Best Creatures

The creatures you trap in the Creature Creator and add to your party will fight on their own. You aren’t able to give them commands directly, so the best creatures to use are the ones with powerful abilities that they can use over and over and high stats. This page includes some recommendations on which creatures meet these criteria.

If you have not trapped any creatures in the Creature Creator yet, you can read more about the process using the link below.

What to Look For

The creatures you use choose their own actions in battle, which means that anything in their ability lists is something they may use up a turn on. The strongest creature configurations aim to keep that list of attacks short and to the point: one or two attacks that you want it to use constantly, and a handful of situational abilities.

Three things separate the best creatures from the rest:

• Speed: Abilities with no charge time and a short animation let the creature’s turn come up again almost immediately. This can be as important as how powerful each of their attacks are.
• Agility: A creature with high Agility takes more turns, and more turns of a fast attack is where the damage comes from.
• Self-Sustainability: Vigor is a self-heal that costs nothing to use and you can teach it to any creature by feeding it three Turbo Ethers.

So let’s look at some of the strongest creatures…

“Impale” Machina

Machina Ranger, Machina Hunter, and Machina Leader can all use an attack called “Impale.” This is a physical attack that ignores the target’s Defense which means it deals full damage to enemies even if they have high Defense (including Trema). It also has no charge time and a very short animation, so a team of three can attack almost continuously once their Agility is high.

Machina Soldier is trapped in the same place as Machina Leader, but it does not have “Impale” as a creature.

Stacking too many of these creatures does have two weaknesses. The first is that they are purely physical, so they’ll struggle against any enemies that should be attacked using magic. Swapping one machina for a Mushroom Cloud (detailed below) can accommodate for that. The second is that the machina are not great until their Agility stat has improved a fair bit. You can improve it by feeding them items, which is covered in the “Raising Stats” section further down. If you have no items available, you may want to use other creatures.

Mushroom Cloud

Mushroom Cloud provides some of the strongest support, and it is strong enough offensively to help deal reasonable damage as well. You can trap it with a Trap Pod S in Bevelle in Chapter 5, once you have started the Via Infinito.

Its most important ability is “Pernicious Powder,” which hits every enemy with Strength Down and Magic Down ten times! These two effects cannot be resisted, even by bosses that are immune to everything else, so a single use of this ability heavily reduces the effectiveness of any enemy or boss. The same ability also attempts to inflict Petrification, Sleep, Silence, Darkness, Poison, Confusion, Berserk, and Stop, which is an incredibly powerful “side-effect,” if you can call it that.

Mushroom Cloud can also cast Ultima, which gives an otherwise physical team a way to damage enemies that are immune to physical attacks.

Almighty Shinra

Almighty Shinra is the strongest creature you can obtain. It joins with very high stats and needs almost no investment. Its main attack, “Clione,” strikes multiple times.

It does still struggle against enemies with high Defense. Almighty Shinra will beat nearly every team in the Fiend Arena, Major Numerus included, but a fight against Trema will take a long time. Pairing Almighty Shinra with a Mushroom Cloud is a very practical team for clearing the tournament cups and for farming Major Numerus.

To unlock it, you have to win the Fiend World Cup, recruit Omega Weapon, complete Omega Weapon’s Fiend Tale, and then win the Almighty Shinra Cup. You can read more about the cups using the link below.

Other Viable Creatures

Large Creatures: Before you can raise stats, creatures caught with a Trap Pod L are the easiest to use. Teach one Vigor and it can get you through most story battles on a first playthrough.

Heavy Sallet learns Quick Hit on its own. Just use a Trap Pod L or SP in the Bikanel Desert in Chapter 5 after you start Cactuar Hollow. Much like Almighty Shinra, it struggles against Trema.

Logos can only be trapped in a New Game Plus. Use a Trap Pod SP in Guadosalam in any chapter.

Nooj is caught with a Trap Pod SP on Mushroom Rock Road in Chapter 5 after you’ve completed the Den of Woe.

Hexapod is another creature capable of casting Ultima. Use a Trap Pod S on the Mi’ihen Highroad in Chapter 5 after you’ve unlocked the Fiend Colony.

Chocobos have high Agility and Magic, and they can learn “Choco Meteor,” which is a very strong attack. Just use a Trap Pod S in Luca in any chapter, or on the Mi’ihen Highroad and in the Calm Lands in Chapters 1 to 4. In Chapter 5, those two locations only work before the Fiend Colony and Ruin Depths dungeon have been unlocked, respectively. You also need a Chocobo in your active party to enter the Chocobo Cup.

Abilities Worth Teaching

Each of these abilities come from feeding items or accessories to a creature in the “Develop Creature” menu.

You can find the full list of what every item and accessory teaches using the link below.

Black Sky has a long animation, but it does not stop creatures with instant attacks from acting while it plays. With enough Agility, two “Impale” machina can attack many times while the third creature’s Black Sky is still casting, and the enemy cannot respond until it ends. Put it on only one creature so that two casts do not compete.

Avoid Auto-Wall on a creature that relies on Vigor.

For a Dressphere, equip Mascot whenever you have it, for the stat boost. It is the prize for your first win in the Youth League Tournament.

Raising Stats: Iron Dukes and Major Numerus

Feeding a creature an Iron Duke raises its HP, MP, Strength, Defense, Magic, Magic Defense, Agility, Luck, Evasion, and Accuracy by 10 each. No other item provides nearly as much benefit to a creature being developed. The only other source of Agility is Shmooth Shailing, but it only gives 5 points.

There are two sources of Iron Dukes in the Fiend Arena:

• Winning the Farplane Cup for the fourth time awards one.
• Major Numerus drops them.

Two things multiply what Major Numerus gives you:

• Butterfingers, which makes every drop the rare item. A creature gains its effect by equipping the Ray of Hope Garment Grid, which you receive for earning Episode Complete in Macalania Woods in Chapter 5.
• Key to Success, which doubles drops when a creature has it equipped. The second Farplane Cup win awards one.

Major Numerus is the hardest opponent in the game, so the usual order is to clear the cups with Almighty Shinra and a Mushroom Cloud, and then use the same team to farm Major Numerus. After that, feed the Iron Dukes into three “Impale” machina.

First Playthrough or New Game Plus?

You do not have to wait until your second playthrough to capture creatures and use them to fight. A large creature with Vigor can handle most of the story on a first playthrough. In New Game Plus, captured creatures and their abilities carry over (their levels reset to 1). Logos and several other characters can only be trapped in New Game Plus, and the accessories you collected the first time make weak Trap Pod S creatures far easier to level through their Fiend Tales.