At high levels the optimum party setup stat wise is Vaan, Basch, and Ashe. The others are somewhat gimp in comparison. Vaan is overall the strongest character, its not even close.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

I thought the characters were based off of the license grid...

what the fuck is this game lol

Stats raise as levels go, base stats show Basch and Vaan with the highest strength at 77 (level 99). Ashe has the strongest magic power and 73 strength at 99. She absolutely destroys shit with Masamune and Genji gloves, well so does Vaan. Vaan is better than Basch because his magic power is higher and he has more MP. Basch has more HP though.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

Everybody destroys everything. I just used the characters I liked best or thought looked the coolest, and Ashe with sword/shield, Basch with axe/shield, and fran with great katana looks cool lol. The license board fails in comparison to the sphere grid in FFX, and it has nothing to do with the direct character growth. You can have level 10 characters wearing maximillian armor taking the same damage as level 99 characters in maximillian armor.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

My main party ended up being developed like this:

Vaan - melee DD, mob debuffer, decoy caster
Balthier - melee DD, party buffer, secondary white mage, 1/2 party status efects remover, black mage
Fran - melee DD, white mage, other half party status effect remover, black mage

I swapped Vaan and Balthier with Katana and Sword+shield combo. They both had their turns at tanking. Fran always used bow and arrow. Having the debuffs split up between Balthier and Fran the way I did worked very well from the second to last dungeon (Pharos) on. It was cool watching how fast they worked together to keep everybody alive. I ended up using remedies for all status effects in gambits, and prioritizing nastier status effects on the top...and of course everybody had phoenix down at the top of their gambit list. I would cast all black magic manually. Yes yes I fail, and I used wait mode for big fights. I only used active for exping or going through dungeons. I would switch to wait for boss enemies. I can't think fast enough lol. You think FFXI would have helped me think faster for active mode on boss enemies. It sure helped for using it on regular ones.

I know I've said it many times, but I really want to play this game again. Or perhaps pick up my save file and do all the sidequests + level people to 99.

I wish you could play FFXII co-op. Where 3 seperate people controlled 1 character and 1 reserve each. You could walk around the whole map solo, or meet up with your friends to exp, explore dungeons, kill bosses, etc. I would really enjoy that.

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I quit for a day but goddamnit this Gaming Gods will me to finish this game.

*spoilers*

So I just beat the Misted-out Judge who killed the Grand Kiltias on Mt. Burmi Oscase or whatever. Now we have to go infiltrate Archades.

I think I need some detailed help as to how to beat this game.

I suppose if I stop trying to level all my characters and focus on three those three will be Balthier, Vaan, and Basch. Currently Balthier is 30, Vaan is 26 and Basch is 26. I'm assuming this is probably way too low. What level should I level them to before heading to Archades?

What weapons should I be using? Balthier is using an axe/shield but i'm tiring of the axe's immense damage range. Vaan is using...crossbow =/. I'm thinking I should move him into Katana or Ninja sword. Which one? How can I get Genji shit?

I basically exclusively use Balthier as my main character. I've been healing with Ashe and Fran but if I'm going to use these three I suppose Vaan will be my healer. What gambits did you use? I've just got HP<60 heal and 'Attack Party Leader Target". I die often. In this game the person shits around for 4 seconds after casting a cure and it's very annoying.

What armor should I get? Currently Bathier takes the damage and I have him in Shielded Armor, burgonet, an ice shield and a golden amulet. he has 24 defense 17 magick resist and 22 evasion.

As for money, I have 57k. Pippin said something about stealing from the Bomb King? What level do I have to be before attempting to do that?

Ok that's all for now lol. If this game had even an average story i'd be gone but it's so fucking cool lol.

all my characters are around lvl 66-68
i beat all hunts except Seer and Yiazmat or whatever it is
got tournesol and 2x masamune

currently seeking seer in pharos

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

in case you guys don't know, here is a tip
you can completely buff a character then put him in reserve
then when you need buffs fast, bring out that reserve character and use Stamp to transfer buffs, sometimes it takes two tries

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Farm the couerls in the jungle. The pelts are an easy drop and very valuable. Go in, kill like 26, exit out to the plains (little glade with a save point), go one zone further, then back in and the couerls will pop fresh. Farm high chains this way, just don't touch the save point. Save up 99 pelts and sell them in the viera village and start the chain again. You'll get tons of money and levels. Forget about your 3 side characters, it's a total batshit crazy waste of time to bother with 6 half strength characters when you can have 3 ice cold asskickers. Make your favorite 3 strong and pile their licenses up.

Don't bother with making people a "job." Give everyone all that white magic and green magic., give everyone your best armor licenses, and just choose whichever weapons you like best. I always had sword/shield, axe/shield, and fran used samurai katana or a bow/arrow. When I wanted Basch to have definite damage I handed him a sword, later in the game I switched him to greatswords. It's a choice of personal preference but each weapon has a damage modifier which you can find in the Clan primer.

I set my Cure gambit at 30% hp. Curaga is so strong. I just basically cast all the cures/decoys with Ashe and had the other 2 beat stuff up (and buff/enfeeb). Set the cure gambit too high and they'll just stand around spamming cures instead of killing your enemy.

Genji items come from the Gilgamesh fights, which are higher tier Montblanc marks. In each fight he has 4 stages of HP, he has a new steal package for each stage and 2 stages of each fight is a genji piece.

If you don't level up you'll quit the game in the underground palace.

Judge Bergan (aka the misted out judge who killed the gran kiltias) has some coolass epicspeak right before you fight him d:

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

i've had maybe 40 occurrences where i was very glad i leveled everyone up equally. once i get everyone to level 75ish, i'm going to pick 3 and level them to 99 for the yiazmat fight.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

No joke. My dad walked in and was watching and was surprised there were that type of dialogue in a videogame, lol.

Anyways, thanks for the tips. I have been leveling on courels but I had no idea about the repop trick. I'd just fight Wus until I thought they'd repopped.

Wow the end was one of the worst boss battles ever. All 3 battles were way too easy. The fact that the boss doesn't cast any neg status effects like bio, silence, stop, sleep... lol. What a chump. Was a great game... ill give it a 9/10.

A+ on the combat system
D- on the pointless summons
B on the story line

time to go finish all the hunts

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"My dreams are all dead & buried. Sometimes I wish the sun would just explode. When God comes and calls me to his kingdom, I'll take all you sonsabitches when I go"

I wanna play this now. Screw PSU freezing up every 30 min on me.

I honestly have no idea why the Espers are in the game besides their cool backstory(check the bestiary) which seems to parallel the main story.

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

The Espers were so fucking useless lol. I used the ones I had once each just to see the cool finishing move. I'd prefer the old style FF summoning where it just comes out, uses it's special move, then vanishes.

I didn't know about that reserve party buff trick...that's pretty cool.

The non FMV cutscenes in FFXII are amazing. It's still like watching a movie.

The way mobs repop is a pain in the ass. They should be on timers or all repop when you zone once.

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i kinda like how they re-pop. Some zones like the crystal and the final ship its just too much cuz they keep comin. Lvl 50+ its not a problem though. Should i even bother goin through all the hunts? Also, where do u people go to lvl past 55ish. Only things i can find are lvl 60's and 61's back in the crystal

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"My dreams are all dead & buried. Sometimes I wish the sun would just explode. When God comes and calls me to his kingdom, I'll take all you sonsabitches when I go"

henne mines bats.. after you unlock 10 espers and speak with the necromancer in jahara he will open the path for the high lvl stuff in henne mines

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

In the process of farming Panthers in the jungles. I'm at level 36 and I've got about 360k atm.

Yeah that's true. In places like Pharos I would have been very upset with mobs repopping fast. It's just a pain when you are trying to farm/exp and you annihalate the zone quickly and want more mobs.

My A team was level 55. That was all done off Morbols, Snakes, and Couerls in Tchita Uplands area. They died fast and yielded decent exp with the double exp accessorys (Gold Bangle I think it's called?). Sadly most of my people had 1000-2000 LP left to spend with all the necessary licenses already unlocked

I had no idea where to exp after that either. A lot of the mobs towards the end of the game are a fucking pain in the ass to fight. I would not want to exp on them. I'll try that henne mines thing if I ever go back and try for level 99.

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I'm there now. I'm level 40ish with my three main people. I was able to kill the mandragoras on my second try, though barely.

I'm absolutely loaded with cash though. I leveled up on couerls and made about 750k.

The boss of that place is a riot. Good luck. haha
(should be fine)

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Some stories can't be told with words, some legends are meant to die

I think the mandragoras fight was one of the best in the game.

Im workin on the hunts and espers now.

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"My dreams are all dead & buried. Sometimes I wish the sun would just explode. When God comes and calls me to his kingdom, I'll take all you sonsabitches when I go"

i killed all 5 mandragoras with 1 quickening. I didn't even have to attack or cast magic.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

man, they were a pain in the ass for me.. i decided not not use quickenings, and they just kept runnign away.. fucking damn them! fun fight though.

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FFXI - Yurichan: 75THF(Ret) / SC2 - Lawncare / XBOX - Zombie Sharks / PS3 - Zombie_Sharks

That's the easy way

I actually dropped a quickening with my three unused characters but i only had like two of them. And I actually used an esper once with Basch. The last two I killed though!

I've got basically every license I want in the game. When i was farming I used Golden Amulets so I gathered about 3000 LP for my main characters which was enough to finish their magick and augmentations. I really only need some for weapons now.