Tactics in Tactics

[Neo Bahamut]

I scavanged the corpse of my fallen thread to find some missed opportunity topics that could really get the blood flowing in this section. This is one of those topics.

As the title would suggest, this is about the use of strategy in Final Fantasy Tactics. Preferably original strategies, but I know there's going to be a lot of overlap.

One thing I have to say that I should have taken advantage of more is height. I always avoided the rooftop in the Dortor battle because that archer would just ruin me. I got him during a replay & I swear, it's nearly impregnable. You only have 2 parts of the building to defend, & it's quite difficult for them to get at your units.

[K´Genesis]

Depends on your idea of "strategy".
If you're talking about teams, I have plenty. In-game tactics would mostly include height and CT management.

[Neo Bahamut]

You'd have to elaborate on what you mean.

[K´Genesis]

Exactly what I wrote.
There's team strategy, as in generic pawns taking on roles to form a tactic for the victory. Ex.: 4 Monks, 4 Ninjas, etc...
And there's in-game strategy, which revolves around game mechanics. Ex.: Height manipulation, infinite turns, etc...

[Neo Bahamut]

I meant what you mean by team strategy.

"4 knights, 4 ninjas, etc." doesn't really tell me much.

[K´Genesis]

For instance, a creation of mine: 4 Thieves with Guns and Arts Of War(I personally call them Thugs4Life).

The strategy revolves around crippling through focus fire. If they can't Rend anything, they steal it. Simple as that.
After that, crippling speed and MP(in case there are mages) become priorities.
Thieves are considerably fast, have good maneuvering capabilities and possess the ability to Charm opposing forces not wearing Ribbons(but they're usually broken by that time). If the map is more than 16 x 16, trying to catch them becomes a very daunting task.

Unless the party is using Safeguard, it's very difficult to tackle this team under tournament rules.

[Neo Bahamut]

I see. How do you counteract the large failure rate of rend/steal? The sheer number of attempts?

[K´Genesis]

Rend and Steal percentages can be manipulated through PA values, zodiac signs and some abilities. For instance, Concentration is vital for both.
As for PA values, equipment takes care of that for me. It's rare to chance upon a unit that presents less than 50% odds of success, but it happens. It's also worth of note that Stealing has a higher rate of success in any given case.
And considering 4 successive attempts per turn, at the very least two pieces of equipment from a key opposing unit will be rendered useless per turn. The less equipment a unit is using, the more turn-productive this formation is(i.e. 4 Monks), countering some of the most popular formations in an average of three turns(most commonly, two).