Battles

This article aims to give an overview of the battles faced during a speedrun of Final Fantasy VIII, in particular the differences between different types, various important mechanics that govern their behaviour, and some techniques that can be used to optimise them. Strategies for specific inidividual battles are not discussed.

Types

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Battles can be separated into 3 main categories: bosses, forced encounters, and random encounters.

Bosses

Bosses are battles where experience is not gained upon completion, but AP usually is. The only boss battles that can end without gaining AP are X-ATM092, Edea 1, BGH251F2, Adel and Ultimecia. In the case of X-ATM092, BGH251F2 and Edea 1 the battles can be completed without actually defeating the boss and therefore no AP is gained. The Adel and Ultimecia fights end without an exp screen.

Forced encounters

Some battles are mandatory to complete despite only containing standard enemies, and therefore award experience as well as AP. As we generally want to minimise the experience gained by our party, in some circumstances it is beneficial for party members to be dead for these fights, for example killing Ward in Laguna Dream 2 and Laguna Dream 5.

Random encounters

Field

The location and formations of encounters in the field are governed by a step count, meaning that certain encounters can be skipped by taking walking steps. On the PC and Remastered versions, some encounters can also be skipped on screen transitions.

Most encounters are run from, but a few enemies are killed for AP and/or have magic drawn from them, such as Red Bats in the Fire Cavern, Galbadian soldiers during the Dollet Invasion, and GIM52A/SAM08G during the Esthar Menu.

World map

With the exception of Fastitocalon-Fs to obtain Fish Fins, encounters on the world map are unwanted and are therefore fled from as soon as possible. Unfortunately, unlike field encounters, there is currently no known way to manipulate where these encounters occur via a step count or any other method.

The Remastered versions are an exception to this, where there is a way to get 0 encounters up until reaching the beach, however the method requires precise timing so is difficult to perform consistently. The reason for this manipulation being possible on only the Remastered versions is not currently known.

Level Scaling

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Enemies' levels are scaled to the average level of the current party as follows:

A = floor(Average party level)
B = floor(A/5)
Enemy level = A ± B

There is a 50% chance for either of the possibilities to occur (i.e whether B is added or subtracted), with these two possibilities commonly referred to as a "high level" or "low level" enemy. These are the possible enemy levels for several typical player averages:

Average party level	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
Enemy "low level"	6	7	8	8	9	10	11	12	12	13
Enemy "high level"	8	9	10	12	13	14	15	16	18	19

Some enemies are exceptions in that they are always a fixed level value, rather than scaled to your party. One notable example occurs on the PC, Remastered, and Japanese PSX releases, where the Sorceresses on Disc 4 are locked to level 45, regardless of the levels of your party members. Similarly, Omega weapon is locked to level 100 on the PSX version, but scales with the party level in other versions.

Some enemies have other special ways of scaling their levels. Diablos and Jumbo Cactuar, for example, are always exactly the average level and have no high or low level randomness. Ultimecia (in all her forms) is slightly more random than normal, as her level can be 1 lower or 1 higher than the normal low or high levels and she can be any of the levels in-between. E.g. if your average party level is 11, normally enemies are either 9 or 13, but Ultimecia can be anything from 8 to 14.

Battle Mechanics

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ATB

The bars beside the characters' names during battle are commonly referred to as "ATBs", with ATB standing for Active Time Battle. These bars fill over time, with each character being able to perform an action once their ATB is full. Pressing the Menu button allows you to switch between characters that have a full ATB, with the character whose ATB was filled first being prioritised. This is referred to as "refreshing the ATB".

Enemies also have ATBs, but they are hidden from the player. When an enemy's ATB fills, they will immediately perform an action, however many enemies have the option to "skip turn" as a possible action, in which case their ATB is still emptied and must be filled again before another action can be taken.

The Battle Speed slider in the Config menu affects how quickly ATBs are filled for both parties.

Starting Formations

There are 4 special starting formations that have a small chance to occur:

• Chance for first strike! - All allies start with a full ATB, and all enemies start with an empty ATB.
• Struck first! - All allies start with an empty ATB, and all enemies start with a full ATB.
• Back attack! - Same as "Chance for first strike!", but enemies face the opposite direction and take double damage from the first physical attack against them.
• Back attacked! - Same as "Struck first!", but allies face the opposite direction and take double damage from the first physical attack against them.

"Struck first!" and "Back attacked!" also have the added effect of reducing the ease with which the party can flee the battle, meaning that it can take up to 40 seconds to escape.

Limit breaks and Crisis Level

Limit breaks are the main big damage dealing actions in FF8 speedrunning. When an arrow appears next to the Attack command, then the player can hold right to reveal the limit break action. If both a limit break and another action have been queued during a battle animation, then the limit break will be performed first, even if it was queued after the other action. This phenomenon is often referred to as "limit priority".

Limits can only occur when a character's Crisis Level (CL) exceeds 0 at the time of ATB refresh. Information on how the Crisis Level is calculated can be found here, but the main considerations used in speedruns are as follows:

• Current HP - The lower a character's current HP is in relation to their maximum HP, the higher the Crisis Level is likely to be.
• Dead characters - Having other characters in the party at 0HP increases the chance of a higher Crisis Level value.
• Aura status - A character under the Aura status has a greatly increased chance for a higher Crisis Level.
• Randomness - There is a random factor in the Crisis Level calculation.

There are 4 possible non-zero Crisis Level values that can occur. The following table describes the important differences these values incur on the Limit Breaks used in runs:

Crisis Level	No. Renzokuken hits* (50% each)	Chance of Rough Divide	Zell Duel Timer	Irvine Shot Timer
1	4 or 5	23.8%	4.66s	~4s
2	5 or 6	47.3%	6.66s	~6s
3	6 or 7	70.7%	9.33s	~10s
4	7 or 8	94.1%	12s	~13.3s

* Some enemies have a fixed Renzokuken animation so the same number of hits will be dealt every time regardless of Crisis Level. Examples include Elvoret (always 6 hits) and X-ATM (always 4 hits).

It is important to note that Crisis Level is calculated at the moment the ATB is refreshed, not when the limit is queued or performed. Take the following series of events as an example:

1. ATB is refreshed for a character with 100HP, a limit break is found.
2. An enemy attacks the character for 70HP of damage, 30HP remains.
3. The character queues the limit break found in step one.

The Crisis Level of this limit break will be calculated with a value of 100HP, not 30HP. To utilise the chance of a higher Crisis Level given by the lower HP in this situation, the ATB must be refreshed until the limit is found again before being queued.

Basic Techniques

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Flee cancelling

The following character animations during battle can be bypassed by holding L2+R2 to make the party attempt to flee the battle:

• Before a party member performs an action, there is a short "ready" animation where the character will briefly change stance.
• When a character is in critical HP, their stance is different (for example, Squall is kneeling on the ground) - when an action is queued, characters will move from this stance to their default position, and then move back after the action is taken.

In boss battles and forced encounters where fleeing is impossible, this means that it is beneficial to simply hold flee for the entirety of the fight. Whilst fleeing during battles is a good habit to get into, it is important not to do so mindlessly, as there are a handful of battles throughout the run that can be escaped from, but shouldn't be escaped from. This includes:

• Any random encounter that needs to be fought/drawn from.
• The battle fought before boarding the Lunatic Pandora after the Esthar Menu.
• Any seal-unlocking boss battle in Ultimecia's Castle.

It is also possible to cancel animations in these encounters, but it is advised to practice this before doing it in runs, to ensure that you do not flee from a battle before the desired point.

Several battles throughout the run do not end with a traditional ending fanfare, and in these scenarios the party is forced to assume their default stance before the battle ends. For this reason it is beneficial to stop fleeing once these enemies are defeated, in order to prevent the animation of them assuming these positions becoming additional time.

Attack buffering

Attack buffering is the name given to the process of queueing an attack with an unwanted party member, before searching for a limit break of another character via ATB refreshes. This offers the following benefits:

• It reduces the number of characters with full ATB, making the process of cycling through ATBs easier when looking for the limit of a specific character.
• The enemy's ATB is paused during the attack animation, which greatly reduces the likelihood of the enemy taking a turn before the limit break.

When all 3 party members have full ATB, it is often beneficial to queue an attack with both of the extra characters before starting to refresh ATB, as it is significantly easier to find the limit when only 1 character has ATB. If the limit break is queued before the end of the first attack animation, then it shall be performed before the second queued attack due to limit priority.

ATB Pausing

Escaping random encounters is possible even when ATB is not flowing, so it is common practice to enter a sub-menu such as Item or Magic for any character while attempting to flee, to prevent enemies from taking turns.