tips on maze of tribulations

[billabong]

ok. i beat the game a few days ago. i'm level 75 with fayt, 73 with cliff, and 62 with nel. can anyone recommend me a certain level to go in and beat the maze? oh yeah, and i need some stat tips too.

[DarrcEnigma]

I personally went in at level 65 or so, and by the time I had finished I was up to level 99 with Fayt and 90 each for Albel and Nel (whom seem to act stupidly and die quite often). To be honest, levels aren't nearly as important as the equipment your characters have, and if you can beat the first boss in the Maze (Render), you should be able to reach floor seven without too much trouble. On floor seven you can fight some really easy insect and beast parties and get about 13,000 exp per character, per battle. Since they don't usually critically hit you (or hit you at all with Air Raid and Dimension Door), that easily jumps up to 39,000+ exp per battle, depending on what shows up in the party. I managed to get a chain of 65 in about an hour's time, so it clearly doesn't take much to level up at that point -- or to get the Chain 500 Battle Trophy, if you're collecting them.

Though it's common sense, buy your party a Laser Weapon each (unless you have a stronger weapon for them already, or you have access to the Retail Rabbit or the side quest shop in Aquaria), recruit the inventors Mackwell, Misty Lear and Chilico, and then create some Orichalcum and Boots of Prowess. You can use Mackwell, Misty Lear and Maria for the Orichalcum, and Chilico and whoever is decent at Crafting (I usually just use Mirage and Sophia to save time and Fol) to get Boots of Prowess. Use the Crafting "Specify Plan" to make the Boots of Prowess +30% ATK/DEF, and use the Alchemy Specify Plan to double the Orichalcum's +500 ATK stat a few times. Then, of course, you Synth them onto your Laser Weapons. I personally used three Boots of Prowess and five +500 ATK for Fayt, but you can use any combination you want in addition to other types of stats.

The Maze itself is quite easy. It's the final boss of the Maze that gives you some trouble; though around level 95 with some Magical Berries it gets a lot easier.

[Albel the wicked]

Originally Posted by DarrcEnigma

The Maze itself is quite easy. It's the final boss of the Maze that gives you some trouble; though around level 95 with some Magical Berries it gets a lot easier.

The final boss of the maze, gabriel celesta, is hard?? HA HA HA. he's a wuss...i had much more problems to kill soothie (sp?)...and the you had to fight parties of soothies in sphere 211...what a nightmare...

[DarrcEnigma]

Originally Posted by Albel the wicked

The final boss of the maze, gabriel celesta, is hard?? HA HA HA. he's a wuss...i had much more problems to kill soothie (sp?)...and the you had to fight parties of soothies in sphere 211...what a nightmare...

The only thing hard about Sootie is getting the Battle Trophy for beating it. It literally self-destructs if you take too much time to beat it, so you're more or less guaranteed to kill it unless you're extremely weak or run out of resurrection items. Even it's small size was/is easily dealt with with battle skills like Air Raid and Dimension Door.

Gabriel is obviously more annoying than hard with Lightning Feather paralyzing your party and his attacks damaging both your HP and MP, but he's still quite capable of killing you if you're not careful. Add that to his reasonably high (albeit nowhere near as high as Freya and the like) HP stat, and you will have a few problems when you first meet him unless you've leveled up a lot. More so with him being able to cancel the majority close-range battle skills with his attacks.