Espers in FFXII

So, I have played this magnificent game through once, and I am planning to play it through yet again very soon. One thing I was thinking about though is how little I used the espers in ffxii. Now, I am a huge fan of summonings in final fantasy games but for some reason I felt like the espers in this game were more or less useless. However as an aspect of the plot I thought they were a great addition(as well as paying homage to ff6) and not only that but getting them was often a very entertaining challenge...

But basically I am opening this thread to get y'alls opinion. How did you use them effictively? How did you feel about them, etc. This is an open discussion, and I welcome any and all feedback

Other than when mandatory I never used them but I did collect all thirteen. Gotta catch them all!

Espers were really only useful during the Zeromus fight since other magick was lost and quickenings didn't help against all the skeletons that spawned. Also Zodiark is nice for some quick easy damage.

First off, I loved the summons! They all had cool designs, were really fun to collect and capture, and they were based off the Zodiac, which is awesome!

I didn't use them a whole lot, just whenever I wanted to watch their battle animations! xD

People have spent years complaining that FF summons are too overpowered and cheap, and now FFXII has given us weaker summons that are less useful and they get a lot of flak:p

Granted, I don't use the FFXII summons that much either. But their use is quite strategic and tactical, dependent on elemental properties, enemy patterns, that sort of thing. Apparently the terrain and weather can influence things too.

Not to mention that the esper boss fights and bestiary back-story entries were epic in their own right:D

I thought that the Espers were handled better in this game than in any other. Excellent back story, great boss battles and really cool and original designs. But they were simply not worth using in battle. I thought it was a pretty good idea, to have you fight alone with your Esper, but it could've been handled much better; such as having the Espers be actually beneficial in battle. I got them all because I'd be annoyed if I didn't. But beyond trying them out for the first time, I never really used them. Pity.

it was pretty cool how they just kinda appeared on you and trapped you. I mean I enjoyed every moment of that 3 hour battle against whoever it was!

nah they sucked
as has been said appart from using them the first time,only for them to get the kicked out them straight away,i barely ever used them again

I love the Espers and used them when the situation needed it. By end game, I found them more useful than Quickenings cause apparently I have the worse luck with them on this forum...:mad:

Summons work like earlier summons in the series (pre-FFVI) in which you can't be expected to use all of them all the time cause they become obsolete fairly quickly. Still, Ultima, Zodiark, Exodus, and Chaos are all incredibly useful and hold their own fairly well even by end game. The Espers are useful as long as you know how to use them. They are "glass cannons" so to speak in that they murder everything around them fairly well but can be killed quickly if you are not careful...

Except for a few I feel its safe to say they are not designed for crowd control as much as they are designed to take advantage of enemy weaknesses (hey just like the pre-VI summons :eek:) Most are worth it if you can fulfill the prerequisites for their special attacks (some of the best in the series) In fact Zodiark not only has one of the strongest attacks in the game but his is the easiest to get off in the game. You can even set it up so Zodiark prepares his ultimate attack as soon as he is summoned.

I like how they are set up except for one major flaw... Most of the summons require their summoner to help them from being swarmed or flat out killed but its difficult to do so if the summoner blows all their damn MP to summon the esper. Had the Esper replaced the summoner and fought along side the two party members (even one if specs couldn't have all three of them on the screen. Just not the summoner.:mad2:) who actually have MP and crowd control abilities then I feel they would have been far more accessible.

One cool trick is to use them to level up a single character while farming for loot. The Esper gains no exp. so the summoner gets all of them. I also used Ultima alot in the Zodiark tunnels cause everything their is weak to Holy and her Holy attack is faster than the actual Holy spell.

Overall, I feel they are pretty good they just require a different strategy of use than previous games. Personally, I'm just happy XII stuck with X's way of doing summons cause I feel this system works better with the concept of "summoning". Before X, summons were just overpriced, over-bloated black mages...:mad:

They're definately useful to a point. Don't expect your level 1 espers to continue holding their own after a while, move up to level 2 and eventually 3. If you can get one around the enemies' levels, with an element they're weak against you got a great combo. There's a whole guide on using them well on GameFAQs, granted not every esper is worth using, but you can't say they're unusable.

Hunting down the non-mandatory espers and collecting them in the bestiary was alotta fun.

Yeah, they can be useful in certain situations, but not that useful. xP In fact, as far as I'm concerned, most of the situations in which they're considered 'useful' by most people, I consider them to just be slightly less useless, since it's not like any of the regular monster fights are particularly hard. :P

However, it's kind of nice to summon an Esper right before using a save point, since that way you can do it without losing all of your MP, making them purely a bonus.

Espers have unlimited MP, so Syphon's handy for stealing some MP back from them after summoning. You need to have the Augment licenses that restore MP, or simply wait to regain some MP by moving around; but a strong mage can purloin a lot of MP from their Esper.

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Originally Posted by Roto13

Yeah, they can be useful in certain situations, but not that useful. xP In fact, as far as I'm concerned, most of the situations in which they're considered 'useful' by most people, I consider them to just be slightly less useless, since it's not like any of the regular monster fights are particularly hard. :P

However, it's kind of nice to summon an Esper right before using a save point, since that way you can do it without losing all of your MP, making them purely a bonus.

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Hahha that's a great idea. I never even thought of that, but that's how much I use espers in this game.

It is nice that they still incorporated summonings into ff12 because that has always been an aspect of FF I have greatly enjoyed. I think though that the developers may have purposefully utilized espers as more of an effective story line boost than a battle boost.

I never really used the espers. I loved the story they provided and that was pretty much it. I don't think I ever used it them when it wasn't mandatory.. But they looked really freaking awesome :mog:

The espers were only good for a large amount of enemies. But like said before. I never used them after the first time.

I actually liked the more balanced nature of the summons in FF XII. They weren't as overpowered as the summons on the previous FFs and it took strategy to use them properly. In FF X (for example) the modus operandi to defeat virtually every boss was to ready your Aeons overdrives and unload them on the boss. That was way too easy and monotonous, the Aeons were too overpowered.

That said; I didn't use them much. To me this has more to do with the inability to control them rather than the fact that they are just too weak or useless. It would have been nice if you could control them or at least set up some Gambits so that they act the way you want them to.


Egami

The espers where the only thing i didn't like about FFXII dont get me wrong the were all created well and that. but what happened to the "Normal" summons... oh yeah they got turned into ships....

EDIT: and to the person above in FFX i never used my aeons after the first fight after getting them... I.e get shiva.... use her... forget her. I had no need for the aeons when fighting bosses. lets face it.... you could easily take them with the "expert" sphere grid and your characters physical attacks and magic. use your white magic to... and your sorted.

Although... i had to against Yu-Yevon.... so he could steal them of course

I'm just starting to play the game and I found out something that concerned me. Once a character learns an esper, no other characters can use it. This really put me off... so what I want to know is how much of a big deal this is. Is there like a suggested pairing for which character should go with which esper? I'm afraid of giving a really cool esper to a character that later in the game I won't even use so I'll pretty much never use that summon.

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Originally Posted by Yellow

I'm just starting to play the game and I found out something that concerned me. Once a character learns an esper, no other characters can use it. This really put me off... so what I want to know is how much of a big deal this is. Is there like a suggested pairing for which character should go with which esper? I'm afraid of giving a really cool esper to a character that later in the game I won't even use so I'll pretty much never use that summon.

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It doesn't make a huge difference, really. My only advice would be to look at how much power it takes to summon an Esper before assigning it... Some take more than others, and giving a lot of high-power Espers to the same character would be pointless 'cause it'd be very difficult to summon more than one during a battle.

There is no real compatibility issue like VIII so don't worry. Believe me, you may not be using Belias or Mateus by end game anyway so it doesn't really matter who you give it to anyway.

I know some people assigned summons to a specific character, creating a mock summoner class. In my first playthrough, I spread the love and gave everyone 2 espers a piece except for Balthier who got 3. The main thing to remember is their elemental properties and the fact it matters a bit more in this title, especially when you get Zalera (Death) and Zeromus (Gravity) as they are quite powerful but not against everything. You get Five espers in the course of the story and their are seven that are optional to acquire...

Ok so espers in ff12 aren't that big of a deal. I will probably have a "main" party that will take part in most of the battles, so I will naturally want to attach the best espers to them. Could I get some suggestions for which espers should go with a melee, range/support, and a mage character? And in case that it really truly does not matter who I assign them to, what are the best espers in general to give to the main party?

Generally speaking, the Espers get stronger as you acquire them, meaning Belias is the weakest and Zodiark is one of the most powerful.

It depends on how you use them but my personal favorites are Exodus (Non-Elemental) who uses Comets to destroy enemies. He's a bit slow in his casting so you may need to use your summoner as a meat shield. He complements melee fighters well if you set everything up correctly.

Chaos (Uses all the elements except earth) is overall, really good and his Gambits are set up to exploit elemental weaknesses. He kicks ass and sadly gets overlooked. He's good for any kind of character.

Ultima (Holy Elemental) her ultimate cinematic attack is damn near impossible to get off but her normal holy attack hits as hard as Holy and is much faster. She has auto-reflect so magic bounces off her but it creates poblems when healing is needed.

Zodiark (Darkness/non-elemental) has the easiest and most powerful Ultimate attack to get off and is overall good but seriously, you just want to set him up to be a classic summon where he appaers and casts his Ultimate Attack.

Hashmal and Famfrit are also nice cause they exploit two elemental weaknesses that you either don't get direct access to like Earth(Hashmal) or never get anything higher than the basic lv.1 spell like Water (Famfrit) and these two do serious damage. Their elements are also uncommon so they stay pretty good even by end game.

You do need Belias for later and a few of the others are still good but these 5 I feel are the most abusive in power. Unfortunately, with the exception of Hashmal and Famfrit, the four two can only be acquired through doing the sidequests and battling them. Ultima and Zodiark are easily the two most frustrating battles in the game if you you don't have a strong party.

>>> Zodiark was very useful, his final attack deals 50k+ damage, and it was very easy to perform. It helped me a lot in the Yiazmat fight.
I liked Chaos, Exodus and Ultima but make them use their final attack was a real pain so i didnt use them very much.

Espers were just useless in this game and that's it. if the final two you get are powerful well it's way too late then, because you've already spent over 150hrs getting them and probably decimated nearly every powerful secret boss.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

Espers were just useless in this game and that's it. if the final two you get are powerful well it's way too late then, because you've already spent over 150hrs getting them and probably decimated nearly every powerful secret boss.

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...and summons have changed how in the series? They've always been overrated, overused, and overpowered (except in V and VI where they are not worth using). I don't know a single FF where I can honestly say using summons was important, past IV. The only difference in XII is that the game now has a fair chance of killing them. Careful planning on the other hand makes them useful. :)

I found them generally more fun to play with in this game.

Well Summons seemed very useful for me in VII as a stronger alternative to magic. In VIII they were useful for defense and support. I used Cerberus a lot for his benefits, and Carbuncle in times that I would need reflect. The game also gave you benefits for leveling your summons which resulted in new abilities. In IX I say their power was slightly diminished. It was the only means for Garnet and Eiko to deal high damage, but they were an intricate part of the story. XII's just died too easily. They've been a trademarkfor the series since they made their debut in III.

Blue Magic is cheaper, just as powerful, and doesn't have minute long attack in VII, in VIII, its great to level them but you gain abilities with or without using them as attacks and in the end, a party with a great set-up can do more damage in the time it takes Eden to perform its attack. I found Garnet and Eiko to be more useful as dedicated healers than use their summon magic (Though Fenrir does have some usefulness until you get auto-haste) cause Vivi and Steiner are just that broken, and the Aeons in X are "I win" buttons. Not even counting the optional summons, you can still finish the game with little problem with Bahamut as a crutch.

They are nice eye-candy but I find that most of the time there is always a better and more efficient option in the games. Its for that reason that having the espers in XII deal excellent damage but easily killed didn't really bother me. In fact, the challenge of making them useful and their more chaotic nature made them more exciting for me. This of course is just my lousy opinion though. :eep:

The Espers were useful to me in this game when I was leveling one of my characters(If I recall on my first playthrough I gave all my Espers to Penelo). And there were times I would use them for fun on easy boss fights.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Blue Magic is cheaper, just as powerful, and doesn't have minute long attack in VII, in VIII, its great to level them but you gain abilities with or without using them as attacks and in the end, a party with a great set-up can do more damage in the time it takes Eden to perform its attack. I found Garnet and Eiko to be more useful as dedicated healers than use their summon magic (Though Fenrir does have some usefulness until you get auto-haste) cause Vivi and Steiner are just that broken, and the Aeons in X are "I win" buttons. Not even counting the optional summons, you can still finish the game with little problem with Bahamut as a crutch.

They are nice eye-candy but I find that most of the time there is always a better and more efficient option in the games. Its for that reason that having the espers in XII deal excellent damage but easily killed didn't really bother me. In fact, the challenge of making them useful and their more chaotic nature made them more exciting for me. This of course is just my lousy opinion though. :eep:

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how are Vivi and Steiner broken. Knights should be able to do a lot of damage, I thought Vivi was fine as well. I never obtained Eden so I can't comment on that, but Odin was pretty useful when you didn't feel like fighting, Gilgamesh was a roulette though. For XII it frustrated me that I couldn't even really use them even in regular enemy encounters sometimes without them dying. In X they can get killed quickly too so I wouldn't say it was an automatic win in that either. Seymour could vanish them, and certain Aeons have different stats in terms of defense and magic defense, and also element. I can only see if they seemed like gods if you kept their overdrives full on constant and Yuna's as well so that they could use it twice in a row.

Those two being broken isn't a bad thing, and basically by end game you can do more damage with both of them fighting individually than hoping Garnet will get the full Bahamut summon.

Actually, I rarely ran into things that stood a chance against the Aeons outside of a few boss battles and even then, the Aeon's Overdrives are all you really need.

I'm not really saying summons are useless to everyone but I've never been able to see them as anymore than glorified black magic spells with 2 minute unskippable (until the IV remake and I believe CC) cutscenes. I'm just saying you always had better options and XII was no different.

i never used any of the summons exept zodiark but i did like how they were placed in the plot, but then again this is the first final fantasy game i only used magic a few times i beat the hole main story only using attack

Seemed like a bigger pain keeping the esper and summoner alive than a normal party.

I split them up evenly (with 3 to Vaan) my first playthrough, but I'm thinking I might just dump them on Penelo this next time.

In X perhaps I was more cautious with them than other players, but I never really had a problem with the Aeons dying easily, so for me they came off as extremely over-powered spells that made things too easy...so I purposely limited my use of them.

IX I didn't think the eidolons were terribly useful compared to other combat options and rarely used them. VIII I used the Guardian Forces probably the most of any FF summons--they were a pretty mindless but reliable way of doing things. I also liked that equipping them conferred various abilities to your characters. The only other game I recall using them often was IV when I had Rydia.

I think another probably the main reason i didnt use the summons was you had a choice. either use a summon or a quickening and 95% of the time it seemed like a good quickening chain would be much more usefull

oh my. i just have beaten adrammelech before entering giruvegan. now i tried to train a bit more till lvl 46(current 44) to beat shemahazai without quickenings/summons/beserk. i have 2 fomalhauts since a little while and now i am gonna kick his ass.