FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: THE WAR OF THE LIONS (PSP) FAQ & WALKTHROUGH @@ ,9@@@#@@s@@SA@; @@r i@ &@@: :@@@@@@@ .@ #@r #@;@@@@@@ r@ :@@SsM@@: 2@. @@@ :@s@@ r@@ 2@ @@ ;@@ .@@@ A@ @@; i@@ ;@:@ @@ # @@. ,@2 @@ @@S @@ @@@ # @@ @@@ @ 2@@@ @@ @@& A;@@@ @@@ @ @@ i@@@ #@@ @@h@ @@@X@. @@ @@@@@ @@@@ @@ @@@M@ @@@@ @@@@@ @@ @@@@ @@@@ r@@ @@@A@: @@ @ @@@ .@ @@ @@ . @@@@@ @ @@; @ @@@ @@ @ @@. @@@@; @@ @@@ :. @@ @ @@ @@@@@@ @@ r@ @@H .#@@@@@ @ @@ @@ @@@@@@ G @@@ @@ @@@ @@ :@: @@ @: i@@ ,@@:@@ @@@ @9 .@@ ,@; @@ @@ @r r@@ A@ @@r ,@@ @@@ i@@SX@& 3H@S 9@@X2@@@@i @@@ X@3 i@@&X@H A @@2@5 X@@#@@#@@. G@@s @@@ @@@ @@ @@i @@ M; @ T A C T I C S T h e W a r o f t h e L i o n s %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: THE WAR OF THE LIONS FAQ % % Version 5.25 % % by Fritz Fraundorf % % qumarsh@gmail.com % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% For best results, view this document using a fixed-width font (e.g. Courier). Make sure that the window is at least 80 characters wide, so that the numbers below all appear a single line: 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890 If they appear on more than one line, you may need to make your window bigger. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- %%%%TABLE OF CONTENTS%%%% To jump to any section of this FAQ, press Ctrl+F to Find and type in the code (beginning with 00) next to the section title. I. Revision History 00rev II. Frequently Asked Questions 00faq III. Basic Mechanics and Tactics 00basic Important Statistics 00stats KOed Characters & Crystals/Chests 00ko Turn Order & Charging Abilities 00ct More on Magicks 00magick Using Items & Equipment 00using Moving Around a Battlefield 00move Undead Units 00undead Recruiting & Using Chocobos and Monsters 00mon Tricks Related to Specific Abilities or Items 00tricks Menus 00menu IV. Walkthrough and Battle Strategies - Main Quest 00walk0 Chapter I: The Meager 00walk1 Chapter II: The Manipulative & The Subservient 00walk2 Chapter III: The Valiant 00walk3 Chapter IV: In the Name of Love 00walk4 V. Walkthrough and Battle Strategies - Subquests 00sub Agrias's Birthday 00agr Gollund Colliery 00col Recruiting Balthier 00balt Nelveska Temple 00nel Recruiting Cloud 00cloud Disorder in the Order 00dis Lionel's New Liege Lord 00lio Midlight's Deep 00md VI. Multiplayer Modes Melee Mode - General Information 00melee0 Melee Mode - Treasures 00melee1 Rendezvous Mode - General Information 00ren0 Rendezvous Mode - Treasures and Ranking 00ren1 Rendezvous Mission Strategies 00ren2 VII. Jobs and Abilities Job Requirements (Quick Reference) 00req General Information about Jobs 00job0 Standard Jobs 00job1 Story Character Jobs 00job2 Job Statistics Comparison 00jobstat Monster List 00job3 Enemy-Only Jobs 00job4 Strongest Abilities 00strong VIII. Ability Strategies Ability Combos 00abil Character Strategies 00char Party Strategies 00par IX. Statistics and Leveling Bravery and Faith 00brave Exp, JP, and Gil 00exp Quickly Gaining Exp and JP 00quick Automated Leveling 00auto Level-Downs and Stat Grinding 00down X. Equipment and Items 00equip Weapons 00weap Shields 00shield Headgear 00head Body Armor 00armor Accessories 00acc Items 00item XI. Finding Items Treasure Hunter & Traps 00treasure Poached Items 00poach Shop Chart 00shop Rare Item Locations 00rare Throws from Enemy Ninjas 00throw Missable Items and Events 00miss XII. Errands General Information About Errands 00err0 Errand Types & Preferred Jobs 00err1 Errand List 00err2 Artefacts, Wonders, and Zodiac Stones 00arte XIII. Random Battles Overworld Random Battles 00over Midlight's Deep Random Battles 00mdrb Special Random Battles 00special XIV. Other Game Information Zodiac Compatibility 00zodiac Party & Boss Zodiac Signs 00boss Status Changes (Quick Reference) 00status1 Status Changes (Detail) 00status2 Elemental Affinities 00elem Weather Effects & Ivalician Calendar 00weather Learning Magick from Being Hit 00hit Arithmeticks Chart 00arith Bugs and Glitches 00bug XV. Miscellaneous Reference Music and Soundtrack 00music Did You Notice...? 00dyn Final Fantasy Series References 00ffr Spell Quotes 00quote1 Character Quotes 00quote2 Character Birthdays & Ages 00bday Generic Character Names 00names Game Credits 00gamecred XVI. Version Differences PSP Changes & Regional Differences 00changes Name Conversion Chart 00names Sound Novels 00sound XVII. Postscript Some Additional Resources 00addl FAQ Credits & Disclaimer 00cred ******************************************************************************** I. REVISION HISTORY 00rev ******************************************************************************** ---Version 5.25 (9/6/09)--- - It's possible to Dual Wield weapons as an Onion Knight via a bug in the game that I've now described in the Bugs section and the Onion Knight job description. You can't actually swing the second weapon, but you CAN get any buffs it has (which actually turns out to not be terribly useful). Thanks to Kwing for the heads-up on this. > As another Onion Knight related goof, the Onion Sword has a 15% Parry rate even though only Onion Knights can use it and they can't equip Parry. - Walkthrough & battle strategy updates: > Corrected Luso's initial equipment. > The Mana Shield/Manafont combo is of course another way to survive the last of the battles with Wiegraf. > Updated the strategy for Terminus to emphasize the Construct 8/Chantage strategy for ensuring Zodiark doesn't kill you. > It's not possible to steal/break the Protoconstructs' gear at The Guarded Temple because the game is confused by monsters having equipment. Thanks to Kwing for this pointer. - Kwing also points out a clever use of Stone and Rush: in some cases, you can use the "knockback" effect to push your own units out of the effect radius of an enemy magick that's charging up. - General updates to the Jobs section: > Fixed up another boneheaded mistake where I'd mentioned needing Ultima to master Squire to power up Onion Knight ... when, of course, Squire doesn't count towards that. Thanks to Joe Welke for this catch. > Since Ramza can't learn Ultima until Chapter IV, his Squire job CAN display as Mastered prior to Chapter IV without Ultima. Thanks to Joe Welke for this as well. > Added a note to both the Jobs and Weapons section that no ability or weapon can do more than 999 damage per hit. - A couple updates to the Party Strategies section: > Excalibur also absorbs Holy and so works for the "Holy Justice" strategy > Added a "Robot Revival" strategy that's basically an easier version of "Keep Yourself Alive" if you don't any Invisibility abilities/items yet. > Did some reformatting to make this section easier to read - In Rendezvous Mode missions with multiple battles, equipment that starts you off with beneficial status (like Invisible) has this effect at the start of EACH battle. But, you only have to de-Petrify a character with the Stoneshooter once. Thanks to Kwing for the heads-up on this. - Two new ability combos: Barrage + Vehemence + Chaos Blade + other equipment (thanks Kwing), and Soulbind + Defense Boost/Arcane Defense (thanks zOOyork_BansHo). - Added a new chart to the Strongest Abilities comparing abilities that can strike the same target multiple times. - A few updates about specific abilities: > Specifically, Swiftness reduces charge time by half. > Swiftness does NOT help Bardsongs or Dances charge faster. > Similar to Magick Counter, Nature's Wrath does not require that you've learned the Geomancy ability for the tile you're standing on. > Both Magick Counter and Nature's Wrath work regardless of the distance between you and the attacker. - And, a few updates on Haste and Slow status: > The increase or decrease in your CT charge rate is 50% for both of these status conditions. > Clarified that, in addition to not affecting ability charge time, Haste and Slow don't affect the strength/success of abilities/weapons that depend on Speed (like Steal, or dagger-type weapons). - Added a table of the starting levels of story characters to the Exp section. Also, added Alicia, Lavian, Ladd, Boco, and Luso as characters that all start at fixed Exp levels. - Stat growth in FF Tactics is exponential, meaning the higher your stats already are, the more they increase on level-up. I've noted this in the relevant places of the Exp & Stats section. - Updated the Level-Downs & Stat Grinding section with the specific coordinates of all the Degenerators. - Updated the FAQ about learning Zodiark to make it more specific, and added a couple of new FAQs about the strongest weapons/spells since I've had requests for that. - I incorrectly listed the Dragon Whisker polearm as the Whale Whisker in the Rendezvous Mode prizes; that's fixed now. - Fixed some more typos. ---Version 5.23 (9/3/09)--- - It's of course possible to gain job levels as a Mime, even though it has no abilities to learn. Thanks to Kwing for this correction! - Made a couple of other clarifications to the Jobs section: > Spelled out that Job Levels do not make your stats/abilities stronger; they just unlock new jobs. > Clarified that while Zodiark is needed to master Summoner IF you want to use Summoner as one of your 14 jobs for powering up Onion Knight, you COULD power up Onion Knight without Mastering Summoner. - Updated the Treasure Hunter section to mark the Materia Blade as another Treasure Hunter item obtained regardless of Bravery. - Fixed up some more typos. ---Version 5.22 (8/30/09)--- - Reader Christianello suggests a clearer description of how Mimes choose a target tile. Christianello also points out that Mimes will only copy one strike from a Dual Wield attack, and do not copy the actions of other Mimes. - Throughout the FAQ, I've clarified that Construct 8 is only immune to *Faith*- based magicks, but is still vulnerable to stuff that just depends on Magick Attack (like Iaido, Limit, etc.) - Walkthrough: > Mandalia Plains - Clarified that the Red Panther (and other monsters) MAY counterattack you, but doesn't ALWAYS. > Zeirchele Falls - If you want to use the body of an enemy Knight to block the bridge, you need to stand right behind it. > When Agrias joins, clarified some of the differences between Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination. > Lionel Castle - Added a reminder to change out of the Rubber Boots if you used them at the gate. > Duguera Pass - You can also use Atheist status to stop the enemy Black Mages. > Clarified that you need to go to the *Free City* of Bervenia after Duguera Pass, not *Mount* Bervenia. > Added some descriptions of the Defender and Chantage when they become available. > Beddha Sandwaste - The Monk's Purification can also be used to remove the poison. Also pointed out that Shirahadori with stop Barich's gun, of course. > Mount Germinas - Clarified that you only can use the Move-Find Item tile with the Invisibilty Cloak *once*, even if you later return to the map. > Mullonde Cathedral Nave - You need only to reduce one of the enemies to critical HP to win; you don't have to KO them. I also added a reminder to equip Safeguard before this battle. > Book Storage 5th Level - Clarified that you can only hover THROUGH the pit tiles, not ONTO them. > Necrohol of Mullonde - Clarified that the boss's Magick Boost ability raises his Magick Attack strength, not his MP. > Gollund Colliery quest - Added a sterner warning not to turn down Beowulf at the start of the quest, since it's easy to click the wrong option by mistake. > Gollund Colliery Floor - It's not actually snowing hard enough here for ice magicks to get stronger. > Gollund Colliery - Described Construct 8's elemental immunities when he joins. > Midlight's Deep - Clarified how to use Vengeance/Teleport/etc. to peek at the map. - Relocated the chart of which ability sets correspond with which stats. I've put it in its own subsection further up in the Jobs section. - Corrected the MP costs for the -ga magicks, which I'd listed incorrectly in a few spots. - Corrected the total JP needed to master Ninja, Arithmetician, Bard, and Delita's and Argath's Squire jobs, Astrologer, Game Hunter, Sky Pirate, Sword Saint, Dragonkin, and Ark Knight. Yeesh. - Other job section changes: > Although I'd previously described Arts of War as having "fairly low" accuracy, "moderate" is a more accurate description. > Clarified that Moogle and Faerie only damage undead *allies* since they never affect enemy targets (and hence can't be used as a weapon against the undead). > I'd previously trashed Bahamut and Odin, but it's worth pointing out these summons DO have a wider range than Cyclops. Their charge time is still pretty bad, though :\ > Clarified that the crucial HP value for Tame is the HP the monster has *after* your attack, not before. > Geomancer - Will-o'-the-Wisp is another pretty widely available Geomancy. > Dragoon - Pointed out that another disadvantage of spears is that they don't let you use sword techniques. > Soulbind - Clarified that this ability requires you to take the damage first before it gets reflected back, and that the split is always 50/50. > Holy Knight - In the last revision of the job chart, I'd somehow wiped the note that Chant is Delita-only. It's been added back. > Compress - This ability may inflict an instant KO. > Soldier - Updated the text of the job description to discuss the ability to equip hair adornments. > The Impure - has an innate Brawler. > The Undead Knight's Action Ability is called "Swordplay" rather than "Arts of War." - Updated the "Strongest Abilities" charge to add the Ark Knight's version of Vampire, and to note that Osafune does MP (rather than HP) damage and that Poisonous Frog is an area effect magick. - Ability combo updates: > The Flame/Ice/Thunder Rods are also helpful early on in boosting the part of some of the starting summons. > Chantage/Revive also works very well if it's Chantage/Phoenix Down. > Clarified how the Barrage/Tame combo works. > The Red Shoes are another accessory that can boost your movement range for Teleport. > Reflexes & Featherweave Cloak is another good choice for a low-Brave Treasure Hunter (although, of course, it takes up your accessory slot). - Updated the Elemental Affinities section to note that the Japa Mala boosts Dark. - Corrected quite a few typos/grammatical errors. - Also made other smaller changes to the text to improve readability/clarity. (Older updates not listed.) ******************************************************************************** II. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 00faq ******************************************************************************** ---Basic Mechanics-------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I just started the game; how do I learn new abilities? A. New abilities are "purchased" using JP, which you earn from any successful action in battle. You earn JP separately for each job, so earning JP as an Archer only lets you buy Archer abilities. (Gaining JP also eventually unlocks new jobs for you to use.) To buy abilities, on the map screen, open the menu (with Triangle) and enter the Party Roster screen. Then point to a character, press Triangle to open the menu, and choose Abilities. The in- game tutorial, available from the title screen, can walk you through this step-by-step. If you check out the "Exp, JP, and Gil" section of this FAQ, you'll also find tips on maximizing your JP haul, though you don't *need* them at the start of the game. Q. How do I use items like Potions or Phoenix Downs? A. Items are used with the Items command, which belongs to the Chemist job. So, switch one of your characters to a Chemist -- or assign Items as a secondary Action Ability. To learn how to use each type of item, the character must also learn the ability that goes along with it. For instance, to use Phoenix Downs, you must first learn the Chemist's "Phoenix Down" ability. These abilities can be bought on your status screen using JP (Job Points) earned by using the Chemist job. Q. How can I revive a dead character? A. If the character is simply KOed (lying down with a red counter over his/her head), you can use a Phoenix Down, the White Mage's Raise/Arise spells, or the Monk's Revive. Or, finish the battle before the counter expires and the character will also be restored. If the counter counts down past 0, the character will turn into a treasure chest or crystal. Once this happens, the character is gone for good and there is unfortunately NO way to revive him or her, ever. You may recruit replacement generic characters from the Warriors' Guild in any town. Special story characters are irreplaceable if killed. Q. What do the Bravery and Faith statistics mean? Do I want high or low Bravery and Faith? A. A high Bravery is almost always good. It increases your chance of using Reaction Abilities, and makes certain weapon types (fists, knight's swords, katanas, and most monster attacks) stronger. The only advantage of low Bravery is that it helps you find rare items with the Treasure Hunter ability, but you can just keep a single low-Bravery character for that purpose. Faith makes a character's magicks stronger and makes allies' healing magicks more effective when used on the character. But, it also makes enemy magicks do more damage when used against you. So, generally, you'll want your magick users to have high Faith (to make their magick stronger) and characters not using magick to have low Faith (to defend them from enemy magick). See the Bravery and Faith section for more specific details, as well as tips on raising/lowering Bravery and Faith. ---PSP Version Changes---------------------------------------------------------- Q. Is Cloud still in this version of the game, like he was in the PSone release? A. Yes. In fact, you can actually recruit him earlier than you could before. Q. What's new in the PSP version of the game? A. Check out the PSP Version Changes section - just hit Ctrl+F and type in 00changes to jump to that section of the FAQ. Q. Aren't there some new jobs added to the PSP version that weren't in the PSone version? A. The PSP version of FF Tactics has two new jobs. To make a character into an Onion Knight, simply get their Squire and Chemist jobs up to level 6. The other new job, Dark Knight, is trickier to unlock. To become a Dark Knight, the same character must fulfill ALL of these three requirements: 1. Master Knight and Black Mage by learning all the abilities. 2. Earn enough JP to raise the Dragoon, Geomancer, Samurai, and Ninja jobs to job level 8. While it's possible to master Geomancer without getting it to job level 8, you MUST continue to earn enough JP to get to job level 8 if you want to unlock Dark Knight. 3. Kill 20 enemies with the character. Just KOing them does NOT count; they must turn to chests or crystals. (And poaching does not count!) It doesn't matter whether or not you actually pick up the crystals. Yikes! :-) Q. What are the new subquests in the PSP version? How do I access them? A. There are three new subquests in Chapter IV, one revolving around Beowulf and the others revolving around Agrias. Beowulf's subquest is available after returning Reis to human form at Nelveska Temple and after completing Mullonde Cathedral in the main storyline. (Press Ctrl+F and enter 00lio to jump to the section with all the details on the Lionel's New Liege Lord quest.) Agrias has a couple of different subquests. First, if you still have Alicia and Lavian, the Tynar Rouge event can be accessed on 1 Cancer. Second, after Mullonde, travel to Zeltennia to open up another battle accessed via the Tavern at Gariland. For details on these events, press Ctrl+F and enter 00agr to jump to Agrias's Birthday or 00dis for Disorder in the Order, respectively. Q. How do I get the new equipment in the PSP version? A. The Tynar Rouge is obtained from the Agrias's Birthday quest, and the Mirage Vest and Ras Algethi come with Balthier. All the other new items can only be obtained as prizes in one of the multiplayer modes. Some items can only be found in Melee Mode and some only in Rendezvous Mode; see the respective sections or the Rare Items List for a complete list. ---Character Recruitment-------------------------------------------------------- Q. How do I recruit Luso and Balthier? A. Luso is recruited automatically in Chapter III as part of a story event. You CANNOT miss him! He'll join in a story event midway through the chapter, as you head through the Zeklaus Desert after revisiting Orbonne Monastery. There is NO way to recruit him any earlier in the game. Balthier isn't available until you've completed the battle at the Free City of Bervenia in Chapter IV. Any time after that, read the "Rash of Thefts" rumor at the Gariland tavern, then go to the Dorter tavern and read the "Call for Guards" rumor. Win the battle that ensues when you try to leave town and Balthier joins. Q. How do I get Cloud to join my party? And where do I find his sword? A. See the "Walkthrough - Subquests" section of the FAQ. You need to complete the Gollund Colliery, Nelveska Temple, and Recruiting Cloud quests in sequence. Q. I didn't buy the flower when I had the chance. Can I still get Cloud? A. Unfortunately, it seems that you have only one chance to buy the flower. If you declined to buy it, you are not able to get Cloud, or complete the other sidequests that depend on the flower. Sorry :( Q. How do I recruit monsters? A. Use the Orator's Entice or Tame abilities on the monsters. If you switch to another non-Orator job, you'll need to also equip the Beast Tongue support skill to use Entice on monsters. (For more information, see "Recruiting Monsters" in the Monsters section.) ---Equipment & Items------------------------------------------------------------ Q. How do I get the Genji equipment? Can I steal it from the boss who has it? A. Unfortunately, you can never steal from that boss in the PSP version, so he gets to keep his Genji gear to himself. Alas! However, you CAN get the Genji Armor and Masamune from the new "Lionel's New Liege Lord" subquest. Press Ctrl+F and enter 00lio to jump to the guide for that quest. Q. How do I get good items / more items in multiplayer? A. You'll get better items the higher your character level and (in Rendezvous Mode) the more difficult the mission you complete; most of the new items can only be obtained at a pretty high level. Winning Melee Mode battles and completing Rendezvous Mode missions with fewer characters deployed and more enemies KOed increases the NUMBER of items you get, but doesn't change their quality. Q. How do I get the lipstick accessory (Tynar Rouge)? A. First, you need to keep Agrias, Alicia, Lavian, and Mustadio on your roster until Chapter IV. Once Chapter IV begins, travel back and forth between Gollund and Lesalia until the calendar says 1 Cancer. If you have at least 500,000 gil and are standing on a town (NOT a castle) when the calendar turns 1 Cancer, you should get the scene where you acquire the Tynar Rouge accessory. Q. Where do I get all the Zodiac Stones? A. You'll find a list at the end of the Artefacts, Wonders, and Zodiac Stones section -- press Ctrl+F and 00arte to jump there. Be warned that this list contains some spoilers. Q. I completed an errand in a bar, and received an Artefact or a Wonder of the Ancient World. What does it do? A. Nothing! These are just for decoration :) Q. What is the best equipment to use? A. Knight's swords are generally the best weapons for fighters, since they have high attack power and beneficial status effects. The Rod of Faith (found in Midlight's Deep) is best for a magick-user. Among accessories in the single- player game, the Tynar Rouge (see above) and Chantage are always handy. Ribbons can also be useful for protecting female characters (and Cloud!) from status changes. Or, check the equipment list and make your own selections! ---Poaching--------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How do I poach enemies? A. Equip the Thief ability Poach and kill a monster with a regular attack. Then go to a Poachers' Den in a trade city and you can purchase what you've poached. Note that Poachers' Dens are NOT available in all cities; only Dorter, Warjilis, and Sal Ghidos have them, and they don't appear until the start of Chapter III. Q. The guy at the Poachers' Den won't talk to me, or says the store is out of inventory. A. To get inside the Poachers' Den, you must first poach at least one monster. (See the question above for instructions on poaching.) Also, if you've already bought up all the items that you poached, the Den will say they're out of inventory and there won't be anything for you to buy. So get poaching! ---Midlight's Deep & Treasure Hunter-------------------------------------------- Q. Where is Midlight's Deep? A. After you finish the battles at Mullonde Cathedral, go to the Port City of Warjilis. You will see a scene at the bar, then the way to Midlight's Deep will appear. Q. How do I beat / find items in Midlight's Deep? A. See the cleverly-titled Midlight's Deep section of the walkthrough ;) . Just hit Ctrl+F and type in 00md to jump to that section of the FAQ. Q. How do I use the Treasure Hunter coordinates you've included in each battle strategy? A. Use the analog stick (in the lower left of the PSP). Every time you tap it left or right, the perspective changes. Rotate the perspective until the specified corner is the bottom of the map. From this corner, use the LEFT and UP buttons on the D-pad to move to the cursor to the correct tile. See the Treasure Hunter section (hit Ctrl+F and enter 00treasure ) for a more detailed explanation. Q. I missed an item in Midlight's Deep. What can I do? A. If you didn't touch the treasure tile at all, you can just go back to the same floor and try again. If you picked up the Phoenix Down from the treasure tile instead of the "good" item, I'm afraid the good item is gone forever--even if you leave the map and re-enter. You'd have to restore to a previous save to get the item. Q. I landed on a treasure tile in Midlight's Deep, but I sprung a trap instead of getting a treasure. A. This might happen for one of two reasons. Either the character doesn't have the Treasure Hunter ability equipped, or someone (either yourself or an enemy) already took the treasure off the tile. Unfortunately, once EITHER item is taken from a tile (i.e. the good item OR the Phoenix Down), BOTH of the tile's items are gone forever. Q. What's this about a treasure tile at Mount Bervenia that you can't get? A. Yep, there's a treasure tile programmed into Mount Bervenia that you can never actually get. To get it, your Treasure Hunter would have to stop on a tile filled with lava. The only abilities that let you do this are Lavawalking and Levitate, neither of which can be equipped simultaneously with Treasure Hunter. Float magick and gear like the Winged Boots do NOT work because they only allow you to move THROUGH lava on the way to another tile, and never allow you to STOP on top of lava. The tile only has a Flameburst Bomb and X-Potion anyway, so don't sweat it. ---Specific Battles------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How do I beat Wiegraf? A. If you have a Chameleon Robe, equipping that will stop his sword techniques. (Otherwise, try using Auto-Potion or Mana Shield to protect yourself.) Run from Wiegraf and keep using the Tailwind ability to boost your speed. Repeat until you are getting seven or eight turns in a row, then start using Focus to raise your attack power. When you have high attack power, just attack and KO Wiegraf. Against Belias, run up and attack him repeatedly. (If you don't have these items or abilities, check out the Chapter III walkthrough for a slew of alternate strategies, as well as a place you can find a Chameleon Robe *during* the battle.) Q. How do I win at Golgollada Gallows? A. The easiest strategy is to immediately start climbing up the wooden gate behind you. Once you get up on top, you can use magicks, bows, and guns to attack the enemies from above. Try to use status ailments like Disable to reduce the number of enemies attacking you at once. For a more detailed strategy, see the Chapter II walkthrough. Q. How do I beat the Lionel Castle Gate? A. There are two main methods: One is to give Ramza the Chakra ability and have him use it every turn. The other is to use Teleport to warp outside the gate. Either way, don't open the gate until the fight outside is finished. To help beat the enemies outside the gate, equip Rubber Boots to block their lightning-elemental weapons. For more tips, see the walkthrough for Chapter II. Press Ctrl+F and type in 00walk2 to jump there. Q. I just got ambushed at Dorter in Chapter IV. What's the deal? A. If you have a Meliadoul, there's an optional battle at Dorter as you go from Limberry to Eagrose. (This battle is new in the PSP version.) There's not really anything special to earn in this battle, so you can either fight your way through it, or walk around Dorter to reach Eagrose. After you clear Eagrose, the ambush will disappear. Q. I got into a random battle and was facing a weird set of enemies. Is this some special event? What's going on? A. Each wilderness location has a "special" random battle that you can randomly encounter at low odds in Chapter IV. These special battles pit you against unusual enemy parties -- mostly collections of human enemies. You don't get anything special for winning these battles and they have no relation to the story, but they can be an interesting extra challenge! For a list of all these special battles, see the Random Battles section. ---Jobs & Abilities------------------------------------------------------------- Q. How do I unlock the _______ job? A. I've put together a Quick Reference chart with all the job requirements; press Ctrl+F and enter 00req to get there. Q. I'm having trouble unlocking Dark Knight. What am I missing? A. It's pretty tricky! To make a character into Dark Knight, s/he must meet ALL of these three requirements (in any order): 1. Master Knight and Black Mage by learning all the abilities. Make sure you've actually used your JP to buy the abilities. 2. Earn enough JP to raise the Dragoon, Geomancer, Samurai, and Ninja jobs to job level 8. While it's possible to master Geomancer without getting it to job level 8, you MUST continue to earn enough Geomancer JP to get to job level 8 if you want to unlock Dark Knight. 3. Kill 20 enemies with the character. Just KOing them does NOT count; they must turn to chests or crystals. (And poaching does not count!) It doesn't matter whether or not you actually pick up the crystals. There is no way to actually see how many enemies a character has killed, but just keep on killing until the job unlocks. Q. How do I use the Samurai's ability Iaido? A. First learn the ability you want to use. Then buy several of the corresponding Samurai sword. During battle, you can use the ability if you have the appropriate type of sword in your inventory (NOT equipped). Note that this may break the sword, so I'd buy several copies. Q. What job should I use for the best HP? The best attack power? A. I've added a Job Statistics Comparison chart to the FAQ to quickly compare each job's stats. Ctrl+F and 00jobstat will get you there. Q. Why don't my Reaction Abilities always work? A. For almost all Reaction Abilities, the chance of using the ability is equal to your Bravery stat. Use Ramza's skills or an Orator to raise the character's Bravery and your Reaction Abilities will activate more. Q. I've learned all the abilities for one of my jobs, but it still doesn't show up as Mastered. Why not? A. Ramza's Squire job and Luso's Game Hunter job also require that you learn their hidden Ultima ability. The Summoner job also requires that you get the Zodiark summon. See the FAQs below. Q. How do I learn Ultima? A. Only Ramza and Luso can learn Ultima. Ramza or Luso must be in their base job; then, if someone casts the spell on him, he will learn it. (As long as just one of the two characters learns it, you can have him cast it on the other to learn it later.) The best time to learn the spell is from the assassins outside Limberry Castle in Chapter IV, but you can also have Luso learn it on the Riovanes Castle Roof in Chapter III, from Ultima Demons in other battles, or from another player in Rendezvous Mode. (The guest character during the final battle can also learn Ultima if it's cast on her.) Q. How do I learn Zodiark? A. You can only learn Zodiark from Elidibus, the boss of Midlight's Deep, by having him cast it on one of your Summoners. Equip the Mana Shield ability to survive it. (You only have a 90% chance to learn Zodiark when you're hit with it, so if you don't learn it the first time, try again!) If you don't learn Zodiark during that battle, the only other place to find Elidibus is in the Brave Story multiplayer mission. Q. What's the deal with Onion Knights? They seem horrible. Is there any way to make them stronger? A. Actually, yes. The Onion Knight's job level goes up as you master other jobs, and if you can get the Onion Knight up to job level 8, they'll become more powerful. Also, if you play the game's multiplayer modes, you can earn some powerful "Onion" equipment that only Onion Knights can equip. Q. What's the best team to use? A. Well, you can win the game with all sorts of different combinations of abilities and characters, so feel to experiment and find a team that suits your play style :). If you're looking for a quick victory, Agrias, Orlandeau, and Balthier (and Mustadio, before you get Balthier) are all very powerful. Construct 8 is also quite good for simply playing through the single-player game, though it ends up being less useful at higher levels. For generic characters, the Dark Knight is the best overall physical fighter and a Black Mage with Arithmeticks and all magicks learned is the best overall mage. Before you unlock those jobs, I like Ninjas and Monks for fighting and Chemists for healing. Monsters, in general, are not too useful. For specific strategies for configuring individual characters, see the Ability and Character Strategies section. Q. What are the best / strongest magicks and abilities? A. I've put together a Strongest Abilities section that compares abilities from a number of different categories. (Ctrl+F and 00strong will take you there.) As far as sheer damage goes, Holy is the strongest magick (and can be used with Arithmeticks!) aside from the hidden Zodiark summon. Divine Ruination is the strongest swordskill. ---Miscellany------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. Are there items or events in this game that I can permanently miss? What do I need to do to see them? A. I've put together a Missable Items and Events list -- just press Ctrl+F and enter 00miss to jump to that section. Q. Help! I beat the last boss and the game said it was saving afterwards, but when I load up my last save, I'm just at the last boss fight again. Can I go anywhere else? A. Unfortunately, no :(. The game clear save is just to unlock some of the multiplayer missions. If you want to continue roving the world map, you need to keep a separate save from before you began the final sequence of battles. Q. Is there a way I can quickly gain levels? A. Sure, see the Quickly Gaining Exp & JP (00quick) for strategies for this. With the right magicks, it's even possible to make this process completely automatic! But keep in mind you never *need* to do this to finish the game. Usually, a change of strategy should be enough to get you past the next battle and you don't need to spend time leveling if you don't want to. Q. How do I ride a Chocobo? A. Move the character onto the same square as the Chocobo. Riding a Chocobo will expand your movement range and protect you from status ailments. Otherwise, you have the same abilities as when you are on foot. Q. Is there any kind of New Game+ mode, so that I can start from the beginning but keep all my levels and items? A. Unfortunately, no. FF Tactics dates back to a time before this feature started becoming common in RPGs. Whenever you start a new game, you always have to start from scratch. Q. One of my characters is threatening to desert the team. What do I do? A. This is happening because your character has either a very low Bravery or a very high Faith. To keep the character from leaving your roster, make sure the character's Bravery or Faith doesn't get any more extreme. To stop the threats, use Orator skills to increase the character's Bravery or lower his/her Faith. (Note that neither HIGH Bravery nor LOW Faith will ever cause a character to desert.) Q. Why don't any of the characters have noses? A. Your guess is as good as mine. Some genetic defect or something, I suppose. ******************************************************************************** III. BASIC MECHANICS AND TACTICS 00basic ******************************************************************************** Final Fantasy Tactics includes a pretty extensive in-game tutorial that explains most of the basics of gameplay like fighting in battle, changing Jobs, equipping items and abilities, and gaining levels. You can access the tutorial from the title screen (just choose "Tutorial"), or during the game by choosing "Tutorial" from the map screen menu. To avoid wasting space in the FAQ, I'm not going to duplicate everything that's already covered in the in-game tutorial. Instead, I'll use this section to cover a few mechanics that the tutorial doesn't really mention, as well as a few standard tactics for almost any battle! %%%IMPORTANT STATISTICS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00stats ---EVASION RATES--- You've probably noticed that the status screen features *three* numbers for each character's evade rate. The first number, C-Ev, comes from the character's current class/job. The second number, S-Ev, comes from the character's shield. The final number, A-Ev, comes from the character's accessory (i.e., cloaks). You also have separate evade rates for evading physical attacks and evading magick attacks. For physical attacks, your evade rate depends on which direction the attack is coming from. C-Ev is only effective against attacks from the FRONT. Shields (S-Ev) are effective against attacks from the front and side, but NOT from the back. A-Ev is effective against ALL attacks. For magick attacks, S-Ev and A-Ev are effective against all attacks regardless of direction. No job actually has a magick C-Ev greater than 0, so magick can be evaded only with a shield or cloak. You can plan your attacks with these evade rates in mind. If an enemy has a shield, attack him or her from behind. (If an enemy doesn't have a shield, attacking from the side or behind are equally effective.) If an enemy has a high overall physical evade rate, use magick -- or guns, which ignore evade rates completely. Equipping the Archer's Concentration ability will completely prevent your physical attacks from being evaded. And, of course, positioning your own characters so that their backs/sides can't be attacked helps you evade enemy attacks. Some status conditions affect evade rates. If you're Blind, the enemy's evade rate is doubled versus your physical attacks. If you're Defending, YOUR evade rate versus both physical and magickal attacks is doubled. Of course, since these conditions only double an existing evade rate, they have NO effect on attacks with a 100% hit rate. (So, attacking from behind is often still effective even if you're Blind or the enemy is Defending!) Finally, while you're charging up magicks or other abilities, your evade rates versus both physical and magickal attacks drop to ZERO! The Shirahadori, First Strike, and Archer's Bane reaction abilities stop attacks outright and are independent of evade rate. ---BRAVERY AND FAITH--- Bravery and Faith are two really important statistics that each character has. They're so important, in fact, that I've created an entire section about them! See "Bravery and Faith" under Statistics and Leveling for a full description of how these statistics work. In short, a high Bravery increases a chance of a character using his or her Reaction Abilities and raises your attack power with certain kinds of weapons (fists, knight's swords, katanas, and some monster attacks). A high Bravery is almost always a good thing to have! The only benefit to a low Bravery is that is improves your odds of finding good items with the Treasure Hunter ability, but even the "good" items are rarely worth picking up. Faith affects a character's affinity for magick. Having a high Faith stat makes your offensive magicks do more damage, your healing magicks restore more HP, and your status change magicks more likely to succeed. It also makes your allies' healing magicks more effective when used on you. BUT, it also makes enemy magicks more effective against you! You'll want your magick-users to have high Faith (so their magick is most effective), but you may want your other characters to have low Faith so they are less susceptible to enemy magicks. ---ZODIAC SIGNS & COMPATIBILITY--- Each character has a fixed Zodiac sign. Each sign has "good" or "bad" compatibility with certain other signs (in some cases, the compatibility depends on the characters' genders). In short, having "good" compatibility with another character increases the damage you do, the HP restored by healing abilities, and the success rate of status magicks. Having "bad" compatibility does the reverse. Aside from the bosses, enemy Zodiac signs are generally random, so it's pretty hard to plan your deployments around Zodiac signs. However, you can sometimes exploit your Zodiac signs within a battle to squeeze out a little extra damage. See the Zodiac Compatibility section under Other Game Information for a more detailed treatment of Zodiac signs. ---MEN ARE FROM IVALICE, WOMEN ARE FROM SPIRA--- Human characters in FF Tactics can be either male or female. Overall, the differences between genders are fairly small. However, men and women do differ in a few ways: INITIAL EQUIPMENT: Male recruits start with a Broadsword, Leather Cap, and Clothing and cost 1500 gil; female recruits start with a Dagger instead of a Broadsword and cost 1400 gil. The 100 gil difference is due to the fact that the Broadsword costs 100 gil more than the Dagger. JOBS: Males get the Bard job, while females get the Dancer job. They also differ slightly in how they learn Move +3 and Jump +3: Males get Move +3 from Bard and Jump +3 from Dark Knight, while females get Move +3 from Dark Knight and Jump +3 from Dancer. STATS: Males tend to have somewhat more HP and Physical Attack power, while females tend to have somewhat more MP and Magick Attack power. There are no gender differences in Speed. IN BATTLE: Some Zodiac compatibility calculations depend on the gender of the characters involved. In addition, the Thief's Steal Heart and Balthier's Plunder Heart only work on characters of the opposite gender from the user. EQUIPMENT: Bags, hair adornments, lip rouge, perfume, and the Minerva Bustier can only generally be equipped only by female characters. (Male Onion Knights can also use all of these items, and Cloud can equip hair adornments.) There are no male-exclusive items. These female-only items include some of the best items in the game, such as the Ribbon, Tynar Rouge, and Chantage -- which means that in the long run, female characters tend to end up more powerful than males. %%%KOED CHARACTERS & CRYSTALS/CHESTS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00ko ---KO COUNTDOWN, CRYSTALS, & CHESTS--- A character who's been KOed (lost all his or her HP) has a countdown over his or her head that ticks down to his or her death. The countdown starts at 3 and counts down to 2, 1, 0, and finally death. The countdown ticks downward each time the character's "turn" comes up. (Of course, you don't get an actual turn when you're KOed.) This means that characters with higher Speed will have a faster countdown. When a character's KO countdown counts down to death, the character permanently dies and turns into either a chest or a crystal that someone else can pick up. > Chest: This contains an item -- either a consumable Item, or a piece of equipment that the character was wearing. (Monsters will only yield consumable Items, which makes these chests pretty poor.) > Crystals: Picking up a crystal gives you a choice of EITHER fully restoring your HP and MP, OR learning some of the dead character's abilities. Don't be fooled by the fact that the cursor only points to one of the abilities on the list. If you select Acquire Abilities, you will learn ALL the abilities listed. This makes collecting crystals a great way to learn abilities quickly! Since monsters don't have any abilities you can learn, crystals from monsters only allow you to restore HP/MP. Crystals don't allow a character to learn abilities for a job he/she hasn't unlocked yet. (Those abilities won't even show up in the list.) So, when you pick up a crystal, do it with a character who can benefit from it. For instance, a crystal left by a White Mage would be beneficial for a character who has unlocked White Mage but doesn't have many White Mage abilities yet. A character who is currently KOed with a countdown can be cured with many different abilities (e.g. Phoenix Down, Raise, Revive, etc.) or by completing the battle before the countdown expires. However, there is NO way to bring back a character who has been turned into a chest or crystal (aside from reloading from a previous save). If you're trying to get a particular item that an enemy has equipped, one way to improve your odds of it dropping in a chest is to use the Knight's Arts of War skills (or the Unyielding Blade skills used by some story characters) to break the enemy's other equipment before you KO the enemy. Or, you can just use Thief abilities to steal it, of course :). ---REVIVE THE LIVING--- Annoyed by long charge times for Raise magicks? Well, who says you can't start charging the magick before the target dies? If somebody's low on HP and you know they're going to get KOed, start charging up Raise or (preferably) Arise. And if they fail to be KO for Arise, KO them yourself and the Arise will bring them back to full health! (why waste the magick?) ---DISMISSAL VIA CRYSTAL--- If you have a character you're going to dismiss anyway, you can instead send him or her into a battle, get him or her killed, and have one of your other characters pick up the crystal. This will allow the other character to at least learn some of the "dismissed" character's abilities, and you were going to remove him/her from your roster anyway. (There's only a random chance of getting a crystal, but you can keep trying this until you get a crystal.) Of course, doing this will count as a Casualty on your Chronicle screen, so if you want a spotless save file, you won't want to use this tactic. %%%TURN ORDER & CHARGING ABILITIES%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00ct ---CT GAUGE & RAPID TURNS--- The CT gauge controls when each character gets a turn. When your CT gauge fills, you get a turn. (Unlike many Final Fantasy games, there is no real-time ATB element here. The CT gauge does not fill while you're looking at a menu.) Your character's Speed determines how quickly the CT gauge fills; raising your Speed will get you more turns! Normally, you can both Move and Act during a turn. If you do both, your CT gauge empties to 0. However, if you do only ONE and then select Wait, your CT gauge only drops back to 20, and if you do neither (just Waiting out your turn), the CT gauge drops back to 40. This means that you can get turns much more quickly! So, you shouldn't have each character always Move AND Act if they don't really need to do one or the other. Using Wait to get extra turns like this is a CRUCIAL tactic on maps where you're outnumbered and need to get as many turns as you can. Have your characters attack while remaining stationary whenever possible. (The Immobilize and Disable status conditions, which prevent you from Moving or Acting, respectively, actually penalize your CT gauge as if you DID Move or Act. Alas.) The Haste status makes a character's CT gauge fill 50% faster and the Quick magick makes it fill to 100 instantly. On the other hand, the Slow status makes it fill 50% more slowly and the Stop status makes it fill not at all. When you're KOed, you don't get any turns. Instead, when your CT reaches 100, your death countdown decreased by 1 -- from 3 to 2 to 1 to 0 to permanent death. This means that a speedy character will die sooner! ---PAUSE BATTLES--- If you push Triangle while the enemies are moving, the game will pause after the current enemy stops moving. (When you press Triangle, you'll hear a chime sound indicating the pause was activated.) Once paused, you can check out everyone's status. When you're done, just click on any character and choose Done to resume. ---TURN LIST--- The Turn List is a very helpful screen that displays which characters will be getting their turns next, and when magicks currently charging will activate. To look at the Turn List, press Triangle during battle to get out of the current menu. (You can also do this using the Pause Battles command above.) Then click on any blank tile and choose "Turn List." You can also access the Turn List when selecting an ability. Simply press the right arrow when you're on the list of ability. This will show you when the selected ability when finish charging. While you're looking at the Turn List, if you click on an ability that's being charged, it will show you what character/tiles will be affected. There are many reasons to check the Turn List. For example, you can make sure a charged attack will activate before the enemy moves, you can get out of the way before an enemy magick activates, you can focus your attacks to KO the enemy who will move next, and you can make sure to pick up crystals before an enemy will have a turn to collect them. Note that the Turn List always assumes that characters will both Move and Act on their turns. If they use Wait to keep some of their CT gauge filled, or if Haste or Slow is cast on them, their position on the Turn List may of course change. ---UNIT VS. PANEL TARGETING--- Most abilities that do not activate instantly give you a choice between Unit and Panel targeting when you select a target. > Unit targeting: The magick will target the unit you've selected, even if he/she moves to another tile. Note that it does NOT matter if the unit is no longer within the magick's original range. > Panel targeting: The magick will target the tile on the map that you've selected, even if the unit that's currently there moves out. Use Unit targeting if you want to target a specific character -- say, to heal a specific ally or attack a specific enemy. (This is probably what you'll use most of the time.) Another nice thing about Unit targeting is that you can use it to hit an enemy even if s/he tries to flee out of range. You can also target an enemy with Unit targeting, then retreat from danger. The magick will still hit its chosen target even though you're now well away from the enemies! Use Panel targeting if you're more concerned with hitting a group of targets than any specific individual. This way, even if one individual unit moves, you can still cast the magick on all the other units. Another good time to use Panel targeting is when you're aiming a magick at a particular "choke-point" on the map (such as a bridge or hallway). Here, you're not trying to hit any particular enemy so much as blasting whatever enemy approaches you. The Archer's Aim attack, the Dragoon's Jump attack, and Cloud's Limit abilities can ONLY use Panel targeting. If the enemy moves out of the way while these attacks are charging, you're out of luck. ---BATTLE CLOCK & CHARGING ABILITIES--- Characters get to take a turn when their CT gauge fills up from 0 to 100. How does the CT gauge fill? It's controlled by an invisible "battle clock" that ticks forward between turns. Between turns, the in-game clock "ticks" forward. During each "tick," all characters' CT gauges increase by an amount equal to their Speed statistic. If a character reaches 100 CT, he or she gets a turn. If no character gets a turn, the clock ticks forward again and again until someone DOES get a turn. If more than one character hits 100 CT on the same tick, all those characters get to take a turn before the clock continues. The clock calculations are done automatically, so you won't see any actual pause between turns. It's just the mechanic that controls the order of turns. Since the rate at which your CT gauge fills is based on your Speed, increasing your Speed statistic fills your CT gauge more rapidly and allows you to get more turns relative to the enemy! Some abilities (magicks, mostly) must be "charged up." After being selected, these abilities are delayed by a fixed number of clock ticks before they activate. For example, when you choose to have a character cast Curaga, it takes 7 clock ticks for Curaga to charge up, and then it activates. The number of ticks varies by ability, with more powerful abilities requiring more ticks to charge. Before you begin charging an ability, you can use the Turn List (see above) to preview when it will activate. (In-game, the charge time for abilities is displayed as a "speed" number; the number of required ticks is equal to 100 divided by this number.) Generally, the charge time of magicks is FIXED. Increasing a character's personal Speed statistic has NO effect on the charge time of abilities. The exception is the Dragoon's Jump ability -- this ability DOES charge faster if you have a higher Speed. For all other abilities, Speed does not improve their charge time, but you can HALVE the charge time of magicks and Limit by equipping the Time Mage's Swiftness ability. (Swiftness has no effect on Jump, Aim, or Bardsong/Dance.) The Haste status also has NO effect on the charge time of magicks or the charge time of Jump. Similarly, Slow status does not impede charge time. Since Speed goes up but the number of ticks required for delayed abilities remains fixed, abilities that require charge time tend to get less useful as you gain levels and increase Speed. You can get more "regular" (non-charge) turns relative to the charge time of delayed abilities. FF Tactics is completely turn-based. While you are looking at the menu and thinking, the battle clock does NOT tick. (It is not an ATB system.) The clock only ticks between turns. ---MORE ON CHARGING ABILITIES--- Once you've started charging an ability, you can continue moving around the battlefield without losing your charge. You can even move out of the original targeting range of the ability, or face a different direction from your target, and it will still strike! The exception is the Archer's Aim attacks: these attacks do not work if you move away from your target, although you can still change the direction you're facing. While charging up an ability that takes a long time to charge, the character may receive additional turns before the charging is complete. Again, you can use these turns to move around the battlefield. However, do NOT take another action or it will cancel the ability you were charging. While charging an ability, you take more damage from physical attacks, and you cannot evade any attacks. However, Reaction Abilities can still be used. ---SAVE YOURSELF!--- If you get a turn in time, you can move out of the way of an enemy ability that's targeting a Panel or targeting a differen unit. If you WON'T get a turn in time, you might still be able to escape. Have another unit hit the potential with the Squire abilities Rush or Stone; these abilities have a high chance of knocking the unit back a tile and potentially pushing them out of the effect radius. (Of course, this won't help you escape magicks that are directly targeting you.) ---STATUS CONDITIONS & BATTLE CLOCK--- The battle clock also controls the duration of many status conditions (both positive and negative). For example, Poison status ends after 36 ticks of the battle clock. A list of the duration of each status condition can be found in the Status Changes section. %%%MORE ON MAGICKS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00magick ---FRIENDLY (AND UNFRIENDLY) FIRE--- Most magicks affect not just the targeted character or tile, but also the surrounding panels. (The radius of this effect varies from magick to magick.) Geomancy, Iaido, and a number of sword techniques and monster abilities also have this effect. This area effect can of course be used to hit multiple enemies, but you can also exploit it in a number of other ways. If an enemy is a little too far out of range to target directly with the magick, you may still be able to target a somewhat closer tile and catch the enemy in the wider effect radius. (This is a good tactic for hitting more distant enemies.) The same is true for using White Magick or Time Magick to assist distant allies. Of course, you also need to watch out for a "friendly fire" effect when casting magicks -- you don't want to hit your own characters in the effect radius! If one of your allies is standing close to an enemy, you'll hurt him or her if you target the enemy directly. So, one solution is to target a more remote panel that will catch the enemy in the effect radius of your spell, but leave your ally out of range. (Of course, this also works in reverse for when you want to heal an ally, but not an enemy.) Just make sure the enemy won't be able to move before the magick is cast. Note that Summons and Iaido abilities ONLY target the "correct" units. They won't hurt allies, or heal enemies. ---REFLECT & RANGE EXTENSION--- The Reflect status condition (from the Time Mage's Reflect magick and the Mirror Mail armor, among others) causes most magicks to bounce off the character and strike another tile. This protects you from enemy magicks, but it also means that beneficial magicks won't affect you. On the other hand, you can also cast Reflect on an enemy unit so that it can't be healed by White Magicks! When a magick bounces off a character with Reflect, it strikes a tile that is the same direction and distance from the target as the target was from the original caster. For example, in the diagram below, the target (T) is 3 tiles to the right of the caster (C). So, the magick gets reflected onto a new tile (R) that is 3 tiles to the right of the target. |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |C | | |T | | | R| |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| You can use Reflect to extend the range of your magicks. Position a unit with Reflect (ally or enemy, it doesn't matter) halfway towards your intended target, then bounce the magick off the unit to reach a distant target. You can give your magicks a range of 8 tiles or more this way! ---CURE/BUFF TRAPS--- When you start charging a healing magick (e.g. Cure) or status buff (e.g. Protect), enemy units will often move into the effect radius to try to pick up the benefit of the magick as well. You can use this AI pattern to your advantage! Start charging a Cure magick (you can even just target an empty tile!) to draw enemy mages/archers forward so you can attack them. Or, target Cure on a distant tile to lure enemies away from your own allies. Note, though, that enemies will only chase the Cure magick if they need healing; they won't if their HP is full. This trick also works with positive "buffs" like Protect and Haste. Of course, enemies won't chase after these magicks if they already have the buff in question. You CANNOT use Summons this way, because they only ever target your own units. ---LAST-SECOND SILENCE CURE--- Silence status prevents you from casting magick or summons, but all that matters is whether or not you're Silenced at the time the magick is actually CAST, not when you start charging. It's possible to start charging magick while you're Silenced and *then* have someone else remove the Silence effect, as long as you do so before the magick finishes charging. This can come in handy if your magick-user happens to get his/her turn before the character who can remove Silence. It's also useful if you get Silenced while in the middle of charging a magick -- if you quickly cure the Silence, you can still use your magick. You can also use the timing of Silence in dealing with enemy magicks. Casting Silence on an enemy shortly before his or her magick activates will cancel the spell. Silence also prevents the use of Speechcraft, but since Speechcraft abilities all activate instantaneously, these timing effects don't come into play. ---RAINSTORMS, THUNDERSTORM, AND SNOWSTORMS--- During a heavy rain or thunderstorm, lightning-elemental attacks do 125% normal damage, making them stronger, and fire-elemental attacks do 75% normal damage, making them weaker. (During a storm, movement through swamp tiles is also slowed.) These effects occur only during a thunderstorm (when the screen occasionally flashes) or heavy rainstorm (when there is lots of rain on-screen), and not during a light rain (when there is only a little rain). During a snowstorm, ice-elemental attacks do 125% normal damage. A "snowstorm" is when the snow is blowing from side-to-side on the screen; a light snow (when the snow is moving only vertically) has no effect on ice damage. Snowstorms are pretty rare: they only occur during a handful of optional single-player story battles and in multiplayer. They never occur during random battles in single- player. Rainstorms and thunderstorms also multiply evade rates versus bows (and crossbows). Night time battles have the same effect. And if it's both night and storming, evade rates against bows increase even more! Rainstorms and thunderstorms become more common during certain months. See the Weather Effects & Ivalician Calendar section for more on weather effects. %%%USING ITEMS & EQUIPMENT%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00using ---CONSUMABLE ITEMS--- Like most RPGs, Final Fantasy Tactics has consumable items (e.g. Potions, Phoenix Down) that you can use to heal yourself. However, not all characters can use items. Instead, using items is a special ability of the Chemist job. To use items, you must either turn the character into a Chemist, or learn some of the Chemist's abilities and then equip "Items" as your secondary Action Ability. Each type of item requires you to learn a corresponding Chemist ability before it can be used. For instance, to use Hi-Potions, you must learn the "Hi-Potion" ability. A nice advantage of using Items is that, unlike White Magicks, they require no charge time or MP. On the other hand, they can only heal one character at a time. Items normally have a range of 1, which means that you have to be standing in a tile adjacent to the character you want to heal (or be using the item on yourself). The Chemist's Throw Items ability extends this range to 4. Chemists have this ability innately, but you'll have to learn and equip it if you're using Items as another job. Items always have an infinite vertical range, meaning it doesn't matter how big the height difference is between you and the character you're trying to heal. ---EQUIPMENT--- Other gear like weapons, shields, headgear, armor, and accessories is equipped on characters between battles. The type of equipment you can use depends on your current job; you can also use abilities like "Equip Swords" to expand the range of equipment you can use. Different classes of weapons depend on different statistics in determining the damage they do. For instance, swords just rely on the user's Physical Attack stat, while Knives also take your Speed into account. A complete list of weapon classes and the relevant stats can be found in the Weapons list. As far as armor goes, shields are used to block attacks completely by raising your evade rate. Headgear and armor both raise your HP; some types of armor will raise your MP as well. Unlike in many games, armor in FF Tactics does not reduce the damage you take; it just gives you more HP so you can stay alive longer. Accessories either raise your evade rate (cloaks) or provide stat boosts, buffs, or immunity to status ailments or elements (other kinds of accessories). With the Chemist's Reequip ability, you can change equipment DURING a battle, but this is a pretty useless capability and not worth an ability slot. ---IAIDO COMMAND--- The Samurai's Iaido ability lets you use the hidden powers of katanas to cast magick-like effects. To use these abilities, you must have at least 1 copy of the corresponding katana in your inventory (NOT equipped). For example, to use the Kiku-ichimonji ability, you must have a Kiku-ichimonji katana in your inventory. There is a chance that the corresponding katana will break whenever you use Iaido. %%%MOVING AROUND A BATTLEFIELD%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00move ---MOVING THROUGH UNITS--- When moving, it's possible to move "through" friendly units but not enemy units. Enemy units must be navigated AROUND rather than through. KOed allied and KOed enemies follow the same rules as their conscious counterparts. (The Teleport and Fly movement abilities *will* let you move through enemy units.) ---OVER MY DEAD BODY--- It's not possible to stand on the same tile as a KOed character. This means you can actually use KOed bodies as a pretty good "shield" to guard your back, which can come in handy in maps with a lot of enemies. ---MOVING & FIGHTING IN WATER--- For the most part, there aren't too many terrain effects in FF Tactics, unlike some other strategy RPGs. The main type of special terrain is water, which appears on a number of maps. Water affects battle in several major ways. DEEP WATER: If you're standing in water of depth 2, you cannot take action or use Reaction Abilities. You can still evade attacks, though. SHORTENED MOVEMENT: Second, water also shortens your movement range. Normally, the number of tiles you can move is equal to your Move statistic. However, when you move through tiles containing clear water (including Canal, River, Lake, Ocean, and Waterfall tiles), you move at half the usual rate. In other words, it requires two "points" of Move to move through a clear water tile. Swamp, Poisonous Fen, and Marsh tiles do not normally slow your movement, except during a rainstorm or thunderstorm. During a rainstorm, it requires 2 points of Move to move through these tiles; during a thunderstorm, it requires THREE points of Move. (A light rain has no effect on movement.) These swampy tiles only appear on a handful of maps: The Siedge Weald, Tchigolith Fenlands, Riovanes Castle Gate, and Dorvauldar Marsh. BLOCKED TILES: Many monster types and some monster-like special story characters are completely unable to enter water tiles, even as part of a longer move. Also, water of depth 4 can never be entered by human OR by monsters, unless you have some of the special abilities listed below. Water this deep only appears on two maps: Orbonne Monastery and the Fort Besselat Sluice. HEIGHT CHANGE: Standing in water reduces your character's vertical position on the map. The depth of the water is subtracted from the tile's height to determine your actual height. For example, if Ramza is on a Height 5 tile but standing in Depth 2 water, he's considered to actually be at a height of 3. Height mostly matters for and for casting magicks using the Arithmeticks ability. If you have the Swim movement ability, all water is treated as having only a depth of 1, so you won't sink as low in Depth 2 water. ---WATER-RELATED MOVEMENT ABILITIES--- Several movement abilities can remove some of the penalties from moving in water. Below is a table of these abilities and which penalties they remove. Act in Move/act in Movement in water of Swampy tiles Depth 4 ABILITY clear water Depth 2? during storms water? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No special ability Slowed No Slowed No Ignore Weather Slowed No Normal No [Mystic] Ignore Terrain Normal No Slowed No [Geomancer] Waterbreathing Normal No Normal No [monsters] Swim [Samurai] Normal Yes* Normal Yes* * Swim also keeps you from sinking so low in deep water. Essentially, it makes all water treated as Depth 1 water. Waterwalking [Ninja] Normal Yes Normal Yes Float status (These three abilities let you move over the top Levitate [Time Mage] of water, so it becomes like regular ground.) ---OTHER TERRAIN EFFECTS--- Aside from water, there a few other special terrain tiles: > LAVA: Characters cannot normally walk across Lava tiles, but Float status (including Levitate) and the Geomancer's Lavawalking movement ability will allow you to do so. Levitate and Lavawalking will also allow you to STOP atop lava tiles, whereas Float magick and accessories do not. Lava tiles appear ONLY on the optional Mount Bervenia battlefield. > DARKNESS: Empty pits or chasms are referred to as Darkness tiles in the game. These show up on a few story maps and in the bonus dungeon. You can only "walk" through these with Float status or Levitate, and you can never stop over them. > POISONOUS FENS: If you end your turn standing on a Poisonous Fen tile (found only at Tchigolith Fenlands), the Poison status will be inflicted on you. Float and Levitate will protect against this; Waterwalking, Swim, and Ignore Terrain do not. %%%UNDEAD UNITS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00undead The Undead status has two major effects -- it affects healing and draining magicks, and it changes what happens when the character is KOed. ---WHO IS UNDEAD?--- Undead characters include monsters from the Skeleton and Ghost families, as well as human enemies in a few story battles. There are also several abilities and items that will make a unit Undead for the duration of the current battle: > The Mystic's magick Corruption > The Templar's magick Zombie (this job is exclusive to one of the special story characters) > The Revenant monster's Zombie Touch ability (only usable if the Revenant is near a human ally with Beastmaster) > Equipping the Cursed Ring found in the bonus dungeon. ---CURING & DRAINING--- As per Final Fantasy standards, undead enemies take damage when hit with Cure magicks or healing Items. Phoenix Down and the Arise magicks both work like an instant KO attack! And, Raise does damage equal to 1/2 of the enemy's max HP -- thus KOing if it's at half HP or below. On the other hand, undead characters are *immune* to attacks that drain HP to the user, such as the Blood Sword weapon or the Mystic's Invigoration magick. These attacks backfire if used against an undead monster! The undead character gains HP, and the attacker loses HP! The Monk's Chakra DOES still work on an undead character. The Black Mage's Death magick, when cast on an undead character, also restores the undead unit to full HP. ---UNDEAD REVIVAL--- Normally, KOed units disappear and turn into a crystal or chest when their countdown ticks past 0. For undead character, it's a little different. There's a 50% chance that an undead character will REVIVE (with a random amount of HP) when their counter ends. But, there's also a 50% chance the character will turn into a crystal or chest like usual. It's random! Undead characters CANNOT be revived with Phoenix Down or the Raise/Arise magicks. But, the Monk's "Revive" ability does work. ---STOP UNDEAD REVIVAL--- When fighting undead enemies, you probably don't want them to keep reviving themselves. Fortunately, there's two easy ways to stop this: First, you can turn the undead unit to stone, so it's never actually KOed. The Seal Evil ability used by Mustadio and Balthier works great for this. Second, for undead monsters, you can Poach or Tame them. Poached monsters disappear from the map completely (and hence can't resurrect), and Tamed monsters will actually fight on your side! ---UNDEAD & OTHER STATUS CONDITIONS--- The Undead status blocks the Reraise status, and vice versa. This means that an Undead character can't receive Reraise status. And, you can prevent a character from becoming Undead by putting Reraise status. Some undead units are also immune to Poison and Regen status. This includes Skeleton- and Ghost-family monsters, and the undead enemies you encounter in random battles. It does NOT include units that have temporarily been made Undead with a magick or the Cursed Ring. %%%RECRUITING & USING CHOCOBOS AND MONSTERS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00mon ---ABOUT MONSTERS--- In addition to human characters, you can also recruit monsters (including chocobos) to fight on your team. Monsters have some specialized abilities that humans can't use, and typically have higher HP and attack power. But, they are NOT able to change jobs or use equipment, and are often slower than humans. Many monsters also have strengths or weaknesses vs. certain elements of magick. This section covers general information about how to recruit monsters and use them. A list of each specific monster and its abilities is in the Jobs section of the FAQ (press Ctrl+F and 00job3 to jump there.) ---MONSTER TYPES--- Monsters are divided by Family and Rank. Each monster Family has three Ranks: for instance, the chocobo family contains Chocobo (Rank I), Black Chocobo (Rank II), and Red Chocobo (Rank III). Within a Family, the monsters look the same but simply have different color schemes. Each monster's color scheme is listed in the table below. The color scheme will help you quickly identify a monster. It can also be used to help identify the monster inside an egg (see Monster Egg Preview below). The color of an EGG is random and doesn't tell you anything about what kind of monster inside the egg. ---RECRUITING & BREEDING MONSTERS--- Monsters can be recruited into your party in six ways: 1. Use the Orator's Entice skill to recruit an enemy monster onto your team. After the battle, you'll be able to permanently sign the monster up for your team. Note that in order to use Entice (or any other Speechcraft skill) on monsters, you must have the Beast Tongue support ability (also from Orator). Beast Tongue is an innate ability for Orators and doesn't need to be learned or equipped as long as you're an Orator, but if you switch to another job, you'll have to equip Beast Tongue to Entice monsters. Reis's Dragon's Charm ability also has the same effect and does not require Beast Tongue, but only works on the dragon and hydra families. Raising your Magick Attack with equipment or by switching to a job with a high Magick Attack stat (e.g. Black Mage or Summoner) will increase Entice's rate of success, although it will always be somewhat low. If your roster is already full when you recruit a new monster or other character in battle (either with Entice or with Tame, below), you'll have the chance to kick out an existing character in order to make room for the new ally. 2. With the Orator's Tame support ability equipped, attack a monster. If the monster is in critical (low) HP after the attack, you can recruit the monster. Reis's Dragonkin job has Tame as an innate ability. 3. Once you have recruited a monster onto your team, the monster will lay eggs and produce other monsters in the same family. Eggs are laid and hatch as you move around the world map. A monster has about a 2 in 15 chance of laying an egg with each move you make -- or, on average, you get 1 egg every 7-8 days. The Rank of the monster laying the egg determines which kind of Ranks you're likely to find inside of the egg: Egg laid by Produces... Rank I Rank II Rank III ---------------------------------------------------------------- Rank I 80% 20% 0% Rank II 50% 25% 25% Rank III 55% 35% 10% (As stated above, the color of the egg is random and has nothing to do with the monster inside.) Rank I monsters can never produce Rank III monsters directly. However, you can use a Rank I monster to breed a Rank II monster, which can then go on to produce a Rank III monster. Note that Rank II monsters are actually MORE likely than Rank III monsters to give birth to Rank III monsters. So, if you want to breed multiple copies of a Rank III monster (e.g. for poaching), keep a Rank II monster on your squad. A newborn monster is assigned the Zodiac sign of the month it was born. Newborn monsters are randomly assigned the exact experience level of one other member of your roster (monster OR human). For instance, if your entire roster consisted of three characters at level 24, 63, and 99, then a newborn monster would be either level 24, 63, or 99 -- but never any other number. So, if you recruit a monster type you like but the monster is at a low experience level, one strategy is to let it breed and you may get a higher-level version of the same monster if you have other high-level characters on your roster. Eggs are never laid if your roster is already full. If you want your monsters to breed but have a full team roster (24 characters), you'll need to delete one or more existing characters. 4. A Chocobo will be automatically offered to the party after winning a Chapter II story battle. 5. There are two locations where a friendly monster may join your party after a random battle: > Mandalia Plain (north entrance) - Chocobo > Dorvauldar Marsh (west entrance) - Swine Rarely at each of these locations, you may get into a random battle where the respective monster fights as a Guest on your team. Complete the battle and you'll be able to sign up the monster as a permanent party member. (Other Guest monsters in random battles are not recruitable in this way.) 6. The Dragon's Charm ability, used by one of the optional story characters, recruits any dragon or hydra onto your team. It has no effect on other monster types. ---RIDING A CHOCOBO--- It's not actually too useful, but you can ride chocobos. Move a human character onto the same tile as a friendly chocobo (of any color). The character will mount the chocobo and they'll move and act as a single unit. Riding a chocobo essentially allows you to have a human character with the movement range of a chocobo. The rider uses his/her abilities and has his or her regular stats, such as attack power and speed. But, you get the benefit of the chocobo's movement. All chocobos have a nice movement range (6), plus Black Chocobos can fly and Red Chocobos have Ignore Elevation. While you are on a chocobo, your own movement range and movement abilities is ignored -- so if you equip Teleport and then get on a chocobo, you don't have a teleporting chocobo. Chocobos cannot use their own abilities while someone is riding them. While you're riding a chocobo, all the damage gets inflicted on the rider, and the chocobo cannot take damage. (Even if the rider is in the middle of Jumping, attacks directed towards the chocobo will miss!) This has the small benefit that it prevents your whole team from being KOed at once. If the rider gets KOed, he or she is thrown off the chocobo and the chocobo can act by itself again. A chocobo/rider combination is immune to all negative status conditions except Charm. Float status also does not work on a chocobo+rider unit. It's important to note that a riderless chocobo is NOT immune to status ailments; this is a special property of a chocobo/rider combo. ---STEPPING STONES--- You can use large monsters as stepping stones to reach high places. Other characters can move onto the monster's head as if it were a normal panel, and move from there to somewhere else. The monster will give you a boost of 3 height "units", allowing to reach panels 3 height units higher than you could normally get to! You can't END your move on top of the monster, but you can use it for a mid-move boost. You can do this even if the monster is an enemy that's not on your team! Monster types that can be used as stepping stones including malboros, behemoths, dragons (including Holy Dragon Reis), hydras, and Automatons (i.e., Construct 8). ---MONSTER EGG PREVIEW--- Trying to breed a particular kind of monster? You can actually take a "sneak peek" as to what an egg will hatch into. Open your party roster, position the cursor over the egg in question, and move the cursor back and forth to another party member to the left or right. When you move over the egg, the future monster's portrait will display for a fraction of a second, and if you can move back and forth quickly, you can get a decent glimpse of what the monster is going to be. You can identify the monster family by its portrait, and from the color scheme, you might even be able to tell which monster it is within that family. (See the Monsters list for the color scheme of each monster type.) If the monster in the egg is not what you want, you can go ahead and dismiss the egg. While the eggs themselves vary in color, the color of eggs is just random and doesn't tell you anything about what kind of monster is inside. %%%TRICKS RELATED TO SPECIFIC ABILITIES OR ITEMS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00tricks ---SHOOT ENEMIES NEXT TO YOU--- Normally, you can't shoot enemies close to you with a bow or gun, but all you have to do is target a square in a straight line behind the enemy you want to hit (there doesn't even have to be anybody in the square). You'll end up hitting the enemy in front of you. ---CRITICAL HITS--- A few types of abilities can inflict "critical hits" when you attack with them. A critical hit occurs completely at random and has a low chance of occurring. When you DO land a critical hit, the damage from your attack is increased, and the enemy you're striking may be knocked back. If this attack knocks an enemy off a high ledge, they'll also take damage from the fall! Attacks that can inflict critical hits are mostly regular physical attacks, Monk abilities, the first ability on each monster's ability list, and the sword techniques used by some of the special story characters. Since critical hits occur at such low odds, though, you don't really want to depend on them. ---IMPROVE STEALING ODDS--- You can boost the success rate of the Thief's ability to Steal items in a number of ways: > Put the enemy to Sleep - using a Sleep Blade weapon, Mimic Darlavon (Orator), Repose (Mystic), etc. > Target the enemy from behind or to the side, so the steal will be harder to evade. > Putting Disable status on the enemy (e.g. with Arm Shot) will also prevent the enemy from evading, although the steal may still fail. > Equipping Concentration (Archer) as a support ability will prevent the enemy from evading your steal attempts. This means your success rate at stealing will be higher, but not 100%. If you're using Concentration, then there's no need to try to steal from behind as the enemy can't evade anyway. Note, thought, that if the enemy has a pretty low evade rate to start with, equipping Concentration won't make much of a difference. > Equipping Brawler (Monk) as a support ability raises your success rate when Stealing -- whether you're barehanded or not! > Increase your Speed statistic with equipment or abilities and/or switch your stealing character to a job that has a high Speed rating, like Thief or Ninja. > Use Balthier's Plunder abilities, which have a somewhat higher success rate than the regular Steal command. > Turn the enemy into a Chicken by lowering their Bravery below 10 (e.g. with the Mystic's Trepidation or Beowulf's Chicken magicks). A Chicken enemy will run away from you and into the corner, though, and you'll have to chase after it -- so this often isn't all that useful. > Surround the character from whom you're trying to steal with both your main thief and a Mime; the Mime will duplicate all of your Steal attempts > And, of course, stealing using a character who has good Zodiac compatibility with the target will improve your success, though you often don't have a lot of options here... It's helpful to use one or more of these tactics if you're interested in stealing enemy gear, as the Steal command has a pretty low success rate otherwise. ---AUTO-X-POTION AND MORE--- The Auto-Potion reaction ability normally causes you to (sometimes) use a Potion when attacked. However, if there aren't any Potions in your inventory, you'll use a Hi-Potion instead, and if there aren't any Hi-Potions, you'll use an X-Potion. Once you start getting Hi-Potions and X-Potions, then, it's actually a great idea to throw out your weaker potions so Auto-Potion will only use Hi-Potions or X-Potions -- you can heal yourself for a lot more HP that way! (This trick is particularly important in the Wiegraf battle in Chapter III.) Another useful trick with Auto-Potion (and other healing or defensive Reaction Abilities) is that you can have another ally trigger them by using a weak attack on the target. For example, if Agrias needs healing, hit her with the Squire ability Stone; it does a few points of damage but can trigger her Auto-Potion and restore a lot more HP than that. ---DUAL WIELD (AND DOUBLEHAND) TRICKS--- The Ninja's Dual Wield support ability lets you equip two weapons at once. This is a great ability with a number of applications. First, it can make your regular attack up to twice as strong. You can also use it to equip weapons with two different beneficial status effects (e.g. auto-Haste from an Excalibur and auto-Regen from a Chaos Blade). Dual-Wielding a weapon that inflicts a status ailment also gives you two chances to inflict that ailment! For magick- users, Dual-Wielding rods or staves lets you equip two weapons to boost your magick attack, although in most cases you're better off simply with Arcane Strength. If you're equipping a weapon that can drain enemy HP (i.e., the Blood Sword or Orochi ninja blade), be sure to equip that in the top slot. Otherwise, your first attack may KO the enemy and you won't get a chance to drain its HP! When pairing Dual Wield with abilities that depend on your weapon strength (e.g. sword techniques like Holy Sword and Darkness), be sure to equip the stronger weapon in the TOP slot. This is because only the FIRST weapon you're holding determines the power of these abilities. Note that this is true for sword techniques, even if the first weapon isn't a sword! For example, you can equip a flail in the top slot and a sword in the second, and your sword technique power will be determined by the flail power! So, one trick is to equip a sword in your second slot (to activate the sword technique command) and then a more powerful weapon in the top slot! In practice, this trick isn't all *that* great because knight's swords are more powerful than most other single-handed weapons. However, if you've switched to another job and are using Equip Swords to enable your sword techniques, then you're limited to "regular" swords, which are substantially weaker. In this case, this trick can be quite useful as there may be a stronger weapon to equip in the top slot! Finally, Dual Wield paired with Arts of War gives you two chances to perform a Rend attack. The Samurai's Doublehand ability, which allows you to wield one weapon two- handed to increase its attack power, is somewhat similar to Dual Wield. Both sacrifice your shield slot for a potential doubling of your attack power. In general, Dual Wield is the better ability. It allows you to perform the above tricks, works with fist attacks (Doublehand does not), and also divides your attack strength over two attacks, which means you can often land at least one attack even if the enemy dodges or blocks the other. And there are many times when one attack is enough to KO an enemy! (This is particularly useful against enemies with Shirahadori, since they can only block the first of your two attacks.) Doublehand, however, is useful when you're equipped with a pole or polearm, which can be used with Doublehand but not Dual Wield. It can also be good if you only have 1 copy of your strongest weapon in a category and nothing good to Dual Wield in the other hand. ---2ENEMIES1TURN.COM--- The Shoot Enemies Next To You trick above can be combined with Balthier's Barrage ability to attack two or more different enemies in one turn. This only works if Balthier has a weapon with a range of 2 or more, and if the enemies are both in a line from Balthier (and within range of his weapon). Target the enemy that's further back with Barrage. Balthier will use a series of four attacks; of course, the initial strikes will actually hit the enemy closer to Balthier. However, once that first enemy is KOed, Balthier will continue attacking and hit his "original" target -- the enemy in back! This way, you can divide your damage between two targets instead of wasting a lot of damage finishing off an enemy that was already low on HP. This trick works with guns, bows, polearms, and any other weapon with a range of 2 or more. ---HEALING STAFF--- The Healing Staff weapon works just like any other weapon, except that it *adds* HP to whomever you strike, instead of *removing* HP. So, you can use it to heal your allies! It can be a good tool for a magick-user who isn't likely to be doing much physical fighting. Unfortunately, your allies will still try to evade/block the Healing Staff. The Healing Staff isn't sold in stores. You can find it by de-equipping it from a guest in Chapter III, from poaching a Dryad, from Rendezvous Mode, or from using Treasure Hunter in Story Battle 49 (see the walkthrough for the exact location). ---ROD OF FAITH--- The Rod of Faith, found on the fourth floor (The Catacombs) of the Midlight's Deep bonus dungeon, has an interesting effect. While equipped with the Rod, a character has permanent Faith status, giving him or her 100 Faith. Of course, this is good simply for making your own magick maximally powerful, but it also allows you to make a more versatile character. Whenever the Rod is removed, the character's Faith reverts back to its "normal" value. So, if you want a flexible character who can also defend well against enemy magick, lower his or her Faith very low (as close to 03 as you can). Without the Rod equipped, the character is virtually invulnerable to enemy magick and makes a good fighter. But *with* the Rod equipped, s/he is now a high-Faith magick user! Using the Reequip ability, you could even make this change mid-battle, although it costs you a turn. Of course, this only works if you're planning on using a job that can equip Rods. That includes Black Mages, Summoners, Mystics, but not White Mages, Time Mages, or Arithmeticians. Fortunately, Black Mages and Summoners have the best magick stats anyway. The Rod of Faith can also be particularly useful for Marach. Normally, his Nether Mantra abilities require LOW Faith while other magicks require HIGH Faith, meaning he can't really effectively use both. However, the Faith effect maximizes the damage from both regular magick and Nether Mantra, allowing him to use both types of abilities effectively. Since there's only one Rod of Faith available, though, you can only use this tactic with a single character at a time. ---STONESHOOTER--- The Stoneshooter is a rare but fairly powerful gun. The big downside to equipping the Stoneshooter is that you will start all battles in the Stone status, unable to do anything. To use the character, you must remove the Stone status (e.g. with a Gold Needle, Remedy, or Esuna magick). Or, use the Re-equip command to equip the Stoneshooter *during* a battle, and you won't be petrified. Equipping gear that normally makes you immune to Stone status does NOT prevent the Stoneshooter from turning you to Stone at the start of a battle. The Stoneshooter can be poached from Dark Behemoths. It can also be stolen from enemy Chemists in the rare random battle you sometimes occur when you enter Mount Germinas from the north. (In order to steal the Stoneshooter from the enemy that's carrying it, you must first de-Stone him/her.) ---ALL 9 FEVER-- Once you max out at level 99 and 99 experience, you can easily cast healing or defensive magicks to your whole party using Arithmeticks and Level Multiple of 3 or Exp Multiple of 3. (Of course, you might hit a few enemies too.) %%%MENUS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00menu ---REWATCH STORY SCENES--- Didn't catch what happened during a story scene? You can rewatch most of the game's story scenes. On the world map, open the menu and choose Chronicle and then Events. You'll see a list of the major story events that you've seen so far. Choose a scene to read a text description of it, and press Triangle if you want to rewatch the scene. Pressing the Start button will exit out of a scene you're watching and return you to the Chronicle menu. ---REWIND TEXT--- At any place where a single text box spans several pages (e.g. one character is talking a bunch), you can "rewind" to a previous page of text by holding the Square and pressing up. This is pretty useful if you missed something that was said earlier, or need to recap. This doesn't work if a separate text box has been opened -- like if a different character has started talking. ---QUICK SCROLL--- The Square button can also be used to scroll quickly up and down a menu. ---QUICK UNEQUIP--- When removing characters' equipment, if you select Remove and then tap left on the D-pad, all of the character's item slots will be highlighted. You can then equip all of the character's gear in a single click. This is handy when you're stripping a character you won't be using for a while, or when you're transferring one character's set of equipment to another equipment. ---SOUND TEST--- To access a "sound test" where you can listen to all the game's music, select New Game on the title screen and then enter your name as PolkaPolka . You'll immediately be brought to the sound test. When you're done, press the Circle key to return to the main menu. ******************************************************************************** IV. WALKTHROUGH AND BATTLE STRATEGIES - MAIN QUEST 00walk0 ******************************************************************************** You'll begin by entering the protagonist's name. Ramza is the default, so that's what I'll be using throughout the guide. ---CHOOSING YOUR BITHDATE--- Next up is your birthdate, which determines your Zodiac sign. A character's Zodiac sign affects his/her compatibility with other units, which can make your attacks and/or healing somewhat more or less effective. In a regular game, it's not too important to give Ramza a particular Zodiac sign, so you can enter your own birthday or whatever else you want if you'd like. But, if you're feeling especially strategic, you may want to give him a particular sign depending on your game plans: > If you want to maximize the damage Ramza can do to enemy bosses, Capricorn is probably your best bet; you'll get this sign if you enter a birthdate between December 23rd and January 19th. > If you plan to use Ramza as a support/healing character, Pisces will give him good compatibility with a number of key allies. You'll get this sign with a birthdate between February 19th and March 20th. (Virgo -- August 23rd to September 22nd -- will give him compatibility with quite a few party members as well.) > If you want as wide a range of Zodiac signs as possible, you could make Ramza a Taurus, Virgo, or Sagittarius, as no other story characters have these signs. ---THE FIRST BATTLE--- The game starts at Orbonne Monastery. A band of enemy knights shows up, and you have to fight. ---Battle 0: Orbonne Monastery-------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Agrias [guest], Gaffgarion [guest], Ladd [guest], Alicia [guest], Lavian [guest] ENEMY FORCES: Lezales (lv 9 Knight) Fuchs (lv 6 Chemist) Biggs (lv 7 Archer) Diesch (lv 6 Archer) Wezlef (lv 7 Archer) VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, light rain (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 50% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 16% Ocean Torrent 14% Obstructed -- 9% Flagstone Contortion 9% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- This battle is pretty much automatic, as everyone except Ramza is controlled by the computer. Gaffgarion and Agrias will take care of most of the enemies without any trouble. You can have Ramza attack the enemies with low HP to help finish them off, and let Gaffgarion and Agrias save their attacks for the stronger enemies. Even if Ramza just stands still, though, the other characters should be able to finish off the enemies on their own, though, so it doesn't matter too much what Ramza does. It's possible that one or more of your weaker teammates--Alicia, Lavian, and Ladd--will get KOed. Don't worry; none of them can die permanently in this intro battle. It also doesn't matter if any of their items get broken, as those will come back as well. BATTLE TROPHIES: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Gaffgarion and Agrias finish wiping out the enemies, there will be some story scenes, and Ramza will enter into an extended flashback. %%%CHAPTER I: THE MEAGER%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00walk1 All of Chapter I is a flashback to Ramza's days as a knight-in-training with the Order of the Northern Sky a year prior. You (Ramza) and Delita will be at the academy in Gariland, where you receive the assignment to defeat some thieves entering the town. You are automatically joined by four other Squires and two Chemists. ---INITIAL PREPARATION--- Before the first battle begins, you'll be given a chance to save. Save your game so that you won't have to repeat the intro battle! After you save, you'll deploy your characters for the battle. If this is your first Final Fantasy Tactics experience, you might want to check out the "Basic Mechanics and Tactics" section for some general gameplay information. (Some of this information is also in the tutorial, but I've included some additional material not covered there.) Press Ctrl+F and enter 00basic to jump back up there. ---Battle 1: Gariland----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Chemist (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, female) ALLY: Ramza - lv 1 Squire - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Equipment : Broadsword, Leather Cap, Clothing, Battle Boots Abilities : Mettle GUEST: Delita [Sagittarius] - lv 1 Squire - Bravery 71, Faith 55 Equipment : Broadsword, Leather Cap, Clothing Abilities : Mettle, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 28% Canal Torrent 25% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 17% Grassland Tanglevine 17% Wooden Floor, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 8% Bridge Wind Slash 3% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- The key in this battle is to advance slowly and not to let your characters get spread out. Stay on the left side, away from the bulk of the houses. The enemy Chemist has the ability to heal the other enemies, which can be a pain. If you have the chance to take him out, do so; otherwise, he'll heal the enemy soldiers you've been attacking. Actually, you can stop him from doing this even if you attack him just once. He'll use up his turn healing himself instead of healing any of the other enemies. Attack from the enemy from behind or from the side whenever possible, as you're more likely to land a hit that way. In general, rear attacks are best as they also cancel out enemy shields -- but at this point, no enemies have shields, so side and rear attacks will be equally effective. At the end of each character's turn, you choose which direction they facing. Make sure you end your turns facing the enemies, which will make it harder for them to hit you from behind! (When possible, you can even put your back to the side of a building to protect it completely!) Make good use of your Chemists for healing--you start out with 5 Potions and you can use them to heal a character who gets injured. If you don't have teammates who need healing, the Chemists can also attack. (Chemists have an inherent Throw Items ability, so they don't have to be next to a character to use an item on him/her. This is NOT true for other characters using the Item ability.) Don't worry about Delita. The Guest AI is pretty reckless and it's likely he'll get himself KOed. But since he's a Guest character, he can't die permanently and will be revived at the end of the battle. BATTLE TROPHIES: 2000 gil, Mythril Knife, Phoenix Down, Potion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---THE MAP SCREEN--- After you win the battle against the thieves, you will go to the map screen. You can click on Gariland to visit its shops. The Tavern is used to hear information about the game's story and world. Later on, you can also use it to enter the multiplayer mode and to run Errands for extra JP and money. The Outfitter is used to buy equipment and items. Finally, the Warriors' Guild allows you to recruit new human characters to your roster. ---RECRUITING CHARACTERS--- You may want to stop at the Warriors' Guild to recruit some new characters. In particular, look for characters with reasonably high Bravery, especially if your current characters don't have very good Bravery. Bravery affects the your chance of using Reaction Abilities and the strength of some attacks -- higher is better, of course! (Although there are abilities to raise Bravery later, you probably won't get them right away.) You may also want a character or two with high Faith to turn into a magick-user. A second thing to look at is the character's Zodiac sign. Taurus and Capricorn characters will be particularly effective against the bosses in this chapter and the next, so getting some of those signs on your roster will give you a bit of a leg up. If you want to spend the time, you can mine the Guild until you get just the character you want. If you don't like the character that appears; simply select "Don't Hire." You won't be charged anything and you can select Male Soldier or Female Soldier to roll another character. You can keep doing this until you get some high Bravery characters ... but it's certainly not necessary to spend the time here if you don't want to. There are a few gender differences to be aware of. Male characters tend to have more HP and Physical Attack, while females have more MP and Magick Attack. So, if you have a gender-mixed team, it's best develop female characters towards being mages and males towards being fighters. More importantly, however, many of the game's most powerful items can only be used by female characters, so female recruits tend to be more useful overall in the long run. This is probably the only time in the game that you'll want to use the Warriors' Guild. If you lose any of your main team members later in the game, you're usually better off resetting. It's tough to replace high-level characters who have already been built up with a lot of abilities! ---SHOPPING--- Each town has an Outfitter where you can buy items. As you progress through the game, you'll see new items available in the Outfitter. Different towns will offer different items, as well. Broadly speaking, castles have one set of equipment, whereas towns and cities have a different set. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Broadsword Sword 200 Garil./Castl Atk: 4, 5% Parry Dagger Knife 100 City/Castle Atk: 3, 5% Parry Rod Rod 200 City/TrCity Atk: 3, 20% Parry Oak Staff Staff 120 City/TrCity Atk: 3, 15% Parry Leather Cap Hat 150 City/TrCity HP +8 Clothing Clothes 150 City/TrCity HP +5 Potion Item 50 Any Restores 30 HP Antidote Item 50 Any Removes: Poison Eye Drops Item 50 Any Removes: Blind Phoenix Down Item 300 Any Removes: KO, restores minimal HP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You should definitely stop by the Outfitter in Gariland to buy some Potions. If one or both of your Chemists has enough JP to learn the Phoenix Down ability, learn that ability and then buy a few (1-2) Phoenix Downs at the store. Phoenix Downs are great to have as they allow you to revive a KOed character. You'll also want to equip one of your Chemists with the Mythril Knife that you picked up as a Battle Trophy in the first battle; it's stronger than the Daggers they currently have. If you recruited some female characters and plan on using them as fighting units, buy them Broadswords to replace the Daggers they start off with. Male characters already start with a Broadsword. ---A NOTE ABOUT TREASURE HUNTER--- From this point forward, you can use the Chemist's Treasure Hunter movement ability to find hidden items on each battle map. In my opinion, the Treasure Hunter ability is rarely worth using. The items that you can get with Treasure Hunter are usually just gear that you can already buy in stores. Moreover, you need a LOW Bravery statistic to get the equipment with Treasure Hunter, but a HIGH Bravery statistic is better for everything else in the game. It's just not worth it. Much later in the game, there will be some rare items that you can get with Treasure Hunter, but I'll alert you to these when they appear and you don't really need to worry about Treasure Hunter until then. But, if you DO want to go for the Treasure Hunter items, I've listed their coordinates in each battle strategy. The coordinates are given relative to a particular corner. First, identify which corner is the reference corner using the tile height and terrain type information I've provided. Then, tap the analog stick on the PSP to change your perspective. Keep doing this until the reference corner is at the bottom of the screen. Start at this corner. Then, tap the LEFT and UP arrows on the D-pad to move the cursor the specified number of spaces (e.g., Left: 2, Up: 3 means 2 tiles to the left and 3 tiles up). (See the Treasure Hunter & Traps section for a more complete description of the Treasure Hunter mechanics.) ---ONWARD--- Save the game by pressing Triangle and choosing Data, then head west to Mandalia Plain. As soon as you try to leave the city, you'll have a flashback (yes, a flashback within a flashback) to the death of Ramza's father Barbaneth. After that sequence has ended, you'll be back in Gariland. Click on Mandalia Plain once again and this time you'll actually get there. ---Battle 2: Mandalia Plain----------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], Argath [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 2, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Squire (lv 1, male) Red Panther (lv 1) GUEST: Argath [Virgo] - lv 2 Squire - Bravery 73, Faith 59 Equipment : Longsword, Leather Cap, Clothing, Battle Boots Abilities : Fundaments, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Top option - Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone Bottom option - Argath is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 12 Grassland Tanglevine 70% Obstructed -- 17% Stone Outcropping Tremor 13% --STRATEGY-- At Mandalia Plain, you'll meet Argath, under attack by the Corpse Brigade. You can choose whether or not to help him (bottom option) or just go after the Corpse Brigade (top option). > If you choose not to help Argath (top choice), your goal is just to defeat all the enemies. It doesn't matter if Argath is KOed during the battle or not. Choosing this option also adds 10 points to the Bravery score of every character in your current squad, including Delita and Argath. 2 points of this change will remain even after the battle. > Choosing to help Argath (bottom choice) adds an additional requirement to the battle: you'll have to keep Argath from getting KOed during the battle. This option has no effect on your team's Bravery. Neither option has any real long-term effect on the storyline. (They only change the dialogue in one other story scene.) So, the first option is clearly the best as it makes the battle easier AND gives you a boost in Bravery. If you DO choose the second option for whatever reason, you will need to protect Argath from being KOed. In this case, you'll need to start moving a Chemist towards Argath right away. Fortunately, Argath will probably flee away from the enemies and into one corner. Heal him just to be on the safe side, and then you're free to concentrate on the enemies. Attack the enemies from above if you can, and guard your back with the rocks scattered about the battlefield or with other ally units. Remember that if you act without moving, or move without acting, your next turn will come sooner than if you both act AND move. So if there's no real need for a character to move or to take action, don't do it just for the heck of it. Your next turn will come sooner if you don't. You'll encounter your first monster here in the form of a Red Panther. It's the toughest unit in the enemy forces, but it's not too bad. Be warned that, like all monsters, it may counterattack you whenever you attack it. Don't attack the Red Panther using a character who's low on HP, or the counterattack is liable to KO you! (You CAN avoid the counterattack by using the Squire ability Stone to attack from a distance, but this ability is really too weak to be worth using.) The Red Panther can also poison you, which causes you to lose a little HP after each turn you take. You can cure this with an Antidote if you want, but it's probably not necessary--the poison wears off after a short amount of time, anyway. This may be your first chance to pick up crystals or chests. When the counter over a KOed enemy unit goes down past 0, the unit vanishes and is replaced with a crystal or treasure chest. Pick these up by moving onto the tile with the crystal or chest. > Picking up a chest will give you an item. These are typically items you can buy at the Outfitter anyway and generally are not too important to collect. But early on, chests can still be useful to grab as money is tighter. > Picking up a crystal will either heal the unit, or in some cases give you the option of learning many of the defeated enemy's abilities. (Note that although you point the cursor at an individual ability, you actually learn ALL of the abilities offered, regardless of what you pick!) Crystals from monsters will only ever give you the option to heal. When given the chance to learn abilities, that's generally the best choice (unless you're in desperate need of healing), as this permanently adds abilities to the character! Crystals from humans are great to pick up as they can teach you new abilities, so grab them when you see them. Monster crystals are only necessary to pick up if you need healing. You may also want to grab crystals just to prevent the enemies from claiming them, as enemies can heal themselves with crystals too! If one of your OWN units gets KOed, you must act to revive the character before the countdown runs down and the character is lost permanently. Right now, you've got two ways to revive a character. If one of your Chemists learned the Phoenix Down ability and you have Phoenix Downs in stock, you can use a Phoenix Down to revive the character. Or, you can hurry and clear the battle before the countdown runs out -- when you win a battle, any characters who have been KOed but not completely erased will be brought back to life. BATTLE TROPHIES: Potion x2 --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Stone Outcropping POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 8 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Broadsword none Left: 0, Up: 12 (height: 1, Grassland) Potion Dagger none Left: 8, Up: 6 (height: 0, Grassland) Eye Drops Oak Staff none Left: 4, Up: 0 (height: 0, Grassland) Antidote Rod none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---STORY EVENTS--- When the fight concludes, Argath will join as a guest regardless of which option you chose before the battle. Back on the map, go on up to Eagrose Castle. You'll have a brief chat with Dycedarg, then Zalbaag will send you to rendezvous with his spy at Dorter. ---JOB CHANGES--- At this point, you might want to consider changing some of your characters to new jobs. Chemists are really more useful than either White Mages or Black Mages, so keep your Chemists as-is. But you might want to change some of your Squires to Knights, since Knights have more HP and damage potential than Squires. (I made Ramza into a Knight at this point.) Archers should also be available at this time. They can be useful in the early game, but for the next few battles you may want to focus on melee combat. At any rate, it may be a good idea to keep at least one Squire, though. Why is that? As long as you have at least one Squire active in battle, everyone will earn some JP towards that job, and that will help you buy useful Squire abilities like Counter Tackle, Move +1, and JP Boost. Move +1 and JP Boost are particularly useful. JP Boost increases the amount of JP you earn, and will help you learn all the other abilities faster. Learning this ability is a VERY good investment. It'll also help you out in some of the future battles if you're able to teach Argath a simple Black Magick spell. This is pretty tricky, though, since he doesn't participate in any of the random battles and can only earn JP in the story battles. So, the only way to do this is to have your Chemists take enough actions during the story battles that Argath gains some JP in the Chemist job and is able to unlock the Black Mage job. It's cool if you can do this, but don't worry too much about it if you can't; it's not *necessary*. ---SHOPPING AT EAGROSE--- Before you leave Eagrose, stop by the Outfitter. There's new equipment for sale here. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Plumed Hat Hat 350 TrCity/City HP +16, MP +5 Leather Clothing Clothes 300 TrCity/City HP +10 Mythril Knife Knife 500 Castle/City Atk: 4, 5% Parry Longsword Sword 500 Castle Atk: 5, 10% Parry Bowgun Crossbw 400 Castle Atk: 3, 5% Parry Escutcheon Shield 400 Castle Phy.Evade: 10%, Mag.Evade: 3% Leather Helm Helm 200 Castle HP +10 Bronze Helm Helm 500 Castle HP +20 Leather Armor Armor 200 Castle HP +10 Linen Cuirass Armor 600 Castle HP +20 Battle Boots Shoes 1000 Any Move +1 Echo Herbs Item 50 Any Removes: Silence Maiden's Kiss Item 50 Any Removes: Toad Gold Needle Item 100 Any Removes: Stone -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stock up on Potions, then arm your characters with the new gear. Make sure all your Squires and Knights have Longswords, the best weapon available to them right now. And if you changed any of your characters' jobs, be sure they have equipment that goes with the new jobs. You can safely skip the Mythril Knife, though--it only increase a Chemist's attack power by 1 point, and they don't do much fighting, anyway. The shop also sells Battle Boots, which increase your movement range by 1 tile. As handy as this is, they're pricey, so you won't be able to afford them for your whole team. ---TRAVEL & RANDOM BATTLES--- Your next story destination is the Siedge Weald, to the east of Gariland. Head down that direction. Mandalia Plain is now a green dot on the map, which means there's a chance you'll get into a random battle when crossing it. Random battles are similar to story battles, but feature a random selection of monsters instead of humans. (In Chapter I, you'll only fight monsters in random battles; in later chapters, humans can sometimes show up.) Since Delita and Argath are Guest characters, they will not participate in random battles, only story ones. In random battles, you also have the choice of whether or not to deploy Ramza, whereas Ramza is always REQUIRED for story battles. ---MULTIPLAYER MODES--- When you get to Gariland, you'll see a scene at the Tavern about the game's multiplayer modes. Both of these modes are now unlocked, and you can play them by visiting a Tavern in any town. Melee Mode is a "versus" mode that pits your party against another player's. Rendezvous Mode is a co-op mode in which you team up with another player to challenge various missions that will become unlocked as you play through the game. Right now, there's only one mission available, "Chocobo Defense." Both modes allow you to earn and keep JP and items; when you get to a high enough experience level, you can even obtain items that you can't get anywhere else. Another nice thing about these modes is that you can't permanently lose any items or characters, so they're risk- free. (Melee Mode does cost gil to play, though.) You can check them out now if you want, although at this point, the Rendezvous Mode mission may still be pretty challenging. Check out the Multiplayer Modes section below for more information on the modes' rules and for strategies for the Rendezvous Mode missions. (Note that both modes are playable only over a local, "ad hoc" connection.) If you don't have a chance to play the multiplayer modes, don't worry, you definitely don't need to play multiplayer in order to complete the single- player game. ---SHOPPING AT GARILAND--- The shop in Gariland sells different items than the one in Eagrose, so stop by the Outfitter before you leave town. The Gariland shop offers Plumed Hats and Leather Clothing, which are better armor for your Squires and Chemists. (Unlike in a lot of games, armor in FF Tactics doesn't actually reduce the damage you take; it gives you more HP or MP. Still, it helps you stay alive longer!) Pick up these upgrades as well; you want to make sure your Chemists stay alive so they can heal people! The Plumed Hat in particular is a good buy; it costs less than the Leather Clothing but gives you a bigger HP bonus! Don't forget that you can change Delita's and Argath's equipment, too, despite the fact that they're guest characters. You can (and should!) have them learn new abilities, too! Continue on to the Weald and you'll encounter a third story battle. ---Battle 3: The Siedge Weald--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], Argath [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Bomb* Bomb* Red Panther* Black Goblin* Black Goblin* Goblin* Goblin* * The levels of these enemies depends on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, light rain (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 11 Grassland Tanglevine 65% Marsh Quicksand 21% Bridge Wind Slash 5% Soil Sinkhole 4% Obstructed -- 4% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- This battle is nothing but monsters; watch out for their counterattacks! If you do have some range attacks, those will keep you safe from the counterattacks -- all monsters can only counterattack at a range of 1 panel. But it doesn't really matter either way, since these monsters aren't too tough for the most part anyway. Take out on the enemies on the higher ground first before you start crossing the water. Otherwise, you'll expose yourself to attack from above. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 4.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 10 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Echo Herbs Bowgun none Left: 6, Up: 5 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Leather Cap none Left: 1, Up: 3 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Phoenix Down Escutcheon none Left: 5, Up: 0 (height: 1.5, Grassl.) Potion Leather Helm none ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may want to gain some levels and abilities before proceeding on to Dorter. You can do this by strolling back and forth across the Mandalia Plain or the Siedge Weald until you get into a random battle. Beat up the monsters to earn extra Exp and JP. Make sure your Chemists have learned both Potion and Phoenix Down. You can skip the abilities for all the items that cure individual status condition; most of these conditions aren't that bad and when you get Remedies, those will cure *any* negative status. Learning Move +1 for as many characters as possible is also very helpful. When you enter Dorter, there will be a cutscene, and then you'll be tossed into a battle at the Dorter Slums. ---Battle 4: Dorter Slums------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], Argath [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Knight (lv 4, male) Archer (lv 3, male) Archer (lv 3, male) Archer (lv 3, male) Black Mage (lv 3, male) Black Mage (lv 2, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 10 Roof Wind Blast 39% Soil Sinkhole 36% Ocean Torrent 11% Grassland Tanglevine 9% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- The enemy has Archers and Black Mages, who both have ranged attacks and can hit you from a distance. This means that you'll need to be more aggressive; if you hang back at a distance, the enemy can keep hitting you from afar! Since you start on the street and the enemy has the high ground, Archers are not particularly useful here; they won't have a clear shot with their bows. On the other hand, Move +1 is a great ability to have as it helps you quickly close the distance between you and the enemy's ranged attackers. When one of your characters gets hit with a Black Magick spell, the characters in adjacent tiles also take damage. There are two ways to avoid this. While the spell is still charging, you can move the other characters out of the way, or you can kill the Black Mage charging the spell and stop the attack entirely! Since the spells do quite a bit of damage, it's great to take out the Black Mages as soon as you have the chance. They don't have much HP so you can finish them off easily. (Note that spells can also have a "friendly fire" effect -- if another enemy is in range of the spell when it goes off, they get hurt too! You can sometimes use this to your advantage by positioning targeted characters next to enemy units.) To check when the spell is going to be fired, press the Circle button when it's your turn, then use the Triangle button to bring up the menu and choose Turn List. If you have Black Mages of your own, you can also use these area damage effects to extend the effective range of your magicks. If the range of your magick is one tile too short to hit an enemy, you can target the tile directly in front of the enemy and the magick will still hit the enemy thanks to the area effect. This is a good tactic for hitting more distant enemies, like you see in this battle. Just make sure the enemy won't be able to move out of the way before the magick activates! Two of the enemy Archers are on the tall building beside where you start. At the beginning of the battle, Delita and Argath will begin climbing up the building to attack them. Let Delita and Argath handle those two Archers, and send at most one other character up the building. The rest of your team should advance down the street. Take out the Black Mages first since they can do so much damage. It's likely that one or more of your characters will get KOed during the battle. Remember that if the counter over their head goes below 0, you lose the character permanently. To avoid this, when a character's counter gets low (0 or 1), use a Phoenix Down on him or her. Even if another attack KOs the character again right away, the counter will be reset and you've bought yourself a few more turns to finish the battle. This is a pretty tough battle. If you don't win at first, try again, or build up your levels first. BATTLE TROPHIES: 500 gil, Iron Sword, Hempen Robe, Ether --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 1, Soil) Antidote Leather Armor none Left: 6, Up: 1 (height: 9, Roof) Echo Herbs Mythril Knife none Left: 4, Up: 12 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Eye Drops Clothing none Left: 7, Up: 14 (height: 1.5, Soil) Phoenix Down Longsword none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upon your victory, you'll be able to visit the town. There's no new equipment to buy, but stock up on items. You'll want at least 10 Potions and 4 Phoenix Downs. Potions are cheap (50 gil each), so there's no reason not to carry plenty. Also, winning the battle at the Slums will have netted you an Iron Sword, which is a better weapon than anything you can find in stores. Equip it on one of your characters. Again, you may want to build levels before proceeding to the next battle. When you're ready, go on up to the Zeklaus Desert, where you'll have a battle at the Sand Rat's Sietch. ---Battle 5: The Sand Rat's Sietch---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Delita [guest], 1 other 2nd Squad - Argath [guest], 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Knight (lv 5, male) Knight (lv 4, male) Knight (lv 3, male) Monk (lv 4, male) Monk (lv 3, male) Archer (lv 3, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Soil Sinkhole 38% Grassland Tanglevine 26% Flagstone, Stone Wall Contortion 26% Obstructed -- 9% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 1% --STRATEGY-- You'll deploy your characters in two squads for this battle. Be sure to deploy somebody with the Items command (either a Chemist, or another character who's learned the ability) in the second group. There are two entrances to the fort. When the battle begins, send most of your characters towards the entrance that's closer to Argath. This is where the bulk of the fighting will take place. Argath will probably make a suicide run into the building, but keep healing him anyway. If you were able to give him a Black Magick spell, he'll be very helpful. Don't crowd the doorway or you'll get in trouble. Let the enemies come outside to you. Meanwhile, Delita will head towards the other entrance. You might want to send one other character with him. Hopefully, Delita's squad have the chance to sneak up on the enemy Archer from the rear and take him out so he can't keep shooting at the main squad. Remember that if a character doesn't move on a particular turn, his or her next turn will come quicker. If you don't need to move to land an attack, stay put and you'll get more turns. This is especially helpful for your Chemist; by having him/her remain stationary and throw items to the characters who need healing, you'll get more turns and more chances to heal. This is a difficult fight--the toughest in Chapter I--so it may take you a couple tries. BATTLE TROPHIES: 500 gil, Hi-Potion, Blind Knife --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 9, Up: 10 (height: 3, Grassland) Eye Drops Leather Clothes none Left: 4, Up: 5 (height: 0, Grassland) Potion Bronze Helm none Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 2, Coffer) Hi-Potion Plumed Hat none Left: 0, Up: 10 (height: 0, Soil) Antidote Linen Cuirass none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you win at the Sietch, you'll rescue the Marquis. You'll also pick up a Blind Knife. It's not stronger than the other knives you already have, but it does inflict Blind status on enemies (making their attacks easier for you to dodge), so give it to a Chemist. ---ZEKLAUS WILDERNESS--- Zeklaus Desert now becomes another "wilderness" location where you can get into random battles. The map you'll see in random battles at Zeklaus Desert is actually completely different from the Sand Rat's Sietch map. ---Extra Battlefield: Zeklaus Desert-------------------------------------------- MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 18 x 10 Sand Sandstorm 62% Stone Outcropping Tremor 36% Obstructed -- 2% Note that there's a very valuable pair of Battle Boots stashed on this map that you can acquire with the Treasure Hunter movement ability. As with most good Treasure Hunter items, your chance of getting this item goes UP with LOWER Bravery. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Sand POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 8 (height: 0, Sand) Phoenix Down Blind Knife Sten Needle Left: 0, Up: 11 (height: 2.5, Sand) Echo Herbs Battle Boots Degenerator Left: 6, Up: 8 (height: 0, Sand) Hi-Potion Thunder Rod none Left: 6, Up: 17 (height: 0, Sand) Potion Iron Sword Hypnogas -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---NEW MISSION & SHOPPING--- Return to Eagrose Castle. You'll meet Duke Larg, and then Dycedarg will let Ramza and friends in on the next mission against the Corpse Brigade. The shops at all three towns will now be stocked with new items. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Ice Rod Rod 400 TrCity/City Atk: 3, 20% Parry, ice elemental, Boosts: Ice, Spell Effect: Ice Flame Rod Rod 400 TrCity/City Atk: 3, 20% Parry, fire elemental, Boosts: Fire, Spell Effect: Fire Thunder Rod Rod 400 TrCity/City Atk: 3, 20% Parry, lightning elemental, Boosts: Lightning, Spell Effect: Thunder White Staff Staff 800 TrCity/City Atk: 3, 15% Parry, Removes (from target): Doom Red Hood Hat 800 TrCity/City HP +24, MP +8 Leather Plate Clothes 500 TrCity/City HP +18 Hempen Robe Robe 1200 TrCity/City HP +10, MP +10 Blind Knife Knife 800 Castle/City Atk: 4, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Blind Iron Sword Sword 900 Castle Atk: 6, 5% Parry Longbow Bow 800 Castle Atk: 4, 0% Parry Buckler Shield 700 Castle Phy.Evade: 13%, Mag.Evade: 3% Iron Helm Helm 1000 Castle HP +30 Bronze Armor Armor 800 Castle HP +30 Shoulder Cape Cloak 300 Any Phy.Evade: 10%, Mag.Evade: 10% Hi-Potion Item 200 Any Restores 70 HP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At Eagrose, you can buy Iron Swords for both your Squires and Knights, as well as Escutcheons, Iron Helms, and Bronze Armor for any Knights you have. Gariland has better light armor, used by jobs other than Knights. If you're using mages, you can buy new rods and staves at Gariland and Dorter, as well as Hempen Robes, which will give them more MP. All towns also carry a new accessory: the Shoulder Cape, which will boost both your physical and magick evade rates by a little bit (10%). It's not really as useful as the Battle Boots, though. But the most important new item isn't actually an equipment--it's the Hi-Potion, which is now for sale under Items! Hi-Potions restore 70 HP instead of the 30 you get from a regular Potion. Since you should have a lot more than 30 HP by now, you'll need the healing boost. You can't use Hi-Potions unless you've learned the Chemist's Hi-Potion ability, so be sure to have your item-users learn this ability. Since there's a lot to buy, you might not be able to afford to buy all of the new gear. Aside from restocking your item supply, the priorities are probably the Iron Swords and Bronze Armor at Eagrose, and the Leather Plate or Red Hood at Gariland. Note that the Iron Helm and Bronze Armor both give you the same HP bonus, but the Bronze Armor is cheaper! If you can't buy all the armor, the Bronze Armor is definitely a better buy than the Iron Helm. After you're done shopping, your new destination is the Brigands' Den, south of the Mandalia Plain. ---Battle 6: Brigands' Den------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], Argath [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Milleuda (lv 7 Knight) Thief (lv 6, male) Thief (lv 5, male) White Mage (lv 6, female) White Mage (lv 5, female) BOSS: Milleuda [Virgo] - lv 7 female Knight - Bravery 68, Faith 58 Equipment : Iron Shield, Bronze Shield, Iron Helm, Chainmail, Power Gauntlet Abilities : Arts of War, random action ability, Parry, random Squire support ability, Move +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO Milleuda LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, rainstorm (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33, fire dmg -25%, lightning dmg +25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 37% Ocean Torrent 30% Flagstone Contortion 21% Grassland Tanglevine 12% --STRATEGY-- You may want to deploy more male characters than female ones here since there's a chance that one of the male Thieves can Charm a female character, making her temporarily fight against you. But this is pretty unlikely, so don't go out of your way to adjust your roster. Also, if you happen to have any male Pisces characters, or Taurus and Capricorns of either gender, deploying them here can be useful. Milleuda, the boss here, is always a female Virgo, and the three Zodiac signs listed above will do extra damage to her. (You can only prepare your Zodiac signs in this way when fighting bosses; non-boss enemies have randomized Zodiac signs.) It's definitely not essential to have them, but it'll help you out if you do. I recommend standing up on the cliffs on the left side of the fort when possible; you have a height advantage there. Since you should have Hi-Potions now, use them for all your healing needs--the 30 HP from a regular Potion just doesn't cut it now. There are two White Mages here. Check their status; at least one of them will have Black Magicks as a secondary ability. A Black Magick-wielding mage is the most dangerous, so if either or both have Black Magick, you'll generally want to target them first. (You can use the same tricks you used in Dorter to avoid their magick.) However, one of the White Mages might have the Items ability. If an Item-using Mage comes out of the fort and starts using Hi-Potions, you'll need to concentrate on KOing her instead to prevent her from healing all the other enemies. If either mage starts casting Cure, note that you can stop it more or less same way you can stop a Black Magick spell -- either take out the enemy they're trying to heal, or KO the Mage herself. After you've taken out the White Mages, concentrate on Milleuda. Her attacks are quite strong. If you have the Rend Weapon or Rend Armor abilities (both from the Knight job), you may want to try them on her. Breaking her weapon will greatly reduce her attack power, and breaking her armor will reduce her HP total. If you already have a Thief, you could try stealing her equipment too, as she's got a nice set of gear, but you'll be able to buy all her stuff eventually. The Thieves here may swipe some of your armor, or at least your headgear. Although this might be annoying, it's not really too bad; you can just re-buy the items after the battle. What's more deadly is the Steal Heart attack they may use on your female characters, which will temporarily turn them to the enemy side. That's why it can be advantageous to deploy more male characters here. Milleuda is the game's first boss character. KOing a boss will end the battle instantly, even if there are other enemies left standing. If you're in danger, you can take her out quickly to end the fight. But if you've got Milleuda cornered or otherwise have the upper hand, you may want to finish off the other enemies for more Exp & JP, then let them die completely so they turn into a chest or crystal. BATTLE TROPHIES: 700 gil, Iron Sword, Bronze Shield --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Wooden Floor POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 2, Wooden Fl.) Phoenix Down Longbow none Left: 8, Up: 10 (height: 2, Grassland) Antidote Flame Rod none Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 3, Wooden Fl.) Echo Herbs White Staff none *Left: 7,Up: 10 (height: 10, Wooden F.) Eye Drops Ice Rod none * Requires Jump of 4 or greater. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---STORY SCENES--- The Brigands' Den is easier than the Sand Rat's Sieve, so if you won there, you should be able to attain victory here. Following the battle, there will be a cutscene at Eagrose as the Corpse Brigade strikes back. Victory at the Brigands' Den will have earned you a Bronze Shield, which is a more effective shield than anything else you've got at this point. Don't forget to equip it. Strip Argath of all his equipment, as he'll be leaving your party shortly. Go back up to Eagrose. A series of scenes will follow in which Ramza and Delita decide to rescue Tietra, and Argath leaves. Return to Gariland. As you cross Mandalia Plain, an animated cutscene will play. ---JOB CHANGES--- At this point, you'll probably want to start changing jobs, if you haven't already. If you can change any of your characters to Monks, do so; they're very strong fighters. If any of your characters have enough JP to buy the Knight ability Equip Heavy Armor, a good strategy is to learn that ability and then make the character into a Monk--the heavy armor will make up for the Monk's otherwise poor HP count. It would also help to have a Black Mage and Archer. But, you'll still want a healer, so the best move is to change a Chemist to another job and then equip Items as a secondary ability. Before switching out of the Chemist job, though, you need to learn (and equip) the Throw Items ability. Without Throw Items, your items will have a range of only 1 tile, and, as Sonic would say, that's NO GOOD! Keep in mind that male characters generally have somewhat higher HP and Physical Attack, while females have somewhat more HP and Magick Attack. So, it makes the most sense to assign fighting jobs like Knight and Archer to males, and magick- oriented jobs like Black and White Mage to females. Also remember that a higher Faith makes your magick stronger, so when you're deciding what character(s) to turn into a mage, it's advantageous to pick someone with a high Faith. If you change jobs, be sure to buy matching equipment for your new jobs. If you've got an Archer, you'll need to decide whether to use a crossbow or a regular bow. A crossbow only require one hand, allowing you to equip a shield. On the other hand, bows deal more damage, have a longer range (which increases even more when you have a height advantage), and fire in an "arc" pattern that often allows you to shoot over obstacles in your way. Since Archers are usually in the back line and don't get attacked too much, a shield isn't too important. Regular bows are almost always the best choice. For Black Mages, you can choose between the Flame, Ice, and Thunder Rods (sold at Gariland and Dorter). These rods boost the damage dealt by your Fire-family, Blizzard-family, and Thunder-family magicks, respectively. A good trick is to buy a particular Rod and then learn some of the spells that go along with it (e.g., buy the Ice Rod and then try to learn Blizzard and Blizzara). This will increase the damage you can do with your magick. (The rods will also increase the power of the Ifrit, Shiva, and Ramuh summons, respectively.) These rods also sometimes cast Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder when executing a physical attack, if your Black Mage happens to get caught in a melee. As far as choosing between the Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder families of magick, they all do the same amounts of raw damage under normal circumstances. They differ only in their elemental affinities, which means they can do more or less damage in certain cases: > Fire magick does extra damage to a number of early-game monster types (Skeletons and Ghosts), but it gets weaker during thunderstorms and doesn't work against the Bomb family. (It also does more damage to enemies afflicted with Oil status, but this status condition almost never happens.) > Blizzard magick is good against many late-game monsters, but the only early- game monster family weak to ice is Goblins, which are pretty easy anyway. Blizzard magick gets stronger during a snowstorm, but these are very rare. > Thunder magick gets stronger during a thunderstorm, and no monsters are immune to it. But, only one monster family (Mindflayers) is weak to it. Overall, Thunder is probably your best pick early on. Nothing is immune to it, so you can use it against any enemy, and it gets stronger during thunderstorms, which are pretty common during the rainy months. Fire is OK too, but Skeletons and Ghosts it's effective against are usually fairly easy to defeat anyway. Blizzard is less useful at first because fewer monsters are weak to it, but you'll definitely want to learn it later in the game since it's the best against late-game monsters like Malboros, Hydras, and Red Dragons. ---ITEM SUPPLY--- Aside from re-outfitting yourself after any job changes, you may want to hold off on any equipment purchases. While you could now buy some of the equipment upgrades you might not have been able to afford after the Brigands' Den, there are even better items coming after the next battle. So, you're probably better off saving your money for those. Of course, if any of your equipment was stolen by the Thieves or broken by Milleuda in the last battle, be sure to replace it. You'll also want a good stock of Hi-Potions (12 or so) and Phoenix Down (6 should be sufficient). After restocking your item supply, go north from Gariland to the Lenalian Plateau for another battle against Milleuda. ---Battle 7: Lenalian Plateau--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Milleuda (lv 8 Knight) Knight (lv 6, female) Knight (lv 5, female) Black Mage (lv 6, male) Black Mage (lv 5, male) Time Mage (lv 5, female) BOSS: Milleuda [Virgo] - lv 8 female Knight - Bravery 68, Faith 58 Equipment : Mythril Sword, Bronze Shield, Barbut, Chainmail, Shoulder Cape Abilities : Arts of War, random action ability, Counter, random Squire support ability, Jump +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO Milleuda LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 11 Grassland Tanglevine 50% Stone Outcropping Tremor 24% Lake Torrent 21% Soil Sinkhole 3% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- Again, Taurus, Capricorn, and male Pisces characters will do extra damage against Milleuda since she's a female Virgo. Play the first few rounds defensively to prevent any early casualties, and use the high ground to your advantage. Send one or two characters after the Black Mages, and possibly the Time Mage as well. If you have an Archer, send him/her up onto the tall ridge and shoot down on the enemies. Firing from a high place increases the range of bows. After knocking out the Black Mages, concentrate on Milleuda. This time, she has the Counter ability, which means that whenever you hit her with a close- range attack, she has a chance of striking back. So, be sure not to use any close-range attacks against her unless your HP is high. A good strategy is to attack her with long-distance attacks like bows and Black Magick, which won't allow her to counterattack. As in the last battle, Milleuda might use her Rend abilities to break your gear. Again, as soon as Milleuda goes down, the battle ends, even if other enemies are still standing. BATTLE TROPHIES: 1000 gil, Silken Robe, Battle Boots --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 7.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 6, Up: 6 (height: 2.5, Grassl.) Hi-Potion Iron Helm none Left: 4, Up: 8 (height: 5, Grassland) Potion Buckler none Left: 4, Up: 0 (height: 5.5, Grassl.) Eye Drops Bronze Armor none Left: 0, Up: 5 (height: 4, Grassland) Antidote Red Hood none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---EQUIPMENT UPGRADES--- After you win the battle at the Plateau, the shops will again update their shelves with new equipment. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Ringmail Clothes 900 TrCity/City HP +24 Silken Robe Robe 2400 TrCity/City HP +20, MP +16 Mage Masher Knife 1500 Castle/City Atk: 4, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Silence Mythril Sword Sword 1600 Castle Atk: 7, 8% Parry Battle Axe Axe 1500 Castle Atk: 9, 0% Parry Knightslayer Crossbw 1500 Castle Atk: 3, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Blind Silver Bow Bow 1500 Castle Atk: 5, 0% Parry Bronze Shield Shield 1200 Castle Phy.Evade: 16%, Mag.Evade: 0% Chainmail Armor 1300 Castle HP +40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As before, you'll find heavy armor and most kinds of weapons in Eagrose, and lighter armor in Gariland and Dorter. Buy what you can and replace any items that Milleuda may have broken. Skip the axe. Although it looks powerful, the amount of damage it deals is randomly determined, and not exactly what you see previewed. That means it may fail to deliver a killing blow when you need it most! ---DRAGONS--- If you're crossing the Lenalian Plateau after the initial battle, you may sometimes encounter a Dragon monster in random battles (only when entering from Dorter). If you already have an Orator on your team, you can use Entice or Tame to recruit the Dragon onto your team. Although monsters aren't usually the most useful units, this is a much stronger monster than you can usually find at this point in the game. You can also breed it to get even stronger dragons: Blue Dragons and Red Dragons! ---RENDEZVOUS MODE--- At this point, you should be in great shape to win the Chocobo Defense mission in Rendezvous Mode, so if you'd like to check that out, you can earn some extra items and JP. Strategies for these missions are available in the Rendezvous Mode section. Otherwise, forge on from the Lenalian Plateau to Fovoham Windflats, where you'll square off against Wiegraf and his Chocobo Boco (a reference to Final Fantasy V). ---Battle 8: Windflat Mill------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Wiegraf (lv 9 White Knight) Boco (lv 7 Chocobo) Monk (lv 7, female) Monk (lv 6, female) Knight (lv 6, female) BOSS: Wiegraf [Virgo] - lv 9 White Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 64 Equipment : Mythril Sword, Round Shield, Barbut, Chainmail, Shoulder Cape Abilities : Holy Sword, random action ability, Counter, random Squire support ability, Jump +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Stop, Immobilize, and Disable ENEMY: Boco [Aries] - lv 7 Chocobo - Bravery 68, Faith 48 VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce Wiegraf to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 48% Soil Sinkhole 21% Obstructed -- 18% Brick Wind Slash 5% Roof Wind Blast 4% Stone Outcropping Tremor 3% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- Like his sister, Wiegraf is a Virgo. He's male, though, so this time Taurus, Capricorn, and FEMALE Pisces characters are the ones to deploy (if you happen to have them -- if not, don't sweat it). Wiegraf is the only real threat here; most of his companions are pretty weak. Start moving along the bottom of the cliff and quickly take out the Chocobo (Boco) and the Monk. Wiegraf and the other enemies will soon move down to fight you. Finish off any enemies that are low on HP, then go after Wiegraf. Wiegraf uses a couple different special sword techniques that allow him to attack from a distance and (unlike magick) don't require any charge time. Most of the time, he'll use Northswain's Strike, which strikes a single character (usually for about 35 HP or so). If your characters are close together, he may also use Judgment Blade to attack a "plus-shaped" group of tiles. These attacks are pretty strong, but Wiegraf doesn't have a great defense. If you hit him with a few strong attacks (Mythril Swords, black magick), he'll go down quickly. Just stay healed! Because you're fighting in such close quarters, watch out for the "friendly fire" effects of your own magicks! In general, if one of your allies is standing right next to an enemy, a useful trick is to target the tile right BEHIND the enemy to avoid hitting your ally when the magick goes off. For instance, if your characters are positioned like below, target the space marked with a *: *EA (A = ally, E = enemy) This way, you'll still hit the enemy, but the magick is positioned so as not to harm your ally. But make sure that the magick will activate before the enemy can move. This battle isn't too difficult if you have good jobs. You need only Wiegraf's HP to critical status to win. (If your last hit manages to KO him outright, the outcome is the same.) BATTLE TROPHIES: Hi-Potion --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 6, Up: 9 (height: 4, Grassland) Hi-Potion Mage Masher none Left: 3, Up: 5 (height: 6, Grassland) Phoenix Down Hempen Robe none Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 1, Grassland) Echo Herbs Leather Plate none Left: 5, Up: 1 (height: 1, Grassland) Potion Shoulder Cape none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Zeklaus Desert, Fovoham Windflats now becomes an entirely different map if you return to it for random battles. ---Extra Battlefield: Fovoham Windflats----------------------------------------- MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 62% Stone Outcropping Tremor 24% Ocean Torrent 12% Obstructed -- 2% --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 10.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 2 (height: 10, Grassland) Phoenix Down Silver Bow Sten Needle Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 1, Stone Out.) Eye Drops Battle Axe Death Trap Left: 5, Up: 8 (height: 1, Stone Out.) Antidote Mythril Sword Hypnogas Left: 11, Up: 4 (height: 1, Grassland) Echo Herbs Knightslayer Degenerator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing is added to the shops after the battle at Fovoham, so if your item supply is okay, you can continue directly on to Ziekden Fortress, the final battle of the chapter. There, you'll find Tietra being held captive by a Gragoroth, a Corpse Brigade knight. Argath arrive with some troops, and you'll find yourself battling an unexpected enemy. ---Battle 9: Ziekden Fortress--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Delita [guest], 1 other 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Argath (lv 10 Knight) Knight (lv 8, male) Knight (lv 8, male) Knight (lv 7, male) Black Mage (lv 9, female) Black Mage (lv 8, female) BOSS: Argath [Virgo] - lv 10 Knight - Bravery 32, Faith 67 Equipment : Knightslayer, Round Shield, Barbut, Chainmail, Power Gauntlet Abilities : Arts of War, random action ability, Auto-Potion, Equip Crossbows, Move +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO Argath LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, light snow (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Snow Snowstorm 96% Bridge Wind Slash 3% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- You'll deploy in two squads again for this battle. Deploy your best damage- dealer along with Ramza in the first squad. The characters in the second squad are going to be largely useless as they start far away from the action. If you want to pick and choose Zodiac signs, Argath is again a Virgo and susceptible to Taurus, Capricorn, and female Pisces attacks. Luckily, you can almost beat the whole fight just using Ramza. Just go after Argath and completely ignore the other enemies. Argath only has a crossbow, so he can't do much damage to you and is useless at close ranges. Just chase him down and hit him with your strongest attacks, like Knight and Monk attacks and Black Magicks. You'll want to block Argath from climbing up the stairs to the roof of the fort, as he has a good sniping point if he gets up there and it's slow climbing up after him. If you position your characters between him and the stairs, he shouldn't be able to climb up there. Argath does have the Auto-Potion ability, which gives him a random chance to heal himself with a Potion when you hit him, so you may want to avoid using very weak attacks against him--the gain from the Auto-Potion may heal him more than you hurt him for! (The ability isn't always activated, though. And Auto- Potion also can't protect him whenever you land the killing blow.) Again, as you soon as you knock down Argath, the fight--and the chapter--ends. The dialogue between Argath, Ramza, and Delita here will be a little bit different depending on whether or not you chose to help Argath back on Mandalia Plain. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Snow POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 1, Snow) Eye Drops Silken Robe none Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 2, Snow) Hi-Potion Chainmail none Left: 5, Up: 4 (height: 0, Snow) Antidote Ringmail none Left: 9, Up: 5 (height: 7, Wooden Fl.) Potion Bronze Shield none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you kill Argath, there are a couple FMV scenes, the fort blows up, and the chapter ends. The game will give you a chance to save, and then you'll move on to Chapter II. %%%CHAPTER II: THE MANIPULATIVE & THE SUBSERVIENT%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00walk2 You now return to the present, at Orbonne Monastery. It's one year after the events of Chapter I and your current mission is to rescue Princess Ovelia. ---CHARACTER RECRUITMENT--- After a brief chat, you'll be given a chance to add Ramza's fellow mercenary Ladd and both of Agrias's Knights (Alicia and Lavian) to the party. There's no real reason not to take them along, so sign them up! They start with a bare minimum of abilities, though, so they probably won't see much use compared to the characters you're carrying over from Chapter I. However, you MUST keep Alicia and Lavian (as well as Agrias, of course) on your roster to complete the Agrias's Birthday sidequest in Chapter IV. Don't dismiss them or let them get permanently killed if you want to complete all the sidequests. (It's fine if they're KOed as long as they don't ever turn into a crystal or chest.) Ladd, on the other hand, is not required for any of the quests. Agrias and Gaffgarion will also join as Guests. You still have all your characters from Chapter I (except Delita) as well. ALLY: Ladd [Capricorn] - lv 8 Squire - Bravery 63, Faith 60 Equipment : Iron Sword, Red Hood, Ringmail Abilities : Fundaments, random other action ability ALLY: Alicia [Pisces] - lv 8 Knight - Bravery 61, Faith 62 Equipment : Iron Sword, Buckler, Iron Helm, Linen Cuirass Abilities : Arts of War, random other action ability ALLY: Lavian [Aries] - lv 8 Knight - Bravery 62, Faith 61 Equipment : Longsword, Escutcheon, Bronze Helm, Bronze Armor Abilities : Arts of War, random other action ability GUEST: Agrias [Cancer] - lv 10 Holy Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 63 Equipment : Mythril Sword, Mythril Shield, Golden Helm, Golden Armor Abilities : Holy Sword, random other action ability GUEST: Gaffgarion [Virgo] - lv 10 Fell Knight - Bravery 61, Faith 67 Equipment : Mythril Sword, Golden Shield, Close Helmet, Plate Mail, Power Gauntlet Abilities : Fell Sword, random other action ability ---JOB & ABILITY UPGRADES--- You'll see that Ramza's appearance has changed at the start of the chapter. His Squire job is now able to equip heavy armor and shields, plus he has a new ability to learn, Steel. Steel gives a character a +5 Bravery boost during a battle, and some of this increase will remain even after the battle. Raising your Bravery makes your Reaction Abilities and some attacks stronger, so this is a good ability to learn. If Ramza has some spare turns near the end of a battle, you can spend them using Steel to boost up characters' Bravery. At this point, you should have had all your characters upgraded from the beginning Jobs (Squire or Chemist) to more advanced ones. In particular, you'll want to have a Monk, Archer, Black Mage, and maybe a White Mage somewhere in the party. I like making Ramza into a Monk. You'll want to have him learn either the Monk's Chakra ability or the Time Mage's Teleport for use in a battle near the end of the chapter. An Orator can also be useful to have on the team, but might take some time to get, as you have to get the Mystic job up to job level 3, and Mystic itself requires job level 3 of White Mage. If you want to take the time to unlock Orator, you can also have another character acquire the Thief Job, which is unlocked by getting Archer to job level 3. When you've got your team organized, go north to the only location available to you: Dorter, where a battle awaits you. ---Battle 10: Dorter------------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Gaffgarion [guest], Agrias [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 11, male) Thief (lv 9, male) Black Mage (lv 10, male) Black Mage (lv 9, male) Archer (lv 10, female) Archer (lv 9, female) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 9 Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 36% Flagstone Contortion 36% Grassland Tanglevine 26% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- There's no boss here, so you'll have to wipe out every enemy on the map to win. If you've got good jobs, though, this battle should be no problem. Just move up the path and take out the enemies as you go. The Black Mages and Archers do the most damage, so when you've got a choice, go after them instead of the Thieves. Agrias is given a random action ability when she joins. If it's a magick ability, beware; the goofy Guest AI has a nasty habit of casting spells indiscriminately on your own people. You can either de-equip Agrias's magicks from the menu beforehand, or pay attention to which she enemy she is targeting and stay clear. One other small caution: A character with Jump 4 can climb up onto the house nearest your start point, but can't get back down. Of course, you'll get the character back after the battle, but they'll be out of action for the rest of this battle. So, either don't climb up there (there's not much reason to do so, except one Treasure Hunter tile) or use a character that has Jump 5. BATTLE TROPHIES: 1000 gil, Flame Rod, Mage Masher, Phoenix Down --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 16, Chimney POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP *Left: 9, Up: 8 (height: 9, Chimney) Potion Ice Bow none Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 5, Grassland) Ether Round Shield none Left: 4, Up: 6 (height: 9, Roof) Hi-Potion Shuriken none #Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 16, Chimney) Echo Herbs Barbut none * Requires Jump of 4 or more to reach. # Requires Jump of 5 to reach. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once you've cleared this battle, you'll have access to all of the map again. ---MONSTER CHANGES--- All of the random battle locations (green dots) now have a second set of possible enemies you can encounter. These usually show up less frequently, but often include more powerful monsters as well as the occasional human. Check the Random Battles section if you want the complete list. ---ERRANDS--- You also now have the ability to take Errands at taverns. These involve sending your generic (non-story) characters away for a few days in exchange for gil and a small amount of JP. The amount you earn isn't generally huge, but this can be a good way to use characters you weren't going to deploy in active combat. While the characters are away, you can continue on without them. Or, if you just want to pass time, you can walk back and forth between two blue dots on the map, which will never trigger any random battles. (You can use Eagrose & Ziekden Fortress, or Dorter & the Monastery.) Once the Errand is done, you'll have to return the appropriate Tavern to collect your characters and reward. You can maximize your reward if you send characters for the maximize number of days and pick jobs appropriate for the errand, but the differences are actually pretty small and not usually worth bothering with. If you want to squeeze out the maximum gil, though, I've covered this system in more depth in the Errands section. ---RENDEZVOUS MISSIONS--- Two new Rendezvous Mode missions are now available in Taverns: Chicken Race and Treasure Hunt, both of which offer better items than the Chocobo Defense mission from chapter I. Chicken Race can be completed quite easily by a small party of Chemists and is great for collecting items at this stage. Treasure Hunt is a bit harder, but if you pick up the chest on the map, you'll get a good piece of equipment. ---EQUIPMENT UPGRADES--- All the stores have new equipment, so pay them a visit to gear up your characters. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Headgear Hat 1200 TrCity/City HP +32, Phys.Attack +1 Mythril Vest Clothes 1500 TrCity/City HP +30 Shuriken Star 50 TrCity/City Atk: 4 Ice Bow Bow 2000 Castle Atk: 5, 0% Parry, ice elemental Javelin Polearm 1000 Castle Atk: 8, 10% Parry Round Shield Shield 1600 Castle Phy.Evade: 19%, Mag.Evade: 0% Barbut Helm 1500 Castle HP: 40 Mythril Armor Armor 2000 Castle HP: 50 Spiked Boots Shoes 1200 Any Jump +1 Leather Cloak Cloak 800 Any Phy.Evade: 15%, Mag.Evade: 15% Holy Water Item 2000 Any Removes: Undead, Vampire -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember that you'll have to hike back to Eagrose to purchase heavy armor and most weapons. Conversely, you'll only find lighter armor at the other two cities. Stock up on Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs, but don't buy any equipment for Gaffgarion. (It's OK to get stuff for Agrias, but her equipment is already really good.) The Headgear is also quite a good buy. It's a good hat, cheaper more effective than the Mythril Vest, and it raises your attack power as well. This is a good chance to build up your characters if you want. But as long as you have new equipment for your main squad of characters and the jobs recommended above, you should be fine. When you feel confident that you're done preparing, go to Araguay Woods, east of Dorter. ---Battle 11: Araguay Woods----------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Gaffgarion [guest], Agrias [guest], Boco [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Black Goblin (lv 13) Goblin (lv 10) Goblin (lv 9) Goblin (lv 9) Goblin (lv 8) Goblin (lv 8) GUEST: Boco [Aries] - lv 10 Chocobo - Bravery 68, Faith 48 VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Top option - Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone Bottom option - Boco is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 82% Tree Wind Slash 8% Obstructed -- 6% Soil Sinkhole 4% --STRATEGY-- Here you have to save Boco the chocobo from goblins. As when you met Argath, you're given two options, which will affect your victory conditions: - If you choose not to help Boco (top choice), your goal is just to defeat all the enemies, and you don't have to keep Boco from being KOed. However, you'll also suffer a 10 point PENALTY to everyone's Bravery, 2 points of which will remain even after the battle. - Choosing to help Boco (bottom choice) means you must keep Boco from getting KOed during the battle, but does not penalize your Bravery. This time, the top choice still gives you an easier battle, but you'll take a hit to your Bravery for selecting it. Since protecting Boco during the battle isn't hard at all, choose the second option to keep from losing Bravery. Boco will usually retreat into a corner, where will be chased by the lone Black Goblin. Boco can take care of himself just fine, so don't bother going after the Black Goblin unless you've mopped up all the other enemies. The Goblins aren't very strong, especially with Agrias's and Gaffgarion's help, so I recommend just rushing them. Stay out of the ditches. BATTLE TROPHIES: Hi-Potion --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 17, Cross Section POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 5, Up: 3 (height: 0, Grassland) Gold Needle Headgear none Left: 2, Up: 4 (height: 1, Grassland) Phoenix Down Mythril Armor none Left: 5, Up: 8 (height: 0, Grassland) Potion Mythril Vest none Left: 9, Up: 11 (height: 7, Grassland) Hi-Potion Spiked Boots none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---BOCO--- After the battle, Boco will join. Boco just has the same stats and abilities as any other generic Chocobo, so he's of somewhat limited use. (He does have a unique help message when you use the Select button and check his name, but this has no effect on gameplay.) But, if nothing else, you can keep Boco in your party and use him to breed a Black Chocobo, which in turn can give you a Red Chocobo. These colored chocobos are somewhat more useful, so you may want to get one of them. ---ADJUSTING GAFFGARION--- Back on the map, go into your roster screen and change Gaffgarion into a Time Mage or White Mage, or some other crummy job. You have a couple of choices as to do what to do with Gaffgarion's equipment: 1) The next battle will be easiest if you strip Gaffgarion of all his gear, and equip it on one of your other characters. Gaffgarion has good armor, and the Power Gauntlet will give you an attack boost. (It's great for an Archer, or another character who doesn't need the movement bonus of the Battle Boots.) 2) Alternately, there's a bug in the game that you can exploit to duplicate an item. Equip the item on Gaffgarion, then have a Thief steal it during the battle, and you'll end up with two copies. The Power Gauntlet is especially valuable, if you decide to do this. Once you've finished adjusting Gaffgarion's equipment, continue on to Zeirchele Falls. ---Battle 12: Zeirchele Falls--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Agrias [guest], Delita [guest], Ovelia [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Gaffgarion (Fell Knight) Knight (lv 11, male) Knight (lv 10, male) Knight (lv 9, male) Knight (lv 8, male) Knight (lv 8, male) GUEST: Delita [Sagittarius] - lv 11 Holy Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 50 Equipment : Coral Sword, Mythril Shield, Plate Mail, other equipment random Abilities : Holy Sword, other abilities random Immune : Chicken, Toad, Charm, and Doom GUEST: Ovelia [Taurus] - lv 5 Princess - Bravery 53, Faith 72 Equipment : White Staff, Wizard's Hat, Wizard's Robe Abilities : Holy Magicks, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ovelia is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Stone Outcropping Tremor 33% Grassland Tanglevine 30% River, Waterfall Torrent 30% Bridge Wind Slash 4% Obstructed -- 4% --STRATEGY-- The mission here is to protect Ovelia, which means you can't let her get KOed. She isn't in too much danger since she can cast Aegis, which puts a whole lot of good defensive buffs on her. She only has enough MP to cast this once, though, and it wears off after a few turns. Just to be on the safe side, keep a healer reasonably close to her. Gaffgarion is now your enemy, but if you turned him into a weak job and stripped his equipment, he can't do much to hurt you. So, worry about the other Knights first. (Plus, if you don't KO Gaffgarion right away, there's a bit of extra dialogue.) Start off by taking out the Knights on your side of the falls. (Delita can do a lot of damage to the Knights on the other side just by himself.) One of the Knights from the far side will probably try to cross over by wading through the base of the falls. Position an Archer on the corner of the cliff and shoot down at the guy. Agrias tends to loiter in the water and may finish him off; if not, send a character or two down after him. A great trick here is to KO one of the enemy Knights while he's standing on the bridge, and then position yourself right behind his body. Until the body decays into a chest/crystal, it will block the Knights from getting close enough to hit you with close-range attacks. Since the Knights have NO ranged attacks, they're helpless and you can pick them off from afar with your own ranged attacks. If you have a Dragoon, you can also use polearms, which have a range of two tiles. If any of the Knights drops to critical HP, he may try to flee up the cliffs. You'll have to chase after him, so it may be useful to bring a character with a good Move range to this battle. (Battle Shoes and Move +1 or +2 will increase your Move range.) If you have a Thief and don't mind exploiting a bug in the game, you can also use this battle to duplicate any piece of equipment you have. First, equip the item on Gaffgarion before the battle. Then, steal it from him during the battle. You'll get one copy then, and a second copy when Gaffgarion's items are added to your inventory after the battle. The downside is that if you give Gaffgarion powerful items, it will make him harder to defeat. But, just giving him the Power Gauntlet works pretty well -- if you turn him into a mage beforehand, he can't do very much damage to even *with* the Gauntlet. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 7, Stone Outcropping POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 3 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Ether Leather Cloak none Left: 5, Up: 2 (height: 9.5, Grassl.) Echo Herbs Platinum Dagger none Left: 7, Up: 4 (height: 8.5, Waterf.) Gold Needle Coral Sword none Left: 8, Up: 4 (height: 8.5, Waterf.) Phoenix Down Poison Rod none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the battle, Delita will leave you with Ovelia. Ramza sets a new course for Lionel Castle, so Fort Besselat disappears from your map, not to return until much later in the game. ---SHUFFLING YOUR EQUIPMENT--- Back on the map, Gaffgarion's items are added to your inventory if you didn't already take it from him. (There's also a bug here that allows you to copy Gaffgarion's items; see the battle strategy above.) Be sure to equip it on your characters since it's good stuff. While Ovelia is listed on your roster as a Guest, she won't actually participate in any more battles. So, you're safe de-equipping her Wizard's Hat and Wizard's Robe and giving them to another character. The Wizard's Robe is an especially nice pick-up since you can't buy them in stores yet. It raises your magick attack, so give it to one of your mages. There's also some new equipment for sale at Dorter and at Eagrose. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Poison Rod Rod 500 TrCity/City Atk: 3, 20% Parry, Inflicts: Poison Serpent Staff Staff 2200 TrCity/City Atk: 5, 15% Parry Cypress Pole Pole 1000 TrCity/City Atk: 6, 20% Parry Wizard's Hat Hat 1800 TrCity/City HP +40, MP +12, Magick Attack +1 Adamant Vest Clothes 1600 TrCity/City HP +36 Platinum Dagger Knife 1800 Castle/City Atk: 5, 10% Parry Coral Sword Sword 3300 Castle Atk: 8, 5% Parry Mythril Shield Shield 2500 Castle Phy.Evade: 22%, Mag.Evade: 5% Mythril Helm Helm 2100 Castle HP +50 Plate Mail Armor 3000 Castle HP +60 Power Gauntlet Gauntlt 5000 Any Physical Attack +1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's probably worth making the trip back to Dorter and Eagrose as you'll want the new gear for the next battle. In particular, the Wizard's Hat is a nice purchase for magick-users. It's the best hat so far, and it gives you a nice MP and Magick Attack best too. However, you may want to pass on the Poison Rod for your Black Mages. While it does a little more damage physically than the other rods and sometimes poisons its target, it doesn't boost the power of any of your Black Magicks like the Flame, Ice, and Thunder Rods do. Since your Black Mages usually attack with magicks most of the time (I assume ;) ), you're probably better off sticking with your existing rod. The Power Gauntlet now appears in stores, but it's pretty pricey. ---BATTLE PREPARATION--- The next battle is a tough one, so be prepared. You'll want Archers and Black Mages, and, if you don't include a White Mage in the party, one of the characters should have White Magick as a secondary ability. A Black Chocobo can also be helpful, if you can get one. (Boco will randomly lay eggs and they may hatch into Black Chocobos, but there's obviously an element of luck/randomness to this.) I ended up using Ramza, two Archers, and a Black Mage. If you don't have the abilities you want, you can move back and forth across any green dot on the map to fight random battles and earn more JP. When you're ready, go south past the falls to the Castled City of Zaland. ---Battle 13: Zaland------------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Agrias [guest], Mustadio [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Knight (lv 13, male) Knight (lv 11, male) Black Mage (lv 12, male) Black Mage (lv 11, male) Archer (lv 12, female) Archer (lv 11, female) GUEST: Mustadio [Libra] - lv 10 Machinist - Bravery 60, Faith 62 Equipment : Romandan Pistol, Headgear, Mythril Vest, Battle Boots Abilities : Aimed Shot, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Top option - Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone Bottom option - Mustadio is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 38% Grassland Tanglevine 27% Roof Wind Blast 17% Soil Sinkhole 14% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 5% --STRATEGY-- When deploying your characters, deploy them in the "front" row (i.e., the row where Ramza is already standing). This starts them closer to the gate and allows them to get into the city faster. You'll meet Mustadio, who is being chased by some bad guys. Once again, you're given two options for the upcoming battle: - Choosing the first option means that you DO NOT have to keep Mustadio from getting KOed during the battle. This option raises the Bravery of each character on your current squad (including Agrias and Mustadio) by 5, 1 point of which is permanent. - Choosing the second option means that you DO have to keep from getting Mustadio from getting KOed. However, this option raises all the characters' Bravery by 10, 2 points of which are permanent. In other words, you'll get a Bravery increase either way, but you'll get a BIGGER increase for helping Mustadio. Of course, this also makes the battle harder. So, there's no clear "best option" here. It's up to you which to choose. Since this battle can be pretty challenging, you might want to just pick the first option; it makes the fight quite a bit easier and you're only missing out on 1 extra point of Bravery. The enemy is holed up inside Zaland and launches arrows and powerful Black Magick at you through (and over) the wall. Any melee characters you have will need to rush for the gates. In the mean time, your Archers and mages can fire back with their own ranged attacks. Equip the Archer's Bane reaction ability on any character who has it, as it will help protect you against the enemy arrows. Mustadio will initially do one of two things. Most likely, he'll run up on the top of the gate and attack with his gun from them. This is the "good" outcome since it keeps him relatively out of harm's way. But sometimes he'll stay on the ground inside the city. That's bad news, as all the enemies will pick on him and it's hard to reach for him healing. In this case, your best option is to cast Shell on him to reduce the magick damage he takes. Although you can't throw items through the wall, you CAN cast White Magick through it, so you're probably best off with a White Mage for healing here. If you've been building Ramza mostly for close-range attacks, he may not be much help here. On his first turn, you can have him use Tailwind on one of your Archers or Black Mages to boost their Speed and get them more turns. Then start him running towards the gate so he can get into the city and use melee attacks. Make the Black Mages your first target, since their magick attacks are so strong. Use Black Magick, bows, and the Black Chocobo (if you brought one) to take them out as quickly as possible. Until the Mages go down, keep your characters spread out so enemy magicks can't hit more than one of your characters at a time. After the Mages go down, go after the Archers, then the Knights. If you have a Black Chocobo, you should also check out Mustadio's initial abilities by clicking on his tile. His abilities are randomly determined, but he may have the Beastmaster skill. If so, land the Black Chocobo next to him. Beastmaster will allow the Black Chocobo to cast Choco Meteor, a really strong attack. Mustadio also uses his Aimed Shot abilities to put status conditions on the enemies. Immobilize (from Leg Shot) will keep an enemy from moving for a few turns, and Disable (from Arm Shot) will keep an enemy from taking action. If a bad guy gets hit with Disable, don't bother targeting them any further, since they can't do anything to hurt you for a few turns. A Knight that's been Immobilized is also a low-priority target since he can't move to attack you as long as you stay out of the tiles directly next to him. But the Black Mages and Archers can still shoot even if they're Immobilized! As for the Knights, they'll probably try to climb over the wall on the side of the map opposite the gate into the city. Agrias will attack them, but she can't take them out her own, so help her out with your ranged attacks. The Knights may also use Phoenix Downs to revive any Mages and Archers you KO. Characters revived with Phoenix Down come back with only a little HP, though, so you should be able to knock them back out again with just a single attack. BATTLE TROPHIES: 2000 gil, Mythril Sword, Hi-Potion --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 0 (height: 5, Grassland) Potion Serpent Staff none Left: 6, Up: 7 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Echo Herbs Mythril Helm none Left: 9, Up: 0 (height: 3, Grassland) Hi-Potion Cypress Pole none Left: 12, Up: 4 (height: 10, Chimney) Ether Mythril Shield none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again, no matter what option you picked at the start of the battle, Mustadio joins you afterwards as a Guest. When all the talking is finished, you're now able to visit the stores in Zaland. There's not very much in the way of selection, but if you didn't upgrade your equipment after Zeirchele Falls, the Adamant Vest, Wizard's Hat, and Serpent Staff are all for sale here. (There's nothing *brand* new.) There are also a pair of new Errands available at the Tavern, and a new Rendezvous Mode mission. Your next stop is Balias Tor. When you first try to leave Zaland, there will be a cutscene. Afterwards, you'll be back on the map, but Balias Tor is still red. Travel there for real this time, and you'll get into a fight. ---Battle 14: Balias Tor------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Agrias [guest], Mustadio [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Knight (lv 14, male) Knight (lv 13, male) Archer (lv 13, female) Archer (lv 11, female) Summoner (lv 12, female) Summoner (lv 11, female) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 62% Stone Outcropping Tremor 36% Obstructed -- 2% --STRATEGY-- This battle can be harder than it looks. The enemy squad has Summoners for the first time (one positioned on each side of the hill), and their summons can do big damage to your team. On the first turn, Mustadio will probably chase after one of the Summoners. Send a fast and/or magic-using character around the opposite side of the hill to take out the other Summoner. The Summoners don't have much HP, so you should be able to finish them off in a couple turns. Meanwhile, have the rest of your squad attack the center of the hill. If you can attack the enemies quickly, the Summoners may squander their turns casting Moogle to heal their allies instead of using damaging summons on you. You're not *required* to keep Mustadio alive in this battle -- if he gets KOed, you won't lose the battle -- but it's a good idea to keep him standing, as his gun is quite helpful. As in Zaland, don't waste your turns attacking enemies that Mustadio has Immobilized or Disabled. A cool trick here is to use the Squire ability Rush to knock the Knights and Archers off the hill. They'll take damage if they fall too far, and you'll put them out of range of attacking you. Since this battle isn't especially difficult, you may want to try to send someone with Treasure Hunter to try to grab the Power Gauntlet at the far side of the map. (The exact coordinates are below.) Power Gauntlets normally cost you 5000 gil, so a free one is great! BATTLE TROPHIES: 1000 gil, Holy Water --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3.5, Stone Outcropping POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 6, Up: 3 (height: 7, Grassland) Gold Needle Wizard's Hat none Left: 0, Up: 8 (height: 1, Grassland) Phoenix Down Plate Mail none Left: 6, Up: 11 (height: 7.5, Stone O.) Potion Adamant Vest none Left: 2, Up: 13 (height: 3, Grassland) Hi-Potion Power Gauntlet none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Following the fight, a cut scene will pop up back at Eagrose Castle with Dycedarg and Gaffgarion scheming. ---ON TO LIONEL CASTLE--- You can now finally get to Lionel Castle--don't worry; there's no battle! You'll chat with Delacroix and learn about the Zodiac Stones. Agrias and Ovelia will then leave the party. ---PARTY SIZE CHANGE & SHOPPING--- Now that you've reached Lionel Castle, you'll be able to deploy 5 characters in both story and random battles, instead of just 4. If you've been using a core team of just four characters, be sure to get a fifth equipped. Reaching Lionel Castle also opens up a TON of new items in the shops: ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Battle Bamboo Pole 1400 TrCity/City Atk: 7, 20% Parry Green Beret Hat 3000 TrCity/City HP +48, Speed +1 Wizard Clothing Clothes 1900 TrCity/City HP +42, MP +15 Wizard's Robe Robe 4000 TrCity/City HP +30, MP +22, Magick Attack +2 Ashura Katana 1600 TrCity Atk: 7, 15% Parry Kotetsu Katana 3000 TrCity Atk: 8, 15% Parry Lamia's Harp Instrmt 5000 TrCity Atk: 10, 10% Parry, Inflicts: Confuse Battle Folio Book 3000 TrCity Atk: 7, 15% Parry Giant's Axe Axe 3000 Castle Atk: 12, 0% Parry Lightning Bow Bow 3000 Castle Atk: 6, 0% Parry, lightning elemental, Spell Effect: Thundaga Spear Polearm 2000 Castle Atk: 9, 10% Parry Golden Shield Shield 3500 Castle Phy.Evade: 25%, Mag.Evade: 0% Golden Helm Helm 2800 Castle HP +60 Golden Armor Armor 3600 Castle HP +70 Crossbow Crossbw 2000 Castle/Goug Atk: 4, 5% Parry Flameburst Bomb Bomb 250 Most Atk: 8, fire elemental Snowmelt Bomb Bomb 250 Most Atk: 8, water elemental Spark Bomb Bomb 250 Most Atk: 8, lightning elemental Rubber Boots Shoes 1500 Any Immune: Immobilize, Lightning Protect Ring Ring 5000 Any Immune: Sleep, Doom Guardian Bracelet Armlet 7000 Any Immune: Immobilize, Disable Mage's Cloak Cloak 2000 Any Phy.Evade: 18%, Mag.Evade: 18%, Magick Attack +1 Ether Item 200 Any Restores 20 MP Remedy Item 350 Any Removes: Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Toad, Poison, Sleep -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lionel Castle has a lot of really powerful equipment, so load up on it -- you should have a lot of money by now. The Lightning Bow is a great weapon for any Archers you have; it has a fairly high attack power and sometimes casts the Thundaga spell. The Outfitter also has a lot of new accessories -- you might want to pick up a Mage's Cloak or two for your magick users. You can now buy the Remedy item in all Outfitters. It can cure any status ailment, so now there's really no point for your Chemists to learn the abilities corresponding to any of the other status-restoring items. If you go back up to Zaland, you can also buy some new light armor: Green Berets and Wizard Clothing. Keep your magick users equipped with Wizard's Hats, though, as those raise their magick attack. You probably won't have unlocked the Samurai or Bard jobs yet. But, if you have, their specialized weapons are now available. You'll have to hike all the way back up to Dorter to buy them, though. (A lot of the more "exotic" weapons are only for sale at Trade Cities like Dorter.) Buy any stuff you want in Lionel now, as you won't be able to do so later. And since your access to the shops will be blocked off later, it might be a wise idea to buy some spare pieces of heavy armor and helms. That way, if any of your gear gets stolen or broken, you have a replacement. ---ERRANDS--- Also, you may want to send some of your characters out on a errand if you haven't been doing so; you can earn a lot of money from some of them. Again, walking between Dorter and Orbonne Monastery is an easy way to pass time and complete the errands while avoiding random battles. You'll want to complete all the errands before you reach Goug, though. Once you get to Goug, it will be a while before you can go back to the other towns to retrieve your characters. ---BATTLE PREP--- If Mustadio has enough JP, pick up the Seal Evil ability for him if you haven't already--it'll be handy in the next battle, as it turns undead to stone. Then head to the fenlands. ---Battle 15: Tchigolith Fenlands----------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Mustadio [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Bonesnatch (lv 14) Skeleton (lv 14) Skeleton (lv 13) Ghoul (lv 13) Ghoul (lv 12) Floating Eye (lv 13) OR Malboro (lv 12) OR Pig* * The Pig's level depends on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, rainstorm (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33, fire dmg -25%, lightning dmg +25%, movement through Poisonous Fen tiles at 1/2 normal rate) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 12 Poisonous Fen Quicksand 36% Grassland Tanglevine 33% Wasteland, Soil Sinkhole 17% Obstructed -- 7% Tree Wind Slash 6% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- The last member of the enemy forces is randomly determined: it could be a Floating Eye, Malboro, or Pig. Randomness aside, this is a fairly normal (and easy) battle with a few quirks. First, if you end your turn in the swamp, you get poisoned. (Simply passing through the swamp as part of a move won't poison you, as long as you end the move on dry land.) This isn't that bad, but if you have a choice, stand on land. And be sure not to end your turn in any water where the Depth is displayed as 2. If you stop in water of Depth 2, you won't be able to take any actions, as you're up to your head in water. (The Ninja ability Waterwalking or the Samurai ability Swim would prevent this, should you have either already.) Second, all of the enemies except the randomly determined member are undead. This means you can use heal spells and items to damage them, which is quite effective. And if Mustadio has Seal Evil ability, he may also use that to turn the undead monsters to turn them to stone. Finally, since there's a rainstorm going on, fire magicks will be less powerful while lightning magicks will be more powerful. Use those Thunder magicks if you have them! The storm also means that the enemies are a little more likely to dodge bow attacks, but in most cases the difference isn't big, so go ahead and keep using bows. Other than those three exceptions, there's nothing here you haven't seen before. The Pig shows up pretty infrequently, but if you DO see it, it's definitely worth trying to recruit it using the Orator's Entice or Tame abilities. (Remember that if you're not currently an Orator, you must equip the Beast Tongue support ability to use Entice on monsters.) Once recruited, you can use the Pig to breed pig-family monsters, all of which yield great rare items when poached using the Thief's Poach ability. Or, if you can't recruit the Pig but DO have Poach, you could at least poach it, though you won't actually be able to collect your poached item until Chapter III. Note the Pig can only appear during the initial story battle, not later random battles. In fact, the next opportunity to get a Pig won't be until Chapter IV. So, if you're particularly intent on getting a leg up on the enemy, you could keep entering the battle over and over and resetting until the Pig appears and you can recruit it. But, that's definitely NOT necessary; you can skip the Pig entirely and do just fine! BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2.5, Wasteland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 11 (height: 3, Grassland) Ether Ashura none Left: 4, Up: 8 (height: 2, Grassland) Echo Herbs Kotetsu none Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 2, Grassland) Gold Needle Giant's Axe none Left: 11,Up: 10 (height: 3, Grassland) Phoenix Down Romandan Pistol none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can now reach Goug on the map. !!!!!CAUTION!!!!! Before you enter Goug, make sure you've completed any errands you have running, and visited the appropriate Taverns to get the characters back on your roster. As soon as you enter Goug, you'll be locked out of many places on the map, and won't be able to get your characters back until much later! !!!!!CAUTION!!!!! Upon arriving in Goug, there will be a brief scene and then you're back on the map. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Romandan Pistol Gun 5000 Goug Atk: 6, 5% Parry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Outfitter doesn't have much of anything. But if you've got a Orator or Chemist, be sure to buy them a Romandan Pistol. The Romandan Pistol has a great range, can't be evaded, and is especially useful if you have a chance to pair it with the Knight's Arts of War abilities -- you can use it Rend enemies' equipment or stats at a distance! Before you go anywhere, make sure you're stocked up on Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs; you'll need them. You may also want to equip the Archer's Bane ability on any characters who have it. Try to leave Goug and you'll be thrust into a battle. ---Battle 16: Goug Lowtown------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Mustadio [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 15, male) Thief (lv 13, male) Archer (lv 14, female) Archer (lv 14, female) Summoner (lv 13, male) Summoner (lv 12, male) GUEST: Mustadio [Libra] - lv 12 Machinist - Bravery 60, Faith 62 Equipment : None Abilities : Aimed Shot, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Night, light rain (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 33% Flagstone Contortion 33% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 27% Wooden Floor, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 7% --STRATEGY-- Ludovich, the leader of the Baert Company, will appear with Mustadio and Besrudio (Mustadio's father) captive. Mustadio reveals the location of the Zodiac Stone. Ramza forks it over and you find out that Delacroix was in on the plot. It's fight time. The enemy Archers in this battle have a huge range and it's hard to stay out of range completely. So, don't deploy any character who has really low HP as you probably won't be able to protect him/her/it completely. Equipping the Archer's Bane reaction ability will help you a lot, if you have it available. Mustadio will be almost invariably KOed at the start of the battle as he has no equipment and starts right next to the enemies. Don't worry about him. He's still a Guest so he can't die permanently yet. Move your guys up onto the roof. Use ranged attacks (like your shiny new pistols) to take out the Summoners. Note that both Summoners are one side of the enemy roof and both Archers on the other. If you stick towards the side of the map with the Summoners, it may keep the Archers from shooting at you for a turn or two. Kill any unit that moves onto your roof; Thieves first, Archers second. Early in the battle, don't chase enemies over to the other roof, or you'll get surrounded. Just fire ranged attacks at them. (Later, once there are only a couple enemies left, it's safe to jump across.) Your highest priority is to keep your guys healed, not to hit the enemy. Useful abilities here are Chakra, Counter, Firaga/Blizzaga/Thundaga, and Archer's Bane. Bows and guns are also useful for their ranged attacks. You could try using the gun + Arts of War combo to use Rend Weapon on the Archers and prevent them from shooting at you. When the Summoners start charging a spell, use the Turn List to check what it is. If it's just Moogle, you're fine, as that only heals them a little. But if they start casting anything else, it's an attack spell. Try to quickly take out the Summoner before he can finish the spell, or spread your characters out to minimize the hurt. Summon magick does a lot of damage! If the battle drags on for a while, the Summoners may run out of MP. In this case, you can pretty much ignore them completely as they can't really harm you at all. Another way of dealing with the Summoners is to put Silence, Berserk, or Atheist status on them using Mystic or Orator abilities, so they can't use magicks. You could also use a gun + Rend MP to sap all their MP, though with a gun it's easy enough to just shoot them to death directly. BATTLE TROPHIES: 100 gil, Thunder Rod --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0.5, Wooden Floor POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 2 (height: 0, Grassland) Echo Herbs Battle Folio none Left: 6, Up: 4 (height: 6, Grassland) Ether Lamia's Harp none Left: 8, Up: 5 (height: 12, Chimney) Potion Crossbow none Left: 8, Up: 8 (height: 0, Wooden Fl.) Hi-Potion Lightning Bow none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After this encounter, you check on Besrudio. Mustadio reveals that the Zodiac Stone that Ludovich got was really a fake. ---MUSTADIO--- Mustadio will join as you a normal party member -- now you can control him! The only downside to this is that he can now be permanently killed. Be sure to keep him on your roster; you'll need him to complete most of the subquests in Chapter IV. Musty's equipment is all gone, so be sure to re-equip him. Also, if he learned any abilities while he was a Guest, they're also lost and you'll have to relearn them. Now that you have Mustadio, a good general trick for leveling up quickly is to use Arm Shot or Leg Shot to debilitate the last enemy in a battle. Then, you're free to let the other enemies turn into crystals/chests. Crystals from human enemies are often a good source of new abilities. Also, while the last enemy is Disabled or Immobilized, you can have your characters attack each other to raise JP. As long as you use the right strategies for story battles, you shouldn't really need to grind in this fashion, but it's an efficient way to raise levels if you decide to do so. ---TRAVEL--- The route back through the fenlands disappears, and for the time being, you can't get back to Lionel Castle. If you left any characters there doing Errands, you unfortunately won't be able to get them back for a while. Take the ship (well, just walk across the ocean ;) ) over to the Port City of Warjilis. Upon getting off the ship, you'll see a FMV sequence with Delita. ---IN WARJILIS--- After that scene's ended, you can explore the town. There's no new equipment available, but Warjilis IS a Trade City, which means that the shop offers a fair variety of equipment. You may be able to pick up a few new items if you couldn't afford them earlier. To make some easy money, go to the bar and accept the errand (to find the Highwind!), then go back to Goug and get the errand there as well. (There will be a cutscene with Delacroix's scheming when you leave Warjilis the first time.) Just go back and forth between the two cities until both errands are complete. If you weren't able to afford all the equipment you wanted in Goug or elsewhere, you should be able to get it now. There's also a new Rendezvous Mode mission, Lost Heirloom, that will have appeared after you completed the story battle at Goug. This new mission is pretty difficult if you don't have a good defense, and the enemy Thieves can charm female characters. If you have a female-heavy party, you may want to wait until you get to Chapter III and can buy equipment that protects you from Charm. Now go up to Balias Swale, where you'll find another fight. ---Battle 17: Balias Swale------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Agrias [guest], 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: 1st Squad - Knight (lv 15, male) Knight (lv 14, male) Black Mage (lv 14, male) Archer (lv 15, female) 2nd Squad - Black Mage (lv 15, male) Archer (lv 14, female) GUEST: Agrias [Cancer] - lv 12 Holy Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 63 Equipment : Coral Sword, Mythril Shield, Golden Helm, Golden Armor, Diamond Bracelet Abilities : Holy Sword, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Agrias is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Day, thunderstorm (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33, fire dmg +25%, lightning dmg -25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 12 Grassland Tanglevine 57% River Torrent 29% Flagstone Contortion 10% Obstructed -- 3% Soil Sinkhole 1% --STRATEGY-- You'll deploy two squads here to save Agrias from Delacroix's Gryphon Knights. This is a really easy fight, so you might want to deploy some weaker characters to give them a boost. Kill the Black Mages first (using range attacks if you have them), then the Archers. Really, your only concern is making sure Agrias stays alive. Because this fight is so easy, it's a good time to let the enemies' counters run out and pick up the loot they leave behind. (Paralyze Agrias or use Mustadio's Arm or Leg Shot on her to keep her from finishing off the last enemy.) BATTLE TROPHIES: Echo Herbs --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 8, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 1 (height: 10, Grassland) Phoenix Down Battle Bamboo none Left: 11,Up: 0 (height: 15.5, Grassl.) Gold Needle Javelin none Left: 7, Up: 11 (height: 8, Grassland) Potion Flameburst Bomb none Left: 11,Up: 11 (height: 9, Grassland) Hi-Potion Snowmelt Bomb none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agrias rejoins, this time as a controllable, non-guest character. Again, if you want to complete all the sidequests in the game, don't dismiss her or let her get turned into a crystal or chest. Agrias comes with her Judgment Blade swordskill, which does fairly good damage and hits a group of enemies. Her next two skills, Cleansing Strike and Northswain's Strike, aren't necessarily a huge improvement over Judgment Blade. You may want to save your JP for Hallowed Bolt--it does more damage, and has a good range. It's likely to be one of your most-used abilities! Divine Ruination is a good buy after you get Hallowed Bolt. It's Agrias's hardest- hitting attack, although its targeting is a little less flexible than Hallowed Bolt's. After Agrias joins up, if you head back down to Warjilis, you'll find the shops have a few new items available. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Osafune Katana 5000 TrCity Atk: 9, 15% Parry Mage's Staff Staff 4000 TrCity/City Atk: 4, 15% Parry, Mag.Attack +1 Brigandine Clothes 2500 TrCity/City HP +50 Iron Flail Flail 1200 TrCity/Castl Atk: 9, 0% Parry Diamond Bracelet Armlet 5000 Any Phys.Attack +1, Mag.Attack +1, Immune: Slow -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most notably, you can replace your Power Gauntlet(s) with the Diamond Bracelets, which gives you the Power Gauntlet's +1 Physical Attack but also +1 Magick Attack and immunity to Slow. Protection from Slow is pretty handy in the next battle, so buy some of the bracelets for your main squad. Agrias comes already equipped with one, as well. You can also upgrade your Wizard Clothing to the Brigandine, which gives you a few more HP. But you'll probably want to keep magick-oriented characters equipped with the Wizard Clothing or with robes for the magick bonuses they confer. Also available for purchase is the Mage's Staff. It's not as strong physically as the Serpent Staff, but it boosts your magick strength. Since magick strength is more important for magick-users (obviously!), this is a good upgrade. In the unlikely event you have a Samurai, the Osafune katana is also available. Your next stop is Golgollada Gallows. Make sure you're ready; this is a tough battle. Bring your Diamond Bracelets! ---Battle 18: Golgollada Gallows------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Gaffgarion (lv 17 Fell Knight) Knight (lv 16, male) Knight (lv 15, male) Knight (lv 14, male) Archer (lv 16, female) Archer (lv 15, female) Time Mage (lv 15, female) Time Mage (lv 14, female) ENEMY: Gaffgarion [Virgo] - lv 17 Fell Knight - Bravery 61, Faith 67 Equipment : Blood Sword, Mythril Shield, Close Helmet, other equipment random Abilities : Fell Sword, other abilities random Immune : Berserk, Charm, and Stone status VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 11 Brick Wind Slash 38% Grassland Tanglevine 36% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 18% Soil Sinkhole 5% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- The execution turns out to be a trap, and you have to fight Gaffgarion. Deploy at least one strong fighter in the second squad (Agrias is good). For the rest of your team, anyone with a ranged attack is really useful (bows, guns, or Black Magick), and Monks and Geomancers can be good too. Although Gaffgarion seems like a boss character, KOing him will NOT end this battle. You need to take out all the enemies! You're surrounded by enemies. What you need to do to gain the advantage is start climbing up the side of the gate, near where the first squad starts. Move immediately for the scaffolding. Because there are so many enemies here and they all start close to you, you need to limit the number of enemies who can attack you at once. As you move for the scaffolding, you can continue to use your abilities to disable the enemy forces. Abilities that are good for this are Mustadio's Arm Shot, Agrias's Judgment Blade (which sometimes causes Stop), and the Geomancer's Tanglevine (which also causes Stop and works more frequently). Leg Shot is also useful against the Knights, but not against the other enemies, who can all attack from a distance even if they're Immobilized. Once you start getting up atop the scaffolding and gate, you can start attacking. Go after those pesky Archers first. You can use bows, guns, Black Magick, and Agrias's Holy Sword to attack from a distance. These attacks all have an infinite vertical range, so you can use them all the way from atop of the gate or on the scaffolding. Once you have the height advantage, it's a lot harder for the enemy Knights and Archers to hit you, and you can fight them a few at a time. You'll be taking a lot of hits. To make your healing more efficient, don't have your healer move once he or she is in position on the scaffolding; this lets him/her get more turns. Throw Items also has an infinite vertical range, so even if you're positioned up on top of the gate, you can throw items down to characters still climbing up. Using Ramza's Tailwind to increase the Speed of your most crucial characters. If your archers or gunners have a spare turn, you can also have them try using Focus to build up their attack power. Gaffgarion is the most dangerous enemy here; not only does his Shadowblade do good damage to you, it drains HP back to him. If you have a really powerful magick spell (like Firaja or Holy or something), you can try using that to take him out in one shot. Or, use Steal Weapon or Rend Weapon to take away his Blood Sword. Breaking the sword will disable his sword techniques completely. If you steal it, he can still use his techniques (due to a bug in the game), but they will probably only do a few points of damage, making them essentially worthless. Stealing is particularly advantageous, in fact, since the Blood Sword is a rare weapon and has the nice side effect of draining HP back to you from the enemy. If you want to steal the Blood Sword, you'll have better luck if you equip Brawler as a support ability, target Gaffgarion from behind, and/or put him to sleep. (A Taurus, Capricorn, or female Pisces will also be at an advantage for stealing from him.) If you don't steal/rend the Blood Sword, you'll have to knock Gaffgarion down bit by bit. Take out the Archers first, then start hammering on him with your whole team; you need to pile on the damage faster than he can heal himself. He has Counter; attacking from a distance (if you can) is one way to get around this. Or, you can just hit him with Arm Shot: if he's Disabled, he can't use his Counter. You needn't take away *all* his HP; as soon as he gets to critical status, he'll teleport out of the battle. The Time Mages are your lowest priority here. Even though they don't have much HP, attacking them is just a waste of turns as they can't do all that much to harm you. About all they do is cast Slow, and if you brought Diamond Bracelets from Warjilis, you're immune to that. So attack the Time Mages last. If you just can't win, try fighting some battles in Balias Swale to get some better abilities like Arise, Equip Heavy Armor, Auto-Potion, Chakra (which I would strongly advise you to acquire by now), etc. If you deploy Agrias in this battle, there will be some extra dialogue between her and Ramza when she finds out he's a Beoulve. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Brick POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 1, Grassland) Gold Needle Golden Helm none Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 1, Grassland) Echo Herbs Golden Shield none Left: 8, Up: 7 (height: 8, Wooden Fl.) Phoenix Down Green Beret none Left: 8, Up: 0 (height: 6, Wooden Fl.) Ether Spark Bomb none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you attain victory at the Gallows (it may take a few tries!), you'll see a scene back at Lionel Castle in which you find out more about Ovelia's past and Delacroix's plans. Then you're back on the map. When you move back up to Balias Swale, you'll see a cutscene with Wiegraf. ---MOVING AROUND THE MAP--- Now, you can now wander around the map again. Next up is the final battles of the chapter, which occur at Lionel Castle. However, if you want to travel elsewhere, you can do so. If you click on any of the destinations PAST Lionel Castle, you can walk right through the castle without getting into a fight. Just don't click on the castle ITSELF until you're ready to fight. This way, you can travel up to Eagrose if you need to buy heavy armor. Also, if you accidentally left any characters working on errands in Zaland or elsewhere, you can go get them back now. (Anyone running an errand at Lionel Castle is still unreachable until Chapter III, though.) ---BATTLE PREPARATION--- To prepare for the upcoming fights, you'll want to make sure that Ramza has either the Teleport movement ability (Time Mage) or Chakra (Monk). If you're using Chakra, you can either make Ramza into a Monk or assign Martial Arts as a secondary action ability. It's also very helpful to outfit the rest of your team with Rubber Boots to negate the lightning attacks you'll face -- and if Ramza has Teleport, you'll want to give him the Boots as well. You can buy Rubber Boots in any town, and they're fairly inexpensive at 1500 gil each. Just make sure to buy enough so that you can equip the WHOLE team with them or they won't be very useful. Finally, you may want to bring a few extra pieces of equipment. You'll be facing a sequence of battles with no chance to return to a store in between them, and if any of your equipment gets broken by enemy Knights, you'll want a replacement item in your inventory. When you've done all that preparation, it's time for the final battles of the chapter. Click on Lionel Castle and you'll have no choice but to attack the gate. As Ramza tries to open the gate, Gaffgarion shows up yet again and surrounds the castle. ---Battle 19: Lionel Castle Gate------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza 2nd Squad - 4 others ENEMY FORCES: 1st Squad - Gaffgarion (lv 18 Fell Knight) 2nd Squad - Knight (lv 16, female) Knight (lv 15, female) Knight (lv 15, female) Archer (lv 17, male) Archer (lv 15, male) Summoner (lv 15, male) BOSS: Gaffgarion [Virgo] - lv 18 Fell Knight - Bravery 61, Faith 67 Equipment : Ancient Sword, Golden Shield, Close Helmet, other equipment random Abilities : Fell Sword, no second action ability, other abilities random Immune : Berserk, Charm, and Stone status VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 40% Flagstone Contortion 36% Swamp Quicksand 7% Obstructed -- 7% Stone Outcropping Tremor 5% Brick Wind Slash 4% --STRATEGY-- If you thought the Gallows was bad, here's more fun. Actually, the gate isn't as bad if you play your cards right. When deploying your second squad, any characters that you want in the front row (e.g. melee fighters) should be placed in the back of the three rows (i.e., the top-right) on the deployment screen. You'll be attacked from behind, so these characters will actually end up closest to the enemy. Meanwhile, ranged attackers and magick users should go towards the bottom-left of the deployment screen so they'll end up behind your melee fighters. Ramza starts trapped inside the gate with Gaffgarion, while the rest of your characters have another set of enemies to fight outside. There are a couple different strategies you can use to deal with Gaffgarion: 1. TELEPORT: If Ramza has the Time Mage ability Teleport, you can use that to move him outside of the gate and strand Gaffgarion inside. Take out all the enemies outside, then have Ramza teleport back inside and open the gate. You'll have to be careful not to stand *too* close to the gate when fighting outside because Gaffgarion can attack you through the wall with his sword techniques. This strategy has the advantage of allowing Ramza to help fighting outside. 2. STALLING WITH CHAKRA: Or, move Ramza down to the ground (inside the gate) and have him use the Monk's Chakra ability on every turn to heal the damage Gaff is doing. (If Ramza doesn't have Chakra, Hi-Potions should work too, as long as you have enough of them.) Stay close to Gaffgarion so he won't try to go anywhere else. Don't attack Gaffgarion or open the gate; just sit there and use Chakra. Keep stalling Gaffgarion until your other characters defeat the enemies outside. This strategy won't let Ramza fight outside, but it guarantees Gaffgarion won't attack anyone outside. 3. BLACK MAGICKS: If one of your characters has strong Black Magicks (e.g. a -ja or a -ga magick coupled with Arcane Strength), deploy him/her outside the gate. Use Ramza to lure Gaffgarion near the gate, and then have the Black Mage use magick on Gaffgarion (since Black Magicks can go through walls) to KO him. It doesn't matter if the spell KOs Ramza as long as you KO Gaff because KOing Gaffgarion will cause Ramza to recover with 1 HP. Once you've KOed Gaffgarion, you can have Ramza open the gate and join the fight outside. A nice benefit of this strategy is that Gaffgarion immediately turns into a crystal that you can use for healing or ability learning. (Sadly, you can't learn his special sword techniques from the crystal). But, this tactic only works if you have strong Black Magicks. 4. MAKE RAMZA UNDEAD: You can cast the Mystic Arts magick Corruption on Ramza to make him Undead, which prevents Gaffgarion from draining his HP. (You can either have Ramza cast Corruption on himself or have another ally on the ground cast it on him.) Gaffgarion will switch to regular weapon strikes, though, so Ramza will still need to be capable of beating Gaffgarion in a straight fight. You'll probably only want to use this tactic if Ramza has some strong melee combat gear and abilities. 5. TELEPORT / FLY INSIDE: Alternately, if you have characters outside who have Teleport, you can have them warp inside and help Ramza kill Gaffgarion. Or, if you have two Black Chocobos, you can assign them to the group outside, and use them to fly 2 human characters inside to help Ramza defeat Gaffgarion. The disadvantage to this method is that Black Chocobos aren't very strong themselves. 6. FIGHT HIM HEAD-ON: If Ramza is really strong (and fast), you might be able to defeat Gaffgarion just with conventional attacks. This probably won't work unless you have an advanced job like Ninja, though. Meanwhile, your other four characters have to take on the gang outside the gate. Although you're outnumbered, the enemy Knights and Archers out here often come equipped with weapons that deal lightning damage: Coral Swords and Lightning Bows, respectively. If you equip your allies with the Rubber Boots accessory, they will be completely immune to lightning damage, and the Knights and Archers won't be able to attack them! Just make sure to equip ALL FOUR characters with Rubber Boots -- and Ramza, too, if you're having him Teleport outside of the gate. Otherwise, the enemies will simply gang up on the one character without the Boots. Also, even if you have Rubber Boots, the enemies can still hit with you other abilities -- like the Knights' Arts of War abilities, which can break your gear. If they break your Rubber Boots, you'll be vulnerable again! Focus your attacks on the enemies that can do the most damage to you. The Summoner is definitely the most dangerous enemy whether you have Rubber Boots or not, so try to take him out immediately or use Mustadio's Arm Shot to Disable him. If he does start casting a spell, spread out your characters so he can't blast your whole team. After you do something about the Summoner, check the status screens of the other enemies. Any enemies that have weapons other than the Coral Sword or Lightning Bow can still hurt you with their weapons. So, attack these guys first. Arm Shot is a great ability for this fight, as it reduces the number of enemies that can attack you at once. (You can also use the Mystic's Hesitation spell for the same effect.) Moreover, putting Disable on a character causes him/her to flee into a corner, which means that it will take another turn or two to get back into the battle even once Disable wears off. Note that Disabling a character who's charging up an attack will cancel the attack. This is a good way to stop a Summon or Archer's Aim attack if you've got no other options. For dealing damage, guns are quite helpful as they can allow you to attack without having to Move. Remember that if you don't move during a turn, your next turn will come more quickly, which helps a lot when you're surrounded by lots of enemies! Agrias's sword techniques are also great for damage-dealing, and her Northswain's Strike ability (if you have it) has a chance of instantly KOing an enemy outright. Also, when enemies are bunched together, use Black Magick, Summon spells or Agrias's Judgment Blade to hit more than one enemy at a time. Once you've mopped up most of the enemies outside the gate, move Ramza up to the switch on the left side of the gate and he will open the door. Now, have your whole gang rush inside and attack Gaffgarion. Try to rend Gaffgarion's sword, or even better, steal it. Again, using Arm Shot to Disable him is quite useful, as it not only prevents from attacking you, but turns off his counterattack and prevents him from blocking with his shield. He shouldn't be too much trouble -- the hard part is the fight outside the gate. But, be careful not to let him pick up any crystallized enemies; he can use the crystals to restore all his HP just like you can! Either pick up the crystals as soon as they appear, or position your characters to block his route to the crystals. You do have to take away ALL his HP this time instead of just reducing him to critical, but once you do, he's finally gone for good. BATTLE TROPHIES: 700 gil, Mythril Helm --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 8, Grassland) Ether Wizard's Robe none Left: 7, Up: 5 (height: 4, Grassland) Echo Herbs Rubber Boots none Left: 7, Up: 7 (height: 4, Grassland) Potion Golden Armor none Left: 13, Up: 6 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Wizard Clothing none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The save game screen will pop up at the conclusion of the battle. There are another couple battles immediately after this one, so I recommend saving a SEPARATE slot from your main file. This way, you can go back to your main file if it turns you need to raise more JP outside the castle. After saving, you cut back to Delita and Ovelia at Zeirchele Falls for a battle against the Order of the Northern Sky. ---Battle 20: Zeirchele Falls--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Delita, Ovelia [guest] ENEMY FORCES: Knight (lv 8, male) Black Mage (lv 8, female) Archer (lv 8, male) ALLY: Delita [Sagittarius] - lv 25 Holy Knight - Bravery 85, Faith 40 Equipment : Ancient Sword, Golden Helm, Golden Armor, Germinas Boots Abilities : Holy Sword, Arts of War, Counter, Safeguard, Move +1 GUEST: Ovelia [Taurus] - lv 20 Princess - Bravery 53, Faith 72 Equipment : Mage's Staff, Celebrant's Miter, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Holy Magicks, White Magicks, Counter Tackle, Reequip, Move +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ovelia is KOed or Delita is killed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Stone Outcropping Tremor 33% Grassland Tanglevine 30% River, Waterfall Torrent 30% Bridge Wind Slash 4% Obstructed -- 4% --STRATEGY-- Delita is your only controllable character here. Ovelia is a guest. As before, she'll probably just cast Aegis and run. But now that she has more MP, she can also cast Aegis on Delita on her second turn instead of only casting it on herself. Move Delita across the bridge and start attacking the enemy forces. He has all of the Holy Sword techniques, so use them -- with Hallowed Bolt and Judgment Blade, you can probably hit more than enemy at once. Since there are only three enemies and none of them are that strong, you should be able to defeat them without much trouble. Really, this battle is quite easy; its main purpose is just to give you a chance to play as Delita :) BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- No Treasure Hunter items can be obtained during this battle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're given another chance to save; again, don't save in your main slot. Then your roster screen shows up, allowing Ramza's crew to learn new abilities or change equipment, which might be necessary if the Knights at the gate used Arts of War to break anything. Also, change out of your Rubber Boots if you used them at the Gate; you won't need them for the next battle. When you leave the Party Roster screen, you'll immediately go to the next battle and start deploying your characters. ---Battle 21: Lionel Castle Oratory--------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Cuchulainn (lv 20 The Impure) BOSS: Cuchulainn [Scorpio] - lv 20 The Impure - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 485, MP: about 360 Abilities : Dread, Befoul, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: KO Cuchulainn LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Flagstone Contortion 60% Carpet, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 20% Obstructed -- 20% --STRATEGY-- This time you're up against Delacroix, who uses his Zodiac Stone to turn (with some pyrotechnics) into Cuchulainn. This battle can be tricky because Cuchulainn casts a variety of status attacks from a distance while running from you. Plus, unless you have a Ninja or other very fast character, Cuchulainn gets the first turn! To get the jump on Cuchulainn, deploy your 4 teammates as follows: __ \XX\ \ \ \ \ X = character other than Ramza \XX\ --- Ramza can be placed on any other tile because he'll automatically move forward during the pre-battle story events. If you place your characters in this formation, Cuchulainn will have to come down the stairs on his first turn to start casting his magick. Now you can rush him and attack. If you can surround him, he won't be able to flee out of range. If you can't get within striking distance on a particular character's turn, at least position that character on the stairs to keep Cuchulainn from climbing back up. You could also use Leg Shot to Immobilize him, but since you can surround him pretty well with this tactic anyway, it's mostly a wasted turn. (He's immune to Disable, so don't bother trying Arm Shot.) As noted above, Cuchulainn's attacks consist primarily of status-attack magick. (Occasionally, he'll use a physical attack instead.) His Nightmare spell will inflict Sleep or Doom on a group of characters and has a 100% hit rate, and his Bio magicks do damage and inflict various other status ailments. Use the Esuna magick or the Monk's Purification ability to wake up the sleeping characters if you have either available; otherwise, try using weak physical attacks (e.g. Stone) to wake them up. The Doom status will KO your character when the countdown finishes. There's pretty no way to remove it, so just revive the characters after they're KOed. (Striking a character with the White Staff *may* remove the Doom status, but it doesn't always work and isn't worth forfeiting a stronger weapon for.) Other status ailments can be cured with Purification, Esuna, or the appropriate items if you happen to have them. Try to keep your support characters spread out so they can't all be hit with Cuchulainn's magick at once. Since both the Sleep and Doom effects of Nightmare can be prevented with Protect Rings, you might be tempted to equip those. However, if you equip Protect Rings, Cuchulainn will just cast Bio magicks instead. Since Bio is usually more dangerous than Nightmare, you're better off without Protect Rings! Good attacks to use against Cuchulainn include physical attacks and Agrias's sword techniques. Guns and bows are also good, particularly if you trap him down on your level. If he escapes to the top of the map, guns will be less useful because there are usually too many obstacles to get a clear line of fire. The Monk's Aurablast may also be helpful in hitting him before you have a chance to trap him. Magick may be somewhat less useful here. You're in such close quarters that the magicks will probably hit your allies too -- plus you may be halted with a status effect before you can get the spell off. However, if you happen to already have the Lich summon spell or the Time Mage's Graviga, these will do a lot of damage -- they both do damage equal to half the target's max HP, regardless of how high that max may be! Since Cuchulainn has a high max HP (almost 500 HP!), these magicks will do quite a bit of damage. Even Gravity, which does damage equal to 1/4 of its target's max HP, can be useful. In general, a good mix of close range fighters and gun/bow users is probably best here, and be sure to bring one or two characters who can use Phoenix Downs! And since Cuchulainn is a Scorpio, any Cancer or Pisces characters you might have (including Agrias) will do particular damage to him. Cuchulainn is the first major boss enemy you will have encountered in the single-player game. That means his HP and MP are displayed simply as ??? and you won't be able to tell exactly how much he has left. However, when he gets low on HP, his life bar will appear to empty (turning from gray to black) and he will switch to a "critical" standing pose just like any other character. At this point, you'll know you're close to defeating him. He has about 485 HP total. Beat him and he'll blow up (with more nifty effects) and drop another Zodiac Stone. If you've played the PSone version of FF Tactics, you may Cuchulainn quite a bit more challenging in this version. He's been restored to his original Japanese level of difficulty, and has higher stats than you are used to! BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Flagstone - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 6, Up: 3 (height: 5, Carpet) Potion Guardian Bracelet none Left: 6, Up: 4 (height: 5, Carpet) Ether Mage's Cloak none Left: 8, Up: 3 (height: 7, Flagstone) Hi-Potion Protect Ring none Left: 8, Up: 4 (height: 7, Flagstone) Remedy Osafune none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delita delivers Ovelia to Duke Goltanna, while Duke Larg maintains Orinus as the heir to the throne. As the War of the Lions begins over these claims to the throne, Chapter II draws to a close, and you're again given a chance to save. %%%CHAPTER III: THE VALIANT%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00walk3 Three months into the War of the Lions, things are looking bad for both Larg and Goltanna. After a scene of Goltanna's council of war, we cut back to Ramza, whose new mission is to convince Zalbaag that someone is manipulating Ivalice into the war. You'll start the chapter positioned at Dorter. ---NEW ITEMS FOR SALE--- The shops at Dorter and elsewhere have a lot of new stuff. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Ninja Blade Ninjabl 3000 TrCity Atk: 8, 5% Parry Murasame Katana 7000 TrCity Atk: 10, 5% Parry Musk Pole Pole 2400 TrCity/City Atk: 8, 20% Parry Croakadile Bag Bag 53000 TrCity/City Atk: 10, 0% Parry, Mag. Attack +1 Headband Hat 5000 TrCity/City HP +56, Physical Attack +2 Ancient Sword Sword 5000 Castle Atk: 9, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Immobilize Mythril Bow Bow 5000 Castle Atk: 7, 0% Parry Mythril Spear Polearm 4500 Castle Atk: 10, 10% Parry Ice Shield Shield 6000 Castle Phy.Evade: 28%, Mag.Evade: 0%, Absorbs: Ice, Halves: Fire, Weakness: Lightning Flame Shield Shield 6500 Castle Phy.Evade: 31%, Mag.Evade: 0%, Absorbs: Fire, Halves: Ice, Weakness: Water Close Helmet Helm 4000 Castle HP +70 Poison Bow Crossbw 4000 Castle/Goug Atk: 4, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Poison Winged Boots Cloak 2500 Any Always: Float Magepower Glove Gauntlt 20000 Any Magick Attack +2 Reflect Ring Ring 10000 Any Always: Reflect Nu Khai Armband Armlet 10000 Any Immune: Confuse,Charm; Halves: Dark X-Potion Item 700 Any Restores 150 HP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Headbands are a great buy; not only do they increase your HP over the previous hats, they also give you a physical attack boost. (You may want to keep your magick users with the Wizard's Hats, though, as those boost their *magick* power.) Although the Croakadile Bag may look powerful, it does variable amounts of damage, which limits its usefulness during actual battles. Plus, it's ridiculously expensive! Now that you're in Chapter III, you can also buy X-Potions, so you'll want to learn the corresponding ability for any item-users you have. For additional shopping opportunities, visit one of the castles: Lionel or Eagrose. There you can pick up the Ancient Sword, a strong sword that can also Immobilize enemies, as well as the Mythril Bow and some other stuff. The Flame Shield and Ice Shield absorb fire and ice, respectively, which lets you do a handy trick: Cast a fire or ice magick that targets both enemies and an ally with the shield -- you'll damage the enemies, AND heal your character! Not only does this let you get around the "friendly fire" effects when fighting in close quarters, it even replenishes your HP! Of the two shields, the Flame Shield is definitely the better. Not only does it have a higher evade rate, its elemental profile is more useful. The Ice Shield makes you weak to lightning. The Flame Shield, on the other hand, is only weak to water, and there are very few water attacks. So, the extra 500 gil for the Flame Shield is definitely worth it. ---ERRANDS--- All this new equipment is expensive, so luckily there's a whole slew of new errands, at least one in every town. If you're short on cash, I recommend spending a while completing them, buying stuff, and building up your characters. If you're offered any "contest" errand, take it right away; these errands give you a lot of money and JP but the chance to take them disappears at the end of the current month (at least until the next year). If you had characters who were running errands at Lionel Castle and ended up "trapped" when you were kicked out of the castle back in Chapter II, you can finally go collect them from the Tavern now. Lionel Castle is back to being a regular, blue-dot town. (Note also that the sea route between Goug and Warjilis has vanished as of Chapter III.) ---POACHERS' DENS--- The Poachers' Dens are now open. Whenever a character with the Thief's "Poach" ability kills a monster with a physical attack, an item is sent to the Poachers' Den. You can then buy the item by visiting the Poachers' Den in Dorter or in Warjilis. Other cities do not have Dens. (A third Poachers' Den will become available in Chapter IV when you reach the city of Sal Ghidos.) If you poached any monsters back in Chapters I or II, you can now buy their items at the Den. If you haven't poached anything yet, you'll need to poach at least one monster before you're allowed in the Den. There are a couple reasons to poach items. First, poached items are cheap; you can buy them for half their usual price! You can also get some rare items from poaching that you can't get anywhere else! Each monster can yield one of two items, a frequent item or an infrequent one -- see the Poaching List for a complete list. Many of the best monsters to poach don't appear under Chapter IV, but if you recruited a Pig at Tchigolith Fenlands in Chapter II, you can now start poaching your pigs for rare items. And Red Chocobos, which also appear fairly frequently in Chapter III, sometimes yield the Barette when poached, which protects female characters against a number of status ailments. Finally, the Poachers' Dens have one other purpose. Any item that you SELL to the Poachers' Den gets added to its inventory and can be bought back later for the same price that you sold it. So, if you need to sell anything for cash, sell it to the Poachers' Den, and it will be less expensive if you later want to buy it again. ---RENDEZVOUS MODE--- A new Rendezvous mission, The Fete, is available. This one can be a little difficult if you haven't yet learned Shirahadori (see below), but with a Summoner you should be able to win. There's also the Lost Heirloom mission from last chapter if you haven't done that yet; the Nu Khai Armbands that you can now buy will make this battle easier by protecting you from Charm. ---ABILITIES TO LEARN--- There are some abilities you'll need at the end of Chapter III that it's a good idea to start learning now. You don't need these abilities just yet, but if you build your characters towards those abilities now, you won't have to spend time grinding for them later. Specifically, you'll really want Ramza to have Focus and Tailwind (both Squire), and Auto-Potion (Chemist). If you have the chance to unlock the Ninja job for him, that'll also help out a little. Combining the Ninja's inherent speed and double attack with a barehanded attack powered by the Monk's Brawler ability makes for an incredibly strong and quick fighter. But the Ninja job isn't strictly necessary -- and it can be a bit of pain to unlock, as it requires Ramza to at least have Archer at level 4, Thief at level 5, and Geomancer at level 2! For your other characters, acquiring the Dragoon or Ninja job on as many as characters as possible is helpful, but also not a must-have. You may also want to start developing a stealing specialist, if you haven't already. You'll be encountering more and more enemies with rare equipment that you can't buy at the Outfitter, so you may want to swipe it :). It'll be a big help if you can learn the Thief's Steal abilities, and either Concentration (Archer) or Brawler (Monk), either of which will improve your stealing success rate. If you don't get to this until Chapter IV, though, it's not a big deal. Some other abilities that you want to work towards over the course of the chapter are the Samurai's Shirahadori reaction ability, the Ninja's Dual Wield support ability, and the Time Mage's Teleport movement ability. Shirahadori blocks physical attacks outright whenever it activates; if combined with a high Bravery stat (which you can boost with Ramza's Steel ability), it can render you virtually impervious to physical attacks. It's one of the best abilities in the game. If you haven't already unlocked the Samurai job, though, you'll need to get a character with Knight level 4, Monk level 5, and Dragoon level 2 to become a Samurai. The Ninja's Dual Wield ability is also great as it allows you equip two weapons at once to effectively double (or come close to doubling) your attack power. Finally, the Time Mage's Teleport is helpful for navigating battlefields with tall walls (as it allows you to essentially warp right up them), for teleporting through enemy forces blocking your path, and for extending your move range in a pinch. If you try to teleport long distances, it'll probably fail, but this ability is still extremely helpful for navigating both heights and crowded maps. Also, if you have a Summoner, the Golem summon will also help out in a battle near the end of the chapter. Lastly, if you haven't been using Ramza's Steel to work on building up your Bravery, try to do so when you get a chance -- having a high Bravery will make your Reaction Abilities a lot more useful (such as the aforementioned Shirahadori). ---ON WITH THE ADVENTURE!--- When you're ready to get on with the game, equip your team with gear that boosts their Move or Jump ranges. Safeguard may also be helpful. Then go up from Dorter, across the Zeklaus Desert, to the Mining Town of Gollund. ---Battle 22: Gollund----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Orran [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Orator (lv 18, male) Thief (lv 21, female) Thief (lv 20, female) Thief (lv 19, female) Chemist (lv 21, male) Chemist (lv 21, male) GUEST: Orran [Cancer] - lv 18 Astrologer - Bravery 73, Faith 71 Equipment : Bestiary, Wizard's Hat, Gaia Gear, Hermes Shoes Abilities : Astrology, other abilities random Immune : All negative status except Stone, Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Stop VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Orran is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 10 Snow Snowstorm 73% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 24% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% Flagstone Contortion 1% --STRATEGY-- The buildings here are steep, which restricts your movement. So, you'll want to deploy characters with a good Jump or Move range, or equip accessories to boost it. Because you start on the bottom and the enemy is on rooftops above you, guns and bows are not too effective here; it's hard to target the enemy from below. Instead, try bringing the Dragoon's Jump attack or Black Magick. Also, since the enemy has three Thieves that like to steal your equipment, you may want to protect your investments by equipping the Safeguard ability, which prevents steals. Orran possess the Celestial Stasis spell, which will Disable, Stop, or Immobilize at least half the enemy forces every time he casts it. However, he's still vulnerable until he gets this spell off, and the enemy Chemists can hit him from a distance with their guns. So, keep an eye on his HP. From where you start the battle, move a healer character and another character to your right and up the low steps. These characters will be in a good position to heal Orran (with White Magick or Throw Items) if he needs it. If Orran's relatively healthy and doesn't need immediately healing, you can also cast Protect him on to boost his defense. The rest of your squad can go around the other side of the building to start fighting the enemies there. The enemies will probably be no match for your forces; the key is just to keep Orran from getting killed, since if he's KOed, you lose the battle. Orran's Counter Tackle will knock enemies off the roofs for extra damage, and you can try this yourself with Rush. The Orator tends to stay on the highest roof and may be tough to reach, but you should be able to jump up there using the "steps" on the right side of the roof. At that point, you can attack him while on the roof or Rush him off the roof so your entire crew can attack him. Or, just use Black Magick to attack from below. This battle is also a great opportunity to do some stealing! Both Chemists are carrying Mythril Guns, which are 2 attack points stronger than the Romandan Pistols you're toting. These are the best prizes to steal. Additionally, you can grab an Orichalcum Dirk (a good dagger) and Germinas Boots (boots that boost both your Move *and* Jump) from the Orator. The Thieves may also carry Jujitsu Gis and Main Gauche to swipe, although these aren't quite as good to grab -- the Main Gauches aren't as strong as the Orichalcum Dirk. Especially later in the battle, when Orran may have paralyzed lots of enemies, try to steal some of this gear if you can! If you've played the PSone version of FF Tactics, you may find this battle more challenging this time around. It's been restored to the original Japanese level of difficulty. Orran's stats are now a lot lower, and it's quite a bit easier for the enemies to KO him. BATTLE TROPHIES: 1500 gil, Battle Folio --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Snow POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 2 (height: 2, Snow) Hi-Potion Close Helmet none Left: 5, Up: 1 (height: 0, Snow) Holy Water Iron Flail none Left: 5, Up: 6 (height: 16, Chimney) Potion Spear none Left: 9, Up: 9 (height: 1, Snow) Phoenix Down Mage's Staff none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you save Orran, you'll chat briefly, and then he'll head off to the south, sadly depriving you of Celestial Stasis :) Gollund's shops don't offer any new equipment, so just head straight on to Lesalia. There's no fight when you first get here, just a short chat with Zalbaag. However, as soon as you leave, you'll have to fight Zalmour. ---Battle 23: Lesalia Castle Postern-------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Alma [guest], 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Zalmour (lv 24 Celebrant) Knight (lv 22, male) Knight (lv 22, male) Knight (lv 20, male) Monk (lv 21, female) Monk (lv 21, female) GUEST: Alma [Leo] - lv 3 Cleric - Bravery 39, Faith 87 Equipment : Healing Staff, Barette, Wizard Clothing, Red Shoes Abilities : Holy Magicks, Items, other abilities random BOSS: Zalmour [Sagittarius] - lv 24 Celebrant - Bravery 54, Faith 78 Equipment : Musk Pole, Wizard's Hat, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Priest Magicks, random action ability, Archer's Bane, Halve MP, Lifefont Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, and Slow VICTORY CONDITION: KO Zalmour LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 55% Flagstone Contortion 22% Soil Sinkhole 12% Obstructed -- 12% --STRATEGY-- If you didn't spot the rest of your team right away, they're behind the gate. Since none of the enemies here has much in the way of range attacks (just maybe some weak Geomancy abilities), you needn't rush down to attack them. Instead, keep your characters up on top of the castle and let the enemies come up to you. The majority of them will come up the stairs, so position the bulk of your team near the stairs. Because the enemies are often in clusters, magick (and Geomancy) works well on them. The railing blocks direct gun shots down onto the ground, but if you stand up on top of the railing, you should be able to shoot from there. Standing on the railing also gives you a height advantage and makes it harder for the enemies to hit you. Alma will probably cast Aegis on Ramza once, which will make him super-powered for a few turns. (Shell and Protect will reduce the damage he takes, Regen heals him, and Haste gets him more turns!) Take advantage of it! After casting Aegis, Alma will just thwack your characters with her Healing Staff to restore their HP. The level 22 Knights may have Flame Shields or Ice Shields, which gives them some elemental weaknesses you can exploit. Thunder and other lightning magicks will do extra damage to Knights with an Ice Shield. Knights with Flame Shields are weak against water, although there aren't many water attacks that you can use (but, the Leviathan summon and the Ninja's Snowmelt Bomb are two). The annoying part of this battle is Zalmour, who can cast Cura and Arise to heal his troops. When you have the chance, start attacking him. (You may also want to try stealing his White Robe if you get a chance.) He'll go down quickly, and, as soon as you KO him, you win the battle ... so this is a pretty easy fight. BATTLE TROPHIES: Ether --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 9, Up: 10 (height: 5, Grassland) Ether Brigandine none Left: 0, Up: 10 (height: 5, Grassland) Holy Water Ancient Sword none Left: 0, Up: 8 (height: 2, Grassland) Phoenix Down Ninja Blade none Left: 1, Up: 0 (height: 0, Soil) Remedy Diamond Braclt none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---ALMA--- Alma now joins up as a guest. She won't be doing any more fighting, though, so go ahead and de-equip her Healing Staff, Barette, and Red Shoes. These are all valuable items: the Healing Staff and Barette are items you can't ever buy in shops, and the Red Shoes won't be available to purchase until much later. The Healing Staff is an interesting "weapon" in that it actually restores HP to the character hit by it. Equipping it on a magick-oriented character can be quite useful since they probably won't be doing much fighting anyway and it gives you a free source of healing. ---QUICK ERRAND COMPLETION--- If you want to complete some errands easily, you can take the ones at Gollund and Lesalia and then just walk back and forth until they're done. ---EQUIPMENT UPGRADES--- Before leaving this region, you can also stop at the Outfitter in Lesalia to buy new heavy armor. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Mythril Gun Gun 15000 Goug Atk: 8, 5% Parry Kunai Ninjabl 5000 TrCity Atk: 9, 5% Parry Ama-no-Murakumo Katana 8000 TrCity Atk: 11, 5% Parry Bestiary Book 6000 TrCity Atk: 8, 15% Parry Damask Cloth Cloth 7000 TrCity Atk: 8, 50% Parry Iron Fan Pole 4000 TrCity/City Atk: 9, 20% Parry Celebrant's Miter Hat 6000 TrCity/City HP +64, MP +20, Magick Attack +1 Jujitsu Gi Clothes 4000 TrCity/City HP +60, Phys. Attack +1, Immune: KO Chameleon Robe Robe 5000 TrCity/City HP +40, MP +28, Immune: KO, Absorbs: Holy Fuma Shuriken Star 300 TrCity/City Atk: 7 Main Gauche Knife 3000 Castle/City Atk: 6, 40% Parry Aegis Shield Shield 10000 Castle Phy.Evade: 10%, Mag.Evade: 50%, Magick Attack +1 Diamond Helm Helm 6000 Castle HP +80 Diamond Armor Armor 6000 Castle HP +80 Sleep Blade Sword 5000 Castle Atk: 9, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Sleep Slasher Axe 12000 Castle Atk: 16, 0% Parry, Inflicts: Slow Flame Mace Flail 4000 Castl/TrCity Atk: 11, 0% Parry, fire elemental, Spell Effect: Fira Germinas Boots Shoes 5000 Any Move +1, Jump +1 Jade Armlet Armlet 10000 Any Immune: Stone, Stop Elven Cloak Cloak 8000 Any Phy.Evade: 25%, Mag.Evade: 25% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Aegis Shield that's now available is much worse against physical attacks than your existing shields, but it has a 50% evade rate against magicks! Combined with the Ninja's Reflexes, in fact, you have a 100% evade rate against evadable magicks!It's not too good for most situations, since you don't face nearly as many magick attacks as physical attacks. But, you may want to keep one or two Aegis Shields on hand for battles against magick users. The Aegi Shield is also a great choice for characters who have learned Shirahadori. Shirahadori can block most physical attacks by itself, so you can use your shield slot to beef up your magick defense. Don't blow all your money in Lesalia, because there's some new equipment down in Dorter as well. In particular, the Jujitsu Gi is a great set of clothes for fighting-oriented characters as it also boots your physical attack power, and the Celebrant's Miter is a hat for mages because it boosts your MP. (You'll probably want to keep your fighters using the Headband for the attack boost.) Depending on what jobs you're using, there may be weapon upgrades as well. A more powerful gun, the Mythril Gun, is now available for sale. Since Goug is the only city that sells guns, you'll have to walk all the way down to Goug if you want to buy it. It's 2 points stronger and a stronger gun never appears in stores, so it's worth the trip if you didn't get the chance to steal any Mythril Guns during the Gollund battle. Buying 5 Chameleon Robes at Dorter would give you an easy way to beat an upcoming boss, but you probably don't need them as the boss isn't that tough even without them. ---EVENTS AT ORBONNE--- Purchase anything you want, then head to Orbonne Monastery. Note that once you enter, you'll be locked into a series of three battles, so make sure that you're well stocked with supplies. You may also want to pick up a few of the Jade Armlet accessory, since they'll be helpful in an upcoming battle, but they're fairly expensive and not really necessary. At Orbonne Monastery, enter the Monastery Vaults (it's the only option available), where you'll find Simon wounded. He tells you about Funebris's plot, and Ramza chases after the troops looking for the Virgo Stone. You'll have a chance to save your game. All you'd have to repeat if you died is that short scene with Simon, but if you want to save, save in a separate slot since you're locked into a series of battle. The roster screen will come up, then you will go down to the second floor and have a fight. ---Battle 24: Monastery Vaults - Second Level----------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Dragoon (lv 25, male) Dragoon (lv 25, male) Dragoon (lv 24, male) Chemist (lv 24, male) Time Mage (lv 23, male) Time Mage (lv 22, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Brick Wind Slash 73% Obstructed -- 20% Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 8% --STRATEGY-- This is your first encounter with enemy Dragoons. Their standard attack has a two-tile range and is quite strong, and they can also use the Jump attack. If one of them jumps at a character, try to move that character away before the Dragoon lands (assuming you have a chance, that is). If you cast Haste on your characters, you'll get more turns and hence a better chance of being able to duck out of the way. Although the Dragoons obviously can't be hit *while* they're Jumping, you can still charge up attacks (including a Jump of your own!) that will hit them when they land. Since the Dragoons are so strong physically, you'll probably want to bring some tough close-range fighters with which to fight back. The Dragoons have a high evade rate, so equipping the Concentration ability (Archer) on any characters that have it is a good idea, as it ensures that your attacks can't be evaded. Also, if your fighters have Flame Shields or Ice Shields equipped, remember that casting Fire or Blizzard magicks on the group will both damage the enemy Dragoons and heal any characters with the appropriate shield -- it's good for close-quarters fighting! (Be careful, though, one of the Dragoons may have a Flame or Ice Shield himself.) You'll want to take out the enemy Chemist so he can't heal the enemies, but you can save the Time Mages for last. Pretty much all they'll do is cast Haste. If you have the chance, though, position one of your characters next to the enemy that Haste is going to be cast on; this allows you to pick up the Haste status as well! BATTLE TROPHIES: Battle Folio --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 9, Brick - closest to open door at bottom POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 9, Up: 0 (height: 12, Brick) Potion Murasame none Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 12, Brick) Remedy Musk Pole none Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 6, Brick) Hi-Potion Poison Bow none Left: 0, Up: 5 (height: 0, Brick) Ether Mythril Bow none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After beating the second floor, you have another save opportunity. Again, save in a slot separate from your main file. For the next battle, you may want to equip any accessories you have that boost your Jump statistic (i.e., the Spiked Boots or Germinas Boots). After you leave the roster screen, you'll go to the third floor for another battle against Isilud. ---Battle 25: Monastery Vaults - Third Level------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Isilud (lv 26 Nightblade) Knight (lv 24, male) Knight (lv 23, male) Archer (lv 23, male) Archer (lv 21, male) Summoner (lv 22, male) BOSS: Isilud [Gemini] - lv 26 Nightblade - Bravery 73, Faith 62 Equipment : Platinum Sword, Golden Shield, Platinum Helm, Platinum Armor, Power Gauntlet Abilities*: Arts of War, Jump, Counter, Safeguard, Ignore Elevation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Isilud's Nightblade job also has Concentration as an innate ability. VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce Isilud to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 11 Book Wind Slash 67% Flagstone Contortion 31% Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- Your first order of business in this maze-like level is to send one or two characters down the hall to kill the Summoner -- used ranged attacks to take him out quickly before he can hit you with any summons. After the Summoner, go after the Archer that will have come up behind him. At this time Isilud and his gang will be nearing you from behind. You'll want to get up on top of the bookshelves to fight him on the same level. If you have a Jump statistic of at least 5, you can jump directly on top of the shelves; otherwise, you'll have to use the stairs in the corner. The stairs can get a little crowded, so being able to jump up is helpful. As at Lesalia, the Knights here may have Ice or Flame Shields. These shields make them weak against lightning and water attacks, respectively. Watch out; Isilud has the Dragoon's Jump attack and an incredibly long jump range. If you use Haste, though, you may have a chance to move out of the way before he comes back down. His plain sword attack is strong, too, and he can counterattack. He also has Safeguard, so you can't steal or break his sword or other equipment. Just ignore the other guys and attack Isilud. The Mythril Gun and Agrias's Holy Sword techniques are both quite effective here, and you can also use your own Jump attacks if you've got a Dragoon. When Isilud drops to critical HP, he'll teleport away and you win. Before you finish off Isilud, you may want to send a character with Treasure Hunter to the extreme corner of the map near where you start. You may get a Croakadile Bag from this treasure tile. Although the bag is not very good as a weapon, you can sell it for 26,500 gil, which will fund a lot of good equipment! As with most good Treasure Hunter pickups, your chance of getting the bag is greater the *lower* your Bravery. BATTLE TROPHIES: Guardian Bracelet --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 9, Book POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 10,Up: 0 (height: 8, Book) Phoenix Down Croakadile Bag none Left: 6, Up: 5 (height: 7, Book) Holy Water Ice Shield none Left: 9, Up: 9 (height: 7, Book) Potion Flame Shield none Left: 7, Up: 11 (height: 8, Book) Hi-Potion Headband none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upon winning against Isilud, there's yet another save point, and then the last of the three battles, this time with Wiegraf. Before the battle, equip any Jade Armlets you have to protect yourself from his sword attacks. (Alternately, if you equip your *entire* team with Chameleon Robes, you can stop his sword techniques outright.) ---Battle 26: Monastery Vaults - First Level------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Wiegraf (lv 27 White Knight) Knight (lv 24, female) Knight (lv 24, female) Black Mage (lv 22, female) Archer (lv 23, female) Archer (lv 21, female) BOSS: Wiegraf [Virgo] - lv 27 White Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 64 Equipment : Diamond Sword, Crystal Helm, random armor, Elven Cloak Abilities : Holy Sword, random 2nd action ability, Counter, Doublehand, Move +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow VICTORY CONDITION: KO Wiegraf LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Brick, Furnishings Wind Slash 63% Wooden Floor, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 22% Obstructed -- 14% --STRATEGY-- A shortcut to beating this battle is to equip all your characters with Chameleon Robes, which absorb holy damage. The enemy AI mistakenly believes that Wiegraf's sword techniques do holy damage, so if your team is equipped with Chameleon Robes, he won't even use them. But, you do need to equip ALL your characters with the robes; if even one character has different armor, Wiegraf won't be fooled. If you're not using the Chameleon Robes, spread your characters out in your initial deployment. Wiegraf is almost guaranteed to target your group with a Judgment Blade before you have a chance to move. The tall wall divides this level into two halves -- the half where you start and the half where the bad guys start -- with a small doorway in the middle. But Wiegraf will come running through to your side right away. Just go after Wiegraf; most of his followers are irrelevant and probably won't even reach you before Wiegraf goes down. The Archers can shoot through the doorway from the other side, though, so Archer's Bane (or Shirahadori, if you have it) may be helpful. As in your previous battle, Wiegraf will use Judgment Blade a lot (unless you have the Chameleon Robes on). Judgment Blade randomly casts Stop on you sometimes, but you can protect yourself from that by equipping Jade Armlets. The armlets won't stop you Judgment Blade from doing HP damage, though. Focus your attacks on Wiegraf. If you can't kill him in two rounds of turns or so, the other enemies will show up and you're in trouble. This time, Wiegraf must be knocked down to 0 HP before you win. It's pretty hard to get, but there IS a fairly valuable Treasure Hunter item on this level. If you can make it over to the enemies' side of the map, there's a Magepower Glove up on the wooden platform on the other side. (See below for exact coordinates.) This useful accessory boosts your Magick Attack by 2, making it useful for mages! Although you can buy it item in stores, it costs a lot of money (20,000 gil!), so the Treasure Hunter pickup is nice if you can get a character across the map to claim it. BATTLE TROPHIES: 2500 gil --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Brick - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 0, Brick) Holy Water Nu Khai Armband none Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 0, Brick) Phoenix Down Reflect Ring none Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 8, Wooden Fl.) Remedy Magepower Glove none Left: 7, Up: 11 (height: 1, Brick) Ether Winged Boots none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afterwards, Isilud escapes with both a friend and your Zodiac Stones captive. Outside, Wiegraf transforms in a rather frightening scene and then Simon shows up to give you the Scriptures of Germonique. ---SCRIPTURES OF GERMONIQUE--- Back on the map, go to the Chronicle option and check out your Artefacts. Examine the Scriptures of Germonique and press Triangle if you want to read it (this takes a while). If you're having a hard time reading the text, pressing the L button on your PSP will make the background darker (and thus make the text easier to read), while the R button makes the background brighter. Reading the Scriptures has no direct impact on the game, but it fills in some story information. ---STORY EVENTS--- After you're done reading, go to Dorter. A mage will demand the Scriptures and ask if you've read them. It doesn't matter what you say. When the mage leaves, the route to Riovanes Castle will open. Try to leave Dorter (just click anywhere on the map) and you'll see an FMV scene with Delita and Ovelia. ---MORE NEW ITEMS--- Go into Dorter and check out the shops, which once again have some new equipment. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Kodachi Ninjabl 7000 TrCity Atk: 10, 5% Parry Bloodstring Harp Instrmt 10000 TrCity Atk: 13, 10% Parry, drains HP from target to wielder Papyrus Codex Book 10000 TrCity Atk: 9, 15% Parry Wizard's Rod Rod 8000 TrCity/City Atk: 4, 20% Parry, Mag.Attack +2 Golden Staff Staff 7000 TrCity/City Atk: 6, 15% Parry Gokuu Pole Pole 7500 TrCity/City Atk: 10, 20% Parry, Inflicts: Atheist Pantherskin Bag Bag 52000 TrCity/City Atk: 12, 0% Parry, Always: Regen Black Cowl Hat 7000 TrCity/City HP +72 Power Garb Clothes 7000 TrCity/City HP +70, Physical Attack +2 White Robe Robe 9000 TrCity/City HP +50, MP +34, halves: Fire, Lightning, Ice Orichalcum Dirk Knife 4000 Castle/City Atk: 7, 5% Parry Diamond Sword Sword 8000 Castle Atk: 10, 10% Parry Windslash Bow Bow 8000 Castle Atk: 8, 0% Parry Partisan Polearm 7000 Castle Atk: 11, 10% Parry Diamond Shield Shield 12000 Castle Atk: 34, 15% Parry Hunting Bow Crossbw 8000 Castle/Goug Atk: 6, 5% Parry Magick Ring Ring 10000 Any Immune: Silence, Berserk Japa Mala Armlet 15000 Any Immune: Undead, Vampire, Toad, Poison; Boosts: All 8 elements Hi-Ether Item 600 Any Restores 50 MP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Power Garbs are a great buy; they're good new clothes that also raise your physical attack power. And don't miss the White Robe for your magick-users -- you'll have to scroll down through all the clothes to find it! It has the nice effect of halving damage from fire, lightning, and ice attacks. But even as you upgrade your robes, KEEP at least one Chameleon Robe in your inventory; you'll want it for a particular battle near the end of the chapter. You may want to keep your Headbands and Celebrant's Miters instead of buying Black Cowls, since the Cowls don't have any special stat boost. Similarly, the Diamond Shields are not an especially great shield since they don't have any elemental properties, nor the magick block rate of the Aegis Shield. If you were able to snag the Croakadile Bag from the Monastery, you can sell it off for a cool 26,500 gil. The Gokuu Pole has an interesting effect. When you hit a unit with it, it may randomly inflicts the Atheist status. Atheist temporarily reduces a unit's Faith to 0, which means that it can neither use magicks nor be hurt by them. In theory, you could use this effect to stop enemy mages or to immunize your own allies against enemy magick by striking them with the pole. But, the pole only inflicts Atheist status *sometimes*, and the jobs that use poles (Mystic and Arithmetician) are generally not jobs you want to spend a lot of time in. So, its practical value is somewhat limited. ---ERRANDS & RENDEZVOUS MISSION--- There are also a few new errands available down at Lionel Castle and the Castled City of Zaland, as well as at Eagrose Castle. Taverns also offer a new Rendezvous Mode mission, Desert Minefield. This one is relatively easy, although tough to clear with just a few characters. It's now time to head north to Riovanes. As you head up through the Zeklaus Desert, you'll run into a story battle. ---Battle 27: Zeklaus Desert---------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Luso [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Dark Behemoth (lv 23) Behemoth King (lv 16) Behemoth King (lv 15) Behemoth (lv 18) Behemoth (lv 17) Behemoth (lv 16) GUEST: Luso [Cancer] - lv 25 Game Hunter - Bravery 55, Faith 48 Equipment : Icebrand, Platinum Shield, Crystal Helm, Jujitsu Gi, Elven Cloak Abilities : Huntcraft, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Luso is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 18 x 10 Sand Sandstorm 62% Stone Outcropping Tremor 36% Obstructed -- 2% --STRATEGY-- Deploy all your characters towards the upper-left corner of the available purple tiles. This will start your characters as close to Luso as possible. If you have anyone who can Poach or Entice/Tame monsters, they're good to bring here. After you deploy your characters, there will be a CG scene, as Ramza jumps in to help Luso. Then the battle starts and then the battle starts. It's Behemoth city! Luso can hold his own pretty well -- he comes with an Icebrand sword, which is better than anything sold at the Outfitter at this point. Still, if he gets surrounded by Behemoths, he'll get killed and you'll lose the battle, so move a healer into position ASAP. (Casting the Protect magick on him or your other characters is also a good idea, as the Behemoths only use physical attacks.) If you move some other fighters down into the canyon with the Behemoths, you'll keep them from ganging up on any one particular character. All the Behemoths can counterattack (since they're monsters), which means Luso can take damage pretty quickly fighting against them. Fortunately, he's smart enough to flee if his HP drops to critical, but even if it's not yet critical, a series of behemoth attacks could take him out before he has a chance to move! Try to take out a few of the purple "regular" Behemoths quickly, before the Behemoth Kings and Dark Behemoth have a chance to make it over to you. Those are lot stronger and will take several attacks to kill. Agrias's Holy Sword techniques are good for dealing damage and can't be counterattacked. If you have an Orator or someone else with Entice and Beast Tongue, it's definitely worth trying to recruit some of the monsters here. If you can turn one Traitor and keep it alive through the battle, it'll join your squad. None of these monsters are ones you could otherwise find at this point in the game, and the Behemoth King and Dark Behemoth are particularly rare. If you get any of them, you can use them to breed more behemoths and poach them for rare items! Luso also automatically poaches any enemy he kills, so he if kills any of the behemoths here, you should also get something good. The Treasure Hunter items here are especially poor, as they're the same items available when this map first opened in Chapter I. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Sand POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 8 (height: 0, Sand) Phoenix Down Blind Knife Sten Needle Left: 0, Up: 11 (height: 2.5, Sand) Echo Herbs Battle Boots Degenerator Left: 6, Up: 8 (height: 0, Sand) Hi-Potion Thunder Rod none Left: 6, Up: 17 (height: 0, Sand) Potion Iron Sword Hypnogas -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---LUSO--- Defeat or recruit all the enemy Behemoths and Luso will join up. (Luso is the lead character from the Nintendo DS game Final Fantasy Tactics A2 ... he's just moonlighting here.) Luso is basically a clone of Ramza, but as long as he's in his Game Hunter job, he has an intrinsic Poach ability -- no ability needs to be equipped for it. This makes him very handy for treasure hunting, especially during the monster- laden random battles. Story battles, of course, contain mostly humans and Poach doesn't work on them. Luso's Game Hunter job also has a little more MP than Ramza's Squire job. You may want to de-equip Luso's Icebrand sword and give it to Agrias -- it will make her Holy Sword techniques extremely powerful! ---POACHING--- If you poached any of the behemoths, you may want to go back to the Poachers' Den in Dorter to see what you got, since a lot of these items can be quite useful. If you recruited any of the behemoths, you're even better off; you can keep one behemoth on your team, have it breed other behemoths, and poach *those*. Both Behemoth Kings and Dark Behemoths can give you rare items you can't find at the Outfitter. ---OUTFITTER & NEXT BATTLE--- Up in Lesalia, you can pick up the Windslash Bow, Orichalcum Dirk, and Diamond Sword if you didn't get them immediately after the Monastery sequence. You may want to skip the Diamond Sword, though, since there will be another new sword after just a few more battles. Grab anything you need, then continue to the Grogh Heights. ---Battle 28: Grogh Heights----------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 27, female) Archer (lv 26, male) Chemist (lv 27, male) Chemist (lv 26, male) Squire (lv 27, male) Squire (lv 25, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Night, thunderstorm (evade rate vs. bows x 1.80, fire dmg +25%, lightning dmg -25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 11 Grassland, Underbrush Tanglevine 59% Soil Sinkhole 16% Brick Wind Slash 10% Stone Outcropping Tremor 9% Stairs, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% Flagstone Contortion 2% --STRATEGY-- This is a fairly straightforward battle. The main challenges are the Thief, who of course can steal your gear, and the Chemists, who both have guns and a humongous range from their vantage point atop the heights. You'll want to target the Chemists first. Fire back with your own guns, or have Mustadio use his Arm Shot from a distance to Disable them. The small passes between the cliffs can be a bit of a choke point as you try to climb up. If you boost your Jump height with accessories and agile jobs, that will help you scale the heights quickly. If the *enemies* get bunched up in a row in a pass, firing one of Agrias's Divine Ruination skills (if you have it) will decimate them. There's a thunderstorm going on here, so fire attacks will be weaker and thunder attacks will be stronger. Given that there's both a storm *and* this battle is at night, evade rates versus bows will nearly double! Between these effects and the fact that it's harder to target enemies when firing uphill, Archers may not be the best pick for this battle. Because this is a fairly easy battle, it's a good chance to build up your weaker characters if you want. You could also try letting the enemies decay into crystals or chests, but these guys don't really have much worth taking. (Hey, they're deserters, what do you expect?) BATTLE TROPHIES: Mythril Gun --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 8.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 11,Up: 1 (height: 0, Underbrush) Ether Sleep Blade none Left: 11,Up: 10 (height: 0, Underbrush) Potion Main Gauche none Left: 4, Up: 1 (height: 6, Underbrush) Remedy Ama-no-Murakumo none Left: 0, Up: 10 (height: 9, Underbrush) Hi-Potion Kunai none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After smashing your way through the Heights (I actually felt kind of bad killing those guys off), you'll meet up with Orran again. You'll also receive a Mythril Gun in spoils from the battle, so if you didn't bother to go to Goug to buy any Mythril Guns, equip this one now. Your next stop is the Walled City of Yardrow. ---Battle 29: Yardrow----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Rapha [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Marach (lv 23 Netherseer) Ninja (lv 26, male) Ninja (lv 25, male) Ninja (lv 24, male) Summoner (lv 28, female) Summoner (lv 27, female) GUEST: Rapha [Pisces] - lv 22 Skyseer - Bravery 31, Faith 69 Equipment : Musk Pole, Celebrant's Miter, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Sky Mantra, other abilities random ENEMY: Marach [Gemini] - lv 23 Netherseer - Bravery 69, Faith 31 Equipment : Gokuu Pole, Headband, random armor, random accessory Abilities : Nether Mantra, random 2nd action ability, random Squire abilities VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Rapha is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Stone Wall, Flagstone Contortion 33% Grassland Tanglevine 31% Soil Sinkhole 17% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 10% Obstructed -- 6% Wooden Floor, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 4% --STRATEGY-- Here you'll encounter Marach (the guy you met in Dorter) and Rapha. You have to save Rapha from Marach and the Riovanes soldiers. This is another protect-the- guest battle, so deploy somebody with healing abilities or you're toast. In fact, bringing two might not be a bad idea! Black Magick will be useful here, but avoid using Archers because they won't be able to fire through the city walls. To protect Rapha, move a character into the city gateway to block it and prevent the enemies from following her outside. At the start of the battle, one of the Ninjas will probably give himself an unfair height advantage by climbing up on the roof and throwing weapons at you. Use guns or magick to take him out quickly. You could also equip the Thief ability Sticky Fingers, which will let you catch whatever the Ninja throws at you, but it's probably not worth giving up your regular Reaction Ability for. The Ninjas here can hit really hard since they get two attacks. Even if you have Shirahadori, it can only block one of the two attacks. So make the Ninjas your first target, and stay out of hand-to-hand range when possible. Even at a distance, the Ninjas can still Throw weapons at you, but this attack isn't nearly as strong. As at Grogh Heights, the gate into the city is a bit of a choke point, which means it's a great opportunity to fire some Divine Ruinations and hit several enemies at once. If you've got anybody with an attack that can go through the wall (i.e., magick or some monster skills), you can try to kill the Summoners that way. The enemies start pretty bunched up inside, so this can be a good way of attacking more than one enemy at a time. It's also possible to get inside with Teleport, Ignore Elevation, or even just a high Jump rating (5). Otherwise, you'll have to fight through the Ninjas at the gate to reach the Summoners. As usual, watch what areas the Summoners are targeting so you can try to keep your team split up and out of the way. Although Marach teleports away when you defeat him, you must defeat ALL the enemies to win here. Since Marach is really the least threatening guy here, save him for last. Finally, beware of Rapha's skills -- they target a 3x3 square of the map and hit random tiles, making them as likely to hit you as the bad guys. Marach's skills do the same, which fortunately means he's pretty unlikely to actually hit you ... and even if they do, he does very little damage. It's possible to steal the Japa Mala accessory from one of the Ninjas and the Magick Ring from one of the Summoners. Although both of these items are already in stores, they're pretty expensive, so you may want to try stealing them. The Japa Mala is particularly useful. BATTLE TROPHIES: 2000 gil, Yagyu Darkrood, Holy Water --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 1, Grassland) Potion Mythril Gun none Left: 5, Up: 7 (height: 3, Flagstone) Phoenix Down Slasher none *Left: 5, Up: 11(height: 9, Chimney) Holy Water Flame Mace none *Left: 0, Up: 9 (height: 11, Wooden F.) Hi-Potion Hunting Bow none * Requires Jump of 5. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the fight, Rapha discusses her past. (Why the Grand Duke wants Rapha and Marach's powers so badly is one of FF Tactics's great unsolved mysteries ;) .) Marach, meanwhile, delivers a amphibian ultimatum. ---RAPHA--- Rapha joins up as a guest for the next couple battles. She probably won't be all that helpful, though, since her Sky Mantra abilities only strike random tiles in their effect radius and can't be targeted too precisely. ---EQUIPMENT IN YARDROW--- After you reach Yardrow, another new set of equipment is added to the stores. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Ninja Longblade Ninjabl 10000 TrCity Atk: 12, 5% Parry Kiyomori Katana 10000 TrCity Atk: 12, 15% Parry Cashmere Cloth 15000 TrCity Atk: 10, 50% Parry Gold Hairpin Hat 12000 TrCity/City HP +80, MP +50, Immune: Silence Black Robe Robe 13000 TrCity/City HP +60, MP +30, Boosts: Fire, Lightning, Ice Assassin's Dagger Knife 5000 Castle/City Atk: 7, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Doom Platinum Sword Sword 11000 Castle Atk: 12, 10% Parry Platinum Helm Helm 8000 Castle HP +90 Circlet Helm 10000 Castle HP +100 Platinum Armor Armor 9000 Castle HP +90 Morning Star Flail 9000 Castl/TrCity Atk: 16, 0% Parry Hermes Shoes Shoes 7000 Any Speed +1 Bracer Gauntlt 50000 Any Phys. Atk +3 Vampire Cape Cloak 15000 Any Ph.Evade: 28%, Mg.Evade: 28% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any magick users on your main team will benefit quite a bit from this new gear. The Gold Hairpins raise both your HP and MP a lot, and the Black Robe strengthens the power of any of your fire-, ice-, or lighting-elemental spells. (You may want to keep healers using the White Robe, since it's got elemental defenses and they don't need the offensive capability.) Even though you're upgrading your equipment, remember to keep at least one Chameleon Robe in your inventory--its ability to absorb Holy damage is important for a battle at the end of the chapter. There are also some new accessories; pick up a pair of the Speed-boosting Hermes Shoes for later use. The Bracer is also available. It's really expensive (50,000 gil), but it gives you a huge +3 physical attack boost, so buy one or two for your front-line fighters if you can afford them. You could also pick up some better equipment for Rapha, but it's hardly necessary as you don't need to protect her from being KOed in the subsequent battles. At any rate, do NOT equip Rapha with any "rare," non-buyable items like the Barette or Healing Staff; if you do, you'll lose them when Rapha goes from being a Guest to a regular character. ---LEAVING YARDROW--- When you leave town, you'll cut to another Delita battle. ---Battle 30: Zeltennia Castle Chapel Ruins------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Delita, Ovelia [guest] ENEMY FORCES: Ninja (lv 22, male) Ninja (lv 22, female) ALLY: Delita [Sagittarius] - lv 30 Holy Knight - Bravery 85, Faith 52 Equipment : Save the Queen, Platinum Shield, Platinum Helm, Carabineer Mail, Germinas Boots Abilities : Holy Sword, Arts of War, Parry, Concentration, Move +1 Immune : Chicken, Toad, Charm, and Doom GUEST: Ovelia [Taurus] - lv 5 Princess - Bravery 53, Faith 72 Equipment : Mage's Staff, Gold Hairpin, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : White Magicks, Counter Tackle, Reequip, Move +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ovelia is KOed or Delita is killed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 54% Flagstone Contortion 25% Brick Wind Slash 18% Obstructed -- 3% --STRATEGY-- It's just Delita and Ovelia against two Ninjas. This should be a cinch; although the Ninjas can hit hard, Delita and Ovelia have enough HP to survive a few attacks, and one Holy Sword technique should be enough to take out each Ninja. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- No Treasure Hunter items can be obtained during this battle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---MORE EQUIPMENT FOR SALE--- Back with Ramza's squad, if you want to do further shopping, you can go back down to Lesalia to buy new helmets, the Platinum Sword, and the Assassin's Dagger. If you have Ninjas, Samurais, or Dancers in the party, you may even want to trek all the way back to Dorter, as you will find new weapons for those three jobs there. ---NEW RENDEZVOUS MISSION--- Clearing the battle at Yardrow also opens up another Rendezvous Mode mission, Littering, which pits you against ten enemy Ninjas. If you bring characters with the Sticky Fingers reaction ability, you can catch the weapons that the Ninjas throw, which is a great way to build up your stock of weapons! You can also start winning rare equipment from this mission, although your experience level probably isn't high enough yet for these items to appear. When you've completed your shopping and catching spree, head on up to the Yuguewood. ---Battle 31: The Yuguewood----------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Rapha [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Black Mage (lv 28, male, undead) Revenant* Black Mage (lv 27, male, undead) Ghast* Time Mage (lv 28, female, undead) Ghoul* Time Mage (lv 27, female, undead) * The levels of these enemies depends on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 63% Flagstone Contortion 20% Tree, Moss Wind Slash 13% Obstructed -- 4% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- Every enemy here is undead, including the humans. After you KO them, when their counter runs out, they may REVIVE instead of turning into a crystal! This means that, after you KO the first enemy, you have to hustle to finish off the rest before the first ones start reviving again. Fortunately, there's an easier way. Just use Mustadio's Seal Evil skill, which turns any undead enemy into stone and prevents them from resurrecting. Plus, it almost always hits! As for the rest of your team, Phoenix Down is also a really effective ability here as it has a 100% hit rate for KOing undead monsters. So, you might want to make a number of your characters into Chemists or give them the Items command plus Throw Items. (Phoenix Down merely KOs the undead and doesn't petrify them, though, so they do have the opportunity to revive.) Other tactics for dealing with the ghost monsters include Poaching them; a Poached monster disappears from the map and hence can't be revived. You could even use the Orator's Tame or Entice to recruit the ghosts -- even if you don't plan on keeping them, it removes them as enemies. The undead humans are immune to Traitor status, however. Since the enemies are undead, Cure spells and other healing abilities (e.g. Raise and items) will do quite a bit of damage to them while simultaneously healing any nearby allies. You can even strike them with the Healing Staff! Summon spells also work well, as the enemies are usually packed together. The undead humans have "upgraded" versions of their jobs that give them better stats than regular Black Mages and Time Mages. That makes the two Black Mages your toughest opponents, so take them out first. The Time Mages are a bit of a pain too, since they can cast Slow or Immobilize on you. You can prevent the former by equipping Diamond Bracelets and the later by equipping Guardian Bracelets. Which to choose? For your close-range fighters, defense against Immobilize is the most important, so give them Guardian Bracelets. But for your gunners and magick users, being Immobilized may not be such a problem, as they have enough range that they can still attack even if they're rooted in one spot. So you might be better off giving Diamond Bracelets to your range attackers. Rapha is just an "ordinary" guest here, so it doesn't matter if she gets KOed. BATTLE TROPHIES: Phoenix Down x2 --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 5 (height: 3, Grassland) Holy Water Damask Cloth none Left: 4, Up: 5 (height: 4, Grassland) Phoenix Down Iron Fan none Left: 7, Up: 2 (height: 4, Grassland) Remedy Mythril Spear none Left: 11, Up: 1 (height: 2, Grassland) Ether Bestiary none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---PREPARATION FOR RIOVANES--- Don't go on to Riovanes Castle just yet. It contains some very powerful bosses and you need to make sure you're prepared. For Ramza, you'll want two Squire abilities: Focus and *especially* Tailwind. Also buy a Chameleon Robe, a Green Beret, and at least one pair of Hermes Shoes. (If you sold all your Green Berets and Chameleon Robes, you can re-buy them at Yardrow.) Also helpful are a good supply to X-Potions, Jujitsu Gis and Chameleon Robes (both of which protect against instant KO), and Jade Armlets (protection against Stop). These items are particularly helpful if you want to attempt to learn the Ultima magick at Riovanes ... but since Ultima actually isn't very good and is much easier to learn in Chapter IV, you may not want to bother. If any characters are close to reaching the Dragoon or Ninja jobs, you may want to bring them up to those jobs, as they are quite helpful. Zeklaus Desert is a good place to level up if you need to earn more JP. Finally, a last bit of preparation you could do is to use the Orator's Enlighten skill to lower the Faith of your physical fighters. That will reduce the damage they will take from the powerful magickal attacks you're about to encounter. DON'T lower your mages' Faith -- that will make their own magicks less powerful! ---AT RIOVANES--- When you think you're ready, save your game, then pay a visit to Riovanes Castle. You'll see a scene with Barrington and the Templars, then have a chance to save. Be SURE to save in a separate slot from your main game, so that you can get out of the castle if you need to go back and level more/buy stuff. If you save in your main slot, you may wind up STUCK and have to start again from scratch! You then go to the first of a series of three battles. Strip Rapha of all her equipment beforehand. ---Battle 32: Riovanes Castle Gate---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Rapha [guest], 1 other 2nd Squad - 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Marach (lv 24 Netherseer) Knight (lv 29, male) Knight (lv 28, male) Knight (lv 27, male) Archer (lv 29, female) Archer (lv 28, female) Archer (lv 27, female) ENEMY: Marach [Gemini] - lv 24 Netherseer - Bravery 69, Faith 31 Equipment : Gokuu Pole, Headband, random armor, random accessory Abilities : Nether Mantra, random 2nd action ability, random Squire abilities VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 12 Flagstone Contortion 53% Grassland Tanglevine 24% Canal Torrent 8% Swamp Quicksand 8% Soil Sinkhole 5% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- Deploy another fast character with Ramza, but make sure both are well-armored. You'll want the two of them to break through to the enemy back line quickly and take out the Archers. The second squad starts further from the battle, but they can bring up the rear and keep fighting the Knights. You'll face a constant rain of arrows from the enemy Archers atop the gates, so equipping Archer's Bane or (preferably) Shirahadori on as many characters as possible will be a big help. The Golem summon is also quite helpful if you have it; cast it at the beginning of the battle and it will temporarily absorb some of the physical damage you receive. The Mystic ability Defense Boost would also be helpful here, as would the Protect magick or the Kiyomori Iaido (which casts Protect). Equipping shields and capes will also boost your evade rate. Rapha is here as a guest and Marach as an enemy. If EITHER of them is reduced to critical HP, they will BOTH teleport away. You want to be rid of them; Marach's pole attack is reasonably strong, and he tends to block your route up to the Archers. If you de-equipped Rapha's armor before the battle, you can KO her in one attack and quickly remove Marach from the battlefield. Take out the enemy Knight on the bridge to keep him from blocking your path, then start hurrying up the steps. You want to reach the enemy Archers as quickly as possible. (If you have the Dragoon ability Ignore Elevation or the Time Mage ability Teleport, this is easy-peasy, of course; you can just jump right up from the drawbridge.) Any abilities that you can fire at the Archers from a few tiles away will be helpful, as is Arithmeticks. Finally, you could also try riding a Black Chocobo up to the top of the gate; this strategy would be best combined with the Golem spell to prevent the Chocobo from being shot to death by the Archers. Keep your close-range fighters in the rear so they can fend off the enemy Knights as they approach. Since the enemy Knights have a fairly high evade rate, Concentration may also be useful to ensure your attacks connect. Alternately, you can just attack with Agrias's Holy Sword techniques, which can never be evaded. If you keep killing off one of the Knights, the other ones may keep bringing him back with Phoenix Down, thus wasting their turns. The Monk's Revive ability will be useful in bringing back your KOed allies, but only if you stay on level ground; it has no vertical range. Once the Archers are KOed, you can have all your characters mop up the remaining Knights. BATTLE TROPHIES: Elven Cloak, Hi-Potion, X-Potion --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 11 (height: 5, Grassland) Remedy Celebrant's Miter none Left: 4, Up: 4 (height: 2, Grassland) Ether Diamond Helm none Left: 8, Up: 3 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Aegis Shield none Left: 11,Up: 11 (height: 13, Flagstone) Potion Fuma Shuriken none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you defeat everyone outside the gate, a wounded Knight will crawl out, warning of the Lucavi's rampage. Now, make sure you're prepared. You're about face a two-part battle against a Zodiac-charged Wiegraf, and he is rather powerful. However, if you're reading this walkthrough and coming prepared ;), he isn't that hard to beat. Before the battle starts, turn Ramza into his basic Squire job and equip him with a Chameleon Robe. Make sure he also has some sort of healing ability, like Chakra (Martial Arts), Lifefont, Items, or Auto-Potion. If you're using Auto-Potion, you should also drop all your Potions and Hi-Potions. On the roster screen, click on any character and go to Equipment. Choose View List, find your Potions and Hi-Potions and select Discard. Throw away ALL of them, so that you can only use X-Potions when Auto-Potion activates. As for your other characters, make them into Dragoons or give them range weapons. Keep Agrias as a Holy Knight if she has the Hallowed Bolt ability. (If your Ramza is quite strong, you may not need such preparation--just give him Dual Wield or Jump.) When you think you're set, close the party roster screen and you'll be thrust into the battle against Wiegraf. ---Battle 33: Riovanes Castle Keep---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: PHASE ONE: Ramza PHASE TWO: 1st Squad - Ramza, 1 other 2nd Squad - 3 others ENEMY FORCES: PHASE ONE: Wiegraf (lv 28 White Knight) PHASE TWO: Belias (lv 31 Gigas) Archaeodaemon (lv 29) Archaeodaemon (lv 28) Archaeodaemon (lv 27) BOSS: Wiegraf [Virgo] - lv 28 White Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 64 Equipment : Diamond Sword, Diamond Shield, Diamond Helm, Diamond Armor, Diamond Bracelet Abilities : Holy Sword, Martial Arts, Counter, Safeguard, Move +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow BOSS: Belias [Virgo] - lv 31 Gigas - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 1045, MP: about 255 Abilities : Dread, Summon Gigas, Brawler, Swiftness, can't enter water Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Phase One - Reduce Wiegraf to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) Phase Two - KO Belias LOSS CONDITION: Phase One - Ramza is KOed Phase Two - Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 8 Flagstone Contortion 68% Canal Torrent 23% Grassland Tanglevine 7% Obstructed -- 2% --STRATEGY-- Wiegraf has a fearsome reputation, in part because you're now stuck in Riovanes Castle if you don't have another save to go back to. Your ease of beating him will really depend on what abilities and equipment Ramza has. Wiegraf can be easy with the right set-up, or very tough if you're stuck inside without an ideal set of abilities. For his first form, you have just Ramza. Wiegraf has a number of strong Holy Sword techniques. However, you can stop them completely by equipping a Chameleon Robe. Due to a bug in the game's AI, the computer thinks that Wiegraf's sword techniques do Holy-elemental damage (even though they actually don't), and won't use them when you're equipped with the Chameleon Robe, which absorbs Holy damage. Instead, Wiegraf will just use some fairly weak Martial Arts abilities. Once you're protected with the Chameleon Robe, Wiegraf can't do much damage to you. Keep running from him and keep using the Tailwind ability to boost Ramza's Speed, and healing when you need to. If you can, sucker Wiegraf into going into the water and you'll be safe for a turn. Eventually (after you keep using Tailwind), Ramza will get fast enough that he will get two turns in a row frequently. Use these extra turns to get further away from Wiegraf and keep using Tailwind. You will reach a point where you will not have to use all your moves to get out of Wiegraf's range. Now instead of moving each turn, you can use Tailwind and then "Wait" to get your next turn faster, allowing you to use Tailwind even more. Keep going until Ramza's Speed maxes out at 50. (You can check it by going to Status in his menu.) Then start using Focus to build up your attack power. (If you don't have Focus, give Ramza a gun instead, since guns are not reliant on physical attack power.) After you've built up your attack, just run up to Wiegraf and you can knock him out quickly in one or two attacks. If you don't have a Chameleon Robe, there's actually one that you can find on this very map. Equip Treasure Hunter and quickly move in front of the torch to Ramza's right to find the Chameleon Robe, then use Reequip to change into it. You can do this on a single turn. Since the Chameleon Robe is the "good" item on this Treasure Hunter title, your odds of obtaining it are LOWER the higher Ramza's Bravery. You might just get a Ether instead. But if that happens, you could always just reset again. To keep your HP up while you're Yelling, Auto-Potion works great if you throw away all your Potions and Hi-Potions before the battle; Ramza will use an X-Potion to heal himself for 150 HP whenever Wiegraf attacks him. (Auto-Potion doesn't always activate, so if Ramza runs low on HP, you can also manually use an X-Potion on yourself to heal.) Another way to keep your HP up is the combination of Mana Shield (Time Mage) and Manafont (Mystic). Mana Shield will protect you by diverting damage to Ramza's MP, and Manafont restores some MP every time you move and keeps up your Mana Shield. If you don't have Manafont, you can also pair Mana Shield with the Monk's Chakra. Run from Wiegraf while using Chakra each turn; since Chakra restores your MP, you'll keep up your Mana Shield. Even when Mana Shield doesn't trigger, you should have enough HP to survive at least one hit, and Chakra will keep restoring your HP afterwards. Whenever you get far enough from Wiegraf that he can't attack you, use Tailwind. This tactic takes a little longer because it requires you to navigate out of Wiegraf's range in order to use Tailwind, but it otherwise works the same. If you don't have any Chameleon Robes, Auto-Potion, or Mana Shield available, available, you could try the Tailwind strategy but with some other ability to restore your HP, like Critical: Recover HP, Regenerator, or Lifefont. These abilities don't restore quite as much HP as Auto-Potion or don't work as reliably, so it might be more difficult, but you could give it a shot. If you have Auto-Potion but not Tailwind, you could also use Rend Speed and Rend Power to weaken Wiegraf -- but a disadvantage of such a strategy is that debuffs won't carry over to the next stage of the battle, whereas any buffs you place on Ramza *do*. If you can't use the heal & Tailwind strategy at all, you'll just have to finish off Wiegraf quickly, before he can kill you. The Dragoon's Jump attack may be useful, since Wiegraf can't counterattack if you use it at a distance. If you need to resort to physical attacks, equip Concentration or attack Wiegraf from behind so he can't dodge. You can also try using a Blood Sword (if you have one) to recover a little HP with each attack, but this only really works if you can Dual Wield it with a stronger weapon since a Blood Sword doesn't do enough damage by itself to defeat Wiegraf. If you have a magick-oriented Ramza, you could try use strong Black Magicks to finish Wiegraf in a single shot. Equipping the Hermes Shoes as an accessory to boost Ramza's Speed may also help you get the jump on him. Finally, the Mystic's Defense Boost ability will reduce the damage Wiegraf can do to you, and even Mana Shield by itself will give you an additional buffer of life before he kills you. After Wiegraf drops to critical HP, he will disappear, only to return shortly as Belias. Yup, it's not over yet. Your other characters will now show up, but Wiegraf summons three Archaeodaemons. On his first turn, Belias will start charging up a super-powerful Cyclops summon (200+ HP damage), and if you survive that, he'll hit you with more summons. The trick here is that all the Speed and attack power bonuses from the first phase of the battle persist, so if you used Tailwind/Focus, Ramza can run up to Belias and repeatedly attack him with high-powered hits. You should be able to kill Belias before he gets to cast Cyclops. If Ramza isn't able to kill Belias on his own, or you couldn't use the Tailwind and Focus strategy, you'll have to take down Belias with the rest of your team. Have your other allies start attacking Belias. You want to him as quickly as possible, so range attacks (bows/guns) are good as they may not require you to move. The Dragoon's Jump ability is also good since it takes you off the screen, where Belias can't kill you. Agrias should use her strongest sword technique. As in the fight against Cuchulainn, the Lich summon spell or the Time Magick Graviga do a lot of damage if you can get them off, and a strong Black Magick spell could be useful too. If you already have Arithmeticks, a Level Prime calculation will allow you to hit Belias without requiring any charge times; depending on his Exp, height, or CT, other calculations may work too. Ideally, you can take out Belias before he even casts Cyclops. If you can't manage that, though, you may still be able to keep yourself alive long enough to finish him off. Using the Jump attack may get some of your characters off the screen when Cyclops fires and keep them alive. You can also try Silencing Belias, either with the Mystic's Quiescence or Agrias's Hallowed Bolt. While putting Silence on Belias will abort his initial Cyclops summon, he will still be able to use his Petrify ability to turn you to stone, so this tactic works better if you pair it with Jade Armlets to protect yourself from Stone. Finally, you could try using the Mystic's Disbelief magick or the Gokuu Pole to attempt to put the Atheist status on your strongest fighter, which will make him/her immune to magick and able to survive the initial Cyclops casting. (Or, deploy characters who already have very low Faith to begin with.) Belias and his demons can still kill you with physical attacks and petrification, so using Silence or Atheist is just a stop-gap measure to keep a few characters alive long enough to finish killing him. Belias has about 1045 HP. As soon as you defeat him, the Archaeodaemons also disappear. The strategies above are, of course, the most extreme strategies for fighting Wiegraf/Belias. If Ramza is pretty strong, you can take out Belias with fewer moves and certainly don't need to spend as much time boosting yourself during the first round. A sufficiently strong Ramza (say, as a bare-fisted Ninja with Brawler and a Bracer equipped) attacking Wiegraf and Belias from behind could even do enough damage to punch out both of them without needing any boosts at all. The Jump attack can also be effective if Ramza has a high Speed. But if you're having trouble, the Tailwind strategy almost assures you of victory. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Flagstone - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 5 (height: 4, Flagstone) Ether Chameleon Robe none Left: 6, Up: 2 (height: 4, Flagstone) Hi-Potion Jujitsu Gi none Left: 9, Up: 0 (height: 7, Flagstone) Potion Diamond Armor none Left: 9, Up: 7 (height: 7, Grassland) Remedy Germinas Boots none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you win both rounds of the battle, you'll go on to the last of this sequence of battles, on the roof. Be sure to save again. ---Battle 34: Riovanes Castle Roof---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Rapha [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Elmdore (lv 33 Ark Knight) Celia (lv 29 Assassin) Lettie (lv 28 Assassin) GUEST: Rapha [Pisces] - lv 23 Skyseer - Bravery 31, Faith 69 Equipment : Musk Pole, Celebrant's Miter, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Sky Mantra, other abilities random BOSS: Elmdore [Gemini] - lv 33 Ark Knight - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Equipment : Muramasa, Black Cowl, Black Robe, Nu Khai Armband Abilities*: Sword Spirit, First Strike, Doublehand, Ignore Elevation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Elmdore's Ark Knight job also includes Safeguard as an innate ability. BOSS: Celia [Virgo] - lv 29 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Kiyomori x2, Black Cowl, Gaia Gear, Cachusha Abilities : Subdual Arts, random action ability, random Squire abilities, Move+1 Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad BOSS: Lettie [Sagittarius] - lv 28 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Spellbinder x2, Black Cowl, Power Garb, Barette Abilities : Subdual Arts, random action ability, random Squire abilities, Move+1 Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce any one of the enemies to critical HP (< 20% of max) LOSS CONDITION: Rapha is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 79% Obstructed -- 12% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 8% Stone Wall Contortion 1% --STRATEGY-- You'll want to optimize your team for speed for this battle. Make Ramza into a job with a high Speed stat (Ninja if available, otherwise Geomancer, Thief, or Monk), and equip him with a Green Beret and Hermes Shoes to boost his Speed as high as possible. Equipping the rest of the team with accessories boosting Speed or Move is helpful as well. Give the Ignore Elevation or Teleport movement abilities to as many character as possible. Ramza always starts in a fixed location, regardless of where you place him on the deployment screen. Deploy your other characters towards the top of the deployment screen -- this will start them closer to the battle. This battle is always really short: either you win quickly or you lose quickly! All you have to do to win is reduce any one of the enemies to critical HP to win. Problem is, Rapha loves to make suicide runs at the bad guys, and if she gets KOed, you lose. If Ramza is fast enough (e.g. Ninja + Green Beret + Hermes Shoes), he can move first and immediately rush to attack either Celia or Lettie, and you should be fine. (Don't attack Elmdore; he can use First Strike to turn your attack into one of his own.) With Teleport or Ignore Elevation, you may be able to get another quick character up on the roof to join the attack too. Where possible, attack the assassins from behind so they can't evade. Concentrate all your attacks on a single enemy, since as soon as any one of them drops to critical HP, you win. If any of your own characters get KOed, don't bother trying to revive them; you're better off continuing to attack and ending the battle quickly. Luck plays a big role here, especially if you're not fast enough to get the first move. If your team is quick enough to end the battle in a few turns, the bad guys won't really have a chance to kill Rapha. If you're not that fast, you'll need to protect her, so heal her ASAP. Put Disable on Rapha (via Mustadio's Arm Shot) as soon as you can; she'll flee the battle and mostly stay out of harm's way. You can also try casting a Cure spell on an empty square within Rapha's move range. Rapha will move to the square to receive the spell and thus you can lure her away from the Assassins. Send as many characters up to the roof as you can; if nothing else, they can serve as decoys to draw attacks away from Rapha. Celia and Lettie use ridiculous Subdual Arts abilities on you that can inflict Stop or KO on you with 100% success. You can guard against the former by equipping Jade Armlets and the latter with Jujitsu Gis or Chameleon Robes. A Barette, if equipped on a female character, will also protect against both Stop *and* KO. If you deploy Luso in his Game Hunter job, he can learn Ultima should Celia or Lettie cast it on him. (Ramza can't learn it until Chapter IV, but if you have Luso learn it here, he can teach it to Ramza as soon as you reach Chapter IV.) If you're fully equipped with Jujitsu Gis and Jade Armlets, Celia and Lettie's Stop or KO attacks won't work on you and instead they will almost always cast Ultima. Move Luso in range of whomever they target to make sure he gets hit with the magick. It's not easy to learn Ultima here since Rapha is so vulnerable, so you're probably better off skipping it--you'll have more opportunities to learn Ultima in Chapter IV that don't involve a suicidal Rapha. It's also possible to steal a Cachusha from Celia and a Barette from Lettie. Neither of these items is ever sold at the Outfitter, but, again, you do also have other, easier methods for acquiring them, so it's probably not worth bothering with them here. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Stone Wall - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 3, Up: 3 (height: 12, Chimney) Phoenix Down Elven Cloak none Left: 3, Up: 5 (height: 14, Chimney) Potion Orichalcum Dirk none Left: 3, Up: 7 (height: 12, Chimney) Hi-Potion Kodachi none Left: 10, Up: 3 (height: 2, Roof) Maiden's Kiss Jade Armlet none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you (eventually) ward off Elmdore and his assassins, Rapha will use the Zodiac Stone to restore her family to a happy ending. You'll get your Zodiac Stones back, along with Wiegraf's Aries stone and Isilud's Pisces stone. Finally, Rapha and Marach will offer to join. ALLY: Rapha [Pisces] - Skyseer, lv. based on party's - Bravery 31, Faith 69 Equipment : Musk Pole, Celebrant's Miter, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Sky Mantra, other abilities random ALLY: Marach [Gemini] - Netherseer, lv. based on party's - Bravery 69, Faith 31 Equipment : Gokuu Pole, Black Cowl, Wizard's Robe, Japa Mala Abilities : Nether Mantra, other abilities random You'll want to take Rapha. Her low Bravery makes her ideal for using Treasure Hunter, which works best with low Bravery. Marach basically sucks, but if you don't have a full roster already, there's no harm in signing him up. He's pretty similar to Rapha in that his abilities strike random tiles. What's interesting is that they do more damage to enemies with LOW Faith and get stronger when Marach has LOW Faith, the reverse of most magick abilities. (Rapha's abilities simply ignore Faith entirely.) If you have an Orator lower Marach's Faith, you can use Marach to attack the enemies with magick while being resistant to magick himself ... but the randomness of his abilities still makes him not too useful. This concludes Chapter III. %%%CHAPTER IV: IN THE NAME OF LOVE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00walk4 Chapter IV picks up right where Chapter III left off. After a brief scene in Zeltennia Castle with Orlandeau and Orran, you'll be plopped back on the world map -- haven't seen that for a while, huh? -- outside Riovanes. ---NEW ABILITIES--- Ramza's appearance has changed again, giving him the ability to equip knight's swords, powerful weapons that you'll start acquiring soon. He has also has a new ability available (Shout), so be sure to learn that. You'll note that Squire does not appear as a Mastered job even if you learn all the abilities -- that's because Ramza is missing the Ultima magick. If you managed to have Luso learn Ultima back on the roof, you can now have him cast it on Ramza in any battle to teach it to Ramza. If not, you'll have a chance for both characters to learn Ultima later on. Also, continue working towards learning Shirahadori for as many characters as possible and raising their Bravery. Its defensive value can't be understated. Don't forget to change back to your normal jobs and abilities if you switch them for the fights in Riovanes Castle. ---EQUIPMENT UPGRADES--- While you're still at Riovanes, you can do a bit of equipment upgrading. There are new swords, shields, and armor available. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Spellbinder Ninjabl 16000 TrCity Atk: 13, 5% Parry, Inflicts: Disable Muramasa Katana 15000 TrCity Atk: 14, 15% Parry Gaia Gear Clothes 10000 TrCity/City HP +85, MP +10, Absorbs: Earth, Boosts: Earth Yagyu Darkrood Star 1000 TrCity/City Atk: 10 Icebrand Sword 14000 Castle Atk: 13, 10% Parry, ice elemental, Spell Effect: Blizzaga Platinum Shield Shield 16000 Castle Ph.Evade: 37%, Mg.Evade: 10% Carabineer Mail Armor 13000 Castle HP +100 Angel Ring Ring 20000 Any Immune: KO, Blind; Start: Reraise -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you visit Dorter, you can also buy new a ninja blade, katana, clothes (Gaia Gear) and the Yagyu Darkrood shuriken. Pick up weapons you might need for your current jobs. And if you're using the Throw command, stock up on Darkroods too. You can also now buy the handy Angel Ring accessory. It starts you off in each battle with Reraise status. This Reraise only works once per battle (unlike some other accessories you'll get later), but it's still useful! ---ERRANDS--- There are also a number of errands you can take in the various towns, but many of them aren't worth the time they take (and you sometimes LOSE money on them), so it's probably not worth the bother. ---RANDOM BATTLES & SPECIAL BATTLES--- Now that you're in Chapter IV, a much wider variety of monsters will appear in random battles, even at locations you've already visited. This makes random battles tougher, but is good news for poaching! On rare occasions, you can also get into "special" random battles against unique enemy parties. Although these these special battles don't have any functional significance, they can be a fun extra challenge and often let you recruit/Poach rare monsters. Check the Random Battles section for a list of these special battles. ---SIDE QUESTS--- Also at this point, you can start accessing the game's side quests. First, assuming you still have Mustadio, you can head down to Goug to start the Gollund Colliery quest, which will net you two good new characters (Beowulf and Construct 8) as well as one OK one (Reis the Holy Dragon). This quest is covered in the Gollund Colliery section below -- press Ctrl+F and enter 00col to jump there. Second, you can also access the event to earn the extremely valuable Tynar Rouge accessory ... that is, IF you still have Mustadio, Agrias, Alicia, and Lavian on your team. This event occurs on 1 Cancer, which follows the month of Gemini, which follows Taurus. So, if you're in Gemini or Taurus, keep your head up about that. See the Agrias's Birthday section below for the full scoop on how to complete that mission. Finally, there's a new Rendezvous Mode mission available, Shades of the Past. This one is pretty easy if you have a good physical defense. If your level is sufficiently high, you may start winning rare items from Rendezvous Mode! If you don't complete these sidequests now, don't worry--they all have no expiration date and you can always complete them later. ---NEW MAP ROUTES--- You'll notice that a couple new routes have opened up from Riovanes: a shortcut back towards Eagrose Castle, and another one down towards Dorter leading through the new Mount Bervenia location. You'll need to visit Mount Bervenia later if you're doing the Cloud Subquest, but there's not much to see there now. ---Extra Battlefield: Mount Bervenia-------------------------------------------- MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Basalt Tremor 58% Lava Magma Surge 37% Obstructed -- 5% A word (or several :P) about the "CANNOT BE OBTAINED" treasure: Due to what I'm assuming is a goof, there is no way to actually get this treasure tile. In order to pick it up, your Treasure Hunter would have to stop on top of a lava-filled tile. But the only abilities that actually let you STOP on top of lava are Lavawalking and Levitate -- and neither of those can be equipped at the same time as Treasure Hunter! Float magick or equipment like the Winged Boots DO NOT allow you to get this treasure. That's because they only let you move through lava on the way to another tile, and never allow you to STOP on lava. The good news? According to the game programming, the tile is just another X-Potion or Flameburst Bomb, so you're not missing anything. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Basalt POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 9 (height: 18, Basalt) -Materia Blade- Death Trap Left: 4, Up: 1 (height: 3, Basalt) X-Potion Flameburst Bomb Sten Needle Left: 6, Up: 10 (height: 3, Basalt) X-Potion Flameburst Bomb Death Trap Left: 5, Up: 11 (height: 0, Lava) -CANNOT BE OBTAINED- Degenerator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instead, you'll want to head towards Zeltennia, where Ramza hopes to meet up with Delita to discuss the Church's plot. Go up to the pass near Lesalia. ---Battle 35: Dugeura Pass------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Dragoon (lv 32, male) Dragoon (lv 31, male) Knight (lv 33, male) Black Mage (lv 31, male) Black Mage (lv 29, male) Archer (lv 30, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 49% Stone Outcropping Tremor 45% Obstructed -- 6% --STRATEGY-- This is a routine battle against the Order of the Southern Sky, with nothing you haven't seen before. Send one or two characters up to the top of the pass while your other guys fight the main group of enemies. The Black Mages are probably the most dangerous enemies here since their spells can do a lot of damage. Hit them with Disable, Silence, or Atheist, or just move quickly across the battlefield to take them out. BATTLE TROPHIES: 3000 gil, Diamond Armor --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 0 (height: 6, Grassland) Ether Diamond Sword none Left: 1, Up: 5 (height: 0.5, Grassl.) Remedy Wizard's Rod none Left: 7, Up: 6 (height: 12.5, Grassl.) Maiden's Kiss Golden Staff none Left: 0, Up: 9 (height: 2, Grassland) Phoenix Down Windslash Bow none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before you continue on into the Free City of Bervenia, equip the Chemist's Safeguard ability on everybody who has it. Archer's Bane or Shirahadori, Jump, and Ignore Elevation or Teleport are also helpful. ---Battle 36: Bervenia---------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Meliadoul (lv 35 Divine Knight) Ninja (lv 31, female) Summoner (lv 32, female) Summoner (lv 32, female) Archer (lv 32, female) Archer (lv 31, female) BOSS: Meliadoul [Capricorn] - lv 35 Divine Knight - Bravery 67, Faith 68 Equipment: Defender, Platinum Shield, Platinum Helm, Carabineer Mail, Chantage Abilities: Unyielding Blade, random action ability, random Squire abilities VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce Meliadoul to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 45% Flagstone Contortion 26% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 22% Soil Sinkhole 5% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- In Bervenia, you'll encounter -- and fight -- Isilud's sister Meliadoul, accompanied by some Summoners and Archers. Placing your slower characters in the first squad is a good idea as they start closer to the bulk of the battle. The second squad will immediately be attacked by an enemy Ninja. So, deploy a reasonably strong fighter in the front line of the second squad to quickly KO her. (Again, you could also use Sticky Fingers to guard against the Ninja's initial Throw attack, but it's not really worth a Reaction Ability slot as there's only a single Ninja and she can be defeated quickly.) Ignore Elevation and Teleport will help you quickly climb the steep walls. The Dragoon's Jump attack is also good (if sufficiently upgraded), since it will let you attack enemies at a higher level. Since there are enemy Archers at the very top raining arrows down on you, Archer's Bane/Shirahadori and shields/cloaks may be helpful. While it's tempting to rush the enemies here, you don't want to scale the city TOO quickly, or you may get surrounded and cut off from your healing. Additionally, if you don't go up too fast, you can probably lure Meliadoul down into the town area. This is beneficial for two reasons: it leaves you clear to jump up and KO the Summoners and Archers without Meliadoul attacking you, and isolating Meliadoul makes it easier to attack (and steal from) her. It's probably a good idea to attack the Summoners first, since their spells can do a lot of damage. Be careful about taking out the Summoner on the left side of the map, though. The crate there is needed for characters with low Jump to climb up the city ramparts. If you KO the Summoner while she's standing on the box, it can obstruct the route up and make it slow going for some characters. Meliadoul uses Crush skills that will shatter your equipment and do quite a bit of damage. Safeguard is invaluable here. Not only does it keep your gear from being broken (especially important if you've got rare items you don't want to lose), it renders you immune to the HP-damaging part of the skills as well! So, equip this ability on as many character as possible. Meliadoul also has the Defender knight's sword and Chantage, an accessory that gives her a permanent Regen and Reraise. While you don't have to worry about the Reraise, as KOing Meliadoul will end the battle, this is a GREAT accessory to steal. The Defender is nice too. To steal from her, first try increasing your success rate by raising your Speed (e.g. with Tailwind). Lowering Meliadoul's Speed does not increase your success rate, though it *does* reduce the number of turns she gets while you're trying to steal from her. The support abilities Concentration or Brawler will also improve your chance of stealing; Brawler helps you steal better even if you're not fighting with your fists. Targeting her from the side or behind or using Arm Shot to Disable her also works, although both of these are redundant with Concentration as they simply eliminate her chance of evading. Putting Meliadoul to Sleep with Mimic Darlavon (Orator), Repose (Mystic), or Sleep (Beowulf; only if you already recruited him from the sidequests) will also improve your chances to steal, as will using Trepidation or Beowulf's Chicken magick to turn her into a Chicken. Finally, since Meliadoul is a Capricorn, you'll have better luck stealing with a Taurus, Virgo, or male Cancer, and poorer chances stealing with an Aries, Libra, or female Cancer. It may take a lot of stealing attempts before you succeed, so if you're serious about stealing, wipe out the other enemies first. If you're planning on stealing both the Defender and Chantage, swipe the Defender first as this reduces her attack power quite a bit. Like other enemy bosses, she can still use use swordskills even if you steal the Defender. They won't do much damage, but they can still break your equipment if you don't have Safeguard! You will have other opportunities to get these items, so you don't *have* to steal them here, but they're very useful. The Chantage is worth the effort! If you don't care to steal, or once you've gotten the goods, you can just rush Meliadoul. Spread your characters out to avoid taking too much damage from the summon spells. BATTLE TROPHIES: Jade Armlet, Remedy x2 --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 7, Chimney) Ether Partisan none Left: 8, Up: 0 (height: 9, Coffer) Potion Bloodstring Harp none Left: 7, Up: 5 (height: 13, Chimney) Hi-Potion Papyrus Codex none Left: 10, Up: 9 (height: 5, Flagstone) Remedy Gokuu Pole none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---BATTLE AFTERMATH--- When you win the battle against Meliadoul, she'll teleport away and you'll be able to visit the shops in town. The Outfitter doesn't have anything new. But, if you were able to steal the Defender and/or Chantage, equip them. Both are good items: > The Defender is the first knight sword you will have come across, which can only be used by a select few jobs: Knights, Dark Knights, and some of the special jobs. It has a high attack power and a great block rate when used with Weapon Guard. > The Chantage is one of the best accessories in the game, as it gives you a PERMANENT Reraise that allows a character to revive over and over as long as at least one other ally is standing. This also means you don't really have to bother with too many defensive abilities on the character and can configure them for offense instead. ---BALTHIER QUEST--- Also, now that you've completed the battle at Bervenia, you can begin the subquest to recruit Balthier. It requires trekking back down to Gollund and later to Dorter, so you can either do it now or just wait until you pass through that way a few battles later. For the full scoop on the Balthier quest, see the Recruiting Balthier section -- press Ctrl+F and enter 00balt to jump down there. ---CONTINUING THE STORY--- When you first leave Bervenia, there will be another intermission with Delita and Ovelia. Move on to Finnath Creek for another battle. ---Battle 37: Finnath Creek----------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Black Chocobo* OR Chocobo* Red Chocobo OR Chocobo* Red Chocobo OR Chocobo* Red Chocobo OR Chocobo* Red Chocobo OR Chocobo* Pig* OR Chocobo* * The levels of these enemies depends on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Day, rainstorm (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33, fire dmg -25%, lightning dmg +25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 17 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 49% River Torrent 31% Gravel Contortion 9% Soil Sinkhole 8% Obstructed -- 2% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- When deploying characters, don't put anybody on the solitary square in the second squad; it's in the middle of the water. On this level, you'll face a random assortment of chocobos and possibly a Pig. You'll probably want to bring an Orator because if the Pig shows up, it's definitely worth recruiting. Although it's no good in a battle, you can use it to breed the various pig-class monsters, all of which can be poached for great items. Combat-wise, this battle can be annoying because the regular yellow Chocobos will keep using Choco Cure to heal themselves. One strategy is to just use attacks that will defeat the Chocobos outright by turning them to stone or instantly KOing them -- then it doesn't matter how much HP they have! If you have Beowulf, his Break attack works great; you could also use the Black Mage's Death or the Mystic's Induration. Agrias's Northswain's Strike occasionally does an instant KO too, but fairly infrequently. Alternately (or in addition), use the Mystic's Corruption magick or Beowulf's Zombie to turn the yellow Chocobos undead. An undead Chocobo won't use Choco Cure on itself or any other units (since it would cause *damage* to itself!). If you don't have any these abilities, the best strategy is to concentrate on one Chocobo at a time. Since the Red Chocobos will bombard you with Choco Meteor for fairly big damage, you'll probably want to kill them first. Red Chocobos also make good targets for poaching; you may receive a Barette from them. As annoying as the Choco Cures can be, this level still shouldn't be too difficult. If you're having difficulty navigating the watery terrain, the Ninja ability Waterwalking, the Feather Boots, and the Time Mage ability Levitate will let you move on the surface of the water, and the Samurai's Swim lets you act in deep water. If the battle is going in your favor, you may want to stop to snag the Pantherskin Bag from one of the treasure tiles. It's next to one of the trees on the far side of the map; see below for the exact coordinates. Your odds of getting the Pantherskin Bag from the tile increase the LOWER your Bravery. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 14, Up: 3 (height: 7.5, Grassl.) Potion Black Cowl none Left: 5, Up: 1 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Maiden's Kiss Pantherskin Bag none Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Hi-Potion Power Garb none Left: 1, Up: 2 (height: 3, Grassland) Phoenix Down Diamond Shield none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you picked up the Pantherskin Bag, you can now do one of two things with it. You can sell it for 26,000 gil, which is nice! Or, you can equip the bag on a female character. It does random damage, which means it's not too good as a weapon, but it does give you a permanent Regen status. This could be useful on a character who doesn't do too much fighting, like a Chemist. After crossing the creek, you can finally get to Zeltennia Castle. Ramza will go to the church, where he'll meet Delita again. In an FMV scene, Delita explains more of the church's plan. Zalmour then shows up, and it's fight time. (Did you really think you could go somewhere without one?) ---Battle 38: Outlying Church--------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Delita [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Zalmour (lv 35 Celebrant) Knight (lv 33, male) Knight (lv 33, male) Knight (lv 32, male) Mystic (lv 33, male) Mystic (lv 32, male) GUEST: Delita [Sagittarius] - Holy Knight, lv. based on party's - Bravery 75, Faith 50 Equipment : Runeblade, Platinum Shield, Circlet, Carabineer Mail, Bracer Abilities : Holy Sword, other abilities random Immune : Chicken, Toad, Charm, and Doom BOSS: Zalmour [Sagittarius] - lv 35 Celebrant - Bravery 54, Faith 78 Equipment : Wizard's Rod, Celebrant's Miter, White Robe, Elven Cloak Abilities : Priest Magicks, random action ability, random Squire abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, and Slow VICTORY CONDITION: KO Zalmour LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 37% Roof Wind Blast 28% Grassland Tanglevine 26% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 5% Obstructed -- 4% --STRATEGY-- Delita teams up with Ramza as a guest in this battle, and his Holy Sword techniques are even stronger than Agrias's. Even without Delita, though, this would be a pretty easy fight. Zalmour is up on top of the bell tower, but the platform where he's standing is almost directly overhead where you start. This means you can target him with offensive magick and sword techniques without needing to move, and his Knights can do nothing to stop you. If you have Ignore Elevation, Teleport, Fly, or a Black Chocobo, you can also jump up to Zalmour's platform and attack him directly. (If you position your characters towards the right side of the character deployment screen, you'll start even closer to Zalmour.) Zalmour does like to use Curaga to heal himself and his followers. You can stop this by putting Silence on him from the ground where you start; use the Mystic's Quiescence or Beowulf's Silence. Another trick -- for free healing -- is to stand next to the enemies on whom Zalmour is going to cast Curaga. If you don't have any abilities that will let you attack Zalmour from the ground, you'll have to move around to the side of the church and climb up that way. Even taking this route, though, this is an easy battle. Delita can take out the enemy Knights quickly with his sword techniques. Just be sure not to stand between Delita and the enemies or YOU'LL get hit too when he uses Divine Ruination! A Jump attack with high vertical range can be useful for attacking enemies on higher levels, but it's far from critical--Delita can pretty much kill all the enemies on his own! As soon as you KO Zalmour, the battle ends, so you can probably finish this one off really quickly. Zalmour doesn't have anything worth stealing, either, so just thrash him and move on. BATTLE TROPHIES: Angel Ring --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 5, Up: 4 (height: 2, Flagstone) Remedy Magick Ring none Left: 2, Up: 4 (height: 7, Flagstone) Phoenix Down Assassin's Dagger none Left: 6, Up: 8 (height: 9, Wooden Fl.) Ether White Robe none Left: 5, Up: 5 (height: 19, Wooden F.) Maiden's Kiss Japa Mala none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You'll pick up an Angel Ring in spoils from the battle. As noted above, the Reraise from the Angel Ring only works ONCE per battle, unlike the Chantage. It's not quite as abusive an accessory as the Chantage, but it's still useful ;) After the battle, you'll meet with Valmafra, then Delita will leave (bummer). Strangely, the shops *still* don't have anything new. But restock your items; you'll need lots of X-Potions. You may also want to grab a couple Ice Shields and Guardian Bracelets if you don't already have some in your inventory. Then go to the Beddha Sandwaste, south of Bervenia, where you'll encounter another Knight Templar, Barich, in a tough battle. ---Battle 39: Beddha Sandwaste-------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Barich (lv 35 Machinist) Knight (lv 33, male) Knight (lv 32, male) Black Mage (lv 32, male) Archer (lv 33, male) Archer (lv 32, male) BOSS: Barich [Sagittarius] - lv 35 Machinist - Bravery 64, Faith 62 Equipment : Glacial Gun, Lambent Hat, Luminous Robe, Nu Khai Armband Abilities*: Aimed Shot, random action ability, random Squire abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Immobilize * Barich's version of the Machinist job also includes Defense Boost, Arcane Defense, and Beast Tongue as innate abilities. VICTORY CONDITION: KO Barich LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Sand Sandstorm 49% Brick Wind Slash 37% Wooden Floor, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 11% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- You start this battle with all your characters poisoned, even if you equip accessories guarding against poison! Bringing somebody with Esuna [White Mage] or Purification [Monk] can be helpful to de-poison yourself quickly. Purification is especially effective since it activates immediately and has a good hit rate. You could also use the Lifefont movement ability, Chantage accessory, or Dragonheart reaction ability to offset the HP losses from the poison. Barich has all of Mustadio's abilities, which means he can easily Immobilize or Disable you. He also has a Glacial Gun, which shoots ice magicks at you. To protect against the former, equip Guardian Bracelets beforehand. (If you've recruited Balthier, you should also have a Thief's Cap, which gives you the same immunities.) Again, Esuna or Purification will clear up these status ailments during battle. The Remedy item does NOT remove Immobilize or Disable. As for the ice gun, you can guard against it by equipping Ice Shields or by using Shirahadori. But be warned, if you equip Ice Shields without also blocking Immobilize/Disable, Barich will exclusively use Arm Shot and Leg Shot, which is worse than the ice attacks. So if you don't have Guardian Bracelets, you may want to equip White Robes instead, which will reduce the damage from the Glacial Gun without blocking it entirely. (Or, just use Blade Grasp :) ) There's a Black Mage in the back casting powerful -ja magicks at you. If you're protected against Barich's attacks, this will actually be the most dangerous enemy here. Try to take him out first. Equipping Aegis Shields (if you're not using Ice Shields) and White Robes will help protect against his magicks. Or, use Magick Counter to give him back what you're getting. Since the battle ends when Barich is KOed, the best tactic is probably just to rush Barich after you've defeated the Black Mage. Barich often tends to retreat into the back of the battlefield, though, so throw an Immobilize of your own on him (e.g. with Leg Shot) as soon as you can to keep him in place. (Slow or Stop will also work.) Then pound on him; you have to reduce him all the way to 0 HP before the battle ends. You may also want to try stealing from Barich. This is your first chance to snag a Glacial Gun, which can't be bought in stores, though you'll find others later. Barich's Lambent Hat and Luminous Robe are also nice, but you'll be able to buy them shortly in stores. Stealing the Glacial Gun takes away his range attack, but he can still Immobilize and Disable you at close range with his punches. As with Meliadoul, pumping up your Speed or equipping Martial Arts and Concentration will improve your stealing success rate. And if you've already recruited Balthier, his Plunder abilities are more effective than a regular Steal. Unfortunately, Barich is immune to the status conditions that would improve your odds of stealing from him. This is one the last difficult encounters of the game, as pretty soon you... well, you'll see. BATTLE TROPHIES: 5000 gil --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Sand POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 1, Sand) Hi-Potion Yagyu Darkrood none Left: 3, Up: 8 (height: 1, Sand) Hi-Potion Yagyu Darkrood none Left: 7, Up: 3 (height: 1, Sand) Hi-Potion Yagyu Darkrood none Left: 8, Up: 8 (height: 3, Sand) Hi-Potion Yagyu Darkrood none (Yes, these are the same items on all 4 tiles!) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After beating Barich (it may well take you a few tries), go on to Fort Besselat. You'll have a choice as to whether to attack the south or north wall. Each is a different battle. I find that the south wall is easier, especially if you don't have characters with a good Jump rating. ---Battle 40: Fort Besselat - South Wall---------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Ninja (lv 34, male) Thief (lv 33, male) Knight (lv 35, male) Knight (lv 34, male) Knight (lv 33, male) Archer (lv 34, male) Archer (lv 33, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Brick Wind Slash 74% Wasteland Sinkhole 14% Grassland Tanglevine 9% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% --STRATEGY-- Leave behind your magick-users. Unless they have Equip Heavy Armor or some good defensive abilities, they'll get killed easily. Split up your characters and attack the side walls on both sides of the map. Get up on top as soon as you can; it's very advantageous position. This works especially well if you've got archers or gunners -- station them atop the walls, don't move (so their CT gauge fills faster), and just shoot at the enemies. Watch out for the Thief, who may use Steal Heart on female characters -- bringing a male-heavy party here may be advantageous. Don't worry about the Knights initially. You should be able to get up on top of the walls before the Knights can reach you, and once you're up there, you've got a definite height advantage in taking them out. BATTLE TROPHIES: Circlet --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 10, Brick POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 10, Coffer) Hi-Ether Carabineer Mail none Left: 4, Up: 2 (height: 7, Coffer) Hi-Potion Platinum Shield none Left: 7, Up: 4 (height: 2, Wasteland) X-Potion Gold Hairpin none Left: 11, Up: 1 (height: 10, Coffer) Phoenix Down Yagyu Darkrood none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---Battle 40: Fort Besselat - North Wall---------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Dragoon (lv 35, male) Dragoon (lv 34, male) Monk (lv 35, male) Archer (lv 36, male) Archer (lv 34, male) Summoner (lv 35, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 11 Brick Wind Slash 42% Grassland Tanglevine 40% Wasteland Sinkhole 17% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 1% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- There are high walls on this level, which can make it tricky to navigate if you don't have characters with a high Jump statistic. Characters who can't jump directly over the first wall will have to cross one-by-one using the "box" in front of it. This can be time-consuming, especially when you're suffering the summons and arrows of the enemy forces. (Archer's Bane and Shirahadori are, of course, helpful in defending against the latter.) In particular, there's a Summoner tucked away behind the first wall who will bombard you with some nasty summons (like Leviathan). Get a character over the initial wall ASAP to take him out. Even if you can just weaken the Summoner to critical HP, he'll probably start casting Faerie to heal himself instead of attacking you. You can also try Arithmeticks as a way of attacking enemies on the far side of the wall. A lone Monk starts out on the ground near you. If you can get your party over the wall quickly, you can postpone having to deal with him. Otherwise, you'll have to KO him so he's not attacking your back. Or, just throw an Immobilize on him so he can't catch up with you. Once the Summoner is defeated, you can split up your characters. Have the ones who can easily scale heights climb up the tower to take out the Archers, while the others finish up the Dragoons on the ground. BATTLE TROPHIES: Carabineer Mail --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 0 (height: 1, Grassland) X-Potion Kiku-ichimonji none Left: 9, Up: 3 (height: 6, Coffer) Phoenix Down Air Knife none Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 16, Brick) Hi-Potion Runeblade none Left: 12,Up: 10 (height: 8, Brick) Remedy Angel Ring none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whichever way you go, you'll end up at the floodgate. Save your game in a different slot, then continue. There's a second battle at the sluice. ---Battle 41: Fort Besselat Sluice---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Black Mage (lv 39, male) Black Mage (lv 35, male) Knight (lv 36, male) Knight (lv 36, male) Knight (lv 35, male) Knight (lv 35, male) Archer (lv 37, male) Archer (lv 36, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 28% Lake, River Torrent 28% Flagstone Contortion 16% Obstructed -- 13% Sand Sandstorm 9% Bridge, Iron Plate Wind Slash 3% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- Split up your characters and go up the paths. Because the enemies have such a height advantage, guns are not so good here; it's hard to get a clear shot. Jump attacks, on the other hand, are quite useful. A fun trick to do is stand on the steps or below the dam wall and use Jump attacks on the stationary Knights. As long as none of your other characters gets close to them, the Knights won't move and will just sit there while you Jump on them. The Black Mages have some strong magicks, though, so you may want to target them first instead. Or, equip gear beforehand that will protect you from magick, like Aegis Shields. Since two of the Knights are pretty stationary, this is a good chance to let the other KOed enemies decay into crystals/chests for loot. This also earns you additional kills, needed if you're trying to unlock the Dark Knight job. You could even bring a weaker character or two and attack and heal each other to build up Exp or JP, if you want (though it's hardly necessary). Unlike the PSone version, you don't need to do anything with any switches to clear this level. Just take out all the enemies and the battle ends. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Flagstone POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 4 (height: 1, Sand) Hi-Ether Crystal Shield none Left: 5, Up: 7 (height: 2, Wooden Fl.) Remedy Crystal Helm none Left: 8, Up: 5 (height: 11, Flagstone) Phoenix Down Lambent Hat none Left: 11, Up: 0 (height: 8.5, Grassl.) Hi-Potion Crystal Mail none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---ORLANDEAU--- After Ramza blows up the sluice, he, Orran, and Valmafra will rescue Orlandeau. Orran goes back to Zeltennia to guard Ovelia, but Orlandeau THEN JOINS YOU! YAHOO!! If you just heard a giant sucking sound, it was all the challenge going down to Mexico (er, unless you live in Mexico, then it all went to Zimbabwe). Orlandeau is ridiculously powerful, and once you have him, hardly anyone in the game has a chance against you. He has all of Agrias's, Gaffgarion's, and Meliadoul's sword techniques, plus a full set of Crystal equipment and the Excalibur, the latter of which gives him a permanent Haste. He can also use every type of sword (katana, knight's sword, etc.). To put it simply, he is hell on wheels. ALLY: Orlandeau [Scorpio] - Sword Saint, lv. based on party's - Bravery 77, Faith 65 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Bracer Abilities : Swordplay, other abilities random ---NEW ROUTES & MISSION--- A handy new path now opens up between Fort Besselat and Zeirchele Falls. If you didn't already recruit Balthier, now is a great time to trek back to either Gollund or Gariland to begin that quest. (Again, see the Recruiting Balthier section below for the full scoop.) A new Rendezvous Mode mission also becomes available, The Knights Templar. ---THE ROAD TO LIMBERRY--- While Ramza frees T.G. Cid, Delita advances his power. A cutscene pops up instructing you to go to Limberry. The road to Limberry starts at Zeltennia. Make your way back to Zeltennia, then continue south to the new town, Sal Ghidos. !!! CAUTION !!! At your next stop, the Trade City of Sal Ghidos, you'll run into what is probably a familiar face ... it's Aerith! Choose the SECOND option to buy a flower from her. You'll need to buy the flower if you want to complete all the subquests, and this is your ONLY chance to do it. Be careful not to speed through the text and choose the first option by mistake! If you don't buy the flower, you will NOT be able to complete the subquests or recruit all the optional characters! !!! CAUTION !!! After meeting with Aerith at Sal Ghidos, head into town (yup, there's no fight). ---FINAL SHOPPING SPREE--- Completing Fort Besselat will have added more new items to the shop. Fortunately, Zeltennia is a Castle right next to a Trade City, which means that you get the full selection of item availability! ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Kiku-ichimonji Katana 22000 TrCity Atk: 15, 15% Parry Eight-fluted Pole Pole 20000 TrCity/City Atk: 12, 20% Parry, removes (from target): Blind, Silence, Oil, Toad, Poison, Slow, Stop, Immobilize, Disable Hydrascale Bag Bag 58000 TrCity/City Atk: 14, 0% Parry, Speed+1 Lambent Hat Hat 16000 TrCity/City HP +88, MP +15, Mag.Atk+1, Speed+1 Black Garb Clothes 12000 TrCity/City HP +100, Immune: Stop Luminous Robe Robe 30000 TrCity/City HP +75, MP +50 Air Knife Knife 8000 Castle/City Atk: 10, 5% Parry, Wind elemental Runeblade Sword 20000 Castle Atk: 14, 15% Parry, Magick Atk+2 Obelisk Polearm 10000 Castle Atk: 12, 10% Parry Crystal Shield Shield 21000 Castle Ph.Evade: 40%, Mg.Evade: 15% Crystal Helm Helm 14000 Castle HP +120 Crystal Mail Armor 19000 Castle HP +110 Mirror Mail Armor 18000 Castle HP +130, Always: Reflect Gastrophetes Crossbw 20000 Castle/Goug Atk: 10, 5% Parry Red Shoes Shoes 10000 Any Magick Atk +1, Move +1 Featherweave Cl. Cloak 20000 Any Ph.Evade: 40%, Mg.Evade: 30% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lots of new weapons are available. At Zeltennia, you'll also find TWO new types of armor: the Crystal Mail and the Mirror Mail. The Crystal Mail is just a regular set of armor. The Mirror Mail gives the character a permanent Reflect status -- it's the same as a Reflect Ring, but it doesn't take up your accessory slot :) . The Reflect status will deflect enemy spells, but it also blocks your own cure spells or buffs. But, if you only use Items and Draw Out to heal, this isn't so much of a problem and the Reflect effect can be useful! The Featherweave Cloak is also the best cloak available as far as evade rates go. That's a good buy. Less useful is the Luminous Robe available at Sal Ghidos; it doesn't have any special bonuses. For your offensive magick users, you may prefer to keep the Black Robe for its offensive bonuses. Aside from one hat that becomes available after Limberry, the gear you can buy at Sal Ghidos and Zeltennia is the last round of equipment upgrades you'll find at the Outfitter. There's better equipment out there, of course, but you have to steal or find it; you can't buy it. Since there isn't anything better to save your money for, you can go ahead and splurge. Before you leave town, you'll want to have a good selection of equipment to protect yourself against the status conditions you'll face at Limberry. Jujitsu Gis and Jade Armlets are especially helpful, as they protect against the KO and Stop conditions that Celia and Lettie throw at you, and Protect Rings will defend against Sleep and Doom. You may also want to pick up a Nu Khai Armband or two for male characters; these protect against Charm. ---NEW QUESTS--- Assuming you bought Aerith's flower, you can now complete the Nelveska Temple quest (covered below in the subquests section), though this also requires you to have finished the Gollund Colliery quest first. The Nelveska Temple nets you one character upgrade, as well as the chance to acquire some rare items via the Treasure Hunter ability. Completing the Nelveska Temple in turn opens the Recruiting Cloud quest, which lets you recruit Cloud from Final Fantasy VII into your party. If you accidentally do NOT buy the flower, however, you'll miss out on your chance to complete these quests. There are also a couple of new errands. Since Zeltennia and Sal Ghidos are right next to each other, you can easily clear the errands in either town (as well as in Bervenia) just by walking back and forth between them. This may help you out if you need to earn a little cash to buy stuff--though, in many cases, the errands are just as likely to lose you money as to earn you it. If you need more still money, you could complete the next two story battles (en route to Limberry), then come back to Sal Ghidos to shop with the bonus coin you received. ---MOUNT GERMINAS--- Pop on down to Mount Germinas, where you'll have a run-in with some bandits. ---Battle 42: Mount Germinas---------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Ninja (lv 38, male) Thief (lv 37, male) Thief (lv 36, male) Archer (lv 37, male) Archer (lv 36, male) Archer (lv 35, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 38% Stone Outcropping Tremor 33% Soil Sinkhole 15% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 13% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- This may be the first time you get to use your new buddy Orlandeau. For a good taste of his power, deploy him in squad 1. Move him up the mountain as far as he can and then use Shadowblade on the Ninja leader. Bang, he's dead. You almost have to feel sorry for the poor bandits... almost. Heh, heh. With Shadowblade, you can KO a fully healthy bad guy each turn just with Orlandeau and also refill Orlandeau's own HP by 270 or so. There are a pair of Thieves in this battle, so either take them out quickly or equip Safeguard to keep them from nabbing your stuff. You don't want to lose any rare items to them! The Archer that starts in the back corner is carrying an Artemis Bow, a strong bow, which you might want to steal. But if you don't, there's plenty more (in fact, an infinite supply) that you can win later. If you DO want to steal the bow, a good strategy for it is to kill off all the other enemies and then surround the Archers with your characters, blocking him from moving. Since bows can't be used against adjacent tiles, he can't attack you, and you can just stand there and attempt steals 'til you get the bow. This map also contains the Invisibility Cloak, a cloak that (as you might expect) automatically makes you Invisible. To get the cloak, equip the Treasure Hunter ability and move to the very top of the peak. The top of the peak forms sort of an "L" shape; the tile holding the Cloak is the one between the two "legs" of the L: ___ / \ / X \ --/ \-- It's the same tile where the enemy Ninja started. When you land on this tile, you'll receive either an Ether or the Cloak; your chance of getting the Cloak goes up the lower your Bravery. You only get to pick up an item from this tile once, so if you get the Ether, you can no longer get the Cloak, ever; you'll have to reset the game and try again. This is the only Invisibility Cloak available in the single-player quest, though you can easily win more in Rendezvous Mode. You can also pick up the cloak in any random battles at this location, though, so it's by no means necessary to acquire it during the story battle. BATTLE TROPHIES: 7700 gil, Winged Boots, Germinas Boots --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 6 (height: 1, Grassland) Hi-Potion Platinum Sword none Left: 5, Up: 5 (height: 15, Stone Out.)Ether Invisib. Cloak none Left: 7, Up: 2 (height: 8, Grassland) Remedy Morning Star none Left: 8, Up: 6 (height: 6, Wooden Fl.) Potion Ninja Longblade none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you didn't claim the Invisibility Cloak in the initial battle, you may want to stop and pick it up from a random battle. Also, when entering Mount Germinas from the north, you may sometimes get into one of the "special" random battles. The special random battle here pits you against Chemists and Orators, who will often have a variety of rare guns you can steal. The battle occurs at fairly low odds, though, and you can get the guns elsewhere, so it's probably not going out of your way for right now. Continue on from Mount Germinas to Lake Poescas. ---Battle 43: Lake Poescas------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Mystic (lv 38, male, undead) Summoner (lv 36, female, undead) Archer (lv 37, male, undead) Archer (lv 37, male, undead) Revenant* Revenant* * The Revenants' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33 MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 11 Stone Outcropping Tremor 46% Salt Flat, Sand Sandstorm 33% Brick, Bridge Wind Slash 15% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 5% --STRATEGY-- This is another map where all your opponents are undead. As in the Yuguewood, the undead humans have better stats than regular humans. In spite of this, this battle is really easy. Start off Mustadio and/or Balthier's Seal Evil ability and you can gun down each of the Revenants in one shot. (Poaching or recruiting the Revenants is another way to deal with them that keeps them from reviving.) Since the human enemies are also undead, Seal Evil works on them too. Magick and the Dragoon's Jump will be helpful for attacking the enemies on the wooden platform from below. Or, you can just run up and start hitting them with Phoenix Downs, which will KO them with 100% certainty. Once you get on top of the platform, watch out for the enemy's Counter Tackles if you plan on using any physical attacks. They can knock your characters off the platform, which will put you back out of range AND do a fair amount of damage. Stay away from the edge and you should be fine. Or, just stick to using Phoenix Down. (You can check which enemy units do and don't have Counter Tackle by viewing their status screens.) The only thing tricky about this level is that the undead humans will keep coming back to life if you don't finish off the rest of the enemy party in time--but, again, Seal Evil will prevent this. Entice will *not* work since, like other undead human opponents, these guys are immune to Traitor status. The archers are likely to have Artemis Bows if you're in the mood for a little stealing. BATTLE TROPHIES: Phoenix Down x2 --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Salt Flat POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 5, Up: 6 (height: 1, Wooden Fl.) Potion Circlet none Left: 13, Up: 3 (height: 4, Sand) Maiden's Kiss Cashmere none Left: 12, Up: 5 (height: 8, Sand) Phoenix Down Platinum Helm none Left: 13, Up: 8 (height: 8, Sand) Hi-Potion Platinum Armor none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You then see a scene with Dycedarg, after which you can go to Limberry Castle. If you didn't have a chance to buy some Jade Armlets beforehand, you may want to head back to Sal Ghidos now to pick up those. There's a sequence of four battles at Limberry Castle; as usual, you'll want to save in a different slot between them, so that you don't lock yourself in. The first battle is at the gate (isn't it always?). ---Battle 44: Limberry Castle Gate---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Celia (lv 38 Assassin) Lettie (lv 37 Assassin) Reaver* Reaver* Reaver* Reaver* * The Reavers' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. BOSS: Celia [Virgo] - lv 38 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Kiku-ichimonji x2, Lambent Hat, Black Garb, random accessory Abilities : Subdual Arts, random or no action ability, random Squire abilities, Move +1 Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad BOSS: Lettie [Sagittarius] - lv 37 Assassin - Bravery 65, 70 Equipment : Spellbinder x2, Gold Hairpin, Black Garb, random accessory Abilities : Subdual Arts, random or no action ability, random Squire abilities, Move +1 Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce either Celia or Lettie to critical HP (< 20% of max) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 8 Flagstone Contortion 50% Grassland Tanglevine 41% Soil Sinkhole 5% Stairs, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% --STRATEGY-- This battle looks hard at first, but it's not. All you have to do is weaken Celia or Lettie to critical HP and the battle will immediately end. The Reavers will only use Bio spells, which don't do all that much damage, so your main threat is Celia and Lettie. Their Subdual Arts skills can hit you with a 100% KO or Stop, and they also have a high rate of inflicting Charm on male and monster targets. The Charm attack is the worst of these since it turns your characters actively against the rest of your team. Give your male characters Nu Khai Armbands to immunize them against Charm, or deploy only female characters (aside from Ramza). Pairing a Jujitsu Gi with a Jade Armlet will protect you against both KO and Stop; if you have Barettes or Ribbons, you can use those too. If you have Construct 8 on your roster, it's already immune to all these status changes and is quite useful here. Because this battle is fairly easy, it's your best chance to learn Ultima. You can learn this magick if Ramza is a Squire or if Luso is a Game Hunter and Celia or Lettie casts the magick on him. If Ramza is protected against KO and Stop (from equipping a Jujitsu Gi and a Jade Armlet), Celia is almost guaranteed to cast the magick on him on her first turn. Luso can also learn the magick, but it's probably easiest to just have Ramza learn it here and then later teach it to Luso by having Ramza cast it on him. Once you get Ultima, just have your main group gang up on Lettie to quickly end the battle. A few sword techniques and/or Construct 8's Dispose should do the trick. You can completely ignore the Reavers. Since this battle is so easy to end quickly, your best defense is a good offense. Even if one or two allies gets KOed, don't bother reviving them. (Since Ramza starts stranded from your main team, it's pretty likely that he will be KOed.) Just finish off Lettie and you'll be done in no time at all. BATTLE TROPHIES: Echo Herbs --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 7 (height: 10, Flagstone) Maiden's Kiss Hermes Shoes none Left: 6, Up: 2 (height: 2, Grassland) Ether Gaia Gear none Left: 10, Up: 7 (height: 7, Coffer) Phoenix Down Bracer none Left: 13, Up: 3 (height: 11, Flagstone) Remedy Black Robe none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After winning the gate battle, you'll see a story scene with Elmdore and Folmarv. Keep your status protection gear equipped for the next battle. If Ramza already learned Ultima, you can switch him back to his regular job now; otherwise, you'll have additional chances in the next two battles. ---Battle 45: Limberry Castle Keep---------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Elmdore (lv 41 Ark Knight) Celia (lv 39 Assassin) Lettie (lv 38 Assassin) BOSS: Elmdore [Gemini] - lv 41 Ark Knight - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Equipment : Masamune, Genji Shield, Genji Helm, Genji Armor, Genji Glove Abilities*: Sword Spirit, Vampire, Shirahadori, Brawler, Master Teleportation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Elmdore's Ark Knight job also includes Safeguard as an innate ability. ENEMY: Celia [Virgo] - lv 39 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Abilities : Subdual Arts, Throw, random Squire abilities, Move +1 Equipment : Kiku-ichimonji x2, Lambent Hat, Black Garb, random accessory Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad ENEMY: Lettie [Sagittarius] - lv 38 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Abilities : Subdual Arts, Throw, random Squire abilities, Move +1 Equipment : Spellbinder x2, Lambent Hat, Black Garb, random accessory Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad If Celia or Lettie is KOed, she will transform into an Ultima Demon: ENEMY: Celia [Virgo] - lv 40 Ultima Demon - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Abilities : Demon Magicks, Counter, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : Holy elemental attacks ENEMY: Lettie [Sagittarius] - lv 39 Ultima Demon - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Abilities : Demon Magicks, Counter, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : Holy elemental attacks VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce Elmdore to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone/Vampire WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 69% Carpet, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 18% Obstructed -- 12% --STRATEGY-- It's your team versus Elmdore, Celia, and Lettie, so if you're looking for revenge from the Riovanes Castle Roof, now's your chance. Celia and Lettie have the same abilities as before. As long as you're equipped with Jujitsu Gis and Jade Armlets (or other equipment that protects you against KO/Stop), they'll mostly just do Ultima, which isn't too bad. If you "KO" either of them, they will turn into Ultima Demons, which are stronger, so leave them be. Elmdore is even tougher than his underlings; he has an 100% working teleport to any square and does big damage to a wide area with his Muramasa Iaido. Worse, he has Shirahadori, which gives him a high block rate against a wide range of physical attacks, even guns. First, spread out your characters to try to minimize how much his Iaido can hurt your team. (While Construct 8 is immune to Faith-based magick, Iaido doesn't use Faith, so Muramasa *will* hurt your robot pal.) Then, attack Elmdore with things he *can't* dodge. Sword techniques are great, as is Balthier's Barrage and Construct 8's abilities. You can also use magick and Arithmeticks, or, in a pinch, a Dual Wielded attack, since he can only block one of the hits. Standard physical attacks are nearly useless. Also, whenever Celia or Lettie starts casting Ultima, have the targeted character stand next to Elmdore. (Check the Turn List in case you didn't catch who the target is.) This will cause the Ultima to spill over and hit Elmdore for a fair amount of damage (100-200 HP), a nice way of getting in some extra damage against him. If you didn't learn Ultima during the prior battle, you can also learn it here. You need only reduce Elmdore to critical HP to end the battle. Note: In the North American PSone release, you could steal all of Elmdore's powerful Genji equipment. This is no longer possible (you can't steal from him at all), so don't even try! BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 4, Flagstone - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 0, Flagstone) Ether Icebrand none Left: 4, Up: 3 (height: 0, Flagstone) Hi-Potion Spellbinder none Left: 0, Up: 9 (height: 4, Flagstone) Remedy Muramasa none Left: 10, Up: 0 (height: 6, Flagstone) Potion Vampire Cape none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After defeating Elmdore in the keep, you can return your equipment to normal as you won't have to fight Celia and Lettie any more. Next up is the courtyard, you'll have to square off against an old "friend." ---Battle 46: Limberry Castle Inner Court--------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Argath (lv 40 Deathknight) Ultima Demon (lv 35) Ultima Demon (lv 34) Ultima Demon (lv 33) Ultima Demon (lv 32) Ultima Demon (lv 31) BOSS: Argath [Virgo] - lv 40 Deathknight - Bravery 78, Faith 25 Equipment : Runeblade, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Mirror Mail, Diamond Bracelet Abilities*: Fell Sword, Arts of War, Critical: Recover HP, Safeguard, Ignore Elevation Immune : Berserk, Charm, and Stone * Argath's Deathknight job also includes Defense Boost as an innate ability. VICTORY CONDITION: KO Argath LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Brick Wind Slash 74% Wasteland Sinkhole 14% Grassland Tanglevine 9% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% --STRATEGY-- Argath himself can't do much damage, but his Ultima Demons can cast some really powerful magic. Especially since Argath takes a while to wear down, you'll need to take out the Demons first. Fortunately, they're pretty slow and don't have much HP, so chances are good you can take out one or two before they can even move. The large gap in the middle of the stage can make it hard to reach the Ultima Demons in the rear, so either bring characters with Teleport/Ignore Elevation or just use a variety of long-range attacks (guns, Arithmeticks, summons, Jump, Dispose, etc.) Just beware that Ultima Demons are immune to Holy-elemental attacks, so the Holy magick, Reis's Holy Breath, and the Holy Lance polearm won't work on them. If you're still missing the Ultima magick, you can also learn it by having the Ultima Demons cast it on Ramza or Luso in their base jobs. But, the Ultima Demons don't use it as frequently as Celia and Lettie, so it make take a while. You'll also need to make sure the Ultima Demons have at least 10 MP, or they won't be able to cast the magick. (Use Ethers or Chakra to restore their MP if they run low.) Once you've finished off all the demons, you can attack Argath. He comes equipped with Mirror Mail, which reflects most magick. (The -ja Black Magick spells, Ultima, Meteor, and summons all still work, though.) He also has Safeguard, so Orlandeau's Crush skills won't work against him, but other sword skills will. Fortunately, Argath's own attacks are quite weak. His constant use of Shadowblade keeps healing him, but as long as your whole team is attacking him, you'll be able to deal way more damage than he can recover. The really aggravating part is Argath's Critical: Recover HP reaction ability, which has a chance of completely restoring his HP when you reduce his HP to critical. And since he has a fairly high Bravery stat, it's likely to trigger! Fortunately, there's an easy way to stop this. Just having Mustadio or Balthier keep using Arm Shot on him until you put Disable on him. Beowulf's Disable also works ... but the Mystic Art Hesitation does *not*, since the Mirror Mail will reflect it. Being Disabled will prevent him from using his reaction ability (as well as from restoring his HP with Shadowblade), and you can easily pound him into oblivion before Disable wears off. If you can't Disable him, you can also reduce his Bravery using the Mystic's Intimidate or Beowulf's Chicken. (Again, you can't use Mystic Arts for this because Argath will reflect the magick.) Although this won't completely cancel Critical: Recover HP, it will reduce the odds of it activating. If neither of the above strategies is an option (i.e., you don't have any characters with those skills or didn't deploy them), your best bet is to reduce Argath's HP fairly low (to about 100 or so) but not yet put him in Critical status. Then, use one very strong attack against him to KO him without ever putting him in critical status. Orlandeau's sword techniques would work for this, or a -ja Black Magick or Arithmeticked magick (both of which will pierce through Argath's Reflect). BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEM-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 10, Brick POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 10, Brick) Potion Hi-Potion none Only one treasure on this map! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, you'll proceed down to the basement for the last battle in this sequence and your last encounter with Elmdore -- now in Lucavi form. ---Battle 47: Limberry Castle Undercroft---------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Meliadoul [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Zalera (lv 44 Death Seraph) Knight* (male, undead) Knight* (male, undead) Skeletal Fiend* Bonesnatch* Skeleton* * The levels of these enemies depends on the highest level on your own roster. GUEST: Meliadoul [Capricorn] - Divine Knight, lv. based on party's - Bravery 67, Faith 68 Equipment : Save the Queen, Aegis Shield, Circlet, Luminous Robe, Hermes Shoes Abilities : Unyielding Blade, other abilities random BOSS: Zalera [Gemini] - lv 44 Death Seraph - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 1145, MP: about 730 Abilities : Dread, Ja-Magicks, Fly, Swiftness, Beastmaster, Float, can't enter water Immune : All negative status except Blind and Slow VICTORY CONDITION: KO Zalera LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 6 Flagstone, Gravestone Contortion 76% Canal Torrent 16% Obstructed -- 4% Coffin Wind Slash 4% --STRATEGY-- Zalera is accompanied by three skeleton-type monsters and two undead Knights. The undead Knights have superior stats to regular Knights, but they also have a shorter move range. Deploy Mustadio and/or Balthier and use Seal Evil to quickly petrify the two Knights. The various skeletons are not really worth bothering with; Meliadoul is a guest here and will take them out for you. Just go after Zalera. Zalera's main attack is Nightmare, which inflicts Sleep and Doom on a small group of people. Equipping Protect Rings will guard against both of these. Zalera also likes to use Bind (causes Stop on a small group) and Flareja, a strong attack spell. One strategy here is to leave one character vulnerable to Sleep to sucker Zalera into casting Nightmare. If you then wake the character up (use Purification or a weak attack), Zalera will probably just keep casting Nightmare over and over. Construct 8 is also quite useful here since it is inherently immune to Stop, Sleep, and Faith-based magicks. Attack Zalera with Lich, Divine Ruination, Graviga, Shadowblade, and Beowulf's Drain. He has about 1145 HP. Optionally, you can try to grab the Hydrascale Bag from the treasure tile near Zalera. (See below for coordinates.) It can be sold for 29,000 gil. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 4, Flagstone - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 3, Up: 1 (height: 8, Gravestone) Hi-Ether Eight-fluted Pole none Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 8, Gravestone) X-Potion Obelisk none Left: 1, Up: 4 (height: 8, Gravestone) Hi-Potion Gastrophetes none Left: 10, Up: 5 (height: 3, Flagstone) Remedy Hydrascale Bag none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you defeat Elmdore for the last time, you'll collect two more Zodiac Stones--Elmdore's Gemini stone and Meliadoul's Sagittarius stone--and Meliadoul will offer to join you. ---MELIADOUL--- Although Meliadoul's not quite as powerful as Orlandeau (Orlandeau has all her sword techniques, plus more!), her sword techniques are still pretty good ... and, unlike in the PSone version, they work on monsters! Meliadoul comes equipped with the Save the Queen knight sword; if you don't plan on using her, give this sword to someone else as it's probably stronger than anything else you have save the Excalibur or Javelin II. ---AT LIMBERRY--- Limberry Castle is now a normal town, so you can go to the Tavern and Outfitter, although there's nothing new to buy at the Outfitter. When you try to leave, you'll see a long set of story scenes with Ovelia and then with Zalbaag. Now take a look at map. You'll note Eagrose Castle has turned red. It's time to hike all the way back there. ---DORVAULDAR MARSH--- A new wilderness location has opened up west of Limberry: Dorvauldar Marsh. ---Extra Battlefield: Dorvauldar Marsh------------------------------------------ MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 51% Swamp Quicksand 36% Soil Sinkhole 9% Obstructed -- 4% --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 7, Up: 12 (height: 1, Soil) Potion Elixir Degenerator Left: 7, Up: 2 (height: 1, Soil) Potion Elixir Hypnogas Left: 0, Up: 3 (height: 1, Soil) Potion Elixir Death Trap Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 1, Soil) Potion Elixir Sten Needle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although nothing story-related happens at Dorvauldar Marsh and you never *have* to visit, it provides a handy shortcut between Limberry and Fort Besselat. Additionally, there's a chance of encountering Pigs or Swines in random battles here -- though only when you're entering from the Fort Besselat side. If you haven't snagged any pigs yet for breeding and poaching purposes, you can look for one here. They appear at fairly low odds, though. If you'd prefer not to wait for one to show up here, one of the later sidequests also offers an opportunity to find Pigs with much greater frequency. Dorvauldar Marsh also offers you the chance to claim up to four Elixirs--rare healing items--if you hunt around with the Treasure Hunter ability and low Bravery. Since you can find plenty of other Elixirs in the game, though, you don't actually need to stop to get these. ---NEW ERRANDS--- Now that you've defeated Elmdore, many towns around the map also have new errands to complete. ---FINAL SHOP UPGRADE--- As you make your way back to Eagrose, stop in at a non-castle town. You can now buy Thief's Caps, the last piece of new equipment that the Outfitter will carry. If you don't have any Nu Khai Armbands in your inventory, you'll also want to buy a set of those for an upcoming battle. ---New Items for Purchase------------------------------------------------------- TYPE PRICE WHERE DETAILS Thief's Cap Hat 35000 TrCity/City Speed+2; Immune: Immobilize,Disable -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---EXTRA BATTLE AT DORTER--- If you step into Dorter on the way back to Eagrose, you'll have an extra battle against Cletienne, another of Folmarv's henchmen. Alternately, you can avoid this battle entirely if you go to Bervenia and head west along the northern coast ... but this is such a long and circuitous route that you're likely to encounter more enemies in random battles than you avoid by skipping Cletienne. The Cletienne battle will also not trigger if you never admitted Meliadoul into your party or if she has already been killed or dismissed. ---Battle 48 (optional): Dorter------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Meliadoul [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Cletienne (lv 40 Sorceror) Black Mage (lv 38, female) Summoner (lv 37, female) Summoner (lv 36, female) Time Mage (lv 38, female) Time Mage (lv 35, female) BOSS: Cletienne [Gemini] - lv 40 Sorceror - Bravery 51, Faith 81 Equipment : Dragon Rod, Gold Hairpin, Gaia Gear, Elven Cloak Abilities : Magicks, Magick Counter, Arcane Defense, Ignore Elevation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce Cletienne to critical HP (< 20% of max HP) LOSS CONDITION: Meliadoul is KOed or Ramza is killed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 9 Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 36% Flagstone Contortion 36% Grassland Tanglevine 26% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- Meliadoul automatically participates as a guest in this battle, so be sure to equip her accordingly. This is the same battlefield as you saw at the beginning of Chapter II. The enemies here are all magick-users, so there's no value in reaction abilities or armor that defend against physical attacks (e.g. Counter or Shirahadori). Instead, equip Aegis Shields, which have a high magick block rate, and abilities like Magick Counter. And, if you have Construct 8, it's basically invulnerable in this battle since it's immune to Faith-based magicks. You'll probably want to take out the Summoners first; they're close by and you'll want to stop them from hitting you with Summons. The Time Mages, on the other hand, can be ignored. Cletienne has an array of strong offensive and defensive spells, plus he can use Magick Counter to throw your spells back at him. If you want to avoid this, guns and Jump may be your best bets for attacking him up on the roof. Beware of using magickal guns, though; these count as magick attacks that he can Magick Counter! You could also use Orlandeau's Duskblade or another MP-draining ability to steal Cletienne's MP so he can't even use magicks. But since he has little HP, it's probably just as easy to attack him head-on. As soon as he's KOed, you win the battle. Cletienne has a Dragon Rod, a rare-ish rod, that you can steal. You needn't get it here, though, as you can also steal one a few battles later or poach it. Plus, the Dragon Rod is pretty crummy anyway. The Treasure Hunter items in this battle are also awful--they're the same treasures as the original battle in Dorter! (In fact, if you picked them up then, you can't get them now.) BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 16, Chimney POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP *Left: 9, Up: 8 (height: 9, Chimney) Potion Ice Bow none Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 5, Grassland) Ether Round Shield none Left: 4, Up: 6 (height: 9, Roof) Hi-Potion Shuriken none #Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 16, Chimney) Echo Herbs Barbut none * Requires Jump of 4 or more to reach. # Requires Jump of 5 to reach. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you finally do reach Eagrose, Ramza will open the gate (no gate battle, yay!), and then you'll line up for a fight. ---Battle 49: Eagrose Castle Keep----------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: PHASE ONE: Ramza, Zalbaag [guest], 4 others PHASE TWO: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: PHASE ONE: Dycedarg (lv 43 Rune Knight) Knight (lv 39, male) Knight (lv 38, male) Knight (lv 38, male) Knight (lv 37, male) Knight (lv 37, male) PHASE TWO: Adrammelech (lv 46 The Wroth) GUEST: Zalbaag [Cancer] - lv 42 Ark Knight - Bravery 67, Faith 72 Equipment : Runeblade, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Germinas Boots Abilities : Blade of Ruin, other abilities random BOSS: Dycedarg [Scorpio] - lv 43 Rune Knight - Bravery 66, Faith 77 Equipment : Defender, Aegis Shield, Circlet, Carabineer Mail, Power Gauntlet Abilities*: Swordplay, Magicks, Sticky Fingers, Defend, Move +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Chicken, Slow * The Rune Knight job also includes Defense Boost and Arcane Defense as innate abilities. BOSS: Adrammelech [Scorpio] - lv 46 The Wroth - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 1515, MP: about 415 Abilities : Dread, Magicks, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Phase One - KO Dycedarg Phase Two - KO Adrammelech LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 100% --STRATEGY-- Equipping Nu Khai Armbands before this battle is a good idea; it will protect you from Confuse status. Use Agrias's, Orlandeau's, and Meliadoul's sword techniques to hit Dycedarg from down below. (The enemy Knights can be safely ignored.) Construct 8's Dispose is also useful, but you may not want to deploy Construct 8 here since there's no way to protect it from the boss's Confuse attack. Hitting Dycedarg with Crush Weapon is great idea; it will break his Defender sword and prevent him from using any of his sword techniques against you. You could also try stealing the Defender if you want, but it's a little tricky -- using Ignore Elevation or Teleport to jump up to the top of the arch may be your best bet. (Due to a bug in the game, stealing the Defender also fails to stop Dycedarg from using his sword techniques, though they'll be greatly reduced in power.) Zalbaag is likely to get KOed no matter what you do, but it doesn't matter as you don't need to keep him alive. If you do keep Zalbaag conscious, there will be some additional dialogue on Ramza's, Zalbaag's, and Dycedarg's first turns. It's quite likely that you can finish off Dycedarg before he has a chance to move much of anywhere, but it's possible he'll start descending the stairs. If he does, run under the arch and keep attacking him. He likes to use Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination if you haven't yet broken his sword. To avoid getting hurt too badly by these, avoid putting characters next to each other or on the same line of fire. When Dycedarg is KOed, he'll return as Adrammelech. All the other enemies will disappear from the board, as will Zalbaag, and the battle restarts. But if you Charmed or Enticed any of the enemy Knights, they'll stick with you into the next phase of the battle! If you find yourself having trouble beating Adrammelech, this can be a good trick for beefing up your forces for the second half of this battle. If Adrammelech is still up on the arch, you can keep attacking him with sword techniques once the second phase begins. However, after each character attacks, you'll want to start moving him/her under the archway. This way, you can keep hitting Adrammelech once he starts coming down the steps. Adrammelech uses the Befuddle spell to confuse you, but if you equipped Nu Khai Armbands, you'll be immune to this. Note that Confuse is the only status condition that Construct 8 is NOT immune to. In fact, there's NO way to protect Construct 8 from confusion, so you probably won't want to use it here. Adrammelech is pretty slow, so you can probably get in quite a few licks--and maybe even kill him--before he even has a chance to cast any magicks. Like all Lucavi, Adrammelech will take a lot of damage from Lich or Graviga since they take away half his maximum HP. He has about 1515 HP. There are two rare items you can pick up here using Treasure Hunter. A Blood Sword is located in the rectangular area where you start, but in the corner furthest from your starting point. This one's pretty easy to get to. There's also a Healing Staff that's much harder to reach; it's one of the two "nubs" next to the bridge on the upper level, with a height of 10. Of the two nubs, it's the one further from where you start. This one is pretty tricky to reach since you have to climb up all the stairs to get to it. (Precise coordinates for both items are listed below.) As with other rare Treasure Hunter items, having a low Bravery will improve your odds of getting the Blood Sword and Healing Staff as opposed to generic consumable items. You can pick the items up during either stage of the battle. However, they're probably not worth bothering with -- you may already have both items, and unlimited copies are available from poaching. The Blood Sword can be worth grabbing if it's convenient, but the Healing Staff is just way out of the way. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 8, Flagstone POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 6 (height: 2.5, Flagst.) X-Potion Thief's Cap none Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 2, Flagstone) Hi-Ether Blood Sword none Left: 6, Up: 3 (height: 10, Flagstone) Remedy Healing Staff none Left: 6, Up: 9 (height: 10, Flagstone) Hi-Potion Featherweave Cloak none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When killed, Adrammelech yields the Capricorn Zodiac Stone. If you didn't already beat Cletienne at Dorter, his ambush now disappears, so you can return to the town without triggering a fight. After claiming the Capricorn stone, head to Gariland. Stock up on Holy Water and take the new route south to Mullonde. At Mullonde, you'll be treated to a series of three battles, beginning outside the church and progressing inside. ---Battle 50: Mullonde Cathedral------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: White Mage (lv 40, male) Summoner (lv 39, male) Geomancer (lv 40, male) Geomancer (lv 39, male) Orator (lv 39, male) Orator (lv 38, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 47% Roof Wind Blast 23% Flagstone Contortion 22% Obstructed -- 6% Soil Sinkhole 2% --STRATEGY-- If you have anyone with Ignore Elevation or Teleport, deploy him or her in the first squad and you can immediately spring up and attack the Summoner and White Mage, who are the most annoying opponents. The rest of the squad will have to climb up the steps. The characters in the second squad will be battling against two Orators, so giving them Earplug could be useful. Again, Teleport or Ignore Elevation will help them get atop the church quickly, although the steps are reasonably close by. The Summoner has another Dragon Rod you can steal, if you didn't get one from Cletienne and/or want a second one. But, again, it's not good for very much. There are also three Elixirs here that you can pick up with the Treasure Hunter ability: 1. One is located on the grass next to the cathedral, adjacent to the front corner of the cathedral. Facing the cathedral, it's directly to the RIGHT of the front corner of the cathedral. (It's 3 squares away from where the one of the enemy Geomancers starts.) 2. One is located on one of the two front towers of the cathedral (of height 16). Facing the front gate of the cathedral, it's on the tower on the LEFT. There are four tiles on the tower; the Elixir is against the side "wall" of the map, on the tile towards the back of the cathedral. 3. The last one is lower on the cathedral roof. It's one tile away from Elixir #2, on a tile of height 5. As with most Treasure Hunter items, your odds of receiving the Elixirs (as opposed to generic items) from these tiles increase the lower your Bravery. Although you can't buy Elixirs at the Outfitter, it's not really that necessary to pick up the ones here as you can also find them on many other maps and from poaching. Honestly, this battle is pretty easy. It's noteworthy mostly because it's the only story battle where the enemy has Geomancers :) BATTLE TROPHIES: X-Potion --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 7, Tree POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 1 (height: 1, Grassland) Hi-Ether Hi-Potion none Left: 11, Up: 1 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Elixir none Left: 9, Up: 7 (height: 16, Flagstone) X-Potion Elixir none Left: 10, Up: 7 (height: 16, Flagstone) Phoenix Down Elixir none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Equip the Safeguard support ability on as many characters as possible, and the next battle will be easy as pie. ---Battle 51: Mullonde Cathedral Nave------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Folmarv (lv 46 Divine Knight) Loffrey (lv 45 Divine Knight) Cletienne (lv 44 Sorceror) BOSS: Folmarv [Leo] - lv 46 Divine Knight - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Runeblade, Crystal Shield/Helm/Armor, Elven Cloak Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Counter, Defense Boost, Move +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow BOSS: Loffrey [Capricorn] - lv 45 Divine Knight - Bravery 60, Faith 68 Equipment : Icebrand, Platinum Shield/Helm/Armor, Diamond Bracelet Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Nature's Wrath, Defense Boost, Jump +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow BOSS: Cletienne [Gemini] - lv 44 Sorceror - Bravery 51, Faith 81 Equipment : Dragon Rod, Gold Hairpin, Gaia Gear, Elven Cloak Abilities : Magicks, Magick Counter, Arcane Defense, Ignore Elevation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Reduce any one of the enemies to critical HP (< 20% of max) LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Flagstone Contortion 38% Carpet Will-o'-the-Wisp 31% Obstructed -- 19% Canal Torrent 12% --STRATEGY-- Despite what the in-game victory conditions screen says, all you have to do here is reduce any of one of the three Knights Templar to critical HP and then they all will retreat. Cletienne is the weakest, so just attack him. Loffrey and Folmarv have an annoying habit of breaking your equipment, so Safeguard is probably a good idea -- it both saves your equipment AND prevents you from taking damage from the Crush attacks. Since you only need to KO one guy here, you can probably finish this up quite quickly. If you deploy Meliadoul, there will be some extra dialogue between her and Folmarv on her first turn. Like the previous map, there are a bunch of Elixirs you can find here if you have Treasure Hunter and low Bravery. All four of them are located on a line directly down the middle of the room: 1. One is at the extreme rear of the room, behind where you start, at height 1. 2. One is one tile in front of where Ramza starts, 4 tiles away from the back of the room, at height 1. 3. One is at the very far end of the room (i.e., 2 tiles behind where Folmarv starts), at height 4. 4. One is 4 tiles towards your party from the far end of the room -- exactly on the tile where Loffrey starts, at height 2. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 11, Cross Section - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 1, Carpet) Remedy Elixir none Left: 4, Up: 4 (height: 1, Carpet) Hi-Potion Elixir none Left: 8, Up: 4 (height: 2, Carpet) Phoenix Down Elixir none Left: 12, Up: 4 (height: 4, Carpet) X-Potion Elixir none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If any of your equipment gets broken when fighting the Knights Templar, you'll need to replace it. Strip the gear from somebody you're not going to be using in the next battle and equip that. You'll then go to the sanctuary, where Ramza will have to fight a possessed former ally. ---Battle 52: Mullonde Cathedral Sanctuary-------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Zalbaag (lv 47 Ark Knight) Archaeodaemon* Archaeodaemon* Ultima Demon* * These enemies' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. BOSS: Zalbaag [Cancer] - lv 47 Ark Knight - Bravery 33, Faith 77 Equipment : Runeblade, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Germinas Boots Abilities : Blade of Ruin, Vampire, Adrenaline Rush, Defense Boost, Lifefont VICTORY CONDITION: KO Zalbaag LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone/Vampire WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 11 Flagstone Contortion 54% Obstructed -- 39% Carpet Will-o'-the-Wisp 7% --STRATEGY-- The demons here are actually quite a bit more powerful than Zalbaag and use a variety of strong magick attacks. So, unlike most boss battles, you're probably better off killing at least two of the demons first, and *then* going after Zalbaag. Again, both the Ultima Demon and the Archaeodaemons are immune to Holy attacks, but this isn't much of a problem since there are only a few such attacks anyway -- the Holy magick, Reis's Holy Breath, and the Holy Lance are the only ones in the single-player game. The Ultima Demon here is your last chance to learn (and keep) Ultima in the single-player game; if you haven't gotten it yet, deploy Ramza or Luso in their base job (Squire or Game Hunter) and you can learn the magick should the Ultima Demon cast it on them. The Ultima Demon needs at least 10 MP to cast Ultima; use Ethers or Chakra to restore their MP if it runs low. Zalbaag frequently flees into a corner, plus he uses Lifefont to recover his HP with each move. Hitting him with an Immobilize (e.g. from Leg Shot) will stop both of these. In fact, if you can Immobilize him right away, you may be able to just focus your attacks on him and finish him off before the demons hit you with too much magick. Physical attacks are not that effective against Zalbaag since he has Defense Boost, but he'll go down eventually ... and if you take out the demons first, he can do very little to hurt you. Zalbaag can (and probably will) turn your characters to vampires, but you can cure this with Holy Water. Construct 8 is useful in this battle as it is immune to vampirization (though the raw damage from the Vampire attack can still hurt it) and has a very long range with which to attack Zalbaag. Monsters are also immune to Vampire status, so if you have any other good monsters, those work too. Ironically, if Zalbaag tries to vampirize a character who's already a vampire, the Vampire attack will backfire and cause *Zalbaag* to turn into a vampire! This will prevent him from recovering HP with Lifefont. But, the odds on this are a bit too low to really bank on. BATTLE TROPHIES: Elixir --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- There are no Treasure Hunter items on this map. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sanctuary battle is the last of the battles at Mullonde. Afterwards, Ramza will meet up with a dying Funebris, who tells him that Folmarv is going to Orbonne Monastery. ---NEW QUESTS--- Back on the map, a handy route has opened up between Mullonde and the Clockwork City of Goug. Another set of subquests becomes available: Midlight's Deep (in Warjilis Trade City), Disorder in the Order (in Zeltennia and Dorter), and (if you've already completed the Nelveska Temple quest) Lionel's New Liege Lord. The All-Star Melee mission is also unlocked in Rendezvous Mode. And if you're still working on the earlier subquests, the new route between Mullonde and Goug makes them a lot easier. If you're going to do these quests or anything else on the map, take care of it now! Once you go to Orbonne Monastery, you're locked into the game's final series of battles. ---PREPARATION FOR FINAL BATTLES--- Before you go to Orbonne, make sure you're ready. Your main team of characters should be at least level 40. Equip yourself with all your best abilities, and change to your best jobs. Earning JP doesn't matter now. You may also want to buy a couple pairs of Winged Boots since they'll be helpful in one of the upcoming battles. Definitely purchase some Thief's Caps if you haven't already. In truth, though, the last sequence of battles isn't all that difficult, just long. !!! CAUTION !!! Once you enter Orbonne, there is NO way to return to the world map. If you want to be able to continue playing the game on the world map, you must keep a save from before you entered the Monastery. Once you enter the Monastery, save in a DIFFERENT slot. Do NOT save over your main save file or you will NOT be able to return to the world map or enter the bonus dungeon. Use a NEW save file. !!! CAUTION !!! When you enter Orbonne, you'll begin by fighting some generic humans. ---Battle 53: Monastery Vaults - Fourth Level----------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Monk (lv 51, male) Monk (lv 50, male) Knight (lv 49, male) Knight (lv 49, male) Archer (lv 48, male) Archer (lv 48, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 8 Brick, Furnishings, Wind Slash 54% Book, Bridge Flagstone Contortion 46% --STRATEGY-- Your first priority is to kill off the guys down on the floor on the other side of the room, especially the Monks. Most range attacks will work from atop the central "ridge" of books, and reasonably agile melee fighters can climb over the ridge to reach the enemies. Characters who can't easily climb over the ridge should just stand atop it -- there will be enemies coming that way soon as well. The Knights' behavior will depend on how quickly you advance. If you quickly moved most of your team across the ridge, they'll probably descend under the archway to fight you there. But if you still have some characters on the higher levels, they may try to cross the narrow walkway up top. In this case, they're vulnerable to a Divine Ruination or Shockwave that can hit several of them in a line. Meliadoul's and Orlandeau's Crush techniques are also useful against all the enemies here. Overall, this isn't a particularly hard battle. You can steal a Yoichi's Bow, which is even stronger than the Artemis Bow, from the Archer ... of course, since you're past the point of no return, there's no need to bother with this unless someone in your main squad can use it. There are also four Elixirs available on this map and, unlike most Treasure Hunter items, you'll get them regardless of your Bravery: 1. One is located in the exact corner of the map just next to where you start, on a tile with height 7. 2. Another is located in another corner, the one with a height of 1. 3. Two panels away from #2, on a sloping panel with height 8. 4. On the other side of the "ridge" of books from where you start. It's on a slanted panel; the panel looks like a stone slab with writing on it and has a height of 2.5. Since you can pick these up fairly easily without worrying about your Bravery, you may want to grab one or two if you use Items to heal. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 7, Book POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 7, Book) -Elixir- none Left: 5, Up: 4 (height: 2.5, Flagst.) -Elixir- none Left: 0, Up: 13 (height: 8, Flagstone) -Elixir- none Left: 0, Up: 15 (height: 1, Flagstone) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next up is the first of a series of four battles against the Zodiac Braves. Prepare for this one by arming Safeguard. ---Battle 54: Monastery Vaults - Fifth Level------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Loffrey (lv 54 Divine Knight) Black Mage (lv 52, male) Black Mage (lv 50, male) Summoner (lv 52, male) Summoner (lv 50, male) Time Mage (lv 52, male) BOSS: Loffrey [Capricorn] - lv 54 Divine Knight - Bravery 60, Faith 68 Equipment : Save the Queen, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Germinas Boots Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Magicks, Parry, Defense Boost, Ignore Elevation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow VICTORY CONDITION: KO Loffrey LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 12 Book, Brick Wind Slash 63% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-wisp 19% Darkness (chasm) -- 18% --STRATEGY-- Now it gets interesting. The enemy forces are magick-heavy here, so adjust your defenses accordingly. Aegis Shields are good, as are Magick Counter and cloaks that give a good boost to your magick evade rate. Counter, Shirahadori, and First Strike are totally pointless. Construct 8, being immune to Faith- based magicks, is good to deploy if you have it. It won't be able to navigate the holes well, but Dispose has such a long range that it doesn't need to travel very far! The floor is laded with Darkness tiles (the black holes) that you can't walk across. If you have Teleport or Winged Boots, however, you can simply move right through them. You can also jump across the holes with a good jump rating. If you can't jump across, there's a looping path around the outsides of the map that lets you walk all the way, but it's slow and you'll keep getting hit by magicks on the way. Avoid this route if you can. Deploying lots of characters with range attacks is useful as you can just blast away regardless of the gaps in the floor. Loffrey's Save the Queen sword gives him a permanent Protect spell that makes him slow to kill. So, try to KO the other guys (especially the Summoners) first before you take on Loffrey. Loffrey uses Unyielding Blade techniques to crush your gear, but equipping Safeguard will both preventing him from breaking your equipment and spare you from the HP damage. Speaking of Crushing, using Crush Weapon on Loffrey is a great tactic; destroying his sword will remove his Protect as well as prevent him from using his sword techniques. You can also use Rend Weapon or steal the sword. But, like other bosses, a bug in the game means that he can still use sword techniques if you steal (rather than break) his sword. They won't do much damage, but they can still break your equipment. As on the previous map (and for the rest of this sequence of battles), you can find four Elixirs here with Treasure Hunter, regardless of your Bravery. Two of the Elixirs on this map are located in the extreme back corners of the map, on the stacks of book behind where you start. The other two Elixirs are near the center of the map; see below for the coordinates. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Book POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 14 (height: 2, Book) -Elixir- none Left: 11,Up: 14 (height: 7, Book) -Elixir- none Left: 5, Up: 6 (height: 0, Wooden Fl.) -Elixir- none Left: 6, Up: 6 (height: 0, Brick) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Loffrey is defeated, he'll suck you through a portal to the Necrohol of Mullonde, located under the sea south of Limberry, then destroy the way back. If you'd equipped Safeguard or Winged Boots, you can now return your abilities and equipment to normal. ---Battle 55: The Necrohol of Mullonde------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Cletienne (lv 54 Sorceror) Ninja (lv 53, male) Ninja (lv 51, male) Samurai (lv 53, male) Samurai (lv 52, male) Time Mage (lv 52, male) Time Mage (lv 51, male) BOSS: Cletienne [Gemini] - lv 54 Sorceror - Bravery 51, Faith 81 Equipment : Zeus Mace, Lambent Hat, Black Garb, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Magicks, Magick Boost, Arcane Defense, Fly Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: KO Cletienne LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 12 Wasteland Sinkhole 42% Flagstone Contortion 32% Obstructed -- 21% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-wisp 5% --STRATEGY-- The second squad starts some distance away, so fill it with fast characters or characters with long-range attacks. Cletienne has really strong spells and a range of the whole battlefield. Since he starts close to you, just forget the other enemies and rush him. If you can pounce on him on quickly, you can probably to wrap this fight up very quickly. Cletienne's Magick Boost reaction ability allows him to increase his Magick Attack whenever you hit him. So, don't try to wear him down with weak attacks. Instead, try only attack him with your strongest attacks so that you can take him out in as few hits as possible. Or, you can simply use MP-draining abilities--Orlandeau's Duskblade works especially well--on Cletienne to take away all his MP, so that he can't even use his magicks. Again, with Treasure Hunter you can claim up to four Elixirs on this map, though most aren't very conveniently located. The Elixirs' locations: 1. In the extreme corner of the map. There's only one corner tile that you can actually stand on (it has height 0); it's on this tile. It's the corner closest to where the 2nd Squad starts. 2. The center of the map has a building in it. Look for the doorway to this building. Now, from the doorway, move the cursor over top of the wall to the building to the back wall. The Elixir is located here, right against the back wall, directly opposite to the doorway. This one is actually the easiest to grab. 3. On the ground (height 0) behind where the 1st Squad (Ramza's squad) starts. It's the "back row" of tiles, as far from the enemy squad as you can get. The specific tile is the tile on the ground that's closest to the corner. 4. One edge of the map near where you start has a partially collapsed wall. On the other side of the hall is a height 4 platform leading down to the height 0 ground. Climb down using the platform; it's on the first height 0 platform. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Wasteland - only corner tile where the cursor is blue POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 2 (height: 3, Flagstone) -Elixir- none Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 0, Wasteland) -Elixir- none Left: 0, Up: 8 (height: 0, Wasteland) -Elixir- none Left: 3, Up: 11 (height: 0, Wasteland) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After Cletienne, you'll face Barich, brought back to life by the Zodiac Stones. ---Battle 56: Lost Halidom------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Barich (lv 55 Machinist) Chemist (lv 49, male) Tiamat (lv 50) Greater Hydra (lv 47) Hydra (lv 48) Dark Behemoth (lv 51) BOSS: Barich [Sagittarius] - lv 55 Machinist - Bravery 64, Faith 62 Equipment : Blaster, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, Featherweave Cloak Abilities*: Aimed Shot, Counter, Brawler, Lifefont Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Immobilize * Barich's version of the Machinist job also includes Defense Boost, Arcane Defense, and Beast Tongue as innate abilities. VICTORY CONDITION: KO Barich LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 49% Roof Wind Blast 24% Darkness (chasm) -- 16% Coffer, Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-wisp 11% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- This can be a tough fight. Barich and his crew start on a separate piece of land from you. Barich and his Chemist can shoot at you from afar, but if you jump over to his portion of the battlefield to attack them, the monsters will tear you to shreds. Barich, as before, will use Aimed Shot abilities to try to Immobilize and Disable you. This time, you can easily counter this by equipping Thief's Caps, which makes you immune to both Immobilize and Disable. Shirahadori is also great for defense, as it allows you to block the shots from the enemy guns (only in video games...). Auto-Potion is also helpful for dealing with the enemy gun attacks. Shields and cloaks, on the other hand, are of no use since guns can't be evaded. A good tactic may be to fill the first squad with characters with medium-range attacks (e.g. sword techniques). They should be able to move forward and target Barich across the gap without having to jump over the chasm. The second squad starts pretty far away from Barich, so use this squad for characters with long-range attacks such as guns, Arithmeticks, or a long-range Jump attack. Have the second squad move up towards the first squad and start targeting Barich with their range attacks. If you completed the Gollund Colliery quest, Beowulf and Construct 8 will both be of great use here for their long-range attacks (Vengeance and Dispose, respectively). Barich may try to hide behind his monsters (and/or the Chemist), in which case you'll have to take them out first in order to shoot him. Unfortunately, Barich's own Thief's Cap prevents you from Immobilizing HIM. Barich's Hydras will usually spend a turn or two advancing along Barich's portion of the battlefield without attacking you. After that, they'll fly over and land on your side! At this point, since the Hydras are no longer guarding Barich, you may want to jump over Barich's side and start attacking him directly. If you've done enough to damage to him already, you can probably take him out with a few attacks. (He does use Lifefont to regenerate his HP, though.) If you completed the Nelveska Temple and restored Reis to human form, you could also try putting Reis in the second squad. Have her run up to the little "bridge" connecting the two halves of the battlefield and use Dragon's Charm to charm the enemy Tiamat. Not only will this prevent the Tiamat from attacking you, it will turn it against Barich! However, it usually takes a turn or two for the Tiamat to come within range, so this may not be the most efficient strategy -- and you have to watch out for the Dark Behemoth in the mean time! If you DO use this strategy, you may wish to change Reis to a job other than Dragonkin and equip Rubber Boots so that the Tiamat's Tri-Thunder attack won't kill her before she can charm it. Like the other maps in the Necrohol, the Lost Halidom contains four Elixirs that you can pick up with Treasure Hunter. Since this is a tougher battle, it's not really a good time for item collecting, but if you want 'em, you can check the coordinates below or use these directions: 1. In the area where the 2nd Squad starts, against the back edge of the map. It's on a height 7 tile that looks it has four black squares on it. (There are two such tiles; it's the one that actually touches the edge of the map.) 2. On the wooden platform in the middle. The platform is four tiles big. The Elixir is on the tile that's closest to where the 1st Squad started. 3. On Barich's side of the map. It's actually the tile immediately behind where Barich starts. It's a sloping tile with height 5.5 and four black squares on it. There are two such tiles; the one you want is the one that's further from the wooden bridge. 4. Also on Barich's side of the map, on the only height 6 tile that is directly adjacent to the chasm in the middle. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Flagstone POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 0 (height: 7, Flagstone) -Elixir- none Left: 0, Up: 6 (height: 0, Wooden Fl.) -Elixir- none Left: 5, Up: 11 (height: 5.5, Flagstone) -Elixir- none Left: 7, Up: 8 (height: 6, Flagstone) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, you'll head to the Airship Graveyard, which is really just a single airship, and a rather odd location for a final battle. Folmarv will use the Leo Stone to transform himself into a giant lion, Hashmal. ---Battle 57: Airship Graveyard------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Hashmal (lv 59 Bringer of Order) BOSS: Hashmal [Leo] - lv 59 Bringer of Order - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 1425, MP: about 790 Abilities : Dread, Planar Magicks, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: KO Hashmal LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 9 Wooden Deck Will-o'-the-Wisp 40% Vines Tanglevine 26% Obstructed -- 19% Machinery Magma Surge 15% --STRATEGY-- Hashmal's two main attacks are Bind, which puts Stop on a group of characters, and Quake, a fairly powerful area attack magick. (He also uses some other elemental magicks less frequently.) Of course, equipping Jade Armlets will protect you against the Stop effect of Bind. But since completely protecting yourself against Stop will cause him to ONLY cast Quake, one strategy is to leave one character unprotected against Stop as a decoy. Hashmal will probably try to Stop him/her, buying your other characters time to attack. Using this strategy, you can probably defeat him before casts more than one Quake, perhaps before he casts ANY. And, if you completed the Gollund Colliery quest, you have an ace up your sleeve: Construct 8, who is immune to both Faith-based magicks and Stop! Although Hashmal's spells are strong, with 5 of you versus 1 of him, you shouldn't have too much trouble taking him down. Just rush him. As always, Lich and Graviga are effective against him. He only has about 1425 HP. Since Hashmal isn't too tough, it's pretty easy to grab the Elixirs on this map using Treasure Hunter if you want them. One is located on the extreme bow (point) of the ship (tile height 10), and another is located directly in front of that (height 8.5). The other two are located on the opposite (stern) side, one in each of the far corners of the ship. Both of these tiles have height 0.5. BATTLE TROPHIES: Ragnarok --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Darkness - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 10, Wooden Deck) -Elixir- none Left: 1, Up: 4 (height: 8.5, Wooden Dk.) -Elixir- none Left: 15, Up: 1 (height: 0.5, Wooden Dk.) -Elixir- none Left: 15, Up: 7 (height: 0.5, Vines) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defeat Hashmal and you'll get the Ragnarok sword. St. Ajora will then appear. You now have one last chance to save your game and adjust your characters. Equip the Ragnarok sword. It's strong, but not quite as useful as the Excalibur since it doesn't give you an automatic Haste. But if you're planning to deploy two characters who can use knight's swords (Knights, Dark Knights, and many of the story characters), you can give the Excalibur to one and the Ragnarok to the other. You might also want to use the Ragnarok if you have something *else* that you gives you an Auto-Haste, like the Tynar Rouge or Septie`me. After you leave the status screen, it's time for the final battle. ---Battle 58: Airship Graveyard------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Alma [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: PHASE ONE: Ultima (lv 56 High Seraph) Ultima Demon (lv 39) Ultima Demon (lv 36) Ultima Demon (lv 33) Ultima Demon (lv 30) PHASE TWO: Ultima (lv 66 Arch Seraph) GUEST: Alma [Leo] - lv 56 Cleric - Bravery 39, Faith 87 Equipment : Healing Staff, Ribbon, Luminous Robe, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Holy Magicks, Faith Boost BOSS: Ultima [Virgo] - lv 56 High Seraph - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 1400, MP: about 480 Abilities : Arcane Magicks, Chaos, Absorb MP, Brawler, Master Teleportation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Disable BOSS: Ultima [Virgo] - lv 66 Arch Seraph - Bravery 70, Faith 60 HP: about 3235, MP: about 450 Abilities : Divine Magicks, Divine Providence, Faith Boost, Brawler, Swiftness, Master Teleportation Immune : All negative status except Slow and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Phase One - KO High Seraph Ultima Phase Two - KO Arch Seraph Ultima LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 9 Wooden Deck Will-o'-the-Wisp 42% Vines Tanglevine 27% Obstructed -- 15% Machinery Magma Surge 15% --STRATEGY-- Be sure to deploy your best characters. Since both forms of the final boss have a lot of HP, attacks that do damage proportional to the enemy's max HP are quite effective. These include Lich, Graviga, and Beowulf's Drain attack. Ultima likes to cast a lot of status ailments on you, so equipping female characters (and Cloud) with any hair adornments (Cachushas, Barettes, or preferably Ribbons) is also a great idea. Before the battle starts, Ultima destroys the mast pieces, making the battlefield a bit more open. You begin this battle on the stern of the ship, opposite to where you started the last battle. Alma will fight as a guest in this battle. She starts off with only 1 HP, so toss her an X-Potion or cure spell to keep her alive. She will first cast Aegis on herself, then start casting it on the rest of the team. Aegis includes a number of useful buffs, so this is actually pretty helpful. Note that if Ramza or Luso casts the Ultima magick on Alma, she can learn that magick as well. This is not advised, however; you want her casting Aegis, which is quite a bit more useful! If Alma starts running out of MP, toss her an Ether or Hi-Ether. (It's also possible to learn Ultima from the Ultima Demons if you don't kill them quickly; of course, since this is the last battle, you won't be able to save it permanently to your file.) The Ultima Demons can do more damage than Ultima herself, so try to defeat them first. They don't have all that much HP, so you might even be able to take them out with group attacks. (As always, they're immune to Holy attacks.) If you're using Orlandeau, Shadowblade is also handy since it restores his HP at the same time it deals damage. Ultima has several different attacks. There's a physical attack, which is fairly strong but otherwise nothing special; the Grand Cross magick, which inflicts random status conditions; and an souped-up Ultima magick that is still rather weak and slow to charge. Note that this "Ultima II" magick has a "friendly fire" effect and can damage Ultima's own units (and even Ultima herself!) You can use this to your advantage; if you see her charging up the magick, move the targeted unit close to some enemies and they'll take damage too. You can easily recognize when she's casting Ultima II because it's the only ability she charges up that shows estimated HP damage in the preview -- Grand Cross is a status attack only. Ultima can also teleport around the battlefield, often putting her out of your reach. (This is another reason not to try killing her before the demons.) She does NOT have a counterattack, so you're free to use any physical or magick attacks you want -- although you should probably have a better way of attacking her than plain physical attacks! Ultima has a permanent Float status. This means that she's immune to any earth- element attacks, like Titan or Shockwave. Also, if you're using the Arithmeticks magick command against her, since she's Floating, her height is considered to be one greater than the tile she's standing on. In other words, if she's on a height 5 tile, her height is 6 for any calculations. Believe it or not, Ultima is vulnerable to Disable status. But, as usual, inflicting Disable will make her flee into a corner -- and with her Master Teleportation, she can easily get far away from you and be hard to attack. If you have long-range attacks, though, this is no problem, and hitting her with Arm Shot will prevent her from attacking you at all for a few turns! Even if you don't have much in the way of long-range attacks, you could also use Disable if you just need a pause to heal your characters and cure the status ailments inflicted by Grand Cross. If the battle drags on, the Ultima Demons you took out early on may start turning into crystals. Grab these as soon as they appear. Ultima will try to claim them, and, if she does, her HP will be completely restored! If you didn't grab the Elixirs during the battle with Hashmal, you can pick them up now. (If you already picked them up, you cannot get them a second time.) One Elixir is located on each of the opposite corners on the stern of ship (behind you, both height 0.5), and two are on the bow (point) of the ship, height 8.5 and height 10. Of course, since this is the last battle and you can't save them for later, there's no sense in picking them up unless your current Elixir supply is running low. Ultima's first form has about 1400 HP. Of course, like all good final bosses, Ultima has a second form that appears after the first is defeated. This one has over 3200 HP (!), but it's probably easier, since there won't be any Ultima Demons around to harass you. Attack the second form with the aforementioned Drain attack (Beowulf), Lich, Graviga, and sword techniques. She still has no counterattack, so physical attacks are also safe. Again, Ultima teleports around the battlefield on each of her turns. If she moves out of range, just wait in the center of the ship and on her next turn she should move in range again. This form of Ultima is now vulnerable to Immobilize status, so you can also just use a judicious Leg Shot or other Immobilizing ability to keep her in place. (The second form is immune to Disable, though, so don't try that again.) Fortunately, Ultima is pretty slow, and you have quite a bit of time to heal up and attack between her moves, especially if Alma has been casting Haste on you via Aegis. Also, if Alma has been casting Aegis on your party, Ultima may well waste her turns using Dispelja to remove the effects of Aegis, and not even inflict any damage on you. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Darkness - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 10, Wooden Deck) -Elixir- none Left: 1, Up: 4 (height: 8.5, Wooden Dk.) -Elixir- none Left: 15, Up: 1 (height: 0.5, Wooden Dk.) -Elixir- none Left: 15, Up: 7 (height: 0.5, Vines) -Elixir- none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you defeat Ultima's second form, it will blow up (nice special effects). The Battle Is Won! Leave the game on after the credits for an additional scene. Note that when the game says it's saving afterwards, it's just doing so to unlock the last set of Rendezvous Mode missions. If you saved at any point during the final sequence of battles (i.e., any time after you entered Orbonne Monastery), loading this save will only put you back into the last set of battles and doesn't allow you back to the world map. So, again, if you want to do anything outside of the Necrohol, hang on to a separate save from before you entered Orbonne Monastery! If you haven't beaten Midlight's Deep and all the other subquests, you're not really done with the game yet! If you kept a save from before you entered Orbonne Monastery, you can go back and check out these quests for some extra challenges. Keep on reading for more information on these missions. ******************************************************************************** V. WALKTHROUGH AND BATTLE STRATEGIES - SUBQUESTS 00sub ******************************************************************************** Final Fantasy Tactics boasts a number of optional subquests, all of which become available at various points in Chapter IV. In addition, some of the subquests require you to have completed other subquests first. Specific requirements for each quest are listed with the walkthroughs below, but I've also provided this cheesy ASCII chart to demonstrate how they flow together. Agrias's Birthday --------> Recruiting Cloud (beginning of Chapter IV) / / Gollund Colliery ----------> Nelveska Temple (beginning of Chapter IV) (after Fort \ Besselat) \ ------> Lionel's New Liege Lord Recruiting Balthier (after Mullonde) (after battle at Bervenia) Optional Battle at Dorter * (after clearing Limberry, before Eagrose) Disorder in the Order (after Mullonde) Midlight's Deep (after Mullonde) * The battle at Dorter that occurs after Limberry is technically optional, since you can walk around it. But since most players are likely to encounter it during the regular course of play, I've covered it up in the MAIN walkthrough (it's Battle 48), NOT here. Once a quest becomes available, it never goes away. There's no "time limit" on when you can complete these quests -- unless you dismiss one of the characters needed for the quest, of course. (The one exception is that optional Dorter battle mentioned above, but it's not a "real" subquest and you don't really get anything from it.) Walkthroughs for all the quests are below. %%%AGRIAS'S BIRTHDAY%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00agr QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: At beginning of Chapter IV REWARDS: Tynar Rouge The Agrias's Birthday event allows you to obtain the Tynar Rouge, a great accessory for female characters. It can occur on the date of 1 Cancer, which is Agrias's birthday. In order to start this event, you must meet these requirements: - Agrias, Mustadio, Alicia, and Lavian must still be on your team roster. - You must have at least 500,000 gil in your War Funds. Only 50,000 of this will be spent as part of the quest, but you must have 500,000 available. - You must be in Chapter IV. (This event can be completed at any point during Chapter IV, though.) Once you've met the above requirements, you must land on a town, city, or castle (i.e., any place with a store) on the world map on 1 Cancer. There are three towns that DO NOT work for this: Eagrose Castle, Merchant City of Dorter, and Zeltennia Castle. (These locations have their own new sidequests.) Any OTHER town or castle BESIDES those three is fine. Assuming you meet the above requirements, if you move onto one of the proper locations on 1 Cancer, you'll see a scene in which Mustadio buys Agrias the Tynar Rouge lip rouge for her birthday. (It's possible that on 1 Cancer, you might move onto a town that triggers another cutscene, like the opening of Midlight's Deep. You should still be able to trigger the Agrias's Birthday event by trying to move away from the town after the first cutscene has ended.) The 50,000 gil cost of the rouge will be subtracted from your War Funds. It's worth the expense, though, as the Tynar Rouge is a great accessory. It can be equipped by any female character (not just Agrias) and grants a permanent Shell, Protect, and Haste, as well as a bonus to your attack and magick strength. 1 Cancer follows after 32 Gemini. The easiest way to ensure that you land on a town on that date is to simply move back and forth between Gollund Coal City and Lesalia. Both of these cities work for activating the event, so you're guaranteed to be in the right place on 1 Cancer. If you somehow miss the date and don't end up on a town on 1 Cancer, don't worry; the event never "expires." You can just wait until all the months cycle through and try again the next time 1 Cancer comes up, as long as you still meet the requirements listed above. (Fortunately, the villains are more than happy to postpone their plans of world domination while you spend a year shopping for makeup.) Although this event never expires, it can only be completed ONCE, even if you cycle through the calendar to Agrias's birthday again. You can only get a single Tynar Rouge. %%%GOLLUND COLLIERY%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00col QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: At beginning of Chapter IV REWARDS: Beowulf, Reis [Holy Dragon], and Construct 8 join the party In the Gollund Colliery quest, you'll recruit three new characters: Beowulf, Reis (in dragon form), and Construct 8. It's the first in a series of three quests, as it leads into the Nelveska Temple and Cloud quests. To complete ANY of these quests, you must still have Mustadio, so don't dismiss him or let him get permanently killed! (It doesn't matter if he was KOed as long as he didn't permanently die.) ---STARTING THE QUEST--- To start the quest, once Chapter IV begins, go to the Clockwork City of Goug. Besrudio, Mustadio's father, will show you an iron sphere he's found. (If you've already seen this scene, you don't need to repeat it.) Now go to the Mining Town of Gollund, in the center of the map. At the Tavern in Gollund, listen to the rumor "The Haunted Mine." You will be asked to fight a monster in the coal mines. Leave the bar. Nothing will happen at first, but go north to Lesalia. As soon as you arrive here, Ramza will automatically go into the Tavern and learn more about the coal mine job. He agrees to take it. On the way out, Beowulf will stop you and ask you to take him with you. !!! CAUTION !!! When Beowulf asks you to take him with you, choose the SECOND option to sign him up. If you choose the first option and reject his assistance, he'll leave forever and you'll be permanently locked out of completing any more of the Cloud Subquest! Don't speed through the dialog so fast that you choose the first option by mistake. !!! CAUTION !!! GUEST: Beowulf [Libra] - Templar, lv. based on party's - Bravery 40, Faith 50 Equipment : Random Abilities : Spellblade, other abilities random You may want to equip Mystic Arts as Beowulf's second ability, since he starts with a bunch of Mystic Arts magicks learned. ---PREPARING FOR BATTLE--- You'll see that the Mining Town of Gollund has turned red, indicating that there will be battles when you return there. However, as with Lionel Castle in Chapter II, you can pass *through* Gollund to other locations as long as you don't click on Gollund itself. Before you leave Lesalia, check the Outfitter. Depending on how far you are through Chapter IV, you may be able to buy Beowulf some better equipment. Equipment that protects you against ice will be especially helpful in the upcoming battles, so you may also want to pick up some Ice Shields or White Robes if you don't have any in your inventory. You'll have to go to a non- castle town to buy the robes, but don't go to Gollund since it will trigger the battles! Ideally, try to load up with both some Icebrands and other swords. The ice damage from the Icebrands will be effective in some battles here, but there are also some monsters that absorb ice. Save your game--there's an extended series of battles coming up--and return to Gollund, where you'll be forced into entering the Gollund Colliery. You have to fight through three areas in the snow. ---Gollund Colliery Battle 1: Gollund Colliery Floor---------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, 2 others 2nd Squad - Beowulf [guest], 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) * The Chemists' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 11 Snow Snowstorm 95% Soil Sinkhole 3% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- For some reason, you are being attacked by a large band of Chemists. (Look out; there's one hidden under the staircase right next to where you start!) Since the Chemists exclusively fight with guns, there's no need for any type of magick defense. And since guns always have a 100% hit rate, boosting your evade rate is pointless; leave behind the cloaks and shields and go for dual- wielded or two-handed weapons. Close-range reaction abilities like Counter are also pointless; choose reaction abilities like Auto-Potion or Adrenaline Rush that are useful at any range. The key to this battle is to close the distance between you and the Chemists as quickly as possible. Fast characters or those with a high Move rate will be good for this. You can also use Arithmeticks, Summons, Jump, or your own guns to hit from a distance. Since the Chemists all have the Items ability, they can keep healing themselves and reviving their KOed comrades, which gets a little annoying. If you have Orlandeau and/or Meliadoul, using their Crush abilities to break the Chemists' armor will reduce their maximum HP and limit the amount they can heal themselves. (Rend and Steal abilities work for this, too, but they often miss and don't deal any direct damage!) You can also use Summons to strike a whole area and wipe all the critical-HP Chemists who have just been revived. Reviving any of your *own* KOed can also be difficult--because the Chemists have guns, they'll immediately shoot and KO any character with critical HP. You'll need Arise to effectively revive characters. Of course, if a KOed character's death counter is getting low, you may need to toss a Phoenix Down or Raise on them anyway--even if they just KOed again, you've at least reset their counter and saved them from permanent death. You do NOT need to keep Beowulf from getting KOed in this or the subsequent battles. Since this is a mining area, all the Battle Trophies and Treasure Hunter items around here are Mythril items. These are absolutely worthless at this point in the game, so there's no reason to go Treasure Hunting here. BATTLE TROPHIES: Mythril Bow, Mythril Shield --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Snow POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 2 (height: 4, Wooden Fl.) Gold Needle Mythril Knife none Left: 5, Up: 3 (height: 0, Soil) Gold Needle Mythril Sword none Left: 6, Up: 9 (height: 7, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Gun none Left: 1, Up: 10 (height: 14, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Bow none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Between battles, equip any Icebrands and Glacial Guns you own. ---Gollund Colliery Battle 2: Gollund Colliery Slope---------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Beowulf [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Behemoth King* Behemoth* Thief* (male) Thief* (male) Chemist* (male) * These enemies' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Snowstorm (ice damage + 25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 12 Snow Snowstorm 99% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- This battle has a similar setting as the previous one, but there's only one Chemist and, instead, two Thieves and two behemoths. (The Behemoth King is hiding in the cubby-hole behind the Thief near your start position.) With a more conventional assortment of enemies, this should actually be a more straightforward battle. The Chemist here has a Glacial Gun that you may want to steal -- though if he happens to start with the Maintenance ability, you're out of luck. He can do quite a bit of damage using the gun and you can't reach him to attack right away, but equipping Ice Shields will protect you from the damage. The Thief on the top level has a tendency to just sit in the corner until you come very close, making him a sitting duck for magick or Jump attacks. The snowstorm here boosts the power of ice attacks, including ice-elemental weapons like Icebrands and Glacial Guns. Since the Behemoth King is a somewhat rare monster, you may also want to Entice or Tame it onto your team. Alternately, Poach it and you'll score either an Artemis Bow or a Cherche perfume. BATTLE TROPHIES: Mythril Knife, Mythril Spear --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 18.5, Snow POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 11, Up: 9 (height: 2, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Shield none Left: 7, Up: 1 (height: 0, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Armor none Left: 2, Up: 5 (height: 6, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Helm none Left: 1, Up: 1 (height: 18.5, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Vest none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before the next battle, de-equip any ice-based weapons you're using, as you'll face Blue Dragons that absorb ice damage! ---Gollund Colliery Battle 3: Gollund Colliery Ridge---------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1st Squad - Ramza, Beowulf [guest], 2 others 2nd Squad - 2 others ENEMY FORCES: Blue Dragon* Blue Dragon* Pig* Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) * These enemies' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Snowstorm (ice damage + 25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 11 Snow Snowstorm 94% Flagstone Contortion 3% Obstructed -- 3% --STRATEGY-- This time, you're fighting two Chemists, two Blue Dragons, and a dancing pig. The Pig is safe to leave 'til last; it can't do any harm. The Blue Dragons, however, can and WILL harm you. Equipping Ice Shields will defend against their Ice Breath attack, but even their physical attacks are strong. The Blue Dragons are weak against fire, so use fire attacks for extra damage. Do NOT use ice attacks (including Geomancy, the Icebrand, and the Glacial Gun), as the Blue Dragons will absorb the ice and gain HP! Special sword techniques are your best offense (as usual). If you Entice the Pig to your team, you can breed and Poach pigs for great items, so this is a great opportunity to recruit one! If you already have a Pig on the team, you can just axe this one. BATTLE TROPHIES: Mythril Sword, Mythril Armor --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Snow POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 8, Up: 2 (height: 8, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Gun none Left: 11, Up: 0 (height: 3, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Knife none Left: 10, Up: 5 (height: 8, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Sword none Left: 3, Up: 6 (height: 5, Snow) Gold Needle Mythril Bow none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the three battles, you'll reach the Coal Shaft. The monsters here are WEAK against ice, so it's also a good idea to re-equip any Icebrands or other ice weapons that you have. ---Gollund Colliery Battle 4: Gollund Coal Shaft-------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Beowulf [guest], Reis [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Syneugh* (Archaeodaemon) Plague Horror* Plague Horror* Plague Horror* Ochu* Ochu* * These enemies' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. GUEST: Reis [Pisces] - Holy Dragon, lv. based on party's - Bravery 31, Faith 32 VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Reis is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 18 x 6 Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 44% Obstructed -- 32% Soil Sinkhole 22% Flagstone Contortion 1% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- You need to keep Reis, the Holy Dragon, alive in this battle. Be sure to bring someone who can heal her. In order to get into Reis's area, you need to climb up onto the upper level and pass through the narrow doorway. If you use jobs or accessories that get your Jump score up to 4, you can jump directly up onto the ledge, which helps you close the distance quickly. Otherwise, you'll have to take the long route up by using the stairs behind where your party starts. The Plague Horrors will turn you to stone or cast Doom on you if given the chance, so kill them first -- both the Plague Horrors and Ochus are weak against ice, so use ice attacks! If the enemies get lined up in the narrow passage, use Shockwave (Monk) or Divine Ruination (Agrias/Orlandeau) to hit the whole line of them. Reis will probably also rip into them with her Ice Breath. You may also want to try poaching the Plague Horrors. They sometimes yield the Zwill Straightblade, the best knife in the game. After taking out the Plague Horrors, go after Syneugh. (Reis should be able to handle the two Ochus by herself.) Make sure to keep Reis healed. Syneugh uses Gigaflare a lot, which hits a wide area but isn't nearly as powerful as it looks (although it does do a number on the frame rate ^_^). It also hits his own teammates if they happen to be standing in your vicinity! Syneugh doesn't have very much HP; if you have Orlandeau, he might able to kill Syneugh in one shot. This battle isn't really as tough as it may look -- just make sure Reis stays healed! BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 0, Soil) Remedy Mythril Vest none Left: 4, Up: 3 (height: 4, Flagstone) Remedy Mythril Shield none Left: 1, Up: 7 (height: 3, Stone Out.) Remedy Mythril Armor none Left: 3, Up: 15 (height: 0, Soil) Remedy Mythril Helm none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After this battle, you'll get the Aquarius Zodiac Stone, and Reis and Beowulf will offer to join you. Sign them up! Both are required for later quests, so be sure to keep them alive. Reis is not that great (at least for now), but Beowulf IS. In particular, shoot for learning his Vengeance and Chicken abilities. Chicken does a HUGE drop on enemy Bravery and frequently turns them into a helpless chicken, while Vengeance is a potent attack with a long range. ---CONSTRUCT 8--- Now that you've got the Aquarius Stone, return to Goug. You will put in the Aquarius stone in the iron sphere, which transforms into Construct 8. A comical scene will follow, and then another new character, Construct 8, joins you. Construct 8 is more like a monster in that it can't change jobs, but it's super-strong anyway. It has a long-range laser attack, an inherent Counter, and is impervious to Faith-based magicks, all status conditions except Confuse, and most elements. However, it IS weak to lightning attacks that do not involve Faith. ALLY: Construct 8 [Gemini] - Automaton, lv. based on party's - Bravery 70, Faith 0 Abilities : Tasks, Counter, Defense Boost Immune : All negative status except Confuse, all elements except Lightning and Water Weakness : Lightning ---NEXT QUEST BEGINS--- On the way out of Goug, if you've progressed sufficiently far in the game, you'll get another scene in which Besrudio puts together another device that requires the Cancer Zodiac Stone. If you've finished up Fort Besselat, you can now begin the Nelveska Temple quest, further below. %%%RECRUITING BALTHIER%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00balt QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: After completing battle at the Free City of Bervenia REWARDS: Balthier joins the party, Ras Algethi gun, Mirage Vest Balthier from Final Fantasy XII makes an appearance as an optional cameo character you can sign up for your team. Any time after completing the battle at the Free City of Bervenia in Chapter IV, visit either the Magick City of Gariland, the Mining Town of Gollund, or the Royal City of Lesalia. Read the "Rash of Thefts" rumor. (You only need to read this rumor at ONE of these three cities, not all three!) After you've read "Rash of Thefts," go to Dorter and visit the Tavern there. Read the new rumor here ("A Call for Guards") that will have appeared if you've read "Rash of Thefts." It seems like nothing has happened, but return to the map and try to leave Dorter. You'll get into kicked into a battle (though not without a lengthy FMV intro to Balthier first). ---Balthier Subquest Battle: Dorter Slums--------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Balthier [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 30, male) Monk (lv 28, male) Archer (lv 31, male) Archer (lv 29, male) Archer (lv 27, male) White Mage (lv 28, female) GUEST: Balthier [Leo] - lv 35 Sky Pirate - Bravery 78, Faith 60 Equipment : Ras Algethi, Thief's Cap, Mirage Vest, Germinas Boots Abilities : Piracy VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Balthier is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 10 Roof Wind Blast 39% Soil Sinkhole 36% Ocean Torrent 11% Grassland Tanglevine 9% Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 3% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- Balthier will help you out here as a guest. The bulk of your team will start away from Ramza and Balthier, so it may be helpful to bring characters with a high Move range or guns, so that they can join the fray quickly. You'll need to make sure Ramza doesn't get separated and surrounded. Balthier won't fight on the frontlines, but he has a super- strong gun and will assist from the rooftops. Unless Ramza gets surrounded, this should be an easy battle. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1.5, Soil POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 4 (height: 1, Soil) Antidote Leather Armor none Left: 6, Up: 1 (height: 9, Roof) Echo Herbs Mythril Knife none Left: 4, Up: 12 (height: 3.5, Grassl.) Eye Drops Clothing none Left: 7, Up: 14 (height: 1.5, Soil) Phoenix Down Longsword none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afterwards, you can sign Balthier up for your team. He's basically a combination of Mustadio (he has all of Mustadio's Aimed Shot abilities) and a Thief, but he has better stats and a wide range of usable equipment (including polearms, knight's swords, guns, heavy armor, and more). He also has one unique ability of his own: Barrage. Barrage allows him to attack four times in a row for 1/2 damage each time, essentially allowing you to do double damage. Barrage can't be evaded or blocked with Shirahadori, making it a very potent offensive ability. Balthier's "Plunder" abilities are also a little better than regular Stealing; when it comes to stealing equipment, a Plunder is 10 percentage points more likely to succeed than a Steal. (So, if a Steal would have, say, a 36% success rate, Plunder will have a 46% success rate, for instance.) Overall, Balthier is a great character and definitely worth a spot on your roster. Balthier also comes equipped with a Ras Algethi gun and Mirage Vest, two items you can't find anywhere else! Both are quite strong, so even if you don't plan on using Balthier, you should at least give his gear to someone else. %%%NELVESKA TEMPLE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00nel QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: After clearing Fort Besselat and completing Gollund Colliery quest. (Must also buy flower in Sal Ghidos, see below) REWARDS: Reis returns to human form, various items found with Treasure Hunter ---QUEST REQUIREMENTS--- In order to begin the Nelveska Temple quest, you must first have finished the battles at Fort Besselat in the main storyline, as well as having completed the Gollund Colliery quest above. Beowulf and Reis the Holy Dragon must also still be on your team. When you first reach the Trade City of Sal Ghidos during the main storyline, you'll be asked to buy a flower for 1 gil from Aerith. Make sure you choose the SECOND option to buy the flower. You'll need to buy this flower in order to continue with the quest. If you fail to buy the flower when asked, you do NOT have a second chance to get it and unfortunately can't continue with this quest :( ---BEGINNING THE QUEST--- Once you've got the flower, go down to Goug and you'll see a scene where Besrudio presents another device unearthed from the tunnels; this one requires the Cancer Zodiac Stone. (If you've already seen this scene, you don't need to go back to Goug.) Now go back up to Zeltennia Castle. Go to the tavern and listen to the "Cursed Isle of Nelveska" rumor. This will open up a new path on your map from Zeltennia to Nelveska Temple. Although you can open up the route to Nelveska as soon as you reach Zeltennia, in order to actually trigger the battle there, you must have seen the scene at Goug where Besrudio presents his weathervane-like device. ---MODIFYING YOUR BRAVERY--- Before you head up to Nelveska Temple, you'll want to prepare. The battle at Nelveska Temple contains a number of rare items that can be found using Treasure Hunter. These items include a super-powered Javelin and Escutcheon as well as the Sasuke's Blade ninja blade and the goofy Nagnarok sword. The Javelin II and Escutcheon II are especially worth picking up (and the Escutcheon II isn't available anywhere else!). You only have this ONE chance to get them, as there are no random battles at Nelveska Temple. Of course, you certainly don't NEED any of these items and they can be tricky to get, so it's up to you as to whether you want to try for them. If you do want to get the items, you'll need to have a LOW Bravery -- the higher your Treasure Hunter's Bravery, the higher the odds of getting a crummy item instead of the item you want. Rapha is great for this purpose since her Bravery already starts pretty low. For the best odds, though, you'll want to lower it even further. The best way to do this is probably with Beowulf's Chicken magick (up to a 12-point decrease in permanent Bravery) for big changes coupled with the Orator's Intimidate (4-point decrease in permanent Bravery) for small changes. Just be to sure to keep her permanent Bravery above 10, so that she doesn't start the battle as a Chicken. ---THE BIG BATTLE--- Whether you're planning on looking for the items or not, you'll probably want also to buy some Gold Needle or Remedies before you leave town for the coming battle, or equip Jade Armlets -- the Cockatrices at the temple can turn you to stone. Go to Nelveska. If you've seen the appropriate scene at Goug, a battle will trigger. ---Nelveska Temple Battle: Nelveska Temple-------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Construct 7 (lv 66 Automaton) Cockatrice* Cockatrice* Cockatrice* Hydra* Hydra* * These enemies' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. BOSS: Construct 7 [random Zodiac] - lv 66 Automaton - Bravery 50, Faith 0 Abilities : Tasks, Counter, Defense Boost Immune : All negative status except Confuse, all elements except Lightning and Water VICTORY CONDITION: KO Construct 7 twice LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 51% Flagstone Contortion 31% Sand Sandstorm 11% Stone Outcropping Tremor 4% Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% Soil Sinkhole 1% --STRATEGY-- The enemies here will hit you hard and fast. When deploying characters, put Orlandeau on either the far left or far right. If you have another character with an automatic Haste (e.g. from the Tynar Rouge), place her behind Orlandeau. Together, they can probably KO one of the Hydras on the pillars before it has a chance to move. The Hydras will attack you first. Watch out for their Tri-Attack, which hits the unit in front of them plus any units to either side. Try to kill off one of the Hydras before the Cockatrices reach you. The Cockatrices have relatively little HP, so you may be able to take them out with group attacks (e.g. Hallowed Bolt). Since all the enemies are fairly close by, you often don't need to move attack to them. Remember that not moving gives you your next turn faster, so don't move unless you need to. Since you're getting assaulted from all sides here, Orlandeau's Shadowblade attack is quite useful here -- it both deals damage AND restores a lot of his HP, keeping him healthy. Construct 7 will probably come out of its nook in the temple to attack you. Its attacks are brutal and can do 300+ damage to you. Try to thin out the other monsters a little bit first so you won't be swarmed while you're wearing Construct 7 down. Once you've taken out at least half the other monsters, rush Construct 7. It has NO Faith, so magicks are useless. It's also immune to all elements except Lightning and Water, so even non-Faith-based attacks that do elemental damage (like the Monk's Shockwave) don't work. Regular physical attacks and sword techniques will work. In addition, Construct 7 IS weak to non-Faith-based Lightning attacks, so Reis's Thunder Breath attack will do quite a bit of damage; it should take off more than half the Construct's HP! When you KO Construct 7 the first time, it will come back with 1 HP, so KO it again and the battle will end. However, if you want to get the hidden items here, you MUST get them before you defeat Construct 7, as you can't come back after this battle. There are four hidden items. On top of the two pillars where the Hydras start, you'll find the best polearm (the pillar on your right) and shield (the pillar on your left). They're called the Javelin and Escutcheon, but they're totally different items from the generic Javelin and Escutcheon. (I'll call the good ones the Javelin II and Escutcheon II.) The lower your Bravery, the better your odds of discovering the good items; otherwise, you'll end up with a regular Javelin and Escutcheon, the WORST polearm and shield. To get up on top of the pillars, move Construct 8 or Reis next to the pillar as a stepping-stone. You'll need at least a jump of 4 to get up using the stepping-stone method. (Ignore Elevation and Teleport are not usable because you need the movement ability slot for Treasure Hunter!) Because the "good" Javelin and Escutcheon have the same names as the crummy Javelin and the Escutcheon, it's hard to tell during the battle which one you've picked up. The Javelin II is gray instead of silver and has a fatter point, and the Escutcheon II has gold trim (instead of silver) and an extra vertical bar on its face. These details can be tough to spot in the few seconds the item is displayed, though. An easier method is to put Reequip on your Treasure Hunter, which will allow you to examine the items list during battle. As long as you have "Display Unequippable Items" set to "On" (under Options), you can see your entire list of equipment. Press Select on an item to check its stats. If the Javelin or Escutcheon has great stats, it's the one you want; if it has terrible stats, it's the "regular" version. (You can reset if you don't get what you're looking for.) You needn't even use up a turn to use Reequip in this way; just cancel out of the equipment menu without changing anything and you can take another action. The other two hidden items on this map are the Sasuke's Blade ninja blade, and the Nagnarok, a sword that turns enemies into Toads. The Nagnarok has only 1 attack power but a high evade rate when used with Parry. Both these items also require low Bravery, or you'll get Elixirs instead. Sasuke's Blade is hidden in the grassy area behind the temple. When you're facing the temple, on the right side, you'll see a staircase-like cliff that you can use to climb up on top of the temple. Once you're on top of the temple, continue moving away from your starting point into the green and brown grassy area at the back end of the map. The specific tile is near the very far back. Face the temple and move the cursor the upper-left corner of the map. Now, move the cursor one tile to the right and one tile down. You should be on a tile with a height of 4. This is the tile with Sasuke's Blade. (Another way of locating this tile is to use the coordinates at the bottom of this battle strategy.) The Nagnarok sword is much closer to where you start. When the battle starts, you'll see that Construct 7 is in the "doorway" of the temple just in front of where you start. It's a black area with pillars on either side. You'll have to first lure Construct 7 out of the way of the doorway. Once Construct 7 moves out of the way, move into that "doorway," as if you were walking inside the temple. This is a narrow passageway -- move the character as far back in the passage as the game will let you in. The tile deepest inside the temple has the Nagnarok. The battle at Nelveska can be tough in its own right, and trying to claim all these items will make it even harder. Bringing as any many women with Chantage as possible will help keep you alive, of course. Even Angel Rings (which only give you Reraise once per battle) are useful. If your Treasure Hunter is relatively weak, try equipping him/her with the Invisibility Cloak found on Mount Germinas. As long as the character doesn't take any actual action and just moves around picking up items, s/he should be left alone completely. KOing one or both Hydras at the very start of the battle will leave their bodies atop the pillars, preventing you from climbing up there until they crystallize ... but go ahead and KO them anyway. You're being attacked by so many enemies at the start that it's easier to take them out and then just wait for them to crystallize once things have settled down. The biggest concern when item-hunting is Construct 7 and its strong attacks. Unfortunately, it's immune to most of the status conditions you might want to inflict to halt it. Instead, use Rend Speed over and over to whittle down its speed and minimize the number of turns it gets. Once you've taken away all its speed, you can then use Rend Power on it to make it even weaker. (If you combine Arts of War with Dual Wield, you get two Rends per turn, which makes this process much easier.) If you're doing the Rends at close range, you will have to endure Construct 7's counterattacks, which is why Chantage will be helpful. Beware of accidentally killing Construct 7 with any counterattacks you might have; you don't want the battle to end prematurely! (And, keep in mind that all of Construct 7's special attacks decrease its own HP a little bit.) You'll probably need to stand by and keep healing Construct 7 with Chakra or items while you continue item-hunting. (White Magicks don't work for healing Construct 7 because it's immune to that.) The other enemies can (and should!) be killed, of course. If you're not shooting for ALL the items, the Escutcheon II is the best to pick up. It can be equipped by many jobs and cannot be found anywhere else in the game. The Javelin II is probably second-best, since it's the strongest polearm, whereas Sasuke's Blade is inferior to the Koga and Iga blades found in Midlight's Deep. Also, the Javelin II and Sasuke's Blade do not HAVE to be obtained here as they can eventually be caught with Sticky Fingers, and a Sasuke's Blade can be stolen in another subquest. The Nagnarok is the lowest priority, since it is of rather dubious value to begin with and can always be poached from Swines. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 4, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 9 (height: 7, Flagstone) Javelin Javelin II none Left: 5, Up: 9 (height: 7, Flagstone) Escutcheon Escutcheon II none Left: 3, Up: 3 (height: 0, Flagstone) Elixir Nagnarok none Left: 1, Up: 1 (height: 4, Grassland) Elixir Sasuke's Blade none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Construct 7 explodes, you'll get its power source: the Cancer Zodiac Stone. Back on the map screen, try to leave Nelveska Island. Beowulf will use the Cancer stone to restore the dragon Reis to her normal human form. She will then re-join your party, keeping all her dragon abilities and adding many new ones she can learn. Even in human form, her Dragonkin job can use very little equipment -- just hair adornments, bags, and some accessories. But, she has killer stats and an inherent Dual Wield. The Dual Wield can only be used only with weapon types that can be Dual Wielded, of course, but that includes her fists. If you now return the Cancer Stone to Besrudio, he'll summon Cloud. You can now embark on the Recruiting Cloud quest (below) to add Cloud to your team as well. If you've cleared Mullonde in the main storyline, you can also tackle the Lionel's New Liege Lord quest as well. %%%RECRUITING CLOUD%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00cloud QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: Immediately after completing Nelveska Temple quest REWARDS: Cloud joins the party, Materia Blade You can get Cloud any time after you complete Ford Besselat. In order to get him, you must first complete the Gollund Colliery quest, followed by the Nelveska Temple quest, both described above. You'll also still need Mustadio around. Having completed both of these quests, hike all the way back to Goug. (If you've finished the battles at Mullonde, you'll have a handy shortcut.) Besrudio will power up the weathervane with the Cancer Stone and it will ... summon Cloud. Cloud, in typical Cloud fashion, will refuse to let you introduce yourselves and run off in pursuit of Sephiroth. Now you have to go all the way to the Trade City of Sal Ghidos. Remember when you met Aerith here earlier? Well, she's back, and this time she's being accosted by some thieves. Cloud comes to save her, but has another one of his schizophrenic breakdowns. You have to save him from the thieves. ---Cloud Subquest Battle 1: Sal Ghidos------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Cloud [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv 47, male) Thief (lv 47, male) Thief (lv 33, male) Monk (lv 45, male) Squire (lv 48, male) Squire (lv 47, male) GUEST: Cloud [Aquarius] - lv 1 Soldier - Bravery 70, Faith 65 Equipment : Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Limit, other abilities random VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Cloud is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 10 Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 35% Flagstone, Earthen Wall Contortion 32% Wasteland Sinkhole 22% Coffer, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 11% --STRATEGY-- At this point in the game, a bunch of generic enemies with underpowered jobs shouldn't pose much threat; if you can't win this battle, you probably shouldn't be playing the game ;). The main concern here is the three Thieves, who may try to steal your stuff. If you've got any rare gear, you'll probably want to equip Safeguard to make sure you don't lose it -- or just take the Thieves out ASAP. You also need to make sure Cloud stays healthy, since you lose the battle if he's KOed. He's usually not in any danger, though, since he often flees into the far side of the map and avoids the melee completely. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Flagstone POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 9, Up: 2 (height: 9, Roof) Gold Needle Reflect Ring none Left: 9, Up: 9 (height: 3, Wasteland) Holy Water Protect Ring none Left: 9, Up: 10 (height: 3, Wasteland) Remedy Magick Ring none Left: 0, Up: 12 (height: 13, Roof) Phoenix Down Angel Ring none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afterwards, Clod... er, Cloud will join you. You're still not totally finished with this quest. In order for Cloud to be able to use his Limit attacks, you need to find his Materia Blade. The Blade is found using the Treasure Hunter ability during random battles at Mount Bervenia. The easiest way to get into a battle at Mount Bervenia is to go to Riovanes Castle and just move back and forth between Riovanes and Mount Bervenia until you get into a random battle. ---Cloud Subquest Battle 2: Mount Bervenia-------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters ENEMY FORCES: Random (see Random Battles section) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Random MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Basalt Tremor 58% Lava Magma Surge 37% Obstructed -- 5% --STRATEGY-- Once you're in battle, move your Treasure Hunter to the very tippy-top of the volcano to discover the Materia Blade. You'll need a Jump at least of 4 to reach the volcano top -- equip Germinas Boots if you need a boost. Unlike the other rare items found with Treasure Hunter, this one doesn't depend on your Bravery. You'll always receive the Materia Blade on this tile, regardless of your Bravery; there's no chance of getting the wrong thing. Once you've secured the Materia Blade, finish off the rest of the enemies to end the battle. If you end the battle by mistake before getting the Blade, just start up another battle; the Blade never disappears until you find it. If you're having a hard time getting your Treasure Hunter up to the top during the battle, one strategy is to kill off all but one enemy, and then use Beowulf's Chicken ability to turn the last enemy into a chicken. This leaves you free to spend as much time as needed navigating the volcano. By the way, one of the other treasures here can never actually be obtained. In order to pick it up, your Treasure Hunter would have to stop on top of a lava-filled tile. But the only abilities that actually let you STOP on top of lava are Lavawalking and Levitate -- and neither of those can be equipped at the same time as Treasure Hunter! Float magick or equipment like the Winged Boots DO NOT allow you to get this treasure. That's because they only let you move through lava on the way to another tile, and never allow you to STOP on lava. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 3, Basalt POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 1, Up: 9 (height: 18, Basalt) -Materia Blade- Death Trap Left: 4, Up: 1 (height: 3, Basalt) X-Potion Flameburst Bomb Sten Needle Left: 6, Up: 10 (height: 3, Basalt) X-Potion Flameburst Bomb Death Trap Left: 5, Up: 11 (height: 0, Lava) -CANNOT BE OBTAINED- Degenerator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Equipping Cloud with the Materia Blade allows him to use his Limit command, although you still have to learn all the Limit abilities individually. Most of Cloud's Limit attacks do powerful magic damage. The downsides are that they take a long time to charge, and they only target PANELS -- so if Cloud's target moves before the attack actviates, it will miss! Honestly, Cloud isn't really all that great a character, in my estimation. His Limits take so long to charge, and he requires a lot of time to level up since he starts back at level 1. If you want to use him, your best bet is probably to give him the Time Mage's Swiftness ability (which halves the charge time of his Limits), and give him gear to boost his Magick Attack (which will make his Limits more powerful). You can only get the Materia Blade at Mt. Bervenia once. But, if your Materia Blade is broken or lost, there ARE a couple ways to replace it. First, enemy ninjas of Lv. 96 or higher will sometimes throw Materia Blades, and you can use the Thief's Sticky Fingers to catch and keep them. (Good places to find enemy ninjas include The Interstice, the multiplayer "Littering" mission, and the special battle at the west entrance to Araguay Woods.) You can also win the Materia Blade as a prize in both of the multiplayer modes. %%%DISORDER IN THE ORDER%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00dis QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: After Mullonde battles REWARDS: Lots of stealable equipment The second of two Agrias-related quests, this quest becomes available late in Chapter IV, after you win the battles at Mullonde Cathedral. You do NOT have to have completed the other Agrias quest (Agrias's Birthday) to access it. First, after clearing the Cathedral, make tracks for Zeltennia Castle, in the upper right corner of the map. As long as Agrias is still with you, when you reach Zeltennia, you'll see a scene in which Agrias meets with Ovelia and sets up an important later plot point. If Alicia and Lavian are still around, they'll also participate in this scene, but they're not required. Nothing else happens here, but now head to the Magick City of Gariland or Eagrose Castle and hit up the Tavern. If you saw the scene at Zeltennia, there will be a new rumor, "Disorder in the Order." Listen to it. Now, if you head back to the Brigands' Den south of Mandalia Plain, you'll get into a battle against some deserters from the Order of the Northern Sky. ---Disorder in the Order Battle: Brigands' Den---------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Agrias [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Ninja (lv 49, male) Monk (lv 40, female) Knight (lv 43, male) Knight (lv 42, male) Squire (lv 44, male) Squire (lv 41, male) VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 37% Ocean Torrent 30% Flagstone Contortion 21% Grassland Tanglevine 12% --STRATEGY-- Agrias fights as a Guest in this battle, but it's not necessary to keep her from getting KOed. You won't lose if she does. In fact, if you want to steal from all the enemies here, it's probably a GOOD idea to KO Agrias yourself to keep her from finishing off the enemies before you do. Since she's a Guest here, you can leave her KOed as long as you want and she won't ever disappear. If you bring Orlandeau along as well, you can see a few extra lines of dialogue. This battle is a stealing extravaganza! Every enemy here has at least one rare item that you can't find in the Outfitter (although all these items are also available in at least one other place in the game as well). The Squires have Blaze and Glacial Guns respectively, the Ninja has a Sasuke's Blade, the Monk has Ninja Gear and a Barette, and the Knights have a Venetian Shield and a Kaiser Shield. If you get nothing else, the shields are probably your best bet. Since there's a LOT to steal here, equipping Concentration or Martial Arts to boost your success rate be helpful. Don't forget that raising your Speed also helps you steal items, so use Ramza and Luso's Tailwind (or the Bard's Rousing Melody) to crank up your Speed stat. Balthier's Plunder skills are also advantageous here--they're more likely to successfully steal than a regular Steal. Unfortunately, most of the enemies have equipment that makes them immune to Sleep status, but Sleep DOES work on the Ninja and the Knights. Chicken can also work, but then you'll have to chase after the chickenized enemies as they run away from you, so this can be more hassle than it's worth. All the enemies in this battle act as "special" characters who will never crystallize or turn into chests. This can be kinda handy if you want to steal from them. You can knock out all but one enemy, then revive just the enemy you want to steal from, pilfer what you want, KO the enemy again, and repeat. You never have to worry about anyone disappearing completely. Just don't finish off the last enemy until you're done stealing! Don't bother with the Treasure Hunter items here -- they're the same items from when you fought at the Den way back in Chapter I, so they're totally worthless now. In fact, if you already collected the items back then, they won't even be here now. The actual battle should be fairly easy since these are fairly basic enemies with few special enemies. A couple of the enemies do start up on top of the fort, which makes them hard to reach unless you have a good Jump, Teleport, or Ignore Elevation. However, if you march up to the top of the ramp in front of the fort, you can still hit them with a lot of special attacks (e.g. sword techniques). Guns and Construct 8's Dispose are also good for attacking from a distance. BATTLE TROPHIES: None --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Wooden Floor POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 2, Wooden Fl.) Phoenix Down Longbow none Left: 8, Up: 10 (height: 2, Grassland) Antidote Flame Rod none Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 3, Wooden Fl.) Echo Herbs White Staff none *Left: 7,Up: 10 (height: 10, Wooden F.) Eye Drops Ice Rod none * Requires Jump of 4 or greater. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing special happens when you clear the battle--this quest is mostly just an avenue for stealing a lot of great items :) %%%LIONEL'S NEW LIEGE LORD%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00lio QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: After Mullonde battles AND completing Nelveska Temple quest REWARDS: Genji Armor, Zeus Mace, Sortile'ge, stealable Masamune and Chantage, Hydrascale Bag, other equipment The main purpose of Beowulf's new subquest is to acquire the Masamune and Genji Armor, as well as a few other goodies. To begin the subquest, you must first complete the Nelveska Temple quest. At this point, you will have recruited Beowulf and Reis and returned Reis to human form. Beowulf and Reis must also still be alive and on your roster. You also have to completed the battle against Zalbaag at Mullonde in the main storyline. However, you do NOT need to have recruited Cloud or obtained his Materia Blade. In addition to meeting the above requirements, to activate the quest, you have to have read the "Lionel's New Liege Lord" rumor that appears in Taverns after you've completed the story battle at Bervenia Free City. This rumor can be read before or after you recruit Beowulf and Reis. This quest, of course, takes place at Lionel Castle. As soon as you visit Lionel Castle after reading the rumor and acquiring the needed characters, you're thrown into the quest, so you'll want to prepare first. Make sure you have a character able to steal, as this subquest gives you a chance to steal a Masamune and a Chantage. When you reach Lionel Castle, you'll see a story scene and Reis will be spirited away. You're given a chance to save and adjust your roster before being booted into battle against Beowulf's old pal Aliste. Since Reis is presently kidnapped, you won't be able to select her as part of your team for the battles in this quest. ---Lionel's New Liege Lord Battle 1: Lionel Castle Gate------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Beowulf [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: Aliste (lv 48 Templar) Ninja (lv 44, male) Ninja (lv 43, male) Archer (lv 45, male) Archer (lv 42, male) Time Mage (lv 45, female) BOSS: Aliste [Scorpio] - lv 48 Templar - Bravery 80, Faith 35 Equipment : Genji Shield, Save the Queen, Genji Helm, Genji Armor, Ribbon Abilities : Spellblade, Iaido, Shirahadori, Safeguard, Master Teleportation VICTORY CONDITION: KO Aliste twice LOSS CONDITION: Beowulf is KOed or Ramza dies WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 40% Flagstone Contortion 36% Swamp Quicksand 7% Obstructed -- 7% Stone Outcropping Tremor 5% Brick Wind Slash 4% --STRATEGY-- Beowulf fights on your team as a Guest in this battle, which means you only get to choose 3 other characters to deploy. And while it's not spelled out in the victory conditions, you have to keep Beowulf alive -- if he gets KOed, you immediately get a Game Over. Be sure to equip Beowulf with some good armor or a shield beforehand. It's probably a wise idea to deploy a decent healer as well so that you can keep his health up. Since your principal enemy here has Safeguard, Meliadoul's sword techniques are useless, so you probably won't want to deploy her. Aliste starts up on the roof, but since he has Elmdore's Master Teleportation ability, he'll probably warp down to fight you before you can climb up after him. He's a Templar just like Beowulf, so he has all of Beowulf's Spellblade skills. (He has a nice set of Genji gear as well, but, also like Elmdore, he has Safeguard, which means you unfortunately can't steal it from him.) Since Aliste's Spellblade can inflict a lot of status changes on you, be sure to have Remedy or Esuna ready. Alternately, try wiping out Aliste's MP using the Knight's Rend MP, Orlandeau's Duskblade, or the Dark Knight's Infernal Strike. Aliste has somehow equipped a Ribbon--normally female-only headgear--in his accessory slot, so he's immune to status attacks. You might want to send one or two of your less powerful characters to take out the Ninjas coming through the castle gate. The other enemies can probably be ignored. The Archers won't do too much damage, and they're hard to target since the castle wall blocks your ability to shoot at them. If you want to take them out, use Construct 8's Dispose, which can go through walls. Focus your attacks on Aliste. He uses Shirahadori to guard your physical attacks. You can try to weaken this by using Orator skills to lower his Bravery (since a lower Bravery means reaction abilities trigger less often); Beowulf may also help you in this regard. Otherwise, just sling magicks, sword techniques, Dispose, and Balthier's Barrage at him until he goes down. The first time you KO him, he'll revive with 1 HP, but just punch him out a second time and you win the battle for real. As with all of the "repeat" battlefields, the Treasure Hunter tiles here are the same crummy ones from the first time through, so you can safely ignore them. BATTLE TROPHIES: Genji Armor --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 5, Grassland POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 6 (height: 8, Grassland) Ether Wizard's Robe none Left: 7, Up: 5 (height: 4, Grassland) Echo Herbs Rubber Boots none Left: 7, Up: 7 (height: 4, Grassland) Potion Golden Armor none Left: 13, Up: 6 (height: 2, Grassland) Hi-Potion Wizard Clothing none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You'll have another chance to save and adjust your team, so equip the Genji Armor you just won. It's the second strongest suit of armor in the single- player game. ---Lionel's New Liege Lord Battle 2: Lionel Castle Oratory---------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, Beowulf [guest], 3 others ENEMY FORCES: PHASE ONE: Bremondt (lv 51 Celebrant) Ninja (lv 49, female) Ninja (lv 48, female) Samurai (lv 48, female) Samurai (lv 47, female) Mystic (lv 46, female) Mystic (lv 45, female) PHASE TWO: Bremondt (lv 42 Dark Dragon) BOSS: Bremondt [Gemini] - lv 51 Celebrant - Bravery 10, Faith 80 Equipment : Zeus Mace, Celebrant's Miter, Lordly Robe, Ribbon Abilities : Priest Magicks, Fundaments, Counter Tackle, Safeguard, Lifefont Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, and Slow BOSS: Bremondt [Gemini] - lv 42 Dark Dragon - Bravery 80, Faith 10 HP: about 3150, MP: about 220 Abilities : Breath, Counter, Attack Boost, Arcane Strength, Arcane Defense Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize VICTORY CONDITION: Phase One - KO Bremondt Phase Two - KO Dark Dragon Bremondt LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Flagstone Contortion 60% Carpet, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 20% Obstructed -- 20% --STRATEGY-- Bremondt has a pretty powerful set of underlings here. Most importantly, the Samurai to Bremondt's right (the left side of the screen when the battle begins) has a stealable Masamune. This is by far the easiest place to get this weapon, so be sure to steal it! (The only other way to get a Masamune in the single-player game is to catch it with Sticky Fingers when enemy Ninjas throw it.) Some of Bremondt's other troops are pretty tough, too. The Mystic on his left (again, the right side of the screen initially) is equipped with Chantage. This means that there's no point in attacking her, as she'll just revive on her next turn. The only way to really take her out is to break the Chantage or steal it. Since Chantage is extremely useful, stealing it isn't a bad idea, although you CAN get them elsewhere. Watch out, both Mystics also have a pretty strong attack since they're equipped with bags. Other rare items available here are a Cachusha and Barette--stolen from the Mystics on Bremondt's right and left, respectively--and the Sortile'ge perfume, also stolen from the Mystic on his right. You'll be receiving a Sortile'ge and Hydrascale Bag for completing this quest anyway, though, so these are pretty skippable. Bremondt himself is equipped with a Lordly Robe, which gives him a fair amount of HP, and a Ribbon, which blocks any status attacks. Unfortunately, he has Safeguard, so you can't steal this stuff from him. He's not much of a threat in combat, though. As long as at least one of his underlings is KOed, Bremondt usually just wastes his turns casting Arise. (This can actually helpful be if you accidentally KO the Samurai with the Masamune before you're able to steal it.) Keep at least one of the generic enemies KOed while you go after Bremondt and he'll just keep using Arise. Since the Ribbon doesn't protect Bremondt from the Atheist status, you can also try using the Mystic's Disbelief (or Beowulf's Doubt) to prevent him from casting magicks. Alternately, attack his MP with Rend MP / Duskblade / Infernal Strike. When Bremondt is KOed, he will transform into the Dark Dragon, and all the other enemy troops will be wiped from the board. It's now time for the second phase of this battle. The Dark Dragon has some really strong physical attacks, and might occasionally use breath attacks as well. It can Counter you when you attack, so you're probably better off using sword techniques or other abilities that aren't standard melee attacks. Beowulf's Drain is good too, though here you have no control over whether he uses it! Magicks are pretty useless since the Dark Dragon has very low Faith AND Arcane Defense. Graviga and Lich can still do big damage if they connect, but will have a low hit rate. Attacks that don't depend on Faith are better. BATTLE TROPHIES: Zeus Mace --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 1, Flagstone - on Ramza's left at start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 6, Up: 3 (height: 5, Carpet) Potion Guardian Bracelet none Left: 6, Up: 4 (height: 5, Carpet) Ether Mage's Cloak none Left: 8, Up: 3 (height: 7, Flagstone) Hi-Potion Protect Ring none Left: 8, Up: 4 (height: 7, Flagstone) Remedy Osafune none -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Bremondt goes down, you'll receive a Zeus Mace, a very nice staff, for your efforts. (There's a second Zeus Mace in Midlight's Deep, but it doesn't hurt to have two!) Beowulf and Reis are reunited. In gratitude for all your help, Beowulf hands over all his treasure, including a Gold Hairpin, a Hydrascale Bag, a pair of Hermes Shoes, a Diamond Bracelet, and the Sortile'ge perfume. You're prompted to add Beowulf and Reis back into your roster, and this subquest is now complete! At this point, Beowulf and Reis are no longer required for any other quests, so you COULD delete them if you wanted, but you won't be able to get them back! %%%MIDLIGHT'S DEEP%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00md QUEST BECOMES AVAILABLE: After Mullonde battles REWARDS: Numerous rare items, Zodiark summon, the Byblos joins the party Midlight's Deep is a bonus dungeon with ten floors (each a separate battle), each packed with really powerful equipment. It's completely optional, and in fact is more difficult than the actual end of the game. You can only access Midlight's Deep after you complete the three battles at Mullonde Cathedral. But, you don't need to have beaten the final boss. After completing Mullonde Cathedral, go to the Port City of Warjilis. When you arrive, you'll automatically see a scene in the tavern in which Ramza overhears a rumor about the Deep. (Fans of the original PSone version of FF Tactics may get a kick out of some of the dialogue here.) When you leave town, a route will automatically pop up on the tiny island to the east, which contains Midlight's Deep. To enter Midlight's Deep, move to the island. Then, click on Midlight's Deep a second time. Choose the floor you want to enter. At the beginning, only the first floor will be accessible, but you'll open up more as you progress. ---General Instructions--------------------------------------------------------- ---BATTLES IN THE DEEP--- Midlight's Deep battles are considered random battles, which means that the exact line-up of enemies changes each time. It also means that you don't have to deploy Ramza. The exception is the initial encounter on the last floor, which has a fixed set of enemies AND requires Ramza to be deployed. ---NAVIGATING THE DARKNESS--- To make things challenging, every floor of Midlight's Deep is completely dark. You can see your team and the enemies, but you can't see the terrain. Crystals left by dead enemies will light up much of the area, but there's an even easier way to see your way around. Select an attack with a really long range, like a gun attack, Beowulf's Vengeance, Construct 8's Dispose, or best of all, Teleport (which lights up the *whole* map). When the game then prompts you to choose a target, most of the panels on the battlefield will be highlighted, giving you a chance to study the terrain. You don't even have to USE the selected attack, just select it, look at the map, and then cancel back to the menu. Since you can do this every round, you shouldn't have too much trouble seeing what you're doing. Although Midlight's Deep *looks* dark, it does not have the penalties on bow and crossbow accuracies that nighttime battles do in the overworld. ---FINDING THE EXITS--- Not only do you have to beat the enemies on each level, you ALSO have to find the exit to open up the next level. If you kill all the enemies without finding the exit, you'll just be kicked back to the map screen and have to replay the level before you can advance. To find the exit, you simply have to move a character onto the tile that contains the exit, at which point you'll get a message telling you that you "found a passage leading deeper." Once you finish off the remaining enemies and return to the map, you'll be able to select the next floor. You do NOT need the Treasure Hunter ability to find the exits. To make things tricky, each time you enter the level, the exit is RANDOMLY placed on one of five possible tiles -- so you don't know where it is! In the floor-by-floor walkthrough below, I've listed the possible exit locations for each floor, in order from nearest to furthest. Bear in mind that the exit can only be found on ONE of these five tiles, not any of them. Remember, the battle ends when you KO the last enemy, and if you didn't find the exit, you'll have to replay the level. So, you need to find the exit BEFORE you KO that last enemy. The easiest way to do this is to KO all but one enemy, then use Beowulf's Chicken ability or the Black Mage's Toad magick on the last enemy to turn it into a chicken or toad. Once the last enemy is a harmless animal, it's easy to walk around the level and look for the exit. Toad is ideal -- it lasts *forever*, unless the enemy has Black Magicks and can cast Toad on itself to cure itself. Chicken lasts for quite a while, but each turn the enemy gets 1 point of Bravery back, and when it has 10 Bravery, the Chicken spell will wear off. But, if you always recast Chicken when it's close to wearing off, you can keep the enemy a chicken forever :). (You can also supplement Chicken with Sleep--the enemy won't begin regaining Bravery until it wakes up.) Of course, you don't HAVE to use the Chicken or Toad trick to find the exit -- it just makes it a lot easier. While you do need to find the exits to advance, there's no obligation to find the exit on your first visit. If the battle gets rough, it's fine to just finish off the enemies and forget about finding the exit. You can look for it on your next visit. Also, once you've found a floor's exit once, you never need to look for it again. So, if you return to a previous floor to hunt for items or poach monsters, you don't need to worry about looking for the exit. --ACQUIRING THE RARE ITEMS--- But wait! There's more! Each level contains a number of rare items that you can find using the Treasure Hunter ability. Simply move a character with Treasure Hunter onto the correct tile and a new item is yours. If a character without Treasure Hunter steps on the tile, you'll often spring a trap instead, but the item remains there, waiting for a character with Treasure Hunter. Even once the item is picked up, any trap on the tile remains there, and then even a Treasure Hunter can spring it. As with most rare Treasure Hunter finds, you need a LOW Bravery level to pick up the special item. The higher your Bravery, the higher your chance you'll get a crummy Phoenix Down instead. (The chance of getting the Phoenix Down is simply equal to the character's current Bravery -- so a lower Bravery decreases your chance of getting it.) If you DO pick up the Phoenix Down, the "good" item is gone FOREVER, even if you leave the map and come back later! So, if you want to get all the items, you may want to save pretty frequently and only try picking up one or two items at a time. That way, it's easy to reset and try again if you don't get the item you want. If you forget a treasure tile completely, it's fine to go back to the map and activate it later. The treasure won't disappear until someone activates the tile. Beware that enemy characters with Treasure Hunter can also pick up the rare items, which will prevent you from ever getting them! At the start of each battle, you may want to check all the enemy humans to see if they have Treasure Hunter. If they do, either KO or Immobilize those enemies quickly to prevent them from beating you to the loot! If you step on a tile and spring a trap instead of getting the treasure, you might be experiencing one of two problems. Either the character doesn't have Treasure Hunter, or someone (either one of your characters or an enemy) already picked up the treasure from that tile. Unfortunately, once one item is grabbed from a tile, the treasures are gone permanently. ---STRATEGIES FOR FINDING ITEMS AND EXITS--- Rapha is great for finding the items because her Bravery already starts pretty low. For the best odds, though, you'll want to lower it even further. The best way to do this is probably with Beowulf's Chicken magick (up to a 12-point decrease in permanent Bravery) for big changes coupled with the Orator's Intimidate (4-point decrease in permanent Bravery) for small changes. Just be to sure to keep her permanent Bravery above 10, so that she doesn't start the battle as a Chicken. To make Rapha (or whomever you're using as a Treasure Hunter) more mobile, give her Germinas Boots to increase her move and jump range. If she has them unlocked, you can also switch her to an agile job like Thief, Dragoon, or Monk. This is helpful both for picking up the treasures and for finding the exits. Alternately (or in addition), you can have her ride a chocobo to increase her mobility. A Black Chocobo is particularly advantageous since it can fly right over enemies. Just deploy the chocobo next to her, and then move her onto the tile with the chocobo to have her ride it. You won't actually be able to claim items while on the chocobo, though, so park the chocobo NEXT to the tile with the treasure and have Rapha use the Dismount command to step down onto the treasure tile. It takes three turns just to move the chocobo, dismount, and remount, so chocobos are mostly helpful on maps with tricky terrain that would be even slower to navigate on foot. If you're having trouble with Rapha getting KOed quickly, you can protect her by equipping with her an item to make her Invisible. Items you can use include the Invisibility Cloak found on Mount Germinas (see Battle Strategy 42) or the Ninja Gear stealable in the Disorder in the Order sidequest. Both these items causes Rapha to start the battle with Invisible status. As long as she doesn't take any action and just moves around the battlefield looking for items and exits, she will stay invisible and will be virtually ignored by the enemies. (She's still vulnerable to area-effect spells.) The Ninja Gear is particularly advantageous; since it is body armor, it leaves Rapha's accessory slot free to equip Germinas Boots for enhanced mobility. Later, you can also get the Invisible status from the Septie`me perfume, poachable from the Greater Hydras found in the Deep, and from a second set of Ninja Gear found on the sixth floor of the dungeon (The Palings). You can also combine Invisibility with chocobo-riding; if you're Invisible when you board a chocobo, the chocobo becomes Invisible too (even though it doesn't look like it on the screen :P). Be careful, though; dismounting from the chocobo removes the chocobo's Invisibility and gives the enemies a chance to attack it. Note that you can also still pick up items as a Chicken, although you can't control the character. Since Chicken-ified characters usually run into a corner, you can use this tactic for picking up items in the corner of a map. Chickens have a Bravery below 10, which almost guarantee you'll get the rare item. ---LOCATING THE RARE ITEMS--- So WHERE are all these great items? Of course, on each floor, the items are in different locations. Since the tiles are not given any names or numbers in the game, I've had to assign my own numbers to them. Here's the scheme I've used: All of the coordinates are given relative to a particular corner. First, use the tile height and terrain type information to identify which of the 4 corners on the map is the reference corner. (You can view the terrain type information by highlighting a tile with the cursor and then pressing the Select button.) Now, tilt the analog stick on the PSP left or right. When you do this, the screen will change perspective and you'll be looking at the battlefield from a different angle. Keep doing this until the reference corner is at the bottom of the screen. You're now all set to find the treasure tiles. Start at the reference corner. Then, use the LEFT and UP arrows on the D-pad to move the cursor the specified number of spaces. For example, Left: 3, Up: 2 means 3 tiles to the left and 2 tiles up. The height and terrain type information will help you confirm that you've found the right space. (This is the same system I use for all the Treasure Hunter tiles, so if you've already been collecting them, there's nothing new to learn :) ) For exact item locations, see each level's battle strategy, below. ---POACHING--- There are also a number of rare monsters in Midlight's Deep, and poaching them can get you some unique items you can't find anywhere else. (See the Poaching List for the complete list.) Fortunately, since Warjilis Trade City is a trade city and has a Poachers' Den. So, after poaching some monsters, it's easy to head back to Warjilis and check on your haul. If you're serious about poaching (and have space on your roster), the best tactic for getting these rare items is to recruit a monster from the species using the Orator abilities Entice or Tame. (The Dragon's Charm ability possessed by Reis can also be used to recruit dragons and hydras, and works 100% of the time.) Once you've recruited the monster, just walk back and forth between Warjilis and the Deep. As the days pass, the monster will lay eggs and the eggs will hatch into new monsters. (You can actually preview exactly which monsters you'll be getting if you use the trick described in the Monsters section of Basic Mechanics and Tactics -- press Ctrl+F and 00mon to jump there.) Poach the HATCHED monsters, but leave the original in your roster. That way, you have a limitless supply of monsters to poach. This is a great way to poach rare monsters that don't appear in the wild very frequently. In fact, breeding monsters is the ONLY way to get a Wild Boar, which in turn is your only source in the single-player game for two super-rare items (the Ribbon and the Fallingstar Bag). ---ENEMY PARTIES--- On each floor, you'll encounter 1 of 4 different possible enemy parties, randomly determined each time you enter the floor. Within those parties, there is also some randomness in exactly what enemies you face. I've listed all the possibilities for each floor in the battle strategies below. Generally speaking, > Party Type A features 1-11 enemies, usually many copies of just a few fairly basic enemy types. > Party Types B and C always include 8 enemies and a more diverse group of enemy types. > Party Type D always includes 4 enemies and usually includes a mix of humans and more advanced monsters. ENEMY LEVELS: As in random battles in the overworld, enemy levels in Midlight's Deep are not pre-set. Instead, they are based on the highest experience level you have on your own roster -- even if that character is not deployed into the battle! Usually, enemies are a fixed number of levels higher than this Roster Highest level; e.g. a lv RH+6 Goblin is 6 levels than the highest level on your own roster. Some enemies have a random level that is about equal to your RH level; I've marked these enemies as lv ~RH. ---Floor-by-Floor Walkthrough--------------------------------------------------- Whew! I think that's all the instruction you need. Now head on in! ---Floor 1: The Crevasse-------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Goblin (lv RH+5) [1 - 11 Goblin (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+5) OR nothing foes] Goblin (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+4) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+3) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+2) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+1) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+5) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+4) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+3) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+2) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+1) OR nothing TYPE B - Knight (lv RH+6, male) OR Goblin (lv RH+4) [8 foes] Knight (lv RH+6, male) OR Red Panther (lv RH+5) Knight (lv RH+6, male) OR Red Panther (lv RH+1) Bomb (lv RH+6) OR Red Panther (lv RH+2) Bomb (lv RH+6) OR Coeurl (lv RH+4) Bomb (lv RH+6) OR Coeurl (lv RH+3) Bomb (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+5) Bomb (lv RH+6) OR Goblin (lv RH+3) TYPE C - Monk (lv RH+6, female) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+4) [8 foes] Monk (lv RH+6, female) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+3) Chemist (lv RH+6, male) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+5) Chemist (lv RH+6, male) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+1) Wisenkin (lv RH+6) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+5) Wisenkin (lv RH+6) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+4) Wisenkin (lv RH+6) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+3) Wisenkin (lv RH+6) OR Black Goblin (lv RH+2) TYPE D - Knight (lv RH+3, m) OR Black Mage (lv RH+3, f) OR Time Mage (lv RH+7,m) [4 foes] Archer (lv RH+3, m) OR Summoner (lv RH+2, f) OR Thief (lv RH+7, f) Gobbledygook (lv RH+5) OR Exploder (lv RH+7) OR Wisenkin (lv RH+5) Squire (lv RH+7, m) OR Red Panther (lv RH+3) OR Piscodaemon (lv RH+4) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 10 Stalactite Sandstorm 60% Moss Wind Slash 29% Stone Outcropping Tremor 11% --STRATEGY-- In this level, you start out at the top of a large cliff with a staircase-like path winding down it. The enemies are all at the bottom, which gives you a big height advantage. It's easy to rain ranged attacks down on them. If you do want to use melee attacks, Ignore Elevation, Teleport, or other jump boosts are helpful for navigating the cliff and descending quickly. The enemies here are all weak jobs and monsters (the Type A party is nothing but Goblins!), so they shouldn't be that difficult. It's a good warm-up for the tougher Midlight's Deep battles. Watch out for the Exploder monster, though; it's dark gray and is very difficult to see in the dark. If you face the Type D party, scan your cursor through the enemy forces to check for it. You can find two of the magickal guns here, although you may already have copies that you stole earlier. The Blaze Gun is a little stronger than the Glacial Gun, but both are worth picking up. These "magickal" guns do elemental attacks. Their damage varies; sometimes you get a -ra or a -ga spell visual effect and increased damage. The damage estimate you see when preparing to attack is the "low" estimate if you just get the regular spell. The Kiyomori hidden on this level is just a regular Kiyomori katana like you could buy in a store, making it the most useless pickup in the Deep. Remember to find the exit before you KO the last enemy. Otherwise, you won't be able to advance to the next level! --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Moss POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 2 (height: 7, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Glacial Gun Death Trap Left: 9, Up: 0 (height: 22, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Blaze Gun Hypnogas Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 17, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Kiyomori Death Trap Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 20, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 6, Up: 9 (height: 17, Moss) Left: 3, Up: 8 (height: 7, Moss) Left: 0, Up: 9 (height: 2, Moss) Left: 1, Up: 3 (height: 1, Stalactite) Left: 1, Up: 1 (height: 1, Stalactite) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After you find the exit in The Crevasse, you'll open up The Stair. If you defeated all the enemies on The Crevasse before you found the exit, just go back to The Crevasse and keep trying until you find the exit. ---Floor 2: The Stair----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Goblin (lv RH+7) [1 - 11 Black Goblin (lv RH+8) OR Goblin (lv RH+6) OR nothing foes] Black Goblin (lv RH+8) OR Goblin (lv RH+6) OR nothing Black Goblin (lv RH+8) OR Goblin (lv RH+4) OR nothing Black Goblin (lv RH+8) OR Goblin (lv RH+4) OR nothing Black Goblin (lv RH+8) OR Goblin (lv RH+2) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+7) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+5) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+5) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+3) OR nothing Goblin (lv RH+3) OR nothing TYPE B - Archer (lv RH+7, fem.) OR Skeleton (lv RH+8) [8 foes] Archer (lv RH+6, fem.) OR Skeleton (lv RH+8) Archer (lv RH+5, fem.) OR Bonesnatch (lv RH+8) Archer (lv RH+4, fem.) OR Bonesnatch (lv RH+8) Archer (lv RH+7, male) OR Ahriman (lv RH+8) Archer (lv RH+6, male) OR Ahriman (lv RH+8) Archer (lv RH+3, male) OR Floating Eye (lv RH+7) Archer (lv RH+2, male) OR Floating Eye (lv RH+8) TYPE C - Monk (lv RH+8, male) OR Black Mage (lv RH+7, male) [8 foes] Ninja (lv RH+8, female) OR Time Mage (lv RH+6, female) Skeleton (lv RH+7) OR Ghoul (lv RH+8) Skeleton (lv RH+6) OR Ghoul (lv RH+8) Skeleton (lv RH+5) OR Ghoul (lv RH+8) Bonesnatch (lv RH+4) OR Ghast (lv RH+8) Bonesnatch (lv RH+3) OR Ghast (lv RH+8) Bonesnatch (lv RH+2) OR Ghast (lv RH+8) TYPE D - Blue Dragon (lv RH+9) OR Knight (lv RH+4, m) OR Archer (lv RH+5, m) [4 foes] Dragon (lv RH+9) OR Knight (lv RH+5, m) OR Archer (lv RH+6, m) Dragon (lv RH+9) OR Summoner (lv RH+6, f) OR Archer (lv RH+7, m) Dragon (lv RH+9) OR Summoner (lv RH+7, f) OR Archer (lv RH+3, m) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 9 Stalactite Sandstorm 82% Moss Wind Slash 11% Stone Outcropping Tremor 6% --STRATEGY-- Despite the name, this floor isn't quite a stair. Instead, it's a bumpy landscape full of variations in height. So, again, Ignore Elevation/Teleport and jump boosts are helpful. Your opponents start quite close to you this time, but you still have a bit of a height advantages. Common enemy types include Archers, ahrimans, and skeletons. Since there are often multiple Archers, the Archer's Bane and Shirahadori abilities are quite helpful. Having your own strong range attacks also lets you KO the Archers quickly. Take out the Archers first, then go after the skeletons (their Anima attacks can be pretty strong!), and finally the ahrimans. Since you're being attacked by the full enemy party at once, putting Disable or Chicken on some enemies or using Rend/Crush Weapon on humans will stop their attacks and give you some breathing room. Instead of skeletons and Archers, you may instead fight goblins (Type A party) or ghosts (some Type C parties). These are usually easier battles. All the groups of enemies are definitely tougher than those in The Crevasse, however. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Stalactite) POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 7 (height: 6, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Blood Sword Death Trap Left: 6, Up: 10 (height: 9, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Elixir Degenerator Left: 8, Up: 1 (height: 1, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Save the Queen Hypnogas Left: 4, Up: 0 (height: 0, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 8, Up: 9 (height: 8, Stalactite) Left: 7, Up: 4 (height: 5, Stalactite) Left: 2, Up: 1 (height: 1, Moss) Left: 8, Up: 0 (height: 1, Stalactite) Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 2, Stalactite) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After The Stair comes The Hollow. ---Floor 3: The Hollow---------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Piscodaemon (lv RH+9) [1 - 11 Piscodaemon (lv RH+9) OR Cockatrice (lv RH+10) OR nothing foes] Piscodaemon (lv RH+8) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+10) OR nothing Piscodaemon (lv RH+6) OR Steelhawk (lv RH+10) OR nothing Piscodaemon (lv RH+7) OR nothing Piscodaemon (lv RH+5) OR nothing Squidraken (lv RH+7) OR Thief (lv RH+10, male) OR nothing Squidraken (lv RH+5) OR Black Mage (lv RH+10,f.)OR nothing Squidraken (lv RH+8) OR nothing Squidraken (lv RH+6) OR nothing Squidraken (lv RH+4) OR nothing Jura Aevis (lv RH+10) OR nothing TYPE B - Mindflayer (lv RH+10) OR Squidraken (lv RH+9) [8 foes] Mindflayer (lv RH+10) OR Squidraken (lv RH+8) Coeurl (lv RH+10) OR Squidraken (lv RH+7) Coeurl (lv RH+10) OR Squidraken (lv RH+6) Black Mage (lv RH+10,f) OR Red Panther (lv RH+5) Black Mage (lv RH+10,f) OR Red Panther (lv RH+9) Black Mage (lv RH+10,f) OR Bomb (lv RH+8) Grenade (lv RH+10) OR Bomb (lv RH+7) TYPE C - Behemoth Kng (lv RH+10) OR Minotaur (lv RH+6) [8 foes] Behemoth (lv RH+10) OR Minotaur (lv RH+7) Behemoth (lv RH+10) OR Wisenkin (lv RH+9) Behemoth (lv RH+10) OR Wisenkin (lv RH+8) Knight (lv RH+10, male) OR Archer (lv RH+9, female) Knight (lv RH+10, male) OR Archer (lv RH+8, female) Knight (lv RH+10, male) OR Archer (lv RH+7, female) Knight (lv RH+10, male) OR Archer (lv RH+5, female) TYPE D - Dragoon (lv RH+6, f) OR Bl.Mage (lv RH+10,f)OR Elder Treant (lv RH+7) [4 foes] Geomancer (lv RH+7,m) OR Archer (lv RH+10,m) OR Skeletal Fiend (lvRH+8) Mystic (lv RH+8, f) OR Knight (lv RH+10,f) OR Squidraken (lv RH+9) Orator (lv RH+9, m) OR Squire (lv RH+10,m) OR Red Panther (lv RH+5) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 10 Stone Outcropping Tremor 41% Darkness (chasm) -- 36% Stalactite Sandstorm 24% --STRATEGY-- The Hollow has a big chasm running through the center of it, dividing the map into three separate regions. Your party starts on a separate "island" from the enemy squad and you can only cross with a jump or Teleport. If you bring a lot of characters with long-range attacks (guns, Arithmeticks, Construct 8's Dispose), this should be fairly easy. From your starting point, guns and Dispose can hit almost all of the enemies. Since they have to navigate around the pits, you can just stand there and blast away. Just Wait instead of moving and you can get your next turn even faster. Still, the enemies will catch up with you eventually, so you'll want to bring along a good close-range fighter or two (like Orlandeau) as well. Probably the most dangerous enemy that can appear here is the Mindflayer. The Mindflayer's Mind Blast ability can Berserk or Confuse you, and has enough range that it can reach across the chasm. Try to KO the Mindflayers first. If they do Confuse you, you can cure a Confused character by whacking them with a physical attack. This doesn't cure Berserk, though. Also common here are enemy Black Mages, who can of course hit you with magick from a distance. Stealing away their MP is one good way of dealing with them. A gun paired with Rend MP can do this from a long distance, and Orlandeau's Duskblade has a decent range too. The Hollow also contains two good pieces of equipment: the Yoichi Bow and the Zeus Mace. Be sure to pick them up! In general, collecting all the Elixirs is not necessary as there are quite a few available and you can do fine without getting them all (or even any of them). One of the exit locations here is a bit tricky. It's up atop a height 6 pillar. There's a "step" (of height 2.5) on one side of the pillar you can use to climb up. Or, just use Teleport or Ignore Elevation to hop up directly. (Finding the exits doesn't require Treasure Hunter so you can use your movement ability slot for Teleport.) --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Stone Outcropping - the one where cursor is blue POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 3 (height: 1.5, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Death Trap Left: 8, Up: 6 (height: 0.5, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Zeus Mace Death Trap Left: 7, Up: 15 (height: 1.5, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle Left: 2, Up: 9 (height: 4.5, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Yoichi Bow Hypnogas POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 6, Up: 11 (height: 1, Stalactite) Left: 1, Up: 8 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) Left: 2, Up: 8 (height: 6, Stalactite) Left: 8, Up: 1 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) Left: 1, Up: 2 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get ready for the fourth floor, The Catacombs, which is fairly challenging. ---Floor 4: The Catacombs------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Malboro (lv RH+12) OR Greater Malboro (lv RH+10) [1 - 11 Malboro (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+10) OR nothing foes] Malboro (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+9) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+8) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+7) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+11) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+11) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+10) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+9) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+8) OR nothing Malboro (lv RH+7) OR nothing TYPE B - Ochu (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+11) [8 foes] Ochu (lv RH+12) OR Malboro (lv RH+10) Archer (lv RH+12, m) OR Malboro (lv RH+9) Archer (lv RH+12, m) OR Malboro (lv RH+8) Steelhawk (lv RH+12) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+7) Steelhawk (lv RH+12) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+11) Summoner (lv RH+12, f) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+10) Summoner (lv RH+12, f) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+9) TYPE C - Mystic (lv RH+12, m) OR Archer (lv RH+11, f) [8 foes] Mystic (lv RH+12, m) OR Archer (lv RH+10, f) Mystic (lv RH+12, m) OR Archer (lv RH+9, f) Mystic (lv RH+12, m) OR Archer (lv RH+8, f) Black Mage (lv RH+7, f) OR Jura Aevis (lv RH+12) Black Mage (lv RH+11,f) OR Steelhawk (lv RH+12) Black Mage (lv RH+10,f) OR Cockatrice (lv RH+12) Black Mage (lv RH+9, f) OR Cockatrice (lv RH+12) TYPE D - Hydra (lv RH+13) OR Archer (lv RH+12, m) OR Floating Eye (lv RH+8) [4 foes] Sekhret (lv RH+12) OR Monk (lv RH+11, m) OR Steelhawk (lv RH+13) Sekhret (lv RH+11) OR Summoner (lv RH+10,f) OR Gobbledygook (lv RH+13) Minotaur (lv RH+10) OR Monk (lv RH+9, f) OR Mindflayer (lv RH+13) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 16 x 11 Darkness (chasm) -- 45% Stalactite Sandstorm 34% Stone Outcropping Tremor 14% Obstructed -- 5% Moss Wind Slash 2% --STRATEGY-- The Catacombs are actually just a big staircase that winds back and forth, similar to The Crevasse (the first floor). However, the staircase is longer and each tier is separated by a chasm, so you can't jump straight down. Depending on the enemies you face, this level can either be easy or pretty challenging. The Type A party pits you against Malboros only, which is easy. The Malboros are slow, don't have ranged attacks, and tend to bunch up in groups. You can take your time advancing against them and attack them with wide-range attacks (e.g. Hallowed Bolt). More difficult are the Type B and Type C parties, which include aevises; the Type C party also usually includes Mystics, Black Mages, and Archers. These battles are tougher. The aevises will quickly fly up the stairs to attack you and can fly over your front line to attack the magick-/item-users in the back. The Mystics can also be a pain since they will put lots of status conditions on you and often start near your team. If you have any Hair Adornments to equip on your female characters, these are good to bring here since they will protect against lots of potential status ailments. Attack the Mystics first since they have less HP and you can probably KO them the fastest. Attack the Aevises second and save any Malboros/Ochus for last. The exit is almost always towards the end of path, as are most of the items. This can make them difficult to reach if the enemy squad confronts you head-on. You'll probably have the best luck finding everything when you're fighting the Type A party (the Malboros) and have plenty of room and time for navigation. It may take you a few tries to collect everything here. But, the equipment available here is also quite good. The Rod of Faith is available here only and especially valuable (see below), and the Kaiser Shield is good too. The Faerie Harp is skippable if you don't use Bards, although it IS the strongest harp available. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 9, Stone Outcropping POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 3, Up: 8 (height: 7, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Elixir Death Trap Left: 11, Up: 2 (height: 4, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Rod of Faith Sten Needle Left: 10, Up: 0 (height: 4, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Kaiser Shield Hypnogas Left: 10, Up: 1 (height: 4, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Faerie Harp Death Trap POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 8, Up: 0 (height: 3, Stalactite) Left: 11, Up: 7 (height: 3, Stalactite) Left: 13, Up: 8 (height: 2, Stalactite) Left: 14, Up: 6 (height: 1, Stone Outcropping) Left: 15, Up: 4 (height: 1, Stone Outcropping) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Make sure to pick up the Rod of Faith before you move on from the Catacombs. The Rod of Faith maximizes its wielder's Faith while equipped, increasing their magick power (but also the magick damage they receive). You can also whack other characters with it to give *them* Faith status as well. The Rod of Faith is ONLY available on The Catacombs, so don't miss it! If you pick up the Phoenix Down from the tile, or if you claim the Rod and it gets broken, the Rod is gone forever. Don't let this happen! The Rod of Faith can be especially useful for Marach, if you're using him. The Faith status maximizes the damage from *both* his Nether Mantra abilities (which normally do more damage when his Faith is low) and regular magicks (which do more damage when Faith is high). Also, since the Rod maximizes your Faith regardless of its normal value, you can reduce a character's Faith to make them strong against enemy magick and then only give them the Rod when you want them using magick. (See the related entry under Tricks Related To Specific Items -- Ctrl+F plus 00tricks -- for more on strategies using the Rod.) It's also worth noting that the Faerie Harp from The Catacombs is the only attack or ability that can Charm all targets regardless of gender or human/monster status. ---Floor 5: The Oubliette------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Elder Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+13) [1 - 11 Elder Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+12) OR nothing foes] Elder Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+11) OR nothing Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+10) OR nothing Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+9) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+13) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+13) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+12) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+11) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+10) OR nothing Dryad (lv RH+9) OR nothing TYPE B - Black Mage (lv RH+14, f) OR Elder Treant (lv RH+9) [8 foes] Black Mage (lv RH+14, f) OR Treant (lv RH+12) Black Mage (lv RH+14, f) OR Treant (lv RH+11) Black Mage (lv RH+14, f) OR Dryad (lv RH+13) White Mage (lv RH+14, m) OR Gobbledygook (lv RH+13) White Mage (lv RH+14, m) OR Gobbledygook (lv RH+12) White Mage (lv RH+14, m) OR Gobbledygook (lv RH+11) White Mage (lv RH+14, m) OR Gobbledygook (lv RH+10) TYPE C - Elder Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+10) [8 foes] Elder Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+9) Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+13) Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+12) Treant (lv RH+14) OR Dryad (lv RH+11) Monk (lv RH+14, f) OR Knight (lv RH+13, m) Summoner (lv RH+12, f) OR Time Mage (lv RH+14, m) Ahriman (lv RH+14) OR Red Panther (lv RH+11) TYPE D - Summoner (lv RH+15,f) OR Monk (lv RH+10, f) OR Squire (lv RH+14, f) [4 foes] Thief (lv RH+15, m) OR W. Mage (lv RH+14, m) OR Chemist (lv RH+13, m) Orator (lv RH+15, f) OR Bl.Mage (lv RH+13, f) OR Knight (lv RH+12, f) Mystic (lv RH+15, m) OR T. Mage (lv RH+12, m) OR Archer (lv RH+11, m) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 7 Stalactite Sandstorm 57% River Torrent 43% --STRATEGY-- The Oubliette is basically a "king of the hill" scenario. You're up on top of a hill which is surrounded by loads of enemies. There's only one path up (or down) the hill, which loops counterclockwise around the cliff. Although many of the tiles here are River tiles, the water is so shallow that it doesn't affect your movement in any way. No need to worry about that. A second Excalibur sword is hidden right on the top of the hill where you start. Although you should already have the one Orlandeau comes with, a second never hurts ... the automatic Haste effect is incredibly useful! If you have Reequip, you can even arm yourself it with it right away. You can give this second Excalibur to another character who uses knight's swords, like Agrias, Beowulf, Meliadoul, or Ramza -- or any character in the Knight or Dark Knight job. You can also find the Iga Blade ninja blade on this floor. It's possible to launch attacks down at the enemies from atop the the cliff, but it's trickier than it looks. The angle is so steep that guns probably won't work. You can use magicks, but your best bet is probably just to wind your way down the trail. For the most part, you'll be on the opposite side of the hill as the enemies and they can't hit you anyways. Do be careful when you're descending the initial ramp, though. If you stand close to the edge of the cliff, any enemy Archers or Summoners CAN hit you from below. Because the trail is pretty narrow, it can get hard to see where your characters are, or how far your moving/targeting range extends. Don't forget that you can rotate the "camera" by tapping the analog stick (in the lower-left of the PSP) left or right. This will often help you get a better view. Pressing the R button on top of the PSP will also tilt the camera angle. After you've made a couple turns around the hill and end up facing the direction you did when you started the level, you'll come to a pass that's only two tiles wide. This is the best place to fight. You can just send Divine Ruinations or Shockwaves down this corridor and rip the enemies. If you have both Agrias and Orlandeau, you can cover the entire pass with Divine Ruinations. Another tactic is the to block the full width of the pass with Invisible characters. (Ninja Gear, Septie`me perfume, the Invisibility Cloak, and the Ninja's Vanish ability can all make characters Invisible.) The enemies can't walk past your Invisible characters, and because you're Invisible, they won't be able to attack you either. Then, you can just have the rest of your team launch magicks or sword techniques at the enemies from behind your "invisible wall." If you're battling the Type B party, there will likely be some White Mages here. These are actually the most dangerous enemies here, as they will keep healing and Raising the other enemies. Kill them first. Otherwise, you mainly fight treants and Gobbledygooks here, and they are both pretty easy to defeat. Finding the exit on this floor can be tough. One of the possible locations is on a "ledge" directly below where you start. You can jump down there from the height 13 area, or use Teleport/Ignore Elevation to leap directly. The other exit locations are on the bottom of the path, with the enemies. It can be tricky to squeeze past the enemies to reach them. An alternative is to Teleport directly down at the start of the battle. This works best if the character is Invisible or has some other good defensive abilities/gear, as s/he is otherwise likely to get surrounded and KOed. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 7, Stalactite POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 2, Up: 3 (height: 18, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Excalibur Death Trap Left: 6, Up: 0 (height: 11, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Death Trap Left: 0, Up: 0 (height: 7, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Iga Blade Hypnogas Left: 0, Up: 11 (height: 1, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 3, Up: 7 (height: 10, Stalactite) Left: 1, Up: 9 (height: 0, River) Left: 4, Up: 9 (height: 0, River) Left: 6, Up: 7 (height: 0, Stalactite) Left: 6, Up: 11 (height: 1, Stalactite) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're now halfway through the Deep! Continue on to The Palings. ---Floor 6: The Palings--------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR Behemoth (lv RH+16) [1 - 11 Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR Behemoth (lv RH+15) OR nothing foes] Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR Behemoth (lv RH+14) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR Behemoth (lv RH+16) OR nothing Red Panther (lv ~RH) OR Behemoth King (lv RH+15) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR nothing Vampire Cat (lv ~RH) OR nothing Coeurl (lv ~RH) OR nothing TYPE B - Dark Behemoth (lv ~RH) OR Black Mage (lv RH+14, f) [8 foes] Plague Horror (lv RH+16) OR Piscodaemon (lv ~RH) Floating Eye (lv RH+15) OR Squidraken (lv ~RH) Mindflayer (lv RH+16) OR Squidraken (lv ~RH) Mindflayer (lv RH+14) OR Squidraken (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+15, m) OR Ahriman (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+15, m) OR Ahriman (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+16, m) OR Ahriman (lv ~RH) TYPE C - Sekhret (lv RH+16) OR Black Goblin (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Minotaur (lv RH+14) OR Black Goblin (lv ~RH) Wisenkin (lv RH+15) OR Black Goblin (lv ~RH) Wisenkin (lv RH+16) OR Goblin (lv ~RH) Ninja (lv ~RH, m) OR Archer (lv RH+15, f) Ninja (lv ~RH, m) OR Archer (lv RH+14, f) Ninja (lv ~RH, m) OR Archer (lv RH+16, f) Ninja (lv ~RH, m) OR Archer (lv RH+14, f) TYPE D - Dark Behem. (lv ~RH) OR Samurai (lv RH+17, m) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) [4 foes] Plague Horr.(lv ~RH) OR Samurai (lv RH+15, f) OR Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) Dragon (lv ~RH) OR Knight (lv RH+16, m) OR Exploder (lv ~RH) Behemoth (lv ~RH) OR Knight (lv RH+14, f) OR Red Panther (lv ~RH) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 10 Stalactite Sandstorm 43% Stone Outcropping Tremor 30% Obstructed -- 19% Moss Wind Slash 8% --STRATEGY--- The Palings is a flat level with three big rock ridges. Select a range attack to get a feel for where they are. Normally, you'd have to wind your way around them, which means that slower characters can easily get stranded behind the rest of your team. If you equip the Teleport move ability, though, you can warp right through the ridges. (Ignore Elevation, however, doesn't work.) Using Teleport can be helpful for keeping your team together. It also makes it easier to reach the exit locations, many of which are towards the far end of the path. An even better strategy, though, is to just cast magick *through* the walls, while the enemies are still trying to navigate around them. Sword techniques, Arithmeticks, and summon spells work great for this purpose. You can even use Jump to attack over the walls. Using Invisible characters to block the passage (see The Oubliette, above) works here, too. As in The Oubliette, it can often get pretty hard to see where you're going, so rotate the camera to keep track of where the enemies are and where you can move. The Type A party here features a slew of Vampire Cats. They like to use Blaster to turn you to stone, so you may want to equip Jade Armlets for protection just in case you run into this enemy group. Or, at least bring a supply of Gold Needle or Remedies. As on the first floor, the Exploder that may appear in the Type D party is tricky to see in the dark. Check the enemy party with your cursor to see if it's hiding out. All the hidden items are right in the starting corner, so there's no reason not to pick them up! (If you start on top of one the item tiles, you have to first move to another tile and then move to the item tile before you can get the item to appear.) The items include the Blaster (the lightning-elemental magickal gun and the strongest gun overall), the invisibility-granting Ninja Gear, the Cursed Ring, and an Elixir. If you plan on tackling all the co-op Rendezvous Mode missions, the Cursed Ring is quite important to one of the missions. This is the only one you can get in the game, so don't miss it or lose it later! The Ring has the effect of making a character Undead as long as it's equipped. In other words, the effect of most healing and draining magicks are reversed. The Undead status also gives you a 50% chance of reviving when your death counter reaches 0 -- but be aware that there's still a 50% chance you'll die permanently! --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 5, Stalactite POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 0, Up: 9 (height: 5, Stone Out.) Phoenix Down Elixir Death Trap Left: 0, Up: 8 (height: 5, Stone Out.) Phoenix Down Blaster Death Trap Left: 1, Up: 8 (height: 5, Stone Out.) Phoenix Down Cursed Ring Sten Needle Left: 1, Up: 9 (height: 5, Stone Out.) Phoenix Down Ninja Gear Hypnogas POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 5, Up: 7 (height: 2, Stalactite) Left: 8, Up: 2 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) Left: 10, Up: 0 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) Left: 9, Up: 7 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) Left: 10, Up: 9 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next stop is The Crossing. ---Floor 7: The Crossing-------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Skeleton (lv ~RH) [1 - 11 Revenant (lv RH+19) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) OR nothing foes] Revenant (lv RH+18) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) OR nothing Revenant (lv RH+17) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) OR nothing Bonesnatch (lv RH+19) OR Ghast (lv ~RH) OR nothing Bonesnatch (lv RH+18) OR Ghast (lv ~RH) OR nothing Skeleton (lv ~RH) OR nothing Skeleton (lv ~RH) OR nothing Ghast (lv ~RH) OR nothing Ghast (lv ~RH) OR nothing Ghast (lv ~RH) OR nothing TYPE B - Mystic (lv RH+19, m) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Mystic (lv RH+19, m) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) Mystic (lv RH+18, m) OR Bonesnatch (lv ~RH) Mystic (lv RH+17, m) OR Behemoth (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+19, f) OR Behemoth King (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+18, f) OR Skeleton (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+18, f) OR Bonesnatch (lv ~RH) Archer (lv RH+17, f) OR Skeletal Fiend (lv ~RH) TYPE C - Sekhret (lv RH+19) OR Black Mage (lv ~RH, m) [8 foes] Sekhret (lv RH+18) OR Black Mage (lv ~RH, m) Sekhret (lv RH+17) OR Monk (lv ~RH, m) Minotaur (lv RH+19) OR Monk (lv ~RH, m) Minotaur (lv RH+18) OR Monk (lv ~RH, m) Minotaur (lv RH+17) OR Thief (lv ~RH, f) Wisenkin (lv RH+19) OR Thief (lv ~RH, f) Wisenkin (lv RH+18) OR Thief (lv ~RH, f) TYPE D - Hydra (lv RH+18) OR Archer (lv RH+19, m) OR Archer (lv ~RH, f) [4 foes] Summoner (lv RH+17, f) OR Piscodaemon (lv RH+19) OR Wisenkin (lv ~RH) Wh. Mage (lv RH+18, f) OR Mindflayer (lv RH+17) OR Dragon (lv ~RH) Dragoon (lv ~RH, f) OR Squidraken (lv RH+19) OR Archer (lv ~RH, m) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 9 Stalactite Sandstorm 75% Stone Outcropping Tremor 20% Obstructed -- 5% --STRATEGY-- The Crossing is a mostly flat level with a big rock ridge running through the middle. There's a small gap running through the ridge (the Crossing, I suppose) that separates it into two smaller cliffs. You start off next to one of the ends of the ridge. Most of the time, the enemies will all be clustered around the other cliff. Advance forwards and start fighting them, using height to your advantage where you can. Again, because you're often fighting a large group at once, abilities that quickly put an enemy out of commission (e.g. Chicken or Arm Shot) are helpful. If you encounter the Type D party, however, the enemies will be more spread out across the level. Advance forward just the same and cross the level on the level ground. Trying to climb over the ridge is just liable to get your characters separated and surrounded. There's actually not much need to climb up onto the top of the ridge except to find the items stashed up there. Most of the items (including the two rare weapons) are atop the cliff that you start beside. To get up there, from the starting point, move forward a little bit, then move sideways into the gap through the ridge. From here, you can jump on top of the ridge, but you'll need a Jump of 5. If you need a boost, use Construct 8 or another large monster as a stepping stool. (Remember, of course, that Treasure Hunter cannot be combined with Teleport or Ignore Elevation.) Actually, most of the items here aren't all that great. The Staff of the Magi isn't very good; it has a higher *physical* attack power than the Zeus Mace, but no benefit to your magick attack -- and how often do your magick-users hit people with their staves? But, do grab the Koga Blade if you have any ninjas. If you're looking for the exits, you can take the "crossing" through the ridge to get to the far side (i.e., the other side of the ridge from where you start). One of the possible locations is *inside* the crossing gap, and three of the others are on the far side of the ridge. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 2, Stone Outcropping POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 4 (height: 12, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle Left: 4, Up: 10 (height: 13, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Staff of Magi Hypnogas Left: 4, Up: 12 (height: 12, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Koga Blade Death Trap Left: 4, Up: 14 (height: 10, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir Death Trap POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 3, Up: 6 (height: 7, Stalactite) Left: 4, Up: 2 (height: 5, Stalactite) Left: 6, Up: 8 (height: 2, Stalactite) Left: 6, Up: 13 (height: 0, Stalactite) Left: 8, Up: 14 (height: 0, Stone Outcropping) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By now, you're getting near the bottom, and the difficulty level is rising again. The next two floors will be quite tough, but they also contain some very strong items. ---Floor 8: The Switchback------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Archer (lv RH+20, f) * OR Archer (lv ~RH, m) [5 - 11 Archer (lv RH+19, m) # OR Archer (lv ~RH, m) foes] Archer (lv RH+18, m) OR Archer (lv ~RH, m) Archer (lv RH+17, m) OR Archer (lv ~RH, f) Archer (lv RH+16, f) OR Archer (lv ~RH, m) Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, f) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing * The RH+20 Archer always carries the rare Artemis Bow if she appears. # The RH+19 Archer always carries the rare Yoichi Bow if he appears. TYPE B - Summoner (lv RH+20, f) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Summoner (lv RH+19, f) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Elder Treant (lv RH+20) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Treant (lv RH+18) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Dryad (lv RH+19) OR Coeurl (lv ~RH) Dryad (lv RH+18) OR Red Panther (lv ~RH) Exploder (lv RH+19) OR Coeurl (lv ~RH) Grenade (lv RH+20) OR Red Panther (lv ~RH) TYPE C - Greater Hydra (lv RH+18) OR Greater Malboro (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Hydra (lv RH+19) OR Ochu (lv ~RH) Red Dragon (lv RH+20) OR Malboro (lv ~RH) Red Dragon (lv RH+19) OR Behemoth King (lv ~RH) Dragon (lv RH+19) OR Blue Dragon (lv ~RH) Behemoth (lv RH+20) OR Dragon (lv ~RH) Ochu (lv RH+20) OR Behemoth (lv ~RH) Malboro (lv RH+18) OR Dark Behemoth (lv ~RH) TYPE D - Arithm. (lv RH+21, m) OR Blk Mage (lv ~RH, m) OR Summoner (lv ~RH, m) [4 foes] Arithm. (lv RH+21, f) OR Blk Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Summoner (lv ~RH, f) Arithm. (lv RH+20, f) OR Blk Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Summoner (lv ~RH, f) Arithm. (lv RH+19, f) OR Blk Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Summoner (lv ~RH, f) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 13 Stalactite Sandstorm 39% Darkness (chasm) -- 38% Stone Outcropping Tremor 16% Obstructed -- 7% --STRATEGY-- This level has two tiers. You start on the high one and have to cross it, descend a stair, and fight back across the lower tier -- hence the name "The Switchback." As in other levels like The Oubliette, the decline is so steep that it's pretty hard to shoot downwards, so you're better off heading for the stairs. Arithmeticks is extremely effective, however; the lower tier is almost completely height 3, so you can hit most of the enemy forces with a Height 3 calculation. (Any bomb-type enemies are floating, though, which raises them up 1 height unit -- you need to use Height 4 to hit them.) The Type A party here is nothing but a swarm of Archers, so readying Shirahadori or Archer's Bane beforehand is a good strategy. This fight isn't too tough since the Archers can't do all THAT much damage, and often waste time charging up Aim. When the Archers appear, one of the male Archers may be carrying an additional Yoichi Bow you can steal. The Type B party is mostly monsters panthers, bombs, and treants. Be cautious of any panther enemies in the Type B party. They have an innate Ignore Elevation, which means they can jump right up the cliff and attack you. You might want to attack them first. The Type B party may also contain an Exploder -- again, these guys are pretty hard to see in the dark, so check with your cursor. The Type C party features some of the game's toughest monsters -- malboros, behemoths, dragons, and hydras (oh my!). When you see these guys, you may want to forestall hunting for items or the exit and just focus on surviving. On the other hand, this is a great opportunity to go Poaching or monster recruiting. The items are all found on the bottom tier. These include the Ragnarok knight's sword (not actually as good as Excalibur as it doesn't have an auto-Haste), the Lordly Robe (a GREAT robe), and the Perseus Bow (the best bow in the single- player game). --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 5, Stalactite POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 4, Up: 6 (height: 3, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Perseus Bow Death Trap Left: 6, Up: 7 (height: 3, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Lordly Robe Death Trap Left: 9, Up: 8 (height: 3, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Ragnarok Hypnogas Left: 10,Up: 10 (height: 3, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 2, Up: 10 (height: 9, Stone Outcropping) Left: 4, Up: 5 (height: 3, Stalactite) Left: 11,Up: 10 (height: 3, Stalactite) Left: 11,Up: 13 (height: 3, Stalactite) Left: 12,Up: 13 (height: 3, Stalactite) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The final normal floor is The Interstice. ---Floor 9: The Interstice------------------------------------------------------ YOUR FORCES: 1-5 characters POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES: TYPE A - Black Mage (lv RH+22, f) [6 - 11 Black Mage (lv RH+21, f) OR Archer (lv RH+22, m) foes] Black Mage (lv RH+20, f) OR Red Chocobo (lv RH+21) Knight (lv ~RH, m) OR Black Chocobo (lv RH+22) Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR Black Chocobo (lv RH+21) Knight (lv RH+21, m) OR Chocobo (lv RH+20) Knight (lv RH+22, m) OR nothing Knight (lv RH+20, m) OR nothing Black Mage (lv RH+19, f) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR nothing TYPE B - Elder Treant (lv RH+20) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Treant (lv RH+18) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Dryad (lv RH+19) OR Coeurl (lv ~RH) Dryad (lv RH+18) OR Red Panther (lv ~RH) Summoner (lv RH+20, f) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Summoner (lv RH+19, f) OR Bomb (lv ~RH) Exploder (lv RH+19) OR Coeurl (lv ~RH) Grenade (lv RH+20) OR Red Panther (lv ~RH) TYPE C - Samurai (lv RH+22, f) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, f) [8 foes] Samurai (lv RH+22, f) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, f) Samurai (lv RH+21, m) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, m) Samurai (lv RH+21, m) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, m) Samurai (lv RH+20, f) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, f) Samurai (lv RH+20, f) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, f) Samurai (lv RH+19, m) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, m) Samurai (lv RH+19, m) OR Ninja (lv ~RH, m) TYPE D - Summoner (lv RH+24,f) OR T. Mage (lv RH+25,m) OR Red Panther (lv RH+25) [4 foes] Summoner (lv RH+23,f) OR T. Mage (lv RH+24,m) OR Hydra (lv RH+24) Summoner (lv RH+23,m) OR Mystic (lv RH+22,m) OR Sekhret (lv RH+23) Summoner (lv RH+22,m) OR Mystic (lv RH+21,m) OR Behemoth (lv RH+22) WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Stalactite Sandstorm 50% Moss Wind Slash 28% Darkness (chasm) -- 20% Stone Outcropping Tremor 3% --STRATEGY-- The Interstice has a tricky layout. You start on one of two pillars, with a tiny mini-pillar in between the two pillars. Parallel to the pillars is a flat plateau area where the enemies often start. The terrain in between and on the other side of the pillars is flat. The enemies often start on top of the flat plateau. From their position here, they will launch magicks and arrows up at you. If you stand on the side of the pillar closest to them, you can hit them back with some ranged attacks. To really attack them (and to use any close-range abilities), though, you'll need to take down the long route down to their plateau. Jump across the mini-pillar to the other pillar. From here, there's a staircase down to the plateau. You should probably hurry for the staircase as quickly as you can. While you CAN attack from the top of the pillars, it's too crowded to move around, making it difficult to target the enemies you want. Start moving across the pillars as fast as you can. You *could* also use Teleport or Ignore Elevation to jump down to the plateau, but this is pretty tricky because: (a) there's a hole in the corner of the map closest to where you start; the only route you can take is directly down off the front of the pillar where you start and (b) the character is liable to get surrounded and KOed quickly. Only try this if you have a pretty sturdy character with a lot of HP or a good reaction ability (e.g. Shirahadori). You'll also need to take the plateau route if you want to claim all the items -- the Maximillian armor is located on the far end of the plateau, and the Venetian Shield is down on the flat floor. (The Grand Helm is up on the pillars.) All of these are definitely worth grabbing. If you have Arithmeticks, height-based calculations work great here. The entire top area has a height of 9 and 8 only. So, if you use Height Prime and Height 5 magicks, you can hit a lot of the enemies without hurting yourself. The specific enemies you face here, of course, vary. The Type A party features an assortment of Black Mages, Archers, Knights, and Chocobos. Don't forget that you can stop the Black Mages pretty quickly by stealing their MP -- Orlandeau's Duskblade works well for that. The Type D party is fairly similar. The Type C party is a Ninja and Samurai convention. This is fairly easy. If you're just looking to clear the battle, kill the Ninjas first, since they can throw from a distance. But, if the Ninjas are at a high level (90+) they will throw rare weapons at you that you can catch using the Thief reaction ability Sticky Fingers. Kill off the Samurais first and then just sit around and let them throw weapons at you. (It's also a good idea to have a character sit on the tile with the Death Trap, so the enemy Ninjas won't accidentally kill themselves with it.) The toughest enemy group here is the Type B party, which includes dragons, Cockatrices, and human Dragoons. Try to stay in a tight group on the pillars and use your best attacks. Attack the Cockatrices first, then go for the dragons closest to you. Don't forget that Shirahadori lets you block the Dragoon's Jump attacks. With any of the enemy groups, some of the enemies can sometimes be very hard to see if they slip in between the pillars or in between the pillar and plateau. Try to track where they're moving so you don't forget about them even if you can't see them on the screen. Finding the exit in this level can be tricky. It's always on the flat "floor" below the pillars and plateau. Your best best is to put Teleport or Ignore Elevation on an Invisible character and immediately jump from the starting pillar down to the flat ground. If you don't have the items/abilities for that, you'll have to take the very long route: hop across the pillars, descend to the plateau, cross the plateau, and THEN reach the set of stairs down the floor. This floor also holds the game's best heavy armor -- the Maximillian and Grand Helm -- as well as the Venetian Shield, second only to the Escutcheon (II) as a shield in the single-player game. You'll definitely want to grab this stuff! --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Darkness - rotate camera so party is facing down & to the left at battle start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 3, Up: 4 (height: 8, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Grand Helm Death Trap Left: 3, Up: 5 (height: 2, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Venetian Shld. Hypnogas Left: 9, Up: 0 (height: 4, Stalactite) Phoenix Down Maximillian Hypnogas Left: 10, Up: 3 (height: 2, Moss) Phoenix Down Elixir Sten Needle POTENTIAL EXIT LOCATIONS: Left: 9, Up: 1 (height: 4, Stalactite) Left: 11, Up: 3 (height: 2, Stalactite) Left: 9, Up: 5 (height: 2, Moss) Left: 11, Up: 8 (height: 1, Moss) Left: 1, Up: 7 (height: 2, Moss) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's only one level left after this, appropriately named Terminus. There's a boss encounter the first time you enter here, and it's your one chance in the single-player game to learn the game's best Summon, Zodiark. If you want to learn it, deploy your best Summoner (with Summoner as his/her current job) and arm him/her with the Time Mage ability Mana Shield for protection. To help survive Zodiark, Construct 8 and one or more characters with Reraise may also be helpful. When you enter Terminus for the first time, you'll meet the former war hero Elidibus, who will turn himself into a Lucavi. ---Floor 10: Terminus----------------------------------------------------------- YOUR FORCES: Ramza, the Byblos [guest], 4 others ENEMY FORCES: Elidibus (lv 75 Serpentarius) Reaver* x6 * The Reavers' levels depend on the highest level on your own roster. GUEST: Byblos - level based on party's; Zodiac sign, name, Bravery, Faith are all random BOSS: Elidibus [Serpentarius] - lv 75 Serpentarius - Bravery 70, Faith 70 HP: about 2730, MP: about 1135 Abilities : The Dark, Counter, Swiftness Immune : Ice; all negative status except Blind, Oil, Toad, Slow, and Stop VICTORY CONDITION: KO Elidibus LOSS CONDITION: Ramza dies or all allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 13 Darkness (chasm) -- 46% Stalactite Sandstorm 35% Stone Outcropping Tremor 15% Obstructed -- 5% --STRATEGY-- The battle with Elidibus is considered a story battle, so you'll have to deploy Ramza. If you want to learn the Zodiark summon (and this is your only opportunity in the single-player game to do so), you'll also need to deploy someone who is a Summoner. This can be Ramza or someone else. There's no exit to find here, just a confrontation with Elidibus and a whole pile of Reavers. Elidibus is at the top of a spiral staircase; you'll have to fight your way up past the Reavers to reach him. The enemy Reavers are gray. The purple monster behind you, the Byblos, is NOT an enemy; its a Guest fighting on your side. Don't kill it; it's your friend! (The personal name of the Byblos is random, but it can be identified by its "Byblos" monster type and purple color.) The Byblos is pretty slow-moving, but it can heal you from afar. Keep it alive and it will join you afterwards. Begin fighting your way up the stairs. The Reavers aren't hard to kill; sword techniques or Dual Wielded physical attacks work wonders. They're weak to Fire- elemental attacks, but pretty much any strong attack is good for KOing them. Since their Bio spells take time to charge, you can often KO them before they can even cast the spell. The Bio spells don't do all that much HP damage, but do inflict a variety of status ailments, so bring an ability like Esuna or Purification to remove these. Purification is especially helpful since it doesn't need time to charge. You can probably reach Elidibus quickly. Elidibus's main attack is the extremely powerful Zodiark summon (700+ damage). It's obvious when he's going to cast it from the humongous damage estimates -- plus it takes a long time to charge. You'll need to make sure Zodiark doesn't wipe out all your whole team at once and give you a game over. Split your characters up so Zodiark can't take out too many of your characters at one time. Another easy way to survive Zodiark is to pair Construct 8 with one or more characters with Reraise (e.g. from the Chantage). Construct 8's Atheist status means it can't take any damage from Zodiark, and as long as it's still standing, all your characters with Reraise can revive. Unfortunately, since Construct 8 is slow and takes a long time to get across the battlefield, it may not be all that much help with the actual fighting. Alternately, you could use the Mystic or Beowulf's Doubt to give other characters the Atheist status. Atheist status also renders your own magick useless, though, so you WON'T want to put it on any magick-users in your team. Mana Shield and Manafont is another good way to survive Zodiark (and, unlike Atheist status, Mana Shield allows you to learn Zodiark). Attacking Elidibus with the Jump ability can also be useful; it deals damage to him and also protects you from damage while in the air. Once you've gotten past the Reavers, healing is pretty much pointless because Zodiark will basically kill you no matter how much HP you have. This makes Beowulf good here because keeping his HP low will make his Vengeance attack very strong! You should, however, revive KOed characters. Angel Rings and Chantage will be quite useful in this battle as they let you recover from the inevitable KO. (Angel Rings work only once; Chantage works multiple times.) While Zodiark is Elidibus's main attack, you'll also need to watch out for his Poisonous Frog magick, which turns characters into toads (and poisons them), rendering them useless. For female characters, equipping any Cachushas or Ribbons you have may be a good idea as they will protect you from both Poison and Toad status. Alternately, you can just use Esuna or Purification to remove the status. If your characters do get hit with Poisonous Frog, don't just have them wait out their turns; this gets them more turns and means the poison will drain their HP faster. Instead, have them move and attack (even if you're just attacking empty air) on each of their turns until you can heal them. This will slow their CT gauge refill and reduce the damage they suffer from the poison. Elidibus's two other attacks are Midgardsormr, a fairly strong summon magick, and Snakecharm, a close-range physical attack. He tends not to use these unless both (A) you have a low-HP character within range that he could finish off with the attack, and (B) Zodiark would not allow him to strike more targets. When you reach Elidibus, attack him with your strongest abilities -- preferably ones that hit from a distance so that he can't counterattack you. Sword techniques, as always, are great. Like all characters, Elidibus takes more damage while charging magick, so pummel him whenever he starts charging Zodiark. Attack Boost will also help you do more damage quickly. Elidibus happens to be immune to Ice (but no other elements), so avoid any ice magicks or weapons. Elidibus is actually vulnerable to a few status ailments. You can use Slow or Stop to slow him down, or Atheist to disable his magick. (Just beware if you use Atheist, that will keep you from learning Zodiark.) If you have an Arithmetician, you can hit Elidibus with these ailments or with offensive magicks by using a Level 3 or Level 5 calculation. If he hasn't moved off his top platform yet, Height 3 or Height 5 will work too. An advantage of Arithmeticks is that it will let you strike Elidibus at the very beginning of the battle, even before you've closed the distance between you and him. The key to this battle is mostly just surviving Zodiark; if you can keep one or two heavy hitters alive, you can fell him fairly quickly. An alternate way of trying to avoid multiple Zodiarks is to send a character who is low on HP towards Elidibus. He may target that character with Midgardsormr or Snakecharm, and spare the rest of your team. You can learn Zodiark for yourself if Elidibus casts it on a Summoner and the Summoner takes at least 1 HP damage but survives the spell. (Coming back to life with Reraise doesn't count; the Summoner must NOT be KOed by Zodiark.) When this happens, there's a random probability (90%) that the Summoner will learn Zodiark. spell. The easiest way to do this is to equip the Time Mage ability Mana Shield and make sure your Bravery is reasonably high. As long as you have at least 1 MP, this ability (when activated) causes all attacks to damage only your MP instead of HP. So, being hit with Zodiark will empty out your MP, but leave the character standing. If you don't learn the spell on your first attempt, use an Ether or Chakra to get back at least 1 MP and try again. If you don't have Mana Shield, an alternate method is to put Equip Heavy Armor on the Summoner to get his or her HP as high as possible, then start hitting Elidibus with Rend Magick as many times as you can (preferably using a gun, bow, or polearm to attack from a distance). This will lower Elidibus's magick power and decrease the amount of damage Zodiark can do, potentially allowing your Summoner to withstand the spell without Mana Shield. (Mana Shield is only 400 JP, though, so it's not too tough to grab beforehand.) Using the Atheist status to temporarily reduce your Faith to 0 will NOT work; your Summoner must take at least 1 HP damage from Zodiark in order to learn it. Of course, it's fine to cast Atheist on all your other characters if you want. If you turn on the Battle Prompts option under Options, a text box will tell you when you've learned Zodiark. If Battle Prompts isn't on, the cover will just hover briefly over your Summoner when s/he learns it. Elidibus has about 2730 HP. If you are trying to learn Zodiark, keep track of how much damage you're doing and don't hurt him too much until you learn the magick. You don't want to kill him on accident. Remember, this battle is your only chance to learn Zodiark outside of one multiplayer mission! The four hidden items are all located on the platform where Elidibus starts. You'll have a much easier time finding them if you come back AFTER you beat him, instead of trying to get them during the battle with Elidibus. Since this is the final floor of Midlight's Deep, there are no exits to find here. --TREASURE HUNTER ITEMS-- Put this corner at screen bottom: Height 0, Darkness - rotate camera so party is facing down & to the left at battle start POOR ITEM GOOD ITEM TRAP Left: 7, Up: 10 (height: 15, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir none Left: 5, Up: 12 (height: 15, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Chirijiraden none Left: 7, Up: 12 (height: 15, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Elixir none Left: 5, Up: 10 (height: 15, Stalact.) Phoenix Down Chaos Blade none --POSSIBLE ENEMY FORCES (IN LATER RANDOM BATTLES)-- ---Floor 10: Terminus--- TYPE A - Greater Hydra (lv ~RH) OR Hydra (lv ~RH) [6 - 11 Greater Hydra (lv ~RH) OR Hydra (lv ~RH) foes] Greater Hydra (lv ~RH) OR Hydra (lv ~RH) Greater Hydra (lv ~RH) OR Hydra (lv ~RH) Greater Hydra (lv ~RH) OR Red Dragon (lv ~RH) Hydra (lv ~RH) Hydra (lv ~RH) OR nothing Hydra (lv ~RH) OR nothing Hydra (lv ~RH) OR nothing Red Dragon (lv ~RH) OR nothing Red Dragon (lv ~RH) OR nothing TYPE B - Swine (lv ~RH) OR Pig (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Swine (lv ~RH) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Black Mage (lv ~RH, m) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Black Mage (lv ~RH, m) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Mystic (lv ~RH, f) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Mystic (lv ~RH, f) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR Pig (lv ~RH) Archer (lv ~RH, m) OR Pig (lv ~RH) TYPE C - Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) [8 foes] Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) Black Chocobo (lv ~RH) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) White Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) White Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) White Mage (lv ~RH, f) OR Chocobo (lv ~RH) TYPE D - Tiamat (lv RH+27) OR Mystic (lv ~RH, m) OR Mystic (lv ~RH, f) [4 foes] Tiamat (lv RH+26) OR Summoner (lv ~RH, m) OR Summoner (lv ~RH f) Tiamat (lv RH+25) OR Black Mage (lv ~RH, m) OR Black Mage (lv ~RH, f) Tiamat (lv RH+24) OR Time Mage (lv ~RH, m) OR Time Mage (lv ~RH, f) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After defeating Elidibus (and hopefully learning Zodiark from him), you'll get the 13th (!) Zodiac Stone, Serpentarius. Assuming you kept the Byblos from being killed, it will also offer to join your party. This is your one opportunity to get this character, so sign it up. The Byblos isn't really that great, though. It has an automatic Poach (like Luso), but only a handful of abilities. Congratulations! You've now beaten Midlight's Deep! You may notice that the Deep stays a red dot on the map screen even after you've finished off Elidibus. Don't worry; you haven't missed anything. It just stays red forever. But, there's still a few more things to do. Go back into Terminus after you defeat Elidibus, and bring a Treasure Hunter. On the top level (where Elidibus was), there are four items: two Elixirs, the Chirijiraden, and the Chaos Blade. The Chaos Blade is one of the best weapons in the game; it has a whopping 40 attack points, automatically Regens you, and petrifies enemies! The Chirijiraden is the strongest katana and also allows you to use the corresponding Iaido. If you're into poaching, you can find Pigs and Swines on Terminus, as well as all the members of the hydra family. All of these monsters yield rare items when poached. (And if you want REALLY rare items, recruit a Pig or Swine and wait until you breed a Wild Boar, then poach that!) You can also use Reis's Dragon's Charm to recruit a Tiamat. They're THE best monster in the game, and they're almost as strong as Orlandeau! If you're at least level 90, you can obtain other rare weapons from enemy Ninjas. Equip all your characters with Sticky Fingers and go back to The Interstice. If you can run into some Ninjas here, they'll throw a variety of nice weapons at you, which -- assuming you have Sticky Fingers -- you'll catch and claim for your own. If you're at a high enough level, you can even get Chaos Blades! Masamunes, Chirijiradens, Javelin IIs, and most other rare weapons can also be obtained here. (The exceptions are the weapons that can't be thrown, like staves.) See the "Throws from Enemy Ninjas" section for more details and the specific experience levels at which the Ninjas throw these items. What else is there left to do? If you leave Midlight's Deep and head back around the overworld, each wilderness locations has a "special" random battle that you can occasionally run into. Some of these, like the infamous all-Monk melee on Grogh Heights, can be pretty challenging. The special battle at Mount Germinas also pits you against some gun-wielding Chemists and Orators, where you can steal additional copies of the magick guns and sometimes the Stoneshooter. The Araguay Woods special battle is another place to encounter Ninjas and catch weapons from them. (For a complete list of these special battles, see the Random Battles section.) You can also continue poaching monsters if you're looking to complete your collection of items -- see the Rare Item Locations for where you can find everything. And, if you haven't finished the other subquests, those are still out there to complete! Finally, you can team up a friend who owns a copy of the game to complete the game's multiplayer team missions in Rendezvous Mode, or battle against each other in the Melee mode. (You'll need to complete the main quest first to unlock the last four Rendezvous Mode missions.) These missions are some of the biggest challenges in the game, but you can also win a lot of super-powered equipment not available in the single-player game. ******************************************************************************** VI. MULTIPLAYER MODES ******************************************************************************** %%%MELEE MODE - GENERAL INFORMATION%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00melee0 Melee Mode is the new "versus" mode in the PSP version of Final Fantasy Tactics. It allows two players to pit their regular parties against each other. Both players also receive prizes after the battle, and there are some rare items you can *only* find in Melee Mode! Melee Mode becomes available very early in the game, after you pass through Gariland on your way to the Siedge Weald. Once both players have unlocked Melee Mode, you can start a Melee Mode battle by having both players go to the Tavern and choosing Melee. One player should host the game and the other should join. Melee Mode can only be played over a local (ad hoc) connection, not the Internet. Both players must pay a fee for each Melee Mode battle, to compensate for the items you can earn. Each player can deploy up to 5 characters to battle with. You can select any map that at least one of the two players has cleared in the single-player mode. This includes all the story battle locations, plus the sidequests (including Midlight's Deep), and the wilderness locations where there are only random battles. The only maps that can NOT ever be selected are Zeltennia Castle Chapel Ruins and the maps from the final sequence of battles in the single-player mode (even if you have a clear data save!). The side of the map on which each player starts is randomly assigned. During combat, your team always glows blue on your PSP screen. The opponent's forces glow red. ---Melee Mode Rules------------------------------------------------------------- For the most part, Melee Mode combat works like regular FF T combat. However, there are a number of important exceptions: * You CANNOT permanently lose items or characters in this mode. Stolen and broken items, and items consumed using the Throw, Iaido, and Items commands, are restored to you at the end of battle. Characters cannot permanently die because they simply teleport out of the battle when their KO counter expires. (Since they're not permanent deaths, these do NOT count as Casualties on your Chronicle screen.) Anyone turned into a Malboro by Malboro Spores is turned back into a human. Note that this makes some abilities substantially more useful in Melee Mode since you no longer have to worry about losing rare items. Elixirs are great for restoring HP and MP, the Masamune and Chirijiraden Iaidos can be used freely (Masamune casts Haste and Regen on a group!) and rare weapons like the Chaos Blade can be thrown without losing them. * The Invisible status effect does not make you invisible to the other player, and the character can still be targeted normally. It DOES still have the effect of making your attacks impossible to evade (as if you had the Concentration support ability equipped), and is still removed after taking an action or being hit. * Only JP is earned. (You still keep your earned JP even if you lose the battle.) Exp, levels, and gil cannot be gained. Additionally, magick that can normally be learned from being hit with it CANNOT be obtained this way in Melee Mode. Since you cannot gain levels or gil, abilities that work on gil/Exp are ineffective in this model. These include Steal/Plunder Exp, Steal/Plunder Gil, Beg, Glitterlust, and Bequeath Bacon. Gil Snapper still triggers in response to damage, but does not earn you any actual money. * Monsters cannot be poached for items. Poaching a monster will still remove it from the map, but no items will be added to the Poachers' Den. * Items can be stolen from the other team, but they are not kept permanently after the end of the battle. * While the Traitor status (from Entice or Tame) can still be used to recruit enemies onto your side for the duration of the battle, they cannot join your team permanently afterwards. * Similarly, the Greater Malboro's "Malboro Spores" ability still turns a character into a Malboro for the duration of the battle, but (unlike the single- player game) does not affect a character permanently. * Sticky Fingers can be used to block thrown weapons, but they aren't added to your inventory. * Bravery and Faith can be changed for the duration of a battle, but there are no permanent changes. * Your characters cannot be put under AI control. * The game cannot be paused. (However, when one player is moving, the other player can scroll around the map and looking at characters' status.) * Most traps that affect only 1 tile in the single-player game now have an effect radius of 3 when sprung, and there are also new traps. (See the Traps section for more details.) Also, traps that YOU place cannot be sprung by your units, only by your opponent. Friendly units can still be affected by the trap if they're caught in the effect radius, however. * No items can be obtained with Treasure Hunter. * Enemies killed during Melee Mode are not added to your Kills tally on the Chronicle screen. * This isn't a Melee Mode-specific rule, but it's worth noting that all of the multiplayer-exclusive weapons cannot be thrown with the Ninja's Throw command. ---Weather Effects-------------------------------------------------------------- Weather patterns in Melee Mode are based on the map you choose. It appears that "random battle" wilderness maps have a random weather pattern, whereas maps that are only used in story battles have the same weather pattern as the first story battle at that location. Below, I've listed maps with "special" weather effects. All maps not listed have NO special weather effects. See the Weather Effects section under Other Game Information for more on the mechanics of weather effects. RANDOM WEATHER PATTERN: Mandalia Plain The Siedge Weald Lenalian Plateau Araguay Woods Zeirchele Falls Balias Tor Tchigolith Fenlands Balias Swale Grogh Heights The Yuguewood Dugeura Pass Finnath Creek Beddha Sandwaste Mount Germinas Lake Poescas Zeklaus Desert Fovoham Windflats Dorvauldar Marsh Mount Bervenia DAY, RAINSTORM (evade vs. bows x 1.33, fire dmg -25%, lightning dmg +25%): Brigands' Den CLEAR NIGHT OR NIGHT, LIGHT RAIN (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33): Goug Lowtown Lionel Castle Gate Riovanes Castle Gate Riovanes Castle Roof SNOWSTORM (ice damage + 25%): Gollund Colliery Slope Gollund Colliery Ridge ---Melee Mode Options----------------------------------------------------------- Before the battle, the hosting player may set a number of options: 1. Map Selection - The map may be chosen manually, or you can have the game pick a random map from the ones available. You may fight on any map that at least one player has completed in the single-player game. 2. Time Limit - You may set a total time limit that each player has to decide on his/her actions across the course of the battle. This basically works like a chess clock. When you're deciding on a move, the clock starts counting down. On your next turn, the clock resumes counting down from where it left off. When a player's clock reaches 0:00, the battle doesn't end, but that player will have only 15 seconds each turn to decide on an action before the character's turn defaults to Wait. (This is basically a way of keeping players from taking forever to decide on a move.) The clock stops when attacks and abilities are animating. However, the clock does NOT stop when characters are walking from one tile to another, or any time you're in a menu. If the clock expires while you're in the middle of walking, the move is canceled. The default for this option is no time limit. 3. Action Limit - You can set a maximum total number of actions for the battle. Any action taken by ANY player counts towards this limit. (Just moving without acting does not count as an action.) When the Action Limit is reached, the battle ends and a winner is declared. The default is 40, and you can choose 20, 40, or 60 actions. If you set the Action Limit to None, the battle will continue until one side is completely KOed. 4. Special Controls - This allows you to turn the special action controls on or off. (They are ON by default.) See below. 5. Trap Placement - In a Melee Mode, both players can set a number of traps on the map before the battle. If you set Trap Placement to Random, the computer will place these traps for you; if you set Trap Placement to Manual, you can put them wherever you want. (It's not possible, however, to put traps on either side's starting tiles, or in tiles with water of depth 2.) Note that you cannot trigger the traps that you set. You can only trigger the traps that your opponent laid for you. If you don't want to play with traps, set Trap Placement to None and no traps will appear. 6. Number of Traps - If you have traps allowed, this determines the number of traps that EACH player can set. You can have 2, 5, or 10 traps per player. (The default is 2.) If Trap Placement is set to None, this option is ghosted. 7. Arithmeticks - The Arithmeticks ability can be Allowed or Disallowed. (The default is Allowed.) ---Special Controls------------------------------------------------------------- Melee Mode includes a number of special action-oriented controls: * When a physical attack has a moderate hit rate (not very high or not very low), the attacker and target will "lock weapons." Both players must press the X button rapidly to determine the outcome: > If the attacker presses the button more times, the attack goes off as planned, with the bonus of a critical hit! > If the defender presses the button more times, the attack is canceled and the target retaliates with Counter Tackle. Ranged weapons are not subject to this locked-weapons effect. * For all other physical attacks, a red exclamation mark flashes over the attacker's head. Quickly hitting X when this mark appears will give you a critical attack, which increases your damage and may knock the enemy back a tile. * When you step on a trap tile, a sequence of buttons appears at the top of the screen (e.g. Up Right Triangle Square Left). If you enter the buttons in order without making a mistake within a time limit, the trap is disarmed and has no effect. Otherwise, the trap activates as usual. If you don't like these controls, the hosting player can turn them off before the battle starts. ---Winning and Losing----------------------------------------------------------- When one player has all of his or her characters KO, he or she loses, and the other player wins the battle. If both players have their last character KOed at the same time (e.g., a magick attack hits both of them and KOs them), the battle is declared a Draw. If the battle is set with fixed maximum number of actions, the battle ends when either player reaches that number of actions. In this case, victory (or a draw) is awarded to whomever has more character standing. Of course, even with the battle set to a fixed number of actions, you can end the battle and win earlier if you KO all the opponents' characters. Either player can quit the battle by clicking on an empty tile and choosing "Quit". In this case, the battle is forfeited and no treasure is awarded. If one of the PSPs goes to sleep or if the connection is broken, the battle is terminated and no treasure is awarded. %%%MELEE MODE - TREASURES%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00melee1 After each finished Melee battle, each player will be presented with a ring of chests, and can open 1 to 3 chests and keep the item within each opened chest. No chests are awarded if the battle was aborted early due to a connection error or a player quitting. The NUMBER of chests you can open is determined by the outcome of the battle. The winner of the battle can open 3 chests, and the loser can open 1. In the event of a draw, both players can open 2 chests. The CONTENTS of the chests is determined by the average level of the characters plus random chance. Most of the rare items will not appear unless your level is quite high. Different items are placed in the chests for each player. If one player wins in a single action (i.e., by using Arithmeticks), the game will detect you're trying to cheat at item-grinding and both players will receive nothing but Phoenix Downs :( . At least two actions must occur to receive actual prizes. (They can both be by one player, or one from each player.) Just moving without doing anything does not count, but you can always just attack the air, which DOES count. ---Rare Items in Melee Mode----------------------------------------------------- An almost certainly incomplete list of RARE items that you can obtain in Melee Mode is below. (I haven't listed items that can also be bought at the Outfitter, though you'll often get these if you're at a low level.) Again, you must be at a high enough level to make these items appear. * indicates items that can ONLY be acquired in Melee Mode. WEAPONS: Zwill Straightblade [dagger] Fomalhaut [gun] * Orochi [ninja blade] Glacial Gun [gun] * Moonsilk Blade [ninja blade] Blaze Gun [gun] Blood Sword [sword] Artemis Bow [bow] Materia Blade [sword] Dragon Whisker [polearm] * Onion Sword [sword] * Gae Bolg [polearm] Save the Queen [knight's sword] Whale Whisker [pole] * Francisca [axe] * Chaosbringer [fell sword] Golden Axe [axe] * Arondight [fell sword] * Nirvana [staff] * Balmung [fell sword] * Vesper [flail] SHIELDS: * Reverie Shield HEADGEAR: * Onion Helm [helm] Cachusha [hair adornment] * Acacia Hat [hat] Ribbon [hair adornment] ARMOR: Rubber Suit [clothes] * Brave Suit [clothes] * Minerva Bustier [clothes] * Sage's Robe [robe] ACCESSORIES: * Onion Gloves [gauntlets] Chantage [perfume] * Empyreal Armband [armlet] ITEMS: Elixir [item] Note that some of these items (like the Brave Suit) are quite rare, and you won't find them often even with all characters at level 99. The above items are found in Melee Mode. There are also some other, DIFFERENT multiplayer-only items that are only available in Rendezvous Mode (the "co-op" mode); see the section on Rendezvous Mode below. ---Item Evaluation-------------------------------------------------------------- Of these items, the most valuable by far is the Brave Suit. This is the best suit of clothes in the game; it boosts your HP and MP by quite a bit and gives you a permanent Reraise like Chantage! This means you can finally have male characters with a permanent Reraise. And, equipping a Brave Suit on a female character frees up an accessory slot that otherwise might have gone to Chantage. Unfortunately, the Brave Suit shows up quite infrequently. Other good armor here includes the Acacia Hat and the Reverie Shield, which is second only to the Escutcheon II amongst shields. (And since there's only one Escutcheon II, a supply of Reverie Shields is good to have.) In some cases, the Reverie Shield can be even better than the Escutcheon II since it halves all elemental damage, good for magick attacks you can't evade (e.g. hydra breath attacks). And while they're not unique to Melee Mode, the plentiful supply of Rubber Suits and Ribbons here is actually quite nice; the Rubber Suit is the best alternative to the Brave Suit, and Ribbons guard female characters against almost all status ailments! The Orochi and Moonsilk Blade are the most powerful ninja swords -- the Moonsilk is a bit stronger in raw attack power, but the Orochi drains HP. If you use Ninjas, you'll want to collect these up! The Minerva Bustier is also good to pick up if you use Reis. Although not as strong as some other pieces of armor, it's the only body armor that can be equipped by Reis's Dragonkin job. Finally, if you use Onion Knights, you'll also want to grab the Onion Sword, Helm, and Gloves here. (The Onion Armor and Shield are found in Rendezvous Mode.) Most of the other equipment isn't that great; they're either in unhelpful weapon classes (e.g. axes) or are inferior to items available in Rendezvous Mode. %%%RENDEZVOUS MODE - GENERAL INFORMATION%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00ren0 The Rendezvous Mode is a two-player co-operative mode. It consists of 15 missions that two players tackle together. (It's not possible to play these missions with just one player.) Completing the missions earns you items, including a number of rare items you can only find in this mode (see below for details). The later missions also make for a particular challenge for FF Tactics masters, as they're the toughest battles in the game. ---STARTING A MISSION--- Beginning midway through Chapter I, new Rendezvous Mode missions will continue to become available as you progress through the single-player game. A mission may be selected as long at least ONE of the two players has unlocked it, though both players must have at least progressed through the first few battles of the game to make the Rendezvous Mode option appear in a Tavern. To start a Rendezvous Mode mission, have each player go to the Tavern and choose Rendezvous Mode and "Start a Mission." The hosting player (Player 1) should choose to host a mission and the other player should choose to join. Like Melee Mode, Rendezvous Mode can only be played over a local (ad hoc) connection. Each mission can be played an unlimited number of times, regardless of whether you win or lose. Unlike the Melee Mode, Rendezvous missions do not cost gil. ---MISSION DIFFICULTY--- The Rendezvous Mode missions that you can unlock as you play through the single-player mode are appropriate for characters at that stage of the game. So, the missions you unlock in Chapter II can be tackled while you're still in Chapter II, and so on. The experience level of the enemies you face in Rendezvous Mode scales with your own characters' levels. So, simply leveling up won't really help you win the battles. Of course, learning new abilities, gaining equipment, and using the stat-raising tricks described in the Level Downs and Stat-Grinding section *will* help you. :) The exception is the last four Rendezvous Mode missions, unlocked by completing the single-player game. Here the enemies *always* have high levels, regardless of your own levels. Many of the major enemies are fixed at level 99! ---WINNING AND LOSING--- The specific victory and loss conditions for each battle are different. For details on each mission, see the specific strategies below. If one player has all his/her characters eliminated, the other player can keep playing. Both players will still be awarded items at the end of the mission. You can give up on a mission partway through by clicking on a blank tile and choosing the "Quit" option. If either player chooses to do this, the mission is forfeited and both players are returned to the Tavern. A mission also ends if either PSP goes to sleep or if the connection is broken. If one player has all of his or her characters KOed, that player should NOT just put down the PSP! Keep it running so the other player can continue trying to complete the mission. ---THE RULES--- Rendezvous Mode differs from single-player combat in several ways: * You CANNOT permanently lose items or characters in this mode. Stolen and broken items, and items consumed using the Throw, Iaido, and Items commands, are restored to you at the end of battle. Characters cannot permanently die because they simply teleport out of the battle when their KO counter expires. (Since they're not permanent deaths, these do NOT count as Casualties on your Chronicle screen.) Anyone turned into a Malboro by Malboro Spores is turned back into a human. Note that this makes some abilities substantially more useful in the Rendezvous Mode since you no longer have to worry about losing rare items. Elixirs are great for restoring HP and MP, the Masamune and Chirijiraden Iaidos can be used freely (Masamune casts Haste and Regen on a group!) and rare weapons like the Chaos Blade can be thrown without losing them. * You CAN keep items that YOU obtain from chests, stealing, and catching them from ENEMIES using Sticky Fingers. You CANNOT keep weapons caught when your partner throws them (which would otherwise allow you to easily duplicate any weapon :P). You must win the battle to keep your gained items; they are lost if you fail the mission. * The Arithmeticks command is completely off-limits in this mode and cannot be used. * Only JP, not Exp or levels, is earned. In addition to earning JP, you can also learn and keep abilities from crystals. Magick that can be learned from being hit with it (see Learning Magick From Being Hit) can also be learned and kept. You must win the battle to keep your abilities; they are lost if you fail the mission. Since you cannot gain levels, the Wild Boar's Bequeath Bacon is ineffective in this mode. * Bravery and Faith can be changed for the duration of a battle, but there are no permanent changes. * Monsters cannot be poached for items. Poaching a monster will still remove it from the map, but no items will be added to the Poachers' Den. * While the Traitor status (from Entice or Tame) can still be used to recruit enemies onto your side for the duration of the battle, they cannot join your team permanently afterwards. * Similarly, the Greater Malboro's "Malboro Spores" ability still turns a character into a Malboro for the duration of the battle, but (unlike the single- player game) does not affect a character permanently. * There are no traps and no items that can be found using Treasure Hunter, even on tiles where there are traps/items in the single-player game. * Your characters cannot be put under AI control. * The game cannot be paused. (However, when one player is moving, the other player can scroll around the map and look at characters' status.) * Although Bonus Coin is earned after a battle, gil cannot be gained or lost *within* a battle from Gil Snapper, Steal/Plunder Gil, Glitterlust, Beg, or treasure chests. * Enemies killed during Rendezvous Mode are not added to your Kills tally on the Chronicle screen and aren't counted towards unlocking Dark Knight. * This isn't a Rendezvous Mode-specific rule, but it's worth noting that all of the multiplayer-exclusive weapons cannot be thrown with the Ninja's Throw command. ---MULTI-BATTLE MISSIONS--- Two of the Rendezvous Mode missions (The Knights Templar and Brave Story) involve a sequence of battles. In these missions, you move immediately from one battle to the next. You are not be able to change characters or equipment between battles. Most gameplay elements carry over between each battle in the sequence: > HP/MP are not restored > KOed characters are not revived > Used/thrown items are not restored your inventory until the end of the whole mission > Broken equipment remains broken until the end of the mission However, a few things are restored between battles: > Status conditions other than KO are removed between battles > Changes in stats (including Bravery/Faith) disappear between battles > The counter over KOed characters is set back at 3 > Equipment that starts you off with beneficial status effects (Invisible or Reraise) has this effect at the start of EACH battle. But, if you're using the Stoneshooter, you only need to de-Petrify the character once for the whole mission. %%%RENDEZVOUS MODE - TREASURES AND RANKING%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00ren1 After winning a Rendezvous Mode battle, each player will be presented with a ring of chests, and can open 1 to 5 of them based on your performance during battle. No chests are awarded if you fail the mission. Since these battles are a cooperative effort, both players will always earn the same number of chests, even if one player had his/her forces completely wiped out. The NUMBER of chests you can open is determined by how well you fought. You can open more chests when you.... 1) Deploy fewer characters. Typically, you can deploy up to a total of 3 characters (i.e., one player deploys 1 character and the other deploys 2 characters) and still earn 5 chests, but this may vary a little from mission to mission. 2) KO more enemies. Some missions don't require you to KO every enemy, but KOing more of them will earn you more chests. 3) Do not have any of your own characters get KOed. If characters are KOed but later revived, this does not appear to penalize you. The number of turns you take does not seem to be relevant. The CONTENTS of the chests are determined by different factors: 1) The average level of your characters 2) Most missions have a "cap" on item quality. The tougher the mission, the better the items you can get. Note that the QUALITY and QUANTITY of items you receive are determined by completely different factors! Even a poor performance on the later missions will earn you a chance at rare items; you just won't get as *many* of them. On the other hand, blowing through early missions will not get you unique items, no matter how efficiently you fight or how high your level is. Different items are placed in the chests for each player. ---RARE ITEMS IN RENDEZVOUS MODE--- A (probably incomplete) list of RARE items that you can win in Rendezvous Mode is below. I haven't listed items that can also be bought at the Outfitter, though you'll often get these from the early missions. * indicates items that can ONLY be acquired in Rendezvous Mode. WEAPONS: Sasuke's Blade [ninja blade] Ras Algethi [gun] Nagnarok [sword] Fomalhaut [gun] Materia Blade [sword] Glacial Gun [gun] * Moonblade [sword] Blaze Gun [gun] Defender [knight's sword] Blaster [gun] Save the Queen [knight's sword] Artemis Bow [bow] Excalibur [knight's sword] Yoichi Bow [bow] Ragnarok [knight's sword] Perseus Bow [bow] * Durandal [knight's sword] * Sagittarius Bow [bow] Chaos Blade [knight's sword] Faerie Harp [instrument] Masamune [katana] Omnilex [book] Chirijiraden [katana] Holy Lance [polearm] Golden Axe [axe] Dragon Whisker [polearm] Dragon Rod [rod] * Gungnir [polearm] * Stardust Rod [rod] Fallingstar Bag [bag] * Crown Sceptre [rod] Wyrmweave Silk [cloth] Healing Staff [staff] * Deathbringer [fell sword] * Dreamwaker [staff] * Valhalla [fell sword] Scorpion Tail [flail] SHIELDS: Kaiser Shield * Genji Shield Venetian Shield * Onion Shield HEADGEAR: * Genji Helm [helm] Cachusha [hair adornment] * Vanguard Helm [helm] Barette [hair adornment] * Brass Coronet [hat] Ribbon [hair adornment] ARMOR: Genji Armor [armor] Ninja Gear [clothes] * Grand Armor [armor] Mirage Vest [clothes] * Onion Armor [armor] Rubber Suit [clothes] ACCESSORIES: * Gaius Caligae [shoes] Invisibility Cloak [cloak] * Genji Glove [gauntlet] Sortile'ge [perfume] * Brigand's Gloves [gauntlet] Chantage [perfume] * Sage's Ring [ring] Of course, as noted above, not all of these items are available in every mission. Again, the best items are only found in later missions, and your characters must have a high level to have a chance of getting them. In addition, there are also some items that only appear in specific missions: MISSION ITEMS The Guarded Temple Grand Armor, Fomalhaut Nightmares Gungnir, Dreamwaker Brave Story Crown Sceptre, Sage's Ring An Ill Wind Valhalla, Vanguard Helm (Note that the Fomalhaut isn't *really* unique to The Guarded Temple, since you can get it quite easily in Melee Mode. But The Guarded Temple is the only place the Fomalhaut shows up in Rendezvous Mode.) The above items are found in Rendezvous Mode. There are also some other, DIFFERENT multiplayer-only items that are only available in Melee Mode (the "versus" mode); see the section on Melee Mode above. ---TITLES AND STARS--- In addition to treasures, you will also be awarded a "title" for clearing each mission. For example, completing the Chocobo Defense mission earns you the "Defender of the Wild" title. These titles don't do anything, they're just for fun :) Each title comes with a "level" or star rating, on a scale from 1 to 5. The star rating is simply equal to the number of chests you were awarded at the end of the battle. In the Tavern, the game tracks your highest star ratings for each battle, so you can challenge yourself to try to earn 5 stars on every mission! %%%RENDEZVOUS MISSION STRATEGIES%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00ren2 ---Rendezvous Mission 1: Chocobo Defense---------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Visiting Gariland on the way to the Siedge Weald in Chapter I BATTLE MAP: Windflat Mill YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player, Chocobo* [guest] x2 ENEMY FORCES: Thief* (male) Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) Chemist* (male) Squire* (male) Squire* (male) Squire* (male) Squire* (male) * These guests and enemies have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Either Chocobos is KOed WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 48% Soil Sinkhole 21% Obstructed -- 18% Brick Wind Slash 5% Roof Wind Blast 4% Stone Outcropping Tremor 3% Flagstone Contortion 3% --STRATEGY-- The goal in this mission is to defeat all the human enemies while keeping both of the Chocobos from being KOed. If *either* Chocobo is KOed, you lose. Both players start on top of the plateau with the Chocobos and the majority of the enemies below. Player 1 faces away from the windmill, while Player 2 faces down the stairs. Both players should put their mages, Archers, and Chemists in the "back row" of their deployment screens and the fighters in the "front." This will pack the weaker characters in the center, while the physical fighters protect them from both sides. Note that if Player 2 deploys any character in his/her two leftmost tiles, they'll actually start down on the ground and not on top of the plateau. This puts them in a bit more danger, but can help you reach the enemies more quickly. You'll only want to do this with melee fighters, not rearguard characters like mages. Your success in this battle will probably depend a lot on what jobs you're using. If your characters are still Squires, this battle may be tough given the large enemy party. However, if you change your fighters into Knights and Monks, their superior Physical Attack will allow them to take out each enemy in just a few hits. The Knight's ability to equip shields will also be helpful in this battle, as will the Monk's Counter ability if you have it. Black Magick is also quite powerful in this battle and sometimes gives you a chance to hit more than one enemy at once. If you're progressed far enough that you can buy the Flame, Ice, or Thunder Rod (available after the Sand Rat's Sietch battle), using one of these rods will make the corresponding elemental magicks even stronger. Just make sure that the Chocobos don't get hit in the effect radius of the magick! Before casting, check the Turn List to make sure your planned target won't have a chance to move next to the Chocobos before the magick goes off. Archers can also be useful; standing on the top of the plateau will allow them to target almost the whole battlefield. They can often attack without having to move, which will get them more turns. However, Black Magicks tend to do a little more damage and are probably the better choice. You'll definitely also want to bring someone with the Items command (or White Magicks) who can heal the Chocobos. It doesn't necessarily have to be a full Chemist so long as you assign the Items command as a second ability -- and you may not *want* to deploy a full Chemist so you can pad your roster with fighters instead. At any rate, you can use your Items freely; you get them back after multiplayer battles. When the battle starts, you'll want to catch up with the Chocobos as quickly as possible to protect them. Otherwise, the enemies will gang up on them. Most of the action tends to take place at the bottom of the cliff, so try to get a few close-range fighters down there quickly. (Mages and Archers can stay up top where it's harder for them to get attacked.) If the enemies aren't standing at the side of the plateau, you can jump down fairly easily, or you can just have Player 2 deploy his/her characters so they *start* down there. The Squire's Move +1 ability and the Battle Boots accessory will both increase your movement range, which helps a lot in this battle. The Chocobos can use Choco Cure to heal themselves (and you!), but they won't *always* do so. They tend to only do it if one of the Chocobos or a human ally is in critical HP (HP < 20% of max). However, even if a Chocobo isn't at critical HP, the enemies may gang up on it and KO it before it DOES have a chance to heal! That's where Items comes in handy; heal any Chocobo that has taken a few hits and is vulnerable to attack. Another tactic: when one of your characters is at critical HP, move him or her away from the battle. This will often draw the Chocobo away from the enemies to heal him or her. Watch out; the Squires may throw stones at the Chocobos even if they can't move in range for a physical attack. It doesn't do much damage but can be enough to finish off a weakened Chocobo! Keep them healthy. Another very useful ability is the White Mage's Protect magick; cast this on the Chocobos and it will reduce the damage they take from physical attacks. (Shell, which reduces magick damage, is really not helpful here as it's unlikely the enemies will have many magick attacks.) The Chocobos will sometimes end up standing next to each other and this is a great opportunity to cast Protect as you can target both Chocobos at once. The enemies here have pretty generic jobs and few special abilities, there are a lot of them. You'll probably want to take out the Thief first since he's fast and can steal your equipment--it's not lost permanently in multiplayer play, but losing your gear still makes it harder to win! (The Chemist's Safeguard ability will also keep your equipment from being stolen.) You'll also probably want to defeat the two enemy Chemists early since they can keep healing the enemies otherwise. You may also encounter some of the Squires using a powerful second ability, like Martial Arts. (The specific abilities they have are assigned at random.) If you spot a Squire using a particularly nasty attack, be sure to KO him quickly. Depending on your level, the Thief may have a Blind Knife here. This weapon can inflict the Blind status on your characters, which makes it easier for enemies to dodge your attacks. This isn't as bad as it seems since most of an enemy's evasion rate can be nullified by attacking him from behind, even if you're Blind. (See Important Statistics under Basic Mechanics and Tactics for more information on evade rates.) On the other hand, if you're using a shield, it's not effective against rear attacks, so try to keep your back protected from attack where possible. You can use the side of the plateau or enemy bodies to guard your back. In some cases, you may be able to leave a low-HP enemy for the Chocobos to finish off, if they're nearby. Finally, when attacking the enemy, don't forget that Zodiac compatibility affects the damage you do -- you'll do more damage to an enemy with whom you have good compatibility. When picking the Chemists and Squires to target first, it can help to go after the enemies with whom you have good compatibility. You can defeat them more quickly. While you don't earn Exp and levels during multiplayer combat, you DO earn JP, and you can also keep abilities from crystals and items from chests. So, after you've defeated most of the enemies, you may want to hang around and let them decay into crystals or chests. This is a good way to pick up some extra abilities, if you don't mind fighting with your friend over who gets to pick up the crystals ;) If you're having trouble with this battle, progressing a little further through Chapter I may help you out as you gain more abilities and can buy useful items like the elemental rods. Or, team up with a player who's already further through the game :) In this and all other Rendezvous Mode battles, you'll earn more items if you can win the battle using a smaller party of characters. Of course, this makes the battle tougher for you. When you're just starting out, you may want to stick with a full party; assuming you don't have any fatalities of your own, you'll still earn 3 chests per player. Later, you should have no trouble reducing your party size and still winning. TITLE AWARDED: Defender of the Wild ---Rendezvous Mission 2: Chicken Race------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Start of Chapter II BATTLE MAP: Tchigolith Fenlands YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Revenant* Revenant* Revenant* Knight* (male, undead) Knight* (male, undead) Knight* (male, undead) Archer* (male, undead) Archer* (male, undead) Black Mage* (male, undead) Time Mage* (female, undead) * All enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 12 Poisonous Fen Quicksand 36% Grassland Tanglevine 33% Wasteland, Soil Sinkhole 17% Obstructed -- 7% Tree Wind Slash 6% Stone Outcropping Tremor 1% --STRATEGY-- This is the easiest of the Rendezvous Mode battles! Although there are a lot of enemies (and the humans have better stats than "regular" humans), they're ALL undead. This means that each enemy can be instantly killed simply by throwing a Phoenix Down at it. And, since items you use in Rendezvous Mode are restored after battle, you won't even permanently consume anything! However, you'll need your Chemists to be sturdy enough to survive while they throw Phoenix Downs. There are two good ways to do this: make the Chemist into a Knight and equip Items and Throw Items, so that you have the Knight's HP and armor, but all the item-using abilities of a Chemist. Or, equip a Chemist with the Knight's Equip Heavy Armor ability and you can use good armor to boost your HP. (You can swipe Gaffgarion's good armor.) If you can't do either of these, you could also deploy one character as a healer while the other Chemists fling Phoenix Down. Throw Phoenix Downs at the enemies as they come in range. The Knights and Black Mage are the most dangerous, so target them first, followed by the Archers. The Time Mage can be defeated last. Phoenix Downs are your best weapon since they have a 100% hit rate and KO the enemy no matter how much HP they have. You'll need 10 Phoenix Downs between the two players to KO all the enemies. If you run out, Hi-Potions are also reasonably effective (doing 70 HP damage); you could also use regular attacks or White Magicks. When possible, throw Phoenix Downs without moving; you'll get new turns more quickly when you don't move. Sometimes, though, you'll need to move, especially if the enemies end up hiding behind plants. If you do need to move, try to avoid ending your move in the swamp tiles, as doing so will poison you. And definitely avoid standing in water with a depth of 2; you won't be able to take action at all there! Since the enemies here are undead, some of them may start reviving if the battle drags on. With 3 Chemists throwing Phoenix Downs, you can probably finish the battle before too many have the chance to revive, though. The KOed enemies can simply be redefeated; since they won't come back with full HP, you may be able to defeat them with a weaker attacks. Some enemies may crystallize instead; picking up these crystals is a good way to heal or (in the case of the human enemies) learn new abilities! Later in Chapter II, Mustadio will join your team, and he makes this battle even easier. His Seal Evil ability turns undead enemies to stone, which both defeats them and prevents from reviving, and it has a very long range when combined with his gun. You can probably clear this battle with a small number of characters. Completing this battle with just 3 characters total will earn you five stars and five treasures per player, and it's not very hard to win even with just 3 Chemists. TITLE AWARDED: Lionheart ---Rendezvous Mission 3: Treasure Hunt------------------------------------------ AVAILABLE AFTER...: Start of Chapter II BATTLE MAP: Dorvauldar Marsh YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Thief (lv PH+6, male) Thief (lv ~PH, male) Thief (lv ~PH, female) Monk (lv ~PH, male) Monk (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, female) Archer (lv ~PH, female) Archer (lv ~PH, female) Squire (lv ~PH, male) Most enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest in the deployed party (lv ~PH); one Thief is 6 levels above that. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: An enemy picks up the chest, or all allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 14 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 51% Swamp Quicksand 36% Soil Sinkhole 9% Obstructed -- 4% --STRATEGY-- This mission is a race for the treasure chest on the far side of the map -- whichever team picks it up first (your team or the enemy team) wins. There are really two ways to play this battle. One is to make a beeline for the chest and pick it up. If you do this, you'll only receive a 1-star ranking (because you didn't KO any enemies) and each player will get to open only a single chest from the ring of chests. But the player who grabbed the chest gets to keep whatever's inside it, and it's usually a pretty high quality item -- better than anything you can buy in a store or win from the item ring at this point in the game. (You also earn the Bonus Coin from clearing the mission, which means you can earn money pretty quickly.) The other approach is to play this mission like a conventional battle and KO all the enemies. You'll get to claim up to 5 chests after the mission this way, but you won't get the really good item in the battlefield chest. This strategy is actually kind of pointless: You can earn items of equal quality from the Chicken Race mission, and Chicken Race is much easier and faster to win. The real reason to play this mission is to grab the battlefield chest and claim the good item inside. So, the way to go is to forget your ranking and just make a run for the chest. (Since only one player gets to open the chest, the two players can take turns being the one to open it.) To reach the chest quickly, deploy characters with a high Speed and/or Move rating -- Knights, Monk, and Thieves all fit the bill, as do Ninjas if you have them. Assign a helpful movement ability. Teleport is probably the best, as it lets you move through the enemy units and also gives you a chance of extending your movement range. Where you don't have that, Move +1 (or better) is also quite helpful. You won't want to waste time fighting, so focus on equipping your characters to dodge or survive lots of attacks. Heavy armor is a plus, as are good shields and cloaks. Good reaction abilities are Archer's Bane (which will help block the attacks from the enemy Archers) or Auto-Potion. If you've progressed far enough to earn a way to make yourself Invisible (some rare itmes or the Ninja's Vanish reaction ability), then you're all set! Once you're Invisible, the enemies will ignore you and you can just rush to the chest. Also, you should deploy 3 characters per player. If you're going for the chest and not playing for ranking, there's no reason not to take as many characters as possible. During the battle, you'll just want to run for the chest at the other end of the map. Don't attack enemies; if you only Move (and don't Act), your CT gauge will fill again more quickly and you can take more turns. If you're using Teleport, don't forget that you can warp through enemy units. You can also try teleporting 1 or 2 tiles beyond your usual movement range, but beware that teleporting *too* far is likely to fail. The watery tiles here are just regular swamp and NOT poisonous fen, so you don't have to worry about getting poisoned if you stand in them. There are a lot of enemies -- too many to fight directly, generally -- so this battle is mainly about surviving long enough to reach the other side of the battlefield and claim the chest. One tactic is to designate one or two fast characters as your main runners. Have them run for the chest, using only the Move menu so they get more turns. Meanwhile, other characters can follow up behind them, healing from a distance (using Throw Items or White Magicks) and other support abilities such as Protect. Another defensive tactic is to use characters with Archer's Bane as defenders; put them in the way of the enemy Archers to prevent the Archers from hitting the characters running for the chest. Don't turn back to revive any downed characters; remember, as long as one character reaches the chest, you win. Finally, try to keep your front side towards the bulk of the enemies to maximize your evade rate. Although the enemy Thieves can steal your equipment, you may not want to block their steals with Safeguard. If you DON'T have Safeguard, they'll waste some of their turns trying to steal your equipment instead of attacking, which helps keep you alive! (You get your stolen equipment back after the battle in Rendezvous Mode.) However, a Nu Khai Armband (not for sale until Chapter III) is helpful for blocking their Steal Heart attack. Since there are Thieves of both genders here, deploying a single-gender party is not helpful :( Chapter II has a lot of guest characters. They can't participate in this or other Rendezvous Mode missions, but you CAN strip them of their equipment and give it to your main team. If you DO want to take out all the enemies, be warned that it's pretty tough -- you're outnumbered and the enemies have a lot of annoying abilities. Try to gather your characters into one group quickly. The Thieves are probably the most dangerous enemies because of their Steal Heart ability, so take them out first. If you're planning on fighting, blocking their steals with Safeguard is a good idea. Also, once you get to Chapter III, a Nu Khai Armband is great for blocking Steal Heart. If a character DOES get Charmed by Steal Heart, use a weak attack to knock some sense into him or her. A magick user's physical attack or the Squire abilities Rush and Stone are good for removing Charm without inflicting too much damage. Watch out for the Monks, too. Although fists only have a range of 1, the Monks will often have Martial Arts abilities that let them attack at a distance! (i.e., Aurablast and Shockwave) Even if you're planning just to KO all the enemies, you must keep the enemies from picking up the chest. You'll especially need to watch out for the male Thief in the center of the enemy group. He tends to hang back instead of advancing with the rest of the enemy forces, and in a few turns, he'll pick up the chest and cause you to lose the battle. To prevent this, you must advance quickly and he'll come forward to fight you instead of chasing after the chest. As long as you are in range of the enemies, they should fight you instead of going after the chest (even when they could pick it up in a single move!). Other useful abilities for taking down all the enemy forces include Archer's Bane, Counter, and Defense or Attack Boost. Don't forget, too, to check your Zodiac compatibility with the enemies. It helps to attack the enemies with whom you have high Zodiac compatibility as you can more quickly defeat them -- plus they're the ones who can do a lot of damage to you! Once Mustadio joins the party, his Leg Shot ability is quite helpful here as it allows you to Immobilize enemies in place and keep them from getting to the chest, and his gun gives him a long range with which to inflict it. Do NOT use Arm Shot. If you Disable an enemy with Arm Shot, the enemy will drop out of the main brawl and go back to pick up the chest, causing you to lose! Again, since you can earn medium-quality items more quickly from Chicken Race, there's not too much point in trying to KO all the enemies. (And it's actually pretty challenging.) Picking up the chest is the real reward. If you want to earn 5 stars on this battle just for completeness' sake, you may have better luck as you progress through Chapter II and get some of the special story characters to join your roster. TITLE AWARD: Retriever ---Rendezvous Mission 4: Teioh-------------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 13: Zaland BATTLE MAP: Araguay Woods YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Teioh (lv PH+5 Black Chocobo) Red Chocobo (lv ~PH) Red Chocobo (lv ~PH) Chocobo (lv ~PH) Chocobo (lv ~PH) Chocobo (lv ~PH) Chocobo (lv ~PH) Red Panther (lv ~PH) Pig (lv ~PH) Pig (lv ~PH) Most enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest in the deployed party (lv ~PH); Teioh is 5 experience levels above that. VICTORY CONDITION: KO Teioh LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Grassland Tanglevine 82% Tree Wind Slash 8% Obstructed -- 6% Soil Sinkhole 4% --STRATEGY-- The goal of this mission is to defeat Teioh, a Black Chocobo with a ginormous amount of HP. (Teioh's specific level and max HP are based on your own levels, but even at a low level, he's going to have over 1000 HP.) Teioh is also accompanied by a gang of other chocobos and some other miscellaneous monsters. Although you only need to KO Teioh to win the battle, to get a good rank you'll need to defeat the other monsters as well. (If you KO only Teioh and no other monsters, you'll receive only a single star and single chest!) The enemy chocobos have some powerful attacks, so come prepared with shields and cloaks to block them. (The only potential status ailment you'll face here is the occasional Poison from the Red Panther's Poison Fang, so you needn't worry about any status-protection accessories.) Auto-Potion is a great defensive ability here, especially if you buy Hi-Potions (or, later, X-Potions) and discard all your regular Potions. This will allow you to use Hi-Potions when you activate Auto-Potion. Counter is also quite useful since you'll mostly be hit with close-range attacks and Counter lets you strike the enemy back. (Do not use First Strike here; it doesn't work against monsters.) When deploying your characters, both players should place their characters in the front row (i.e., the first row in the direction the characters are facing). Characters placed in the rear will end up on top of the cliff at the back of the map and have a hard time getting into battle. Your first target needs to be the Red Chocobos; their Choco Meteor attack does a lot of damage, has a good range, and is completely unblockable. Concentrate on chasing them down and defeating them. The yellow Chocobos can use Choco Cure to heal themselves and other enemies. This can be a real pain, but the good news is that Chocobos tend not to use Choco Cure unless they themselves have been injured. So, don't attack the yellow Chocobos until you've finished off the Red Chocobos, then just attack one Chocobo at a time. This will minimize the amount of healing they do. The Pigs and Red Panther are not much of a threat at all, so just ignore them until you have finished off all the Chocobos. If you have someone with Counter, you have a pretty good chance of finishing them off just with your counterattacks. (While Pigs are normally good for poaching rare items, you can't poach monsters or recruit them in Rendezvous Mode, so they just function as weak opponents here.) Because all the enemies here are monsters, they can all have a chance of Countering your melee attacks. You can avoid this by using attacks that hit from a distance, like spears and the Monk's Aurablast. Once Agrias joins the party, her sword techniques will be quite helpful as well. Magick could also be useful, especially Summons (which will hit many enemies at once), but you'll need to shield your mage from enemy attacks. Equip Heavy Armor would be good for giving a mage enough HP to survive the initial wave of Choco Meteors. The Dragoon's Jump attack also lets you escape counterattacks (as long as you use it at a range of more than a single tile), but can be tricky to use since the chocobos are all fairly quick and can often move out of the way before you land the Jump. Only target chocobos that have just moved or that have been Immobilized. Position your characters next to each other will limit the number of directions some of the enemies can attack from you. Since no enemy here has magick that hits more than one character, there's no harm in standing next to each other. Try not to leave enemies standing with critical HP. They'll usually flee into a corner of the map, which will make it hard to finish them off before you fight Teioh. Once you've wiped out all the minor monsters, it's time to take on Teioh. As mentioned above, he has a ton of HP, but if you've defeated all the other monsters, you're pretty safe as he can't do all that much damage to you (and his Choco Beak and Choco Pellets attacks can both be blocked). While you'll generally want to keep him from attacking your back (since your shields don't work against rear attacks), in practice this is pretty tricky since he can fly over your head. Still, in some cases you can put your back to a tree. Pretty much any attack is good against Teioh. Ranged attacks are particularly useful since they won't allow him to Counter. If you have any attacks that do damage based on the target's maximum HP, like the Time Mage's Gravity and Graviga, the Mystic's Invigoration, or the Lich summon, these attacks are quite useful since they will quickly knock down Teioh's sizable HP total. As the battle progresses, many of the defeated monsters will start turning into crystals. You want to be sure to pick these up before the enemies can; it's a real pain if Teioh heals himself. Check the Turn List to see when the enemy will move and be sure to have a character grab the crystal before any of the enemies will be available to pick them up. (You can use them to heal yourself too, but even if you don't need healing, you'll want to grab the crystals just to prevent the enemies from using them.) If you haven't progressed far enough in the single-player game to encounter any major boss enemies yet, Teioh will be your first. Like all major bosses, his HP and MP are displayed simply as ??? and you won't be able to tell exactly how much he has left. However, when he gets low on HP, his life bar will appear to empty (turning from gray to black) and he will switch to a squatting pose just like any other chocobo will critical HP. This means you're close to finishing him off. When Teioh does get low on HP, though, he'll start trying to flee while continuing to shoot Choco Pellets at you. This is pretty annoying. You'll just have to chase him down and keep hitting him. Again, Immobilizing him, or even hitting him with Rend Speed to slow his turns down, will help keep him from escaping you. If you're having trouble here, this battle is much easier after at least one player has progressed further through Chapter II and acquired the two story characters available in this chapter. Agrias's sword techniques are great for damaging the monsters without being counterattacked, and Mustadio can use Leg Shot to inflict Immobilize on Teioh or the other chocobos. TITLE AWARDED: Chocobo Hunter ---Rendezvous Mission 5: Lost Heirloom------------------------------------------ AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 16: Goug Lowtown BATTLE MAP: Goug Lowtown YOUR FORCES: 1-2 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Knight* (female) Knight* (female) Thief* (male) Thief* (male) Thief* (male) Archer* (male) Archer* (male) Archer* (male) Time Mage* (female) Time Mage* (female) * All enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear night (evade rate vs. bows x 1.33) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 11 x 9 Grassland Tanglevine 33% Flagstone Contortion 33% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 27% Wooden Floor, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 7% --STRATEGY-- The enemies here don't have much in the way of special abilities, but the catch is that each player is limited to 2 characters. And, to get the highest possible ranking here, you must only deploy a single character each! There are three male Thieves here, which puts female characters at a risk for being Charmed with Steal Heart. This is very bad news when you have such a small fighting force, so deploying all male characters might be advantageous. Once you get to Chapter III, you can also buy Nu Khai Armbands to immunize yourself against Charm. As with many Rendezvous Mode battles, the emphasis is on physical defense. This map features Knights and Thieves, and most perniciously, three Archers, two of whom like to hang out at the back of the map and rain arrows on you. Equip shields and cloaks to boost your evade rate, and Defense Boost [Mystic] to reduce the damage you sustain. The Archer's Bane reaction ability is particularly well-suited for this map, since it gives you a good chance of blocking the Archer's attacks outright. (Shirahadori, which blocks both arrows and melee attacks, is even better if you have it.) If you don't have Archer's Bane, Auto-Potion makes a good substitute. You could also use Counter -- this won't improve your defense, of course, but if you already have a good shield and cloak, Counter is a great way of improving your damage output. Knights make a good overall choice for this map since they can use shields and heavy armor and have a good offense as well. You'll probably also want a way to restore your HP and revive KOed characters. Since you have so few characters here, you may not have space for a dedicated healer, plus Chemists and White Mages will get killed pretty easily here. Instead, try adding Items or Martial Arts (or even White Magicks) as a secondary action ability to one of your other characters. Auto-Potion and the Monk's Lifefont movement ability are also good for restoring HP over the course of the battle. If you've progressed far enough to steal the Blood Sword, it can be pretty helpful as it will allow you to regain HP when you attack. (If you're tackling this mission much later, though, you won't want to use it as it won't be very strong compared to other weapons and the enemy HP levels.) Between the Thieves and Knights, there are also a lot of opportunities for your equipment to be broken or stolen, so Safeguard may be helpful. This is particularly important for female characters, since losing their Nu Khai Armbands means they can be Charmed. (Remember, if lose your equipment in Rendezvous Mode, it IS restored to you after battle, but losing it during the battle still makes it difficult to win!) When the battle starts, you'll want to take out the Time Mages first. If they get off a Haste, Slow, or Stop spell, this can be big trouble when you're already outnumbered. (They may hit you with Gravity magicks as well!) There's one on each side of the map, so have each player quickly move forward and KO one. There's a good chance that the Time Mages may have the Mana Shield reaction ability, which allows them to take damage to their MP as a buffer against your attacks. Draining their MP in this way is pretty much as good as KOing them since they won't be able to use magicks, so you can then leave them be. (Their physical attack can still do SOME damage, but the Thieves and Knights are a much higher priority.) For offense, physical-oriented jobs are probably your best bet. Magick tends not to be so good, since magick-using jobs are at a disadvantage for evading attacks and are even more vulnerable when charging magicks. The Dragoon's Jump attack is particularly useful, since it temporarily removes you from the battlefield and prevents you from being attacked. (Just watch out for the slight overhang with the spinning wheel on Player 2's side of the map. If you're standing directly underneath this overhang, you won't be able to Jump.) Mustadio will have joined you by the time you get to this mission. His Arm Shot and Leg Shot abilities can be useful in temporarily taking an enemy out of play. As a Machinist, he's probably going to be too weak to survive here, but you can turn him into a Knight and then equip Aimed Shot as a secondary ability. If you have a shield, cloak, and Archer's Bane, the Archers will really have quite a low hit rate against you and you won't need to worry about them too much. First, take out all the melee fighters on the lower level. Remember that shields aren't effective against attacks from the rear, and your own job's innate evade rate is not effective against rear nor side attacks. (Cloaks and Archer's Bane work at all angles.) So, try to position yourself after each move so that your back is not vulnerable. You want to avoid turning your back on the Archers so that you can keep blocking their arrows. Conversely, try to attack the enemy Knights from the rear so they can't use their shields to block your attack. You also won't want to attack the enemy Thieves head on, as they have a high evade rate from the front. Of course, the Concentration support ability [Archer] allows you to circumvent enemy evade rates. Enemies that you've weakened to critical HP may start to flee towards a corner. Don't worry about these guys; they've essentially removed themselves from the battle. Focus on the enemies who are still fighting you. After you've defeated most of the enemies on the ground, you have a good chance to heal before the final charge to the roof where the Archers usually are. Try to revive any KOed characters -- remember, your star ranking may decrease if any of your allies have to teleport out of battle. Although this battle is fairly do-able with four characters, completing it with just two characters to earn 5 stars can be tough early on. To succeed, you'll really need to have the best possible defense; Jump, Safeguard, Lifefont are all advantageous too. Of course, like all Rendezvous missions, this gets easier as you go through the game, since better cloaks and shields become available and your offensive capabilities increase as well. TITLE AWARDED: Count's Guard ---Rendezvous Mission 6: The Fete----------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Start of Chapter III BATTLE MAP: Lionel Castle Oratory YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Monk* (female) Monk* (female) Knight* (male) Knight* (male) Dancer* Dancer* Dancer* Bard* Bard* Bard* * All enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 8 Flagstone Contortion 60% Carpet, Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 20% Obstructed -- 20% --STRATEGY-- You'll fight a large group of enemies in close quarters here, including a rare encounter against enemy Bards and Dancers. The two Knights will rush you first with their Move +2 movement ability, and tend to be quickly followed by most of the rest of the group. Depending on your level, the Bards here may have Lamia's Harps, which sometimes confuse your characters when they strike. This is bad news if it happens, so equip Nu Khai Armbands (newly purchasable in the Outfitter) to prevent this. If you don't have or can't afford the Nu Khai Armbands, you can cure confused characters by hitting them with a weak physical attack. Or, if you deploy a character above level 25 or so, the Bards may just have Bloodstring Harps instead, which drain HP back to the Bards. While annoying, this is less dangerous to you, and you can just mop up the Bards after you've KOed the real threats. You'll face mostly physical attacks here, so a good physical defense is a must. Use armor to raise your HP, and equip shields to help block physical attacks. The two Knights always have Concentration, which prevents you from evading their attack, but shields will at least stop the Monks. If you have the Samurai's Shirahadori reaction ability, this battle will be pretty easy as you can block most all the attacks you'll face, even the Knights with Concentration. You can still win without Shirahadori, though; the Chemist's Auto-Potion is another good reaction ability for keeping your health up. The Mystic's Defense Boost support ability is also helpful. Finally, you could try the Golem summon to absorb some of the physical attacks, but you're being bombarded with so many attacks that the Golem effect is likely to wear off too quickly to be much help. The Chemist's Safeguard support ability can also be somewhat helpful here since it prevents the Knights from breaking your gear. That said, Defense Boost is probably the better support ability choice, if you have it. Since you won't be hit with magick, this is one battle where it helps to place your characters next to each other. This minimizes the number of directions from which the enemies can attack each character. As the battle progresses, you can also stand next to the bodies of KO enemies to block off more lines of attack. In addition, if you mostly stay put in this formation and attack enemies as they come to you, you can get more turns as you won't need to use up CT by moving. Your best offense here is probably Summons. Since you're crowded into such a small space, they will hit lots of targets, and they won't damage your own allies. Use a strong summon, or pair one of the initial three elemental summons (Ifrit, Shiva, and Ramuh) with a Flame, Ice, or Lightning Rod for extra damage. The Moogle and Faerie summons can also be used for emergency healing. Black Magick can work too, but will hit fewer targets and can also damage your allies. Either way, Chakra is quite useful for recovering your MP -- you can give this to the Summoner, or have an adjacent character use it. (The latter is probably better since it allows the Summoner to spend all his/her turns casting Summons.) You'll also need to protect your magick-user since they tend to be pretty fragile. Giving the caster a shield or heavy armor can help somewhat, but remember that shields are no good against the Knights and their Concentration ability. The best tactic is to put your magick-user in the "back row," behind characters with a better defense. These characters can block the enemy from getting to your Summoner and absorb some of the hits while your Summoner blasts away at the enemies with magick. Other good attacks include sword techniques (especially Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination) and the Monk's Shockwave. All the Bards and Dancers have the Defense Boost support ability, which automatically reduces the damage they take from all physical attacks, including things like sword techniques and Jump. You can still use these attacks, of course, but magick is going to be the most effective. Ranged weapons tend not to be useful here; since the enemies are close to you anyway, the long range doesn't help you much, and you'll want the higher attack power of a close-range weapon. The Knights are probably your first target since their Concentration ability makes their attacks largely unblockable. After that, you'll want to go after the Monks, who always have the Items ability and can heal other allies. Watch out, though -- the Knights have Counter, and the Monks have the First Strike reaction ability, which allows them to cancel direct physical attacks and hit you instead if you attack them from an adjacent tile. To avoid these counterattacks, don't use direct physical attacks, but target the enemies with magick, Jump, sword techniques, or other ranged abilities like the Monk's Aurablast and Shockwave. If you've progressed far enough into Chapter IV to get Balthier, his Barrage attack also works. You can even use a plain physical attack as long as you're attacking from a distance, like with a bow or polearm. Another alternative is to Disable the Monks or otherwise prevent them from using reaction abilities, and then you can attack them at close-range. As long as you have some other decent attacks you can use, though, it probably isn't worth going to this extra step. Note that the Monks are also always given the Equip Heavy Armor ability, which gives them a fair amount of HP. The Dancers and Bards are less of a priority to defeat (especially the Bards), but ANY enemies you can defeat early on will help relieve some of the pressure on you. Both the Monks have Items and can use Phoenix Downs to revive KOed allies; other enemies may also be randomly assigned the Items ability. If you're using Summons, this isn't too much of a problem; the revived enemies will come back with only minimal HP and will be wiped down the next time you cast a Summon. Otherwise, try to pick off these weak enemies before they get healed back to full HP. One last caution: it's likely that at least one of the enemies will have the Geomancy ability, and will use the Contortion ability from the back of the battlefield. While this attack won't do much damage, it has a chance of turning you to Stone, so bring an ability that can cure this status, like Purification [Monk], Esuna [White Mage], or Gold Needle [Chemist]. Or, if your levels are high enough that the Bards have Bloodstring Harps, you won't need a Nu Khai Armband to protect against Confusion, so you can equip a Jade Armlet to protect yourself against Stone. (However, if the Bards are still using Lamia's Harps, the Nu Khai Armband is more important.) For this battle, it doesn't matter who is player 1 and player 2 since you start in identical positions relative to the enemy. TITLE AWARDED: Lord of the Night ---Rendezvous Mission 7: Desert Minefield--------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 26: Monastery Vaults - First Level BATTLE MAP: Zeklaus Desert YOUR FORCES: 1-2 characters per player, Govis* ENEMY FORCES: Exploder* Exploder* Exploder* Exploder* Exploder* Grenade* Grenade* Grenade* Grenade* Bomb* Bomb* * These guests and enemies have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. GUEST: Govis [random Zodiac] - male Chemist, lv based on party's highest - random Bravery and Faith Equipment : No weapon, random other equipment Abilities : Items, random other abilities GUEST: Govis - male Chemist - random Bravery and Faith values Equipment : No weapon, random other equipment Abilities : Items, random other abilities VICTORY CONDITION: Govis reaches the far row of the battlefield, or you KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies LOSS CONDITION: Govis is KOed WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 18 x 10 Sand Sandstorm 62% Stone Outcropping Tremor 36% Obstructed -- 2% --STRATEGY-- This mission is an escort mission. You lose if Govis, the guest Chemist, is KOed. You win when Govis reaches the far side of the map, or if you KO all 11 enemy bombs. KOing as many of the bombs as possible will earn you a higher star rating (and hence more chests) at the end of the battle, so that's the way to go. Unfortunately, Govis is a bit of a hazard to himself. He likes to charge right at the bombs and attack them with his bare hands, which tends to get him counterattacked and KOed. The best remedy is to bring Mustadio (or, later, Balthier) and have him use Leg Shot to Immobilize Govis at the start of the battle. (Player 1 starts directly behind Govis and has a clear shot for this.) Your odds of successfully Immobilizing Govis depend in part on Govis's random Zodiac sign and its compatibility with Mustadio's, so there's some luck involved here. Putting Immobilize on Govis will keep from charging forward, and he should be pretty safe. Immobilize will wear off after a few turns, though, so prepared to use it again. If Govis does manage to move forward, he'll be in danger. Quickly move some characters between him and the enemies to shield him. (You could also put Govis to sleep, which lasts longer, but this has the disadvantage of making him more susceptible to attack if the bombs DO reach him.) It's probably a good idea to bring someone with healing abilities who can heal Govis, just in case. Mustadio can double with this role if you switch him to a Chemist (and then assign Aimed Shot as his second ability). Don't be shy with your items; you get them all back after the end of the battle, anyway. Don't underestimate the bombs. There are a lot of them, and they come at you quickly. You may be more successful if you generally let them come to you instead of charging them. This will keep you from getting surrounded. Equipping Flame Shields here is quite helpful as it allows you to actually absorb the damage from the Exploders' Spark attacks. In general, a good physical defense is important here since the bombs use mostly physical attacks. Shields, cloaks, and Parry will help you avoid their attacks -- and Shirahadori is even better, if you've already obtained that. Auto-Potion is also quite useful, especially since you don't really use up potions in Rendezvous Mode. Where possible, put your back against a cactus, so the bombs can only attack you from the side or front, which allows you to use your shield. For attacking the bombs, Agrias's sword techniques are always good as they can't be counterattacked, do high damage, and can often target more than one enemy at a time. (Or, if you're only able to attack a single bomb, use Northswain's Strike, which has a chance of instantly KOing its target.) If you want to use Black Magick, note that the Bombs absorb fire and halve damage from ice, so use Thunder spells only. The same goes for Summons and weapons; be sure to avoid the Icebrand sword. (Note that the Icebrand sword will turn even your sword techniques into ice-elemental attacks!) If you happen to have the Leviathan summon, it will do a lot of damage since the bombs are all weak to water. Finally, you could try using Orator skills (Entice or Tame) to recruit one or more bombs to your side. This can help even out the enemy's numerical advantage, but it has pretty low odds of succeeding. Of the three kinds of bombs, the Grenades are the most dangerous. Their Bomblet attack does a lot of damage and is non-elemental, so the Flame Shield won't protect against it. Take out the Grenades first, and try to get rid of them before the Exploders reach you. Once the Exploders join the fray, they'll start using their Spark ability, which heals any nearby bombs and also damages any characters who aren't protected with a Flame Shield. This can get quite annoying if the Exploders get into a big group because the Exploders will just keep healing each other and you won't be able to defeat any of them. Attack one of the Exploders at a time until you KO them. You can also try to use your characters to block the Exploders from reaching each other, or draw them apart into separate groups. This will reduce their ability to keep healing themselves. Another alternative is to use abilities like Arm Shot or Mystic Arts to take away the Exploders' ability to act. Be careful about leaving any bomb in a low-HP state. It may use Self-Destruct, which will do sizable damage to a wide range and has a good chance of killing Govis. To earn a five-star rating on this battle, you must deploy only a single character per player, and you must KO all the bombs. This can be quite difficult, especially when this mission is first unlocked, since you have to juggle defeating the bombs with healing Govis and preventing him from reaching the finish line. You'll probably want to have one character do the fighting while another character heals and Immobilizes Govis, but it will be tricky if you're not able to easily take out the Exploders. TITLE AWARDED: Bombslayer ---Rendezvous Mission 8: Littering---------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 29: Yardrow BATTLE MAP: Gollund YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Ninja* (male) Ninja* (male) Ninja* (male) Ninja* (male) Ninja* (male) Ninja* (female) Ninja* (female) Ninja* (female) Ninja* (female) Ninja* (female) * All enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest among your deployed characters. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Snowstorm (ice damage + 25%) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 10 x 10 Snow Snowstorm 73% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 24% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% Flagstone Contortion 1% --STRATEGY-- This is a battle against a squad of ten enemy Ninjas. The Ninjas are extremely fast and, unless you have an auto-Haste item, it's likely that all of them will be able to attack before you can even move. Even if you make your own characters into Ninjas, the enemies can probably move first because of their superior level-up history. So, surviving against the initial onslaught is your first priority. Equip armor that will boost your HP as high as possible (Equip Heavy Armor may be useful). Use shields and cloaks to boost your evade rate. The Thief's Sticky Fingers ability is pretty much made for this battle. When activated, it not only blocks the Ninja's Throw attacks, but adds the thrown item to your own inventory! Of course, like most Reaction Abilities, it is dependent on your Bravery and doesn't always activate.) And, if you don't already have it, it costs only 200 JP to acquire. Actually, if you have them, Shirahadori (Samurai) or Reflexes (Ninja) are even better. They will help you against even the Ninjas' regular physical attacks as well as the throws, although they won't allow you to keep the thrown items, though. Be aware that Shirahadori will NOT completely protect against you Ninjas with Dual Wield; you can only block one of their two strikes with Shirahadori. If you're using Shirahadori, check the enemies' status screens and try to target the ones with Dual Wield first. Auto-Potion is also an extremely helpful reaction ability here, especially if you throw away your regular Potions and/or Hi-Potions first so you can just use the more effective potions. Teleport and Ignore Elevation can also be helpful for making it easier to get atop the roof tiles where some of the Ninjas may be, but they're not really necessary. Player 1 starts battling the female Ninjas and Player 2 start battling the male Ninjas. For the most part, this doesn't really matter. However, there's a chance that the Ninjas will randomly be assigned the Steal Heart ability, which lets them Charm targets of the opposite sex. Just in case, have the player with more female characters be Player 1 and the player with more male characters be Player 2. At the start of the battle, focus on cutting down a few Ninjas as fast as possible so you're not so outnumbered. Strong physical attacks are useful. Target those Ninjas with whom you have good Zodiac compatibility as you may be able to defeat them in a single strike. (Fortunately, Ninjas are pretty fragile.) Mustadio's Arm Shot ability is also quite useful; Disabling the Ninjas keeps them out of your hair for a few turns. Leg Shot isn't too useful because even if the Ninjas can't move, they can still throw things at you. Because there's a snowstorm, ice-based attacks will be powerful. This might include Luso's Icebrand sword, as well as magicks like Blizzard and Shiva. Equip an Ice Rod on any magick users to make their ice magick even stronger. Be careful using Aim and especially Jump here; the Ninjas are so fast that you'll need to make sure the attack can execute before the Ninjas can move out of the way. If you're already into Chapter IV and have acquired some of the sidequests characters, they may be useful here. Balthier is basically a stronger Mustadio and Beowulf's Disable, Break, and Chicken abilities can be used to quickly stop some of the enemy Ninjas. Although deploying a small number of characters will earn you the most chests after battle (as always), you may find it more profitable to bring in a lot of characters with Sticky Fingers and waltz through the battle, collecting as many weapon as you can. You can get a lot of good weapons this way! This battle is also great for Ninjas of your own; picking up the crystals the enemy Ninjas leave will net you many Ninja abilities quickly. If you're at a very high level, the enemy Ninjas will start throwing rare weapons that you can't buy at the Outfitter. You'll start getting rare weapons at level 90, although the really good stuff doesn't come until level 95. Come back to this battle when your levels are 95+ and you can use it to easily collect multiple Chaos Blades, Javelin IIs, and so forth. This is a fantastic weapon to get lots of rare weapons. Just raise your Bravery up and catch away! The highest-level enemy Ninjas will throw the best weapons -- see the "Throws from Enemy Ninjas" section for the exact levels that each weapon appears at. In general, one trick for catching lots of items is to wipe out most of the enemy Ninjas, then Immobilize the remaining one(s). Stand at a distance and the Ninjas will have no choice but to throw weapons, which you can then catch! Unfortunately, this doesn't work later in the game, when the Ninjas will all have Thief's Caps that protect them from Immobilize; instead, just run from them and stay out of their immediate attack range so they'll use Throw instead. TITLE AWARDED: Gatherer ---Rendezvous Mission 9: Shades of the Past------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Start of Chapter IV BATTLE MAP: Brigands' Den YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Milleuda (lv PH+3 Knight) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, male) White Mage (lv ~PH, female) White Mage (lv ~PH, female) Most enemies here have experience levels approximately equal to the highest in the deployed party (lv ~PH); Milleuda is 3 experience levels above that. ENEMY: Milleuda [Aquarius] - lv PH+3 female Knight - Bravery 65, Faith 65 Equipment : Defender, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Chantage Abilities : Arts of War, White Magicks, Parry, Safeguard, Move +1 VICTORY CONDITION: KO Milleuda LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 10 Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 37% Ocean Torrent 30% Flagstone Contortion 21% Grassland Tanglevine 12% --STRATEGY-- There are a lot of enemies here, but they all have pretty weak jobs that are mostly limited to physical attacks. If you bring a good defense against physical attacks -- a good shield and Shirahadori or especially First Strike -- you'll be practically invulnerable. The Teleport or Ignore Elevation movement abilities may also be helpful. The enemies sometimes climb up atop the fort and stay there, and it can be difficult to chase after them. A Jump attack with a high horizontal and vertical range would also work. Milleuda's Chantage will keep reviving her if she gets KOed, and she has Safeguard, so you can't steal or break the Chantage. This means that the only way to get rid of her is to first KO all the other enemies, and *then* finish her off. (You could soften her up with other attacks beforehand, though there's not much point.) The enemy has a number of characters who can heal the other enemies. These include both of the White Mages, as well as Milleuda, who casts Arise. You'll want to stop them first. Even though Milleuda has Chantage, you can stop her White Magick by using Orlandeau's Duskblade or a Dark Knight's Infernal Strike to wipe out her MP. (You can also just KO her when she starts casting Arise; she'll bounce back, but the spell will be canceled.) The White Mages are pretty easy to take out, but be aware of their reaction abilities: the Mage that starts on the right side of the fort (from your viewpoint) has Magick Counter, and the one on the left side has Soulbind, which bounces half the damage you do back onto you. Neither of these abilities are really that dangerous, though, especially because you may be able to defeat the Mages in a single strike anyway. Both of the White Mages also have Sortile'ge perfumes you could steal if you want. Milleuda's Parry will block physical attacks, but Jump and sword techniques will crack through her defenses, or you can just attack her from behind. (Note that for some reason she's now an Aquarius, even though she was a Virgo in the single-player game.) Since having a good physical defense will make you practically invincible here, this is a great battle to deploy just a single character per player to maximize your item haul. TITLE AWARDED: Exorcist ---Rendezvous Mission 10: The Knights Templar----------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 41: Fort Besselat Sluice BATTLE MAP: Mullonde Cathedral Nave YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: 1ST BATTLE: Isilud, Wiegraf, Archer (male) x4, Squire (male) x4 2ND BATTLE: Cletienne, Black Mage (female) x2, White Mage (female) x2, Summoner (female) x3, Time Mage (female) x2 3RD BATTLE: Barich, Chemist (male) x5, Orator (male) x4 4TH BATTLE: Folmarv [Divine Knight; Leo], Loffrey [Divine Knight; Capricorn], Dragoon (male) x2, Knight (male) x3, White Mage (male) x2 The generic enemies have experience levels approximately equal to the highest in the deployed party (lv ~PH); all the Knights Templar are 5 experience levels above that. VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, recruit, or Vampirize all enemies in each of the 4 battles LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Flagstone Contortion 38% Carpet Will-o'-the-Wisp 31% Obstructed -- 19% Canal Torrent 12% --PREPARATION-- This mission occurs in four successive "trials," with each trial pitting you against some of the Knights Templar plus a lot of generic enemies with themed jobs. This works a little differently from anything in the single-player game, in that you jump directly from one battle to the next, with no chance to heal, change equipment, or replaced broken gear. (However, status ailments other than KO will be cured.) Unlike the multiphase Lucavi battles in the single-player game, any "buffs" you cast on yourself do not carry over from one battle to the next, so using Focus or Tailwind a lot during the first battle will not help you with the later ones :( . Any crystals and chests are also erased from the battlefield between battles, so if you see something you want to grab, be sure to pick it up before the battle ends! In each trial, you must defeat all the enemies (not just the Knights Templar) to advance to the next one. Because there's four battles here, it's advisable to equip your characters for the long haul. You'll need abilities to heal yourself with, like Items or an attack that drains HP (such as the Dark Knight's Sanguine Sword or Orlandeau's Shadowblade). Protection against Immobilize or Disable is also important; you can get this from equipping a Guardian Bracelet or Thief's Cap. Shirahadori and a high Bravery is also quite useful for blocking enemy attacks. Finally, Safeguard will be helpful in stopping the Unyielding Blade attacks used in the fourth trial. ---BATTLE 1--- ENEMY FORCES: Isilud (lv PH+5 Nightblade) Wiegraf (lv PH+5 White Knight) Archer (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, male) Archer (lv ~PH, male) Squire (lv ~PH, male) Squire (lv ~PH, male) Squire (lv ~PH, male) Squire (lv ~PH, male) ENEMY: Isilud [Gemini] - lv PH+5 Nightblade - Bravery 73, Faith 63 Equipment : Defender, random other equipment Abilities*: Arts of War, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Isilud's Nightblade job also has Concentration as an innate ability. ENEMY: Wiegraf [Virgo] - lv PH+5 White Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 64 Equipment : Save the Queen, random other equipment Abilities : Holy Sword, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow The first round pits you against Wiegraf and Isilud, plus some Squires and Archers. The Squires all start in a plus-shaped formation and can be easily hit with an area-effect attack like Hallowed Bolt or Black Magick at the beginning of the battle. They're actually mostly harmless, so if there's any left standing after your initial attack, you may want to leave them be and concentrate on the other enemies. Wiegraf is probably the toughest enemy here. (Isilud no longer has his super-powered Jump attack that he used in Orbonne Monastery, so he isn't much of a threat.) The enemies often get pretty bunched up, so attacks that can hit a group are useful! Before you finish off the last enemy, you may want to stop and heal yourself since you will not otherwise be healed between battles. ---BATTLE 2--- ENEMY FORCES: Cletienne (lv PH+5 Sorceror) Black Mage (lv ~PH, female) Black Mage (lv ~PH, female) White Mage (lv ~PH, female) White Mage (lv ~PH, female) Summoner (lv ~PH, female) Summoner (lv ~PH, female) Summoner (lv ~PH, female) Time Mage (lv ~PH, female) Time Mage (lv ~PH, female) ENEMY: Cletienne [Gemini] - lv PH+5 Sorceror - Bravery 51, Faith 81 Equipment : Wizard's Rod, random other equipment Abilities : Magicks, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize When all the enemies in the first trial are KOed, you'll fade to the second trial. This one includes Cletienne and a slew of magick users. If you move forward quickly, you can probably take out both Black Mages with a group attack before they can do anything. The "cone" attack pattern of the Dark Knight's Abyssal Blade is especially powerful here; if you move forward and use it immediately, you can strike a huge swath of the enemy forces. In general, the enemies in this trial are even more apt to get into large groups, so take advantage of this by hitting them with area-effect attacks. If you take out the Black Mages and then the Summoners, the enemies won't be able to hurt you much. They'll keep healing themselves and casting buffs, which is *annoying*, but they can't really hurt you and you can quickly re-KO any enemies that get revived. Since the enemies here typically know a lot of magick, this can also be a decent opportunity to learn some magick abilities if you let the enemies decay into crystals after being KOed. Use Duskblade, Infernal Strike, or Rend MP to steal all the MP from the last enemy and you're pretty much free to let the other enemies decay. Just be sure to pick up the crystals before this trial ends, since they'll disappear when Trial 3 starts. ---BATTLE 3--- ENEMY FORCES: Barich (lv PH+5 Machinist) Chemist (lv ~PH, male) Chemist (lv ~PH, male) Chemist (lv ~PH, male) Chemist (lv ~PH, male) Chemist (lv ~PH, male) Orator (lv ~PH, male) Orator (lv ~PH, male) Orator (lv ~PH, male) Orator (lv ~PH, male) ENEMY: Barich [Sagittarius] - lv PH+5 Machinist - Bravery 64, Faith 62 Equipment : Blaster, random other equipment Abilities*: Aimed Shot, Safeguard, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Immobilize * Barich's version of the Machinist job also includes Defense Boost, Arcane Defense, and Beast Tongue as innate abilities. The third trial is probably the trickiest. You're fighting ten gun-wielders -- Barich, 5 Chemists, and 4 Orators -- and they start so spread out that you can only attack one at a time. Actually, if you have Shirahadori and a good Bravery, this isn't too bad because you can block even gun attacks with Shirahadori and they won't be able to hurt you. If you don't have Shirahadori, at least equip something to boost your elemental defense (since many of the enemies have magick guns). A Venetian or Reverie Shield, White or Sage's Robe, or Minerva Bustier all work great for this purpose, and even a Flame Shield can work in a pinch, although it's not quite as effective. (The Ice Shield is not a good idea since it also renders you weak to the lightning attacks from the Blaster guns.) Barich is the real threat here, since he can inflict Immobilize and Disable from a distance. If you don't have any defense against Immobilize or Disable, you'll need to take him out immediately. (Being Disabled also keeps you from using Shirahadori to defend yourself!) This whole trial is pretty annoying since the enemies keep using items to heal and revive each other. ---BATTLE 4--- ENEMY FORCES: Folmarv (lv PH+5 Divine Knight) Loffrey (lv PH+5 Divine Knight) Dragoon (lv ~PH, male) Dragoon (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) Knight (lv ~PH, male) White Mage (lv ~PH, male) White Mage (lv ~PH, male) ENEMY: Folmarv [Leo] - lv PH+5 Divine Knight - Bravery 60, Faith 68 Equipment : Ragnarok, random other equipment Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Safeguard, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow ENEMY: Loffrey [Capricorn] - lv PH+5 Divine Knight - Bravery 60, Faith 68 Equipment : Icebrand, random other equipment Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Safeguard, random other abilities Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow Finally, the fourth trial features Folmarv and Loffrey and an assortment of Knights, Dragoons, and White Mages. Folmarv and Loffrey have been upgraded to ??? HP status, meaning it will take a lot of damage to defeat them. However, if you have Safeguard, they can't use their Unyielding Blade techniques. They can use their other Action Ability (which is randomly assigned) as a backup, but most of these aren't too bad. Move forward and quickly attack the three Knights with a group attack. You'll probably want to target the Dragoons next. The Dragoons have a habit of moving as far from you as possible and launching Jump attacks from there, so attacking them before they can move too far is helpful. (Of course, if you have your own Jump attack, it's no problem.) The White Mages tend not to actually have much in the way of magick, so you may want to save them for last. Note that Folmarv and Loffrey have Safeguard, so Unyielding Blade is not effective against them. Completing this battle earns you an invitation to the Knights Templar! Too bad Ramza turns it down ;) TITLE AWARDED: Templar's Apprentice ---Rendezvous Mission 11: All-Star Melee---------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Story Battle 52: Mullonde Cathedral Sanctuary BATTLE MAP: Gariland YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Ramza (lv PH+2 Knight) Mustadio (lv PH+2 Machinist) Agrias (lv PH+2 Holy Knight) Rapha (lv PH+2 Skyseer) Marach (lv PH+2 Netherseer) Beowulf (lv PH+2 Templar) Reis (lv PH+2 Dragonkin) Orlandeau (lv PH+2 Sword Saint) Meliadoul (lv PH+2 Divine Knight) All enemies here are 2 experience levels above the highest experience level in in your deployed party. ENEMY: Ramza [Capricorn] - lv PH+2 Knight - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Equipment : Ragnarok, Venetian Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Guardian Bracelet Abilities : Arts of War, Items, First Strike, Safeguard, Move +3 ENEMY: Mustadio [Libra] - lv PH+2 Machinist - Bravery 60, Faith 62 Equipment : Blaster, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Japa Mala Abilities : Aimed Shot, Arts of War, Soulbind, Defense Boost, Move +3 ENEMY: Agrias [Cancer] - lv PH+2 Holy Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 63 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Ribbon Abilities : Holy Sword, White Magicks, Shirahadori, Safeguard, Move +2 ENEMY: Rapha [Pisces] - lv PH+2 Skyseer - Bravery 31, Faith 69 Equipment : Eight-fluted Pole, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Septie`me Abilities : Sky Mantra, White Magicks, Soulbind, Swiftness, Move +2 ENEMY: Marach [Gemini] - lv PH+2 Netherseer - Bravery 69, Faith 31 Equipment : Eight-fluted Pole, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Japa Mala Abilities : Nether Mantra, Items, Soulbind, Swiftness, Manafont ENEMY: Beowulf [Libra] - lv PH+2 Templar - Bravery 45, Faith 65 Equipment : Ragnarok, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Angel Ring Abilities : Spellblade, Martial Arts, First Strike, Safeguard, Move +3 ENEMY: Reis [Pisces] - lv PH+2 Dragonkin - Bravery 62, Faith 64 Equipment : Cachusha, Septie`me Abilities : Dragon, White Magicks, First Strike, Brawler, Move +2 ENEMY: Orlandeau [Scorpio] - lv PH+2 Sword Saint - Bravery 77, Faith 65 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Japa Mala Abilities : Swordplay, Iaido, Mana Shield, Safeguard, Manafont ENEMY: Meliadoul [Capricorn] - lv PH+2 Divine Knight - Bravery 67, Faith 78 Equipment : Defender, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Armor, Septie`me Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Items, Shirahadori, Attack Boost, Lifefont VICTORY CONDITION: KO or petrify all enemies LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed/Stone WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 10 Flagstone Contortion 28% Canal Torrent 25% Roof, Chimney Wind Blast 17% Grassland Tanglevine 17% Wooden Floor, Coffer Will-o'-the-Wisp 8% Bridge Wind Slash 3% Obstructed -- 1% --STRATEGY-- This is a battle against many of your own story characters--or at least some very accurate impostors. Your doppelgangers have mastered many of the game's most advanced abilities and techniques, making this a tough battle. On the bright side, all of them just have regular HP totals. Orlandeau, Mustadio, and Meliadoul love to break your equipment, so you'll want to equip Safeguard. (Or, you can deploy Balthier as a Sky Pirate, since this job has an innate Safeguard.) Even though any broken equipment is returned to you at the end of the battle in Rendezvous Mode, having your gear broken during the fight will make it tough to win. You'll also need protection against Mustadio's Immobilize and Disable attacks; a Thief's Cap, Guardian Bracelet, or Ribbon will take care of this. The Ribbon is particularly helpful as it negates all of the other status ailments that Beowulf will try to throw you. Shirahadori and First Strike are not that helpful here since they won't protect you from the special job techniques used by the enemy. Instead, Mana Shield and Manafont is probably your best best. Auto-Potion would also be helpful. Finally, be aware that the clones' Zodiac signs often match up poorly with some of your story characters'. A quick guide to a few of the key characters you may be using: GOOD AGAINST THESE ENEMIES: BAD AGAINST THESE ENEMIES: Agrias Ramza, Rapha, Reis, Orlandeau Mustadio, Beowulf, Meliadoul Beowulf Marach Ramza, Agrias, Meliadoul Reis Agrias, Orlandeau Marach Balthier No one Orlandeau Orlandeau Agrias, Marach, Reis No one Meliadoul No one Mustadio, Agrias, Beowulf In summary, Beowulf and Meliadoul have bad compatibility and are less useful here -- plus many of the enemies have Safeguard and are protected against Meliadoul's Unyielding Blade attacks anyway. Orlandeau and Reis have advantageous compatibility. Agrias is a mixed bag, so if you use her, make sure you supplement her with another character or two with a different sign. Player 1 has it especially tough as his/her team starts near Orlandeau, Reis, and Mustadio, who will immediately attack Player 1's team. Attacking with HP- draining attacks like Sanguine Sword [Dark Knight], Orlandeau's Shadowblade, are useful since they let you damage while still recovering HP. If you're trying to complete this battle with a small number of characters, be sure to equip Player 1 as defensively as possible. You may have to resort to giving Player 1 items that yield a permanent Reraise (e.g. Chantage or Brave Suit) and letting him/her get KOed and regenerate. If you use this strategy, Player 2 will need to play as defensively as possible since if s/he gets KOed too, you lose! If you're not fully equipped with Ribbons, Beowulf should probably be your first target, since he can inflict all kinds of status ailments on you. Note that his Angel Ring lets him Reraise once after you KO him, so be prepared to KO him a second time shortly after you take him out once. Reis, Agrias, and Orlandeau are the next characters you'll want to attack. Reis and particularly Agrias can be taken out fairly quickly. The enemy Orlandeau has unfortunately figured out the Mana Shield/Manafont combo, which means it will definitely take several attacks to KO him. So even though Orlandeau is the biggest threat, you may want to first KO a few of the other enemies (like Reis and Agrias), just to quickly reduce the number attacking you at one time. Note that, like a couple of enemies in the single-player subquests, Agrias has cheated and equipped a Ribbon in her accessory slot -- it still protects her status, so don't try any status attacks on her. If you have Safeguard, Meliadoul is reduced to just using physical attacks. Ramza is a Knight in this battle and also pretty much just uses physical attacks. You can worry about both of them later. And Rapha and Marach are as irrelevant in this battle as in most of the game, so finish them off last. Many of the enemies here have First Strike or Shirahadori as a reaction ability, which limits your ability to use physical attacks. But sword techniques, magicks, Balthier's Barrage attack, etc. all work fine. You can also circumvent First Strike by attacking from a distance or using Jump. Climbing up on the roofs can be somewhat helpful, as long as you have attacks you can use from up there. While the roof won't help you escape the sword techniques (many of which have infinite vertical range), it at least makes it harder for Meliadoul, Ramza, and Reis to attack you. Note that if one of the enemies gets lowered to critical HP, he or she may just run into the corner. It's pretty safe to ignore such enemies and save them for last. They're not going to attack you, so focus your attacks on the enemies who are still a threat. Three of the enemies -- the Rapha, Marach, and Mustadio clones -- have Soulbind. This tends not to be too much of a problem, since you may be able to KO them in a single attack anyway. Plus, they're the weaker enemies, so you can save them to KO later. Finally, a number of the clones (Ramza, Marach, and Meliadoul) can use Items as a command. In practice, this isn't too bad since they mostly will just use regular Potions on themselves, which is about the least threatening action possible. They also don't have Throw Items, so they can't heal anyone from a distance. However, they may sometimes revive KOed allies with a Phoenix Down. If this happens, you can use an area-effect attack to KO the character again *and* hit the Items-user. (Since they don't have Throw Items, they'll have to stand in a tile adjacent to the downed tile to use the Phoenix Down.) Although the clones have a lot of good equipment, most of it is protected with Safeguard and so there's not actually much you can claim. You're limited to Meliadoul's Defender, Reis's Cachusha and Septie`me, Mustadio's Blaster, and Rapha's Septie`me. TITLE AWARDED: Performer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following four missions are only available after completing the main quest of the single-player game. After the ending, the game will add an additional "flag" to your save directory that makes these missions accessible. Load up a save from before you entered the final sequences of a battle, go to a Tavern, and you'll see the last missions. You will NOT be able to access these missions if your only save is in the final sequence of battles :( -- you need to be able to get to a Tavern. ---Rendezvous Mission 12: The Guarded Temple------------------------------------ AVAILABLE AFTER...: Completing single-player game and Nelveska Temple quest BATTLE MAP: Nelveska Temple YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Protoconstruct (lv 80 Automaton) Protoconstruct (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 2 (lv 95 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) Construct 3 (lv 80 Automaton) ENEMY: Protoconstruct [random Zodiac] - lv 80 Automaton - Bravery 70, Faith 0 Equipment : Iron Helm, Bracer Abilities : Tasks, Counter, Defense Boost Immune : All negative status except Confuse, all elements except Lightning and Water VICTORY CONDITION: KO all enemies LOSS CONDITION: The Protoconstructs' countdown reaches 0, or all allies are KOed WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 12 x 8 Grassland Tanglevine 51% Flagstone Contortion 31% Sand Sandstorm 11% Stone Outcropping Tremor 4% Stairs Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% Soil Sinkhole 1% --STRATEGY-- You must defeat all ten Automatons before they self-destruct and destroy the temple. This battle really centers around the two Protoconstructs, both of whom start atop the temple. They control the countdown; every time one of gets another turn, the countdown ticks down one "minute" from 10. If the countdown drops to 0, the Automatons explode and you lose. The countdown can only be stopped by defeating at least one of the Protoconstructs. (Since they take turns counting down, defeating one will stop the whole process.) To make things more tricky, on the turn when the countdown is "supposed" to go to 8, the Automatons experience a "system error" and it jumps all the way down to 4. This means that you must defeat at least one Protoconstruct within the time it takes for the Protoconstructs to get 7 turns. Unfortunately, taking them out isn't easy since both Protoconstructs have tremendous amounts of HP -- where "tremendous" means "several thousand." While Automatons can't normally use equipment, the Protoconstructs are also equipped with Iron Helms, raising their HP even further, and Bracers, boosting their offense. Plus, there are 8 other Automatons as well. (And, unfortunately, you can't break/steal the Protoconstructs' gear because the game is confused by monsters having equipment.) On the bright side, you may bring up to FOUR characters into battle (combined across the two players) and still receive a 5-star ranking! And you will need all four :) Sword techniques are your weapon of choice here, so you'll want to have each player deploy Agrias and Orlandeau (or possibly Meliadoul). You'll need to maximize both your speed and attack power. Use the Tynar Rouge (for Agrias/Meliadoul) or the Brigand's Gloves (for Orlandeau) to give them a permanent Haste, and add a Move +x ability to increase your mobility across the map. To maximize your attack power, equip them with Chaos Blades and either Vehemence [Dark Knight] or Attack Boost [Geomancer] as a support ability. If you have it, Vehemence is probably best as it will give you the bigger attack boost. It does lower your defense, but this is one battle where the best defense is a good offense :) -- if you can smash the regular Constructs quickly, you have far fewer sources of damage to contend with. Since you'll need to focus on offense, you won't have much time for healing. Equip your best armor and helms to boost your starting HP as high as possible. You'll face no status attacks here, so Ribbons are unnecessary. Chaos Blades will also help you a little by giving you a permanent Regen. Potentially, you could also use Sanguine Sword or Shadowblade to drain HP during the battle, although you don't want to be doing this too often -- it's not as strong an attack as some others, and can only strike one enemy at a time. If you have a Brave Suit (from Melee Mode) or Grand Armor (from a previous victory here), you will definitely want to use those as they give you a permanent Reraise and you don't have to worry about your HP at all. There aren't really any especially great reaction abilities here, since NOTHING can block the Dispose laser attack. Instead, use abilities that can boost your stats. The Archer's Adrenaline Rush will increase your Speed every time you get hit, allowing you even more turns. For female characters, Fury [Dancer] could also be a good choice, as it will allow you to increase your attack power even higher. If you're having trouble surviving, you can use Mana Shield and Manafont, though this will require you to give up any other movement ability. If you have low HP, you can also swap Vehemence out for Attack Boost, which doesn't lower your defense. Finally, you could add Dragonheart as a reaction ability if you don't have a permanent Reraise, though this is of no help against any attack strong enough to KO you in one blow since you never get a chance to cast the Reraise. If one player has a somewhat stronger team, you'll want to make that player Player 2 since Player 2 starts a little closer to the stairs and the Protoconstructs. OK, enough preparation. Onto the battle! When you start out, rush forward and attack the Constructs on the ground with Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination. You should be able to defeat each one in one or two hits. Try to aim your attacks so you can hit as many as possible at one time. (In addition to using Hallowed Bolt, you can also move into the enemy ranks and fire Divine Ruinations parallel to the front of the temple. This is often a great targeting strategy for hitting 2 or 3 Constructs.) As each character takes his or her turn, move them as far towards the stairs as you can while still attacking the Constructs. Essentially, you want to "sweep" across the front of the temple, taking out the Constructs from left to right and moving towards the stairs. You should be able to defeat most of the Constructs before more than a handful of them move. Quickly mop up the remaining ones as you head for the stairs. If you do need healing, you can use Shadowblade or Sanguine Sword to finish off any remaining Constructs and sap their HP. If you weaken one of the Constructs, it may just run and hide in the corner. Leave it -- it's harmless and not worth chasing after when you need to defeat the Protoconstructs ASAP. Once you reach the Protoconstructs, concentrate all your attacks on one of the two. Once you defeat one Protoconstruct, the countdown should stop and you're home free! Attack the Protoconstructs with Divine Ruination and Crush Armor, both of which do identical amounts of damage to monster targets. When available, Divine Ruination is slightly preferred as it is has a chance of Confusing the Protoconstructs, who are NOT immune to Confusion! But, before you use Divine Ruination, make sure that it won't hit any of your own allies and that the Protoconstruct you're targeting is within its vertical range. If you can't use Divine Ruination, Crush Armor works fine too and has no friendly fire potential. Wherever possible, stand in one place and attack without moving. This will allow you to get new turns more quickly. Like Construct 7, both Protoconstructs have a Reraise that activates the first time they are KOed. They will return to action and immediately attack again. Actually, this isn't such a problem, because the self-inflicted HP loss from their Tasks abilities usually KOs them right away. Once KOed a second time, they immediately turn into chests (which often contain their Bracers). The battle won't actually end until you've KOed every last Construct, but once you defeat one of the Protoconstructs, you don't have any more time pressure and should have no trouble mopping up the remaining bots. There's a certain amount of luck involved in this battle, since the Constructs' Zodiac signs are randomly determined and you may end up with good or bad compatibility purely by chance. The treasures from this battle include two you can't find anywhere else in Rendezvous Mode. One is the Grand Armor, the best heavy armor available, as it gives you a permanent Reraise and Regen. This one is definitely worth getting! The other is the Fomalhaut gun, which is thoroughly pointless to look for here, as Fomalhauts are abundant in Melee Mode. Again, keep in mind that you can deploy 4 characters and still get the highest possible ranking here. TITLE AWARDED: Construct UNIQUE POSSIBLE TREASURES: Grand Armor, Fomalhaut ---Rendezvous Mission 13: Nightmares-------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Completing single-player game BATTLE MAP: Limberry Castle Undercroft YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: 1st Squad - Zalera (lv 99 Death Seraph) Adrammelech (lv 99 The Wroth) Ultima Demon (lv 95) Ultima Demon (lv 95) Ultima Demon (lv 95) 2nd Squad - Cuchulainn (lv 99 The Impure) Belias (lv 99 Gigas) Hashmal (lv 99 Bringer of Order) Ultima Demon (lv 95) Ultima Demon (lv 95) ENEMY: Cuchulainn [Scorpio] - lv 99 The Impure - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : Dread, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize ENEMY: Belias [Virgo] - lv 99 Gigas - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : Dread, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Slow, and Immobilize ENEMY: Zalera [Gemini] - lv 99 Death Seraph - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : Dread, Fly, Float, Swiftness, Beastmaster Immune : All negative status except Blind and Slow ENEMY: Adrammelech [Scorpio] - lv 99 The Wroth - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : Dread, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Immobilize ENEMY: Hashmal [Leo] - lv 99 Bringer of Order - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : Dread, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize --STRATEGY-- You're battling all of the Lucavi (sans Elidibus) at once, plus five Ultima Demons. Player 1 will begin battling Zalera and Adrammelech's group, while Player 2 fights the three other Lucavi. Between the five of them, the Lucavi can throw a lot of status conditions at you, so you'll need to equip Ribbons (or Onion Gloves, if you're using Onion Knights). Fortunately, the Lucavi don't seem to have any of the magick attacks they used in the single-player game. If you have Ribbons, all they can do is use physical attacks. This means you can pretty much prevent them from hurting you at all if you combine a Ribbon with Shirahadori or (preferably) First Strike, or even just a good shield. Ribbons are pretty easy to earn in the multiplayer modes. However, if one player doesn't have any, it's also possible to block the status attacks by deploying and riding a Chocobo. The rider will need to have high enough Speed to get on the Chocobo before either the Chocobo or rider is attacked. If you've protected yourself with Ribbons and Shirahadori/First Strike, the Ultima Demons are actually the biggest threat, since they use magick attacks. Go after them first. The Dark Knight's Sanguine Sword can be useful for draining HP from them to keep you healthy. The White Mage's Arcane Defense is also a useful support ability to reduce the magick damage you take. (If you're being targeted by an Ultima Demon's magick, you can also try moving next to another enemy, as their magicks can hurt friendly targets as well.) Because all of the enemies here have the Can't Enter Water "ability," the water in the middle of the map functions as a safe spot. The Ultima Demons can still hit you with their magick if they get close enough, but the Lucavi can't attack you at all (assuming you're guarded against status conditions). You can jump directly into the water from the bridge in the center if you have a Jump of at least 4, or Waterwalking, Levitation, Ignore Elevation, or Teleport. If you don't have these abilities, you can also get in the water by using the little "step" (a tile of height 3) on side of the map. It's on the side of the map WITHOUT the gravestones. From the water, you can safely throw ranged attacks at the enemies. Actually, if you have First Strike or Shirahadori and a high Bravery, there isn't much benefit to this, since the Lucavi can't hurt you anyway, and you may not be in range to attack the Ultima Demons. Watch out for the Ultima Demons turn to crystals. The Lucavi can pick up these crystals up to restore some of their HP (though fortunately not all of it). This isn't fatal, but can be annoying! Grab the crystals as soon as they appear, and if you see a KOed Ultima Demon about to disappear, try to position yourself between the enemies and the body so that they can't grab the crystal before you can. The Lucavi themselves explode when KOed and do not leave crystals. With Ribbons and First Strike, this battle actually goes quite quickly -- not only are you virtually invulnerable, you'll quickly defeat the Lucavi because their attempts to attack you get turned into additional attack opportunities. That makes this battle a great one to repeatedly tackle to acquire high-level rare items. Each player can deploy just a single character to increase your treasure haul. The two unique treasures you can obtain here are the Gungnir spear and the Dreamwaker staff. The Gungnir isn't really special -- it's weaker than the Javelin II. The Dreamwaker is the best staff in the game; although it doesn't have the strongest attack power, it boosts your magick power more than any other staff. TITLE AWARDED: Dreamcatcher UNIQUE POSSIBLE TREASURES: Gungnir, Dreamwaker ---Rendezvous Mission 14: Brave Story------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Completing single-player game BATTLE MAP: Monastery Vaults - Fifth Level YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: 1ST BATTLE: Luso, Cloud, Boco, Red Chocobo x2, Black Chocobo x3, Chocobo x2 2ND BATTLE: Mustadio, Balthier, Chemist (male) x2, Chemist (female) x2, Orator (male) x2, Orator (female) x2 3RD BATTLE: Onion Knight (male) x2, Onion Knight (female) x3, Plague Horror x1, Cockatrice x2, Sekhret x2 4TH BATTLE: Cuchulainn [The Impure; Scorpio], Elidibus [Serpentarius], Great Malboro x5, Knight (male, undead) x3 5TH BATTLE: Dycedarg, Zalbaag, Gaffgarion, Argath, Dragoon (male) x6 6TH BATTLE: Orlandeau, Agrias, Alma, Ovelia, Rapha, Marach, Orran, Time Mage (female) x2, Mystic (male) x1 7TH BATTLE: Elmdore, Zalbaag, Celia, Lettie, Archaeodaemon x6 8TH BATTLE: Bremondt, Beowulf, Aliste, Reis, Tiamat x2, Greater Hydra x2, Hydra x2 9TH BATTLE: Isilud, Meliadoul, Barich, Cletienne, Loffrey, Wiegraf, Folmarv, Zalmour, Time Mage (female) x2 10TH BATTLE: Delita [Sagittarius; Holy Knight], Valmafra [Leo; Sorceror], Dark Knight (female) x8 VICTORY CONDITION: KO, petrify, or recruit all enemies in each of 10 battles LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed/Stone/Vampire WEATHER: Indoors (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 15 x 12 Book, Brick Wind Slash 63% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-wisp 19% Darkness (chasm) -- 18% --PREPARATION-- If you thought The Knights Templar was long, this one is even longer! FFT's 100-Man Melee, the Brave Story mission consists of no fewer than TEN continuous battles, each with 10 opponents, for a total of 100 enemies. You'll face off against most of the game's story characters in the game here. Orlandeau and Agrias are really the best characters here, since their sword techniques work on everything. Meliadoul would also work, but only if supplemented with some other good attack command (e.g. Darkness, or maybe Jump) since some enemies have Safeguard and are immune to her Crush attacks. Other good abilities to have here are Darkness and Arts of War (for equipment and MP breaking). A long-range Jump can be useful in some situations, but there are a lot of enemies here who have Shirahadori and can block it. Finally, Balthier's Barrage attack is also effective for general combat and for breaking through enemy Shirahadoris. A few key defensive abilities will actually protect you almost everything here. First, Shirahadori and a high Bravery will stop physical attacks. Safeguard will make you immune to Crush attacks, and also keep your equipment from being stolen or rent. Finally, equip female characters with a Ribbon (easily obtained in Melee Mode or elsewhere in Rendezvous Mode) to stop all status attacks, and male characters with a Thief's Cap to at least stop Immobilize and Disable. With these abilities, there are actually only a few enemies here that pose a real threat. The best shields to go with are the Reverie Shield or Kaiser Shield, both of which halve damage from fire, ice, lightning attacks. This is important against the hydras -- there's no way to *evade* their breath attacks, but the shield will reduce the damage it does. The Escutcheon II is actually less useful here -- since Shirahadori can block almost all physical attacks anyway, the high physical evade rate from the Escutcheon II doesn't count for much. As with The Knights Templar, you won't be healed between battles. KOed characters also won't be revived, although their death counter will reset. Other status ailments ARE removed, as is broken equipment. Buffs will also disappear, so using Tailwind during the first battle will not help you later on, alas. Finally, crystals and chests on the battlefield will also disappear between battles, so if you see something you want to grab, be sure to pick it up before the battle ends! Since you're not automatically healed, having some healing abilities is important. Carrying a Chaos Blade actually helps a lot with this, since it gives you a permanent Regen. If you have a powerful HP-draining attack -- Orlandeau's Shadowblade or the Dark Knight's Sanguine Sword -- you're set. (An HP-draining weapon like the Orochi ninja sword or the Blood Sword could conceivably also be used, but the former won't allow you to use sword techniques and the latter is too weak.) Armor that gives you an auto-Reraise -- i.e., the Brave Suit from Melee Mode or the Grand Armor from The Guarded Temple -- will also help out a lot. Otherwise, you might want to consider giving one character an Action Ability that lets him or her heal (e.g. Items, Martial Arts, White Magick, Iaido, or Summon). Before wrapping up each battle, you can leave one enemy standing and take some time to heal characters. Equipping the Tynar Rouge or a Brigand's Gloves will give you a permanent Haste, which is quite useful both in giving you the edge against the enemies and in reducing the time needed to hack through all ten levels. Move +2 or Move +3 is probably the best movement ability here. Since you're fighting on a map with a lot of holes, though, you might also consider the Time Mage's Levitate ability, which will let you move anywhere you want and saves you from having to take detours around the holes. Also note that you CAN target "hole" panels, even though you can't see your targeting cursor. This is often useful when a hole happens to be a good place to center a Hallowed Bolt. Since many of the enemies here have Shirahadori or First Strike and physical attacks are ineffective against them, using Onion Knights (even fully powered up ones) is probably not a good idea. Unlike most of the other Rendezvous Mode missions, the enemies here are always level 90+ regardless of your own experience level. In fact, all of the story characters you fight are level 99! To stay competitive, you'll want high-level characters too. Finally, it's worth pointing out that this mission is LONG. You and your partner will need to set aside a fair amount of time to clear all ten battles. Now for strategies for specific battles: --BATTLE 1-- ENEMY FORCES: Luso (lv 99 Game Hunter) Cloud (lv 99 Soldier) Boco (lv 96 Chocobo) Red Chocobo (lv 98) Red Chocobo (lv 94) Black Chocobo (lv 95) Black Chocobo (lv 93) Black Chocobo (lv 92) Chocobo (lv 97) Chocobo (lv 93) ENEMY: Luso [Cancer] - lv 99 Game Hunter - Bravery 71, Faith 63 Equipment : Icebrand, Crystal Shield, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Huntcraft, Reflexes, Tame, Move +1, random movement ability ENEMY: Cloud [Aquarius] - lv 99 Soldier - Bravery 76, Faith 59 Equipment : Materia Blade, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, random accessory Abilities : Limit, Shirahadori, Swiftness, other abilities random ENEMY: Boco [random Zodiac] - lv 96 Chocobo - random Bravery and Faith The first battle pits you against Luso, Cloud, and 8 chocobos. Cloud has Swiftness to help his Limits charge faster, but even still, you can probably take him out before he can use them. He has Shirahadori, so don't try direct physical attacks unless you're Dual Wielding or using Barrage. After Cloud, the Red Chocobos are the next enemies to take out since their Choco Meteor attack is unblockable and does a fair amount of damage. Attacking them with HP-drain attacks will keep you healthy. The Black Chocobos are your next target, since their Choco Pellets attack is also reasonably powerful. (You can at least block this one with shields, though not with Shirahadori.) Although the plain yellow Chocobos can heal wounded allies, this isn't too much of a problem since you can probably defeat most of the Chocobos in a single attack, which leaves no chance for healing! Luso also doesn't really have any particularly dangerous abilities and isn't much of a threat. If you're still missing the Ultima magick, the enemy Luso will sometimes cast it, so you could bring Ramza or Luso to learn it. BUT, you must win all 10 battles and clear the mission in order to keep Ultima after you learn it. If you fail the mission, you won't keep the magick. --BATTLE 2-- ENEMY FORCES: Mustadio (lv 99 Machinist) Balthier (lv 99 Sky Pirate) Chemist (lv 98, female) Chemist (lv 96, male) Chemist (lv 92, male) Chemist (lv 91, female) Orator (lv 97, male) Orator (lv 97, female) Orator (lv 94, male) Orator (lv 93, female) ENEMY: Mustadio [Libra] - lv 99 Machinist - Bravery 68, Faith 65 Equipment : Blaze Gun, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Aimed Shot, Arts of War, Soulbind, Defense Boost, random movement ability ENEMY: Balthier [Leo] - lv 99 Sky Pirate - Bravery 75, Faith 63 Equipment : Blaster, Crystal Shield, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, Angel Ring Abilities : Piracy, Items, First Strike, Throw Items, Move +1 Battle two is against 10 gunfighters, including Mustadio and Balthier. Shirahadori will be very helpful here in avoiding the enemy gun attacks. If you have Shirahadori and gear to protect against the Bunansas' Arm Shots and Leg Shots, you can't really be hurt here. If you're not protected against Immobilize or Disable, you could try Purification or Esuna to restore characters who do get Immobilized or Disabled. (If you're just Immobilized, you can even use it on yourself.) Agrias has poor Zodiac compatibility with Mustadio and won't do much damage to him, so to speed things up, send another character after Mustadio. Remember that Balthier's Sky Pirate job has an innate Safeguard, so Crush skills will not work against him. He also has an Angel Ring, which means that you will have to KO him twice. Or, simply attack him last. (Since he takes a while to take down, you might want him to attack him last anyway.) Balthier has a First Strike that allows him to block (and retaliate against) direct gunshots. But, he can't use it stop close-range attacks or special attacks like sword techniques, Jump, and Barrage. His Thief's Cap makes him immune to Disable, but putting Stop (e.g. with Crushing Blow) or Sleep on him will also prevent him from First Strike. The female enemies in the back row tend to use Dance abilities, but this isn't a particular threat. --BATTLE 3-- ENEMY FORCES: Onion Knight (lv 99, male) Onion Knight (lv 99, male) Onion Knight (lv 99, female) Onion Knight (lv 99, female) Onion Knight (lv 99, female) Plague Horror (lv 98) Cockatrice (lv 97) Cockatrice (lv 93) Sekhret (lv 97) Sekhret (lv 94) ENEMY: Red [Capricorn] - lv 99 male Onion Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 65 Equipment : Ragnarok, Kaiser Shield, Grand Helm, Maximillian, Japa Mala Abilities : Arts of War, Counter, Safeguard, Move +2 ENEMY: Purple [Pisces] - lv 99 male Onion Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 65 Equipment : Dragon Whisker, Grand Helm, Maximillian, Japa Mala Abilities : Jump, Dragonheart, Safeguard, Move +2 ENEMY: Green [Taurus] - lv 99 female Onion Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 65 Equipment : Perseus Bow, Ribbon, Maximillian, Bracer Abilities : Items, First Strike, Safeguard, Move +2 ENEMY: Black [Virgo] - lv 99 female Onion Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 65 Equipment : Zeus Mace, Crystal Shield, Ribbon, Maximillian, Sortile'ge Abilities : Iaido, Cup of Life, Safeguard, Move +2 ENEMY: Yellow [Cancer] - lv 99 female Onion Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 65 Equipment : Wyrmweave Silk, Ribbon, Maximillian, Cherche Abilities : Dance, Mana Shield, Safeguard, Move +2 Battle three pits you against the Motley Onion Fighting Outfit plus some assorted monsters. Try to KO the Plague Horror and Cockatrices quickly since they can inflict status ailments like Stone on any characters that don't have Ribbons. The Sekhrets are the next targets since their Earthsplitter attack is pretty powerful. (If you're using Levitate, though, you'll be immune to this attack.) Although Onion Knights can't normally equip abilities, the Fighting Outfit has them anyway. With Shirahadori, though, they're mostly harmless, so take out the monsters first. Red, Green, and Black basically just use physical attacks, which you can easily deflect. Purple uses Jump attacks; these can also be blocked by Shirahadori, but it makes him harder to hit. Be sure to attack him when you get the chance. Yellow is pretty annoying because she tends to runs into a corner and use Dance. Plus, she has Mana Shield, so she takes several attacks to defeat. You may want to chase after her and start attacking her first. The Onion Knights all have Safeguard, so, again, Crush skills are out. This also means that you can't steal any of their equipment, which is unfortunate, as it's quite good! If you want to defeat the Onion Knights quickly, Orlandeau has great compatibility against Green and good compatibility against Purple and Yellow. Agrias has great compatibility against Red and good against Purple. Meliadoul has good compatibility against Green and Black but terrible compatibility against Yellow! --BATTLE 4-- ENEMY FORCES: Cuchulainn (lv 99 The Impure) Elidibus (lv 99 Serpentarius) Knight (lv 98, male, undead) Knight (lv 98, male, undead) Knight (lv 98, male, undead) Greater Malboro (lv 97) Greater Malboro (lv 97) Greater Malboro (lv 97) Greater Malboro (lv 97) Greater Malboro (lv 97) ENEMY: Cuchulainn [Scorpio] - lv 99 The Impure - Bravery 75, Faith 66 Abilities : Dread, Befoul, Brawler, Swiftness Immune : All negative status except Blind, Slow, and Immobilize ENEMY: Elidibus [Serpentarius] - lv 99 Serpentarius - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Abilities : The Dark, Counter, Swiftness Immune : Ice; all negative status except Blind, Oil, Toad, Slow, and Stop Battle 4 is where it starts getting a little more interesting. Here you'll face Elidibus, Cuchulainn, three undead Knights, and five Great Malboros. The Great Malboros' Bad Breath can be quite dangerous for characters who don't have a Ribbon. You may want such characters to keep their distance from the Malboros. The Malboros have quite high HP and may take multiple attacks to KO, so focus your attacks on one or two until you take them down. If you have someone with Items, use Phoenix Downs to quickly defeat the enemy Knights; if you're using Balthier (or Mustadio), Seal Evil is even better. Remember NOT to try draining HP from undead enemies, as it actually hurts you! When you KO them, the Knights here all get stars over their head rather than death counters, which means they can't revive even though they're undead. (So, it doesn't really matter if you don't petrify them.) Instead, focus on breaking through the enemy line so you can reach Elidibus. He can still cast Zodiark which, of course, makes him the biggest threat. He's not quite as dangerous as he was on Terminus, though, just because the map is smaller and you should be able to reach him before he can cast the summon. One strategy you may want to use, then, is just to wipe out his MP so he can't Zodiark. Two Rend MPs will do it, or you can use Duskblade or Infernal Strike. Even if Elidibus has no MP, he can still use Poisonous Frog (which doesn't cost MP) to turn you into a Toad, but this will be removed at the end of this battle. If you do get hit with this, DON'T just have the affected Toad stand still. That will cause them to get more turns and hence take more damage from the poison. Instead, have them keep moving and attacking the air. This slows their CT gauge refilling and keeps their HP up until they're cured. Cuchulainn will probably just use Nightmare to put you to sleep, which, while annoying, is relatively harmless. You're better off defeating Elidibus first, *then* going after him. The enemies here use a lot of status attacks, but with at least one Ribbon, you should be OK, and all of the status ailments are removed for the start of the next battle. If you didn't learn Zodiark from Elidibus during the single-player game, or want to have additional characters learn it, you can learn it here as well. It's probably easier to survive the spell here as you have a good opportunity to use Rend Magick on Elidibus to make the summon less deadly. As with Ultima, you must successfully complete all ten battles in this mission to keep the summon; if you die partway through, Zodiark will be lost. --BATTLE 5-- ENEMY FORCES: Dycedarg (lv 99 Rune Knight) Zalbaag (lv 99 Ark Knight) Gaffgarion (lv 99 Fell Knight) Argath (lv 99 Squire) Dragoon (lv 98, male) Dragoon (lv 98, male) Dragoon (lv 97, male) Dragoon (lv 97, male) Dragoon (lv 97, male) Dragoon (lv 97, male) ENEMY: Dycedarg [Scorpio] - lv 99 Rune Knight - Bravery 68, Faith 66 Equipment : Save the Queen, Crystal Shield, Circlet, Luminous Robe, Magick Ring Abilities*: Swordplay, Items, Regenerate, Arcane Strength, Move +1 Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Chicken, Slow * The Rune Knight job also includes Defense Boost and Arcane Defense as innate abilities. ENEMY: Zalbaag [Cancer] - lv 99 Ark Knight - Bravery 75, Faith 68 Equipment : Save the Queen, Protect Ring, other equipment random Abilities : Blade of Ruin, Martial Arts, Bonecrusher, Attack Boost, Move +1 ENEMY: Gaffgarion [Virgo] - lv 99 Fell Knight - Bravery 65, Faith 52 Equipment : Defender, Reflect Ring, other equipment random Abilities : Fell Sword, Bardsong, Counter, Defense Boost, random movement ability Immune : Berserk, Charm, Stone ENEMY: Argath [Virgo] - lv 99 Squire - Bravery 54, Faith 52 Equipment : Gastrophetes, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, Guardian Bracelet Abilities : Fundaments, Steal, Bravery Boost, Equip Crossbows, random movement ability Battle 5 pits you against Duke Larg's forces, including a plethora of Dragoons. Gaffgarion and Dycedarg use sword techniques, making them the most dangerous, and Gaffgarion's allow him to steal HP back to himself! However, Dycedarg does not have the Magicks command that he used in Eagrose Castle, and this version of Zalbaag does not have Vampire. You can often hit multiple Dragoons with your initial attacks. Some are arranged in a plus-shape formation that you can hit with Hallowed Bolt or other area-effect targets. If you look closely, you'll also see that many are arranged in a horizontal line; Divine Ruination, Kiku-ichimonji, Shockwave, or other attacks that strike along a long line can hit many of these. You can probably KO a majority of the Dragoons in your initial attacks. As long as you have Shirahadori and good Bravery, the other Dragoons can't hurt you much. So, target Dycedarg and Gaffgarion next because of their powerful sword techniques. Argath is totally useless here (he just has a crossbow), so you can leave him for later. Zalbaag's Bonecrusher counter will do a lot of damage to you when you drop him to critical HP. You can avoid it by attacking from a distance (Bonecrusher only has a range of 1), KOing him without reducing him to critical HP, or using Disable/Stop to prevent him from activating Bonecrusher. --BATTLE 6-- ENEMY FORCES: Orlandeau (lv 99 Sword Saint) Agrias (lv 99 Holy Knight) Alma (lv 99 Cleric) Ovelia (lv 99 Princess) Rapha (lv 99 Skyseer) Marach (lv 99 Netherseer) Orran (lv 99 Astrologer) Time Mage (lv 97, female) Time Mage (lv 96, female) Mystic (lv 98, male) ENEMY: Orlandeau [Scorpio] - lv 99 Sword Saint - Bravery 77, Faith 65 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, other equipment random Abilities : Swordplay, Iaido, Bonecrusher, Doublehand, Move +2 ENEMY: Agrias [Cancer] - lv 99 Holy Knight - Bravery 71, Faith 63 Equipment : Save the Queen, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, random accessory Abilities : Holy Sword, Iaido, Shirahadori, Defense Boost, Move +2 ENEMY: Alma [Leo] - lv 99 Cleric - Bravery 31, Faith 87 Equipment : Mage's Staff, Barette, Gaia Gear, Red Shoes Abilities : Holy Magicks, Time Magicks, Soulbind, Arcane Defense, Ignore Terrain ENEMY: Ovelia [Taurus] - lv 99 Princess - Bravery 53, Faith 72 Equipment : Mage's Staff, Cachusha, Gaia Gear, Red Shoes Abilities : Holy Magicks, Time Magicks, Soulbind, Arcane Strength, Ignore Terrain ENEMY: Rapha [Skyseer] - lv 99 Skyseer - Bravery 31, Faith 69 Equipment : Eight-fluted Pole, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Sky Mantra, Items, Nature's Wrath, Swiftness, Manafont ENEMY: Marach [Netherseer] - lv 99 Netherseer - Bravery 69, Faith 31 Equipment : Eight-fluted Pole, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Nether Mantra, Items, Nature's Wrath, Swiftness, Manafont ENEMY: Orran [Cancer] - lv 99 Astrologer - Bravery 73, Faith 71 Equipment : Omnilex, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, Japa Mala Abilities : Astrology, Items, Magick Counter, Swiftness, Lifefont Immune : All negative status except Stone, Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Stop When Dycedarg's team goes down, you're halfway through! Next up is a tricky battle against a large assortment of your own allies, including Orlandeau, Agrias, Ovelia, Alma, Rapha, Marach, and Orran. You'll now be on the receiving end of Orran's Celestial Stasis ability. If you have Ribbons and Thief's Caps, though, you're mostly immune to it. (Characters with Thief's Caps can still be Stopped, but that's all.) It still can cast Stop on characters who don't have a Ribbon, though, so you'll probably want to make a beeline for Orran and KO before he can paralyze anyone. (Orlandeau should be able to defeat him in a single attack thanks to their Zodiac compatibility.) If your entire team has Ribbons, you can pretty much ignore Orran completely. Along with Orran, Agrias and Orlandeau should be your first targets because of their powerful sword techniques. Agrias's Save the Queen gives her a permanent Protect, which makes her slow to defeat. Try using Crush Weapon to break it. (She also has Shirahadori, so Jump or non-Dual Wielded physical attacks will not work.) Agrias and Orlandeau have good Zodiac compatibility with each other, which means Agrias is good for defeating the enemy Orlandeau and Orlandeau good against the enemy Agrias! Once you defeat Agrias and Orlandeau, you'll probably want to go after Alma and Ovelia next. As in the main storyline, they mostly cast their Aegis buff. This can make other enemies tough to defeat, but Alma and Ovelia always cast it on themselves, so you've got some time to catch up to them and defeat them. Watch out for their Soulbind! They have so little HP that you may be able to just circumvent Soulbind by KOing them in a single attack, though. (This will be a little tougher if they cast Aegis on themselves and have Shell/Protect; you could try dispelling those effects if you have an ability that will do so.) Or, inflict a status ailment that stops them from using reaction abilities, like Stop or Disable. If they did succeed in casting Aegis on themselves, they'll have a Reraise that lets them return after the KO. So, stay close to them after KOing the first time. When they wake up, quickly KO them again before they can cast Aegis a second time. Note that Alma has a very high Faith, so magick would do a lot of damage to her. Rapha and Marach are, as always, not really worth worrying about until the end. --BATTLE 7-- ENEMY FORCES: Elmdore (lv 99 Ark Knight) Zalbaag (lv 99 Ark Knight) Celia (lv 99 Assassin) Lettie (lv 99 Assassin) Archaeodaemon (lv 98) Archaeodaemon (lv 97) Archaeodaemon (lv 96) Archaeodaemon (lv 95) Archaeodaemon (lv 94) Archaeodaemon (lv 92) ENEMY: Elmdore [Gemini] - lv 99 Ark Knight - Bravery 70, Faith 70 Equipment : Masamune, Genji Shield, Genji Helm, Genji Armor, Genji Glove Abilities*: Sword Spirit, Vampire, Shirahadori, Brawler, Master Teleportation Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Elmdore's Ark Knight job also includes Safeguard as an innate ability. ENEMY: Celia [Sagittarius] - lv 99 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Kiku-ichimonji x2, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, random accessory Abilities : Subdual Arts, Vampire, Move +1, random other abilities Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad ENEMY: Lettie [Scorpio] - lv 99 Assassin - Bravery 65, Faith 70 Equipment : Spellbinder x2, Thief's Cap, Black Garb, random accessory Abilities : Subdual Arts, Vampire, Move +1, random other abilities Immune : Stone, Chicken, Toad ENEMY: Zalbaag [Cancer] - lv 99 Ark Knight - Bravery 33, Faith 77 Equipment : Runeblade, Crystal Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Germinas Boots Abilities : Blade of Ruin, Vampire, Adrenaline Rush, Defense Boost, Lifefont In Battle 7, you'll face Elmdore's forces, including Elmdore, Celia, Lettie, the zombie version of Zalbaag, and some Archaeodaemons. Elmdore is equipped much as he was before, and you can't still get his Genji stuff. Celia and Lettie still have their Subdual Arts abilities, and all four humans (including Celia and Lettie!) now have the ability to turn you into Vampires. This causes a character to go berserk and start trying to Vampire other characters, including your own allies! This can be pretty dangerous, especially since you lose the battle if all characters get turned into a Vampire. Shirahadori does not block the Vampire attack, but having a Ribbon will at least protect you from the Vampire status (though not the damage from the attack). If one of your male characters does get turned into a Vampire (as signified by the bat icon), keep your other characters clear of him. As long as you do so, he should just attack monsters, and you're fine. There's not much that can cure Vampire status, only the Holy Water item, but it will be removed at the end of the battle. If the Vampired character really gets to be a problem, you could always KO him and then revive him at the start of the next battle when he's no longer a Vampire. The good news is that Celia and Lettie are in perfect position for a Hallowed Bolt at the start of the battle. You can probably also attack multiple Archaeodaemons at once. Unlike in Limberry, Celia and Lettie do NOT turn into Ultima Demons when KOed. Zalbaag, for some reason, seems to turn into a crystal immediately upon being KOed. Grab it before any wounded enemy can. Elmdore has a lot of HP and will probably take several attacks, so you may want to focus on eliminating the other humans first. Be careful when attacking the Archaeodaemons. Their Karma magick does damage equal to the HP they've lost. If you leave an Archaeodaemon standing with little HP, this attack will be very powerful and do hundreds of damage! Once you've started attacked an Archaeodaemon, quickly finish it off. The Archaeodaemons like to retreat into a corner of the map; a long-range Jump attack is good for defeating them, if you happen to have it. You can also take advantage of the old trick of standing next to another enemy when one of the Archaeodemons starts casting Gigaflare, so the enemy will be hit by magick's effect radius. At any rate, the Archaeodaemons don't have that much HP, so you can hopefully defeat them in one hit if your Zodiac compatibility isn't bad. (There's a certain amount of luck here since the Archaeodaemons have random Zodiac signs.) --BATTLE 8-- ENEMY FORCES: Bremondt (lv 99 Celebrant) Beowulf (lv 99 Templar) Aliste (lv 99 Templar) Reis (lv 99 Dragonkin) Tiamat (lv 97) Tiamat (lv 96) Greater Hydra (lv 98) Greater Hydra (lv 98) Hydra (lv 97) Hydra (lv 96) ENEMY: Bremondt [Gemini] - lv 99 Celebrant - Bravery 15, Faith 75 Equipment : Zeus Mace, Gold Hairpin, Lordly Robe, Featherweave Cloak Abilities : Priest Magicks, Throw, Counter Tackle, Safeguard, Lifefont Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, and Slow ENEMY: Beowulf [Libra] - lv 99 Templar - Bravery 60, Faith 73 Equipment : Ragnarok, Venetian Shield, Grand Helm, Maximillian, Germinas Boots Abilities : Spellblade, Iaido, First Strike, Safeguard, Manafont ENEMY: Aliste [Scorpio] - lv 99 Templar - Bravery 70, Faith 58 Equipment : Ragnarok, Kaiser Shield, Genji Helm, Genji Armor, Genji Glove Abilities : Spellblade, Iaido, Shirahadori, Safeguard, Move +1 ENEMY: Reis [Pisces] - lv 99 Dragonkin - Bravery 70, Faith 58 Equipment : Cachusha, Japa Mala Abilities : Dragon, White Magicks, Dragonheart, Arcane Strength, Lifefont Battle 8 is versus the characters from Beowulf's storyline, plus an assortment of hydras. This is probably the toughest battle in the sequence: Beowulf and Aliste can inflict status ailments, the hydras do big damage (and their breath attacks can't be blocked with Shirahadori), Reis can support the hydras, and Bremondt and Reis can both Raise KOed allies. This is where Kaiser or Reverie Shields will be quite helpful, as they halve all the damage from the hydras' breath attacks. If you can move quickly, you can hit Beowulf and Aliste with a Hallowed Bolt before they can move. You'll want to take them out first because of the status ailments they can inflict on characters without Ribbons. If you have your own Reis deployed, you should be able to use Dragon's Charm to invite the hydras onto your team. This is quite helpful, as it not only reduces the number of enemies you're fighting but gives you an extra helping hand. (They won't stay with you past this round, though.) Although the hydras are the ones doing the damage here, you'll probably have to KO Bremondt and Reis first. Otherwise, they'll just keep healing or Raising the hydras. (Orlandeau can do a lot of damage to Reis because of his Zodiac compatibility.) Don't worry; Bremondt doesn't turn into the Dark Dragon when KOed here. The hydras all have 900+ HP, so you're unlikely to be able to KO one in a single attack. For your first attack, try using Northswain's Strike or the Dark Knight's Crushing Blow, which may inflict KO or Stop (respectively) and put the hydra out of play in a single blow. (Of course, there's no guarantee it will happen, but it's worth a try!) Six hydras together are quite dangerous, so focus on quickly KOing a few to reduce the number of enemies you're facing. The white Tiamat and black Greater Hydras are the real dangers because they have the breath attacks; unless augmented by Reis's Beastmaster, the orange Hydras can only do physical attacks, which you can easily block. Any hydra that gets separated from the group is a prime target, as you can attack it without putting yourself in danger. And as always, whenever you can attack without moving, you'll get more turns quickly. The hydras' breath attacks can do quite a bit of damage, so keep your HP high using HP-drain attacks. Hydras that are low on HP may flee into a corner, and you can just leave them there until you defeat the others. After battling all these hydras, you may find yourself low on HP by the end of the battle. It's probably a good idea to heal yourself before moving onto the next battle. This is fairly easy to do; if the last hydra has critical HP, it will just cower in the corner and you've got plenty of time to heal. Just be sure to pick up any crystallized monsters before the hydra can heal itself! --BATTLE 9-- ENEMY FORCES: Isilud (lv 99 Nightblade) Meliadoul (lv 99 Divine Knight) Barich (lv 99 Machinist) Cletienne (lv 99 Sorceror) Loffrey (lv 99 Divine Knight) Wiegraf (lv 99 White Knight) Folmarv (lv 99 Divine Knight) Zalmour (lv 99 Celebrant) Time Mage (lv 99, female) Time Mage (lv 99, female) ENEMY: Isilud [Pisces] - lv 99 Nightblade - Bravery 97, Faith 63 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Luminous Robe, other equipment random Abilities*: Arts of War, Counter, Attack Boost, Ignore Elevation, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow * Isilud's Nightblade job also has Concentration as an innate ability. ENEMY: Meliadoul [Capricorn] - lv 99 Divine Knight - Bravery 97, Faith 63 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Circlet, Luminous Robe, Septie`me Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Counter, Attack Boost, Ignore Elevation, other ability random ENEMY: Barich [Sagittarius] - lv 99 Machinist - Bravery 97, Faith 62 Equipment : Blaze Gun, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities*: Aimed Shot, Mana Shield, Defense Boost, Lifefont, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Immobilize * Barich's version of the Machinist job also includes Defense Boost, Arcane Defense, and Beast Tongue as innate abilities. ENEMY: Cletienne [Gemini] - lv 99 Sorceror - Bravery 97, Faith 81 Equipment : Wizard's Rod, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Magicks, Magick Counter, Arcane Strength, Manafont, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize ENEMY: Loffrey [Capricorn] - lv 99 Divine Knight - Bravery 97, Faith 68 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Circlet, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Unyielding Blade, Soulbind, Arcane Defense, Ignore Elevation, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow ENEMY: Wiegraf [Virgo] - lv 99 White Knight - Bravery 97, Faith 64 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Circlet, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Holy Sword, Mana Shield, Attack Boost, Ignore Elevation, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow ENEMY: Folmarv [Leo] - lv 99 Divine Knight - Bravery 97, Faith 68 Equipment : Excalibur, Crystal Shield, Luminous Robe, other equipment random Abilities : Unyielding Blade, First Strike, Defense Boost, Ignore Elevation, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, and Slow ENEMY: Zalmour [Sagittarius] - lv 99 Celebrant - Bravery 97, Faith 70 Equipment : Eight-fluted Pole, Thief's Cap, Luminous Robe, random accessory Abilities : Priest Magicks, Magick Counter, Arcane Strength, Lifefont, other ability random Immune : All negative status except Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, and Slow On to Battle 9! Here you'll fight all the Knights Templar. This is also a tricky battle, especially because most of them have Excaliburs (giving them an auto-Haste) and all have 97 Bravery, which means their reaction abilities activate quite frequently. If you have Safeguard, you'll be protected against their Crush attacks and they pretty much have to resort to physical attacks, which you should be able to block with Shirahadori. This makes Wiegraf the most dangerous -- Safeguard won't protect you from his Holy Sword techniques, and they do a LOT of damage, thanks to his Attack Boost! Hit Isilud and Meliadoul straight off with a Hallowed Bolt, then go after Wiegraf. Unfortunately, Wiegraf has Mana Shield, which means you'll need to be ready with a couple of attacks to take him down. Using Crush Weapon (or even just Rend Weapon) is extremely effective here. None of the Templars have Safeguard in this battle, and breaking their Excaliburs will take away their Haste and disable their sword techniques. After you defeat Wiegraf, you'll probably want to KO Cletienne next. Sometimes, he will use Arise to bring back Templars you have already defeated. Watch out for Loffrey's Soulbind! You probably can't defeat him in one hit, so unless you Disable or Stop him, you'll just have to take the hits from Soulbind as you whack him away at him. Make sure you don't attack him unless you can receive back half the damage you deal (unless you have a Reraise, in which case you can attack him with impunity!). Another good tactic is to use Shadowblade and Sanguine Sword to attack him; while the HP drain effect occurs BEFORE you take the damage from Soulbind, it at least keeps your HP up. Cletienne and Zalmour also have Magick Counter, but unless you're using magick, you don't need to worry about this. If you have Shirahadori and protection against Immobilize/Disable, Barich is basically harmless, so save him for later (especially since his Mana Shield makes him slow to go down). Zalmour is similarly useless: while in principle he can heal the other Knights, in practice he just tries physical attacks, plus he's extremely slow. Don't worry about him, either. --BATTLE 10-- ENEMY FORCES: Delita (lv 99 Holy Knight) Valmafra (lv 99 Sorceror) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) Dark Knight (lv 99, female) ENEMY: Delita [Sagittarius] - lv 99 Holy Knight - Bravery 97, Faith 60 Equipment : Chaos Blade, Escutcheon II, Grand Helm, Lordly Robe, Ribbon Abilities : Holy Sword, Iaido, Shirahadori, Safeguard, Move +3 Immune : Chicken, Toad, Charm, Doom ENEMY: Valmafra [Leo] - lv 99 Sorceror - Bravery 97, Faith 75 Equipment : Wizard's Rod, Aegis Shield, Ribbon, Lordly Robe, Chantage Abilities : White Magicks, Soulbind, Swiftness, Manafont Immune : All negative status except Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, Immobilize After the Knights Templar comes the final battle. Valmafra makes her long- anticipated debut on the battlefield, accompanied by eight Dark Knights, all of whom are equipped with Save the Queen and Defense Boost, and Delita. Some of the Dark Knights have First Strike and some have Mana Shield, and both Delita and Valmafra have ??? HP status. All the Dark Knights will be slow to take out because of their Defense Boost and auto-Protect. Fortunately, they use their Darkness abilities very rarely if ever; they just use physical attacks, which you should be able to easily block. Breaking their weapons will help you take them out more quickly, as well as rendering them completely harmless. It's probably a good idea to first use Crush Weapon on the Dark Knights with Mana Shield, since these will be the absolute slowest to defeat. (The other ones you can attack more quickly.) Some of the Dark Knights also have Steal ... but if you have Safeguard, you're completely protected against getting your equipment stolen, so don't sweat it. Advance slowly. Delita will soon advance to attack you. His sword techniques are quite powerful and he has Safeguard, so you can't break his weapon. He also has Shirahadori, so Jump and single physical attacks are a no-go. And, he even has a Ribbon "magically" equipped in his accessory slot that blocks status attacks. So, your best bet is to use Shadowblade/Sanguine Sword to attack him while healing yourself; Holy Sword techniques also work well, too. He actually doesn't have all THAT much HP -- only a little more than 1000. Once you've defeated Delita, you're pretty much clear. Before you mop up the Dark Knights, you'll have to deal with Valmafra, who can Raise all the KOed enemies. (For better or for worse, the Dark Knights here never turn into crystals and she can always Raise them.) To keep her from using her Chantage to revive *herself*, break it with Rend Accessory or Crush Accessory or steal it; she doesn't have Safeguard. (If you don't have any of these abilities, you'll have to whittle down all the Dark Knights and take her out last.) Fortunately, she doesn't actually seem to do much except heal herself and cast Raise. She does have Soulbind, so you'll keep taking damage while you wear her down. Again, Shadowblade or Sanguine Sword are useful as a way of attacking her while keeping up your own HP. Like Delita, she only has 1000 HP or so. Valmafra is also equipped with a Lordly Robe that you can steal, if you bring someone with Steal/Plunder all the way down here. This is actually a great item to steal. The Lordly Robe is fantastic armor for magick-users, and normally there's only one available in the game (the one in Midlight's Deep). By repeating this mission, however, you can steal as many Lordly Robes as you want! Once you've KOed Delita, there's no real threat here and you have plenty of chances to steal from her. She also has a Chantage and Ribbon that you can steal. (Her weapon and shield are just a garbage Wizard's Rod and Aegis Shield, stuff you can buy in a store!) This battle is actually rather anticlimactic after the last two. When you finally take out Delita and Valmafra's team, congratulations, you've completed this marathon mission! Your rewards may include two unique items: the Crown Sceptre, a rod that gives you +4 Magick Attack, and the Sage's Ring, which allows you to absorb EVERY element and also boosts the power of all your elemental attacks! It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of rare items you can steal here. (Balthier is a good character to use if you want to steal.) Aside from the Lordly Robe mentioned above, there's nothing much TOO special (that's not protected with a Safeguard, anyway), but you can pick up a bunch of knight's swords and hair adornments. Orran has an Omnilex that you can grab; it's also poachable, but you may find it more convenient to acquire here if you want one The Dragoons in battle 5 also have some Holy Lances -- these aren't as good as many other polearms, but you may want to pick one up to round out your weapon collection if you haven't poached it from Sekhret. And Valmafra has a Chantage in addition to her Lordly Robe and Ribbon. TITLE AWARDED: Hero UNIQUE POSSIBLE TREASURES: Crown Sceptre, Sage's Ring ---Rendezvous Mission 15: An Ill Wind------------------------------------------- AVAILABLE AFTER...: Completing single-player game BATTLE MAP: Ziekden Fortress YOUR FORCES: 1-3 characters per player ENEMY FORCES: Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) Argath (lv 99 Deathknight) ENEMY: Argath [Virgo] - lv 99 Deathknight - Bravery 70, Faith 65 Equipment : Ragnarok, Escutcheon II, Grand Helm, Maximillian, Ribbon Abilities : Fell Sword, Vampire, *, Safeguard, Defense Boost, Ignore Elevation Immune : Berserk, Charm, Stone * The 10 Argaths have different reaction abilities: 4 with Soulbind 2 with First Strike 2 with Mana Shield 1 with Sticky Fingers 1 with Shirahadori VICTORY CONDITION: KO all 10 Argaths LOSS CONDITION: All allies are KOed/Stone/Vampire WEATHER: Clear day (no special effects) MAP SIZE: TERRAIN TYPES GEOMANCY MAP AREA 13 x 9 Snow Snowstorm 96% Bridge Wind Slash 3% Wooden Floor Will-o'-the-Wisp 2% --STRATEGY-- It's the Argath Burly Brawl! There are no fewer than TEN Argaths here, and you must defeat all of them to win. The best set-up for this battle is to deploy just one character per player, and give them the following set-up: Equipment : Cursed Ring, Ribbon or Barette, Chaos Blade or other strong weapon Abilities : Speechcraft (optional), First Strike, Concentration The Cursed Ring and either a Ribbon or Barette are essential here. The Argaths normally use Fell Sword techniques to drain your HP, which will quickly kill you and make KOing them nearly impossible since they keeps regaining HP. The Cursed Ring, found on The Switchback in Midlight's Deep in the single-player game, will protect you from this by negating drain attacks. (There seems to be only one Cursed Ring, so if you lost it or don't have it, you'll have to quickly use the Mystic's Corruption magick to make yourself undead.) Argath also uses the Vampire attack, which has a 100% rate of turning you into a Vampire, so you need a Ribbon or Barette to protect against this. If both characters get Vampired, you lose! Once you have both a Cursed Ring and Ribbon/Barette, the Argaths can only use physical attacks, which you can block with First Strike (or Shirahadori). If one player doesn't have the Cursed Ring, you can have that player equip an item to make his/her character start the battle in Invisible status. The Ninja Gear, Septie`me perfume, or Invisibility Cloak all work. Then, simply have that character take no actions. S/he will remain Invisible and can never be targeted by Argath. Let the other character mop up all the Argaths and you can still win the battle without a KO. This works fine; it just means the battle will take longer since you have only 1 character dealing damage instead of 2. Because First Strike only works if you're in position where you can attack back, it's very important to watch your vertical positioning. Swords have a range of 3 down but only 2 up. If Argath stands on a tile with a height difference of 3 from your tile, he can attack you and you can't First Strike him! Stay on level ground and you're fine. Standing next to a tile with a height difference of MORE than 3 -- like the side of the fort -- is also OK as Argath can't attack you across such a distance. The other tricky part of this battle is the Argaths' reaction abilities. Four of the Argaths have Soulbind, which reflects back half the damage you do. (The other six Argaths have different reaction abilities: Shirahadori, Sticky Fingers, two with Mana Shield, and two with First Strike.) You're probably better off not directly attacking the Argaths with Soulbind. Instead, let them attack you, and First Strike will turn the attack into one of your own without triggering Soulbind. He can normally block your counterattacks with his Escutcheon II shield, but Concentration will take care of that. (If you get surrounded by the bodies of KOed Argaths, move to another tile so there's room for additional Argaths to attack you.) You could also attack the Soulbinded Argaths directly, but you'd have to alternate between that and using Chakra to heal yourself. Argath has Safeguard, so you can't break or steal his shield(s). On your own turns, use sword techniques or other abilities to attack the Argaths who *don't* have Soulbind. Although you can't view their status screen directly, you CAN see their reaction ability when the damage estimate appears. Only attack the ones who don't have Soulbind. Be careful of any area effect damage; you might hit a second Argath who has Soulbind. If you're not sure which reaction ability each Argath has, aim your attacks so that you only strike one at a time, and only attack the ones without Soulbind. It's also safe to attack a Soulbinded Argath who is low on HP; if you finish him off with your attack, Soulbind never triggers. Argath has Safeguard, so Crush skills are out. Another way to deal with Soulbind and the other reaction abilities is to use Intimidate [Orator] to lower each Argath's Bravery. (The Mystic's Hesitation tends not to work so well; if you start charging up magick, Argath will use Duskblade to steal all your MP.) Argath won't ever turn into a chicken (he's immune to this status), but with a low Bravery, his reaction abilities are less likely to trigger, and you can attack him directly. This is a much less efficient solution, though, since you'll have to spend quite a few turns lowering Argath's Bravery. All of the Argaths are immune to status attacks thanks to their Ribbons. They're also dirty cheaters, and have somehow managed to equip a Ribbon in their accessory slots even though it's a piece of female-only headgear! The best secondary action ability to bring is Speechcraft and Praise. The maximum permanent Bravery you can have is 97, which means that if you enter the battle with 97 Bravery, there's still a (small) chance that First Strike will fail and Argath will hit you. So begin the battle by using Praise on yourself and you can raise your Bravery up to 100, which means you have a 100% chance of First Strike and Argath can NEVER hurt you. (Fortunately, Argath is an idiot and will continue attacking you even when it is literally impossible for him to land a blow.) Alternately, you could use Martial Arts as your action ability. Chakra heals you even if you're undead, so you can use it for healing in case the Argaths do land a few hits on you. Teleport or Ignore Elevation is also convenient, just because the Argaths sometime climb up on top of the fort using their own Ignore Elevation ability. This battle is nearly impossible without the right character set-up. On the other hand, if you *are* properly equipped, it's really no problem as Argath can't hurt you at all. The unique treasures you can get here are the Valhalla fell sword and the Vanguard Helm. The Vanguard Helm is on par with the Grand Helm; it has the same HP bonus and also gives you +20 MP, but doesn't protect you from Blind or Sleep. Actually, the Grand Helm is probably a little better because of the status protection, but there's only one Grand Helm, so the Vanguard Helm can be useful too! TITLE AWARDED: Riskbreaker UNIQUE POSSIBLE TREASURES: Valhalla, Vanguard Helm ******************************************************************************** VII. JOBS AND ABILITIES ******************************************************************************** %%%JOB REQUIREMENTS (QUICK REFERENCE)%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00req This chart is just a quick reference to the requirements to unlock each job. New jobs for a character are unlocked by have that character gain JP with particular jobs he/she already has and increasing their JOB LEVEL. (The Dark Knight has somewhat more complex requirements -- see below.) The character's overall experience level plays NO role and you can unlock any job at any experience level. All that matters is JOB levels. When more than one required job is listed in the table, you must get ALL the jobs up to the appropriate level (so Onion Knight requires Squire lv. 6 AND Chemist lv. 6) with the SAME character. TO UNLOCK... REQUIRES JOBS Squire : Always available Chemist : Always available Knight : Squire lv. 2 Archer : Squire lv. 2 Monk : Knight lv. 3 White Mage : Chemist lv. 2 Black Mage : Chemist lv. 2 Time Mage : Black Mage lv. 3 Summoner : Time Mage lv. 3 Thief : Archer lv. 3 Orator : Mystic lv. 3 Mystic : White Mage lv. 3 Geomancer : Monk lv. 4 Dragoon : Thief lv. 4 Samurai : Knight lv. 4, Monk lv. 5, and Dragoon lv. 2 Ninja : Archer lv. 4, Thief lv. 5, Geomancer lv. 2 Arithmetician : White Mage lv. 5, Black Mage lv. 5, Time Mage lv. 4, and Mystic lv. 4 Bard : Summoner lv. 5 and Orator lv. 5, males only Dancer : Geomancer lv. 5 and Dragoon lv. 5, females only Mime : Squire lv. 8, Chemist lv. 8, Summoner lv. 5, Orator lv. 5, Geomancer lv. 5, and Dragoon lv. 5 Dark Knight : *SEE BELOW* Onion Knight : Squire lv. 6 and Chemist lv. 6 * To become a Dark Knight, the same character must fulfill ALL of these three requirements: 1. Master Knight and Black Mage by learning all the abilities. 2. Earn enough JP to raise the Dragoon, Geomancer, Samurai, and Ninja jobs to job level 8. While it's possible to master Geomancer without getting it to job level 8, you MUST continue to earn enough JP to get to job level 8 if you want to unlock Dark Knight. 3. Kill 20 enemies with the character. Just KOing them does NOT count; they must turn to chests or crystals. (And poaching does not count!) It doesn't matter whether or not you actually pick up the crystals/chests. The following jobs are automatically available to special story characters but are NOT available to generic characters: Ark Knight Astrologer Automaton Byblos Cleric Divine Knight Dragonkin Fell Knight Game Hunter Holy Dragon Holy Knight Machinist Netherseer Princess Sky Pirate Skyseer Soldier Sword Saint Templar The followings jobs and monsters are used only by enemies and are never available to you, the player: Archaeodaemon Arch Seraph Assassin Bringer of Order Celebrant Dark Dragon Deathknight Death Seraph Gigas High Seraph Nightblade Reaver Serpentarius Sorceror The Impure The Wroth Ultima Demon White Knight %%%GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT JOBS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00job0 ---EQUIPPING ABILITIES--- Each job has a category of Action Abilities (e.g. "Black Magick" or "Steal"). This category of abilities is always available for use by the job. In addition, each job can equip one other job's Action Ability category. So, you can have a Black Mage with the Knight's Arts of War ability, or a Samurai who uses both her inherent Iaido ability plus the Chemists' Items ability. Each job can also equip one Reaction Ability, one Support Ability, and one Movement Ability. Note that the Reaction/Support/Movement Abilities that a job can learn are NOT automatically available (with a few exceptions noted below). You must use your slots to equip them! The exception to all of the above are the Onion Knight and Mime jobs, which can't equip any abilities at all. ---JOBS & STATS--- STATS WHEN ACTIVE JOB: A character's CURRENT job plays a big role in determining your current stats. Black Mages have high MP and magick strength, but a weak physical attack. Thieves are speedy but don't have much HP. Below, I've given rough approximations of each job's stats using letter grades. A comparison of these stats is available in the Job Stats Comparison Chart at the end of this section. GROWTH RATES: A character's stats are also partially determined by the jobs you used to level up with in the past. While all jobs will grow all stats, some jobs grow certain stats faster and slower. For example, Monk will grow HP quickly, while Ninja will grow Speed quickly. These growth rates don't always match up with the stat bonuses when you're USING the job. (For instance, almost every job has the same magick attack growth rate, but they definitely differ in their *current* magick attack!) So I've given separate ratings for the Growth Rates, on a scale of * (worst) to ***** (best). If you're just playing through the game normally, you really don't have to pay any attention to the growth rates. But, if you want, you can use differences in jobs' growth rates as a way of grinding your characters' stats even higher. See Level Downs & Stat Grinding under Statistics and Leveling for more information. Stat growth from level-ups is permanent (outside of the Level Down trick). If you later switch jobs, your past stat growth will not be lost or changed. MOVE, JUMP, AND EVADE: These stats do not change with level ups and depend only on your current job plus your accessories/equipment. Movement range is the number of tiles a character can move per turn. Jump height is the maximum height distance between tiles that a character can traverse while moving. (Additionally, when faced with a gap, characters can make horizontal jumps equal to half their Jump height.) Finally, each job has a inherent evade rate for physical attacks. Note that this inherent evade rate is only good against attacks from the front. (By contrast, shields can also evade attacks from the side, and cloaks can evade attacks from all directions.) Even though the status screen has a space for an inherent magickal evade rate, all jobs actually have a 0% basic magick evade. The only way to evade magick is to equip shields or accessories. ---UNLOCKING JOBS--- Aside from Squire and Chemist, jobs must be unlocked by gaining Job Levels with your existing jobs. For example, to switch to the White Mage job, a character must have Chemist at Job Level 3 or higher. (The requirements for each job are listed in the charts below, and in the Quick Reference guide above.) You must reach the required Job Levels with the SAME character you want to switch to the new job -- so, for instance, having Ladd meet the requirements for the Ninja job won't help Ramza unlock it. Experience points and a character's overall experience level does NOT matter for unlocking jobs. What matters is the JP you've earned for specific jobs. Job Levels are determined by the TOTAL amount of JP you've earned with a given job. Spending JP to purchase abilities does NOT decrease this total. So, a character who's earned 730 JP with Samurai would have a Samurai job level of 4, even if he's spent 500 of those JP on abilities. Job Level 1 0 JP total Job Level 2 200 JP total Job Level 3 400 JP total Job Level 4 700 JP total Job Level 5 1100 JP total Job Level 6 1600 JP total Job Level 7 2200 JP total Job Level 8 3000 JP total Mastered All abilities learned Gaining Job Levels does not improve your stats or abilities (aside from the Onion Knight, discussed below). It just helps you unlock new jobs. Note that it's possible to Master a job even if your Job Level is less than 8. Squire, Geomancer, and some story character jobs require less than 3000 JP to Master, and you can Master other jobs with less than 3000 JP if you learn a lot of abilities from crystals. Your Job Level is actually independent of whether you've Mastered the job and continues to go up until it reaches 8, even if you've already Mastered the job. Keep this in mind, because most jobs unlock based on JOB LEVELS, not on Mastered jobs. (For instance, Dark Knight requires you to have job level 8 with Geomancer, even though you can master Geomancer with only job level 7!) Similarly, even though Mime is always Mastered, you can increase its Job Level by earning JP as a Mime. However, there's no benefit for doing so. The Job Level for Onion Knight is determined by the number of other jobs that you've Mastered. Every two jobs Mastered (not including Squire, Chemist, Mime, or Dark Knight) boosts the Onion Knight's Job Level by 1. Both Onion Knight and Mime are always Mastered. ---STORY CHARACTER JOBS--- Some story characters that join your party have special jobs available for that character. They aren't available to generic characters. In all cases where a story character has a special job, the special job replaces the Squire job for that character. For more on these special jobs, see the Story Character Jobs portion of the job/ability list, below. ---Damage Bases----------------------------------------------------------------- Different types of abilities use different stats in calculating how much damage they do or how likely they are to succeed. For example, magicks get stronger as the user's Magick Attack and Faith increase, whereas the success rate for Steal increases as your Speed goes up. (These bases are also listed in the charts below for each ability type.) Based on a character's stats, you can try to choose a good matching set of abilities. Here's a quick overview of what stats relate to what ability sets: Physical Attack : Fundaments/Mettle/Huntcraft (except Ultima), Martial Arts (except Doom Fist), Dance, Tasks Phys. Attack & Weapon : Arts of War, Darkness (except Unholy Sacrifice), Strength Holy Sword, Swordplay, Unyielding Blade Phys. Attack, Weapon Str., : Jump # & Speed Phys. Attack & Mag. Attack : Geomancy + (Faith irrelevant) Phys. Atk.,Mag. Atk.,Max HP: Unholy Sacrifice Magick Attack : Speechcraft, Iaido, Bardsong, Sky Mantra, (Faith irrelevant) Breath/Dragon, Limit, Doom Fist, Steal Heart Magick Attack & HIGH Faith*: White Magicks, Black Magicks, Time Magicks, Summon, Mystic Arts, Arithmeticks, Spellblade, Ultima Magick Attack & LOW Faith* : Nether Mantra Speed : Steal (except Steal Heart), Aimed Shot, Piracy (except Barrage) Speed & Move : Throw % Formula for current weapon : Aim, Barrage none : Items, Byblos Bravery : All Reaction Abilities except Parry and Reflexes * For abilities affected by Faith, the damage or success rate is affected by both the user's Faith and the TARGET's Faith. This is not true of other kinds of abilities. # Damage from Jump is determined by Physical Attack and weapon strength, whereas the speed/charge time of the attack is determined by the user's Speed. + Geomancy is affected by both Physical Attack and Magick Attack, but Magick Attack is weighted more heavily. % For the Throw command, Speed affects the damage inflicted, while your Move range determines the range of the attack. NO ability can ever do more than 999 damage per strike. Any formula that would result in more than 999 damage is rounded down to 999. ---Deciphering the Charts------------------------------------------------------- A few (well, many) words of explanation about the job & ability charts below. ---ACTION ABILITIES--- MP: Action Abilities first list the MP cost of each ability. If no MP cost is listed, the ability doesn't require MP to use. REFLECT & ARITHMETICKS: For magick, you may see an "R" and/or an "A" after its MP cost. "R" means the spell can be reflected -- if it's cast on a character who has the Reflect status, the spell will bounce off and might even strike another target! "A" means it can be cast using the Arithmetician's Arithmeticks ability. CLOCK TICKS/SPEED: "TIC" indicates the number of battle "clock ticks" it takes for the ability to charge up before it activates. (Each "clock tick" increments a character's CT by his/her Speed statistic; see Turn Order & Charging Abilities under Basic Mechanics for more.) A SMALLER number under "TIC" is BETTER as it means the ability takes less time to charge! Most non-magick abilities require 0 ticks to charge; these abilities activate as soon as you select them. (The "Speed" statistic you see on the in-game status screen equals 100 divided by Ticks; I've listed the clock ticks here as it's easier to interpret in game terms.) Be aware that since multiple characters may receive a turn on the same clock tick (see Basic Mechanics), the total number of characters TURNS before the ability activates may be the greater than the number of clock ticks. With the exception of the Dragoon's Jump, changing your character's Speed statistic has no effect on charge time. POWER: "PWR" determines the amount of damage inflicted or restored, or the hit rate of status changing abilities. See each job's section for the specific formula of how this number is used. (But in every case, higher PWR is better!) NO ability can ever do more than 999 damage per strike. Any formula that would result in more than 999 damage is rounded down to 999. RANGE: Two numbers are listed for Range ("RNG"). The first ("H") is the horizontal range in tiles -- how many tiles away can the target be? Usually, you'll see a number. You might also see "Weapon" instead, which means the range of the ability is equal to the range of the user's current weapon. "4Dir" means "4 directions"; the ability reaches only in the cardinal directions and extends the length of its effect radius (see below). The second number under Range ("V") is the vertical range. Some abilities can only target characters who are within a certain height of the caster. A * displayed here means the ability has an infinite vertical range and can target characters at any height (most abilities actually fall into this category). EFFECT RADIUS: Many abilities affect not just the character targeted, but nearby tiles as well. This is the "Effect Radius" of the ability, and is listed under "RAD". Again, the first number is the horizontal radius -- how wide is the effect radius in terms of # of map tiles? (An ability with a radius of 1 targets only one tile; a greater radius target more.) The second number is the vertical radius. In most cases, the effect radius only holds over tiles within a certain vertical height of the central target. So, for instance, the spell Blizzaga has a range of 4/*. This means that it can target any unit within 4 panels of the caster, regardless of vertical distance. It also has an effect radius of 2/3. This means that it has a radius of horizontal size 2 -- it hits both the targeted tile and neighboring tiles that are 1 tile away. The vertical radius is 3, so any neighboring tiles that differ in height by more than 3 will NOT be part of the effect radius. TARGETS: Target ("TAR") determines whether the ability affects only allies within in the effect radius, only foes, or both. Continuing the Blizzara example, Blizzara target All units within the radius, meaning that both enemy units and your own allies will be affected. Look out! LINE OF FIRE: Finally, Line of Fire ("LF") displays whether the ability requires an unobstructed line of fire between the user and the target. > If Y (yes) is displayed here, the ability requires a direct line of fire and CANNOT travel through other units or obstructions such as walls. If there is another unit in the way, that unit will be hit instead! See the "Shoot Enemies Next to You" trick in the Tricks Related To Specific Items section of Basic Mechanics for tips on how to exploit this to your advantage. > If N (no) is displayed for Line of Fire, the ability does NOT require a direct line of fire and works even if there are walls or other units in the way. Of course, Line of Fire is irrelevant for abilities that affect only the user or units in adjacent tiles, since there can't be any other obstacles in between. ---REACTION ABILITIES--- Reaction Abilities trigger when the character is hit by a specific kind of action. The action that triggers that the Reaction Ability is listed under Trigger. ("Critical HP" means when you have less than 20% of your max HP and the character is kneeling/crouching.) Most Reaction Abilities don't always activate. In most cases, the chance of a Reaction Ability activating is equal to the character's Bravery. If "Yes" is displayed under Bravery ("BRV"), the chance of the Reaction Ability activating is equal to your Bravery. If "No" is displayed, Bravery does not affect the Reaction Ability; the ability either ALWAYS works, or is affected by something else listed in the description for that ability. Reaction Abilities can never be used in response to other Reaction Abilities. For example, you can't use Counter someone else's Counter attack, or use Mana Shield or Auto-Potion to defend against Magick Counter or Soulbind. ---SUPPORT AND MOVEMENT ABILITIES--- Support and Movement Abilities are pretty straightforward. ---INNATE ABILITIES--- A few jobs have abiities that are automatically in effect and don't need to be equipped. For example, the Ninja doesn't need to equip Dual Wield to use two weapons. You only need to learn Dual Wield for when you change to a different job and want to retain that ability. ---RECOMMENDED ABILITIES--- Some abilities have been marked with *. A * here means the ability is (in my usually inaccurate opinion) one of the job's best. ---LEARNING MAGICK FROM BEING HIT--- A & next to an ability's JP cost indicates that this magick ability can also be learned if the character is hit with the magick. (Each time you're hit, there's only a random chance of learning the ability.) For more information on this and a list of all the abilities and their learning rates, see the "Learning Magick from Being Hit" section (Ctrl+F and 00hit to jump there). The Ultima and Zodiark magicks can ONLY be learned this way. %%%STANDARD JOBS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00job1 ---SQUIRE----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : none Level up to unlock : Job Lv 2 - Knight, Archer Job Lv 6 - Onion Knight (also needs Chemist) Job Lv 8 - Mime (also needs Chem., Sum., Ora., Geo., Drag.) Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, axes, flails Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: C- MP: D+ Phys. Atk.: C- Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: ** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Fundaments-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Focus 0 -- Slf 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. 100% hit rate. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison. 100% hit rate. The damage from Rush and Stone increases (though not by much) if you have the Monk's Brawler ability equipped. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Counter Tackle Phys. attack Yes 180 Counterattack using Rush --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Equip Axes 170 Equip Axes regardless of current job Beastmaster 200 Monsters in adjacent tiles gain an extra ability. (Limited to vertical range of 3.) Defend 50 Allows use of Defend action to double evade rate until next turn * JP Boost 250 Raises JP received by the unit by 50% --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Move +1 200 Movement range + 1 JP to master: 1670 --MY THOUGHTS-- Squires are what you'd expect from a starting job -- functional, but nothing all that special. Abilities like Counter Tackle and Stone can be somewhat useful early on, but are soon supplanted by superior ones. And while the Squire's stats aren't *bad*, they're not all that great either. Three key abilities from the Squire job are Move +1, JP Boost, and Focus. Move +1 is a great all-purpose movement ability though, and definitely worth learning before you move on from Squire to other jobs, most of which have a movement range of only 3 (compared to Squire's 4). Having a good movement range helps you keep up with the battle. Of course, Move +1 will eventually be supplanted by Move +2 and +3, but it may be some time before you get those. JP Boost is also great for helping you learn other abilities quickly, especially when you switch to a new job and need to quickly gain JP for it. It's a great investment to learn JP Boost early on since it can make every subsequent battle more rewarding. And if you're into grinding levels, the Focus ability can be used repeatedly to build up experience and JP. Since Rush and Stone do so little damage, you can use them to attack friendly units in order to remove one of the status ailments that can be cured by being hit with a physical attack: Sleep, Charm, and Confuse. (You'll see the enemy AI use this tactic a lot.) They also have a high chance of knocking the target backwards, which you can use to knock enemies off high ledges for extra damage, or to push your own units out of the effect radius of a enemy magick that's still being charged up. However, it's rarely worth filling your Action Ability slot with Fundaments just for this capability. Although Squires can wield flails and axes, these weapons are somewhat unreliable since they deal variable damage. If you want to know exactly how much damage you'll do, stick with swords. ---CHEMIST---------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : none Level up to unlock : Job Lv 2 - White Mage, Black Mage Job Lv 6 - Onion Knight (also needs Squire) Job Lv 8 - Mime (also needs Squi., Sum., Ora., Geo., Drag.) Equippable weapons: Knives, guns Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 3 Innate ability: Throw Items Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: D+ Phys. Atk.: D+ Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: * Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- HP/MP restored : PWR (user's stats are irrelevant!) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Potion 0 30 1/* 1/- Any Y 30 HP restore; uses up 1 Potion * Hi-Potion 0 70 1/* 1/- Any Y 200 HP restore; uses up 1 Hi-Potion * X-Potion 0 150 1/* 1/- Any Y 300 HP restore; uses up 1 X-Potion Ether 0 20 1/* 1/- Any Y 300 MP restore; uses up 1 Ether * Hi-Ether 0 50 1/* 1/- Any Y 400 MP restore; uses up 1 Hi-Ether Elixir 0 ALL 1/* 1/- Any Y 900 HP/MP restore; uses up 1 Elixir Antidote 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 70 Cures Poison; uses 1 Antidote Eye Drops 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 80 Cures Blind; uses 1 Eye Drops Echo Herbs 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 120 Cures Silence; uses up 1 Echo Herbs Maiden's Kiss 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 200 Cures Toad; uses up 1 Maiden's Kiss Gold Needle 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 250 Cures Stone; uses 1 Gold Needle Holy Water 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 400 Cures Undead and Vampire; uses up 1 Holy Water * Remedy 0 -- 1/* 1/- Any Y 700 Cures Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Toad, Poison, and Sleep; uses up 1 Remedy * Phoenix Down 0 <20 1/* 1/- Any Y 90 Revives KOed character with minimal HP; uses 1 Ph. Down All Items abilities require you to have the corresponding item in your inventory. One item is consumed with each use. All the items except the Elixir can be bought at the Outfitter, although some do not become available until later in the game. All Items abilities have a 100% hit rate. The Throw Items ability (innate in the Chemist job, and equippable for other jobs) extends the range of all Items abilities from 1 to 4. Versus Undead targets, all Potions do damage, and Phoenix Down works as an instant KO attack. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Auto-Potion Any HP loss Yes 400 Use weakest potion available on self --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Throw Items 350 Increases horizontal range of Items command from 1 to 4 * Safeguard 250 Equipment can't be broken or stolen Reequip 0 Allows use of Reequip action to change unit's equipment (but consumes turn) --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Treasure Hunter 100 Allows you to discover any hidden items on the destination tile, which are then added to your inventory. Your chance of getting a more valuable item increases with LOW Bravery. JP to master: 5140 --MY THOUGHTS-- Despite being a "basic" job, Chemists are great! Items are great for healing because they don't take any time to charge and have a 100% hit rate. Ethers and Hi-Ethers are also two of the few abilities that can recover MP. And, since the strength of items doesn't depend on your Magick Attack or Faith, you can assign the Items ability even to a character with low magick ability. The only real downside is that items can only heal one character at a time. Chemists are also one of two standard jobs that can equip guns. Once you're able to buy guns (late in Chapter II), Chemists will have a range attack, giving them something else to do when the team doesn't need healing. When you're ready to switch your Chemist to another job, be sure to learn Throw Items and then equip it after you switch jobs. Otherwise, your items will only have a range of 1 and won't be nearly as useful. Chemists themselves don't need to learn or equip Throw Items, as they have it as an innate ability. It's pretty safe to skip the items that cure negative status (Eye Drops, etc.); you don't have to face these status conditions all that often. Save your JP and just learn Remedy. Once Remedies become available (midway through Chapter II), they duplicate the effects of ALL the other status-curing items. The one exception is Holy Water, but there's really only one or two points where you have to worry about being hit with the Undead or Vampire conditions. Safeguard is an important support ability, especially later in the game when you have rare equipment that you can't buy in stores. You don't want that being broken or stolen! Although you don't need to equip Safeguard all the time, it's good to have on hand for particular battles where the enemies are apt to break or steal your equipment. The Auto-Potion reaction ability allows you to use potions when hit. Although you normally just use regular Potions, if you discard all Potions from your inventory, you can use Hi-Potions or X-Potions instead to recover up to 150 HP per hit! Auto-Potion does require you to survive the initial hit before you can heal yourself, but it's effective against all kind of attacks, even those that can't be blocked with other reaction abilities. This makes Auto-Potion one of the better reaction abilities, especially early in the game. The Treasure Hunter movement ability, on the other hand, isn't all that useful during the main game. Most of the items you find from it are nothing special. However, in the game's sidequests, Treasure Hunter will net you some rare items you can't find anywhere else, so at that point you'll definitely want to have at least one character learn Treasure Hunter. (Preferably, give it someone with low Bravery, as this increases your chance of getting good items with it.) ---KNIGHT----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Squire (job lv. 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Monk Job Lv 4 - Samurai (also needs Monk & Dragoon) Mastered - Dark Knight (also needs B.Mag, Geo., Drag., Sam., Ninja, 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 10% Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: C- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Arts of War-- Item break success : Physical Attack + PWR + Weapon strength Stat decrease success : Physical Attack + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Rend Helm 0 45 Weapon Any Y 300 Destroys target's headgear Rend Armor 0 40 Weapon Any Y 400 Destroys target's armor Rend Shield 0 55 Weapon Any Y 300 Destroys target's shield * Rend Weapon 0 30 Weapon Any Y 400 Destroys target's weapon * Rend MP 0 50 Weapon Any Y 250 Lowers target's MP (by 1/2 of target's maximum MP) * Rend Speed 0 50 Weapon Any Y 250 Lowers target's Speed by 2 * Rend Power 0 50 Weapon Any Y 250 Lowers target's Phys. Atk. by 3 Rend Magick 0 50 Weapon Any Y 250 Lowers target's Mag. Atk. by 3 When combined with the Dual Wield support ability and Dual Wielded weapons, Arts of War fires twice per use. If Rend Helm, Armor, Shield, or Weapon is used against a target not equipped with that type of item, it functions as a physical attack instead. This is useful when you Dual Wield and succeed in rending the item on the first strike. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Parry Phys. attack No 200 Block physical attacks with weapon; rate of success is equal to current weapon's Block Rate (see weapon list). Not effective against rear attacks. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Equip Heavy Armor 500 Can equip heavy armor and helmets regardless of job Equip Shields 250 Can equip shields regardless of job * Equip Swords 400 Can equip swords regardless of job (does not apply to knight's swords or fell swords) --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 3750 --MY THOUGHTS-- The Knight is the main fighting job early in the game. It has a good HP, Physical Attack, and Move range. Knights also have great equipment choices; aside from swords, heavy armor, and shields, they are one of the few jobs that can equip knight's swords, the game's most powerful weapons. (The only other standard job that can use knight's swords is the Dark Knight, which has quite a few prerequisites to unlock.) Given their good stats, Knights are also a useful job late in the game, when you've learned all the abilities you want and now just want to maximize your characters' power (and equip your knight's swords!). The Knight's equipment choices can be transferred to other jobs with its support abilities. Equip Heavy Armor helps make vulnerable jobs tougher. Equip Swords is quite useful for the many story characters (and Dark Knights!) who need to have a sword equipped in order to use their special abilities. With Equip Sword, you can use these abilities even if you've switched to a job that can't normally use swords. Unfortunately, Equip Swords only lets you use regular swords, not knight's swords. The Arts of War abilities are only moderately useful as Knight. They have only moderate accuracy and if you're close enough to use them, you'll often want to just start attacking and KO the enemy rather than mess with his/her stats. However, pairing Arts of War with a gun (e.g. by using the Orator's Equip Guns ability) or the Archer's bows lets you use these attacks at a distance, which makes them quite useful. You can break your enemies' weapons before they can get close enough to use them! You can also use Arts of War when trying to grinding levels or searching for Treasure Hunter items on the battlefield. Use Arts of War to whittle the enemy's Speed and attack power down to nothing, and you're free to do pretty much anything you want without fear of harm. Note that the four abilities that break enemy items depend on both your Physical Attack stat and the strength of your weapon. The other four depend on just your Physical Attack, and your weapon strength is irrelevant. ---ARCHER----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Squire (job lv. 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Thief Job Lv 4 - Ninja (also needs Thief & Geomancer) Equippable weapons: Bows, crossbows Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, hats, clothes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 10% Stats When Active Job: HP: C- MP: D Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Aim-- Damage inflicted : Depends on weapon type (see weapon list) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Aim +1 4 -- Weapon Any Y 100 Charge attack for more damage * Aim +2 5 -- Weapon Any Y 150 Charge attack for more damage * Aim +3 6 -- Weapon Any Y 200 Charge attack for more damage Aim +4 8 -- Weapon Any Y 250 Charge attack for more damage Aim +5 10 -- Weapon Any Y 300 Charge attack for more damage Aim +7 14 -- Weapon Any Y 400 Charge attack for more damage Aim +10 20 -- Weapon Any Y 700 Charge attack for more damage Aim +20 35 -- Weapon Any Y 1200 Charge attack for more damage Each of these Aim abilities does more damage than the previous one, but also takes longer to charge. (e.g., Aim +4 does more damage than Aim +3, but requires more clock ticks to charge). If the enemy you're targeting moves while you're charging, your attack will miss. Aim does NOT prevent enemies from evading or blocking your attacks, despite its name (and the effect of Aim in other Final Fantasy games). Swiftness does NOT make Aim activate more quickly. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Adrenaline Rush Any HP loss Yes 900 Raise Speed by 1. Duration: Battle. * Archer's Bane Arrow attack Yes 450 Evade bow / crossbow attacks --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Equip Crossbows 350 Can equip crossbows regardless of job (does not apply to regular bows) * Concentration 400 Prevents enemies from evading your physical attacks --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Jump +1 200 Jump height + 1 JP to master: 5600 --MY THOUGHTS-- Archers make a very valuable addition to your team early in the game, when you have few other range attacks. Later in the game, as you acquire guns, sword techniques, and other ranged attacks, Archers become less useful. For one thing, their Aim command is of limited value. The high Aims (Aim +10, etc.) take too long to charge and there's rarely any enemy you can target with them. Plus, while charging an Aim attack, you take more damage and can't evade attacks. The short Aims will increase your damage a little and are worth using as an Archer when you have the chance. But, Aim doesn't increase your offense enough to ever make it worth choosing when it comes to picking a secondary Action Ability for another job. Archer's Bane, though, is a great reaction ability against enemy Archers. With a high Bravery, you're almost impervious to arrows! Since you'll fight Archers in quite a few battles throughout the game, this is a good ability to learn early on. Later on, it becomes completely superseded by Shirahadori, which (despite what the game says) blocks BOTH close-ranged and bow attacks. Always equip your Archers with the 2-handed longbows rather than crossbows. Longbows do more damage, have a longer range, and don't need a direct line of fire. Crossbows do let you equip a shield at the same time, but since your Archers should be on the back line anyway, they don't need shields that much. Archers are the ONLY standard job that can equip longbows. The Equip Crossbows ability only let other jobs use crossbows (not longbows), which makes this ability of dubious value since crossbows are not so good. ---MONK------------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Knight (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 4 - Geomancer Job Lv 5 - Samurai (also needs Knight & Dragoon) Equippable weapons: none Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Clothes Jump height : 4 Innate ability: Brawler Physical evade : 20% Stats When Active Job: HP: B MP: C- Phys. Atk.: B Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: B Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Martial Arts-- Damage (Pummel) : 3.0 x Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) Damage (others) : 0.5 x Physical Attack x (Physical Attack + PWR) Success rate (D. Fist): Magick Attack + PWR Success rate (others) : Physical Attack + PWR Healing (Chakra) : Physical Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Cyclone 0 0 Self 2/0 Any - 150 Non-elemental physical attack Pummel 0 9 1/1 1/- Any - 300 Non-elemental physical attack Aurablast 0 2 3/3 1/- Any N 300 Non-elemental physical attack * Shockwave 0 0 4Dir 8/2 Any N 600 Earth physical attack Doom Fist 0 50 1/0 1/- Any - 300 Causes Doom status (enemy is KOed after 3 turns) * Purification 0 120 Slf 2/0 Any - 200 Removes Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Sleep, Immobilize, and Disable * Chakra 0 5 Self 2/0 Any - 350 Restores some HP and MP. Amt of MP restored = 1/2 of amt of HP restored. * Revive 0 70 1/0 1/- Any - 500 Revives KOed character with 20% of max HP Unlike White Magicks and Items, the Monk's healing abilities HEAL Undead targets rather than damaging them. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Critical: Critical HP Yes 500 Restores HP completely Recover HP * Counter Phys. Attack Yes 300 Attack enemy with a standard physical attack * First Strike Attack command Yes 1300 Cancels enemy's Attack command and you attack enemy instead. Only works if enemy is within your range. Does NOT work against generic monsters. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Brawler 200 Raises unarmed attack strength. Also increases effectiveness of Martial Arts abilities, success rate of Steal, and strength of Squire's Rush and Stone. Does NOT increase attack strength if you have a weapon equipped, but still benefits Fundaments, Steal, and Martial Arts. --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Lifefont 300 Restores 1/10 of your max HP if you move at least 1 tile on your turns JP to master: 5300 --MY THOUGHTS-- Monks rock! In my opinion, they have the best selection of abilities in the game. Shockwave and to a lesser extent Aurablast are decent offensive abilities. This offensive potential is combined with three great healing abilities that don't require any charge time: Chakra can restore HP *AND* MP to a group, Revive revives KOed characters and usually has an 80+% hit rate, and Purification cures a number of status conditions for a group. This makes Martial Arts a great command to have, as it packs both offensive and defensive abilities into a single ability slot. The one drawback is that most Martial Arts abilities, including the healing ones, work only over a small vertical range. You can't Revive someone at a different height than you, for instance. Monks also have great reaction abilities. Counter is a great reaction ability to have in almost all situations. Getting counterattacks in response to enemy attacks lets you do a LOT more damage. Against humans, First Strike is even better; it cancels the enemy's attack outright. But, First Strike is not effective against generic monster attacks, so don't use it when you're traveling the map and will just be facing random battles. (First Strike *is* effective against monster-like bosses and other "special" monsters.) Critical: Recover HP can be moderately useful too since it can restore your HP to full and save a critically wounded character, but many attacks can KO you outright and never even put you in critical HP. Another advantage of Monks is that they have good stats: they have a high Physical Attack and are pretty speedy. Consider pairing their attack with the Ninja's Dual Wield to get two punches and double your damage! The Monk's biggest weakness is that they can't equip much in the way of armor. Equip Heavy Armor can be a good remedy for that. Female Monks can also benefit from the ability to equip hair adornments (acquired later in the game), which will at least add a few HPs and some status protection. ---WHITE MAGE------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Chemist (job lv. 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Mystic Job Lv 5 - Arithmetician (also needs B.Mag, T.Mag, Mystic) Equippable weapons: Staves Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: A- Phys. Atk.: C- Mag. Atk.: C Speed: B Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --Action Abilities: White Magicks-- Healing/damage : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Cure 6 RA 4 14 4/* 2/1 Any N 50 Restores HP * Cura 10RA 5 20 4/* 2/1 Any N 180 Restores HP * Curaga 16RA 7 30 4/* 2/2 Any N 450 Restores HP Curaja 20RA 10 40 4/* 2/3 Any N 800& Restores HP * Raise 10RA 4 180 4/* 1/- Any N 200 May revive KOed character with half of maximum HP * Arise 20RA 10 160 4/* 1/- Any N 600 May revive KOed character with full HP Reraise 16RA 7 140 3/* 1/- Any N 1000 Gives Reraise status (return once from KO) Regen 8 RA 4 170 3/* 2/0 Any N 350 Gives Regen status (restores 1/8 of max HP each turn). Duration: 36 ticks. * Protect 6 RA 4 200 3/* 2/0 Any N 70 Gives Protect status (decreases physical damage received). Duration: 32 ticks. Protectja 24 7 120 3/* 2/3 Any N 600 Gives Protect status * Shell 6 RA 4 200 3/* 2/0 Any N 70 Gives Shell status (decreases magick damage received). Duration: 32 ticks. Shellja 20 7 120 3/* 2/3 Any N 600 Gives Shell status Wall 24RA 4 140 3/* 1/- Any N 400 Gives both Protect and Shell status Esuna 18RA 3 190 3/* 2/2 Any N 300 Cures Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Sleep, Immobilize, and/or Disable * Holy 56RA 6 50 5/* 1/- Any N 600 Holy magick attack Versus Undead targets, Cure magicks deal damage, Arise works as an instant KO attack, and Raise does damage equal to half of the target's max HP. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Regenerate Any HP loss Yes 400 Gain Regen status (restores HP each turn). Duration: 36 ticks. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Arcane Defense 400 Lowers damage received from magicks by 33% and lowers success rate of status attack magicks. Also works for other abilities that depend on the Magick Attack stat, like Iaido, Geomancy, and Limit. --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 7070 --MY THOUGHTS-- White Mages are, of course, a healing oriented job; Holy is their only real offensive spell. However, in my opinion, they tend not to be as effective on defense as Chemists. Unlike items, White Magicks consume MP and need time to charge up. The charge time is particularly problematic if an ally has just been hit for a lot of damage and you need to patch him/her up right away -- you might not have time to wait! The GOOD side to White Mages is that they can heal more than one character at a time, since most of their magicks affect more than one tile. (But, you can also do this to a lesser extent with the Monk's Chakra.) White Mages can also cast a few other "buffing" magicks like Protect and Shell, though these may miss if you have low Faith or Magick Attack! Their Arise spell is also capable of restoring a character at full HP, which Phoenix Down or a Monk's Revive cannot do. They are also the fastest of the mage jobs. White Magicks can also be used an offensive weapon against undead enemies, though there aren't too many undead enemies and most are pretty easy anyway. Besides, you can use Chemists' Items to hurt undead enemies too! Protectja and Shellja are spectacularly bad abilities. Compared to Protect and Shell, they are LESS likely to work, yet require more MP and charge time! Don't waste your JP. Overall, the charge times and MP costs associated with White Magick make Chemists a better choice for much of the game. If you're likely to get any use out of White Mages, it's probably in the early stages of the game, when you'll frequently face barrages of weak attacks spread out against your team. Then, the ability to heal multiple characters at once is important. If you acquire an Arithmetician, though, you'll definitely want to go back and learn some White Magicks. Using Arithmeticks with White Magicks is the best way to mass-heal your allies; you can even cast Arise to revive multiple KOed allies at the same time! Holy is also the strongest attack magick that can be cast with Arithmeticks -- even stronger than Flare! And if you equip your own party with items that absorb holy damage (like the Chameleon Robe or Excalibur), you can use an Arithmeticked Holy to both damage the enemy and heal yourself a lot! Holy does, however, have a pretty long animation that can get tedious when it's being cast on many targets. Curaja is one of the magicks that you may (randomly) learn when it is succesfully cast on you. This makes it very easy to transfer between characters once one character has learned it. Just turn everyone into White Mages and heal them with it until they learn it. (You do have to recover at least 1 HP to have a chance of learning it.) ---BLACK MAGE------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Chemist (job lv. 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Time Mage Job Lv 5 - Arithmetician (also needs W.Mag, T.Mag, Mystic) Mastered - Dark Knight (also needs Knight, Geo., Drag., Sam., Ninja, 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Rods Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: A- Phys. Atk.: D Mag. Atk.: B Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: ***** Phys. Atk.: ** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Black Magicks-- Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Status attack success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fire 6 RA 4 14 4/* 2/1 All N 50 Fire magick attack Fira 12RA 5 18 4/* 2/2 All N 200 Fire magick attack Firaga 24RA 7 24 4/* 2/3 All N 500 Fire magick attack Firaja 48 10 32 4/* 3/3 All N 900& Fire magick attack * Thunder 6 RA 4 14 4/* 2/1 All N 50 Lightning magick attack * Thundara 10RA 5 18 4/* 2/2 All N 200 Lightning magick attack * Thundaga 24RA 7 24 4/* 2/3 All N 500 Lightning magick attack Thundaja 48 10 32 4/* 3/3 All N 900& Lightning magick attack * Blizzard 6 RA 4 14 4/* 2/1 All N 50 Ice magick attack * Blizzara 12RA 5 18 4/* 2/2 All N 200 Ice magick attack * Blizzaga 24RA 7 24 4/* 2/3 All N 500 Ice magick attack Blizzaja 48 10 32 4/* 3/3 All N 900& Ice magick attack Poison 6 RA 3 160 4/* 2/2 All N 150 Causes Poison status. Duration: 36 ticks. * Toad 12RA 5 120 3/* 1/- All N 500 Causes Toad status, or cures Toad status if target already a Toad. Duration: Battle. Death 24RA 10 100 4/* 1/- All N 600 Instant KO. When used on undead units, restores all HP Flare 60RA 7 46 5/1 1/- All N 1000 Non-elemental magick attack --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Magick Counter Magick attack Yes 800 Counterattack with same magick (even if you haven't learned it!). Works regardless of distance. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- * Arcane Strength 400 Increases damage inflicted/HP restored by your magicks by 33%, and increases success rate of status attack magicks. Also works for other abilities that depend on your Magick Attack stat, like Iaido, Geomancy, and Limit. --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 8400 --MY THOUGHTS-- When it comes to magick, Black Mages are the mythril standard. They have a lot of MP (second only to Summoner in standard jobs, and third to Summoners and Beowulf's Templar job overall), and THE highest magick strength of any human. Plus, they can equip rods that boost their magick abilities even further, and their Arcane Strength makes their magick do more damage. In other words, the magick abilities of other jobs get even stronger when used by a Black Mage. A great strategy is to learn spells from other jobs, then turn your character into a Black Mage. (Or, even better, learn Arithmeticks and then turn into a Black Mage so you can cast ALL spells at high power!) They're the best magick job available. So, how about Black Mages' own magicks? Well, Black Magicks tend to be pretty useful--especially early in the game, when you have few other abilities that can attack multiple enemies. The Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder families of magick all do the same amounts of raw damage under normal circumstances. They differ only in their elemental affinities, which means they can do more or less damage in certain cases: > Fire magick does extra damage to a number of early-game monster types (Skeletons and Ghosts), but it gets weaker during thunderstorms and doesn't work against the Bomb family. (It also does more damage to enemies afflicted with Oil status, but this status condition almost never happens.) > Blizzard magick is good against many late-game monsters, but the only early- game monster family weak to ice is Goblins, which are pretty easy anyway. Blizzard magick gets stronger during a snowstorm, but snowstorms are very rare. > Thunder magick gets stronger during a thunderstorm, and no monsters are immune to it. But, only one monster family (Mindflayers) is weak to it. Overall, Thunder is probably your best pick early in the game. Nothing is immune to it, so you can use it against any enemy, and it gets stronger during thunderstorms, which are pretty common during the rainy months. Fire is OK too, but Skeletons and Ghosts are usually fairly easy to defeat anyway. Blizzard magicks are less useful early in the game. But, they end up being the MOST useful in Chapter IV, since late-game monsters like Malboros, Hydras, and Red Dragons are weak to ice. The Toad magick is also noteworthy. A enemy turned into a Toad can only use weak physical attacks. This status never wears off unless explicitly cured; it doesn't go away with the passing of time. This means that turning the remaining enemies into useless Toads is a great way of prolonging the battle if you want to grind stats/points or hunt for items with Treasure Hunter. The limited hit rate of Toad means you may have to try a couple times to get it to succeed, though. Magick Counter is a decent reaction ability when faced when lots of enemy mages, but there aren't really too many situations where this applies. Later in the game, Black Magicks aren't quite as effective. You'll have other abilities (like sword techniques and Iaido) that can also hit groups of enemies, and they don't consume MP and don't need to charge. The strongest Black Magicks take so long to charge that they're often impractical. The high-level Black Magicks are not even that great to use with Arithmeticks: the -ja magicks can't be used with Arithmeticks at all, and Flare does less damage than the White Mage's Holy. (One small benefit of Flare, though: its animation time is much shorter than Holy's, so it's quicker to use when finishing off weak opponents.) The Black Mage job must be Mastered to unlock Dark Knight. You can speed this process if at least one character has already learned the -ja spells; cast them on allied Black Mages and they may learn the magicks from being hit with them. See the "Learning Magick from Being Hit" section for more on this process. ---TIME MAGE-------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Black Mage (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Summoner Job Lv 4 - Arithmetician (also needs B.Mag, W.Mag, Mystic) Equippable weapons: Staves Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: A- Phys. Atk.: D- Mag. Atk.: C+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: ** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --Action Abilities: Time Magicks-- Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Haste 8 RA 2 180 3/* 2/0 Any N 100 Gives Haste status (speeds CT gauge). Duration: 32 ticks. Hasteja 30 7 240 3/* 2/3 Any N 600& Gives Haste status Slow 8 RA 2 180 3/* 2/0 Any N 80 Inflicts Slow status (slows CT gauge). Duration: 32 ticks. Slowja 30RA 7 240 3/* 2/3 Any N 600& Inflicts Slow status * Stop 14RA 7 110 3/* 2/0 Any N 350 Inflicts Stop status (CT gauge doesn't fill). Duration: 20 ticks. Immobilize 10RA 3 190 3/* 2/1 Any N 100 Inflicts Immobilize status. Duration: 24 ticks. Float 8 RA 2 140 4/* 2/1 Any N 200 Gives Float status (see below). Duration: Battle. Reflect 12RA 2 180 4/* 1/- Any N 300 Gives Reflect status (reflects magick). Duration: 32 ticks. Quick 24R 4 140 4/* 1/- Any N 900 Fills CT gauge - instant turn! Gravity 24RA 6 190 4/* 2/1 Any N 250 Damage = 1/4 of target's max HP * Graviga 50RA 10 120 4/* 2/3 Any N 550 Damage = 1/2 of target's max HP Meteor 70 20 40 4/* 4/3 Any N 1500 Non-elemental magick attack --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Critical: Quick Critical HP Yes 800 Fills CT gauge to 100; instant turn! * Mana Shield Any HP loss Yes 400 Damage dealt only to MP instead of HP if MP >0 --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Swiftness 1000 Halves number of clock ticks needed to charge up magicks & Limit. No benefit to Jump/Aim/Dance/Bardsong. --Movement Abilities-- ----------------------------------------------------------- * Teleport 650 Teleport to any square when moving regardless of move range, height, or obstacles/enemies in the way. Chance of failure increases with longer move distance. # Levitate 540 Permanent Float status: Can move over water, lava, fens, and minor pits as if land; immune to Earth- elemental attacks; height increases by 1. # Teleport never fails if you teleport only within your regular horizontal move range. For every additional tile beyond your move range, the chance of failure increases by 10%. Teleport always has an infinite vertical range and your Jump stat has no effect on its failure rate. JP to master: 8920 --MY THOUGHTS-- Time Mages play a support role, casting magicks to assist allies or keep the enemies from acting. They have no healing abilities and their few direct offensive abilities take a long time to charge, making them impractical in most combat situations. So, it's probably a good idea to supplement the Time Mage with a secondary Action Ability set from another job. White or Black Magicks are good choices. The Samurai's Iaido, if available, also works well since it's boosted by the Time Mage's high magick attack but saves your MP for Time Magick. Having high Faith is also very important for a Time Mage as it makes your magicks more likely to succeed. Magick Attack also plays a lesser role, but is not weighted very heavily in the formula for the success rate of Time Magicks. Time Mages have two abilities that are great to transfer to nearly any job. Teleport is one of the best movement abilities in the game (along with Move 2/3). It allows you to warp up or down large heights (duplicating all the effects of the Dragoon's Ignore Elevation), as well as to move through enemies. This completely changes how can you move around certain maps. For instance, you can teleport right up a castle wall to attack the Archers up there, or take a shortcut over the side of a cliff. This can be very helpful in a number of story battles as it lets you get the jump on range attackers. You can also conceivably use Teleport to warp long distances, but if you teleport a long distance outside of your movement range, the teleport is likely to fail and you'll end up back where you started, unable to move at all that turn. Stick to teleporting within your movement range or just 1 or 2 tiles beyond, and you'll be fine! The other great ability to transfer to other jobs is the Mana Shield reaction ability, which makes damage go to your MP instead of your HP as long as you have at least 1 MP. This isn't so good for magick users since it quickly drains your MP, but it can be great on physical fighters who weren't going to use their MP anyway. Mana Shield is especially useful if you pair it with Manafont or another ability that lets you recover MP quickly. Graviga is also a pretty good magick to use against bosses. It does damage equal to half of the target's maximum HP, no matter how that is. That's a great way to whittle down bosses with high HP (some have several thousand!). ---SUMMONER--------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Time Mage (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 5 - Mime (also needs Squ., Chem., Ora., Geo., Drag.) Job Lv 5 - Bard (also needs Orator, must be male) Equippable weapons: Staves, rods Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: A Phys. Atk.: D- Mag. Atk.: C+ Speed: D Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: ***** Phys. Atk.: * Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Summon-- Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Moogle 8 3 10 4/* 3/2 Ally N 110 "Moogle Charm": Restores HP * Shiva 24 7 20 4/* 3/2 Foe N 200 "Glacial Shards": Ice magick attack * Ramuh 24 7 20 4/* 3/2 Foe N 200 "Judgment Bolt": Lightning magick attack Ifrit 24 7 20 4/* 3/2 Foe N 200 "Infernal Blaze": Fire magick attack Titan 30 10 22 4/* 3/2 Foe N 220 "Gaia's Wrath": Earth magick attack * Golem 40 4 200 All allies N 500 "Earthen Wall": Blocks physical attacks targeting allies until its HP damage limit is reached (ineffective against monster attacks) Carbuncle 30 5 150 4/* 3/2 Ally N 350 "Ruby Light": Gives Reflect status. Duration: 32 ticks. Bahamut 60 15 42 4/* 4/3 Foe N 1600&"Megaflare": Non-elemental magick attack Odin 50 13 36 4/* 4/3 Foe N 900& "Obliteration": Non-elemental magick attack Leviathan 48 13 34 4/* 4/3 Foe N 860& "Tidal Wave": Water magick attack Salamander 48 13 34 4/* 3/2 Foe N 860& "Wyrmfire": Fire magick attack Sylph 26 7 150 4/* 3/2 Foe N 400 "Whispering Wind": Inflicts Silence status. Duration: 36 ticks. * Faerie 28 7 20 4/* 3/2 Ally N 400 "Fey Light": Restores HP * Lich 40 10 150 4/* 3/2 Foe N 600& "Descending Darkness": Dark attack; does damage equal to 1/2 of target's maximum HP * Cyclops 62 12 44 4/* 3/2 Foe N 1000&"Climactic Fear": Non-elemental magick attack Zodiark 99 17 90 4/* 4/3 Foe N --& "Darkening Cloud": Non-elementl magick attack When Summons are used, a special attack name (not just the name of the Esper) is displayed -- these are listed in quotation marks above. Moogle and Faerie do damage to Undead allies. The Zodiark summon cannot be purchased with JP; it must be learned from the boss on the last floor of the bonus dungeon. See the Midlight's Deep walkthrough for more tips on how to learn it. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Critical: Critical HP Yes 400 Restores MP to maximum Recover MP --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Halve MP 1000 Halves MP cost of abilities --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 9800 --MY THOUGHTS-- While summons don't have quite the power in FF Tactics as they do in some other FF games, they're still strong. Broadly speaking, Summons require more MP and charge time than a Black or White Magick of equivalent strength. But, Summons have a wider effect radius and can reach more targets. And, unlike Black and White Magick, there's no "friendly fire" -- Summons don't hurt your teammates or heal the enemies. They only hit the targets they're "supposed" to. The Summon command also offers you a nice mix of both offensive abilities and a few defensive ones: Moogle and Faerie restore HP, and the very useful Golem summon blocks all enemy physical attacks for a while. The Lich summon is also particularly effective against many of the game's major bosses; it always takes away half their maximum HP despite their high HP totals. For high damage dealing, Cyclops is generally best; aside from the hiden Zodiark summon, it's the most damaging summon. Bahamut and Odin do have a wider range, but they are less powerful and take longer to charge. Leviathan and Salamander are flat-out terrible buys; they require the same charge time as Odin but do less damage. The disadvantages of Summons are that they take quite a while to charge and cost a fair amount of MP. The former could be remedied with the Time Mage's Swiftness ability, which halves their charge time. MP costs can be dealt with using the Summoner's own Halve MP support ability to decrease MP costs, with equipment that boosts your max MP (all robes, and some hats), or with the Chemist's Ethers & Hi-Ethers. There are also some abilities that let you gain MP from your enemies: The Mystic's Absorb MP lets you absorb MP from enemy magicks, or you could also pair Summon with Mystic Arts to use Empowerment to steal enemy's MP. (Orlandeau's Duskblade and Beowulf's Syphon can also steal MP.) Unfortunately, you can't equip *both* Swiftness and Halve MP as they use the same support ability slot, but you could pair Swiftness with MP-boosting equipment, Items, Empowerment, or Absorb MP. If you want to use Summoner as one of your Mastered jobs for the purposes of powering up Onion Knight, note that Summoner isn't considered Mastered until you learn Zodiark. ---THIEF------------------------------------------------------------------------ Required jobs : Archer (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 4 - Dragoon Job Lv 5 - Ninja (also needs Archer & Geomancer) Equippable weapons: Knives Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 4 Physical evade : 25% Stats When Active Job: HP: D+ MP: D- Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: D- Speed: B Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: *** --ABILITIES-- Success (Steal Heart) : Magick Attack + PWR Success (others) : Speed + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Steal Gil 0 200 1/1 1/- Foe - 10 Steal small amount of gil (amount = Speed * your level) * Steal Heart 0 50 3/1 1/- Foe N 150 Inflicts Charm; only effective on monsters and opposite sex. Duration: 32 ticks. Steal Helm 0 40 1/1 1/- Foe - 350 Steal target's helmet * Steal Armor 0 35 1/1 1/- Foe - 450 Steal target's armor * Steal Shield 0 35 1/1 1/- Foe - 350 Steal target's shield * Steal Weapon 0 30 1/1 1/- Foe - 600 Steal target's weapon * Steal Accessory 0 40 1/1 1/- Foe - 500 Steal target's accessory Steal Exp 0 70 1/1 1/- Foe - 250 Steal some of target's current Exp (amount = Speed + 5) --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Vigilance Any HP loss Yes 200 Enter into "Defend" state (doubles evade rate) until your next turn. Gil Snapper Any HP loss Yes 200 Receive gil equal to HP lost Sticky Fingers Throw Yes 200 Blocks Ninja's Throw attack; thrown item is added to your inventory! --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Poach 200 Monsters KOed with physical attack are poached and disappear from the map; item becomes available at Poachers' Den --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Move +2 560 Movement range + 2 Jump +2 500 Jump height + 2 JP to master: 4520 --MY THOUGHTS-- Thieves are poor at magick and only moderately strong physically. But, boy, are they speedy! And their movement range and jump height are both 4, so they can get across the map quickly. As you might expect, this job revolves around its stealing abilities. Stealing your opponents' equipment not only cripples them, but adds items to your inventory. And while Steal Heart doesn't score any items, it's also quite useful; it's a Charm attack with a fairly good success rate. You can use it to temporarily turn enemies against their team, which gets one enemy out of your hair AND inflicts some damage on the opposing side. Steal Heart only works on the opposite gender (and monsters). So, a female Thief is somewhat more useful than a male Thief -- there are more male enemies than female ones. Move +2 is also a great movement ability and makes characters quite a bit more mobile. Note that this ability supersedes the Squire's Move +1 in every way -- there's absolutely no trade-off or downside to selecting Move +2 over Move +1 once you've learned +2. The Thief's reaction abilities, on the other hand, tend not to be too useful. Gil Snapper is worthless as the amount of gil you receive from it is so small-- the same goes for the Steal Gil action ability. Sticky Fingers is not particularly useful for the bulk of the game because you won't fight too many Ninjas and can block their throws with Shirahadori, anyway. If you like collecting rare items, Thief is definitely an important job. Stealing is the best way to get a few rare items, and Poach allows you to harvest items from monsters via the Poachers' Den. Many pieces of valuable equipment can only be obtained in the single-player game through poaching monsters. (A side note about Poach: this also has the advantage of removing monsters' bodies from the map, preventing them from getting revived.) You can also use Sticky Fingers to harvest rare weapons from high-level (90+) enemy Ninjas; the best items don't come until someone on your roster reaches level 95 or above, though. When Thieves aren't stealing, you may use them as fighters. Since they can only equip knives, though, their offense can be somewhat weak on its own. You may want to use an ability like Equip Swords to bolster their offense. Or just learn the crucial Steal abilities and Move +2 and then move onto another job. In particular, graduating your Thief to a Ninja is a good idea. The success of Steal is affected by your Speed, and Ninjas are even faster than Thieves! (Plus, Ninjas have a better Physical Attack rating, too.) ---ORATOR----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Mystic (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 5 - Mime (also needs Squ., Chem., Sum., Geo., Drag.) Job Lv 5 - Bard (also needs Summoner, must be male) Equippable weapons: Knives, guns Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Innate ability: Beast Tongue Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: D+ Phys. Atk.: D+ Mag. Atk.: D Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: * Phys. Atk.: ** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Speechcraft-- Success rate : Magick Attack + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Entice 0 20 3/3 1/- Foe N 100 Target becomes a guest ally and joins permanently after battle. (Does not work on story characters.) Stall 0 30 3/3 1/- Any N 100 Resets target's CT Praise 0 50 3/3 1/- Any N 200 Raises Bravery by 4 # Intimidate 0 90 3/3 1/- Any N 200 Lowers Bravery by 20 & * Preach 0 50 3/3 1/- Any N 200 Raises Faith by 4 # * Enlighten 0 90 3/3 1/- Any N 200 Lowers Faith by 20 & Condemn 0 30 3/3 1/- Any N 500 Causes Doom status (enemy is KOed after 3 turns) Beg 0 90 3/3 1/- Foe N 100 Receive gil from enemy Insult 0 40 3/3 1/- Any N 300 Causes Berserk status (attack power up, but can't control unit). Duration: Battle. Mimic Darlavon 0 40 3/3 2/* Any N 300 Causes Sleep status (can't do anything). Duration: 60 ticks Speechcraft abilities cannot target monsters unless the user has the Beast Tongue ability. Orators have this ability innately, but other jobs will have to equip it. # Note: 1 point of the Faith/Bravery change is permanent; the rest is just for the battle. & Note: 5 points of this Faith/Bravery change is permanent. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Earplug Speechcraft Yes 300 Cancels Speechcraft ability used on character --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Equip Guns 800 Can equip guns regardless of job Tame 500 Physical attacks will recruit monsters if they have critical HP (< 20% of max) after the attack * Beast Tongue 100 Can use Speechcraft against monsters --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 3900 --MY THOUGHTS-- Like Time Mages, Orators play a supplementary role. They have a pretty limited set of abilities and probably aren't a job that you'll want to use for general purposes. One of their key uses of the Orator is to recruit enemy units with Entice and Tame. If you want to recruit monsters onto your team, you need this job! (To recruit monsters, either use Entice + Beast Tongue, or equip Tame and hit monsters with a physical attack.) Even if you don't want to keep an enemy on your roster, you can use Entice to turn him/her to your side for the duration of one battle. This can be useful when you're outnumbered, although the low hit rate of Entice means it's a bit of a gamble. If you have a spare spot on your roster, you can also recruit enemies long enough to strip them for their equipment and then dismiss them. The other main purpose of the Orator is to adjust your Bravery and Faith statistics. Boosting your Bravery is particularly useful as it increases the strength of some weapons, makes your Reaction Ability more likely to activate, and has no negative side effects. However, you can just as easily raise your Bravery with Ramza's Steel ability, which also has the advantage that it never misses. Where Orators DO come in handy is in modifying Faith. Since Faith controls both the damage you deal with magick and receive from enemy magick, it can be advantageous to raise your magick users' Faith (making them stronger) and lower everyone else's Faith (since they won't be using magick, decreasing their Faith makes enemy magick less effective). If you want to do this, you're better off making the changes during a random battle against weaker monsters (e.g. at Mandalia Plain), where you can use Speechcraft with less enemy interference. A tough story battle is not a good place to grind Bravery and Faith. The success rate of all Speechcraft abilities, including Entice and the Bravery/Faith modifiers, depends on the Magick Attack stat. But, the Orator's Magick Attack actually isn't very high. Once you learn the Speechcraft abilities you want, you can make them more effective by switching to a job with a high Magick Attack (like Black Mage or Summoner) and equipping Speechcraft as your second Action Ability. Just remember that you won't be able to use Speechcraft on monsters without also equipping the Beast Tongue support ability. The last key Orator ability is Equip Guns. While Orators can equip guns naturally, Equip Guns lets you transfer this ability to other jobs. Having the long range of a gun can be handy for "support" jobs that aren't going to be on the front lines. You can safely skip Earplug since you'll face enemy Orators only very rarely. ---MYSTIC----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : White Mage (job lv. 3) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 3 - Orator Job Lv 5 - Arithmetician (also needs W.Mag, B.Mag, T.Mag) Equippable weapons: Staves, rods, poles, books Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: B Phys. Atk.: D- Mag. Atk.: C Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: ** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Mystic Arts-- Success rate : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Umbra 4 RA 2 200 4/* 2/1 Any N 100 Causes Blind status (doubles evade rate when attacking). Duration: Battle. * Empowerment 2 2 160 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Drains target's MP to caster. Amount = 1/3 of target MP max Invigoration 16 2 160 4/* 1/- Any N 350 Drains target's HP to caster. Amount = 1/4 of target HP max * Belief 6 RA 4 150 4/* 1/- Any N 400 Causes Faith status (unit has 100 Faith -- raises magick strength & damage taken from magicks). Duration: 32 ticks * Disbelief 6 RA 4 150 4/* 1/- Any N 400 Causes Atheist status (unit is immune to magick & can't use magicks). Duration: 32 ticks Corruption 20RA 5 100 4/* 1/- Any N 300 Causes Undead status (reverses effect of healing & drain abilities). Duration: Battle. Quiescence 16RA 3 180 4/* 1/- Any N 170 Causes Silence status (cannot use magick). Duration: 36 ticks. Fervor 16RA 5 120 4/* 1/- Any N 400 Causes Berserk status (attack pwr up, but can't control unit). Duration: Battle. * Trepidation 20RA 4 140 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Lowers Bravery by 30 Delirium 20RA 5 130 4/* 1/- Any N 400 Causes Confuse status (acts randomly). Duration: Battle. Harmony 34 A 3 200 4/* 1/- Any N 800 Removes Float, Reraise, Regen, Invisible, Protect, Shell, Haste, Faith, and Reflect. * Hesitation 10RA 5 185 4/* 2/0 Any N 100 Causes Disable status (cannot Act). Duration: 24 ticks. Repose 24RA 6 170 4/* 2/1 Any N 350 Causes Sleep status (can't do anything). Duration: 60 ticks * Induration 16RA 10 120 4/* 1/- Any N 600 Causes Stone status (can't do anything). Duration: Battle. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Absorb MP Magick Yes 250 Gain MP equal to MP cost of magick --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Defense Boost 400 Lowers physical damage received by 33% --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Ignore Weather 200 Move through swampy tiles at normal rate even if it's storming * Manafont 350 Restores 1/10 of your max MP if you move at least 1 tile on your turn JP to master: 5970 --MY THOUGHTS-- Mystics specialize in inflicting status conditions on their foes. These magicks often fail, so if you want to use this job, a character with high Faith is necessary to increase your success rate. In general, though, Mystic is just not a very useful job. They don't have much in the way of direct offense or defense, and their status affliction spells aren't really useful enough to compensate for their charge time, MP cost, and success rate. Mustadio and, later, Beowulf are much more effective at inflicting status ailments. However, Disbelief is a pretty useful magick. The Atheist status renders a unit temporarily immune to magick. Watch out, though -- it also prevents the unit from using its own magicks, so don't cast it on your mages! Conversely, Belief maximizes magick damage and the effectiveness of your own magicks. Like Time Magicks, the success of Mystic Arts is mostly dependent on Faith. So raise that Faith up if you want to use Mystic Arts effectively! One of the main Mystic abilities you may want to score is Manafont. Manafont makes for a great combo with the Time Mage's Mana Shield. Mana Shield diverts the damage you receive to your MP and (with high Bravery) prevents you from being killed as long as you've got at least 1 MP. Then, you can fill up your MP again using Manafont. Defense Boost can also be a somewhat useful support ability. Mystic Arts CAN be used with Arithmeticks once you acquire that ability. Again, in most cases you're actually better off using Arithmeticks to do direct damage. But, calculating Induration can be effective since it lets you turn multiple enemies to stone and instantly defeat them. Calculating Trepidation also lets you reduce multiple enemies' Bravery. That reduces their odds of using reaction abilities, and turns them into Chickens if their Bravery drops below 10. Ignore Weather is the game's most singularly useless ability. Its only effect is to reduce the penalty to your movement range that applies when moving through swampy tiles while there's a rainstorm or thunderstorm. This isn't anything to bother with. ---GEOMANCER-------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Monk (job lv. 4) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 2 - Ninja (also needs Archer & Thief) Job Lv 5 - Mime (also needs Squ., Chem., Sum., Ora., Drag.) Job Lv 5 - Dancer (also needs Dragoon, must be female) Job Lv 8 - Dark Knight (also needs Knight, B.Mag, Drag., Samu., Ninja, 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Swords, axes Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: Shields, hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 10% Stats When Active Job: HP: C MP: C Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Geomancy-- Damage inflicted : 0.5 x Magick Attack x (Physical Attack + 2) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sinkhole 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Non-elemental magick attack + Immobilize Torrent 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Water magick attack + Toad * Tanglevine 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Non-elemental magick + Stop * Contortion 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Non-elemental magick + Stone * Tremor 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Earth magick attack + Confuse * Wind Slash 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Wind magick attack + Disable * Will-o'-the-Wisp 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Fire magick attack + Sleep Quicksand 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Water magick attack + Doom Sandstorm 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Wind magick attack + Blind Snowstorm 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Ice magick attack + Silence Wind Blast 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Wind magick attack + Slow Magma Surge 0 -- 5/* 2/0 Any N 150 Fire magick attack + KO All Geomancy abilities have a 100% hit rate for inflicting damage, and about a 25% chance of inflicting the status condition. Raising either Physical Attack or Magick Attack will increase the strength of Geomancy abilities, but raising Magick Attack will increase the damage MORE. During battle, only one Geomancy ability is available for use at any given time. The available ability is determined by the terrain type of the tile on which the user is standing: Sinkhole : Soil, Wasteland Torrent : Canal, River, Lake, Ocean, Waterfall Tanglevine : Grassland, Underbrush, Vines Contortion : Gravel, Flagstone, Stone Wall, Earthen Wall, Gravestone Tremor : Stone Outcropping, Basalt Wind Slash : Book, Tree, Brick, Bridge, Furnishings, Iron, Moss, Coffin Will-o'-the-Wisp: Wooden Floor, Carpet, Coffer, Stairs, Wooden Deck Quicksand : Marsh, Swamp, Poisonous Fen Sandstorm : Sand, Stalactite, Salt Flat Snowstorm : Snow Wind Blast : Roof, Chimney Magma Surge : Lava, Machinery You can use the Select button help messages to check individual tiles and see what Geomancy effects they will have. All Geomancy attacks do the same amount of damage. They differ only in their elemental affinity, status condition inflicted, and associated terrain. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Nature's Wrath Phys. attack Yes 300 Counter using the Geomancy command, or Geomancy regardless of distance. Works even if you haven't bought the Geomancy ability for the tile type you're standing on. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Attack Boost 400 Raises physical attack damage by 33% --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Ignore Terrain 220 Moving through clear water does not decrease movement range. Does NOT eliminate penalty when moving through swamps during a storm. Does not protect against the poison effect of Poisonous Fens. Lavawalking 150 Can move across and stop on lava tiles JP to master: 2870 --MY THOUGHTS-- Geomancers are sort of a hybrid physical/magick job -- they're pretty decent fighters, and can also do long-range elemental and status attacks with their Geomancy. This makes the Geomancer job somewhat useful when it's first available. Geomancy doesn't cost any MP, activates instantly, and it can hit a group of enemies. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, the damage inflicted by Geomancy doesn't keep pace with enemy HP, and Geomancers quickly become less useful. Plus, there's also the disadvantage that you don't have much choice over the Geomancy attacks available at any given time -- at most, you can choose between two or three different attacks by moving to tiles with different terrain. You can't really choose a specific kind of status condition to inflict. In the long run, then, you probably won't get much use out of this job. Attack Boost, however, is a good support ability throughout the game and can be useful for any fighting-oriented job. Although the 33% increase isn't as big a boost to physical attacks as Dual Wield, Attack Boost also increases the power of other "special" physical attacks like sword techniques, which Dual Wield does not. If you do you want to use Geomancy, Tanglevine, Contortion, Tremor, Wind Slash, and Will-o'-the-Wisp are the most important ones to grab as they will cover most of the game's terrain. Lavawalking is a spectacularly useless ability. Only a single, optional map has lava on it, and it's usually a fairly easy battle anyway. But, hey, it's only 150 JP, what a steal! ---DRAGOON---------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Thief (job lv. 4) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 2 - Samurai (also needs Knight & Monk) Job Lv 5 - Mime (also needs Squ., Chem., Sum., Ora., Geo.) Job Lv 5 - Dancer (also needs Geomancer, must be female) Job Lv 8 - Dark Knight (also needs Knight, B.Mag, Geo., Samu., Ninja, 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Polearms Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Jump height : 4 Physical evade : 10% Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: D- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: F Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Jump-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x Weapon strength, plus 50% bonus if you have a polearm equipped Charge time : (50 / Speed) ticks RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Horizontal Jump 2 2/ 1/- Any N 150 Horizontal range of Jump is 1-2 Horizontal Jump 3 3/ 1/- Any N 350 Horizontal range of Jump is 1-3 Horizontal Jump 4 4/ 1/- Any N 550 Horizontal range of Jump is 1-4 Horizontal Jump 5 5/ 1/- Any N 800 Horizontal range of Jump is 1-5 * Horizontal Jump 8 8/ 1/- Any N 1100 Horizontal range of Jump is 1-8 * Vertical Jump 2 /2 1/- Any N 100 Vertical range of Jump is 2 Vertical Jump 3 /3 1/- Any N 250 Vertical range of Jump is 3 Vertical Jump 4 /4 1/- Any N 400 Vertical range of Jump is 4 Vertical Jump 5 /5 1/- Any N 550 Vertical range of Jump is 5 Vertical Jump 6 /6 1/- Any N 700 Vertical range of Jump is 6 * Vertical Jump 7 /7 1/- Any N 1000 Vertical range of Jump is 7 Vertical Jump 8 /8 1/- Any N 1500 Vertical range of Jump is 8 The Jump command causes the user to temporarily disappear from the battlefield (by jumping off the screen). While off screen, the user is invincible, and his/her tile cannot be moved into. On return, the user strikes the targeted tile with a physical attack, then bounces back to his/her original tile. Jump only targets PANELS, so if the enemy has moved out of the targeted tile by the time you strike, the attack will MISS. However, Jump does NOT require an unobstructed line of fire between you and the target tile. Initially, Jump has a horizontal range of 1 and a vertical range of 1. All the action abilities simply extend the maximum horizontal range or vertical range of the Jump command. Jump cannot be evaded and always has a 100% hit rate, except when the target has Shirahadori. A Jump attack CAN be Countered, if your starting location is within range of the enemy's weapon. The Jump command can be used with any weapon type, but you'll receive a 50% BONUS to the damage dealt by Jump if you're equipped with a polearm. Using Dual Wield or Doublehand does NOT increase the damage from Jump. The number of clock ticks required for a Jump attack to activate is equal to 50 divided by the user's Speed statistic. If you want to determine for sure whether or not your Jump will strike before the enemy moves, first calculate the number of ticks your Jump will take (50 divided by your Speed). Then, look at the enemy's current CT and Speed. Calculate the number of CT points left to reach 100, and then divided that by the enemy's Speed stat (rounded up). That's the number of clock ticks until the enemy's next turn. If that number is greater than or equal to the number of ticks until Jump strikes, the enemy will have no chance to move away from your Jump and you can land the hit. Haste and Swiftness do NOT make Jump strike any more quickly. The Jump command cannot be used when you are standing directly underneath a tile at a higher elevation. It also can't target any enemies who happen to be standing on a tile like that. This is only an issue on a very small number of maps. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Dragonheart Phys. Attack Yes 600 Cast Reraise on self (return once from KO automatically) --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Equip Polearms 400 Can equip Polearms regardless of job --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Ignore Elevation 700 Infinite jump height in movement JP to master: 9150 --MY THOUGHTS-- Dragoons are sort of a souped-up Knight. They have comparable HP and attack power and can equip heavy armor, and their polearms also have a range of two tiles. This long-range attack allows them to attack monsters without a fear of counterattack. Be careful, though -- polearms CAN be countered if you're using them at close range, or if the enemy has a similarly ranged weapon. On the downside, polearms don't give you the nice buffs of a knight's sword and don't allow you to use sword techniques from the Dark Knight and special story jobs. Dragoons also have the great Jump attack, which does a good amount of damage, has a potentially HUGE range (if you've learned the top Horizontal and Vertical Jump abilities), and puts the Dragoon temporarily out of harm's way. Just make sure your target doesn't have time to move out of the way before you strike! Unfortunately, you can't preview the exact CT list for a Jump attack like you can with magicks, but you can look at the enemy CT gauges when selecting a target. Don't target any enemy who has a high CT gauge, especially if your character is relatively slow. A tip about learning the Jump action abilities: Each Horizontal Jump or Vertical Jump ability replaces all the ones below it. In other words, if you have Horizontal Jump 8, you can do a jump of 1-8 panels; you don't need to learn any other remaining Horizontal Jumps. So, a good strategy is to just learn one or two of the early Horizontal and Vertical Jump abilities (like 2 or 3) to give yourself a decent Jump in the meantime, then save up your JP for Horizontal Jump 8 and Vertical Jump 8. Don't waste your JP building up your range one ability at a time. It's best to learn Horizontal Jump 8 before Vertical Jump 8 because a good horizontal range is most important; in most cases you don't need *that* great a vertical range to Jump. Dragonheart and Ignore Elevation are also useful abilities, though neither is essential. Dragonheart gives you a Reraise when physically attacked, and Ignore Elevation is helpful for taking shortcuts up and down towers and cliffs. But, the Time Mage's Teleport has the same benefits as Ignore Elevation plus more, so Ignore Elevation is kind of redundant. The only reason to learn Ignore Elevation is if you've been building a melee-oriented character and don't want to spend time earning JP as a Time Mage -- and, in fact, it can be quite useful for this purpose. ---SAMURAI---------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Knight (job lv. 4), Monk (job lv. 5) & Dragoon (job lv. 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 8 - Dark Knight (also needs Knight, B.Mag, Geo., Drag., Ninja, 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Katanas Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Helms, armor, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 20% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: C Phys. Atk.: B Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --Action Abilities: Iaido-- Damage/healing : Magick Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ashura 0 8 Self 3/3 Foe N 100 "Spirit Blade": Non-elemental magick attack Kotetsu 0 12 Self 3/3 Foe N 200 "Binding Darkness": Non- elemental magick attack Osafune 0 4 Self 3/3 Foe N 300 "Verse of Oblivion": Lowers enemy MP * Murasame 0 12 Self 3/3 Ally N 400 "Rain of Wisdom": Restores HP (but damages Undead allies) Ama-no-Murakumo 0 14 Self 3/3 Foe N 500 "Cloudsea Curse": Non-elemental magick attack, causes Slow * Kiyomori 0 -- Self 3/3 Ally N 600 "Purifying Breeze": Gives both Protect and Shell status. * Muramasa 0 18 Self 3/3 Foe N 700 "Doomed Aspirations": Non- elemental magick attack, causes Confuse and Doom * Kiku-ichimonji 0 16 4Dir 8/3 Foe N 800 "Sanguine Blossom": Non- elemental magick attack Masamune 0 -- Self 3/3 Ally N 900 "Ethereal Embrace": Gives Regen and Haste status. Chirijiraden 0 30 Self 3/3 Foe N 1000 "Raging Inferno": Non-elemental magick attack Iaido abilities can only be used if you possess the corresponding katana in your inventory (NOT equipped on the character). There is about a 1 in 10 chance that the katana will break when the ability is used. All of the katanas except the Masamune and Chirijiraden can be purchased at the Outfitter, although some do not become available until later in the game. All Iaido abilities have a 100% hit rate. When Iaido abilities are used, a special attack name (not just the name of the sword) is displayed -- these are listed in quotation marks above. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Bonecrusher Critical HP Yes 200 Counterattack and do damage equal to your own maximum HP * Shirahadori Phys. Attack Yes 700 Block physical attacks. DOES work work against bows and crossbows, despite the in-game description. Even works against guns and monster physical attacks! --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Equip Katana 400 Can equip Katanas regardless of job Doublehand 900 Equip one weapon in two hands to increase damage dealt by regular attacks and Aim. Does not affect other weapon-related abilities like Jump. --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Swim 300 Can act even in water of depth 2 or greater. Can move through ALL water tiles at normal rate (regardless of weather). Can enter water of depth 4. All water is treated as having depth 1 when calculating character's height. JP to master: 8000 --MY THOUGHTS-- The Samurai possesses the game's best reaction ability, Shirahadori. This ability blocks outright most physical attacks (though not sword techniques) and has a success rate equal to your Bravery. With a high enough Bravery, you'll be practically invulnerable to a large proportion of the game's abilities! The Samurai job is worth unlocking for this ability alone. Somewhat like the Monk and Summoner, the Samurai also mixes both offense and healing with its Iaido ability. Murasame in particular is a GREAT healing ability, since it restores HP to a large group and requires no charge time. Masamune is in theory also very useful as it casts Regen and Haste to a group of characters, but its value is more limited in practice since Masamunes are pretty hard to get. The Iaido command also includes some decent magick attacks, like Kiku-ichimonji (strikes only on the 4 cardinal directions, but has a long range) and Muramasa (area damage). Since Iaido attacks never harm friendly targets or heal enemies, they can be valuable in close quarters. The strength of Iaido depends on your Magick Attack stat. So, equipping accessories that boost your Magick Attack can be advantageous for a Samurai. Faith has NO effect on Iaido, which means that you can lower your own Faith (to defend against enemy magicks) while still being able to use Iaido effectively. The downside to Iaido is that the katanas sometimes break when you use Iaido. If you want to use a particular Iaido ability, it's a good idea to bring a couple of copies of that katana into battle. Unfortunately, it sometimes can be expensive buying new katanas to replace the ones that break. (Why, it's almost like Samurai were throwing money at their enemies!) This means Iaido tends to get more useful later in the game, when you have more spare cash. In the multiplayer modes, your items are restored after battle, so you can use Iaido freely, even with the rare Masamune and Chirijiraden. Although the Samurai is versatile, it's something of a jack of all trades, master of none. The Samurai has only modest stats. Although Iaido depends on the Magick Attack stat, the Samurai's Magick Attack isn't especially high. And while the Samurai's Physical Attack stat is pretty good, they are limited to wielding a single katana and thus do less damage than a Ninja (who gets TWO weapons) or a Knight (who can use knight's swords). Sure, you can equip Doublehand to increase your attack power, but that uses up your support ability slot. So, you're often better off grabbing some Samurai abilities and transferring them to another job. Shirahadori is great for ANY job. Iaido is also a great supplementary Action Ability for other jobs, especially magick-oriented ones. A job with a high Magick Attack will increase the power of Iaido, and Iaido gives a mage an alternative to magick that doesn't cost MP and doesn't require charging. ---NINJA----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Archer (job lv 4), Thief (job lv 5) & Geomancer (job lv 2) Level up to unlock : Job Lv 8 - Dark Knight (also needs Knight, B.Mag, Geo., Drag., Samu., 20 kills) Equippable weapons: Knives, ninja blades, flails Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 4 Innate ability: Dual Wield Physical evade : 30% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: D- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: D Speed: A Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: ***** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Throw-- Damage inflicted : Speed x strength of thrown weapon Range # : Your Move range RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Shuriken 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 50 Throw shuriken Bomb 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 70 Throw bombs Knife 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw knives * Sword 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw swords * Flail 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw flails Katana 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw samurai katanas Ninja Blade 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw ninja blades Axe 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 120 Throw axes Polearm 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw polearms Pole 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw poles Knight's Sword 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw knight's swords Book 0 -- #/* 1/- Any Y 100 Throw books The Throw command allows you to attack by throwing weapons & items from your inventory. Obviously, the item/weapon is lost when it is thrown. Weapons with an elemental affinity still do elemental damage when thrown. But, weapons that inflict status ailments or randomly cast magick do NOT have such effects when thrown. When using Throw, ALL weapon types use the Speed x Weapon Strength damage formula, regardless of what stats they normally depend on. Similarly, weapons that otherwise do variable damage will do fixed damage when Thrown. Weapons that are only found in the game's multiplayer modes CANNOT be thrown with the Throw command. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Vanish Phys. attack Yes 1000 Gain Invisibility status Reflexes n/a No 400 Existing evade %s are doubled --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Dual Wield 1000 Equip weapons in both hands and strike with both, one after the other, in a single attack. If you equip only 1 weapon, you will just strike once. Note that the damage estimate for Dual Wielded attacks is just for the FIRST attack -- if you have a weapon in both hands, the total damage will be much higher! --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Waterwalking 420 Stand on surface of water rather than decreasing height to go underwater. Can move on top of deep water without penalty. Does NOT protect against Poisonous Fens. JP to master: 3960 --MY THOUGHTS-- With a high speed and attack strength, and the innate ability to wield two weapons, Ninja make life very dangerous for your opponents. You can do a lot of damage with two weapons, and the Ninja's high Speed means that they get to act first and strike before the enemy does. Plus, their good movement range and jump height makes it easy for them to reach enemies. Ninjas are effective for sneaking in and taking out enemy archers, gunners, or mages before they can fire a shot or spell. Overall, Ninja is one of the most effective standard jobs. Aim for leveling up Archer and Thief quickly to unlock it! Throw is also a pretty good action ability. It's not the BEST attack, but throwing strong weapons usually does a fair amount of damage and has a nice range if your own Move range is good. Buying weapons does mean that the gil costs of Throw add up, but, fortunately, you can always switch back to regular attacks since the Ninja's regular attacks are effective too. The strongest weapon that you can buy to throw is a tie between the Morning Star flail and the Slasher axe; the Morning Star costs less money. Although flails like the Morning Star normally do variable damage, they do regular fixed damage when Thrown and can be quite powerful. Good abilities from other jobs to consider for your Ninja are Steal (Thief) and Brawler (Monk). Ninjas have a very high speed, so this makes your steals more effective. And Brawler combined with the Ninja's innate Dual Wield gives you two barehanded punches, which can be an extremely strong physical attack with high Bravery. The main weakness of Ninjas (besides pirates!) is their physical frailty. They have very low HP and can't take much damage. This is particularly problematic if you're using Ninjas to rush in and attack first -- they can get surrounded and KOed while your other characters catch up. To solve this, you can equip cloaks or Shirahadori to boost their evade/block rate, give them an Angel Ring or Chantage (or the Dragonheart reaction ability) for a Reraise, or use Equip Heavy Armor to gain more HP. The Ninja's own Reflexes reaction abiity is also a decent defensive ability. It doubles the effect of your existing evade rates (your innate evade rate, plus any effects of a shield or cloak). The nice thing about this is it's one of the few Reaction Abilities that doesn't depend on your Bravery, and so makes a good pick for low-Bravery characters. Ninjas can equip both ninja blades and flails. Overall, flails are stronger, but they're also more unpredictable -- sometimes they do MORE than the estimate shown, but sometimes they do LESS. This can be frustrating if you're trying to finish off a weakened enemy and end up not quite doing enough damage. On the other hand, in the long run, flails DO deal more damage. It's your call whether you want to favor predictability or the potential for more damage, but usually ninja blades are the best way to go. ---ARITHMETICIAN--------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : White Mage (job lv. 5), Black Mage (job lv. 5), Time Mage (job lv. 4), & Mystic (job lv. 4) Level up to unlock : nothing Equippable weapons: Poles, books Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: D- MP: C- Phys. Atk.: D- Mag. Atk.: D Speed: F Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: * Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Arithmeticks-- Damage / healing : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- CT 0 n/a n/a Any N 250 Base equations on CT * Level 0 n/a n/a Any N 350 Base equations on level Exp 0 n/a n/a Any N 200 Base equations on Exp * Height 0 n/a n/a Any N 250 Base equations on panel height * Prime 0 n/a n/a Any N 300 Selects by prime number * Multiple of 5 0 n/a n/a Any N 200 Selects by multiple of 5 * Multiple of 4 0 n/a n/a Any N 400 Selects by multiple of 4 * Multiple of 3 0 n/a n/a Any N 600 Selects by multiple of 3 Each time you use Arithmeticks, you select one from the first four abilities and one from the second four abilities. This determines what characters the ability will target. For example, selecting "Height" "Multiple of 5" will target all characters whose current height on the map is a multiple of 5. Then, you select the magick to cast on those targets. Allowable magicks are those marked with an "A" under Black Mage, White Mage, Time Mage, and Mystic (see above). You must have learned the magicks to cast them with Arithmeticks, but you DO not need those jobs' Action Abilities equipped -- Arithmeticks always allows access to ALL the allowable magicks you've learned. Magicks cast with Arithmeticks CANNOT be Reflected, but CAN be evaded. Remember, when targeting based on Height, units in water have decreased Height; the Depth of the water is subtracted from the Height of the panel. (Exception: If the unit has Swim, all water is treated as having only Depth 1.) And, Floating units, including monsters that naturally Float, have a Height that is 1 GREATER than the panel they're Floating over. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Cup of Life HP restore Yes 200 If healing ability used on character restores more HP than is needed to return to max HP, the excess HP is distributed to the rest of the party Soulbind Any HP loss Yes 300 After any HP damage, restores 1/2 of of the damage you took, and inflicts that 1/2 on the character who attacked you. --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Exp Boost 350 Doubles Exp received in battle --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Accrue Exp 400 Earn 1 Exp per tile moved Accrue JP 400 Earn 2 JP per tile moved JP to master: 4200 --MY THOUGHTS-- Arithmeticians are extremely powerful magick-wielders. Unlike conventional magicks, Arithmeticks takes no time to charge, can strike all the way across the board, and costs no MP! The Arithmeticks command also allows you cast magicks learned from four different jobs (White Mage, Black Mage, Time Mage, and Mystic), giving the Arithmetician great versatility. They can toast enemies around the battlefield or heal your whole party, without even having to charge or use MP! By trying different combinations of multiple and CT/Level/Exp/Height, you can customize whom your magick is going to hit. To preview your targets before you cast, look for the characters with yellow targeting tiles at their feet. If you don't like the combination of targets you're getting, cancel back a few menus and pick a different match of base and multiple. You can't always target exactly the characters you want, but you can usually get reasonably close. Check out the Arithmeticks Chart (Ctrl+F and then 00arith) for help targeting. For healing, you can use Arithmeticks with Esuna, Curaga, and Arise. On offense, Holy is tops, stronger even than Flare! And if you equip gear that absorbs holy (e.g., Chameleon Robes or the Excalibur), you can heal your allies at the same time, too. Holy does have a very long on-screen animation, though; Flare can be nice to use against weaker opponents simply because you don't need to wait so long for the animation to finish! You can also use Arithmeticks to mass-cast support magicks like Haste, Protect, and Shell, although by the time you've mastered Arithmeticks you may already have many pieces of equipment that you give you these buffs automatically. Finally, a couple casts of Trepidation can also be useful for turning your enemies into chickens en masse. The Arithmetician job itself has very low magick strength and speed. To remedy this, learn the Arithmeticks abilities, then switch the character to a Black Mage or Summoner (both of which have a high Magick Attack) and equip Arithmeticks as your secondary action ability. Once you've learned all the Arithmetician's abilities, there's pretty much no reason to ever change back to the job. Although Arithmeticks is strong, it does require a large JP investment to maximize its power. First of all, you need to learn magicks from the other magick-using jobs, then you have to learn all the Arithmeticks abilities to make your targeting flexible. And since Arithmeticians are so slow and don't get many turns, earning JP as an Arithmetician is hard. (Equipping an accessory to boost their speed will help.) An Arithmetician is definitely not needed to complete the single-player game, and Arithmeticks can't be used at all in Rendezvous Mode missions. It's safe to skip building up an Arithmetician if you don't want to invest the time, but they are great if you do! ---BARD------------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Summoner (job lv. 5) & Orator (job lv. 5), MALES only Level up to unlock : nothing Equippable weapons: Instruments Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: F MP: D- Phys. Atk.: F Mag. Atk.: C Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: * MP: * Phys. Atk.: * Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Bardsong-- HP/MP restored : Magick Attack + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Seraph Song 6 20 All allies N 100 Restores MP; 100% hit rate Life's Anthem 6 10 All allies N 100 Restores HP; 100% hit rate * Rousing Melody 8 -- All allies N 100 Raises Speed by 1 for battle; 50% success rate per unit * Battle Chant 8 -- All allies N 100 Raises Physical Attack by 1 for battle; 50% success rate for each unit Magickal Refrain 10 -- All allies N 100 Raises Magick Attack by 1 for battle; 50% success rate for each unit Nameless Song 10 -- All allies N 100 Gives Reraise, Regen, Protect, Shell, or Haste; 50% success rate for each target * Finale 20 -- All allies N 100 Fills CT to 100 for instant turn; 50% hit rate per target Bardsongs activate repeatedly until a new command is entered for the unit. This means that even if you wait out your turns, you can keep activating the ability. Bardsongs do not affect allies afflicted with Sleep status. Swiftness does NOT make Bardsongs activate more quickly. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Magick Boost Any HP loss Yes 500 Magick attack power + 1 Faith Boost Magick Yes 400 Faith + 3 --Support Abilities-- none --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Move +3 1000 Movement range + 3 Fly 5000 Ignore terrain and obstacles while moving JP to master: 7600 --MY THOUGHTS-- Bards can cast a variety of buffs to your whole party, regardless of where the characters are standing. Boosting your speed and attack/magic power, or quickly filling your CT gauge, can help your whole team fight more effectively. On the other hand, Bards can't do much ELSE; they have very little HP or MP and a weak attack. Also, their buffs don't always succeed and will miss quite a few of your party members each time they're used. The most effective way to use Bardsong is to pair it with the Ninja's Vanish will keep firing while you're Invisible, as long as you don't do anything else. That means you can remain invulnerable will continuing to support the party. Bards can learn Fly, which costs an astronomical 5000 JP! Since Fly is basically just a more expensive Teleport, it's not worth the JP cost at all. On the other hand, Move +3 is much more reasonably priced and is extremely effective for getting around the map quickly! Once you get Move +3, then Move +1 and Move +2 become completely obsolete. ---DANCER----------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Geomancer (job lv. 5) & Dragoon (job lv. 5), FEMALES only Level up to unlock : nothing Equippable weapons: Knives, cloths Movement range : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Jump height : 3 Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: F MP: D- Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: * MP: * Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Dance-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Witch Hunt 6 20 All enemies N 100 Lowers enemy MP; 100% hit rate * Mincing Minuet 6 10 All enemies N 100 Lowers enemy HP; 100% hit rate * Slow Dance 8 All enemies N 100 Lowers enemy Speed by 1; 50% hit rate on each target Polka 8 -- All enemies N 100 Lowers enemy Physical Attack by 1; 50% hit rate per target Heathen Frolick 10 -- All enemies N 100 Lowers enemy Magick Attack by 1; 50% hit rate per target * Forbidden Dance 10 -- All enemies N 100 Causes Blind, Confuse, Silence, Toad, Poison, Slow, Stop, or Sleep; 50% hit rate per unit Last Waltz 20 -- All enemies N 100 Empties enemy CT gauge; 50% hit rate on each target Dance abilities activate repeatedly until a new command is entered for the character. This means that even if you wait out your turns, you can keep activating the ability. Dance abilities do not affect enemies afflicted with Sleep status. Swiftness does NOT make Dances activate more quickly. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Fury Any HP loss Yes 600 Physical attack power + 1 Bravery Boost Physical atk Yes 700 Bravery + 3 --Support Abilities-- none --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- Jump +3 1000 Jump height + 3 Fly 5000 Can fly over terrain and enemies JP to master: 8000 --MY THOUGHTS-- Whereas Bards cast buffs to help your entire party, Dancers lower the stats of the enemy party. Lowering enemy speed or attack power, or inflicting status conditions with Forbidden Dance, can be useful. Mincing Minuet does far too little damage to be helpful in most circumstances, but works great with the Vanish trick: As with Bardsong, the Dance command is best used when paired with the Ninja's Vanish reaction ability. When you take damage, Vanish will make you invulnerable until you act again. However, if you're already dancing, the dance will keep firing while you're Invisible, as long as you don't do anything else. This means you can remain invulnerable will continuing to hit the enemy with Mincing Minuet or another dance. Dancers tend to be at least a little better than Bards. Since there are generally more bad guys on the map than party members, it's more effective to drop the enemies' stats than boost your own. Plus, they have a stronger physical attack. Dancers also work well with the Knight's Parry ability, as their cloth weapons have a VERY high parry rate (50%). As with the Bard, Fly is definitely not worth 5000 JP. Dancers learn Jump +3 instead of the Bard's Move +3. Unfortunately, Jump +3 is pretty pointless, since Teleport essentially duplicates all its effects and costs fewer JP! To learn Move +3, female characters will have to become a Dark Knight. ---MIME------------------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Squire (job lv. 8), Chemist (job lv. 8), Summoner (job lv. 5), Orator (job lv. 5), Geomancer (job lv. 5), & Dragoon (job lv. 5) Level up to unlock : nothing Equippable weapons: None Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: None Jump height : 4 Innate abilities: Beastmaster, Concentration, Brawler Physical evade : 5% Stats When Active Job: HP: B+ MP: D- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C Speed: A Stat Growth Rates: HP: ***** MP: * Phys. Atk.: ***** Mag. Atk.: **** Speed: * --ABILITIES-- NO ABILITIES Mimes can only use physical attacks on their own turns. However, they also copy the abilities of your other characters. After each ally takes a turn, the Mime copies the ability in the direction the Mime is facing and targets a tile the same distance away as the original ability. For example, if Ramza casts a magick on a unit two tiles forward and one tile to his right, the Mime will target a unit two tiles forward and one tile to HER right. Mimes only copy physical attacks and generic character abilities. They do not copy monster abilities, nor abilities that are only used by special characters (e.g. Agrias's sword techniques). They will also only mimic the *first* strike of a Dual Wielded attack. Finally, Mimes do not copy the actions of another Mime. --MY THOUGHTS-- Mimes aren't quite as good as you'd think. They only mimic abilities in the exact direction and range that they were originally used, which means they usually miss. They also can't equip any gear to provide buffs or status immunities. If you use them very carefully, they can possibly be useful, as they could potentially double the number of actions you take. For instance, if you pair a Mime with an Arithmetician, the Mime can repeat every magick that the Arithmetician calculates for twice the effect. Of course, you could just make two Arithmeticians instead... In truth, the main asset of Mimes is that they have great stat growth, making this a great job to level up with if you're grinding levels. In particular, aside from the level 8 Onion Knight, the Mime is the only generic job that can raise your Magick Attack. ---DARK KNIGHT------------------------------------------------------------------ Required jobs : Knight (MASTERED), Black Mage (MASTERED), Geomancer (job lv. 8#), Dragoon (job lv. 8), Samurai (job lv. 8), & Ninja (job lv. 8), must kill 20 enemies (so that they turn into chests/crystals) with the character (merely KOing or poaching an enemy doesn't count) Level Up to Unlock : nothing # Look out! You can "master" Geomancer at job lv. 7, but you must continue earning JP with it until it gets to job lv. 8 in order to unlock Dark Knight! Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords, Movement range : 3 fell swords, axes, flails Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, clothes, armor, robes Physical evade : 0% Stats When Active Job: HP: D MP: C Phys. Atk.: B+ Mag. Atk.: D+ Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: * Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Darkness-- HP/MP drained : 0.8 x Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) Damage (Crushing Blow): Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) Damage (Abyssal Bl.) : See below Damage (U. Sacrifice) : (Physical Attack x Magick Attack x BF Factor) + (0.33 x Max HP) The BF Factor that determines damage for Abyssal Blade and Unholy Sacrifice is: > If using a knight's sword: (Bravery/100) [damage reduced if Bravery < 100] > If using a fell sword:([100-Faith]/100) [damage reduced if Faith > 0] > If using a regular sword: 1 RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Sanguine Sword 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Drains HP from target to user Infernal Strike 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Drains MP from target to user * Crushing Blow 0 2 3/2 1/2 Any N 300 Physical attack, may inflict Stop. Element is based on element of user's current weapon. * Abyssal Blade 0 ## #Cone#/2 Any N 1000 Physical attack. Element is based on element of user's weapon. Inflicts more damage on targets closer to user. Consumes HP equal to 20% of user's max HP. Unholy Sacrifice 0 -- Self 3/3 Any N 1200 Dark attack, causes Slow. Consumes HP equal to 30% of user's max HP. # Abyssal Blade has a "cone" attack pattern. Within its vertical range of 2, it strikes the first tile in the orientation you're facing, three tiles in a row behind that, and five tiles in the row behind *that*. In other words, it looks something like this: |U|ser X Damage = Physical Attack x BF Factor x (Weapon strength + 3) XXX Damage = Physical Attack x BF Factor x (Weapon strength + 1) XXXXX Damage = 0.5 x Physical Attack x BF Factor x (Weapon strength + 0) The damage formula for each row is different; MORE damage is inflicted to the units CLOSER to you. All Darkness techniques have a 100% hit rate. However, they cannot be used unless the user is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. Damage from Darkness techniques increases when you have a stronger weapon equipped. When you have two weapons Dual Wielded, only the weapon in the upper slot counts (whether it's a sword or not!). --Reaction Abilities-- none --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- HP Boost 2000 Increases maximum HP by 20% * Vehemence 400 Increases by 50% the effectiveness of user's attacks and HP-restoring abilities, but also increases damage received by 50% --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------- * Move +3# 1000 Movement range + 3 Jump +3# 1000 Jump height + 3 #: Move +3 is available for female Dark Knights, Jump +3 for males. JP to master: 6900 --MY THOUGHTS-- The Dark Knight job allows even generic characters to wield sword techniques like those used by many of the special story characters. Sanguine Sword in particular is great for restoring HP while also inflicting heavy damage to enemies and is extremely helpful in some of the later Rendezvous Mode missions, especially Brave Story. Their other abilities are good, too, although most are height-limited. Abyssal Blade and Unholy Sacrifice consume some of the user's HP, but you can transfer these costs to your MP by equipping the Time Mage ability Mana Shield. The Dark Knight job is also important for allowing female characters to learn the extremely valuable Move +3 ability, which completely supersedes Move +2. Vehemence is also a great support ability for characters who aren't too fragile. Dark Knights have the strongest attack power of any regular job and can equip knight's swords and heavy armor. Dark Knights are also the only job (aside from Onion Knights) that can equip fell swords, special weapons found exclusively in the multiplayer modes. Fell swords actually aren't that good though. Although they can inflict status ailments on their targets, fell swords require both hands and don't carry all the buffs that knight's swords do. Stick with the knight's swords. Of course, the "catch" to all this power is that the Dark Knight job requires a lot of work to unlock. You need to completely master two other jobs (one physical, one magickal) and get four other jobs up to level 8, plus you need to kill 20 enemies with the character. In the single-player game, then, the Dark Knight is almost excessive. By the time you jump through all the hoops to unlock it, you'll probably be tough enough that you don't even need it! On the other hand, if you want to finish all the Rendezvous Mode missions, the Dark Knight and its HP-draining ability is quite important. ---ONION KNIGHT----------------------------------------------------------------- Required jobs : Squire (job lv. 6) & Chemist (job lv. 6) Level up to unlock : nothing AT JOB LEVEL < 8 AT JOB LEVEL 8 Equippable weapons: All Movement range : 3 Movement range : 4 Equippable armor: All Jump height : 3 Jump height : 4 Physical evade : 5% Physical evade : 30% Stats When Active Job: HP: F MP: D- Phys. Atk.: D- Mag. Atk.: F Speed: C Upon reaching job level 8 (see below), the Onion Knight's stats will increase: HP: B+ MP: A+ Phys. Atk.: B+ Mag. Atk.: C Speed: A Stat Growth Rates: HP: ** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: * Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * Stat Growth Rates at job level 8: HP: ***** MP: ***** Phys. Atk.: ***** Mag. Atk.: **** Speed: ***** --ABILITIES-- NO ABILITIES The Onion Knight cannot use any abilities and can only use physical attacks. However, they can use any kind of equipment. Even items normally reserved for female characters can be used by male Onion Knights (and by female Onion Knights, too, of course). --MY THOUGHTS-- Taken in their base form, Onion Knights seem how exactly how the game describes them: sad. Sure, they can equip any piece of equipment, but they have terrible stats and NO abilities. Even if you gave them a good sword and armor, they'd still be just a Knight with no abilities and no stats. Plus, they don't gain experience from taking actions. So what's the point of Onion Knights? Well, every time you master two other jobs, the job level of Onion Knight increases. (Squire, Chemist, Mime, Dark Knight, and special story character jobs that replace Squire do not count towards this tally.) If you master 14 jobs and get Onion Knight to job level 8, its stats will see a BIG increase. (Of course, mastering 14 jobs is a LOT of abilities to learn.) Playing the game's multiplayer modes also allows you to earn the Onion gear, very strong equipment that can only be used by Onion Knights. With these two things, Onion Knights can be very strong melee fighters, although they still cannot equip abilities. Once at job level 8, the Onion Knight also gains the best stat bonuses whenever they level-up. But since they don't get Exp from attacking and can't equip Steal Exp, the only way to level them up is with the Wild Boar's Bequeath Bacon ability (available with the Beastmaster support ability). Since Wild Boars can only be obtained by breeding them from a Swine (faster) or from other Wild Boars (slower), this can take quite a while. A bug in the game also provides another way to tweak the Onion Knight. First, be sure "Optimize on Job Change" is set to OFF under Options. Then, equip the Dual Wield ability (NOT the innate Dual Wield of a Ninja or Dragonkin) and two weapons. Switch to Onion Knight and you will still have both weapons equipped, even though Onion Knights can't normally Dual Wield. You CAN'T actually swing the second weapon and hit enemies with it, but you DO get any buffs, like the auto-Haste from the Excalibur. This actually isn't super useful because the Onion gear provides most of these buffs, and using up your shield slot for a second weapon leaves you with no defense since Onion Knights have no Reaction Abilities. If you're not interested in spending a lot of time leveling up your jobs, you probably won't have much use for the Onion Knight. They're not all that important, even in the Rendezvous Mode missions. If you DO want a powered-up Onion Knight, the "quickest" way to get one is to raise Squire and Chemist to job level 6 (to unlock it), and then master Knight, Archer, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Time Mage, Thief, Orator, Mystic, Geomancer, Samurai, Ninja, Arithmetician, and Bard/Dancer. Dragoon and Summoner require more JP to master than any of the other applicable jobs, plus you need Zodiark to master Summoner. %%%STORY CHARACTER JOBS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00job2 These are special jobs used by specific story characters, and are not available to generic characters. In all cases where a story character has a special job, the special job replaces the Squire job for that character. Most special jobs have the same reaction, support, and movement abilities as the Squire job they replace. Therefore, I haven't bothered to list them. The exceptions are the Ark Knight, Automaton, and Byblos jobs, which do have different abilities. ---SQUIRE [RAMZA]--------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Ramza Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, Jump height : 3 knight's swords (ch. 4), flails Physical evade : 10% Equippable armor: Shields (ch. 2+), hats, helms (ch. 2+), clothes, armor (ch. 2+), robes Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: B- Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: ** Speed: ** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Mettle-- Damage (Rush/Stone) : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) Damage (Ultima) : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Focus 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison * Tailwind 0 -- 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Raises Speed by 1. Dur: Battle. Chant 0 -- 1/3 1/- Any - 0 Restores HP. Amount of HP restored = 40% of Ramza's max HP. Ramza loses HP equal to 20% of his max HP. * Steel (ch. 2+) 0 -- 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Raises Bravery by 5 # * Shout (ch. 4) 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 500 Raises Bravery by 10 #, Physical and Magick Attack by 1, Speed by 1. Dur: Battle. Ultima (ch4) 10 5 23 4/* 2/1 Any N --& Non-elemental magick attack JP to master: 2570 # Note: These abilities increase your Bravery. Most of this change remains only for the battle, but for every 4 points you increase your Bravery during battle, you get a 1 point permanent increase in Bravery. Ultima can only be learned by having Luso or an enemy cast it on Ramza; see the "Learning Magick from Being Hit" section for more information. The damage from Rush and Stone increases (though not by much) if you have the Monk's Brawler ability equipped. --MY THOUGHTS-- Ramza's Squire job is powered up quite a bit relative to a regular Squire. He has better stats, some extra abilities, and as you progress through the game, he gains the ability to equip heavy armor and knight's swords. Unlike a regular Squire, he can't wield axes, but axes are pretty useless anyway! Most of Ramza's extra abilities are quite useful. Tailwind is a Speed boost, Steel is a Bravery boost, and Shout raises many stats but only works on Ramza. Steel is particularly useful as it's the fastest way of permanently adding to your Bravery; it has a 100% hit rate and costs no MP. Whenever Ramza has a spare turn, it's a good idea to have him use Steel to boost a teammate's Bravery (or Shout to boost his own); increasing your Bravery makes your reaction abilities much more effective. In a pinch, his Chant ability is good for healing too. On the other hand, the Ultima magick is really quite weak, especially given that you have to go out of your way to learn it. Since Mettle makes for a good set of support abilities, you may want to consider developing Ramza as a support character. On the other hand, until you get some of the other special characters, Ramza will probably have some of the better stats on your team and may be needed for front-line fighting. Since Ramza doesn't have much in the way of direct attack or healing abilities, you'll probably eventually want to supplement Mettle with some other abilities. You can switch Ramza to another job (I like to make him Monk or a Ninja) and equip Mettle as your second command. Or, since his Squire job is pretty strong statistically, learn abilities with a different job and then switch him back to Squire! Ramza has one other special property: Being the lead character, he never deserts the party, no matter how low his Bravery goes or how high his Faith gets. This means that another strategy would be to to forget his Squire job and turn him into a magick-user. Why? Normally, a character's Faith can only go up to 94 before the character deserts, but Ramza's Faith could be increased all the way up to 97 for a few extra points of magick strength. But, it's only a few points' difference and the Rod of Faith weapon raises any character's Faith to 100 during battle anyway. If you're in Chapter IV, Ramza's Squire job won't display as Mastered until you've learned the Ultima magick from an enemy; see "Learning Magick from Being Hit" for more information. ---SQUIRE [DELITA]-------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Delita (ch. 1) Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, flails Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Physical evade : 5% Stats: HP: C+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Mettle-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Focus 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison * Chant 0 -- 1/3 1/- Any - 0 Restores HP. Amount of HP restored = 40% of Delita's max HP. Delita loses HP equal to 20% of his max HP. JP to master: 1670 --MY THOUGHTS-- Like Ramza's, Delita's Squire job has superior stats to a regular Squire, but Delita only has a single extra ability, Chant. Chant comes in quite useful during Chapter I, as it lets Delita heal other party members for a substantial amount (albeit at the cost of some of his own HP). Expect to see the guest AI using it fairly frequently. ---SQUIRE [ARGATH]------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Argath (ch. 1) Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, axes, flails Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Physical evade : 15% Stats: HP: C+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Fundaments-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) Success rate of Rend : Physical Attack + PWR + Weapon strength RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Focus 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison Rend Helm 0 45 Weapon Any Y 300 Destroys target's headgear Rend Armor 0 40 Weapon Any Y 400 Destroys target's armor JP to master: 2370 --MY THOUGHTS-- Like Ramza and Delita, Argath's Squire job has superior stats compared to a regular Squire. Argath's extra abilities are Rend Helm and Rend Armor. They'd be nice to use, but since Argath doesn't participate in random battles and can only gain JP from story battles, you likely won't even have a chance to learn them. Instead, you may want to supplement him with a Black Magick spell or two if available, or perhaps Items. ---FELL KNIGHT------------------------------------------------------------------ Used By: Gaffgarion Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Physical evade : 15% Innate ability (only after Zeirchele Falls): Immune to Berserk, Charm, and Stone Stats: HP: B+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: A --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Fell Sword-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Shadowblade 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 100 Absorbs HP from target Duskblade 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Absorbs MP from target Fell Sword techniques have a 100% hit rate. However, they cannot be used unless Gaffgarion is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. JP to master: 1650 --MY THOUGHTS-- Gaffgarion is cool, but he's only in your party for two battles plus the intro battle at the start of the game. But, his Shadowblade technique is quite powerful (and restores some of Gaffgarion's HP!), so he'll be helpful while you've got him. ---HOLY KNIGHT------------------------------------------------------------------ Used By: Agrias, Delita (ch. 2+) Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Physical evade : 25% Innate ability (Delita only): Immune to Toad, Chicken, Charm, and Doom Stats When Active Job (Agrias): HP: B+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates (Agrias): HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * Delita's Stats: HP: B MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: B --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Holy Sword-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Judgment Blade 0 2 2/* 2/0 Any N 0 Physical attack, causes Stop Cleansing Strike 0 3 3/2 1/- Any N 400 Physical attack, causes Doom Northswain's 0 2 3/1 1/- Any N 500 Physical attack, instant KO Strike * Hallowed Bolt 0 4 3/* 2/1 Any N 700 Physical attack, causes Silence * Divine Ruination 0 5 4Dir 5/2 Any N 800 Physical attack, causes Confuse Chant 0 -- 1/3 1/- Any - 0 Restores HP. Amount of HP (Delita only) restored = 40% of Delita's max HP. Delita loses HP equal to 20% of his max HP. Holy Sword techniques have a 100% hit rate. However, they cannot be used unless Agrias/Delita is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. Damage from Holy Sword techniques increases when you have a stronger weapon equipped. When you have two weapons Dual Wielded, only the weapon in the upper slot counts (whether it's a sword or not!). The element of these techniques is the same as the element of your weapon. (And if the weapon has no elemental affinity, then the attack is non-elemental.) JP to master: 3450 --MY THOUGHTS-- Agrias's sword techniques makes her an invaluable member of your party as soon as she joins, and she'll stay that way pretty much throughout the game. Her Holy Sword abilities are the game's best attack abilities. They do a lot of damage, require no charge time or MP, cannot be evaded, and can strike at a few panels' range! Many of them can even strike multiple enemies at once! And since sword techniques are considered physical attacks, the Geomancer's Attack Boost can make them even stronger! You may want to save up your JP for Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination, her best techniques. Divine Ruination is her strongest technique and can damage quite a few enemies if they all happen to be standing on a straight line, but you can only fire it in a straight line. Hallowed Bolt isn't quite as strong, but is more flexible in its targeting. Eventually, Agrias will be joined by Orlandeau, who has all of Agrias's abilities and then some. Even with Orlandeau available, though, Agrias will still be a major part of your offense. And in the long run, she's probably a little bit better than Orlandeau because she can equip the many powerful items reserved for female characters: a Ribbon will make her immune to negative status changes, Chantage perfume can give her an infinite Reraise, and the Tynar Rouge gives a number of valuable buffs. Delita only shows up as a Holy Knight for a few battles, but his version of the job adds his Chant ability. He's also immune to a few status ailments that he'll probably never to have face anyway. ---PRINCESS--------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Ovelia Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Staves Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Physical evade : 20% Stats: HP: C- MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Holy Magicks-- Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Aegis 30 4 200 5/* 1/- Any N 0 Gives Reraise, Regen, Protect, Shell, and Haste status Dispelna 20 4 200 4/* 1/- Any N 0 Cures Stone, Confuse, Silence, Vampire, Toad, Poison, Stop, Sleep, Immobilize, & Disable JP to master: 1050 --MY THOUGHTS-- Well, Ovelia only fights in a few battles, but she can be a helpful support character since Aegis casts 5 different buffs at once. Since you can't control her, she'll usually cast it on herself first, but after that she can cast it on allies too. ---MACHINIST-------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Mustadio Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Knives, guns Jump height : 4 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Physical evade : 18% Innate ability: Safeguard (ONLY as Guest) Stats When Active Job: HP: C- MP: D+ Phys. Atk.: C- Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: B+ Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Aimed Shot-- Status attack success : Speed + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Leg Shot 0 50 Weapon Any Y 200 Causes Immobilize status * Arm Shot 0 50 Weapon Any Y 300 Causes Disable status * Seal Evil 0 70 Weapon Any Y 200 Turns undead to Stone Aimed Shot fires twice per turn if combined with the Dual Wield support ability and Dual Wielded weapons. (You'll need to have Mustadio configured to use a weapon type that CAN be Dual Wielded; neither knives nor guns can be Dual Wielded.) JP to master: 1750 --MY THOUGHTS-- With his Arm Shot ability and a gun, Mustadio can disable enemies from across the battlefield. This is a great ability since it effectively stops enemies from taking any kind of action for a few turns. You can Disable enemy mages to keep them from casting spells while the rest of your team is trying to reach them, or Disable a melee fighter and have the rest of your team pounce on him/her without fear of reprisal. Or, when you're just faced with a lot of enemies at once, Disabling a few can make the crowd more manageable. Since Disable also shuts down reaction abilities, you can also use it to stop monsters from counter-attacking you or to keep humans from recovering from your attacks. Towards the very end of the game, it becomes slightly less useful since many human enemies are equipped with Thief's Caps, which renders them immune to Disable status. Seal Evil is also useful: it turns undead enemies to stone, which not only defeats them instantly, but prevents them from reviving. (And it has a high hit rate!) Although you won't face undead enemies in too many battles, Seal Evil is quite handy in the ones where you do. In order for Mustadio's Aimed Shot abilities to keep their long range, Mustadio needs to stay equipped with a gun, so either learn Equip Guns or stick with jobs that can use them naturally (Machinist, Chemist, and Orator). Switching him to a Chemist may be good as you can supplement his Aimed Shots with the ability to heal your teammates. However, you'll also want to keep his Speed as high as possible, since Speed determines the success rate of Aimed Shot. While Mustadio is a guest, he has an innate Safeguard ability that protects his gun from being broken. However, he loses this once he joins you permanently -- but by that point, you can buy replacement guns anyway. Once you get Balthier, Mustadio essentially becomes obsolete, since Balthier has even more abilities and better stats. ---ASTROLOGER------------------------------------------------------------------- Used by: Orran Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Books Jump height : 4 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes Physical evade : 15% Innate ability: Immune to all negative status except Stone, Blind, Silence, Oil, Slow, and Stop Stats: HP: C- MP: B- Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: C+ Speed: A --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Astrology-- Success rate (Stasis) : Magick Attack + PWR Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Celestial Stasis 5 50 All foes! N 0 Causes Stop, Immobilize, or Disable * Focus 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison JP to master: 1670 --MY THOUGHTS-- Orran's sole unique ability is his Celestial Stasis magick, which will debilitate most of the enemies on the board every time he uses it and doesn't even cost any MP! (It does require some charge time, though.) Too bad he only shows up in one battle and you don't even get to control him :( ---CLERIC----------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Alma Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Staves Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Physical evade : 18% Stats - Chapter III: HP: D+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: B Speed: C+ Stats - Chapter IV: HP: C- MP: A+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: B Speed: B+ --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Holy Magicks-- Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) Status change success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Aegis 30 4 200 5/* 1/- Any N 0 Gives Reraise, Regen, Protect, Shell, and Haste status Dispelna 20 4 200 4/* 1/- Any N 0 Cures Stone, Confuse, Silence, Vampire, Toad, Poison, Stop, Sleep, Immobilize, & Disable Ultima (ch4) 10 5 23 4/* 2/1 Any N --& Non-elemental magick attack * Chant 0 -- 1/3 1/- Any - 0 Restores HP. Amount of HP restored = 40% of Alma's max HP. Alma loses HP equal to 20% of her max HP. JP to master: 1050 --MY THOUGHTS-- Alma is almost identical to Ovelia, except that she has Chant. As with Ovelia, Aegis is a great support spell, so she'll be useful during the few battles where you have her on your side. You can use Items to restore her MP and allow her to keep casting the spell. It's a good idea to de-equip Alma's gear before you go to Orbonne Monastery in Chapter III, since most of it can't be bought at the regular Outfitter and she will leave after that point in the story. When Alma rejoins during Chapter IV, her stats receive an upgrade. It's also possible at this time for her to learn Ultima if Ramza, Luso, or an Ultima Demon casts it on her, but you're better off with her Aegis magick! ---GAME HUNTER------------------------------------------------------------------ Used By: Luso Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, knight's swords, Jump height : 3 flails Physical evade : 10% Equippable armor: Shields, hats, helms, clothes, armor, robes Innate ability (as Game Hunter only): Poach Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: B- Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: ** Speed: ** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Huntcraft-- Damage (Rush/Stone) : Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to PWR) Damage (Ultima) : Magick Attack x PWR x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Focus 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 300 Raises Physical Attack stat by 1. Duration: Battle. Rush 0 4 1/1 1/- Any - 80 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Stone 0 2 4/* 1/- Any Y 90 Weak physical attack, good chance of knocking enemy back one tile. Salve 0 -- 1/2 1/- Any - 150 Cures Blind, Silence, Poison * Tailwind 0 -- 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Raises Speed by 1. Dur: Battle. Chant 0 -- 1/3 1/- Any - 0 Restores HP. Amount of HP restored = 40% of Luso's max HP. Luso loses HP equal to 20% of his max HP. * Steel (ch. 2+) 0 -- 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Raises Bravery by 5 # * Shout (ch. 4) 0 -- Self 1/- Self - 500 Raises Bravery by 10 #, Physical and Magick Attack by 1, Speed by 1. Dur: Battle. Ultima (ch4) 10 5 23 4/* 2/1 Any N --& Non-elemental magick attack JP to master: 2570 Ultima can only be learned by having Ramza or an enemy cast it on Luso; see the "Learning Magick from Being Hit" section for more information. The damage from Rush and Stone increases (though not by much) if you have the Monk's Brawler ability equipped. # Note: These abilities increase your Bravery. Most of this change remains only for the battle, but for every 4 points you increase your Bravery during battle, you get a 1 point permanent increase in Bravery. --MY THOUGHTS-- Luso is basically a clone of Ramza with a slightly better MP growth rate, so he has the same strengths and weaknesses as Ramza does. Luso's main distinguishing feature is his innate Poach ability, which can be nice for hunting for the rare items you get from poaching some monsters. Overall, Luso's OK. But you already have one Ramza, and *that* Ramza is the one you're required to use in story battles. As a result, Luso is sadly pretty redundant in most cases. Ramza's abilities aren't good enough that you need two people in the party using them, not when you could fill that slot in your party with a character who has a different set of abilities. Game Hunter won't display as Mastered until you've learned the Ultima magick from an enemy; see "Learning Magick from Being Hit" for more information. ---SKYSEER---------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Rapha Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Staves, poles Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Physical evade : 10% Stats as Guest: HP: D+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: D+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: B+ Stats When Active Job: HP: C- MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C Mag. Atk.: C Speed: B+ Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Sky Mantra-- Damage : 0.5 x Magick Attack x (Magick Attack + PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Heaven's Wrath 3 10 4/* 2/3 Any N 100 Lightning magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles within radius Ashura 4 11 4/* 2/3 Any N 200 Fire magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Adamantine Blade 5 12 4/* 2/3 Any N 300 Wind magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Maelstrom 6 14 4/* 2/3 Any N 400 Water magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Celestial Void 5 8 4/* 2/3 Any N 500 Non-elemental magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles within radius. Causes Blind, Confuse, Silence, Toad, Poison, Slow, or Sleep Divinity 7 22 4/* 2/3 Any N 600 Earth magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Sky Mantra attacks do not take Rapha's Faith or enemy Faith into consideration, unlike most magick attacks. JP to master: 3150 --MY THOUGHTS-- As you've probably observed during her time as a guest, Rapha's Sky Mantra abilities are pretty useless. They strike random tiles within their effect radius, making them often as likely to hit your allies as your enemies, and they don't even do all that much damage anyway. Plus, they take time to charge. Her stats are pretty blah, as well. Sky Mantra *is* somewhat more useful if you can target tiles that are surrounded by large variations in height. The Mantra will never strike a tile that's more than 3 height units higher or lower than the target tile. So, sharp differences in height help narrow down the targets for the random strikes, and give you greater odds of repeatedly hitting the enemy that you WANTED to target. But, this really only works on certain maps. Given her low starting Bravery, though, Rapha is a character that can easily be made into a good Treasure Hunter. (You're more likely to get good items with Treasure Hunter if your Bravery is low.) And, if you're planning to tackle the bonus dungeon, you'll definitely want a Treasure Hunter! Of course, it's not in any way necessary to specifically use Rapha for this; any other character with low Bravery works fine. Rapha just tends to be convenient since her Bravery is already pretty low to start with. You may want to lower her Bravery even further with the Mystic's Trepidation to increase your odds even more. ---NETHERSEER------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Marach Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Rods, poles Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, clothes, robes Physical evade : 8% Stats When Active Job: HP: C- MP: B Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: B Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Nether Mantra-- Damage : 0.5 x Magick Attack x (Magick Attack + PWR) x (100-Faith)/100 x (100-Target Faith)/100 RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hell's Wrath 3 22 4/* 2/3 Any N 100 Lightning magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles within radius Nether Ashura 4 37 4/* 2/3 Any N 200 Fire magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Nether Blade 5 40 4/* 2/3 Any N 300 Wind magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Nether Maelstrom 6 46 4/* 2/3 Any N 400 Water magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Corporeal Void 5 27 4/* 2/3 Any N 500 Non-elemental magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles within radius. Causes Blind, Confuse, Silence, Toad, Poison, Slow, or Sleep Impiety 7 75 4/* 2/3 Any N 600 Earth magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius Nether Mantra attacks do increased damage to enemies with LOW Faith, and when Marach has LOW Faith. This is the opposite of most magick attacks, which do more damage when Faith is high. (Note, however, the Faith and Atheist status conditions still affect Nether Mantra in the usual way.) JP to master: 3150 --MY THOUGHTS-- Marach's abilities are quite similar to Rapha's in that they strike random tiles. Marach's main interesting feature is that Nether Mantra does more damage to enemies with LOW Faith (the reverse of regular magick!), with gives you a magick attack that's effective against low-Faith enemies. Nether Mantra also gets stronger when Marach's own Faith decreases, so you can lower his Faith to protect him from enemy magicks and still use his own Mantras. If Marach and his target have sufficiently low Faith, Nether Mantra is more powerful than Rapha's Sky Mantra. Unfortunately, since Nether Mantra is so random, it's still not all that useful. If you equip the Rod of Faith on Marach, or cast the Faith status on him during a battle, this will maximize the power of both his Nether Mantra abilities and regular magicks. This means that, potentially, you could use Marach to cast both Nether Mantra and regular magicks. As with Rapha's, Marach's Mantras are a little better if you can target tiles that are surrounded by large variations in height. The Mantra will never strike a tile that's more than 3 height units higher or lower than the target tile. So, sharp differences in height help narrow down the targets for the random strikes, and give you greater odds of repeatedly hitting the enemy that you WANTED to target. Again, though, this tactic is often not available on many maps. In other words: there's generally not much of a reason to put Marach in your party, and he's often considered the least useful of the story characters. If you're not set on having all the story characters on your roster, you could even skip recruiting him--or sign him up, take his equipment, and then delete him. If you do want to use Marach, you can always switch him to some standard job instead of relying on his Nether Mantra abilities. Of course, then he's really no different from any other generic character. ---TEMPLAR---------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Beowulf Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, knight's swords Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Physical evade : 14% Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: A+ Phys. Atk.: B Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C+ Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: *** Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Spellblade-- Status attack success : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Blind 6 0 220 4/* 1/- Any N 50 Inflicts Blind status (doubles evade rate when attacking). Duration: Battle. Syphon 2 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 100 Drains target's MP to caster. Amount = 1/4 of target MP max Drain 12 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 180 Drains target's HP to caster. Amount = 1/4 of target HP max Faith 10 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Causes Faith status (unit has 100 Faith -- raises magick strength & damage taken from magicks). Duration: 32 ticks * Doubt 10 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Causes Atheist status (unit is immune to magick & can't use magicks). Duration: 32 ticks Zombie 14 0 190 4/* 1/- Any N 150 Causes Undead status (reverses effect of healing & drain abilities). Duration: Battle. Silence 16 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 90 Causes Silence status (cannot use magick). Duration: 36 ticks. Berserk 16 0 180 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Causes Berserk status (attack power up, but can't control unit). Duration: Battle. * Chicken 12 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 500 Lowers target's Bravery by 50 Confuse 14 0 190 4/* 1/- Any N 200 Causes Confuse status (acts randomly). Duration: Battle. Dispel 20 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 300 Removes Float, Reraise, Regen, Invisible, Protect, Shell, Haste, Faith, and Reflect. * Disable 14 0 200 4/* 1/- Any N 50 Causes Disable status (cannot Act). Duration: 24 ticks. Sleep 20 0 190 4/* 1/- Any N 170 Causes Sleep status (can't do anything). Duration: 60 ticks * Break 24 0 180 4/* 1/- Any N 300 Causes Stone status (can't do anything). Duration: Battle * Vengeance 20 0 -- 8/* 1/- Any N 600 Deals damage = (Beowulf's max HP minus Beowulf's current HP). 100% hit rate. Spellblade techniques cannot be used unless Beowulf is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. JP to master: 4340 --MY THOUGHTS-- Beowulf is essentially a Mystic on steroids! Like a Mystic, he specializes in inflicting negative status. But, he's far superior: his abilities don't need to charge, they often are more likely to succeed, and in some cases they cost less MP than the Mystic equivalent! A pair of Spellblade abilities are particularly useful. Chicken drops an enemy's Bravery by 50, which will turn it into a useless chicken if the enemy's Bravery was less than 60. It almost always has a 70-100% hit rate, and it only costs 12 MP! It's a great ability for quickly reducing the number of enemies you need to fight at once, and is also a pretty good way of prolonging a battle (e.g. to hunt for items in the bonus dungeon). Vengeance is also a great ranged attack that can do quite a bit of damage when Beowulf is low on HP (and it has a fantastic range of EIGHT panels); its main downside is that it's useless at the start of a battle when Beowulf hasn't been harmed yet. Other handy Spellblade abilities include Break, which has a pretty high chance of turning an enemy instantly to stone, and Doubt, which inflicts the Atheist status and can cripple enemy magick users or make your own allies immune to magick. Templar also has the highest MP of any job in the game. And with a knight's sword, Beowulf can even be a decent fighter since he has a high Physical Attack rating as well. ---AUTOMATON-------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Construct 8 Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: none Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: none Physical : 0% Innate abilities: Counter, Ignore Terrain, Ignore Weather#, cannot enter water. Stats: HP: A MP: F Phys. Atk.: A+ Mag. Atk.: F Speed: D+ Construct 8 is immune to all status conditions except Confusion, all elements except Lightning and Water, and (by virtue of having 0 Faith) all Faith-based magicks. But, it's WEAK to non-Faith-based Lightning attacks. # Since Construct 8 can't enter water, its Ignore Weather would appear not to ever actually do anything. What in the world? --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Tasks-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Destroy 0 10 1/2 1/- Any - 0 Non-elemental physical attack; user loses HP equal to 1/8 of damage inflicted Compress 0 12 1/2 1/- Any - 0 Non-elemental physical attack; user loses HP equal to 1/6 of damage inflicted; may inflict instant KO * Dispose 0 10 8/* 1/- Any N 0 Non-elemental physical attack; user loses HP equal to 1/4 of damage inflicted Pulverize 0 16 1/0 1/- Any - 0 Non-elemental physical attack; user loses HP equal to 1/4 of damage inflicted All Tasks abilities cannot be evaded or blocked, but consume some of Construct 8's HP when used. --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Counter Physical attk. Yes 0 Counter-attack with physical attack --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Defense Always equipped 0 Lowers damage received from physical Boost attacks --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 0 --MY THOUGHTS-- Since Construct 8 is a special "monster," it can't change jobs, use equipment, or learn new abilities. That means it's not a very customizable character and has pretty much a fixed set of strengths and weaknesses. One of Construct 8's great strengths is its Dispose ability, which has a range of 8 panels and never misses. It's only moderately strong, but the range and hit rate make it good for taking out enemy mages and gunners/archers. Construct 8 is also great on defense, since it's immune to Faith-based magicks and most status conditions. This makes it especially useful in particular battles where the enemy relies heavily on magick or status attacks. Plus, it has an inherent Defense Boost and Counter. You can also use Construct 8 as a stepping-stool to help other characters climb up to higher ledges. (Other large monsters have this ability as well.) This is necessary to find the hidden items at Nelveska Temple, and can often be handy in Midlight's Deep as well. The downside to Construct 8 is that it's pretty slow and has a short move range, so it's pretty rare that you'll actually have a chance to use its close range attacks. It's of course also immune to any POSITIVE magicks you might want to cast on it, like buffs or Cure magicks. Using the Tasks abilities also consumes some of its HP, but the loss is not great, so this isn't much to worry about. Since Construct 8 can't use equipment or change abilities, it's hard to upgrade. The best you can do is gain levels and raise its Bravery. In the long run, it's hard to remedy some of Construct 8's weaknesses (like its short Move range), and it eventually can't keep pace with the rest of your team. In sum, Construct 8 proves to be quite useful when you first get it and remains very helpful in particular story battles (against enemies using magick or status attacks), but its usefulness may start to fade as other characters gain more and more abilities that Construct 8 can never have. ---SKY PIRATE------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Balthier Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Knives, swords, knight's swords, Jump height : 4 bows, crossbows, guns, polearms Physical evade : 25% Equippable armor: Shields, hats, helms, clothes, armor, robes Innate ability (as Sky Pirate only): Safeguard Stats When Active Job: HP: C MP: C- Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: A Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: *** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: ***** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Piracy-- Success(Plunder Heart): Magick Attack + PWR Success (others) : Speed + PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Leg Shot 0 50 Weapon Any Y 200 Causes Immobilize status * Arm Shot 0 50 Weapon Any Y 300 Causes Disable status Seal Evil 0 70 Weapon Any Y 200 Turns undead to Stone * Barrage 0 -- Weapon Any Y 1200 Use weapon 4 times in a row at 1/2 damage per attack; can't be evaded or blocked Plunder Gil 0 200 1/1 1/- Foe - 10 Steal small amount of gil (amount = Speed * level * 2) * Plunder Heart 0 60 3/1 1/- Foe N 150 Inflicts Charm; only effective on females and monsters Plunder Helm 0 50 1/1 1/- Foe - 350 Steal target's helmet * Plunder Armor 0 45 1/1 1/- Foe - 450 Steal target's armor * Plunder Shield 0 45 1/1 1/- Foe - 350 Steal target's shield * Plunder Weapon 0 40 1/1 1/- Foe - 600 Steal target's weapon Plunder Accessory 0 50 1/1 1/- Foe - 500 Steal target's accessory Plunder Exp 0 80 1/1 1/- Foe - 250 Steal some of target's current Exp (amount = Speed + 15) Leg Shot, Arm Shot, and Seal Evil fire twice per turn if combined with the Dual Wield support ability and Dual Wielded weapons. (Dual Wield has no effect on the other Piracy abilities.) The Plunder abilities have a higher hit rate than the Thief's Steal equivalents. JP to master: 5610 --MY THOUGHTS-- Balthier is an all-around great character, and quite versatile. He can function both as a ranged fighter (by equipping a gun or bow) or as a close-range fighter (by equipping a sword or polearm). His abilities combine those of Mustadio's and a Thief's ... and he's also physically stronger, is more successful at stealing than a Thief, and has the super speed of a Ninja. How can you go wrong with that? Once Balthier joins, there's not all that much use for Mustadio since Balthier has all of Mustadio's ability and then some! Balthier's one completely unique ability, Barrage, is also very effective. It's similar to Dual Wield in the sense that is essentially doubles your attack power, except that Barrage cannot miss and also lets Balthier still equip a shield in his other hand. Barrage is a great ability regardless of whether you're using Balthier as a range attacker or a melee attacker. Since Barrage counts as a regular attack, it can also be combined with Poach or Tame. In the right circumstances, Barrage can also be used to attack multiple enemies in one turn -- see "2Enemies1Turn.com" in the Tricks Related To Specific Abilities section of Basic Tactics. Sadly, Barrage CANNOT be combined with Dual Wield or Doublehand; it still does regular damage if you have two weapons or one weapon in two hands. No Genji Glove + Offering this time around :( ---SWORD SAINT------------------------------------------------------------------ Used By: Orlandeau Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords, katanas, Jump height : 3 ninja blades Physical evade : 12% Equippable armor: Shields, hats, helms, clothes, armor, robes Stats When Active Job: HP: B+ MP: A- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: B Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: **** Mag. Atk.: *** Speed: ** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Swordplay-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Judgment Blade 0 2 2/* 2/0 Any N 0 Physical attack, causes Stop Cleansing Strike 0 3 3/2 1/- Any N 400 Physical attack, causes Doom Northswain's Strike0 2 3/1 1/- Any N 500 Physical attack, instant KO * Hallowed Bolt 0 4 3/* 2/1 Any N 700 Physical attack, causes Silence * Divine Ruination 0 5 4Dir 5/2 Any N 800 Physical attack, causes Confuse * Crush Armor 0 5# 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Physical attack, destroys target's armor Crush Helm 0 4# 3/* 1/- Any N 400 Physical attack, destroys target's headgear * Crush Weapon 0 3# 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Physical attack, destroys target's weapon Crush Accessory 0 2# 3/* 1/- Any N 800 Physical attack, destroys target's accessory * Shadowblade 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 100 Absorbs HP from target Duskblade 0 0 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Absorbs MP from target # When Crush skills are breaking the target's item, their PWR is reduced to 0 and they do less damage. So, these skills do MORE damage to monsters and unequipped humans (unlike in the PSone version)! However, Crush abilities always have a 0% hit rate against units with Safeguard. Swordplay techniques have a 100% hit rate. However, they cannot be used unless Orlandeau is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. The elemental affinity of most Swordplay techniques is the same as the elemental affinity of your weapon. (If the weapon has no elemental affinity, then the attack is non-elemental.) However, Shadowblade and Duskblade are ALWAYS non-elemental regardless of your weapon. JP to master: 5950 --MY THOUGHTS-- There's probably not much I need to say here. The Thunder God himself is overwhelmingly powerful. He can use all of Agrias's, Meliadoul's, and Gaffgarion's sword techniques (each quite useful in its own right), he has tremendous HP and attack power, and he comes with the Excalibur sword, which gives the bearer a permanent Haste. His attacks do tremendous damage and he can take down most enemy units with a single sword technique. Shadowblade even lets him heal himself in the process! Particularly useful abilities are Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination for group damage, Shadowblade for restoring Orlandeau's HP, and Crush Weapon for disabling an enemy's offense. Duskblade can also be good against enemy magick users; it typically steals so much MP that it will completely an enemy mage's MP supply and render them useless. This is a great tactic against magick-using enemies! (You can also use it to cripple the last enemy in a party if you want to extend the battle for any reason.) And, as with Agrias, giving him the Geomancer's Attack Boost will make his sword techniques stronger. Despite Orlandeau's superior stats, in the long run, Agrias may end up being your most powerful fighter, thanks to her ability to equip female-only gear like the Tynar Rouge, Chantage, and Ribbon. Still, Orlandeau is overwhelming powerful and will likely vault to the front of your team as soon as you get him. ---HOLY DRAGON------------------------------------------------------------------ Used By: Reis (before completing Nelveska Temple quest) Movement range : 5 Equippable weapons: none Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: none Physical evade : 5% Stats: HP: B+ MP: D- Phys. Atk.: A Mag. Atk.: A+ Speed: B --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Breath-- Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Ice Breath 0 5 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Ice magick attack * Fire Breath 0 5 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Fire magick attack * Thunder Breath 0 5 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Lightning magick attack These three Breath attacks can only target characters in a straight line from Reis, not on a diagonal. --Reaction Abilities-- none --Support Abilities-- none --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 0 --MY THOUGHTS-- In her dragon form, Reis is limited to her three breath attacks. (And, being a monster, she obviously can't change jobs.) She has a lot of HP, though, and her movement range is actually much better than her human form's. Her Magick Attack is also phenomenally high, which means that her breath attacks are likely to do more damage now than as a human! However, her very limited set of abilities and inability to use any kind of equipment or accessories means you'll get more use out of her human form in the long run. If you fail to buy Aerith's flower at Sal Ghidos, you won't be able to complete the quest to restore Reis to human form and she'll actually be stuck in dragon form for the entirety of the game. ---DRAGONKIN-------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Reis (after Nelveska Temple quest) Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Bags Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hair adornments, Minerva Bustier Physical evade : 7% Equippable accessories: Rings, armlets, perfume, and lip rouge only Innate abilities (as Dragonkin only): Beastmaster, Tame, Dual Wield Stats When Active Job: HP: B+ MP: B+ Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C Speed: A Stat Growth Rates: HP: ***** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: ***** Mag. Atk.: ***** Speed: ** --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Dragon-- Damage (Holy Breath) : 0.5 x Magick Attack x (Magick Attack + PWR) Damage (others) : Magick Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Ice Breath 0 12 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Ice magick attack # * Fire Breath 0 12 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Fire magick attack # * Thunder Breath 0 12 2/2 1/- Any Y 0 Lightning magick attack # * Dragon's Charm 0 -- 2/2 1/- Foe N 300 Dragon or hydra joins as guest, and can be recruited after battle. 100% hit rate! Dragon's Gift 0 -- 2/2 1/- Any N 300 Restores some HP to a dragon or hydra and removes Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Stop, Sleep, Immobilize, & Disable. Consumes Reis's HP when used. Dragon's Might 0 -- 2/2 1/- Any N 400 Boosts dragon or hydra's Bravery by 5, and Physical & Magick Attack and Speed by 2. Duration: Battle. Dragon's Speed 0 -- 2/2 1/- Any N 400 Fills dragon or hydra's CT gauge to 100 (instant turn!) Holy Breath 0 20 4/* 3/3 Any N 900 Holy magick attack; 1-10 hits on random tiles w/in radius # The initial three Breath attacks can only target characters in a straight line from Reis, not on a diagonal. JP to master: 3350 --MY THOUGHTS-- Although Reis's abilities don't seem too exciting at first glance, check out her stats! Dragonkin is the fastest job in the game and Reis also has great HP, MP, and physical attack power. She can also attack twice (as if she were a Ninja) and her attack can Tame monsters. Note that bags can't be Dual-Wielded (as is true for any character), but Reis's Dual Wield does work with her fists or other weapons you give her using Equip ____ abilities. Unfortunately, the job is weakened by Reis's lack of equipment. As a Dragonkin, she can't equip any body armor (save the multiplayer-only Minerva Bustier) and is limited to just a few types of accessories. Fortunately, she CAN still use hair adornments, so at least she has status protection. And although Reis's primary weapons is her fists, she does *not* have the Brawler ability. So, to make her stronger, give her Brawler or an Equip ___ ability. For a melee fighter, Reis's movement range of 3 is also rather poor, and she also can't equip the boots that would increase it. Move +1 or Move +2 will help, though. Or, alternately, give her the Septie`me perfume or Tynar Rouge; a permanent Haste will give her more turns, so it doesn't matter so much if she can't move very far on each turn. As for her abilities, her three initial Breath attacks are nice, since they supplement her fists with elemental attacks with a 2-tile range (and they're automatically learned, so you don't have to spend any JP!). You can make them stronger by raising Reis's Magick Attack (e.g. with accessories). Holy Breath can be used as a range attack and does sizable damage. But, like Rapha and Marach's Mantra, it strikes random tiles. This means it's not very reliable unless you're fighting a large enemy group or there are large height differences that narrow down the possible targets. (Holy Breath will never strike a tile that's more than 3 height units different from the tile that you target.) The four "Dragon's _____" abilities are only useful if you have dragons or hydras on your squad. This gives them a somewhat limited use -- but the hydra family contains the strongest monsters in the game, so they may be worth recruiting and adding to your team! One trick is to use Dragon's Charm to recruit dragons/hydras just to help you in one battle and also save you from fighting them; you don't have to permanently add them to your party at the end of the battle if you don't want to. Overall, Reis's abilities are only OK. Her real strength is in her excellent stats and stat growth rates. You may want to supplement the raw power of the Dragonkin with a nice action ability set from another job. If you're giving her Brawler, Martial Arts works well. ---DIVINE KNIGHT---------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Meliadoul Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords, crossbows, Jump height : 3 polearms Physical evade : 10% Equippable armor: Shields, helms, clothes, armor, robes Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: C- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C+ Stat Growth Rates: HP: **** MP: ** Phys. Atk.: ***** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Unyielding Blade-- Damage inflicted : Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Crush Armor 0 5# 3/* 1/- Any N 200 Physical attack, destroys target's armor Crush Helm 0 4# 3/* 1/- Any N 400 Physical attack, destroys target's headgear * Crush Weapon 0 3# 3/* 1/- Any N 500 Physical attack, destroys target's weapon Crush Accessory 0 2# 3/* 1/- Any N 800 Physical attack, destroys target's accessory # When Crush skills are breaking the target's item, their PWR is reduced to 0 and they do less damage. So, these skills do MORE damage to monsters and unequipped humans (unlike in the PSone version)! However, Crush abilities always have a 0% hit rate against units with Safeguard. Unyielding Blade techniques have a 100% hit rate. However, they cannot be used unless Meliadoul is equipped with a sword, knight's sword, or fell sword. Damage from Unyielding Blade techniques increases when you have a stronger weapon equipped. When you have two weapons Dual Wielded, only the weapon in the upper slot counts (whether it's a sword or not!). The element of these techniques is the same as the element of your weapon. If the weapon has no elemental affinity, then the attack is non-elemental. JP to master: 2950 --MY THOUGHTS-- Meliadoul's sword skills are quite useful, since they do good damage, never miss, and can shatter enemy equipment. In the PSP version, they can even be used against targets who don't have the relevant item equipped (e.g. Crush Armor can still damage a target without armor), which means they also work on monsters! Of her abilities, Crush Armor and Crush Weapon are probably the best -- Crush Weapon can cripple an enemy's offense, and Crush Armor does the most damage to monsters. Unfortunately for Meliadoul, she doesn't join the team until *after* Orlandeau, who has all her sword techniques and then some, as well as better stats! Meliadoul is also limited to sword techniques that strike a single target, whereas Orlandeau and Agrias both have abilities that can strike multiple targets. So, what would otherwise be a good character may not find all that use on your squad. Meliadoul can equip polearms and crossbows, but be warned that giving her one of those weapons won't allow her to use her sword techniques. ---SOLDIER---------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Cloud Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: Swords Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Hats, hair adornments, clothes Physical evade : 20% Stats When Active Job: HP: C+ MP: C+ Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C Stat Growth Rates: HP: *** MP: **** Phys. Atk.: *** Mag. Atk.: * Speed: * --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Limit-- Damage inflicted : Magick Attack x PWR RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Brave Slash 3 8 2/* 1/- Any N 150 Non-elemental magick attack * Cross Slash 4 12 2/* 2/0 Any N 200 Non-elemental magick attack * Blade Beam 5 -- 2/* 1/- Any N 250 Damage = (Cloud's max HP minus current HP) Climhazzard 7 -- 2/* 1/- Any N 500 Damage = (TARGET'S max HP minus current HP) Meteorain 10 20 3/* 3/0 Any N 600 Non-elemental magick attack * Finishing Touch 5 -- 3/* 2/0 Any N 700 100% chance of inflicting either KO, Stone, or Stop. Omnislash 15 30 3/* 3/0 Any N 1200 Non-elemental magick attack Cherry Blossom 20 42 3/* 3/0 Any N 2500 Non-elemental magick attack Limit techniques cannot be used unless Cloud is equipped with the Materia Blade sword. Note that the damage from Limit attacks is determined by Cloud's MAGICK Attack stat, NOT his Physical Attack (unlike Agrias, Meliadoul, and Orlandeau's sword techniques). JP to master: 7150 --MY THOUGHTS-- For being a hidden character, Cloud could be better. His Limit abilities can only target panels (not units), so enemies can escape them by moving out of the panels while he's charging -- and most of the Limits take a long time to charge! The Time Mage's Swiftness ability is a must for alleviating this. Even with Swiftness, Cloud is still a little underpowered. His physical attack is only moderately strong at best, since he's stuck with the Materia Blade if you want to use Limits, and he can't make use of knight's swords and their special effects. He also has a movement range of only 3, so you may also want to give him Germinas Boots or Move +1/Move +2 to boost his movement. Finally, since he starts at level 1, you'll need to spend a lot of time bringing him up to snuff. Personally, I still don't think he's worth the trouble, but other people seem to like him. Finishing Touch is very powerful, though. It has a 100% chance of inflicting either KO, Stone, or Stop on a group of enemies. 2 out of those 3 status changes defeat an enemy outright! Since Cloud's Limits depend on his Magick Attack stat, giving him gear to raise his Magick Attack will make his Limits stronger. You might also want to then add a second Magick Attack-based ability, like any Iaido or any type of magick. Iaido might be particularly useful since it doesn't require any charge time and can be used in situations where you don't have time to charge up a Limit. Cloud is also the only male character that can equip ribbons for status protection -- but note that this only works when he's in his Solider job. ---ARK KNIGHT------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: Zalbaag Movement range : 4 Equippable weapons: Swords, knight's swords Jump height : 3 Equippable armor: Shields, helms, armor, robes Physical evade : 10% Stats: HP: B+ MP: C- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: C- Speed: C --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Blade of Ruin-- Success rate : (Magick Attack + PWR) x (Faith/100) x (Target Faith/100) RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Magicksap 20 3 250 4/* 2/0 Any N 0 Lowers target's MP Speedsap 20 3 250 4/* 2/0 Any N 0 Lowers target's Speed by 3 Powersap 20 3 250 4/* 2/0 Any N 0 Lowers target's Physical Attack stat by 5 Mindsap 20 3 250 4/* 2/0 Any N 0 Lowers target's Magick Attack stat by 5 --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Counter Phys. Attack Yes 300 Counter-attack with physical attack Counter Tackle Phys. attack Yes 180 Counterattack using Rush --Support Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Concentration 400 Prevents enemies from evading your physical attacks Safeguard 250 Equipment can't be broken or stolen Swiftness 1000 Halves number of clock ticks needed to charge up magicks & Limit. No benefit to Jump/Aim/Dance/Bardsong. --Movement Abilities-- JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Move +1 200 Movement range + 1 JP to master: 2330 --MY THOUGHTS-- Zalbaag doesn't really do much. He's only in one half of one battle that you may win in one or two rounds. He has a nice set of abilities, but you'll never see them in action. ---BYBLOS----------------------------------------------------------------------- Used By: the Byblos (name varies) Movement range : 3 Equippable weapons: none Jump height : 6 Equippable armor: none Physical evade : 33% Innate abilities: Counter, Poach, Ignore Elevation, can't enter water Stats: HP: B+ MP: C Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk.: B- Speed: C --ABILITIES-- --Action Abilities: Byblos-- Success rate : all 100% except Parasite RNG RAD MP TIC PWR H/V H/V TAR LF JP EFFECT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Energize 0 -- 4/* 1/- Any N 0 Restores HP; Byblos loses HP equal to 1/2 of amount healed Parasite 0 -- 4/* 1/- Any N 0 Causes Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Toad, Poison, and/or Sleep (25% chance of each) Vengeance 0 -- 5/3 1/- Any N 0 Damage = (Byblos's max HP minus current HP) Manaburn 0 -- 5/3 1/- Any N 0 Deals damage equal to target's current MP --Reaction Abilities-- TRIGGER BRV JP EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------- Counter Physical atk. Yes 0 Counter-attack with physical attack --Support Abilities-- none --Movement Abilities-- none JP to master: 0 --MY THOUGHTS-- The Byblos doesn't join you until you've reached the last battle of the bonus dungeon, which limits its usefulness. By the time it's joined your team, you've already completed pretty much the whole single-player game! What can it do, though? Like Construct 8, it's a special "monster" and can't change jobs or use equipment. So, the Byblos is limited to its four abilities. While none of these are *bad*, they mean the Byblos a very limited set of actions. The Byblos also doesn't share Construct 8's immunity to magick and status ailments, and since it can't equip any gear to protect itself, it's quite vulnerable. The Byblos is fairly mobile thanks to its innate Ignore Elevation. And it does have an innate Poach, although the addition of Luso (who also has an innate Poach) to the PSP version makes this less exciting. %%%JOB STATISTICS COMPARISON%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00jobstat ---Stats During Active Use------------------------------------------------------ A character's current stats differ based on which job he or she is currently using -- for example, Black Mage has high MP, while Samurai has high attack power. This chart is just a quick comparison of the stats of each job. Note that job-specific evade rates (C-Ev) are only effective against attacks from the front; for more information on evade rates, see Important Statistics under Basic Mechanics and Tactics. ---NORMAL JOBS--- HP MP Phys.Atk Mag.Atk Speed Move Jump Evade Squire C- D+ C- D+ C 4 3 5% Chemist D D+ D+ D+ C 3 3 5% Knight C+ C- B- D+ C 4 3 10% Archer C- D C+ D+ C 3 3 10% Monk B C- B D+ B 3 4 20% White Mage D A- C- C B 3 3 5% Black Mage D A- D B C 3 3 5% Time Mage D A- D- C+ C 3 3 5% Summoner D A D- C+ D 3 3 5% Thief D+ D- C D- B 4 4 25% Orator D D+ D+ D C 3 3 5% Mystic D B D- C C 3 3 5% Geomancer C C C+ C- C 4 3 10% Dragoon C+ D- B- F C 3 4 10% Samurai D C B C- C 3 3 20% Ninja D D- B- D A 4 4 30% Arithmetician D- C- D- D F 3 3 5% Bard F D- F C C 3 3 5% Dancer F D- C+ C- C 3 3 5% Mime B+ D- B- C A 4 4 5% Dark Knight D C B+ D+ C 3 3 0% Onion Knight F D- D- F C 3 3 5% Onion Knight# B+ A+ B+ C A 4 4 30% # Upon mastering 14 other jobs, Onion Knight advances to job level 8 and its stats increase substantially. (Squire, Chemist, Mime, Dark Knight, and special jobs that replace Squire do not count towards this 14.) ---STORY CHARACTER JOBS--- These special jobs are only available to particular story characters. HP MP Phys.Atk Mag.Atk Speed Move Jump Evade Squire [Ramza]C+ B- C+ C- C 4 3 10% Holy Knight B+ C+ C C- C 3 3 25% Machinist C- D+ C- C- B+ 4 3 18% Game Hunter C+ B- C+ C- C 4 3 10% Skyseer C- C+ C C B+ 3 3 10% Netherseer C- B C+ C- B 4 3 8% Templar C+ A+ B C- C+ 4 3 14% Sky Pirate C C- C+ C- A 4 4 25% Sword Saint B+ A- B- C- B 4 3 12% Holy Dragon B+ D- A A+ B 5 3 5% Dragonkin B+ B+ B- C A 3 3 7% Divine Knight C+ C- B- C- C+ 4 3 10% Soldier C+ C+ C+ C- C 3 3 20% ---Stat Growth Rates------------------------------------------------------------ A character's job also affects the rate at which his/her permanent stats change upon gaining a experience level. While all jobs will grow all stats, some jobs grow certain stats faster and slower. For example, Monk will grow HP quickly, while Ninja will grow Speed quickly. Note that these growth rates don't always match up with the stat bonuses when you're using the job. For instance, almost every job has the same Magick Attack growth rate, but they definitely differ in their *current* Magick Attack! Move, Jump, and evade rates do not change with level-up, so there are no growth rates for these stats. You can exploit differences in these growth rates by leveling-down as a job with crummy growth rates and then gaining levels as a job with a good growth rate. While this is by NO means necessary, if you want to max out your stats in this way, check out the Level-Downs and Stat Grinding section under Statistics and Leveling, below. (press Ctrl+F and enter 00down to jump there) ---NORMAL JOBS--- HP MP Phys.Atk Mag.Atk Speed Squire *** ** ** * * Chemist ** ** * * * Knight **** ** **** * * Archer *** ** **** * * Monk **** *** *** * * White Mage **** **** *** * * Black Mage ** ***** ** * * Time Mage ** **** ** * * Summoner ** ***** * * * Thief *** ** *** * *** Orator *** * ** * * Mystic ** **** ** * * Geomancer **** **** **** * * Dragoon **** ** **** * * Samurai ** *** **** * * Ninja ** *** **** * ***** Arithmetician ** **** * * * Bard * * * * * Dancer * * *** * * Mime ***** * ***** **** * Dark Knight ** * **** * * Onion Knight ** *** * * * Onion Knight# ***** ***** ***** **** ***** # Upon mastering 14 other jobs, Onion Knight advances to job level 8 and its stat growth rates increase substantially. However, Onion Knights never gain experience, so the only way to gain levels as an Onion Knight is to breed Wild Boars and use their Bequeath Bacon ability. (See Level-Downs and Stat-Grinding for more.) ---STORY CHARACTER JOBS--- HP MP Phys.Atk Mag.Atk Speed Squire [Ramza]*** **** *** ** ** Holy Knight **** **** *** * * Machinist *** *** *** * * Game Hunter *** **** *** ** ** Skyseer *** **** *** * * Netherseer **** **** *** * * Templar **** **** *** *** * Sky Pirate **** *** *** * ***** Sword Saint **** **** **** *** ** Dragonkin ***** **** ***** ***** ** Divine Knight **** ** ***** * * Soldier *** **** *** * * %%%MONSTER LIST%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%00job3 In addition to human characters, Final Fantasy Tactics also features a variety of monsters. Monsters mostly appear in random battles, but also appear in a few story battles. This section lists all the different monsters in the game and their abilities. For more general information about how to recruit monsters, see Recruiting & Using Monsters under Basic Mechanics and Tactics. ---About Monsters--------------------------------------------------------------- ---MONSTER TYPES--- Monsters are divided by Family and Rank. Each monster Family has three Ranks: for instance, the chocobo family contains Chocobo (Rank I), Black Chocobo (Rank II), and Red Chocobo (Rank III). Within a Family, the monsters look the same but simply have different color schemes. Each monster's color scheme is listed in the table below. The color scheme will help you quickly identify a monster. It can also be used to help identify the monster inside an egg (see Monster Egg Preview under the Monsters section of Basic Mechanics & Tactics). The color of the EGG itself is random and doesn't tell you anything about what kind of monster inside the egg. ---MONSTER STATS--- Monsters typically have higher HP and attack power than humans, though many monsters are also slower. Keep in mind, though, that humans can make up a lot of the difference by equipping items, which monsters can't do. ---MONSTER ABILITIES--- Monsters cannot change jobs, but instead have a fixed set of 1-3 Action Abilities. These are their only actions; they have no regular attack command. Each monster also has one EXTRA ability. This ability can only be used if an ally with the Beastmaster support ability (Squire) is standing directly next to the monster. (Reis's Dragonkin job also has an inherent Beastmaster.) All Action Abilities used by standard, non-boss monsters have no charge time and consume no MP. Some monster abilities get stronger if you have higher Bravery (as noted in the charts below), but NO monster abilities depend on Faith. *ALL* monsters have Counter as an innate Reaction Ability and are immune to the Vampire status ailment. Since this is true of EVERY monster, I haven't listed it for each monster in the table, but be aware of it! Most monsters one or more innate Movement abilities (such as Ignore Elevation or Levitate). These are listed in the tables. Finally, many monsters also have various elemental affinities, such as Absorbs: Fire (fire attacks actually heal the monster), Immune: Ice, etc. ---POACHING--- When poached using the Thief's Poach ability, each monster yields one of two different items -- a common item or a rare item. This item can then be bought at the Poachers' Den in Dorter, Warjilis, or Sal Ghidos. I've listed the two items from each monster in the list below, and you can find a more detailed treatment of poaching in the Poached Items section (00poach). ---MONSTER LOCATIONS--- Monsters don't appear that much in story battles, but make up most of the enemies you'll face in random battles. Most monsters will appear in MANY spots on the map. For each monster, I've listed ONE spot where you can COMMONLY find that monster in each chapter, to help you recruit it or poach it. (Some monsters cannot be found in the earlier chapters, though.) The monsters you fight at a location depend the direction you enter the location on the map. In many cases, you'll need to use the correct entrance to maximize your chances of seeing the monster (e.g. entering Mandalia Plain from Gariland rather than Eagrose). For a *complete* list of what monsters appear at each location, see the Random Battles section later in the FAQ. And now, on with the monster list! ---Chocobo Family--------------------------------------------------------------- When KOed, looks like : Single feather Damage/healing : Magick Attack x PWR Success rate (Esuna) : Magick Attack + PWR The Chocobo family of monsters is unique in that human characters can ride them. To ride a chocobo, move a human character onto the same tile as a friendly chocobo (of any color). The character will mount the chocobo and they'll move and act as a single unit. Riding a chocobo allows you to combine the movement range and Movement Abilities of a chocobo with the human rider's Action Abilities and other stats (such as attack power and speed). Humans cannot use their own Movement Abilities while on a Chocobo, and Chocobos cannot use their Action Abilities while being ridden. A chocobo & rider combination is also immune to all negative status except Charm. Only the human takes damage; if he/she dies, he/she is booted off the chocobo and the chocobo functions normally again. CHOCOBO Family: Chocobo Rank : I Color scheme : Bright yellow HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: B- Move : 6 Jump : 5 Physical evade : 15% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Swim ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: none RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choco Beak 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Choco Cure Self 2/2 Any 3 - Restores HP (Choco Esuna) Self 2/2 Any 65 - Cures Stone, Blind, Silence, Poison, Stop, Immobilize, and Disable POACHED ITEM: Phoenix Down (common) / Hi-Potion (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter II-III : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter IV : Mandalia Plain - from Gariland BLACK CHOCOBO Family: Chocobo Rank : II Color scheme : Black/dark purple HP : B- Phys. Atk.: A+ Mag. Atk. : A Speed: D Move : 6 Jump : 5 Physical evade : 25% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Fly, Swim ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: none RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choco Beak 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Choco Pellets 4/* 1/- Any -- N Non-elemental physical attack; can't be blocked with Shirahadori. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x 50/100 Choco Esuna Self 2/2 Any 65 - Cures Stone, Blind, Silence, Poison, Stop, Immobilize, Disable (Choco Meteor) 5/* 1/- Any 4 N Non-elemental magick attack POACHED ITEM: Eye Drops (common) / X-Potion (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Balias Tor - from Lionel Castle Chapter IV : Balias Tor - from Lionel Castle RED CHOCOBO Family: Chocobo Rank : III Color scheme : Bright red HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: A- Mag. Atk. : A Speed: A Move : 6 Jump : 5 Physical evade : 10% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Ignore Elevation, Swim ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: none RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choco Beak 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Choco Pellets 4/* 1/- Any -- N Non-elemental physical attack; can't be blocked with Shirahadori. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x 50/100 Choco Meteor 5/* 1/- Any 4 N Non-elemental magick attack (Choco Cure) Self 2/2 Any 3 - Restores HP POACHED ITEM: Remedy (common) / Barette (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Balias Tor - from Lionel Castle Chapter IV : Balias Swale - from Warjilis ---Goblin Family---------------------------------------------------------------- When KOed, looks like : Goblin lying face-down on ground Status attack success : Magick Attack + PWR GOBLIN Family: Goblin Rank : I Color scheme : Red and gray HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk. : B+ Speed: D+ Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 18% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: none ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Ice RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tackle 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Eye Gouge 1/2 1/- Any 45 - Inflicts Blind status (Goblin Punch) 1/1 1/- Any 35 - Does damage equal to (Goblin's max HP - current HP) POACHED ITEM: Potion (common) / Hi-Potion (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter II-III : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter IV : Mandalia Plain - from Eagrose BLACK GOBLIN Family: Goblin Rank : II Color scheme : Black and gray HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk. : B+ Speed: C+ Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 19% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: none ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Ice RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tackle 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Spin Punch Self 2/1 Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x 50/100 (Goblin Punch) 1/1 1/- Any 35 - Does damage equal to (Black Goblin's max HP - current HP) POACHED ITEM: Hi-Potion (common) / Shoulder Cape (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : The Siedge Weald - any entrance Chapter II-III : The Siedge Weald - any entrance Chapter IV : The Siedge Weald - from Dorter GOBBLEDYGOOK Family: Goblin Rank : III Color scheme : Brown skin, green clothes with purple trim HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B+ Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: B Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 20% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: none ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Ice RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tackle 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Eye Gouge 1/2 1/- Any 45 - Inflicts Blind status Goblin Punch 1/1 1/- Any 35 - Does damage equal to (Gobbledygook's max HP - current HP) (Bloodfeast) 1/0 1/- Any 30 - Drains HP from target to user; amount = 3/4 of target's max HP POACHED ITEM: Mage Masher (common) / Ancient Sword (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Balias Swale - from Golgollada Gallows Chapter IV : Balias Swale - from Golgollada Gallows ---Bomb Family------------------------------------------------------------------ When KOed, looks like : Floating flame Magick damage : Magick Attack x PWR BOMB Family: Bomb Rank : I Color scheme : Red HP : B- Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: D+ Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 10% MOVEMENT ABILITIES : Float, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Absorbs Fire, Halves Ice, Weak to Water RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bite 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Self-Destruct Self 3/3 Any -- N KOs user & damages nearby units, inflicts Oil status. Damage is equal to (Bomb's max HP - current HP). (Bomblet) 1/0 1/- Any 4 - Non-elemental magick attack # POACHED ITEM: Flameburst Bomb (common) / Flame Rod (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : The Siedge Weald - from Dorter Chapter II-III : The Siedge Weald - any entrance Chapter IV : Balias Tor - from Zaland GRENADE Family: Bomb Rank : II Color scheme : Light blue HP : B- Phys. Atk.: C+ Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: C- Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 11% MOVEMENT ABILITIES : Float, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Absorbs Fire, Halves Ice, Weak to Water RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bite 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Bomblet 1/0 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. # Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x 50/100 Self-Destruct Self 3/3 Any -- N KOs user & damages nearby units, inflicts Oil status. Damage is equal to (Grenade's max HP - current HP). (Flame Attack) 3/* 1/- Any 3 N Fire magick attack POACHED ITEM: Hi-Potion (common) / Snowmelt Bomb (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Zeklaus Desert - any entrance Chapter IV : Zeklaus Desert - from Dorter EXPLODER Family: Bomb Rank : III Color scheme : Gray HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B+ Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: D+ Move : 3 Jump : 3 Physical evade : 12% MOVEMENT ABILITIES : Float, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Absorbs Fire, Halves Ice, Weak to Water RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bite 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Self-Destruct Self 3/3 Any -- N KOs user & damages nearby units, inflicts Oil status. Damage is equal to (Exploder's max HP - current HP). Spark Self 3/1 Any 2 N Fire magick attack; will also heal user since bombs absorb fire (Bomblet) 1/0 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. # Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x 50/100 POACHED ITEM: Spark Bomb (common) / Flame Shield (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Breeding only Chapter IV : Tchigolith Fenlands - from Lionel Castle # Note that Bomblet is a PHYSICAL attack when used by Bombs, but a MAGICK attack when used by Grenades and Exploders. Crazy! ---Panther Family--------------------------------------------------------------- When KOed, looks like : Skull Status attack success : Magick Attack + PWR RED PANTHER Family: Panther Rank : I Color scheme : Tan HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B- Mag. Atk. : A- Speed: C Move : 4 Jump : 4 Physical evade : 23% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Ignore Elevation, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Earth RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Claw 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Venom Fang 1/2 1/- Any 40 - Inflicts Poison status (Cat Scratch) 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to 8) POACHED ITEM: Antidote (common) / Battle Boots (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter II-III : Mandalia Plain - any entrance Chapter IV : Mandalia Plain - from Gariland COEURL Family: Panther Rank : II Color scheme : Blue-gray HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: B+ Mag. Atk. : A Speed: B Move : 4 Jump : 4 Physical evade : 26% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Ignore Elevation, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Earth RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V TAR PWR LF EFFECT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Claw 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = (Phys.Atk)^2 x (Bravery/100) Cat Scratch 1/2 1/- Any -- - Non-elemental physical attack. Damage = Physical Attack x (random number from 1 to 8) Venom Fang 1/2 1/- Any 40 - Inflicts Poison status (Blaster) 3/* 1/- Any 30 Y Inflicts Stone or Stop status POACHED ITEM: Gold Needle (common) / Germinas Boots (rare) CAN BE FOUND AT: Chapter I : Breeding only Chapter II-III : Zeirchele Falls - any entrance Chapter IV : Mandalia Plain - from Gariland VAMPIRE CAT Family: Panther Rank : III Color scheme : Purple HP : B+ Phys. Atk.: A- Mag. Atk. : B+ Speed: A- Move : 4 Jump : 4 Physical evade : 24% MOVEMENT ABILITIES: Ignore Elevation, can't enter water ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES: Weak to Earth RNG RAD ACTION ABILITIES: H/V H/V