Earth Mallets Are Killing Me!

[BG-57]

I've been spending a lot of time in the Gaea Cliffs/Crater/Whirlwind Maze area, trying to steal/win as many unique and hard to get items as possible (99 Dragon Armlets from Blue Dragons, 99 Malboro Tentacles from Malboros, 99 Gigas Armlets from Gigas), but nothing has been as frustrating as trying to get Earth Mallets from Gigas as items left behind in battle.

The drop rate was low to begin with (maybe 10-20%) but I've fought 25 Gigas since Cloud leveled up to 99 and none of them have left behind Earth Mallets (I collected 7 up to that point). So I have a few questions:

1) Does your party's level affect the rate or type of treasure left by some types of monsters?

2) Is there a way to increase the rate at which monsters drop items?

3) Is it even worth it? At least with Malboro Tentacles, you win them every time you kill a Malboro.

[Ultima Shadow]

1) Does your party's level affect the rate or type of treasure left by some types of monsters?- don't think so...

2) Is there a way to increase the rate at which monsters drop items?- As far as I know... No. But Sneak Gloves increases the steal rate.

3) Is it even worth it? At least with Malboro Tentacles, you win them every time you kill a Malboro.- In my opinion... no. Why do you want 99 of everything anyway?

[BG-57]

Why do you want 99 of everything anyway?

The same reason I collected all the Triple Triad cards in FFVIII or all the Artifacts in Tactics. I like completeness and closure. I find it reassuring to have items in my inventory, ready to use should I need them. Or maybe it's because I like collecting and hoarding in real life and it carries over to video games.

It's not that I need 99 of everything, it's that I'd like to have at least one of each thing. But I've discovered that some items are just not worth the time and trouble to get (The Parasol/Umbrella springs to mind).

Thanks for your help.

[UltimaLimit]

Three things:

1) Have you considered using the W-Item cloning trick? You don't get W-Item Materia until later on, but it'll probably keep you from tearing your hair out with these Earth Mallets.

2) What the hell are Earth Mallets anyhow? I don't recall getting any.

3) That could be because I f**king hate that cliff because it's impossible to navigate and I always rush through it as fast as possible. And death to Marlboros, I got wiped out by one and I didn't even learn Bad Breath...

Oh, and 4) You're crazy for running around that place to get 99 of everything. Use W-Item and save yourself some grief.

[BG-57]

1) How does the W-Item trick work exactly?

2) Earth Mallets are items that cast Quake3 when you use them. There's a monster called the Gigas that randomly (and rarely) drops them after you defeat it. I missed them the first three times I played through FFVII.

3) They are encountered only in the area where you're running down the Crater rim. It's one of the rare times in the game that the view is sideways scrolling. You only encounter Grenades and Gigas there.

There's a Ribbon in the caves in Gaea's Cliffs. That should give you a second Ribbon and two characters can be protected against Bad Breath.

4) You may be right. I managed to get 18 of them after about 5 hours before I gave up.

[Cuchullain]

(SPOILER)Equip the W-Item materia. Next, in battle, get that character to use an item. Select your second item (best if you have two items the same but not essential), select it, then cancel. Repeat until you have 99 of the items, then close the items menu and voila

That's the W-Item trick in a nutshell

[BottledJustice]

The dragon armlet is actually pretty good armor for that point, but the gigas is terrible. The "no magic defense" is what kills me. Especially since by now you have the Bolt, Aurora, and Fire armlets, which all rock.

Just a though, does anyone ever use the Ziedrich? I don't think I've ever equipped either of mine. I like playing with materia too much. I have about 5 of everything.

Oh, and I honestly can't believe you are trying to get 99 quake3 items. I don't think I've ever used any earth magic, except for Titan on Jenova Life, because she's weak to it. Even so, your normal attacks will do about that much, and Alexander, Odin, Bahamut, Leviathan, and Kjata all do more. Oh, and on a slightly unrelated note, Jenova Life was too easy. I had the water ring, Elemental-Leviathan and Elemental-Ice, and she couldn't do any damage. I'm serious. I equipped the Counter Attack materia on someone, went and ate lunch, and when I came back I had all three characters at max health and one less Jenova.

[BG-57]

(SPOILER)Equip the W-Item materia. Next, in battle, get that character to use an item. Select your second item (best if you have two items the same but not essential), select it, then cancel. Repeat until you have 99 of the items, then close the items menu and voila

That's the W-Item trick in a nutshell

Thanks, I'll have to give that a try!

Dragon Armlets are better than Gold Armlets, which is what my party was equipped with at the time. The elemental armlets have too few slots for my taste.

Ditto for Ziedrich. The stats look nice though.

How long did it take your party to kill Jenova-Life?

[UltimaLimit]

I've used the Ziedrich before. It worked pretty good, but Mystile was best because enemies missed me a lot.

And with W-Item, remember that only the FIRST item you selected gets copied. It's probably pretty obvious but I didn't realize that at first and it frustrated me.

I'll have to look out for those Earth Mallets, I had no clue they existed. Thanks for alerting me.

[Raistlin]

The W-Item trick only works for items usable during battle(potions, elixirs, etc.). So it would work for the Earth Mallets.

However, WHY? In the past three times I've played through FF7, I never even cast quake 3. Elemental magic stops being useful past level 40. And you're at level 99 at the start of disc 2?

You need to get out more. *nods sagely*

[BG-57]

OK, I successfully multiplied the 18 Earth Mallets into 99 with the W-Item trick.

The Zeidrich actually came in handy when fighting Emerald Weapon, since I didn't want to overload the party with materia anyway.

And if you must know why, it stemmed from previous play throughs of FFVII where I wasn't able to get Pandora's Box on the first Dragon Zombie and wasted hours trying to get other Dragon Zombies to cast it. Once I found out that only the first encounter mattered, I decided to start a new game from the beginning but this time try to get everything. About the only items I'm not bothering to get are the Umbrella and Flayer (I'm just not into Speed Square).

Thanks for all your help.