The Hookup!!!

[Omega]

Sorry for creating another thread similar to the same topic as previously discussed in the leveling thread, but I posted last and I want to bump an issue here. Cuz...I've found the hookup!!!

Ok I am in the N-Zone and basically I have to get the Dragon Whip and Dragon Lance as well as beat Omega, Shinryu, and X-Death or more notably Neo-XDeath. I also have around 3 more jobs to master per character, so I'm almost done with that.

Here is the deal though, I have found the single best place in the game to gain experience for your characters. I am going to be an accountant when I graduate from college and so I'm very good with numbers. I have calculate as I've been going along through the Pheonix Tower, later into N-Zone through the waterfalls and forest. But none of these places are it. The problem with the Void is that all the monsters give outrageous ABP, but they give you no experience whatsoever.

So here is what you need to know:

The Room

Ok after you have fought through the dungeon or cell block of N-Zone, you beat Halycanos and you are in the throne room of the castle, where no battles occur in this room. You go up the stairs and you are in an odd shaped room with a single set of stairs going up to the top of the tower where you fight/fought TwinTania at. Well DON'T go up the stairs because this is where you want to be. I personally stay around the stairs in that squared middle section because I oddly think the pc gives me the harder battle of the Iron Giants if I am close to the next levels stairs. But anywhere in the room should be fine for the encounters.

The Monsters

In this room there are 4 total possible battle formations:

1 Red Dragon: Ok this is totally rare, I'm talking maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 battles will you run into one, or that was the rate that I noticed. So were not even going to go into this much aside from me mentioning that you should use Leviathan to kill it in one shot.

1 Fury, 1 Sword Dancer, 1 Death Claw: This I think is the most common battle, however it overall appears even with the next 2 monster formations as there are 2 options of those and only 1 of these monsters. Use Leviathan again to kill the whole group in one shot, do NOT use Odin it will not kill the Fury I think and that is why it always does Javelin instead of Vengeance Sword. I'm guessing because F Draw will only kill the other 2 monsters and NEVER the Fury. So just save yourself some time and use Leviathan, or F Draw and then attack the Fury and kill it quickly because it can Doom or Zombie one of your characters. < Again I only suggest the alternative if you want to save MP.

The other 2 battle formations are:

1 or 2 Iron Giants: I did not seperate this entry because the strategy is the same. You will run into this battle around 50% of the time, the other 49 or 50% is the encounter above and as I've stated the Red Dragon battle is just nearly non existant so no point in even mentioning it.

The strategy for this fight is simple, Odin...that's it. I'm tellin ya 90-95% of the time it will use Vengeance Sword and kill the Iron Giant(s).

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The Red Dragon is rare and pointless to mention since it hardly occurs, but it is the only weakness of this area when you amazingly run into this battle. Because the ABP is not that great and the EXP is only around 700 per character, assuming all 4 stay alive on all figures.

The Tri-Monster battle isn't that bad, it gives you around 16 to 18 hundred EXP per person, I can't remember and it's no big deal as that is a good amount.

The Iron Giants are the breadwinners netting you 2500 EXP per character PER IRON GIANT!! So if you run into 2 that's 5000 EXP per person.

Since you run into the Iron Giants frequently it averages to be around 3000 EXP per character, per battle that you are in. NO other room or location in the game will net you this much.

The Strategy

Alright here is what I did. Whatever job class you have really doesn't matter, so if you still have jobs to master just choose one and be learning it. However the secondary abilities are important. You need to have 2 characters use Summon as either a primary or secondary. The reason for this is because if one gets killed in any battle, muddled in the Iron Giant battle, or Zombied or Paralyzed in the Tri-Monster battle. If one is in trouble the other one can use the summon spell and quickly end the battle.

Remember people we are looking for the fastest way to level up here and so we have to think both effective and time efficient when we strategize.

Continuing on...

You need to have at least 1 character with the Medicine ability or to be a Chemist. I prefer Medicine on a fast unit such as a Bard, Ninja, or Thief. That way they always will get there move first, and can give an Ether to one of the "magic wielding" characters. Because remember those summon spells, which will only take one per battle unless you get the rare chance of Odin using Javelin on the Iron Giant instead of Vengeance Sword so you have to cast it twice to kill him. ...Those summon spells will eat up alot of MP quickly, so you need to be getting as much out of your 99 Ethers that you need to be buying from a shop outside of N-Zone and then coming back in. Medicine doubles the effects, so you'll get 80 MP per Ether instead of just 40, this bonus is only granted in battle though and that is why this character would be best getting the first move so you don't have to stall a round.

As for the last character I started out with 2 in Medicine, because one of them was a Red Mage that could heal, however later it was time to train him in something else. For this last character you need to do what is best for you. You can either do another Medicine on this one so you can pump the others with Ethers whenever you'd like and defend the rest of the time with them. Or you can give this character a healing magic, I prefer Red or White so I can use it out of battle. I gave my character Redx2 after he switched jobs, meaning in battle he'd always defend and once in awhile get an Ether thrown to him from my Bard w/Medicine. The reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because if you don't have a "healing magic" character which I didn't with a Chemist, Black Mage, Bard, and Geomancer, than someone needs to have healing magic already equipped or you'll find yourself equipping/de-equipping it between every battle and that will take time, and it's not time efficient.

So overall I had my Bard who is now a Ninja give an Ether to whoever needed it the most of the 2 summon people or the healer. Then the first summoner with a turn did the summon either Leviathan or Odin to win the battle, or on a rare occasion if Odin does Javelin instead of Vengeance Sword on an Iron Giant(s), I have the other summoner use Odin again. The 4th character my Geomancer used his Redx2 after the battles to heal up my characters above 3000 HP. Filling up to max HP is a waste of time and that amount will keep you alive. It's a waste of time because the Iron Giants can get nasty with there Rocket Punch attack which adds muddle, however it most likely won't hit both summoners and is a good enough HP level that you won't lose the fight if things go horrible. It's a waste of time even worse though because the Fury monster in the other battle can kill you instantly with Doom and the Death Claw enemy can take you from even 5000 HP to under 10 HP with his Doom Claw attack and paralyze you at that. So it's best to keep a consistent HP level of 3000 HP to live and be succesful in all fights. Plus it saves you on MP since you won't be overhealing it and wasting it.

This is the quickest way to level up in the whole game that I have found. The summon spells knock the monsters out quick and the medicine ability is giving you more HP back per battle than you're probably using. If you think of how many castings of Odin(not mentioning Leviathan here because it's MP cost is lower) you can get with 99 Ethers at a rate of 80 MP per Ether, not even including the MP the characters already have, your looking at each trip netting you around 158 castings of the spell and an average battle ending each time one is cast at 3000 exp on average, you are getting 474,000 EXP per trip. Leaving the excess MP to help get you to where you can Telepo out of N-Zone and go buy more ethers.

With the exhorbitant EXP requirements this will still take awhile, but it's the fastest you've got. I hope this helps.