Limit Breaks

[ProtoSF]

How can I use the Near Death attacks?

[My name is...something..?]

You can't really use them, they are completely random, and are only used when your characters have low HP.

[omnitarian]

When a character uses the fight command when their HP is critical, they may whip out their limit break. Since it's completely random, there really is no way to effectively use limit breaks to your advantage.

[advent-child]

but if you get one......there amazing

[-N-]

It's a 1/20 chance Desperation is triggered when Critical and choosing Fight.

[DJZen]

Which, as we all know, is foolish because Fight is the most negligable command in the game. Well... Okay maybe Sketch is less useful, but if you're at critical health and making a last ditch effort, are you going to select Fight or bust out the Chainsaw?

[Dormos]

Well put. My theory:

If he's in critical, HEAL HIM.

I don't have time to dilly-dally (yeah, look at that technical jargon there) around when my characters are limping with one arm and a quarter of an eye hanging out from their lungs.

[Del Murder]

I agree that fight is an inferior command. That's why I never got those near death attacks, everyone always used magic or special ability.

[ehsteve]

I went out of my way to get them just to see what they looked like, and I got only two in the entire game. Setzer attacks with whatever weapon he has three times in a row, and Celes spins around really fast and hits the enemy with her sword, doing 9999 damage. They aren't worth using, but they are very nice if they happen.

[eestlinc]

fight is the best command. If you can't kill most enemies simply using fight with all your characters then you suck. :D

[Raistlin]

fight is the best command. If you can't kill most enemies simply using fight with all your characters then you suck. :D
xD

Amen!

[beema]

fight is the best command. If you can't kill most enemies simply using fight with all your characters then you suck. :D

agreed
I used the fight command on almost every enemy except for major bosses. Especially with strong physical fighters like Sabin and Cyan, you'd be retarded to NOT use it.

[ljkkjlcm9]

agreed
I used the fight command on almost every enemy except for major bosses. Especially with strong physical fighters like Sabin and Cyan, you'd be retarded to NOT use it.

Actually with a character such as Sabin, even pummel is stronger than an attack, and as for Cyan, his first level Swd Tech is stronger than a regular attack as well. I never used fight uhm, ever...

THE JACKEL

[beema]

I was getting like 5000 damage out of attack command from Sabin towards the end of the game, and Cyan had the genji glove and offering equipped so he was dealing out like 7000 a turn, plus he had that blade that killed enemies in one hit randomly. Why bother waiting forever for sword tech to charge or risk screwing up a blitz combo when you can do that much damage with a regular attack?

Your characters were just teh lose :p

[DJZen]

Because blitz moves are so easy to do you'd have to be a complete fool to mess one up. It's not just blitz and swdtech etiher. Tools are also much more powerful than fight and can hit multiple targets. The only characters who SHOULDN'T use their special abilities constantly are Relm, Mog, Celes (although she should definitely use it when it's needed), and possibly Shadow if you're running low on stars. If you do a tons of damage just using fight, you'll do even more using special commands.

Besides that, not all characters make good fighters. Terra, Celes and Strago were clearly meant to be mages, and their magic abilities are a lot more useful to them than fighting. ESPECIALLY where Strago is concerned.

[eestlinc]

I always gave Edgar the Atma Weapon and the Offering, so tools became pretty pointless after a while. Terra is equally good at physical and magic attacks.

[ljkkjlcm9]

waiting for Swd Tech to fill up, the first level you can hit A immediately and there is no waiting, or do what I did for the final boss... cast Quick, i beat the boss without getting hit...

And for your information, even my characters attacked for 9999 and the blitzes and swd tech did 9999, I still chose them cause they looked cooler and it made no difference cause blitz is easy to do and they did equal damage. Why would you want to risk being low health for an attack that does 9999 when with full health you can do the same amout of damage?

THE JACKEL

[eestlinc]

the best part about using physical attacks is you can just hold down the button during the whole battle.

[beema]

I wasn't talking about the limit breaks, I was just talking about regular attacks. Tools became pretty useless after a while, and the only blitz I ever used with any frequency was Bum Rush.

[Wiegrahf42]

The first time I saw a desperation attack was Locke's mirager and appropriately enough, I was fighting the final boss. For me Locke had the genji glove and the offering so he could attack eight times with the Illumina and the Excalibur.

[DJZen]

I've managed to see Mirager, Spin Edge and Tiger Break. They're fun but they're FAST. If you blink you miss the whole attack. It was really the first instance of a special innate attack triggered by battle conditions though. It's interesting how the limit breaks BECAME the innate abilities for the most part in the later games. For example, the deathblows of monks (Tifa & Zell) were made their limit breaks. Sword slingers (Cloud, Squall, Steiner, Auron & Tidus) had their special skills as limit breaks as opposed to Cyan's SwdTech battle skill. Setzer's Slots were made a limit break, as was Blue Magic (Lore in FFVI). To a small extent, even Terra's Morph became a "limit break" as FFIX's Trance. A lovely way of making cheap characters less ridiculously cheap.

This is only interesting because FFVI's desperation attacks were just that, attacks, while limit breaks, trances and overdrives could also heal or change statuses. Almost like Square chifted gears and changed the desperation attack to the bringing out of a character's full potential.

[m4tt]

I've always liked using the Fight command. Why buy weapons if you aren't gonna use them? :p Characters like Shadow, Sabin, Edgar and Cyan always end up doing around 9999 every attack.

[Sasquatch]

The only one I've ever seen is the Spin Edge (Celes), and that confused the hell out of me. I didn't even know they had desperation attacks until I saw that one, so I'm like "what the HELL was that?!?" But, alas, all was well, and it looked cool and slaughtered 'em.

[Gwelenguchenkus]

Actually, just the fact that all the limit breaks in FFVIII are triggered by low health is homage to FFVI's limit breaks. It's just that, instead of making normal attacks pretty much useless compared to special skills, they made it so that all you really wanted to do was use normal attacks, since there weren't many 'special skills', except for the limit breaks. Also, a lot of people were afraid of wasting their magic, because every time you used one you were probably weakening your own stats. Hah. :P

[Masamune·1600]

And then there was the fact that you knew when you had a Limit Break in FFVIII.

[DJZen]

FFVI was easy enough without having a limit break you could control.

[abrojtm]

I've seen Tiger Break, Whatever Setzer's is called (Loaded Dice??), and Rune Edge, I've also seen X-Meteo. Yay for me.

[Masamune·1600]

Setzer's Desperation Attack is called Red Card. Loaded Dice is one of his weapons. There is no Desperation Attack called Rune Edge, which is another weapon. The closest name of a Desperation Attack to "Rune Edge" would be Riot Blade, I suppose.

[beema]

I think I've seen Terra's, Setzer's, Sabin's, Shadow's, and Celes's....