Any reason to move in combat?

[EverNight]

I've gathered that when the arrow is yellow you are in range to attack. But I'm wondering if you should try and run away until your meter fills up to perform another action to try and avoid being hit or if there's no point and you can just stand there doing nothing and it works out he same.

[Sakhari]

Technically, sure, you can get some circumstantial benefits by keeping your distance. Say you're fighting a target with only melee-range attacks - if it's targeting your controlled character and you're able to get at little distance using an obstacle, you can run around while it chases you and let your other two characters safely hammer it with ranged attacks in the meantime. Fighting the Archaeoaevis while running around the sand pits in the Zert. Caverns is a good example of this in action. If you're fighting something that charges attacks faster than you do, a little extra distance can equalize the speed in which you're both actually using those attacks (since they have to burn extra time catching you after they finish charging).

I say 'technically' because while it can have benefits in certain situations, 99% of the time, you're not going to be fighting anything that's difficult enough to be worth that kind of trouble (and in the other 1% of cases, there's probably a much more efficient way to get the job done). Most enemies can be brought down with far less manual effort by just setting up some generally decent gambits and having up-to-date or better equipment and accessories with the appropriate resists if needed.

[DigginTiger]

yes it's worth it especially at the begining with vaan, when you try to steal ennemies as the action of stealing take a while to reset and if you just wait in front of a wolf for ex , he'll probably attack you twice. It's also worth it against ennemies who use charge/ lunge.

And it's even ore worth it when you have the aggro or decoy to lure the ennemy in circles while your party is destroying it, like with the marlboros in the garamsythe waterway for ex :D

[Casurin]

yes and now, Sakhari explained it pretty nicely.

It can be very useful if you exploit the game mechanics and want to take down far stronger enemies. Someitme sit cna be simple things as trapping enemies and using spells, or when grouping a bunch of them standing in a way that they can not all hit you, but you can hit them with AoE attacks. (Gosh, this can be great in some areas against undeads - fight 10 enemies, only 2 can hit you at once .P

[Xengre]

Realistically, if you are using the berserk + haste setup... no. If you aren't using this setup for pretty much every fight except Yiazmat you are playing the game wrong, unless the intent is to role play a specific style or set challenges at the expense of combat optimization.

[pcdeltalink]

Honestly I've never seen the point of moving in combat as even if you do move enemy attacks seem to hit you even if you would be well outside of proper range. It feels like regardless of your distance to them if they fill up their little attack bar their attack lands, regardless of your physical position (unless you are absurdly far away at which point you can't do anything either so it's pointless).

[Xengre]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Honestly I've never seen the point of moving in combat as even if you do move enemy attacks seem to hit you even if you would be well outside of proper range. It feels like regardless of your distance to them if they fill up their little attack bar their attack lands, regardless of your physical position (unless you are absurdly far away at which point you can't do anything either so it's pointless).

IIRC there were a few hunts that if you did very early you needed to back up because of a close range stomp style attack or if you are trying to avoid frontal attacks (Behemoth I think for example?). Most of the time, tho, movement is pretty much pointless as most enemies aren't design for it to be relevant.

[no1schmo]

I'm about level 40 and I still find moving to be beneficial; in fact, it annoys me that the character I'm controlling keeps trying to drift off in one direction and I keep having to push back. Many stronger enemies have moves with limited range, like breath attacks. Probably even more true with character who have ranged weapons, but I happened to take all melee weapons this time around (not really intentional, it just sort of happened).

[Xengre]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

I'm about level 40 and I still find moving to be beneficial; in fact, it annoys me that the character I'm controlling keeps trying to drift off in one direction and I keep having to push back. Many stronger enemies have moves with limited range, like breath attacks. Probably even more true with character who have ranged weapons, but I happened to take all melee weapons this time around (not really intentional, it just sort of happened).

If you go Berserk + Haste + Bravery + Double attack almost every fight except a few will be done in about 2-5 seconds. You only need 1 attacker for like 80% of the game with this setup and you can either use haste spell or motes, whichever fits your setup best. Honestly, the other two chars can be afk healer/revive/buffers for all it matters you honestly don't need their help in actual DPS with this setup. Add double attack as it becomes more available.

This is the main reason movement is pointless in FFXII even when it could have been more relevant otherwise. Fights are simply too short to matter.

There are a number of ways to acquire berserk status so feel free to Google it be it gloves, wine consumables, or the spell.

Haste I believe roughly doubles attack rate thus a char would be equivalent to two chars.
Berserk drops defense and loses control of character as they just spam auto attacks but they gain a large attack boost and attack rate boost. Stacked with haste you can get somewhere around 3-4x DPS boosst... starting to get insane right?

Genji Gloves and other strong double attack modifiers can allow to hits at once in a given time frame so this can result in around a 30-50% DPS boost (or something along those lines) equating to around 4-6x DPS.

Throw in Bravery for another minor offensive buff if you want.

For one char early on you can have someone who should be doing a few hundred damage dealing thousands of damage at an extremely fast attack rate wasting bosses and other strong mobs and just leveling/farming super fast. Later on having 2-3 characters doing this and it just gets ridiculous with damage output of more than quadruple what a normal party would do. Due to this offenssive magic isn't as useful. Even more so if you use elements on weapons they are weak to like dark on Yiazmat IIRC. There is an exception on particularly powerful bosses if you cast reflect on your entire party and then something like Aeroaga on your party it can output abusive DPS. Really, only practical for Yaimat and maybe 1-2 other hunts and it has a major flaw with Yiazmat if you aren't active in that he will INTENTIONALLY cast full cure on your reflect party members putting it back on him instantly healing back to max hp (a big deal since Yiazmat has 50,112,254 HP... To give you an idea of how much HP that is (the fight is known to take hours, and at worst days if really underprepared) the 2nd tankiest boss is at 8,930,711 HP.. and the rest after those two are under 400k or so.

[no1schmo]

I know you're trying to be helpful, and I appreciate that, but I'm just trying to enjoy the game at my own pace and my own way. Maybe when I get to end game, I'll change things around, but for now, I'm doing it my way. Frankly, your way sounds really boring.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

I know you're trying to be helpful, and I appreciate that, but I'm just trying to enjoy the game at my own pace and my own way. Maybe when I get to end game, I'll change things around, but for now, I'm doing it my way. Frankly, your way sounds really boring.

My way IS VERY BORING lol. I highly suggest not using it tbh unless your trying to grind a ton of hunts or level. I mainly mentioned it because it is one of the most common tactics used by players in this game which is why most don't see value in moving. Honestly, it is a shame so much magic is only acquired very late into the game because it stifles options but definitely enjoy it how you prefer. Combat is, honestly, all this game really has going for it anyways tbh. Well... and exploration.

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Honestly, it is a shame so much magic is only acquired very late into the game because it stifles options but definitely enjoy it how you prefer. Combat is, honestly, all this game really has going for it anyways tbh. Well... and exploration.

I remember in the original version on PS2 that I had so much fun toward end game when I turned Vaan into a mage and become a sort of buffer/epic damage dealer with spellcasting. Only thing I hated about magic in the original one was how they had that freeze on certain actions occuring, like where an enemy had to cast their spell first even though my bar had been full for ages because the engine I guess couldn't handle multiple spells on screen at once. So glad that is supposed to be fixed in this version. That and removing the 9999 damage cap.

[The Guy]

An is example for why you may want to move: Omega attacks nearest so it is beneficial to stop or lure a damage sponge and keep your weaker characters at a distance in this fight. Many enemies have exploitable AI in these different ways.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Honestly, it is a shame so much magic is only acquired very late into the game because it stifles options but definitely enjoy it how you prefer. Combat is, honestly, all this game really has going for it anyways tbh. Well... and exploration.

I remember in the original version on PS2 that I had so much fun toward end game when I turned Vaan into a mage and become a sort of buffer/epic damage dealer with spellcasting. Only thing I hated about magic in the original one was how they had that freeze on certain actions occuring, like where an enemy had to cast their spell first even though my bar had been full for ages because the engine I guess couldn't handle multiple spells on screen at once. So glad that is supposed to be fixed in this version. That and removing the 9999 damage cap.

Yeah, magic was a real surprise late game, esp in the original. Sadly, almost all of the non-basic good spells were exclusive to just before the final dungeon basically which is pointless AF (seriously, whoever had that idea needs to be legitimately fired from SE). You can get some interesting results especially if coupling AoE + Reflect combos (loved that in FF9, too loo... getting 9999 damage before the end of disc 1 with Vivi).

The freezing issue was mainly a limitation on animation/graphics so you could only buffer a certain amount of higher end magic at once. I'm guessing since you said "buffer" you kinda figured this out to an extent or entirely. Some other action JRPGs like most of the Tales series (if not every single game) has had this limitation for high end spells with crazy animations which really holds back magic dps late game. Tales of Abyss is a prime example of this because magic starts strong and is very powerful until later in the game where you can only have one major spell like Meteor or Tear's Judgement going at once. If not for the limit with the fon slot casting enhancements and Tears casting speed buff spell which can boost casting so fast she can revive 3 dead people 2x each before even one of them registers as revived (causing it to heal 100% of everyone's HP instead of 20% due to double revive). If not for that limit their end game DPS would easily breech a monstrous 20-30x totally breaking the game lol. FFXII would have similar results with certain AoE reflected spell spam.

Removing the DMG cap was one of my fav things in FFX (it woulda been cool in FFXV, too, if not for the fact it requires intense AP grind that is only achievable basically by a point you are already a god rendering it pointless in the game because the enemies don't keep up in power).

Originally posted by The Guy:

An is example for why you may want to move: Omega attacks nearest so it is beneficial to stop or lure a damage sponge and keep your weaker characters at a distance in this fight. Many enemies have exploitable AI in these different ways.

A worthwhile point. Just like having two support buffer/healers/revivers that aren't attacking at all and one dedicated super buffed DPS is great for dealing with powerful enemies fast earlier than you should be able to handle them this can also be done to have a tankier character survive fights that shouldn't realistically be winnable or manageable in terms of survivability earlier on. I used this strategy a few times, myself, super early around when my chars should have been level 12 or so from just pure story progression to take on much stronger hunts. There was one that did an AoE stomp attack and had incredibly high damage per attack and very high defenses. Since I couldn't rush the fight quickly and if I had all my chars up close I could easily wipe instantly I settled for a slow burn fight using two ranged supporters to keep one DPS alive. This game really supports such playstyles with its various buffs like Bubble for tankyness or sacrificing defense for offense (berserk), too, which is cool. Honestly, usually the buff/debuff systems in FF games are totally pointless (like laughably so, outside low level runs notably virus/zombie effects) but in FFXII's versions they have real substantial value.

[Casurin]

Several enemies also have AoE attacks where it is a good idead to not have your characters bunched up.

And the spell-thing: While infuriating at first, it was one hell of a way to fight against enemies with strong magic - really abuseable (and easy to combine with good positioning).

And the easiest example - if you trap an enemy.
he can't move, you go a few steps away and use ranged attacks - done. (and the other way around with some annoying enemies that can go outside the normal reachable areas)