Aero3

[UltimaLimit]

Okay, I'm pissed. I've played through several FFs, and not once have I been able to use pure Wind, Water, or Shadow element magic spells. (I'm not talking things like Choco-Mog, Typhoon, Darkside, etc.--I mean pure, like an Aero materia and an Aqua materia.) Take FF7, for example--we get Fire, Ice, Bolt, Quake, Bio, even Demi--but no sign of Aero, Aqua, or Shadow. How the hell are we supposed to take advantage of an enemy's Shadow weakness if we have no Shadow spells, dammit!

You get my point. Any reason you can think of why Square constantly holds out on us and doesn't give us all the elements to work with? Remember, I'm talking just plain ordinary magic, not summoned elemental spells or other special elemental skills. My point is made, so I'll shut up and let y'all take over for now. :yap: :blahblah:

[Zante]

In FFX, they even cut the available elements down to only five. :mad: If it will continue like this, in the next FF there won't be any elements at all.

Oh, and which game had the Shadow element???

[nik0tine]

In FFIX there was shadow magic that you could use. In some of the FF's, such as FF8, Aero WAS a useable elemental spell.

[Jolts]

FFVII had Tornado (wind).
FFVIII had Aero (wind), Tornado (wind), and Water (water).
FFIX had Doomsday (shadow) and Water (water).

[Super Christ]

And then X had Water, Watera, and Waterga.

What was the 5th element in X?

[One winged angel of death]

i like aero that sucks

[Del Murder]

And then X had Water, Watera, and Waterga.

What was the 5th element in X?
Holy perhaps?

Holy has always been my favorite. As long as they keep that one in, I'm fine. Having a lot of elements is neat though.

[UltimaLimit]

Forgot about Water in 9, my bad. Been forever since I played, and I've only played 7, 9, Tactics, and (some of) 4, so I didn't know about some of the others.

Doomsday, strictly speaking, isn't a spell. (It's a skill where you pay with HP instead of MP--not bad with Blood Sword.) If Vivi had Shadow, Shadowa, Shadowaga, that'd be cool. *wandering off topic a little* Instead we're stuck with that crappy Meteor spell. It's a bit much even with Auto-Regen. Ice2 Reflected off of my 4 team members is more effective usually. Eat 9999, Behemoth.

Anyway, I hope Square remedies this during their next FF.

[DJZen]

How the hell are we supposed to take advantage of an enemy's Shadow weakness if we have no Shadow spells, dammit!

You mean like Shadow Flare?


Any reason you can think of why Square constantly holds out on us and doesn't give us all the elements to work with? Remember, I'm talking just plain ordinary magic, not summoned elemental spells or other special elemental skills.

Some things are supposed to be elusive. Their very rarity makes them so special. If Shadow was a common spell, it wouldn't be nearly so cool.

[SeeDRankLou]

Doomsday, strictly speaking, isn't a spell. (It's a skill where you pay with HP instead of MP--not bad with Blood Sword.)
In FFIX, Doomsday is a spell Vivi can learn with the Mace of Zeus, it costs 72 MP.

[Jolts]

Yeah, and it attacks everyone on the battlefield, including your own party. That's why I prefer Doomsday Sword. A little weaker, but still effective :D.

[Flashback007]

I do agree with UltimaLimit. I some games the elements just aren't good enough. If we look back to FFI, we there have four fiends, each defending a element, plus we have a Ice Cavern, That makes:
Earth
Fire
Water
Wind
Ice.
I think these five should be standard is the games. These are the five bassical elements of the world. Ice is even a form of water, so. But these five should be always available in a FF-game. Then about other "elements" like Holy and Shadow. I don't really consider them as a element. They are both two opposite. They are like the ultimate black magic (Shadow) and the ultimate white magic (Holy). They should always keep it till last and even then it must cost a lot of MP and gil. If you receive these spells in the beginning of the game, it will lose all of it's "magic". So the spell system must be looking something like this:

Earth, Earth2, Earth3 and Earth4 (the same for Fire, Water, Wind and Ice)
Holy
Shadow (or a different name)

I think this looks actually very good. Throw in some healing spells and some status spells and your finished.

[Jolts]

You forgot about lightning/thunder. It may not be a really major elemental, but it's my favorite one, so I hope they keep including it :).

Actually, now that I think of it, electricity is what allows living being to move. So it is important. (small electrical serges from the brain to the body part is what causes it to move)

[Flashback007]

You forgot about lightning/thunder. It may not be a really major elemental, but it's my favorite one, so I hope they keep including it :).

Actually, now that I think of it, electricity is what allows living being to move. So it is important. (small electrical serges from the brain to the body part is what causes it to move)

You're right. I forgot Thunder. It is an important spell. If you look to every FF-game. The three spells Fire, Ice and Bolt never did go out of any FF-game. All three of them were in every game. I don't know for sure about the other elements. But I believe that Holy is also such a kind of spell. Always in every FF-game. Altough in FFVII it wasn't a useable spell.

[Jolts]

Yeah, Lightning/Thunder/Bolt, whatever. It's the only one where they can't decide what to call it. Well, that and Demi/Gravity.
Thunder doesn't even make sense, to me, because thunder is the sound that lightning makes. Eh, but what do I care--as long as it's electrical :D.

[Doomgaze]

Demi is Gravity elemental, which is very similar to Shadow, yes.

[Jolts]

Doomsday is better than Doomsday sword. Equipping your party with Shdaow absorbing armor completely heals them and heavily damages the enemy. It can be very useful against Ozma.
Yeah, but if you don't want to use that equipment, then go with Doomsday Sword, and doesn't Ozma absorb shadow as well...but I guess it would still help for the shadow attack that he does (which might even be Doomsday, I've never actually fought Ozma, but I read all about it), if that's what you meant.

[UltimaLimit]

Doomsday, strictly speaking, isn't a spell.

Blast, you're right! I was thinking Darkside, sorry. Curse you Steiner!

[DJZen]

Demi is Gravity elemental, which is very similar to Shadow, yes.

If by "shadow" you mean "the force which draws all objects toward the earth at the same rate" then yes, shadow and gravity ARE very similar.

FF has a plethora of spells which aren't strictly speaking "elemental" but act like they are anyway. Death is a good example. Death is not an "element". You can't do "death damage" to anyone. However, there are a lot of enemies throughout the FF games that have resistance to "death" spells.

However, there ARE earth and wind elementals, they're just incredibly useless. In fact, if you want to see the full list of elements, just go to a character's status screen in FFVII and scroll through until you get to the attribute defense section. Fire, Ice, Bolt, Water, Earth, Wind, Poison, Shadow and Holy are all there as I recall, and possibly some others as well.

[Jolts]

Death isn't used as an elemental in any FF game. It's more of a status effect, and there just happens to be a "Death" skill for the sole purpose of causing that status effect, and they can't just have every enemy suseptable to such a skill, so they make some immune. Except, of course, in FFVIII case, where all elementals and status effects have a percentage to work (0 will never work on them, 100 will work everytime, and anything in between is calculated randomly by the percentage given).

FFVII's elementals are: Fire, Ice, Bolt, Earth, Gravity, Poison, Water, Wind, and Holy. No Shadow.

[UltimaLimit]

In fact, if you want to see the full list of elements, just go to a character's status screen in FFVII and scroll through until you get to the attribute defense section. Fire, Ice, Bolt, Water, Earth, Wind, Poison, Shadow and Holy are all there as I recall, and possibly some others as well.

I know. But I'm talking about being able to use them, as Magic Materia (or the equivelant of it in other FFs).

[Flashback007]

FFVII's elementals are: Fire, Ice, Bolt, Earth, Gravity, Poison, Water, Wind, and Holy. No Shadow.

Is Poison an elemental?? I don't agree on that, or at least. With elemental I understand the forces of nature like fire, ice, bolt, earth, water and wind. I don't really ever found Gravity, Poison or Holy an elemental. So maybe that is mine opinion, but I think that for sure Gravity and Poison aren't real elementals. Holy is a different story, like I said before I think that Holy is somewhat the ultimate white elemental. And that would make then an other spell the ultimate dark elemental. I am thinking about Doomsday, Ultima or Flare. Poison is a statusspell and not a elemental for me. And Gravity yeah I don't know how to describe Gravity but for me it isn't a elemental. But my defenition of elementals could be completly wrong, because ofcourse Gravity is also a force of nature. But I don't find it elemental like Fire for example. Gravity is something that you cannot touch, the other are. And Poison is something that is brought foward by nature, but it isn't a force of nature in my eyes.

[robfinalfantasy]

And then X had Water, Watera, and Waterga.

What was the 5th element in X?Holy perhaps?

Holy has always been my favorite. As long as they keep that one in, I'm fine. Having a lot of elements is neat though.My understanding is that Holy in FFX is non-elemental (sounds crazy huh?). Holy simply doesn't appear in the enemy stats when checking for weaknesses.

[Zante]

Althoug it isn't shown, some enemies have a weakness against holy.

[Remnant]

I just wish there was a reliable third tier for the air/water spells.

Like in VIII for example- Aero to Tornado to ______ (I mean, unless you count Pandemonea, but that is not a spell per se)

Water had only water, and leviathan. Though, water is usually redundant with ice anyway, so not too big a deal.

[Jolts]

Is Poison an elemental??
The way I see it, they're only elementals because they're in the list. They're more of a damage factor, since Bio did damage and possibly cause the poison status effect, and some enemies had strengths or weaknesses to the "elemental" aspect of Bio. Same goes with enemies having strengths or weaknesses to Gravity (that thing that hangs off of a chain in the Shinra Mansion is weak to Gravity, so Demi2 or Laser will be an instant death for it ;)).