Ah you've finally been turned over to the Dark Side, Spat. If only you had listened to me sooner.

Ha, level V and VI hunts aren't that hard. It gets tougher starting from VII.

I hated the bombs in the caves, but I didn't find it too difficult. I got the first Esper there, but didn't get the 2nd one yet.

~Summonmaster, Vaan is supposed to be an average joe, with no special qualities. You're basically supposed to pretend you're him as the story progresses, hence his uh, blandness.

Vaan, I don't even consider him a main character/protagonist (even though the game does try to make some effort for him to stand out). It seems the story wants to drive Balthier as the main go to guy. He's generally the one saying "LET'S GO TO THE LAND OF OZ, ON MY MARK, ALL UNITS ENGAGE" and Vaan and Penelo are like "oh okay, just let me zip my pants up first - tee hee" :3, and Ashe is like...should I do this, is this the right thing, I hope the Nethecite isn't messy up my noodle, and I hope Rasler has some fapping material in heaven, or whereever the hell spirits end up in the world of Ivalice. And Basch is all ... "ARRGGGH, I MUST DEFEND FOR KING AND COUNTRY".

Yeah, that's my lay man's observations of the characters thus far - crude, yet simplified. No?

Well I think I'm gonna go take a run at Hell Wyrm here and see how that one goes. Has anyone else found the Espers to be basically useless? The only thing they've really done in my mind is to open up the Henne mines section. But in battle I think I've used them a couple of times.

The Espers are useless, as they're considerably weaker than your characters and take longer to do the same amount of damage. I get them for the specials and completion, basically.

If I want to have fun and there's maybe a map or two I want to run through with ease, I just summon and rampage. The esper battle music is one of the few tracks I love in this game, the others being the Paramina Rift music and Sochen Cave Palace's track.

I think that was a big mistake to make them so useless for this game. I mean in FFX the Aeons were really cool and actually could aid you in a fight (not to mention that the base of the story revolved around them). Any luck with the fishing MS, I just got out of the upstream after two hours of straight fishing. I was about to shoot myself if I saw that freakin Nebra Kingfish one more time!

Yeah I did like the Sochen Cave Palace music, despite it being very short. I did quite a bit of a run throughout Zertinan Cave tonight. I cleared up about 85% of the map, and most of the monsters there are a cinch, even those corpses that cast nasty magic status shit on you. I have to say much of my fears of that place are relieved. It was one of the places where I put my foot there and I was like OH SHIT. Another place I'm fearing is the Nechrol of Nabudis or whatever, it's by the Silkawood. I'm also a bit afraid of the Feywood, but I think I should be able to handle it now.

Also, I like how I was just randomly looking around the maps, and fuck, Ivalice is HUGE. I just want to settle in the Sandsea, get a few Viera drunk and yeah, let the good times roll.

Summons are not that great in this game honestly. It's like you've got to keep your pet alive for it to be useful. You mind as well had direct control over the summon instead of it being on gambits like a guest. I wish you could summon it along with your regular 3 person group, honestly.

My guess is that they wanted to avoid another FFX situation where you could get all your Aeons to overdrive, and save them for boss battles and start off with massive attacks to make it easier. In the process, they gimped the summons and made them liabilities except for the easiest situations.

Fishing? I got pretty far, but I'll save getting Lu Shang's badge for later. I'm trying to get my second Zodiac Escutcheon down in the Great Crystal. I should have done it when I went to fight Omega, but I didn't know there was anything there (it was empty when I first got there). But now I know that it only appears about 50% of the time and with the Diamond Armlet on, you have a 50% chance of getting the shield.

Oh, and about the Zodiac Escutcheon: This thing is awesome. Coupling this thing with the Durandal (best 1H sword, 5 Evade) bumps up your evasion to 55. This jumps even further, though you can't see it, once you put on the accessory that increases the likelihood of shield-blocking. I'm doing this with my B-Team and Ashe's HP rarely dips.

Nothing like seeing a Giruveganus or Skulwyrm use cheap-as-hell Crushing Fangs, only to see blocked. Or an Ash Wyrm's four hit rake combo completely blocked.

Yeah, once you're in the late 30s/early 40s the caverns are nothing. If you think the Shambling Corpses in the Z caverns are irritating with the status effects, you're going to hate Zombie Warlocks in the Pharos Subterra or the Forbidden in the Great Crystal. The former likes to spam cloying breath, and when they die they become Necrofiends that love things like Curse/Phantasmal Gaze/Hawk Glare. The latter is brutal with things like Bad Breath, Sleepga, very strong -aga magick (we're talking 2k through Shellga) and some strong physical attacks.

Feywood: Cake, only thing there to worry about is the Mu. That's only because of confuse, anyway.

Wow, love these comments, Spatula. Definitely a hoot to read. The maps are massive, but they need to realize that if they make them too big, the area gets kind of intimidating. I rarely go through the Urutan-Yensa/Nam-Yensa because of the damn size. The area's beautiful, but it's a little much.

Cerobi was a nice balance, IMO. Nicely featured area, looks like dusk most of the time, elevation changes, water running through, rivers, windmills, one of the best weather changes in the game (the best one is the blizzard in Paramina Rift. If you've ever fought Fafnir or simply got caught in one, you know about this).

Bingo, it'd be like an addition to the team, rather than a sacrifice. Some areas are begging for that kind of setup, since even at max level, they're no cakewalk. Oh, and for great fun, have Curaja set to Undead foes. Makes for great fun wiping out undead mobs.

Yeah I'm quite crass and how shall we say, perverted? Yeah. You can come up with probably the most tame video game and I'll twist it. Oh wait, Katamari NOOOO!!!!!

At any rate, there's one place the SCARES THE SHIT outta me, and that's like the Wyrm Nest or something, just up north from the Westersand, I liked how I got scared when my mini map radar was all fuzzy shit and I was about level 10. So I just stook around there and there's this wind sand storm going on, and just in the distance you can see this MASSIVE HUEG XBOXED size Colossus or something in the background. Needless to say I hightailed it outta there. I'm guessing that's another big Wyrm boss or something.

Earth Tyrant.

Easy as hell. If you can go through the Zertinan Caverns with ease, you can beat him. Beware though, I found out that once you beat him and the Ring Wyrm, sandstorms become much rarer in the Dalmascan Westersand.

Why would that be a bad thing for less sandstorms? At least I don't have to worry about the stupid elementals.

You'll be stuck with a crappy greatsword for a long time if you're unable to get a Gnoma Entite to appear, let alone the Halcyon needed for the Ultima Blade.

Wait, what. I've seen LOTs of those recently. There was one even in the Omir Sand Sea, and two during the sandstorm. What do I do with those!

Sandstorms in the Sandsea = Awesome. Especially when looking at them from the isolated platform that you can only acess via the Zertinan Caverns. What's even better is entering the Nam-Yensa during said storm on your way to get some Yensa fins only to find the half-invisible rare game Victanir idling near the Nam-Yensa entrance to the caverns. For a Shadonir derivation, it's really easy to off. Oh, make sure you steal Wargod's Band from it, as getting it from the Nabreus horsies is a pain.

I've never heard of Gnoma Entite spawning in those sandstorms, and they're simply the weather for that area. Now, I could be wrong as I just found out that Undin Entite sometimes spawns on the 50th floor of the Pharos. Who knew.

I think I have used espers like three times in the entire game, because I also think that they kind of suck

Is it best fran or ashe for magic (buffs, debuffs, whm)? If i should only develop one for magic (or ashe or fran), and to the other one just give the most important spells (such as the first lvls of whm), what should i develop the other for? For example, if it's best to develop ashe in magic, what should i develop fran in?

So basically you steal from the damn things, I see. How about I just steal what I run and run the hell away. Does the aggro reset if you leave the map, or even the whole dungeon and go to a town? So basically they have awesome equipment am I right? The regular elementals at 14000 hp are a cinch now, but I haven't fought the 45000 hp elementals, damn those giant things man! Scare the shit outta me! :forscience:

Don't just steal them, kill them too. Good experience and you'll increase the chance of actually getting a Halycon/Feystone.

Awesome equipment? Not really, they're actualy really easy. Throw Shellga up, use Rose Corsages to negate their silencega spamming and you've won.

What does a Halycon / Feystone do? Wow, I have lots to learn.

In other related news, I think the FF guide is crap. Honestly. There's one hunt in the guide book - Atomos, which is in the Mos Highlands, however the map is of the Estersand. Talk about shoddy job at editing. Not just that, but there are numerous typos and such, even look at the Patient in the Desert quest with all the ??? as placeholders that the editors forgot to fill in to reference to the proper pages. Yeah, and now two of my pages of completely fell out! Not that I'm abusing my precious LE guide! :shock:

Feystones are for High Arcanas (Tournesol), Halcyons are for assorted weapons. They're often used to make either the ultimate or penultimate weapon of each class. Some don't even use halcyons though, so that's a relief.

Damn, sounds like a mess. I've been using sephirothguy and shotgunnova's guides (mostly the former) couple with the rare game guide and the maps. Often, these are better resources than the guides but not as convenient.

Yeah, playing at home rather than on my GameBridge at school, I find myself wanting to get the official guide for convenience's sake, but I'm too much of a cheapskate. With the GameBridge I'd just have the game going on my upper monitor and GameFAQs open on the lower screen.

I think I'm going to head off to Nabudis for essentially the first time today.

The bradygames guide would have been infinitely better if it had included all of the maps. It is conveniently missing the maps and treasure data from several places of interest, including the site 11 portion of Lhusu Mines, the western sections of Barheim Passage {sections that are opened once you get the Barheim key}, and the upper layer of the Great Crystal in Giruvegan. Surprisingly enough, however, it does have the full map and treasure data for the Henne Mines.

If you're far enough into the game, make sure you get some Cameo belts, since the Elvorets and Bakanamy like to parry endlessly (and will do so if given the chance). Once you throw that on, it'll either happen very rarely or not at all. Of course, at low levels, the best thing you can do there is put on Bubble Belts unless you want to be killed off by Red/Blue fang usage.

The warlocks, while rare, are pretty easy to manage. Babils are also a breeze, and if you can, dispel their buffs. If this is your first time, don't try to kill every enemy on the maps, especially not in the Cloister of the Highborn map. I checked and 3 Oversouls spawn there simply by killing a good number of monsters, since it's the largest map in the Necrohol, with three distinct areaas.

Just mentioned that, because I doubt you want to fight Helvinek your first time through.

Russ, you're kidding me, right? The first one isn't that much of a loss, even though there's traps galore, but not having Barheim or Giruvegan's maps is just.... wow. Omitting the latter should almost be a crime due to how complicated/tiring that place is without one.

Edit: BTW, I count the map with Way Stone XIX/XVIII as being part of the one with Waystone XXI.

I'll definitely have to take that into account, thanks. I'll probably just venture in a little at a time and remain near a save point while I get my feet wet, just to make sure I know what I'm getting into. I don't like dying. :p

Dead serious here. If it weren't for sephirosuy's Crystal Grande Upper Layer map, I wouldn't have even attempted going for Ultima. The guidebook tells you how to get to him, using sentences, as if that would do anyone any good. Using that guy's map, I easily made the trek through that complicated junk, even stopping for the Excaliber on my way to Ultima and had no problems at all.

Also, drex, there are no save crystals inside of the Necrohol of Nabudis. There are a couple in the Nabreus Deadlands though. I liked how when I went in to fight Fury, Humbaba Mistant, and Chaos, I did all three right in succession. And the fun part was that I didn't know that the Chaos fight had the attack disabled, and I happened to fight some of those Oversouls, who happened to drain all three of my characters of their MP right before I went in. Talk about squeaking out a victory against Chaos.

Hell yes to that. That thing is a lifesaver.