Board 8 > seabassdebeste finishes ffviii: ultima weapon edition (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

what a grind to get to the bottom of the deep sea laboratory. the first time i went with high values on all the locks and got into no fights - but then, i got to the bottom and was told i needed at least ten remaining pressure

the second time i didn't understand the atmosphere gauge so i just put minimum numbers each time. monsters everywhere - none a threat to my existence, but behemoths and iron giants and behemoths were the most tedious. it took maybe an hour's grind to get to the bottom, quickened by some use of card

and then i reach the bottom, and what a sense of dread as we're warned all must evacuate... ultima weapon looks incredibly badass

it also immediately hits zell for 9999, and i can't keep rinoa's head above water, either. like against the dragon, i'm almost immediately down to squall only. he holds his own - recover is so good - but there's nothing i can do about pillar of light, which puts an end to things after five minutes or so of dueling

anyone have any tips about optimal number of pressure to set so i have fewer fights? i'm totally down for fighting ultimaweapon again and have some ideas, but i don't want to grind as hard this time to reach it
---

Let Zell do everything and you'll be fine as far as pressure goes.

Ultima Weapon is tough. I just cheese it with Meltdown/Aura/Holy Wars (in that order).

---

i have literally none of those spells

what does "let zell do everything" mean?

is it supposed to take like an hour-plus to get to the bottom?
---

Confession: I never bothered with the Deep Sea Research Facility. It was too hard for me as a kid >_>

Aura is a spell that makes you more likely to use your limit breaks, you can draw it from secret draw points (I think) on the Islands Closest to Heaven and Hell (little islands on the far west of Galbadia and far north east of Esthar) and can refine it from something I'm sure.

Holy War is an item that makes your whole party invincible (Hero is another item that makes just one member invincible). You can get Holy War by modding the Gilgamesh card, which Quistis carries. I forget if you took that already.


---

SeabassDebeste posted...

i have literally none of those spells

what does "let zell do everything" mean?

is it supposed to take like an hour-plus to get to the bottom?

You can always choose to leave it to Zell on every level and he'll get you to the bottom. It's not an easy dungeon, so yeah, it'll take a while, especially if you're lacking some of the best stuff. Don't feel bad if you can't beat it now. You can always come back (or just forget it).

---

There's a hidden save point at the bottom if you have Siren's ability.

---

shane15 posted...

There's a hidden save point at the bottom if you have Siren's ability.

now THIS is what i needed

i'm okay going through this dungeon again and even failing this fight over and over, but if i died against ultimaweapon again i couldn't see myself going through the dungeon a third or fourth time
---

Oh yeah that's probably the most important thing^

Also if you do try it again make sure you draw ??? from Ultima Weapon!

---

You should usually have Move-Find on someone because of hidden save points and draw points!

---

i force my way down through more grendels, behemoths, ruby dragons, and iron giants.

strategy -

grendel - put grendel to sleep, kill the imp thing first, then smash grendel

behemoth - put it to sleep, kill it by drawing and casting flare from it

ruby dragon - the most annoying since it can't be put to sleep! heal from its huge breath attack, and otherwise just draw and cast meteor against it

iron giants - not the worst since you can put them to sleep (and both rinoa and zell have 100% sleep junction). draw and cast quake until the second time they wake up; at that point, they're ready for carding

at the bottom, i hit the save point and prepare myself mentally and game-wise for ultima weapon. one major adjustment is junctioning revive to squall; i previously went in with attack/card/draw/recover, which is a nice default but terrible vs bosses. with attack/magic/revive/recover, squall is in a better spot. i also junction better stat boosts to everyone (flare! quake! meteor! yeah baby!) and give rinoa auto-haste, zell +60% atk, etc.

turns out ultimaweapon is pretty weak to physical attacks (while fairly resistant to its own ultima magic attack). so everyone focuses on physical attacks after we draw from it to get regen on everyone - this pretty much allows us to disregard the physical attack entirely. since everyone is now capable of reviving one another, i just hammer it with physical attacks while healing asap from gravitaj (which luckily it only does 2-3 times this fight) and reviving asap when it hits me with light pillar. it actually goes down sooner than i'd expected - i do enjoy these non-status-effect bosses so much more

eden goes on zell, and off we go to the next sidequest!
---

Oh nice, good job beating Ultima Weapon! That's no easy feat.

---

When i fought him first time i went draw>aura>Lionheart in 3 turns and beat him. Actually i might've used meltdown as well but this was nearly 20 years ago.

---

Congrats on beating Ultima and acquiring the strongest GF! Which sidequest are you gonna head to next? If I'm remembering correctly you'll only have two GF slots left.

---

I shouldnt have doubted your resolve good show sir

---

thanks all for this honor

moving back to the centra ruins to find the other GF there, based on andy's post in the previous topic.

levels:
rinoa 38
squall 55
zell 41
selphie 22
irvine 22
quistis 22

looks like it's selphie/irvine for this trip!
---

LOL i just tried to use devour on a tonberry. the attack missed but the page went "CENSORED..."
---

in other stuff i am trying for the first time: GFs in the centra ruins. these guys are all so intricately drawn, it's a shame they're not thay effective to use, because... they're fun to use!

- bahamut seems good and strong, similar to the bahamut attacks in ffvii.

- pandemona looks great, but is way too weak to compare with the efficacy of just using squall's basic attack.

- is this the first time i've actually used the GF diablos? it caused the most damage outright od the GFs i tried, probably a percentage of tonberry's then-current HP?

- cerberus hitting everyone with double/triple seems familiar, and probably makes the person with cerberus a candidate to use GF against the final bosses. IF using regular magic to damage proves at all useful vs the final bosses, unlike ultima weapon.

- cactuar level 26 did exactly 3k of damage. presumably this will be 4k when i'm at level 31+? pretty basic-looking compared to these insanely epic ones, but useful if selphie is slow.

- alexander OHKOed the enemies it faced (with squall) and i'm almost a little bummed it took away a chance to see other GFs in that battle!

- eden has a hilariously long summon animation. but it also hits for around 12x irvine's strength. i guess since irvine and selphie suck atm, GFs have more bang for their buck, but that won't always be the case.

anyway, i assume my goal here is to kill tonberrys?
---

Yeah, once you kill enough Tonberries, the Tonberry King will automatically show up. You have to kill like 20 though, so it'll take some time!

And yeah, Diablos is a percentage based attack, and Cactuar's damage is proportionate to its level. Eden can actually break the damage limit at a high enough level, if I remember right.

---

all right cool

turbo mode is enjoyable here

i am assuming "everybody's grudge" punishes your character for its kills, since it does the most damage to squall by far. so i'm having squall kinda chill and only attack when it's non-fatal, or cast GFs, or recover people. meanwhile selphie gets to use diablos and irvine gets to use eden - which also appears to have one of the longest charge-up times.
---

Yeah, that's how Tonberry's attack works in every FF game, for the record.

---

poor cloud in that northern cave
---

Also, your characters build up compatibility with GFs the more you summon them (and there are items that can increase that compatibility, too), so the summon time will gradually go down the more you use it.

---

oh is that what compatability means? i thought that was related to how fast the GFs would level up or something.

i also just noticed that exp/level gains are linear in this game. that explains why squall runs away so fast. in many games, the higher level you're at, the more exp it takes to go up another level. not so here!
---

Eden, Shockwave Pulsar and Cactuar are the only 3 that break the limit from memory. Cactuar hardly counts though.

---

Yeah, it's just a flat rate, so it's easy to level up!

---

shane15 posted...

Eden, Shockwave Pulsar and Cactuar are the only 3 that break the limit from memory. Cactuar hardly counts though.

I feel like there's a Command that can do it, but I forget.

---

Leonhart4 posted...

I feel like there's a Command that can do it, but I forget.

Kamikaze might break it too thinking about it.

---

Watching Eden's summon animation is indeed hilarious, is it the longest one in the series? It beats KOTR surely. At least you can Boost to max without worrying!

I forget if Seabass already knows- some GFs don't like each other and their compatibility with the player will go down if you use the summon they don't like. The opposition is generally pretty natural to figure out but here's a list anyway: Shiva-Ifrit, Quezacotl-Leviathan, Siren-Carbuncle, Brothers-Pandemona, Alexander-the other one you don't have yet (not Tonberry). They also have different base compatibilities with each character but this doesn't affect things very much.

Again quick word on the other GF left after Tonberry- you can figure it out yourself if you've been collecting Occult Fan magazines but otherwise you might want some board help with that one. Also involves a bit of unpleasant grinding iirc.

---

i haven't specifically searched out any magazines, but i've picked up a few. i almost certainly can't figure it out alone!

what does "boost" do exactly?
---

SeabassDebeste posted...

i haven't specifically searched out any magazines, but i've picked up a few. i almost certainly can't figure it out alone!

what does "boost" do exactly?

Boost damage of the attack

And yeah, you'll be better off looking up how to get the last GF rather than figure it out on your own.

---

You press select while the GF animation is running and then you'll be prompted to press square a bunch of times until you're not supposed to.

---

Oh that reminds me, I got my "GF Only" challenge coming up to play... whenever I'm next able to play video games.

> tfw only gf

(iirc there's only 2 battles I couldn't follow through on that with... 2.5 if we count first boss fight of Disc 4... we'll see how it goes)

Yeah what pj said. It only costs like 10 AP to learn and as a kid I relied on GFs super hard so it was a godsend.

Apparently two of the magazines with the relevant info are missable so yeah I don't know if anyone would have gotten this without looking it up back in the day! Here's the relevant mags just in case you want to try and figure it out without the explicit directions. I love how they did the old-timey styles of the images here.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/d2/Occult_Fan_1.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20191026204204
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/3/37/Occult_Fan_2.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20191026204757
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/f/f0/Occult_Fan_3.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20191026204543
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/d1/Occult_Fan_4.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20191124201952

---

If I ever did a special FFVIII challenge, I'd do the one where a GF can only be attached to one character and you can't switch them around.

---

Level 100 challenge!

---

tonberry get! ironically king tonberry does a lot less damage than the little tonberries, though he does have more health.

those magazines tell me nothing, lol
---

yeah I'd like to meet the person who figured out how to get the last GF without a guide

---

Yeah I can see what they mean looking back but it's way too obscure to be considered reasonable.

OK so the 666 items you need actually means you need 6 of three kinds of items that are alluded to in the other mags- 6 Steel Pipes, 6 Remedy+ items and 6 Malboro tentacles. I'm just gonna copy/paste how to get them from the wiki:
-Steel Pipes can be mugged from Wendigos (enemy fought in forests in Timber region) or refined from Elastoid cards.
-Remedy+ can be obtained by refining 10 Remedies with Alexander's Med LV Up ability (must learn Med Data first).
-Malboro Tentacles are obtained by defeating or mugging Malboros (the infamous green tentacle Bad Breath monsters that should be found in random battles around Esthar). One can also use Quezacotl's Card Mod to refine a Malboro Tentacle from four Malboro cards.

Once you have 6 of each you need to get Solomon's Ring from Tears' Point in Esthar (you can do this beforehand if you want), then use it in the inventory like with the Magic Lamp to get the GF (there's no boss battle weirdly enough). Good luck with the Malboros I remember them being annoying!

---

Ahem:

After leaving deep sea research you can go back for a difficult dungeon. Ultima Weapon is at the bottom and there is a GF to draw from him. The enemies along the way are pretty difficult as well so it's not for the faint of heart and the save point near the bottom is invisible so you'll want to use Siren's Move/Find ability to find it and save before the boss.

<_<

---

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Ahem:

<_<

hey... i only read the bare minimum of info...! but yes, fair!

andylt posted...

Yeah I can see what they mean looking back but it's way too obscure to be considered reasonable.

OK so the 666 items you need actually means you need 6 of three kinds of items that are alluded to in the other mags- 6 Steel Pipes, 6 Remedy+ items and 6 Malboro tentacles. I'm just gonna copy/paste how to get them from the wiki:
-Steel Pipes can be mugged from Wendigos (enemy fought in forests in Timber region) or refined from Elastoid cards.
-Remedy+ can be obtained by refining 10 Remedies with Alexander's Med LV Up ability (must learn Med Data first).
-Malboro Tentacles are obtained by defeating or mugging Malboros (the infamous green tentacle Bad Breath monsters that should be found in random battles around Esthar). One can also use Quezacotl's Card Mod to refine a Malboro Tentacle from four Malboro cards.

Once you have 6 of each you need to get Solomon's Ring from Tears' Point in Esthar (you can do this beforehand if you want), then use it in the inventory like with the Magic Lamp to get the GF (there's no boss battle weirdly enough). Good luck with the Malboros I remember them being annoying!

i think the first one i could have figured out, but there's no way i could possibly know how to get those items without being told

okay, time to grind i guess

i'm not looking forward to these marlboros. any pre-game tips before i just dive right in on them?

also - tonberry has some interesting abilities - LV UP and LV DOWN... hmm...
---

Junction pain and confuse to your status defence for Marlboro fights.

---

Yeah junctioning into status defence is your best bet (Sleep is another good one or Berserk). You still might get some bad luck but just save after each successful tentacle get and it shouldn't be too bad I think (easier said than done I know!).

Just had a thought, are you going to go for the characters' ultimate weapons? If so you'll need two more tentacles for Quistis's, but they're really not that big a deal (the weapons).

---

Yeah, just save after every fight just so you don't get jobbed by Bad Breath.

---

i'll probably leave the best weapons quests alone.

what does pain do exactly? i've drawn it a few times but failed to ever cast it

confuse obviously sucks, but i also don't have enough of those to be a good junction

also squall doesn't even have ST-def junction :(
---

Pain inflicts Darkness, Silence + Poison all in one go. Just try it as you are if you want, Malboro won't always cast Bad Breath right away >_> If you get lucky you can get a successful Mug off and just run away, then save, repeat x6.

---

oh, if i have silence junctioned, will that prevent the silence part of pain? i do have 100% silence junctioned to my non-squall dudes.

but yes, seems like i should REALLY have been focusing on drawing that! can i refine pain easily?
---

Pain is amazing for St-Atk.

You should be able to refine it with Status Refine if you have the right things. Hopefully you've been using Mug and refining your useless cards.

---

SeabassDebeste posted...

oh, if i have silence junctioned, will that prevent the silence part of pain?

I don't know but I'd imagine so!

You can refine Pain from Curse Spikes (1 spike = 10 spells), which drop from various enemies (including Malboro!) but Tri-faces are the best- you can mug spikes from them, they drop spikes, their card mods into a spike, and you can draw Pain directly from them. I'm checking now and they're in the Deep Sea Research Center and were in the Garden fights so you might already have some Spikes, they also spawn on the Island Closest to Heaven- I mentioned this place earlier, it's Northeast of Esthar, here's a pic: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/b/b4/FFVIII_Island_Closest_to_Heaven.png

This island and the comparable Island Closest to Hell have really strong monsters on them and hidden draw points everywhere.

You can also draw Pain from Elnoyles.

---

LV Up and LV Down are basically to manipulate what items and spells the monsters can give you, useful sometimes if youre trying to get specific things

---

The most important Tonberry skills are all shop related

---