For those Black Mage fights in the Grotto...it was a long time ago for me. I don't recall Vivi having the Oak Staff at that point but I could be wrong.

Anyway, you have to have Zidane steal the Needle Fork from the Zahgnol during the Festival of the Hunt.

Give it to Quina and equip her with the Add Status ability and equipment that will raise her Spirit. If you're lucky she'll Petrify them. Keep trying, if the Mage's Hp gets low use a potion, if it takes WAY too long just reset and try again.

It took me a long time to get to Ozma, maybe playing off and on for a few months. You'll have to power up Thievery and Dragon Crest for Ozma, that's about 8 hours or so to do both.

The game itself moves along pretty quickly since you run from all random encounters. Some people I know have toyed with the idea of doing a Lv.1 + ExII game, and who knows, maybe it can be done as long as you don't go after Ozma until after getting ExII.


Off-topic:

The edit feature is great.