Need some spoiler-free FFXII advice

The Game Room
1

I first bought FXII shortly after it was released, enjoyed the heck out of it for about 12 hours, and when my party began to quickly turn into the unwilling recipient of an egregious beatdown every time they got into a fight, I decided it might be wise to start over and put more thought into how I wanted to build my group.

Then I got distracted. :smiley:

I have a little time this week, so I was thinking of starting over, but I was hoping I could get some (spoiler free, please) suggestions on party-building strategies. Right now, I’m thinking of doing the following with my characters:

Vaan: Dedicated white mage. His stats seem to favor magic over physical combat, and at least at the low levels, black magic seems grossly inefficient, so party healer he becomes.

Basch: Damage tank. High HP and two-handed weapons all the way.

Ashe: Defensive Tank. Shield + sword, attacks first and tries to hold aggro while the rest of the party chips away at their opponent.

Penelo: Second white mage.

Balthier: Buffer/Debuffer: Focus on buffing party and inflicting various nasty status effects on the bad guys.

Fran: Black mage, because I guess somebody has to do it.
I’d love to hear any feedback people have. My two big problems in the first game were running out of MP really, really, quickly and dying all the time, but I’m not sure about my decision to make devoted white mages. Would it be better if I was to give everyone equal points in white magic and use gambits to split the workload evenly? I found this worked exceptionally well with defensive spells, but they don’t need to be refreshed very often.

I’m not married to my role assignments either: Basch and Ashe get to be damage and defensive tanks because I seem to recall their starting abilities tend towards that direction, while Vaan and Penelo get to be casters because of their stats, but I obviously have nothing for Balthier and Fran to do. Maybe I should make them focus on projectile weapons?

Oh, and finally: do I need black magic? FF traditionally rewards well-rounded ability sets, but melee combat seemed much more effective for the first 10 hours of gameplay.

Thanks, in advance, to anyone who can offer their opinion. ^^

2

Certainly, some of the later fights (mostly hunts) a black mage is a HUGE boon to the party…a dedicated nuker / haste buffer is a good thing to have. I think my ultimate party wound up being Ashe tanking / buffing with (Faith, Bravery, Shell, Protect), Balthier providing gun damage and heals / haste, and Vaan nuking everything with some heals thrown in. I found it a good idea to get everyone a little bit of white magic just in case. And also, make sure you get decoy! Thats a huge benefit when you only have one person setup as a tank type.

Your MP problem can be solved simply by making sure any of your primary casters gets the extra MP squares on the grid first (the overlimits, whatever they are called here. Been a while). That will double then triple your MP.

3

Ooh, thanks! You seem to use a lot more buffs than I did, which may explain some of my trouble.

Hmm, let’s see… when it comes to my casters: Vaan, and potentially Fran and Penelo, do you have any recommendations for weapons? Or should I ignore the weapon tiers in favor of their magic?

Also, let me ask something: I found that a lot of the bosses for those optional bounty missions very quickly transitioned from “Challenging” to “Holy god I’ve been fighting for 30 minutes and it still has 10,000 HP”. Should I just come back later, or are they *supposed * to be grindtastic?

4

They are supposed to be…er, grindtastic. I have the manual, and so I just read up the details in there, and yes, some of them have a monster amount of hitpoints.

I have never specified my characters. I hate that. Everybody learns everything.

I can’t emphasize training enough… Last time I got Basch to level 91. This time I will try again to raise him to 99.

The best bet is to raise all of your chars to around 45-50, then just pick three and work them higher.

Set your gambits to constant healing. Two of my people have “heal at 70%” set higher than their attacks. Only Basch is set to attacking all the time. The other two have almost everything set before their attack gambit, so they will cure status effects first.

Also, use things like “regen” and “bubble” in your gambits, too.

5

That sounds really effective… I’m wondering though, with this setup how do you handle bosses and enemies with an abnormally high damage output? In my failed game, what always ended up happening was that the party would exhaust most of their MP healing each other without getting more than a few attacks in edgewise, and then quickly fall when the heals ran out. Did you just rely on the buffs to slow incoming damage enough to let a well-balanced party fight?

6

I agree with most of the items here except the don’t specialize. I look at each person and give them a primary / secondary characteristic, much like having Ashe being my tank / buffer. I tended to think of her as a paladin. But yes, gambit tweaking is a MUST for some of thse fights. I recall one where I had to set all the buffs I could on Ashe, and still have Balthier pop his biggest heal as soon as she took even 1 point of damage (the creature would berserk and start hitting for 9k). They do become grindfests in the later hunts (millions of hps) but the worst ones are much, much later in the game (think 100+ hours).

7

I actually don’t rely primarily on magic. And I didn’t mean for you not to specialize…if you like it, do so. But I flat out will avoid playing with a char if I don’t like him.

I am currently replaying it and as soon as I could, I kicked Ashe, Penelo, and Vaan out of my party, and kept the three members I liked best. So I work with them.

I always train to at least 2 levels higher than whatever NPC they give you. usually even higher.

Only do weapon or armor or magic specialites as you need them. Otherwise focus entirely on the augmentation box, so you get in all of your magic enhancements, hitpoint enhancements, etc., really fast.

I don’t know, I really didn’t have problems in fighting the bosses. I don’t train like my SO, who didn’t leave the intial area until Vaan’s level was around 12 or 14, but I do train a lot. Bubble is the biggest lifesaver in the world as is regen - they heal much less when they have these things equipped.

I also give my tank the biggest weapons, and in boss fights, add things like protect, shell, and haste. Haste is awesome, too.

8

So about characteristics: we have Ashe as the paladin, Vaan as the black magic + hastes/buffs, and Balthier as guns + heals… but are there any other major roles that need to be filled? I understand how a devoted melee monster could be a liability with this setup, but it’d be nice to fit a debuffer in between the cracks.

9

Oh yea, and since I’m out of touch with the jargon: when you guys say “train,” you mean “Stick around certain areas and gain extra levels,” right?

10

I thought of something else. Charge is a must-have technique, as soon as it is available. Set your people to charge when MP gets less than 10%. Sometimes it will fail, and they will go to zero, but they will keep trying until they get it up there.

The only boss I ever had an enormous amount of trouble with was the last summons. I forget what her name was. She is the one way inside the Giant Crystal, and she dumps status effects on you, IIRC. She was difficult.

ETA: Yes, that is what training means. Train, train, train, until you’re sick of it. I hate training, actually, but in this game I never seem to mind. it’s fun!

11

The later hunts are all grindtastic, but almost every monster should take less than an hour to kill. The super secret “do everything in the game except kill the final storyline boss in order to find him” final hunt big boss takes hours to actually kill. He has tens of millions of hit points. And he starts spamming unavoidable insta-kills at points. Fortunately, if you have your party and backup party set up correctly, you can run to a save crystal before he can wipe you all out. Granted, he’ll redo all his buffs, but a quick dispel will remove them again. Don’t take him on if you’re not above level 75. I had all my backup characters to level 85 and had my main fighters to 89 and 90 and it still took me forever to defeat him.

Oh, and fat lot actually completing the rare monster collection Hunt Club (you’ll understand when you get to it) without looking up where the things are and how you trigger their spawning. Some of the conditions are really bizarre.

Now for character builds, after the midpoint of the game, it begins to become irrelevant as everyone starts to acquire the same licenses (you want to get the double LP accessory as soon as possible). As a general rule, I played with two melee fighters (sword and board) and a spell caster/ranged attacker for both my teams, and leveled all characters evenly. The Demon sword when you acquire it will get you through almost 1/4 to 1/3 of the game, since the stores have weapons about 30 points weaker through this part. However, you have to fight a relatively difficult for the level you’re at optional boss in order to be able to get to the sword. But if you give your meelee fighters demon swords and a shield, your party will mow through enemies for a while.

As far as which characters do what, well, levelling is random, so once you start running out of individual build options, you’ll begin to change things around.

I started with Basch and Ashe as my main tanks.
Balthier and Vaan were my tank/mage combos.
Fran and Penelo were my spellcasters.

And the party makeup was Basch/Balthier/Fran in one and Ashe/Vaan/Penelo in another.

However, by the end of the game, when I took on Uber-hidden boss, the stats had changed to the point where my party consisted of Vaan as the tank, Balthier as the tank/mage, and Ashe as the spellcaster. It was completely based on stats, because at that point all Licenses were unlocked for everybody.

Additional points:

Everybody should learn white magic. Particularly the healing, curative, and raising spells. You’ll need one person per party with white magic, you’ll want more.

Get yourself extra quickenings as fast as possible. It increases your magic points.

Unlock the enhancement grid licenses (the green ones) as fast as possible. This will give you more hit points, more spell points, more damage, special powers, etc.

Give mystic armor to your primary spellcaster. Give Light Armor to your melee fighters in the beginning. Don’t bother with heavy armor until later in the game. You’ll need the hit points from the light armor more than the strength advantage from the heavy armor in the early stages. Plus (slight spoiler):

there’s an enemy you’ll fight in which you will regret giving anyone heavy armor due to all heavy armor being magnetic and he exudes a field that anyone wearing heavy armor has the equivalent of slow being cast on them

Everyone will need a ranged attack of some sort until Telekinesis is available (and Telekinesis doesn’t become available until the last bits of the story). Flying creatures cannot be hit by melee.

Guns are kind of useless. The good news is that they overcome all armor and can impose status or elemental effects with the various ammo available. (Great for using against monsters weak to a given element.) The bad news is against most monsters they do less damage than just about every other weapon out there at equivalent level.

12

I agree on the guns. I pretty much ignore guns, and bows, too. I just set a magic spell with a gambit for a flying creature, and set that higher than anything. Usually two of my people will have swords and shields and one a largeer weapon. Right now my Fran and Balthier have Zwill Blades with Bucklers and Basch with a Javelin.

I admit to getting really bored with the Hunt Club really fast. I do most of the Clan Hall missions, but the Hunt Club is ridiculous. 10% chance, sometimes, to see the monsters!

I do use heavy armor. I just remain prepared for the eventuality Hoopy Frood mentions. HF gives some other good advice, too, pay attention.

13

And I see some others have chimed in while I was interrupted in the process of composing above.

As was said Charge is an important gambit for everybody.

Also, two people should have heal gambits. One should attack and only heal after the fight.

Everyone should have a raise gambit for combat. (Either phoenix downs or spells.)

And black magic is less powerful in this game then in others. It’s great for elemental weakness monsters, and there are some truly damaging high level spells, but I found weapons often did just as much damage and didn’t sap mana that was better used for buffs and heals.

And one person in your party should have libra up, always.

14

Not gonna spoil it for Omi, but thats not the last summon. Theres one more after you get all of them :slight_smile:

15

I remember, actually, but I never got him, so I guess “last summon for me”.

This time around I will get him, though.

16

Hmm, alright… if that’s the case, what do you recommend I have my devoted spellcaster do when he isn’t buffing/debuffing or healing? I could always make him a barehanded fighter, if only for the comic relief. :smiley:

17

My PS2 died right around when I got to the Stillshrine of Miriam. Now I’m just a bit past that (Phon Coast) and I’m glad I decided to replay the game, this time doing it right with the aforementioned augment heavy liscense board early in the game, opening up the weapon and armor squares as I get them and using a full grid from Gamefaqs to prevent wasting LP. Glad that I finally read something about the guns being pretty worthless. I got Balthier a decent sword to go with a decent gun, then just switched the two when he fought flying enemies. I think I’ll get him a better sword or spear as soon as I play again.

18

Sheesh, why so much hate for guns? My party Balthier uses a gun, and it’s great for alot of these fights…keeps him the hell away and sometimes lets him drop a status effect that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Mostly, it helps on the hunts / extra bosses / etc that have melee attacks that I only want one person getting hurt. Sure, from time to time I pop out the Zodiak spear, but I enjoy the ranged more.

19

By the time I get there, I usually don’t need him at range, I need him inside, dishing out damage.

However, the range tactic is VERY useful for creatures that cause status effects in a range…sometimes you can dodge their crap!

20

Don’t have a devoted spellcaster. My spellcaster usually used bows when she wasn’t casting spells. (Oddly enough, my main spellcasters, and by that I mean the ones I gave the mystic armor to, were always female. It’s just the way the starting stats and eventual end stats worked out. But that’s just dumb luck. FF has always done random stat leveling since way back to FFI.) This kept her out of melee. I can go fire up the ol’ PS2 after work and look at what I did for my “normal battle” gambits. (Certain bosses/bounty hunts/hunt club hunts will take different gambits, but the standard monsters are all pretty much the same gambit system, with manual actions taken when needed.)

I only used black magic when Libra indicated an element that the monster was weak against. And then I just manually overrode my gambits for casting it, unless the gambit was a healing type. I always let that action take precedence.

There were, however, a couple late-game boss-types that using the strongest black magic against can be useful as a gambit, I don’t remember which, and I don’t want to spoil you on it anyway.