I’ve played Final Fantasy Tactics twice in the past couple of months. The first runthrough was of the original on PlayStation. The second was the excellent Ivalice Chronicles remaster, out today. Despite having grinded through the classic strategy RPG back in the day, I still learned a thing or two from revisiting it again all these years later. Here’s a bunch of friendly reminders, PSAs, and helpful tips, whether you’re playing Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time or coming back to it after decades away.
Keep every character a Squire until they learn JP Up
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Rule number one of Final Fantasy Tactics is “ABJPU”: always be JP-ing up. JP stands for Job Points and these are what you use to unlock skills across the game’s sprawling job system. As you rank up each job, you’ll collect more points per action you take, but the JP Up skill will double that, letting you progress your characters twice as fast. The skill is on the third page of the Squire skill list under the passive section. Hold off on swapping your fresh recruits to chemists, knights, or other starting classes until you have this one unlocked.
Unlock Focus if you really want to streamline grinding
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Characters earn XP and Job Points for successful actions. This means doing damage, healing, or buffing/debuffing something. The fastest way to level up characters is to stock up on potions, leave one enemy in a battle alive, and have everyone keep taking turns while staying healed. Accumulate is a Squire skill that raises your attack. It never misses. And you use it on yourself so you don’t have to move or worry about being in range.
The quickest way to grind in Final Fantasy Tactics is to have everyone learn the skill (it costs 300 points) and stand around using it at the end of a random encounter. Because you can use it as a character’s second skill, it’s helpful no matter what job they are trying to level up, making it a sound strategy over the course of the entire game.
Always have a least one character with the Item skill equipped
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The ability to use Phoenix Down items is one of the most useful skills in Final Fantasy Tactics. That’s because when characters die, they only have three turns before they turn into crystals. Once that happens, they’re dead for the whole game unless you reset. If Ramza dies this way, the game is over. Even the best-laid plans can go sideways, and there’s nothing worse than having a character die early on in a fight and realizing you have no way to bring them back. Make sure at least one character has the Item skill equipped and Phoenix Down unlocked (it’s only 90 JP points) no matter what job they are. I usually have at least two or three.
Job Point spillover is your friend
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Final Fantasy Tactics is full of math that never gets overtly explained. One of the most important calculations is called JP spillover. Every time a character earns Job Points, the rest of your characters in battle get 20 percent of those points to that same job. Even if they don’t have the job unlocked yet, the points will still accrue in the background, showing up once it’s available.
This has two important uses. The first is you can have people double-up on jobs and unlock specific skills much faster. The other is that you can earn a small amount of points that let characters unlock one or two lower-level skills without them ever having actually spent time ranking up in that job. If you have a Chemist in your party earn 2,000 points, that will be enough for everyone else to learn Auto-Potion, one of the most useful counterattack skills in the game.
Drag battles out when you can so human enemies turn into crystals
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When humans fall in battle, they can turn into treasure chests or crystals. The treasure chests aren’t that useful, but the crystals contain all of the Job skills those soldiers had when they died. This is a really efficient way to unlock skills without spending any points, especially for lower-level stuff on jobs that character isn’t currently using. For example, your Chemist, Knight, or Archer might grab a crystal from a White Mage and learn a bunch of useful secondary skills like Cure, Raise, and Protect without ever grinding as a White Mage. There’s just one caveat: they need to have the job unlocked to be able to earn the skills from it this way.
Stats grow differently depending on the job you have when you level up
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Here’s some more arcane math the game doesn’t tell you about. Jobs have different base stats, so if you go from being a Knight to a Thief, even if you don’t change anything else, that character will have less health but be faster. Well, these stats also change in the background as you level up (with XP) in particular jobs. Players have spent decades trying to get the rough math right in charts like these, but there are some key things even casual players should be aware of.
- Monks, Knights, and Lancers have the highest health growth multiplier.
- Monks and Ninjas have the highest attack growth multiplier.
- Ninjas, Thieves, and Monks have the highest Speed Multiplier.
- Wizards and Time Mages have the highest magic attack growth multiplier.
- Priests, Wizards, Time Mages, and Summoners have the highest magic point growth multiplier.
Mimes, the hardest job to unlock in the game, have the highest all around stat growth potential, while Bards have the worst for male characters and Chemists have the worst for Female characters.
Ramza kicks ass as a Monk
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Thematically, it feels like the main character should be wearing armor and tanking hits out in front. It’s also bad if he dies, so survivability also seems like a priority. But Monks, even though they wear light armor and less of it, can be exceptionally strong, and Ramza, because of his underlying stats, is one of the strongest. In addition to hitting for lots of damage and maintaining good speed, he’ll also unlock all of the Martial Arts skills which include ranged attacks, health and MP healing, status ailment removal, and a revive. Best of all, these skills cost no MP and happen instantly.
Pay attention to Bravery and Faith
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More numbers! Each character in Final Fantasy Tactics has a Zodiac sign and two numbers near their name. The first is Bravery and it measures their ability to deal and take physical damage. The second is Faith and it’s involved in calculating the effectiveness of magic spells, both used and received. A high Faith character, for example, will have a higher likelihood of spells working and dealing more damage, but will also be more susceptible to them in return. Take note of these stats in the Recruiter’s office when you’re looking for new party members and when you’re deciding on their job trajectories.
If someone’s pursuing magic, they’ll do best with a Faith stat over 60 (I like to aim for 70). Same for Bravery when it comes to physical fighters. Bravery also effects the likelihood of counterattacks activating. This is extra important for things like Auto-Potion. A low Bravery character won’t react to being hit with their counterattack skills as much.
You can out-level for story battles but not random encounters
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If you’re stuck on a story battle like, say, the Dorter Slums or Lionel Castle Gate, you can keep grinding until your characters get powerful enough to overwhelm the enemy with sheer force. Random encounters, however, will always raise enemy levels to around where Ramza’s is, which is worth knowing before you try to go into a fight and grind with characters who are all learning new jobs they haven’t unlocked skills for yet.
Don’t rush into fights!
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This is a lesson Final Fantasy Tactics tries to teach you itself in Ramza’s very first battle out of the academy when Delita warns him about taking things slow. Any time I have ever lost a battle, it is because I got way too aggressive way too early. This will leave your fastest, farthest-moving characters isolated and easy targets to be picked off while also spreading you out across the field too much.
If you’re facing mostly Archers and Knights, turtle up and take advantage of healing and support spells that hit multiple allies at once. If you’re facing enemy spell casters, separate your party just enough to not have multiple people targeted at once while still being close enough together to burst down one enemy at a time.
Always buy the best armor you can afford
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Every couple of battles, new gear will become available at the Outfitter’s office. Armor doesn’t increase defense in Final Fantasy Tactics. Instead, it raises health and magic point totals. Lighter armor will be a more balanced mix, while heavy armor prioritizes HP. It’s okay to switch things up to suit your character’s skills. A Knight that also casts White Magic will want to wear mage robes instead of a full suit of armor to get more magic points.
In the old days, traveling back to town could mean getting stuck in a random encounter, but the remaster gives you the option to flee any battle on the map, so there’s no downside to constantly tracking back for supplies and better armor. Unless you’re playing on easy, Final Fantasy Tactics will require you to grind for cash and levels every so many story battles. Staying on top of the latest gear available will help even the odds.
Don’t under estimate the power of Move +1
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One is the loneliest number. In a game full of big numbers, it can look especially unimpressive. But the maps in Final Fantasy Tactics aren’t very big, and being able to move one extra square in any direction can pay off in big ways. Combine an early pair of Battle Boots with the Squire’s +1 movement ability and all of a sudden you have a 50-percent move bonus. Especially for characters who aren’t ranged, this can be the difference between contributing something meaningful to the fight during their turn and just constantly getting outmaneuvered until they die.
