Is it just me or do those two spells make very little difference in this game?
Shell and Protect
Is it just me or do those two spells make very little difference in this game?
Protect reduces physical damage by 25%. Shell reduces magickal damage by 25% and decreases the chance of a status effect to hit by 50%. The latter is the most important for battles such as Zodiark and Yiazmat as it means their instant KO attacks are less threatening. The downside to Shell is it also reduces the success rate of Berserk and Decoy as they are considered negative statuses.
It appears to be weaker than it was in the other games. Maybe to compensate for the fact that one casting keeps you protected for a bunch of battles.
Plus, with gambits, they can be automatically cast and (practically) permanent. They did make a visible difference for me, but they weren't stellar either.
They make a huge difference IMO, because I cast them constantly. In other FFs, I rarely casted them unless if I was facing a strong, unbalanced opponent (eg. Heavy hitting boss or super magical boss)
In FFXII Shell and Protect can be cast really quickly, often before a battle. They barely take up any mp as well.
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I used Gambits to auto-cast both of them. Sure, they aren't phenomenal, but their MP cost is so negligible and it's fairly easy to keep a cycle that it doesn't really hurt. Not to mention you can take a few steps to recover the MP spent. >_>;
Regen is nice to keep in a buff cycle, too.
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^ Yeah, I found protect and shell extremely useful, along with pretty much all the other buffs and status magic in the game. I always at least make sure it's on a tank.
That makes a lot of sense actually. So the benefit is there, it just works in a completely different way; Protect and Shell used to keep the respective damage numbers down to about half but back then they lasted for part of one battle.Originally Posted by Roto13
I restarted the game because I'd left my last save so long that I was out of the loop with the plot. Since I haven't got Protectga and can't be bothered casting single target buffs over and over, I'm noticing I cast Cure and Cura a lot more...
Doesn't help that I'm trying to not teach everyone the same spells either
Those two spells are an essential part of my superboss confrontation strategies, and also nearly indispensable for the increasingly tough bosses toward the game's end.
Yeah, I can't imagine living without them. I cheaped out on armor to by grimoires and magicks that I don't cast. So, all the enemies in the Mosophoran waste hit for like 450 through protect.
Cheap buff. I Gambited them as soon as I got them, and kept the Gambit uprgraded.
I don't bother to set it to a gambit because I already have Haste and Bravery set and I don't want to be spending that much time recasting so many spells. xP
I had each character cast one of Protectga, Shellga and Hastega followed by all three buffing themselves with Bravery (and bubble, if I didn't have bubble belts equipped). It worked quite well end game.
I never found either particularly useful in any FF game, but I use it more in XII since it doesn't have to waste a turn, depending on how your gambits are set up (ie, always attack/heal/revive before casting protect)
Same thing for me. Only bother with Shell and Protect for bosses in other games but I have gambits set for them to be cast automatically along with Libra in FFXII.
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