Unarmed - Don't Fall For It

[orthostatic]

Don't fall for the allure of unarmed, or at least don't plan on taking it to 16 unless you really enjoy this game. Pushing 14 on all of my characters and no matter what I do, I can't raise it any higher.

I read in some other threads that fighting strong enemies with cheap & weak weapons is a great way to level those weapon skills. It seems there are no such things as cheap fists, however. I even tried equipping two shields and attacking, but it appears the devs overlooked that (or forgave player derp?) because my unarmed damage with two shields was massive. No skillups. :(

A shame, too! Unarmed was beastly awesome for farming captains.

[Repo Enjoyer]

You can raise it by hitting your own party.
Just revive them and keep hitting them.

[Zsrai]

Unarmed is fine if you're not grinding out 16's in all skills for people. The game's end game equilibrium (point where playing normal caps out skills) is about 10 for weapon skills, and that's not hard to achieve. I think Fists are the 3rd or 4th best weapon over all, all else being equal, but obviously falls off if they are stuck at skill 12 and you have everything else up at 16.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by orthostatic:

Don't fall for the allure of unarmed, or at least don't plan on taking it to 16 unless you really enjoy this game. Pushing 14 on all of my characters and no matter what I do, I can't raise it any higher.

I read in some other threads that fighting strong enemies with cheap & weak weapons is a great way to level those weapon skills. It seems there are no such things as cheap fists, however. I even tried equipping two shields and attacking, but it appears the devs overlooked that (or forgave player derp?) because my unarmed damage with two shields was massive. No skillups. :(

A shame, too! Unarmed was beastly awesome for farming captains.

So here's the problem you're running across. In order to raise it past 14, you need to attack far more than once in a match, probably at least 3-6 times in a match to see any gain at all. And the issue is fists are so good in this game, that attacking enemies more than twice with your entire party in an encounter just ain't happening. Hence you'll never see any gain.


If you wanna raise your fists further you need to equip a shield, put your attacker in the backrow, and solely make him attack, allowing him for the most hits in an encounter.

[scole86]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by orthostatic:

Don't fall for the allure of unarmed, or at least don't plan on taking it to 16 unless you really enjoy this game. Pushing 14 on all of my characters and no matter what I do, I can't raise it any higher.

I read in some other threads that fighting strong enemies with cheap & weak weapons is a great way to level those weapon skills. It seems there are no such things as cheap fists, however. I even tried equipping two shields and attacking, but it appears the devs overlooked that (or forgave player derp?) because my unarmed damage with two shields was massive. No skillups. :(

A shame, too! Unarmed was beastly awesome for farming captains.

So here's the problem you're running across. In order to raise it past 14, you need to attack far more than once in a match, probably at least 3-6 times in a match to see any gain at all. And the issue is fists are so good in this game, that attacking enemies more than twice with your entire party in an encounter just ain't happening. Hence you'll never see any gain.


If you wanna raise your fists further you need to equip a shield, put your attacker in the backrow, and solely make him attack, allowing him for the most hits in an encounter.

The other thing that you can do is go to the cave near Mysidia, because there's a chance of running into Black Flan enemies there. Dual shields, back row, and only have one character attacking at a time against those and you can get quite a few attacks in. Use Blink to enhance evasion so you can't get hit, and you can just turn on auto-battle and have nothing to worry about.

[Pack 4 Potatoes]

Try using heal staves to keep your target alive while you punch it and put the game on auto battle and afk.

[Roan Woasbi]

My main character ran unarmed and I had no issue with it. Not the most damage, of course, but carried me through most of the game.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Spending the whole game unarmed, unarmored, & only ever using the Spells "Cure", "Life", "Drain", & "Osmose", is my fav way to play the game despite my fav Weapons usually being Axes... not every day ya can play in such a way & get away with it, even in the Final Fantasy-verse. :D

It's hilarious how Kung Fu in this game can get so strong that it can make the Ultima Spell a waste of time to bother with... XD

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Tyrax Lightning:

Spending the whole game unarmed, unarmored, & only ever using the Spells "Cure", "Life", "Drain", & "Osmose", is my fav way to play the game despite my fav Weapons usually being Axes... not every day ya can play in such a way & get away with it, even in the Final Fantasy-verse. :D

It's hilarious how Kung Fu in this game can get so strong that it can make the Ultima Spell a waste of time to bother with... XD

It's also the most op way the play the game hands down. If status effects weren't so op, and if you weren't able to grind to end-game levels at the beginning of the game, playing other ways might be more viable~

[Tyrax Lightning]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by Tyrax Lightning:

Spending the whole game unarmed, unarmored, & only ever using the Spells "Cure", "Life", "Drain", & "Osmose", is my fav way to play the game despite my fav Weapons usually being Axes... not every day ya can play in such a way & get away with it, even in the Final Fantasy-verse. :D

It's hilarious how Kung Fu in this game can get so strong that it can make the Ultima Spell a waste of time to bother with... XD

It's also the most op way the play the game hands down. If status effects weren't so op, and if you weren't able to grind to end-game levels at the beginning of the game, playing other ways might be more viable~

If it wasn't for the higher powered Status Effects, it'd be possible to play this way & beat this game with only a lone solo Hero... XD (I'd solo run Maria... <3 )

[Zunnoab #931]

Originally posted by Tyrax Lightning:

Spending the whole game unarmed, unarmored, & only ever using the Spells "Cure", "Life", "Drain", & "Osmose", is my fav way to play the game despite my fav Weapons usually being Axes... not every day ya can play in such a way & get away with it, even in the Final Fantasy-verse. :D

It's hilarious how Kung Fu in this game can get so strong that it can make the Ultima Spell a waste of time to bother with... XD

Ultima was intentionally bad in this game. I'm not sure if the remaster changes that, but in the original, if the word spread around is correct, Ultima was supposed to get better as all other spells did too, but one of the designers liked the idea of the big bad legendary spell in reality being underwhelming, and left it as such.

[Wolfherz]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

Originally posted by Tyrax Lightning:

Spending the whole game unarmed, unarmored, & only ever using the Spells "Cure", "Life", "Drain", & "Osmose", is my fav way to play the game despite my fav Weapons usually being Axes... not every day ya can play in such a way & get away with it, even in the Final Fantasy-verse. :D

It's hilarious how Kung Fu in this game can get so strong that it can make the Ultima Spell a waste of time to bother with... XD

Ultima was intentionally bad in this game. I'm not sure if the remaster changes that, but in the original, if the word spread around is correct, Ultima was supposed to get better as all other spells did too, but one of the designers liked the idea of the big bad legendary spell in reality being underwhelming, and left it as such.

Ultima does get better. It just gets better differently. Ultima's damage is based off of how many spells and weapon skills the character that uses it has leveled up. Preferably to rank 16 for maximum effect. I had Ultima on Guy and he could one shot entire groups of enemies casting Ultima even as an aoe in the final dungeon. It's a PAIN to make Ultima strong, but once you do it will make every other damage spell look pathetically weak. Ultima can absolutely BREAK the game more than any other spell or weapon skill.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by Wolfherz:

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

Ultima was intentionally bad in this game. I'm not sure if the remaster changes that, but in the original, if the word spread around is correct, Ultima was supposed to get better as all other spells did too, but one of the designers liked the idea of the big bad legendary spell in reality being underwhelming, and left it as such.

Ultima does get better. It just gets better differently. Ultima's damage is based off of how many spells and weapon skills the character that uses it has leveled up. Preferably to rank 16 for maximum effect. I had Ultima on Guy and he could one shot entire groups of enemies casting Ultima even as an aoe in the final dungeon. It's a PAIN to make Ultima strong, but once you do it will make every other damage spell look pathetically weak. Ultima can absolutely BREAK the game more than any other spell or weapon skill.

In the original, like the person you quoted said, Ultima was broken and didn't work. It "gets better" but barely (100 damage at level 1, about 500 at level 16 IIRC). I think every other remake has "fixed" it to at least scale properly in some way, but the original was trained wrong on purpose, as a joke.

[Jballett]

There is also the option of casting Protect on enemies. It can stack almost forever and if you have it high enough on the enemy you will do 0 damage.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by jarekrknoschese:

Unarmed is always pointless in this game anyway. Only Swords and Shields
last the entire quest. It is best if you have the Evasion to dodge things like
Cockatrices and Coeruls. As for other weapons, you should skip Bows and
Arrows because you can't use them with Shields, and they have a wretched
Magic Potency Penalty. Knives are okay because their Magic Penalty is next
to nothing, and their Accuracy is relatively solid. Better yet, the Main Gauche
provides an excellent Evasion boost, making it a good semi-Shield for the
Mage-type characters. On the other hand, Knives have the worst Attack
Power, so don't expect landed "hits" to score much for raw damage. Staves
and Maces have slightly more Attack and about the same intellectual weight
as Knives in exchange for slightly reduced Accuracy. Also, the Healing Staff
lets you recover HP endlessly, and it's great against the Undead. Lances are
not very exciting, and their Magic, Attack, and Accuracy aren't the greatest.
Axes are nearly as good as Swords, so give one to a "leftover" character who
doesn't have anything else to do, like Gordon or Leon. Leila is best with a
Knife and a Shield. "Leftover" Swords should go to Ricard and Leon, but only
Ricard gets an "extra" Shield. Leon is better off duo-wielding. Maria should
be given a Staff and a Shield if possible. If nothing else, Maria can be given
leftover Knives if you don't want to sell Leila's old equipment. Mindu (Minwu)
is best using magic 24/7 and should be given no weapons and the lightest
armor possible. This leaves Guy and Firion as your main Sword wielders. For
my final line-up, the result looks like this.

Firion: Red-Mage/Paladin/Ninja/Secondary-Tank/DPS
Maria: Sage/Secondary-Slicer/Clubber/Devout-Healer
Guy: Freelancer/Samurai/Onion-Knight/Main-Tank/DPS
Guest Characters: Backup-Healer if Mindu, Tertiary-Tank/DPS otherwise

Really, the only one who should be fighting Unarmed is Josef, since he's
already Level 2 in that skill. This makes it better than most Weapons you
can buy at that stage of the game, and it saves you money until you start
getting all your equipment and many of your spells for free. According to
my strategy, you should have two, ideally three if possible, Tanks. Only
one devoted "magician" is needed to get through this game, and that role
is best served by Maria thanks to her high Intellect and low physical might.

Here's how well I did with this lineup vs. the Final Boss with and without
the Blood Sword: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaKDSQL33B0UPxk_4bVI6IfTY1QlRsuEb

The evasion penalty isn't such a big deal when you've maxed out evasion via other avenues. And the benefits clearly outweigh the negatives. Reality is fists at 15 and 16 pretty much one shot every enemy in the final dungeon cept for a few.


Naturally daggers are good to get a start at evasion grinding, but it flies up once you have a decent amount to begin with.