Why does everyone sing the praises of Clock Up?

[philosoraptorgames]

Clock Up seems useless, at least so far (just starting chapter 3). Yet every guide talks about how amazing it is. Why? It takes so long to cast (even with a Cast quartz), and lasts such a short time, that you're lucky if you break even on the action it took to cast it, much less get even one extra action out of it. Every time I've tried to use it so far, I would have been better off using that action on almost anything else. The only situation I've run into so far where it would be remotely useful is if one of your characters is MUCH more powerful than the rest, like your first stretch with Agate, but you don't run into anything in that bit of the game that you really need to go nuclear on. There are many JRPGS (and Western RPGs for that matter) where Haste-type spells are king, but so far this does not seem to be one of them.

What do the various guide writers see in this spell? Does it come into its own later in the game? Is there some trick to it I'm missing, like some way of making it last MUCH longer? Or are these writers just plain wrong?

[myhr2]

What difficulty are you playing? The higher the difficulty, the more necessary Clock Up becomes to keep up with the stat increases of ennemies.

[Dragon]

I'm not sure what the OP is talking about. I love my Clock Up and all the Speed boosts in all three Sky games. I stack up all my characters with as many speeds buffs as possible to make them be as fast as possible. That's the main reason why I was always short of the black sepiths until the end-game sections. Because there is usually more time buffs left to buy, and they are one of the few things that are worth buying for everyone (hence the running out of black sepiths all the time).

[Berahlen]

OP you're both right and wrong, and the mechanics why are subtle and weird.

Buffs in this game don't last a number of turns, they last a certain duration of action time --the hidden space between the turns. Early game, everyone has such low speed that each turn spans a really large amount of action time, so buffs only last a couple turns. Babby's First Clock Up is an extremely small turn gain, if not an outright loss, because it's too small and wears off before you can even reclaim the net turn it took to cast. Everyone should be running Action/Cast passives at all times, but non-boss fights in this game typically revolve around murdering everything before you can get overwhelmed, so when a bunch of monsters are about to rush you you're usually better off thinning out the field in 1-2 turns than trying to put up more buffs than Morale.

It's slightly more useful once you have a full four people at least, because you can run a dedicated buffer (usually Estelle) while everyone else just profits. The parts where you only have two, I wouldn't bother.

Later on -- before the point you've reached, actually -- you should have access to Clock Up EX as well as better Action quartz which everyone should be running. That's when the game completely changes. EX is a stronger buff that'll be hitting bigger base numbers to begin with. You'll see a much better turn gain and find it usually lasts the entire fight because each of your turns is coming up much faster in that fixed duration. The end game bosses feel like brick walls while you're playing them, but mathematically they take up a similar amount of action time to a lot of early fights because everyone's several times faster.

In the sequels, you start at higher level so the base Clock Up is more immediately useful, and get access to Clock Up EX earlier so that turning point happens much faster and it remains a staple buff for more of the game. More importantly you also get Clock Down to use on the boss.

[Oguzhan]

Its a turn based game meaning increasing your speed means more turns.
Wanna know the best example to compare? Lawrence (aka the optional to beat super boss of the game). If you don't increase your speed with Clock Up EX, he will get 4 turns in a row. If you increase your speed than he won't. In fact on nightmare mode, the moment your Clock Up Ex wears off, you lose that fight because he will whoop your ass in mere seconds.

[Berahlen]

What he was getting at is that he's running the regular Clock Up, which in the early game is quite capable of being an outright turn loss because it's a smaller buff against a low base speed and falls off before it can even give you back the turn it took to cast it.

[philosoraptorgames]

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Its a turn based game meaning increasing your speed means more turns.
Wanna know the best example to compare? Lawrence (aka the optional to beat super boss of the game). If you don't increase your speed with Clock Up EX, he will get 4 turns in a row. If you increase your speed than he won't. In fact on nightmare mode, the moment your Clock Up Ex wears off, you lose that fight because he will whoop your ass in mere seconds.

A suggestion for you. Before replying, ACTUALLY READ the post you are replying to. Don't just read the subject line and maybe skim for key words, read the entire thing and make a genuine good-faith attempt to understand it.

That way, you can save yourself from what you did here - explaining something the OP has in fact made it 100%, unmistakably, crystal-clear he understands already, also known as being a mind-bogglingly condescending jerk.

Until such time as you are willing to make a habit of doing this, I'd take it as a kindness if you didn't reply to my posts.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by philosoraptorgames:

Originally posted by Oguzhan:

Its a turn based game meaning increasing your speed means more turns.
Wanna know the best example to compare? Lawrence (aka the optional to beat super boss of the game). If you don't increase your speed with Clock Up EX, he will get 4 turns in a row. If you increase your speed than he won't. In fact on nightmare mode, the moment your Clock Up Ex wears off, you lose that fight because he will whoop your ass in mere seconds.

A suggestion for you. Before replying, ACTUALLY READ the post you are replying to. Don't just read the subject line and maybe skim for key words, read the entire thing and make a genuine good-faith attempt to understand it.

That way, you can save yourself from what you did here - explaining something the OP has in fact made it 100%, unmistakably, crystal-clear he understands already, also known as being a mind-bogglingly condescending jerk.

Until such time as you are willing to make a habit of doing this, I'd take it as a kindness if you didn't reply to my posts.

You know what you are right. I apologize. I actually didn't really read your post (I had a very important exam coming so I was kinda weird? confused? I didn't pay attention to a lot of stuff basically) completely with an attempt to fully understand it.

So I do apologize, this was the only time I can think of where I did something like this. I usually read everything carefully and answer with great detail, giving as many examples as possible.

You can see this in my answer too. I made a point and gave an example. Its just due to me skimming over your post, I thought you meant Clock Up in general including the EX version.

Again I apologize. You can look at my other posts if you want, I usually pay attention to stuff that I answer. I also make sure to give as many examples as possible.

[philosoraptorgames]

You know what, I was in a cranky mood and overreacted by quite a bit. My basic point may have been valid but could have been made about a million far more diplomatic ways, or perhaps better still, passed over in silence. I totally respect this response and apologize in my own right for my previous overheated reply.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by philosoraptorgames:

You know what, I was in a cranky mood and overreacted by quite a bit. My basic point may have been valid but could have been made about a million far more diplomatic ways, or perhaps better still, passed over in silence. I totally respect this response and apologize in my own right for my previous overheated reply.

Don't worry, I was at fault too. Lets just get along from now on. I wish you a good day sir.

[Ghaleon]

Just piping in to say that clock up NOT-ex in chapter 3 without cast 2... I think OP is probably correct in that it may not really be worth it... unless the person casting it can't really do anything terribly useful otherwise and there's another character who can.