Best Technicks in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (Ranked)
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Technicks (Ivalician for techniques) are abilities that have a wide variety of uses and powers, cost no magic points, and are all very useful.
In total, there are twenty-four of these technicks in FFXII, and they’re obtained either through chests, in shops, or from the bazaar.
It’s worth your time to hunt down every technick – but if you don’t have the time, what are the best ones to go after?
Let’s take a look and see.
13. Horology
Put to good use, Horology can be an absolute beast for quite a while after.
As the name would suggest, Horology uses time in its damage calculation – in this case, the second minute digit in the playtime clock.
If you time it right and cast Horology when that second digit is 9, you can maximize the damage and really eradicate packs of enemies with ease.
Just pause the game, check the time and go to town. It becomes a game of ‘how many Horology casts can I get off in this powerful minute?’
And it is loads of fun to see the damage roll on in.
How to Obtain: Horology can be obtained at any shop after escaping the Leviathan.
12. Revive
Revive sacrifices the user to revive a fallen friend.
It’s fairly situational, but can also get you out of a sticky situation.
Revive is best put to use when your dedicated healer dies and you’re out of Phoenix Downs, or if somebody is going to die anyway and they can help out with their demise.
You may not use Revive a lot. But knowing it exists and having it on hand makes it super valuable when it’s needed – and it’s a great addition to your technick roster.
How to Obtain: In a chest in the Spine of the Icewyrm area in the Paramina Rift.
11. Libra
Are you familiar with the old adage ‘know thy enemy’?
It’s one of the fundamentals of battle.
Fighting the creatures of Ivalice is no different, and you should know as much as possible about your foe before engaging them.
Libra will help you do just that.
It’s a great technick that shows you each enemy’s hit points, elemental weaknesses, and whatever buffs or debuffs they happen to have.
And as a bonus, Libra also shows you the location of traps!
Normally the only way you’d discover those is by stepping on them. So being able to side-step the bad stuff is a real advantage.
How to Obtain: Libra can be purchased from any major city technick shop from the start of the game.
10. Shear
Although it can only be used by Foebreakers, Time Battlemages, and Archers, Shear is really the Black Mage’s best friend.
Shear lowers an enemy’s magical resistance by 10%, opening them up to that much more damage from any spellcaster.
It truly is a great support technick, and should be applied to any tough enemy right at the start of battle.
Or you know what? Apply it to any enemy at any time, it doesn’t matter!
How to Obtain: Shear can be found in the Zeviah Span area of the Barheim Passage.
9. Expose
Expose is like Shear, but instead of lowering magic defense, it lowers physical defense.
A reduction of enemy defenses by 10% can mean a lot – especially if you have a team of heavy-hitters to surround the foe and beat them down.
Having an Expose gambit set to fire off at the beginning of every fight means having a much easier time of all of it.
How to Obtain: Take on the Antlion hunt to get to Site 9 in the Lhusu Mines, where you’ll find it in a chest.
8. Achilles
“If the enemy doesn’t have a weakness, make them have a weakness.”
This is the idea behind Achilles.
Achilles causes an enemy to be weak to a random element, even if they weren’t before.
This means you can throw down an Achilles and then go to town with whatever element you’ve opened them up to.
And this is even better when the whole team can contribute, through either black magic, elemental ammunition, or even certain weapons.
How to Obtain: Achilles can be found in the No. 4 Cloaca Spur area in the Garamsythe Waterway.
7. Charge
MP is one of the most important resources in Final Fantasy XII.
And despite all the boosts you get, it never feels like you have enough.
Most high-end spells cost a lot of magic points – and using Quickenings drains them to zero.
Charge is an all-or-nothing gamble:
It’ll either give you an MP boost, or take it all away.
Maybe you’re out of ethers (or want to avoid using one).
Or maybe you’re far away from a save point, or just at your wits end in a battle.
All of these situations are perfect for Charge.
The lower your MP, the better the chance of Charge working, so dire situations will typically get you better results.
How to Obtain: Purchase from any major city shop after escaping Ba’Gamnan in the Lhusu Mines.
6. Souleater
Souleater takes 20% of the users’ current HP to deliver an attack that’s almost two times as powerful.
This is a great way to deal buckets of physical damage.
Knights, Foebreakers, and any job that gets lots of hit points (through equipment or license board boosts) will benefit greatly from Souleater.
And it should be used liberally, especially if there’s a healer nearby.
Another perk of Souleater is that it only takes the equipped weapon’s attack into consideration – meaning you don’t have to worry about what kind of weapon you have, so long as it is powerful.
How to Obtain: Get Souleater from any major city’s technick shop after you visit Mt Bur-Omisace.
5. Wither
Wither is one of those abilities that should be part of any gambit arrangement.
It reduces enemy strength by a whopping 30% – and it works on every enemy.
This means be it a meager cockatrice or Yiazmat himself, you should use Wither.
That reduction in strength has a trickle-down effect to every other aspect of battle:
Less damage taken means less need to heal, which means more MP saved, which means more attacks can be used, which ultimately means the battle ends quicker and cleaner.
Wither should be in every adventurer’s toolbox.
How to Obtain: Wither in is the Pharos: Subterra’s Abyssal North area.
4. Addle
Addle is like wither, but for magic.
It lowers an enemy’s magic power by 30%, crippling spellcaster foes.
Best being cast right at the start of battle, Addle can make or break a tough fight for the same reasons as its attack power cousin.
This is even truer because more endgame bosses use magic than they do physical attacks, making Addle worth its weight in gil.
How to Obtain: Tough to obtain, but worth it – Addle is in a side passage of the Henne Mines Special Charter Shaft.
3. Shades of Black
Sometimes you come across an enemy that resists physical damage, and you have all physical fighters in your party.
Happens to everybody.
Luckily, Shades of Black is here to help.
Learnable by Foebreaker, Monk, Bushi, Shikari, Archer, and Uhlan, Shades of Black casts a random black magic spell.
It costs no MP and can’t be silenced. So it’s perfect for those times when you just need to cast magic.
You have the entire pool of Black Magic to randomly select from, and the game makes it so you have an equal chance for each one.
How to Obtain: Shades of Black is in a chest in the Cloister of Flame within the Tomb of Raithwall.
2. First Aid
Here’s a key technick to keep right up until the end of the game.
First Aid can, and has, saved hundreds of lives (I’m sure).
It restores HP to an ally who’s in critical health.
It does it quickly and efficiently, and should be part of any gambit set up. Just getting a friend out of critical status is often enough to make sure they live through the fight – or long enough to be healed through other means.
First Aid is the pinnacle of required technicks, and will be useful throughout the whole game.
How to Obtain: After obtaining the Shadestone in the Giza Plains, First Aid will be available for purchase wherever it is you can buy Technicks.
1. Steal
If there ever was a conversation on technicks to always use, Steal would be the main topic.
Every enemy has an item.
And every item has a use.
You can steal rare weapons and items early in the game if you know where to look. And with a good Steal gambit you don’t even have to worry about forgetting to do so.
Steal will get you tons of extra items along the way, as well as help you make all the good stuff in the bazaar, from item bundles all the way to the Wyrmhero Blade itself.
And best of all?
You have access to Steal from the start of the game!
How to Obtain: Vaan starts with Steal, and subsequently is available for anybody who can learn it.
Brian knows more about RPGs than he does world history. Combine with his love of writing and you get somebody who can, and will, go on forever about every nuance of every game he's played.
