just starting

[thegirth]

i am starting this game for the first time ever and wanted to know if anyone has any advice

[Mirage]

When you fight enemies that gain you experience points, always be sure to equip espers that give you stat bonuses at levelup. The Stamina stat is useless, and you should save HP/MP bonuses to high levels (85-99), because those bonuses benefit you more at high levels than at low levels, while the other stat bonuses are equally beneficial at all levels.

Doing this means you will often have to equip espers that don't teach you new magic. You should catch up on spells in areas where you don't gain experience, such as at the Veldt (the area of the world map where you meet Gau).

[LoKuS]

Enjoy it.

[Xurts]

When you fight enemies that gain you experience points, always be sure to equip espers that give you stat bonuses at levelup. The Stamina stat is useless, and you should save HP/MP bonuses to high levels (85-99), because those bonuses benefit you more at high levels than at low levels, while the other stat bonuses are equally beneficial at all levels.

Doing this means you will often have to equip espers that don't teach you new magic. You should catch up on spells in areas where you don't gain experience, such as at the Veldt (the area of the world map where you meet Gau).

Anyone who levels past 60 is going to be way overleveled, and nothing will be a challenge. It's even pretty easy at 40-50. The items that are available at the end will give you the ability to kill anything without much effort if you have a decent level.

I wouldn't pay much attention to the stat bonuses. Focus on learning new magic, and then equip like vigor, magic, or HP/MP bonuses depending on the character.

[Mirage]

Not if he plays the GBA version.

Anyway, what I said will benefit him at any level. The HP bonuses he'll get at level 1-50 would be pretty insignificant anyway(besides, from 1-30 you won't have espers that boost HP a lot anyway), and the other stats are more valuable, in my opinion. I'd rather have 3000 HP that I could fully heal in one turn, than 4000 HP and healing for 2000 per turn. Stronger magic power means you save more MP too; say Thundara deals 3000 damage with 60 magic, and uses 22 MP. This is clearly better than using two turns casting Thundara for 1500 damage with a magic power of 40, and at the same time, you use twice the amount of MP to deal the same amount of damage.

This is why I say you should always focus on strength and magic instead of HP and MP. MP will be maxed anyway, and if you're having problems running out of MP, get a golden hairpin, it'll save you more MP than MP bonuses at levelup will ever gain you.

He was asking for advice. What I'm saying is how to build his characters in an effecient way, which would certainly be helpful to his playthrough.

Furthermore, you might want to not open any of the chests in the Narshe mines, Mt. Kolts, or in the cave leading to South Figaro. This is because the items in these chests will change to something much better if you wait until after a huge (and I mean really huge) plot twist (you'll know when you get there :p)

[Jowy]

When you fight enemies that gain you experience points, always be sure to equip espers that give you stat bonuses at levelup. The Stamina stat is useless, and you should save HP/MP bonuses to high levels (85-99), because those bonuses benefit you more at high levels than at low levels, while the other stat bonuses are equally beneficial at all levels.

Doing this means you will often have to equip espers that don't teach you new magic. You should catch up on spells in areas where you don't gain experience, such as at the Veldt (the area of the world map where you meet Gau).

Anyone who levels past 60 is going to be way overleveled, and nothing will be a challenge. It's even pretty easy at 40-50. The items that are available at the end will give you the ability to kill anything without much effort if you have a decent level.

I wouldn't pay much attention to the stat bonuses. Focus on learning new magic, and then equip like vigor, magic, or HP/MP bonuses depending on the character.

If you're playing FFVI Advance disregard that as you will need to levelgrind and boost your stats to beat the Dragon's Den/Soul Shrine.

The stat boosts help immensely. Having Gau hit everything on the screen for 9999 for 0 MP is very nice. If I hadn't leveled him up from level 25 to level 40 with boosted magic from Zona Seeker and Valigarmanda, I'd probably not even do half of that.

[ljkkjlcm9]

could someone refresh me on which stat, magic or strength, per character is better for their special. Some are obvious, such as a Strago Lore would be better for magic, but others not so much! I always forget this except for with my favorite characters, but with the new dungeon, I'd prefer having all my players be good damage dealers

THE JACKEL

[Mirage]

Terra's Morph/Trance just doubles her physical and magical damage, the stats to increase would depend on what you make her, a fighter or a mage (I recommend mage though, as she has the second highest starting magic power).

Sabin has both physical and magical blitzes. Pummel, for example, is based on strength, while Aurabolt/cannon is based on magic.

I'm not entirely sure about Locke, but word is that speed affects your steal success rate.

Celes' Runic simply absorbs magic as MP, no stats affect that.

I think most of Edgar's tools are based on strength, Bio blaster might be magic, but I never cared about using that. Drill/chainsaw all the way.

Gau's rages depend on what attack he uses. Some are magical, others are physical.

Relm's Sketch is dependent on which attack her drawings use. However, I find that the overall strenght of the enemy she sketches has a much bigger impact than any of her own stats. You should focus on magic for Relm anyway, as she has the highest starting magic.

Cyan's Bushido/swordtech, strength all the way.

Shadow's throw is dependent on strength for all physical weapons. The strength modifier seems to be huge, as my shurikens went from 2000 damage to 9000 damage just by increasing strength from ~55 to ~80 (did this with a hyper wrist). I believe elemental scrolls are dependent on magic.

I think that's all the characters who can equip espers.

-edit-

How could I forget Mog? His dances are magical, for the most part.

And you already covered Strago.

[Jowy]

Setzer's slot effects are magick based as well.

[Mirage]

I forgot Setzer because I never used his slots much...

[Jowy]

They're only useful when you rig them in your favor. ;D

[thegirth]

FTR i am playing advanced

Enjoy it.

that is the only bit of advice that really meant anything to me, as i have no espers

[Mirage]

You will get them soon enough. In about 5-10 hours of gameplay or so I assume.

[thegirth]

ok

[sephirothishere]

....its probably a waste of time to level to 99 with all fourteen characters....