Tactics? Who uses those anyway?

Unless it's a boss monster or a particularly hard monster configuration I tend not to use a planned out battle tactic. I tend to hack n' slash with a Knight/Lancer mix or magic the hell out of 'em with a Blackmage. And when it comes down to it this game is still about power training, power training, power training, until your hands bleed and your brain has completely wandered off. I like this game, but I can only play for short periods of time while not on the interesting storyline.

What tactics do you use? Did you enjoy this game?

First thing I do when i go into battle is pan over the entire battlefield and get a basic outline of what I'm going to do based on the terrain and enemy layout. I'm constantly looking for ways to tweak how I play to be better.

I just started playing again after 3 years? maybe 2 and a half. Anyway not the point. I pretty much plan all my battles before they begin, I'm still in the phase of getting all the abilities I want on my characters so it would seem that I have a poor party set up, but with a little planning and party setup/special abilities 2 thiefs 2 summoners and a fighter class is all you need for any fight, storyline or otherwise (my current party configuration for at least 3 more battles).

I don't really grind out any extra battles so you've got to be able to level up those weaker classes and you need em set up with abilities that make um useable :D

My biggest tactic is picking the abilities you are always going to use, and not upgrading anything until I have them, also upgrading the ones you'll need while class switching is important. It's also nice to have characters who are weaker with the "BASIC SKILL" "accumulate" set up, so they can hide in the corner and still gain jp ;)

(I've played the darn game so much before I have almost all of the battlefields memorized but playing to their strength is nice, IE archer to the high ground)

agree with OP.

I don't really use tactics. Right now, I'm JP grinding the hell out of my characters in single battle using the accumulate ability from the squire class.

I do enjoy the hell out of this game though.

I tend to fight defensively unless I clearly have the advantage. When I encounter a battle where I'm outmatched I go back a save and overlevel. A lot.

Early in game I tend to favor a mix of classes that I'm learning but with nongeneric characters I tend to keep their default skillset as secondary. Like say Agrias as a White Mage with Equip Sword and Holy Sword. I swap them back to default classes in boss fights.

Late game I tend to have level 99 characters so I equip Math Skills on almost every character and use calculations that affect multiples of 3 to heal and other multiples for attacking foes. Often I wipe out foes before they reach meelee range.

Yeah, tactics aren't really needed when 95% of the enemies/AI can be steamrolled over with simplistic setups and attacks.

Tactics can really become a major factor if you do a Solo Ramza challenge. You end up using lots of tricks through the first chapter, such as using Teleports height-ignoring-movement trait to get to really high untouchable places while continually Yelling/Accumulating.

Other than that, I'm with you guys in that once you've beaten the game once, and know which classes dominate in what ways, its easy to steamroll the game using the right combinations of classes/abilities.

i.e. knowing early on the OPness of Blade Grasp, Summoners, and stacking a samurais/geomancers with +MA so that their abilities hit for amounts of damage not thought possible... Muramasa hitting multiple targets for 200+ early on was fun. First time you play through the game you may not realize these kinds of tricks.

I remember my first playthrough, and there were a good handful of battles that made me reload, take a look at my characters and specifically train for an ability or two to get past next battle, such as at the end of chapter 1, and at the execution site in chapter 2.

A more tactical game would probably be Tactics Ogre, where your casters can literally be 1-shot by most melee units in the game, and you have enough units on the field to effectively strategize your group with tankers, healers, and offensive units.

In FFT I tended to not use tactics very often I would just steam roll enemies with simple attacks. In FFTA I just obeyed the law whenever I chose to and whenever I decided not to I would simply blow it out the water with an anti-law card. However I'm currently doing an FFTA 2 playthrough where I am not using antilaws (if there are any, I'm only 1/4 of the way through the misisons and haven't encountered them yet) I am attempting to obey the law in every battle, sometimes it's impossible my levels will be just too high for me to obey the law (hence I have a second non-battle party in my clan they're normally used purely for the dispatch missions but in situations where needed I bring them out in battle) or something similar but in all other circumstances I obey that law like it is the be all and end all (restarting the game if I fail to keep to it) This often requires tactics the biggest issue however is some laws such as movement/positioning laws and pushback mean a random critical hit can actually break the law.

Yeah thats my only complaint with FFTA2 so far as well. I'm a little ways into the game (main group is around lv 30), and the only laws I have trouble obeying at ones that you can't really control sometimes, which I disagree with having them be laws in the first place. "Forbidden: Damage >30"? What kind of crap is that, oops you crit, that means you LOSE!. Oh the other is something stupid like "No attacking enemies from behind", and then your character gets confused and.. attacks the enemy from behind, oops broken law again

At least in FFTA there weren't any laws that you could accidentally break, you either forgot about the law or didn't realize that you were equipped with a certain type of weapon when attacking. But to break the law cuz the game rolled a dice and said you lose? /sigh

Slightly off topic from Tactics though, oh well. :)

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Originally Posted by Iceglow

In FFT I tended to not use tactics very often I would just steam roll enemies with simple attacks. In FFTA I just obeyed the law whenever I chose to and whenever I decided not to I would simply blow it out the water with an anti-law card. However I'm currently doing an FFTA 2 playthrough where I am not using antilaws (if there are any, I'm only 1/4 of the way through the misisons and haven't encountered them yet) I am attempting to obey the law in every battle, sometimes it's impossible my levels will be just too high for me to obey the law (hence I have a second non-battle party in my clan they're normally used purely for the dispatch missions but in situations where needed I bring them out in battle) or something similar but in all other circumstances I obey that law like it is the be all and end all (restarting the game if I fail to keep to it) This often requires tactics the biggest issue however is some laws such as movement/positioning laws and pushback mean a random critical hit can actually break the law.

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You can always follow the law. Reaction commands like Counter won't get you in trouble, so for ones where you are too powerful, they help a ton. If the law says don't attack lower level units, get them to attack you and Counter them to death.

For laws saying don't do too much damage, use abilities like Take Aim and Blade Bash. Any ability which features a massive cut in attack power. Green Mages can also poison enemies until they die, though it takes a while.

If knockback is a problem, don't attack. Use abilities. They don't crit, so they are safer, and most physical classes have at least one attack ability that does the same damage as their reguilar attack.

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Originally Posted by Skyblade

You can always follow the law. Reaction commands like Counter won't get you in trouble, so for ones where you are too powerful, they help a ton. If the law says don't attack lower level units, get them to attack you and Counter them to death.

For laws saying don't do too much damage, use abilities like Take Aim and Blade Bash. Any ability which features a massive cut in attack power. Green Mages can also poison enemies until they die, though it takes a while.

If knockback is a problem, don't attack. Use abilities. They don't crit, so they are safer, and most physical classes have at least one attack ability that does the same damage as their reguilar attack.

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I would normally trust you on this because well Skyblade you've been around for a while and tactics is like your speciality but I think you're wrong, reactive abilities and even doing something such as poisoning an enemy when the law is offensive actions towards units of a lower level is forbidden then it counts as an offensive Hell, using night to put them to sleep is an offensive ability. Therefore sometimes you can't help but break the law unless like me you keep another party at lower levels. Damage > 30 or whatever is avoidable most times, it's only really when you need to deal a certain amount of damage to defeat a set amount of targets in battle within a time limit that you have to break the law if you want to win the battle. Sometimes I think especially with the story central missions the game wants you to break the law so that the battle becomes more important, do or die as it were.

Some of the story battles do require specific tactics, but it's true that most random battles don't. Wiegraf, for example, can't just be plowed over, nor can the battle that follows.

I tend to use tactics more often than not simply because I like to use a diverse amount of jobs. Sometimes the jobs I have selected aren't ideal for the situation so I have to use some tricks to win. Those end up being the most fun/rewarding battles (unless I lose, in which case I curse the game forever).

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

I tend to use tactics more often than not simply because I like to use a diverse amount of jobs. Sometimes the jobs I have selected aren't ideal for the situation so I have to use some tricks to win. Those end up being the most fun/rewarding battles (unless I lose, in which case I curse the game forever).

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^This
Probably the most fun I had was when I ran into the 11 monk battle with a ninja, Worker 8, a chemist who had no gun an only knew Potion & Pheonix down, a bard, and a white mage with no holy. Damn thing took 40 minutes, but I won dammit.

Well the first thing I like to do is unlock all the jobs. After that I got a lot of good jobs leveled up and I'm still at a decent level. Then I pick what I want my characters to be. I usually stick with Duel Wield unless I plan on making a magic user. I agree that this game is difficult when it comes to mastering all jobs, but that's not needed. If you do want to, like I do for some reason, get your characters in a figure 5 and hack the guy in the middle while he uses chakra.

Although generics and Ramza have a much easier time of it, since they can use Accumulate. Stealing Gil from a disabled enemy also has a very high success rate.

I don't think that you need too much work on making out some tactics for this game, when the objective is to kill a boss then you just go straight for it without hasitation and it usually dies in 3 turns if your chars are the "correct" lvl, meaning having done all side quests to the point and never avoid fights by reloading and so on.

My char(the main char) is a Knight with two swords(ninja skill), switch mp(time mage skill) and teleport(again time mage skill) and as sub command I have items with x-potion, phoenix down and high either. With the teleport skill I go immidiatly to my targets and kick their usses in one turn wit the two sword ability, my mp takes all the dmg from the first hit so I have no worries till a healer come close and heal me - that's my main strategy, I overpower my opponents. When the objective is to kill all enemies I take out all mages > archers > the rest in that turn until there are no more of them on the field.

Pretty simple eh? :D
My main chars are a Lancer(with items), a Black Mage(with items), a White Mage(with items), a Chemist(with white magic and gun) and those buffed up guests that turn out to be part of the party later on each of them with as much as possible hp and able to stand on their own for at least two turns each without getting healed for example one of my fav feats is the wear heavy armor that you get from the Knight job, extremely usefull for squisy mages and healers.

I have some Tactics in this game give everyone of my characters (Haste,Protect,Shell,Regen, and Reraise) then i wait tell they come to me then surround them those are my tactics

I'm usually forced to using some sort of tactical approach or another, since I never switch to any particular set of classes for what a battle may demand. (In whichever cases that it might, and even so, I find that I can completely disregard FAQ advice for even the most special battles.) I go as is, I think it's a good challenge.
Despite this however, most of the tacticing I do limits itself to checking out the turn list. Even learning Ultima depends on how strong you are in the end, and whether you have Construct 8 or not haha.

One of the problems with this game, (Don't mind my words, whatever my gripe, I love this game to no end.) is that it misses an element of balance like crazy when it comes to its premise, especially when it comes to the usefulness of many classes or their skills. I mean does anyone ever actually bother to shatter the equipment of their enemies? Is anyone psycho enough to use Charge 20? Seriously.
That said, I've inspected a lot and observed much, this game does include the potential for some very tactical oriented battles what with all the choices you have, but most people shan't bother when you can just hack :bou::bou::bou::bou: up. It's a lot faster and much more efficient.

I must admit, the most amazing battles I've had which went beyond pulling a Conan were mostly all by accident.
The intended tactical approach of which I speak is usually nothing more than waiting for the enemies to come within reach, peggin' em off with projectiles if I have em, (Which also includes the last minute ''pistol/crossbow aim behind an enemy that isn't targeted when they come to close'' tactic haha. I don't recall but I believe that works with hucking rocks, too.) or using a classic setup which includes using all my tough guys and supporting them with magic or chemistry from the back (Vive Tynar Rouge, too bad you can't get more than one.) when you're in a small area or when the enemies start the fight near your own dudes.

Or you can just grab Cidolfus and go smurf this lol. (Unless he gets charmed; GOD.)