--------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Wild Arms Spell FAQ Copyright: 2018 t_Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Legal Stuff In adherence to GameFAQ’s policies: 1. This FAQ may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. 2. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. All this information is directly from the GameFAQs website at this address: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/help/29-copyrights-trademarks-and- plagiarism --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Why I Wrote this FAQ Welcome to my Wild Arms spell FAQ. I have had this game for a number of years and it came to my attention that it was getting a re-release on the Playstation Classic. Thus, I dusted my copy off, put it into my PS2, and started playing. While I was playing I couldn’t help but notice that the in-game description of many of the spells is ambiguous at best and leaves a lot up to the imagination. I experimented with these ambiguously described spells in an effort to determine their functions as well as if they are actually of any use. My personal descriptions of all the spells in Wild Arms are listed below. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Information Layout for Each Spell Spell name: MP cost, In-game spell description, my personal rating My description Spell name: Exactly as it sounds. The name of the spell from Wild Arms MP cost: How much MP the spell costs to cast. In game spell description: How the spell’s function is described in the menus and magic guilds in game. My personal rating: I ranked each spell on a scale of 1-5 based on my opinion of it’s usefulness. Spells that I found incredibly useful I rated at a five while spells that I found to be virtually useless I rated a one. These rankings are based on my personal opinion. My description: My personal description of each spell. I did this in attempt to clear up ambiguity of many of the in-game descriptions of spells that Wild Arms provides. -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Other Stuff to Note About this FAQ 1) In an effort to clear up ambiguity, I use a lot of terminology from other RPG’s I have played interchangeably with some of the terminology found in Wild Arms (e.g., When I mention “inability to fight” status I am referring to a character at 0HP. I describe this as KO status a number of times, a term I took from the Final Fantasy franchise). 2) When the term “attribute” appears it is referring to the fire, water, earth, thunder, wind, holy, and evil attributes found in Wild Arms. I swap “attribute” with “elemental” frequently. 3) When the term “ability” appears it seems to be referring to a party member’s or monster’s inherent stats. Parry (PRY) and Sorcery (SOR) are examples of abilities. I am not 100% certain about this, though… 4) I use the term “specialty attack” to describe attacks used by monsters that seem to be physical in nature. Examples of “specialty attacks” include Gella Eater and Pickpocket. 5) I use the term “magic based attack” to describe attacks used by foes that seem to possess a magical property but are not included in the spell set Cecilia acquires throughout the game. Examples of “magic based attacks” include Flametongue and Gaia Crash. 6) There are seven elemental properties in Wild Arms and they are fire, earth, water, wind, thunder, holy and evil. This is useful knowledge to have going forward from here. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Simple White Magic Geo Fray Wing Muse Geo Shield Suction Hide Protect Fray Curse Light Blow Rage Dark Blow Wing Reflect Escape Quick Air Screen Muse Revive Awaken Field Heal Air Screen, 4MP, Increase parry rate/ally, 1/5 A buff that increases parry rate. With the exception of Jack, the remainder of the party’s inherent parry rate (PRY) is typically low even at the end of the game. A 25% boost to parry rate (which this spell confers) is unlikely to make any significant difference in the party’s odds for victory in virtually any circumstance. Additionally, this buff only targets a single ally further decreasing it’s utility. Even early on, when this spell first becomes available, there are many far better buffs a player can choose from instead. Awaken, 2MP, Wake from sleep/party, 2/5 Since there are no accessories that grant immunity to the sleep abnormal status (except maybe the Full Libra?) I guess this spell has some utility. I never had the chance to use it, though, even in instances where I had party members suffering from the sleep status. This was largely due to the fact that spells that afflict the sleep status ailment typically target the whole party and generally leave Cecilia in the sleep status. As a result of this, this spell loses pretty much all of it’s utility. Curse, 1MP, Increase encounter rate, 2/5 This spell increases random enemy encounter rates. I did not find much use for it outside of using it to get into quick fights on the world map to try out new spells that I had made at the magic guild or trying to master one of Jack’s Fast Draw hints close to a town. Dark Blow, 2MP, Cast Evil on weapon/ally, 3/5 Dark Blow serves as the only spell that will allow the party to have access to the evil elemental before the advanced spell set become available. This “saber type” spell can be cast on any party member to infuse their weapon with the evil elemental giving them evil based physical attacks for the remainder of the battle. Unfortunately, it may take a turn to see Dark Blow’s effect at which point the battle will probably be mostly complete. However, manipulating the RES stat to allow Cecilia to go before either Jack or Rudy and then casting Dark Blow on either of them before they attack would allow the spell’s effect to be activated in the same turn. For these reasons, this spell loses some of it’s utility. Escape: 8MP, Warp to dungeon entrance, 5/5 A great spell to have to quickly exit a dungeon after a boss fight when it is possible that the party will be low on MP and other resources. I recommend acquiring this spell early on for exactly that reason. Field: 2MP, 50% attribute field/all, 1/5 This spell reduces the damage the party takes to a particular element by 50%. The chosen element is chosen randomly from the seven different elements in Wild Arms but the spell can be cast multiple turns in a row to halve damage from multiple elemental types. Magic based attacks ignore Field’s effect regardless of if they have “earth”, “fire”, or something similar in their title. Thus, Field only reduces damage from enemy spells having the same titles as spells Cecilia can acquire at the Magic Guild. Not a very useful spell. Heal: 3MP, Recover partial HP/ally, 5/5 A very useful spell early on and maintains great utility late game. The spell does exactly what the in-game description implies that it does: recovers a single party member’s HP partially. Heal’s utility declines somewhat when both Hi-Heal and Remedy become available as they are much more effective for keeping the party healthy during tough fights. However, Heal always provides an MP cost efficient way to top off party members’ HP in the field commands menu. Hide: 5MP, Avoid an attack/ally, 2/5 Hide allows a party member to avoid physical attacks as long as it is active. Defending, using skills, and using items will all keep the Hide status active on the target it was cast on while using a physical attack or counter attacks will break it. Magic based attacks and specialty attacks will ignore Hide status. I didn’t think that this spell was that useful. Light Blow: 2MP, Cast Holy on weapon/ally, 3/5 This spell operates the exact same way as Dark Blow with the exception that it is holy elemental based instead. For that reason, see the Dark Blow description. Protect: 2MP, Increases MGR/ally, 2/5 Not a very useful spell. Protect raises a single party member’s MGR decreasing damage taken from magic attacks. There is no Hi-Protect and few bosses use strong magic attacks. These two features make it unlikely that a Protect oriented strategy in any boss fight would be much of a viable option. Additionally, there are many far better buffs to use in virtually any instance where a player would be looking to buff up using Protect. Quick: 3MP, Increase response/ally, 5/5 For a lowly three MP Cecilia can cast a spell that increases the Response (RES) stat of an ally by 50% for the remainder of the battle. This is definitely one of the better buffs in Wild Arms as it can be used to manipulate character turns to great effects in long battles such as boss fights. Personally, I preferred casting it on Cecilia to ensure that she would be able to act before many of the bosses I fought during the course of the game. This spell’s utility is further enhanced when it is couple with the black magic spell Slow Down. Unfortunately, there is no Hi-Quick. Rage: 4MP, Overcome with anger/ally 2/5 When cast, Rage indicates that it offers a 10% boost to all abilities. I am not entirely sure what the game means by abilities (if it is stats or what not) but the target of Rage gains a significant boost to attack power and also acquires a nice HP regen effect. Unfortunately, control of the target is lost for the remainder of the battle and the target will do nothing but physically attack until the battle is over. For those reasons, I didn’t find it useful. Reflect: 6MP, Reflect back magic/ally, 2/5 I never used this spell outside of trying to figure out what it did. This spell reflects back magic against the target that cast it. Recovery type spells cast by Cecilia, such as Heal, will go through reflect status but magic based specialty attacks (e.g. Holy Light) used by foes will ignore it too. Being able to recover HP and buff up with magic even with reflect status active are nice features. In spite of these nice features, I still didn’t find this spell very useful. Revive: 12MP, Recover senses/ally, 4/5 The first of many ambiguous spell descriptions given in Wild Arms. Anyways, revive brings back to life any party member who is in “inability to fight” status (in other terms has 0HP or has been KO’ed). Early on Revive is a very costly spell but it’s true appeal lies in the fact that by having the spell to draw on a player can avoid using a rare Revive Fruit item in order to bring back a character from “inability to fight” status. Shield: 2MP, Increases defense/ally, 3/5 This spell is somewhat useful as it raises the defense of a single party member decreasing damage from physical attacks. This spell most likely will not be used in random encounters and will be occasionally useful in boss fights. The only time I found some use for this spell was when I had a turn available for Cecilia during boss fights when I didn’t need to cast Heal on anyone. When Hi- Shield becomes available this spell’s utility drops off significantly. Suction: 3MP, Absorb magic as MP/ally, 2/5 This spell can be cast on any one of the three party members (Rudy would probably be a poor choice due to him not having any MP). Once cast, suction allows the target to receive as MP the cost of any spell cast against them. Magic based attacks, outside of spells, ignore Suction status. I didn’t find much use for this spell but I suppose it could be used as a method to restore some MP if either Jack or Cecilia are running low. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Advanced White Magic Geo Fray Wing Muse Geo Hi- Shield Hyper Invisibl e Life Guard Fray Counter Up Bomb Soul Guard Anti Magic Wing Hi- Reflect Dummy Doll Teleport Lock State Muse Hi- Revive Remedy Restore Hi-Heal Anti Magic: 12MP, An anti magic field, 1/5 Cecilia casts a spell that negates the effects of all magical spells used by both enemies and allies. This ranges from damage dealt by spells to the effect of restorative spells and buffs. Foes’ magic based attacks will go right through Anti Magic which makes it seem that Anti Magic does more harm to the party than to the enemy. For this reason, Anti Magic is not a very good spell. Bomb: 6MP, Bomb counter attack/ally, 1/5 Cecilia casts a spell on a single party member that allows for a single counter to a physical attack. Counter is not activated by magic damage or enemy specialty attacks. Damage output seems to be dependent on either the SOR or MGR stats of the spell’s target. This results in higher counter damage from Cecilia than either Jack or Rudy. Not a very useful spell as it will be likely that spending a turn casting it would have been better spent on another spell, defending, or even physically attacking. Counter Up: 6MP, Counter rate up 25%/ally, 1/5 Cecilia casts a buff that increases the counter attack rate of a single ally by 25% for the remainder of the battle. From what it looked like to me, Counter Up actually raised a characters counter attack rate to 100% as characters I cast it on countered every physical attack they received. This is not a very good spell, though, and there are far better buffs to acquire over Counter Up first. Dummy Doll: 6MP, Guard using a dummy/ally, 1/5 This spell creates a shield that negates damage from physical attacks by creating a “dummy” to protect the target. The “dummy” created by dummy doll can only withstand a few attacks before it is destroyed and many attacks will cut right through it. These features greatly decreases this spell’s utility. I didn’t think that it was very useful as in instances where I was looking to buff up my party I went with spells like Quick, Hi-Shield, or Hyper instead. Hi-Heal: 12MP, Recover full HP/ally, 5/5 This spell is a must have. Hi-Heal completely restores any lost HP. This spell’s true utility lies in battle where it can be used to fully restore a party member’s HP who is close to the brink of “inability to fight”. Not as good in the field commands menu where Heal can be used to top off characters HP at costs of 3MP instead but this spell is still very good. Hi-Reflect: 20MP, Reflect magic field/party, 3/5 More useful than Reflect since it targets all party members but still not a buff I went with ever. Hi-Reflect shares all the qualities that it’s lesser counterpart Reflect does except that it targets the entire party for 20MP. For that reason, see the description on Reflect. Hi-Revive: 40MP, Revive and full HP/ally, 3/5 For a whopping 40MP Cecilia can bring back either Jack or Rudy from “inability to fight” status with full HP. Hi-Revive is the most expensive spell in the game and even at a high level ponying up the 40MP to cast it is likely to be an unappealing prospect. I suppose this spell has some merit in some of the harder hitting boss fights later in the game but personally I would hope that my party wouldn’t be in such dire straits that I would be considering using it. It is nice to know that the spell is there to go to, if necessary, and for that reason I encourage picking it up eventually. Hi-Shield: 8MP, Increase def. power/party, 4/5 Another excellent buff. Hi-Shield targets the entire party when cast and raises DFP by 50% for the remainder of the battle. Being able to target all allies with this spell greatly increases it’s utility and makes it a solid choice in boss battles. Certain specialty attacks seem to go through it, though, which hurts it’s overall reliability. Hyper: 12MP, Double attack power/ally, 5/5 This spell is truly impressive. Hyper lives up to it’s description in that it doubles a party member’s attack power. Hyper’s impressive power can truly be observed in boss fights by casting it a Jack which causes the damage from his Fast Draws to skyrocket. This is definitely one of the best spells in the advanced category and I would encourage picking it up as soon as it becomes available. Invisible: 8MP, Decrease encounter rate, 2/5 Invisible is the opposite of Curse in that it decreases the random encounter rate. This spell would have been much more useful had it been effective on the Sweet Candy. Since it is not, it really isn’t that good. Life Guard: 30MP, Avoid exhaustion/ally, 3/5 Life Guard will automatically bring back any ally it is cast on from “inability to fight” status. Allies revived by Life Guard come back to the fight with very little HP which makes healing a high priority the next turn. This spell has some benefits against hard hitting foes by allowing the party to maintain the majority of it’s momentum in battle even after a party member is KO’ed. This is definitely a buff worthy of acquiring, but I would wait on picking it up until I had some of the more powerful spells in the advanced magic category. Lock State: 15MP, Lock status state/party, 0/5 I could not figure out what this spell does even after experimenting with it under a variety of conditions. For that reason I gave it a 0 for usefulness. Remedy: 12MP, Recover partial HP/party, 5/5 An excellent spell especially in boss battles. Remedy restores a sizable amount of HP to all three party members when cast. This takes a lot of pressure off of boss battles since Cecilia can recover everybodys’ HP with a single spell in one turn. The trick is getting her turn out front… Restore: 4MP, Cure abnormal status/ally, 5/5 This spell is very useful. For only 4MP, Restore will remove any abnormal status ailment that a party member is suffering from. Very useful when a party member is afflicted with two or more status ailments. Soul Guard: 18MP, Prevent fatal blows/ally, 2/5 A spell that protects a single ally from instant death attacks. I felt that instant death attacks were rare in the game and that in tougher fights getting KO’ed from attacks that dealt a high amount of damage was more common. For that reason I preferred Life Guard, but that is my opinion. Teleport: 12MP, Warp to a known town, 5/5 Another great spell that quickly allows the party to move between towns they have already visited. Great especially when traveling on the Sweet Candy, since random encounters on the sea can be rather annoying, but the spell does lose some of it’s utility once the Protowing becomes available. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Simple Black Magic Geo Fray Wing Muse Geo Break Slow Down Sleep Arm. Down Fray Flash Flame Confusio n Blast Wing Valkyrie Silence Vortex Spark Muse Analyze Dispell Prison Freeze Analyze: 1MP, Study enemy’s abilities, 5/5 Analyze is a great spell for pretty much the entire the game. When used on an enemy, Analyze reveals the foes HP, MP, as well as elemental weakness. Using Analyze along with elemental attack magic is a great way to quickly eliminate foes, via their elemental weaknesses, before they can inflict too much damage on the party. One downfall of Analyze is that a turn must be spent in order to use a spell that will neither cause damage to a foe nor allow Cecilia to cast a buff on a party member. However, once a monster’s weakness is discovered it can be repeatedly exploited without the use of Analyze! Another problem with Analyze is that it is ineffective against bosses. This certainly is a factor that contributes to putting Cecilia in a supporting role against the majority of bosses fought throughout the game. Arm. Down, 3MP, Reduce defense/group, 4/5 Although this spell targets a group, I found it’s highest utility to be in boss fights. This is because Arm. Down lowers the physical defense (DFP) of a group by 50% for the remainder of the fight. This is definitely more useful is a long, drawn-out boss fights vs. the random encounters in Wild Arms which are typically over in two rounds of combat. Arm. Down does not work 100% of the time but it is still a better bet in boss fights than Cecilia’s elemental attack spells. Due to it’s excellent function in boss fights, this spells ranks high in utility for pretty much the entirety of the game. Blast: 8MP, A powerful blast/group, 5/5 Blast is a decent spell especially as the game progresses and Cecilia acquires more MP. Blast allows for a non-elemental magic attack against a group of foes. This is great against groups of foes that don’t have an elemental weakness. The damage from Blast is usually not sufficient to KO an entire group of monsters so it will usually need to be backed up with an attack like Jack’s Sonic Buster or Rudy’s Prism Ray to achieve the desired effect. Break: 4MP, Earth magic/enemy, 4/5 Break is the first of many single target, elemental attack spells that Cecilia acquires of the simple black magic type. Break is useful for exploiting earth elemental weaknesses in foes and the damage is typically enough to one-shot most random enemies weak to the earth element. Break (as well as the three other single target, elemental attacks spells) is not as useful in boss fights where more viable strategies include using Cecilia’s turn to either cast buffs or de-buffs. That is my opinion as well as the strategy I took at least. Confusion: 2MP, Confuse the enemy, 1/5 Confuse is the first of many black magic spells that inflict a status ailment. As the name implies Confusion inflicts the confusion status on a target. The confusion status aliment causes the afflicted to mindlessly, physically attack thin air thus rendering them non- threatening. I don’t see where this sort of spell would be useful as to me it makes more sense to use a spell like Flame or Freeze and go right for the kill on a foe if possible. I could say much the same for the other black magic status ailment inflicting spells as well. Thus, my opinion is that this spell is not that good. Dispell: 3MP, Nullify magic spell/enemy, 1/5 A spell which when used “dispells magic effects!” on foes. I didn’t find much use for it as I didn’t find many monsters that used support magic to buff up. For that reason, I never used it and didn’t think that it was that good of a spell. Flame: 4MP, Fire attack magic/enemy, 4/5 Flame is a single target, fire elemental attack. This spell is useful early on to exploit elemental weaknesses in foes that are weak to fire. It is also useful late in the game for the same purpose. Flash: 2MP, Blind all enemies, 1/5 Everything about this spell is confusing. Neither the spell’s name nor it’s description give an accurate account of what this spell actually does. Flash inflicts the flash status ailment on all foes on the screen. The flash status ailment decreases the PRY stat of those affected to 0 rendering them unable to dodge physical attacks. A confusing description for a confusing spell that is really not that good in most situations. Freeze: 4MP, Water magic/enemy, 4/5 Freeze operates much the same as Flame does except that is a water elemental spell. Useful for exploiting elemental weaknesses in foes that are weak to water. This spell is useful early on as well as late in the game. Prison: 6MP, Imprison enemy, 3/5 An interesting spell that has a difficult to determine function based on the ambiguity of it’s in game description. Prison traps a foe in a polyhedron prison making it unable to act (Nikanoru…). Any foe trapped in the prison is subject to a one shot KO by any physical or magic attack that strikes the imprisoned creature. This actually is a pretty decent spell. Silence: 4MP, Prevent magic use/group, 2/5 Annoying when a foe casts it on the party but not nearly as effective when the party uses it on a group of monsters. Silence inflicts the silence status ailment which prevents the use of attacks that consume MP. For this reason, Silence not only blocks the use of spells by the target it is cast on but also prevents the use of specialty attacks like Pickpocket and magic based attacks like Flametongue. This causes Silence to pack a bit more of a punch than some of the other status ailment inflicting spells. That being, said it is hard to imagine that Silence is going to be the best attack for Cecilia to use in any enemy encounter in the entire game. Sleep: 4MP, Make enemy sleep/group, 2/5 A spell that targets an entire group for only 4MP (which is about the spell’s only redeemable quality). This spell will put any foe that it hits to sleep for a few turns rendering them unable to act until the status ailment wears off. The only instances where I could see this spell being useful is in a random encounter against groups of foes that don’t have an exploitable, elemental weakness or if I didn’t want to spend the 8MP needed to cast Blast against a group of foes. Neither of those occurrences are common which renders Sleep a poor spell at best. Slow Down: 3MP, Reduce response/group, 4/5 Slow Down is another excellent de-buff. Slow Down lowers the RES stat of a group of foes by 50% making their turns come later in a round of combat. Much like Arm. Down, Slow Down excels in long battles, like boss fights, where it can be used early on to have a dramatic effect for the entire fight. Slow Down works well with it’s white magic counterpart Quick to manipulate party and monster turns in boss fights which can give the party a huge edge in a long battle. Slow Down is definitely a spell worth picking up but I would recommend acquiring all the elemental attack spells first. Spark: 8MP, Thunder magic/group, 3/5 Unlike the other single target elemental attack spells, Spark targets a group of foes. The spell costs 8MP, which early on makes it rather expensive. The spell does seem to have some utility when fighting monsters on the sea in the Sweet Candy as the majority of foes encountered in the sea are weak to the thunder elemental. However, Blast is probably a better overall group attack since it inflicts non-elemental damage. Valkyrie: 10MP, A spiritual attack/random, 1/5 A spell in the simple black magic class that targets all foes on the screens. That being said, this spell is not very useful. Valkyrie causes Cecilia to emit 8-9 magical orbs that randomly strike foes on the battle field. The amount of damage taken is determined by how many of these orbs strike the target(s) which causes some foes to receive a lot of damage and other foes not so much. The randomness of Valkyrie makes it unpredictable for damage output and I am not entirely sure whether the individual orbs bear elemental affinities. I did not find much use for this spell. Vortex: 4MP, Wind attack magic/enemy, 4/5 Another single, elemental attack spell. Vortex inflicts wind damage against a single foe which is useful against foes weak to wind. This spell, along with the all the other elemental attack spells, go well with Analyze and provide Cecilia a reliable way to due large amounts of damage to a variety of foes with varying elemental weaknesses. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Advanced Black Magic Geo Fray Wing Muse Geo Hi-Break Eraser Life Drain Saint Fray Rainbow Hi-Flame Darkness Hi-Blast Wing MP Drain Lucky Shot Hi- Vortex Hi-Spark Muse Banish Randomize r Hi- Prison Hi- Freeze Banish: 12MP, Lower HP & ability/enemy, 2/5 Another spell with an ambiguous name. Banish would seem to imply instant death but this spell hardly does that. What Banish does is reduce the HP and abilities of a single foe. As a result, targets inflicted with Banish status have lowered HP, take more damage, and inflict less damage. This spell’s effect does result in an amusing animation on the victim it was cast on but this hardly is a justifiable reason for acquiring this spell early. Darkness: 15MP, Evil attack magic/enemy, 4/5 Unlike the simple black magic category, the advanced black magic category actually has an evil elemental attack spell. Darkness targets a single foe with evil elemental attack magic which makes it useful against foes weak against the evil elemental. Darkness also has a high MP cost and only targets a single foe which makes it less powerful than the Hi-level elemental attack spells in the advanced category. However, since it is the only attack spell that utilizes the evil elemental it is pretty useful. Eraser: 5MP, Erase attr./all enemies, 1/5 Eraser negates all elemental strengths and weaknesses of all foes on screen. I suppose this could be useful for doing something like casting Hi-Flame against a group of foes that typically are resistant to fire damage. That being said, I don’t see where that would be an efficient strategy for victory in any encounter in Wild Arms and that makes this spell pretty awful. Hi-Blast: 22MP, Attack magic/all enemies, 4/5 Hi-Blast is a very powerful non-elemental attack spell. At 22MP it is rather costly at any point of the game but with a high SOR stat on Cecilia it is possible to waste every foe on screen using just this spell. This makes Hi-Blast useful in a pinch but I wouldn’t recommend relying too heavily on it due to it’s MP cost. I would also recommend picking it up shortly after it becomes available largely due to it’s impressive power. Hi-Break: 15MP, Earth magic/group, 4/5 The first of many “Hi-level” elemental spells in the advanced black magic category. Hi-Break deals earth elemental damage to a group of foes (this is in contrast to Break which targets only a single foe). Spells like Hi-Break cost significantly more MP than their lesser counterparts which can cause a real drain on Cecilia’s MP if their use is not closely monitored. More MP means more targets and more power, though. Overall, this is a pretty good spell and I would recommend acquiring this spell and the other “Hi-level” elemental spells as soon as possible in order to give Cecilia a respectable arsenal of strong magic to draw off of. Hi-Flame: 15MP, Fire attack magic/group, 4/5 This spell operates similar to Hi-Break the only difference being that it is fire elemental. Great against groups of foes weak to fire. I also recommend getting this spell as soon as possible. Hi-Freeze: 15MP, Water magic/group, 4/5 Another “Hi-level” elemental attack spell this time of the water element. Hi-Freeze is useful against foes weak to the water elemental. This spell would be another good investment of a crest graph once the advanced spells become available. Hi-Prison: 18MP, Seal in banned area/group, 4/5 Hi-Prison functions exactly like it’s lesser counterpart, Prison, except for the fact that it targets a group of foes. This spell is surprisingly useful in multiple regards (see Lucky Shot description) and has the benefit of targeting a group of foes over just a single foe. I wouldn’t make acquiring this spell a high priority but I would certainly make the effort to pick it before acquiring many of the other lesser advanced spells that become available in the latter half of the game. Hi-Spark: 22MP, Thunder magic/all foes, 3/5 Hi-Spark is a thunder elemental attack spell that targets all foes on the screen. This spell is not as good as Hi-Blast due to it’s similar MP cost and inherent elemental property. Hi-Blast is by far more versatile since it costs the same amount of MP to cast and can be used against a wider range of foes. For those reasons, I would recommend acquiring Hi-Blast before picking up Hi-Spark. Hi-Vortex: 15MP, Wind attack magic/group, 4/5 The final “Hi-level” attack spell. Hi-Vortex attacks a group of foes with the wind elemental. I recommend picking up all the Hi-level attack spells as soon as possible in order to give Cecilia a large repertoire of highly damaging elemental attack spells to draw in the latter segments of the game. Hi-Vortex is no exception to this. Life Drain: 20MP, Absorb HP/enemy group, 1/5 For 20MP, Cecilia drains a small amount of HP from each foe in an enemy group and adds it to her own. The HP recovered by Life Drain is paltry and it’s damage output is awful. These are good enough reasons to put off getting Life Drain indefinitely without even considering the multitude of better methods to recover Cecilia’s lost HP throughout the game. Lucky Shot: 30MP, …?/enemy, 3/5 It would have been hard for the developers to come up with a much more ambiguous description for a spell than this one. After studying this spell I can somewhat appreciate why they may not have been candid about it’s function. Lucky Shot inflicts a low amount of damage to a single foe, however, if the damage is sufficient to put the foe in “inability to fight” status then there is a 100% chance that the foe will drop an item if they are carrying one. For this reason, Lucky Shot makes farming the Necronomicon, Cecilia’s best spell book, much easier and could probably also be used to farm some other rare items in the game. Lucky Shot can be coupled with spells like Prison and Hi-Prison to one-shot foes that wouldn’t otherwise take lethal damage from the low damage output of Lucky Shot. An interesting spell with a useful function. I would recommend picking this spell up along with Hi-Prison in order to maximize it’s usefulness. (Thanks to DavidK519 and his FAQ for information on acquiring the Necronomicon and the functions of Lucky Shot, Hi-Prison and Prison spells). MP Drain: 1MP, Absorb MP/enemy group, 1/5 Cecilia absorbs MP from an enemy group to slightly restore her own MP. I didn’t find this spell useful at all since the amount of MP it recovers is negligible. Additionally, many foes don’t have MP to absorb which further makes this spell a poor resort for restoring lost MP. If I was really looking to restore lost MP off of monsters’ resources then I would opt for defending and casting Suction since it seems to restore more MP and can also be used by Jack. My opinion is that this is a poor spell. Rainbow, 15MP, All 7 attr. attack/enemy, 1/5 Rainbow strikes a single foe with all 7 of the elements (fire, earth, water, thunder, wind, holy and evil) in a single attack. This spell is not that good as a foe’s innate resistance tend to have priority over their weakness (e.g. I fought a foe weak to water and strong against fire. Rainbow dealt 0 damage as fire damage taken by this foe is reduced to 0. Thus the foes’ elemental weakness to water was deprioritized to it’s resistance to fire). This feature really hurts this spell’s utility. Additionally, if I was looking to exploit an elemental weakness in a single foe it would make more sense to just use the simple attack elemental spell the foe is weak against for only 4MP. Acquiring this spell ought to be a very low priority since it is not good at all. Randomizer: 12MP, Random magic effect, 1/5 Randomizer causes a completely random magic effect (much as it’s in game description implies). These “effects” range anywhere from spells Cecilia can acquire at the magic guild, magic based attacks used by foes (e.g., Gaia Crash), unique buffs, unique de-buffs, and status ailments that affect the entire party. Randomizer’s effect is completely unpredictable and may even slap the party with status ailments that hinder them during combat. For these reasons I don’t think it was that good, however, it can generate some beneficial, powerful effects that probably won’t be seen elsewhere in the game. Saint: 15MP, Holy attack magic/enemy, 4/5 Holy operates the same way that Darkness does in that it targets a single foe with holy elemental attack magic. Useful since it is the only attack magic spell that utilizes the holy element. Not so useful due to its cost and the fact that it targets only a single foe. In spite of it’s weaknesses, I recommend picking it up fairly early on once it becomes available. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer I have no expectation that this is a perfect FAQ and will concede to overlooking many aspects of these spells while I was writing this FAQ. I had no part in designing this game and as a result there are probably many nuances to it that I am not privy too. As a result I can hardly claim that this is definitive source for this game. Much of the information in this FAQ is based off my observations and opinions. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- References 1. Wild Arms PSone game 2. Wild Arms Playstation Instruction Manual 3. WILD ARMS walkthrough and guide by DavidK519