The Basics
- Action Points (AP): Used to take certain actions, such as skills and quick actions, and are consumed to increase the tactics level. Built up through normal attacks.
- Element Types: Primary ‘elements’ are physical and magic. Secondary elements are fire/ice/lightning/wind. You can think of this as like Pokemon’s Physical/Special split.
- Tactics Level: As it goes up, attacks can hit multiple times by mashing your attack button, and skills become stronger.
- Fatal Drive: Level 40 to see tutorial; it’s entirely possible to clear the game without seeing this. Can use at level 5 tactics, outside the character’s turn (similar to quick action), and it will drop the tactics level back to 1.
- Negative/Aggressive Mode:. Aggressive will let auto battlers use AP, Negative will not.
- Switch controlled characters using L1 and R1 equivalents.
Action Orders
Characters you are not controlling will suggest actions they’d like whoever you’re controlling to take. If you fulfill those conditions (they’re listed in the top left of the battle screen), they’ll perform a followup attack or skill.
There are three types of orders: Normal, Extra, and Action.
- Extra Orders will only appear during Quick Actions.
- Normal Orders appear at low HP and heal you.
- Action Orders are all the other things you’re asked to do. They are guaranteed to appear after stunning the enemy (the autobattling characters have to get an attack or skill off first).
Stun Gauge / Break
This is ridiculously abusable, so I’d just like to call extra attention to it. You can always see the Stun Gauge below the HP bar. If you bring it to 0, you break the enemy (the enemy can also break you, of course). This stuns them and they take extra damage. Continuing to attack them will result in a break down, which delays their turn even more and increases your tactics level by one.
Knockback / Delay
Like stun and break, abusable. Look for effects with ‘delay’ in the description. Literally pushes turns back. You can make sets where the enemy never really gets to attack between this and stun, not even kidding.
CC (Core Charge)
Usable items have an associated CC cost. You start with 10 CC, and can upgrade it with items you can find as you progress.
During battle, you have two options to restore CC, both of which involve converting an item to CC (and thus rendering it unusable until you return to the Atelier). You either hold a button in the item menu, which costs a significant amount of time, or you convert in the quick action menu, which costs AP instead. I generally use quick actions.
You can convert items to CC anytime through your basket. Flowers restore CC but not converted items (mega lame), so it’s better to return to the Atelier if you’re really running low on resources.
Ailments
Ailments may not work against some bosses, poison, envenom, and slow are the most consistent. Seal and sleep won’t work against most.
| Sleep | Disappears when attacked. Unable to act, take double damage. |
| Poison | Damage over time |
| Slow | Doubles WT (wait time) after turns |
| Curse | Healing deals damage instead, take double magic damage |
| Blind | Accuracy and evasion reduced |
| Seal | Can’t use skills or items |
| Envenom | Significant damage over time |
| Burn | Damage over time, but does not heal by itself unlike Poison or Envenom |
| Frostbite | Reduces speed, doubles physical damage |
| Paralyze | Prevents Action Orders, doubles Stun Gauge damage |
| Thorn | Additional extra damage when attacked |