How To Farm Ethers in Final Fantasy X (Bribe + Steal)

The fastest way to farm Ethers is to bribe YAT-97 machina enemies with 74,000 gil, and you’ll get x16 Ethers in return. These enemies are only found in the in the Dome area of the Zanarkand Ruins.

But if you don’t want to pay then you can steal x1 Ether from Behemoth fiends, which can be found both on Mt. Gagazet and in the Zanarkand Ruins.

These are the only two really reliable ways to farm Ethers in the game.

What Are Ethers Used For?

Restoring MP!

In Final Fantasy X, you can’t ever purchase Ethers from any shop.

So you’ll want to scavenge them where you can to stock up as much as possible.

Until the point where you can reliably farm them, you’ll have to rely on the Ethers you get from chests and minigames, which isn’t a whole lot.

Using an Ether restores 100 MP to a single party member. And you’ll notice that a lot of battles can sway depending on your MP (and how you manage it).

This is true for a good portion of the pilgrimage, so extra Ethers can be a Yevon-send.

You can also use Ethers to customize MP+5% onto a piece of armor using just a single Ether.

And Rikku can also throw some Ethers into her mixes, with a few notable examples here:

Mana (Antidote + Ether): Doubles the max MP of one party member.

Mega Mana (Ether + Ether): Doubles the max MP of all party members.

FreedomX (Musk + Ether): The party’s abilities cost 0 MP for the duration of battle.

Are Ethers Worth Farming?

Yes.

Ethers are one of those items that are always good to have around.

You don’t need to get a full stack of x99. But if you just get fifty you’ll be super glad you went through the trouble.

Even Rikku’s mixes are super helpful.

So ethers are just as important as stuff like potions, they help you survive!

In fact, you could argue that farming Ethers is actually more valuable & more efficient than farming its counterpart, Turbo Ethers.

So if you can spare the Gil, definitely get to work bribing some YAT-97 machina.