FFXII = Halo 2

[Teenr0cker]

I just trained for ages whenever I got stuck.

I dunno why I didn't catch this sooner... For FFXII, isn't there some super-easy leveling technique? You can, I believe, set up a complex series of "gambits"/ "if-statements" and fight this one monster that continually produces little minions that give exp, right? Just find the monster, set it, and forget it for a day. Hopefully you won't have died by then...


Oh, and I've heard theres this one pole-arm or something that's incredible but unobtainable if you open three seemingly-random treasure chests...I don't know, my FFXII experience is essentially from word of mouth at this time.

[MusashiEX]

It's the Negaulmar(sp?) trick. I thought up a few gambit settings for it, though I can't take credit for the original idea. Or anything that required testing. Or most of the other gambit settings.

[Forerunner]

The Zodiac Spear. Best weapon in the game.

You can get 2 of them:
1) by getting lucky when opening a certain treasure chest in the hardest dungeon of the game. And by lucky I mean really lucky. I checked it out and if you factor in the odds of the chest being there, the odds of the chest containing money or an item, and the odds of it being the item you want, and you end up with less than a 1 in 1000 chance of getting it every time you try.
2) You have to open a chest which has a 100% chance of being there and 100% chance of having the item in it. However to do it you have to enter a relatively high level place much earlier than you should, and there are a few treasure chests that you cannot open at certain parts of the game otherwise it dissapears. Forever. Which of course fucks over everyone who never misses the items and plays the game though before checking guides.

Yeah. Fuck the Zodiac Spear.

Unless you're talking about something else?
I know you need to get 3 Legendary Badges to get the WyrmHero Blade which is tied for the 2nd best weapon of game (although it's effects easily make it the best weapon), however to get the 3 badges you have to finish the fishing minigame, beat Omega Mark XIII (the trademark final fantasy all but impossible dude), and.... I don't know how to get the third one, but you get the picture. You can't obtain this weapon until you've proved beyond all doubt you don't need it anymore.

[Teenr0cker]

The anguish from that post confirms it must be the zodiac spear. Shit, i hate using a guide the first time through.

[MusashiEX]

I'm waiting for the omgwtfbbq my penelop 0mp/seilince wtf bug. Reason #124 why GFAQs is the greatest. You can tell who's a moron in three seconds.

[Sling]

I managed to train my level 14 characters in the Paramina Rift without them dying at all and I still have no idea how I did it.

[MusashiEX]

I beat Yiazmat at level 1 with only Ashe. I reflected Darkga from behind a wall and kept attack canceling him.

[Sling]

I just beat an Ice Elemental the other day whilst my character's were level 23. I got like an 8-chain quickening and got the Torrent attack and then I had a megalixir so, I just battered it whilst casting cura and vox every round. I then got confident and tried to take on a Mardu Entite. I took off half it's HP before it killed all of my characters.

I looked in my guide and it said there is a 10% of getting the Zodiac Spear from a chest in the Henne Mines (whilst having the Diamond Armlet equipped). What I want to know is, does this chest re-appear every time you open it and return? If so, then it makes the Zodiac Spear remarkably easy to obtain.

[Elachim]

I don't know about everyone else, but I personally find RTS games really difficult. (With some exceptions of course.) Take for instance Warhammer 40k. I had to struggle and rush to beat my openent on Standard difficulty. I find it hard to micromanage building a base and efficiently commanding troops at the same time. Maybe it's just me, but there have been some devilishly hard RTS's. I never could beat any computer opponent in Starcraft (granted the last time I played I was about 12 years old.)

As for FPS's, I haven't played any real recent ones, but I remember beating Call of Duty 2 on the hardest difficulty my first time through the game. I died a lot though. Same thing with Half-Life 2 - I only felt threatened once or twice (those damned striders!)

I haven't played any recent RPG's - mainly 'cos I don't own a console. And also 'cos I normally don't buy my games new, if you get my drift, and none of my "connections" have newer PC RPG's. Most of the older RPG's I've played are really tough until you discover how to work the system. But yeah, I haven't gotten very far in FFII yet...

[Forerunner]

- Also in this area you can find Zodiac Spear. You must have Diamond Armlet equipped when you examine the treasure. Coming from the entrance of [Ore Separation] it appears in a second invisible side room (by invisible I mean that it doesn't show up on the map). Good luck getting it - treasure has 10% chance of spawning and instead of Zodiac Spear you can end up with Elixir or some gil - essentially your chances of getting Zodiac Spear are 0,1%.

wtf, nowai! I say to myself. So I looked into it rather than take his word.


The way the treasure system works in FFXII, is that the chests work randomly, based on chance. The factors that are taken into account everytime you enter the area with the chest in it are:
a) the percentage that they'll appear.
b) the percentage that they'll have either an item or gil.
c) the percentage that they'll have either item a or b.

Also, sometimes there won't be an item b, and if you have the Diamond Amulet equipped then what item a and b are changes, as well the value for the third percentage.

Most chests will have 100% chance of appearing, 50/50 chance of being an item/gil, and then 90/10 chance of being item a/b (b is usually the better item). But then you get special ones like this one.

The chest has a 10% chance of appearing. That doesn't sound too tough. But then the chance of if being an item or gil is 90/10... so for every 1 out of 10 times the chest is actually there, it'll only have an item in it 1 out of 10 times........ then (making sure you have the Diamond Amulet equipped) there is only a 1 in 10 chance that that item will be the Zodiac Spear, otherwise it'll be an Elixir.

So in the end, that's a 1 in 1000 chance that the spear will be there every time you try.

Good luck.

[Teenr0cker]

So in the end, that's a 1 in 1000 chance that the spear will be there every time you try.

Yeah. Fuck the Zodiac Spear.

Resounding conclusion. I concur, and I haven't even gotten the game (yet)!

[Sling]

Yeah, I just re-read it, I failed to notic the 10% chance of it being there, the 10% chance of it being an item and the 10% chance of it being the Zodiac Spear. Playing RTS games until 4 in the morning and staying up the all night is bad for my vision :I

So yeah, 1 in 1000. Hyuck. If you just repeatedly entered and exited the area 1000 times then eventually you would get it I suppose.

I'm not sure which is harder to get. The Zodiac Spear or the Tournesol.
I've calculated that it would cost nigh around 1,500,000 gil to be able to afford it without having to battle hordes of Lv99 Red Chocobos (which have 1 in 256 chance of appearing (with certain pre-requisites fulfilled) anyway). Not to mention the ridiculously rare items you have to get.

I could actually get the Tournesol where I am in FFXII atm, but: -
a)I don't have the gil
b)It would take far too long

But anway, the Tournesol is only available as Bazaar goods. 'The Sunflower' which all in all costs 600 grand. Not that much for a decent weapon I hear you say. All you need are 3 Gemsteel's, 3 Empyreal Souls (yes I did spell that right) and 3 Serpentarius'. Hmm, how hard can it be? There are 2 possible ways of obtaining said pieces of loot. Either option a)Pilfer siad goods from Lv99 Red Chocobos which pretty much have the ability to lay waste your most powerful characters and the odds of them being where they appear are also slim. Or option b), get them from more Bazaar goods. The 3 Bazaar goods you need to get are Jewel of Creation, Matchless Metal and Jewel of the Serpent. Costing 29,997, 29,997 and 19,998 respectively and you'll need 3 each so triple that and so the price has gone from 600,000 to 839,976. The items you shall need for these are the following: -
Scarlette x 3 obtainable from Emeralditan/Pandaemonium/Aspidochelon
Hellgate's Flame x 3 obtainable from Cerberus/Enkidu/Wary Wolf
Damascus Steel x 3 obtainable from Bune/Daedalus/Vinuksar

High Arcana x 3 (see below)
Wargod's Band x 3 obtainable from Legnir/Victanir
Soul Powder x 3 obainable from Etem/Vorres

High Arcana x 3 (see below)
Sepent Eye x 6 obtainable from Basilisk/Grey Moler
Snake Skin x 12 obtainable from Wildsnake/Grey Moler/Midgardsormr

Oh, and to get High Arcana... yes, more Bazaar goods.
Costing 9,999 each
So, Arcana x 60 (obtainable from pretty much everything (see below))
Feystone x 6 obtainable from Storm Elemental, Gnoma Endite and Mardu Entite
Soul of Thamasa x 6 obtainable from Oversoul/Istheen

Also the chances of getting these items are relatively low, so you'll need a bunch of items obtainable at Bazaar Goods to shorten the loot collecting time. You'll need the Morbid Urn and all of the Forgotten Grimoire Bazaar goods (which are relatively easy to obtain). For Morbid Urn you need 1x Horakhty's Flame, 1 Phobos Gaze and 1 Deimos Clay which you receive upon defeating the following marks (hunts) Orthros, Gil Snapper and Trickster respectively and it costs 250,000.
To get the Forgotten Grimoires you need to do the following: -
Defeat Thextera mark (hunt) and talk to Gatsly at the Muthrusuu Bazaar (in Rabanastre), Talk to the weapon merchant 30 times, Examine the hunt board 40 times (after defeating Rogue Tomato mark(hunt)), Talk to (regular(or any I don't know) merchants 100 times, Talk to Magickry merchants 25 times, Examine the mark board 20 times (after defeating Rogue Tomato mark (hunt) and Talk to the Amroury merchant 15 times. Then pay up, 18,000, 19,000 22,000, 25,000, 21,000, 20,000, and 220,000 gil respectively. Making for a a grand total of 1,494,970 gil. Note without these last 2 bazaar goods it is comparitively harder to obtain required loot. You'll pretty much need the Morbid Urn as it is (from as far as I can tell) the only way to get Arcana loot (I may be wrong).

Hmm, I'm almost tempted to go pick mine up today...

So, pretty much fuck every uber-powerful weapon in the game (unless you are REALLY dedicated).

[MusashiEX]

I'd like to say that getting Hell Gate's Flames is extremely difficult. I had to kill more than 1000 to get all that I needed. Seriously. I had the chain meter to over 999 (not 9000, unfortunately). Not that you need to chain. HGF is a monograph drop, so it's a constant 5% drop. And as for getting the Zodiac Spear from the mine, you can do it in a few hours. I got mine in four. I timed myself. It takes a long time to zone. If you really want a good weapon, I'd suggest Masamune + Genji Glove. 119,988 max damage. As for the time to get Zodiac Spear vs Tournesol, I'd imagine that the Zodiac Spear would be easier.

EDIT: As for High Arcanas, they drop a lot from rare game. Just have the Morbid/Canopic Jar and the monograph for the rare game. I chained Dustia for ten minutes and got 12.

[Sling]

I need the Diamond Armlet before I can get the Zodiac Spear. If I read the guide right I can get it from a shop in the Estersand. Is this correct?

[MusashiEX]

You can indeed get a Diamond Armlet from the merchant in the Estersand at a certain point in the story, although if you can access the area where the spear is located, you probably beat the game already. The secret area requires that you finish the hunts in Jahara and you have 10 espers. And you only need the Diamond Armlet for the Zodiac Spear in the mines. If you open the Nabudis chest with the DA, you'll get a Dark Matter. I had that happen to me.