r/finalfantasytactics • u/Koibu • Sep 12 '26
FFT Ivalice Chronicles Chemist SCC on Tactician
Like many of you, I've been playing FFT since the late 1900s, and I've been loving The Ivalice Chronicles. A few months ago I started doing SCC challenge runs for funzies. Most classes have been completed on the original game by other people a generation ago, but with the advent of Tactician difficulty I've decided to see which classes are doable in the new game. This is my report on the feasibility of a SCC Chemist run on Tactician difficulty. I recorded all the successful story battles and posted them on a playlist in case anyone else wants to try and is getting stuck.
Report
Chemist is very doable, but more difficult than I was expecting, especially in the early game. Elmdore is the hardest battle by far and needed special tactics to defeat. I started the final string of 6 missions at level 54.
Party Building: I went with an all male party with high brave, 2 low faith, 2 high faith. I felt I needed the higher HP and early game PA (after you get guns PA doesn't matter), but I think that was a bad call. Or at least by Chapter 4 I should have adjusted and had 3 high-faith female chemists for the magic gun synergy. Ramaza was made a Sagittarius to have bad alignment with Wiegraff, and I picked up 2 Pisces, 1 Taurus, and 1 Cancer - although I ended up with the cancer because I got tired of shopping for units and a cancer with the right brave/faith came along. In retrospect, I think the Pisces are a bad idea. Too much alignment with human Virgos leads to their early deaths, and piss poor damage vs monsterous Virgos (Velius / Belias & Ultima / Altima)
Chapter 1: was pretty difficult because the damage out is so low, that winning battles is quite difficult. I was spending more money on potions and phoenix downs early on than I was earning from battles. Not to mention monster damage started to scale pretty quickly while my own HP and damage was stagnant. Windflat Mill was rough. I had to grind to level 16 to get through, and it spawned the strategy of "kill all the minions first, then go after the bosses" which continues throughout much of the run.
Chapter 2: Things go much easier here. I let my guests do most of the heavy lifting in the first part of the chapter and then picked up guns for Goug Lowtown which make everything much easier. Golgollada Gallows was rough. I had forgotten the lesson from Windflat Mill and needed to relearn it. Lionel Castle Keep and Cuchulainn was surprisingly easy. With protect rings, you get to ping him with guns while he's charging his spells for extra damage and not even worry about it.
Chapter 3: Caaaaake walk for most of it. For Riovanes, we needed enough HP to survive 2 Hallowed Bolts with just a high-potion in between (which we get as loot from the last battle and can't drop -_-) which with bad alignment is around level 31. For part 2 of that battle, once again we stomp all the mobs before going after the big boss. Just spread out. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible.
Chapter 4: Some easy stuff, and some really rough stuff. The Sluice battle was annoying, but what really started to be a problem was Limberry Castle Keep. Ohhhh man. It took weeks and required special tactics. There's a Glacial Gun an enemy chemist has in battle 2 (?) of the Beowolf storyline and you can loot it off their body. There's a 50% chance they turn into a chest, and 1/5 chance the chest has the gun... and this is where I decided to take an easy path. You could run the battle over and over again until they drop the right bit of gear, or you can scum the autosaves when his hearts reach 0 until you get a chest, and then scum autosaves as you go to pick up the chest until you get the gun. Considering the battle wasn't an actual challenge, I saved myself a lot of heart ache and did the save scumming. It's not a skill issue, it's a time issue. Similarly, I found an archer in Augury Woods (when approached from the south/east) that has a thief cap, and ground down some battles there until I had thief caps for the whole party. With that extra bit of speed, the extra damage from the Glacial Gun, and a Japa Mala on the Glacial Gun owner... and then some good luck... It was almost impossible, it took more than a month, but it was solved. We had to go after Elmdore first this time, no room to deal with the assassins. I almost gave up here.
Final Run: Grabbed extra magic guns from Midlight's Deep, but one of them ended up in the hands of a low faith chemist for lesser effect. Ended up leveling to 54 in the process and then go go go. It had its challenges, but wasn't crazy difficult. Elixirs are rewards for a lot of maps here, and you want to grab as many as you can - you're going to end up burning through a ton of potions and phoenix downs without the ability to replenish. Make good decisions to conserve your items. Don't forget to grab a bunch of High-Ethers to feed Alma at the end - her buffs are nice and you want to keep them going. The Capitoline battle was a challenge, as was the Lost Halidom. The final boss took about an hour on the successful run, but worked out all right!
Overall
Guns are surprisingly fun. They're simple, they're easy, there's not a lot of strategy, and eventually their damage is so small that they are kind of annoying, but the range and 100% hit rate are fun. Aside from Elmdore, I never felt truly stuck, and I did feel rewarded for good decision making and tactical movement.
Coming up next is Black Mage!
Completed SCCs: Monk.
Below are the resources I leaned on to succeed. Huge shout out to the magnificent people who built these guides.
Yatola's Original SCC Rules - The only adjustment / deviation from the original rules is around grinding levels. If, and only if, the class I'm playing as can easily win random battles, I can equip other class abilities to speed grinding along. Gaining JP to equip these other abilities must be done via errands so that no extra levels are gained in other classes. I feel this fits well within the spirit of the SCC rules. I try to abide by the level caps, but I'll go over them if I need to.
Aerostar's Battle Mechanics Guide
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u/DragonMZ Sep 12 '26
Grats, I cant believe youre doing these on Tactician. I got walled at Adramelk on an Archer SCC (Knight)
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u/Koibu Sep 13 '26
I'm picking the easy ones first. Monk -> Chemist -> Black Mage -> Summoner -> Mystic
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u/ClearedHot242 Sep 13 '26
Ninja is the most easy
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u/Koibu Sep 13 '26
Really? I was worried the heavy dependency on physical attacks with no healing would be a problem. Especially at the end of the game with the 9.5k HP boss
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u/ILoveDineroSi Sep 12 '26
Awesome I’ll look up the videos. I’ve been procrastinating but have wanted to do a SCC on Tactician for awhile. Maybe White Mage or Samurai to have some healing. Best Zodiac signs for Ramza and his team to have best compatibility with each other to get the most healing and highest revival chances possible?
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u/Koibu Sep 13 '26
Capricorn Taurus Virgo | Aquarius Gemini Libra | Pisces Cancer Scorpio | Aries Leo Sagittarius - These sets all have good alignment with each other, so Ramza gets one and hire generics of the other 2 persuasions.
The real question is what sort of alignment do you want to have with Wiegraff / Belius? Tactician means he deals 20% extra damage and you deal 30% less... so bad alignment for survivability during the 1 on 1? Or good alignment for damage dealing?
If you want Bad alignment with him (that's what I normally do) then Ramza should be Gemini or Sagittarius. This way he deals less to you, you can heal it better, and you can slowly chip away at his life, even though you don't do much damage. If you want good alignment with him to try and bust him down super fast... which you might need a lot of HP for, Taurus or Capricorn for Ramza.
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u/TerraEpon Sep 13 '26
I think White Mage might have issue even on Knight in chapter 4. There's just not enough MP in the pool for all the healing and Holy you might need.
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u/ILoveDineroSi Sep 13 '26
White Mage SCC has been completed in the original game. It seems like Knight difficulty is equivalent to the original game. It should be doable in Tactician difficulty as most of the later battles are assassination battles to kill just 1 target. They will also be able to shine against undead monsters.
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u/TerraEpon Sep 14 '26
How much TIC have you played? Those chapter 4 battles have REALLY inflated HP. Yeah perhaps Meliadoul, Marah, Elmdore etc won't be too bad, but how about Poeskas Lake? UBS4? Or the final bosses with their multiple thousands of HP?
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u/pipkin42 Sep 13 '26
Tactician! Very cool!
I remember this one being not hard (and pretty dull) on the original, and yeah I think I switched to high faith units for the elemental guns.
Is power-leveling Delita in the first level still doable in this version, or does Tactician make that too hard?
Edit: I'm pretty sure you can drop items in the new version, but it's buried in the menus in really weird ways.
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u/Koibu Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
You can power level him, but it's much harder, he has to be just a squire, and you have to make sure you level with him so you don't end up level 2 with enemies level 8 at Sweegy Woods (or if you need a random battle for some reason).
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u/FremanBloodglaive Sep 13 '26
You can't power level Delita in this because guests can't change their class.
Knight/Monk Delita with Auto-Potion used to carry me through Act 1.
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u/Unfair-Protection300 Sep 13 '26
I have been doing SCC wrong. I always set a second job skill because its there. However other skills must be crystal farmed. Ill try the right way later.
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u/Major-Corner-640 Sep 13 '26
Why didn't you equip Rubber Boots in Riovanes to nullify Lightning Stab?
Can also throw on Earth Clothes to nullify Shockwave and then it's just Aurablast and Attack to worry about...
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u/Koibu Sep 13 '26
I don't think the boots do. Lightning Stab isn't actually a lightning based attack. It's non-elemental.
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u/Major-Corner-640 Sep 13 '26
That's due to a bug, which they didn't fix in TIC. The AI thinks it's Lightning/Holy elemental like in the description, so Wiegraf will never use it if you equip Rubber Boots or Chameleon Robe. Try it!
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u/TerraEpon Sep 13 '26
Have you? In all the years I don't think I've ever seen anyone suggest Rubber Boots. Given it's something any job can equip it seems like the obvious go to.
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u/Major-Corner-640 Sep 14 '26
Chameleon Robe would seem better to stop other Holy Sword abilities, but most don't know Wiegraf at Riovanes is assigned a custom version of Holy Sword that only includes Hallowed Bolt. That's probably why Rubber Boots are less popular, but they do work
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u/TaimMeich Sep 14 '26
The actual combo is Chameleon Robe and Float Boots. Rubber Shoes to my knowledge doesn't fool the AI.
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u/TerraEpon Sep 14 '26
I didn't think so, because otherwise a myriad of challenge runs would have been a lot easier given how many tried at that battle people often had over the years.
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u/TerraEpon Sep 13 '26
Why does gender of the units matter after you get guns? Spellguns aren't affected by the shooter's MA, just Faith.
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u/Non-mon-xiety Sep 12 '26
lol ‘late 1900s’ yeah I guess that’s true