Afternoon folks,

I am playing VIII through for what is now about the 8th time incidentally and it's been at least a year since the last time out and I must say I'm enjoying it this time more than ever despite one problem. I recall having LOTS of forbidden magic last time around. At least 100 Ultimas on each character without ever using what the lamest of players call the Action Replay.

I am aware of the Forbidden Magic refinement ability and one or two other means of refining items that convert to forbidden magic ie. Ultima however all of these are painfully tedious and require you to obtain items from enemies that only appear every now and then (Ruby Dragons) and most often than not do not drop the desired item after the battle (Have you tried getting hold of Energy Crystals on disc 4!?) So folks - does anyone have a useful and effective means of getting hold of lots of Full-Life, lots of Holy, lots of Ultima and lots of Aura etc. And no, I like my Triple Triad collection.

Also, does anyone have a useful strategy for refining forbidden medicine? (items that increase stats by one point) so I can attempt at maxing my characters out?

Item refinement can get you a lot of these things, life ring from mesmerize, then mid to high level magic it to full-life(not too sure on that). Ultima stones are easy to come by on Esthar, Aura is a bit of a lost cause though.

For forbidden magic, go to the Islands closest to Heaven and Hell, use Diablos' Enc-None ability, and go crazy drawing from all the forbidden magic draw points.

That's the easiest way to get forbidden magic, imo.

For forbidden magic, go to the Islands closest to Heaven and Hell, use Diablos' Enc-None ability, and go crazy drawing from all the forbidden magic draw points.

That's the easiest way to get forbidden magic, imo.

Auira is mostly a lost cause unless you draw it from Seifer, because that's when I take the time to get fully stocked on Aura. Of course, that means going on to Disc 4. IIRC, though, many enemies on the Island Closest to Hell gave up Fury Fragments, which I believe refined to Aura. And yeah, you could draw a fair few from the draw points too.

That's funny. I do stock up on Aura from Seifer, but I'm constantly using draw points after that because it is the one magic I actually use, outside of Cure/Cura/Curaga. Usually I have an entire "set" for Squall to use.

im not sure how to get a butt load of items that raise your stats, but what i did my last play through was use gfs.

i kept my levels low untill all my gfs learned their status bonuses (hp, strength, magic, luck, etc). then i junctioned it to one charecter, killed everyone else and leveled up. do that for everyone and theyre raping the lot.

Well, sure, that's one way to go about it. Of course, you can also Devour enemies if you want to raise stats.

That's what Devour did!!!

Well, if you Devour certain enemies. Others would simply heal HP/status, etc., and some others that tasted bad would inflict anything from random status effects to near-death condition and multiple bad status.

I've read a couple of tutorials on Devour. That is another one of those useful but painstakingly long winded processes. If I recall rightly you can devour a Ruby Dragon and it increases your standard HP capacity by 10. I don't think anyone fancies sticking around to first, and not only, have to find them on the Island Closes to Hell, then secondly to have to diminish their HP to something 'devourable' and thirdly, repeat, lots! :)

I've read on another site that Force Armlets will transfer into 30 Aura stones via Siren's Tool-RF and then of course those stones will transfer into Aura via Forbidden Magic-RF but where exactly to get hold of these Force Armlets I'm a little lost.

Can anyone clarify if the HighLVMag-RF will convert Life into Full Life?

Oh and bass_ace31 your idea is fairly interesting. I'd have to have another run through on the game though as my main party have all hit LV100. I supposed I could recall Irvine and max him out!

The most efficient way to get Ultima depends on what you did at the Deep Sea Research Center (assuming you've already done it). If you used the Zell trick to save the steam power, then you can go back and fight tri-faces and mug them for curse spikes. Tool-Rf 100 of those into 1 dark matter, which then mods into 100 ultimas. This is the fastest method I know of besides drawing from Ultima Weapon (which I actually do).

As for Aura, your best bet is probably to use rare item on the Island Closest to Hell and get fury fragments. That'll probably take a while, though.

For Full-Life, I always just drew from Tonberry King, but if it's too late for that, then the only thing I can think of is Regen Rings, which mod into Full-Lifes. I'm not exactly sure of the best way to get them; although I do know that 10 Torama cards mod into one Regen Ring. That, of course, takes waaayyy too long, but you may be able to fight them to get Regen Rings.

Edit: Flare and Meteor, of course, you can draw from Ruby Dragons, which are most easily found on the Island Closest to Hell. It's a shame if you're already on the fourth disc if you want Holy, because you can fight the Elnoyle in Esthar and draw Holy directly from him. If you're at too low a level to do this, you can always use Tonberry King's Lvl Up ability.

I draw Ultima from Ultima Weapon also. Ultima Weapon also yields 100 Ultima Stones, but it's not a guaranteed drop.