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How the Ring of Fates and Esper Troupes work The Ring of Fates is a pretty simple concept - spend Auracite to unlock Espers. New Espers become available as you unlock the ones next to them, in a manner similar to FFX's Sphere Grid. Level 1 Espers cost 1 Auracite, level 2 Espers cost 2, and no prizes for guessing level 3s. Some Espers are only unlocked after certain points in the storyline, but you'll still have to activate the Espers next to them to buy them. Initially, Esper troupes allow you to configure five level 1 Espers. After you buy your first level 2 Esper, they become updated to allow a limited number of level 2 Espers and a few level 1 Espers. After you buy your first level 3 Esper, they become updated again to allow you to add one in. You can use a higher level slot to accommodate a lower level one - so even after you buy a level 2 Esper for the first time, you can have a troupe full of level 1 Espers if you want. Each Esper requires a certain amount of points to summon at a gate, which is dependent on your party leaders. Higher level Espers require more points. At the start of most missions, your party leaders will summon two Espers to their side. By default they will summon a level 2 Esper of their specialty - so Vaan will summon Melee units, Penelo summons Healing units, and so on. If your troupe doesn't have any level 2 Espers of their type, then they'll summon level 1 Espers of their type. If they don't have those either, they'll just summon level 1 Espers of other types. Healing Espers have the lowest priority - if you want someone other than Penelo to start off with them, then you have to configure your troupe such that they don't have any Espers of their type and the only level 1 Esper are White Hares. If there are more than one Esper that matches their summoning preference (so if there are two level 2 Melee Espers for Vaan), then they'll summon one of each randomly. You can never start a map with a level 3 Esper - they have to be summoned through gates. Elemental Affinities The standard Elemental cycle goes like this: Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire > Earth There are a few exceptions, but that's the basic gist. Unlike the Melee/Flying/Ranged cycle, an Esper doesn't take less damage from the element they have an advantage against. So a standard Earth Esper would be strong against Earth, deal extra damage to most Lightning Espers, and be weak to Fire. There are also Espers without elemental affinities. Espers of a given element also have an innate immunity to a certain status, again with some exceptions. Most neutral Espers don't have status resistances. Fire Espers are immune to Disable. Water Espers are immune to Poison. Lightning Espers are immune to Confusion. Earth Espers are immune to Stop. Level 1 Espers These are done in clockwise order. If an Esper requires other Espers to be purchased before they are available, I'll note it. Most Espers have a 'standard' attack with no cooldown, or their auto-attack. Level 1 Espers almost universally only have those. Garchimera (Neutral Flying) - Auto-unlocked ~Gnaw: Deal damage to one foe. Boring. Replace with elemental Fliers as you see fit. Alarune (Neutral Melee) - Auto-unlocked ~Ram: Deal damage to one foe. Boring. Replace with elemental Melees as you see fit. Slyph (Neutral Ranged) - Auto-unlocked ~Aero: Deal damage to one foe. Third fastest Ranged Esper, which is nice, but no elemental affinities means you'll usually leave it on the bench once you get others. Useless if Silenced. White Hare (Neutral Healing) - Purchasable from the start ~Cure: Restore HP to one ally. Slow attack speed like most healing Espers, but useful enough. Literally has no self-defense though. Cactoid (Earth Ranged) - Purchasable from the start ~1000 Needles: Deal damage to one foe. Fastest attack speed in the game for a Ranged Esper. Their projectiles can't curve though. Otherwise a decent neutral pick. Goblin (Earth Melee) - Requires Cactoid or Gnoam ~Goblin Punch: Deal damage to one foe. Standard Melee. Pick them if you fight a lot of Lightning Ranged. Gnoam (Earth Flying) - Requires Goblin ~Floating Kick: Deal damage to one foe. Standard flier. Has better defenses than other level 1 Fliers. Aquarius (Water Flying) - Purchasable from the start ~Bubblebath: Deal damage to one foe. One of the fastest in mobility units in the game. Otherwise standard flier. Sahagin (Water Melee) - Requires Aquarius or Shivan ~Smack: Deal damage to one foe. Standard Melee. Pick them if you fight a lot of Fire Ranged. Shivan (Water Ranged) - Requires Sahagin or Chocobo ~Blizzard: Deal damage to one foe. Note: Weak to Fire instead of Lightning. Fairly fast attack speed, but being weak to Fire makes picking them in response to Fire Epsers slightly counter-intuitive. Chocobo (Neutral Melee) - Requires Shivan or Ramih ~Choco Beak: Deal damage to one foe. Extremely fast mover, making them great fallback options for level 1 Espers. Like Vaan though, tend to die quickly since they're frequently at the frontlines. Ramih (Lightning Flying) - Requires Chocobo or Remora ~Spark: Deal damage to one foe. Standard Flier really. Remora (Lightning Melee) - Requires Ramih or Quetzacotl ~Thunderchop: Deal damage to one foe. Standard Melee, use them if you fight a lot of Water Espers, though note that Water Ranged espers aren't weak to Lightning. Quetzacotl (Lightning Ranged) - Purchasable from the start ~Thunder: Deal damage to one foe. Second fastest attack speed, otherwise pretty standard. Djinn (Fire Melee) - Requires Salamander ~Flame Sneeze: Deal damage to one foe. Standard Melee, use them if you fight a lot of Earth Ranged. Salamander (Fire Ranged) - Requires Bomb or Djinn ~Fireball: Deal damage to one foe. The only level 1 Esper whose projectile curves, though has a longer travel time. Great for attacking mobs of foes though. Bomb (Fire Flying) - Purchasable from the start ~Bomb Blast: Deal damage to one foe. *Self-Destruct: Consumes all HP to deal massive damage to surrounding foes. Must be manually commanded to use. One of the only level 1 Espers worth mentioning, and that's because of Self-Destruct. Potentially powerful, especially if you send in swarms of them to explode on Melee bosses. If you see enemy Bombs, make them a top priority before they explode on you. Yeah level 1 Espers are very boring. Hopefully I'll have more to say for the level 2 ones.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:14
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:09 |
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