Yea I need some practice with that anyways to make sure i'm up to snuff with it and able to actually use it in battle and not just messing around. Although it is a pretty nice little tool, it will especially handy for those annoying enemies who put up those damn physical palling's.

How exactly does poach work? Do you have to have the enemy's health low before you can execute it? I'm trying to get my LAST scarletite for the Tournsol from the Emeraltitan in the deadlands(since im so close to getting it I've decided to postpone my rendezvous with Hellwyrm until I get it). It says that it drops it or you can poach it for one but I can't for the life of me get the bastard to drop it!!

Edit: Nevermind I figured that out seeing as how obvious it was. Still no Scarletite though....ohh and I also found that it was two Zombie powders I had not Soul Powder. So one more Soul powder and one more Scarletite

Just kill them. Poaching Emeralditans in the Deadlands is a waste of time. Kill all of them on the map, run through the save map to the Leynir (Sleipnir-like horses) map and back again. The Emeralditans will have respawned and you can try again.

Oh and poaching is easy to automate:

Foe status: HP Critical > Poach
Foe: nearest > Attack

Your characters will attack until the enemy reaches HP critical (blinking red) at which time they'll start poaching. Some enemies are immune, so make sure to turn it off when you're done. If you've already got 10 Espers speak with Geomancer Yugelu (sp?) just across from the shop in Jahara so he can open the way to the eastern section of the Henne Mines.

Go along until you start seeing reaper type enemies called Etem. Kill them until you get your soul powder.

Yea I had been zoning like that but just with no luck. But I would imagine as with most other rare loot in the game it just takes time and sometimes luck so i'll just keep at it for now.

I have ten Espers but I have been weary to go down there yet since I have read in earlier posts about the gang rapes that take place down there. But I'm thinking that with my characters at lvl 80 now they shouldn't be all that bad.

Wow, this reflect trick makes black magic actually useful. I triple-Scathed a Ring Wyrm for 30,000 HP! If I ever play through the game again, I'll be sure to use this on all of the bosses.

Set you Curaja gambits to something high, set KO status to Arise, keep Protect/Shell/Haste up constantly as well as Bravery/Faith. Exploit weaknesses as much as possible and avoid casting spells too much (have only one multi-caster). With that, you should do fine. Of course, make sure you have disable and confuse gambits and plenty of healing items.

Whoa, how'd you make it work? Did you have all three cast Scathe on themselves, or did you have one person cast Scathe on the team? I've tried doing that and all that happens is that it acts like a regular scathe.

Did it have consecutive damage figures, like 9999, 9999, 9999, etc?

Yes, 9999, 9999, 9999. I just had Basch use Scathe on himself and it hit three times all at once.

Awesome, I guess the reason I wasn't getting the same results was because I was testing this in the Necrohol (while looking for Vorres) on some Baknamy. Due to their low HP, it probably only took one stream's worth of max damage to waste it.

Fuck, you know how awesome that would've been against Yiazmat? Now the only thing I can actually test this on is Luxolid/Vagrant Souls/Shield Wyrms/Henne monsters (Gizamalukes)/folks in the Bahamut.

Sucks that you need to be all the way at the Phon Coast to get the necessary gear.

Woa, i got 3 deathbringers. It took me forever for the mob to spawn the first time, but the second and third succeded after little.
Are you saying that this weapon is not really useful in the endgame? 'Cause i really wanted to get it, as some people told me it's an endgame sword, and i found it as a weapon suggested in some of the hardest extra bosses strategies.

That sword's not worth the trouble for the added effect. Eventually you'll be doing damage that OHKOs anyway, and the times that the effect kicks in, you won't be gaining MP back from the damage inflicted. If you're going for OHKO, go with Assassin's Arrows. Death from a distance, and far more frequent than the Deathbringer.

And those bosses it was recommended for? They're immune to death spells or effects, so that advantage was never there in the first place. Heck, a ton of monsters are immune to that.

So, what are the best 3 weapons in the game?

you are in well enough level there . I killed him when I was around 63 mind you it took me ages but I got all my equipement in the "secret" store in deadlands. those Shields that the little monster offers you protect you from anything to be honest.

Does anyone in here uses any of those random damage Hammers?

What weapon classes do you use and I'll tell you the best weapons for them.

Saga, I made a Scorpion Tail a few days ago. Ok damage, hate the random aspect of it, though.

Ah, because i tought that just 1 or 2 weapon types were the endgame ones. So, are bows and guns also for those very hard extra bosses?
If yes, i use guns for batlhier, bows for fran, and katanas for ashe, but now i'm making them learn swords so they can use the deathbringer.

I think Dispel removes Stop. Not certain, though.

Fury was a cinch. Chaos wasn't too bad. I forgot to steal from him, so I hope I didn't miss anything crucial. I used our little trick, and it would have been more effective to have had two Opal Rings with two healer/buffers, but I only had the one, so I made do. The most frustrating things were getting rid of silence and the time it took for Scathe to hit. Did wonders against Chaos once I took out his elemental buddies, though. Also wasn't ready for Fearga, and ended up having to use a Hi-Ether to get my healer's MP back up to an effective level.

Nah, AFAIK, all the Espers can have their corresponding gem stolen from them along with a High Arcana. The latter is very important to those trying to make a Tournesol. Fearga's definitely a bitch, but it's nothing a charge + a hi-ether can't fix.

Some folks are literally struck dumb after I tell them about this little trick, since magic is so damn weak in the single bursts they allow you normally.

For that reason I haven't let it slip to the idiots at one of the other forums I check up on. All they talk about in an entire FFXII forum is what their favorite character is, and every other person asks why guns have such low attack power. Every fourth post is someone explaining that it cuts through defense, but no one listens. They don't deserve triple-casting.

Damn. You basically described what the FFXII thread over on the other places I check on are like, and I only mentioned it to one guy over IM. Bah, it doesn't matter. I've got another spell to test with it, one that should work due to it being multi-target in nature (Warp).

Oh, here's a question. The Mandragora royalty that you take out shows up in the Bestiary saying that you still need 14 of each, or something like that. Do we know where to find them again so we can unlock that part of the Bestiary?

The Feywood. Even then, those bastards are hard to coax out. I managed to get them to appear by clearing the map and zoning a few times. If you don't kill them fast enough, they'll start leveling themselves above and beyond the levels of Henne Mine enemies. It's not fun fighting a level 99 enemy, I'll tell you that much.

Is there any other way to enter the new section of the Henne Mines? (...Feywood?) Or do you always have to go in through the Ozmone Plains?

After searching for awhile the only enemy that pissed me off was the Hectytes and that's because of the mytrill bubbles. I wish all of my member HP was higher so I could just stop using the Bubble Belt. I know I can just cast bubble and all but sometimes when doing that and it wears off in the middle of the fight it ends up killing me. But down here I might do it anyways and keep casting it so I can actually utilize my other accessories.

You don't need bubble down there. Just have your healing gambits set high, and keep all your buffs refreshed and ready. The Hecteyes can be dealt with easily, just make sure you don't run into a whole lot of them with Abysteel. They'll freeze the battle with all their spells, while the bats tear you to ribbons.

I learned that one the hard way on my first run through but it's not all that bad now. But yea I'll just rearrange the gambits like you said and go a little deeper. I didn't want to push my luck there for a bit so I turned around right before the Phase 2 shaft without running into any Etem's. I'm guessing that they are probably in the special charter shaft so I'll have to make another run down there to get that last Soul Powder (finally got that last damn Scarletite). My goal is to have the Tournsol by the nights end, and with so little left to do, I'm pretty sure it wont take that long:D

Yeah, they're in the Special Charter Dig map. Make sure you have your gambits set to take care of Diable, Confuse and Disease. The Etems are already enough, but the Necrofiends that they turn into love status effects and warping to avoid damage. Oh, and the spell casting advice up there? Heed it, two of these things will completely lock you up if you attempt to use too much magic.

I just finished the game and was slightly underwhelmed. I guess I expected the final battles to be more grand. The story wrapped itself up pretty uneventfully, too. There were far greater story moments during the game than at the end, and I think the real climax of the game is around the Pharos segment of the story. That part got me pretty excited. Anyway, there isn't really any satisfaction to be gained from beating the game, in my opinion. It's still super fun to just play it, though. Now I just need to complete the nine-bajillion side quests and hunts and everything everyone's been discussing.