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Im not very sure if anyone even uses them to attack, with some execptions like ragorok (bah spelling) i may be mistaken, however

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Its not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality i accept. ~Calvin and Hobbes

Yah, i dont post much if you havent noticed. I'm not used to large fourms so i usally lurk and post every now and then..

Of course I do.
The Bahamut summon is a powerful attack that is quite useful late in the game...if you don't have Ultima.
Others like Zoneseek, Golem, Palidor, and Fenir do no damage at all yet are very useful in many situations.

However, I thought that the other attack Espers besides Bahamut were lacking in power when compared to regular magic attacks that you can learn from them.

Edit

After reading the thread i90east linked to, I took back my claim that Alexander was a useful attack. It isn't.

This post has been edited by Shadow Monroe on 19th May 2005 01:33

Try harder with the spelling (like me), but to be honest I summon Bahamut all the time, and some others like Alexander, Kirin and Golem... Others like Siren I don't even bother..I can't summon Crusader because it takes too much damage for the party (sometimes 9999 dmg), but just because fun....I'll go physical if the enemies are not that much.

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"Its no cheating if you don't get caught"

It's a rare instance when it's a good thing to use any of the damaging Esper attack. During the WoB, a Multi-target Ice2 spell would outdamage Shiva, for example. Maduin and Bismark come out slightly on top but are ridiculously expensive MP-wise.

Alexander, Tritoch and Terrato are less effective than a multi-target Fire3/Ice3/Bolt3 spell.

I suppose Bahamut has some worth when you haven't learned Ultima yet, and Alexandr on a single target is a little stronger than Pearl.

But really, the better Espers are Kirin, Golem, Zoneseek, Fenrir....the ones which protect rather than attack.

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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

I've used Golem on occasion, and maybe a few of the others that give status effects instead of dealing damage. I find that my party is usually much better at dealing damage the old-fashioned way than the esper is for the MP it costs.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

You may want to have a look at this thread, where we talk about whether or not summons are useful. Most people agreed that they're pretty useless, since their MP cost to damage ratio is worse than the regular spells. The attack summons are only good for the eye candy they provide, and I agree with Djibriel regarding the protective ones.

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FFXI (Siren server)
Tauu the Windurstian Tarutaru!
White Mage & Paladin

I would summon an esper immediately after getting it and then forget about it for the rest of the game, with the exception of Bahamut (until Ultima), Zoneseek, Golem, and Palidor. All the other one's simply aren't as effective as magic spells

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Occasionally. Not often, though...

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~Status Report~

* Completed... Dragon's Head
* Completed... Soldiers of the Empire: Disciples (release pending)
* In Progress/Undecided... Of Love and Betrayal
* Planning/Assembly... Where it all Began

I usually simply learn the magic and then use magic, instead of summoning espers. As has been said above, their power/usefulness is often outweighed by a large MP cost.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I summon the healing and effect espers early on, when the characters have little regular spells, and I use Bahamut quite often in the WoR, along with Ragnarok and Seraph.

By the way, the summons are one of the things I didn't like in FF6 - I perfer being able to summon multiple monsters, more than once in a battle. Ah, well...

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

I use Bahamut before I get Ultima, Phoenix pretty much all the time, and sometimes something like Fenrir, but that's it.

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~ Aurora, exhale bloody air! Dark Holy! ~

Not very often. Once I've learned the spells the only ones I really equip are there to booste stats at level-up or are used for defence.

I think I've used Phoenix on occation, but not much.

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The Arcana are the means by which ALL is revealed.

I like to use shoat for the whole reason of being to lazy to find break on the list

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procastinate now, dont put it off

if it does damage or saves my butt in some way....use it. simple enough right?
i mean in regular battle i try not to because i mean it's a regular battle unless it's a strong regular monster like the dinosaur or pugs

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A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Naw.

I found them to be useful occassionally, but most of the time, either too situational (Siren), MP-consuming (I don't use them enough to know MP costs), or ineffective (Ifrit.) That said, I occassionally cracked out my Carbuncle or my Golem. As was said earlier, the defensive Espers are much more effective than offensive ones to me. Late in the game, my characters are often able to deal multiple hits of 9999 per attack, and the only place such brute force would be during a boss fight. Seeing as most boss fights are against but one enemy, there's no need for the multi-target capabilities of the espers, not to mention I can cast Pearl or something similar on the cheap.

I seldom use espers (or any summons in games for that matter). I generally just attack, but there are times when either (a) I just want to see the summon, or
( The summon is actually useful

I null voted because there is no mana.

Moderator Edit

I voted that you're a huge jerkoff. And if that isn't an option in this poll, perhaps I'll edit it in. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 20th May 2005 21:40

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Judging from all the comments posted here, its somewhat ironic that there are alot of Votes saying that they do use them, to the votes saying that they dont...

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Its not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality i accept. ~Calvin and Hobbes

Yah, i dont post much if you havent noticed. I'm not used to large fourms so i usally lurk and post every now and then..

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 20th May 2005 14:14)

I null voted because there is no mana.

Moderator Edit

I voted that you're a huge jerkoff. And if that isn't an option in this poll, perhaps I'll edit it in. -R51

What the ... Since when did insulting people do anything good?

Anyway, I'll occasionally use Espers in battle, but to be honest, I often forget about them.

Question -- will summoning an Esper cost 1 MP with an Economizer? I've never tried that.

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"I will create a monument to nonexistence!!"

"The end comes ... beyond chaos."
~ Kefka, Final Fantasy VI

For all I know the esper summons' MP costs are affected by relics as any other spells...then again it's been a while since I last played FF6.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Adam, Economizers do turn the MP cost to 1, which may make those summons a little more reasonable--but those relics are fairly hard to get (Kill a Brachosaur!?!)

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Its not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality i accept. ~Calvin and Hobbes

Yah, i dont post much if you havent noticed. I'm not used to large fourms so i usally lurk and post every now and then..

I didn't realize you could SUMMON espers, until I got Ifrit and Shiva. ¬_¬

I use them, for bosses and stuff like that. And I do use them for healing, too.

Retribution - killing the Brachosaur goes, and is well worth the time. experience and economizers don't grow on trees.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

I do use espers,especially the extremely deadly Bahamut and Crusader,but once I get my hands on Meteor,Flare,or Ultima,then they don't get much use for their attacks.My favorite one is

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

Ragnarok.Aside from it teaching you the best spell in the game,it can also get you some extremely rare items when used in battles.

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GIMME THE PEANUT BUTTER,KUPO!!!

I seriously disliked the 'Summoning' aspect of this game. I thought the game would do better if they included a 'Summoner' like they had in past 3 games. (FF3-FF5)

I disliked the massive amounts of spells in the game as well - too many, too fast. As soon as one became effective, it lost its effectiveness 3 seconds later when a stronger spell became available. All the white magic was effective - Some of the black magic was (although it got replaced too quickly at first, I thought. Bolt 1 to Bolt 2 in a matter of minutes for me). Effect magic was my main problem though. Some was used frequently, others - never. You can def find uses for some, but its too rare for my liking. Dont get me wrong - I love the game, but the spell system was a bit iffy for me. I didnt enjoy the fact all characters are able to cast White/Black/Effect magic, thought it'd be coold if only certain characters could cast certain magic - THAT would be challenging and fun

~On a side note: I want Square to remake this game eventually on GB or something with FIXES. THE CORRECT FIXES. I mean HUGE changes: Fix the translations, fix the stupid character limit (Fenix Down is laughable - changed to PhoenixDown to make me feel sad for Square) Rofl to Safety Ring, especially since there's another item called Safety Bit. In addition I want added dugeons and stuff! Something to really challange the players, like they did in FF1 - only not crappy and pathetic and making me want to strange Square and bludgeon them. Or if they add scenes that will tie up some lose ends in the game. Maybe fix the sketch system (if we're lucky), and instead of altering the game difficulty by making it 10 to 100 times EASIER, I want some sort of option to make AT LEAST 2x harder. You know - increase enemy stats or something like that. Of course this will NEVER, EVER, EVER happen. Square will rig up a game that makes a mockery of FF6, keeping all the original translations and the further screw ups from FF6 on the PSX (ind Song, PhoenixDown, slow-as-crap attacks, etc.), add a rediculously easy dugeon with some semi-hard boss at the end that is rediculously ludicrous to the game and giving items that give over-the-top stat bonuses to further rig characters to defeat an already dummied-down ending boss to test your mettle against in addition giving characters HUGE stat bonuses thus making the game playable by infants and toddlers everywhere. *huff huff huff*

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"A little tight, but the price was right" - Locke
"Oh, what a Fuddy Duddy" - Relm
"..." - Shadow
"I'm a General, not some love starved twit" - Celes
"Although Edgar showers his attention on the ladies, most are smart enough to pay him no attention. Oh! King Edgar!" - Figaro Castle Inn Attendant

You want a challenge? Play the FF6 Expert Version. We're talking "enemies in the first area cast Break" hard. We're talking "Ultros is an extremly challenging enemy unless you level like crazy" hard.

And by the way, I wasn't kidding about Ultros.

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~ Aurora, exhale bloody air! Dark Holy! ~

Well,Locke,they are remaking this game for the Nintendo DS.Square will probably be lazy and just put the same game on it.And you think that's bad?Well,there is a drawback for it being on a nintendo system.Lately Nintendo has had a nasty habit of dumbing down a perfect and already difficult game's difficulty to something a mere baby could beat in a couple of hours.

This post has been edited by Moogle_Knight on 22nd May 2005 21:38

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GIMME THE PEANUT BUTTER,KUPO!!!

Quote (Adam @ 21st May 2005 00:38)

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 20th May 2005 14:14)

I null voted because there is no mana.

Moderator Edit

I voted that you're a huge jerkoff. And if that isn't an option in this poll, perhaps I'll edit it in. -R51

What the ... Since when did insulting people do anything good?

Yeah, I always thought R51 was a little harsh, but then again, being a mod must be hard...

Anywho, I like to use espers a lot, as long as they are useful, not crappy ones, like Siren and Stray.

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“This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet!” – Kefka

Hmmm... I've never even thought about it, but no. I mostly only use Zoneseek and Golem. Oh, they are so awesome. The only time the espers seem valuable attack wise to me is in the WOB, but they just cost so darn much. Though I do always have Shiva on someone in the burning house in Thamasa and use her to cool off those flames! That's the only SPECIFIC instance I can think of where I used a Esper to attack, other than the first time I played it, to see all the attacks. Once you know what they look like, you're not as inclined to use them. Though Palidor is useful on tough enemies. You get to be absent from the screen for a while, minimizing beatdown time!

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Kupo!

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 20th May 2005 16:14)

Moderator Edit

I voted that you're a huge jerkoff. And if that isn't an option in this poll, perhaps I'll edit it in. -R51

Amusingly enough, if any of us did that, we'd get modded and have our warning levels raised by 1.

I never found espers to be very useful. The rather unfortunate thing is that they cost too much (MP-wise) and have too little an effect. You'd expect them to be the ultimate "spells" considering the importance the storyline gives them, but they hardly have any better an effect than the normal spells.

Some are useful, though. As has been pointed out, Golem/Zoneseek/Palidor/Phantom/Fenrir are very useful defensive spells. Judicious use of Ragnarok can yield very good items. And Phoenix is just plain useful.

An IPS patch to reduce the MP cost of espers and raise the damage they do could be interesting, but the other problem is that FF3/6 is terribly easy as it is. No situation demands the use of an esper to win; it's just an option left open to the player.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."