need list of important/need to have/awesome gear and espers.... also.....

[mindfray]

I know some of you might tell me to go look at a walkthrough. but i don't want all the details of what to do in the game. just where the important or got to have gear weapons, armors, relics, and espers are.

right now i just finished the part where you get your first magicite in zozo.

i would also like some opinoins on how to level my characters with espers. i mean about the plus to stats that you get every level up with espers equipped.

i want to make terra a pure mage, and celes a hybrid mage/warrior. is this the best route to go?

i would also like to know things that must be stolen by locke to aqquire like the genji glove from the dragons in floating island...
oh and also the best times and locations/how to get optional characters.

any and all information is very usefull, thank you

[blackmage_nuke]

optional characters are only available in the second half of the game, after the floating continent. BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE FLOATING CONTINENT there is an option to wait. You have to do this if you want shadow in the second half of the game.

As for stats, stamina is useless and if you plan on going to lvl99 then you'll reach approximately 9999 without hp boosting anyway

Also Sabin's Blitzes use the magic stat to calculate damage, not vigor/strength

[Wolf Kanno]

Which version are you playing? In one instance this makes a difference.

Anyway, you'll want the Ultima/Atma weapon which you will get in the World of Balance. You already know about the Genji Gloves with dragons, Econimizers can be stolen or won from the Brachiosaurs in the Dragon Forest late in the game and these can be bet at the Coliseum to obtain the Gem Box/Soul of Thamasa relic.

When you try to obtain Mog, there is a choice between him and a Relic that reduces MP consumption by 50%, if you are not playing the GBA version, then if you don't choose Mog, you'll lose out on one of his best Dances cause you can't get access to areas that grant it the next time you can recruit him.

In Mobliz, the injured soldier asks you to send letters for him. If you send the item he requested, he'll eventually reward you with a Tintinbar relic that restores HP as you walk.

If you are playing the SNES/PS1/Super Famicom ROM of VI, there is an island in the right corner of the map that looks like a triangle, in the first half of the game, you can fight a Behemoth monster called Intangir. He is really hard but in any version that isn't the GBA version, you can use Doom/Death to instantly kill him, though you will have to survive his Meteor counterattack. He nets you a good chunk of AP for teaching magic.

Also, don't sell the elemental swords, they can randomly cast spells and in the hands of characters like Terra and Celes who have naturally good stats in both strength and magic, these weapons can be devastating. There's even one that cast Break.

Most Espers are gained through either the story or from bosses. The only ones to watch out for, cause they are hard to miss, are the ones in the auction house, one that is being sold by a thief in a town, Odin and Raiden which involve using Figaro Castles submarine mode in a later part of the game to access. Crusader is pretty hard if you don' find and kill all the dragons. Also, if your game supports the Banish/Doom bug, never use it with Break or X-Zone instead. This causes the boss to not relinquish any items they may drop. Wrexsoul won't drop a Pod Bracelet if you use X-Zone on him, and Deathgaze/Doomgaze will not drop the Bahamut Magicite.

As for stat growth, as blackmage_nuke said, your characters will naturally go almost to max HP and MP so you can ignore those stat raising espers unless you don't plan on going to the highest levels but still want max stats. Stamina changes the effectiveness of poison and regen, as well as how well you resist instant death magic that isn't Blue Magic. There are relics for these things, and the game isn't very liberal in its usage of the spell so you can scratch that one off too.

Speed is great to level up but if you're not playing the GBA version, there is only one esper that grants this stat bonus (Odin) and he can be lost, cause this esper can get upgraded into a new form (Raiden) which grants a very rare spell but changes the speed stat growth to an MP one. If you're in the GBA version, you can pick up Cauctar which grants a better bonus than Odin does and doesn't have some silly upgrade thing.

Magic and Strength are your best bets, though several of the ultimate weapons and abilities will allow you to perform max damage without the aid of either stat being ridiculously high. The Ultima Weapon does damage based on your level and whether or not you have full HP or not, it already has the highest att. pwr. of all the weapons.

Sabin's Blitzes mostly use the Magic stat, Edgar's Tools use both, and Cyan's uses Strength mostly. Setzer uses the Magic for slots, Relm and Strago are strict mage characters. Mog is great melee character but his dances use magic stats.

I generally like to keep characters in their fields, so I tend to keep Terra and Celes in Red mage mode with equal raising of both magic and strength, though I tend to let each be slightly higher in one stat over the other. Beyond that, I let melee characters stay melee and mage characters stay magic. I try to add speed into both groups as well.

Also, past level 50, I believe it is, your characters stop gaining the normal stats, and only gain HP/MP stats, so at this point, the esper system is more important, cause its the only way characters can permanently gain Str, Mag, Stm, and Spd.

Overall, I feel the esper system is nice for keeping characters within roles in the game, but I feel your equipment and relics are more important in the long run.

[espritduo]

Also, past level 50, I believe it is, your characters stop gaining the normal stats, and only gain HP/MP stats, so at this point, the esper system is more important, cause its the only way characters can permanently gain Str, Mag, Stm, and Spd.

Levelling up never raises your core stats, at any level. Only HP/MP increases with level ups. What a character's starting stats are is what they will still have at level 99 if you don't use espers. That's not to say your characters don't grow stronger, however. All attacks in the game, whether they be physical or magical, yours or the enemy's, use Level as a direct variable in damage output. The strength and magic stats just act as multipliers along with the Level stat to figure out damage dealt.

In short, you never need to use esper bonuses to increase your character's damage output as they level, and the game can be beaten just fine without ever getting any esper bonus stats. They just make your characters even stronger, and let you customize their growth.

EDIT: Hah, didn't realize you were Wolf Kanno. I'm not stalking you with FFVI corrections, honest!

[mindfray]

using the snes version.

right now i just got the espers from zozo, so i would like to know the things that can be found near this part of the game. i don't want to miss anything good.

like what town is the theif at that sells an esper for 3000 gp? when can you get that?
also heard of some nice rare items can be found before floating island. what are those and what do i need to do, what shops are they at etc.

this game has so many awesome items, i don't want to miss out on the good ones.


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also where and how do i obtain both ultima and atma weapon in world of balance? what would be the suggested character level to pull that off?

[Wolf Kanno]

Also, past level 50, I believe it is, your characters stop gaining the normal stats, and only gain HP/MP stats, so at this point, the esper system is more important, cause its the only way characters can permanently gain Str, Mag, Stm, and Spd.

Levelling up never raises your core stats, at any level. Only HP/MP increases with level ups. What a character's starting stats are is what they will still have at level 99 if you don't use espers. That's not to say your characters don't grow stronger, however. All attacks in the game, whether they be physical or magical, yours or the enemy's, use Level as a direct variable in damage output. The strength and magic stats just act as multipliers along with the Level stat to figure out damage dealt.

In short, you never need to use esper bonuses to increase your character's damage output as they level, and the game can be beaten just fine without ever getting any esper bonus stats. They just make your characters even stronger, and let you customize their growth.

EDIT: Hah, didn't realize you were Wolf Kanno. I'm not stalking you with FFVI corrections, honest!

Lol, its all cool, just got a name change for an event is all. Frankly, I can't believe I never noticed your party's stats never went up without espers. It certainly adds a bit more weight to their importance. Next time I'm bored, I should read more algorithm faqs it seems.

On topic:

The esper that is sold by a thief is in Tzen, he's kind of hidden in the trees in the northeast corner of the town. It doesn't become available until after you complete the Magitek Factory. The Auction House will open up as well by this point.

You will find the Atma Weapon in the Sealed Cave which a bit of a ways off in the game from where you are at. Its located on the Southern Continent close to the Imperial Capital of Vector. You won't have access to it until you have to go there for story purposes.

Its kind of easy to miss cause the dungeon involves a minor switch puzzle that opens up new paths for the character. Atma Weapon is located in a chest in a secret room opened up by hitting certain switches, you have to fight a Ninja boss, to get to it.

Atma Weapon is a unique weapon. It works very close to how Cloud's Ultima Weapon works in VII if that will help. Basically, the weapon has an attack power of 255 and it has the ability to ignore an enemies defense. It can't be used with Runic or other sword abilities. The damage for the weapon is determined very close to how the weapon is described to you by one of the NPCs in the game. Its power is a reflection of the wielders strength. It does damage based on the users level and how much HP they have compared to their maximum HP. So basically, at full HP, your character will do maximum damage for his level. If they take damage in a fight, the damage the weapon does is reduced, so keep the character healthy.

It can be equipped only by Terra, Locke, Celes, and Edgar without the aid of the relic Merit Award (which allows a character to equip any weapon), it also has an odd habit of needing to be manually equipped cause Optimize seems to ignore the weapon despite having the highest Attack Power in the game. The weapons true strength comes from its ability to ignore the damage penalties given by the relic Offering/Master Scroll. This relic allows a character to attack four times in a row, but the damage is halved, and each attack does less damage than the first. Atma/Ultima Weapon ignores this, which means it can do four hits for 9999hp when the character is around level 40+.

The cool thing about the blade, is its one of the few weapons that has a noticeable animation. Its appearance it like a lightsabre with an ornate golden hilt, and the blade length shows the users power. Ay first the weapon will have a blade length like a knife, but eventually the blade can grow to be roughly twice the length of the characters height.

[Greatermaximus]

From only skimming the posts I would agree with most of it. What we need to know from you is what you want out of the game.

You don't need to do everything like we have to enjoy or beat the game. You can easily beat it without magic and many of the good armors depending how you level.

Things you 'must' do that might be repeated by me. Get all the special characters at low level as possible. My personal was 13. Mog still joined at 15 so watch out.

That way you can equip Zoneseek and Tritoch early to get that high MagPwr. Or equip Odin early to get high speed. Speed and Magic are the only ones that technically need to be raised. I've never lost in a decade by neglecting the other two.

In this game you'll get over 9600 HP at level 99. And over 950 MP. Raising those in my version wasn't that important. I don't know how the HP/MP work in all versions.

Besides situations that only happen once in the game. Getting to the World of Ruin early is probably the most important aspect I can think of. After all this time.

[mindfray]

From only skimming the posts I would agree with most of it. What we need to know from you is what you want out of the game.

You don't need to do everything like we have to enjoy or beat the game. You can easily beat it without magic and many of the good armors depending how you level.

Things you 'must' do that might be repeated by me. Get all the special characters at low level as possible. My personal was 13. Mog still joined at 15 so watch out.

That way you can equip Zoneseek and Tritoch early to get that high MagPwr. Or equip Odin early to get high speed. Speed and Magic are the only ones that technically need to be raised. I've never lost in a decade by neglecting the other two.

In this game you'll get over 9600 HP at level 99. And over 950 MP. Raising those in my version wasn't that important. I don't know how the HP/MP work in all versions.

Besides situations that only happen once in the game. Getting to the World of Ruin early is probably the most important aspect I can think of. After all this time.

what i want out of the game right now, is to get the items ive neglected to get before. meaning all the shiny shiny secret ones. and the espers ive not had before on previous playthroughs. to me its fun to get new weapons ive not had before.

[Greatermaximus]

To be brutally honest it's not that important. Most of the great stuff like 90% of it is found in the World of Ruin. The first time through I missed many items and espers. I had to figure out Water Rongo on my own.

The items I will point to the FAQ for that since I don't know them all off the top of my head. I know some but... As for Espers, when you read the FAQ it's impossible to lose them in the World of Ruin.

There are a couple exceptions. If you upgrade Odin, and if you use X-Zone on Doomgaze. You won't be able to raise speed and you could lose Bahamut. Also, you'll get two choices about Ragnarok so choose wisely.

[espritduo]

Raising the Speed stat is mostly useless, so I wouldn't recommend wasting too many, if any, levels on it. Even a huge Speed stat only increases the rate at which your bar rises by a tiny amount. Also, no matter how high you raise your speed, you'll never be getting multiple turns before the enemy gets one, so it's pretty much a pointless stat. I'd just raise some of the really slow characters like Cyan up to something in the 30's or 40, and be done with Speed.

Strength and Magic are the only two stats you want to focus the majority of your level ups on. Magic is more important than Strength, since many special moves use the Magic stat, and end-game spells are ridiculously powerful. Strength is certaintly never a waste to raise, though. There are still plenty of physical special attacks, and being able to do massive damage simply by using the Attack command is never bad.

Stamina...just forget it exists. And HP/MP you can spend a few levels somewhere in the 50's raising them to ensure you hit that magical 9999/999 max, but beyond that there's no reason to spend time trying to raise them.

But if you're more concerned about getting total item and esper completion, then don't even spend a second thought on stat raising with esper bonuses. It is absolutely not required to beat the game, and the game can be beaten easily without ever gaining any bonuses. The sole purpose of stat-raising is to raise your stats and say you did. That's it. If you're not the type of person who cares about stat-maxing in their games, don't bother with it here.

[mindfray]

i know you don't need all the weapons to beat the game, but the point of a game is to have fun. and i like to collect all the useful and uber weapons and items as part of my fun for rpg's. i like collecting things and side quest's for weapons etc. thats how it has been for a long time.

i guess i can do some more googling about stuff. but i find it easier to ask people with experiance in the matter. but i can do both. thanks to all of you who have answered my questions, and i may have more questions in this thread.

i know about buying mass skeans for shadow, one of his most devasating throw option till you can throw atma weapon at kefka LOL

[Greatermaximus]

It's a personal preference what you procure and equip to your characters. We've already told you in a sense with Walk-throughs.

My personal favorites if that's what you're asking is displayed in my sig. It's not easy to know what should be equipped depending on how you beat the game.

The Ribbon does everything many others do. Discard amulets, star pendants, and such.
The Economizer makes the Gold Hairpin obsolete.
The helmets are tricky because you are limited on Genji Helmets. 5. The Green Beret and Red Cap is good early on. You might be equipping the circlet/crystal helmet mostly.
The Armors are more straightforward. Each character kinda gets a special armor. What would be left is Crystal Armor.
All the weapons are special. You will end up not using a bought weapon at level 99 in mine.
There's an argument that Thunder Shield beats Genji Shield in terms of resisting elements. Besides Paladin Shield and one other I'm not thinking of right now, those are the only shields you need.

Hope this helps.

[mindfray]

just got done with the magitek labs, realized after looking at a walkthrough i missed the dragoon boots, zepyr cape, blizzard, and break blade..

i might have to restart the game to get these now

i followed a walkthrough on youtube expecting them to go through all the items in the dungeon, well i guess i was wrong after looking at a walkthrouhg txt on gamefaqs..

any way i can get those items listed back? or are they not that usefull, break blade sounds like a powerful item, and i heard dragoon boots somehow make mog stronger, the gold armors shields and helmets im not worried about. but the boots , cape, and blizzard i may be screwed on.

was also wondering of there were any youtube walkthroughs that don't miss any usefull items, and show who to steal from etc. kind of like a walkthrough that shows where to get all the items that can be missable.

ive read the missable item faq, but its a headache to keep checking over and over. video walkthroughs are better at showing how to get to secret rooms ala magitek factory.

[Flying Mullet]

There's an argument that Thunder Shield beats Genji Shield in terms of resisting elements. Besides Paladin Shield and one other I'm not thinking of right now, those are the only shields you need.

You can steal Thunder Shields from Stereodites in Kefka's Tower and bet them in the Coliseum for Genji Shields, so feel free to experiment with both and see if one works better for you. (i.e. you technically have an unlimited supply of both)

[mindfray]

I just got the airship, i made the funny mistake in trying to take out intangir at this level LOL. can you kill him in WoR?

also what area would be the best to farm xp gp and magic points in this part of the game? oh and got lucky and found an older save and got back up to magitek factory. found a nice video walkthrough here ‪Let's Play Final Fantasy VI, Part 27: Ifrit and Shiva‬‏ - YouTube
called Let's Play Final Fantasy VI, from dario8676 he is now my one stop shop for ffIII(ff6) video walktrhoughs, as he covers everything it seems.



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i need help for an ideal group setup and tactics for staying on the floating island long enough to steal 3 more genji gloves from the dragons, i have lock equipped with theifs glove and genji glove so he can do two captures in a row.(i know sounds like an eternity right?) its going to be a survivability thing, even if i have to keep my healers in mp by buying mass amounts of tinctures( spelling?)