Item management
Table of contents
Strategy explanation
The NSG speedrun makes heavy use of items because they are the only way to have meaningful damage (especially in section where summoning Aeons is not possible) and useful status effects; these items can only be used by Rikku and she is also the only one who can Steal them.
Item management is important because stealing can be really slow (and risky in some cases), so the goal is to minimize the amount of Steals while having the minimum required amount of items to go through the Home/Evrae/Bevelle Guards and Possessed Aeons sections.
AoE throwables
The main 3 AoE damaging items used are Silence Grenades, Sleeping Powders and Smoke Bombs. While a certain number of each of them is required because of their status effects, they do the same amount of damage (703 to 793). It is possible to substitute one or more of these items for Petrify Grenades, but they only are avaible as a Rare Steal. Shadow Gems can also be used, but they are more situational since they do damage based on the current HP of the enemies and some monsters are immune to that type of damage.
Silence Grenades
Silence Grenades are only obtainable from Anima and since it’s only possible to Steal once in that fight, there is the possibility to either get 3 or 0 (by getting a Rare Steal, 1 Farplane Shadow), they are used to Silence the Guado in the Home Bomb fight (altough it’s possible to do a different strategy that uses a Petrify Grenade, explained below) and Seymour Flux, making the 3rd one only useful for damage.
Sleeping Powders
Sleeping Powders can be obtained by stealing from Snow Wolves in Macalania Lake and Sand Wolves in Bikanel they are used to put to Sleep the Monks in the Bevelle Guards section: it’s recommended to obtain at least 4 but only 2 are necessary (for fights 2 and 4), because in the other fights it’s possible to use 2 AoE throwables (1 in the case of Petrify Grenade) to kill the Monks before their first turn.
Smoke Bombs
Smoke Bombs can be obtained by stealing from Alcyones and Zus, both found in Bikanel, they are used to apply Dark to the Bombs in the Home Bomb fight and to Evrae (after the Dark applied by Chaos Grenade ends): since only 2 (or 1, if using a Petrify Grenade in the Home Bomb fight) are used for their status effect, most of them will be used for damage.
Petrify Grenades
Petrify Grenades can be obtained from Iguions (found in Thunder Plains) and Melusines (found in Macalania Woods), but only as a Rare Steal, they can be used in the Home Bomb fight (using a different strategy, explained below) or in fights 1 and 3 in the Bevelle Guards section.
Home Bomb strategy (Petrify Grenade)
Formation should be Tidus/Wakka/Auron:
- Tidus > Switch > Rikku
- Rikku > Steal > Bomb
- if Preemptive:
- Wakka > Defend
- Auron > Defend
- Rikku > Use > Petrify Grenade
Shadow Gems
Shadow Gems can only be obtained from Sand Worms in Bikanel, and only as a Common Steal, they deal 1/2 of the enemies’ current HP (or 0, if the monster is immune to percentage based damage): they are used mainly in fights 2 and 4 of the Bevelle Guards section but they can also be used as the 1st item in fights 1, 3 and 5 (they will deal 700 damage to the Monks and 1350 damage to the YAT-99), having more than 5 of them is not useful.
Elemental Items
At least an item of each Element is obtained so there is always a fast way to kill Spherimorph without Elemental Shift, some of them can be used as damaging items and some can be used to customize elemental protections for some specific strategies.
Bomb Cores
Bomb Cores are obtained from the Chest in the Steal/Mix Tutorial battle in Moonflow North and from Bombs in the Home Bomb fight, they are only used for the Spherimorph Mix and for dealing damage to the robots in the Bevelle Guards fights 2, 4 and 5 since they are weak to Fire.
While having at least 5 before leaving Home is recommended, it’s possible to continue with only 3, either by having at least 2 Shadow Gems or by using Shooting Star (Auron’s second Overdrive) to kill the YKT-63 in Bevelle Guards fight 2 instead of 2 Bomb.
Lightning Marbles
Lightning Marbles are obtained from a Chest in Guadosalam and occasionally from a Chimera in Macalania Woods (Rare Steal), either 1 or 2 are used for Mixes (Crawler and possibly Spherimorph), while the rest is used as a damage item on Crawler/Seymour/Evrae.
Arctic Winds
Arctic Winds are obtained from Chimeras in Macalania Woods (Common Steal) and from Ice Flans in Macalania Lake, they can be used to customize SOS Nulfrost for a backup strategy on Seymour Natus (2 total), the rest can be used as a damage item on Seymour/Evrae.
Fish Scales
Fish Scales can be obtained from Blue Elements in Macalania Woods, 4 of them can be used to customize Water Ward for a more consistent strategy in Via Purifico Maze, they can be used as damaging items but they deal less damage compared to the others, since they are Tier 1 (562-635).
Gems
Gems (Water, Fire and Lightning Gems) are used in conjunction with Trio of 9999 to deal damage to lategame enemies: Seymour Flux, Yunalesca, Sin Core, Overdrive Sin, Braska’s Final Aeon. Since all the monsters they are used on are Neutral to all Elements, they are all equivalent to each other. Water Gems are also stolen from and immediately used on Evrae.
At least 1 Gem is necessary before Seymour Flux and it’s necessary to leave Gagazet with at least 4 of them, they are mainly stolen from Grenades in the Mountain Path but they can also be stolen from Imps in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, Maelspikes and Achelous (only Common) in Gagazet Underwater, Chimera Brains in Calm Lands North West.
Possessed Aeons items
The last battles of the game require to do deal enough damage to the enemies before they are healed, meaning that it’s necessary to kill them in 2 Rikku turns (possibly adding some damage from Lulu). The best items to use for this purpose are Poison Fangs (stolen from Nebiroses in Calm Lands, they deal 1875 to 2117 damage), Dream Powders (stolen from Skolls in Calm Lands and Bandersnatches in Gagazet, they deal 937 to 1058 damage), Tier 2 Elemental items (Lightning Marbles, Bomb Cores, Arctic Winds, they deal 937 to 1058 damage).
A total of at least 9 items is necessary to kill all the Aeons (Poison Fangs count as 2, Dream Powders and Tier 2 Elemental items count as 1): in Calm Lands it’s guaranteed to have either a Nebiros or a Skoll in each encounter and in Gagazet there is a 1/5 chance to encounter a Bandersnatch, meaning that it’s very likely to leave Gagazet with at least 7 of them; it’s very likely to have some Elemental items leftover after Bevelle Guards; a Silence Grenade/Sleeping Powder/Smoke Bomb can be used instead of a Dream Powder on Valefor, lowering the total to 8.
Note that a Lulu spell will do at least 125 damage and that while Ifrit/Ixion/Shiva absorb their respective Element every other Element will hit for Neutral damage.
Valefor
Valefor can be killed with a Dream Powder and a Silence Grenade/Sleeping Powder/Smoke Bomb or Tier 2 Elemental item, meaning that if one of those is still in the inventory after Seymour Flux the total number of items can be lowered to 8; she will always die from a Poison Fang or 2 Dream Powders/Tier 2 Elemental items.
Ifrit and Ixion
Ifrit and Ixion have similar HP values, they can die from a single Poison Fang but if they don’t any item or a Lulu spell will kill them; they have a really high chance to die from 2 Dream Powders and a Lulu spell.
Shiva
Shiva will always die from a Poison Fang or 2 Dream Powders.
Bahamut
Bahamut will have 842 HP at most after being hit by Kimahri’s Self-Destruct, meaning that he could be killed by a Silence Grenade/Sleeping Powder/Smoke Bomb and a Lulu spell but he will always die to more powerful items.
Aeons HP table
The Possessed Aeons have the same HP as your Aeons, so depending on what is the total Encounter Count they can have different amounts of HP (note that the Aeons’ stats increase only after the encounter, so on encounter 330 Valefor will still have 1465 HP for example)
If using a No Encounters Armor, the Encounter Count could be below 330 before starting the final fights, otherwise it will always be around 360 (having more than 390 encounters is almost impossible).
| Aeon | HP after 300 encounters | HP after 330 encounters | HP after 360 encounters | HP after 390 encounters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valefor | 1465 | 1525 | 1573 | 1685 |
| Ifrit | 2007 | 2057 | 2097 | 2297 |
| Ixion | 1981 | 2041 | 2089 | 2271 |
| Shiva | 1760 | 1820 | 1868 | 2020 |
| Bahamut | 2840 | 2910 | 2966 | 3250 |