Quickenings

Quickenings

To obtain a Quickening in FFXII, the player must activate a quickening license for it on a character's license board. There are 18 Quickening licenses on the license board, and each character can possess up to three Quickenings. Once a quickening license has been activated though, that slot on the board disappears on every other character's license board, requiring you to guide each character through different routes on the board to maximise your number of Quickenings as early in the game as possible.

Each time a character earns a new Quickening, they will receive one additional "Mist Charge". A Mist Charge is essentially an extra MP bar. When you open up two Quickenings for a character, their standard MP will double, and when you open up three, it will triple.

Using a Quickening will deplete your MP bar in correspondence with the level of the Quickening you employed, i.e. a level 1 Quickening will deplete one MP bar, level 2 will deplete 2 MP bars, and level 3 will deplete 3 MP bars.

When casting a Quickening, a time limit is displayed as both a numerical timer and a bar. Above the timer bar will be controller buttons corresponding to each character and to the right of this will be two possible commands; the name of the Quickening, or the words "Mist Charge". If a Quickening is displayed, small circles will be displayed indicating its level.

The base strength of every character's Quickening is the same, but the damage will vary slightly depending on the power of your character.

Concurrences

A higher ranking (the further down on the list) concurrence will always take priority over a lower one. For example, if you cast two level 1, 2, and 3 Quickenings, you will always activate the Ark Blast Concurrence, even if you cast 8 level 1 concurrences

Although every concurrence is based on a different element (fire, ice, lighting, etc) this is purely visual; all concurrences deal non-elemental damage.

Chains

Quickenings are easy to gain access to, but using them to their best capacity requires a lot of patience, a quick eye, and more than a bit of luck. Quickening chains are the bread and butter of the Quickening system, and using them effectively is not as straightforward as similar battle systems in past Final Fantasy games.

When trying to create a large Quickening Chain, the player should pay close attention to the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It's here that the next potential chain will appear between each quickening.

So how do you string together high chain?

To begin with, you need to start by selecting a Quickening from one person in your partner. Contrary to what you may already think, choosing a level 3 Quickening is not your best option; this will be explained in a moment. You should always start off with a level 1 Quickening.

As the chain begins, you may notice the phrase "Mist Change" in place of the Quickening's name. What this effectively does is refill every level of you MP gauge! This is why it is more beneficial to use low level Quickenings than high level ones, you will have more chances to refill your MP gauge, more chances to attack, and a higher chance of coming out of a Quickening Chain with some mana left.

There are a few crucial points to remember when attempting to put together large Quickening Chains:

• DO NOT WAIT! You have a very limited time in which to input your Quickenings, and the more time spent between each chain, the less time left for the rest of them. The amount of time that will be given for your next chain will be equal to your time remaining, plus half the time you used on your last chain. That means if you had 4 seconds remaning and used a full second to activate your chain, for your next attempt you will have 3.5 seconds to continue to chain.
• Remember, always start with a level one quickening. This increasing the chance of each character getting out more Quickenings in a fight, and a higher chance of earning high level Quickenings near the end.
• If "Mist Charge" appears, USE IT! If you don't keep charging your MP gauge, you won't be able to keep casting Quickenings!
• Use the same characters more than once in a row, if the option is available to you. This will give you a greater chance of refilling your MP gauge, with your other characters still in reserve with all their Mist Charges intact, allowing you to get out more attacks in the long run.
• Only shuffle the reels if everything is greyed out!
• Getting a high chain is more important than using high level Quickenings. You should only use your high level Quickenings when you're running low on time in the chain, and have the means to restore your MP afterwards, or if a high level Quickening is the only option available to you.
• Concurrences are useful, but not essential. You're only going to manage to set off the highest level concurrences if you're really, really lucky. That said, you should aim to set off high level Concurrences if you're aiming to take out a group of monsters (such as the Mateus boss battle), as Concurrences deal area-damage.