White Magic vs. items

Shaissa

Shaissa

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So just a curious question do you find yourself in most Final fantasy games buying items to heal/get rid of status's or do you find yourself using white magic more?

For me I always tend to buy Antidotes and other items to get rid of status affects, but like a quarter of the way through any FF game I tend to use white magic for healing for the most part. about the point where you usually can buy the "high-potion" or whatever they call it, i'm usually just using magic to heal, only "healing" item I buy is Phoenix Down and ignore Life for Magic

But what do you guys do you an Item person, or a magical person?
 
I try to use magic when I can and save stocked items for when MP starts to suffer. I do, however, almost always use phoenix downs instead of Life.
Unless my characters have every status effect known to man and a remedy is needed, I just stick to Poisona/Esuna/etc.
It really depends on the FF, though. In XII, you are generally more dependent on items. But in, lets say, FVIII, not so much.
 
It depends on the situation for me. I find myself using status recovery items over the white magic. In battle, I usually use white magic to heal, since I want to usually heal my whole party. Outside of battle, I usually just use items so that I can save MP.
 
I use magic solely to heal my party and items to cure status ailments. I don't use Esuna etc because i train alot in RPG's, so by the time i decide to move onto the next town, i have plenty of money so there's no real need to waste MP.
 
As the series advanced further, I found myself relying on the magicks of a White Mage as opposed to using Items just because it was much easier and more effective especially in FFX for example because when you reach a Save Sphere, all HP/MP is restored so if I was training up my characters, I could rely on Yuna's cure/status spells and when I ran out of MP, I'd simply go and touch a Save Sphere, which ultimately saved me money.
 
I wonder of we find ourselves using phoenix down instead of Life or Full life coz it is perhaps easier to find in a menu? plus its usable by all characters?

I f I can I like to have a bit off both, a designated Item specialist for example i gave Rikku the Alchemy Ability on FFX so she could use Albhed potions mega potions and the like at twice the potency.

FFVII I gave barrett the W-Item materia so he could be with out Magic maximising his massive HP total, also so he could use all the various incendiary items like the grenade, shrapnel, Right Arm:-)shame:) and the awesome 48 inch canon:lew:

Also Zell I gave him the Docs Code item on FFVIII fo rmuch the same reason, so if and when my My mage was ko'ed I had I some one to fill in readily.

But those are efforts where I have made an a choice to have an item specialist, generally speaking i dont use items to do heal staus ailments accpet for ealry in the game.

I only really use items for emergency healing ie; about to kick the bucket.

Odd saying :hmmm:
 
Healing magic, 99% of the time. Items are for emergencies (megalixir!) or when my healer is down. Magic is usually more economical, you'll need to save or stay at an inn or something anyway, and that will restore your MP, but potions cost. I also tend to like White Mage type characters and like to keep them in the party.

Except in I, where you have so few magic slots it's really impractical. Potions are the way to go, there.
 
I mostly use magic to heal HP and status and I always have mp restoration items in reserve so it does not cause much of a problem for me. If however I do not have those items I will use regular items to heal my party. In battle though, white magic is really more useful than items. This is only my opinion but if you have curaga or curaja they are really useful. Or if it is FFX I know I used a lot of al bhed potions with Rikku. Both are good but white magic is far more useful once you get the later spells.
 
It depends on which game I'm playing. If a game has a Dupe Trick(ex: IV or VII), then I will exploit the Items. If a game has the 1MP Cost ability(ex: X), I will exploit Magic. If a game has neither, then I focus on Magic for healing HP and Items for healing status effects. A fair balance is a good way to use both.
 
I'd mainly use white magic, but sometimes in a dungeon where my mage might have a great spell which exploits the weakness of a nasty enemy, or enemies are weak to magic in general, I'd use items to conserve MP.

This kind of discussion reminds me of a topic I made a while back about how earlier FF games placed a much greater emphasis on resource management for dungeons and stuff. On games like FFX or FFXIII, you don't need to use items at all, you can use spells, then get to a savepoint (or for XIII, wait until the end of a battle...)
 
I usually use Cure to heal my characters, and antidotes or some other remedy to heal the status effects. I mostly use white magic, Esuna is one very useful spell to have
 
I have to say the same as others. It depends on the game. However in most cases I will save my MP for cure spells to keep some HP. I like to drive my characters to the point when the story proceeds I get to a part where they take a nap themselves. There is several games where you can do this.

So I keep my MP for cure, cura, and curaga but as far as status alignment comes I will try to use an item. Don't get me wrong I love esuna! its helped me out a lot during end game. However it's wise to get to know your items well and them powerhouse with Esuna, Full Cure, Full Life.
 
My situation varies, really. In the beginning I use items of course to save my MP, but towards the middle of the game I use my White Magic to heal and cure status ailments.

In battle I use MP all the way until I run out then I switch to Items as my last resort. Unless, that MP is needed for a better move that requires a load of MP, in that case I use my items over my MP. haha.

It just depends, but I use my white magic alot more than Items.
 
For me it depends on the availability of either. In many FFs it's hard to come by good MP restoring items, so I tend to use potions rather than magic most of the time to conserve MP. But then of course, I always end up with like 43 Ethers left over by the end of the game that I haven't used :lew: So I probably should use more magic.

If MP restores easily though or with something like the Draw system in FFVIII, I do find myself using magic over items. I just get paranoid about the idea of not having enough healing power, because the ultimate horror story is when you save your game while trapped in an area (unable to leave to go to a shop and buy items), and not being quite strong enough to beat the boss. And then when you try to grind to get stronger, you need restorative items to heal before the boss, but you can't, because you don't have enough MP or items :gonk: This has happened to me before, can't remember if it was FF or another game, but it is definitely a situation to try to avoid.
 
It depends upon the situation, really. I do lean more towards relying upon magic however. I'd say in the earlier games - as well as in Final Fantasy Tactics - items happened to be a lot more useful and, to an extent, a bigger rarity.

Of course, the tougher fights - such as Ozma in FF9 and the weapons in FF7 - had me going all out and using elixirs left, right and centre. Oh, and phoenix downs. ;)
 
I use white magic as much as I can except at the beginning when characters have low MP.
 
items are weak! sure theyre quick to use (some games) and dont cost MP, but dropping a cura or curaja makes me laugh... wanna know why? XD
 
I tend to stick to white magic too. I agree with the whole save sphere idea.. in that it was always cheaper to use magic to get rid of everything and then restore MP. Unlike in FF8 when using white magic ( or any spell) would lower your stats thanks to the junctioning. if you put white magic on HP you would lose health per spell lol. so i tended to stick to items in that game.
 
mhm aha well I use white magic more often that I use items. But it depends you see on how much healing I need to do. If it is only a wee bit of healing that needs to be done then I will normally just use a potion. But if it is a lot that needs to be healed then I will use a spell. During battle I use magic, outside of it I use items.
 
I usually make sure I have a stack of items just in case. but most of the time I will use White magic and then items to heal status effects because I hate wasting my mages turn using Esuna when they could be healing instead.
 
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