07.2 - Skill System and Equipment Links                                 [07200]


Skills are special effects you can equip to your character, ranging from
stat-boosts to automatic healing in battle or added damage against certain
enemies. Good skill setups aid you much more than leveling up, so don't ignore
them. To learn skills, you need to create equipment links.

Go to the Equip menu. On the left you choose which to equip in which body part.
You'll notice most equipment has a different color and a symbol. These are
runes, and linking them is what gives you skills. It also boosts the effects of
most accessories.

To link runes, you must have 2 equipment of the same color in spaces next to
each other on the diagram on the right. So, for the Weapon slot this would be
the Accessory 1 and Accessory 2 slots. Let's say you equip a weapon with a red
rune, and then an accessory with a red rune too in slot 1. This will create a
link between these.

Now if you add another red rune on an adjacent slot, like head or body, the
link will extend and include these as well. The more runes of the same color
touching each other, the larger the link.

As mentioned, links will boost the effect of your accessories. The larger the
link, the larger the effect. It works like this:

Link of 2: +50% (x1.5) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 3: +100% (x2) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 4: +150% (x2.5) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 5: +200% (x3) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 6: +225% (x3.25) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 7: +250% (x3.5) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 8: +275% (x3.75) effect for all accessories in the link.
Link of 9: +300% (x4) effect for all accessories in the link.

So this can be very powerful for some accessories. For example, a Bettle Shell
only gives +3% RDM. Now let's say you equip 4 of these and nothing else for
+12%. Now link them with a piece of body armor and you'll triple it! +36% RDM.
Extending it to a link of 9 results in +48%, a very significant boost.

Of course, this will be even more effective with better accessories. Gray
equipment doesn't have a runes, so it cannot be linked or boosted at all.

Back to skills. Linking a certain combination of runes of the same color
will let you learn them. Each skill has a different color and combination. You
can start learning the skill after creating the right links.

Now all you have to do is fight. Every battle will increase your skill
experience until it reaches 100, then the skill will be learned. You can check
skill progression in the Equipment menu by pressing triangle. You can also
check the known skill combinations this way.

Skills are learned faster when the enemy leader is of a higher level then the
average of your battle party. In other words, having weak characters in the
party will speed up skill learning. It can be a good idea to keep some
characters you don't like around at a low level to speed up skill learning for
everyone.

Once a skill is learned you have to equip it. This is done through the Skills
menu. You have 6 skills slots, and each skill has a CP cost as well. Your max
CP is 4 at first, but it goes up by 2 every 10 levels up to 12 at level 40+.
You can't equip skills if you don't have enough CP left, so you'll probably
have to settle for 1 or 2 at first, but later in the game it's possible to
create great and deadly combos of 4 or more skills.

Most characters come with some skills already learned. This depends entirely on
the character. Also, some weapons and accessories give you skill effects while
you have them equipped, but not the skill. You still need to learn them through
rune combinations. This is still very useful, as it saves CP.

For a full skill list (including effects, CP cost and runes) check Section 09.

Also, you can sort equipment by their color by pressing square on the Equip
menu. I REALLY recommend doing this, as it's by far the easiest way to find the
runes you want.