What is your Gambit set-up?

I’m just wondering this because I recently decided to start playing an old save file and finish everything that I can, and I’m wondering if anyone has some interesting ideas for Gambits — it’s cool to see how other people organize their party! C; For example, does everyone have a specific role? Is everyone similar? Do you have 3 main roles, each for 2 characters, and have 2 parties, or does everyone have one different role?

As for my people, I have a Black Mage, 2 White Mages, one "Beserker" (with the Tournesol :3), and 2 other random fighters who do a few buffs and debuffs. I’m thinking of doing a complete overhaul, though x3

Hmm, this is gunna be completely from memory and I haven’t played it for about a year and a half but…
I used –

Vaan – Tank
Player controlled

Basche – Damage Dealer
Pretty much just attacking, with support items used when necessary

Penelo – Healer
Used magick to damage until health below 70%, then healed, when health below 30% Curaja.

Can’t remember who had what gambits but between Penelo and Basche I had:

Protect, Haste, Regen and Shell auto-cast to everyone, also Decoy on Vaan and a lot of the time Beserk on Basche (at which time I would focus on support role with Vaan)
sorry I can’t be more in depth but I forgot 🙁

I like to keep mine very simple. If you set up complex gambits, you can lose control of your characters, and have them perform all kinds of unnecessary actions that waste time and MP (do you really need buff spells up for minor fights etc?)

I turn Gambits off on my Team Leader, because there’s need for them and it adds a lag to the attack command (your character sort of paces about a bit before attacking), which you don’t have with Gambits turned off.

For my other characters, I give them both a Gambit to heal if the party fall below a certain amount (usually something like 30% or so), a Gambit to select a appropriate attack against flying opponents, and then either ‘Attack nearest target’ if I’m a section with fairly weak or average enemies, or ‘Attack Party Leader’s Target’ if I’m in a difficult section and we need to gang up and take enemies out quickly.

I tend to apply buffs manually. You don’t need them against most opponents, and its quick enough to just do it at the start of boss fights etc. You could automate all this, but I like to do it myself, so I know its been done (I know you can check the icons, but doing it just helps get my head into ‘Boss Fight’ mode, and gives me a few seconds to think about how I want to handle this fight etc).

Only the very, very tough bosses require lengthy Gambit lists. Omega Mk 12 for example, is very difficult even when your party is maxed out at level 99. So a good gambit list that makes use of Reverse makes all the difference.

But most times, just keep things simple. Automating vital aspects of the game dulls your senses IMO, give yourself enough to do to always keep your head in the game, and you should be able to handle most anything the game throws at you.

I actually really like complex gambits! x3 I usually feel like I have bad gambits if I ever have to enter a command manually. And I ended up changing my characters (tiwce!).

First I had Vaan be wield a Crossbow and made him the item healer, I had Balthier be the Black Mage, I had Fran and Ashe be physical attackers, I had Basch be the White Mage, and I had Penelo be special and use Bubble, Souleater, and Balance to deal damage.

But, after I entered the Pharos Subterra and was killed 3 times in a row, I realized that my set up was kind of gimmicky (but I like gimmicks sometimes..! x3) and that I needed to change it. So I made Basch be the heavy duty Rod-wielding White Mage, Vaan be the slightly more physical based Katana-wielding White Mage, Penelo be the fast but strong Light Armored figher, Ashe be the slow tank Heavy Armored fighter, and Fran be the mix bag of buffs, thievery, and good strength as well. I kept Balthier as the Black Mage, but I’m going to change him because his spells are too slow to be more efficient than plain attacking, and they don’t let the White Mage cast his spells.