Thanks to its excellent job system, there are hundreds of abilities your characters can learn in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. Some of them are trash. Some of them are fun but mid. Here are the godlike ones.
Abilities in Final Fantasy Tactics come in four types: action, reaction, support, and movement. Below I’ve listed the best abilities to unlock in the latter three categories. These are useful no matter what Job or action abilities you’re rocking.
If you want my advice for action abilities, you should prioritize the Monk’s Chakra and Revive, White Mage’s Raise and Holy, Black Mage’s Flare, and the Summoner’s Cyclops and Lich. Also every Item, Geomancy, and Iaido action ability.
But when it comes to the movement, support, and reaction abilities, these are the best:
Teleport
Job: Time Mage
Cost: 3,000 JP
Why it’s great: You can move anywhere on the map, but with a decreasing chance of success the farther away from your current location the spot is. It breaks some maps entirely by letting you cross chasms or hop on the other side of barriers. It’s also perfect for Mages who want to cast a spell and then teleport out of range.
Ignore Elevation
Job: Dragoon
Cost: 700 JP
Why it’s great: You can move without being restricted by how high or low the square in front of you is. Need to jump up on top of a cathedral? You can do that! Plus you don’t have to worry about Teleportation failing.
Fly
Job: Bard
Cost: 900
Why it’s great: It looks goofy seeing your character flap around like a Chocobo but flight has some advantages that Ignore Elevation does not. Namely, you can escape if you get cornered by flying over enemies. The price to unlock is exorbitant but it’s never a bad option.
Movement +3
Job: Bard
Cost: 1,000 JP
Why it’s great: This one is also a Bard specialty, meaning female characters can’t learn it. But you can never go wrong with a good old solid plus-three to movement. Every time you go to move your character you’ll be like, whoa, WHOA! It doesn’t have the versatility of the other movement abilities but it’s great for heavy-hitters that need to get around the battlefield quickly.
Doublehand
Job: Samurai
Cost: 900 JP
Why it’s great: Doublehand lets you hold one weapon with two hands and doubles the attack power. It’s great for rare greatswords like Excalibur and polearms that require two hands already.
Dual Wield
Job: Ninja
Cost: 1,000 JP
Why it’s great: You can equip two weapons and attack with both. That splits the odds of missing both hits and lets you get bonus stats from the second equipped item. It’s almost always preferable to Dual Wield. Plus it works with the Monk’s Martial Arts, which Doublehand does not.
Equip Guns
Job: Orator
Cost: 800
Why it’s great: Guns have great range, basically never miss, and once you unlock the special magic versions, can be extremely powerful. The two jobs that can normally equip guns are pretty weak, so it’s great for pairing with other ones. Plus you can use it with the Knight’s Arts of War to break enemy gear from afar.
Swiftspell
Job: Time Mage
Cost: 700 JP
Why it’s great: The main drawback to the most powerful magic in the game is casting time. Spells that take forever give enemies too much time to move out of the way or to kill you before they go off. Swiftness makes Summons like Cyclops and Lich go off in record time and can make it easy to heal allies in a pinch before they are totally KO’d. On top of that, The Ivalice Chronicles remaster dialed down some of the casting times for the best spells, so Swiftness will make them land even more quickly.
Job: Chemist
Cost: 350
Why it’s great: Items is one of the most useful action abilities in the game. Adding range to them doubles that utility. There’s simply no substitute for a fully stocked inventory you can deploy across the battlefield without the need to wait for spells or getting into the perfect position.
Auto-Potion
Job: Chemist
Cost: 400
Why it’s great: You learn very early in Final Fantasy Tactics that Auto-Potion is one of the most annoying abilities to fight against. As the name implies, it has a high chance of using a potion after very hit, whether it’s physical damage or magic. It’s usefulness maxes out with X-Potions which restore 150 health, but even in the late game it’s rare that you’ll get hit for substantially more than that. One of the simplest, easiest-to-access abilities in the game will increase the survivability of everyone on your team exponentially, as long as you can afford to restock in-between battles.
First Strike
Job: Monk
Cost: 1,300 JP
Why it’s great: Tired: Counter Tackle. Wired: Counter. Inspired: First Strike. Not only do you get to attack the enemy first, but they don’t get to respond at all, so you’re essentially co-opting their entire turn. It only works for melee attacks, however, so its usefulness is limited to hand-to-hand brawls. Still, few things are more satisfying than sending a Ninja into battle and watching them double-strike every Knight in the vicinity before they even get their next turn.
Dragonheart
Job: Dragoon
Cost: 600 JP
Why it’s great: Dragonheart gives your character a chance to cast re-raise on themselves every time they take damage. It’s especially useful for characters you know will get wiped out because it guarantees them another turn when they revive, at which point hopefully the cavalry has arrived either to heal them or provide cover.
Shirahadori
Job: Samurai
Cost: 700 JP
Why it’s great: Once known as Blade Grasp, Shirahadori gives you somewhere between 60-80 percent evasion on every physical attack. It’s supposed to only apply to melee attacks but works for bows too, which is what ultimately makes it better than First Strike. When it comes to survivability, the only thing better than Auto-Potion is never getting hit at all.
Archer’s Bane
Job: Archer
Cost: 450 JP
Why it’s great: So this is basically Shirahadori but worse. It dramatically increases evasion but only for projectiles. Why include it on this list then? It’s cheap and easy to unlock very early on and Final Fantasy Tactics loves to throw enemy Archers at you up through almost the end of the game. Archer’s Bane can keep a Black Mage or Summoner from getting picked off. I prioritized it on my latest playthrough and was surprised how much work it put in.
Critical: Recover HP
Job: Monk
Cost: 500 JP
Why it’s great: Okay, one more for the road. Critical: Recover HP will fully restore your character’s health if the enemy’s attack takes them into near-death but doesn’t outright kill them. That might sound extremely limiting, but there are a surprising number of times when that is exactly what happens during a battle. It’s not as consistent as Auto-Potion and doesn’t provide as much overall value as a First Strike or Shirahadori but it’s a cheaper skill and has some very unique cases where it easily out-performs both thanks to the fact that it can automatically restore all of your character’s health. Pound-for-pound one of the best early-game reactive abilities.
