Femboy Fantasy Tit Tacs
I really thought slamming my way through Tactics Ogre would prep me for this. I'm only like eight hours in and already I have underlevelled characters I can't do anything with. I haven't even started messing with classes yet, please help. Save me, training battles.
Also why team size so small 
EDIT: Why are black mages evil. Ranged lockon fire attack that kills you.
EDIT2: the best strat for black mages is kamakaze basically. They have a lot of range and can snap to targets freely, so running next to another enemy will result in their multi target fire killing one of their boys.
The first step is knowing when you get to this part you will know what true suffering is.
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You absolutely need Ramza as a monk in this battle for chakra. I've seen more skilled players clear it though with crazy shit like a level 1 Ramza and a party of level 1 black mages.
I can't remember, is this the stage you can't back out of to grind more if you saved at the wrong time thay forced me and all my 4th grade buddies to start new save files?
Yeah I was save locked and ended up selling the game to a friend for $20.
If you played through the old version of Tactics Ogre, you can definitely do this lol.
Yeah I plowed through PS1 Ogre. I fucking LOVE PLAYSTATION OGRE AAAAA
this feels weird though Idk, I am getting clowned very early on. Units dyin.You're an adult who has played harder tactics RPGs, you'll be like Kong Ming compared to middle school aged me when I first played the game lol. It might just take you a minute to figure out the flow of gameplay in this one.
Oracle. Use the ying yang magic for silence or lower their faith to the point they become atheist and magic does zero damage.
What if I have none of that cuz this is my first encounter with a black mage :>
You could try just ganging up on them, they're quite squishy. Also good for early game is to have a female thief who can charm male units since most characters in the game are male.
I have four guys there is no ganging up
good to know about fem thieves tho.
I came back to this thread and it looks like you gotta be an old school Fire Emblem person since those games don't have random grinding like FFT lol. Sorry, I don't make the rules
The name of the game in tactics is leveling a good couple levels over the battles in the game. It takes grinding but you can do it in the first chapter with the random battles on the map. Just get into an encounter, kill all the enemies except one, weaken them, and while they run away spend your turns doing actions that get you experience and jp. Stuff like casting chakra as a monk or potions as a chemist.
Once you get into the second, third, and forth acts you'll get access to holy knight characters like Agrias who can do op sword attacks on enemies. Later on Cid all but breaks the game for you.
Some classes I remember being OP are the monk for it's offensive and healing powers. The ninja for dual wield. Samurai for the draw out commands and rare swords that do great things like offense and defense. Geomancer for having access to magic without using MP. And the broken calculator that has access to every magic in the game (save for summons) and can cast on every enemy at once with the right arithmetic combo.
I like all the stupid hidden characters you can get late-game:
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🤖 🐲
Spoilers:
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I remember being hyped for Cloud and getting the materia blade...only for his limit breaks to be totally wimpy compared for Worker 8's lasers or Reis.
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Yeah, his abilities are pretty whack, but there's the
factor lolEdit: especially in like 1998 or whenever
Wait this has random encounters? Okay... what was wrong with training battles but okay....
Uh I don't have classes yet, all squires. Actions gain you xp????
how the fuck did I spend 150 hours playing Ogre and not understand a thing about this gameWait this has random encounters? Okay... what was wrong with training battles but okay....
Walk back and forth on the map dots that are wilderness and you'll run into random battles.
Uh I don't have classes yet, all squires. Actions gain you xp????
Yeah, doing actions gets you either XP or JP,
I had this guide I borrowed from a cousin growing up with the game.
Ganbare comrade-kun I know you can do it, I've armed you with the nintendo power.
No, random battles feature the gang fighting for their lives, lv2 squires vs lv4+ goblins and dogs and shit, getting totalled. On my way to the Trade City the first time and having to savescum random battles. Bought phoenix downs they are useless, nobody does any damage. Why can I not counter, why are chemists trash healers, why is the game like this.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Arts_of_War_(Tactics)
Unironically read the Art of War by Sun Tzu. Don't worry so much about, like, chariots, but try to analyze the principles he's describing. Chariots are units that can move very quickly to harass the enemy. What are your chariots?
Archer/Knight. Just make a fireteam that can shoot the weapons out of the other squads hands.
Mediator/Oracle. I forgot how but they can so stupid damage and have crazy combos.
Monk riding a black chocobo. I don't remember this combo but it slapped.
YOU UNLOCKED A MEMORYWhy are mages. Black mages with their "OMAE WA MOU SHINDERU" lockon fire attack that fucking kills you lol.
I remember using Gameshark to hack the game when I was a kid and creating a super OP calculator duel class character and was able to kill everyone on a map(both my side and the enemy side) in one move. It was pretty cool.
I forget how I did it but I was able to find the right stat to use for the calculator and it affected everyone and I used an insta-kill skill that like only one character in the game could actually get.
Also there is a skill that you can't learn normally it's the final boss's skill called All Ultima and it fucking wrecks. I burned up 2 Gamesharks and 3 PS1s playing around with the hex editor finding codes that worked.
Video of All Ultima: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UP1gJHu9g
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Use terrain. The stone throw ability has a knock back chance IIRC, and you can use it so that the enemies can't easily get to you. Don't sleep on Ramza's brave-buffing skill. Always do something even if you can't attack so that you're generating job xp. Take Ramza from squire to knight to monk to samurai. Some battles are nearly impossible without the monk's chakra ability, especially mid-game. Grind some easier random encounters until you're comfortable with your abilities and have a few levels. Keep multiple save files, including at least one "fail safe" save after the last big story battle; there are a few places where you can get locked into a really tough series of battles (fucking Wiegraf). When in doubt, make everyone a monk (at least until you get Agrias and Cid). The gunner guy whose name starts with an M is also pretty good. It's been like 20 years since I played it, but man that game was my jam when it came out, and it holds up really well.
I don't have stone throw yet, soz. That was a default ability in Tactics Ogre but nobody starts with it now. I only just got through Gariland on my way to the trade city. Brave buffing, what is that? Also I tried classing into knights but they cannot wear leather and I cannot buy other armour. I have no monks, random encounters outside Gariland are killing me.
I thought Ramza started with stone throw by default, even if most squires don't. The ability I'm thinking of was called something like "accumulate," and it was another Ramza-exclusive. It increases your attack stat by a bit, but stacks and lasts the whole battle. You can power Ramza up pretty hard with a few rounds doing it.
Have you spent all the JP you got from the first battles? You should be rolling with three squires (Ramza plus the other two story guys) and probably two chemists to start with. Use positioning, and gang up on one target at a time: it's a game of action economy, so taking one enemy off the board is worth way more than doing moderate damage to lots of them. Attack from the sides and behind if you can, and similarly try not to get surrounded. The beginning is a little rough because you can't do shit, but you'll see a good power spike as soon as you unlock a few skills and get new gear.
I'm going solely off of memory from the PS1 version, so maybe some things have changed (or I'm misremembering).
I'm only just staring down this game's absurd tutorial menu (even worse than Ogre's somehow) and trying to parse out how Learn Ability and Set Ability even work. But no Ramza does not have strone throw, had to buy it. Also bought some Accumulates. I noticed the Wiegraf guy charging attacks a lot (he flattened me) This job ability system is absurd, stone throw is equipped automatically under Guts when learned by Ramza but is a Basic Skill for random squires????
I have Ramza, two story guys, two chemists and four squires although it's a waste since team cap is less than a Pokemon game.
Yeah I played Tactics Ogre, it's not that I cannot tactics rather that my units are all useless dogshit and the systems are all worse. Also playing PS1 in both cases.
Your primary skill is determined by your active class, but the others can all be set from all the different classes you've unlocked. This is the key to really breaking the game: pick and choose your ability combos so that they complement each other. You learn skills by spending JP, and then equip them to the different ability slots.
Look at the characters you're using and make sure their stats are well matched. Squires should be high in brave, and chemists should be high in faith, since you're eventually going to make some of them mages, at least for a while. If necessary, move jobs and gear around to make that true; it'll give you an edge, especially early on.
Remember that you can see the move range of enemy units. Use that to isolate one at a time if you can. If you can drop one early, that will very often snowball into a win.
Yeah I finally figured out how to learn and set abilities from the tutorial menu, (even worse than Ogre's already dense ones) and black mages flattened my team (four guys) in a single turn. Good game?
Stats? No clue how to view those, but also I dunno they're level three. Nobody can learn magic yet, I am fighting the guys Wiegraf leaves behind in Dorter and getting obliterated. On 16x16 tiles it almost doesn't matter, plus black mages and archers (which I cannot access currently) are so long range anyway.
I know, you can do it in Tactics Ogre too although it takes more button presses now. They have basically managed to make everything worse than Tactics Ogre - UI, jobs/classes, view getting obscured by buildings, equipment not showing what classes can equip it, I'm literally impressed. Some of these areas were already problem spots in Ogre so the fact they made it worse instead of better is startling.
Brave and faith are the two big core stats. Brave influences physical attack, and faith influences magic. Even though you don't have magic yet, you want your two highest faith characters set as chemists, because the magic classes are accessed though chemist (different jobs have order jobs as prerequisites). You want your highest brave characters as squires, both because they'll be going into physical classes later and because they'll hit harder now. You should be able to view those stats somewhere in your party management in between battles. If you're set up so that your two highest faith characters aren't chemists and your highest brave characters aren't squires, switch that around.
Magic doesn't go off instantaneously, so you can sometimes get to the caster and interrupt them if you are clever with your CT (or use a stone to knock them to a place where they can't hit their target and the spell fizzles). Don't forget to heal if you need it. Buy enough potions to keep you going, and focus fire on the units that are giving you trouble.
Does this matter when I'm level 3/4, but also I just have one default chemist plus another preset chemist. I appreciate the info about stats and classes but I don't think this is that relevant to getting flattened by the Dorter squad.
Sometimes it does, different spells I guess, but also I've had my Ramza get all the way over and attack the shit out of a black mage and their spell goes off without a hitch anyway. I unironically find it more useful to kamikaze the enemy with it. Also what is CT, but stones only have a lowish chance to knockback Idk.
I have like eight potions but when I bring a healer, archers kill her every single time.
The first three battles in Tactics are a pain in the ass specifically because you only have squires/chemists. I'm not even sure if you can grind on random battles at that point - but if you can, just run around for a bit and grind using the random battles (they're green dots on the map). The 4 unit cap on battles is only for the first handful of battles.
You can do it if you've played through Tactics Ogre!!! I believe in you.
You can do it comrade - Yasumi Matsuno won't make another Tactics game until you beat it so you've gotta!!!
Also what version are you playing? War of the Lions or the original? If you're finding yourself stuck on it, I'll be happy to take the excuse to emulate whatever version you're playing and see if I can get you a detailed Hexfaqs strategy guide for the exact battle you're struggling with.
PS1, I am straight up not having a good time. Game is not really requiring me to grind four hours in, right?
Battle is Dortor, where you first see Weigraf.
Grind random battles. Out of all the bosses in game Belias (second boss) is actually the hardest, it gets easier after that. Use named characters instead of generics, their unique classes fit well, for example Mustadio is excellent chemist AND have his own skills. It gets easier after getting Agrias. It gets MUCH easier after getting Orlandu.
No bosses yet no named characters other than NPCs yet.
So lemme get this right: we decided Training battles in Tactics Ogre were dumb, and so what we replaced them with is jacking the levels up so you have to click the world map over and over and do battles that take longer than training and cannot be automated????
That's cringe. Also I only did grinding once in Final Fantasy 4 and never in Final Fantasy 6.
Also this is not a Final Fantasy game, it is Tactics Ogre 2.
Idk i did plenty of grind in FF7, 8, 9, 10, 12, tactics, so basically all i played, though in tactics it start early and then disappears while in rest of them it starts late, though i admit if you just want to go through the game and not get weird shit like zero button boss extermination it might not be needed at all in games like FF7.
Welp that sure tells me which ones not to play! Incredible technology.
Yeah gonna second what everyone else is saying in that you need to grind. The way that the class system works basically necessitates it since you need to get individual characters levels in one class to unlock a new one which effectively resets their progress so you have to restart. I usually try to avoid grinding in SRPGs (because Fire Emblem elitism brain) but I realised at like mission 5 that I was going to have to. Once you get a bit ahead levels-wise you can skip grinding for a while until you add a new class onto a character. Also keep several save files, there's one or two multipart missions that will fuck you up if you aren't ready for it and you can't go back if you don't have a save before it.
The small party size is a full game thing, it's not 4 units but rather 5 for the majority of the game though. The idea was that FFT wants you to get really invested in a small number of units that you build up in the same way that you would in a normal FF game. (Although the game also wants you to have access to the majority of classes on your party so you can swap when necessary, which means more grinding. I just didn't do this barring a few particular builds in my party which made some maps harder than they should have been, but I think it was ultimately doable.)
Hello ✨
class system works basically necessitates it since you need to get individual characters levels in one class to unlock a new one which effectively resets their progress so you have to restart.
'member in Tactics Ogre how you simply unlock classes by either story progression or having a unit hit their lil requirement? (45 kills for terror knight, etc) What the hell happened to that?
I usually try to avoid grinding in SRPGs
Me too, the average SRPG battle is way longer than a JRPG battle and cannot be automated. Tactics Ogre however had training battles for XP where the CPU could control both of your teams. Was cool, designwise grinding is still a waste of time but at least I could read or browse bearsite while Ogre was playing itself. Mission fucking five... there are NES platformers with longer runtimes than it takes to get stonewalled by FFT. Also my Tactics Ogre memcard had about eight saves and I had twelve savestates when I was done, my FFT one already has four.
The idea was that FFT wants you to get really invested in a small number of units that you build up in the same way that you would in a normal FF game.
This is really dumb n stupid! Ogre has ten-man parties, or twelve in the remakes, and already at that size splitting your party for a pincer attack or smth could be dicey, often one wing of my force ended up besieged. So far in FFT the only strat is to form up around your spawn point and let the enemy come to you. Any units split off will die, fuckin party of five...
Thank you Seryph, you have confirmed for me that this is really actually the worst game ever made and a massive step down from Tactics Ogre in every way!!! You have given me the clarity I need not to play it.
Glad I could help lol.
I do think the five-man partes are fine but there's a real adjustment period while you get used to it and I still would have preferred like, 8. Part of it is also that early game you really need to turtle but once you start getting the named characters (who are all stronger than any generic could hope to be and you should just use them once you can instead of bothering with leveling generics) they allow you to do a lot more since they have better damage output or survivability. In my run with the exception of one generic black mage (Joyse my beloved) all of my units by endgame were named and the only one I had ever grinded in any way was Ramza to get him into Samurai. (And also monk for that one stupid god damn boss fight)
Five is less than the modern XCom games though, smaller than Fire Emblem Awakening... They put unit caps in the TO remakes too and I hate it.
once you start getting the named characters they allow you to do a lot more since they have better damage output or survivability.
So I just have to grind forever for the game to git gud =) my feet hurt I wish I was commanding Canopus on the battlefield of Quadriga fortress, you get named party characters from the start in TO and Canopus is a flying mobile death machine.........
That sounds very lame though honestly, less than half my TO party was named characters by the end, they do not have huge advantages over generics. Why do generics even exist in FFT?
They exist because the game still has a permadeath system and the devs didn't want you softlocking. Plus they represent the way they wanted you to get invested, to take these randoms and turn them into your big special characters, like how FF1, 3, and 5 were. And I mean it works when you do put in the effort to, Joyse was a joy (heh) to level and build into my cute adorable red-but-red-doesn't-actually-exist-so-she's-really-black mage. Named characters are just the path of least resistance since they're already very good when they join and don't need investment whereas generics do. Kinda like prepromotes in FE.
Well yeah but why not make generics not suck then? Just seems weird, if they want me invested why make all generics way worse than named characters? Blegh. I liked training generics in Ogre, this sucks, my money back pls
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(I did not pay a cent for either game)
They're not unusably bad, it's just Cid exists and breaks the game in half.
Most of the best named characters are locked behind late game sidequests that I didn't do. The others are usually better but not by so much that generics become useless. And you can't even run a full party of nameds until after the hardest boss fight in the game anyways, a fight which is hard for reasons entirely unrelated to your party since it's a Ramza solo.
Ramza has an ability called Yell or Tailwind (depends on the version you're playing) in his default class. Spam it on himself and enjoy the cheese
He does not, I could have learned it (yell to increase speed?) I assume it works like the Haste/Quicken spell in Ogre but I only have so many Jp so.
You can earn JP in random battles. Yell increases a character's speed by 1 during the battle, but it stacks. After using it a few times, Ramza will play multiple turns in a row.
He has another skill that does the same, but for strength. It's very cheesy but it will make you win fights.
Okay so turn order is just governed by Speed then? No adjustable Wait Turn stuff?
Yes it's proportional, someone with 16 SPD will act twice as often as someone with 8 SPD. Of course turn order is affected by other things like charge skills and status effects, but having crazy speed (it caps at 99) will allow you to have like 8 turns in a row. It's broken and available from the start.
I'm lazy and I like to have Ramza buff himself by switching his AI to protect himself. Expect Ramza to level up a lot with this strat
WAIT TURN I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO ME, SPEED BASED TURN ORDER IS FOR SHINING FORCEI do not wanna grind...
thank u anyhow...
I might give it another go...
