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Bravely Default

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Stats And Their Purpose

By
Vincent Lau

Can you call yourself a RPG without pages of mind-boggling stats and numbers? Nah, we didn’t think so. In typical fashion, the performance of your characters is dependant on their stats. You can increase your characters’ stats when they Level Up (by gaining experience points from battles) or by purchasing better gear. The characters’ current job also has a marked effect on their stats.

This game certainly doesn’t skimp with the stats; you can view pages of them from the Equip menu or the Config -> Status menu. Fortunately the game makes it slightly easier to figure out what each stat does, as you can touch the name of each stat on the bottom screen to receive a simple description.

Page 1: Stat Values

This page displays the stats that directly influence the outcome of battle. Most of the time, you’ll only need to check this page to judge how your character will fare.

Stat What It Does
Right Hand The Physical Attack of the weapon equipped in your character’s right hand. Affects how much damage the character’s physical attacks deal.
Physical Defense Affects how much damage the character receives from physical attacks.
Magic Attack Affects the damage dealt by the character’s magic-based attacks.
Magic Defense Affects how much damage the character receives from magic-based attacks.
Aim Determines the chance of the character’s physical attacks hitting their target.
Evade The character’s ability to evade physical attacks; lowers the number of enemy hits.

(1 of 2) Here, Tiz has a weapon equipped in his right hand and a shield in his left hand. Which is a fairly standard setup.

Here, Tiz has a weapon equipped in his right hand and a shield in his left hand. Which is a fairly standard setup. (left), (right)

Normally, you will only equip weapons onto a character’s right hand, but there may be occasions where you equip a weapon onto their left hand too. When this occurs, there will also be a Left Hand stat that functions like the Right Hand stat. Normally, equipping a weapon on both hands cuts the Physical Attack of both weapons in half, so more isn’t always better!

When you equip the Knight’s Two-Handed ability onto a character, if they have a Sword, Axe, Spear, Staff or Katana equipped in their right hand and nothing equipped on their left hand, their Right Hand stat will morph into a Two-Hand stat. Now your character will wield the original one-handed weapon in both hands and receive a boost in Physical Attack.

Page 2: Base Values

This page depicts the underlying stats that influence the Stat Values and more. Annoyingly, some key stats are hidden in this page and the game doesn’t do a wonderful job of explaining what they do.

Stat What It Does
HP The character’s health; it’s reduced by enemy attacks and when it reaches zero, your character cannot act.
MP Required to cast magic spells or use certain other command abilities.
Strength Affects the character’s Physical Attack, which in turns affects damage to the enemy.
Vitality Affects the character’s Physical Defense, which in turns affects damage from the enemy.
Intelligence Affects the character’s Magic Attack, which consequently affects damage to the enemy.
Mind Affects the character’s Magic Defense, which consequently affects damage from the enemy. Also determines the power of the user’s healing spells; very important!
Dexterity Affects the character’s Aim and chance of a Brave Attack.
Agility Affects the character’s Evade, number of hits in normal attacks, turn order and chance of a first strike.

(1 of 2) During a Brave Attack, your characters begin the battle with 1 BP each; fantastic for unleashing multiple hits from the onset.

During a Brave Attack, your characters begin the battle with 1 BP each; fantastic for unleashing multiple hits from the onset. (left), (right)

Number of hits affects your normal attacks only (when you use the “Attack” command). When you use a normal attack, your character will hit the enemy a certain number of times; for example, 6 times. The more hits you do, the higher your damage.

What isn’t immediately obvious is that Aim also affects the number of hits; sometimes, you may notice your characters deals less hits than in a previous attack (like 2 hits instead of 9). This is because some of their hits missed the enemy and thus don’t register in the figure. If you have high Aim, you’ll find your number of hits is more consistent.

Last, but not least, turn order is very important and the game makes little mention of this. Characters with higher Agility (and thus Speed) will act earlier in battle, so the order in which characters perform actions isn’t totally random. However; it’s still partially random, as characters with slightly less Speed can occasionally move before faster characters - you just have to learn to deal with it.

Page 3 - 4: Immunities and Resistances

The third page simply show what status ailments your character is immune to. If anything is listed here, that’s wonderful as you won’t be inflicted by those ailments!

Similarly, the final page displays your character’s level of resistance against the game’s seven elements: Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind, Earth, Light and Dark. If you Resist an element, you will take reduced damage from it; if you Nullify an element, you take no damage from it at all!

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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Square Enix
  • Platforms,
    3DS
  • Genre
    RPG
  • Guide Release
    14 February 2014
  • Last Updated
    23 January 2021
    Version History
  • Guide Author
    Vincent Lau

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Welcome to the most comprehensive guide to the Final Fantasy-esque JRPG from RPG veterans Square-Enix. Inside our essential guide to the entire game we’re leaving no stone unturned as we show you:

  • A complete breakdown of the combat and game mechanics.
  • How to rebuild Norende in record time (for the very best upgrades).
  • All of the Jobs and the craziest combinations to destroy all enemies with.
  • How to conquer the main story (and get the true ending).
  • Easy-to-follow tricks to pummel every boss into the ground with!
  • Every single item, weapon or piece of armor in the game.
  • A complete enemy bestiary (and what items you can steal from them).
  • Killer tricks needed to beat all of the ultra-tough Nemeses bosses.
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