Okay so this has bothered me since I got my first Esper...

Why are the Espers so weak??? I'm advanced in the game (66-67 lvls) and I have realistically used my Espers maybe like 15-20 times...and only against regular monsters because the bosses just tear them apart....I mean, these are supposed to be the Demi-Gods of the World's Creation and they are getting their asses kicked...even in some cases by normal monsters!!

I think the Esper thing wasn't really beta-tested very well throught the gameplay...If I were developing the game I would have made their summon time MUCH shorter, but make the Espers invulnerable and much more powerful.

Just my rant...what do you guys think??

i've been saying the same thing. i'd of liked them to be like 10, just come and do their thing. plus, do get them to do the final moves is ridiculous. there are too many stipulations like casting immobolize, or being HP Crit. Lame...they are pointless except as a novelty.

I think there's already another topic on their uselesness, but I agree. Depleting Mist Charges (especially on the later ones) is a nightmare. And the only espers really worth summoning are the last ones anyway. The only one that can be of any use is Zodiark, cause all you have to do is cast Break on the character, summon him, and boom, 50,000 damage to all enemies instantly.

Okay, enough about the Espers. To my experience... not true. The usefulness of Espers:

1.) Useful for chaining / LP building, if that's your objective. Esper's normal attack will obliterate many enemies in one or two hits, as opposed to swinging at it with your characters that may still be weak at that particular point in the game for who knows how long.

2.) Learn three Quickenings for your character with esper as quickly as possible, and if possible, be sure to summon, then touch Save Crystal.

3.) Don't summon around large groups of monsters --- useless. Instead, summon when facing a single tough enemy and be quick on casting beneficial spells.

Well...

I don't need a time-restricted, non-controllable character to chain or LP Build.

Even with three MP Bars, the high level espers use them all....A quickening is a much more productive use of that much MP.

WHY would I spend that much MP just to take down one enemy? Bosses dont count because most bosses tear the espers up in like 15-30 seconds OR they kill your summoner because he's alone and cant heal himself fast enough.

Your arguments still havent convinced me...and I've tried to use the espers in most types of situations...and yeah SOMETIMES they do alright, but for the most part, they are just a collectors item within the game, IMHO.

Also, in the past FFs....Espers have been way more useful, like Knights of the Round!! Where is that power??

see, i totally agree with you frequency. espers are totally lame. why would i want only one character getting experiance and why should i have to continually heal the esper or summoner, and why can't i see the cool cut scene when the best attack is performed unless a bunch of requirements are met. i want knights of the round with double materia. i used to be able to sit back, have a cup of coffee and smoke, all while king arthurs men kicked someone's ass. agent, the makers of final fantasy DO make mistakes, this is one of them.

lol i remember always trying to figure out which knight was which

Is that Galahad?! or maybe that's Lancelot?!

i don't know if i should say this, but you could prep certain smokable party favors while the first wave ran, then when the second came, it took on a whole new look.

kilgore --- fail. I acknowledge that the makers of Final Fantasy make mistakes. As usual, you're trying to dredge up stuff that the thread isn't even about. Your biggest mistake is being on these boards at all.

frequency --- that's fine. If you really don't like them, then don't use them. But for my part, I find that they do have uses, depending on my situation.


You know, this whole thread reminds of the whole "uselessness of Trance" FFIX argument...

I agree with Agent, the espers are useful. Without them I'd still be fighting Vosller or the Earth Wyrm.

So just stop complaining or just kill yourselves. No one cares what you do while waiting for ever with the summons to finish.

Speaking of waiting for things to finish, if I'm using espers to kill weak enemies, I'll often dismiss the Esper before it can perform its special attack. Why waste time with it?

I agree with Agent, the espers are useful. Without them I'd still be fighting Vosller or the Earth Wyrm.

hehe true

i only use belias while fighting vossler

but now Shemhazai is my favourite, hehe always use knot of rust if you want her to be powerful

Espers are useful early in the game but when you get deeper into the game they become less useful

they should've been able to level up as well so they dont become so weak

What do you mean? I always thought esper level was based on the current level of the character summoning it.

really?

Well, I would assume so. I mean, the HP and available summon-time does seem to me to rise as your characters' level gets higher. I mean, if it didn't then, that really would be lame.


No, for me, espers start out kinda weak. Then, as you start gaining the ability to cast useful spells on them such as Protect and Haste, they get better. And then they start to get kinda weak again, at least some of them, but as long as you know how to handle them, they can still prove useful.

As you gain levels, your esper power increases. HP amount, MP amount, all stats increase as your own level increases.
In my opinion only, Zodiark is about the only useful Esper, and that's just for Yiazmat killing. Ultima is also useful in certain places, but not very much. Other than that, espers aren't all that useful.

I never really botherd with espers in the first playthrough, most the times i used them they get wiped out. I dont think they do much good to be honest but will give them more use during my second playthrough, see if they really are any good.

At level 99, the only thing that really makes on esper better than another is the attack rating of their attacks, and Ultima and Zodiark are pretty close in that respect, however Zodiark as the best final attack, obviously.

I've said it before, in another thread I believe, that for those of you who find the espers die too quickly or are not useful that you can trigger some of their final attacks immediately, or almost immediately upon summoning. Especially Zodiark's since your summoner just has to be under the break effect, petrify, and also Hashmal's, the summoner's hp must be below 10%. That helps for a lot of cases where you can just bring them in for one big attack. Depends if you feel that they're worth the mp or not though.

And for Ultima who has the hardest to achieve Final use a Gravity spell on both Esper and summon to do it since Caster and Esper have to be at 10% Hp or so. Zodiark has the easiest powerful final to use that is true but to say they are useless is not true for instance I have used Cuchulainn to not only give myself breathing room for my badly hurt characters when he left he did Sap and a few other status effects on the boss and then when my characters came back it only took a few hits to finish it off. Very handy indeed. Some though like Zaleria and Shemazi are meant as crowd control since they have an All or Nothing attack which is the most effective aganist in Places like Roblon and Adrammelech were you get swarmed by normal monsters. You just need to find where and when it is a good time to use them and aganist Bosses whose levels you are near and NOT underleveled for they are good espically the ones that heal themselves.

Espers are usefull when you use them right after you get them. For instance, Belias is useful when fighting Vossler, but not after. Only Zodiark (and possibly Ultima) are useful at the very end game.
Oh, and Ultima's final attack requires both it and summoner to be a <30% I believe.

I thought it was 10 oh well. But I disagree on the usefullness I think you just need to now how and when to use them is all. For instance Belias is good with Fire weak monsters and so forth. But once again to each their own.

Of course the elemental espers are good against their element weak enemies, but once you realize that the attack rating for the attacks of the first espers are way lower than those for the later ones, you'll find out that they become quite useless.
For instance, Belias's final attack, Hellfire, is almost half of Zodiark's AoE attack, Scathe. That's where the difference is.

Espers aren't really useful late in the game. At this point your 3 characters can pack more damage in 20 seconds than Zodiark does in his 1 minute long animation. Most of the time, I only summoned them to see what their attack looks like. Other than that, I thought they were pretty useless. They just add some eye candies to the game.

I've always appreciated the process of obtaining an esper - that's usually the hard part. Most are only difficult because of the locked commands (oh my God, did "no magic" ever rape my party's already-paltry inventory). I haven't faced off against Ultima or Zodiark yet, but as soon as I can play again I'm going to make the attempt.

I gained a ton of levels in the Barheim Passage and the Zertinan Caverans just trying to reach the Espers. I find that far more useful than the Espers themselves, which serve to kind of shake up some of the duller parts of the game.

Good luck with Zodiark...he's humbly destroyed my party four times already. My guys are pretty high leveled (60's, 80's, and 90's). Not really sure how to get past his critical status defense. He's immuned to everything.

Zodiark is hard but Ultima can be a B****. She will switch her status field effect in a rotation so for a few turns no techs then no items not in that order but you get the idea.I can't offer a stragety except find whats works and go with it since she constantly denies an ability you can't have a linear strategty but rather a flowing one to keep up with the changes. So good luck and keep an eye on the Field Icon.

As for Zodiark there are 2 ways to defeat it. First is to save as much Mist charge as possible then when he gets below 50% health quicken him to death. Second is magic while he restores the Pailing always as soon as he drops it he does not for Magic shield he will leave for several turns off before he turns it back on again so once Magic shield is off use Non-Elemental spells like Ardor, Scathe, Shock, scourge and so forth on him. He will cast Faith Bravery and Reflect dispel it in fact set up a gambit on it he doesn't need those Boost so take them away as fast as you can. And rememeber Techs except Shades of Black, Attacks, Quickenings, and Items are all considered Physical so avoid them after the Pailing comes up. And also don't do like I did and forget to steal the Serpanitarus from him before the pailing comes up. I beat him at level 71 so I know this works just carry alot of Phoenix downs, Magic avoiding equipment, Black absorbing equipment, and ethers and you will have a good chance at winning.