X2 - Questions

[imminence]

Just started this game and have some problems with understanding the concepts

1) Level Up

What exactly do I have to do, respectively what CAN I do when they gain levels?

When I look into a dresssphere, e.g. songstress, I see abilities which are "mastered" and others with 0/60 or 10/80. One of these has a golden shine and "will be learnt". When I click onto another, then this starts to shimmer and "...will be learnt" instead.
How can I speed up this learning process, if I can influence it at all?


2) Kind of real time?

Unfortunately the devs decided to cancel true turn based and introduced this time system, as we have it here. Can I do anything to speed up the time they wait for their "turn"?
As it looks, I cannot influence their stats, which are "given" by the chosen dress, Thus, their initiative / speed is also determined by the dress, right?

3) Loosing a turn?

What I liked in FF X was the loss-free swapping of party-members, e.g. I swap member A for member B and now B has his / her turn.
When I swap dresses during battle, the game goes into a "wait-state". Is the "wait" only there for the special animation and the changed member must wait before her time-bar is full again, or is it like in FF X?

4) "Classes"

As it looks, they all can be everything. Is it a disadvantage, when I swap these dresses too often? Shall I stick to a certain class to get more specialization?

Thx for your help in advance :)

[ShinkuTear]

Abilities are learned, aka Mastered, by earning AP. You earn AP for effective actions, and whenever enemies are defeated. The shiny move in the list is the one the girl is currently learning.

Example: White Mage Rikku uses Protect when nobody had it active, and gains 1 AP for it. She uses Pray when everyone is at Max HP, and gains 0 AP for it. Warrior Paine defeats a fiend with Armor Break, and gains 2 AP for it, while Yuna and Rikku gain 1 AP.

Level is purely from gaining Exp, which is for winning battles. Dressphere stats are controled by the dress itself, the users level, and what equipment you have. Level 30 Dark Knight Yuna is going to be plenty weaker than Level 90 Dark Knight Rikku.

If an attack has a purple charge-up bar when you select it, once it starts it interupts most actions until it completes itself. Only one such charge-up move can be unleased at a time. If the attack instead leaves a green or red bar *after* use, it causes no such delay *and* can generally be used during charge-up attacks.

Wait mode, either from changing dress or from having Wait set in the menu options, is purely to pause the actions of the rest of the battle for a time. Through dress change, it lasts until the change is done. Through the menu option, it lasts while selecting items or abilities to use in their battle menus. This time system was used for FF4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. 10 was the odd one out going fully turn based.

Dresspheres gain a lot of stuff if you stick with them, and that stuff can be very useful. The Breaks on Warrior, Protect and Shell on White Mage, immunity to various status on Dark Knight... Use what dresses you want and when you want, but I'd suggest having a few you stick with to completion. Then, if a tougher fight shows up, you can use the mastered dresses and their better movepools to handle it.

[imminence]

What about the difficulty rating of the areas, shown on the map in the ship?
Currently I get slaughtered, even if there is only one star... ):

[benTong8]

Originally posted by imminence:

What about the difficulty rating of the areas, shown on the map in the ship?
Currently I get slaughtered, even if there is only one star... ):

What places are you going to? If you're going straight to Zanarkand in Ch1, most of the time you're gonna get creamed. I suggest going to config, change the setting to Wait Mode, ATB speed to Normal or Slow until you get used to the battle system. Most areas can be breezed through by spamming Attack though.

[ShinkuTear]

The stars listed are a difficulty estimate for the area. 5 stars are quite tough, or indicates a bonus boss.

That said, low star areas like Mi'ihen have oddly nasty enemies, like Iron Giant.

Some classes are just plain better early game. Warrior is nearly invincible if the enemy is vulnerable to Power Break or Magic Break... including Iron Giant. Black Mage can deal a lot of damage if you get -ra or -ga spells. Thief is kinda weak at that point :(

[imminence]

Hmm... I see.

I liked the abilities of the thied, such as first strike or initiative.
The songstress seemed, too, quite useful with her dark- and sleep-dances.
Those two and Paine as warrior make the fights against an iron giant relatively easy,
but e.g. in the calm lands it's either a waste of items or a complete wipe.

So, what would you suggest as "starter setup" in regard of the classes?

[benTong8]

I mainly just used Gunner-Thief-Swordsman. Switching only to other dresspheres when I really need to. Only grinded the dresspheres right now when I got the Alchemist in Ch2.

Check the Garment Grids as well. Most have innate abilities which will make your life easier.

[benTong8]

Btw, just in case you want to unlock abilities for your dresspheres, you can check this guide I made.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=715445371

[ShinkuTear]

Originally posted by NoobOfTheDay:

Btw, just in case you want to unlock abilities for your dresspheres, you can check this guide I made.

There is a arguably better AP/time method once you are around Level 20+ though, using the Fiend Arena.

One of the fights is the Aeon Shiva from FFX. Strongest attack they use does around 2000 damage to low MDef dresses like Warrior, is reduced by Shell, and only used when they are almost dead. Most dresses have enough HP to survive it by level 20, especially with Shell active. The enemy has 15000~ HP, which is rather beefy, but not an issue for anyone with access to the 4 main elements, like Warrior or Black Mage, as the enemy is weak to one of them.

It is worth 15 AP on kill, as well as 1350 Exp, 2000 Gil, common drop is the +60 Defense accessory, rare is the +40 Magic and MDef accessory. Seemingly 100% drop rate.

One of the early game Garment Grids gives 3x AP for passing through its 3 gates, so that above boss is 45 AP. Alternately, AP Egg accessory does the same... but is obtained MUCH later in the game... late enough that the boss is a joke fight :P

[benTong8]

I'm still only at Chapter 2 but will definitely watch out for it. Hahaha.

[imminence]

Good stuff, thx :)

One more question:

When I watch the screen from which I can access the abilities, I see to the right
"auto abilities", but there are none.

What's the deal here? Can I actively do something?

[Hinnyuu]

"Auto abilities" are passive skills granted by certain dress sphere abilities, garment grids, or accessories. Whatever you have will show up in that list, so you know you have it active. For fiends, you can also teach certain auto abilities, but for YRP you only get them in the ways above.

Example: equipping the accessory "Bushido Tome" will speed up your Bushido skills - when you equip it, your auto abilities list will show the auto ability "Turbo Bushido".

[Cosgar]

X-2's combat is basically the same as every other Final Fantasy that uses ATB. The only difference is that the phases and are all clearly represented. A lot of people in the FFIX forum claimed the combat to be sluggish or clunky because the "prepare action" phase of a turn is slower than most games in the series and isn't visibly tracked. But anyway, turns play out like this:
-ATB bar fills up
-Turn is ready
-Select action
-Prepare action (Attacks and Items are nearly instant, spells and skills are slower)
-Take action
This allows for more dynamic combat as you can interrupt or react to actions during the prepare phase. Memory/wait combat can help, depending on your playstyle.

[imminence]

The more I play the songstress the better I like her. I'm just not sure, if I understand the concept:

1) It seems to be obvious, that a debuff lasts only as long as she dances, e.g. her blind-debuff or her silence debuff. But there seems to be always a "gap" between her dances, because I always see the enemy strike respectively cast a spell. Can I avoid these gaps?

2) When I use a dance or her sing-ability to buff the party, is it the same that the buffs last only as long as she sings / dances?

3) I'm not sure, but sometimes her debuffs seem not to hit. Is there a kind of "spell power" like it was in FF X, which I could somehwo influence or is this another automatism, which comes with levels?

[ShinkuTear]

The gap between the end of 1 dance and the start of the next is partly due to the combat system, and possibly intentional. Best you can do is to apply Haste to your Songstress, or raise her Agility... which might not even help.

Songs last the entire battle, or possibly until the character is KO'd and revived, as they apply status buffs, which have no time limit. Status buffs and debuffs work on a +/- scale, from +10 at best to -10 at worst. Each 1 is worth around 8.3%, so +10 is +83% to the relevant stat, and -10 is -83%. Increases can push stats beyond the usual 255 cap. Songstress accuracy and evasion songs should apply +10 in 1 use, but the others should apply +1 or +2 per.

Ailments, even with Dances, don't always work. Many enemies are resistant to some ailments, and some are outright immune. Dance based ailments have a 100% success rate, minus the targets resistance. 0 resist = Ailment always works. 100 resist = Ailment never works.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by imminence:

1) It seems to be obvious, that a debuff lasts only as long as she dances, e.g. her blind-debuff or her silence debuff. But there seems to be always a "gap" between her dances, because I always see the enemy strike respectively cast a spell. Can I avoid these gaps?

Theoretically you could fiddle with your timing and hopefully have the gaps at periods where no action resolves, but in practice there are too many random factors to reliably achieve that. Just take it as it is, a slight window of opportunity for your enemies.

Originally posted by imminence:

2) When I use a dance or her sing-ability to buff the party, is it the same that the buffs last only as long as she sings / dances?

The buffs are permanent. As was mentioned, each stack of a buff is worth 1/12th of your base stat (or the aforementioned 8.3%, can stack 10 times to +5/6th or 83%) and stacks beyond the 255 maximum. These buffs can be VERY powerful. The buff to Evasion especially can almost make you immune to physical attacks for a good portion of the game.

Originally posted by imminence:

3) I'm not sure, but sometimes her debuffs seem not to hit. Is there a kind of "spell power" like it was in FF X, which I could somehwo influence or is this another automatism, which comes with levels?

Many enemies are immune to certain effects, while man others will have a resistance. Resistances in FFX/X-2 are usually calculated as straight percentages and are entirely additive. I.e. if you have a base 75% to hit with an ailment and the enemy has 20% resistance, you have 75-20=55% to hit (and not 60% as you might assume if it was 75%*20%).
In general, if you see "Guard" come up when you hit an enemy, it means it is entirely immune to the effect. If however you merely see "Miss", or nothing at all, then it's just resistant and you can keep trying. The same goes for effects like Eject or Death, by the way (funnily enough even some bosses are NOT immune to Eject).