Spheres

Table of contents

  1. Strategy explanation
  2. Guaranteed Drops
  3. Optional Drops
  4. Distillers

Strategy explanation

Any route that you might use is going to require a certain amount of Power, Speed and Mana Spheres. A certain number of them is a guaranteed Drop from mandatory Encounters during the run but the rest will have to be acquired either while farming AP or intentionally via other strategies, this article will go in depth on both guaranteed and optional Sphere Drops.

Guaranteed Drops

This is the list of all instances of guaranteed Sphere Drops:

  • Power Spheres (31):
    • Underwater Ruins: Tros, 2
    • Besaid: Dingo x2 and Garuda, 1 each
    • Kilika: Sinspawn Geneaux, 2
    • Luca: Sahagin Chief x17, Vouivre, Garuda and Raldo, 1 each
    • Macalania: Wendigo, 1
    • Home: Bombs x3, 1 each
  • Speed Spheres (2):
    • Besaid: Condor x2, 1 each
  • Mana Spheres (5):
    • Besaid: Water Flan x2, 1 each
    • S.S. Liki: Sin, 1
    • Kilika: Ragora, 1
    • Bikanel: Sandragora, 1

Optional Drops

Depending on how many Spheres the route requires, you might have to keep track of optional Drops.

All of the monsters in the Guaranteed Drops section will drop double the amount of Spheres on an Overkill, in that case the extra Sphere(s) could be counted as optional (some Overkills might be guaranteed depending on the route, for example Wendigo and the Bombs).

This is the list of the most common monsters that drop optional Spheres:

  • Power Spheres:
    • Underwater Ruins and Lagoon: Piranha (group of 1, Common Drop)
    • Kilika: Dinonix (Rare Drop)
    • Moonflow North: Bunyip 1, Garm
    • Thunder Plains: Melusine (Rare Drop)
    • Bikanel: Sand Wolf, Mushussu
    • Via Purifico Underwater: Phlegyas, Sahagin
    • Gagazet Underwater: Splasher
  • Speed Spheres:
    • Underwater Ruins and Lagoon: Piranha (group of 3, Common Drop)
    • Kilika: Dinonix (Common Drop), Killer Bee
    • Moonflow North: Bite Bug
    • Thunder Plains: Buer, Melusine (Common Drop)
    • Bikanel: Alcyone
  • Mana Spheres:
    • Underwater Ruins and Lagoon: Piranha (group of 2, Common Drop)
    • Kilika: Yellow Element, Ragora
    • S.S. Liki: Underwater Sinscales 2
    • Thunder Plains: Aerouge
    • Cavern of the Stolen Fayth: Ghost

All of the monsters listed in this section normally drop 1 Sphere, 2 on an Overkill.

Refer to the route guide on what the strategy is to kill these monsters.

Distillers

A series of Statuses can be inflicted on monsters to change the type of Item they will drop. To inflict one of these Statuses you can either use a Distiller Items, they can be Purchased from most Shops after Home (most notably Rin and the Chest Shop in Via Purifico Underwater), or, in the International/HD versions, you can use a Weapon with a Distill Auto-ability, they can be customized by using 2 of the corresponding Spheres, but you might obtain one that already has one of those Auto-abilities as a Drop.

Note that only one of the Distill Statuses can be present on a monster at any time, meaning that, for example, if a Distill Speed is used after a Distill Power, they will only drop Speed Spheres.

The best user of these Statuses is Rikku because she is present in the party for most of the Encounters where they can be used, and her default Weapon is a Claw with a free slot that is most likely unused otherwise.

This is the list of monsters that you can easily Distill and their normal Drops:

  • for these monsters you can exclusively use a Weapon with Distill:
    • Anima: Ability Sphere x1
    • Seymour: Blk Magic Sphere x1 or Special Sphere x1
    • Guado Guardian in the Wendigo Encounter: Ability Sphere x1 3
    • Sandragora: Mana Sphere x1 and Al Bhed Potion x2 (they will all be converted to Spheres)
  • for these monsters it’s also possible to use a Distiller Item:
    • Warrior Monks in the 1st and 3rd Bevelle Guards fights: Ability Sphere x1
    • YAT-99 in the 5th Bevelle Guards fight: Phoenix Down x1 or Mega Phoenix x1
    • Evrae Altana: Blk Magic Sphere x1
    • Seymour Natus: Lv. 2 Key Sphere x2
    • Defender X: Lv. 2 Key Sphere x2

Note: some of the normal Drops from the monsters above might be necessary for the route, the most relevant ones being Lv. 2 Key Spheres from Seymour Natus and Defender X.

  1. during the Rikku Chest Steal Tutorial you can kill one of them with the Mix, but it is not mandatory. ↩

  2. while you might not directly Attack and kill them, they die when Sinspawn Echuilles dies, meaning you might “kill” 0, 2 or 4 of them depending on when exactly the boss was killed. ↩

  3. they will counter with Auto-Potion if they were not Stolen from previously. ↩