Roles | General information Final Fantasy XIII Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Fighting system in Final Fantasy XIII is based on two major elements: roles and paradigms. Role are some kind of professions that will give our characters abilities to fulfill their tasks in the group. Every character can develop all six roles. The best tactic is to start with three major one that are different to each character, then (when they will be on a good level) you can start to give some points to other. You can learn basic role for each character from this table:
Character | Role 1 | Role 2 | Role 3 |
Lightning | Commando | Medic | Ravager |
Snow | Sentinel | Ravager | Commando |
Sazh | Ravager | Commando | Synergist |
Vanille | Saboteur | Medic | Ravager |
Fang | Sentinel | Saboteur | Commando |
Hope | Medic | Synergist | Ravager |
Commando
Commando is very important in every fight. Their attacks will not charge your chain gauge bar, they are necessary to stabilize it. Every Commando attack will slow the bar and they will allow Ravagers to stagger your enemies.
The second thing is that Commando attacks (the only exception is Sazh) will throw your enemies into the air. As a matter of fact, monsters will not be able to attack. If you will be playing well, then your opponents will be flying for the whole fight. In addition these attacks will make stagger to last longer.
A good thing is to learn something abort teams with two Commandos. They can attack two targets in one moment so they can immobilize two enemies. This is a very powerful strategy when you are trying to surprise your opponents.
Sentinel
This profession was unnecessary in Final Fantasy XII. Now it is very important in all difficult fights. It is a typical tank whose role is to draw attention of all enemies and resist their attacks. He don't have many abilities that can hurt your enemies (except of one, very weak) but he has some very powerful defensive spells. Sometimes only Sentinel is able to resist some most powerful attacks.
The best tactic is to use him against bosses and some larger groups of enemies when you will have to survive the first part of the fight. It is good to use him while healing and buffing the rest of the team. As a matter of using Challenge ability, chain gauge will stay on a high level.
Medic
As a healing character Medic is the best in every battle. To successfully support your team, the best option is to use two that kind of roles in one paradigm. But healing is not the only things that this caster can do - resurrection and Dispell spell will be handy later on.
Ravager
Ravager is a role with two main tasks: dealing damage and charging the chain gauge. He has very powerful attacks, but you have to use them wisely. First thing is to use the Libra ability as often as possible. As a matter of fact, you will learn something about your enemy resistances and immunities.
Ravager has also a second task - to charge enemy chain gauge. A major disadvantage of this ability is fact, that the bar is charging very quickly, but it can also get empty after few seconds. To slow this process it is good to attack with one Commando character. In fact, sometimes you will be able to manage with three Ravagers.
Synergist
Similar to Sentinel, Synergist is not very handy at the beginning of the game but later on it will be necessary. Abilities like Haste, Shell and Protect will give you very powerful buffs in the battle. The main disadvantage is that buffing the hole team can take you many rounds. The best option is to start at the beginning of the fight. If your enemy is weak a good idea is to use Synergist only for two rounds - everyone will get haste buff and the battle will be easier.
Saboteur
The last, but not the least important class is Saboteur. As you can already know from the name, he's main role is to weaken the enemy. His main abilities is to lower your enemy resistances and stuff like that. Unfortunately, some enemies are very resistant to his debuffs and, as a matter of fact, the role of Saboteur could be limited is some battles. A very special ability is Death ( Vanille can learn it at the end of the game). It is good to invest some points here, because it will help you to defeat Adamantoise - one of the most dangerous monsters in the game.