Aeris has awesome Limit Breaks

[comma]

I guess I just like Aerith and seeing her interact in the storyline. The dialogue that occurs depends on who is in your party at the time, and I think Aerith's take on things is important because she's a Cetra.

[Shauna]

The main reason I don't pick Aeris as a party member? When you first get her she does like 20 HP damage per hit. And then she's kidnapped, so you get to see how much stronger everyone else is in comparison (at that time, regardless of how gr8 she becomes later on). When 90% of battles is going to be you mashing circle and attacking, I know I'd rather see big numbers than small ones. Once you have a good party you like, you're not gonna swap in someone else because she ~might~ become great if you put in countless hours getting her best weapon/etc, when you already have a party that is mowing down everything.

[noxious.sunshine]

On top of grinding out just so you can get her to be "good" at physical attacks and all of her limit breaks, you'll be at level 99 by the time you get to Sephiroth in the Northern Cave which tacks on another 30,000 hp or so to -his- stats along with whatever else to make the final battle that much more difficult. I already had everyone up to like level 50 something even -before- Aeris kicked the bucket, I believe and I still hadn't gotten to her 3rd Limit Break... If my memory serves me right, that is.

[Denmark]

if Aeris is so good then why can't she survive a sword hit like everyone else can

[Jinx]

The main reason I don't pick Aeris as a party member? When you first get her she does like 20 HP damage per hit. And then she's kidnapped, so you get to see how much stronger everyone else is in comparison (at that time, regardless of how gr8 she becomes later on). When 90% of battles is going to be you mashing circle and attacking, I know I'd rather see big numbers than small ones. Once you have a good party you like, you're not gonna swap in someone else because she ~might~ become great if you put in countless hours getting her best weapon/etc, when you already have a party that is mowing down everything.

This, so much this.

Obviously people didn't know when the game came out that she was going to die, but when you factor that you lose her at the end of the first disc, she really is completely useless. So you can spend hours and hours fighting with her and raising her stats, and playing games to get awesome equipment for her. Only then is she somewhat useful. Oh, and then she dies about 30 minutes later.

Using Aeris in battle is pointless.

[Vermachtnis]

if Aeris is so good then why can't she survive a sword hit like everyone else can

Sephiroth was doing like 3000 damage and that was like five years ago. Aeris only has like 1300 HP at that point. Also it was a back stab and that like 1.5 damage multiplyer on top of another 3x damage multiplier for being a sneak attack. And Aeris is a DPS/Support, not a tank, duh.

[comma]

I don't get why people are saying they would rather raise another character's stats. Don't you realize that the characters you don't use level up automatically? I've been using Tifa and Aerith 95% of the time, and all my other characters are only two levels below my main party.

Am I missing something? What kind of stats are you people raising that aren't raised automatically for unused characters?

[Mercen-X]

I do not recall this occurrence.

[Karifean]

Yeah, everyone not in your active party gets 1/2 the EXP your main party gets. Even if they're KO'd.

Ontopic, I always used Aerith on my latest few playthroughs simply BECAUSE I know she's going to die and I want to wreck some trout with her before she does. Say what you will about the usefulness of her Limit Breaks, watching Demon's Gate do 0 damage to your entire party is pure delight. Plus, you know, achievement.

Admittedly, she is no powerhouse and her low Strength stat somewhat mitigates her high Attack Power with the Umbrella (plus, Red's Seraph Comb is better), but it's your only chance to use her, so might as well.

[Carl the Llama]

The main reason I don't pick Aeris as a party member? When you first get her she does like 20 HP damage per hit. And then she's kidnapped, so you get to see how much stronger everyone else is in comparison (at that time, regardless of how gr8 she becomes later on). When 90% of battles is going to be you mashing circle and attacking, I know I'd rather see big numbers than small ones. Once you have a good party you like, you're not gonna swap in someone else because she ~might~ become great if you put in countless hours getting her best weapon/etc, when you already have a party that is mowing down everything.

Omg... ok I will take my time to spell this out one more time:

Step 1 give her your Magic Materia
Step 2... there is no step 2, she has the highest stat for magic over anyone, she does more damage with magic materia then any other member in the game, not in a "couple of hours grinding" I said multiple times in my posts that I did not use her for grinding.

When you first get her she does like 20 HP damage per hit.

When you get her she has a her starting weapon, you have the ability to not use her in battle until you reach the sewer and the boss fight, then your in the train graveyard and it is there you can steal the Striking Staff and from that point on she does more damage with physical attack then Cloud, Tifa, Barret and Nanaki besides, why use physical attacks when you can use magic? I see you said you want the big numbers... but then you use physical attack? Not until very late in the game do you pull enough damage to make it worth while to use physical attacks over magic.

[quote=noxious.sunshine]On top of grinding out just so you can get her to be "good" at physical attacks and all of her limit breaks, you'll be at level 99 by the time you get to Sephiroth in the Northern Cave which tacks on another 30,000 hp or so to -his- stats along with whatever else to make the final battle that much more difficult. I already had everyone up to like level 50 something even -before- Aeris kicked the bucket, I believe and I still hadn't gotten to her 3rd Limit Break... If my memory serves me right, that is.[/img]



*cough*

Level 23, apparently your limit bug affected Aerith as well as Cloud and Barret. Oh and FTR I personally like to fight the hardest Sephiroth I can, which requires the following:

All characters (except Aerith) being level 99
Use of KotR on Jenova (add's 80k to his HP)

With this he still has a paltry 400k HP, now if you think for a few moments... KotR does about 150k damage when said person has a few hero drinks, attach a W-Summon that's 300k already, next player simply uses Mime and that's it, the strongest version of Sephiroth dead after 2 simple moves, he is a really easy boss.

[comma]

What influences when characters unlock new limit breaks? I have Aerith at level 30 and she only has up to Breath of the Earth. In all the times I played the game, Aerith never had all of her limits at level 23. That seems highly unusual.

Also, yeah, why are people using Aerith to make physical attacks? First, she should be a healer and magic caster, and second, she should be in the back row because of her low defense stats and because magic doesn't care about distance. It's pretty silly that anyone would dismiss her for having a low attack stat.

[Shauna]

I don't think you're understanding that I rarely do anything other than press O. Which defaults attack. It has worked really well for me for the entire game, minimal issues.

You can get exasperated all you want, and preach ~the best way to use Aeris~, and quote as many numbers and facts as you want.
I personally do not use her, and find her useless in my "Press X to Win" strategy of playing this game because unless I try extra hard to *steal* her best weapon at the time, or play a goddamned minigame for hours on end, she does minimal damage. Or I can use someone who I find more useful, which I do.

[noxious.sunshine]

What influences when characters unlock new limit breaks? I have Aerith at level 30 and she only has up to Breath of the Earth. In all the times I played the game, Aerith never had all of her limits at level 23. That seems highly unusual.

There's a certain number of kills you have to hit to advance to each new Limit Break. Like you have to kill like 80 or 150 to get a new one (I can't remember off the top of my head, but there's a guide for it on gamefaqs).

But, having all of her limit breaks at lvl 23, I agree, doesn't make a lot of sense to me either unless you just hung around Midgar and made a bunch of low exp kills to get them. That's the only plausible explanation.

The glitch affects -all- characters. Not just specific ones. I -do not- have the manuals for Cloud or Barrett (or Vincent come to think of it), thus I can't even try to teach them their Level 4 'Breaks. All of my characters have progressed just fine to Level 3, I simply cannot teach them Level 4's -because of the glitch-.

[Jinx]

I don't care if she's the best magic user in the game (her magic stats are only slightly better than Cloud's and Red's, btw) she's still useless because you lose her extremely early in the game.

[Roogle]

I still think she should have had better limit breaks. Breath of the Earth was extremely underwhelming for the part that you get it. She should have had something that inflicted instant death or cleared out random battles really well.