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Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age |OT| You Had One Job!

You guys suggest dropping a specific ninja sword? I'm leaning towards Iga since there are more ways of casting water damage than Earth, and NS1 seems useful.

Thoughts?

I'd like some opinions on this as well.
Ninja Swords 1 has access to a bunch of non-elemental Ninja Swords with effects like blind or slow.

2 & 3 are best water and earth element weapons in the game.

4 is the best Ninja Sword. So you want that one period.

So I guess make your decision between elements or extra effects.
 

MilkBeard

Member
Played through the sandsea and Raithwall. Played a number of hours, and didn't want it to stop. I love the freedom and flexibility of the game's systems. So good. Also speeding up x2 helps with the doldrums of fighting lots of enemies for these games. Makes it a much more palatable experience.

I ran into a little issue in the sandsea; it had to do with a mistake in my gambits. I basically had some characters set at "attack foe: any" or "nearest," which is a big problem if you run into some of the higher level enemies that won't attack you unless you attack first. So I walk by one of those elemental orbs, and my characters start attacking it, prompting it to cast high level spells on several occasions, nearly wiping my party. Quickly changed the gambits so that they will only attack when my party is targeted, or when party leader is attacking.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
I've found that foe:any usually only attacks hostile enemies. But occasionally they seem to attack non-hostiles? Maybe it's dispel being cast or something.
 
Ninja Swords 1 has access to a bunch of non-elemental Ninja Swords with effects like blind or slow.

2 & 3 are best water and earth element weapons in the game.

4 is the best Ninja Sword. So you want that one period.

So I guess make your decision between elements or extra effects.

Oh, I pretty much know all that. Was just curious what everyone else went with in their own playthroughs.

Also, lol at how annoying allocating Espers can get. Pretty sure I'm gonna just wing that.
 
FWIW, if anyone's interested, the new soundtrack is available on iTunes (at least in Europe).
There's 99 tracks, for a total time of almost 6 hours.
 

traveler

Not Wario
Oh, I pretty much know all that. Was just curious what everyone else went with in their own playthroughs.

Also, lol at how annoying allocating Espers can get. Pretty sure I'm gonna just wing that.

It's not complex. Look at what each esper unlocks for each character, then just assign them to the one with the best unlocks. So long as you have two classes picked already/in mind for each character, you have all the information necessary. (Belias is the only one where that probably won't be the case and he doesn't unlock anything great for anyone)
 

Brakke

Banned
Now that I have second jobs I'm curious: are there trade offs on armor class? Any reason not to give Heavy Armor to anyone who can take it?
 
If I want a black mage Ashe is the who I should go with, right? Running out of options since I've given everyone else a physical job except for Penelo.

Is magic even that good in this game?
 

traveler

Not Wario
If I want a black mage Ashe is the who I should go with, right? Running out of options since I've given everyone else a physical job except for Penelo.

Is magic even that good in this game?

Yes, it's even better than it was in the original as there's no cap on damaging attacks now. Ashe was one shotting enemies in the final dungeon of the game with weaknesses for me.

Plus, once you get to endgame, if you have blm/monk Ashe, you can get a really beefed up Holy thanks the Chaos Esper unlocking it for monks, and one of BLM's best weapons amping holy damage.
 
Yes, it's even better than it was in the original as there's no cap on damaging attacks now. Ashe was one shotting enemies in the final dungeon of the game with weaknesses for me.

Plus, once you get to endgame, if you have blm/monk Ashe, you can get a really beefed up Holy thanks the Chaos Esper unlocking it for monks, and one of BLM's best weapons amping holy damage.

Nice! That's good to hear.
 

Syntsui

Member
If I want a black mage Ashe is the who I should go with, right? Running out of options since I've given everyone else a physical job except for Penelo.

Is magic even that good in this game?
It's pretty good for crowd control although it loses relevancy on the harder content. Pair her with Monk for more HP.
 
On the Shikari board, what's the best :
- Ninja Sword 2 (Iga Blade) or 3 (Koga Blade)
- Yagyu Darklade & Mesa

Both are behind my last quickening nod. I will block one. What is the least important ?
 

Atlantis

Member
On the Shikari board, what's the best :
- Ninja Sword 2 (Iga Blade) or 3 (Koga Blade)
- Yagyu Darklade & Mesa

Both are behind my last quickening nod. I will block one. What is the least important ?

I think this all depends on your other class, do you have access to Mystic Armor?
 
It's not complex. Look at what each esper unlocks for each character, then just assign them to the one with the best unlocks. So long as you have two classes picked already/in mind for each character, you have all the information necessary. (Belias is the only one where that probably won't be the case and he doesn't unlock anything great for anyone)

Found a spreadsheet that helps do just that.

Might just throw Belias on Ashe for lore purposes. My job allocation was halfway lore-based anyways.
 

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
I know this must have been discussed to death and back, but I've just spent hours scouring Reddit and GameFAQs threads and all I managed to glean was a headache. Some folks focus on complete min/max optimization. Some have to stay lore-friendly. Some only care about an uber 3-member set up. Some leave out considerations of native stats, or attack animation speeds, or Quickening/Esper optimizations, etc. or any combination of them.

So here's what I'm looking for and am hoping someone here has a pocket recommendation they could cut and paste for me. A link to an existing post is perfectly fine, too.
What would be the best, balanced, most optimized six-member team that meets the following criteria:

1) Synergistic job/character pairings that take into account native stats, end-game gear, and weapon attack animation speeds.
2) Utilizes all 12 jobs intelligently. No gaps. No repeats. I know the Time Battlemage kind of sucks. Still.
3) Balances and doesn't waste Swiftness/Channeling nodes.
4) Balances magicks/Genji Gloves/utility/breaks/etc. across both teams.
5) Does NOT need to respect canonical character roles as suggested by the vanilla version of the game, cutscenes, official artwork, or Revenant Wings. I know Balthier has one of the slowest gun shooting animations, so canon-friendliness can get bent in light of that.
6) Bonus points if you can also suggest appropriate Esper assignments.

The list wars I've seen discussed here and elsewhere always seem to leave one or more of my listed considerations out.
And yes, I know the game is stupidly easy without these optimizations. But I'm about to kill my 30 or so hour current file because I just can't get over how dissatisfied I am with my current party. It's an illness, and I'd greatly appreciate someone better versed than me handing me a cure. For pity's sake.

Cheers.
 

Balphon

Member
On the Shikari board, what's the best :
- Ninja Sword 2 (Iga Blade) or 3 (Koga Blade)
- Yagyu Darklade & Mesa

Both are behind my last quickening nod. I will block one. What is the least important ?

Ninja Swords 2, 3, & 4 are all behind separate quickening nodes so you should be able to get two of the three.
 
On the Shikari board, what's the best :
- Ninja Sword 2 (Iga Blade) or 3 (Koga Blade)
- Yagyu Darklade & Mesa

Both are behind my last quickening nod. I will block one. What is the least important ?

Most people ignore Ninja Swords 2. Apparently the water element for Iga is not as rare as Koga's earth element/more enemies are weak to earth. Ninja Swords 4 has the best of them all, the Yagyu.
 
Can someone list the quickens and espers I should unlock for my characters so I won't be locked out of the good stuff. 1,2,3,4= 50,75,100,125

Shikrai/foebreaker Vaan

Machinst/ulhan. Bathier

Red mage/Archer. Fran

Knight/Time mage. Ashe

Bushi/Monk. Basch

Blackmage/Monk. Penolo
 

Demoskinos

Member
I feel really dumb rn but...
I'm stuck in this room with two switches right after you get Basch in your party for the first time as a guest and... the solution has to be staring me in the face but I've ran around for 10 minutes unable to find it.
 
D

Deleted member 77995

Unconfirmed Member
I feel really dumb rn but...
I'm stuck in this room with two switches right after you get Basch in your party for the first time as a guest and... the solution has to be staring me in the face but I've ran around for 10 minutes unable to find it.
Talk to the vendor
 

Kensuke

Member
And yes, I know the game is stupidly easy without these optimizations. But I'm about to kill my 30 or so hour current file because I just can't get over how dissatisfied I am with my current party. It's an illness, and I'd greatly appreciate someone better versed than me handing me a cure. For pity's sake.

You have to make compromises on any setup that uses all 12 jobs, especially with the criteria you want. I doubt there is any 'best' mix one could come up with. For example, there is a lot of subjectivity when figuring out if you just want max DPS or some utility (like healing spells) on the side. Do you want to use your Monk to buff your Black Mage or do you want Fran to rock the best pole with a genji glove? You also can't have two teams that cover every single base, one of them is going to end up having some flaw.

You're pretty much set as long as you have 2 genji glove users with access to good weapons and synergistic combinations that all get 3x swiftness. Besides that I'm positive I could point out numerous flaws on any setup. What is your current setup that you're so dissatisfied with?
 

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
You have to make compromises on any setup that uses all 12 jobs, especially with the criteria you want. I doubt there is any 'best' mix one could come up with. For example, there is a lot of subjectivity when figuring out if you just want max DPS or some utility (like healing spells) on the side. Do you want to use your Monk to buff your Black Mage or do you want Fran to rock the best pole with a genji glove? You also can't have two teams that cover every single base, one of them is going to end up having some flaw.

You're pretty much set as long as you have 2 genji glove users with access to good weapons and synergistic combinations that all get 3x swiftness. Besides that I'm positive I could point out numerous flaws on any setup. What is your current setup that you're so dissatisfied with?

I know there won't be a single, mathematical best scenario. But I am looking for some great build ideas. FWIW, I'd rather have two teams that can cover the most bases rather that one slanted towards optimal DPS where it results in a clearly inferior backup team. I'm looking for the most optimal teams that are, as a priority, the most balanced. I already killed my old file. :)
 
You guys suggest dropping a specific ninja sword? I'm leaning towards Iga since there are more ways of casting water damage than Earth, and NS1 seems useful.

Thoughts?
On the Shikari board, what's the best :
- Ninja Sword 2 (Iga Blade) or 3 (Koga Blade)
- Yagyu Darklade & Mesa

Both are behind my last quickening nod. I will block one. What is the least important ?
The argument against 'the 4' is that it's easy to skip those. You can get Iga Blade soon as you access Ozmone Plains, though chances are you'll be Lv15-20 and the monsters are Lv35+ in their just to survive -- let alone farm it fast enough to get a 1% drop. But you can get both Iga and Koga soon after, easily from a chest, in Lhusu Mines soon as you reach Mt. Bur-Omisace (before Miriam) during the Antlion hunt.

You get all 3 weaker ninja swords at basically the same time, with varying degrees of difficulty, within barely 2 hours of the story (Ozmone Plains -> Henne Mines - > Mt. Bur Omisace).

So you have almost no chance to really use the 'first 3' swords for their ATK before you'd upgrade to Iga or Koga. You may have a Orich. Dirk or Zwill Crossblade in there too since you get them around the same time/dungeons. The 'first 3' do have debuff procs but those are quite rare to proc on regular mobs and on bosses a spell can do the same thing. Then after Iga/Koga, you'd likely go to Yagyu and then skip Orochi for Orochi N.

So even if I had NS1, I'd likely almost never use it. Probably go straight from a Gladius to an Iga (from Lhusu). You could farm the first one but it's like a 5% poach from a rare monster that has a short but still multi-step spawn pattern. In that amount of time you could already be halfway through Henne Mines toward Mt. Bur Omisace to just go get an Iga or Koga from Lhusu.

As for Iga vs Koga... they're both pretty good... Iga water helps on the bomb boss in Salikawood... Phon Cost and Sochen Cave Palace have quite a few earth-weak monsters (maybe one of the last times because the game becomes fairly undead soon).

I mean, elemental weapons >>>> debuffs IMO. it's the same as the Yagyu Darkness argument for Yiazmat, I mean it only has 98 ATK but that dark element gives it a huge boost over >110 ATK weapons... Iga and Koga are still 87 ATK so against a water or earth weak target, they're arguable the best weapons in the entire game. 87 ATK is going to hit far harder than even 130 ATK vs element weakness because ATK is half of the damage calculation (atk~ - enemy def)*(stats~) whereas elemental weakness is a pure 2x multiplier to the final damage value.

So in a way, Iga and Koga are respectively the 'ultimate' damage weapons in the game vs enemies weak to water and earth.

I say damage because they'll hit much harder than Masamune I but lack combos... I'm not really sure but it'd probably be close. Yagyu Darkness + Dark Robes does ~112K DPS to Yiazmat vs 54K from a top Masamune/Genji Build and 50K from Whale Whisker Genji. It does get both +elemental damage and +elemental potency, but the latter is just *0.5, so you remove Dark Robes and in theory Yagyu Darkness is still doing ~75K DPS to Masamune's 60K. So, if Yiazmat was Earth or Water weak, Iga or Koga could still be the top DPS weapons for that fight. Or it would be close... I don't think just -11 damage is going to reduce DPS more than 10K. The tests assume 0 DEF so it's basically going from (98 ATK)(1+99(99+98)/218) downto (87)(91), or 8918 vs 7197 damage(*2~element)(*1.5~berserk)(*1.3~bravery)(*2~adrenaline). Factor in those multipliers and that's 63,936 vs 56,136, or 0.88. I'm not sure how much combo will effect because it's 28% vs 22% but SHI usually use Germinas Boots not Genji; Ninja sword CT pretty fast anyhow so combos remove less CT. Maybe -5-10% DPS? So in theory (I guess...) if the Yagyu was doing 75K DPS vs Holy-weak Yiazmat, if it were water or earth weak, Iga or Koga would do 66K DPS (sans combo consideration) maybe down to 60K DPS with lower combo rate. Even conservatively that's 4K higher than top Genji build (in theory...).

Elements are pretty strong in the game because of how it does a pure double damage. It's the only double damage modifier other than Adrenaline. It's why a Burning Bow giving *1.5 damage to Fiery Arrows can compete with endgame bows, and then Fiery Arrows doing becoming *1.5*2 damage to fire weak monsters makes a Westersand drop bow deal such high damage. Or why it's hard for even top Genji DPS to compete with Yagyu Darkness or even Dark Shot on Yiazmat. So there's an argument for both Iga and Koga (in the same way you may want any SHI, MCN, or ARC that takes advantage of elements) to have arguable the top DPS weapon vs those elements.

That said, I'm not really sure there's a single boss fight that would even last long enough to make this sort of sustained DPS relevant lol. It's sort of symbolic in the sense of being a Yiazmat Killer, Iga and Koga let you be an wind- or fire- killer.

But at the same time, it could just be an aesthetic or story thing. If you got an Ashura early for 3-4 hours of the same, that probably gave you more use than an endgame Koga ever will. Or maybe you just like the debuffs. TBH I mostly chose Iga and Koga not for the stats above but because I wanted my Shikari Foebreaker to be like a FF Tactics Ninja: Germinas Boots, Yagyu Darkness, Scorpion Tail, and Iga and Koga Blades.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
Y'know I didn't have a Knight in my IZJS playthrough so this explains why Zodiark went down pretty easily this time

the 2-man, 12-chain Quickening at the end didn't hurt either
 

Kensuke

Member
I know there won't be a single, mathematical best scenario. But I am looking for some great build ideas. FWIW, I'd rather have two teams that can cover the most bases rather that one slanted towards optimal DPS where it results in a clearly inferior backup team. I'm looking for the most optimal teams that are, as a priority, the most balanced. I already killed my old file. :)

Well, here is the team I came up with after looking looking at the spreadsheet for hours. It covers most bases and both teams are as balanced as possible. Having two good teams was one of my main criteria. If you want it a bit more optimal you should switch the roles of Vaan and Penelo, possibly also Balthier and Ashe.
 

mindsale

Member
I'm looking to create one superteam onto whom I assign all of the Espers - only three party members would receive espers, as best optimized as I could make them.

Red Mage / Archer soaks up a ton theoretically, as does Knight / Bushi and Black Mage / Monk.

I don't think that's a viable party though, as Red Mage can't really keep up with the healing output.

White Mage just doesn't have many good esper choices.

Can anyone offer some advice? Class pairings are still somewhat malleable, I'm just assigning them now.
 

Ourobolus

Banned
I'm looking to create one superteam onto whom I assign all of the Espers - only three party members would receive espers, as best optimized as I could make them.

Red Mage / Archer soaks up a ton theoretically, as does Knight / Bushi and Black Mage / Monk.

I don't think that's a viable party though, as Red Mage can't really keep up with the healing output.

White Mage just doesn't have many good esper choices.

Can anyone offer some advice? Class pairings are still somewhat malleable, I'm just assigning them now.
Monk gets Curaja (from and Esper) and will benefit from the Magick Lores from BLM.

I had a party in IZJS that didn't have a White Mage and I did all the hunts/espers.
 

burgerdog

Member
Just finished Raithwall and unlocked a bunch of hunts and I was only able to beat one. I don't remember struggling with hunts this early in vanilla.
 
Can you reload the same stage of trials from autosave and get different drops? If not, can you reload from the last manual save in the trials and get different results? Or do you need to start it all from scratch to change the outcome?
 

mindsale

Member
Monk gets Curaja (from and Esper) and will benefit from the Magick Lores from BLM.

I had a party in IZJS that didn't have a White Mage and I did all the hunts/espers.


You think a Shikari / Breaker, Knight / Bushi, Black Mage / Monk could viably heal and cure statuses of late-game content?
 

Ourobolus

Banned
You think a Shikari / Breaker, Knight / Bushi, Black Mage / Monk could viably heal and cure statuses of late-game content?
Black Mage (and I think...Shikari?) get all 3 Remedy Lores. Just stock up in items and you should be fine for statuses.

I'm more worried that you won't be casting many buffs on your team. For instance I'm pretty sure you don't even have access to Haste with that setup.
 
Can you reload the same stage of trials from autosave and get different drops? If not, can you reload from the last manual save in the trials and get different results? Or do you need to start it all from scratch to change the outcome?

You can reload the auto-save for each floor to try to get something different, though obviously you won't keep what you've gotten until you go on to the next floor. So then to return to that floor you'd have to start over.
 

Kensuke

Member
I'm looking to create one superteam onto whom I assign all of the Espers - only three party members would receive espers, as best optimized as I could make them.

Red Mage / Archer soaks up a ton theoretically, as does Knight / Bushi and Black Mage / Monk.

I don't think that's a viable party though, as Red Mage can't really keep up with the healing output.

White Mage just doesn't have many good esper choices.

Can anyone offer some advice? Class pairings are still somewhat malleable, I'm just assigning them now.

How about

Bushi/Foebreaker
Knight/Time mage
Black Mage/Monk

Knight/Time Mage can handle most of the support, including healing. On emergencies the Monk can help with healing. The Bushi can apply breaks and concentrate on DPS. With Zeromus Time Mage and Monk could also handle all the breaks, giving you more options.
 
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