What does any of this have to do with Final Fantasy XII?
Nothing whatsoever. I guess he’s referring to Final Fantasy VII: Dirge Of Cerberus. I never played it, so I can’t comment on its quality. I manage to read about games before I purchase them so I know what I’m getting.
Back to the topic at hand, has anyone found any must-have gambits for the early game (like pre-30 levels)? My current setup looks something like this (simplified):
Note: could be very minor spoilers if you don’t want to know what characters you’ll end up playing with. It’s all stuff you’d know perusing the manual though.
Tank/Party Leader (Basch primarily, with Vaan as backup)
- Attack nearest foe.
- Attack leader’s for (in case I change leaders temporarily
That’s it on the tank, I want him to keep swinging, so I don’t have him healing anyone.
Support damage/healer (Ashe primarily, Balthier as backup)
- Raise/phoenix down the caster if she dies
- Heal ally with less than 50% HP
- Attack party leader’s target
Caster/range attacks (Fran, Penelo as backup)
- Raise fallen ally.
- Heal ally with less than 70% HP
- Cast protect on party leader
- Attack party leader’s target (bow for Fran, thunder for Penelo)
That’s worked well for me so far, but I’m sure I’m missing some phenominal approach to the whole thing. For one, I don’t think I’ve used “Libra” once. Do you guys work it in the rotation?
I really like to have a steal gambit set up. Something like “Enemy >= 70% HP Steal”. That way your thief gets one or two steal attempts in per fight then switches to attacking or whatever. For boss fights or tough hunting marks where the enemy is gonna stay over 70% for a long time, and you don’t want to lose the damage, I turn it off. But for normal traveling or clearing an area, I think it really helps earn money. You get a pretty decent increase in loot.
As for the tactic of “Attack nearest target” for leader and “attack leader’s target” for everyone else, it works fine 99% of the time, but one annoying issue I’ve had with it is, in tougher fights with multiple opponents, your leader may switch between the foes as they move around, and then everyone else switches with him, splitting up the damage. Of course, you can just turn off gambits for him and play him manually, but after having the system run the leader around in combat for me, I always forget I have to do it when I turn gambits off, so that kinda screws things up too. So one little improvement I like for situations like this is to have a “Attack Critically injured foes” gambit before my “attack leader’s target/attack nearest foe” gambits, so that if a foe does get down in health I can make sure they’ll finish it off and not switch to another target.
For me, Libra is only useful when I’m having trouble with an enemy, to know what type of magic (if any), they’re weak against. For instance in the Balheim (or whatever it was called) area where you’re trying to get to the mimics and the flans are blocking your way, it really helped me to use Libra and see that the flans were weak to fire, so I could finish them off a lot quicker. But most of the time it’s not needed.
Good points, Amok. I posted the above on another messageboard and was told to switch numbers 1 and 2 for the tank class to avoid the target switching problem, so I’ll try that tonight. I’ll see if I can work steal into the support person’s rotation as well. 
So here’s a quick, random question : Anyone found the spell Aero for sale? My book says Rabanastre, but it’s not in the shop. Bah.
I have a question also before this thread disappears - should I be saving any of these items that appear in my inventory as “Loot” or are they only good for selling? (there are mentions of alchemy in the game but I haven’t come across any such application yet)
Other than teleport stones, I think that the “Loot” category exists only for selling in the item shops. In fact, I know that you have to sell certain quantities of certain loot items before some weapons, items, etc. will appear for sale in the shops.
I bought it last Wednesday, didn’t get to start it until Friday night, and played it all through the weekend. I just entered the tomb and got my ass kicked by the Demon Wall, so I’ve been leveling up a bit and playing with everyone’s gambits. Here are my thoughts so far.
I like the gambit system a lot. It appeals to the programmer in me. At first my party wasn’t doing anything, but a little debugging later and they were kicking ass. I had everyone keying in on the party leader’s target, and he was keying in on enemies targetting him. But if the enemies were just minding their own business and not targeting anyone, everyone just sat there. I fixed that. I was also confused at first why anyone would need more than three or four gambit slots, but now I see what kinds of cool things you can do. For example, now I have everyone checking to see if it’s a flying enemy, and if it is they start throwing spells instead of attacking, unless they have a long range weapon. Also, if there are any enemies with the Oil status, everyone now starts casting Fire. Of course, I can always interject with a potion or ether if I need to.
So I must say that I like this system. It took some time to grow on me, but now I’m really into it. The story is really grabbing me, too. I’m ignoring the obvious similarities to earlier games (Rabanastre is to Midgar as FF12 is to FF7 and the Shards are to the Triforce as FF12 is to Zelda, I think), because even if they hadn’t already done it, someone else had. I can’t wait to get home to play it.
I’m not going to red this thread too much, because I love the game and think it’s one of the sweetest things to ever come down the pipe. And I don’t know if I really care too much about the criticisms. 
I did want to post my two cents, though. I spent the weekend playing it and stayed up late last night too. I am totally addicted. The only thing I will say is that I agree that Van and Penelo are totally unneccessary - and I’ve not even played a quarter yet, but I got up to Vossler…er…leaving your group and it seems they are just tacked on. But I really love Basch and Balthier is by FAR my favorite character ever. I love the game.
BTW, I always replay all of my Final Fantasies, except 1 & 2 which are just too primitive. I have played 7 so many times I know almost every secret by heart, and I play 9 a hell of a lot too because it has a happy ending. X-2 was stupid, but at least it gave me a satisfactory ending to X, so I replay X a lot too now.
I can’t figure out how to do quickenings. I’ve looked online and I can’t find a decent description of how to do this. Please help! I can’t kill the Demon Wall without this.
You unlock a quickening on the license board. Then, your MP must be fully charged (glowing) and you select “Mist,” then “Quickening,” then the name of the Quickening. What happens next is that you must press the button that appears next to the character’s name above the time gauge. If no button appears, keep hitting the R2 button to “shuffle” it until one does.
That said, I’m quite bummed with both the quickenings and the espers. They completely drain all of your character’s MP, but they barely do enough damage to be worthwhile. I had a battle last night where I managed to chain something like seven of Vaan and Ashe’s quickenings in a battle, unleashing a big “bonus cataclysm,” and when all was said and done it had knocked something like 5% of the boss’s HP. Great…now they’re both running around with no MP.
Huh, are you kidding? Quickenings and espers do INSANE amounts of damage, to the point of being sort of unbalancing to the game (at least in the early-mid game). I’ve been taking down bosses with 2 quickening chains (from 4-6 quickenings each) and nothing more.
You can even get up to 3 quickenings for each character, which (I’m presuming, since I only have 1 for each so far) would let you chain them even more easily by not having to shuffle as much in the short time you have to create a chain. Add espers in there and you’ve got some serious guns.
Quickenings and Espers are tools to be used in the right situations.
Each Esper has a super-powerful ‘finishing’ type move that they only do in certain conditions. Usually it’s upon the time limit of that esper running out, if it’s still alive, or some situation involving critical HP or status.
The Zodiac esper has one of the most, if not the most, powerful attack in the game. To access it, your character needs to be in ‘petrify’ status. Cast ‘Break’ on yourself to easily achieve this.
Other espers have other requirements, but it’s usually time limit up or critical HP. Each one suits a different situation best. Play with them. Figure out what works where.
Quickenings are best to be used in the second half of a boss fight. Whittle their HP down to between 20% and 50%, and you can usually finish them off with a Quickening chain.
If you’re doing crap damage, then you’re not doing it right. You need to chain them.
Just so you know, Quickenings, the Zodiac Esper, and multiple weapon hits in a single attack are the only possible ways to circumvent the damage cap of 9999.
Let me explain a little more indepth:
Each character can obtain 3 Mist Quickenings. A level 1, level 2, and level 3. Say that your ‘base’ MP is 100. If you have all 3 Quickenings learned, your MP will be able to go up to 300, even though your base is 100. (I’m using round numbers here).
Each 100 is one ‘bar/charge’ of MP.
A level 1 Quickening uses 1 bar. level 2 uses 2 bars. 3, uses 3 bars. Their power is adjusted accordingly. In addition, you can chain these attacks.
When you use a Quickening, the screen will change, and a timer will appear. Above the timer is a list of your party members. They will be either ‘grayed out’ or lit up depending on a random element. If they are all grayed out, hit R2 to ‘shuffle’. Characters able to perform quickenings will be lit up with a button next to their name.
Press this button to ‘chain’ this character’s quickening next. If the character runs out of MP, there may be a ‘Mist Charge’ instead of the name of their Quickening. If you press the button then, their MP will be restored, and they are guaranteed to be lit up for the next Quickening to chain.
These attacks are non-elemental, and the only time it won’t work is if something is immune to physical. The other great thing is that if you chain enough attacks, you’ll get a ‘finishing’ type move at the end that damages everything in the vicinity, not just your target.
You’ll have to remember that rushing into a boss fight, and immediately using a Quickening usually isn’t a good idea. Some bosses have the ability to restore all their HP once they get down to a certain amount, or unleash a powerful attack at critical HP levels. The best thing to do is to get their HP down, and then finish them off with the Quickening.
You have six characters, make use of them. If your main party runs out of MP, bring in your backups. If you use a quickening chain and your boss is nearly dead but not quite, bring in your three reserves and do a second chain of quickenings.
If you’re out of MP, use the ‘Charge’ skill. It’s invaluable. It only works when you’re within about 10% of your max MP, and then it will usually work once or twice in a row. Utilize that.
Espers are a little different, as only one character can use each. They have a time limit after being summoned, and if you keep them alive, they’ll unleash a special attack when the time is up. As I explained above, they have other conditions for performing special attacks, and the Zodiac is the most powerful one.
Final Fantasy 12’s battle system involves a little planning and strategy. But, if you combine quickenings, espers, different types of weapons, and the use of gambits, and use them wisely, it’s a lot of fun.
I hope that helps a bit, maybe makes things clearer.
I read the rules so I hope it was ok to bump up this thread. I finally beat the game about a week ago! I think I waited a little too long to finish because with the gambits of bubble + haste + protect on every character it made the final bosses a little too easy. I also think I lost track of the plot because between new stages, I’d take the opportunity to do hunts to level up and get money. I guess I liked the plot overall, but I found FFX’s more moving. Everything ended a little too neatly here. I was hoping that Vayne wouldn’t really end up as a bad guy in the end. It was just too predictable. I am not sure I understood that Venat thing’s motivation. Why did he/she want to help Vayne and Cid again?
In general, I really like the gameplay strategy, although I feel like I did way more random fighting because running away would often just get you killed because you’d end up with a host of monsters after you. I liked gambits because in other FF games (I’ve only played X and X-2) I’d forget to use all the really cool buff spells or to steal. I also like that blind and other status effects actually are useful. It took me forever to get the hang of quickenings but I finally had enough characters that had them to make it worthwhile. Espers I found completely useless. I know some of them have really powerful attacks but I’ve never discovered how to use them or cared enough to keep them alive that long.
The game is beautiful, the cities especially, but I didn’t like the music as much as the music in X. Now that was some great music.
I still have a lot of sidequests and hunts to finish, and to try and get some cool weapons. Unfortunately, I ruined my chances to get the zodiac spear.
Arien: Venat was assisting Vayne and Cid because they had a common goal: giving humanity the power to free themselves from being vulnerable to Occurian meddling. To Cid, at least, defeating their terrestrial enemies wasn’t as important as this particular goal. Vayne, I’m not so sure about, but either way, all their paths led the same way anyway.