Leveling

My questions are twofold:

1) When and where should leveling the party to level 99 be done?

2) When and where should completing the License Board (except for some Espers, naturally) be done?

I've discovered that allies will be recruited at levels commensurate to the present characters, so if I leveled Vaan and Penelo to 99 before I recruit anyone else, they'd all already be at 99. Same deal with LP.

In addition I found that with three party members (and a guest) get half the experience that just Vaan and Penelo did fighting the same monsters. So again, it would seem leveling early would be an advantage.

Right now I leveled Vaan and Penelo to level 34 and filled in the top of the License Board completely. Took me 60+ hours, but I spent a lot of that time fighting weak foes for LP.

1. As you are completing the Bestiary, since you will eventually have to do it anyways. Or if you don't want to complete it or already have, a good place is the Overlooking Eternity area in the Nabreus Deadlands, since about 50+ Dead Bones spawn there per entry it seems.

2. The top part of the License Board is somewhat more important than the bottom part, since you probably care that someone has Augments such as Magick Lore, Battle Lore, HP +500, and Swiftness more than you would about whether or not they could equip all the weapons and armor in the game, some of which are ridiculously hard/impossible to get anyways. So you once you get all the Licenses for all the desired weapons and armor you want to equip on the character, you should just complete the top part and just fill the bottom half when you have nothing better to spend the LP on.

By the way, why would you want to level so early? Do you want to ruin the whole game for yourself?

I found fighting just with Vaan and Penelo extremely tedious. And you are stuck around Rabanstre too. Bo-ring!

I recommend only getting to level 10 before the Palace, then rushing to Bhujerba. You get Larsa there but you won't need him at too high of a level, besides you will get him again later.

You don't want to get Vossler, your second guest at a too high level because (SPOILER)you will have to fight him

After Vossler it is a good idea to level up. You will get Larsa again and later Reddas. And you have free roaming through most of Ivalice :D The best time to level up is then or after you get to Balfonheim IMHO.

But I finished the game at level 64 and I'm a klutz! You don't need to get to level 99, only do it if you want to.

Why would you want to waste all of your time doing that? Just level normally throughout the game, otherwise you will not only waste your time but make the rest of the game mind-numblingly easy. Don't power level unless the enemies or bosses in an area are killing you easily.

I've always leveled in my games early as possible. I like having a comfortable margin of error when taking on bosses. Right now the levels I've reached are hitting diminishing returns, even with slaying the cave monsters and Werewolves.

So I'll advance the plot. Thanks everyone! :)

I've seen someone get a 999 chain in overlooking eternity, but for me the spawns wear out at like 55 or so. I have to go back to save crystal and come back for a fresh batch.

You can easily get chains that high with weak monsters like wolf-types (Wolves and Hyenas) between Giza Plains and Dalmasca Sands. The strongest monster I could get a chain so far like that is the Werewolves in Giza Plains. You can run two screens west past the save crystal and back again, they'll reappear.

But there's little point in getting a chain of 999; you'd max your inventory of Loot from that monster type long before that. Maybe you could max rare drops that way.

Its very easy to get chains higher that 50 or so. Right after Lamont joins your party, go into the Luhusu mines and on the second bridge, you can get a chain of at least 30 or so, then when the spawns start to run out, zone south, then past to the first bridge, then return. I got to level 17 with everyone like this, in about two hours. Lamont in your party helps a great deal, because he has those unlimited potions. My chain record there is 243. They also drop done fragments, which, by a 170 chain, are near to 99. A stack of these sells for around 20,000 gil. Average or 98exp per skeleton with Lamont in the party.

The next easiest place to level up is on the platforms in the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea. If you run from the Pineapple king and the Yensa, concentrating solely on the Urutan-Yensa, you can get a rather large chain. This is an excellent place to level up in, because it is very large, and there are gate crystals on each side of the area.

These two methods are what got all of my characters at least two quickenings each, with two having three, and enough gil to fund the entire Archadian Empire, or their downfall, if you will.

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Originally Posted by BG-57

I've always leveled in my games early as possible. I like having a comfortable margin of error when taking on bosses.

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I'm the same way. I like to make the bosses as easy as possible because I like to get on with the story. To me, the actual gameplay is merely a means to an end. I want to see the story, and to see the story you have to play through the game and fight, fight, fight. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the gameplay has been more interesting than the story in FFXII. But, you can only go through fighting so much before you get tired of it. All I have left in the game is to go to the Bahamut sky fortress, and I have Vaan around level 68 and everyone else about 58 or so.

you must have a lot of time and unless its a long drawn out project i'd seriously suggest for your health, mentality and social health that you dont do this sort of thing.

i'd imagine leveling up to level 99 takes much less time than 60 hours when done against tougher opponents.

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Originally Posted by prayzer

All I have left in the game is to go to the Bahamut sky fortress, and I have Vaan around level 68 and everyone else about 58 or so.

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You will pwn it. I did it at level 64 with ease.

I really don't understand those who power lvl early in the game, I don't like ending an epic boss fight in one hit. :p Not only that but you are wasting your time by doing the same thing over and over again in the beginning of the game and it will be 5 times longer to hit lvl99 than someone who lvled by folowing the story.

I've power lvled at the end of the game to fight the Final Boss by lvling up to lvl60 (I was at lvl48-50 when I was first able to go fight the Final Boss) and I really regretted it. He was way too easy...

Lvl99 is really not necessary for this game, not even for the Ultimate boss of the game which have 50 millions HP. Someone even made a video of him defeating Yazmat (The Ultimate Boss) with a party of lvl 1/2/2/3/3/3. :eek:

If you realy want to leval fast theres an way to make a chain that will leval up charicters atomaticaly.
its on game faqs.com look for the Negalmuur Auto-Leveling Guide

Hitting 99 is, as people have mentioned, rather unnecessary, but if you want to be fully prepared for some of the tougher Marks and Espers, it really helps to be that strong going in.

License board completion should just randomly happen at some point late game. It isn't really something you aim to do, it's something that just happens as a consequence of you just playing the game.

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Originally Posted by prayzer

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Originally Posted by BG-57

I've always leveled in my games early as possible. I like having a comfortable margin of error when taking on bosses.

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I'm the same way. I like to make the bosses as easy as possible because I like to get on with the story. To me, the actual gameplay is merely a means to an end. I want to see the story, and to see the story you have to play through the game and fight, fight, fight. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the gameplay has been more interesting than the story in FFXII. But, you can only go through fighting so much before you get tired of it. All I have left in the game is to go to the Bahamut sky fortress, and I have Vaan around level 68 and everyone else about 58 or so.

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IMO this is a terrible approach to have to a video game. Gameplay is an end in itself. A fun game with an awful story is always better than a bad game with a great story. And storytelling in games is not as strong as it is in books or movies yet, so if a story is all you play for, why are you playing at all?

The only thing in this game I power levelled for is the first Demon Wall in Raithwall's Tomb that you're expected to run from. No way was I running from that.

Update:

I have gotten the Dawn Shard but I haven't gone into the raining Giza Plains yet. All these sidequests became available and I'm just wrapping them up now.

I've managed to get the Espers Adrammelech and Zalera. Both took two tries, even with a level 38 party. Barheim Passage is very tough, even now, so I just ran when I came to the room full of Dead Bones and Specters (although Pheonix Downs can take out the second guys). The last Esper I'm going to try to get is Cuchulainn, although he may be too tough.

I've done all the hunts that can be done in the areas I've already explored. Orthos gave me a lot of trouble, even with two rounds of Quickenings. Earth Tyrant was easier than I expected.

This is certainly one of the most sidequest-intensive FFs. Since I'm trying to do them all, the overleveling was worthwhile.