The Final Fantasy Tactics Autobattle Tournament thread

Table of Contents

The collapsible spoilers on this table of contents contain the full list of videos for the appropriate tournament. Naturally, this includes spoilers for the tournament in question. Read at your own risk!

• FFT Autobattle Tournament rules and reference information
• Tournament 1: Chapter 4 Equipment (10 participants)
  

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  Round 1 1A: Brickroad vs. Destil 1B: Torgo vs. Gerad 1C: Sanagi vs. Torzelbaum 1D: Jikkuryuu vs. Regulus 1E: Solitayre vs. Mogri Round L1 L1A: Sanagi vs. Mogri L1B: Destil vs. Gerad Round 2 2A: Regulus vs. Solitayre 2B: Brickroad vs. Torgo Round L2 L2A: Brickroad vs. Regulus L2B: Gerad vs. Jikkuryuu Round 3 3A: Solitayre vs. Torzelbaum 3B: Torgo vs. Mogri Round L3 L3A: Brickroad vs. Gerad L3B: Torgo vs. Solitayre Semifinals Semifinal: Torzelbaum vs. Mogri Semifinal L: Torgo vs. Gerad Final Final: Gerad vs. Mogri

• Tournament 2: Unlimited Doubles (17 participants)
  

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  Pre-Qualifier #1: Gerad vs. reinoe Round 1 #2: PrivateJoker vs. Jikkuryuu (rematch) #3: Regulus vs. Torzelbaum #4: Torgo vs. Destil (rematch) #5: Aeonus vs. DeeMer #6: Mogri vs. Traumadore #7: Gerad vs. Solitayre #8: dtsund vs. Sanagi #9: Lilfut vs. Elfir Round L1 #10: Lilfut vs. Regulus #11: Torgo vs. Solitayre #12: reinoe vs. Traumadore #13: dtsund vs. PrivateJoker (rematch) #14: DeeMer vs. Regulus (rematch) Round 2 #15: Torzelbaum vs. Destil #16: Gerad vs. Aeonus #17: Jikkuryuu vs. Sanagi #18: Mogri vs. Elfir Round L2 #19: Jikkuryuu vs. reinoe #20: Elfir vs. Torzelbaum #21: Gerad vs. PrivateJoker #22: DeeMer vs. Torgo Round 3 #23: Aeonus vs. Destil #24: Sanagi vs. Mogri Round L3 #25: Destil vs. reinoe #26: Sanagi vs. DeeMer #27: Torzelbaum vs. PrivateJoker (rematch) Semifinal #28: Mogri vs. Aeonus Semifinal L #29: Aeonus vs. Torzelbaum #30: Sanagi vs. Destil Qualifier #31: Torzelbaum vs Destil Final Mogri vs. Destil

• Tournament 3: Little League (10 participants)

The Rules

Do you like FFT? Do you like creating teams and/or optimizing builds? This is the thread for you.

The short version
Create a party. I'll stick them into FFT and set them to autobattle someone else's party. Whoever submits the winningest party is the winningest winner.


How it works
Each contestant will put together a team, usually consisting of four characters. I'll import your characters into the game and use debug mode to make them fight each other to the death. I'll post the videos on YouTube.


Making a team
To enter a tournament, create a team that fits that tournament's guidelines. These vary between tournaments, but you can usually expect some of these rules:

No special characters. You're using a party of four generic units (often, but not always, humans).
Math Skill, Blade Grasp, Abandon, Elixir, Hamedo, the Kikuichimoji Draw Out, and the Zodiac summon are banned. Sorry about that. There are plenty of other ways to break the game.
Abilities that cause Frog are banned. This includes Frog, Nameless Dance, and Water Ball. (Counter Flood is not banned, so it's still possible to cause Frog indirectly.) The reason for this is that Frog is an infinite-duration effect that completely disables a unit.
Brave and Faith between 40 and 70. This is the normal range for generics. You'll probably want 70 Brave for all your units, but Faith is a double-edged sword: it increases the effect of magic on the unit as well as from the unit.
Max stats for the unit's job. Your characters will be given the maximum stats for their level as if they had been in that job since level 1. Most tournaments will feature level 35 units.
Store-bought equipment only. Sorry, no Chantage.
No Zodiac signs. Everyone's an Aries. This is both for the sake of simplicity and to prevent people from sniping other teams.
PSP or PSX names okay. I will use PSX names, but if you're more familiar with WotL, go for it. I can understand your strange language.
Unlimited items. You have 99 of any store-buyable item, including Katanas.


In addition to each character's abilities and equipment, you'll need to specify his/her AI. Here's a brief explanation of the available AI types:


Abilities
Optionally, you can specify which abilities in a skillset you would like your characters to know. This can be useful for two reasons: first, it gives you tighter control over your characters (a Bard who only knows Nameless Song will never use Angel Song); second, it prevents the AI from doing stupid stuff like Antidote and Carbunkle. If you don't specify your abilities, your character will know everything in that skillset.


But I don't know jack about FFT
There's no prize money. If you think it would be fun to watch your gimmick team take on the other teams, then by all means, throw your hat in the ring. If you need help putting together your party, let us know and we'll give you a hand.


Reference materials
Battle Mechanics Guide - More information than you will ever need. Detailed explanations of every ability in the game. You don't need this much information.
Auto-Battle Guide - Unnecessary, but has a few useful tips for working with the AI.
Jobs and their stats - Written for the express purpose of helping AI autobattlers.
Abilities - Also written for autobattlers. Doesn't list the individual skills in each skillset; for that, try this Job/Ability List (Ctrl+F "%STANDARD JOBS%" to jump to the relevant section).
Equipment list - Also written for autobattlers. This isn't a comprehensive list of equipment; it just lists the tournament-viable items in each category.

Finally, here's a sample character to get you started:

Tournament 2: Unlimited Doubles


What's New
You get only two characters this time, but there are almost no restrictions on how you outfit them. See the "Making a Team" section for the limitations. The battleground for this tournament will change at the start of each round, but each battle in the same round will share a battleground.


How it works
Each contestant will put together a team of two characters following the rules below. I'll import your characters into the game and use debug mode to make them fight each other to the death. I'll post the videos on YouTube.


Making a team
All you need to do is come up with a party of two characters. Restrictions follow:

• No special characters. You're using a pair of generic humans or monsters.
• Brave and Faith between 40 and 70. This is the normal range for generics.
• All characters are level 99. They will have the maximum possible stats for their level.
• No duplicates. Only one copy of each ability and item per team. Innate abilities do not contribute to this restriction, so you could have, for example, a Ninja with Martial Arts alongside a Monk with Two Swords.
• No impossible setups. This should go without saying, but you can't (for example) put women's equipment on male units.
• No total invisibility. At least one of your units must start the battle visible.
• No Zodiac signs. Allowing Zodiac compat gives later entrants an advantage.
• Draw Out is restricted. No Kikuichimoji, Masamune, or Chirijiraden. (Yes, Draw Out is that broken.) You may use the items, but you may not use the abilities that share the name.
• Math Skill is restricted. Math Skill users must choose one of the following options:
  • All spells from all sets. This includes every calculable spell in the Black Magic, White Magic, Time Magic, and Yin-Yang Magic skillsets.
  • Any spells from one set. Choose Black, White, Time, or Yin-Yang, and specify the spells from that set you want.
  • One spell from each set. Choose one spell each from Black, White, Time, and Yin-Yang.
  If the unit has a magic skillset (for example, a Priest with Math Skill), then that skillset is considered separately from the above options (so the example unit could have her choice of spells from White Magic in addition to the above).
• If it's not explicitly banned, then it's OK. Go wild.

In addition to each character's abilities and equipment, you'll need to specify his/her AI. See the general instructions post for details.


Helpful Tips
Since there are so few restrictions on this format, here are a few things inexperienced players should know:

• Blade Grasp gives units a (Brave)% chance to evade almost all physical attacks, including magic guns.
• Abandon doubles all of a unit's evasion percentages. Combined with Escutcheon II, you can achieve total evasion on three sides, but remember that while the AI will happily attempt an attack with a 3% success rate, it will never try an attack that's guaranteed to fail.
• Unavoidable attacks include the White Magic Holy and the skill sets Talk Skill, Jump, Elemental, and Draw Out.
• Concentrate and guns will override Abandon, but not Blade Grasp. Mimes have Concentrate innately, but are not especially worthwhile otherwise.
• Hamedo cancels the enemy's attack and counters with your own. The enemy has to be in attack range for Hamedo to work.
• Two Swords is only affected by reaction skills on the first strike. The second strike is unaffected by Blade Grasp and MP Switch, for example (but not Abandon).
• Math Skill is sure to be a threat. Reflect doesn't work against Math Skill! Several good pieces of equipment reduce or negate elemental damage.
• Chaos Blade is the most powerful weapon in the game at a whopping 40 WP. Watch out for Chaos Blade-powered Battle Skill and Throw.
• Chantage is a Perfume for women that grants permanent Regen/Reraise. It's often considered the game's most broken item, but remember that if both of your units are dead, you lose -- Reraise notwithstanding. The other Perfumes are also really good.
• Ribbon prevents all negative status effects, but gives very little HP. It is female-only headgear (not an accessory).
• Robe of Lords is an incredible piece of equipment that gives Always:Shell/Protect and boosts to PA and MA. Remember, Knights can wear robes.
• Tiamat is a tremendously powerful monster with 999 HP, great movement, and innate Fly. It's one of the few monsters worth considering even in a high-power format like this.

Format

• Your party will have an unlimited stock (i.e. 99) of every item in the game. This includes Elixirs.
• The battleground for all matches will be randomly selected at the start of each round.
• Double elimination.

Here is a sample video of two teams squaring off in this format.



To enter, reply with your team of two.

I'm pretty sure this tournament is just going to come down to "Who has the strongest draw out user" again.

I made a team but I'm pretty sure it will be useless.

Team Eldridge Sisters

I strongly suggest switching those perfumes. Haste doesn't do much good on a dancer, but it will do wonders for a Math Skill unit.

Before anyone asks, the PSP-exclusive items are off limits for obvious reasons.

Well riddle me this: Can an invisible unit start dancing without revealing itself?

Clever, but no.

Your Dancer has no secondary ability. Item is always a good option.

No. But if a unit starts dancing then turns invisible they will continue dancing while still remaining invisible. But I doubt the AI is smart enough to take advantage of that.

Curses.

I shall need to think more on this. Withdrawing that team for now.

There's no way I can leverage the broken aspects well enough to create a team with this format.

Team Role Reversal

That's right suckers. No Math Skill. I regret nothing.

QUESTIONS:

1. Will a Chemist always use Elixirs in lieu of potions?
2. Is the MP Switch, Move MP Up combo not banned?
3. Is Escutcheon II available? It's not in your linked equipment list.

I know nothing about Tactics...

How terrible can I possibly be if I decide to attempt anyway?

I think someone asked about that last go-around, and the answer was no, because of technical limitations about the AI and not being able to exclude particular items, so you're stuck with 99 Potions as well as 99 Hi-Potions and 99 Elixirs.

Which I think would make Chemist pretty useless in this setup, but I know very little about Tactics so I could be wrong.

Chemist will totally still use powerful stuff; the discussion before was about Auto-Potion, which will always use Potions instead of X-Potions, making it pretty worthless.

This is going to give me some interesting stuff to think about! Can I resist bringing Cersei back?

Gerad is right, but to go into detail: The AI dislikes overkill. It will not use an Elixir if an X-Potion will do. If you absolutely don't want your unit to use an X-Potion, just don't give it that ability.

To answer your other questions: Escutcheon II is allowed. It gives 75% evade and 50% m-evade. Move-MP + MP Switch is also legal.

Despite its crazy evade, Escutcheon may still be less desirable than other shields, such as the Venetian Shield, which cuts fire/ice/bolt by half.

Edit: Move +3 is a Bard skill, so you can't use it on a female unit.

Basically, which is why he doesn't have it. The question is, will he still reliably use the Elixirs as a sub? I might as well give him X-Potions if he's not going to use the Elixirs unless the ai deems it necessary (ie. critical health and/or low mp.)

I'll have to give this some thought.

Rats! I'll tentatively slap Move +2 on her for now, but I'll reconsider my options.

I'm gonna hedge my bets with a mixture of standard defensive tricks and some wild card attacks, in the hope that I cover all my bases while defying the opposition's defense. The risk is that I might be sacrificing too much raw strength and toughness.

Out of curiosity, how will the Fight For Life target selection work? Random coin flip?

Ohhhhh boy. Here we go!

Team Dynamic Duo
Yea, my Batman doesn't throw batarangs. He throws Chaos Blades.

I regret nothing

Can Math Skill be Damage Split?

Yes. It can also be Counter Magicked, though I think the CM will still consume MP. never mind i am a liar

The first post in this thread has been updated with a table of contents. If you feel like re-watching any of the first tournament but you're too lazy to scroll through the other thread or my YT channel, then you're in luck!

I'm in a rush atm, but I'll edit this later.
EDIT: Oh heck, I'll give her steal anyway. Team Ready!

I've updated the equipment list, cleaning it up a bit and adding some missing items (most importantly, the shields).

Couple of questions about invisibility:

Does Always: Invisible, like from the Setiemson, activate only at the start of the battle, or does it ever re-activate (like if the unit ends its turn without doing anything)?

Will the AI completely ignore an invisible unit?

Am I misremembering the Gokuu Rod giving the wielder innocence? Or something else? I think it was something Rafa started with after chapter 3?

The game calls it Always: Transparent, but the actual effect of Setiemson is Initial: Invisible. Once it wears off, it doesn't reactivate. I think Sunken State is the only way to gain Transparent during a battle, but it's possible that you might be able to do it with Equip Change and Setiemson. Irrelevant for the tournament, of course, but Equip Change immediately procs Always effects and ignores Initial effects.

The AI will not pursue an invisible enemy, but an invisible enemy can sometimes be targeted (i.e. as a side effect of an attack on a different enemy). In general, the AI will not do this on purpose, but I couldn't guarantee it for all cases without looking at the source code.

Yeah, you're misremembering. It's inflicted on hit (like Assassin Dagger and Death Sentence). Innocent is bad for Rafa and Malak anyway.

Okay, here is my actual team for real this time

Criticisms/Suggestions welcome!

Damnit, there goes one half of a perfectly good team!

Well, I wanna see how a monster stacks up against the brokenest builds in the game, so I submit team VIII.

That's all the mutable info for a monster, right?

I'm starting to think that "Steal Accessory" is going to be the most underrated ability in this tournament...

Personally, the paucity of participants and plurality of perfumes predispose me to panic when placed against persuasive male purloiners of hearts. I'm so sorry.

Ribbon and Barette both block Charm.

Maintenance for everyone! Great... Now I'm having terrible flashbacks to playing the normal game with all of the story battles that are chock full of nuts knights.