Final Fantasy X: Farming AP

AP is used instead of traditional EXP in Final Fantasy X to level your characters. AP gives you Sphere Levels (called S. Lv) which allow you to move across the Sphere Grid, in order to fill nodes that will increase your stats and allow you to learn new abilities. There are a couple of ways to farm AP quickly later in the game.

Omega Ruins

The Omega Ruins is the area in the game that will give you the most AP from battles. To find the area you must search for the coordinates ‘x72, y35’ on the airship. Give the characters you’re going to level a weapon with ‘Triple AP’ to speed up the process.

The main thing to worry about in this area is the Great Malboro. They will always ambush you and begin the battle with Bad Breath, potentially devastating your party. One way to help prevent this is to give your party armor with ‘Confuseproof’ and/or ‘Berserkproof,’ to prevent you from losing control of them. You can also give at least one party member a weapon with ‘First Strike’ (which gives them the first turn, even before an ambush). When the battle starts, Have them swap with another member that knows Provoke (to prevent the Malboro from using Bad Breath), or use the Flee ability to avoid the battle altogether.

Don Tonberry Trick

The quickest way to earn AP in the game involves the Don Tonberry enemy. This does require a little bit of setup to farm this way.

• You must unlock the Don Tonberry at the Monster Arena (capture at least one of every fiend in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth).
• Give everyone in your party weapons that have the passive abilities Overdrive -> AP, Triple AP, and Triple Overdrive.
• Set two of your party members’ Overdrive Mode to Comrade, and your other member’s to Stoic (this one will be attacking the Don Tonberry)

Once you’ve done all the prep, get into a fight with the Don Tonberry in the Monster Arena. Have your character with the Stoic Overdrive mode attack the Tonberry, and it will counter with Karma. This attack does more damage the more enemies the attacker has killed, so ideally you want your attacker to be someone who’s defeated enough enemies for Karma to deal 99,999 damage to them. Have your other party members revive your attacker, and just keep attacking the Don Tonberry until it reaches your party and stops countering. Flee the battle, and you will gain a ton of AP.