Final Fantasy XII Official Thread

[Klonoa]

The quickenings can make you pop an artery. I'm about 22 hours in and I'm still not clear on how it works. With that said, I'm about 90% successful at chaining the quickenings though.

Right before the screen flashes, I start mashing the R2, L2 and the triangle buttons, then it gives me the option to chain it with another quickening move. After selecting it, the screen flashes white again. About a second before the white flash dissappears, I start mashing the R2, L2 and triangle buttons again, and then the options to link the quickenings appear again and repeat. The most I've been able to chain so far was around 8 quickenings for awesome damage.

When I only had 1 quickening attack during the first several hours of the game, I was able to link the same attack 3 or 4 times by said method.

[B-Ri]

HOW QUICKENINGS WORK.

When you purchase 1 quickening with 1 character, when you enter quickening on a full magic charge, you attack once.

During the cinematic for the quickeing, you have a certain amount of seconds to continue hitting shuffle, each shuffle will randomly draw a move. When you only have 1 character with a quickening, an 1 quickening, only 2 things can pop up

QUICKENING ATTACK NAME, EX: Fires of War, Balthiers first quickening

OR

MIST CHARGE

when you use your quickening and only have 1 quickening, youll have to recharge your mist to use it again.

When you have 2 characters with 1 quickening, its the same thing. Either mist charge or their move. With 2 characters you have a better chance of getting mist charge and quickening move, because you have 2 characters with it.

When you have 3, same thing, only now you have more of a chance of getting it because you have 3 characters with quickenings. (the characters need to be in the party to use them.

When you purchase the second quickening for a character, youve then increased your chances for the shuffle.

your chances are

Quickening 1
quickening 2
mist charge

when you have all 3 characters with 2 quickenings, you then have

char 1 quick 1
char 1 quick 2
char 1 mist charge
char 2 quick 1
char 2 quick 2
char 2 mist charge
char 3 quick 1
char 3 quick 2
char 3 mist charge

every time you mist charge, you get your full mist charges filled. So if you have 2 quickenings, you have 2 charges.

When you have 3, you have MORE chances in the shuffle to land a quickening.

char 1 quick 1
char 1 quick 2
char 1 quick 3
char 1 mist charge
char 2 quick 1
char 2 quick 2
char 2 quick 3
char 2 mist charge
char 3 quick 1
char 3 quick 2
char 3 quick 3
char 3 mist charge

quickening 1 uses 1 quickening charge, a level 2 quickening uses 2, a level 3 quickening uses 3.

When you have 3 characters, each with 3 quickenings, you have even more chances when you press shuffle to get a chance to input the attack.

Quickenings are triangle, square and X.

The more quickenings you have, the better chances, the more magic you have when you enter quickening, the better chance you have to perform one without having to mist charge.

so, lets say you have 3 characters, but none have a charge but one, you can do the quickening with that one character, and hope for during the shuffle, you can mist charge the other characters and they can perform a quickening.

The more characters with quickenings, the better chances to be able to perform one during the shuffle

the more quickenings in a character, or characters, the better chances to be able to beform one during shuffle

the more magic when entering quickening, the better chances to land one without having to mist charge.

Its random. If its all greyed out, you hit shuffle. Itll shuffle the characers you have quickenings. So you can have 2 people who can perform a quickening immediately, or none, so you shuffle to see if the random draw will let you. Its all random, so you gotta be quick and ready to land the buttons you need to do to keep the chain going.

Depending on how many, and the combinations you do between the characters, you get what in FFXI is known as skillchains. Ex: Inferno, Ark Blast, Torrent, ect. Each having its own different elemental "explosion" thatll effect all enemies in range.

anything more?

[FuryFox]

Awesome, thanks for that breakdown.

[Mikhal]

Is there any way to see all the stats affected before you buy equipment? As far as I can tell, it only tells you how it affects the primary stat.

Not as far as I know.

Also, it's still unclear to me how the Quickenings work...3-4 guys have them now. So I start one, and then I'm supposed to hit R2 to swap, and then whatever button appears next to someone's name? Do I tap R2 or just hold it down until a button symbol appears?

Brian explained already, but I must stress this part. If you have nothing to chain with after the quickening, You TAP the R2 button, then you have to WAIT a split second to see if any will chain, enough so that if anybody can chain you will see their name lit up (there is a slight lag between the time you press the R2 button and when a name would actually light up). If not, repeat until you see one that does.

I probably missed it, but what do the kill combos count for again? I got up to 100 in the Dreadnought Leviathan and nothing special seemed to happen, even thought the game would indicate every 10 or something that I should notice. And people don't have weapon proficincies other than whether or not they can use them do they? Like, if I've been using swords for 10 levels and then switch to hammers, I'm just operating off stats and weapon properties I assume.

If you get a higher the kill combo, the enemies would have a higher chance at having better drops (rare items if they have any). Most of the time, you just get more of what they usually drop. At higher combos you can usually get some random (from what it seems to me) positive party effect (some HP/MP restored, spells like protect on you, etc...). And you should have gotten the 50 chain achievement in the Sky Pirate's Den.

[Nomi]

Is it just me or does this final fantasy really depend a hell of a lot more on the status effects.

It took me a while to figure out why I was taking such a pounding all the time, but once I started throwing some protects on my guys and throwing a blind and a silence out there, battles that I once got raped on now are now a breeze.

It could be that it was just as useful in past games but I was never forced to use them so I never payed them much attention. Before I would just spam summons and shit and now I have to think about what the fuck I am doing.

The more I play this game the more it gives back.. this is coming from someone around level 25.

Status effects have a huge impact now sometimes, I completely agree. Having an accessory that makes you immune to Sleep can make or break a boss fight, or making sure one person can't be Silenced so they can Esuna everyone else. At about level 27 I picked up some kind of armor that equips me with Protect at all times (never wears out) and it seems like a really big difference. Similarly, Regen is useful, where as in past FFs I thought it was a waste of MP.

[Brand X]

Is it just me or does this final fantasy really depend a hell of a lot more on the status effects.

Ensauna (spelling?) along with the Remedy augmentations are your best friend. Having remedies that cure nearly everything in the middle of a huge boss fight is so helpful.

[Nomi]

Stupid question but it's making me crazy. Where the hell can I buy ethers? I finally noticed remedies for sale but I'm flat out of ethers and it sucks when in boss fights

[Brand X]

Stupid question but it's making me crazy. Where the hell can I buy ethers? I finally noticed remedies for sale but I'm flat out of ethers and it sucks when in boss fights

I haven't found any place that you can yet, but I also think you're further then me.

[Nomi]

Son of a bitch. I'm at the Southern Cave Palace off of the Tchitan (?) Uplands before Archadia, for reference. There's a boss fight in there that is hilariously kicking my ass. It's one each of all the six varieties of tomato/pumpkin/onion head enemies and they're so difficult together like this. I keep getting put to sleep and beat up all at once, I run out of MP just healing, I can't even kill more than one of them before my entire lineup is MPless and hurting badly.

[MechDeus]

I have yet to use an ether in battle (though I might end up doing so for some of the optional stuff I haven't gotten to yet). You are using Charge, right? Unless you're trying to get back up to Quickening status I've seen no reason to use them (and even then the only issue I've had was the time when a Hunt would sap my MP whenever it neared a full bar).

Those guys were kinda tough, I think they killed a couple of my party members. IIRC some of them are a shitload stronger then the others, the best thing to do is look at their names and go for the "normal" ones first before killing Prince and Queen and whomever. I could be wrong on that as the only thing I really remember about the fight was having to run in circles a lot and the continuous status effects were rather annoying. Ranged attackers also helped a shitload just because of the running around, getting hit often "paused" them for a moment which was usually enough for my melee to catch up and smack them.

As for myself, I think I'm getting ready to finish up the last set of Hunts. Currently at 57 or so, Vaan has Excalibur, HP ranges around 7000-8000+, although I'd love to find that Sagitarius Bow soon. About to head into that lighthouse-like area in the ocean at the huge waterfall, and I'm really hoping the rain season ends after that because I have at least four Hunts that are being held up from that.