Possibly the best (and least boring) way of grinding to LV99 in the end game

Grinding area: the last area of the Frozen Cliffs - Dimensional Vortex at 12.000 B.C.

The enemies: a pair of Snowbeasts. You get 4400 EXP for each battle against them.

The equipment:

-Armor: Blue Plate or Blue Vest for everyone. Lucca can use the Elemental Aegis instead, too.
You can get exactly two Blue Plates and one Blue Vest in the game: a Plate and a Vest in the sealed box at Truce Inn (charge the chest with the pendant in the Middle Ages, go to the Present to get the Plate, then return to the Past to get the Vest) and a second Plate by using Charm on Mother Brain at the Geno Dome.
For the Elemental Aegis, you need to Charm a Lumicite Shard from the Wonder Rock (Lost Sanctum or Dimensional Vortex) and take it to one of the Reptites at Lost Sanctum (Middle Ages).

-Accessory: Berserker Ring for two characters (you can only get two before New Game+, otherwise you could use it for all three characters), Rage Band or Wrath Band for the non-Berserk character.
Berserker Ring: chests at Site 16 (Future) and Mystic Mountains (Lost Sanctum, Pre-History)
Rage Band: chest at Abandoned Sewers (Future)
Wrath Band: chest at Giant's Claw (Middle Ages)

-Headgear: Haste Helm or Angel's Tiara (the Tiara is for female characters only).
You can get the Angel's Tiara in the 12.000 B.C.'s Dimensional Vortex, in an area called Strath.
As for the Haste Helms, you can get one at the Black Omen and another by doing the Lost Sanctum sidequest. You can also Charm it from Elder Lavos Spawn's mouth (Black Omen) and Alabaster Shade (Dimensional Vortex - 12.000 B.C.)


The idea is to turn this into an auto-battle of sorts: your Berserked, Hasty characters will be spamming physical attacks (Ayla with her fists and Crono with Rainbow or Dreamseeker are the best characters for this; you can also use Robo and its Apocalypse Arm if you're feeling bold), hitting as hard and as much as they can, while your free character stands by (you can have him/her attack if you're not busy doing anything else), launching eventual counterattacks when the Snowbeasts use their magic.
Yes, each hit you land on the Snowbeasts increases their attack, but they ALWAYS use Ice II and Water II in their first two turns - which will heal you or do no damage thanks to your armor. Depending on how much damage you're dealing to them, the Snowbeasts will probably be dead before they get a third turn, or even a second turn!
Once they're dead, go back one screen and return to respawn them.


The advantages:

-You don't need to input any commands to win the battles, so you're free to do whatever you want while you battle (in fact, I'm grinding EXP right now as I type this). You only have to move the characters once the battle is over;
-This method requires no MP and you take no damage from the battles if you're doing it correctly, which means you don't have to stop doing it to recover HP/MP, EVER! You don't need to heal between battles, and you don't need to use items or find a Save Point because you're running out of MP. This saves you more time than you can imagine, in the long run.


I hope this helps anyone who is struggling to grind to LV99 in the DS version, be it for completion purposes, to face Spekkio's last form, or to get Ayla's godly Bronze Fist (LV96). xD
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"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
-Sirius Black

dinit 7 posted...

It's possible to win extra berserker rings, and blue plates from the arena. So you're not just limited to the 2 copies of each per game.

Thanks for the info. I never went to the arena, so I wouldn't know.
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"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
-Sirius Black