~B
~~~~~~FINAL FANTASY TACTICS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~How to Learn Ultima~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~Version 1.1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~Copyright 09/04/01, Archmage Zorlock~~~~~~~~~~~~
~CONTENTS~
--Version History
--Introduction
--Disclaimers
--Pre-battle Preparations
--Who to Bring into Battle
--Equipment
--Abilities
--Placement of Characters
--The Battle Begins
--The Battle Ends
--Other Ultimas...?
--Plat's Leveling Trick
--Questions and Comments
--Thanks to...
--My Email
--My Website
--Credits
~VERSION HISTORY~
Version 1.0 (09/04/01)
--First version
Version 1.1 (09/10/01)
--Corrected possible times to learn Ultima
--Added "Other Ultimas...?" section
~INTRODUCTION~
The following is a method I came up with for having Ramza learn the
Ultima spell. It provides step by step (a.k.a. every single turn)
instructions on how to do so. Now, I know some people out there are
saying, "Step by step instructions? That sucks all the fun out of the
game!" I agree. But there are also some people who simply can’t figure
it out and are getting quite frustrated with the whole thing. This
method is for those people. This is my first FAQ, so I hope it goes
over well.
~DISCLAIMERS~
Before I get into that, though, let’s get all those disclaimers taken
care of. This method was created by me. All the information contained
in this strategy, as far as the strategy itself goes, originated in my
head. If I state information that did NOT originate in my head, credit
will be given to whoever DID come up with it. I did not steal work from
others; hence, I will not tolerate others stealing work from me. This
information is intended for personal use and may not be sold in any
form for profit. If you wish to post part or all of this information
elsewhere, such as on your own site, you may do so as long as credit is
given to me. If I discover this information elsewhere without proper
credit given to me, I will ask that it be removed with all possible
haste. If this is not done, I will be forced to call upon various
spirits of the cyberspace underworld to remove it for you. After doing
so they will proceed to destroy you...err...never mind that last part...
~PRE-BATTLE PREPARATIONS~
Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, I’ll explain how to go about
learning Ultima. Here's some basic info:
--The only character who can learn this type of Ultima (Yes, there's more
than one type. See the section titled "Other Ultimas...?" for more info.)
is Ramza.
--The only way to learn it is to be hit by it and survive.
--The only creatures who cast it are (I think) The Assassins and Ultima
Demons.
The Ultima Demons rarely ever cast Ultima, usually preferring to stick
with more powerful spells like Dark Holy and Nano Flare. For this reason,
I choose to learn it from the Assassins. There are only two times the
Assassins will cast Ultima: either Battle 42, "At the Gate of Limberry
Castle," or Battle 43, "Inside of Limberry Castle." This method covers
Battle 42, reason being that I prefer to devote all my time in Battle 43
to stealing Elmdor’s Genji Equipment, but that’s another FAQ entirely,
one which I may or may not decide to submit.
Before you enter Battle 42, be sure to have the following criteria met:
--Your battle party should be around level 50. Too low may result in
your characters being too slow, thus screwing up the whole plan. Too
high may result in the exact opposite, with your characters being too
fast, but this isn’t as bad as being too slow.
--You must have, at the very least, one Black Costume and one N-Kai
Armlet for Ramza. Enough for all your characters is better, but if
you’re strapped for cash or you enter the battle before you had a
chance to buy enough for everyone, it shouldn’t affect the flow of
battle I lay out TOO much. Just make sure you have one of each for
Ramza. Their importance is explained later on.
~WHO TO BRING INTO BATTLE~
That said, I’ll discuss who should be brought into battle. Ramza is a
given, since he must participate in every storyline battle, but even if
he didn’t, he’s the only one who can learn Ultima, so you’d have to
bring him anyway...
I’ll move on now...
Orlandu is good to bring, since, being basically the strongest playable
character in the game, he’ll be considered the greatest threat by the
enemy and will likely draw most of the attacks.
The rest of the party isn’t extremely important, but for the sake of
this method, I always bring an ordinary Ninja of either gender. If, by
some truly horrible fluke, Orlandu cannot kill an enemy with his attack,
the Ninja can usually rush in and finish the job.
Agrias is always in the party, as well. She mainly serves as battle
fodder in this fight.
Mustadio serves the same purpose as Agrias, drawing enemy fire and
maybe taking out an Apanda.
Note that all the "special" characters (Ramza, Orlandu, Agrias, and
Mustadio) should be set at their respective original job classifications.
The Ninja...well, if you can’t figure out what job s/he should be set as,
you shouldn’t be reading this.
English QUIPMENT~
As mentioned above, the only vital equipment is the Black Costume and
N-Kai Armlet for Ramza, but I always give them to everyone except Agrias,
who can equip a Barrette. The reason for these pieces of equipment is
to protect against the various status effects caused by Celia and Lede.
The Black Costumes will prevent being stopped by Shadow Stitch, while the
N-Kai Armlets prevent Charm from the Allure technique. In the case of
Agrias, a Barrette will prevent both of these status ailments and then
some. If you don’t have a Barrette, just give her a Black Costume and
N-Kai Armlet like the others. So, that said, here’s the setup of
equipment:
The abilities aren’t as important as the equipment, so you can basically
set it up however you want. The only important thing is for Ramza to
have Teleport or Ignore Height. The reason is given later on. For the
other characters, Move+1 or higher is suggested as the movement ability.
Here’s the setup for abilities:
Ninja:
Primary--Throw
Secondary--Any
Reaction--Any
Support--Concentrate is suggested, but not necessary
Movement--Any
~PLACEMENT OF CHARACTERS~
Place Ramza anywhere, because he'll be moved to a predestined starting
spot at the battle's beginning. Place Orlandu in the most bottom-right
corner of the available positions. The Ninja goes next to Orlandu.
Mustadio behind Orlandu. Agrias next to Mustadio, behind the Ninja.
~THE BATTLE BEGINS~
Here’s where the "step by step" part comes into play.
Orlandu should move first. Send him up the cliff toward the nearest
Apanda and use a sword spell, most likely Lightning Stab.
Now Celia should move. She can't cast Shadow Stitch on Ramza because of
the Black Costume he has on, nor can she use Allure because of the
N-Kai Armlet. This forces her to cast her only other long-distance
attack, Ultima. She charges up for it and moves to her left onto the
over-hanging ledge.
Lede cannot do anything her first turn. She most often moves toward
your other four characters.
When the Ninja's turn comes up, send him/her up near Orlandu. If the
Lightning Stab failed to kill the Apanda, finish it by throwing a
shuriken or something at it.
Agrias and Mustadio (or whomever you replaced them with) can do
whatever you want them to. They play no vital role.
When Ramza's turn comes up, teleport up to where Celia moved, making
sure to get right next to her. Attack her, and it should knock her HP
down quite a bit, due to her spell charging. MAKE SURE YOU DON‘T KILL
HER, THOUGH! Don't knock her to critical status either. The battle ends
if you do either one.
You shouldn’t have to worry too much about the Apandas. The only one
who may cause a problem is the one nearest to Ramza. Sometimes it casts
one of its Bio spells on him, but most likely the spell won’t go off
before the battle ends.
When the other characters' turns come up, just concentrate on the Apandas.
Celia should cast Ultima sometime soon, hitting Ramza and herself. A
text box will open, asking if you wish to learn Ultima. You can answer
that one for yourself, I think. The Ultima cast by Celia shouldn’t
damage Ramza much, but it should be enough to either kill Celia or
weaken her to critical. Either way, the battle is over, and Ramza now
knows Ultima.
~THE BATTLE ENDS~
That’s all there is to it. All in all, the battle takes about 5 minutes.
Now, concerning the next battle, I may or may not decide to submit my
strategy for stealing Elmdor’s Genji Equipment. It depends on whether or
not this Ultima Guide goes over well. But even if it doesn’t, I think my
Genji Guide is better developed than this, so I may submit it anyway.
~OTHER ULTIMAS...?~
As I mentioned above, yes, there is more than one Ultima spell. The one
Ramza can learn is the smallest type, being only the size of low/mid-level
elemental (Fire, Ice, and Bolt) spells. The next largest is the size of
low-level summon spells (or high-level elemental spells, whichever you
prefer), and is still titled Ultima. Altima the Holy Angel is the only
creature who casts this. The largest type is the size of high-level summon
spells and is titled All-Ultima. Altima the Arch Angel is the only creature
who casts this ultimate Ultima.
So, is it possible to learn these bigger (and better) Ultima spells?
I've not confirmed it myself, but several sources indicate that Alma (not
Ramza) can learn the 2nd level Ultima that is cast by Altima the Holy
Angel. How does she learn it? The same way Ramza learns his Ultima: get
hit by it and survive. As to the 3rd level Ultima, All-Ultima, I've neither
seen nor heard any evidence that any character, be it Ramza, Alma, or
otherwise, can learn it. Still, two Ultimas are better than one, even if
only Alma, whom you can't control, can use it, and only in the last couple
of battles.
It's important to remember that the learning of these higher-level Ultimas
has not been tested, at least not by me. The existence of them is true
and undeniable, however.
As a final note, if anyone reading this has, in fact, learned one or both
of the higher-level Ultimas, please email me at the address listed at the
end of this guide.
~PLAT'S LEVELING TRICK~
This is something I just thought I'd throw in. It's a special trick on
leveling up, discovered by my friend Platdragn, which he kindly allowed
me to place here in my guide. So, without further ado, I present "Plat's
Leveling Trick!"
It has come to my attention that each job class in FFT has certain set
gains for each level. That is to say, a Squire will gain a certain
amount of HP, whereas a Wizard will gain a different amount, as will a
Knight, and so on.
While this amount may seem insubstantial, when you notice that each
character can gain up to 98 levels in a normal case, the difference
can really add up. So how is one to take advantage of this?
Remember those little Degenerator traps on certain levels? You can use
those to your advantage by leveling down as a class with a bad gain,
then back up as a class with a good gain on the stat you want to
increase. For example, if you wanted to raise your MP, you could level
down as a job that's bad with that stat, like a Lancer, then back up as
a class good with the stat, like a Summoner.
Now first of all, it's important to note that a class's actual stats
when you change from one class to another is NOT an actual gain, but
can be an indication of what classes will gain good stats.
But to make it easier on everyone, here's what classes gain what best
(and, for your knowledge, what classes gain what worst).
Thus, you can see that Bard is pretty much the best class to level down
as considering it ranks as last in all stats with the exception of MP.
Dancer, on the other hand, ranks as sixth in PA, meaning that males are
much more effective to level down as. All of the special classes, such
as Agrias's Holy Knight class and Mustadio's Engineer class, have
astoundingly unremarkable stat gains with the exception of Reis's
Dragoner class (which you'll probably want to level up as).
Dragoner gets a little more HP than Mimes, about as much MP as a Priest,
about as much PA as a Knight, an MA boost equal to a Mime, and a Speed
boost equal to a Thief. It's probably better to level Reis up as her
Dragoner class, which can wreak some serious havoc with the inherent
Two Swords ability, anyway. All other classes (especially Ramza, who
gets a penalty to MA gain over all other classes!) should stay as
generic jobs.
Ways you can lower your characters' levels include: Degenerator traps
(Favoham Plains is my favorite place to do this), or by using Monster
Skill on an invited Mindflare, which will let it use Level Blast. For
both to come around faster, it's suggested you set Guts as Ramza's
secondary to use Yell and raise the speed on whatever target you wish.
Having Time Magic as a secondary to haste a target is a good idea, too.
Here's an example of what this can mean for your characters.
Leveling Ramza down as a Bard and back up as a Ninja netted him 143 HP,
40 MP, 7 PA, and 2 Speed. Therefore, you can see that this can pump up
your characters immensely, even if it is a bit time-consuming.
Enjoy, everyone. And for those of you who actually use cheapo Orlandu,
you can make him even more cheap.
There you have it. I don't exactly agree with that part about Orlandu
being cheap, but that's not important. Note that he didn't give the exact
values that are gained for each level in each stat by each class, but the
order of best to worst should be enough. Also note that the chart may
extend beyond the window length. It goes out to rank 12, just so you know.
~QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS~
If you have any questions regarding this or any other part of the game,
or if you just want to tell me what you thought of this guide, feel free
to write me at the address listed at the end of this FAQ. Please note,
however, that it may be a while before you get a response, since I’ll be
pretty busy keeping up with college stuff. I would suggest checking the
other FAQs first. Also note that I will not respond to the following types
of mail:
--Hate mail
--Rude comments about my guide
Short list so far, but it may grow bigger if I receive other types of
mail that I’d rather not. I WILL accept the following types of mail:
--Questions about my guide
--Questions about the game
--Nice comments about my guide
--Polite suggestions on how to improve my guide
If I receive a question multiple times from different people, I’ll
probably start up a "Frequently Asked Questions" section on the next
update. And remember, it may be a while before you get a response. Try
to put something in the subject line that has to do with my guide or
FFT in general. I’m less likely to think it’s junk mail and delete it
that way.
~THANKS TO...~
--Squaresoft, for creating such a fantastic game that keeps me busy for
hours on end.
--Janus, for giving me the answer I wanted when I asked him whether or
not I should submit this guide.
--Plat, for allowing me to place his handy dandy leveling trick in this
guide.
--My mom, for giving me the money to buy the game.
--You, for taking your time to read this guide.
