The 100 Sleeps to Atk from the Grats(?) in the Balamb Garden training center was the cheapest and easiest way to get early high stats...
Refining made the whole process so much easier... By about the time I had the refine wind magic (from Pandemona) I had enough items to get 100 Tornado's for EVERYONE!!! so I had some kickass atk and mag stats then...
Another easy way at the start was to draw 100 Waters from those Fish things on the beach (+items from them) and then you had some good stuff too...
My main annoyance was Aura...
Damn that was annoying to obtain...

I only get really annoyed if my characters are only stocking a small amount each time (like 2 each turn ¬¬), but thats usually remedied by raising the Magic Stat first so each turn they stock the maximum of 9 spells. Doesn't seem to long after that It was annoying but a fresh approach to the series that I enjoyed the first few playthroughs, now its more of a chore.

I have used magic, but most often I just junctioned whatever was necessary to what stats I want to increase; usually I just used an auto ability sorting for that.

A lot of high power magic like "Triple" and "Ultima" I just use for increasing stats. Squall had 100 Stops and I never used them in battle.

Most healing spells are automatically junctioned first is what I've noticed.

Half the time I'm using the Draw-Cast ability.

You know what the best part of any battle system is? Finding ways to abuse it.

Seriously, guys, there are so many ways to cheat the system in Final Fantasy VIII that it isn't even funny. I went through the entire game without drawing a single spell from a single enemy. Before the Dollet mission, I had 100 Regen, Tornado, Meltdown, Death, Aura, and Blizzaga Junctioned to each of my characters. How, you ask? The answer is simple: I did it through the magic of Triple Triad. For example, Abyss Worms can be Modded into Windmills, which can be further turned into 20 Tornado spells. Abyss Worms can be obtained by playing cards in Balamb Garden.

It might seem tedious at first, but just think about it. You will then get to go through pretty much the whole game without ever needing to stock up on magic. It's a beautiful thing, not needing to worry about the Draw command. Even better yet, so long as you stay at a reasonably low level, the game itself is ridiculously easy. Square really messed up on this one. Once you figure out the Junction System and the secrets of Triple Triad, there's literally nothing stopping you from blowing through the game's bosses in a few hits. The ONLY time you'll have to restock is towards the end of Disc Three, and then you can just go to the Island Closest to Heaven/Hell to stock up on Ultima, Meteor, and Flare.

In essence, the difficulty of Final Fantasy VIII is entirely dependant on nobody figuring out how the hell the Junction System is supposed to work. But we gamers are a smart people. Through hours of obsessive devotion, we've managed to decipher the intricacies of this overly-complicated battle system. Is Drawing Magic annoying? Of course. Those long hours of drawing -Aga spells from those monsters were...were...*weeps* DAMNIT SQUARESOFT! I WANT THOSE TEN HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK! *cries in a corner*...*sniff*

...

...

I'm sorry you guys had to see that.

But yeah, Drawing is unneccessary.

Exactly, they should have put restrictions on Junctioning to be honest.

I can never sit and play through too much TT to just buff up my characters, only to make the game harshly easier than it already is, but it if thats the way some people like to do things then go for it.

@The_Oathkeeper

I did it through triple triad as well. It was *really* easy if you went to the card queen in balamb first and got her to spread the 'diff' or 'all' trading rules.

Tonberry's Lv Up skill is particularly useful for picking up hard to refine magic early as well. Case in point is meteor - you can get it by levelling up the ruby dragon you fight in one of laguna's dreams.

I liked using Tonberry's lv up skill just for a tougher fight...never really thought about getting better spells and stuff out of it.

Magic was...unique in it, but because of that, it made it a little confusing at first with the whole junctioning stuff. Between that and trying to get the right mixture of summons early on so your main characters have the right magic junctioned and stuff...

Quite annoying, to say the least. Once you understand it, life gets a little easier, but for the time it took to understand it, Squaresoft could have come up with an easier to understand system with the same principles. I mean, never mind that your characters never had a permanent base of magic (If you ran out, you ran out and had to figure out where you got the stupid magic from in the first place!), you also had to try and work out some of the intricate details of the junction system. And when you'd gone and got loads of fires and thought you were doing well, a new monster with Fira would appear, and you'd get really annoyed. (Fire just being an example, it wasn't that hard to get )

Anyway, not my favourite system out of the Final Fantasy series.