought). After that, it's your call whether you prefer to increase the power or speed of your spells.
White Mage: Shell -> Protect (to make Warriors more useful as Sentinels). However, the most useful abilities can't be permanently learned, only by pathing through certain Garment Grids during battle.
Gun Mage: Learn their abilities in any way you like, but don't bother with Scan Lv.2 (which just allows you to rotate enemy models), and definitely don't waste your time with Scan Lv. 3 (which costs 100 AP and exists solely to look under the party member's skirts).
Lady Luck: Double EXP -> Gillionaire -> Double Items
Trainer: HP Stroll -> MP Stroll. Otherwise, Trainers are basically Red Mages, so just pick the abilities you want to double up on.
Alchemist: Items Lv. 2, before all else. Then go with Remedy -> Dispel Tonic -> Ether -> Elixir. But be warned that mastering Elixir takes a huge amount of grinding. Don't worry about learning the Potion line of abilities, because Items Lv. 2 doesn't speed up Stash, and faster healing is better than no-cost healing.
Berserker: Start with Crackdown for a cheap way to nullify defensive buffs, then take Envenom for a poison attack. After that, do Hurt -> Auto-Regen, to make them a little less of a glass cannon.
Samurai: Also a glass cannon. It's better to let White Mages and Songstresses heal and support them, so instead increase their power to instantly dispatch enemies through Sparkler -> Momentum -> Shin-Zantetsu.
Dark Knight: Master Yuna's Dark Knight first, since she'll be able to use their abilities with Mascot.

[ShinkuTear]

Originally posted by aaaaargwarbl:

Songstress: Focus on the Dance abilities first. The Sing abilities (which all raise the party's stats by 1 until the end of battle, a la Cheer, Focus, Aim, Reflex) can all be saved for later.

While the dances are generally more useful for winning battles, unless you have the Mug or Pilfer Gil garment grids, Songstress will actually want to get a Song first. You only get AP when you do a command other than Attack, or defeat enemies. Song, Dance, Mug/Pilfer Gil... 1 AP each. Dances are quite long, Songs are far shorter, so an early Song means you can get more AP in a shorter time.

[aaaaargwarbl]

Originally posted by ShinkuTear:

Originally posted by aaaaargwarbl:

Songstress: Focus on the Dance abilities first. The Sing abilities (which all raise the party's stats by 1 until the end of battle, a la Cheer, Focus, Aim, Reflex) can all be saved for later.

While the dances are generally more useful for winning battles, unless you have the Mug or Pilfer Gil garment grids, Songstress will actually want to get a Song first. You only get AP when you do a command other than Attack, or defeat enemies. Song, Dance, Mug/Pilfer Gil... 1 AP each. Dances are quite long, Songs are far shorter, so an early Song means you can get more AP in a shorter time.

Good point. I'll fix my suggestion.

[Pythios]

Grab the evasion song from songstress fairly early if you can. Using that makes just about all normal attacks miss you 100% of the time, in one single cast. For whatever reason, one cast gives you max evasion buff instead of 1 at a time (same goes for the accuracy song).

Along with that, having someone learn the white mage skills and someone learn the alchemist skills (barring the stash potion skills since they are unnecessary, and stash elixir which is 999 points) opens up your options for healing.

Other than that, you can use whatever you like or prefer at the time. Someone with black magic can help early on, but I find myself ignoring black magic for the most part late game.

[TheOne320]

Just a general question but is there any way to see the buffs/debuffs currently on the enemies? In X you could just target the enemy and it showed up under his name.

[Pythios]

Originally posted by TheOne320:

Just a general question but is there any way to see the buffs/debuffs currently on the enemies? In X you could just target the enemy and it showed up under his name.

The icons for various buffs/debuffs show up when I try to use certain skills on my party or the enemy. Just an example, if I try to cast Protect on someone I can see all the buffs/debuffs by everyone's name, but if I'm just attacking then nothing shows up.

No idea if there's an easier way than that, it's kinda annoying at times.