Equipment Upgrades

[Skyblade]

Ok, I just have to ask: Why? What is the point to this aspect of the customization?

Due to the extreme amount of materials required, it is not really effective or useful to upgrade equipment as you go, especially since you get better versions of all the accessories from chests anyway.

Since the most difficult challenges in the game are not simply beating things (most of which can be handled fairly easily with a little tactical planning or judicious use of items/techs), but rather getting the five star ratings for the marks, one would think that these might come in handy for that. But, no. Because upgrading your equipment causes the time required for a five star rating to shorten dramatically.


I really, really just fail to see the point. Currently, I have beaten the game, completed 76% of the Missions with 5 Star Ratings, and have yet to upgrade a single piece of equipment, either weapons or accessories. Going over the material requirements, it seems that upgrading weapons to max is going to be a far longer grind than maxing the Crystarium.

So why does this pointless, unnecessary grind exist, and, even more importantly, why does the game punish you for bothering to take part in it?

[Jessweeee♪]

You only really want to upgrade the weapons with useful abilities. If you like to spam Death, then a maxed out Marlboro wand is a must (success is also dependent on Vanille's Magic). Axis Blade's ATB charge is extremely useful, so you'll want to transform that to get ATB Charge II, and if you use Snow a lot then you may want to upgrade his weapon with Improved Guard. One tip in case you haven't noticed this already: organic components give you experience boosts, synthetic components give you more experience. Use organic components until you get the x3 boost and then use all of your synthetic components.

Upgrading accessories makes a huge difference. I couldn't defeat an Adamantoise without Death until I beefed up quite a few of them, even with everyone's default roles at level 5.

[ljkkjlcm9]

Also the highest level weapons all get another ATB Gauge, which can come in quite handy. Combine that with the accessory that extends your time to get a 5*, and it's definitely worth it.

Then of course, there is the trophy to have had 1 of every item as well.

THE JACKEL

[Shaibana]

what i hate most about upgrading is that i have no idea what im rlly doing.. im just putting everything in it and the lvl go up :)

so is there a 'special' way on how to upgrade it? or is everyone doing the same as me? xD

[ZeroFusion]

To get the most for your gil, use organic components (their icon looks like a claw or fang) first - until your experience multiplier hits 3.0 (that's as high as it will go). After that, dump mechanic components (their icon is a screw) to the upgraded item.

It's better to use stacks with more components at once, because each component you use also descreases experience multiplier a bit: 30x {organic component} => experience multiplier goes to 3.0 => 40x {mechanic component} (the numbers are made up, I hope you get the point).

Also, keep an eye on the items that are about to hit their experience cap (and become a star-level items), because any experience they get "over" the capacity will be lost in vain.

[Skyblade]

Just 5 starred Vercingetrix (who wasn't nearly as hard as I expected), and then got utterly smashed by the first Shaolong Gui I encountered.

Still haven't upgraded an item (or even completely filled my Crystarium yet), but I suppose I will probably have to in order to take down the full size Long Gui.

[DMKA]

To get the trophies, basically.

[Loony BoB]

Just 5 starred Vercingetrix (who wasn't nearly as hard as I expected), and then got utterly smashed by the first Shaolong Gui I encountered.

Still haven't upgraded an item (or even completely filled my Crystarium yet), but I suppose I will probably have to in order to take down the full size Long Gui.
This is definitely the case.