So I skipped a lot of the random battles and chose to continue with the storyline. It became obviously really early that this was a mistake because the increase of difficulty in the encounters was significant. So I back-tracked to the open field and started grinding.

A couple questions:
How many mission's are there?

How much preparation should I do in order to continue the storyline with some relative ease?
Up until now I haven't upgraded my weapons; What level should I upgrade them to?
I also have about level 3 in most all my characters main jobs; Again, What level should they be?

Thank You.

There are like 60 something missions.
Your weapons can be whatever level you want them to be. I only had Gladius at Lv14 before moving onto the story.
They should be level 3 or 4. I didn't necessarily get to Lv4 role, but I got some nodes that were in the Lv4 category.

Your perfectly fine the way you are right now. This happened to me as well, but I actually found a grind spot by myself [ xD Just pointing that out cuz I own ] during the chapters before 11. The spot was at Hope's house after they invaded, you could just run in circles and they'll respawn each time. I grinded there for a bit then moved forward cause I didn't know there was a "Free-Roam".

Did you have trouble in late chapter 11? I am not finding it impossible but there are a couple encounters that are giving me some trouble.

anywhere where you can finish the fight in less then 2 minutes is a grinding spot

my preference is where you see the king behemoth fighting the giant wolf thing,


quick fight because it starts pre-emptive, and the behemoth will go down easily, then just kill the wolf, which isnt too hard, usually takes me 30 seconds to a minute

That is where I am grinding now. I think I am at least going to get Lightning to level 4 Com before continuing,

This post was edited by bongtokess on Mar 21 2010 10:50pm

there are 64 missions i believe.
as for job lvls, you should just max out w/e you can.
it unlocks a bit more after you beat bartandelus at end of ch 11,
from there you can probably return to grinding in 11 if you want and further upgrade your grid as much as possible.

Ive noticed that if I try to upgrade a job that the the character didn't start with then it cost a lot more CP. Would it be wiser to upgrade the job's they started with in order to get the str/mag bonus' before moving onto other jobs?
For instance, I am trying to give Fang the Medic job in order to replace Vanille from my party. But one thing in the crystarium takes up so much cp.

vanielle and fang are gna need to have high life fyi

gna? What does that mean?
My party now mainly consists of Light, Snow, and Vanielle
Com/Rav/Rav
Com/Rav/Med
Com/Sen/Med

I fought at Ragna [ the penguin lookin creatures taht can summon ].
It took me 4 seconds to kill them. It's always an easy pre-emptive attack, and so I would play as Com/Rav/Rav. Hope and Vanille would cast Blizzaga or Waterga, which one will put them in stagger and the other one will do 10-13k damage while Light finishes the kill with 2 blitz. The creatures are normally stacked close together so picking the one the middle made it 4 seconds.

No. I did not have trouble later during Chapter 11, or even pass Mah'habara. The only trouble I had was vs the Behemoth and the wolf. I must've been doing something wrong at the time cause it seems fairly easy for everyone.