Can someone explain the tactics choices?

[Personalife]

I don't get the tiering or colors. Not sure why I'd have a gold tactic and then a white one after. Also how do I know if it occupies a new passive slot or not? What's the deal with the red ones? Are they ultra rare?

[Gumichi]

There's a lot to it. I'll take a crack at it.

There's 7 broad categories of Elements: Fire, Ice... Blade.
Then there's 29 Tactic Trees: "Burn", "Virulent Bomb", "Flash", etc.
Within each tree is the actual skill cards you get "Attack Lightwave", "Durable Blackhole", etc.
Separate from those is the activation for the skill.
There's 5 triggers there:
Attack - When you attack (Square button, the 'normal' attacks)
Skill - When you use a skill (Triangle buttons, the attacks that cost MP)
Dash - When you dash (R1)
Legacy - When you use either legacy skill (R2/L2)
Summon - When you cast your summon (Circle button, or sometimes they're just automatic)

Tier 1 skills is where you start, and getting a Tier 1 skill will take the slot based on the condition you trigger it. Like if you get "Attack Burn", it will show a tiny icon at the bottom right of the screen. If you then get "Attack Rend". They have the same trigger, so the game will ask if you want to switch.

Tier 2, 3 are upgrades on your skill. So Tier 2 skills spawn when you have the Tier 1 skill, and Tier 3 skill spawn when you have the Tier 2 skill. So if you have "Holy Mark" and go for "Tactics - Light", there's a good chance that you'll get T2 "Stable Mark" as an option. They generally provide some buffs to your skill.

The Red skills are "Double" skills and they work like a Tier 4 except they need an additional skill from another tree. So to get my favorite "Ice Spike Respawn", I need to have T1 "Summon Ice Spike", T2 "Precision Ice Spike", T3 "Multi Ice Spikes" and T2 "Frost Burst" (which itself needs T1 "Cold Attack").

This is kind of a pain on a clear run, so the game gives you a way to inherit skills to give you a head start. The note on that, is when you just want the skill to inherit, you can skip levels. T1 "Summon Ice Spike" by itself will activate T4 "Ice Spike Respawn" when you inherit it.

Many exceptions and idiosyncrasies exist, so you have to stare at the in game Tactic Tree Maps until it makes sense.

Also note that the game kinda locks you into a Tree when you've moved up a Tier. Say you have T1 "Skill Light Spear" and T2 "Light Spear Root". At that point, the game will not let you take "Skill Fire Projectile" and if it spawns, it'll be greyed out as incompatible.

As for the Colors. Red means it's a T4 Double skill, White, Blue, Purple, Gold are just the same skill with increasing power levels based on numbers. The margin is honestly too low to be noticeable, but farming skills to fill an all Gold Tactics Codex is one of those completionist things.

I do hope this helps~

[Meow Clawmore]

Originally posted by Gumichi:

There's a lot to it. I'll take a crack at it.

There's 7 broad categories of Elements: Fire, Ice... Blade.
Then there's 29 Tactic Trees: "Burn", "Virulent Bomb", "Flash", etc.
Within each tree is the actual skill cards you get "Attack Lightwave", "Durable Blackhole", etc.
Separate from those is the activation for the skill.
There's 5 triggers there:
Attack - When you attack (Square button, the 'normal' attacks)
Skill - When you use a skill (Triangle buttons, the attacks that cost MP)
Dash - When you dash (R1)
Legacy - When you use either legacy skill (R2/L2)
Summon - When you cast your summon (Circle button, or sometimes they're just automatic)

Tier 1 skills is where you start, and getting a Tier 1 skill will take the slot based on the condition you trigger it. Like if you get "Attack Burn", it will show a tiny icon at the bottom right of the screen. If you then get "Attack Rend". They have the same trigger, so the game will ask if you want to switch.

Tier 2, 3 are upgrades on your skill. So Tier 2 skills spawn when you have the Tier 1 skill, and Tier 3 skill spawn when you have the Tier 2 skill. So if you have "Holy Mark" and go for "Tactics - Light", there's a good chance that you'll get T2 "Stable Mark" as an option. They generally provide some buffs to your skill.

The Red skills are "Double" skills and they work like a Tier 4 except they need an additional skill from another tree. So to get my favorite "Ice Spike Respawn", I need to have T1 "Summon Ice Spike", T2 "Precision Ice Spike", T3 "Multi Ice Spikes" and T2 "Frost Burst" (which itself needs T1 "Cold Attack").

This is kind of a pain on a clear run, so the game gives you a way to inherit skills to give you a head start. The note on that, is when you just want the skill to inherit, you can skip levels. T1 "Summon Ice Spike" by itself will activate T4 "Ice Spike Respawn" when you inherit it.

Many exceptions and idiosyncrasies exist, so you have to stare at the in game Tactic Tree Maps until it makes sense.

Also note that the game kinda locks you into a Tree when you've moved up a Tier. Say you have T1 "Skill Light Spear" and T2 "Light Spear Root". At that point, the game will not let you take "Skill Fire Projectile" and if it spawns, it'll be greyed out as incompatible.

As for the Colors. Red means it's a T4 Double skill, White, Blue, Purple, Gold are just the same skill with increasing power levels based on numbers. The margin is honestly too low to be noticeable, but farming skills to fill an all Gold Tactics Codex is one of those completionist things.

I do hope this helps~

Someone should post this into guide category

[Gnodab]

When selecting Tactics during a run, you can also view the corresponding tactic tree for it by pressing X (Xbox). This gives you an idea of how tactics progress throughout the run. You can also view these at Dor's menu by pressing Select. Hit RB to tab through the different trees.

You can only take 1 tactic per tier, so for instance you can't have both Attack Burn and Skill Burn. But you can have Attack Burn and Skill Fire Projectile, because the latter is part of a different tree that is still fire elemental.

Another example being you can't take both Light Spear Root and Light Spear Upgrade because they're both Tier II. When selecting tactics, the cards do mention which tier they are to help a bit, although honestly the UI isn't the greatest at communicating what you need to know.

[GriN\]

Originally posted by Gnodab:

When selecting Tactics during a run, you can also view the corresponding tactic tree for it by pressing X (Xbox). This gives you an idea of how tactics progress throughout the run. You can also view these at Dor's menu by pressing Select. Hit RB to tab through the different trees.

You can only take 1 tactic per tier, so for instance you can't have both Attack Burn and Skill Burn. But you can have Attack Burn and Skill Fire Projectile, because the latter is part of a different tree that is still fire elemental.

Another example being you can't take both Light Spear Root and Light Spear Upgrade because they're both Tier II. When selecting tactics, the cards do mention which tier they are to help a bit, although honestly the UI isn't the greatest at communicating what you need to know.

Also got the option to trial a tactic out before taking it mid-run. So it takes you to a little sandbox area to do some fighting with it. I forget the button but it's visible on the choose a tactic screen.