A question for all you experienced FF7 players: Where're the best hunting places for getting Gil, exp, and, especially, AP faster? I am on Disc 3 and I have a gold chocobo, so I can access pretty much all locations in game. What would be the best place to level my materia and chars in terms of effort/effect ratio?

Well, I'm not that experienced, but I think Mideel area is a good place to develop your materia and level up.

northern cave
there are some good monsters to get exp and ap

This post has been edited by morville on 30th August 2007 10:59

Yeah, definitely the Northern Cave. At the place where you split your party up to go left or right, go left. Then on the next screen go east. You'll be able to fight Magic Pots and Movers for massive Gil, AP, and Exp. That is a good place to use your Save Crystal if you haven't already used it. Make sure you have Elixirs. They can be stolen from Master Tonberry and Gighee, or just use the W-Item cheat.

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exactly, only make sure that you bring enough elixers! i just want to overemphisize that, since you will need a lot if you want to seriously level up. you can also steal them from tonberries, if you run out. also, make sure you use the save crystal right in that swampy area. it leads almost directly to the final battle, and you won't have to travel around much to get back to the magic pot area.



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Im not quite sure whether youve done it or not, or even if it is still accessible, but the impact crater area is a good spot for levelling along with the northern cave. The monsters are a bit tamer, but there is also less necessity to collect elixirs and copy items, so either has worked for me.

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Cool, thank you. There's just one thing that worries me a bit - would it possible to come back to the world map after that?

Yes, it is possible, don't worry. I'm not sure about the bottom of the crater, but in the top, where there are the tonberries and the creatures that make you lvl4 or lvl3 death - it is possible. Be sure to equip Destruct+Added effect on your armour to protect you against death.
So, as I was reading this is the point of no return:
http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/ff7/walkthrough.php?chapter=3-8

The Sunken Submarine (I forget the name) is a pretty good place if you go in the back room. Once that gets old, the Northern Cave is the place to be.

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gelenika is not too good, at least for AP. The enemies there are dangerous and take time to defeat, and the highest AP you can get is about 300.
Of areas other than the crater, I found the most profiting in terms of AP the areas you reach when you slide down from icicle village. Monsters there are weak as hell but give a reasonable high AP - 150-200 per battle..
The magic pot area in northern cave is outta competition any way

The best thing about the gelnika is that all 6 of the enemies there can be morphed into each of the different sources.

Mideel and Wutai (BEcause of the crap load of X-Potions I'd get) were my main spots.

Also, a lot of areas used for side quests are good places to "hunt"

This post has been edited by Blodwynne on 10th October 2007 04:11

cactuar island for xp/ap and money tis at the bottom of the map.... in the opposite place to ffviii

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If you want to hunt early on in the game, there is a sly little trick you can use. When you take the ship from Junon to Costa Del Sol just climb back on the ship again to get back to Junon. Now go to where the road is leading to the underwater reactor (there are a platoon of Shinra soldiers being drilled). There is a big red button on the wall in this screen, press it, and the alarm will go off alerting the guards. You can fight some relatively strong enemies here worth more than any other monster until the Rocket Town forests. Very useful for early leveling.

Even earlier, after you jump of the train to bomb the second reactor, run down the screens until you come to the two red guards. It's good for difficult battles early in the game. If you're feeling impressive, level up until 25+ in the first reactor (not easy, my friend made a save so I don't need to keep doing it!) then buy 99 potions in the slums to keep you alive long enough. If you tape down the left analogue and tape down "rapid" circle, the circle takes priority so Cloud runs into the screen, chooses to fight the guards, kills them, then chooses to run away. This repeats endlessly, but you really need the potions to survive for as long as you need. Level 25 is my recommended level but I suppose it's possible a few levels lower. It's a shame when you run out of potions and MP!

At the end of the game, if you're doing it manually, the Northern Crater is the best. But why do it manually when you can set up your guys with Cat's Bell, tape down circle/up, and run along a beach for levels while you get a drink!

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jep in my oppinion its the best "grind" place on DISC 1

you cant climbe up to Mideel but after reciving the Tiny Bronco you can land on the lower beach (near the materia cave)

with 2-3pack`s of Spiral`s as enemy

one comes with 700 ep 80 ap 1300 gil

so for one battle you gain 1400-2100 ep 160-240 ap in total

but pay atention lvl 39 mobs with 2800 live can be a pain in the a** under lvl 40

if anyone knows a higher rate on disc one and Aeris still in your group let me know

edit: not to mention like Blodwynne said you gain x-pots by stealing

This post has been edited by orbit1883 on 18th November 2007 21:51

don't need to grind in disk1 ;p

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You guys pointed the best AP and Exp spots, but no one mentioned the best way to get Gil: sell a mastered All materia. You get a lot of All materias through the game, they are easy to master, and the shops will pay 1 MILLION GIL for any master All materia. If you sell two of them, you'll have the money to buy everything, from loads of the most expensive greens from Chocobo Sage, to useless things like the Costa del Sol 300.000 GIL apartment

Which, I might add, is not 100% useless. Nothing like a free place to recover when you're feeling cheap.

My personal preference is the Sunken Gelnika Plane. Though the Poodlers and Bad Raps aren't the most generous enemies when it comes to experience or AP, they aren't hard to defeat, which makes them worthwhile (in my opinion). Double and Triple growth items help make them a little more manageable, while Materia combinations like Sneak Attack + Ultima or a similarly powerful spell can hasten the battle.

My recommendation, if you want to level up stuff using the Gelnika plane without risking battle against the Unknowns, is to equip two characters (Cloud and Cid are probably the best two) for maximum Materia growth, while having your third character set up to eliminate enemies rapidly (1 or 2 Mastered Pre-Emptives, MP Absorb + Ultima or a similar powerful magic, etc).

Good point. Alternatively you could put a mastered Gil Plus on with the autolevel setup. 10000 gil per Cactuar on Cactuar island, as LeaveTheRonso says, is recommended if you need to keep your Alls.

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actualli, you get 1.4 million gil for a mastered All Materia... In my opinion I think the northern cave is the best place to train for gil/AP/Exp in the swampy area as the others said..i mean you with each magic pot (if you give it an elixir) you get 8000 Exp, 1000 AP and quite a bit of Gil...

I have to agree. I've been doing this all day today. Gained over 20 levels, mastered all summons, including Knights of the Round, Shield, W-magic, mega-all, etc. etc. I found all that stuff in the cave (Except of course KoftheR) and mastered it in same day. Not to mention about 20 other materia's...all mastered today using magic pots. Oh yeah, did it with Rune Armor (Double AP) on all 3 characters, Apocolypse sword for Cloud (Triple AP), and the other two characters had Double AP weapons.

Cave with magic pots is the way to go.

Yeah, Northern Cave is the place to be.

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u forgot the scimitar for cid triple ap
also where is the apocolypse sword i have never came across
also i found that the best place on disc 1 to lvl is the lower area with the tiny bronco got lvl 50 on my team b4 end of disc 1
anyone got a good guide to defeating ruby weapon as that has eluded me since about 1998 who needs another gold chocobo wen its easier to raise one urself

i also had bolt 3 ice 3 fire 3 cure 3 bio 3 quake 3 demi 3 all that sort of stuff

This post has been edited by crisis_from_the_sky on 21st January 2008 22:11

Random battle > kill off 2 team members > Go to Ruby > Ruby puts tentacles in ground > Revive Members > W-Summon Hades+KoR > Mime > Mime > Mime ( etc.) until he's dead, you need to reset the KoR chain, or you take a break to heal/admire the scenery.

a good guide to killing emerald is 3 charcters 7777 hp each. mini and manipulate an enemy remember to start with about 7000 hp or wot ever just not over 7777 get your life to xx77 end the battle heal to 7777 on all 3 chars and w-summon+kotr is a quick way to kill the mofo also final attack+phoenix is handy

mastered final attack+phoenix equipped to one character, kill off the other two before the battle with ruby. enter the battle and KOTR all day, to save MP you can just KOTR once and mime over and over again, if he happens to kill your character you will revive your whole party with phoenix and if you really want to win ridiculously easy you can have your other characters have mime as well, and basically you see KOTR over and over again while you laugh at ruby.

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It's important to use Hades + KoR with W-Summon since Hades can get Ruby with the "Stop" condition.

hrm, i never knew ruby could be affected by stop, doesnt that make him a little too easy though?

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You can get 'Dazers' from (I think) those little round spiky monsters on the way to the Forgotten City. These stop Ruby from moving. Hades didn't work for me. After you've done that KotR - Mime - Mime - Mime etc. If your lucky you'll beat it before it snaps out of stop.

Also, use weapons that triple AP points during this battle. I've almost mastered KotR.

Apart from that I use the area around Mideel. Groups of those little green things give decent EXP and AP I think.

Just get 99x Elixir and go kill Magic Pots, you get 8000 exp and 1000AP for every magic pot (They appear alone or then 2 of them)

It took me 1,5 hours to get from level 62 to level 87.
I got 15x All materias to Master, I got Double Cut on master, 3x HP and 3x MP increasing materials.

Well then, I went to get Ominshlash from Gold Saucer.. Well guess what ? My game goddamn got stuck and I lost all the work I did.. Well, iguess I have to go get this stuff again..

Btw.. It's good source for money too, you got 7500 gil for each magic pot too ^^

And then one more tip, if you have problems getting the elixirs and you don't care if you use cheat, do this: get "W-Item" materia, equip it to anyone, use it in a battle then go and choose that you use elixir, choose target, use it. When you're choosing second item, choose elixir, and then press X then keep pressing O, X, O, X, O, X ..... And everytime you press X you get one more Elixir, ain't it cool ?

You can get unlimited money by doing this, buy Sylkis Green, then copy it to 99, sell 98 of them, repeat.

Have fun! ^^