Using Weapons as Items?

[Lurlex]

One of the key traditions in Final Fantasy titles is using certain rods, staves, and other pieces of weaponry and equipment as actual items. They're invaluable, because they were re-usable. Just got the healing staff for the first time in the Steam version ... I can't figure out how to actually trigger it as an item.

Sure, I can whack a party member with it individually, but that's not really what I'm going for. I had similar problems with the 3D FFIV title, but at least I could do a workaround and replace a job ability with the item. Did they remove this completely from FFV? I'm almost 100% certain that in earlier versions of the game ,you could "use" an elemental piece of equipment as an item, even if you had it equipped.

If they felt like that was unbalanced, whatever, but frankly ... Final Fantasy is not an MMORPG (well, you know what I mean, there's like two MMOs ... but this isn't one of them), and the single-player titles are ALWAYS unbalanced. WTF? Why kill a fan favorite mechanic like that?

The fact that you can get a free nuke or heal off once in a while shouldn't be such a moment of panic for a dev. We'll still use all the cool abilities you programmed in on boss fights and stuff -- but you throw so much trash at us with the random encounters, and frankly, the abilities the items used to cast were always lower level and were meant for the run-of-the-mill monsters you run into every 5 seconds. Being able to literally cast a little fire spell from a rod made a black mage worth it to keep around. The mechanics for MP restoration SUCK. It's the only way mages are truly viable. I thought that was the point?

[Tanaka Taikikku]

You can "use" rods in FFV. It breaks the item but casts a high level version of the rod spell. It's totally broken and makes fights trivial, also expends the item.

Staves, including the healing staff, cannot be used that way.

[Vargas78]

If you use a rod in melee does it sometimes cast a weaker version of the spell on a hit?

[Ahzi Dahaka]

Outside of breaking them, you don't really use rods to attack with. Elemental rods increase the damage of the corresponding spells, and some give a magic stat bonus. The Lillith's Rod works like !Flirt with a chance of casting Osmose, the Wonder Rod casts spells in order from a list, and the Demon's Rod sometimes casts Death.

For actually whacking things, a staff is often your best bet, interestingly. There's the Healing Staff, of course, but also the Light Staff and Judgement Staff are very powerful for when you can get them off certain enemies in World 2. The Sage's Staff also does 8x damage to undead, meaning you can often just forgo casting Holy to start with.

For MP restoration, Ethers are expensive, but !Mix one with a Hi-Potion and you get Gilead's Balm which restores all MP. Gold Hairpins let you cast at half cost, and abilities like !Dance and !Lance are handy for regaining MP as well. If you don't mind having to revive someone, Reincarnation (!Mix a Phoenix Down and an Ether), the Blue spell Transfusion, and the Phoenix summon all restore full MP as well.