Well, okay, that’s …scary. I’ll be looking at that tonight then, gear him up for Soldier and run through some of my open Dispatch missions. Thanks for the tip!
My guys are around level 18 and I am starting to get into some fights where I get my ass kicked. I had a mission called Chita’s Weaponers or something, that was a result of me winning a territory in the auction…it just appeared on the map in a territory I had won. And they beat the FUCK out of me. It wasnt close.
I have 7 characters. Luso is a Fighter. He is ok. Adele is still a Thief because I got jack shit good to switch her to. My Moogle sucks, I hate all his class choices. Tinker is for crazy people. Moogle Knight I guess is his best choice. My dog guy is good, black mage/time mage, but he gets his ass whooped easy. My bangaa is good, gladiator who crushes stuff. My viera is green mage/summoner/white mage. So-so. Summon magick is good but it takes a few turns and the range is almost too big.
After Tactics Advance, I never thought I’d have anything positive to say about the law system, but I had a battle in FFTA2 where the laws made it more interesting: The rule was “no bludgeoning weapons,” and I’d gone in with the 3 monks & fighters with claw weapons, and 2 mages with rods. I’d also forgotten to turn off “Counter” on my monks and fighters before the battle started.
So I had to spend the whole battle maneuvering my guys so that they’d be far enough away to do an Air Render or “Furore” (which doesn’t count as an attack, apparently), and make sure that they never end up next to an enemy, so they don’t get attacked and trigger their Counter-attack.
I can’t say for sure whether counter would’ve broken the law, but it didn’t matter because it made the battle more interesting. And the interpretation of the law is kind of weird in some places – one I got was “you can’t target yourself,” which I took to mean direct-targeting, but area-of-effect would be okay. So I had a white mage cast Cure on someone next to her, and she broke the law when it hit her as well.
I’m pretty sure that one battle gave me a law against missing, which seemed really unfair.
(this is my son Todd)
Yea, I’ve noticed several similar occurrences. Though I’m yet to lose one of those fights, I often lose at least two guys. Here’s the thing, if you’ve hit the Auction House time in the story, you should see a quest pop up in Targ/Camoa about Clan Members or something. I suggest picking them up. You get different races depending on the month. In any case, Moogles are great as Moogle Knights and Fusiliers. The Nu Mou (dog guy) is best off with some powerful magic spells. If you can get him to be a Sage, go ahead and do so. You might’ve noticed several monsters with a weakness to Wind. Aero is a Sage magic spell that has the wind attribute. In any case, you’ll want Adelle to either switch out immediately and go the way of the Soldier so her stats can build, and turn her into a fighter; or keep her as a thief until you can get the Rondel (that should be your 4’th Thief skill) and turn her into a Ninja. (don’t do this if you haven’t gotten a Katana other than the Kunai yet) Uhm… What else… Oh! Vieras. Fencer/Red Mage is a great combo, so is Green/White, Elementalist… they have great combos, work around with 'em. You’ll find a sweet spot. Also, mess around with the Clan Trials, if you can get the Clan Privilege ‘Regen’, you’re in business. That’s probably the best early privilege short of Bonus AP 1.
Anyways, hoped that helps. Keep your eye out for quests that give new job classes, the Cannoneer class for the Bangaa (Dragoon prerequisite) is great, as is the Flintlock for the Moogle (I don’t know, I got it and it was already available) due to 7+ range and decent damage output. Good luck with the rest of those clan battles, they’re tough noodles. >.<
To Chuck Jordan: Counters don’t break laws, it would appear, though if your character is charmed and breaks a law it still counts.
You have to suck it up and switch her to Soldier if you want to get somewhere with her. I’ve done over 50 quests and still don’t have a weapon that can give me that 4th thief skill needed for ninja.
My Adele was a soldier until I unlocked the Rondel, which gives the 4th thief skill. Learn that, switch to ninja, and she rocks pretty good.
My Viera went White, then Archer, now Sniper. Beso Toxico works great against enemies with Archer’s Bane. I’ve lost count on how many bad guys die to poison at the start of their turn!
My Hume went Archer then Hunter. He has a Gastrophides(sp) bow that can almost cover the whole field. With Sonic Boom, he can do AOE and avoid Archer’s Bane.
My Nu Mou went Black, then White. I’m trying to get a few more items with B/W skills so I can change him/her up.
My Moogle started as a thief, then went Animist (Shell+Protect spell rocks), then Moogle Knight, and now a Fusilier. Amazing how much range guns have - almost the whole field. Switching to Tinker for 2 skills, then on to Cannoneer.
My Bangaa went Warrior, Dragoon, White Monk, and now back to Dragoon. He either has the Blood Blade (absorbs damage done as HP) or Kain’s Lance, which does crazy damage.
Good stuff guys, I’m enjoying seeing how different builds are working for people.
How about clan privileges, people unlocked a lot of these yet? I dinked around with the second set of clan trials and unlocked a few neato priveleges. One that makes my team immune to poison is nice and one that gives all my team regen all the time is extra nice. What other privileges have people gotten?
Regen is really good, if you do some of the two skill clan trials, for instance, one of the negotiation combo trials, you can get AP up2 and 3. It’s nice to get 90 AP per fight.
A quick question:
Is anyone playing this on Hard? 12 or 13 hours in, I’m still not seeing any sort of a challenge on Normal difficulty. I’m willing to keep playing at Normal, though, if it gets harder later–or if Hard turns out to be unreasonably difficult.
I think this wasn’t allowed before, but you can see what the law is and who you’re facing prior to battle start, and you can completely re-equip and re-class your units before battle starts. For example, I swapped out my healing units to Items-spec in a battle where using MP was not allowed.
I hate the “Do not miss” rule the most :P All too often I’ll miss even with 97% chance.
Do you need to actually use abilities for them to level up? Or just have them equipped/selected during a quest? And how are the ability points you get after a quest used? Does each ability get 30 points?
I’ve been overusing Rend Magic with the assumption that it would help level up quicker, but I don’t think it’s making a difference and from the manual it sounds like you don’t need to do anything… which seems kind of odd.
Man, I suck at this game. I’m ten hours in and I’m just starting to grok that you have to swap equipment and jobs around for your little dudes to get them to progress. I kept figuring doing missions was going to unlock more abilities and jobs…
At this point, I wonder if I’ve hopelessly gimped myself. There really isn’t any open-ended grinding here, is there? Stupid canned progression…
-TomYea, it’s taken me a bit now to figure out the job switch thing, as well as realizing that “Optimize Equipment” doesn’t necessarily mean I get the equipment I need to keep advancing my people. I was stuck for a while trying to figure out what some of the skills actually did, let alone some of the more odd aspects of doing the bazzar system for getting items. I love the combat, hate the rules, and enjoy the little squeak sound enemies make when they die.
Oh god, the optimize function is awful. I just disregard it entirely. Also, flip the option that only presents you equipment that is currently usable – after a few hours, you’ll likely have enough pieces for each slot that reequipping after a job change is a nightmare if you have to sort through everything you own every time.
Tom – You’ll have a chance to do a little more grinding later on in the game, after all of the systems have been introduced and it cuts you loose a little bit. Also, AP isn’t the end of the world. XP is more important, if you ask me.
Finally, I really want to slap whomever decided that Tinkers were a good idea. Just the most ass-retarded class ever. Particularly since you have to suffer through two 250-AP abilities to unlock Juggler, which is cool.
I don’t mind Tinkers, I’m having a tougher time finding a fourth major Thief item so I can flip the Thief to a Ninja. My Thief is level 22 and has yet to find a fourth major skill :(
I finally got my fourth thief skill item. The skill it gives is: Loot Lv. 4.
I missed 2 and 3 somehow.
Hey, that’s exactly where I am! In fact, that’s how I figured out I was playing wrong. I was all like, “Okay, dammit, why can’t my chick become a ninja? I’m not fighting another battle until I sit down and figure out why ninja is greyed out! Oh, press the Y button? Okay…”
So, yeah, fourth thief skill plz.
-Tom
Seriously! I ended up hitting the Y button by accident and then discovered exactly what you did Tom. All I wanted was a different class and they were Greyed out or ???'s taunting me with their cool skills that I could see when I would buy new weapons that were completely useless to my current set of weirdo’s.
On another note, when do I start being able to recruit new people? I’m sitting here about 5+ hours in with the same starting 6.
It happens at a certain point in the plot. I recommend not outlevelling the plot missions (the ones with no days) and only grinding missions when they’re of the level of the plot mission or lower.
As for thief… it took me forever but I finally got one by selling loot in the bazaar. one tip is to prioritize the categories that sound like they could be thief weapons (so light blades, etc).
Nixon, I didn’t start getting new little dudes until the auction house unlocked. There might be an earlier quest or two that gets you a new dude. But once you get to the auction house, you’ll be swimming in squaddies.
Which, BTW, is another thing I’m worried I’m doing wrong. Am I wasting XP and AP by freely jumping around among old stand-bys and new dudes? I hope the free-form grinding comes along soon, because I hate the Fire Emblem feeling of worrying that I’m going to screw myself in the long run.
-Tom