Just finished Fafnir (I always get the names Fafnir and Fenrir mixed up :P). I used the cheap way using the bottleneck in the SE, though, because I didn't feel like another 2 hour battle. Reflect on everyone, one buffer with opal ring, and a lot of thundagas later...yeah. Can't decide if I want to do the Great Behemoth now or after furthering the storyline, 'cuz I'm getting a bit tired of the hunting. Plus I probably ought to do at least an hour of hardcore leveling before I move on, because I'm still at an average of level 54.

I couldn't disagree more on the Gambits - not having to keep track of who has run out of haste/bravery/regen/whatever I want is very nice, keeping Libra on is great, having my melee guys use Telekinesis on flying guys automatically, automatically watching my HP levels is really nice, especially while money grubbing and/or leveling, when I don't want to have to think too hard about it. Of course anything short of that is still workable and possibly even effective, but Gambits just make everything easier. Autopilot for battling.

Well I spent some time in the Zertinan caverns again today trying to get some emperor scales and before I knew it I had like 9. So now I have enough loot to make 3 Durandal's although i doubt I will have all of my characters using one!!

I also up until this point had not seen a magick lamp, and after going through and chaining the mallicant's a bit for fun I got a whole ton of those, although i have been too lazy too look and see what they are used for. My guess is nothing all too special though, but I could be wrong....again.

Thats actually a nice way of putting it:eagletear: Hmm well i have 2 say though that i wouldnt keep my main characters gambit's on, like the party leader. Anyone agree? Anyone know where i can level like hell? :tombstone:

It's already been mentioned multiple times: if you're trying to get to 80ish, Dead Bones chaining in the Nabreus Deadlands is typically the way to go.

Ok so as it turns out I only had 1 Leschah halcyon whereas I though I had 3 of them and now i can't mangae a blizzard in the Paramina Rift! Do blizzards stop spawning after you kill Fafnir?

Gambits are just completly pointless I find them really boring and they take the fun of the game -unless you want your character to do everything for you.... I played it all along without using gambits AT ALL. I enjoy using the commands by myself . IMO I dont see the point of it in the game.

I could not have survived much of the game without Gambits, and I can't even imagine inputting all of the commands for all of my characters manually.

I can understand not using gambits if you're playing the game on Wait Mode, but gambits are pretty much the key to surviving in Active Mode.

That may be the case, but I've never actually read something concrete on that as I did on the sandstorms in the Westersand. What I did was go into Paramina Rift via the Feywood. Just keep going into the map until there's a blizzard. Leshach Entite spawns like clockwork there during a Blizzard, as well as the map to the left of that.

As for the Gambits thing: Even if you were playing in wait mode, not using them only makes the game unnecessarily tedious. Imagine fighting Omega or Yiazmat inputting every single command. Or even lesser things, like the monsters in Henne.

And if you're worried about your characters doing things on their own, if you actually take a good look at the game, you have more control over your character's actions than most other FFs. IMO, Matsuno succeeded in replicating that tactical feel he was aiming for (something I was extremely skeptical of when I first heard it).

the only real part I hate is only being able to control 1 character at a time. I hate babysitting like that

I couldn't agree more here. For some of the bigger fights not having the gambit system would draw them out and it would become very very tedious and annoying. It's not like you aren't controlling your character's while using the gambit system. I don't know about evryone else either but it's not like during certain boss fights and rare games where you don't input your own commands often times as well. All in all having the gambit system was a good idea in letting you have a larger control factor on your party and allowing for less tedious fights with stronger and more time consuming monsters.

Ohhh and MS, good call on entering the Rift through the Feywood, first time through I got a blizzard. On my way to getting all those Durandal's now!

It also makes leveling, doing sidequests, and just exploring that much more fun. The elimination of random battles and the gambit system took out the two of the biggest sources of drudgery in the series, though it replaced it with crappy random chests and loot droprates that turn item creation into a timesink.

As you said, I haven't heard of anyone fully automating their characters in boss fights, or trickier monsters. There's simply too much for the enemies to throw at you, plus the gambits (while being rather thorough) don't let it get that far. I'll give you an example in a second.

Yeah, I decided to enter via there rather than Golmore because that's where I found Leshach Entite most often and it had a very good blizzard trigger rate. It's kind of like entering the Westersand via the Wyrm's Nest after the two sandstorm causing beasts are gone.

I found something very interesting, and it may interest those who like using magic. I'm still testing this, but I found that I can make multi-target magic hit 3 times on one target, tripling the damage inflicted. Something peculiar though:

Isn't Scathe a multi-target, non-elemental magic attack? Kind of like this game's Ultima spell. The problem is, when reflected, I've only had it fire once.

Here's a scenario:

Elvoret (weak against Wind) comes up to the party.

All party members have reflect status, Balthier has Opal Ring for healing/buffing through reflect. I have Penelo and Vaan cast Aeroga (multi-target Wind magic) on themselves.

Each Aeroga spell (Vaan and Penelo's) strikes all three of the party's reflect shields, so it reflects 3 times per caster.

There's 2 instances of Aeroga, with 3 hits a piece of the poor Elvoret, making for a grand total of 6 hits. If my fuzzy math is correct, if only one person casts Aeroga/Blizzaga/Firaga/Thundaga on the party, the damage is tripled from the standard single flame. If two cast, it's 6x the regular damage and if you don't have a healer at all, it'd be 9 times.

I've had this work on Darkga on Babils as well, though it still needs more tweaking. One problem with this setup is that it reduces your number of healers, the second one being that you have to have reflect as a gambit or else you'll wind up killing yourself when it fades without warning.

Go ahead, try it, it's pretty fun seeing Aeroga firing like a machine gun.

Edit: A little tweaking is needed. You don't need to have two Reflect-Casters, just throw on an Opal Ring on the one you want to be a second healer and turn on their healing gambits.

My biggest problem with Gambits is that they're not complicated enough. I wish you could add modifiers such as IF, WHEN, ONLY, etc. For example. Foe: Any: Steal ONLY IF Foe: Stolenfrom = false. If "Stolenfrom" is true, then the next gambit down would be used. That way, I wouldn't have to switch the Steal gambit on and off. If I steal and the enemy has no more loot to steal, it will automatically go to Foe: Any: Attack, or whatever happens to be next.

Yeah, that's exactly my point above. Gambits can only automate the battle to a certain extent, there still needs to be a considerable amount of player intervention to prevent a character from stealing from an enemy that's already been stolen from, poaching certain enemies, etc...

Though if it was that intricate, it'd be slammed as overly complicated on the low end and too automated (people would liken it to a bot) on the other. BTW, has anyone tried including Stamp into a setup? That would be really nice if it actually works (though I'm not getting my hopes up).

Edit: I would've loved to have a gambit that did Expose ten times before moving on to attack or whatever was next.

I offed the undead dragon/wyrm at the entrance to the Pharos using that method, MS. Had mirror mail on two of my guys and a ruby ring on the third. One of the mirror mails had an opal ring and kept everyone healed, faithed, and hasted, and the other two continuously cast Curaja on the team. Hit the guy for 6500-9999 damage three times each and he dropped in under two minutes.

Finished the Pharos. That was way longer than I had expected, but at the same time a lot easier. I was expecting it to really tax my abilities, but instead it just taxed my patience. :P Is there anything I really should have found in there that I might have missed? I think I only came across 3 or 4 chests with nothing of serious value, and I will be going back in to get the 2nd Ascent map.

Storyline spoilers:
Also really looking forward to using the spells I've finally been able to pick up. <3 Still have to grab Ardor, Renew, and Scathe.

Wow, just picturing that fight with Hydro puts a smile on my face. The trick is absolutely brutal, that's for sure. I was pretty ecstatic that it worked, after tossing the idea around in my head for a bit.

Now I have to figure out who does what permanently, though I'll likely stick with 2 heal-capable folks and one multi-caster, since most enemies won't survive a barrage like that. I'll test it out in Henne on some shellled Etems and see how it goes.

I think that one is the Zeus Mace chest, though I know the others are some like Circlet and Dueling Mask, amongst other things. Nothing worth much, though the Subterra is another story.




Renew = Awesome, especially set to HP Critical. Scathe is also fun to use, though a bit limited, but it still doesn't detract much from a massive beam of doom.

I got the Circlet and the Dueling Mask, and I got a Zeus Mace off of an enemy at some point. (One of the...Bunes, is it?...dropped a Gungnir for me. I haven't had a spear-user yet, but I'm tempted just to try it out.)

Setting up a gambit system to utilize the little trick there would be very interesting. I had the double damage-spellcasters because it was a boss battle, but in a normal fight it would be very effective to just have the one, I would think.

That's the first time I ever actually used a spear was when I got one from a Bune. Fun, but I'll stick to the other weapons. Unless you have the Z. Spear, the Whale Whisker rocks something fierce. If only I had the Genji Gloves to let this combo beast out.

I agree, that with 2 it'd have to be in special cases, as it gets a little tedious handling it. Preferably, the leader is the multi-caster since you already have direct control over them.

What I'm wondering is

Spoilers for those who haven't beat the game, that means you Fricaseein'. Don't want to spoil the end for anyone.

I play on active mode and let me tell you Gambit is just another bit in the game thats all. not a very important thingy from how I see it and from my experience :psyduck: and I didnt have a problem at all during the game - is like playing any FF in active mode ....as how I felt it.

I didnt have a problem I found it alot easier and cool :/ - is like playing any other FF ....but the diference in this one is that you have this extra "help" which is the gambit. ( when I destroyed Yamaizt I didnt need any gambit I found it alot easier to kill him cos I knew who was he attacking and what he was gonna do in the other hand if you activate gambit you know what are you doing but you dont actually know what is he going to do or how to scape from it cos youve got something already plan that doesnt apply to everthing . I can see people changing their gambit over and over again for soem of this bosses - I didnt need to do that )

wait mode /active mode whatever is NOT hard at all playing it without gambits - I think is more of a challenge is just like playing any other ff but without this extra help. give it a go is fun!

I dont know to be honest I think is just like playing any FF.... xD

Im in lushu mines :D killing "calaberas" lol

The combat log tells you want he's going to do, so it doesn't matter whether you're in wait or active mode. You're also missing the point of gambits in general. They're not one-size-fits-all deals, they simply remove the tedium that would seriously detract from the game. With those little things taking care of themselves, you can go about your business without being on top of everything.

Like I said before, this system gives you more control over your characters than just about every FF before it. An example of this being setting a character to attack enemies within a certain MP range, or when certain item is low. Manual alone doesn't approach that, so if it's control you're looking for this the stuff for you.

And I say it's needless work that borders on crazy. There's nothing fun about Aeronites pounding on you while you dig through menus for a spell (even when customized). Putting yourself through that extra work is like saying you actually like trolling monsters for rare loot, rather than earning it from a strong monster or something.

It would have been good if you could save the gambit presets. So that when you need a boss gambit configuration, you can load it with one button (as you already prepared it before, and "saved" it), and then, when you need a leveling configuration, you can load it with one button too.

Anyway, i've just killed the judge on Mt. Bur-Omisace. To kill the boss on the precedent dugeon, and that boss, i really sweated a lot, and wasted tons of hi-potions and phoenix downs. I don't wanna level up my secondary party members, but i need to level up my main characters. So, do you know a good place where to level up, where i'm now? Should i just go on the game and level up my characters before or in phon coast?

Ok Ok i retract what i said abou the gambits, i didnt know everyone was going 2 debate on it =|. So ok im just going through the hunts at the moment because im trying to get Bubble, faith and Bravery, but i cant seem to find the Nebreus Deadlands, any help?