Final Fantasy XIII Guides - Leonara's Garage and cost effective weapon upgrading.

The Why

If you played FFXIII, and you tried your hand at upgrading weapons and accessories, you know how goddamn unintuitive the whole experience is. Trying to figure out which part gives what XP isn't that much of a problem if you are getting the components as drops from mobs. But once you start shopping for components, your (Ridiculously) hard earned gil starts coming into play. And buying up tons of the wrong part can definitely drain what little money you already have.

The How

With that in mind here are some tips for Minimizing amount of gil spent and maximizing XP. The key thing here is knowing what component does what in general. There are 4 main types of components.

1. Organic: Low xp, Gives XP multipliers.



2. Synthetic: High XP, Removes XP multipliers.



3. Transformation Catalyst: Changes Weapon, accessory to next strongest type when level is maxed (Star where level should be.) Need specific TA to upgrade. (Currently working on a list) Have the list started Here



4. Sale items: Includes Credit Chips and Dolls. Sell them because they give 1-3 xp a pop.

Ok now with the basics down lets get to upgrading. First things first, get that 3x multiplier on your weapon or accessory. You do this by adding organic components to them. Cheapest way to do this, is to go to Creature Comforts and buy 36 sturdy bones. Slap them on your weapon or accessory and you have your multiplier.

Note: you can Get the multiplier as far up as 5x but that requires a ridiculous amount of components. 3x is plenty.

Next comes leveling the weapon. Here is a list of the items sold in Leonara's Garage. (May not be complete, still dicking around in Gran Pulse.)

Lenora's Garage Gil to XP Ratio (Helter-skelter Baseline)
Name	Bought	Sold	XP	X Gil for 1 xp
Amplifier	520	260	108	4.81
Bomb Fragment	430	215	82	5.24
Bomb Core	1200	600	551	2.18
Ceramic Armor	660	330	147	4.49
Crankshaft	840	420	215	3.91
Epicyclic Gear	320	160	66	4.85
Ferroelectric Film	460	230	102	4.51
Fiber-optic Cable	840	420	216	3.89
Insulated Cabling	280	140	65	4.31
Liquid Crystal Lens	320	160	70	4.57
Parafin Oil	320	160	67	4.78
Passive Detector	840	420	188	4.47
Perfect Conductor	1600	800	751	2.13
Piezoelectric Element	840	420	310	2.71
Polymer Emulsion	200	100	48	4.17
Radial Bearing	320	160	64	5.00
Ring Joint	840	420	208	4.04
Silicone Oil	660	330	162	4.07
Superconductor	840	420	400	2.10
Turbojet	840	420	212	3.96

These XP totals where gotten from the Helter-skelter weapon with no Multiplier. The X gil for 1 xp column shows how much gil you spend for 1 point of xp. This will scale with other equipment you upgrade other than the HS. So don't worry if your XP totals are different. Superconductor's are still the best bang for your gil buck on this list. But you may not have access to those right away. (Chapter 10 or 11 I think.) Just pick the lowest Value component in the X gil for xp column you currently have access to. Buy it up, and pop it onto your item.

note: synthetic parts will clobber your XP multipliers so use them in bulk, or you are gonna have to keep using organic items to get back multipliers. Also note That I added bomb cores to the list since I farmed the hell out of those repeating Cie'th stone mission 7. It's a short walk and you get 5 Bomb cores guaranteed. I was using bomb cores as a baseline for my spreadsheet because I had a ton of them.

I'll be updating this list when I unlock more (probably still more) items from Leonara's Garage. Also here is a list of what Transformation Catalysts are used for weapons and accessories.