Bribe Guide (FFX)

Guide to get the most out of the Bribe skill in FFX

Intro

End-game FFX requires obtaining large amounts of items from monsters through the Bribe skill in order to customize weapons and armors. It takes huge amounts of money and is often your only source of certain items in the entire game.

The vast majority of this guide's content is blatantly plagarized from the Final Fantasy Wikia[finalfantasy.wikia.com], and I'm sharing it here for ease of access using Steam's overlay. In general, the FF Wikia is a great site for any and all information on any Final Fantasy title so please give them a visit.

That endorsement aside, their site is a nightmare to navigate because of their ridiculously intrusive ads, and the information is simply a giant table without context as to what is useful for what reasons. My aim is to provide you with the giant list, and then break it down into more digestable, important subsections for ease of use.

Mechanics

Bribe as a skill is located at the end of Rikku's segment of the Sphere grid while using the Standard grid. A typical playthrough will see the player gaining access to it roughly around the time to finish the Zanarkand Ruins and it's boss.

You choose the amount of gil you want to give to the target monster, and if successful, the enemy leaves the battle while giving you items. Attempts that are not successful take your money. However, it's cumulative in a battle so if you try to give a monster 10,000 Gil and then 20,000 Gil, 30,000 Gil total counts toward the attempted success. This means you can attempt to give the monster the minimum amount for a bribe and simply try it again adding a single gil until it finally goes through if you're really hard up for cash but need the items.

You cannot bribe a sleeping enemy, but it will still take your money to make the attempt. Don't do it.

The amount of money needed is calculated based on the fiend's MAX HP. This means damaging it will not lower the amount you need to bribe it successfully. The more money you give it, the higher your success rate will be.

According to FF Wikia:

• x10 Max HP = 25%
  
• x15 Max HP = 50%
  
• x20 Max HP = 75%
  
• x25 Max HP = 100%

THE GRAND COMPLETE BRIBE TABLE

AKA the reason you're even reading this. Please note the amount of the item you recieve is somewhat randomized. The values listed are simply the median value. It can go above or below the amount listed. For example, when trying to farm up Auto-Haste on all my armors I successfully bribed 78 chocobo wings off a Machea and I've also only recieved 38.

The Gil Values listed are x20 enemy HP values, meaning if you do these bribes at these values, you'll have a 75% chance of success. As a result you can still fail. Simply make your next bribe a single gil and repeat til successful.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed
Al Bhed Potion	Mech Defender Mech Gunner Mech Hunter	x99 x40 x60	174,000 56,000 110,000
Amulet	Tonberry	x2	270,000
Arctic Wind	Snow Flan White Element	x10 x7	12,000 7,800
Attribute Sphere	Maelspike	x1	200,000
Black Magic Sphere	Black Element	x2	152,000
Bomb Core	Bomb (A) Red Element	x16 x8	17,000 9,000
Chocobo Wing	Machea	x60	360,000
Dark Matter	Land Worm	x2	1,600,000
Designer Wallet	Defender Z	x5	846,000
Door to Tomorrow	Mech Leader Mech Scouter	x2 x1	74,000 55,000
Dragon Scale	Splasher	x4	4,000
Dream Powder	Bandersnatch Skoll	x20 x12	36,000 20,000
Elixir	YKT-11 YKT-63	x12 x8	124,000 84,000
Ether	Guado Guard (A) YAT-97 YAT-99	x10 x16 x10	40,000 74,000 54,000
Farplane Wind	Ahriman Epaaj Wraith	x6 x25 x60	56,000 174,000 444,440
Fire Gem	Bomb (B) Flame Flan	x14 x10	44,000 30,000
Friend Sphere	Coeurl	x2	120,000
Gambler's Spirit	Floating Death	x10	134,000
Gold Hourglass	Mushussu Nidhogg	x4 x12	13,600 40,000
Grenade	Mech Guard	x50	25,600
Healing Spring	Achelous Octopus Phlegyas	x16 x20 x6	102,000 90,000 33,600
Healing Water	Anacondaur	x16	116,000
Hi-Potion	Dual Horn (A)	x60	37,500
Hypello Potion	Bunyip Mafdet Murussu Raldo Shred Swamp Mafdet	x16 x28 x24 x10 x50 x28	8,000 14,200 11,600 4,800 39,000 17,000
Ice Gem	Ice Flan	x9	27,000
Lv. 1 Key Sphere	Imp	x4	17,600
Lv. 2 Key Sphere	Behemoth	x30	460,000
Lv. 3 Key Sphere	Demonolith	x40	900,000
Lv. 4 Key Sphere	Chimera Brain	x2	196,000
Lightning Marble	Aerouge Gandarewa Gold Element Thunder Flan Yellow Element	x4 x3 x20 x8 x6	4,000 2,960 24,000 9,600 6,000
Mana Tablet	Chimera	x10	105,000
Mana Tonic	Gemini (Club)	x10	720,000
Megalixir	Varuna Xiphos	x20 x1	1,120,000 54,000
Mega Phoenix	Alcyone Ghost	x2 x38	8,600 199,980
Mega-Potion	Dual Horn (B) Grendel	x25 x60	75,900 190,000
Musk	Buer Evil Eye (A) Evil Eye (B) Floathing Eye	x2 x3 x4 x1	4,600 6,200 8,600 2,800
Pendulum	Master Tonberry Ultima Weapon	x3 x99	960,000 1,999,980
Petrify Grenade	Basilisk Cave Iguion Dinonix Iguion Ipiria Melusine Raptor Yowie	x24 x6 x2 x5 x3 x4 x2 x12	40,500 11,000 2,800 7,400 3,600 5,300 4,000 18,800
Poison Fang	Bite Bug Killer Bee Nebiros Wasp	x2 x1 x6 x3	4,000 2,200 14,000 7,200
Remedy	Grat Lord Ochu Ochu Ragora Sandragora	x40 x80 x70 x8 x99	80,000 92,980 144,000 15,600 255,000
Rename Card	Zaurus	x10	157,000
Return Sphere	Dark Element Mandragora	x3 x24	36,000 620,000
Shining Gem	Grenade Puroboros	x12 x36	150,000 400,000
Shining Thorn	Larva	x10	29,960
Silence Grenade	Bat Eye	x12	7,600
Silver Hourglass	Kusariqqu Lamashtu Vouivre	x20 x10 x10	8,900 5,500 5,100
Skill Sphere	Zu	x2	360,000
Sleeping Powder	Dingo Garm Mi'ihen Fang Sand Wolf Snow Wolf	x4 x7 x5 x12 x11	2,500 4,800 3,200 9,000 8,000
Smoke Bomb	Condor Garuda Simurgh	x3 x99 x5	1,900 80,000 4,000
Special Sphere	Adamantoise	x6	1,088,000
Stamina Spring	Bashura Ogre	x80 x50	340,000 188,000
Stamina Tablet	Defender	x20	240,000
Stamina Tonic	Iron Giant Gemini (Sword)	x1 x10	72,000 720,000
Supreme Gem	Halma	x20	260,000
Teleport Sphere	Barbatos	x20	1,900,000
Three Stars	Behemoth King	x14	1,350,000
Turbo Ether	Funguar Thorn Exoray	x2 x16 x30	10,800 81,600 148,000
Twin Stars	Spirit	x10	200,000
Underdog's Secret	Chimera (Guado Summon)	x15	180,000
Warp Sphere	Master Coeurl	x1	260,000
Water Gem	Aqua Flan Blue Element Maze Larva Piranha Remora Sahagin (Via Purifico Water) Sahagin (Via Purifico Land) Water Flan	x15 x9 x14 x1 x20 x1 x3 x2	40,500 30,000 44,440 1,000 60,000 27,600 7,600 6,300
White Magic Sphere	Dark Flan	x2	256,000
Wings to Discovery	Great Malboro Malboro	x7 x4	1,280,000 540,000
Winning Formula	Sand Worm	x15	900,000
X-Potion	Guado Guardian (Home) Valaha	x30 x60	52,000 174,000

Sphere Grid Bribes

A giant table listing all the bribes is great, and people can search that and find what they want with CTRL+F. However, I'm the sort of guy who believes in sorted information based on need.

First, the most important of the group is that of Lv. # Key Spheres. I am fairly certain you find enough Lv. 1 spheres through the course of the game that you'll never need to bribe for them, and Lv. 2 spheres are easily grindable from the Defenders in Zanarkand. Still, it's useful knowledge. You'll be bribing a whole lot of Chimera Brains to finish off all them level 4 keys.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed
Lv. 1 Key Sphere	Imp	x4	17,600
Lv. 2 Key Sphere	Behemoth	x30	460,000
Lv. 3 Key Sphere	Demonolith	x40	900,000
Lv. 4 Key Sphere	Chimera Brain	x2	196,000

Secondly we have movement spheres. These take you from place to place. Typically, they are not necessary outside of the handful you'll find through the course of the game and grinding to capture all the mobs in the Omega Ruins. Most damningly, the easy species conquest boss "Sleep Sprout" dies in a single attack and gives two Teleport Spheres which should more than meet your sphere grid warping needs.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed
Friend Sphere	Coeurl	x2	120,000
Return Sphere	Dark Element Mandragora	x3 x24	36,000 620,000
Teleport Sphere	Barbatos	x20	1,900,000
Warp Sphere	Master Coeurl	x1	260,000

Lastly we have activation spheres, which trigger other nodes anywhere else on the map that's already been triggered. These are particularly useful for nabbing the best abilities everyone benefits from (like getting Skill Spheres to learn Quick Hit) or quality-of-life abilities to make things easier (like getting a special sphere to learn Bribe on Auron, who's always going to be going first due to his celestial weapon). Also notable are Attribute Spheres, which are most useful to activate Luck nodes already activated by others on the team. Obtaining Fortune Spheres in a pain, so it effectively cuts down the amount of times you have to battle Earth Eater.

They are all expensive, so if you don't need an ability right away you can save it for when you're going to run through that segment of the board on the way to getting the "Max Grids For Everybody" achievement.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed
Attribute Sphere	Maelspike	x1	200,000
Black Magic Sphere	Black Element	x2	152,000
Skill Sphere	Zu	x2	360,000
Special Sphere	Adamantoise	x6	1,088,000
White Magic Sphere	Dark Flan	x2	256,000

AP Grinding Weapon Skills Bribes

Often times the best weapon and armor abilities are only obtainable through Bribery. Many times, Bribery is supplemental to grinding arena monsters for drops or steals. It's an important part of why Bribe is a necessary skill for end-game.

These are the items needed to gain AP related skills. They are all weapon abilities.

To gain AP extremely rapidly, there's a trick involving the "Don Tonberry" boss at the Arena, unlocked after capturing at least one of every monster in the "Cavern of the Stolen Fayth" area. He counterattacks any hit against him with a move called Karma that deals tons of damage based on the number of kills the person who attacked him has made through the course of the game. If you've managed to finish grinding capturing 10 of every monster, your workhorse character will easily be hit for max 99,999 damage.

That'll probably be Bender Wakka, because he's OP as hell. He's 40% blitzballer, baby!

Customize Auto-Haste and Auto-Phoenix onto everyone's armors. Have your workhorse attacker equip the "Stoic" overdrive mode, and the other two characters set to "Comarde." Get Overdrive -> AP onto your weapons, and as many abilities from "Triple AP," "Double AP", and "Triple Overdrive" as you can onto your weapons. The only ability that really matters is Overdrive -> AP and thankfully it's the easiest and cheapest to get, but anything else helps expedite the process. Simply have your attacker attack and get blasted for 99,999 damage, which will make everyone gain loads and loads of AP.

NOTE: It's extremely time consuming and expensive to get Triple AP from Bribery or farming Wings to Discovery items off Shinryu. Before making your Overdrive -> AP weapons, you may attempt to farm some 3-slot weapons with Triple AP on them off the arena boss "One-Eye." He's the creature capture boss for floating eye enemies. He dies in two 99,999 hits so it's not terribly difficult to attempt, but it can still be time-consuming and frustrating relying on RNG. Otherwise, simply stick to Double AP because it's a lot cheaper and less frustrating to farm. It's plenty good for the purposes of the Don Tonberry AP farming trick.

Also worth mentioning: You can't have Double AND Triple AP on the same weapon, nor can you have Double AND Triple Overdrive on the same weapon. The only creature you can bribe Double AP items off of is a limited time encounter so not really worth your time. Door to Tomorrow are only obtainable through bribery from enemies on Mt. Gagazet that you cannot capture. Thankfully you get x99 of them for completing 6 areas worth of capturing monsters which is more than enough to customize Overdrive -> AP for your entire party of 7 people.

edit: turns out I was wrong about the Double/Triple AP/Overdrive thing. You can do it if you customize the double onto a weapon first. You can't add double to a weapon with triple, but can add triple to a weapon with double. I haven't tested out if the AP goes up x6 yet, though. It's hardly necessary. Double/Triple Overdrive on the same weapon might be kind of fun though, if it works. I'll have to test it out some day.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed	Customization (Amount)
Megalixir	Varuna Xiphos	x20 x1	1,120,000 54,000	Double AP (x20)
Wings to Discovery	Great Malboro Malboro	x7 x4	1,280,000 540,000	Triple AP (x50)
Underdog's Secret	Chimera (Guado Summon)	x15	180,000	Double Overdrive (x30) Winning Formula Sand Worm x15 900,000 Triple Overdrive (x30) Door to Tomorrow Mech Leader Mech Scouter x2 x1 74,000 55,000 Overdrive -> AP (x10)

Ultimate Armor Skills Bribes

Ultimate Armor Abilities

Bribery is the main means to obtain the two best armor abilities in the game, Auto-Haste and Auto-Phoenix. They are pretty much always good, all the time, on every character. Some other best armor skills (like Auto-Protect) require items that unfortunately must be won or stolen.

Item

Enemy

Amount

Gil Needed

Customization (Amount)

Stamina Tablet

Defender

x20

240,000

Auto-Potion (x4)

Mega Phoenix

Alcyone
Ghost

x2
x38

8,600
199,980

Auto-Phoenix (x20)

Chocobo Wing

Machea

x60

360,000

Auto-Haste (x80)

Wings to Discovery

Great Malboro
Malboro

x7
x4

1,280,000
540,000

Break HP Limit (x30)

Useful Consumable Bribes

These bribes give you items you'll want to use a lot, that aren't available for purchase from regular vendors. Of particular note is X-Potions, which is necessary to make good use of the Auto-Potion ability for armors.

Item	Enemy	Amount	Gil Needed
Elixir	YKT-11 YKT-63	x12 x8	124,000 84,000
Megalixir	Varuna Xiphos	x20 x1	1,120,000 54,000
Mega Phoenix	Alcyone Ghost	x2 x38	8,600 199,980
Mega-Potion	Dual Horn (B) Grendel	x25 x60	75,900 190,000
Remedy	Grat Lord Ochu Ochu Ragora Sandragora	x40 x80 x70 x8 x99	80,000 92,980 144,000 15,600 255,000
Turbo Ether	Funguar Thorn Exoray	x2 x16 x30	10,800 81,600 148,000
X-Potion	Guado Guardian (Home) Valaha	x30 x60	52,000 174,000

Questions/Comments?

Please let me know if I left out information you want to know or think would be useful, or if you spot an issue with my formatting somewhere. I gave everything a quick once-over but it's hard to self-edit this amount of data perfectly on the first try.

If you have any other tips or tricks related to bribery, please share them! Thanks for reading.

[Prisoner #24601]

It's a pretty good guide, but I think there are some things missing. For one I don't see Lightning Gems on there, and speaking of that it would be great if you included a section that had items for the Elemental "Proof" and "Eater" abilities. Customizing armor sets with all of those can be helpful against some of the super bosses and especially the final Seymore Battle.

You also don't have Ribbon under Ultiamte Armor, I think that would be more useful than Auto Potion, but that's just me.

Though like I said I still think this is a good guide.

[✨ ジェニイ姫 ✨]

love this guide, lifesaver

[knuckles2007]

Great Work... though some of these dont match up to the XBox One FFXHD Remaster Bribes... Coeurl for example only gave 1 friend sphere... also the ultimate skills table os baddly off the screen so i cant read any of it same for the Winning Formula and Doors of Tommorrow...

[Sammy Silvers]

Thanks again!

I'm no way strong enough to defeat Kottos right now, but enhancing equipment turns a good profit.

[srsface]

@Sam Tyco: Meant "SOS-Regen", not auto-regen. Auto-Regen is difficult to get. SOS-Regen is not and still adds a ton of monetary value to the items. My mistake.

[srsface]

@Sam Tyco: One of the "best" ways of doing it is to buy the tetra armors from the lady in Kilika, then add things to it that increase it's value to sell back. It's a bit tedious. A lot of guides on the web say to farm Kottos for Healing Springs to add auto-regen onto item. If you can reliably overkill him (not that hard to do, because he's a chump), it's pretty efficient. You can also burn Mana Tonics and Stamina Tonics to add 30%MP and 30% HP respectively to the armors. Only ever do one mod per item because there's diminishing returns and in some cases negative returns if you do more than one of these mods.

[Sammy Silvers]

Pretty much the only question that is left is: How do I gain such ridiculous amounts of money? I already have the airship, but I don't see myself throwing around millions of gil yet.
(I know that there's the cheat option, but I'd really like to avoid it if the grind for money is at least somewhat reasonable.)

[Sammy Silvers]

Very handy list for bribing. Thank you!

[Soulcrusher842]

Just pointing out there are other ways to do and setup AP grinding seeing how you added it to your Bribe Guide. :)

[srsface]

@Soulcrusher842: Don Tonberry is one of the first unlocks in the Monster Arena. You just have to grind out 1 of every monster in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth which is literally the second zone you get to after you get capture weapons.

So yeah you can use Dark Ixion I guess but I don't really feel like editing in alternate strategies for an uberboss to grind it for AP when the oldschool Don Tonberry thing works just fine still. :)