Getting Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons EARLY
This Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons guide will teach you how to get the best weapons in Final Fantasy 8 early on disc 1 or later if you prefer.
If you’re playing Final Fantasy 8, you’re obviously going to want to collect all the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons for every character. This Final Fantasy 8 best weapons guide will explain how all of the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons can be found early on disc 1 (except for Irvine’s). Or, if you prefer to not take the extreme steps to get the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons early, the guide explains how to collect the proper ingredients through more conventional methods later on.
While many Final Fantasy 8 best weapons guides explain how these materials can be acquired early, few guides explain certain minor details that ensure you’ll be getting these weapons early without pulling your hair out because you missed Elnoyle cards or Laser Cannons.
More Final Fantasy 8 Guides:
ALL Final Fantasy 8 Seed Test Answers
ALL Final Fantasy 8 GF Locations
After explaining each weapon individually, I’m going to explain step by step what you need to do in order to get all the ingredients for each of the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons as early as possible.
Also, keep in mind you don’t need the Weapons Monthly magazines to get the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. You just need the ingredients. All the magazines do is tell you what ingredients you need in-game, and put it on the junk shop list early so you can review the ingredient requirements.
Without further ado, here is the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons guide.
Lionheart (Squall) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
1x Adamantine
4x Dragon Fang
12x Pulse Ammo
Adamantine
Adamantine drops from the Adamantoise enemies that you can encounter on the beach across from Dollet. Between level 20-29, they have a roughly 4.5% chance of dropping the item. At level 30 or above, they have a ~75% chance to drop the item.
Adamantoises can be tough to fight at early levels because they have high defense and cast White Wind, which heals them back to full. The easiest way to handle this is to junction Berserk to your attack.
Dragon Fang
Dragon Fangs can be tricky because to acquire them early, you have to be fighting enemies under level 30. But, as you may have noticed, for the Adamantine above and the Pulse Ammo below, you want to be over level 30, and the best source of Pulse Ammo comes before Dragon Fangs are available, so you have to choose one or the other.
The easiest way to get Dragon Fangs is to fight Grendels in the forest where the second dream sequence takes place. You have to hug the left canyon wall (your location should say Monterosa Plateau) for Grendels to appear. If you’re doing it right, they’ll be the only enemy you encounter. Grendels under level 19 almost always drop 1 or 2 Dragon Fangs (75% chance). Level 20-29 Grendels have a 20% chance of dropping 2 Dragon Fangs. Grendels over level 30 no longer drop Dragon Fangs.
The only other source of Dragon Fangs in Disc 1 is level 20-29 T-Rexaurs, who drop 6x Dragon Fangs 20% of the time.
Since you have to choose between the Grendels and the Laser Cannon (below), there are two options. You either forego the Laser Cannons and collect an extra 20 Elnoyle cards while you’re still in Balamb Garden so you can have an easy time collecting Dragon Fangs, or you level up to 20 early so you get the Dragon Fangs from T-Rexaurs in the Training Center and then continue leveling up to 30 to make the other drops easier to get.
Pulse Ammo
There are two ways to get Pulse Ammo early for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. You either refine 10 Elnoyle cards into an Energy Crystal with Card Mod (Quezacotl), which you can then refine into 10 Pulse Ammo with Ammo-RF (Ifrit), or you can mug Laser Cannons off of Elastoids in the 2nd dream sequence that takes place in the forest outside Galbadia Garden.
The Laser Cannon method is somewhat easier if you’re aware you need to do extra leveling and grab your Dragon Fangs from the T-Rexaur before you leave Balamb. I’d also recommend this if you only plan on getting Squall’s weapon.
If you want to use the Elnoyle card method, you’re also going to need to grind in Balamb Garden. Specifically, you’ll want to challenge Trepe Groupie #1 in the cafeteria (the same guy who has the Quistis card), who only plays only level 2 and level 5 cards and thus has the highest chance of anyone in the game to play Elnoyles. You need to do this early as if you don’t do it before you leave for Timber, you’ve blown your shot. You need 20 Elnoyle cards to make Squall’s best weapon.
The only other people who play Elnoyle cards on Disc 1 are the boy coming down the stairs in Galbadia garden and the guy who has the Kiros card in Deling City, and both of them play it extremely rarely.
If you’re planning on getting all the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons as early as possible, you’re going to need to grind out an astonishing 80 Elnoyle cards in total.
Ehrgeiz (Zell) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
1x Adamantine
4x Dragon Skin
1x Fury Fragment
Adamantine
As explained in the Squall section of the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons, you need to fight Adamantoise enemies on the beach near Dollet. If they’re level 30+ they’ll drop Adamantine almost every fight. If they’re level 20-29, they’ll drop it around 4.5% of the time.
Because almost all the drops for any of these weapons except Dragon Fang require you to be level 30+, I highly recommend just getting the Dragon Fangs out of the way while you’re still in Balamb so you don’t have to worry about keeping your level low.
Dragon Skin
There are two ways to get Dragon Skin for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. First, you can just fight level 30+ Anacondaurs that are commonly encountered in forests all over Galbadia (the continent with Timber, Dollet & Deling City). If they are level 30+, they’ll drop 4-8 Dragon Skins almost every fight. If they’re under level 30, it’ll be about a 4.5% drop chance.
If you stayed between level 1-19 to get Dragon Fangs from Grendels, you have a chance to get Dragon Skins from those as well. Just keep in mind Grendels no longer drop Dragon Skin after level 19, and even then it’s only a 6% drop for one.
Level 30+ Anacondaurs is the way to go for this.
Fury Fragment
The best way to get a Fury Fragment for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons is to mod 4 Blue Dragon cards into one using Quezacotl’s Card Mod ability. You’ll probably end up with 4 Blue Dragon cards just by collecting all the rare cards in Balamb Garden at the start of the game.
If you want to shoot for Blue Dragon cards specifically, there’s a player called “Dark Skinned Student” that randomly appears in the hallway on the way to the library. Blue Dragon is a level 4 card and this player plays only level 1 and 4 cards, so you’ll see a Blue Dragon almost every match.
Your other option is to fight level 20+ Grendels in the forest where the 2nd dream sequence takes place. They will drop a Fury Fragment about 10% of the time. If they’re level 30+, they’ll drop two. To encounter Grendels, make sure to hug the cliff on the lefthand side of the forest so your location appears in the menu as Monterosa Plateau.
Save the Queen (Quistis) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
2x Malboro Tentacle
4x Sharp Spike
4x Energy Crystal
Malboro Tentacle
Malboro Tentacles are super easy to get for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. All you need to do is mod 4 Malboro cards into 1 Malboro Tentacle using Quezacotl’s Card Mod ability. Malboros are a level 5 card just like Elnoyle, so you can get them easily from Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria before you leave Balamb Garden.
Just make sure to do this before you leave Balamb Garden. If you’re collecting the Elnoyle cards required to make this weapon on Disc 1, you’re almost assured to get the requisite Malboro cards long before you have 40 Elnoyle cards.
Even if you wait until later in the game to make this weapon, modding Malboro cards is a lot better than fighting actual Malboros, which are a huge pain.
Word to the wise, you might want to collect 8 Malboro Tentacles total whenever you choose to do this because you need 6 Malboro Tentacles if you want to collect the GF Doomtrain as soon as it’s available later on.
Sharp Spike
Sharp Spikes are another really easy ingredient to collect for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. You can either mod Grand Mantis or Death Claw cards into Sharp Spikes at a 1:1 ratio, meaning a measly 4 cards total.
Or you can fight Armadodos in the Tomb of the Unknown King, which drop Sharp Spikes at any level.
Sharp Spikes shouldn’t be difficult to get at all.
Energy Crystals
Here’s what makes Quistis’s weapon a real pain to get early on out of all of the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons. You need 4x Energy Crystals. The only way to get these on Disc 1 is to mod Elnoyle cards, and you need 40 of them for 4 Energy Crystals. Not only do you need 40 of them, you also need them for Rinoa and (potentially) Squall’s weapon. In the time it takes to farm 40 Elnoyle cards, you could probably beat the game from start to finish.
Still, if you insist on doing this, play cards against the Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria before you leave Balamb for Timber. He only plays level 2 and 5 cards and farming Elnoyles will go much faster against him.
If you don’t want to farm 40 Elnoyle cards, and I can’t say I blame you, the easiest way to get Energy Crystals is to fight the guaranteed Elnoyle encounter in Esther after returning from space a few times much later in the game. This method takes about 5 minutes vs. the card farming which could take literally days.
Strange Vision (Selphie) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
1x Adamantine
3x Star Fragment
2x Curse Spike
Adamantine
As with Squall and Zell’s Final Fantasy 8 best weapons, Adamantine drops from level 20+ Adamantoises on the beach across from Dollet. If they’re level 30+, they’ll almost always drop it. If they’re level 20-29, it’ll be a rare drop. You can easily tell the level by trying to Draw from them. If they have Blizzaga and Reflect, they’re level 30+.
Selphie’s best weapon is practically free since you’ll probably come across most of its ingredients through normal play or while farming ingredients for other characters’ weapons. It’s also one of the better weapons when it comes to the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons because it gives her 255% Hit in addition to a minor Strength increase.
Star Fragment
There are 3 ways to get Star Fragments for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons: mod Iron Giant cards; kill level 30+ T-Rexaurs; kill level 30+ Anacondaurs.
The Iron Giant cards are obviously the easiest. Since you’re going to be farming an obscene amount of Elnoyle cards if you want Quistis or Rinoa’s Final Fantasy 8 best weapons, you can easily grab the 9 Iron Giant cards you need while doing that. Iron Giant is also a level 5 card, so your best bet is the Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria.
As for the other two methods, I don’t recommend it, purely because they’ll both take longer. Level 30+ T-Rexaurs have a ton of HP and it means grinding an extra 10 levels before you leave Balamb. Anacondaurs have an abysmal (4.5%) drop rate for Star Fragments.
Curse Spike
This one’s easy. There are a couple ways to do it and they’re very easy to accomplish. All you need is 2 Tri-Face cards. Tri-Face is a level 3 card and almost everyone in Balamb will play it pretty regularly. Ironically, the Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria I keep telling you to play will never play Tri-Face, but you’ll probably pick up at least 2 Tri-Face cards just from collecting all the rare cards in Balamb Garden.
Special note here, you’re going to be collecting Tri-Face cards all game anyway to save yourself some extra grinding way later in the game when you want to mod a Dark Matter.
You can also get Curse Spikes from the Forbidden enemies in the Tomb of the Unknown King, but you probably won’t need to resort to that. Although, if you wanted to farm up 100 Curse Spikes to unlock Quistis’s Shockwave Pulsar limit break on Disc 1, that’d be the way to do it.
Shooting Star (Rinoa) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
2x Windmill
1x Regen Ring
1x Force Armlet
2x Energy Crystal
Windmill
There are two ways to get Windmills for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons and they are both easy. First, you can collect Abyss Worm cards. Abyss Worm is a level 3 card and you’ll probably pick up a few of them just from collecting all the rare cards in Balamb Garden.
Second, they’re dropped by the Thrustaevis enemies around Deling City. They drop them below level 30 rarely, but at level 30+ they drop 30% of the time.
Special note here, you should think about getting a bunch of Windmills early because you can use T-Mag RF (Quezacotl) to turn them into Tornados, which is a powerful junction magic for Disc 1 and getting stacks of it is really easy through this method.
Regen Ring
To get a Regen Ring on Disc 1 for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons, you need to mod 10 Chimera cards. Chimera is a level 5 card meaning your best chance of getting them quickly is to play cards against Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria before leaving Balamb Garden.
If you wait until later in the game, the best way to get Regen Rings is to mug them from Toramas around Esther way later in the game.
Force Armlet
There are a couple of ways to get a Force Armlet for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons on Disc 1 and they’re all kind of a pain.
First, there’s a 25% chance the robot spider (X-ATM092) in the first Dollet mission will drop it when you completely kill it. You have to completely deplete its HP 5-6 times for it to be fully destroyed, at which point it will have a 25% chance of dropping a Force Armlet. This is the most reliable way to get one.
Otherwise, you’re going to need to farm level 30+ Ochus in the forests around Galbadia or level 30+ Forbidden enemies in the Tomb of the Unknown King. If you missed the X-ATM092 method, I’d recommend the Forbiddens, as they also drop Curse Spikes which you’ll eventually need to farm 100 of if you want Quistis’s best limit break.
Energy Crystal
As explained in the Squall and Quistis sections, the only way to get Energy Crystals on Disc 1 is to farm Elnoyle cards. The easiest way to farm Elnoyle cards is to repeatedly play the Trepe Groupie #1 in the Cafeteria before leaving Balamb Garden.
For Rinoa’s best weapon you need 20 Elnoyle cards, which will probably take the better part of a day. If you don’t want to do this on Disc 1, you can wait until Disc 3 and farm those Energy Crystals in about 2 minutes from actual Elnoyles in Esther.
Exeter (Irvine) – Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons
Required Ingredients
2x Dino Bone
1x Moon Stone
2x Star Fragment
18x Screw
Dino Bone
Dino Bones drop from T-Rexaurs commonly at all levels. If you farmed your Dragon Fangs from level 20-29 T-Rexaurs while still in Balamb, you almost assuredly already have 2 Dino Bones. If not, go fight 1-2 T-Rexaurs and you’ll get your Dino Bones.
If you don’t want to fight T-Rexaurs, you can get a Dino Bone from either 1 Armadodo card or 2 T-Rexaur cards.
This is a very common item and you should have no trouble acquiring it.
Moon Stone
It’s not possible to acquire Moon Stones on Disc 1, making Irvine’s weapon the only one of the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons that’s unavailable on Disc 1.
Moon Stones are dropped by Imps, Elnoyles and Toramas, all encounters around Esther on Disc 3. The easiest way to get one is to just mug the Elnoyle that appears in Esther as a fixed encounter when you return from space. Just keep in mind if you’re level 40+ you have to mug it, as it’s a 100% mug chance but a 0% drop chance.
Star Fragment
You can get Star Fragments for the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons on Disc 1 either by modding Iron Giant cards or killing level 30+ T-Rexaurs and Anacondaurs. Since you can’t get Irvine’s weapon on Disc 1, you might as well just wait and by the time you get to Disc 3 and Moon Stones become available, you’ll probably already have the requisite Star Fragments.
Still, if you’re farming Star Fragments for the other Final Fantasy 8 best weapons, you might as well grab a couple extras. It won’t take that long.
Screw
Screws are dropped commonly by Geezards in large quantities and can be modded from Geezard cards. Geezards are all over the place. They appear in almost every “plains”-like setting. They’re a gross little lizard/snake thing with lobster claws.
Geezards and Geezard cards are so common I can’t imagine you possibly making it to Disc 3 without a pile of screws, but just in case you did, just mod 4 Geezard cards into 20 screws.
Special Bonus: Bismarck (Irvine’s best weapon on Disc 1)
If you really want to give Irvine some kind of weapon upgrade on Disc 1, you can get the ingredients for his 2nd best weapon, Bismarck, relatively easily. You need 2 Steel Pipes, 4 Dynamo Stones and 8 Screws. You can mod Steel Pipes from Elastoid cards and Dynamo Stones from Blitz cards. Easy.
Step-by-Step Walkthrough to Get All Best Weapons on Disc 1
- While you’re still in Balamb Garden, collect 60 Elnoyle cards, 8 Malboro cards, 10 Chimera cards & 9 Iron Giant cards from Trepe Groupie #1
- Get 2 Abyss Worm cards, 2 Tri-Face cards, 4 Grand Mantis or Death Claw cards and 4 Blue Dragon cards.
- (Optional) Get 2 Elastoid cards and 4 Blitz cards.
- Level to 20-29 before leaving for Timber and farm T-Rexaurs in the Balamb Garden Training Center until one drops Dragon Fangs (they’ll drop 6, more than enough).
- In the first Dollet mission, fully kill X-ATM092 and reset & repeat if it doesn’t drop a Force Armlet.
- Level to 30+ and learn Mug before the 2nd dream sequence in the forest on the way to Galbadia Garden.
- Mug Elastoids in the 2nd dream sequence until you have 3 Laser Cannons (4 if you want one to teach Quistis her limit break).
- Fight Adamantoises on the beach near Dollet until you get 3 Adamantines.
- Fight Anacondaurs in the forest where the 2nd dream sequence was until you get 4 Dragon Skins.
If you do all that, you’ll have all the Final Fantasy 8 best weapons as soon as you’re done with the 2nd dream sequence outside Galbadia Garden, except for Irvine who will have his 2nd best weapon. It sounds easy to list but I promise you that farming 60 Elnoyle cards will have you questioning why you decided to do this.
More Final Fantasy 8 Guides:
ALL Final Fantasy 8 Seed Test Answers
ALL Final Fantasy 8 GF Locations
That’s about it when it comes to the Final Fantasy 8 Best Weapons Early Guide. Click here for more guides related to Final Fantasy 8. Be sure to check out the main page for more RPG video game guides. If you’d like, you can follow my YouTube channel where I talk about various topics, often related to tech, games, movies and current events.
