Help FFXIII: Upgrading Weapons!

first of all.. for getting an experience multiplier x3.. i prefer using medicinal oil because its pretty cheap and you have to use 27 of these to obtain a multiplier of x3.. then use super conductors because its the cheapest experience component to buy and use after getting a x3 multiplier..

here are the weapons I recommend that you must upgrade to its final form:
Fang - Taming Pole.. well Fang is the best Commando so.. the Stagger Lock ability of this weapon will not bother you much.. weapons that have Stagger Lock must not be used by Ravagers..
Lightning - hmm.. choose between Hauteclaire which has a Stagger Lock ability or Lionheart which has a Quick Stagger ability..
Hope - I prefer Hawkeye because it has the highest magic.. Although this weapon does not have any special abilities, it does not have any drawback either..
Sazh - Antares Deluxes.. well I dont really know whats his best weapon.. I barely use him..
Snow - I have two ultimate weapons for Snow.. It came from Power Circle and Sacrificial Circle.. Power Circle has no special abilities but it has high strength.. and Snow is the best Sentinel right?. but he will lose that specialty when you will use Sacrificial Circle because it has a Paper Tiger ability.. but what makes it worth using is that this weapon possesses a very high Strength and Magic.. it can reach up to 1020 when full upgraded...
Vanille - Belladonna Wand has an Improved Debuffing Abillity.. so I prefer that because I always use her as one of my Saboteurs...

EDIT: uhm.. may I ask a question?. are there people here having trouble getting a Trapezohedron?. its a catalyst for transforming your weapon to its final form...
 
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I was actually telling Mits the other day that I'm making a spreadsheet of the weapons and how their experience levels increase, and then have them summed up to show how much exp is needed to reach star. I have most of it done, but I still don't the weapons that you buy at Gilgamesh Inc and I don't have Trapezohedrons, so I haven't put in data for the final weapons.

I was thinking I might put up that spreadsheet on here, somehow. :hmmm: Before I do though, I'm going to talk to her and ask if I can make a separate thread for it, otherwise it'll basically be lost in the middle of this thread, but we'll see what happens.

As for Trapezohedron's, you can get them from a rare drop from Adamantoise and Adamantortise. I suppose that might be the only way at this point, unless you have 2 million gil to spare to buy one. Once you have 1, there is a nifty trick to get more. I read on the gamefaqs "Equipment Upgrade Guide" (by Drogan13) that you can fully power up a Mistilteinn then dismantle it to get 3. Naturally you need 1 to do this, so it nets 2 when all is said and done. And it costs roughly 1.5 million gil to upgrade that whereas it would cost 4 million to buy 2 more Traps, so a definite bargain.
 
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so blackstang98 also knows the trick on how to get 3 Trapezohedron from dismanteling Fang's or Vanille's ultimate weapon..
well he already explained the trick so I'm just gonna tell you guys on how to get your first Trapezohedron.. if you have a lot of money then you can just buy that Trapezohedron which costs 2 Million Gil.. but if you dont have that kind of money.. just farm your first Trapezohedron from the Adamantortoises (they are the weaker Adamantoises) if you cant beat the Adamantoises yet.. there are only two of them.. and they can be found on the easter torrs, the lair of the oretoises.. these two Adamantortoises are found at the entrance to the lair.. you can still find these two monsters if havent done Missions 56-62..
to obtain a Trapezohedron from them quickly.. equip ONLY a Star Level Connoisseur Catalog.. if you equip Connoisseur Catalog and Collector Catalog together, neither one will work.. so dont complain if there are no drops being given...

EDIT:I forgot.. Not all of Vanille and Fang's full upgraded ultimate weapon will give you 3 Trapezohedron.. these are the weapons that will give you 3 Trapezohedron:
Kain's Lance made from Dragoon Lance, Shamanic Spear, Punisher, Pandoran Spear or Gae Bolg
Nirvana made from Tigerclaw, Healer's Staff, Belladonna Wand, or Mistilteinn
 
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I was dismantling accessories the other day and I found out that you can also get Trapezohedron from a star level Genji Glove.
 
chaostheory said:
As with Mitsuki, I'm into Ch.11 and haven't upgraded any weapon or accessory. I find it too confusing. The items / components needed and those 'exp' point and multipliers, I just cannot workout what to do.

I looked in the strategy guide, YouTube videos, and another online weapon guide, but it is all 'too much'. Is there some sort of 'For Dummies' walkthrough on this? Can anyone here give an easy rundown on what to do?
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Im no expert on the subject but the way I have been doing it is using the lesser exp items to boost your multiplyer to x3 and then using the big exp items to level up. On chapter 9 and have a weapon for each charcter in level 20's. Not reached the upgrading part yet.
 
Oh why, why did Square HAVE to make the damn upgrading so preposterously difficult? How I'm wishing for Rikku to come back and save the day or, at least, my brain! If it takes so many of this organic thing and that mechanical thing to upgrade your weapons and accessories, why did they have to put such a HUGE assortment of crap on the list to choose from? It's all so very confusing..

I'm telling you guys, they went and hired some newbie grad with a degree in Astrophysics and Mathematics from MIT, just to design this ridiculously complicated system.. Totally unnecessary and it's taken a lot of the fun out of the game for me.. I mean if your a natural whiz at math you probably love it, but unfortunately, most of us just aren't..

Why don't one of you, who really understand the system, bring it down to a level even a dimwit like myself can understand? Like what are the 5 best organic ingredients to use in combination with the 5 best inorganic ingredients just to get to the next levels?

ARRRGGG! Someone should kick SquareEnix right 'square' in their backside for adding such a big difficulty to the game.. :(
 
I'm with everyone else on this issue... And I created an account on here just to complain about the upgrade system and how inconvenient it is. XD I'm up to 86 hours now, desperately trying to get the platinum trophy.

I usually buy 99 Sturdy Bones, throw 36 of them at an item to get 3x experience, then either use a spreadsheet to find out just how much exp is required or I end up having to calculate it manually. What this means is a lot back-and-forth shopping and upgrading, saving and loading, and worst of all.. gil farming.

I don't remember ff7 or even 8 being this gil-starved. On the bright side, upgrading weapons/ getting the trophy is not difficult, it's just VERY time consuming.
 
I'm around chapter 7 I think (with Sazh and Vanille) and I haven't upgraded anyone's weapon yet. How far in the game could you potentially get without doing any weapon upgrades?
 
Fusionist said:
I'm around chapter 7 I think (with Sazh and Vanille) and I haven't upgraded anyone's weapon yet. How far in the game could you potentially get without doing any weapon upgrades?
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Probably into chapter 11, and that's only if you decide to stop there and do some the missions/side quests etc. The missions seem to be where the real challenge is. I would wager that it's entirely possible to beat the game without upgrading whatsoever, especially if your crystarium is well-developed.
 
i dont know if you still need this, but uhm basically to get multipliers you need to use the organic components which has the "claw icon" to get the multipliers and then you use the mechanical components which has the "bolt icon" make sure you dont use the premium items which in the description up top of the screen when you highlight the item since you can sell those for gil;

so here otherwordly bone, diabolical tail and transparent ooze give out +21 on the multiplier scale which you dont see.

and you need 501 and up points on the multiplier scale to get a X3 multiplier

so using 24 of any of the organic components i gave you should give you an automatic X3 mulitiplier and then you can use any of the mechanical components after

but remember everytime you use mechanical components it will put yur multiplier down again so make sure you try to use as much mechanical components you need in one swoop so you dont waste money

i hope this helps
 
I´ve upgraded my Lionheart to ultima weapon now. Im completely out of gil, and completely put off by the weapons upgrading. Im just gonna finish this stinking game, and put it on the shelf for good.
 
Hi guys. I don't know if anyone has done this but I came up with a formula to calculate the max EXP required to get the star level for weapon and accessories upgrade.
The variables needed are:
1. Max level of the weapon (N)
2. The base level i.e. the EXP required to get to from level 1 to level 2 (A)
3. The EXP difference required to get from level 2 to level 3 (K) e.g. if from level 1 to level 2 you need 300 EXP and level 2 to level 3 you need 357 EXP then K = 357-300 = 57
Then we can calculate the Max EXP = (N*A) + ((N-1)*N)/2)*K
Basically the K is constant for a particular weapon and is the same for certain base levels i.e.
Level 1 K
300 57
420 75
800 116
Etc... I think there are about 9 base levels and corresponding K values for weapons but for accessories there are a lot more so it might take some time to compile the data
If you have upgraded to a certain level and don’t know the base level you can start at that as your base level and the formula is slightly different e.g. if you are at level 5 then A will be the EXP at level 5. For example: Let’s say the N = 10 and K = 57 and A1 = 300. Therefore A5 = 528 (A1 + (5-1)*K)
So how much total EXP needed to get to level 10?
That is equal to (5* A5) + ((4*5)/2)*K so from here if we substitute N for the #of remaining levels we get a revised formula of (N*AN)) + ((N-1)(N)/2)*k
I know it’s very geeky of me but I thought I’d share this with you guys.
 
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rouge-11 said:
Hi guys. I don't know if anyone has done this but I came up with a formula to calculate the max EXP required to get the star level for weapon and accessories upgrade.
The variables needed are:
1. Max level of the weapon (N)
2. The base level i.e. the EXP required to get to from level 1 to level 2 (A)
3. The EXP difference required to get from level 2 to level 3 (K) e.g. if from level 1 to level 2 you need 300 EXP and level 2 to level 3 you need 357 EXP then K = 357-300 = 57
Then we can calculate the Max EXP = (N*A) + ((N-1)*N)/2)*K
Basically the K is constant for a particular weapon and is the same for certain base levels i.e.
Level 1 K
300 57
420 75
800 116
Etc... I think there are about 9 base levels and corresponding K values for weapons but for accessories there are a lot more so it might take some time to compile the data
If you have upgraded to a certain level and don’t know the base level you can start at that as your base level and the formula is slightly different e.g. if you are at level 5 then A will be the EXP at level 5. For example: Let’s say the N = 10 and K = 57 and A1 = 300. Therefore A5 = 528 (A1 + (5-1)*K)
So how much total EXP needed to get to level 10?
That is equal to (5* A5) + ((4*5)/2)*K so from here if we substitute N for the #of remaining levels we get a revised formula of (N*AN)) + ((N-1)(N)/2)*k
I know it’s very geeky of me but I thought I’d share this with you guys.
Click to expand...

Wow... You came up with a FORMULA? On your own? I have to admit, I'm very impressed, not to mention speechless. That reminds me of doing Higher maths... Which I'd rather forget xD but I'm sure that'll be useful :)

Personally I just sell a few platinum ingots, buy 99 perfect conductors and 99 armored Shells, and use 26 armored shells then however many perfect conductors are needed to max the level.

I admire your dedication xD
 
organic components bought from creature comforts increase the multiplier (36 needed to reach 3X) while non organic items bought from leonoras or R&D decrease it
 
I found a trick today.
the cie'th before titan trials (the red one mission 34) gives you the task to kill a tornberry (if thats his name) the tornberry us almost near the stone itself. beating him more than once will give you 7,500 CP and 7 bomb cores. i can beat him in 1:30.
and i saw 21 bomb cores (beating him 3 times) will give you around 13,000 exp for a weapon. so if you buy 50 fluits you will get 132,000 exp for 70 bomb cores



Can some one help? i just got the flamberge star level. but is there a better way to find the Trapezohedron than buying it for 2,000,000 Gil?
 
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Zwing said:
Can some one help? i just got the flamberge star level. but is there a better way to find the Trapezohedron than buying it for 2,000,000 Gil?
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Yes there is. First you do need to buy one Trapezonhedron. Then use it to upgrade a Vanille Weapon Called Mistilteinn. Master that weapon to star level and dismantle it. You should get three trapezonhedron items and a bunch of other stuff.

Ways to get your first Trapezonhedron

1. Buy at store.
2. Beat those big monsters with tusks in gran pulse. (they don't always drop the item though).

After you get your first Tranezonhedron you should do the Mistilteinn trick as mastering it will only cost 1.5 million max. So thats three for a little less then the price of one.
 
Try to avoid buying the Trapezohedron, I'm sure you get one for killing your first Adamantoise. If not then I got extremely lucky with that since I got one for the first kill in both of my playthroughs.

But when you get to Eden you'll see a Adamantoise next to a save point, just equip a collector's catalog and connoisseur catalog and then save. Then just defeat the monster and if you get a Trap. or Platinum Ingot then save, if not restart the game from that save point and just keep repeating. Platinum Ingots sell for 150,000GIL anyway so even if you don't get a Trap. you've got a fair bit of GIL if you need to buy it.
 
I've read all the pages in this thread and I've come to this conclusion:

None of this shit makes sense.

Now, before anyone starts going on about Upgrading for Dummies, let me explain.

First of all, why do I want to get multipliers on my weapons? What does it mean? What is EXP? THERE IS NO EXP ONLY CP! So why is EXP so damn important? Does upgrading actually grant you more damage, either physically or magically? Besides some of the rather ambiguous effects -- like Adamancy and Stagger Lock, both of which mean absolutely nothing to me -- is there any other reason I should upgrade these weapons? If damage is what I'm going for, why should I not just keep upgrading roles instead?

And, most importantly, if benefits are truly to be had, then which weapons should I entirely ignore upgrading?


P.S. I take this moment now to mourn the simplicity of past games, where all one needed to do was buy the weapon the turned your numbers to blue and sell the ones that turned your numbers red. What pisses me off most about this new weapon system is not that you must upgrade your weapons -- that's perfectly fine! -- it's just that now, you have no fucking clue what they do. Not to mention that in past games the shit enemies dropped you sold for gil, but now you dare not sell anything lest it be an important upgrade component! Then you're so gil-starved, you cannot buy anything to further upgrade your weapons.

I can very well see myself saying to my kiddies in the far future, "Ah, FF13. Well, once upon a time, SquareEnix made a good game. Then they shat upon it."

/rant
 
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