Take note of these points:

a) Always equip the Level Up ability to gain extra exp. [unless your characters are at level 99. Duh!]
b) Exp gained is divided equally among party members. Those who are in K.O, Petrify, Virus, and Zombie status cannot gain exp. Therefore, if you want to train a particular character's level, have all the other three party members in these bad status as mentioned above, such that they can't gain any exp.

At Memoria:

  Many monsters at Memoria give a lot of exp. But, they are rather tough and it's not a good place for characters to level up. [There are many bosses at Memoria for you to beat and I am sure you want to reserve your party's strength to fight these bosses than wasting all the energies on these monsters.] But, some of these monsters there even give more exp than what a Grand Dragon and a Yan can give.

List of these monsters:

1) Ash [40,329 exp]
2) Chimera [42,785 exp]
3) Iron Man [42,996 exp]
4) Veteran [15,181 exp]
5) Stilva [42,785 exp]
6) Behemoth [53,168 exp]

Grand Dragon:

  Each Grand Dragon is at level 60, has 13,206 HP and 2550 MP. By defeating a Grand Dragon, the party gains 2604 Gil and 35,208 Exp. You can find Grand Dragons by climbing up the rope inside Gizamaluke's Grotto to a mountain plain or on the island where Daguerreo is. At the mountain plain, after climbing the rope inside Gizamaluke's Grotto, you will notice two forests. If you search around any of the two forests, you will come across Garuda. Garuda has only 3,512 HP and 1,216 MP and gives the party 1,279 Gil and 6,933 Exp when you defeat it. You may also have a friendly encounter.

Tips and strategies for the Grand Dragons:

a) Quina's Lv5 Death will kill the Grand Dragon instantly because Grand Dragon's level is 60, which is a multiple of 5. Learn blue magic, Lv5 Death by letting Quina eat enemies like Stroper, Draco-zombie, Whale Zombie, and Lich.
b) Quina's Lv3 Def-less will reduce defense of enemies whose levels are multiples of 3, including Grand Dragons. You can let Quina learn Lv3 Def-Less by letting Quina eat enemies like Carve Spider, Lamia, Lizard Man, Sand Scorpion, Ochu and Grand Dragon.
c) Equip Coral Ring to absorb Thundaga. Consider equipping other equipments that protects or absorbs Thundaga. One way of getting Coral Ring is to let Freya win in the Festival Of The Hunt.
d) Equip auto-reflect on all party members to reflect the Thundaga magic back to Grand Dragons. Vivi can equip Reflectx2 and Auto-Reflect to ensure that Thundaga is being reflected at two times its normal power.
e) Grand Dragons use Poison Claws and Venom Breath. Poison Claw causes some damage plus the Poison status to a single character and Venom Breath causes the Venom status to a single character. Equip the Antibody ability to prevent getting the Poison and Venom status.
f) Killer attacks like Steiner's Shock ability, Freya's Dragon Crest [If you defeat enough Dragons] and Zidane's Thievery [If Zidane steals enough] work perfectly well and makes the fight extremely easy. [If all these attacks are able to do 9999 HP of damage.]
g) Equip your characters with your best equipment. This includes the strongest weapon for each character.
h) Have a decent level, at least 30 or more and have at least 1000 HP. Later in the game, when I acquired powerful equipments for all my characters, I didn't really have much of a problem beating Grand Dragons. Grand Dragons are REALLY NOTHING!!! But, if you want to beat Grand Dragons early in the game, it's not that easy and you might need some of strategies and tips above, especially c), d) and e), assuming that you have not learned the powerful abilities and blue magic yet. Furthermore, beating the Grand Dragons help to build up the strength of Freya's Dragon Crest. For just 16 MP, Freya can easily do 9999 HP with his Dragon Crest attack when you have defeated enough dragons.

Strategy to beat the Grand Dragons:

  This method works too, even during the early part of your game when your party's level is low and you want them to earn levels quickly. First, let Quina learn the Limit Glove Blue magic spell. Limit Glove allows Quina to cause non-elemental damage to the target when Quina's HP is 1. You can let Quina learn the spell by eating a radish-head monster in the forest northeast of Chocobo Forest. Quina can also learn Limit Glove by eating Mu, Axe Beak, Mandragora, Blazer Beetle, Jabberwock and Catoblepas. Next, bring Quina's HP to 1 by killing it in a battle and then use a phoenix down to revive it. Its HP will then be 1. With Quina's HP to 1, save your game. Now, encounter a battle with Grand Dragon. To kill the Grand Dragon, all you need is to hope that Quina will be alive with 1 HP for two rounds. For the first round, have Quina cast Limit Glove on the Grand Dragon. Then, on the secound round, have Quina use Eat. It will most likely to be successful and Quina will learn the Lvl 3 Def-less blue spell. It may need a couple of reset but it is worth the time!!!

Yan:

  Each Yan is at level 72 and has a 19,465 HP and 3378 MP. By defeating a Yan, the party gains 2218 Gil and 42,673 Exp. Yans are a lot tougher than the Grand Dragon. You can find Yan on Vile Island, an island southwest of the Iifa Tree that can only be accessed by an airship or the gold chocobo. The good thing about Yans are that they USUALLY come in a group of two or three, letting you gain a lot of Exp at one go when you defeat them. If Quina manages to eat one of these Yans, he can learn the Auto-Life ability. Furthermore, if you run out of Elixir, you can steal one from each Yan. You can steal an Ore and an Elixir from each Yan. Furthermore, it can cause the Virus status to your character. However, some see it as a VALUABLE HELP instead. Firstly, assume that you are TRAINING ONLY ONE character. You would definitely want your other three characters to be either in the K.O, Petrify, Virus, or Zombie status so that they can't gain Exp and ONLY that character who isn't in these bad status can gain all the Exp, without dividing the Exp equally with other party members. In K.O and Petrify status, the other three characters cannot help you during battle. As for Zombie status, even though the character can help you, healing items or healing magics can cause damage to them. So, the best way is to have the other three party members in the Virus status. These three characters CAN'T gain exp, yet they can help to defeat that tough Yan. It's the best of TWO worlds. However, if the character that you are training now, gets the Virus status, remember to use a Vaccine to cure him or her. Yans can cast Comet which can sometimes instantly kill a character. The Yans also tend to use Float a lot. Certain spells like Firaga when casted on Yan will cause Yan to use Float. For example, if Vivi uses Firaga to attack on ALL three Yans, all the three Yans will then counterattack with Float. Now, here comes the MOST important part. Yans can use Snort, which can blow your character away. The character that is BLOWN away will not be able to help you anymore, unless the battle ENDS. You definitely wouldn't want this to happen because there will be less people to help you. Besides, Snort is randomly used on any character. There is also a high tendency that Yans will use Snort to blow a character that you want to be in the battle away. However, once the battle ends, you will find the character back to the party again. His status like current HP, MP etc will remain the same, which is JUST BEFORE he or she is being blown.

Tips and strategies for the Yans:

a) Your characters must be at a decent level, preferably above 40 and with at least 1500 HP or more.
b) Equip your characters with your best equipments. This includes the strongest weapon for each character.
c) Killer attacks like Steiner's Shock ability, Freya's Dragon Crest [If you defeat enough Dragons] and Zidane's Thievery [If Zidane steals enough] work perfectly well and makes the fight extremely easy. [If all these attacks are able to do 9999 HP of damage.] If there are more than one Yan, use Steiner's Climhazzard attack since it can cause 8000+ damage to ALL three Yans instead of just 9999 HP to ONE Yan.
d) Quina's Lv3 Def-less will reduce defense of Yans because their level is 72, which is a multiple of 3.
e) Equip all your characters with the Auto-Reflect ability. If Yans use Float, the Float spells will be reflected back. Since the Yans are occupied by having to cast 'Float', then the chances of Yans casting Comet will decrease.
f) Consider using attacks that can finish off the battle quickly. An example is casting Odin. It's not a sure-get victory but it's possible to have Odin killing all the 3 Yans together giving you instant victory if it works. If not, that's just too bad.
g) Consider using attacks like Doom or Countdown. When the Yans are inflicted with Doom or Countdown, you might want to cast a time consuming spell so that the timer finishes off quickly, killing the Yans. Thus, the Yans will have less time to attack before the timer runs out. An example is summoning Ark because the summoning animation is long, especially the full animation one. I suggest using Soul Blade + Masamune combination, it works pretty good on Yans. That means have Zidane equip Masamune and it adds Doom to Zidane's attacks. By using Zidane's Soul Blade on Yans, Doom will be inflicted on them. 

 

 

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