Metal Gigantuars are the best EXP you can farm: 150,000 EXP each, or 360,000 with an Adept’s Armlet and the No Damage Bonus. They live on a tiny islet you can only reach by walking through Dragon’s Maw in the Kingdom of Pharm. Switch to Casual so they have 8 HP instead of 14, give your attacker First Strike, and kill each one in a single turn with 8 hits that can’t miss. From level 50, 42 kills take a character to level 99.
What You Need
Get the shopping done before you set off, because the islet has no shop and leaving means walking back through Dragon’s Maw.
| What | Why | Where to Get It |
|---|---|---|
| Adept’s Armlet | Doubles EXP for the character wearing it | 25,000 gil at the airship’s shop from Chapter 6 |
| Warding Bell | Halves random encounters while you cross Dragon’s Maw | 12,000 gil at the Colosseum shop once you clear the Fledgling League |
| Foe Attractor | Raises the encounter rate to 150% on the islet | 12,000 gil, same shop |
| First Strike | Lets its holder act first, before the Metal Gigantuar moves | Tidus’s Mastery Rank 3 ability (20 AP), or a weapon that has it (below) |
| 8 sure hits in one turn | Kills the Metal Gigantuar before it can hit you or run | Arms Akimbo with Barrage, or Meteor with Dualcast or Magic Barrage (setups) |
Every character who has joined you gets the full EXP from a battle, benched ones included, and each Adept’s Armlet only doubles its wearer’s share. Buy one for every character you want at 99, starting with your main fighters. At 25,000 gil each they add up, but the islet pays for them: a single King Gil Snapper is worth 28,000 gil.
Getting to the Islet Through Dragon’s Maw
Fly to the southeastern tip of the Kingdom of Pharm and walk into Dragon’s Maw. Nothing in the story locks it, so you can go in as soon as your airship reaches Pharm. The game recommends level 55, which undersells it: random fights inside run from level 45 to 70 and get tougher the deeper you go, and the last stretch before the far exit is level 64 to 70. You can’t run from any fight in Dragon’s Maw, so equip the Warding Bell before you go in to halve how many you get.
Two set battles stand in the way: an Intangir (level 52) and a Rogue Magitek Weapon (level 63). Heal up before you walk into either one. Open the chests on the way: one of them holds the Masamune, a katana with First Strike built in.
The far exit drops you on a small islet off Pharm’s east coast, the only land in that encounter area. Your airship can’t land there, so Dragon’s Maw is the only way in and out. Swap the Warding Bell for the Foe Attractor as soon as you step outside. The encounter rate counts every character who has joined you, so a benched character can wear it and leave your fighters’ accessory slots free. The world map shows the islet and the encounter area around it.
The Three Fights on the Islet
Every fight on the islet is one enemy on its own, and each of the three shows up a third of the time, on the forest tiles too. Expect about one Metal Gigantuar every three fights.
| Enemy | EXP | Gil | MRP | What to Do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metal Gigantuar | 150,000 | 1,500 | 225 | Kill it in one turn |
| Gigantuar | 1,111 | 1,111 | 600 | Fight it if you’re ranking up Visions, otherwise run |
| King Gil Snapper | 1,000 | 28,000 | 182 | Run, unless you need gil |
The Gigantuar pays 600 MRP, more than any other random fight, so if your party is also leveling Visions, beat it before it runs (MRP farming guide). The King Gil Snapper has 60,000 HP on Normal, counters physical attacks and takes ages to wear down, but its 28,000 gil buys an Adept’s Armlet with change to spare. Steal from it on the way: its rare steal is a Large Golden Shell that sells for 10,000 gil (stealing guide).
Killing It in One Turn
A Metal Gigantuar has 14 HP on Normal, 8 on Casual and 22 on Expert, and it takes 1 damage from every hit that lands, however strong the attack. It also dodges: an attack with normal accuracy lands only 40% of the time. Difficulty doesn’t change EXP, so farm on Casual and you need 8 hits instead of 14.
Speed is the other problem. It’s far faster than any of your characters, so it usually moves before you, and its first two actions are always attacks. One hit on anyone in your party costs the No Damage Bonus, which drops a kill from 360,000 to 300,000 EXP with the Armlet. From its third action on, it uses Escape 46% of the time, and a Metal Gigantuar that gets away pays nothing at all.
So put First Strike on one character and have that character deal all 8 hits in their first turn. These two setups do it with hits that can’t miss:
| Setup | Hits | MP | What It Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arms Akimbo, then Barrage twice | 8 | 80 | Firion’s Mastery Rank 9 ability (60 AP) and Noctis’s (20 AP) |
| Dualcast, then Meteor twice | 8 | 136 | Shantotto’s Mastery Rank 9 ability (50 AP), plus Meteor: Sakura learns it at level 56 and Archwitch Fina at 55 |
Arms Akimbo and Dualcast each give two actions in the same turn, and Barrage and Meteor hit four times each and never miss. Arms Akimbo with Barrage is the cheaper of the two on MP. The character using them has to take Firion and Noctis (or Shantotto) to Mastery Rank 9 themselves, but can then equip those abilities while using any other Vision (All Visions guide). Stack First Strike on the same character with Tidus’s MR 3 ability, or with a First Strike weapon: the Masamune from Dragon’s Maw, Fujin’s Bow (32,000 gil in Gaberada), Lid’s Mechabo Hammer SUPER or Nichol’s Codex Providentiae.
Y’shtola’s Magic Barrage (Mastery Rank 9, 40 AP) is the third option, and the one to aim for if your Meteor user can get it. It casts the spell you pick four times in one action, each at half strength. Half strength doesn’t matter when every hit deals 1, so Meteor gives 16 hits, and in play they all land on a Metal Gigantuar. That’s enough even for its 14 HP on Normal, and it costs less MP than Dualcast.
If you don’t have any of these setups yet, the farm still works. It can’t run during its first two actions, so you have until its third to land 8 hits. Open with attacks that can’t miss: Meteor (Sakura or Archwitch Fina), Barrage, or Amelia’s Aim (all of that character’s attacks hit for 5 turns) followed by multi-hit skills. You’ll lose the No Damage Bonus most of the time, but 300,000 EXP a kill still beats every other fight you can repeat. The farming guide lists every multi-hit ability that works on Metal enemies.
How Many Kills to Level 99
Going from level 1 to 99 takes about 15.8 million EXP, and the last levels cost the most. Each column below is the number of Metal Gigantuar kills a character needs from the starting level to 99, with an Adept’s Armlet and the No Damage Bonus, with the Armlet alone, and with the bonus but no Armlet. Every character’s EXP curve gives the same counts.
| Starting Level | 360,000 a Kill | 300,000 a Kill | 180,000 a Kill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 40 | 43 | 52 | 86 |
| Level 50 | 42 | 50 | 83 |
| Level 60 | 38 | 45 | 75 |
| Level 70 | 32 | 38 | 63 |
| Level 80 | 24 | 28 | 47 |
| Level 90 | 13 | 16 | 26 |
With both bonuses, a level 50 character gains two or three levels a kill until about level 60, reaches 70 on kill 10 and 80 on kill 18, then slows to about one level a kill. Past 90, a level takes more than one kill: the last nine levels take 13 kills. Since a Metal Gigantuar turns up in about one fight in three, plan on roughly three times as many fights as kills.
Before You Can Reach the Islet
If Dragon’s Maw is still too much for your party, Metal Gigantuars also turn up in the Crystal Tower during Chapter 7, but only in up to one fight in 10 on its floors. Before that, the best EXP comes from Metal Cactuars (25,000 EXP) in Mysidia during Chapter 5; the farming guide has every spot by chapter.