Maegwyn
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A Review of Terran Recreation
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Interesting Character Setups
By Genoclysm
The greatest charm of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is the vast amount of customizations for characters. It may not seem so at first, but towards the end, possibilities start opening up. There's base class dictating main abilities and equipment, but then any class will of course have a choice of gimmick, defense, or offense geared equipment. There are secondary abilities which are the biggest enhancement of versatility. There are counter abilities, which actually have more varied uses than just slapping Counter on everyone. And then there are support abilities, which can also have rather large effects. In this article, I will be going into interesting character setups, whether they be common or just plain weird. (I will also assume any readers already know the game's classes.) I will try to stay away from technical stat gain information, but for "hard core" players out there, I highly recommend looking them up and planning ahead with levels. For the rest of you, just keep melee characters only leveling in melee classes and magic characters only leveling in magic, and none should turn out too bad.
For FFTA and FFTA2 both, the Dual Wielding Paladin is always an appealing choice for heavy melee offense. This time around, with the introduction of Seers, giving this traditional setup Seer secondary abilities has been appealing, utilizing Magick Frenzy and the -ra spells to strike multiple targets from a distance. In most cases, however, Magick Frenzy just can't reach its full potential. Either the magick attack is underpowered, or the melee attack is. Blue Mage stat gains can fix this and allow both to be used effectively. (Sorry, but I just had to mention stat gains here to explain this part.) I find that with Blue Mage stats on a Paladin Seer, it allows the character to fill in for just about any role, although it will never be quite as effective in anything as a character with a specific purpose in mind.
I can't take credit for this next one, even if I wanted to. Why? The game designers themselves beat everyone to it. Those little, weak, status afflicting "spells" Ninja has were purposely designed to work with the Seer's Magick Frenzy ability. (An NPC actually uses that strategy.) It works like this. The Ninja has whatever setup so far that the player normally likes for them, but with Seer abilities. Magick Frenzy can be used every turn with the cheap Ninja skills. The Ninja skill never does much damage anyway, but it attempts to cause a negative status effect, and then afterwards attacks from a distance. All of a sudden humans have an effective ranged attacker option other than Archers and Hunters (who tend to be somewhat less than formidable ...). Since Magick Frenzy is completely compatible with Dual Wield, the Ninja sacrifices no attack power potential by doing this.
Branching off for a moment, this setup also has an alternative version. This version takes a very specific equipment set, so I won't leave much to the imagination here. Ragetsu-denbu is certainly not the most powerful Katana, but it increases evasion by 5. Similarly, Thief's Cap, Ninja Gear, and Red Shoes, while lacking in other areas, all increase evasion by 5. Instead of Dual Wield or some other Support ability, give the Ninja Shieldbearer and equip a Reverie Shield, which like the other pieces of equipment listed here, lacks in most areas but increases evasion. The shield gives 20, the sword, hat, armor, and shoes give 5, and Ninja itself comes with an inherent 15 evasion. Totaled, the ninja will have 55 evasion, dodging more than half of all attacks coming its way. For a reaction ability, give it MP Shield. Any hits that do strike the Ninja will have to get through the MP first. If it is set up with Seer secondary skills as the other Ninja setup described, it will also possess the Recharge ability, allowing it to skip a turn, so to speak, to regain more MP than it normally would have. This makes a very hard to kill Ninja, and all things I've listed are doable without having to use any unique items. Of course, if a player decided to give one of the rare female humans this setup, Thief's Cap can be sacrificed for Ribbon. 5 evasion for status effect invincibility sounds like a good trade-off to me.
Saddly there just aren't many creative setups for Bangaa, Viera, Seeq, or Gria. I imagine Spellblade abilities are most often used with Snipers or Assassins, and I've heard Hunters with Ravager abilities can be formidable, but other than that, it's just mix-and-match according to player preferences. It might sound good for customization, but these races are rather hard to specialize. They tend to just seem so ... generic. Oh yes, then there's the Red Mage Summoners, but those are abused so much that I find them dull. (Cannoneers might break up the Bangaa monotony, but I have little experience with the class and I've only ever heard of one strategy they are used for: restoring MP.)
Nu Mou and Moogles are a bit more interesting this time around. Alchemists are more appealing now, as they can have a secondary ability set and still be able to use Items, but it is the Arcanist and Scholar that really stir things up. Other than Drain, Syphon, the Gravity spells, and Death, the spells are level-based. This makes them a little harder to control than most other spells. It makes players have to think before using them. Although, those spells can just be ignored and the class can be used only to slap Drain, Syphon, and Graviga onto a different spell caster. That's not very creative. It's far more interesting to find ways to utilize the level spells. I've heard of them being used in a similar fashion to the Scholar spells. Scholars have powerful spells that hit everything ... including allies. One way to turn that into an advantage that I've heard of is simply to give one's entire team equipment to absorb the favored element of the Scholar and Arcanist spells. That's a bit too cheap for my tastes.
Moogles have caught my eye in a very improbable way this time. There have been many complaints about the pathetic stat gains (other than speed) of Chocobo Knights, and the fact that Chocobo Knights cannot use secondary abilities while riding a Chocobo. I find I must agree to some degree, but there is another possibility I see.* While scrolling through their possible weapons, I noticed they can use anything other than the true ranged weapons. It was at this point I noticed an interesting similarity with this class and a rather infamous class of past Final Fantasy games: the Onion Knight. Yes, its stats seem poor, yes, it has no abilities, but was the Onion Knight useless? No. It was given the advantage of higher equipment versatility than any other class. Well the same thing has occurred here. While leveling a Moogle up as a Chocobo Knight might be a bad idea, using the Chocobo Knight might deserve another look. Moogle classes can be occasionally good by themselves. Imagine one you like (other than ranged ones). Now imagine that one running around with Tournesol, The Fallen Angel, Dragon Whisker, Windsong Rapier, Talwar, Whale Whisker, Mjolnir, or Cactus Stick (if that last weapon is even in this game. I have yet to find it.). It can't equip things like Genji Helm and Genji Armor, but with Shield Bearer, a Moogle Knight can run around as a Chocobo Knight possessing a much more powerful weapon while sacrificing a relatively small amount of defense. Better yet, imagine a Juggler running around with Reverie and The Fallen Angel.
Someone would be sure to fuss at me if I didn't mention Parivir with Geomancy, so here it is, a paragraph dedicated solely to them. They are powerful. They are cheap. If you use them, hard mode will cease being hard. Most of the challenge will fade away. A sensible person's sense of fun would be annihilated if they used more than one of these monstrosities. Powerful monsters start falling far too quickly to be entertaining. Don't use more than one, for the sake of all that is fun. That being said, when in a fight with multiple powerful enemies, suddenly their low defenses become glaringly obvious as they get butchered the way they butcher others. (About time!)
I know there are many more combinations, but I tried covering the ones I found the most intriguing (or just hear about far too often). I hope these possibilities will enrich players' experiences with this game, and that it will be more entertaining because of it. Dare I say it ...? Battle on!
* I deeply apologize for any severe groaning caused by this statement.
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