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« Final Fantasy X

AP Tricks

AP Tricks info:
These are ways to max your S.Level, and there are several different ways provided below. The max S.Level, big surprise, is level 99. This Final Fantasy of the series, has replaced the experience point system with AP and S levels. Moving on:

Prerequisits:
First off, you need ten 'Doorway to Tomorrow' items. These can be acquired in two methods. The first is a one-time acquisition by stealing from the Ultima Weapon boss in the Omega Ruins. You can input the airship coordinates for Omega Ruins (X-74 Y-36) through the third option on the airship map screen.
The second method would be to use the bribe command on Gagazett Mountain. Gagazett is the snow-covered mountain just past the Nagi Plains. When you fight the three robotic enemies while climbing in the snowy region, the smaller one should be Auto Commander. You'll recognize him because he has 3700 HP. Bribe him with 20 times that amount (74,000 gil). He'll run away and drop Doorway to Tomorrow x2. Repeat as needed.

Add Drive to AP:
With 10 Doorway to Tomorrows, enter the menu screen and find the weapon-augmenting screen. Make sure you already have a pretty good weapon on Tidus, for example. You might want to have more than one slot open on the weapon in order to add APx2 or APx3 if you have the items for it. We'll use him as the test case. Now find the weapon he has equipped and bring up the abilities menu. Near the bottom of that menu should be some fairly recognizable abilities such as APx2 and APx3. You should also see another one with "AP" clearly in the name. That one is Drive to AP ability. It should cost 10 Doorway to Tomorrows. Obviously equip that ability.

Change Overdrive Type:
After that you'll want to move to the overdrive menu from the main menu. You'll want to change the method that leads to overdrive. One of these methods is the alone method. The second option on the top of the overdrive menu screen allows you to change the type. Alone should be near the bottom. It is very easy to tell if you have it. The only way your overdrive meter will build is when both of the other characters in a battle are dead. Obviously the person with the alone overdrive must be alive. Then it will build up with your commands.

Choose your Battle:
I chose Bisaido Island as the destination because of the weak enemies. You can take your airship there or if you are doing this in the middle of the game, try to go back to an area with weaker enemies assuming that you can acquire the necessary materials. You can compensate for stronger enemies by casting shell or augmenting your defense against the type of enemies you're most likely to encounter. To continue with Bisaido as the test example, you'll need to head towards an area with encounters. Before your first battle, make sure this new weapon with the Drive to AP ability is NOT equipped. Equip anything else you want. I know you can switch weapons in battle but this is the easiest method for any importers with little to no knowledge of Japanese. Walk into a battle and proceed to kill off your two other allies. Then hit the triangle button to defend a few times until your overdrive meter has filled up. Once it is full, go ahead and kill the enemies. Next, go to your menu and switch to your weapon with the Drive to AP ability. Walk around to encounter another battle. Make sure you keep the same characters that died since their 1-HP will make them easier to kill for the enemies and yourself. Once again, kill your other two allies off. At this point, you'll probably find it easiest to leave the Dingo (the orange wolf-like one) as the lone enemy. Proceed to cast Haste on yourself and slow on the Dingo or enemy of your choice. You should now have several turns in a row.

The Method:
At this point, the AP trick is up to you. Every time you press triangle (defend), you'll accrue a lot of AP. A weak enemy like Dingo won't substantially hurt you the few times he'll have a chance to hit you, so don't worry about your HP. Just keep hitting triangle to defend. Personally I use my old PSOne turbo controller and tape down the triangle button. Anyone who remembers the FF3 waterfall leveling up trick with Banon will remember doing something similar. If you don't have a turbo controller for PS1 or PS2, then it is up to you to manually hit triangle over and over again. Regardless, the amount of time you leave your controller doing it or you yourself do it is arbitrary. I'd say to do it for about 10 minutes at first and see where you end up since APx2 or x3 can really speed this whole thing up.

After you decide you've had enough, go ahead and kill the enemy. You'll see your AP is a ridiculous amount and surely you'll get to S. Level 99. Most likely it will take you a few times of doing this to get around the entire Sphere Board.


Problems:
The biggest problem you'll encounter is running out of regular sphere board pieces. You'll be so powerful that you might as well fight several random battles in any place you feel will yield the most.

The second problem you'll run into is that you'll be at 9xxx HP and you'll still have more than half the board left. I suggest consulting DokiWaku's excellent Secrets guide. You'll find out how to exceed Max HP (up to 99,999) and exceed Max Attack (up to 99,999), etc. Just a note though, some of the ultimate weapons have these properties intrinsically. For example, Tidus' ultimate weapon already has the exceed Max Attack attribute.

There's a good chance that Yuna and Lulu won't have the Alone overdrive. To teach them it, enter into a battle with a weak enemy and kill off everyone else in your party. Obviously you can only do this with one character that needs the overdrive method at a time. Then just sit there and keep hitting triangle over and over again. Cast curative and defensive spells accordingly. It will take a few minutes of doing this so be patient. Eventually a message will show up telling you that you've learned the overdrive technique 'alone.'

That pretty much covers it.