Party Abilities
These are abilities that impact your entire party generally from the world map rather than directly in a battle. Some of them prevent you from having to enter into a battle at all.
Alert
- Description:
- Prevents Back Attack.
- Notes:
- Prevents enemies from getting the drop on your party. If enemies successfully attack your party from behind, it gives them a boost to their speed and allows them to attack first.
- GFs with this Ability:
- Cerberus
Move-Find
- Description:
- Finds hidden Save/Draw Points.
- Notes:
- Allows you to see additional Save Points and Draw Points in various areas of the game. Save Points can’t be used unless you can see them, but Draw Points can be drawn from regardless of whether you have Move-Find active, so you can still find them and access them without equipping this ability.
- GFs with this Ability:
- Siren
Enc-Half
- Description:
- Cuts encounter rate by half.
- Notes:
-
This is an unimportant party ability but it is a pre-cursor to obtaining the much more important ability, Enc-None.
- GFs with this Ability:
- Diablos
Enc-None
- Description:
- No encounters.
- Notes:
- This party ability is important for allowing you to explore areas of the world without having to deal with constant random battles occurring. Generally, in Final Fantasy games, you would want to engage in random battles to level up your characters, but utilizing the Triple Triad Power Up Strategy, you probably won’t have an issue with defeating any of the enemies or bosses in the game. Additionally, enemies in Final Fantasy VIII level up as your party members do which means that leveling your characters is not always the best idea.
- GFs with this Ability:
- Diablos
Rare Item
- Description:
- More likely to receive rare items.
- Notes:
-
At a casual glance, this ability looks like it should be extremely beneficial, offering you a higher likelihood of receiving a rare item at the end of a fight. But unfortunately, with the way that the loot tables in Final Fantasy VIII are structured, this ability will actually have a net negative impact on the rarity of the items you receive. Its time for some charts:
The typical enemy loot table looks like this:
- Common item: ~70%
- Uncommon item: ~20%
- Rare item: ~5%
- Very rare item: ~5%
Equipping the Rare Item ability changes the table to this:
- Common item: 50%
- Uncommon item: ~45%
- Rare item: ~5%
- Very rare item: 0%
So this ability has the potential to increase the chances of you obtaining a more uncommon item but will actually reduce your chances of potentially receiving the most rare of items. This ability is viewed as a net loss when you use it. So don’t! - GFs with this Ability:
- Bahamut