FFX Cheer Ability: How It Works & Is It Worth Using?

Cheer will buff offensive and defensive capabilities for all active party members, and it’s definitely worth using during an encounter. And the effects of Cheer can be stacked up to 5 times during a battle, so it’s a really strong early-game buff.

Also, this ability is accessible very early on in the game. It’s actually the first ability Tidus learns when using the Standard Sphere Grid.

Cheer Ability
Command	Special
Effect	+1 Strength point buff 1/15^th damage reduction
Target	All active party members
Sphere Grid Section	Tidus
Sphere Required	Ability Sphere

How Does Cheer Work?

Cheer Being Cast on Party

On the offensive side, Cheer will boost your physical damage by increasing your strength stat by 1.

For defense, it will reduce incoming physical damage by 1/15 (about 6.67%) of the original value.

The effects of Cheer can be stacked up to five times, meaning you can get a total strength boost of +5 points, and 5/15th (33.33%) physical damage reduction.

Cheer can also ignore the stat cap of 255, meaning you can go up to 260 strength during battle.

Being able to surpass the stat cap of 255 makes this ability highly useful even when tackling end game content.

These buffs will be applied to the caster and any other party members who are present on the battlefield. The effects will last until the end of the fight and can only be removed from a character by knocking them out.

Unlocking Cheer

Cheer on the Sphere Grid

Tidus will have this ability by default when you first start the game using the “Standard Sphere Grid” mode. Other characters can learn Cheer when they reach Tidus’ section of the Sphere Grid.

Learning Cheer will require x1 ability sphere.

Note: Characters other than Tidus can learn this ability much sooner than usual if you are using the “Expert Sphere Grid” mode available on the HD Remaster version of the game.