FFXII Help Thread: CAUTION - spoilers abound

[Andromeda]

Every town will have weapons, sometimes the same as the previous ones, sometiems not. Once you hit the end of the game there will be a place that has most of the good stuff, just not all of it. As I said, I found Hastega in a backwater village north of Rabanastre. So the best things are not found in all of the same place.

The Golden Amulet, I cannot remember where I found that accessory, but I am pretty sure that you can find it anywhere you want these days. Giza Plains village might have it or the Mt. Bur might.

Experience, I am not too clear how it works out, know that I have switch people around before, though they did not deal any damage. I think the people that are in the party when the exp is awarded gets the exp. Considering how fast it all happens, I really do not think switching them in and out is a good idea, it will probably just frustrate you more than anything.

[Tiffany]

Mt Bur-Ormnese (argh.. I know I spelt that wrong *shakes fist*) has the Golden Amulet. I've been trying to gain enough loot to get them for all my characters. It's a long process considering I'm doing most of my levelling up in the Paramina Rift.

Ugh.

[Georg Prime]

Sweet, thanx for the help you two.

I guess another one is, i'm not sure who is this far besides Andromeda, but i can't figure out a good strategy to beat the esper (atleast i think it is an esper) in the caves in the ozmone plains. I can easily survive it's attacks, though i must admit the armies of enemies that come along with it are really annoying.

I started out the battle using a weak 4 hit combo quickening and it took out a third of it's hp. So i was like hmmm..wow this guy is gonna b easier than i thought. So i decide to fight away with him normally using attacks and spells, and i manage to get him down to about half his health. Then, i wanted to finish him off so i start by unleashing a 12 hit mist combo followed by a 7 hit mist combo and neither of them did ANY damage. Could anyone explain this to me, after a 4 hit taking out a third it's life i figured a 12 hit would completely wreck it?

[Andromeda]

Well I am probably a bad one to be asking about defeating the Esper in the Zerintain Caverns. Seeing as when I beat it, I was level 65 and had already beaten the game. So the Esper was a cake walk along with all of the zombies that keep respawning in that area.

I would say the best advice would be to have one person going around keeping the zombies busy and killing them while the other two are fighting the Esper. If you can keep the zombies off the two, you should not have much trouble. If you have any area effect Black Magick spells I would use them on mass to take out the zombies. The faster you can take out the groups, the longer you will survive.

Once you have the group down, they should not respawn as fast and you can handle them one at a time. If they become too much, put in more area effect spells. If you got Blizzaga or something use it, that is the best area effect spell in the game. I do not know if Blizzara and like spells will be enough.

Also Haste if you got it, namely on the one fighting the zombies, so that the fighting goes faster. You will probably want Protect all around no matter what. If you have numerology, you can use that too, since it counts up the steps to all monsters. If there are like 6 or 7 monsters, I have seen it do 1k damage to all, which for an early on Technique in the game is pretty powerful.

Aside from that, I never ever use Quickenings or Espers in just about anything. There was one case that I did on an Elite Mark, but it was more waste than anything else. And Espers are a waste as well. So if you can wait on it, you probably want to since killing the Esper will not gain you anything but more baggage. If stacking Espers worked like Quickenings and gave you more MP, they would be useful otherwise there is only one time in the game that I have used an Esper to fight and that was when I got my first one. Espers are not much use in a boss fight because it will either end before they can use their powerful finisher or die themselves before they can use it.

In general Quickenings, only Quicken your own death because they eat up so much MP, that is better used for healing. And Quickenings are only good when you have Full MP on all of them, because then you can pull off 10+ chains. Otherwise, the game works poorly against you with less MP and makes it almost impossible to get past a 5-7 chain. The best I have seen it do is a 36k a really, really long time ago. Most bosses will not be one shotted by a Quickening, especially Espers. It is best to dig in for the long haul.

[Georg Prime]

Originally Posted by Andromeda

Well I am probably a bad one to be asking about defeating the Esper in the Zerintain Caverns. Seeing as when I beat it, I was level 65 and had already beaten the game. So the Esper was a cake walk along with all of the zombies that keep respawning in that area.

I would say the best advice would be to have one person going around keeping the zombies busy and killing them while the other two are fighting the Esper. If you can keep the zombies off the two, you should not have much trouble. If you have any area effect Black Magick spells I would use them on mass to take out the zombies. The faster you can take out the groups, the longer you will survive.

Once you have the group down, they should not respawn as fast and you can handle them one at a time. If they become too much, put in more area effect spells. If you got Blizzaga or something use it, that is the best area effect spell in the game. I do not know if Blizzara and like spells will be enough.

Also Haste if you got it, namely on the one fighting the zombies, so that the fighting goes faster. You will probably want Protect all around no matter what. If you have numerology, you can use that too, since it counts up the steps to all monsters. If there are like 6 or 7 monsters, I have seen it do 1k damage to all, which for an early on Technique in the game is pretty powerful.

Aside from that, I never ever use Quickenings or Espers in just about anything. There was one case that I did on an Elite Mark, but it was more waste than anything else. And Espers are a waste as well. So if you can wait on it, you probably want to since killing the Esper will not gain you anything but more baggage. If stacking Espers worked like Quickenings and gave you more MP, they would be useful otherwise there is only one time in the game that I have used an Esper to fight and that was when I got my first one. Espers are not much use in a boss fight because it will either end before they can use their powerful finisher or die themselves before they can use it.

In general Quickenings, only Quicken your own death because they eat up so much MP, that is better used for healing. And Quickenings are only good when you have Full MP on all of them, because then you can pull off 10+ chains. Otherwise, the game works poorly against you with less MP and makes it almost impossible to get past a 5-7 chain. The best I have seen it do is a 36k a really, really long time ago. Most bosses will not be one shotted by a Quickening, especially Espers. It is best to dig in for the long haul.

Yea i totally agree about espers, i have yet to use any. I'm just trying to collect them all for the sake of completing stuff i guess.

I totally see that with quickenings. I feel like at the beginning of the game, they were great but as time has gone on it just seems like they are getting weaker and weaker. I definitely agree that all they do is suck your MP when you need it for healing. I used to just go into bosses and get some combos out like that and it would basically kill the boss but now the bosses are a lot harder and quickenings really don't have much of a use. I'll do that now..and the quickenings won't do any good damage and i'll be left with basically no MP. I usually will fight a boss normally until they get low on life them switch in the players i don't use just to drain them of their MP by using their quickenings then switch back to my normal active team after that does some damage. Sometimes i'll use them for certain bosses like i just did at the bomb king that i want to beat quickly, so he wouldn't use renew to replenish his life. And yeah..5-7 chains are literally uselesss. My team can do that much damage in a few hits for the most part. Unless i'm doing like 12+..a complete waste of time.

Thanx for the info though, i think my problem is that i didn't level up my magic enough like you said. I'm only at lv 4 black right now i dont even have blizzaga yet but it shouldn't take too much to get to that level. I've been doing a lot of random hunts so i should be getting enough LP points soon enough. Thanx for the help again, you're a great lifesaver!

The Ascetic's door in Sochen: I'm stumped as to how to get into it. I've tried deciphering the cryptic messages around the place, and from what I've gathered I've got to walk in circles around this area, albeit I've tried every possible combination I can think of to no avail.

Anyone have any advice?

Well i just got past the part where i had to go to the stilshrin of miriam and i cant get the switches to work and both doors are shut i walked back to the Mt. Bur-omisace and talked to everyone walked back to the stilshrin and nothing is happening can anyone help me out

[Reks]

If you go to the first switch it should have an inscription on it alluding to a stone. You should equip the dusk shard/dawn shard (the shard that brings your MP to 0) to your character and then touch the device. If you are unsure which device it is, try it without the stone equipped and 3 zombies should appear.

Equipping this shard will be crucial for many switches you will encounter in the stillshrine. I was stuck for quite some time too.

Thanks alot it worked glad to have advice on the game
^^

[Reks]

Originally Posted by Jim Callen

The Ascetic's door in Sochen: I'm stumped as to how to get into it. I've tried deciphering the cryptic messages around the place, and from what I've gathered I've got to walk in circles around this area, albeit I've tried every possible combination I can think of to no avail.

Anyone have any advice?

Alright, first of all you will need the key to the door, which is obtained in the Cerrobi Steppe. It's in the Northsward area at the eastern most windmill, labeled Windmill No. 10. You must have done the hunt for a nearby wyrm before you can receive this key.

Then you need to return to Sochen and read the inscription. Then you must make sure to open all of the doors of hours in a clockwise manner starting with the eastern most one (there are two there so choose the southern one). After completing a full rotation (ending up back at the firt door you opened) a message appears saying that a nearby door is open. Then you can return to the ascetic's door. DO NOT open any doors on the way back, this will lock the door and you must start all over again.

This should allow you access to the hidden area. A warning if you aren't sure what is behind the door: There is the hardest boss I've had to face, a giant wyrm with at least 25 life bars. This battle is really hard and shouldn't be attempted if you can't handle a 30 min-1 hour battle (maybe even longer).

Nice. Thanks. I'll give it a shot, my characters are all around level 50.

well im in The Feywood/The Edge of Reason , and i hit the Gigas wall and i dont know what i gotta do to get passed it it has Gigas highlighted in yellow but i still iunno what to do.

[Andromeda]

Yeah, they are not direct about it. It takes a little thinking to figure out. You have to summon Belias the Gigas and approach the gate. Belias will do his thing and open the gate. Then you will be able to enter the city.