Robe possessed by the spirit of light.
Description
The Light Robe is a mid to endgame robe in Final Fantasy IX for mages. It teaches Auto-Regen, which lets the character passively regenerate health mid battle; Full-Life for Eiko that fully restores a KO'd ally to life; and Half MP, which halves MP costs of abilities. Wearing the Light Robe weakens the character to Fire and strengthens their Holy and Shadow damage. The Light Robe gives a bonus to the wearer's Strength and Magic and Spirit stats when they level up with it equipped.
Obtain[]
The Light Robe is first found in the Ocean chocograph treasure if the player advances the Chocobo Hot and Cold quest when they have the boat to explore the world map with. It is found in the eastern side of the map near the archipelago.
The robe is also stolen from Kuja atop Pandemonium. Afterward, it is also synthesized at Black Mage Village for 20,000 gil, Magician Robe, and Glass Armlet. Magician Robe is also made via synthesis (as all robes are) and bought from Treno Auction House. The Glass Armlet is sold in Lindblum and Alexandria.
Mechanics[]
The Light Robe provides 41 Defense and 6 Magic Defense, mainly mitigating physical damage. It weakens the wearer to Fire, making them sustain 150% damage from Fire attacks. If they also wear a Black Hood or Ribbon or Protect Ring, halving Fire damage, they will take ~75% damage from Fire. The Fire weakness is not mentioned in the flavor text; the only way the player can see it written out is when using Scan on the wearer while in battle.
The robe gives a +1 bonus to the wearer's Strength and Magic and Spirit stats when they level up with it equipped. When enough "bonuses" upon level up from gear have been accrued, the character gains a permanent stat increase. Strength affects damage with Attack and HP growth; Magic determines spell damage and MP growth; and Spirit affects various aspects, such as the HP a character is revived at, the duration of expirable statuses, how often Regen and Poison tick, how frequently the character enters Trance and how many turns they get while in Trance, among other things.
Wearing the robe boosts the character's Holy and Shadow damage by +50%, compatible with Vivi's Doomsday, Dagger's Ark and normal attack with Asura's Rod, Quina's LV4 Holy, and Eiko's Holy and Madeen.
Use[]
The Light Robe is a good robe to wear until the end of the game. Auto-Regen and Half MP are good to master for everyone, and Full-Life can be situationally useful as well. The player should keep Auto-Regen equipped at all times ever since learning it. Everyone but Quina have a good ability they can boost with the robe's Elem-Atk.
The Fire weakness can be a detriment against Garuda, Grenade, Wraith, Vepal, Agares, Cerberus, Mover, Chimera, Stilva, Worm Hydra, Earth Guardian, Maliris, Tiamat, and the final boss.
The Light Robe's level up bonuses are good, but level grinding and min-maxing are unnecessary in a normal playthrough even for superboss encounters. The best stat boost equipment pieces are available in the end of the game, and so it would be worthwhile to limit EXP intake until they are available.