How is gun damage in FFXII calculated?

RPGC Community The FFCompendium Forum
#27

Cura costs 32 mp and heals everyone in the party for only slightly more than cure. Give me a convincing reason to spend 1/3 of my MP to waste a turn, and I’ll start using cura. I haven’t even found curaga yet and I’m not very bothered by that.

I use hi-potions for curing right now because they’re faster and more powerful than any spells worth using, even without potion lore.

That gambit would not make characters do exactly what I want them to. What I want them to do is keep hitting the monster if they’re taking damage faster than they can heal it, which is what causes them to stand around curing each other for so long. That’s why I took their healing gambits off completely and just left it to Vaan to keep everyone alive.

I also took them off because if their action gauge was 99% full and one of my men dropped below 70% hp, they’d start casting a cure spell, resetting the guage and wasting what could’ve been an extra attack. I don’t want to throw turns away like that, especially not against tough marks.

The most effective way I’ve found to fight is to relentlessly focus my attacks on one enemy until he’s dead, curing manually whenever I need to. To do this, you only need one gambit slot on each man and a little bit of micromanagement. The gambit system is supposed to streamline your fights. Instead, it makes your men stupid and wasteful. I use it as little as I can get away with.

And in any case, instead of turning off gambits, why not just order your characters to attack?
When you give someone a direct order to attack a monster, they’ll hit it once, then go back to their gambits. You have to turn gambits off completely to change their behavior. That’s why this sounds like it would work a lot better than it actually does.

#28

If Cura requires anywhere near 1/3 of your MP when you get it, let alone if you’re already on your way to Ozmone, you’re doing something horrendously wrong. Do you have any Quickenings yet? And in any case, it’s rare that everyone will be under 50% HP at once, you should be using Curaga now.

Once again, impossible. There’s absolutely no reason to prefer Hi Potions to Curaga unless you’re going against an extremely fast-hitting enemy.

If that is happening against anything that isn’t a highly-dangerous mark (Say, the Gil Snapper), something is once again going very wrong. Nothing short of the Gil Snapper should be able to hurt you that bad at this point, and if something is doing that, you’re not going to beat it either way.

Okay, that’s a problem right there. You don’t want any healing gambits that trigger unless you’re under 40-50%. It’s a waste of time and MP, and as I said, there’s no way your spells can’t heal that much fully at this point.

Quite honestly, I think you’re just very bad at setting it up. A typical setup of

  1. Curaga - Ally<50%HP
  2. Ally:Any - Esuna
  3. Ally:Any - Life/Phoenix Down (Switch for regular battle/boss battle)
  4. Attack - Nearest Enemy
  5. Ally:Any - Protect
  6. Ally:Any - Shell
  7. Self - Libra

Should essentially let you sit back and watch so long as you’re not fighting a difficult boss. If with that setup, random enemies can actually do something to you… well, you’ve got to be playing a different game or something. Once you get Haste and Berserk on top of that, even bosses drop like flies.

Like I said, there’s no reason for why your gambits shouldn’t be handling that enemy on their own. Except for the dry spell where Cure is loosing effectivity which you already passed a long while ago, healing spells always heal your characters completely or almost completely, so unless the enemy is one of the ones that fuck you with Rake or the like, there’s no way you should be wasting more than a round per character with healing.

#29

It says they “closely resemble humes”. Remember this is a monster we’re talking about, it’s not really a species. It most probably means that they walk on two legs and use axes and tools. They’re incapable of speech (IIRC) and the only one you actually interact with rather than kill is a mute shopkeeper.
Some Werewolves walk on two legs and use weapons and they’re still not listed in the Humanoids section, which the Baknamy are. So I guess they must mean something besides that. I also haven’t seen any evidence that they’re mute, only that they must wear masks in order to breathe (though WHY they do isn’t explained.) In general, I find the Bestiary pretty limited, and even less useful (what we really need are things like lists of weaknesses and immunities- and no, the guide doesn’t list those either!) :frowning:

#30

It’s meant to be limited. It’s supposed to give a wider view of things rather than just “see monster, kill monster”.

And yes, werewolves walk on two legs, but they aren’t a separate species; according to the Clan Primer, they used to be humes. Ditto for skeletons, zombies and the like.

#31

Where do I get curaga and does it not cost a fuckload of MP? I have about 100. I can’t afford to blow 1/3 of that on cura, which heals for about 500 (which is less than a quarter of what I have) with all the magic power ups. Cura is almost useless to me. Hi-Potions are almost useless to me, but they’re better than cura.

Once again, impossible. There’s absolutely no reason to prefer Hi Potions to Curaga unless you’re going against an extremely fast-hitting enemy.
Not having curaga and not wanting to spend mp are two reasons.

If that is happening against anything that isn’t a highly-dangerous mark (Say, the Gil Snapper), something is once again going very wrong. Nothing short of the Gil Snapper should be able to hurt you that bad at this point, and if something is doing that, you’re not going to beat it either way.
Except they do do that and I do beat them. Marks like the Croakadile did that. Vossler did that on the Leviathan. They’re both dead now. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s that I have nothing to work with.

Okay, that’s a problem right there. You don’t want any healing gambits that trigger unless you’re under 40-50%. It’s a waste of time and MP, and as I said, there’s no way your spells can’t heal that much fully at this point.
I know it’s a problem, but it doesn’t matter what I set the hp cutoff to. Monsters sometimes do damage faster than you can heal. If you can’t get above the cutoff and stay above it for a good 5s, you’re not going to get any attacks in. It’s as simple as that. And I know 5s doesn’t seem like a long time, but it’s more than enough for monsters to take you back under the cutoff.

Quite honestly, I think you’re just very bad at setting it up. A typical setup of

  1. Curaga - Ally<50%HP
  2. Ally:Any - Esuna
  3. Ally:Any - Life/Phoenix Down (Switch for regular battle/boss battle)
  4. Attack - Nearest Enemy
  5. Ally:Any - Protect
  6. Ally:Any - Shell
  7. Self - Libra

Should essentially let you sit back and watch so long as you’re not fighting a difficult boss. If with that setup, random enemies can actually do something to you… well, you’ve got to be playing a different game or something. Once you get Haste and Berserk on top of that, even bosses drop like flies.
I can sit back and watch with my 1-line setup too. Unless it’s a boss.

Like I said, there’s no reason for why your gambits shouldn’t be handling that enemy on their own. Except for the dry spell where Cure is loosing effectivity which you already passed a long while ago, healing spells always heal your characters completely or almost completely, so unless the enemy is one of the ones that fuck you with Rake or the like, there’s no way you should be wasting more than a round per character with healing.
Right now I’m in a dry spell where every heal I have sucks and won’t get better. Where’s curaga? Shops don’t have it.

Also, I can get quickenings, but I noticed only one character can get each one and it’s different for all of them. I don’t want to fuck this up so I’m going to wait a while longer and see what my options are.

And I’m pretty sure I have time to do that too. I don’t think anyone who’s doing anything “horrendously wrong” could be feeding marks their own asses the way I am right now.

Just in case you thought I was having trouble with this game, I’m not. I’m just annoyed by some of the nuances of the gambit system.

Also: Katanas= Win. The Osafune I have on Vaan is dicing shit up unlike anything I’ve seen yet. I like it.

#32

Allllright, now I get it. I’m quoting this first because this is really the source of your troubles: You’re supposed to get them as soon as possible, and should really have at least one character with all three by now. Quickenings are nigh-useless in battle other than as finishing blows and are quickly outclassed by buffing spells, but they multiply your MP. The second Quickening unlocked means X2 MP and the third is X3. That’s why you’re having MP shortages, you’re playing with 1/3 of what you should have.

Eryut Village. I made a mistake, you shouldn’t have it yet, but you’re going there right after Jahara, so it’s close

No they don’t. Vossler does something like that, but not as bad and nowhere nearly as often. You’ll know what I’m talking about once you go against one of the big Wyrm Marks. The only enemy at this point that should be able to damage you fast and bad enough to lock you in the defensive is the Gil Snapper’s Blizzaga chains once it’s frenzied… or, well, the enemies in Garamsythe, but you’re not supposed to go there yet anyway until you’re round lvl30.

The first issue is your reluctance to cast Cura. In this game, you’ll be using essentially 90% of your MP in healing, with the other 10% only used in buffs. Mostly because you have nothing else to use them on. In a boss battle, casting a healing spell every five or so enemy hits is commonplace. Fix the Quikening shortage and the rest’ll fall into place.

I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but the game’s first seriously difficult marks are the Gil Snapper and the Trickster, everything before is more of a warmup.

By the way, are you using Berserk? You’ll have Haste in a short while, but even by itself, Berserk makes boss battles much easier.

#33

Oh, I know, and I appreciate it, Cid, believe me; however it baffles me how neither the game nor its guide have any way (that I know of so far) of knowing about important data that you need to fight monsters such as bosses. I mean, not even with Libra? I’s VERY frustrating to waste time throwing spells at monsters and have to wait and see if they have any effect, especially since the game is in semi-real time even in WAIT mode. -_- )

And yes, werewolves walk on two legs, but they aren’t a separate species; according to the Clan Primer, they used to be humes. Ditto for skeletons, zombies and the like.
Not all of them; one entry (I can’t recall which right now, I think it was the one for the weres in Mosphoran Highwaste) indicates that people began turning into them after they started eating their body parts. So which came first, the chicken or the egg/ the Human or the Were?

In any case, my basic point is: the Primer seems to contradict the game in several places, and possibly itself as well. I’ll let you know of more examples as I run into them.

#34

I’s VERY frustrating to waste time throwing spells at monsters and have to wait and see if they have any effect, especially since the game is in semi-real time even in WAIT mode. -_- )

You mean… like practically every other RPG out there? Scan almost never works on bosses.

Not all of them; one entry (I can’t recall which right now, I think it was the one for the weres in Mosphoran Highwaste) indicates that people began turning into them after they started eating their body parts.

Are you referring to this (from the Giza Plains)?

“The story of this strange, man-like creature began , it is said, when a group of bandits ate the corrupted flesh of a wolf, becoming infected and changing form. Indeed, like the wolf, these afflicted beings are known to feed with relish upon rotting meat.”

Eating a wolf, not a werewolf.

The Clan Primer generally seems to know what it’s talking about. An astounding amount of effort went into the script for this game, so I’ll wait to hear something concrete before bashing it.

#35

Quickenings or not, Cura isn’t worth the time I waste casting it. 500 HP in battle is nothing to me right now. The fact that it costs 32mp is only a small reason not to use it. The fact that it’s worthless is a bigger one.

And what do you mean at least one character should have all three by now? Only one character can get each one. How many are there on the grid?

No they don’t.
See, this is annoying. You’re trying to pretend stuff that has already actually happened, just hasn’t. Don’t be stupid. I know what I’ve encountered, and there have been more than a few monsters so far that my healing spells couldn’t keep up with, not because the monsters were actually strong, but because magic is a joke.

I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but the game’s first seriously difficult marks are the Gil Snapper and the Trickster, everything before is more of a warmup.
It depends on how prepared you are for them. According to you, the fact that I don’t have quickenings is supposed to be making it hard for me. But I’m trouncing everything anyway, as long as I don’t have cure gambits on. Warmups or not, if I was doing anything horrendously wrong, I wouldn’t be winning so thoroughly.

I mean, not even with Libra? I’s VERY frustrating to waste time throwing spells at monsters and have to wait and see if they have any effect, especially since the game is in semi-real time even in WAIT mode. -_- )
Libra is passive. I agree it should show more boss info, but you don’t really have to throw it at anything. You cast it on yourself and it works on everything until it wears off.

Status spells are much worse for this though. They work on almost nothing and their effects usually aren’t useful enough to waste time testing them.

#36

There’s 18 Quickening slots, exactly three for each character and once a character gets three, they can’t pick anymore. It’s not possible to mess up.

And, this is going to hurt your ego, but there’s also the possibility that you’re simply messing up. Vossler simply CANNOT overwhelm you that badly aside from the occasional combo on a single character that’s solved by throwing a quick Life spell. If this is happening with any sort of regularity at this point, or hell, ANYWHERE that isn’t the deeper Henne Mines or the Necrohol, then yes, you’re doing something wrong. The Gil Snapper can overwhelm you even if you do everything correctly, the Ring Wyrm can as well, anything before that means either ill management or you’re going against stuff you’re clearly not meant to fight yet (Like going into Garamsythe or picking a fight with Elementals and Entites).

The very fact that you say Cura can’t heal you effectively from 50% is weird. How much HP do you have and what armor are you wearing? You shouldn’t even be getting that much damage on you, let alone that fast. Are you using Protect? Did you get the Swiftness licenses?

And you missed my point about difficulty. You’re not supposed to have any sort of trouble against the stuff you’ve been fighting. It’s possible to do it while underpowered with hardly a hitch. Wilfredo did it and he’s intentionally crippling his game using a wide variety of useless skills instead of the stuff he’s meant to use. Cannon fodder Marks and virtually all story boss battles are jokes, it’s the high-level Marks and some secret bosses that hold the game’s difficulty, the ones that have the enhancements that fuck you up in the butt (Critical-HP power up, Growing Threat, Pailings, skill-blocking, Renew, endless Rake combos, etc).

In fact, you can go fight the Gil Snapper right now if you want to see what I mean.

#37

Man, Palings are like the worst cop-out of a way to make bosses harder.

“Hey, we need a way to make this fight harder, should we give the enemy a better AI script?”
“Nah, let’s just have the enemy make himself totally invincible for two minutes during the fight.”
“Brilliant! In fact, let’s make every high level enemy do that just to be really annoying!”
"Players will love our inventiveness now!’

#38

I have around 2300 HP for everyone. Yes, I have all the swiftness licenses. No, I’m not using protect. I’m wearing gold armor and helms, except for Balthier, who has a brigandine and a red hat.

Curaga is okay right now but I hope it gets better. It’ll heal me from 60%, but only just. If there’s not a stronger cure spell out there for single targets, I’m going to be very pissed off later.

I got the Quickenings and the game is so broken now it’s hardly worth playing.

And, this is going to hurt your ego, but there’s a possibility that repeating yourself over and over won’t make you any less wrong. Vossler does 2-3 hit combos almost every turn. On a single character, over and over, that’s enough to put you in a healing lock when all you have is cure and a handful of potions. Vossler never “overwhelmed” me. My healing gambits underwhelmed him. So I took them off. And he died handily.

And you missed my point about difficulty. You’re not supposed to have any sort of trouble against the stuff you’ve been fighting. It’s possible to do it while underpowered with hardly a hitch. Wilfredo did it and he’s intentionally crippling his game using a wide ivariety of useless skills instead of the stuff he’s meant to use. Cannon fodder Marks and virtually all story boss battles are jokes, it’s the high-level Marks and some secret bosses that hold the game’s difficulty, the ones that have the enhancements that fuck you up in the butt (Critical-HP power up, Growing Threat, Pailings, skill-blocking, Renew, endless Rake combos, etc).

  1. No I didn’t.

  2. I don’t.

  3. I have been.

  4. I want to make one thing clear: You are the novice here when it comes to conquering challenges. I don’t care to be told what’s hard by your standards. My problem is with underpowered healing magic, not challenge, which there is an obvious lack of in this game. I’m going to do the same thing to your mighty Gil Snapper that I did to every other boss in every other game that people told me was overwhelmingly hard: kill it “without a hitch.” So stop bringing it up, and lose the patronizing attitude if you want to continue this conversation.

#39

Just because you’re good at conquering challenges doesn’t mean that those challenges are necessary. I got like 7 quickenings for my three main characters so I could kill that first optional doom wall and christ if that didn’t make the game a hundred times easier from all the excess mp I had. It’s amazing how far just spamming buffs will do. You’d be surprised on how less often you need to heal if you constantly keep at least protect on everyone. Honestly once I got some quickenings and charge I never had to worry about mp unless it was a super long batter, and in those cases I would be managing my shit better then what I was doing fighting random mobs.

#40

You know man, you need to quiet the fuck down with your ego trips. I wasn’t trying to stroke my cock on you or anything, I was giving you what knowledge I gained from going through the game twice. I don’t give a crap about what experience “conquering challenges” you think you or I have, I was giving you advice on what I though was strange with your game given how completely off from my experience that sounded. And you just confirmed I was right, if you were using neither Protect nor Quickenings, it was a given you’d be getting hit harder than normal.

And you don’t tell me to shut up when you want, who the fuck do you think you are anyway?

EDIT: Actually, man, grow up already. You really take that much pride over an RPG? No, Gil Snapper is not impossible either, you just need to forego attacking, chuging down Ethers and hand out Mist Charged Quickenings once it becomes frenzied. It’s simply the first enemy that can’t be killed by the regular Heal/Attack cycle unless you are overleveled, which is what I meant by the first challenge (As in, “can’t just bash at it” challenge). Dude, you’re taking a shitty ill-balanced RPG way too fucking seriously.

#41

Seraphym: When things get to the point of name-calling, you know it’s time to drop an argument and just forget about it.

You mean… like practically every other RPG out there?
You know what I’m talking about, Cid; in most games you get at least a clue about the Bosses’ weakness from somebody; at the very least, the official guide will tell you so. Plus, in most games Status Effects do not work on Bosses, so you know not to bother. But in this game, they DO, even things like disable in some cases (!) (note I count Marks as Bosses as well.) Given that, you’d expect some means to tell which status a Boss is weak to beforehand (especially since there are so many of them) but no, not even in the guide. -_- What were these people thinking?

As for the Primer, There’s plenty of quotes in it that make me wonder, Cid; I just didn’t take the time to write them down until now. Here’s another: today, I just fought the Mandragora Bosses. From comments made in the Rogue Tomato entry, I figured that the Mandragoras had a royalty (since the Tomato was an exile); this seemed supported by the fact the Boss team had one of every royal rank in it. Afterwards I read their entries in the Primer, and, unlike with most Bosses (story ones, not Marks) they are not referred as individuals, but as species. Again, nothing catastrophically wrong, but something doesn’t add up there.

#42

The five noble Mandragora are special among their species in that they attain a rank, but they are not unique. If you have way too much time to waste once you hit Giruvegan, you can fight all five of them 14 times for the premier notes that give you details on their ranks. That, and the Rogue Tomato is a Deadly Nightshade exile, which is a kind of random enemy in the Feywood.

Though I think you’re taking the joke notes way too seriously. Unless it refers to some historical event, most premier notes relating to enemies are mostly random tidbits and jokes. The one about the origin of the Mimics was interesting though.

As for the bosses… well, just think about it. The few bosses that are weak against certain ailments are usually rendered completely incapable by them (Blind on Crocadile, for example), why make it even easier and tell you? As for Elemental weakness… well, other than the fact that offensive magic is pretty much a waste, you can generally tell by looking at them. I mean, look at Belias for example. The guy is on fire. Or the Elder Wyrm that is a giant walking plant. Or all the ice enemies in Bur Omisace. Very often, if the have a weakness, it’ll be blaringly obvious.

#43

No need to worry about status weaknesses. Niho + Remedy (with all Remedy Lore) and the boss now has every status it’s not immune to, oh boy. It’s mostly just fun cause it’s always nice to watch like 8 different status effects pop out of the enemy at the same time, plus it can help Blind/Silence/Disable some real jerks. (If you’re going to say “why not just cast the spells?” it’s because magic can miss, while so-called recovery items always hit.)

#44

Seraphim: obviously, many of the entries are meant humorously, or told from the POV of people who are not experts on the matter. But you can easily tell those apart; many others however are obviously intended as Sage studies, and they should be consistent with each other.

Sohee: I just found out about the Niholopaoa + Remedy trick- by reading a Gamefaqs FAQ. Why did I spend 20$ on the official guide again? -_- Actually, that one was not that hard to figure by myself, but the blasted thing costs 30,000 gil and after buying new gear for each one of my characters I’m usually out of money. Besides I didn’t know the Niho doesn’t miss. If I’d known how useful that trick was I would’ve saved for it, but again, I’m not used to fighting Bosses with Status Effects, so it’s not intuitive.

Not only I’m going to do a full review of the game once I’m finished playing, but of the guide as well- if only to take it off my chest.

#45

You know what I’m talking about, Cid; in most games you get at least a clue about the Bosses’ weakness from somebody; at the very least, the official guide will tell you so.

You’ve got to stop trying to take proofs from strategy guides. 99% of people who play games don’t use them. And without them, no, most games do not give you hints about which bosses are weak to what.

#46

I’ve considered getting the FFXI strategy guide. I normally like to play an RPG through at least once, sometimes twice on my own power, and then play through a prescribed walkthrough version.
I just reached the Ogir-Yensa, and i am giving my characters a more individual role with their licenses, and i am finding new tricky ways to make Gambits this time around. For some reason, since i got on this forum and am now talking about it, the game is a little more fun.

As for someone mentioning some of the inconsistencies between FF12 and FFT. Is it possible that, since FFT takes place a very-very long time after FF12, that some of the information in FFT will be obscure, and even incorrect ? Wouldn’t that actually make the stories more believable, if some of the hisotircal facts get twisted between games ?
Also, on the Bakamy, i thought there were pretty goblin-like, but i don’t see the description as being wrong. Since we can’t see their faces, and they wear masks(like Goblins in FF11), we really can’t argue against the Clan Primer. If we could see their faces, we might be able to despute it more, but for the most part, the Bakamy do look like grey painted little kids with gas masks and rabies.

And finally, this is to Hades Shinigami. I think you just explained what your problem is.

No, I’m not using protect. I’m wearing gold armor and helms, except for Balthier, who has a brigandine and a red hat.

Gold Armor and Helms do Jack-Smith for Magic. Your Cures are going to do next to nothing. In my game, Vaan’s Cure 1’s are recovering over 200 HP at level 11. Get one or two of your characters Mage Armor, and give the Staves and Rods, and then you’ll watch the power of your magic practically double. Magic isn’t totally useless, you just have to buff it up like you do Physical Attack.
If you don’t power it up, of course it’s going to be useless, LOL.