Enhancing my Final Fantasy Tactics grinding experience

[Ingemar]

(Though I am informed that I shouldn't grind in FFT and just enjoy the sheer difficulty. Whatever).

1. Where do those JP go? How am I earning JP for Jobs I've never equipped?
2. You can't actually level a job unless you're actually in that Job, right?

Yes, I am aware of the "throw stones" trick.

[TriezGamer]

Assuming we're NOT talking about the Advance series ...


This is all off memory, so the specific numbers might be off, but this is what I remember:

1: 20% of the JP earned in a battle by a character 'spills over' onto the other members fighting in that battle, so with a full squad of 5 members, you're actually gaining 180% of the JP that appears on-screen (100% + [20% x 4 other members]). Spill-over JP is applied to the job of the character earning the JP.

2: No. Spill-over JP can take you all the way to Master level in any job. It's also possible to use crystallized enemies to master some jobs without ever touching it with ANY character, but this is generally considered a futile effort, as by the time you've killed enough enemies to do this, you could have mastered the job by playing it. It's worth noting that a crystallized enemy that has learnable skills will teach you ALL of the skills on the list, not just the one you select. The dialog that appears does not make that clear.


If your goal is simply to hit level 99:

The throw-stones trick is good for new characters, but extremely unadvised for levelling your top characters unless you go ALL THE WAY to 99 in a single battle, and then abuse saves to avoid random battles when possible.

All random battles scale with your highest level characters, they will rapidly begin slaughtering you due to having higher level equipment - and equipment is vastly more important than level in FFT. This can be offset by stealing the equipment off of them and using it yourself, but it's a time-consuming process to fully equip a squad that way. Levelling up by doing random battles and stealing all the equipment you can as you go will lead to better results than the throw-stone trick, but will also take longer.


If your goal is to master all the jobs:

Your first step on grinding JP should be equipping Gained JP Up (Squire support ability), and keeping it equipped at all times, as it doubles your JP earnings, including the JP spilled over onto other jobs.

If you're willing to abuse bugs in a game, there's also a couple of infinite-jp bugs in the original FFT. I can go into more detail if this interests you.


If your goal is to maximize your characters' potential:

Find a map with a degenerator trap and repeatedly step on it. These traps appear in fixed locations (there are five of them, I don't remember exactly where they all are). Degenerator traps cause your level to drop by 1. This is important, because when you gain a level, your character PERMANENTLY gains a slight increase in various attributes BASED ON THE JOB THEY ARE IN AT THE TIME. The actual formulas used at level up are extremely confusing, so I won't go into detail. When you step on a degenerator trap, these bonuses are not lost.

If you want a well-rounded character, do all your levelling as a MIME if possible, as Mimes have EXTREMELY good and rounded growth on level-up. If you want a high Magic Attack character, do all your levelling as Summoner or Black Mage. Basically, if you want to create a specialist character, do most of the levelling in that job.


If your goal is to make the game easy so you can see the story and then be done with the game:

Stop grinding. FFT is a trivially easy game, and can be beaten using some simple strategies available even in the early parts of chapter one thanks to broken game mechanics. I won't detail these strategies unless this is your goal, as I'm one of those people who can't resist using easy-win strategies once I know them, even if I want the game to be a challenge.

I've played FFT a bit too much, so feel free to ask any other questions you might have.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I've not heard of the throw stones technique. I was using the technique where you charged, building up JP and experience that way, but I would only make sure to gain one or two levels per battle that way, letting my characters level up normally.

[Nate]

A Tactics thread? Oh boy!

Triez answered the initial questions about JP so I won't repeat that. For me, it was never about Throw Stone, it was about Accumulate. Kill all the enemies except one, make sure someone knows Battle Skill, Power Break an enemy so they can't bother you (can Speed Break it too, if you want), and you can cast Haste on your party if you want. But Accumulating over and over again was pretty good for me.

Also yes, equipment/Job abilities are vastly more important than levels in FFT, there's plenty of level 1 walkthroughs...I no longer even have trouble with Wiegraf/Velius in that infamous Chapter 3 battle because I saw a low-level walkthrough on Youtube of that fight, and realized I was always just using the wrong abilities and equipment.

Oh yeah, and don't bother with magic-users (except White Mage). Magic sucks sucks sucks in Tactics. Beowulf's abilities make Oracles beyond useless, and Black Mages are far too slow and have too long casting times to be of much use. A Ninja with Equip Sword can do as much as, if not more damage than any spell a Black Mage can cast most of the time, and they can do it a whole lot faster too. Orlandu also makes Black Mages a fairly worthless investment (as well as Agrias and Meliadoul too, but Beowulf is still crazy useful).

Oh, and Ramza as a Squire with Shihiradori, Dual Wield, and Move+2 (or Teleport), backed up with Item command for healing is really all you need once you get access to those abilities.

[Bobtheduck]

(Though I am informed that I shouldn't grind in FFT and just enjoy the sheer difficulty. Whatever).

1. Where do those JP go? How am I earning JP for Jobs I've never equipped?
2. You can't actually level a job unless you're actually in that Job, right?

Yes, I am aware of the "throw stones" trick.

EDIT: It seems I"m not entirely clear on the throw stones trick. I guess I"ve never used it, because I always just used accumulate... And I'd agree with not character leveling too early... I've gotten to the point a number of times where I get killed by monsters in random battles because my level is too high for the equipment I have. I use accumulate mostly for getting JP.

It has been a while since I played it, though. I have the PSP version sitting here unplayed because it's SO MUCH SLOWER than the PS1 version... This should not happen! This is one game I'd gladly take in a download over the disc version, because at least if it's running off the memory stick, it'd be a little faster.

It's sad when I can run an emulation of the PS1 version FASTER than the version made for the system.

[Ingemar]

I think I'll leave aside grinding for now because it seems I'm trying to get EVERY SINGLE JOB and so far, my only non-guest unique character is... Ramza.

Yeah, I know. :/

So far, I'm liking the Monk job, although I do know there are better ones. Still, can't beat weaponless butt-slaying.

[Bobtheduck]

I think I'll leave aside grinding for now because it seems I'm trying to get EVERY SINGLE JOB and so far, my only non-guest unique character is... Ramza.

Yeah, I know. :/

So far, I'm liking the Monk job, although I do know there are better ones. Still, can't beat weaponless butt-slaying.

Yeah, Monk is one of my faves... I also love the... um... talking ones... The speech ability people... Can't remember what they're called (no doubt something different in the PS1 version than in the PSP version) Oh, and geomancers, though their abilities are (understandably) inconsistent.

[Nate]

So far, I'm liking the Monk job, although I do know there are better ones. Still, can't beat weaponless butt-slaying.

Monk is awesome, a really great class in the early levels of the game...but are quickly outclassed by the weapons and their lack of helmet use. Still Earth Slash is pretty sweet, and Chakra and Revive are always great (Revive's only downfall being you have to be on the same height to use it).

I also love the... um... talking ones... The speech ability people... Can't remember what they're called (no doubt something different in the PS1 version than in the PSP version)

Mediator. Meh. The only two things they have going for them are "Equip Gun" and the ability to permanently affect your party's Brave/Faith. Oh, and getting monsters to join your party, which is required to get the Uribo for poaching. So they're pretty good after all, just not in major battles.

Oh, and geomancers, though their abilities are (understandably) inconsistent.

Geomancers are a pretty solid class. Good equipment choices, and their PA is really good too. Their ability isn't bad either, it's certainly better than a lot of useless abilities (like Jump), especially since major physical classes tend to not have a lot of ranged options (except Black Magic but let's face it, it's a waste on a Knight or Monk). The status effects are of course inconsistent but it's nice when they hit. The only other ranged options for fighter-types are the Monk's Wave Fist/Earth Slash (which suck out loud if you're not using Barehanded, and most people wouldn't on a non-Monk class), or the Samurai's Draw Out (which is limited by the fact katanas break, so using your highest powered abilities is dangerous in most battles, forcing you to stick to weaker ones).

Oh, and in my earlier post, I meant Blade Grasp, not Shihiradori. It's called Blade Grasp in the PS1 version, they changed it to Shihiradori in the PSP port...while changing Hamedo from the PS1 version to First Strike. Yeah.

Anyway if you didn't know basically Blade Grasp protects you from physical attacks, ALL physical attacks (even special physical attacks like Sacred's Shake Off). The way it works is your Brave = percent chance for attack to miss.

This is already pretty good on most fighter-types because you want them to have a high Brave. On Ramza however this is phenomenal because he can't leave the party, so you can max out his Brave and Faith. This translates to, if you max it out, only a 3% chance for physical attacks to hit Ramza (maxes at 97 normally). Using Cheer Up or Scream, Ramza hits 99 Brave and then attacks only have a 1% chance of connecting.

Yeah. Unbelievably useful. Also, despite what the text says (even in the PSP port this is true), Blade Grasp DOES work on arrows and crossbow bolts. It does not work on guns though.

[Ingemar]

Is it just me, or do female generics really suck at physical jobs?

[TriezGamer]

Mostly just you. There are differences between gender, but not large enough to really affect gameplay much.

As to Throw Stone vs. Accumulate -- Accumulate works better for your top level characters for gaining EXP, but your lower level characters will get more EXP by attacking higher level characters with Throw Stone. JP gain, if I recall, remains even regardless.

[Nate]

Yeah, JP gain is only affected by Job level really, although I think there's probably small bonuses based on other things (and Gained JP Up affects it too).

And actually, gender doesn't usually affect much (although females are a little better at magic and males are a little better at fighting), but there is one thing it affects. Female Monks SUCK. Do not bother with a female Monk. They are absolutely no good.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Really? On my last run through, my female monks were rocking the temple. It was great.

[Garland]

Actually Nate, Blade Grasp does work on guns.

The difference between male and female generics is that female generics have 2 less PA than males, but two more MA.
Not a major difference, but it is noticeable.

[Ingemar]

but there is one thing it affects. Female Monks SUCK. Do not bother with a female Monk. They are absolutely no good.

(little late for that...)

[Nate]

Really? On my last run through, my female monks were rocking the temple. It was great.

They're halfway decent at regular attacking (though the loss of PA compared to males makes them far inferior) but where they really fail is in use of their special abilities. Chakra works okay and Revive and Stigma Magic don't really need much behind them. But Repeating Fist, Earth Slash, Wave Fist are practically useless for female Monks.

Actually Nate, Blade Grasp does work on guns.

Are you sure about that? There aren't many enemies in the game that use guns, and I never have Blade Grasp at the start of chapter 3 (that fight where you have to protect Olan, those two Chemists have Mithril Guns), but I do have Blade Grasp by the time I get to Goland Coal City, and Blade Grasp does nothing against the Blaze Guns those Chemists are packing.

[TriezGamer]

Yes, Blade Grasp, despite is name, works against any weapon.

[Bobtheduck]

I find it funny that writing how much I hate the PSP version has forced me to play it.

It's not as bad as I remember, though that may be due to the distance between it and me having played the PS1 version last. I think the dialogue is a bit funny, though... I guess nostalgia does play a part in liking the much less refined dialogue of the PS1 verison.

[Syreth]

The thought that magic in FFT is worthless is interesting, though I do see the point, to a degree. At the same time, I've always found Math Skill to be extremely useful, providing you take the time to learn good spells. Flare on multiple (all if you're lucky) enemies with no charge time? Yes please.

Frog and Beowulf's Chicken ability are also pretty useful for grinding.

[Nate]

I find it funny that writing how much I hate the PSP version has forced me to play it.

I would like the PSP version a lot more if it wasn't for the absolutely awful slowdown on the animation. There was no excuse for that, it was pure laziness on Square's part.

Other than that it was good, although Luso is just a Ramza clone with innate poach and Balthier is even more broken than Orlandu. The new writing actually helped the game make sense, which was fantastic, although I was annoyed by names they didn't have to change but did (Balbanes to Barbaneth was largely pointless) and the names they SHOULD have changed but didn't (Wiegraf should have been changed to Wiglaf after the character in Beowulf since that's where his name came from).

The thought that magic in FFT is worthless is interesting, though I do see the point, to a degree.

Here's why I say magic is useless. For a dual-wielding character with decent speed, like say, a Knight with good knight swords equipped, I can potentially do 400 to 500 points of damage with my regular attacks, and I can do this every turn. For a Black Mage, first you have to check the charge time of the spell to make sure the target doesn't move out of the way of it before it goes off. Flare can do about 600 to 700 damage if your mage has a high Faith and possibly Magic Attack Up, but you have to think about how long the charge time is, and even Quick Charge (or whatever it's called, I think Time Mages have it as a support) doesn't help all that much, you'll still never get the massively powerful spells like Meteor in less than 9 turns.

Basically you're dealing more damage faster with any physical class than you are with the magic classes. Now, Calculator skills ARE hugely useful...of course, this is offset by the fact that Calculators are slower than molasses in January. This makes Calculator more suited to females, mainly because they can equip perfumes, so they can equip the one with Auto-Haste. Of course you don't use Math Skill with Calculators because of how slow they are. You learn the skills then switch to a faster class, but slower = less turns = less JP gained, and it takes a lot of JP to get those Math Skills.

Not to mention the unearthly amount of JP you have to spend to learn the spells from the base classes to make Math Skill of any use. What you're looking at here is most physical classes being absolute powerhouses by probably the start of chapter 3 because you can level those jobs quickly. For example, to get a mastered Monk class takes a little over 5000 JP. To get a master Black Mage takes around 8000. The end result is, your physical fighters will basically have been fully trained for ages while you're just now putting the finishing touches on the Calculator.

Yeah. Not to mention that as awesome as Math Skill is Calculators will totally mess you up if you're not careful about who is being targeted. There are times when you'll end up in situations where not a single spell will hit the enemy but all your characters are targeted. So what then? Then of course the opposite where you need some healing but none of your characters are available.

So, I use Math Skill as a supplement to a female White Mage. White Mages have use for magic, especially if you give them Quick Charge so you can fire off Cure 4 or Raise 2 in 3 turns (most White Magic spells with the exception of Holy have short charge times). That way they have guaranteed healing spells in a pinch, and if they're lucky can throw out Black or Yin-Yang Magic spells if they have a free turn (I really only learn the useful ones of those, so pretty much only Flare, Don't Act, Sleep, and a couple of other useful statuses). Having the perfume that gives automatic Haste is great on that set too (though usually I prefer Chantage for obvious reasons).

[TriezGamer]

Yep. Magic is extremely broken in FFT, and not in the good way. Actually, this seems to be true of most SRPGs.

[Fish and Chips]

Though I have not played the original Tactics, I can attest that in the Advance series, or at least the first one, yes, magic is still brokenly weak. A dual wielding ninja class can get off 600-750 damage on a good turn just by selecting "Attack," and sufficiently equipped Bangaa work out to about that much anyway just because they're the designated bruiser race. Meanwhile, mages struggle to do little over 200-300 with MP consuming skills.

There are a select few worthwhile spells outside of white magic, but by the time you can learn them it's almost not worth the effort unless you feel the need to elevate your battle prowess from "Boring easy victory" to "I curb stomp my enemies regularly."

Magic in general doesn't seem to be too effective in the Final Fantasies I've played, which is admittedly not much. I know that in IX Vivi starts as your power hitter against elemental weakness, by near the end of the second disc he's pretty much worthless for the rest of the game, where in you have at least three characters who can, under the right circumstances, do 9999 guaranteed damage every single turn, and another who can average in the high 7000s.

By contrast, in Chrono Trigger and Megaten, magic is just about the only reason your party doesn't randomly keel over dead at the drop of a hat.

[Nate]

At least they tried to give magic an advantage in Tactics Advance by it casting immediately instead of having a charge time. That actually does help a lot in making mages more useful than in the original Tactics, although like you said, it's still inferior to physical attacks.

Of course, then they turned right around and made magic basically useless again in Tactics A2 by implementing that ridiculously stupid system where every character starts with 0 MP in battle and gains a little bit more per turn, meaning you have a choice of casting wimpy useless spells in battle or having your mage pick his nose while you wait for his MP to rise high enough to cast a useful spell...once...then have him sit around and wait for his MP to rise again.

[KupoTony]

it was a problem when fighting the five kings(or four i think).
it was hard to use magic,you had to wait.What helped much was the rings to call the mystical beasts.

I miss the monster-petting and hunting capability from FFTA.

[Ingemar]

I started playing again after a long period of not playing.

What's everyone's opinion on Bards/Dancers?

[Nate]

Useless. Utterly useless.

They have abilities that SOUND cool, but they hardly ever connect. Bards buff your entire party at once and Dancers debuff the entire enemy party at once. So while, in theory, it sounds great to have something like Last Song which raises your entire party's CT count to 100, you'll just see a lot of "Missed!" over everyone's head most of the time.

Same with Dancers, they may try to set every enemy's CT count to 0 but they'll pretty much miss most of the time. And the healing/damage songs/dances are so weak they're laughable (23 damage to every enemy? Great, now I just have to use that for 20 more rounds!).

The only good things about them are their support abilities. Bards can learn Move+3, which on the right maps is more useful than Teleport (which can be unreliable at times). Bards also learn reaction skills that can raise their magic power when they get damaged (moderately useful) and their Faith (not all that useful unless you didn't bother to max it out with Mediators).

On the other hand, Dancers learn Jump+3 which is entirely useless (especially since Lancers learn Ignore Height and you need a Level 4 Lancer to access the job). They also learn reaction skills that raise attack power when damaged (pretty useful) and their Brave (which should be worthless since everyone can reach 97 Brave with no penalty and Brave is so easy to raise with Ramza's Cheer Up skill).

So in short, you might want to throw JP into Bards for Move+3 and possibly the reaction skills (I don't bother with the reaction skills but Move+3 is awesome), and some JP into Dancers for the reaction skill that raises physical attack when damaged (since physicals are godly in this game), but otherwise don't waste time on them. I think they also even get the smallest stat gains when they level up of all classes (not that levels or stats are really THAT important in Tactics but still, no sense in getting smaller gains).

[Ingemar]

That's weird because some people swear by Dancers, even going as crazy as having a party of 4 (!!!) dancers. I just got a Dancer yesterday and I thought Nameless Dance (the one that inflicts all status effects) was pretty cool, even if it tended to miss.

But I guess everyone's play style is different.

[Nate]

The only really decent thing about Dancers themselves is their weapons. The Cloth weapons have evade percentages of 50%, which is second only to the Defender knight sword, they're decently strong (the strongest one you can get outside of multiplayer has a 10 attack power), and I think they can hit two squares away if I remember correctly.

Even with all that though, their stats are still awful and if you so desperately want to inflict status effects so badly, Beowulf can use great equipment and has access to almost all status spells, plus he can drain HP and MP from enemies on top of that for healing.

[TGJesusfreak]

Which tactics game is it? I have the one for the game boy sp... (It's not called FFT advance though)

[Ingemar]

I must respectfully disagree with Nate w.r.t. Dancers. One Dancer in the penultimate battle with Gafgarion basically saved my life, I was pretty much in a position to get completely wiped but Nameless Dance frogged my would-be killers, making the battle a cinch.

(I am also aware of the trick to beating Gafgarion in the last battle with him. It took me forever to finally break his sword but by that time the party ceased to be in danger, that and my Ramza with Punch Art was able to heal himself at a rate slightly stronger than Gaf's Night Sword).

[Nate]

And that's exactly why I don't like Dancers. They're awesome when they work, but most of the time they don't.

It's like, if I buy a lottery scratch ticket with my change at a gas station, and win a hundred dollars. Hey, awesome! That's pretty sweet! But the point is, if I buy a scratch ticket every day, I'm not going to win 100 dollars every time or even really that often.

That's why I don't like Dancers. They're horribly unreliable. When they work, it's wonderful! But most of the time they just waste time.

Also I've never really had a problem with Gaf in the last battle with him. Of course, I make it a point to steal his Blood Sword at the execution grounds and equip it on Ramza for that battle, so every hit from Ramza heals him more than Gaf's sword skill can damage.