• Special Equipment

    Critical Hit Rates
    All characters are capable of achieving what's known as critical hits. They're fairly obvious to recognise, when the screen flashes as a person attacks and they do double damage, you've just witnessed one. Now, each character has a different critical hit rate:

    • Crono - 10%
    • Marle - 20%
    • Lucca - 20%
    • Robo - 10%
    • Frog - 23%
    • Magus - 10%
    • Ayla - Various

    For Ayla, it's rather complicated. As many of you know, Ayla does indeed have different weapons, but what some of you may not realise is that she actually has five, not three as most people think. They are Fist (Level 1+) - 20%, Fist (Level 24+) - 25%, Fist (Level 48+) - 30%, Iron Fist (Level 72+) - 35% and Bronze Fist (Level 96+) - 10%. With the Iron Fist she may cause Chaos and with the Bronze Fist, she'll do 9999 damage on critical hits, hence her critical hit rate dropping to 10%.

    There are also exceptions for other characters weapons:

    • Crono - Kali Blade (20%), Shiva Edge (7%), Rainbow (70%)
    • Marle - Siren and Valkerye (40%)
    • Lucca - Wonder Shot (40%)
    • Robo - Crisis Arm (5%)

    Crisis Arm
    Ignore what the in-game description says, this is how it really works: Robo's AP is multiplied by half of the last digit in Robo's current health, so if he's at 456 health, it'll do three times as much damage; 321 health and it'll do half damage and at 890 health, it'll do no damage at all. This counts for all physical attacks by Robo EXCEPT Robo Tackle since the game uses a unique formula for that attack.

    Doomsickle
    This one is fairly simple. If one person is down, it'll do twice as much damage and with two people down, it'll cause three times as much damage, making this a good weapon to have equipped in tough fights.

    Wondershot
    For this weapon, the amount of damage inflicted is Lucca's Attack Power (AP) multiplied by 1/10, 1/2, 1, 2 or 3. The game randomly chooses which one so there's no way of predicting how much damage will be done.

    Elemental Protection
    There are several different types of armour that will protect you somewhat from certain elemental attacks:

    • Coloured Mail/Vests which absorb 50%/100% of the applicable element
    • Taban Vest cutting fire damage by 50%
    • Taban Suit reducing fire damage by 75%
    • Ruby Vest cutting fire damage by 50%
    • Ruby Armour reducing fire damage by 80%
    • Dark Helm cutting shadow damage by 50%
    • Mermaid Cap reducing water damage by 50%
    • Rainbow Helm cutting lightning damage by 50%

    Ozzie Pants
    A mixed blessing you can really do without. It's got the highest defence out of all helmets but it gives you a health-down status and chaos when you start the fight. Equipping the Amulet doesn't prevent this from happening and while the status effects can be removed, it's still too much of a pain in the arse to put up with. I'd recommend just not even taking it in the first place.

    Beserker
    I have to admit, I underrate this accessory a hell of a lot myself. It increases a characters AP by 50%, reduces physical damage by 1/3 and inflicts Beserk. Stick it on Ayla and she'll go out, all guns blazing!

    Hero Medal
    Does exactly what it says on the tin. When Frog has this and the Masamune equipped, his critical hit rate increases from 23% to 50%, a rise of 27%! It really isn't worth missing out on.

    Sun Shades
    Ups a characters AP by 25%. This counts for ALL attacks, including elemental ones, but doesn't work for healing spells. For any multi-character tech, all participants must be wearing Sun Shades for the 25% to be added on unless it depends on one character only, e.g. Spin Strike. Then it only needs to be on that person.

    Prism Specs
    Same as the Sun Shades, except the increase is 50%! Equipping the Prism Specs on one person and the Sun Shades on a second also doesn't work when they perform dual techs so don't bother trying; I've already had a go at it!