Final Fantasy Tactics

[Tenshi no Ai]

So I have a question about this^^ Basically JUST got into the game today (played it for a few mins a while ago but that was it, and since I need to find a new LoD disk...) and I'm still getting used to things^^ I'm so used to Tactics Advance, so this is a little different...

Didn't realize that if someone in your party dies and their time runs out, they die for good! So I've already got a person or 2 off my team :/ And my question is: does a person ever come to fill their position, or are you just left with the remaining guys to work with? ^^ I know in TA, the only way people join your party is they ask to join and you can accept or refuse them. Unlike on here where you start out with... 8 or so? But yeah, just wondering if people ever ask to join or anything and fill the dead guy's position^^

(I couldn't help it v_v I didn't have any pheonix downs on me v_v)

[Nate]

It's fine. I always carry a few Phoenix Downs for that reason.

Anyway, there are characters that join as you progress through the storyline, as permanent characters (not Guests like Algus). However, you're far from that point in the game, so for now, your only recourse is to go to a town. At the bottom, you'll see the Soldier Office (below the bar). If you go in, you can recruit more permanent party members at 1,000 gill for a male soldier and 800 gil for a female soldier. They start out at level 1, as squires.

You also get to see their stats before you hire them, so you don't end up with a loser that has 35 Brave and 40 Faith. Just pick "Hire Soldier." If you don't like their stats, just exit and pick it again. Eventually you'll get someone decent. I recommend not getting someone unless they have over 65 in at least one of the two stats.

By the way, Tactics requires a lot more random battles to get your party up to snuff than Tactics Advance did.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Ok, I see about the hiring thing now, but another question (the game set up is REALLY bugging me with the abilities and how you can't chose a skill AND item etc) but how to you add items to the character inventory? For example I just bought a ton of pheonix downs and have other stuff like eithers and x potions etc. but when I used the item option in battle, it ONLY gave me the choice of potion and something else -_-'

This game will take a LOT for me to get used to... especially the fact that O is the enter button, not X :/

[everdred12a]

Kae covered pretty much every point that needed to be covered. I just have one thing to add.

It's a preference of mine to use the normal characters rather than the story characters. Normal characters aren't typically as strong as the story characters (the only story characters I ever used were Mustadio and Agrias). At the same time, the fact that the normal characters aren't as strong as the story ones is a strength and a weakness. It's a strength because it adds challenge to the game and is more fun IMO. It's a weakness because you end up not using some of the beefiest characters in the game.

If you want to, I suggest finding 3 normal characters you want to use and stick with them (I usually go to the Soldier Office and make 3 with names that I like XD ). Some battles only have a 4 participant limit, so (counting Ramza), you won't have to worry about leaving a character out for that reason.

It's just a suggestion. You may not want to follow up on it, but I find it makes the game more fun.

[Nate]

(the game set up is REALLY bugging me with the abilities and how you can't chose a skill AND item etc)

Actually, you can. Go into the "Abilities" part of the menu, put your cursor on the second Ability icon, and you can choose from any secondary Ability set that you have for any jobs that character can become. So underneath "Basic Skill" for Squire you can put "Item."

but how to you add items to the character inventory? For example I just bought a ton of pheonix downs and have other stuff like eithers and x potions etc. but when I used the item option in battle, it ONLY gave me the choice of potion and something else -_-'

No such thing as a character inventory. All characters use the item stock. If a character can't use Phoenix Down, it's because you haven't learned the ability yet. It's the very last ability in the Chemist subset, it takes 90 JP to learn.

If you want to, I suggest finding 3 normal characters you want to use and stick with them (I usually go to the Soldier Office and make 3 with names that I like XD ).

I keep around four normal characters, because in order to gain the Bard and Dancer classes, you need to train a male character as a wizard and a female character as a fighter. So I have two male characters, one in fighter classes and one in mage classes, and two females as the same.

[MasterDias]

I suppose I can give a couple of suggestions.

You won't unlock the Ninja and Samurai classes for awhile, but when you do, you will find they are very potent. I had Ramza learn their skills and he became a very good fighter.

Archers might seem a little weak at first, but they are actually quite useful on some of the earlier maps where it's better to pick off the enemies from a distance to avoid being overrun.

There are about 20 different classes in the normal characters and 10 or so special classes in the story characters so there are plenty of different combinations to experiment with.

[Kkun]

Here's a big hint that will help you for levelling up really quickly. Teach all of your characters that are just regular characters (i.e. not characters relevant to the story like Ramza, Agrias, etc.) the Squire skill Accumulate.

Then, whenever you have them as a certain job, equip their secondary skill as Basic Skill. Next, go to a random battle and beat up all the enemies until there is only one left and in critical condition. The enemy should start to run away, or you can run away from it, it doesn't really matter. For the rest of the battle, ignore the enemy and just sit there and have everyone use Accumulate. Accumulate is a skill that costs nothing to use and gains your character EXP and JP every time they use it. It gives the character +1 ATK, but that's not why it's cool. You can accumulate until your ATK reaches 999, then you have to leave the battle and start it over. It's time-consuming and boring but it's a very, very easy way to get EXP and JP for your characters.

[Tenshi no Ai]

So I have to learn the ability before I can use the item?! *sigh* this game is gunna be a lot of work for me :/ But thanks for the tips guys^^

[Tommy]

Not the biggest fan of SRPGs but this game is pretty good.
I found the whole system hard to catch up on.

[Wise Dragon]

Latter you can unlock the mediator job and you can make peole from the opposite side join your team permanently. Its a good way to fast recruit people with skills you dont have yet, like summoners or Samurai.

There was this one Time i was being a littel sadistic and I wanted the combat boots from this guy in the wilderness so I forced him to join and striped him of all his clothes and let him go. My friend laughed at me cause he said i was like some tyrant General.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Latter you can unlock the mediator job and you can make peole from the opposite side join your team permanently. Its a good way to fast recruit people with skills you dont have yet, like summoners or Samurai.

Hmmm that is a good idea. I'll keep that in mind^^ All I knew was that they had the skills to ally monsters into your party was it? And I know I have the skill "monster talk" (I should get me a chocobo^^) but maybe I'll change to that class for a while longer and get the skill to have the bad guys come over on my side^^

There was this one Time i was being a littel sadistic and I wanted the combat boots from this guy in the wilderness so I forced him to join and striped him of all his clothes and let him go. My friend laughed at me cause he said i was like some tyrant General.

Good job! Yeah I'm usually mean and if I know characters are about to die on a game, I'll strip them of their armour and weapons so I can sell them and make some money^^


So right now in the game things aren't going too bad... although I found that before a boss fight it's always good to get your party to gain a level or so^^ And I'm ALWAYS teaching them new abilities and buying the most expensive armour you can get (just annoyed because the enemies keep using a special knife that breaks their armou and I have to buy new stuff v_v) So far so good on the game though^^ Course I'll be taking a break from it when my friend lets me borrow his LoD disk^^

[everdred12a]

Latter you can unlock the mediator job and you can make peole from the opposite side join your team permanently. Its a good way to fast recruit people with skills you dont have yet, like summoners or Samurai.

Actually, Mediators aren't that good. It's far easier to just get the Samurai class on your own. The skill necessary to invite people (aptly called Invitation) typically has a very low success rate, around 15%. Inviting people is very long and drawn out. In fact, it's a lot easier (and better in the long run) to invest in Thieves. Thieves can just steal the equipment right off the enemies' backs, rather than go through the rigamarole of inviting, taking their stuff, then dismissing them. Plus, later on, there's some *really* beefy equipment that can only be gotten by stealing (in my last run through, I had 4 characters who were master Thieves, including Ramza).

Also, about skills. I want to suggest a few good classes to try - Monk, Thief, Geomancer, Ninja, and Calculator. Each of these job classes has their own special ability (or abilities) you can get which will serve you well.
Monk - Monk is a really beefy class. They have naturally high HP and attack (then need it because of the lack of armor and weapons). They wear normal armor, but are restricted to the use of a shirt and an accessory. They cannot *normally* use weapons, sheilds, or helmets. The Monk gets boosted unarmed damage, though, and can rival Knights in attack power. The good abilities for Monk are Counter (standard counter attack ability), Hamedo (good in human vs human combat, but utterly useless against monsters. Quite possibly the most powerful counter ability against human enemies), Chakra (recover HP/MP for yourself, and surrounding allies for free and instantly), Revive (pretty self-expanitory, no?), and Wave Fist (a ranged attack. Not too bad, and is quite underrated IMO).
Thief - The Thief uses normal armor, and uses Knives/Daggers as their weapons. The Thief is characterized by high speed. Useful abilities are Steal commands (namely Weapon, Armor, Helmet, Sheild, and Accessory) and Move +2 (adds w to your movement rate). Not much is too terribly useful outside of these, but the Steal abilities will be useful throughout most of the game.
Geomancer - Not the *best* job, but they're not too bad, either. Geomancers are sort of like advanced Squires in the equipment they use and their standout stats. They use Swords and normal armor. The key part of Geomancers is their... Geomancy (I can't remember if that's the term). The Geomancy abilities are all cheap (all of the attack skills are 150 JP), but the selling point here is that all of the skills have added effects, and at best, they are things like Stop, Petrify, Slow, Sleep, and Death. Geomancy can be used at a distance, but the skill is determined by the terrain the user of the skill is on. To find out in advance what kind of terrain a place is, cancel out of the character menu and press select on a space. A window will appear to tell you about the terrain. Another good point of Geomancers is their counter ability, Counter Flood. Basically, when you get damaged, you counter with Geomancy (if the ability for the given terrain is available). It can be pretty good (and funny, too. Imagine getting hit and almost killed, only to Counter Flood and Petrify your opponent!).
Ninja - Sort of an advanced Thief in abilities. The Ninja is the fastest job class in the game. The Ninja will almost always go first. Their standout skill is the Two Swords job command (which is probably the only reason to use Ninja), which allows you to dual-wield one-handed weapons. It can be a really useful ability to have. Sunken State isn't bad, either, to be honest. Sunken State is a counter move that makes your character invisible until you attack someone. When invisible, the computer completely ignores you.
Now then.... Calculators. Single-handedly the worst job in all of FFT, IMO. But the Calculator ability, called 'Math Skill', is the most powerful ability in the whole game. A character with Math Skill can go into a fight alone, win, and do it without taking damage, no less. Imagine starting the fight, and at your first AT, casting Holy on every enemy on the field, for free, and instantly. Calculator (the class) is insanely slow, and uses normal armor and Sticks/Dictionaries as weapons. The class is horrible, and your Calculator character will get their AT about 2/3 or maybe 1/2 as fast as your normal characters. But it's worth it to level up Math Skill. Learn all of the abilities, then learn all the Calculatable magic skills (push select on a magic skill. If the word 'Calc' is in the skill description, then the skill is useable by Calculators). Math Skill draws upon abilities from Priest, Wizard, Oracle, and Time Mage. The Math Skill abilities are pretty easy to figure out once you get them all, so I don't think I'll go into detail about them. If you want me to, however, I will.

I know I've typed a really long post, but I'm just trying to help you out. FFT is one of my fave games of all time, and I'm very passionate about it. It always pleases me to see someone get into the game and like it as much as I do ^_^

[MasterDias]

(I should get me a chocobo^^)

You get one automatically actually. He's a pretty good unit. I used him in my party for awhile.


Also, about what everdred12a was saying:

Geomancers - The status effects are nice, but by the time I got around to using one, I found that this was offset by their attack power which was generally inferior to the rest of my units. But, whatever works for you...

Calculators - Three major problems with this unit:
1.Most complicated unlocking requirements next to Mimes, so it's unlikely you will get it for awhile.
2.If you screw up, he/she will damage all of your own units, and none of the enemies, which makes them quite difficult to use and more of a hassle than most people want.
3.Very slow.

[Bobtheduck]

All you got to do with calculators is put them on auto-battle... The computer always uses them correctly, unlike any other magic class...

[Gypsy]

Sorry for breaking the flow ... but I just wanted to lift my glass to Tactics - an extremely cool game.

[everdred12a]

You get one automatically actually. He's a pretty good unit. I used him in my party for awhile.


Also, about what everdred12a was saying:

Geomancers - The status effects are nice, but by the time I got around to using one, I found that this was offset by their attack power which was generally inferior to the rest of my units. But, whatever works for you...

Calculators - Three major problems with this unit:
1.Most complicated unlocking requirements next to Mimes, so it's unlikely you will get it for awhile.
2.If you screw up, he/she will damage all of your own units, and none of the enemies, which makes them quite difficult to use and more of a hassle than most people want.
3.Very slow.

Actually, Geomancers can be unlocked rather quickly. All you need is a level 3 Monk. Not difficult to obtain by any means. All you have to do is hit level 2 Squire and level 2 Knight, then become a Monk. Hit level 3 Monk and you're there. And no, I wasn't saying they're an amazing job class, but because of the damage with side effects, not to mention the fast ranged attacks that aren't effected by terrain height, I find myself using them often.

And about Calculators....
1. They're not complicated at all to unlock. They require lv 4 Priest, lv 4 Wizard, lv 3 Oracle, and lv 3 Time Mage. If you try to get just the basic magic that works with Math Skill (ie Bolt, Bolt 2, Cure, Protect, Shell, Blind, Sleep, Haste, Slow, etc) you'll have the class in no time. It's not nearly as difficult to get as you make it sound.
2. It's kind of tough to screw up. I wouldn't suggest putting it on Auto-Battle when you use Math Skill, because the computer chooses strange spells sometimes, and the computer is programmed to use Math Skill so long as it targets more opponents than allies. I remember one time it auto-calculated Death and killed half of my party, but left the enemies primarily unharmed. You never use Auto-battle for Math Skill. Besides, Math Skill isn't set in stone until you tell the computer to execute. You can look at who's being targeted by the spell at any time while picking the Math Skill commands. And have you ever thought about metagaming against it? Make a party of knights and give them all Excaliburs, then Holy the whole field XD
3. Yes, Calculators are very slow, but leveling up can be fairly easy (surprisingly). I never said that Calculators in themselves are very good. I think it's the worst job class available. However, it's Math Skill that's good. You have to pay the price to get it, though.

[Wise Dragon]

Actually, Mediators aren't that good. It's far easier to just get the Samurai class on your own. The skill necessary to invite people (aptly called Invitation) typically has a very low success rate, around 15%. Inviting people is very long and drawn out. In fact, it's a lot easier (and better in the long run) to invest in Thieves. Thieves can just steal the equipment right off the enemies' backs, rather than go through the rigamarole of inviting, taking their stuff, then dismissing them.

True it does take a while to get them on your party,and I wouldn't recmend just getting that skill just to take some people's clothes (I was just boerd at the time and didn't have anything else to to do). However in my case I didn't know how to get a summoner at the time so I just recruited someone elses. And i do believe that mediators are pretty much useless unless thats what your trying to do.

[Nate]

Here are some hints. If you use the Mediator skills that raise Brave and Faith, for every time it works successfully, their Brave/Faith raises permanently by one point. Same as if you use the skills that lower Brave/Faith, each time it works permanently lowers it by one point.

Knowing this, you can get everyone to a high Brave and Faith level, but be careful. You'll get a warning message above 85 or so, or gets around 15 or so. This isn't anything to be concerned about. However, when their Brave/Faith goes above 90 or below 10, there is a chance that the character will permanently leave your party. Personally, I raise the Brave of my fighter characters to 89 and the Faith of my magic characters to the same.

However, I knock Rafa's Brave down to 11, for the simple reason that the lower your Brave level, the higher the chances of finding a rare item with Move/Find Item ability.

Personally, there are a couple of reaction skills that I feel are the most worth your time.

Auto-Potion - GET THIS FOR YOUR WHITE MAGE. Seriously. And raise his Brave up. Because the higher your Brave level, the greater the chance of using a reaction ability. So your White Mage will almost always heal whenever he is attacked. Make sure you only have X-Potions in your inventory, because the Auto-Potion ability uses the lowest level of potion you have.

Blade Grasp - GET THIS FOR RAMZA. This also works exceptionally well for other classes. Blade Grasp makes the maximum accuracy of an enemy physical attack (100 - your Brave level%). In other words, Ramza in my game has a Brave of 97. The highest percentage of success for an enemy attack is 3%. That's it. If your character had a Brave of 79, the enemy would only have a 21% chance of hitting you. Blade Grasp is amazing, so GET IT (it's a Samurai job).

Two Swords - A ninja ability. I use it for most of my fighters. It's awesome. Ramza + Two Swords + Chaos Blade + Excalibur = Very yes.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Wow lots more tips here... I should find a walkthrough and see what it takes to unlock all the classes^^ I remember when I played Tactics Advance think I ended up having every class, but the Vierra summoner (which takes the most work to get and all). I almost thought the orginal Tactics was a bit of a step down because yes, it does have a lot of classes of male and female, but I thought it was fun that you can pick what race you want and certain races can only do certain jobs^^

[MasterDias]

1. They're not complicated at all to unlock. They require lv 4 Priest, lv 4 Wizard, lv 3 Oracle, and lv 3 Time Mage. If you try to get just the basic magic that works with Math Skill (ie Bolt, Bolt 2, Cure, Protect, Shell, Blind, Sleep, Haste, Slow, etc) you'll have the class in no time. It's not nearly as difficult to get as you make it sound.

But that all depends on whether you train all four units. For me, I never bothered too heavily with Oracles and Time Mages early on. Some of their spells may be useful but they are too specialized for my tastes as individual units.
To get the most out of the Calculator, you would have to constantly switch between all four classes to learn most of the Math Skill magic.

2. It's kind of tough to screw up. I wouldn't suggest putting it on Auto-Battle when you use Math Skill, because the computer chooses strange spells sometimes, and the computer is programmed to use Math Skill so long as it targets more opponents than allies. I remember one time it auto-calculated Death and killed half of my party, but left the enemies primarily unharmed. You never use Auto-battle for Math Skill. Besides, Math Skill isn't set in stone until you tell the computer to execute. You can look at who's being targeted by the spell at any time while picking the Math Skill commands. And have you ever thought about metagaming against it? Make a party of knights and give them all Excaliburs, then Holy the whole field XD

I never said that their skills were not powerful, actually. You just have to be really careful. But you have used them more than I have, so I will conceed the point.

I hope SE will make another Tactics game. Tactics Advance had a nice selection of classes but I found it too easy compared to the original Tactics.

[everdred12a]

Wow lots more tips here... I should find a walkthrough and see what it takes to unlock all the classes^^ I remember when I played Tactics Advance think I ended up having every class, but the Vierra summoner (which takes the most work to get and all). I almost thought the orginal Tactics was a bit of a step down because yes, it does have a lot of classes of male and female, but I thought it was fun that you can pick what race you want and certain races can only do certain jobs^^

The races were one thing about FFTA that I enjoyed, as well, but I viewed TA as a step down from the original (probably because I played FFT first). The Viera Totema was actually pretty lame, IMO, but that's because Vieras were the most powerful race, IMO. The fact that they actually made the assassin class available to the player is what made it so good. Given, the instant kill ability in FFTA is nowhere near as good as Stop Bracelet (you'll see. Trust me on this one), the assassin class was still good.

But that all depends on whether you train all four units. For me, I never bothered too heavily with Oracles and Time Mages early on. Some of their spells may be useful but they are too specialized for my tastes as individual units.
To get the most out of the Calculator, you would have to constantly switch between all four classes to learn most of the Math Skill magic.

There is one thing that can help with this. I don't really want to continue the Calculator discussion, but I can use this to branch off into another neat 'trick', so to speak. Not really a trick so much, but a neat aspect of the game.

Let's say you have a character of class 'A', and a character of class 'B' (A and B can be any two jobs, but I think they have to be different). As long as you use character A and character B together, character A will gain a few JP for class B and character B will gain a few JP for class A. I'm not too familiar with the specifics (like what determines how much JP characters gain from other characters), but it can be nice when mastering a class. For instance.... Ramza is a Thief and you have 4 other units in the battle as well. Ramza decides to use the Yell/Accumulate/Scream trick (which is just using Yell, Accumulate, or Scream over and over again). If you decide to keep using this trick until you gain enough JP to master the class (which is about 2600-2800, I believe), your other characters will gain 300-400 JP for that class as well. Just something to remember XD

To add onto what Kaemmerite said about raising Brave, you don't have to have a Mediator to raise Brave. You can use Ramza's Squire skill 'Cheer Up,' which has the same effect as the Mediator skill, but hits 100% of the time. Unfortunately, there isn't a skill that does this with Faith except for the Mediator's. However, a high faith isnt' always a good thing (like when trying to get Zodiac <.<).

[Tenshi no Ai]

Me have another question^^ Does leveling up REALLY help in this game? You see, I'm stuck in a pretty tight spot at the moment (second last battle of chapter 2). I know the game's all about the tactics and strategies, but I BARELY made it out of the battle beforehand, because my characters still have very LOW HP so are weak :/ Should be expected with mages but when a ninja gets killed within almost 3 blows? Yeah, not fun :/ And where I am now, can't really change my job to something with higher like a knight or anything, because I sold all the weapons I'm not using right now, thinking I wouldn't need them and the 2 shops available don't even have what I need (still can't even equip my dragoon/lancer with anything :/) But yeah it's not just the tactics, but almost impossible at the moment to me survive with how I'm going right now (already takes FOREVER to do the trick where you bring Ramza over the bridge so you don't have to fight Galfwhat'shisface :/ That takes at least 3 hits on Ramza and isn't good and even when you FINALLY make it over the bridge on the black chocobo, he can still hit you through the bridge!!! >_< GAH! Can't change his class since his HP will MAJORLY drop.... so any hints, Tactics fans? ^^ And will constantly leveling up really help, since it seems at least when I fight monsters on the field that they seem to grow in HP with my character's levelin... or maybe that's just me^^

My team is as follows (so maybe this'll help some too^^)

Knight, holy knight, archer, ninja, priest, wizard, summoner, engeneer 2 yellow chocobos, 1 black chocobo, and a geomancer (which is useless at the moment with the only purpose of having them, trying to level them to get to be a dancer^^ plus they don't have any weapons at the moment :/)



Oh and 1 more q: haven't checked out the bar until now, and didn't realize that they had those little side quest thingies for your characters to go do work^^ Although they said it would only take 5 days and walked around 5+ times and they never came back yet :/ And I also can't remember, what do they bring you when they come back? Level ups? Experience? Items/gil? And is it also the bar where you go abouts doing the actual side quests where you go out and fight things? Heh I've probably already past a ton of them^^ I just know that I want Cloud on my team, as I've seen on a walkthrough^^ And Beuwolf's pretty cool too, maybe I'll get him too^^

[Wise Dragon]

Leveling up does help it just takes a while to notice any really improvement, so skills and equipment are probly the best thing to focus on. try using a purely defensive strategy. Some of the levels are very hard and drawn out so try focusing on eliminating one enemy at a time. Also consider incapacitating your enemies. Example a wizard is pretty much useless without his magic so drain his Mp. If your lucky enough try to break a knights weapons so they are renderd useless.

oh and to get your person back just go back to the bar where you sent them off to and they will rejoin your party.

[everdred12a]

So, you made it to the fight in front of Lionel Castle, eh? I might not be of any help because I *usually* have a mastered Calculator (which really makes it quite easy) by this fight, but I'll try to provide some assistance.

1. Ramza *must* have a healing ability, or have a character nearby that can heal him (spells can go through the castle gate)

2. If Ramza is capable of healing himself, bring a second healer as well (for the rest of your party)

3. On the setup screen before the fight, the setup is *reversed*. Therefore, during setup, the characters closest to the screen will be on the flank when the battle starts. I'd recommend putting the healers in the back part of the setup screen (hope this helps, I know it's an awkward description...)

4. Abuse Agrias. Agrias' Stasis Sword is a very useful ability at this point, because she can attack multiple units with it, and there's always that random Stop effect.

5. Ramza's strategy: Break or steal Gafgarion's sword. I'd suggest stealing it, if at all possible, because Ancient Swords are pretty decent at this point in the game. The real purpose behind this is that with no sword, Gafgarion is no threat whatsoever. If you can't do any of those, constantly run away and heal Ramza. Night Sword is a beefy attack, and it will kill you if you're not careful.

6. Opening the gate: If you're really desperate, then you can open the castle gate. If you watched an earlier cutscene, you can see one of the Lionel Knights opening the castle gate with a switch on the wall. Well, guess what? Ramza can, too. I don't like to do this until I've neutralized either Gafgarion or the enemies on the other side of the wall (basically until one of the group has nothing left to do). To open the gate, just move into the square in front of the switch, and Ramza will automatically open it.

7. Make sure you get rid of the summoners. They're pesky, and one of them can summon Titan, which is a fairly powerful spell at this level.

8. Abuse Mustadio. Arm Aim and Leg Aim are two *great* abilities, and are the primary reason I use him. That and the fact that the guns are absurdly accurate.

9. Place your ninja to the right during setup (which would actually be the farthest *left* space on the setup screen) and have him go right after the summoners. The two weapon ability *should* be able to dispatch a summoner on the first turn. If you can't reach the summoner, then go after an archer.

If your problems progress, I'll whip the game out and try to give you some more in-depth hints. Hope all of this helps!!!

[Tenshi no Ai]

Alright thanks for all the tips^^ Yeah I totally forgot to use Agrias for some reason before and I was thinking before too to try her out. And yes, summoners are a total PAIN (which was why I had some trouble on the battle where Mustadio's dad was captured :/) But yeah that summoner is usually knocked out within 2 shots of my ninja and Mustadio. But even after he's gone the knights all have the ability to turn my characters into stone v_v

One more question: Ramza has the abilities wish (which I recently found out although it DOES give the healing character a huge HP boost, it brings his down... just noticed that) he does have the "heal" ability too, but I've never figured out what that does since it never works :/ Doesn't seem to boost HP now act as a sort of esuna to cure status wounds :/

So first thing's first in the game though: leveling up the characters I'll be using. Although I DID notice that the enemy's HP DOES go up some. Gafgarion used to be around 200 and when I faught again it went up some to 215! Unless it fluxuates up and down every once and a while?

[everdred12a]

No, HP doesn't fluctuate.

To learn what an ability does, press select on it. Heal recovers certain status ailments such as poison and I think blind. Wish heals the target, and takes half of the healed amount from the user. (like, Ramza heals 100 hp, so he loses 50). By 'healing skills,' I mean like Cure or Chakra. Chakra is the ability I suggest using (It's a Monk ability that costs 350 JP I think).

If you can't manage that, then just station a healer next to the castle gate. As far as the knights go, Carve Model shouldn't petrify you that often. The knights are tough opponents, but I usually find the Summoners and the archers to be greater threats. You have to blitz the knights with Agrias. Try to use Stasis Sword when at all possible, but if you can only target a single enemy, use Split Punch (or Crush Punch if you have it. Once you have Crush Punch, you have no reason to use Split Punch anymore).

[Tenshi no Ai]

Well good news: I tried the weapon break on Gafgarion and it totally helped 100%! I remember seeing it on a walkthrough but forgot until you brought it up again. Surprisingly, I managed to outmanuver all of those 7 enemies with all my guys without dying ONCE! I was really surprised^^ The battle afterwards I was worried with the attack Nightmare that either put my guys to sleep or killed them... luckily enough my wizard was the ONLY character on the team not effected and managed to kill him before my ninja and Ramza turned into crystals^^ Scared me when they show HP as ?? on games though... I like to know^^

Now, onto chapter 3... I think what I'll start off by doing before going into any major battles, is train my 1 character into a dancer since I hear they are pretty good (what type of weapons do they use, if any at all?) and then try and turn maybe half my party at a time into chemists so I can learn alot more healing techniques... focusing more the the hi and x potions^^ Knowing the fact that only ONE of my character have the pheonix down ability and one other has hi potion... yeah need to teach them more so I don't lways have to rely on those 2 ^^

[everdred12a]

Who told you Dancers were good? Ignore them. The only good thing about Dancers (and their male counterpart, the Bard), is the Fly ability. But I'd just as soon use Teleport than Fly, because it's easier to get. Dancers have some good abilities, like Final Dance, but the useful abilities are too slow to be useful. You could probably kill 2 or 3 units by the time Final Dance triggers. Also, the Dancer uses either daggers or cloth as their weapons (you'll eventually see cloth in the shops).

People might not agree with me on this point, but I'd quit with items. Your Priest should have at least Cure 2 and Raise by now, which is more than enough to replace items. And if you still haven't used a monk yet, I suggest you train at least one. They have a few good abilities. Same goes for Thieves. I suggest training at least one. Otherwise you'll be passing up some really beefy, one-of-a-kind items. The Genji gear (stolen from Marquis Elmdor) can only be stolen, albeit a difficult chore to steal, but it's the second best set of armor in the game. Also, the Blaze Gun can be stolen, although you have 2 opportunities to get it (steal it from Balk or wait until the deep dungeon). It's always a good idea to look at your opponent's equipment and see if they have anything better than you do (which they sometimes do, especially during chapter 2 and 3).

[Bobtheduck]

Don't mediators gain that "auto-invite" ability, though... The one that people (and animals) tend to join you when they're nearly dead?

Don't EVER ditch items... It's more than just life and health... Items are for stuff like silence and MP replenishing, too... If you are silenced or have no MP, all those glorious priest abilities aren't going to mean anything... Not only that, but items are instantaneous, wheras spells take time... I've never found much use for a priest...

[everdred12a]

Don't mediators gain that "auto-invite" ability, though... The one that people (and animals) tend to join you when they're nearly dead?

The support ability 'Tame'. It only works on monsters.

Don't EVER ditch items... It's more than just life and health... Items are for stuff like silence and MP replenishing, too... If you are silenced or have no MP, all those glorious priest abilities aren't going to mean anything... Not only that, but items are instantaneous, wheras spells take time... I've never found much use for a priest...

*coughMathSkillcough*
Math Skill overrides Silence if I remember correct, and is instantaneous. Plus, unless you use a Chemist or equip the horrible Item-Throw ability, Items are very restricted in their range. But don't forget about the pseudo-priest, the Monk. Stigma Magic (aka Esuna), Chakra (free HP/MP recovery), and Revive are all instant and you don't have to buy anything to use them. Items quickly become defunct, and by Dorter Trade City in chapter one, you should be perfectly capable of getting through the battles without items. Status effects such as Silence don't really show up in the first chapter, and by the time they *do* show up in chapter 2, you should have effective means to combat them.