We have a thread about Mist Charges, but I didn't feel it really covered all the aspects of Quickenings. Sometime later this evening, I plan to transfer some of the information from there over to here and/or link information.

But for now --- a question. Does anyone know how the damage for Quickenings / Quickening chains is determined? Because I haven't really been able to figure out a logical pattern to it.

Yeah i have no idea how the damage is really determined. Ive hit a creature with a mist attack and it did xxxx dmg then I hit a different creature (when i was a higher level) and it did less dmg then the first creature.

Also my most powerful mist combo (that i know of) was an 8 hit combo that ended in ark blast against cid that did over 53 thousand damage. Meanwhile I had a 17 hit combo that ended in black hole against a mark that only did 2/3 of that damage. Doesnt seem to make sense. o_O

Well, one thing I think is likely --- it would seem that Mist attack doesn't ignore the opponents' defense / magic defense stat, or protective statuses. I think something in that is likely playing a factor.

Okay, a few updates. I just remembered that when the Trickster puts up a Paling, it's totally immune to Quickenings. And the Paling protects against physical attacks, so Quickenings must be counted as physical attacks. Therefore, anything you can do to dispel enemy protections or improve your characters' attacks would likely help.


Oh --- I've found that sometimes it can actually be helpful to have a character down (either by KO, stop, disable, etc.) when using Quickenings. Means there's one (or two --- risky) less buttons to have to choose from when selecting.

Maybe the quickenings are based on elemental and magic as well as physical, like basches fulminating darkness may cause more damage to an enemy if it has a weakness against dark and less if it is holy. Balthiers fires of war would be a fire element, vaans white whirl a holy, frans shatterheart an ice and so on.

Maybe the quickenings are based on elemental and magic as well as physical, like basches fulminating darkness may cause more damage to an enemy if it has a weakness against dark and less if it is holy. Balthiers fires of war would be a fire element, vaans white whirl a holy, frans shatterheart an ice and so on.

That's what I thought at first, but I can confirm - through much trial and error - that Quickenings are purely physical, they have no elemental effect.

I thought maybe so as well. However, I have used stuff like Flame Purge and Fires of War, etc., against fire elementals and it didn't heal them. So yeah, no elemental component to Quickenings.

Personally, I don't think quickenings are all that helpful. I've used them just a handful of times and they did do pretty heavy damage, but It just seems to be more trouble than it's worth to me. "Wait for 'mist charge' then hit the lowest attack, then the highest on the next character only if they have 3 charges...." They do look really cool, but I've found I can skip it most of the time if I just keep healing and whaling on the target. Kinda strange for me, since I absolutely LOVED the overdrives in X. Even the aeons could build them up.

I must admit --- the stronger my characters get, the less helpful I'm finding them.

But the affects(animations) are sweet to look at.

Yeah. Oh --- and something else --- the more I play, the more I begin to see that Summons are actually rather useful, especially if you quickly put various status effects on them.

The problem with summons, and something they really should have thought out better before putting together this game is that they're shite generally if you're facing a swarm of enemies. The combat style is just way too fast for them to survive.

I noticed that too Agent.

Okay, this is late in coming, but...


<font color="red">Quickenings - The Details</font>


The Quickenings



Vaan

<ul><li>Red Spiral - Launch a focused attack
<li>White Whorl - Conjure a great tornado
<li>Pyroclasm - Hurl balls of concrescent energy
</ul>

Penelo

<ul>
<li>Intercession - Invoke the wrath of the ancients
<li>Evanescence - Whirl blades of air
<li>Resplendence - Cause a ripple in time, shattering the opponent
</ul>

Balthier

<ul>
<li>Fires of War - Detonate six orbs of light
<li>Tides of Fate - Send forth a massive wave of water
<li>Element of Treachery - Call down a giant meteor
</ul>

Fran

<ul>
<li>Feral Strike - Unleash a flurry of blows
<li>Whip Kick - Kick out arcs of energy
<li>Shatterheart - Causes two blades of ice to shatter around the enemies
</ul>

Basch

<ul>
<li>Fulminating Darkness - Channel a dark miasma
<li>Ruin Impendent - Collapse space-time
<li>Flame Purge - Wield swords of flame
</ul>

Ashe

<ul>
<li>Northswain's Glow - Command the stars themselves
<li>Heaven's Wrath - Compel the empyrean to rupture
<li>Maelstrom's Bolt - Conduct lightning's wrath
</ul>




Concurrences


Inferno - At least three Level 1 Quickenings --- Has the appearance of a massive inferno of flame.

Cataclysm - At least seven Level 1 Quickenings --- Has the appearance of a cave-in

Torrent - At least two Level 2 Quickenings --- Has the appearance of a spout of water

Windburst - At least five Level 2 Quickenings --- has the appearance of a powerful Aero attack

Luminescence - At least five Level 3 Quickenings - Has the appearance of a Holy attack

Ark Blast - At least two Quickenings of each level --- Has the appearance of a powerful lightning / electrical attack

Whiteout - At least three Quickenings of each level --- enemies appear to be well, whited out

Black Hole - At least four Quickenings of each level --- has the appearance of an amazing Dark attack


As far as I know, that's the "pecking order" as such. You can only have one Concurrence at the end of each chain, so if you meet the criteria for multiple ones, the one with the highest pecking order will take priority.


If you manage to perform all of these, you attain the following in the Sky Pirate's Den section:


Gabranth

Awarded for performing every Concurrence, earning you the title of Mist Walker.




Some Factoids About Quickenings:

<ul><li>Quickenings are available to learn at any time, as soon as you have the License Points and can reach them on the License Board.</li>
<li>Quickenings, though often appearing elemental in nature, are considered physical attacks. Therefore, be advised that your Quickenings may not be as helpful / helpful at all if your opponent has high defense or erects a Paling to protect against attacks. Anything you can do to weaken your opponent's defense, such as using Dispel to rid of Protect status, etc., would be most helpful.</li>
<li>To the best of my knowledge, no matter where you are at in the game, you always get a total of 4 seconds to chain Quickenings. From what I can tell, you may be able to add a bit of time to this timer by being fast on your selections.</li>
<li>All Quickenings only target one opponent --- so they're best used on Marks or bosses. If you're facing a group of enemies, you want to try as hard as possible for a strong Concurrence --- because only these affect all targets.</li></ul>


Some of this information was pulled from this this thread (Thread 33169) and rewritten. I also used a couple of FAQs at GameFAQs and IGN, just for a bit of fact-checking, nothing more.

Each concurrence is triggered when certain levels of quickenings are used in a chain
Add for those who are stupid enough not to understand me
Lv.1 red spiral
Lv.2 White whorl
Lv.3 Pyroclasm
i really hope you arnet stupid enough to need that last note
Inferno-3 lv.1's power 90
Cataclysm-7 lv.1's power 110
Torrent-2 lv ones and 3 lv twos power 130
windburst-5 lv twos power 155
luminessence-5 lv threes power 175
ark blast-2 of every lv power 205
whiteout-3 of every lv power 215
black hole-4 of every lv power 253

i used a stratagy guide

whoops, on another thread is says that
But if you didnt know everything about black hole, i can understand that,
but i still hate you:-)

one last thing, dont say anything, i didnt realize that anyone said anything about how to get concurences
if you have zodiark and can easily get black hole
you are unstopable

Okay, first things first. Please don't ever quadruple post. You can edit a previous post if you have something else to add. Secondly, yes, having those things does help your ability in the game. Thirdly, for the love of Pete, please spell things correctly, please punctuate at the end of sentences, and please, please capitalize the first letter of each sentence because reading everything in all lower-case is wild annoying.

Here's the exact damage calculation for the Quickening system:

Every character has a Rank 1, Rank 2 and Rank 3 Quickening. Their strength is as follows:

Rank 1: 90 power
Rank 2: 140 power
Rank 3: 230 power

Now the actual damage forumula is:

Damage = (Number between 1 and the power of the quickening) x (Number between 1 and the character's Strength).

Example:

If a character has a Strength of 50 and uses a Rank 2 Quickening (power 140), the damage inflicted will be a value between 1 (1 x 1) and 7000 (50 x 140). Note that the damage is capped at 9999 damage for Quickenings.

On to the Concurrences. These are triggered when you chain together a specific combination of Rank 1, 2 and 3 Quickenings. If you manage to get all the Concurrences, you'll recieve Gabranth in your Pirate's Den and earns you the title of Mist Walker.

The Concurrences are as follows and the requirements:

Inferno: Requires 3 Rank 1 Quickenings, has a power of 90.
Cataclysm: Requires 7 Rank 1 Quickenings, has a power of 110.
Torrent: Requires 2 Rank 1 Quickenings and 3 Rank 2 Quickenings, has a power of 130.
Windburst: Requires 5 Rank 2 Quickenings, has a power of 155.
Whiteout: Requires 5 Rank 3 Quickenings, has a power of 175.
Ark Blast: Requires 2 Quickenings of each Rank, has a power of 205.
Luminescence: Requires 3 Quickenings of each Rank, has a power of 215.
Black Hole: Requires 4 Quickenings of each Rank, has a power of 253.

The damage calculation is as follows:

Damage = (Concurrence's Power x Target's Level)

Basically, the higher level the target is, the higher your damage will be. Concurrences can go over the damage limit (they can deal more than 9999 damage). And the total damage is all Quickenings combined (which will exceed 9999 damage limit + Concurrence damage).

A few know hows:

The strongest Concurrence will ALWAYS be triggered, no matter what. This will make it quite hard to trigger a few Concurrences, since the requirements are close to eachother and a single different Rank Quickening can mess it up for you.

If you wish to get Gabranth, the easiest way would be this:

Have just one character in your active party and go near any save crystal. Then just keep running back and forth, each time going into Quickening. It's alot easier to do it with one character, simply because it's easier to use the shuffle ability this way.

Hope this has been of help.

Hey Agent0042,

maybe it'd be nicer if posted the entire info (post #13) in the top post that you made. makes it where when someone new goes to this post, everything they need is at the very top, and the current post its in can be placed with "(information that used to be here placed at the top)" :)

Just a suggestion.

Oh, and its not referred as physical damage, its more like...Non-elemental damage. ;)

What are everyones thoughts on quickenings? Do you guys find them useful? Do you think they throw the balance of the fights off?

Quickenigs are too strong early in the game, and become rather weak as you progress.

I found that I could annihilate bosses with them up until around Giruvegan. After that it became easier to just use physical attacks. So yeah, I would say there are few balancing issues there.

I use quickenings on bosses that are almost dead, but when i am almost dead too. It's like my last chance thing. If it doesn't work, then usually I'm either dead, or i get a chance to switch a guy out and do another quickening.

The usefulness of quickenings largely depends on when you get them. If you avoid the other stuff on the Licence Board and just go straight for the Quickenings, you can probably get all 3, or at least 2, on most characters by about Jahara/Golmore Jungle etc. depending on how much grinding you do. In that case, they are extremely useful and basically can beat almost any boss. However, later on, they do become less useful. I find though that even through to the end they are a good way of dealing heavy damage to a tough boss, especially when that boss deploys minions, as the concurrences can get rid of a lot of minions in one fell swoop.

What's also bad about quickenings is that they completely deplete everyone's MP, even if you were to use only one Quickening. (I think that's how it works... I'm not all that sure.) And unless you've got a healthy supply of items, you're in trouble when it comes to a boos battle. As such, I only use quickenings to get rid of the extra enemies in boos battles (of course...). Has anyone been able to get a quickening chain past 25? Is that even possible?

Actually, IIRC, MP is only depleted for characters who perform a quickening, and in the amount that the quickening costs. Example: If your party is Vaan, Basch, and Balthier, and they all have full Mist Charges, then if you do a quickening chain of, say, three Red Spirals, then only Vaan will have his mp depleted. Capiche?

Know I'm a little late, but I think that quickenings are good for marks under the rank of three and bosses in the story line prior to- Spoiler

































when the Leviathan explodes. But after that, they tend to be a slight degree of shit. But when I do use them(say on difficult marks like the Antlion,) I ususally put my reserve party in first and have them cast dispel and their Quickenings. Then I will switch in my main party, land a few hits, and then unleash another chain on them.



And has anyone noticed that it is easier to get a higher chain going with certain members in your party?

For example, my reserve party which is usually Ashe, Vaan, and Penelo; every single time it seems they either can do an attack or a Mist Charge. But when I have the main party in, I usually struggle to get 7 or more.

Maybe its me or just sheer luck but either way, IDK.

No, I never noticed that. When you start the Quickening chain with your main party, do they all have full MP?

Not true, I've managed to pull off a 23 chain with my main party where only Vaan had one mist charge. After his Red Spiral I could choose whoever I wanted for a Mist Charge. Just spam that button because after you charged, you'll immediatly can do a Quickening afterwards.

I think (not sure) that certain characters are better at quickening chains - for example, everytime I use Vaan's Red Spiral I get a huge chain of Red Spirals, and it's really hard to Mist Charge if you use Basch's Ruin Impendant...

When you start the Quickening chain with your main party, do they all have full MP?

Yes, or close to it so it can fill up when the party is attacking and circle-strafing around the enemy (again, usually boss or mark)

In my opinion Quickenings are only useful against bosses and marks fairly early in the game, or, after that, marks or bosses that steal your MP anyway - in any other fight your MP can be put to much better use...

Ah! This is amazing. I don't and have never used Quickenings, but I do want to finish my Sky Pirate's Den, so this is excellent. I have been using three characters to chain them, never once thinking to only use one person.

Thanks for the tip!

I got a question. Does tapping R2 even do anything?

Oh, yes, tapping R2 is very important. You have to hit it if there are no Quickenings showing as available, or else none will ever show up. Sometimes you'll get lucky, and there'll be one or more showing after one is performed. But if not, you absolutely have to hit R2, and keep hitting it till one or more show up, or that's the end of your Chain.

R2 is the "Shuffle" button -- if you watch during the game while you're doing your Quickenings, you'll see that indicated at the bottom of the screen.

Oh... I thought it was for making the quickening stronger... but i did notice that it also shuffled. I just assumed it make the quickening stronger. Well this changes the way I play now, because I always tapped R2 until like the last second.

Yeah, using R2 properly should really amp up the length of your Chains now.

Hi, um... need a bit of help, I was gonna post a new thread with this question, but I figured it would fit well in a thread titled "The Quickenings Thread".

I haven't got Gabranth in the SPD, but I KNOW I used every quickening at least once. Do you have to start a chain with each one or something? I know I've come across and used all 18. If not, is there a way to find out which one I supposedly didn't use? Rather do that than do all 18 over again.

Or is there something different I have to do.

Concurrence Lv 1 Lv 2 Lv 3
Black Hole 4 4 4
Whiteout 3 3 3
Ark Blast 2 2 2
Luminescence - - 5
Windburst - 5 -
Torrent 2 3 -
Cataclysm 7 - -
Inferno 3 - -

These are the different chains and the different Concurrences that comes depending on how many of which level Quickenings you achieve. All Concurrences damage is not elemental (Even Inferno).

NightRikku's info is good. There are no other specific requirements -- you don't have to start with any particular character or use any particular Quickenings, so long as you follow those requirements.

Wow, I still haven't seen the Whiteout or Cataclysm concurrences yet... I like Blackhole...makes me think of Sound Garden...and the wierd thing is I probably have met the requirements for those two concurrences....

If you meet the requirements for a particular Concurrence, but also meet those for a higher-level one, the higher-level one will always trigger. You need to meet the requirements for a particular Concurrence and no higher in order to trigger it.

Yeah thats what I figured what happened...

It can be difficult to trigger the them, but make sure you keep an eye out for mist charges and keep a finger on R2 (Shuffle).

Also (I believe):
The longer it takes for you to pick your next Quickening, the shorter amount of time you get to choose in the next round. Although the time shortens every time-- no matter the speed at which you pick-- it shortens even more the longer it takes you to choose.

Maybe I'm dreaming, but I've actually noticed the available time increase sometimes if you choose a Quickening very quickly.

You're not dreaming. The same thing has happened to me.

Yeah. One thing I know for sure is that you can never get the clock to go over 4 seconds. But if the clock has dipped down, you can add time back.

Very helpful tidbit information there...danke

Ok, I was about 97% sure I was right about the time thing. I'm glad I wasn't giving out wrong information.

Thanks for proving that right for me!