Well usually you won't expel the main (story) character from your party since it's quite obvious that he will be story-relevant until the end. That's why I kept Vaan in my party all the time because I thought that maybe Fran or Balthier or whoever might leave the party sooner or later...

Thx for the info. Then my choice will be for fran, ashe, and balthier. Now, could you tell me their roles?

Balthier is the leading man, I don't know about Fran and Ashe. :confused:

There really isn't a reason not to use Vaan. There isn't enough variation in the characters' stats for it to matter anyway. Besides, the concept of having a "main party" is questionable at best.

There are no roles. Use the license board to make them whatever you want. I found it easiest to make every character capable of fufilling any role.

I got Excalibur today. It was in the chest the first time I tried, so yeah, pretty cool; it was worth the long way. Though I have to come back to fight Ultima pretty soon - I wanted to fight Ultima, but I think level 73 isn't enough. I will come back later when I'm level 80+. Also defeated Fafnir today though I almost ran out of Chrono's Tears.

I defeated Ultima when my guys were at level 60. And I didn't use White Masks either.

Heh. I had quite some problems with Fafnir at level 73 when people told me that they beat him without any problems at level 50. Maybe I'm doing something wrong O_o

Here's what I did: I put on some Mirror Mail and an Opal Ring on my healer, (just in case I took damage, and to cast Hastega) and then went and hid behind the rock on the south side of the map and cast magicks on Fafnir until he died. He can't follow you back there and attack physically, and his magicks will bounce off of you and harm his own dumb self.

Double Post:

All this party discussion has got me to want to keep all my characters on the same playing field as much as possible, despite me having a greater affinity for the 5 than the odd Vaan out. All three female characters I generally like to have in my party, but either Penelo or Fran a bit more. Balthier is just almost too cool to leave out, since he's basically Han Solo. The main reason I want to keep my party levelled out is I KNOW there will be a battle where my main party is doomed, and I won't hesitate to switch them out and have the reserve party a fighting chance, mind the pun.

I think if you're planning to complete all the hunts and sidequests, then consistent levelling of all party members will be necessary. I hate levelling so I only have my main party (Vaan, Basch, Ashe) and Fran levelled up nicely to about lvl 50 while Balthier and Penelo are still sitting ducks at lvl 18 :D I'm so far fine with storyline bosses but I attempted Zeromus and I nearly died even with the reserve party (and Reddas as a guest, he was so useless). I hate it when they seal one of your commands and I was doomed when this battle took away magick since I rely quite a lot on it.

Btw, any suggestions for me to get that stupid cluckatrice in Rabanastre (lost cluckatrices sidequest)? I swear I nearly broke my controller into two after chasing that damn chicken for 20 minutes...

There's really no reason to level up the characters you don't plan on using. I didn't and I am 150 hours in the game without ever having a situation where everyone died and had to use the backups.

I guess if you do have situations where your entire main group dies it helps to have high level backups, but from my experience this never happend, and I really don't feel like leveling them to 99 just so I have a strong backup team which most likely never gets any action. Level 40ish with some shields and measures should be enough I'd say.

If you don't level up your reserve team and you go to fight Zodiark, you're going to get owned. They have to be at least level 40 to survive long enough to revive your main team. Darkja will wipe them all out at least once during that fight. There's several other battles where having the other guys close to or at least somewhat leveled is good insurance policy against losing.

Leveling in this game is unbelievably easy, not to mention it rarely gets boring. You end up looking for loot/doing quests/hunts and you level up during that. Not to mention with a leveling method mentioned before (there are two) it takes less effort than you put in going from Bur-Omisace to Archades.

But, I agree, the main game? Unless you do something dumb, your main team will likely be enough.

Yeah, same here. At first, I was a bit worried but now that I'm about 100 hours in the game, I cannot say that I have to rely on my "reserve" characters (sometimes, they are quite handy to escape from lethal battles, though). I am happy that I didn't waste too much time on leveling everyone.

Even if the main objective is levelling up or not, I'm also thinking of the long term effects of FFXII in itself as a game. I know for sure once I complete everything and get 100% and beat the game, I am not going to touch this game again for a long time, so levelling everyone at level 99 isn't such a bad idea after all. At least I get my play times worth. And levelling up isn't too too bad.

Not to mention that a good chunk of the hunts/special areas will be hell for someone who only leveled to finish the game and nothing more.

Again, I have to agree. After I finished Pharos at Ridorana, I was like "uhh one more level, I think I gonna finish that and never touch this (in my opinion pretty disappointing) game again". That was at 35 or 40 hours. Now I'm at ~100 hours and glad that I continued with the mob hunts and sidequests and extra espers and whatever... this is where the game begins to make fun - there are real challenges (I almost went crazy when I fought Hell Wyrm for about three hours) and you just cannot get rid off the game until you completed the very last mob hunt or acquired the very last extra super esper. I am pretty sure that I will keep on playing for another hundred hours even though that might sound crazy for many.

A two hundred hour game. Oh shi~.

FFX so far has taken me the most time at about 87 hours, and I didn't complete the last Aeon summon - the Magus sisters. Getting 10 of every monster in every dungeon. To hell with that. Althought I'm sure the demands for sidequests in XII are more severe.

You know at this rate, my highest level is 43, and Balthier has about 2800 HP. I haven't looked at the guidebook yet, but logically, would it be safe to assume that a level 99 character has OVER NINE THOUSAND HP, or do you need some special accessory (I'm thinking bubble or something like that)? It's probably linked up with the vitality stats and the like. I need to start reading my book more, and even bring it to work during lunch breaks like right now. Another question is can you break the 9999 damage limit with whatever "celestial" or "ultimate" weapons in this game?

I just checked my memory card because I knew there was a FFX savegame with over 200 hours. I played this game like a maniac, completing every single stupid sidequests including the heavily annoying chocobo races and the even more annoying lightning quest, if you know what I am talking about

Nah, there's just an ungodly amount of them, that's all. Of course, that's not counting fucking Hell Wyrm or Yiazmat. Their HP is little more than padding to keep the fighting running a long time.

Balthier has 6050, Vaan has 6208 and Penelo has 5717. With the Bubble Belt, those numbers double, even though the game only shows up to 9999, you can see that the HP bar goes beyond that. You can also see it of you highlight the character when choosing leaders.

Esper specials can break the damage limit, and so can Quickening chains. I've done 45,000 on Exodus to finish that fight and ~64,000 with Zodiark on some random enemy. Oh, and 242 hour FFXII save game says hi.

I'm 150 hours in and can't see myself finishing this game anytime soon. I'm not aiming for the 100% completion mark, but I'm going to try and finish all of the hunts and most of the sidequests for sure. I did most of the optional stuff while following the storyline, so I enjoyed every second of the game.

I think everyone should at least spend 100 hours with this game to thoroughly appreciate it.

Yea I am at 105 hours right now and am currently going through the Pharos, I think I could easily play another hundred to get all of the weapons and Espers in the game. Even though it is a very long (and tedious at times) game I think I'll probably play it again when im finished and get my hands on a game guide to see if I missed anything big!

If you know what you're doing, and go through enough trial and error, you can 200GET in about 17 minutes.

Awesome, I got mine this afternoon on the first try as well. I was all "why won't the !!! come up. oh there must be two chests there" and so I grab my 1 gil {don't spend it all in one place Ashe told herself}, and then hello there mister Excaliber. So then my party of level 63 Ashe {deathbringer, demon shield, magepower shishak, maximillian, sage ring}, Basch {zodiac spear, mp shishak, maximillian, battle harness}, and Vaan {Excaliber, mp shishak, maximillian, genji gloves} proceeded to dominate everything between there and Ultima.

Then I went into the Ultima fight, made a couple of equipment adjustments since Ultima absorbs holy stuff, switched Vaan to an Iga Blade, you know, for fun, and was basically expecting to get dominated. Well, Reddas died immediately after Ultima cast Holyja, which hit Basch and Ashe both with reverse. Luckily everyone was hasted and before the HUD even reappeared both Vaan and Ashe had Curajas fully charged and waiting to go off {:rolleyes:}. So do a couple of Arises with Vaan and I'm back in business and proceed to put a pretty good beating on Ultima. It got sort of hairy there for a minute there during the MP sap stage of the fight, which as soon as that began, I unleashed a pretty decent quickening chain that resulted in a Luminescence finish. Obviously I couldn't heal with magic; I think I ended up having to phoenix down Basch, but I got through it without having my primary three wiped out. As soon as the MP drain was over, and I couldn't use attacks, I megalixered, and took the opportunity to allow everyone to recast their buffs. By this point, the fight was just about over, so I unleashed another round of quickenings and went home.

So now that I have ten espers {I lack Hashmal, Famfrit, and Zodiark}, I'm fighting around at bit in the newly opened section of the Henne Mines. Pretty easy going due to my decent equipment and my gambit setup, which is basically:

Ally HP<40% Curaja
Self: Haste
Self: Bravery
Self: Bubble
Self: Float
Foe status=flying: telekinesis
Foe nearest visible: Attack

As soon as Hastega becomes available, I will put it on one person's gambit list, then have each of the other two replace their Haste with Protectga and Shellga. I don't even use magic for anything more than healing and buffing, since I've got Vaan and Basch doing between 6000 and 9999 physical to most things, what's the point of casting magic and then waiting for the post-cast penalty to wear off.

Basically I'm between Giruvegan and Ridora, and I triggered the Reddas joining as a guest event so that I could have access to the next set of Mark Hunts {Piscodaemon, Catoblepas, Diabolos, Wild Malboro, Deathgaze, etc}. I already did the first half of the Battle on the Bridge hunt, will probably at least attempt the second half of that one later tonight. I'm at 70 hours currently.

You should be able to buy Hastega from the merchant in the village on the south bank in the Dalmasca Estersand.

If you even had the slightest problems with the first half, the second half is going to be very tough. While the first part was a joke, it took me at least 40 minutes to finally defeat that "mark" ... ;-)

Man, I'm not at the 100 mark yet :( I'm currently 85 hours in, and I had just did the first part of Battle of The Bridge too, but I couldn't do the second half because the enemies on the way there are at least 10 levels higher than me :( Waahhh, I wanted to fight him too. I got the Genji Gloves and Shield already. I had to go buy the Thief's Cuffs to make it easier to steal. The first time I fought him, I could only get the Shield. The Cuffs make it easier cause it didn't take me long to get both items at all.

I tried defeating Ixion but I couldn't even get to the mark. I got swarmed by uber levelled enemies and died :(

I did defeat Carrot though. It was easy.

I level up everyone except Penelo, and I don't feel bad at all for taking the extra step to power them all up. Battling is just too much fun in the game that levelling doesn't even feel like a chore.