Onion Bombs

Onion Bombs
(オニオンボム, Onion Bomu?)
Icon(s)
Availability
Obtained	Shop, enemy, and treasure availability vary per version
Required	Hand-bomb weapon
Character users	Zodiac: Foebreaker, Black Mage, Machinist Original: All
Value	100 gil
Classification
Type	Bomb
Specifications
Attack Power	1
Related pages
Recurring appearance	Onion equipment

The Onion Bombs are ammunition for hand-bombs in Final Fantasy XII. They are the weakest ammunition for hand-bombs without any special properties, but hand-bombs cannot be equipped without owning some kind of bombs. Owning the Onion Bombs means the player can use an unlimited amount, and bombs do not need a license to be equipped alongside a hand-bomb.

Obtain

Original

The Onion Bombs are bought for 100 gil from Nalbina Fortress, the traveling merchant Dyce in Nam-Yensa Sandsea, Jahara, and Mt Bur-Omisace.

They are also found in a treasure in the rainy Giza Plains' Warrior's Wash and in Ogir-Yensa Sandsea's East Junction .

Zodiac

The Onion Bombs set is sold for 100 gil in most shops.

The bombs is found as a treasure in Lhusu Mines' Oltam Span (75% chance to appear, 60% chance for an item, 50% chance the item treasure is the Onion Bombs without the Diamond Armlet equipped) and in Trial Mode Stage 9 with the Diamond Armlet equipped.

They are also commonly stolen from King Bomb in Trial Mode Stage 21.

Use

The Onion Bombs are the weakest bombs, adding but 1 point to the hand-bomb's power without any added statuses or elements. The player is meant to equip it if they have no better bombs to use; the Onion Bombs can be swapped out as soon as the player gets any other bomb set. The other bombs are commonly available in the bazaar, sold in packs alongside hand-bombs.

Hand-bombs commonly see little use, as in the original version the other ranged damage options tend to be better, and in the Zodiac versions, hand-bombs are no job's main weapon, being secondary even for the Foebreaker. However, getting the Hornito early from the Garamsythe Waterway can be a nice early game damage spike for them. The bombs are only useful to procure in the Zodiac versions if the player is using a Foebreaker as a ranged job. This can be situationally useful, as the Foebreaker cannot attack flying enemies with their hammers and axes. The Black Mage and the Machinist can gain access to some late game hand-bombs, but by that time, the player should have superior bombs to the Onion Bombs.

Etymology and origin

Onion equipment is a recurring type of equipment in the Final Fantasy series, associated from the Onion Knight job that debuted in Final Fantasy III. [view · edit · purge]The onion, also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is used as a vegetable and is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium.

In a 2020 Famitsu interview with Koichi Ishii and Hiromichi Tanaka about Final Fantasy III, Tanaka stated that he created the term "Onion Knight" after seeing Ishii's character design for the job, likening the shape of its helmet's large, white plume to that of an onion.

Fans had previously speculated that "Onion Knight" refers to the Japanese metaphoric idiom "peeling away one layer at a time and crying all the way" (referring to poverty) or from the slang phrase "to know one's onions" (meaning to be very versatile).