Quote Originally Posted by black orb View Post
>>> I'm halfway to beat FFX and I started using the Expert sphere grid. Now, is there any difference with the normal one? Because I really cant see any..
Background color. Much more difficult for some forms of color-blindness.

The Expert Grid has all of the characters start in about the same spot. From here, you can play any character how you'd like, right away. Auron as a Black Mage? No problem. The trade-off is that there are less nodes total, so if you want to customize your whole Grid, you're doing yourself a long-term disservice by having fewer nodes.

The Standard Grid has everyone start at a different spot. The game intends for you to play each character following a progression model that is pre-determined. Tidus/Wakka/Auron are autoattackers, Lulu is a Black Mage, Yuna is a White Mage/Summoner, Rikku is a Thief. It's very difficult to stray off of the intended paths because of the Lock Nodes that need Key Spheres.

You can complete the intended area and start a new path (around levels 60-70) for everyone except Kimahri, who finishes at level 30 with balanced stats. You can force characters off of the intended path by using Key Spheres on Locks. This is how you continue to improve Kimahri after using 1s or 2s; other characters start completely new sections with 3s and 4s. You receive a level 3 at Mt. Gagazet, which is about 70% of the way through the story.

If you're a true min-maxer and not some casual scrub, then you only need between base and 50 Evasion and a little over 100 Accuracy to dodge or hit everything that is not automatic. The catch is that you need 255 Luck; this might save you some nodes due to the lack of Expert Grid real-restate (or cause you a lot of headaches). You can then replace every non-plus-4 Strength, Magic, Defense, Magic Defense, and Agility to reach max on either grid.

HP and MP are a little more involved. The common wisdom is that 9999 HP is fine, and you craft armor with Auto-Haste/Protect/Shell and Auto-Phoenix to easy-mode Arena bosses. You can still replace +200 HP nodes with +300s (again, real-estate).