Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Battle Skill help...

[Destroyer2000]

Anyone else have this? I'm a bit fuzzy about how to use the Battle Skills, and the mastery and skill points and all. Can anyone explain it? I can't find the booklet, but that didn't help me much to begin with, anyway.

[Chichiri]

mastery just increases the skill level by raising the damage you take. sometimes after awhile, you might get an extra hit in there (it was like that in so2, so i'm assuming this one too).

Battle skills are a bit complicated to look here. Really, if you want help (this goes for anyone), I'd look at Gamefaqs first. Most likely they have a few good faqs that would explain this stuff.

But if you want to put it simply:

You have 4 sets of skills. Short range X and O -- and -- Long range X and O. You hold in the button for a short amount of time to activate the skills. Also, circle has more power in the attacks than X, which can be a disadvantage or advantage. You can also chain some skills for awesome damage.

example: If Fate has Side Kick equipped on long range X and Air Raid on short range circle: start the battle by holding in X to do a side kick to an enemy. As soon as he starts that battle skill, hold circle in and do the air raid. This is possibly one of the best chain combos Fate can do.

[Nate]

Also, Chichiri and Destroyer, each battle skill you assign to a button takes up a certain amount of CP. Since a character can only have 15 CP, it makes it challenging to decide which skills to keep.

Now, skill points are used in the skill setup screen for the status skills, which raise your HP, MP, attack power, and defense power. That one's fairly obvious, but the less obvious one is tactical, which contains commands for your Anti-Attack Aura, and other tactical skills such as Berserk. A quick note, do NOT sell any AAA books you find, since later characters won't be able to learn any AAA except for whatever books you have in your inventory. So in my game now, for example, Mirage can't learn the Homing or 2-Way Auras, 'cuz I sold those books.

[Destroyer2000]

So...skill points are just for status (like strength), and CT points are for battle skills? How do you learn battle skills, then? Do you gain them through experience, or levels, like you do in ToS?

[Nate]

So...skill points are just for status (like strength), and CT points are for battle skills? How do you learn battle skills, then? Do you gain them through experience, or levels, like you do in ToS?

Yes, skill points are for the status skills only (HP, MP, Attack, and Defense). CP points are for battle skills, under "Combat" in the skills menu. You learn battle skills two different ways:

Levelling up: The most common way to learn battle skills. As you gain levels you gain a certain amount of skill points, and learn different combat and tactical skills as well. For spellcasters such as Fayt, Sophia, Nel, etc., they also learn new symbology through levelling up.

Books: These are how you learn different Anti-Attack Auras, and also how non-spellcasters like Cliff and Mirage can learn Symbology. Note that if you use a book such as "Basic Support Symbols" on Cliff to teach him Symbology, you have to go into the "Combat" section of the menu, and it will be under the bottom lines (support skills, I think is what it's called).

Sorry if my explanation was bad... ^^;; If you didn't understand it, hopefully someone else can explain it better.

[Destroyer2000]

Fayt? Spellcaster? He's been combat-based for me. I didn't think he was a spell caster. I used a Decrepit Tome and another book on Nel today and taught her basic support and attack symbology. I wish I could find my instruction book. It explains this stuff better, doesn't it?

[Nate]

Fayt? Spellcaster? He's been combat-based for me. I didn't think he was a spell caster. I used a Decrepit Tome and another book on Nel today and taught her basic support and attack symbology. I wish I could find my instruction book. It explains this stuff better, doesn't it?

Fayt is a spellcaster, though not until higher levels. For example, he learns Stone Rain and Deep Freeze on his own, though I'm not sure at what levels.

Uh... >.> You shouldn't have used books on Nel. She's an innate spellcaster, so she learns the basic support and attack symbology as she levels up. Sorry dude, but you wasted books that could've been used on non-spellcasters like Cliff and Roger. :/

I think the instruction book may explain it better, I'm not sure. I really didn't use the book.

[Chichiri]

As I said, he should just go to gamefaqs. They explain the simple and advanced battle skills and anything else you would want to know. i'm not sure why anyone posts on a message board for help anymore considering faq's will answer your question more thoroughly and usually faster.