Final Fantasy XII

[SuperBeatBoy]

Adam did you manage to beat the gil snapper hunt in the giza plain rains? When i first recieved it i left it, because the guy that helps you said that he only appears when the rain is at its heaviest. I might have overlooked it in the guide (cant remember reading it there, found out in a faq) that you have to randomly zone in and out in his area to make it rain harder. Anyways im well into the game now and i think the rains have stopped for where i am and i was wondering do you know if im able to complete it or am i just royally screwed?

[toythatkills]

I've been levelling up my guys by default, really. I've been killing stuff for ages to build up massive chains, and to get LP, and the exp just comes along. I've been going mad on +HP augments, and they're really helping. Tbh, all of the augments on that grid have had a much more noticable effect on my squad than levelling up. A few speed-ups for example, and I'm much much quicker! MP cost reduction helps too. Should probably start learning magicks and technicks now! I'm about 15 hours in, and I've only just turned Libra on. Been cursing traps for days.

Does it matter what quickenings I give to which characters? Espers, too? Or will they act the same for all?

[SuperBeatBoy]

I've been levelling up my guys by default, really. I've been killing stuff for ages to build up massive chains, and to get LP, and the exp just comes along. I've been going mad on +HP augments, and they're really helping. Tbh, all of the augments on that grid have had a much more noticable effect on my squad than levelling up. A few speed-ups for example, and I'm much much quicker! MP cost reduction helps too. Should probably start learning magicks and technicks now! I'm about 15 hours in, and I've only just turned Libra on. Been cursing traps for days.

Does it matter what quickenings I give to which characters? Espers, too? Or will they act the same for all?

I dont think it matters who you give them to, learn all of them as soon as you can, they can triple your mp. ive just learned myself if you don't have a quicken to pick in a chain, randomize them with the r2 button until you get something you want. i personally always try this when i want a mist charge.
a good magick to learn later on is bubble, it doubles your hps. you can buy it off a guy in the bazaar in rabanastre, i dont know how far you have to be in the game to buy it though.

[AdamJW]

Adam did you manage to beat the gil snapper hunt in the giza plain rains? When i first recieved it i left it, because the guy that helps you said that he only appears when the rain is at its heaviest. I might have overlooked it in the guide (cant remember reading it there, found out in a faq) that you have to randomly zone in and out in his area to make it rain harder. Anyways im well into the game now and i think the rains have stopped for where i am and i was wondering do you know if im able to complete it or am i just royally screwed?

@Spoilers@

Don't worry the rains come back every other gamehour. The guide is really vague on info for that hunt. In fact there are alot of hunts that the guide is just no help with at all. Anyway I went to the place where the Gilsnapper is located at around the 57th minute of the gamehour when its raining which you can tell just by looking at the sky when you teleport to the teleport stone in southern Rabanastre. I'm 100% sure that the heaviest rains are towards the end of the hour when its raining because I made several trips to there when it was raining earlier in the hour, also in the middle of the hour and it wasnt there, but I pasted it on Saturday along with that Adrammelech hidden esper.

all of the augments on that grid have had a much more noticable effect on my squad than levelling up. A few speed-ups for example, and I'm much much quicker! MP cost reduction helps too. Should probably start learning magicks and technicks now!

@Spoilers@

I have almost got a full board on the top section of the license board for skills, magicks and have all the augments for each character. I've only got a few magics, skills and accessories left to get. The reason being is because I have equiped a Golden amulet on each character. This doubles the Lps gained for each kill, so on the hunts you can get lots of Lps everytime. You can also get as many Golden amulets as you like from the Henne Mines maze from a treasure pot down in there. Which you have to go back to on a couple of hunts anyway.

Its been a godsend for aquiring all the augments such as Hp and the all important extra speed on the attack bar. The top half of my license board is almost fully complete. You can either buy the Golden amulets for 4500gil(I think) if you like, but there's no point because there's no limit on how many times you can lift them out of the Henne mines treasure pot. I just put them on each character and watched my Lps soar into triple figures no time. Sometimes I just put them on inactive party members aswell, so they get double Lps and aren't even doing anything.

a good magick to learn later on is bubble, it doubles your hps. you can buy it off a guy in the bazaar in rabanastre, i dont know how far you have to be in the game to buy it though

@ more spoilers@

I'm finding the game a bit too easy now that the double bubble spell has been aquired, and the 'bubble-belt' bought from the same place makes it even easier because it doesn't catch you unawares like when the spell runs out in the middles of a boss or hunt, but I've found managing my gambits the way I mentioned in an earlier post makes controlling activating this and other posi stat effects easier. Btw the spell becomes available when you get to a certain hunt title. I think I'm still a mere 'risk breaker' at the moment.

Also do you have all the Monographs?

[revlob]

What's the story on loot and bazaar items? I was keeping hold of some of the rarer loot items I've discovered, in case I could use them for something later (not using a strategy guide at the moment). However, if their sole purpose is to sell for cash and unlock bazaar items, I'll just flog them.

I've worked out how to unlock the grimoires, which when purchased give you better item drops for certain monster types.

[AdamJW]

More @spoilers@

I have all the grimoires in my possesion at the moment aswell. I think there are seven altogether.

You are right to keep a few of the loot items and its mainly just the ones that the hunt marks drop, but there are a few such as the

->Open Spoiler<-

'Great serpentskin'

that you need to keep because that helps you get back into the Barheim passage for part of side quest and for one of the hunts. There's only a select few that you need to keep though. Which is a bit of a bitch to try and work out. Especially when you accidently sell them on while flogging off your other stuff, or simply not even knowing. On the whole though they are mainly just for opening things up in the shops like you say.

I reckon the ones to keep should be in 'key items' section instead of loot. Just so you don't end up accidently flogging them when having a loot clearout. I've done that before now and have had to go back to a much earlier save to get it back.

[SuperBeatBoy]

what are the monographs, are they those things that cost an extreme amount of money. you can find them when you sell aload of loot? i have bought the odd one or two but i don't know what they are for...i haven't looked them up yet.

[AdamJW]

@Spoilers alert@

The Monographs/Grimoires are the things that enable you to steal better loot from different types of creature class. They are those things that cost alot of money and there's seven altogether (I think). They give you more chance of certain enemies dropping equipables and whatnot, but also better loot items. Which give you more money to play around with because of the better and more frequent loot aquired off even the lesser baddies of the same classes.

There are some Grimoires/Monographs you can get through selling (again - I think), but there are also others that become available by doing other things aswell. Such as just talking to merchants of a certain type (such as Armor, weapons) a number of times, or looking at the huntboards for a certain amount of times aswell. I only knew about them when that merchant in Jahara (where those masked dudes live) mentions them helping with the loot. There's a small bit about them in the guide book in the item section at the back, and it says its best to get them as soon as you can afford them really.

[toythatkills]

You are right to keep a few of the loot items and its mainly just the ones that the hunt marks drop, but there are a few such as the

->Open Spoiler<-

'Great serpentskin'

that you need to keep because that helps you get back into the Barheim passage for part of side quest and for one of the hunts.

I'm pretty sure that's the only important loot though. Well, according to a lot of threads on GameFAQs asking the same thing! It doesn't actually stop you getting into the Barheim passage if you sell it, it just nets you a slightly better item in the side quest that gets you the key. A Golden Amulet (armlet?) rather than some Magic Gloves.

Half way to getting that side-quest done, but it involves venturing into areas I'm not quite prepared for - a couple of huge random enemies reside there!

[AdamJW]

Great!! thats good to know because I am now 20 hours on now from the last time I owned it. I sold it by mistake and wasn't hundred percent whether there were anymore items that were important to keep or not, but some of the rarer ones off the hunts I was keeping anyway. I'm glad I can now get rid of them now without worry. I don't need more golden amulets anyway.

This is just another reason why the guide book is really poor in places and scant on things that I would consider were important pieces of info because according to the book the 'Serpentskin' is needed as an important part of getting into barheim passage. The guide book is good for the most part, but I still find myself scratching my head because the info I'd have thought was important to know isnt there sometimes.

[Sergeant Syphillis]

Just tried doing the second part of the

->Open Spoiler<-

mystery man hunt

and I got my arse well and truely handed to me, there's certainly no shortage of challenging bosses in the game. Going to have to shelve this one for a bit I think, its proving far too much of a distraction from my uni work lol, think ill return to it when I've got more time to spare.

[GordonJ]

I'm still plugging away, taking my time with this, my main three characters are level 55 (mostly filled out the top augment/magic/accessories/technicks board. These golden amulets are a bit nice. Balthier is lagging behind a bit as he's wearing thieves cuffs so he can grab the 'phat lewts'.

I've only just made it to Balfonheim so I've got a load of new marks to hunt (disappointed I'm no longer a Riskbreaker like my hero Ashley Riot, but I have to be satisfied with being a Paragon of Justice). I'll clear a few of these, bet the rank VIs and VIIs kill me, before I head over to the Feywood.

A quick note on the hunts as it relates to the monographs, you need three pieces of loot (that you get from hunting marks) that when you sell give you the final monograph, which sells for 250k and lets monsters drop arcana.

I currently have two of the extra espers (Zertinan Caverns and Barheim Passage), tried the one in the Miriam shrine and it still hands my arse to me, so I'm leaving that one for later. Also got to pop down to the Westersands and see if i can take the earth titan yet.

[revlob]

Okay, I'm cracking on towards Level 30, and my party's just got to some Jungle. There's plenty of equipment I have yet to buy from the previous couple of shops, so I might hang out here for a while grinding Panthers for their pelts.

Everyone has a Quickening, and 4 of my characters have 2. I'm a bit disappointed that the Players Tip about chaining them didn't come in earlier, as it explains how they work much better than the manual does.

FFXII is weird, or rather, it's quite different from all the previous incarnations. You can very easily find yourself facing opponents much too hard for you to currently handle, and you don't even have to stray from the storyline's path to come across things like a

->Open Spoiler<-

Level 40 elemental in the Sandea

. However, if you're used to grinding for levels, a playstyle encouraged by the previous games, then you shouldn't have any problem at all ploughing through the storyline.

It's an issue which means I find my characters growing much faster than the game designers expected. So in my above example, I had worked out how to get to grips with Quickenings long before I received my first Esper, and thus the tip that details chains and Mist abilities. I'm also spending too many LP on licenses I won't need for many game hours, things like the higher-level weapons and armour. Without a guide to know what lies under each panel, I've been unlocking things all over the place. Through trial-and-error I've discovered the paths that will help shape my characters into particular roles, but I'm unlocking licenses much faster than I can obtain the items/abilities to use them.

On the subject of acquiring gear, anyone have any tips on early money-making?

[Sabreman]

Ah crap... I sold the

->Open Spoiler<-

Great Serpentskin

this morning

[AdamJW]

Don't worry Sabreman. The outcome and real reason for the event doesn't get affected by you not having that item. All it means is that you don't get a Golden Amulet for free off the

->Open Spoiler<-

Patient

when you complete the

->Open Spoiler<-

'Patient in the Desert'

side event.

You can buy them anyway, but everything else connected to the event still works out ok without it. I know a Golden amulet is a good thing to have for free to help with the LPs, but the main reason for completing the event does not get affected if you don't have the

->Open Spoiler<-

Great serpentskin

. I completed this event last night and I got into Barheim passage without a problem - I sold my

->Open Spoiler<-

Great serpentskin

some time ago - Not to worry