Final Fantasy Accessories and Weapons

Part of what makes Final Fantasy games is so addictive for me is not so much the stories but how I can find and unlock rare items in the game to build my ultimate/ perfect setup. My most recent success with the Pink Tail in FFIV (last post) is good example (all 10 characters have their ultimate weapon/ gear/ accessories), as is all those dresspheres and garment grinds - as well as the ultimate bosses I unlocked - in FFX-2. With FFIII I've unlocked all the jobs but the game is simply too grindy (even for me) I'll leave that for now. FF Type 0 is even worse as trying to get the ultimate spells and gears mean AFK grinding i.e. taping your control down so it'd grind while you are "away from keyboard" (!!) What? Again, I'll leave that for now.    

Is this the Real final setup?

Which leaves us FFVII: Crisis Core and, surprisingly, the setup for Zack has taken me a longer time to fine tune and perfect (as you can see my past posts). And I am still tweaking it. While getting his accessories (e.g. the Genji gear and Divine Slayer) was "straightforward" -- completing the 300 missions and unlocking all the scenes in the DMW but it wasn't as grindy as in FF Type 0 -- his materia setup is more fiddly. It took me ages just to understand how it works; it's a bit like chemistry when you combine two things you get a new one only you have to think about transferring "properties" from one thing to another. Like, how to give Costly Punch more VIT or create an attack that has more SPR etc. Well, unfortunately it is impossible to transfer VIT+100 to Costly Punch. Luckily, I can boost its VIT stats by fusing it with another Costly Punch materia and lots of aegis armlets (which, thank god, was easy to farm). So with stat boosting accessories like Ziedrich + summon materia, I am able to cap all VIT, SPR and MAG stats. 

But I didn't want to have the SPR+ and VIT+ materia taking up my precious skills slots so today I managed to do more materia fusion and now have BOTH Costly Punch and Quake, as well as an additional Mug skill (which I could transfer the SPR +100 onto). I'd have liked to have Dual Cast but you cannot transfer stats onto it (i,e. if I wanna have it on, then I won't have SPR +255). Besides, I'll need to Master it (hmm, may do that later) ... maybe I will alternate a Mastered Dual Cast with either Lucky Stars or Rebirth Flame. 

A couple of hours later...

Okay, I just levelled up/ Mastered Dual Cast (in that tedious kill 1,000 troupers mission - yikes) and I don't really see any distinct advantage of having the skill other than it heals more (?) (and did I imagine it or it eats up a lot of MPs for Quake?) So, back in Rebirth Flame (great animation) + Lucky Stars. Just took Zack to that "only for 1st class mission" (love the spawning of those eggs...) and got a free phoenix down from the RF summon. Level 96 now so three more levels to cap that.