Limit Break leveling

So in my current playthrough of FF7, I'm leveling everyone much more evenly than normal. That game really rewards just picking a party and sticking with it, but whatever. The main problem is that it does greatly slow the rate at which your characters (besides Cloud) learn limit breaks, and really that's the best reason for using the whole cast.

So my question was if there are any ideal places for leveling your limit breaks, but not necessarily your level, as I'd rather not be overlevelled. The other advantage of raising everyone equally is you are a lower level than normal and it injects some much-needed challenge into the game.

As most of us probably know, limits are learned one of two ways. The 2nd limit of each level is learned by using the first between 6 and 9 times, depending on the character. This one is easy to level. Fury status + Cover materia and you're pretty good to go.
The first limit of each level is learned by an accumulated number of kills made by that particular character. This is what you miss out on by always rotating your party. Obviously the best way to do this is backtrack to an area with weak monsters that you can kill rapidly but not give you a ton of EXP.

So TL;DR version: what is a good area for running into battles of large numbers of weak enemies?

North Corel is good with those little mushroom things, but they have a lot of encounters with fewer enemies too. Costa del Sol is decent with those Russian nesting doll enemies, but you have to wait for them to all come out. So is there a better place that consistently puts you up against numerous wimpy enemies?

Thanks

I think I went to the beach near costa del sol. You encounter 3 or 4 fish things per fight, let them beat you up and use just the character you want limit leveled up to kill them all

What part of the game have you reached? If you have access to the mime materia, you can use that to rapidly repeat the first limit breaks on each level and learn the second ones. If not, the fury status and the cover materia, as you say, would work well in combination with powerful monsters.

As for advancing through the limit break levels without levelling up, I suggest the forests in the Junon Area, the ones where you can first meet Yuffie. You can meet groups of five Capparwires, which can be killed with a single summoning. You'll also meet Formulas, in groups of three, and the Mystery Ninja if you don't already have Yuffie. The Capparwires have a powerful Grand Spark attack which is useful for activating limit breaks, but obviously not if you're already on disc three and overlevelled

I recall doing what Flintlock said in my most recent playthrough.

Fury + Manipulate, and the area where you first take the Bronco to reach Wutai. There are these bord enemies there that show up in groups of ~4 that use Grand Spark. Manipulate them to force it ad nauseum. This is how I taught Aeris to use Great Gospel immediately after leaving Rocket Town.

Thanks, I'm on disc 2 having JUST gotten the highwind, so I can go just about anywhere. These all sound like pretty good options. Tifa STILL hasn't learned Waterkick though I find it hard to believe she hasn't killed 96 enemies yet....

Not that we can get Waterkick for her now...silly Cloud gettin' all mako poisoned. But OT the Cappawires strategy sounds pretty good. He's right, you mostly run into large groups of them and by now I'm sure they'd go down with a use of aqualung or a summon, eh?

I don't know if this works past Disk 1, but anyway...

In upper Junon there's that ally with the troops drilling. Go towards the back and there's a red box on the wall. Press Circle next to it and an alarm will sound. Walk in circles around the ally and you'll encounter groups of Slaloms and Death Machines.

Here are their stats:
Slalom: 1600 HP, 30 MP, 700 EXP, 70 AP, 1500 Gil, Steal: Smoke Bomb.
Death Machine: 2500 HP, 150 MP 900 EXP, 80 AP, 1200 Gil, Steal: W Machine Gun.
Note: Slaloms half Water damage so use Beta.

They cause a lot of damage, so cast White Wind over and over. And use Double Growth equipment. And the Junon Inn is really cheap and has a convient save point.

I did this between Gold Saucer and Gongaga and by the time I left, Cloud was up to Level 45 and everyone else was in the upper 30's. And I sold a Mastered All. It kinda cheapens the game as the magority of the bosses afterwards are ridiculously easy and you can learn everyone's Level 4 Limit breaks as soon as you find them.

^ Thats the best powerlevelling spot in the game, IMHO.

Got me up to a very high level before I even left the continent.

We're not really looking to level up that much, though, as Force stated in the OP:

Sonic said:

So my question was if there are any ideal places for leveling your limit breaks, but not necessarily your level, as I'd rather not be overlevelled. The other advantage of raising everyone equally is you are a lower level than normal and it injects some much-needed challenge into the game.

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We're just pretty far behind on several character's limit breaks and want to try to catch them up a bit.

You might want to try the Mythril Mines once you get Manipulate. Get into a fight that has and Ark Dragon and kill off everything but the dragon. Manipulate it and have it cast Flamethrower over and over. When it runs out of MP, kill it or give it an Ether. You'll still gain some Exp. but it shouldn't be that much.

Yeah, as stated I'm trying not to powerlevel, BUT, I never knew about that powerlevelling spot. It's good to know about, thanks a lot!

I usually do it right away in the Mythril Mines until I have everyone's level 3 limits, and by then I'm strong enough to get Beta from the Zolom outside.

Junon area, as many have already said. Used to just stick a decent magic materia on whoever needed lots of kills and fry Capawires in droves until they got their new limit, then switch. For the "use it X number of times to get the next" limits, I liked to hit up Cactus Island with a Manipulate Materia and Hypno-Crown in tow. Manipulate a Cactuar, and force it to use 1,000 Needles on the person you're limit-leveling. Keep them in Fury status and the gauge fills nice and fast.

Ehhhh I found the Cactuar method a bit slow.

Late game, Dark Dragons inside Northern Cave make great Manipulation tools. The Dragons inside Mt. Nibel also work. There wasn't anything worthwhile on the entire northern continent, though, sadly.

One possible later game alternative, however, is the Sea Worm outside Mideel. I *think* it was controllable, and it also gave a large amount of AP (and gil, I suppose). Another great choice is the...I forget what they're called - Chimera? - just outside of the Gold Saucer desert, near the Weapon Seller (east?) of Gongaga. These things use Aqualung, which is the earliest in the game you can get it, and, assuming that you have Leviathan or some other form of Water damage mitigation on your other characters, can easily give you enough meter to crank out limits like mad.

In the same vein, does anyone know a good place to level up Materia without gaining a lot of Exp? I'm currently leveling Materia up off Sea Worms by Midel, but I'm wondering if there's another spot I don't know about.

Northern crater, watery section, fight Movers. They give 2,400 AP, 90,000 gil and 0 EXP when defeated.

Flintlock said:

Northern crater, watery section, fight Movers. They give 2,400 AP, 90,000 gil and 0 EXP when defeated.

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I love those little gumdrop guys.

Movers + Triple Growth Weapons = Holy shit I mastered KotR already?!

About the Movers....Are they like....a proper enemy? Cos they barely do anything to you. I get the feeling like they were some sort of remanant from debugging or something?

They only have two moves, Bodyblow and Triangle Attack. I'm no expert on reading AI Scripts (Shademp would probably be better), but from what I can tell, Triangle Attack can only be used every five turns, and Bodyblow can only be used after Rnd(0..3) turns and then every three turns after that. So a lot of the time they will die before getting to do anything.

Sonic the Hedgehog said:

So in my current playthrough of FF7, I'm leveling everyone much more evenly than normal. That game really rewards just picking a party and sticking with it, but whatever. The main problem is that it does greatly slow the rate at which your characters (besides Cloud) learn limit breaks, and really that's the best reason for using the whole cast.

So my question was if there are any ideal places for leveling your limit breaks, but not necessarily your level, as I'd rather not be overlevelled. The other advantage of raising everyone equally is you are a lower level than normal and it injects some much-needed challenge into the game.

As most of us probably know, limits are learned one of two ways. The 2nd limit of each level is learned by using the first between 6 and 9 times, depending on the character. This one is easy to level. Fury status + Cover materia and you're pretty good to go.
The first limit of each level is learned by an accumulated number of kills made by that particular character. This is what you miss out on by always rotating your party. Obviously the best way to do this is backtrack to an area with weak monsters that you can kill rapidly but not give you a ton of EXP.

So TL;DR version: what is a good area for running into battles of large numbers of weak enemies?

North Corel is good with those little mushroom things, but they have a lot of encounters with fewer enemies too. Costa del Sol is decent with those Russian nesting doll enemies, but you have to wait for them to all come out. So is there a better place that consistently puts you up against numerous wimpy enemies?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Before I reached Junon in my recent playthrough, I had all possible limits on Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Yuffie (wasn't bothering with Aeris since her limits don't matter, and Nanaki isn't really a concern of mine at the moment). Here are some locations that I found were exceptionally good for building your limit breaks early in the game.

Protips: Firstly, I highly recommend having at least 3 Restore materias on hand before leaving Sector 7 for the first time, so you can have one on each party member (make some cash in the train graveyard before heading to Reactor #5 if you need to). Kill most enemies with physical attacks and use cure (not cure 2/cura or cure 3/curaga) to heal between fights (but not during fights unless you really need to). It allows you to do some hardcore grinding while rarely returning to an inn, since you can nearly restore all HP with a single 5 MP casting of cure early in the game. Paired with an All-Materia and you can keep your whole party going for a stupidly long time.

Secondly, I recommend going into your Configuration options through your party menu. Set your battle speed to the fastest it can go, and keep it to at least mid-range on the active vs wait scale. This will cause your fights to go by very quickly, and you will have little wasted time. In fact, in large battles (with multiple monsters + 3 party members) it will seem like a continuous string of actions as everyone takes their turns back to back to back. No waiting for your ATB gauge to fill up. This also lets enemies pound on you in rapid succession to build those limits up. Rush rush rush!

Pre-Junon Leveling Spots
Sector 6) On the path to Sector 7, when Aeris is escorting you, you will find a map that has a broken down bulldozer, a giant robot hand, and so forth (the map just before you reach the playground and go to the Wall Market). Once you reach the Wall Market, you can buy Hypers for the first time. The hole eater monsters (leech-like critters with legs) show up in groups of 3-4 on this map, and they hit for surprisingly large amounts of damage. They will build your limit bars quickly, especially if you are hyped up on hypers. The fact there's also 3-4 of them at a time helps too.

Contrary to what some guides suggest, I don't find the house monsters that sometimes attack on this map to be that great for leveling/limit building. Just didn't really seem nearly as effective waiting for it to hurt you heavily, compared to the quick hole-eaters who pound you over and over again.

You can use this area to level Cloud, Aeris, Barret, and Tifa's limits at different points before you leave Midgar (Cloud & Aeris can be done before your first battle with Reno; Barret & Tifa before heading to the Shinra HQ). It's not terrible money either, if memory serves. It's also near both the Wall Market and Sector 6, if you need an inn or to buy Materia.

You also receive your first Cover materia just before coming through this map (found at Aeris' garden around her house); which can be useful to stick on anyone who you're power-leveling their limits.

Mithral Mines) The absolute best place I've found for leveling limits early on (and getting a good amount of starting gil) is the far right map in the Mithral Mines just after the chocobo ranch and Midgar Zolom. This room (where you can find the Long-Range materia) is amazing for leveling limits. It will be rare that you fight a battle with less than 4 enemies; with battles composed typically of 1 dragon + 3 crawlers, 1 dragon + 2 crawlers + 2 crabs, 4 crabs, or 2 dragons (attack from both sides).

The dragons frequently use the flamethrower enemy skill, which will raise your limit bar like crazy if you are under the effects of a hyper. In fact, hyped up Tifa would go from empty to full after 1 flame thrower when leveling her 1st tier limits. You can also steal Ether from the dragons with surprisingly high frequency. I decided to level in here to get some cash to play the Fort Condor battles with; and entered with about 15 ether or so. I left the room with closer to 50 ether, because I grabbed an ether almost every fight. Since cure only requires 5 MP and you can heal up your whole party between fights as needed, you can effectively stay here forever if you need to; because you just heal up and every 10-20 battles you may need to use one of your ethers.

I recommend a fire + all combo on at least 1 member of the party, simply because it's a good way to 1-shot the 4 crab encounter that is somewhat common in this room. Fire is useless against the dragons however, which may actually be a good thing (toast the crawlers & crabs, then focus on stealing the ether from the dragon, then finish off the dragon with physical attacks).

I ended up with Barret's Satellite Beam and Ungramax at frighteningly fast rates (I blame the fact he was hyped up and sporting one or two cover materias). Cloud's Meteorain and Finishing Touch were up and running by the time Tifa got her second tier 2 limit break (Tifa was admittedly support based at the moment).

Forests Near Junon) The forests near Junon (any of them, really) where you can first find Yuffie are another good place to level your limits if you're sick of looking at the inside of the Mithral Mines. There are really only two encounters that show up here regularly (barring Yuffie as I'll assume you've collected her before this), which are pink flying enemies who hit for around 100 damage and can strike multiple party members, and little weed looking critters. The pink flyers typically show up in groups of 3, and if you have your party hyped up on Hypers, then they will cause limits to appear very frequently. The little weed-looking critters show up in groups of about 5-6, and are just asking to be wiped out extreme prejudice.

Conveniently, you can rest up for free at Fort Condor if you're training out here; which may be required to restore your MP, since unlike in the mines you won't be stealing Ether almost every battle. Because of the need to return to Fort Condor occasionally, I feel like this method is perhaps a little slower, but I grabbed Yuffie and got her tier 3 limits out here without bothering to head back to the caves; and only had to make maybe...3 trips to Fort Condor to rest; and that's counting a large amount of healing (since those pink flyers will be pounding your party a lot).

Truly, you should be able to get maxed tier 3 limits for Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aeris, Nanaki/Red XIII, and Yuffie before you even bother to step foot into Junon and play breathing games with Prescilla.

Bonus Tip: I owe Absolute Steve's guide on GameFAQs for this bit of lore. After you reach Costa Del Sol, you can return to Junon on the ship. From there, run from the dock to the tunnel where the soldiers are running drills (it's a strait shot from the dock to this area, you can't miss it). There is a bright red alarm on the wall. If you click it, it causes random encounters to appear in the tunnel. The enemies here are incredibly strong here, but if you're around level 20+ you should be able to beat them (it'll be about as hard as a boss fight, maybe). If you've learned Beta and Aqualung enemy skills, it's a cakewalk.

The most common enemy that appears here is a group of 3 robot-looking guards who spray smog at you for about 150-200 damage per attack. Each have 1600 HP. This is the money encounter right here (some appear in groups of 2, some in groups of 3). A group of 3 of these will yield 2,100 XP and 210 AP per fight, and a whopping 4,500 gil. Since you can often take these guys out with 1 casting of Beta plus a smack or two (or even just 1 casting of Beta if your magic is high) this is an exceptionally good place to level up your levels, gil, and materia.

Enemy Info
Slalom: 1600 HP, 30 MP, 700 EXP, 70 AP, 1500 Gil, Steal: Smoke Bomb.
Death Machine: 2500 HP, 150 MP, 900 EXP, 80 AP, 1200 Gil, Steal: W Machine Gun.

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If you're a low level, I'd beware the Death Machines. The amount of XP/AP/Gil received for fighting them isn't very good compared to the robot-looking Slalom's, and they can rail you repeatedly for 400+ damage, which can be scary when they act 2-3 times in succession (I blame my fascination with fast battle speed and not using the Wait active time option).

At this point, you may have Cloud's "Force Stealer" sword (the awesome looking purple blade you earn from impressing Rufus before reaching Costal Del Sol, or by buying it in the ruined mining town prior to the Gold Saucer) and Barret's W-Machine Gun (found on the tracks heading to the ruined mining town). Both of which have Double AP growth, which turns the 210 AP you can get from a battle with the Slaloms into a whopping 420 AP per fight; allowing you to quickly power-level some materia. Seriously, these guys give more AP per encounter than about 3 bosses at a time at this point in the game.

What's even better is that when you're MP and/or resources are running low, you can simply walk out of the tunnel to reset the alarm to off, and there's an Inn that costs 30 gil between the tunnel and the ship. Hurray!

==========================

There you go, I hope this helps!

Someone named Octo said:

About the Movers....Are they like....a proper enemy? Cos they barely do anything to you. I get the feeling like they were some sort of remanant from debugging or something?

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Movers existed in FFV and FFVI (and maybe earlier games?), so I'm guessing they're rather a classic enemy of sorts. They seem to provide a lot of experience, AP, or something to that regard, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, they pass out AP like crazy. In FFV they're encountered right in front of the final boss and are the best way to max out any job classes you want before fighting.

In 7 they're better at leveling materia than the magic pots, its just a rare encounter...

And holy crap Ashiel, that was comprehensive

I don't know if it's already been said, but the absolute best spot for getting to the next level of limits anywhere in the game is that room near the end of the Mythril Mine. All enemies appear in groups of 5 there.

That being said, learning 1-2, 2-2 or 3-2 is best done elsewhere if you're a higher level. But that room in the mythril cave is the best spot in the game for increasing kill count.

EDIT: Yeah just scanned through and no ones mentioned this specific room. All enemies appear in groups of 5 and are very weak. Weak enough to kill all at once with matra magic your first time through.

The room I'm talking about is through the little door at the back here, in the last screen: