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]

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!

[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?

[Theworshiper]

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.

[Theworshiper]

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

[Reks]

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).

[Jim Callen]

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

[Theworshiper]

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.

[Jim Callen]

Damnit, I've been fighting that Hell Wyrm for the past hour, and I get him to about 15% of his health, and he goes into crazy mode and wipes my party out. So pissed off.

[tarshil]

Yeah, that gets annoying, Jim Callen. When they do that to me and I can't beat them for the rest of that battle, I go back in and try and get them back down to that point where their defense triples, then I unlease a crapload of quickenings, which don't seem to be weakened by that thing they do. I sound like a moron...hope it helps.

[Jim Callen]

Quickenings arent going to do a thing to the hell Wyrm, when I say I've been fighting him for an hour, I mean one battle that has lasted an hour. No amount of quickening is going to do a thing.

[Eisole]

I'm trying to find Dran, the Cactoid, for the Ferryman quest.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[Djinn]

I'm trying to find Dran, the Cactoid, for the Ferryman quest.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Its behind the hut where you give in the Flower from the Cactoid hunt for part of a quest. I forgot the womens name but its some guys wife that is standing in front of the hut XD.

Edit: Dantro's Wife is the one i'm talking about, in the village on the south bank of the river =D

[Hildegarde]

Has any of you defeated Ba'Gamnan (sp) et al at the Henne Mines?

The first time I got to that point, I was maybe at level 10-11, didn't have very good weaponn and I didn't fare too well.
So I figured this second time around, at level 17 and with better weapons and a better understanding of it all, I could confront them.
But I couldn't even make a notch in their health bar, and magic isn't that powerful at this time.
I hit them with every negative status I have available now but, nothing affected them; I had to give up and run, eventually, they would have killed my party for sure.

At what insane level do you have to be to beat the gang I wonder, or even if it is possible to defeat them at all?.

[Kyle]

I have a question about the items you get after you vanquish a "mark" whether it be a normal one from the bulletin boards or one of the "elite marks" for Monteblonc. Once you get the items from the person who wanted you to seek out a monster, there are sometimes special ones. I read that with these items, you can make cool bazaar items or special weapons, items, and such. I've been selling these items so far to merchants like I would any other item.

Is this good? Is this what I'm supposed to do to get new items in the bazaar or wherever I get them? I hope that's how you get the special items, weapons, cuz if not that sux since I've been selling them off.


Edit: I have one more question. When performing quickenings can you have one person do a quickening and perform a lot of damage? Or does it have to be a group effort to make it really do much? And also I'm not sure how to do the level 2 or 3 quickenings. I have some characters with level 1 and some with 1, 2, and/or 3. When I select for one person to do a level 1 quickening, I"m not sure which quickening my other characters are doing and I don't know how to choose which one WHILE doing the quickening iteslf. PLEASE HELP!

[DragonHeart]

I have a question about the items you get after you vanquish a "mark" whether it be a normal one from the bulletin boards or one of the "elite marks" for Monteblonc. Once you get the items from the person who wanted you to seek out a monster, there are sometimes special ones. I read that with these items, you can make cool bazaar items or special weapons, items, and such. I've been selling these items so far to merchants like I would any other item.

Is this good? Is this what I'm supposed to do to get new items in the bazaar or wherever I get them? I hope that's how you get the special items, weapons, cuz if not that sux since I've been selling them off.

This I can answer, since I do a lot of hunting lol. It's both good and bad. I wouldn't sell the loot right away, some of the items you get as rewards are used in quests later on. I suppose you could use a guide to know what to save and what to sell, I haven't though so I've just kept most of it. It's not just the rewards that open new bazaar items, it's loot in general, the more different types you sell the more bazaar items you have access to. Try killing mobs you don't usually fight and sell those drops, chances are you will end up with new bazaar items.

I do know that specific combinations of loot drops unlock certain bazaar items, but I can't tell you what they are. Mostly cause I don't know. I stumbled across a list while searching some information out on a mark's spawn conditions but I didn't read nor bookmark it.

I don't use Quickenings much so someone else will have to answer the other half lol.

~DragonHeart~

[Djinn]

Edit: I have one more question. When performing quickenings can you have one person do a quickening and perform a lot of damage? Or does it have to be a group effort to make it really do much? And also I'm not sure how to do the level 2 or 3 quickenings. I have some characters with level 1 and some with 1, 2, and/or 3. When I select for one person to do a level 1 quickening, I"m not sure which quickening my other characters are doing and I don't know how to choose which one WHILE doing the quickening iteslf. PLEASE HELP!

You can solo quickenings but most of the time you'll just get 1-3 hits out of it, which doesn't do much damage against mobs later in the game. To do the most damage you really need your 3 active party members with at least level 1 quickenings, so you can chain them together and in the end get a better finishing move. As for resfreshing them, i believe the quickening and the level are completely random, if it refreshes to a level 1 quickening you can refresh again and hope to get a level 2/3 but its not really worth it, best just to hit the one thats up and then hope you get a better one next time.

[Eisole]

Thanks, getting Dran was the EASY half... two Wild Saurians....

Woo now I'm up to Elder Wyrm. Advice? I'm not getting stomped, but his status effects fry my troope.

[Rumrunner]

Hi guys. For you that plan on going after the hidden epsers, I just wanted to share info about meeting Exodus.

I needed the strategy guide for this, and it provides a walkthrough, but not where to exactly meet him, which drove me CRAZY.

After you touch all the required shrines and revisit the Shrine of the Northwest Wind (and deactivate it), you must refeed the Chocobo in the Rays of Ashen Light zone and go back to th Trial of Sky-Flung Stone ( or Skyreach Ridge, where you had to push the rock out of the way earlier). There will be a new zone opening at the very Northern tip. The Chocobo won't zone, so disband, zone, and say hello to Exodus.

I personally got him down to just a tad health when he became "immune" to all physical attacks. Then after about 5 good minutes of whailing the hell out of him and trying to get my dispel and dark to hit him, I was able to finish him off.

I'm now going for Ultima in the Crystal. OMG... thats another story lol...

[Aamon]

Im trying to get the esper Zalhera, but the problem Im having is that he is located in Balheim Passage and I cant seem to find my way back into the passage.

There are 2 zones that I know of in Eastersand one of which is caved in and the guy standing outside says his bose is trapped inside with the key to open the second entrance.

Theres is also one of the teleport crystals in the zone but it doesnt show up on my list of places to teleport to.

So Im stumped and cant figure out how to get back into the passage to get the esper >< any help is appreciated.

[Andromeda]

You have to do a rather lengthy quest to get the Barheim Passage Key so that you can go back inside. You first much complete the Cactuar Mark that Danto gave you. And I think you have to be a certain part into the story. After that you speak to Danto again at a later point, who tells you to take the flower from the cactuar to his wife in the village to the north.

When you speak to his wife she takes it and the ferry comes back to the village. You speak to the boy at the boat for a scene and go across the river to the other said of the village. You get a scene there and then have to go back across to the south part of the village. You speak to the wife of Danto again, and go behind the house to find that flower you gave her. It turns into a Cactuar and you go back across the river again. You get another cutscene and then you go back south.

You then speak to the wife again who wants some items to heal someone that is injured. The first items are along the beach of the village, you'll see a shiny spot. Take them to the wife and she will ask for something else. You have to go to the outpost where Danto is for that item. It is found near some crates in the outpost. Take the item back to her and she asks for yet another item. Take the boat across to the north and go two zones north to the Broken Sands area and by the cliffs in the middle of the map is the item you are looking for. Take that back to her and then she is finished with you.

After that you need to kill some time, it took me like ten minutes or more I think. I lost track in the boat game that I was doing that is a little puzzling. Anyway, after enough time passes talk to the wife who tells you that the man is better and behind the house. Speak to him and you get the key. Depending on how many items you give the wife and if still have the Great Serpentwine, you will get other items. Personally none of them are that good, Golden Amulet can be bought, which is the best you can get. So it does not really matter, you do not need the wine.

But with that you have the key and the ability to go inside. The monsters are 30+ and there are a fair amount of undead too. There is also a timer on Zalera, though what its purpose is I don't know, but it is probably not good. You have 5 minutes to kill him and in the first minute I was unable to deal damage to him for an unknown reason, he had something that prevented it. There are also undead that pop up, though if you kill them eventually they go away it seemed. He also has Prime Level Death, so don't be a Prime Level when you fight him. I was 75, so I was good.

Oh and if you do not get one of the scenes I was talking about, just zone outside and it will fix it. Some of them require you to zone out once to trigger the next event. I don't recall them all, but if one of them does not happen zoning will fix it.

Apparently the Zodiac Shield is in there I think, but its another rare spawn in a treasure chest. I know there is something good inside. Also the Barheim Passage leads to the underground waterway underneath Rabanastre, just so you know. So you might want to lower the water if you want a fast out. But there is also Bloodwing inside, a mark you get from that village. So you'll want to go back sometime to get that.

[Cain Highwind]

Okay, short and simple question, how do I find the Gil Snapper? I've opened way to the Tracks of the beast area, it's raining, I defeat the lesser tortoises, but nothing (was able to snag quite a bit of loot from those tortoises though incuding two Officer Hats).

[Hildegarde]

You have to, in the rainy season, go around looking for the "withered trunks" that are in the edge of the water and knock them down.
The trunks will fall in the water and drift away, this will eventually form a little bridge that you can cross to a new area where the Gil Snapper is.

[DragonHeart]

As he already mentioned, Cain already did that half of the hunt. >.> But anyways, just rainy isn't enough to make the Snapper spawn. He will only spawn in heavy rains, which is noticably different from the normal. Bansat will actually announce to you when it has spawned the first time you find it, it will be near the middle of the area.

I highly recommend saving in the Crystal Glade then just keep zoning back and forth at the Tracks of the Beast until it spawns. It will take awhile, heavy rains seem to be rare in that particular area. It's always taken me 7+ tries to make the Snapper spawn.

On the bright side, if it's heavy rains in the zone outside the Tracks look near the edge of the water on the way to the Crystal Glade and you'll find the Rain Dancer, a rare game monster.

~DragonHeart~

[Hildegarde]

Oh, yeah, you are right.
Sorry, I was half asleep at the time.
XD

Well, Dragon Heart fixed it for me.
To keep it from being SPAM, has anybody defeated Ba'Gamnan, as I asked?.