Final Fantasy Tactics Beginner Tips – The Ivalice Chronicles

Categories: Final Fantasy Tactics

If you’re trying Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time or returning for the Ivalice Chronicles Remaster, this ultimate beginner guide shares our top 10 tips to help you get started. In this guide, we explain core mechanics like jobs, abilities, power leveling, and how to create a powerful build and party by thinking ahead!

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Top 10 Tips & Tricks for FFT Remaster Beginners

One of the hardest things to adjust when playing Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles is all the mechanics the game doesn’t tell you about outside of the tutorial. You have stat growth, important ability decisions, and a limited idea of which job is good or not. Our goal is to give you the best start when playing FFT Remaster for the first time so you can jump in and have a clear path to success. Whether you’re brand new or return after 20+ years to Final Fantasy Tactics, below are our top 10 tips for beginners:

Understand Jobs: jobs are your classes in FFT, and are how you unlock abilities
Job Points: JP is your progression for unlocking new abilities
Grinding: you want to power level a bit at the start to get a huge advantage
Abilities: make sure to unlock and equip all of your abilities early
Beginner Jobs: just because the beginner jobs are first doesn’t mean they aren’t OP
Team Composition: have a diverse team with healing, reviving, damage, and AOE
Terrain and Height: you get bonuses for being higher or on the flank
Plan Ahead: don’t job hop, have a clear goal of your build
Death: your units can permanently die, so be careful
Turn Order: always check turn order before taking an action

1. Understand the Job (Class) System & Ability Inheritance

In FFT, Jobs are classes and the way you unlock new skills, called abilities. Every unit starts out as a base job either Squire or Chemist. A Squire Build favor physical damage progression while a Chemist Build is the starting job for players looking to cast spell offensively or defensively.

What’s interesting about this system in FFT is, you have different ability slots, which can transfer as you progress through other jobs. Your build consists of your primary abilities which is your current job and cannot be changed unless you swap jobs. You also get a secondary ability set from a previous job, reaction, support, and movement abilities. This allows you to level as specific jobs to find that one ability that complements your build.

A simple example of this is using Thief to gain access to Move +2. While your character might not have any intention of playing the Thief or using it’s ability set, once you unlock and learn Move +2 you can use it for any jobs thereafter.

While you can only equip one reaction, support, and movement abilities, FFT allows you to swap these out in between fights. This is critical for power leveling and more difficult fights. More on this later, but you can have a power leveling grinding support ability like JP Boost, and swap to something for more offensive or defensive power before a major story battle which will test your party.

Your overall goal isn’t to job hop to the next available job ASAP. It’s to slowly progress, carefully, and thoughtfully planning out your build (or look at ours!) and take specific abilities that complement your end-game playstyle.

2. Job Points (JP) and Fast Progression

When you use an ability you earn Job Points or JP. This is a separate progression system from experience (EXP) which is for advancing job levels. As you advance in job levels, you can then unlock new jobs. As you acquire more JP, you gain access to new abilities. What’s different about FFT Remaster is, the game doesn’t have you select them in a linear path. You can take a low cost ability or save up for an ultra high one. Often times you don’t know what is good or not and your first time through might just take random ones (or read our guides!). However, there are ways to expedite your JP gains and that’s from a basic ability in the Squire job called JP Boost.

JP Boost is a support ability learned from the Squire job. It nearly doubles JP gains, essentially making you fly through new abilities and mastering jobs quickly. It’s so good that you should start most units as a Squire just to get JP Boost before moving on.

Now the way to make the most of JP Boost or power leveling is by having an action that doesn’t require a target to utilities. In FFT Remaster, you only earn JP when you take an action. If you miss a target, can’t reach and simply wait, you gain nothing. Therefore, you want all of your units to have some type of action each and every turn. The Squire ironically has an ability called Accumulate or Focus. This ability boost your stats and always works since it doesn’t require a target.

The best tip here is, do not waste a turn and grab JP Boost as it will help all of your units throughout the entire game.

3. Use Random Encounters for Grinding & JP Farming

Final Fantasy Tactics can be a pretty difficult game but if you spend a little time “grinding” or power leveling, the beginning will be 10x easier. The best grinding spot is called Mandalia Plains and it’s right outside of the first town Gariland Magic City. You want to move back and forth between Gariland and Mandalia until you trigger a random encounter. The monsters are usually easy to deal with and you’ll encounter Yellow Chocacbos. Chocacbos can heal, so they are likely to stay a live much longer during the grind.

Next, you want to have all of units equipped with JP Boost and not equipped with a reaction ability that deals damage (Counter Tackle). Then, have each unit equip Fundamentals or the Squire skill in secondary ability set and use Focus over and over with JP Boost equipped in the Support ability. This will generate massive JP regardless of your current job. Kill all enemies but one, ideally a Chocabo. Before you do this though, you’ll want to kill all but one enemy and surround it so they cannot move. Now, heal with a Chemist using potions so no one dies in your team, and spam Focus over and over to power level.

While this isn’t exactly riveting gameplay, it makes a massive difference before you do the first major fight in Dorter Trade City. You can fill out your primary, secondary, reaction, support, and movement abilities giving you a huge advantage in this fight.

4. Fill Out Your Abilities

Starting out as a beginner in FFT Remaster, you won’t be aware of the importance of additional abilities beyond your active via your currently equipped job. Reaction skills are those that automatically trigger a response like Counter Tackle from the Squire. This can add a lot of damage early and outright kill enemies who attack you. Support abilities give you passive bonuses like JP Boost, or 33% more Magic Attack with the Black Mage’s Arcane Strength! Lastly, movement abilities can not only increase the move per turn, but also can restore health, MP, and other interesting effects like finding treasures!

Therefore, your starting goal is to quickly fill out all of these abilities before moving on to progressively harder battles. Ironically, one of the strongest reaction abilities is available straight away with the Chemist called Auto-Potion. As the name implies, you take a potion automatically when you receive damage. This isn’t a 100% chance, but happens frequently, auto-healing yourself.

What’s great about Auto-Potion first Counter or Counter Tackle is it works regardless of the range. The damage dealer reactions almost always require you to be hit by something specific (like magic attacks), or be in melee range of the target to return fire. Thus, Auto-Potion becomes your go-to regardless of who’s attacking you. And if that weren’t good enough, you can use better and more powerful potions as you progress through other Chapters. X-Potion heals for 150 HP, allowing you to heal massively unless one shot.

Take your time and get Move +1 and JP Boost from Squire, Auto-Potion from Chemist, and each unit will be much more powerful at the start of the game.

5. Don’t Underestimate Beginner Jobs

The first two jobs in Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles, the Squire and the Chemist, aren’t as weak as they seem. The Chemist is actually one of the best jobs in FFT! The Chemist allows you to learn potion, phoenix down, and other item based skills. This is absolutely critical that you can have one or more allies revive players during battles. Not only that, but as you get advance spellcasting, you are likely to run out of MP quickly (Summoner for sure). The Ether ability restores MP, helping you maintain spellcasting throughout fights.

As you advance in the game, the Chemist can eventually equip Guns which have long range. Early in the game, you will have next to zero range outside of spellcasters or the Archer. However, the Archer has near useless skills beyond Chapter 1 and fades in power quickly. Not the Chemist! You can also throw items if you equip the Chemist support ability, allowing you to throw Phoenix Down at range while playing another squishy job and having the same utility as before.

Now, the stat growth for both Squire and Chemist aren’t great, meaning you don’t want to play 40 levels with them. However, the main character Ramza get’s an advantage while playing as a Squire. He will have expanded equipment options, better stat growth, and higher starting brave and fight stat. And if that weren’t enough, he unlocks more powerful abilities later in Chapters which aren’t available to other units. Therefore, it’s highly recommended that you keep Ramza on the Squire and physical damage dealer path. Ideally, a Monk and Ninja combination with Dual Wielding fist for end-game.

6. Balance Your Team Composition

Your party will need balance to complete the hardest missions in Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster. Early on, it’s a must having two to three party members with Items so you can revive. As you progress, this becomes less of an issue as you can have dedicated healers or Monks who are a melee powerhouse but also can revive. Also, each team can field up to five players. During stories, however, you will be forced to use other characters that you cannot control. Therefore, plan accordingly for each battle, though it might be frustrating not knowing your first time through. Assume melee dominate though.

Here’s a sample team that will work well at the start of FFT Remaster:

1-2x Units Melee: Start as Squire, move to Knight and play as a tank, eventually leading to Monk where you can then heal and revive. As you get Monk and abilities unlocked, you can forgo more healing.

1-2x Units Spellcasting: You will want to start leveling two Chemist, one leading to a buff and healing support character, another AOE damage. Your buff and healer can either be White Mage or Time Mage, as long as they can heal with items in secondary ability or White Mage primary. Your damage dealer Black Mage is helpful to have Items secondary so you can revive, and later move onto the Summoner for AOE.

1x Flex: your optional fifth unit is up to you. You can have another AOE nuker, debuffer, buffer, or what we recommend a Thief. The Thief isn’t a powerful job, but it can steal items! FFT Remaster you can only get the most powerful items from stealing them in specific fights. Therefore, if you truly want to min-max, use a Thief. Once you unlock Ninja, use Ninja as your primary job and Thief as your secondary ability set so you can steal on demand and still have powerful damage dealing.

Read more on Party Composition for Final Fantasy Tactics.

7. Mastering Terrain, Height, and Positioning

FFT Remaster gives you an advantage for height differences. You will also incur penalties for being on lower ground. Therefore, you must constantly factor in terrain into every action. Certain terrain like bogs can automatically give you the status effect poison.

You will also want to always attack from the flank (side) or rear when possible. Not only height do you get an advantage but to the side might reward you with a higher hit chance or more damage.

Also, do not stack your units tight because AOE damage dealers can nuke your entire team if close together. Another trick is to cast an AOE spell on a specific enemy unit, then flee. The game will only care if you are in range when you select the unit. Meaning, you can cast a spell in range, then use all your movement to hide behind a pillar, and when the spell activates, it will still be in range. So, constantly think to yourself, is it worth moving in close to cast the spell or is best to buff, debuff at a safe distance until melee units come close.

8. Plan for Late-Game / Master Jobs Early

A lot of end-game progress requires thought and planning. We have builds on this site to help you with this, but do not job hop just to experiment. You will spend time, levels, and waste stats only to find out your character is underpowered. Here’s some quick combinations that 100% work at end game:

Melee – Monk and Ninja: you want to unlock Dual Wield Support with Ninja and use Throw in secondary ability while retaining the Monks massive damage and high HP.

AOE Nuker – Black Mage and Chemist (Items): You can stick with this combo the entire game, just make sure you have many Chemist Item abilities unlocked and swap in Throw Item for tough fights where you need to off heal.

AOE Nuker 2 – Summoner and Time Mage: similar to Black Mage but bigger AOE without friendly fire the Summoner is great to combine with Time Mage who debuffs and buffs.

Support – White Mage and Time Mage: your pure support class though you won’t have instant revives with Items.

Support 2 – Time Mage and Chemist (Items): hybrid support class with instant revives though lower utility spells.

Utility – Ninja and Thief: great combo here for stealing items but also having some good damage via the Ninja.

9. Watch Out for Permadeath

One thing to watch out for is having your units permanently die. This can happen after they reach zero HP. They will have a count down over there head, and usually after three turns they turn into a crystal (same with enemies). The Crystal can be consumed by another unit to restore resources or learn an ability. Therefore, revives are critical because you can lose a party member for good. This includes all their gear, abilities, and progression! Make sure you have two to three units that can revive with Items, Monk, or White Mage because it’s punishing to lose a level 35 for good.

10. Check the Turn Order (CT/Charge Time)

The new User Interface is much improved in FFT Remaster and on the left hand side you will see a turn order. This is helpful for planning attacks and spells. Units like Ninjas and Thiefs typically go first due to their high speed. However, you don’t always want to charge into battle because two or more melee units might attack you immediately after your turn.

The same goes for spellcasting. You can either target a unit specifically, which will follow them where you go, or a tile. If you select a tile, you want to make sure your cast time (charge time) completes before the unit has a turn. There are many instances where you shot off a massive spell only to have the target move or dead already wondering why did you waste 40 MP!