99      99    9999    99      99  99  99      99  99    99  99      99
9999  9999  99    99    99  99    99  9999  9999  99    99  9999  9999
99      99  99999999      99      99  99      99  99    99  99      99
99      99  99    99  99      99  99  99      99    9999    99      99

  9999    99999999    9999    99999999    9999          9999    99      99
99    99     99     99    99     99     99    99      99    99  9999    99
99           99     99    99     99     99            99    99  99  99  99
  9999       99     99999999     99       9999        99    99  99  99  99
      99     99     99    99     99           99      99    99  99  99  99
99    99     99     99    99     99     99    99      99    99  99    9999
  9999       99     99    99     99       9999          9999    99      99

99999999  99999999  99999999        9999    99    99  99  999999    99999999
99        99           99         99    99  99    99  99  99    99  99
99        99           99         99        99    99  99  99    99  99
999999    999999       99         99  9999  99    99  99  99    99  999999
99        99           99         99    99  99    99  99  99    99  99
99        99           99         99    99  99    99  99  99    99  99
99        99           99           9999      9999    99  999999    99999999

Want 999 HP and MP with 50 speed, 99 physical attack and 99 magic attack for 
almost anyone in Final Fantasy Tactics? This guide explains the whole process, 
along with a few battle tips and some of the game's algorithms. It indirectly 
works for monsters and I know it doesn't work for guests. In addition, useful 
battle strategies are provided as well that may also help. Do note that 
handicaps and bonuses of certain jobs don't make it possible to have every 
single stat maxed out, though you can quite well have 3 or 4 maxed out (my 
Ramza is a good example - everything except magic attack is maxed).

 ####                         ####
# 0  Table of Contents **000000** #
 ####                         ####

Tip: use control+F to use your browser's find feature to jump to the specific 
sections (the string you search for is in the "search" column).

|  Section | Title                                               |     Search |
|        0 | Table of Contents                                   | **000000** |
|        1 | Introduction                                        | **010000** |
|      1.1 | What this guide is about                            | **010100** |
|      1.2 | Narrated YouTube videos                             | **010200** |
|        2 | Initial requirements                                | **020000** |
|      2.1 | Abilities                                           | **020100** |
|    2.1.1 | List of most useful abilities                       | **020110** |
|    2.1.2 | Required abilities                                  | **020120** |
|    2.1.3 | Other useful abilities                              | **020130** |
|      2.2 | Jobs                                                | **020200** |
|      2.3 | Story progress requirements                         | **020300** |
|      2.4 | Raising brave and faith                             | **020400** |
|      2.5 | Other preparations                                  | **020500** |
|        3 | Preparing for battle                                | **030000** |
|      3.1 | Setting jobs                                        | **030100** |
|      3.2 | Equipment and abilities                             | **030200** |
|      3.3 | Finding the right battlefield                       | **030300** |
|        4 | The long battle, first phase                        | **040000** |
|      4.1 | Disabling the enemies                               | **040100** |
|      4.2 | Maxing the speed                                    | **040200** |
|      4.3 | Keeping the enemies disabled                        | **040300** |
|    4.3.1 | Enemy-disabling backup                              | **040310** |
|    4.3.2 | Making the most of steal exp                        | **040320** |
|      4.4 | A helpful trap                                      | **040400** |
|    4.4.1 | Traps and their effects                             | **040410** |
|    4.4.2 | Why that one trap helpful                           | **040420** |
|      4.5 | Speeding up the long process                        | **040500** |
|      4.6 | How far should I go?                               | **040600** |
|      4.7 | Ending the battle - flare                           | **040700** |
|        5 | Setting up for stat increases                       | **050000** |
|      5.1 | What stat(s) to raise                               | **050100** |
|      5.2 | Equipment and abilities, round 2                    | **050200** |
|        6 | The next long battle                                | **060000** |
|      6.1 | The basics                                          | **060100** |
|    6.1.1 | General stat raising                                | **060110** |
|    6.1.2 | When using the mime                                 | **060120** |
|    6.1.3 | Ramza as the stat-raiser                            | **060130** |
|    6.1.4 | Ramza as the mime                                   | **060140** |
|      6.2 | How far to go                                       | **060200** |
|        7 | The rocket speed method                             | **070000** |
|      7.1 | Basic preparation                                   | **070100** |
|      7.2 | The first phase                                     | **070200** |
|    7.2.1 | Equipment and abilities                             | **070210** |
|    7.2.2 | The first phase battle                              | **070220** |
|      7.3 | The second phase                                    | **070300** |
|    7.3.1 | Equipment and abilities                             | **070310** |
|    7.3.2 | The second phase battle                             | **070320** |
| | General stat raising                                | **070321** |
| | Raising magic attack                                | **070322** |
|    7.3.3 | How far to go                                       | **070330** |
|        8 | Frequently asked questions (FAQ)                    | **080000** |
|        9 | Legal stuff                                         | **090000** |
|      9.1 | Copyright                                           | **090100** |
|      9.2 | Credits                                             | **090200** |
|      9.3 | Version history                                     | **090300** |

 ####                    ####
# 1  Introduction **010000** #
 ####                    ####

| 1.1  What this guide is about **010100** |

When I first played Final Fantasy Tactics, around 1998 or 1999 (from renting 
it), I found the game frustratingly difficult, unable to get past the second 
battle (Gariland Magic City) after 3 tries. I never saw the world map. It 
would be years later that I gave the game another try. I barely got past that 
battle and from there, I spotted a weak point in the game's design - level 99 
with all jobs mastered (except summoner which wasn't listing one, of which I 
thought was strange) was accessible in reasonable time before doing the Sweegy 
Woods event for the game's story. In other words, I essentially went through 
the whole game at level 99 with essentially all jobs mastered. Even though I 
have well over 600 hours on the game clock, I have yet to complete the game's 
story.... Keeping status effects in check and my quest to see what happens 
when gil reaches 100 million makes this game addicting - I have more hours on 
this game than any other FF game.

Then, I discovered a way to get gil at a rate far, far faster than the 2 
propositions I've done and 5-minute battles with 8 level 99 enemies (imagine 
getting 70,000 gil within just one minute and keeping that rate for hours (it 
makes propositions look dirt cheap and not worth the hassle)!).

I wrote this guide to explain the entire process on raising stats in great 
depth. It results in 2 long battles that are back to back. The first battle 
is the shortest, typically about an hour (0.6 hours using the rocket speed 
method). The second battle is the longest. Depending on who you're raising 
the stats for and what stat you're raising, it could take anywhere from about 1 
2/3 hours to even 5 hours (0.9 to 1.8 hours using the rocket speed method).

I do not know if this works with monsters though - I haven't tested it for 
monsters yet. Given the way the job system is and that monsters can't change 
jobs, I'd doubt that stats can be maxed with them. Still, it is possible 
though highly indirectly. If an enemy monster levels up and there's a huge 
increase in HP, consider inviting that monster. It doesn't work for guests 
because of the lack of control you have with guests.

Before I explain these in detail, let me explain how I note characters. I'll 
refer to them as their jobs instead of their names (since the names, except the 
special characters like Ramza, Agrias, or Orlandu, are randomized). As an 
example, "have the oracle cast quick on Ramza" means that the character who's 
current job is an oracle, should cast the quick spell on Ramza (time magic 
would be the secondary ability). Ramza is mentioned by name solely because he 
is crucial to this process (unless you want a 5-hour battle (2 hours with the 
rocket speed method)). "Stat-raiser" refers to the character in which I'm 
focusing on raising the stats for.

| 1.2  Narrated YouTube videos **010200** |

I have a narrated YouTube video series explaining this whole process. The 
segments for each series are listed in order and how many segments there are in 
all along with the total duration. The rocket speed method series seems rather 
long, I'm demonstrating the ultra fast leveling (and to prove that 50+ levels 
in 10 minutes is indeed possible) along with the movement for level ups during 

The basics of stat raising (7 segments; 38 minutes 53.5 seconds total)

If Ramza is the stat-raiser (5 segments; 31 minutes 13.91 seconds total)

The troubles of magic attack (5 segments; 38 minutes 21.47 seconds total)

The speedy rocket speed method (11 segments; 84 minutes 43.25 seconds total)

 ####                            ####
# 2  Initial requirements **020000** #
 ####                            ####

Although this process can begin at any time, by meeting some requirements, this 
process can be much more effective. The following sections and subsections 
explain these in detail.

| 2.1  Abilities **020100** |

For starters, I'll list the abilities that would be useful and required for 
each character. Some abilities are extremely helpful and very important (the 
required ones), others are useful and recommended, the others are optional.

| 2.1.1  List of most useful abilities **020110** |

There are several abilities that will significantly help with this task. While 
some abilities are essential and help significantly, some are useful, and 
others don't have all that much use at all. I've explained the most useful 
abilities in the list below, and what you'll need at the very least. Almost 
every ability listed are of action abilities. expiration speed, for status 
effect spells, is like charge time. Note that a spell like "meteor" has a very 
slow speed (5) while "haste" has a very high speed (50). Status effects work 
the same way, though they're even slower, typically 3 (meaning that they last 
nearly twice as long as it takes to cast meteor (without short charge). When a 
status effect's CT reaches 100 (from 0), the status effect expires. Reapplying 
the status effect before this resets the status effect's CT to 0 again. Do 
note that the speeds are estimates, based on my obervations.

*  Speed save (reaction ability) - upon getting attacked for HP damage by 
anyone (even your own allies), there is a "Brave" percent chance of having that 
character's speed increase by 1.

*  3 (action ability) - targets everything where the parameter is a multiple of 
3 (that is, if the digits in the number add up to a multiple of 3 (78 is 
because 7+8, 15, 1+5, 6, is a multiple of 3). This is rarely of any use 
outside CT and height.
*  4 (action ability) - targets everything where the parameter is a multiple of 
4 (that is, if the ten's digit is even, the ones digit is either a 0, 4, or 8 
and, if the tens digit is odd, the ones digit is either a 2 or 6). This is 
only worthy for "level" and "exp" as the parameters, though good for CT in only 
one case. There are 25 possible values (24 for level and exp), the same as 
"prime number".
*  5 (action ability) - targets everything where the parameter is a multiple of 
5 (that is, the one's digit is either a 5 or 0). This is only worthy for 
"level" and "exp" as the parameters, though good for CT in only one case. 
There are 20 possible values (19 for level and exp), which isn't all that many.
*  exp (action ability) - has calculations use "exp" (experience) as a 
parameter. By having all of your own characters at level 99 with 99 exp, it is 
easier to target just the enemies with math skill. exp makes a good backup, in 
the event level cannot be used. Plus, with "steal exp", it's possible to set 
it up so that all enemies are affected at once. exp is, thus, the most useful.
*  Gained exp Up (support ability) - doubles the amount of exp gained per 
action. Too bad the game limits the amount of exp gained to just 99. The real 
maximum is actually 236 (from a level 1 character defeating a level 99 enemy 
with this ability equipped). This is extremely useful for the second phase.
*  Height (action ability) - has calculations use "height" as a parameter. You 
can be protected by this parameter at all times by being at any fractional 
height (0, 1, 14, 22, 26, 34, 38, and 46 are all just as effective, but it's 
much easier to simply remember halves). Height is easy to control (just move!) 
and makes a good backup in the event the two primary ones don't work (that is, 
cannot be targed at all by level or exp).
*  Level (action ability) - has calculations use "level" as a parameter. By 
having all of your own characters at level 99 (the enemies rarely are), this is 
one of the best parameters for selecting enemies.
*  Move-Get exp (movement ability) - gain 1 exp for each tile a character 
moves. This is especially useful during phase 2 because it makes phase 2 go 
nearly 60% faster.
*  Prime number (action ability) - targets everything where the chosen 
parameter is a prime number (a number divisible by only 1 and itself - 2, 3, 5, 
89, and 97). This is a good option for CT, level, and exp, and the best option 
for height (since height rarely goes above 17). Since, with "Gained exp Up", 
you have immunity from this, prime number is best for continual disablement of 

*  Speed break (action ability) - reduces the target's speed by 2. This is 
most useful during the second phase if raising magic attack, but it's crucial 
for the rocket speed method in both phases.
*  Power break (action ability) - reduces the target's physical attack by 3. 
This is only useful for the second phase, but only when raising magic attack or 
using the rocket speed method.

*  Chakra (action ability) - restores HP in the amount of "PhysicalAttack*5" 
and MP in the amount of "PhysicalAttack*5/2". Oddly, with a very high physical 
attack, the formula seems to change - a PA of 60 does 450 in cure instead of 
the expected 300 (600 instead of 390) with "attack up".... The MP aspect of it 
is the most important, since casting sleep, haste, and slow repeatedly long 
enough will easily eat up more than 200 MP, even 800, especially when the stat-
raiser is after raising magic attack. Chakra requires that the user is at the 
exact same height as the one needing MP restored.
*  Stigma magic (action ability) - removes almost any negative status effect. 
This is useful in the event you have to target your stat-raiser with a 
disabling status effect spell with math skill (this is why backup disablers are 
very handy, to avoid this route in the first place though carelessness can also 
cause trouble).

*  Blind rage (action ability) - causes the target to go berserk. Blind rage 
is a second-priority backup enemy disabler. This is because enemies are 
limited solely to physical attacks. Unless chickens, they'll always come 
rushing toward your team which makes this best used on human enemies immune to 
sleep, don't move, and don't act, and on any enemies while sleeping. 
expiration time: never auto-expires.
*  Confusion song (action ability) - causes the target to act randomly, 
targeting anyone. This is a fourth-priority backup enemy disabler. An 
isolated (too far to approach someone to attack), confused enemy will always 
remain in the same place. This is best when enemies are frogs. The effect is 
permanent, unless HP damage is done. Sometimes, it's also a way to get enemies 
that cannot be targeted with math skill to suddenly be able to be targeted as 
enemies sometimes target their own confused ones (which causes them to gain 
experience, sometimes levels). expiration time: never auto-expires.
*  Foxbird (action ability) - reduces target's brave by 30, weakening physical 
attacks. Foxbird is a third-priority backup enemy disabler since, as chickens, 
enemies won't act and, if their turn never comes (from sleeping), the effect 
lasts forever. If an enemy's turn does come, their brave will increase by 1. 
This is essential when raising magic attack or when Ramza is the stat-raiser. 
It's a great way to turn a battlefield into a chicken farm.... Eggs anyone?
*  Paralyze (action ability) - causes target to no longer be able to act, but 
can still move. An enemy with "don't act" status will always run away like 
chickens, unless berserked. This is only a fifth-priority backup enemy 
disabler. Unlike chicken, which has similar enemy behavior and disabling 
properties, the duration is far shorter and will always expire, even while 
sleeping. The upside is that it prevents enemies from countering and evading, 
though most human enemies are immune to it (thanks to the thief hat, a good 
steal). expiration time: 24 charges.
*  Pray Faith (action ability) - temporarily increases target's faith to 100, 
making caster's magic more effective and enemies more vulnerable to magic. 
This is extremely helpful, especially if used on the enemies. Characters may 
have 83 faith thus causing this to make magic only 20% more effective, but 
enemies often have from 45 to 74 for faith, averaging about 60. If an enemy 
with 45 is successfully struck with this, they're more than twice as 
susceptible to magic. Enemies are, on average, 67% more susceptable. This 
makes faith on the enemies much more useful because it makes it much easier to 
disable them and keep them disabled. expiration time: 32 charges.
*  Sleep (action ability) - this prevents an enemy from both moving and acting, 
and for a very long time, as long as it doesn't take HP damage (MP damage and 
status effects are fine). It is the best enemy disabler of all when not after 
raising magic attack, and is of the highest priority. Always keep sleep active 
on all the enemies. Human enemies are only immune to it if they have the 
"defense ring" equipped as an accessory - steal it before putting it to sleep. 
expiration time: 60 charges.

*  Yell (Ramza's action ability) - raises anyone's speed by 1, even himself. 
This is essential for speeding up the process and it's available first thing in 
the game (that is, you don't have to go to chapter 2 or later to get it).
*  Accumulate (action ability) - raises own physical attack by 1. Although 
some state that endlessly accumulating is a good way to gain experience, it's 
far from it. It'll always give 10 exp, but it doesn't compare to a level 90 
character stealing gil from a level 99 enemy (that's 19 exp). In addition, the 
experience stops once physical attack reaches 99 - stealing gil doesn't have 
that problem.

*  Gil taking (action ability) - steals gil in the amount of "Level*Speed". 
This is needed for the second phase when raising any stat except magic attack. 
It's also the fastest way to get gil. Note that speed is a factor in 
determining the amount of gil taken. Max out speed and level, and 4950 gil is 
taken per turn and turns come very frequently. By having two thieves with max 
speed and haste constantly stealing gil, this is the game's fastest way to get 
gil. A sustained rate of 70,000 gil per minute is a rate with no competition 
(70,000 under certain circumstances).
*  Steal accessory (action ability) - steals a human enemy's accessory. When 
it comes to human enemies, the "defense armlet" (which provides immunity to 
"don't move" and "don't act"), "defense ring" (which provides immunity to 
"sleep"), and "108 gems" (provides immunity to "frog"), are the 3 most annoying 
accessories. A much more common case is that of a mantle (of which provide 
general boosts toward evasion), of which are also annoying (at least mantles 
don't block the addition of "faith").
*  Steal armor (action ability) - steals a human enemy's armor. The "black 
costume" is among the most common for all armor seen on human enemies. It 
provides immunity to "stop", which doesn't have much use (stop is low on the 
priority list of backup disablers). Besides, stop can be mimicked by casting 
slow on an enemy with a speed of 1.
*  Steal exp (action ability) - steals exp in the amount of "Speed+5". This 
may not seem useful for level 99 characters, but it's an excellent way to set 
up enemies so that they are all affected by math skill. Prime numbers are the 
best due to providing the stat-raiser immunity to math skill attacks. Plus, if 
you have to end the battle right this second for some reason, flare can follow 
to wipe out every single enemy on the battle field in one turn. It's also a 
good way to keep status effects in check, especially faith and sleep. In 
addition, for the end of the second phase where it takes 4 or 5 turns just to 
gain a level, it's also a great way for the stat-raiser to get those final few 
levels much more quickly.
*  Steal helmet (action ability) - steals a human enemy's helmet or hat. When 
it comes to human enemies, the "thief hat" can be a pain, making it harder to 
disable them (since it provides immunity to both "don't move" and "don't act"), 
and the "thief hat" is very common on human enemies. It also gives a speed 
bonus of 2 which means that "speed break" won't reduce the speed below 3. 
Fortunately, it sells for a very nice 17,500 gil.

Time mage
*  Don't move (action ability) - prevents the target from moving, but it can 
still act. It's also only a sixth-priority backup enemy disabler. If an enemy 
does wake up, they won't be able to go anywhere, useful when grouped closely 
together. Human enemies are frequently immune to this (thanks to the very 
common "thief hat" (a good steal) and rare "defense armlet"). expiration time: 
24 charges.
*  Haste (action ability) - increases target's charging speed by 50%. That is, 
if speed was maxed at 50, it makes it seem like it was 75 instead. Actions 
that use speed to determine the outcome (like stealing) are not affected. This 
is only useful when used on the stat-raiser because he/she is of greatest 
importance. expiration time: 32 charges.
*  Quick (action ability) - sets target's CT to 100, regardless of what it was. 
Quick, especially when it discharges immediately after Ramza's turn (except if 
you've already maxed out Ramza's speed), is one of the best ways to quickly get 
the speed raised of the stat-raiser.
*  Short charge (support ability) - cuts the charge time for almost any charged 
action (dances and songs not affected) in half. This is especially useful for 
a character that serves as a backup enemy disabler, for enemies that cannot be 
targeted with math skill.
*  Slow (action ability) - cuts target's speed in half. That is, if speed was 
12, it'd seem like 6. This is at the bottom of the backup enemy disabler 
priorities list when not raising magic attack. However, when raising magic 
attack, this is at the top of the enemy disabler priorities. An enemy with a 
speed of 1 with slow status mimics the effects of stop since the CT never 
changes. expiration time: 24 charges.
*  Stop (action ability) - prevents the target from both moving and acting. 
This is only seventh-priority backup because it's quick to expire (only 1/3 as 
long as sleep), has a low success rate, and has a slow charging speed. It is 
of almost no use considering that an enemy with slow status and a speed of 1 
has the same effect (and slow a short charge time and a high success rate). 
expiration time: 20 charges.
*  Teleport (time mage movement ability) - instantly appear at the intended 
location, but only if within the range of "move". Beyond that of "move", 
there's a chance "teleport" will fail causing you to reappear in the same 
location instead. The more extra distance covered, the lower the chance. The 
success rate is determined by "100-(DistanceMoved-SourceMove)*10". Basically, 
for every tile beyond the source's movement radius, the chance of success 
decreases by 1. Thus, if "move" was 4 and you moved 8 tiles, there's a 60% 
success rate. The maximum is 14 (which requires a "move" of 5), having a 10% 
success rate. It also ignores height and can go through obstacles and enemies 
making it one of the best movement abilities in areas where the ground is not 
flat. This is mainly needed for the first phase though as it halves the amount 
of time needed.

*  Flare (action ability) - deals intense non-elemental damage to a single 
target. With math skill, this targets several things. With "steal exp" used, 
there's no better way to wipe out even 8 enemies in a single battle at once, 
and if all enemies have faith, it's a near-certainty that 999 damage will be 
done to them, guaranteeing death to any enemy, except the Zodiac monsters. 
Unless you want to go around attacking chickens and frogs (poach the rare 
monsters ones though), this is the best way to clear out an entire battle 
field. I went through chapter 3 in barely an hour with this method.
*  Frog (action ability) - turns the target into a frog, severely limiting both 
actions (physical attacks only) and physical attack strength. This is the 
primary backup enemy disabler and, after adding faith, is the best way to start 
disabling enemies. Unless every enemy is a frog, frogs will just run away like 
chickens. In addition, frogs are extremely weak. The most damage I've ever 
seen an enemy frog do is a puny 19 - a level 1 chemist when starting a new game 
can handle that! They are also restricted to using only physical attacks with 
a range of just 1 - equipped weapons become useless. What's more is that the 
reaction ability can never be used and when it comes to raising magic attack, 
this on the stat-raiser is essential. On top of that, frog never expires, 
though it can be canceled by casting "frog" on it again. expiration time: 
never auto-expires.

| 2.1.2  Required abilities **020120** |

These are abilities that I very strongly recommend having as it'll make the 
process far easier and quicker. Because the stat-raiser can be anyone, 
including Ramza, I've listed what job classes you need, and what abilities you 
need for each (with reaction, support, and movement abilities separate), at the 
very least (see the list above for in-depth explanations on these abilities):

Calculator (Math skill, 7 abilities)
3               4               5               CT              exp
Level           Prime number

Monk (Punch art, 1 ability)

Oracle (Yin yang magic, 2 abilities)
Sleep           Foxbird

Ramza squire (Guts, 1 ability)

Thief (Steal, 1 ability)
Gil taking

Reaction abilities (0 abilities)

Support abilities (1 ability)
Gained exp Up

Movement abilities (2 abilities)
Move-Get exp    Teleport

This is what I suggest having for your non-stat-raiser characters, at the very 
(only for the easy method - it's different for the rocket speed method):

Ramza squire with punch art
Thief with math skill
Oracle with math skill

For the stat-raiser, the first phase only needs "teleport". The second phase 
needs "gil taking", with "Gained exp Up" and "Move-Get exp".

If Ramza is the stat-raiser, trade his role with someone else. Since only 2 
extras are needed beyond Ramza, have a third character have "punch art" as 
either their primary ability (as a monk), or their secondary ability 
(preferrably with a job that focuses on physical attack power.

| 2.1.3  Other useful abilities **020130** |

These are the abilities that are useful to have, but they are not essential. 
You can go without these, but these can really help.

Calculator (Math skill, 1 extra ability)

Speed break     Power break

Monk (Punch art, 1 extra ability)
Stigma magic

Oracle (Yin yang magic, 4 extra abilities)
Blind rage      Confusion song  Paralyze        Pray faith

Squire (Basic skill or Guts, 1 extra ability)

Thief (Steal, 4 extra abilities)
Steal accessory Steal armor     Steal exp       Steal helmet

Time mage (Time magic, 5 extra abilities)
Don't move      Haste           Quick           Slow            Stop

Wizard (Black magic, 2 extra abilities)
Flare           Frog

Reaction abilities (1 extra ability)
Speed save

Support abilities (2 extra abilities)
Magic attack up Short charge

Movement abilities (0 extra abilities)

This is what I suggest having for non-stat-raiser characters

Ramza squire with punch art and "attack up"
Thief with math skill and "magic attack up"
Time mage with math skill and "magic attack up"
Oracle with "battle skill" and "short charge"

For the stat-raiser, "gil taking", "steal exp", "speed save", "teleport", 
"gained exp Up", and "Move-Get exp" are needed for optimum results. The first 
phase only needs "speed save" and "teleport". The second phase needs "gil 
taking", "steal exp", "speed save", "gained exp up", and "move-get exp".

If the stat-raiser is Ramza, trade his role to someone else other than the 3 
extras. For raising his speed, have "speed save" as the reaction ability to 
make up for the loss of "yell" during the second phase.

| 2.2  Jobs **020200** |

Because, in order to get the required dancer or bard jobs, other jobs also need 
to have experience in, this section explains only the basics. See the other 
FAQs here on GameFAQs for details on how to access these important, required 
jobs. Of maximum importance are the bard (for males) and dancer (for females), 
needed for the first phase. Other jobs are necessary when focusing on raising 
the stats. See section 5.1 for details on what these jobs are.

| 2.3  Story progress requirements **020300** |

Very little story progress is actually needed in order to start doing this. 
Fovoham Plains (in chapter 1) is the earliest place I'm aware of (that I can 
recall at the time I wrote this). This place is risky because the enemies 
there tend to have wide movement ranges (juravis, a bird, has 5). Other places 
that I'm aware of are Zeklaus Desert and Bervenia Volcano (? don't recall if 
this is one for sure). Fundamentally, all that's needed is a battle field that 
contains traps. It seems strange, but I'll explain this in section 4.4. This 
task can be done at any time during the game where you can freely roam around 
on the world map.

| 2.4  Raising brave and faith **020400** |

Another preparation, of which very helpful for the stat-raiser, is raising the 
permanent brave and faith values. Maxing out brave (at 97 permanently, 100 
temporary) is one of the best things. This is because it both improves attack 
power, and, more importantly, increases the chance of the reaction ability 
being used. To raise brave, either use the Mediator's "praise", or Ramza's 
"cheer up" ability. For every 4 that brave goes up (or down), the permanent 
value goes up 1. Praise adds 4 to the brave for the battle and 1 permanent. 
Praise has a fairly low success rate (typically 57% - 41% with bad affinity, 
70% with good affinity), but at least it's available as early as before the 
first visit to Igros Castle. Ramza's "cheer up" is another option, but it's 
not available until chapter 2 and the highest permanent brave with it is only 
96 instead.

Faith is good at 83. You can go as high as 94, but starting at 85, a warning 
appears at the end of a battle, but only when the permanent faith value is that 
high. Raising faith improves the effectiveness of disabling the enemies. To 
raise faith, use the Mediator's "preach" ability. This adds 4 to faith for the 
battle, 1 permanent.

| 2.5  Other preparations **020500** |

Level 99 with 99 exp for everyone is among one of the most useful. The reason 
for this is that it allows you to make the most of math skill. Since only 3 
can affect 99, this allows you to use "prime number", "5", and "4" for both 
level and experience to target enemies with, all with no chance of affecting 
your own characters. Statistically, enemies have a 7 in 13 chance (roughly 1 
in 2 or 54%) of being affected by level (if the level's randomness is 
distributed evenly, which seems to be from 87 to 99 when at level 99). 
Experience has somewhat better odds, at 63 in 100 (roughly 5 in 8 or exactly 
63%). This yields a net chance of 82.9% (about 5 in 6) of an enemy being 
targetable by math skill with level and experience only (CT and height are 
ignored - they're highly unpredictable and even depend on the location) when 
all characters are level 99 with 99 experience.

To raise level quickly, disable the enemies (turn them into frogs and put them 
to sleep) then steal gil. Not only is it an excellent way to build up funds, 
it's an excellent way to gain experience (and JP). Most think that accumulate 
is the way to go, but experience and JP stop once physical attack reaches 99. 
Stealing gil does not have that problem and it also has many other benefits 
that make it a much better choice. With maximum speed, done with Ramza's 
"yell", gil comes at an incredibly fast rate which makes propositions look dirt 
cheap. With two thieves with a speed of 50 and maximum level (99), each time 
they act, that's 4950 gil they take and they act so frequently, 30,000 gil in 
one minute wouldn't be too unusual (70,000 gil a minute with notices and 
effects turned off, along with the displaying of the gained exp and JP turned 
off). You can't get that kind of scale with propositions, not even close! On 
top of that, it's sustained - an hour means about 1.7 million gil on average 
(nearly 4 million gil at the most extreme). Oddly there seems to be a cap for 
the amount of gil you can receive in a battle - something around 2 to 2.1 
million. Beyond this, even though you still get experience and JP, you don't 
get any more gil. I've had a 4-hour battle with 3 50-speed hasted thieves 
which should've netted nearly 7 million gil, but I only got 2 million). Plus, 
each time a theft occurs, at least 10 exp is gained (instead of 1, possibly due 
to a glitch), more if the enemy is at a higher level than you. "(TargetLevel-
SourceLevel+10)*GainedexpUpAbility" determines the amount of experience you get 
in one action where "TargetLevel" is the level of the target, "SourceLevel" is 
the level of the one making the action (this is why accumlate always gives 10 
exp). "GainedexpUpAbility" is 1 if the ability is not equipped or 2 if it is. 
JP, as a side, but somewhat related note, is determined by "(SourceJobLevel*2
+SourceLevel/4+8)*GainedJPUpAbility". "SourceJobLevel" is the job level of the 
one making the action and "SourceLevel" is the level of the one making the 
action. GainedJPUPAbility is 1 if the "Gained JP Up" ability is not equipped, 
1.5 if it is. Level 99 with job level 8 always gives 48 JP (72 JP with "Gained 
JP Up" equipped).

 ####                            ####
# 3  Preparing for battle **030000** #
 ####                            ####

With all the preparations set, now it's time to start with raising the stats. 
The following subsections explains what is needed to prepare for battle, the 
first of two. Sections 3 through 6 explain the easy route. It takes longer, 
but there's little risk involved and it's the easiest route. For a much faster 
but riskier method, the rocket speed method, see section 7.

| 3.1  Setting jobs **030100** |

For the stat-raiser (do one one at a time only (if you want an extra challenge, 
then go ahead and do 2 at once)), change their job to either bard (for males) 
or dancer (for females). Why these particular jobs? This is because thy have 
almost no stat growth. So, okay, this doesn't make much sense. We're after 
raising stats, a lot, so why go with slow growth? I'll cover the reason for it 
in section 4.

The other characters can use whatever, as explained in section 2.1.3.

| 3.2  Equipment and abilities **030200** |

The stat-raiser's abilities:
If the stat-raiser is Ramza, have "guts" as the secondary ability. Otherwise, 
use whatever you want. For the reaction ability, "speed save" is good, in the 
off chance you do take a hit (it's rare for me) or if you intend on using your 
weak characters (turn them into a frog to help) to attack the stat-raiser. The 
support ability can be anything. ***DO NOT*** have "move-find item" equipped 
for the movement ability - use something else instead (I recommend either move+
3, move+2, or "ignore height"). For the stat-raiser, have "teleport" as the 
movement ability as this'll make phase 1 go nearly twice as fast.

The others' abilities:
The other four characters can have whatever abilities you want to have (just 
make sure you have at least the minimums, of which apply primarily to action 
abilities), as long as no one has "move-find item" equipped as a movement 
ability. There is a very good reason for this, as explained in section 4.4.

The equipment can be anything. I focus solely on status defense and, for those 
that are not the focal point of raising stats, movement radius. You could, in 
a way, equip the weakest possible weapon to a magic user, however. Since I 
very rarely take hits from enemies (even the Zodiac monsters, of which I've 
defeated before their turn even comes), I don't focus at all on HP, even if it 
results in having 60 when even low-brave enemies can easily do 200.

| 3.3  Finding the right battlefield **030300** |

On the world map, there are 3 colors of dots. Blue dots indicate towns, 
cities, and castles that you have visited before. You won't encounter enemies 
here. The red dots are places not yet visited and/or are of the next place to 
visit during the story. The green dots are key to this task - they indicate 
areas where a random battle may occur. Noticing this with Mandalia Plains, I 
saw how it was possible to reach level 99 with all jobs mastered first thing.

The last thing to know is where a battlefield is that contains traps. The 
earliest one I can recall is Fovoham Plains, which involves a big cliff with an 
occasional pool of water in the corners of the lowest-lying areas. Zeklaus 
Desert and probably Bervenia Volcano are other options. My YouTube video shows 
another place, Dolbodar Swamp, but the location doesn't matter, as long as it 
has traps. For the "Dolbodar Swamp" area, approach the place from the east 
(Limberry Castle) to start only a few steps from the key area.

 ####                       ####
# 4  The long battle **040000** #
 ####                       ####

Find about 50 to 80 minutes' worth of spare time before doing this. This is 
because it takes a while for the task to be accomplished and section 4.6 
explains why. With my suggested speedup methods, this duration can be 
shortened to probably 50 minutes for a fast run (the rocket speed method can 
have it done by only 30 minutes). Now, how do you survive in a battle that 
goes on for 50 minutes to even 2+ hours? Easy! Just put the enemies to sleep 
and keep casting disabling status effects on them like "don't act", "chicken", 
or "frog". Sleep lasts for an impressive 60 charges, nearly twice as long as 
any other status effect. The shortest duration is with "stop", of which 
expires in just 20 charges. When nothing on the battle field has a CT of 100, 
a charge occurs where the CT is incremented by the unit's speed (haste, slow, 
sleep, and stop modify this), and as long as no unit (friend or foe) has a CT 
of 100, more charges will occur until something has a CT of 100.

| 4.1  Disabling the enemies **040100** |

What does disabling an enemy mean? It means to put them out of commission so 
that they don't act or are severely limited during battle. It's completely 
possible to disable all enemies before they can attack your own characters. 
I've done it numerous times, even going through all of chapter 3 that way. 
It's not as hard as it seems either. Remember "math skill"? Math skill 
targets anything regardless of their distance and without using a drop of MP or 
needing to be charged, it is perfect for disabling enemies. Even if you're 
silenced, math skill still works. You don't even need to know how to add or 
divide to use it. Counting is actually all you need. While I'm a math wizard 
myself (which is how I figured out many of the game's algorithms/formulas... 
without checking existing FAQs), the method I use requires only counting as a 
math skill.

The first step is to add faith to all your magic users and as many enemies as 
possible. For best results, have someone with math skill and a speed of either 
13 or 14 use it first thing in a battle - use "CT" as the parameter and "4" as 
the value (note, 11 and 10 also work, but use CT 5 instead). This, because of 
the way CT charges, will always get everything, provided that the speed of a 
unit has not changed (as from Ramza's "yell"). Faith on the enemies has a much 
bigger improvement for disabling enemies than if it was on just the characters, 
but with the characters having it as well, it has an added effect included with 
it. Enemies typically have a faith from 45 to 74, usually 60. By getting an 
enemy with a faith of 60 with "pray faith" successfully, they become 67% more 
susceptible to magic. Characters, with 83, are only 20% more effective with 
using it. I consider faith a negative status effect on enemies and a 
beneficial status effect on characters, mostly because of the fact enemies 
don't get to act before getting disabled and if they do act, it's almost always 
a physical attack.

With faith added, the main disabling follows. When the other math skill user's 
turn comes, use either "level", "exp", or "height" as the parameter (height 
only if your characters have a height of 0, 1, 14, 22, 26, 34, or a fractional 
value (fractional values are easy to remember)) and either "prime number", "5", 
or "4" as the value ("3" only if using "height"). By having your characters at 
level 99 with 99 exp and with their height at a fractional value, you have full 
immunity to these 10 combinations since 3 will only affect level and exp. 
Count how many enemies are affected by the current option. Go through each and 
find the one that targets the most enemies. Consider what enemies are affected 
as well. If enemies A, D, and E are affected by one combination and another 
combination affects only A and B, plan it out accordingly. Hit them with 
"frog", the most crippling status effect of all. Although it's the most 
crippling status effect, it has a surprisingly good success rate. In addition, 
enemies as a frog will also run a way like chickens, unless every single enemy 
is a frog. Practically every single enemy is vulnerable to this. Human 
enemies with "108 gems" equipped have immunity to frog, however - either use 
sleep instead when it's the last one remaining, or steal or break it.

If a character has the "quick" spell available and does not have "math skill", 
have that character, when his/her turn comes, cast it on Ramza (for best 
results, check to make sure it discharges immediately after Ramza's turn). 
Ramza raises speed and the sooner you get the stat-raiser's speed to 50, the 
better. This makes it seem more worthy to focus on raising Ramza's speed to 
the maximum before raising the stats of the others.

When MP drops below 40 for the magic users, consider using chakra to restore 
it. To use it, place the chakra-user next to the magic user low on MP and at 
the same height as this character. Avoid doing this when next to an enemy as 
well, especially an undead enemy.

When Ramza's turn comes, use his "yell" on the stat-raiser. If Ramza himself 
is the stat-raiser, then use either "yell" or "scream" ("scream" (available in 
chapter 4) only targets Ramza himself, like "accumulate" can only target their 
own self). Avoid using it on anyone else, though do so on the thief if, and 
only if, you need to increase the amount of experience stolen to get an enemy 
to land on a certain amount of experience for optimal use of math skill (or 
continue doing so on the thief if you're after quick gil but this will add a 
few extra minutes to the time).

Unless the stat-raiser is level 99 with 99 exp, have the stat-raiser wait. 
Otherwise, act as you see fit (just don't attack the enemies, unless it's 
casting a disabling status effect like "don't move" or "slow"). Clearing out 
all but one enemy, of which that enemy must be targetable by math skill can 
increase the speed of the process.

With most or all of the enemies as frogs, put them to sleep. Sleep lasts an 
incredibly long time and the primary enemy disabler. Every single enemy, 
except later special story-based enemies, is vulnerable to it as far as I can 

Keep in mind though that, by targeting an enemy already turned into a frog with 
"frog" again, there's a good chance the enemy will turn back to normal again. 
Avoid this, unless an enemy is within striking distance of your characters, the 
enemies are sleeping, or you'll turn more enemies into frogs than those that 
return to normal (such as having frog cast on 3 enemies where 1 of those is 
already a frog). Have a black magic user cast frog on enemies where this isn't 

| 4.2  Maxing the speed **040200** |

Speed maxes at 50 (I find it odd that it doesn't max out at 99 like PA and MA). 
If the other characters have a speed of 10, the one at 50 will be able to make 
5 times as many turns (7.5 times as many with haste active). To raise speed, 
there are 3 ways. The first, and safest, is to use Ramza's "yell". For the 
first phase, this makes no difference whether or not Ramza is the stat-raiser. 
It will, however, in the second phase.

The second method is to, if you have the "speed save" reaction ability, instead 
of putting the enemies to sleep or hitting them with "don't act", turn them 
into frogs, berserk them, and have the stat-raiser take attacks by the frogs. 
To minimize HP damage, use foxbird on the enemies so that their brave is 
reduced to a number from 9 to 38. Although 9 would turn the enemy into a 
chicken, when it's turn comes, it'll increase to 10 making it no longer chicken 
and will come rushing over to your characters. This weakens the enemy 
considerably. Before going out to take hits from frogs (they only do 19 damage 
at the highest I've seen, though this can be reduced to a manageable 5 or even 
1). Of course, if you take this route, you'll have to wait on the traps, but 
at least speed will increase faster... at first. If you want, consider luring 
a frogged enemy to the stat-raiser's position then striking the enemy with 
"don't move".

The third method is a bit riskier - have your own characters attack the stat-
raiser, preferrably those with a very low physical attack and the weakest 
weapon (and bad affinity as well). For best results using this method, turn 
your physically weak characters of low importance into a frog then have this 
frogged character attack the stat-raiser. This should result in doing very 
little damage but also raising the speed.

| 4.3  Keeping the enemies disabled **040300** |

Sleep doesn't last forever, although it lasts an incredibly long time. Once 
the enemies are disabled, backup disabling methods can be used to ensure the 
enemies are completely out of commission. They are listed in order of 
priority, the highest being first.

| 4.3.1  Enemy-disabling backup **040310** |

Turning them into frogs is, perhaps, the best, the primary backup. The reason 
is that, unless all enemies are frogs, they'll run away, unless berserked or 
confused. Frogs are also incredibly weak and their actions are severely 
limited. The most damage I've ever seen an enemy frog do is just 19 - a brand 
new level 1 chemist can handle that! Frog, although it's the first of the 
disabling actions, is a backup only because they can still move and act. 
Sleep, which prevents this for a long time, is the real disabler.

A secondary backup is turning them into chickens by using foxbird (threaten 
doesn't work on sleeping enemies). This way, in the event they do wake up, 
they'll be chickens and will never act. They'll instead, run off into the 
corners and the most isolated spots possible and chicken status lasts as long 
as brave is below 10. Their brave increases by 1 each time they act, thus, by 
keeping chickens asleep or stopped, they'll last indefinitely making it a very 
good backup. Unlike frog status, berserk and confusion have no effect where 
chickens will still always run away. It does take multiple casts of foxbird 
though to drop brave this low, usually 2, sometimes even 3, which is why it's 
not quite the best backup.

As a third-degree (tertiary) backup, use berserk. This causes the enemy's 
actions to be severely limited - only physical attacks are made and they target 
the nearest character. Their "intelligence" also goes down the drain and they 
focus on dealing damage instead of checking where spells are being cast 
(they'll get in the firing range of a "sleep" or "don't move" spell provided 
that the nearest character to it is in that direction). They also don't care 
where they strike, including the evasion-heavy front.

Confusion is a fourth-degree (quaternary) backup as, if left isolated (no ally 
or enemy is within its movement radius), it simply waits and does nothing, best 
if frogged. If any ally or enemy is within range, it'll go to it and attack.

The fifth-degree backup (wow there's so many!) is hitting them with "don't 
act". This is low on the list because it expires somewhat quickly (24 
charges), unlike frog, chicken (which lasts indefinitely while stopped or 
sleeping), berserk, or confusion (confusion only expires if HP damage is done), 
which last essentially forever.

A sixth-degree backup (my goodness there's so many!) is "don't move". With a 
duration speed of 24 charges, "don't move" helps keep joined enemies grouped 
together to hit them with sleep and other status effects with greater ease.

A seventh-degree backup (Man! How many are there!?) is stop. Stop has a 
duration of just 20 (it doesn't last long - sleep last 3 times longer!), it has 
a low success rate of working, and takes a long time to charge. This puts it 
near the bottom of the list of priorities.

A final, eighth-degree backup (finally the end) involves adding blind, silence, 
and slow to enemies. Blind limits their accuracy by doubling the target's 
evasion. I've had it so that, with blind, an enemy is completely unable to hit 
Ramza with physical attacks. Silence prevents the magic users from casting 
spells. Slow cuts the enemy's speed in half (with speed break used to cut the 
speed to 1, slow has the same effect as stop).

Note that, even if an enemy already has sleep or faith status, you don't have 
to wait for it to expire before casting it again. By reapplying the status 
effect to an enemy, that status effect's charge count is reset to it's starting 
point. There is no way to tell how many charges as status effect has left or 
simply when it'll expire.

As a tip, if your thief has a speed of 13 or 14, steals, then waits (doesn't 
move), reapply "faith" after every 3 steals (totaling 25 charges at most for a 
speed of 13 - faith lasts 32 (based on the time when the thief's otherwise 
fourth steal occurs where he/she'd use math skill)), 4 at the very most (31 
charges at the most). When faith expires, it's very difficult to add it back 
again, especially with bad affinity and the enemy having a low faith to begin 
with (in this case, it can take several tries). "Sleep" takes priority over 
"faith", however. To know when to reapply "sleep", check the enemy's turns. 
If you see "--/11" or the related, don't worry about casting sleep. However, 
once the "--" becomes a "40", prepare to start casting sleep (cast faith before 
hand). When it drops below 30, cast "sleep". If faith expired and haven't 
been able to add it successfully again, consider delaying it until this drops 
below 20 where in that case, it starts to become an emergency - cast sleep 
regardless. If sleep misses on one enemy, have the oracle cast sleep on the 
enemy directly (via the spell itself) to increase your odds. If even this 
fails and the enemy wakes up, still continue to try - this is where the backup 
disablers come in.

| 4.3.2  Making the most of steal exp **040320** |

For optimum results, use the thief's "steal exp" ability to steal exp from an 
enemy so it lands exactly on a certain number. Prime number is the best with 5 
as a close second (and 5 is the easiest for those that aren't skilled at math). 
4 is also good, but a fairly distant third. Do not use 3 because it'll target 
your characters. This way, it is much easier to keep faith and sleep active on 
all enemies.

How do you make the most of "steal exp" to get this? First, let's consider an 
example where I have 3 enemies. One enemy has 41 exp (prime number), another 
has 82 (cannot be targeted), and the other has 60 (targeted by 5, 4, and 3). 
Your thief has "steal exp" and the speed is 14. The amount of exp stolen is 
determined by "Speed+5". Thus, the thief will steal 19 exp. This doesn't work 
very well. While you could steal experience from the enemy with 60 to get a 
prime number (41), you can't get that with the 82 (it'll go 63, 44, 25, then 6, 
none of which are prime). Note that speed determines the amount of exp stolen. 
Ah, Ramza's "yell" will help with that! Use it once and now the thief will 
steal 20 exp. Use it again and the thief will steal 21 exp. 41-21 is 20, 
which is a multiple of 5 and 4 making it a good choice. Steal exp from that 
enemy. Trouble is, 82 won't work well that way. You have 2 options - steal 
exp twice (to get 40) or raise the thief's speed again so it steals 22 exp to 
get 60. This way, you can have all enemies targetable with exp 5 (and 4 though 
you only need to use one option).

Now, cast faith on all the enemies and recast it with the thief's math skill 
every 3 times the thief steals gil without moving. For the most part, have the 
thief keep "faith" in check and the time mage keep "sleep" in check. As a 
bonus, when you want to end the battle right then and now, just cast flare 
(best done with the time mage) and all enemies are history, with 999 damage, 
even with shell.

However, "steal exp" doesn't always work. Consider an enemy that has just 6 
experience. Regardless on what you do, "steal exp" will always steal just that 
6. This makes the enemy completely useless. In this case, you have 2 options. 
The first is to simply defeat it, then grab the treasure chest or crystal that 
comes (or defeat it again if the undead revives). The second is to have it 
attack your level 99 characters so it gains enough experience so that, with a 
use or two of "steal exp", it can be targeted like the rest. I prefer the 
second method, and I strongly recommend it if that enemy is an undead enemy. 
If the enemy is sleeping, have a physically weak character (like your magic 
users) attack it with a physical attack. Casting "don't move" prior to waking 
it up helps a lot.

| 4.4  A helpful trap **040400** |

Traps being helpful - that sounds so bizarre and strange! Now how can a trap 
be helpful? First, let's understand what the traps are.

| 4.4.1  Traps and their effects **040410** |

A trap hides an item, only obtainable with the "move-find item" movement 
ability equipped. While practically every battle field has items obtainable by 
"move-find item", few actually contain traps. For those battle fields that do 
have traps, there are always 4 present. To trigger a trap, you must end a move 
exactly on a certain spot. They are explained as follows.

Sleeping gas - this puts the unit to sleep. I sometimes deliberately trigger 
this on the less useful characters to hasten the process some, but only do this 
once all the enemies are disabled. This is very useful for the rocket speed 
method, however (see section 7 for details on this method).
Death sentence - this adds the "death sentence" status to the unit. The 
character affected by it will instantly die when their turn comes when the 
counter was 1 before their turn. With a maxed speed and haste, this can be 
very dangerous.
Degenerator - this causes the unit to go down a level.
Steel needle - this deals HP damage to the unit. The HP damage done is 20% of 
the maximum.

| 4.4.2  Why that one trap is helpful **040420** |

Okay, you've seen what the traps do, and none of them even seem helpful at all. 
One of them actually is - degenerator. Sure you go down a level upon stepping 
on it, by why is it so helpful? By repeatedly triggering the trap to go down 
numerous levels with a character that has a low-stat-growth job (like the bard 
or dancer), then, after finishing the battle, changing to a job that results in 
high stat growth, stats will actually improve. The other traps are harmful 
though - avoid them (and let the enemies get into them, especially the sleeping 
gas trap). However, for characters with little to no use or are only useful 
early on (such as Ramza for raising the stat-raiser's speed), having that 
character trigger the "sleeping gas" trap is useful for speeding up the process 
since it results in more turns per minute of real world time for the stat-

To repeatedly retrigger the trap, move out of that location (one step is all 
you need), then, on the next turn, move to where the trap is again to trigger 
it again. Traps do not get triggered again by waiting in the same spot again. 
Traps can still be trigged with float active, however. To speed this up 
significantly, this is where teleport comes in handy. Use it to move to a 
location as far away as absolutely possible. This guarantees failure, causing 
the character to return to the previous location and trigger the trap, within 
one turn instead of two.

| 4.5  Speeding up the process **040500** |

Because repeatedly triggering the trap can take a long time (it needs to be 
done nearly 100 times!), this can mean that the battle goes on for a very long 
time. This section explains how to speed up the process significantly.

It may seem dumb, but, cast slow on your other characters (not the stat-raiser 
- cast haste on him/her instead). Slow cuts the speed in half allowing them to 
act less often and allowing the stat-raiser to act much more frequently. I 
only recommend doing this after applying the 4 backup disabling actions to the 
enemies first. The others are of too low of importance to be of any use. 
While it may seem that stop is better, it's not. With slow, at least you have 
some control, in the event you have to put enemies to sleep again and keep 
faith active. The time mage and oracle are best for this - leave the thief 

In addition, as another alternative, you could leave just two enemies alive as 
frogs with confusion and one sleeping and simply have the others wait far from 
it. With the awake, confused frog, it won't do anything at all. This way, you 
can focus exclusively on triggering the degenerator trap. I don't show this on 
my first YouTube video series (after all, 18 status effects is a bit crazy - so 
many that a scroll bar is needed with both directional arrows showing).

| 4.6  How far should I go? **040600** |

The higher the level you start from and, more importantly, the lower the level 
you end with, the better. Stopping at level 1 is the best, with 6, 9, and 14 
as the others, all with 0 exp. This provides immunity to math skill for the 
second phase. As a tip to make phase 2 easier when raising magic attack, stop 
at level 2 instead and there's a good reason for it. Don't worry, levels are 
extremely fast to get back (I've gained 57 levels within 10 minutes at the 
fastest on record - see the rocket speed method video series for details).

| 4.7  Ending the battle - flare **040700** |

Once you've reached the level you want to go to, it's time to end the battle. 
Have the stat-raiser only wait. Wait for the time mage to go then use "flare" 
as the spell to wipe out the enemies. For enemies that cannot be affected by 
math skill (such as starting out with 6 experience), use the monk to defeat 
them (he/she should almost always do 999 damage). It may take several rounds 
if you didn't use the "steal exp" tactic. "Meteor" is also a good one to use, 
though it's slow to charge and is best only if the enemies are grouped fairly 
close together.

 ####                                     ####
# 5  Setting up for stat increases **050000** #
 ####                                     ####

So, we've downleveled using a job class that has low stat growth. Now it's 
time to change to a job with high stat growth and gain all those levels back. 
This part will take only slightly longer than that of the first part, about 90 
to 150 minutes for any stat except magic attack or a monstrous 120 to 210 
minutes if you're raising magic attack. The range depends on what you do.

| 5.1  What stat(s) to raise **050100** |

Deciding which stats to raise is up to you. The job you change to determines 
this. For each stat (move and jump cannot be increased), I'm giving up to two 
of my recommendations with the best being the first and a close second being 

HP - mime or monk. The mime has the fastest HP growth, but is strongly not 
recommended if you're only after HP. The monk is best since it results in fast 
HP growth in considerably less time (though not quite as fast, it's still 
faster per unit of time).
MP - summoner or wizard. The summoner has the best and fastest MP growth 
overall with the wizard being a close second. The wizard case does have an 
added advantage - you can use it to turn enemies not targetable by math skill 
into frogs. For raw MP growth, go with the summoner.
Speed - ninja. The ninja seems to be the only one that actually raises speed 
to any noticeable degree.
Physical attack - knight or lancer. These two classes are equal in growth so 
pick whichever one you like best. You could make use of the knight's "speed 
break" though so I'd recommend this one more.
Magic attack - mime. This is the only class that actually raises magic attack 
and it so happens that it comes with strings attached. It's the cause of the 
second phase taking so long to uplevel. I'd recommend using the rocket speed 
method for this, since it makes it more effective.
General growth - ninja (slight loss in magic attack) or mime (high loss of MP). 
General growth is for raising as many stats as possible and as quickly as 
possible. The ninja is the best for general growth in stats since it has good, 
fast growth in every stat except magic attack which decreases about 1% for 
every cycle. The mime has growth in every stat except MP which will actually 
decrease and quite a bit (typically 30% per cycle, based on my observations 
that is).

| 5.2  Equipment and abilities, round 2 **050200** |

The setup should be the same as explained in section 3.2. The only difference, 
now, is with the stat-raiser. Always have "steal" as the secondary ability, 
even for Ramza. Stealing never wakes up an enemy (does it deal HP damage?). 
The support ability should be "Gained exp up", which makes level 99 quicker to 
reach as it doubles the exp gained. For the movement ability, have "Move-Get 
exp", because, this way, for every turn until about the mid or upper 50's, 
you'll gain level (provided you move afterwards though). Since all actions are 
capped at 99 exp per turn (even though the real maximum is 238), move-get exp 
will provide that last bit of experience needed for a level up in a given turn, 
of which will make phase 2 go much faster. For the reaction ability, keep 
"speed saver".

The "mime" is a real pain in this regard because you can't set any abilities at 
all. This greatly increases the amount of time it takes to get level 99 with 
the mime and you'll also have to rely on the "attack" command which will wake 
up any sleeping enemies (its mimickry will also get very annoying and slow 
things down as well).

For the others, the required/essential abilities must be the same, though the 
optional ones can be anything you see fit.

The equipment for everyone can be left as is, though you may need to change it 
for the stat-raiser since, by changing jobs, equipment is often unequipped or 
readjusted, even causing unwanted results. Unfortunately, you can't equip 
anything to the mime, but this isn't anywhere near as much of a problem as that 
of not being able to set abilities.

 ####                            ####
# 6  The next long battle **060000** #
 ####                            ####

Ready for another long battle? Be sure to have slightly more time available 
this time though. Instead of about 60 minutes, it can take potentially 110 
minutes with the speedups used, 150 with the mime, 240 with Ramza as the mime 
(assuming you stop at level 99 with 99 exp; the rocket speed method cuts this 
down to 45, 50, and ~100 respectively).

| 6.1  The basics **060100** |

What to do this time depends on who and what the stat-raiser is. Refer to the 
first sentence of each of the 4 following subsections to determine which one 
you use.

| 6.1.1  General stat raising **060110** |

When the stat-raiser is not Ramza or a mime, this is the section you use. 
Basically, use the same setup as that of phase 1, using Ramza to raise the 
speed of the stat-raiser and using steal exp then math skill to keep faith and 
sleep active on the enemies. Do not make the stat-raiser move until all 
enemies are asleep.

When all enemies are disabled, find the enemy with the highest level then move 
the stat-raiser to that enemy. Go ahead and steal gil from the lower level 
enemies along the way, especially if they're closer (if you can't quite reach 
an enemy but are within 3 tiles of one, consider using "steal heart" on it, 
provided there's some chance of success (even 1% is good enough). Avoid 
abilities that can only target the stat-raiser such as accumulate - you'll just 
be wasting time. You'll have to get all the into the upper 40's before a level 
87 enemy starts to result in a reduced speed. This means that you have plenty 
of time to get to the highest level enemy or get the other enemies that block 
it out of the way. I strongly recommend going all the way to level 99 with 99 
exp with this route and it comes quite fast. Unlike with attacking, which 
bottoms out at 1 exp per action, stealing gil bottoms out at 10 exp per action 
(this becomes 2 and 20 with "gained exp up"). This means you'll have at most 
10 actions for a level up (5 with "gained exp up"), which helps a lot. 
Unfortunately, exp gained is capped at 99 in one turn (even though it could 
potentially be as high as 238). This is where the "move-get exp" ability comes 
in. Clear until typically the middle or upper 50's, moving one tile is enough 
to get that last bit of experience for a level up, allowing for a constant 1 
level up per turn. With a 50-speed hasted stat-raiser, it's not unusual to get 
20 levels within 10 minutes this way (the rocket speed method makes this as 
much as 60). This chart will tell you how to move for each case:

| ex |       move | ex |    move | ex |    move | ex |    move |
| 99 |          1 | 48 | 4, 2x 1 | 32 | 4, 2x 1 | 24 | 4, 2x 1 |
| 98 |          2 | 46 | 8, 2x 2 | 30 |    2x 3 | 22 |    2x 3 |
| 96 |    3, 2x 1 | 44 |    2x 3 | 28 |    2x 4 | 20 |    2x 5 |
| 94 |    4, 2x 2 | 42 |    2x 4 |    |         |    |         |
| 92 | 5, 4, 2x 2 | 40 |    2x 5 |    |         |    |         |
| 90 |    5, 2x 3 |    |         |    |         |    |         |
| 88 |       2x 3 |    |         |    |         |    |         |
| 86 |       2x 4 |    |         |    |         |    |         |
| 84 |       2x 4 |    |         |    |         |    |         |
| 82 |       2x 5 |    |         |    |         |    |         |
| 80 |       2x 5 |    |         |    |         |    |         |

In this table, "ex" is the amount of experience you get upon stealing gil and 
before you move or after a move that resulted in a level up without being next 
to the enemy (such as moving 3 tiles after getting 90 exp from the preceeding 
steal - the next will be 88 so you'd use that). The "move" column is how many 
tiles to move to get that last bit of experience you need for that level up. 
The options are listed in order of priority - do the first listed option first, 
if possible. If that option can't be done, use the next option. The "2x 3" 
notation means that, upon stealing, you'll need to move twice for a distance of 
3 tiles (for 6 experience per move). If the list of available options don't 
apply or the amount of experience you get is not listed on the table (such as 
getting 72, 38, or 26 exp), wait at the end of the turn instead. You might be 
wondering why 96 requires 3 tiles of movement. If you steal and get 96 exp 
then move 2 tiles, for the 4 experience needed to level up, the next turn 
results in 2 tiles of movement and a steal for 94 exp totaling 98, coming 
short. The extra is to provide for this padding. 92 is an oddball as it 
depends on many circumstances. If you can move 5 tiles, do that. If you can't 
move 5 tiles, then move 4 instead. The 2x2 movement is slower to use, it's 
just another available option that works, useful when you don't want to move to 
a different side (as from having just the right position for the time mage to 
keep haste active on the stat-raiser, especially the case with the rocket speed 

Toward the end, it starts taking 4 or even 5 steals to gain a level. To speed 
this last part up, consider having the stat-raiser steal experience from the 
enemies. For optimal results, steal experience so that you get the least 
amount of overlap possible without coming short (unless a short movement can 
recover it. When you should start doing this is based on the number of enemies 
present and their experience. Since going for level 99 with 99 experience is 
the best and ultimate goal, essentially level 100, consider 100 as the basis. 
For every 3 enemies present, take 1 away. Let's say there were 7 enemies 
present. This means you have 97 2/3 (round it to 98) as the basis. Then, for 
every 50 experience the enemies have as a total, subtract 1 from this basis. 
Let's say the enemies have 35, 45, 5, 20, 85, 70, and 40 experience (all 
targetable by "5" for "math skill"). This sums up to 300. If you're unable to 
add these numbers well, an approximation is good enough - count 1 credit if the 
enemy has from 25 to 59 experience (59 because it takes 2 steals to get that 
which results in more experience) and count 2 credits if it has from 60 to 99 
experience then subtract the result from the first step by this amount (you'd 
have, for the example, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 1, and 1 credits, totaling 6 (that's easy 
to add, right?). This means you should start stealing experience, starting 
with the lowest level enemy (a recommendation), when the stat-raiser is level 
"98-(300/50)" or 92 (and whaddaya know, 300/50 is 6!). Once the enemy has no 
more experience to steal, attack it to defeat it (defeated enemies give 10 
extra experience, 20 with "gained exp up"). This will get you very close to 
having level 99 with 99 experience by the last enemy. Just steal gil from it 
until you have 99 experience at level 99 then attack it to finish the battle.

| 6.1.2  When using the mime **060120** |

When the stat-raiser is a mime but not Ramza, this is the section you use. The 
mime is annoying and slows the process down due to it insisting on copying the 
actions everyone makes. The copying prevents you from being able to turn 
enemies into frogs. Fortunately, there is a way to stop this copying.

As usual, have Ramza use "yell" on the mime to raise it's speed to the maximum. 
The mime, oddly, doesn't seem to copy "yell", at least that I've seen. Once 
the math skill users go, use the usual CT 4 pray faith route first thing. The 
bonus here is that, since faith isn't guaranteed on all enemies, the mime may 
actually get some of those enemies. Ramza's "yell" can offset the mime's CT so 
it doesn't land on a multiple of 4 where the mime will get itself, at the 
mimimum (giving 10 exp). What to do next depends on if you stopped at level 1 
or level 2 in phase 1.

If you stopped at level 1 during phase 1, then, when the next math skill user 
goes, use "foxbird" on as many enemies as possible. Normally, it'd be "frog", 
but what happens when you cast "frog" on something that's already been turned 
into a frog? It gets undone, right? Foxbird, since it takes 2 or 3 actions, 
usually 2 (there's a 1 in 6 chance the enemy will become a chicken on the third 
use, 1 in 5 that it'll have at least one turn as a chicken), is the best 
option. With the mime copying it, that's 2 uses in one so there's a very good 
chance you'll get a chicken or two. The mime should level up at this point. 
If not, use foxbird with the next math skill user, to affect different enemies.

If you stopped at level 2 during phase 2 or you got the mime to level up from 
level 1, use level prime number frog to turn your mime into a frog. This seems 
dumb, but it has several benefits. Sure frog is the most crippling status 
effect, it's very useful when the mime is turned into a frog. The most 
important thing is that stops copying everyone's actions. This will allow you 
to turn the enemies into frogs without worrying about the mime undoing it. 
Second, without being able to steal gil from an enemy (you can't set any 
abilities for the mime, remember?), you're left with nothing but attacking. By 
having the mime as a frog, the attack power is low, allowing you to strike the 
highest level enemy several times before defeating it. Use "power break" on 
the mime until it's physical attack is either 1 or 2 to prolong the enemy's 
life. We're not after defeating enemies, we're after leveling up and even if 
it means 1 damage, you'll still get experience for it, lots of it (early on 
you'll get lots of experience).

While you may move the mime as you see fit, do not have it attack anything. 
Focus on disabling the enemies. Unlike what's done in phase 1, sleep is not an 
option, except on the extras. Attacking an enemy, of which does HP damage, 
will wake a sleeping enemy. Instead, use "speed break" on the enemy to reduce 
its speed to 1 then keep slow active on it. With a speed of 1 and slow status, 
the enemy's CT will never increase which is much the same as casting "stop" on 
it. "slow" lasts 20% longer (about 24 charges as opposed to 20), it has a much 
higher success rate (compare stop with 60% to slow with something like 93% - 
92% and 100% if the enemy has faith), and it has a much shorter charge time. 
It takes 2 charges to cast "slow" (1 with short charge) as opposed to 7 charges 
to cast "stop" (4 with short charge). Since slow is more important, cast it 
after every other turn the time mage goes. I usually alternate in the 
following way: slow on the enemy being attacked, haste on the stat-raiser, 
slow on the enemy being attacked, don't move on any enemy (for the fun of it), 
then repeating this cycle again with another slow spell. This assumes your 
time mage's speed is at least 11 (11 is pushing it since haste may expire 
shortly before the time mage casts it again) and you wait at the end of each 
turn. Just have the mime constantly attack the enemy with the highest level.

When the enemy gets to within 15 or so hits of being defeated (you may prefer 
10 to 20), consider healing it. Remember, we're not after defeating the 
enemies, yet, we're after gaining levels. Check an enemy's status to see if 
it's undead (press circle upon viewing the enemy's status to view the list of 
status effects - "undead" is apparently always the first listed). Just because 
the enemy isn't undead by default doesn't mean it's undead. If you've cast the 
"zombie" spell on it, it'll become an undead enemy. If the enemy is not an 
undead enemy, then use math skill and cure 3 to heal it. Be warned that this 
will deal HP damage to the undead and if the undead are awakened, you'll need 
to immediately wake them up. If the enemy is an undead enemy, use the oracle's 
"life drain" spell to heal it. It'll deal damage to your own character, but 
chakra will fix that. For best results, I find it easier to actually just make 
the enemy undead and use the "life drain" method to heal it. Healing the enemy 
will be more likely if you haven't used "power break" on your mime. While this 
lowers physical attack, it's only temporary for this battle - the normal value 
is still kept untouched.

Once you've reached the point where you want to stop, use math skill and flare 
to clean out the battle field of enemies as usual.

| 6.1.3  Ramza as the stat-raiser **060130** |

If Ramza is the stat-raiser and is not a mime, this is the section you use. 
For the most part, the process is quite similar to that of general stat 
raising, though the start has several key differences. As usual, disable the 
enemies with CT 4 pray faith followed by frog. Leave all but one enemy as a 
frog so that the other enemies get separated. Once separated, put the lone 
enemy to sleep, but still don't turn it into a frog yet.

When the frogs are separated, get Ramza to chase after the frogs. While you 
get Ramza to where the frogs are, the ones that ran, berserk them and use 
foxbird on them so that their brave is some value from 9 to 38. Using foxbird 
weakens the enemies. Without the use of "yell", you'll need to depend on the 
"speed save" reaction ability to raise Ramza's speed. Berserking the enemies 
will force them to act. With a brave of 10, it's quite often the frog will 
move toward Ramza, as if to attack, but won't bother acting. Berserk will 
force the attack to occur which is neccessary to getting Ramza's speed up. 
Once all the other frogs are after Ramza, turn the separated enemy into a frog. 
Continue to deliberately take hits by the weak frogs (use math skill to restore 
Ramza's HP if needed) until Ramza's speed maxes at 50. Don't forget to steal 
gil from them and move so you gain a level. To speed this up some, avoid 
casting haste on Ramza (cast slow on him even!). Keep Ramza away from where 
the others are or the berserk frogs will go after the others instead. Berserk 
frogs will always go after the nearest character. You should get the speed 
maxed by level 40 to 50 so the 1-tile movement is still sufficient enough for a 
level up at this point, even when stealing from a level 87 enemy.

Now, what if you're surrounded where you're unable to move? This is where 
"steal heart" comes in - use it on the enemy with the highest success rate (of 
course, make sure it opens a path). The "steal heart" ability adds "charm" 
status to the enemy. "Charm" causes the enemy to become an ally, attacking 
other enemies without the loss of intelligence caused by "confusion" status. 
Because that enemy is now an ally, you can now walk over that tile and get away 
from being surrounded. To avoid this route, end your turn either against a 
single enemy (so that it takes 3 frogs to surround Ramza), or out in the open 
(where it'll take 4 frogs to surround Ramza). Also, avoid going against 
obstacles, impassable routes, or the edges of the battle field. Movement along 
here is fine, but don't end a move here. Being surrounded on all 4 sides does 
have it's use though - the enemies will act sooner which results in Ramza's 
speed increasing faster which can make this process slightly faster than 
remaining out in the open, but it can also make it slightly slower. If only 4 
or fewer enemies are present, then getting surrounded is indeed faster. If 
more than 4 are present, getting surrounded is slightly slower.

Once Ramza's speed is maxed, put the frogs that were attacking Ramza to sleep 
(since they're berserk, the ones that are awake won't wake up the sleeping ones 
by attacking them). Then, just follow the process as outlined in the general 
stat-raising section, ignoring the first paragraph.

| 6.1.4  Ramza as the mime **060140** |

If Ramza is the stat-raiser and is a mime, this is the section you use. I 
advise against this combination unless you have 3 to even hours to spend (!). 
If you insist on taking this route, I strongly advise that you raise Ramza's 
permanent speed first, and raise it a lot. If the level 1 Ramza has a speed of 
6 (this is about what you'd normally have), this battle could easily take 6 
hours (2 to 2 1/2 hours with the risky rocket speed method) for the recommended 
level 86 stopping point. A level 1 Ramza with a speed of 24 will cut this time 
to about 3 hours (1.5 hours with the rocket speed method). You'll have that 
kind of speed once Ramza as a squire has a permanent speed of 50. Trouble is, 
by then, his physical attack will be maxed and, as a frog, he'll likely do 96 
damage to the enemy. It'll require a lot of uses of "power break" before this 
can really take off.

Aside from the inability to raise speed, the method is exactly the same as that 
of a general mime.

| 6.2  How far to go **060200** |

The longer you can sustain the battle from the low starting point, the better. 
If the stat-raiser is not a mime, go all the way to level 99 with 99 
experience. This doesn't take all that long, especially if you follow my 
speedups and shortcuts. If the stat-raiser is a mime, then you may want to 
consider stopping at a much lower level. A good point to stop in this case is 
when it starts taking 6 turns to gain a level. At best, this is level 90 (if 
attacking a level 99 enemy). Good stopping points are these (for immunity to 
"math skill" outside 3), always with 0 experience: 66, 69, 74, 77, 78, 81, 82, 
86 (second best), 87 (best), 91 (third best), 93, 94, and 98. Stopping at 
level 87, 86, or 91 is recommended the most because they are the best balance 
between time needed to uplevel and the total growth. By then, it starts taking 
5 or 6 actions to gain a level (10 in the worst case scenario). The higher the 
stopping point, the better. I usually like to stop at around 87 or 91, 
depending on the level of the enemy being attacked. If the stat-raiser is not 
a mime, then I wouldn't recommend stopping until level 94 at the lowest.

 ####                               ####
# 7  The rocket speed method **070000** #
 ####                               ####

If you watched segment 5 of the stat-raising basics video series, you saw how I 
gained 9 levels within just 5 minutes. If you thought that rate was fast, 
think again. It's slow and I mean slow (did someone cast the slow spell?)! 
Try 50 levels within 10 minutes, even as a frog (err, mime)! How about, 
instead of doing phase 1 in an hour, doing it in as little as a half hour? How 
about doing phase 2 in just 1 hour instead of 2? The rocket speed method is 
just that - it's blazing fast, but it comes with a catch - it's a bit risky. 
If something goes wrong, it can take a while to get things back in order again. 
For the most part, this is actually unlikely to happen if you follow what I 

| 7.1  Basic preparation **070100** |

Of greatest use is maxing out Ramza's permanent speed at 50. This can take a 
while, but as the videos show, the 50 speed really hastens the process. A 50-
speed Ramza with permanent haste (thanks to the "excalibur" sword) can use 
"yell" several times in a row, quickly raising the speed of your stat-raiser. 
But then, you're thinking... if Ramza's speed is 50 and always has haste 
active, then Ramza, together with the stat-raiser, will dominate the AT. You 
are right, but, what happens when you deliberately make Ramza go into the sleep 
trap or have a sleep spell cast on him? His turn is delayed for 60 charges 
leaving the sole dominance of the AT toward your stat-raiser. Ah ha!

A second preparation is to have your casters with plenty of MP (at least 150, 
250 recommended). The high MP case is not required, but it's useful. 
Otherwise, you'll have a small adjustment and a very slight loss in speed 
(adding maybe 3 minutes to the second phase). This is all the additional 
preparation that's needed for the characters.

The other preparations are turning off the "effects" and "ability name" 
messages along with turning off the revealing of the amount of exp and JP you 
get upon making an action. This has a far greater effect on speed than might 
think. Some messages will still show, however, such as stepping into the sleep 
trap and seeing the "TRAP! It's sleeping gas." message. Maxing out the 
scrolling speed and repeat rates for tile cursor position helps a lot as well.

| 7.2  The first phase **070200** |

The first phase, with the rocket speed method, can take as little as 30 
minutes, though I seem to average about 35 to 40 minutes. Compare that to the 
roughly 60 minutes for the method covered in section 4. That's 60% as long!

| 7.2.1  Equipment and abilities **070210** |

The setup I recommend is as follows:

Ramza squire with battle skill and "move+3" - have the excalibur and germinas 
boots equipped
Thief with math skill and "magic attack up" - max bonus speed boost is 2
Oracle with time magic and "short charge" - max bonus speed boost is 1
Time mage with math skill and "magic attack up" - max bonus speed boost is 2

If you don't have the recommended amount of MP, have the oracle as a monk 
instead (for chakra and a high physical attack to make the most of it), and 
with yin yang magic as the secondary ability.

For the stat-raiser, have the usual setup - "teleport" as the movement ability. 
However, have equipment that doesn't give bonus speed increases (such as the 
thief hat, flash hat, or running shoes).

| 7.2.2  The first phase battle **070220** |

Unlike the method explained in section 4, have the 50-speed Ramza go around 
defeating every single enemy except one. That one enemy that is left out must 
be targetable by math skill in some way (excluding 3 as usual - 3, for the 
rocket speed method, is fine, but because the effect plays 5 or 6 times instead 
of just 1 or 2, it'll slow the process down some). The enemy's level doesn't 
matter here. With 5 enemies, you'd have to be quite unlucky to have none of 
the enemies targetable by math skill (this happens once in every 6886 battles 
of 5 enemies, 0.015%). Unlike using CT 4 pray faith to add faith status to 
everything, use it so that it affects just the lone enemy. If it misses, try 
again. Once faith is added, turn the enemy into a frog, the most crippling 
status effect of all. Once the enemy is a frog, have Ramza use "speed break" 
on it (make sure it's not about to act first), then use "speed break" on your 
own characters, leaving the stat-raiser untouched. Bring the oracle's speed to 
2 (it takes 50 charges for another turn to come and sleep lasts 60). If MP is 
lacking, have the monk's speed at 3 instead. Bring the time mage's speed to 3 
(it takes 33 or 34 charges for another turn to come though haste lasts only 32 
charges - wait at the end of a turn to avoid this). Then, bring the thief's 
speed to 3 (faith lasts 32 charges, so a wait is required at the end of a 

Cast either slow or sleep on the stat-raiser. This seems odd since the stat-
raiser is the one who needs the 50 speed at the end and haste. This actually 
speeds up the process, though only slightly. This way, Ramza can focus on 
lowering the speed of the low-importance characters (the thief, oracle, and 
time mage). Then, when the speed of the low-importance characters is at the 
lowest, Ramza can use "yell" on the stat-raiser. With slow, which halves the 
speed, Ramza can use "yell" a few times in a row (sleep has a stronger effect 
which speeds the process up slightly more). Consider the stat-raiser with 
haste and a speed of 40. This makes CT charge by 60 for each charge. Ramza 
will charge 75 each time. Since both only do one of each (the stat-raiser uses 
a move while Ramza uses an act), the CT starts at 20 plus any overlap. This 
will cause Ramza and the stat-raiser to often alternate between each other with 
Ramza occasionally going twice. Of course, you'll make progress with the 
downleveling, but the sooner you get rid of Ramza, the better, of which is 
where the "slight" comes in. With slow on the stat raiser, CT only charges 20 
giving Ramza 3 or 4 consecutive uses of "yell". The difference this has is 
only slight (shaving off maybe a minute at the most), but it still adds up over 
time. Besides, once the stat-raiser's speed reaches 50, haste will cause the 
CT to charge by 75 instead of 25 allowing for very frequent turns (want up to 
23 turns in a row?).

Once the stat-raiser's speed is maxed, put Ramza to sleep by triggering the 
sleep trap. This will cause the stat-raiser to seriously dominate the AT. 
It's not that unusual to see the stat-raiser have 12 consecutive turns. If 
Ramza does wake up, of which is bound to happen, simply move him 1 tile in any 
direction, wait, then return to the sleep trap to trigger it again (a 
teleportation failure also works).

Have the oracle only cast sleep on the enemy and move at the end of each turn 
(1 tile is good enough). If MP is lacking, have the monk alternate between 
casting sleep and using chakra with a maximum of 1 move per cycle. Have the 
thief use math skill to keep faith active on the enemy, but always wait at the 
end of the turn. Have the time mage constantly cast haste on the stat-raiser 
and wait at the end of the turn. When fewer than about 12 to 15 turns remain, 
consider having the time mage, cast quick on himself/herself so that way you 
won't have to wait as long for the turn of the time mage to come along again. 
Haste will expire another 5 or so charges later (4 or 5 turns). This way, 
after the stat-raiser reaches level 1, you'll have the time mage (or the thief) 
ready to cast flare on the enemy using math skill.

| 7.3  The second phase **070300** |

The second phase is fairly similar to that of the first, although there are 
differences. As usual, the method depends on whether or not you're raising 
magic attack. If not raising magic attack, this method, instead of taking 110 
minutes, it can take as little as about 45 minutes though I seem to average 
about 50 to 60. If raising magic attack, going to level 94 takes as little as 
50 minutes though my average is around 55 to 65, much better than the 130 
minutes it used to take. I don't know how it would be for Ramza, but I expect 
a similar but slightly longer amount of time (since the frogs have to act often 
to raise Ramza's speed) - about 50 to 80 minutes is a good estimate.

| 7.3.1  Equipment and abilities **070310** |

The setup I recommend is pretty much the same as that in section 7.2.1. The 
only difference is that of the stat-raiser. If not raising magic attack, have 
the usual "gained exp up" and "move - get exp" abilities equipped and as usual, 
don't have any equipment that provides bonuses to speed. If raising magic 
attack, using the mime, then, obviously, nothing can be set for the stat-raiser 
(which is a major disappointment).

| 7.3.2  The second phase battle **070320** |

The second phase's battle is similar to the first phase, very similar. The 
method you use depends on whether or not your stat-raiser is a mime. In all 
cases, first, find the enemy with the highest level. If more than one enemy 
has the same highest level, then choose one that is targetable by math skill in 
the usual way. If both are targetable by math skill, then choose the one with 
the highest faith. Have the 50-speed hasted Ramza go around defeating every 
single enemy except the one with the highest level. If the highest level enemy 
cannot be targeted by math skill, put it sleep using the oracle (steal the 
"defense ring" if you have to), then steal exp from it. If the enemy doesn't 
have enough exp so that stealing exp reduces it to 0 or 1 (such as it having 6 
exp), then make it attack your own character before putting it to sleep (use 
foxbird on it to help minimize the damage). Once done, add faith to the enemy. 
While doing this, like with phase 1, cast slow or sleep (avoid sleep if using 
the mime unless you stopped at level 2 during phase 1) on the stat-raiser to 
slightly speed up the process. From this point, the methods differ until the 

When at the end, within 10 actions of reaching your goal, consider having the 
time mage cast quick on itself to get the offset needed. Once the goal is 
reached, have the stat-raiser wait then have the time mage, after quick 
discharges, use math skill and flare to clean out the lone enemy.

|  General stat-raising **070321** |

If the stat-raiser is not a mime, this is the method you use. After the usual 
starting preparations, turn the enemy into a frog and put it to sleep. Once 
the enemy disabling is complete, use "speed break" on your own characters. The 
speeds the low-importance characters stop at are the same as those in phase 1 - 
the oracle stops at 2 (if MP is lacking, then have the monk stop at 3) while 
the thief and time mage stop at 3. Like with phase 1, have the thief keep 
faith active on the enemy, waiting after each turn, have the oracle keep sleep 
active on the enemy, moving during each turn (if MP is lacking, have the monk 
alternate between using sleep and chakra, moving no more than once per cycle), 
and have the time mage keep slow then haste active on the stat-raiser. Keep 
slow active on the stat-raiser until the speed gets above 40 then use haste and 
keep it active until the end. Raise the speed of the stat-raiser to 50 using 
Ramza's "yell" then make Ramza set off the sleeping gas trap. When Ramza 
eventually wakes up, have him move one tile in any direction and wait. Then, 
on his next turn, return to the sleep trap to trigger it again.

At this point, it's not unusual to see 15 consecutive turns by the stat-raiser. 
Because of this high number of consecutive turns, 50 levels within 10 minutes 
is very feasible (even 60 is possible, though pushing it). You may avoid the 
quick-casting route if you want gil (70,000 a minute sure is nice).

|  Raising magic attack **070322** |

If the stat-raiser is a mime, this is the method you use. Before the battle 
starts, have the mime positioned so it is not adjacent to any of your other 
characters. Follow the usual battle starting methods. Once the mime reaches 
level 2, use math skill (level prime number) to turn the mime into a frog. 
Once that's done, turn the enemy into a frog and cast slow on it. Have Ramza 
use "speed break" on it until the enemy's speed is 1. This will stop the 
enemy's CT from charging. Use "power break" on the frogged mime to reduce its 
physical attack to either 1 or 2.

Then, use "speed break" on your own characters to reduce their speed. The 
thief, like before, should stop at 3. What the oracle and time mage stop at 
depends. If your oracle uses time magic as opposed to punch art (for chakra, 
if MP is lacking), get the oracle's speed to 3 and the time mage to 4 (it takes 
25 charges for another turn to come and slow lasts just 24 - wait at the end of 
each turn to get that offset). Have the slower oracle keep haste active and 
the faster time mage keep slow active. If you prefer to have the time mage 
keep both haste and slow in check, have the time mage's speed at 7 instead and 
have the time mage alternate, useful if you don't have the MP (so the oracle or 
monk can use chakra as needed). Reduce the oracle's speed to 2 (or even 1) in 
this case and use him/her to add other status effects or restore the time 
mage's MP (with chakra).

At this speed, it's not that unusual to have 12 consecutive turns. Even though 
you can't make use of the "gained exp up" ability and the related, you can 
still gain 50 levels within 10 minutes as the mime. Without the "move-get 
exp", wait at the end of each turn instead of moving - this makes the process 
about 40% faster as the mime (1 out of every 15 actions will need 2 charges 
instead of the usual 1, instead of 1 in every 3). Move, however, if the rather 
annoying knock back effect occurs. You can thwart this by attacking the enemy 
toward water (if it doesn't have float), against a cliff face (I think a height 
difference of 2 or 3 is the mimimum needed, but going up instead - down can 
actually cause instant death to the enemy and you don't want that), against an 
impassable object, or against the edges of the battle field. Water and the 
edges of the battlefield are the easiest to use.

| 7.3.3  How far to go **070330** |

The point at which you stop leveling and set up for the first phase of the next 
cycle is up to you. If the stat-raiser is not a mime, then obviously level 99 
with 99 exp would be the stopping point. If the stat-raiser is a mime, then 94 
is the best stopping point. 93, 98, 91, 87, and 86 are other good stopping 
points (86 and 87 are only worthy if your highest level enemy is no higher than 
92 and you don't want to bother with more than 6 turns for a level up (think 
twice about this - even in this scenario, you can still get 2 levels within 
just one minute). The nearest level to the point where you get 10 exp every 
action (when your character matches the level of the enemy) is the best 
stopping point and recommended the most. Still, on a level 96 enemy, it takes 
less than hour to get level 99 with 99 exp, despite needing 15 actions at the 

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# 8  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) **070000** #
 ####                                        ####

Here are some questions that may be (or have been) asked involving this. If 
you have any questions you'd like to ask, see the question at the bottom.

Q. I'm unable to find the roughly 50 to 150 minutes to do each round (due to 
my work schedule). Any suggestions?
A. While I have explained some methods to speeding up this process, as 
explained in section 4.5 the lower the level you stop at during the first 
round, the faster the stat increases happen during the second phase. During 
the second phase, the higher the level you stop at, the longer and faster the 
stat increases occur. I'm only providing recommendations and I've gone well 
beyond what I'd consider useful as well (such as it taking more than 3 turns to 
level up where it starts to really become noticeable). If all else, use the 
somewhat risky but ultra fast rocket speed method as this way, you'll only need 
to find 40 minute's worth of time for the first phase and about 60 minutes (65 
with the mime) for the second phase.

Q. The calculator is so slow making it difficult to learn the abilities. Any 
A. First, for best results, get it so that all 5 of your main characters have 
access to the calculator class, but only have one character as that job. A 
level 99 character really helps speed up the learning since 24 JP come from 
just level alone (36 with "Gained JP Up" equipped). In battle, have Ramza 
constantly use "yell" on the calculator to speed him/her up all the way to 50. 
While raising the speed, constantly have the calculator steal gil. Each theft 
results in JP being gained. Even with job level going to 8, keep going. You 
need 2550 JP to learn just the main skills alone, 500 for the reaction 
abilities, 350 for the very useful "Gained exp up", and 800 for the movement 
abilities, a grand total of 4200 JP. With 72 JP being gained each time, 18 JP 
is given to the others who have access to the calculator class, and with the 
very frequent actions, JP comes like crazy. My thief would probably have 
obtained over 2 million JP by now in the thief class alone and that's without 
"Gained JP Up".... After a short while, you'll soon have 9999 JP - keep going 
still further. Select one of your other characters and view the "status" menu 
of it, then select again to bring up the status effects then the jobs list 
(you'll skip to the jobs list immediately if the character doesn't have any 
status effects). Once 4300 JP is available (a slight bit extra for a safety 
margin, unless you want to be calculator again). It comes faster than you 
think. If you used the tactics for the "rocket speed method", for phase 2, you 
could have the JP for everyone only 30 minutes in. This way, everyone will be 
able to master the calculator class without even needing to become a calculator 
at all, saving the effort (and your party's wallet gets so fat, that it seems 
like it could explode from the pressure of all that gil). If you started 
stealing when speed is maxed, you could very well have another 1.3 million gil 
in your party's wallet, more than enough for almost anything, though do expect 
about 250 steals.

Q. Does this work with the PSP version?
A. I have no idea - I don't have a PSP. The best I can say is to try it out.

Q. Level 99 with all jobs mastered before Sweegy Woods? Without good 
equipment, how did you accomplish that?
A. Luck and discoveries I made. The dates cycled through one whole year (16 
months if I recall) when I got that. The monk was the most useful until about 
level 60. I then tried using "mimic daravon", which adds sleep with almost no 
chance, and found that it worked surprisingly well. From then on, I've used 
the oracle to put enemies to sleep. I avoided the calculator class for quite a 
while, because of the severe speed handicap. However, Ramza's yell fixed that 
problem. With "math skill", I found that I could put enemies to sleep no 
matter how far away they were. I've since had it so that I had two characters 
with math skill, a thief being one since it tends to strike first (good for 
adding faith to enemies first thing). I have a 3-part YouTube video showing 
how things were around level 13 and another for when I finally reached level 

Q. Why not have 5 thieves stealing gil if you're after gil?
A. There are 3 reasons to avoid having more than 2 hasted 50-speed thieves. 
In third place is the fact that there has to be a way to keep status effects in 
check. A thief with math skill can make up for this, however. In second place 
is the fact that, with ultra fast thieves, it takes longer to get a third thief 
to get the speed up since the other two dominate the AT. In first place, there 
seems to be a cap of 2.1 million gil gained in one battle. I've had a 4-hour 
battle with hasted 50-speed thieves constantly stealing gil. I should've 
gotten an estimated 5.4 million gil, but found that I only got about 2.1 
million once the battle was done (even though I was still getting experience 
and JP for the theft). At the fastest possible, about 70,000 gil per minute, 
it'll only take 30 minutes to reach the gil limit....

Q. Does math skill and flare help get through story-based battles?
A. Definitely. I zipped through chapter 3 in under an hour because of it! 
Zodiac monsters (those with more than 1000 HP) are often defeated before they 
even get a chance to act because of it (and this was well before I discovered 
this stat-raising trick). If they do act, they only get to move because I'm 
too far away from it so it's actions can't affect anything and there's more 
than enough time for a few more rounds of math skill to wipe one out. Although 
you can't tell what level or exp the zodiac monsters have, just go through the 
options to find one that targets it and fire away. Sometimes, enemies may 
still remain. With often more than half their forces out of commission (note 
the 5 in 6 chance of an enemy being affected by math skill for just level and 
experience alone), it'll be very difficult for the enemy to stand any chance. 
The only downside to doing this is that you'll miss out on rare or important 
equipment such as the Genji equipment set or those magical guns (i.e. the blaze 
gun). With max HP, MP, speed, and attack, equipment is useless outside status 
protection anyway, what little is actually needed. Check this first before 
using flare on everything. With level 99 before Sweegy Woods, random battles 
that contain human enemies will have equipment that far, far exceeds what 
you'll be able to buy from stores for a long time - steal it! I've had the 
thief hat, black costume, etc. since first thing in chapter 2! Don't worry if 
math skill targets guests (I put them to sleep anyway, since they're annoying 
as you have no control over them). The enemies go down well before that 
counter reaches 1 and there's always math skill to revive them too.

Q. I can't disable some of the key enemies in the story! What can I do?
A. This is most commonly the case during chapter 4. As an example, take 
Elmdor. Elmdor is one of the toughest, vulnerable to slow, the most disabling 
you can get. The assassins are vulnerable to berserk which is extremely 
helpful since it prevents them from using their instant-death and charm 
actions. If all else, just math skill + flare them out. The only Genji 
equipment of any use is just the shield and the accessory. The others just 
provide HP boosts (and with this process, it becomes completely useless).

Q. 18 status effects!? Are you crazy!?
A. The more disabled the enemy, the better. I especially like how the icon 
"dances" up and down while it cycles through a dozen icons. With the enemy as 
a chicken, and sleeping, protect and shell have essentially no use to the 
enemy, along with float and regen. Besides, with faith on just the enemies 
alone, and flare, 999 damage is practically guaranteed, even with shell. I 
thought 18 status effects was the limit, but "poison" and "regen" are mutually 
exclusive (in the same way "slow" and "haste" are mutually exclusive) - I've 
never seen that in any FF game I'm aware of (FF12 for example).

Q. How do I raise move and jump?
A. It's impossible. The only way to raise them is through changing jobs, 
equipment (the accessory, the germinas boots for example) and the movement 

Q. A human enemy seems to be immune to every status effect, how can I disable 
that enemy?
A. There's a very good chance the helmet (barette) or mantle (especially the 
feather mantle) is doing it. You'll have to get in there and steal it before 
you can attempt to disable him/her. The helmet is almost always the thief hat 
(which sells for a modest 17,500 gil making it a good steal). Mantles provide 
not just physical evasion, but also magic evasion, which makes it more 
difficult to disable the enemies (faith seems unaffected). If a mantle is 
present, immunity is not provided - just keep trying. Consider yourself lucky 
if this happens because, with max stats, the only good thing equipment is for 
is status effect protection (and having permanent good status effects active).

Q. What about the treasures and crystals dropped from expired enemies? Should 
I get them?
A. The enemies, since they're sleeping or their CT doesn't charge up, won't 
have a chance to act, so go ahead. The treasures generally don't have much use 
and the crystals are only worthy for restoring the MP of your casters (all 999 
if needed, although you probably won't use up that much, except in the second 
phase where the stat-raiser is a mime (and especially if it's Ramza)).

Q. Can this method work for monsters?
A. Sort of - it's a game of chance. I don't use monsters since they're quite 
limiting (after all math skill and flare on a time mage or summoner is 
generally all you need). I have noticed with a few enemies that HP and MP upon 
a level up jumps a lot at times (I once saw a case of an increase of about 86 
on an enemy that leveled up to 93!). Beyond this chance-based case of inviting 
such a monster into the party, it's about as far I tell. For monsters already 
in your party, then I doubt it works.

Q. Can this method work for guests?
A. No. Since guests cannot be controlled, you can't constantly get them into 
the degenerator trap. They also only appear during story-based battles, not 
random battles, which further hinders it. If you do use this method in a 
story-based battle and you get a guest along with, feel free to disable that 
guest with sleep, frog, and the related but, unlike the enemies, don't let that 
guest wake up! Because of the lack of control, I find guests annoying as it 
is, so I tend to, with math skill, disable them in the same way as I do with 
enemies (a berserk, confused frog for a guest... how funny - it's seems like a 
comedy relief show prop that strayed from the prop room!).

Q. What is a charge?
A. A character's speed determines how much their CT will increase (status 
effects like haste and slow alter this). Let's say a character's CT is 60 and 
has a speed of 14 without haste or slow status. With no character or enemy 
having a CT of 100 (or any sleeping or stopped enemy), a charge will occur 
where the CT increases. For the example case, that character's CT will go to 
74. If still nothing has a CT of 100, another charge occurs making it 88 then 
102. A CT of 100 and above at this point will just be noted as 100. After the 
character makes both a move and an act, you'll see the 2 left over on the CT. 
If an act or move was performed without the other, CT starts at 20 plus 
whatever was left over (making it 22 in the example). The only unknown I have 
with CT is when multiple units or actions have their CT over 100 - I don't know 
which will occur first. Magic, dances, and songs work the same way. A speed 
of 34 for a spell means that 3 charges are needed (the spell doesn't need to be 
charged 3 times, but rather, CT needs to change 3 times). When starting a 
battle, as seen from the "the basics of stat-raising" video series, using CT 4 
gets everything for one reason. It takes 8 charges for CT to reach at least 
100 on the math skill users. 8 is a multiple of 4 so indeed, everything will 
be affected. If the highest speed present was 10 or 11, CT 5 works instead 
because it takes 10 charges to reach at least 100. It's how the CT system 
actually works.

Q. When an enemy has a speed of 1 and slow status, why doesn't its CT ever 
A. Integer math. 1/2 is 0.5 and with integer math, all fractional parts are 
discarded without being rounded (thus, 1.9999 and 1.00271 will both be 1). 
This makes the speed 0 and you should know what that means, right? For every 
charge that occurs to CT, 0 is being added to this enemy's CT which is why it 
never changes, until slow lapses.

Q. How do you know that a particular status effect needs 32 or 60 charges?
A. Observations. Hints of this are present in the videos. For best results, 
have some unit (preferably an enemy without slow, haste, sleep, or stop status) 
with a slow speed (like 1 or 2) and someone with a high speed (a hasted 50). 
Upon making an action, best with math skill, note the CT of the slow unit 
before ending the turn. After a bit, just before the effect expires, note the 
CT of that slow unit again and monitor it after every turn of the fast 
character. The difference in the CT upon the status effect expiring determines 
the the number of charges needed for it to expire. Repeat the test to validate 
the results. From this, you can get the idea that sleep lasts about 60 
charges, slow lasts 24, stop lasts a mere 20, haste lasts 32, faith lasts 32, 
and poison lasts 36.

Q. What other places are there that I can use?
A. Aside from Fovoham Plains, Zeklaus Desert, and probably Bervenia Volcano, I 
don't actually know. Few areas seem to have traps though. If you could E-mail 
me (see the bottom question) with more places where traps are present, I'd 
appreciate it. I use Dolbodar Swamp since I'm used to it, it's level (making 
it easier to make the most of spells), and it's easier (since the enemies tend 
to have a movement range of just 3 (blue dragon, a rarity, has 5). My top 
favorite place, Bariaus Valley, doesn't have traps (I've spent nearly 100 hours 

Q. If YouTube only shows the segment length to the second, how do you know it 
to the centisecond?
A. Virtual Dub from my original AVIs, show the number of frames present - a 
simple addition and division is all that's needed. Precision beyond 2 decimal 
places is useless since one frame is 3 1/3 centiseconds.

Q. How come, the newer the videos, the more knowledgeable you seem about the 
A. I didn't record everything all in one go. In fact, some cases actually 
took several takes (the one for magic attack took 3) because the quality of the 
explanations were too poor or the duration was too long. The "basics" video 
series was recorded shortly after I first started. I didn't bother to check 
the "battle mechanics" guide - I figured out almost everything on my own. As I 
progressed with the stat-raising, I studied the game's behaviors in much more 
depth using tests and experiments. In addition, at the time I recorded the 
"basics" series, I had no idea how to raise magic attack. I stayed away from 
the mime because it was annoying (I had to reset the console because the mime 
kept causing problems). I was told that the mime raised magic attack so I 
looked for ways to work around the problems of unexpected foxbird, zombie, 
blind, etc. uses on my own characters. I eventually figured out the bulk of 
what is needed for this process on my own. As time went on, I found new ways 
to enhance the process, both speeding it up (especially this), and making it 

Q. I have a question or suggestion about this, how can I contact you?
A. E-mail me at "ulillillia (symbol with a small a inside) hotmail spec com". 
The E-mail is "encrypted" to help prevent spam bots from picking it up and 
delivering dozens of spam messages. I check my E-mail every 25 2/3 hours, so 
you can expect a response within 30 hours, provided there's something to 
comment on. The exception is if I'm unable to get online for some reason, 
though this is rare.

 ####                   ####
# 9  Legal stuff **090000** #
 ####                   ####

Legal stuff - it can be boring, but it's very important.

| 9.1  Copyright **090100** |

This document is copyright (C) 2009 by ulillillia. It may not be placed on any 
Web site outside GameFAQs and my own at www.ulillillia.us. This guide may be 
printed, but only for home, non-commerial-use. Commercial use is commercially 
printed strategy guides, magazines, printing it and selling it for profits, and 
the related.

| 9.2  Credits **090200** |

This document was written by ulillillia. The method for raising magic attack 
was mentioned in one of a few YouTube comments - credits for this go to those 
who have suggested this. This wonderful, fun, and addicting game was created 
by Square Enix.

| 9.3  Version history **090300** |

Version 1 - Initial release
Version 1 is the initial release, detailing the most essential parts of the 
process. With new discoveries made due to my hardships of raising magic 
attack, the document, before the initial release has been updated and rewritten 
several times.

Version 2 - Several updates, quite a few are major
Version 2 is based off of version 1, but has a lot of new content, so much so 
that I thought a whole version number change was necessary. Aside from some 
grammar corrections, here's a list of the main changes:
*  Details on how to raise magic attack have been added - the mime.
*  The risky but ultra fast rocket speed method section has been added - try 
for 50+ levels in 10 minutes once!
*  The table of contents table has been widened and expanded - a new format for 
the section search numbers has been added.
*  Status effect expiration speeds adjusted due to new observations - total 
charges used instead of a charge speed.
*  Additional speed up tactics added for the easy method - steal exp near the 
end of phase 2.
*  Ability lists adjusted - the knight's abilities (among others from 
previously listed classes) are added and others have been moved.
*  Method of keeping faith and sleep active improved - 3 act-wait turns then 
recast faith, recast sleep when the turn count gets below 30.
*  A large chunk of section 6 has been redone, expanded on, and better 
organized - the "steal exp" finishing touch to hasten the process.
*  Section 1 has been somewhat redone - all YouTube video segments posted 
(including the new ones) instead of just the first.
*  FAQ list updated in bits and pieces, though mostly minor stuff (additional 
details have been added to a few questions) - somes questions were removed 
while a few others were added, one of which making it easier to contact me.
*  Various other small changes here and there.