Another FFVI Question

Thanks for the help on my previous question and it worked out well. Im on top of the follower's tower and fighting the boss. I kill him pretty easily but his last ditch effort (Ultima) owns me and kills everyone. I have Terra's and Lock's mblock % close to 100, like 96% or so. Mog and Celes are around 70%. They all die when he casts Ultima. I also cast shell on them and they still die. Is there another thing i could do to ensure life after Ultima?

My other question was at the weapon shop in Narshe, what is better to get the Ragnorak Sword or esper? I was leading toward the esper because Ultima like its name implies is usually one heck of a spell. But the Ragnorak sword is amazing. What do you guys think?

Once again thanks for all the help, it is greatly appreciated.

Cast Life3 on them when they're alive so they come back after being dead.

The Ragnorak is a matter of personal opinion. Some like the sword, some like the esper. I prefer the sword. After getting it, I always bet it at the Colliseum to get an Illumina sword.

Have you gone to the phoenix cave/gotten Locke yet?
This is crucial because the esper recieved teaches one of the best supporting spells of the game, Life 3. Once casted on someone, once the person who recieved the spell dies s/he will instantaneously (sp?) come back to life, making the Ultimajpointless cuz everyone will come back to life.
Also, casting berserk on the guy makes this battle a thousand times easier cuz he is a sissy when it comes to attacking

I prefer the esper cuz the paladin shield always seemed to annoying to get and using the esper allows you to learn Ultima earlier in the game which can be helpful, however its mostly just preference

There's a few ways to survive Ultima:

-Hope your stats are high enough to survive it. (hahaha)
-Use Life3 on a character before he casts it.
-Use Palidor's Sonic Dive. This will cause all of your charaters to Jump. You must be able to kill him by the third attack however.
-Rasp about 50000 MP.

If you use swords a lot, you should probably pick to sword. Though with the Esper, you can get an Economizer without having to beat a tough enemy called Brachosaur.

The upside to having the Ragnarok Esper:

-Teaches Ultima
-Can Morph monsters into very useful items
-It's much easier to learn Ultima and recieve the best items from Morphing than it is to get them by other means.

The upside to having the Ragnarok sword:

-Often has critical hits, and casts Flare
-Can be traded in to recieve the Illumina, a sword which increases the bearer's stats by an insane amount, as well as having auto-criticals and randomly casts Holy.
-You can get Ultima from the Paladin's Shield, however, you have to go through 256 battles with the Cursed Shield equipped, which is pretty time consuming.

So, in the long run, having the sword is better, but not everyone has that kind of time to use. For your first game, just get the Esper.

Thank you all, the life3 spell to win seems so obvious now....

or use a muscle belt on someone like Sabin who typically has a lot of HP, and you may very well survive it.

I always take the sword, because it ends up being more important to me in a perfect game.

THE JACKEL

I never understood why the cursed shield was "time consuming" to uncurse. Just equip it with a ribbon and continue the game. You'll kill everything before the time counts down and you won't be doing anything extra or going out of your way to uncurse it.

That's another thing I hated about FF6: Choose between an Esper or a unique weapon. It isn't fair, as the only way you can get absolutely everything is to pick the Esper, then steal Ragnarok while fighting Kefka's Tower thing.

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Originally Posted by Psi

That's another thing I hated about FF6: Choose between an Esper or a unique weapon. It isn't fair, as the only way you can get absolutely everything is to pick the Esper, then steal Ragnarok while fighting Kefka's Tower thing.

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that doesn't get you absolutely everything, because you get the sword when it's not a factor anymore, and you can't trade it for Illumina at that point either. Seriously, the Esper does nothing good for you. It doesn't even have some awesome level bonus or anything, it just teaches you Ultima, which can be learned through the Paladin shield. Saying the whole summon to turn into items is a good thing, is completely false. It sucks, and doesn't work most of the time, and none of the items you can get from it are hard to obtain through other means.

THE JACKEL

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I never understood why the cursed shield was "time consuming" to uncurse. Just equip it with a ribbon and continue the game. You'll kill everything before the time counts down and you won't be doing anything extra or going out of your way to uncurse it.

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Heh, that might be true. However, when I play the game I never go through random encounters once I hit the WoR and get Mog. So I'm stuck with going to the Solitary Island if I want the Paladin's Shield.

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Originally Posted by Zeromus_X

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I never understood why the cursed shield was "time consuming" to uncurse. Just equip it with a ribbon and continue the game. You'll kill everything before the time counts down and you won't be doing anything extra or going out of your way to uncurse it.

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Heh, that might be true. However, when I play the game I never go through random encounters once I hit the WoR and get Mog. So I'm stuck with going to the Solitary Island if I want the Paladin's Shield.

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Well that's just silly on your part. I never run from battle, and I only use the moogle charm on areas with multiple parties, or Fanatics Tower.

THE JACKEL

The-esper-is-a-thing-so-getting-the-illumina-sword-still-denies-you-the-ability-to-get-everything

If you care about getting every single little thing, you're screwed either way.

I get the Esper. Fighting 256 battles takes way too long.

I would suggest using Relm instead of Locke or Mog. Her magic stat is the highest, and with the right equipment (Magus Rod, BehemothSuit, Cat Hood) she can be really powerful.

For no discernable reason, I have always picked Ragnarok the Esper. Throughout every single playthrough, even the ones where I tell myself at the beginning that I am going to pick the sword. I don't know why, I just do. I don't really care for magic all that much either.

Weird. I just realized this.

Hm...

I don't even remember where you get the cursed shield to be honest because I always picked the Esper. Using the same method to easily uncurse the shield, you could teach several people Ultima with the Esper. And the stat boosts you would get with the Illumina are pointless. Any character at a decent level casting Ultima is going to be a nigh unstoppable killing machine anyway, and hit every enemy on screen doing it.

The stat increases of Illumina are great, and 256 battles is not a lot. You get the cursed shield in Narshe, in another building, just like you get ragnarok. Honestly, get the airship, go to narshe and get mog. Go to the phoenix cave, put mog in a party with moogle charm, then the other 4(Celes, Sabin, Setzer, Edgar) in the other, get Locke, then get the ragnarok sword and the cursed shield. Equip the cursed shield with a ribbon on someone in your party the rest of the game, and trade the sword for Illumina. It'll be a big difference maker for everything in the WoR. Plus anyone can equip Illumina with a merit award on them. And you really should fight over 256 battles, at least if you never run away or avoid battles.

And to me, magic has never been my thing anyways. I started with FFI which was so limited in magic, I got a bad taste for it. Either way, I uncurse the shield more for how amazing it actually is, than for the fact it teaches ultima.

THE JACKEL

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Originally Posted by ljkkjlcm9

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Originally Posted by Zeromus_X

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I never understood why the cursed shield was "time consuming" to uncurse. Just equip it with a ribbon and continue the game. You'll kill everything before the time counts down and you won't be doing anything extra or going out of your way to uncurse it.

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Heh, that might be true. However, when I play the game I never go through random encounters once I hit the WoR and get Mog. So I'm stuck with going to the Solitary Island if I want the Paladin's Shield.

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Well that's just silly on your part. I never run from battle, and I only use the moogle charm on areas with multiple parties, or Fanatics Tower.

THE JACKAL

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You think so? I've played the game probably over ten times, and sometimes I like speeding through the game to go through the story. It isn't necessary to level up in the game, so that leaves me with getting a new time record each playthrough.

Unless, you're talking about this combined with the Paladin's Shield, in which case nevermind.

If we're talking about a matter of time saving practicality though and just getting through the game; spending the time you could spend uncursing the shield just to start learning Ultima, instead, equipping the Esper could easily lead to a full party or more learning the spell. Osmose pretty much guarentees you'll never run out of magic points, and if you equip a gold hairpin and gem box you'll be sitting pretty. I can't even think of a time I've seen Ultima do less than 9999 except with Gogo who's magic stat hasn't received any boosting at all when I get him (even then, doing 9200 instead of 9999 isn't exactly a huge difference). I'm not saying Illumina isn't a great sword, or that its stat boosts aren't great either, I'm just saying that by virtue of the game being so damn easy, you're better off spending the time learning Ultima to begin with. A party full of people who can cast Ultima every turn and keep themselves stocked with MP will kill just about anything in the game in a few turns. Getting the Illumina only makes sense if you're out to make the best party you can for completion sake. It's far from necessary when it comes to beating the game.

If we're talking about speeding through the game... beat it with just Celes Edgar and Setzer... I mean c'mon people, that was by far my fastest play through!

THE JACKEL

Okay, maybe I should have added I enjoy speeding through the game while still recruiting all characters and getting relatively nice equipment. Regardless, I didn't mean to sway the thread off-topic.

I just find it plain immoral to turn a carcass into a sword.

And im lazy, but really it depends on the players playing style.

[evaile=B.mage]-[/evaile]

Instead I'm just going to carry their dead carcass around with me and extract magic with it?

Exactly!! That's how Ragnarok would have wanted it :cry:

[evaile=B.mage]-[/evaile]