Random Guide Thingy for early strength.

[Char]

So, just a few things to help players out that may not know about various tricks/tips to FF8. Only use these if you're not looking for a challenge and you want to be OP!

Magic and Junctioning - Did you know that you can get stronger than you normally are by the end of disk 3 before you even leave Balamb?! Get the ifrit card and unlock the refinements for Quetz, Shiva and Ifrit. You will also need Card and Card Mod. You do not need Ammo refine or mid-magic refine.

Save on the world map and go into the forest, you're looking for T-rexaur. Have one character with Quetz and the other with Ifrit and Shiva (at this point you should only have Quistis and Squall. This is taking place RIGHT after you obtain Ifrit.) Have the Ifrit/Shiva character constantly summon to lower the T-rexaurs health while your other character uses card. I have never died while doing this (just make sure to heal between battles.) But you just want to get 4 of their cards to start off. (I do it every playthrough, usually only takes 20 mins or so to get all four.) Make sure to card random enemies if you feel like it too, cause you can get some rare cards from them by chance. (Elvoret from Bite Bugs I think and idk the others but you don't actually need them)

Go to Balamb Town (The one by the railroad tracks) by the shop, you'll see a woman in white. Challenge her to a card battle and look at the rules. You want it to say "All." Not direct, diff or one. You don't have to actually battle her, just exit the card game over and over until you get All. When you get All, do not challenge her or anyone else in Balamb Town.

After you have your 4 trexaurs and an Ifrit. It's time to play some cards! Start by battling the guy at the gate (the old man.) The trick to playing cards in this game is to play defensively. Basically start by making moves that the enemy can't take your card. They'll usually (almost always) start in the top left corner. So play the bottom and wait for one of their cards to be isolated. Just take it and play defensively until the end. You only need to take one card to win a match and with the "All" rule, you'll get all of their cards. Just battle him until you have a good enough hand.

Next move to the classroom and challenge Trepe Groupie #3. Any trepe groupie can give you Quistis' card, but #3 is the one I always use. Dependant on your RNG, it could take a few battles to a hundred to get Quistis. (A hundred battles would be very rare.) Make sure to save often! I don't suggest doing it every card battle, but it's good to have saves just in case. You want to get Abyss Worm cards and A Blue Bird (forgot the name, but you'll probably get one) Refine all cards you're not using. You should obtain enough Quakes/Tornado to junction to your stats. You can leave on your second mission with over 100 strength using this method.

If you love grinding, you can get Ruby Dragons to be able to refine them into flare. You can get Elvorets? to get an Energy Crystal to refine into Pulse Ammo. (Did ya know that you can get every character except Irvine's ultimate weapons on disk one?!) You'll need 20 Elvorets to have enough Pulse Ammo to get Squall's Ultimate Weapon. But most of us just want the Tornados/Quakes.

For extra strength, you can save before you fight the Machine during the Dollet mission. Destroy it until you get the Power Bracelet. If you get one of it's other four drops, reload your save. (Save in the tower after defeating the boss and drawing Siren.) Then have one character equip Ifrit and another GF of your choosing. Teach that other GF Str+40% using the power bracelet. Then equip the Strength Bonuses to your character. (I had like 160 str this way before even leaving Dollet!)

While playing cards you will also get the required refinements to probably get 100 of all kinds of Ara/Aga magic (Ex. Blizzaga, Fira, Firaga, all of them.)

The total grinding for all Elvorets/Ruby Dragons and everything else takes me, on average, 3 hours of work. But it's well worth it for getting to the endgame.

For those who are interested, what you need to do for Squall's Ultimate Weapon - Get the 12 Pulse ammo by refining Energy Crystals (mentioned above) Before you go to Trabia Garden, you'll have to pass through a small forest with a Laguna/Kiros/Ward scene. After you regain control, run in the forest while touching the mountains. If you're level 1-19, you can get the Dragon stuff there. (Forgot the name of the enemies, but they're easy to find there. They do still drop it after level 20 (contrary to popular belief) but it's more of a rare drop. You need 4 of them. Go get the Brother's GF and refine the minotaur card into Adamantine or whatever it's called, you only need 1. But you get 10 from refining. Then go to the weapon shop and wualah, there it is! (2,000 gil I believe.)

Tips for being a badass during some of the early fights. Although if you get one character with this early extra strength, you can walk through the first 3 disks easy. Especially if you get 3 chars with high strength and use Mad Rush... OP.

T-Rexaur - Blind him!

Diabolos - Cast blind on him! Gravija can't kill you. His physical attacks will miss a lot and you can just widdle his HP away. But remember if you wait until level 30 or higher he's one of the earliest spots that you can draw Holy/Flare from! But blind really RIPS Diabolos.

Train Car Battle - Healing Items, Duh! I don't think Phoenix Down works to kill him, but potions can deal a lot of damage.

Minotaur Battles - You could use float... orrrrrrr just use Mad Rush. Mad rush will halve the damage they deal and make you deal about 1.5x

Edea - Smack her face.


---------Chocobo World-------
Run it AFK! Turn off Event Wait, have his pathing be the maximum (6) and just let it play in the background. Once you get to disk 2, you can get your own Chocobo (by trabia, I think.) Then when you go to save, there's a "Chocobo world memory card" next to the regular ones. Go in there, send the chocobo out and then bring him home. He will bring you your items. There is a way to dupe items, but i'm not big into cheating so you can look that up on your own if you'd like to use it.

Pros of AFK - A lot more items over time.
Don't have to play it.
Can run it while you play the main game, e.t.c.

Cons of AFK - Chicobo might choose a bad weapon.
He may make the wrong desicion
Very rare, but he might stop running into things due to a gap in the map of no events. (VERY rare. But if it happens, just change his direction perpendicularly. Meaning if he's heading up/down, switch it to left or right and visa versa. )

[Moogy]

You should write a guide. Copy this there. This is forum and will be discarded easily

[Char]

Where do you suggest I post the guide? Cause if I do that, i'll write a more fully fledged one rather than short and to the point

[BigBear]

Originally posted by Porcelain:

Where do you suggest I post the guide? Cause if I do that, i'll write a more fully fledged one rather than short and to the point

The guide section that you can get to at the top of this page.