Espers in FFXII

[Egami]

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

[Shadowdeathrose]

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

[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.

[Big D]

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.

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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...

[Yellow]

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?

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[black orb]

>>> 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.

[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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

...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.

[Depression Moon]

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.

[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.

[Crossblades]

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.

[Depression Moon]

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.

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.