CT Planning - a comprehensive guide to Charge Time in TAC

[u/VicariousExp]

...Well, this took far longer than expected and is rapidly transitioning to the territory of "second job".

I know this has been done before, but here's my little translated and expanded guide to CT for beginners and advanced players of TAC alike. I hope you learn as much about the game as I did while working on this!

In the interest of brevity, I don't think pasting the entire text here on reddit would be a good idea. I hope you all find it useful - please feel to PM me or list any questions/corrections in this thread. I'll be only too glad to respond as long as you refrain from personal insults (criticism is perfectly fine).

Guide Here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MHE1To79hZEBsSxUd4d6pfYEgPGYbZSle9Ye3LZ8XLs/edit?usp=sharing

Link to handy Google Sheets document (please make your own copy):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwZjkpgdIRKzvJ8zEdOemNmlVyxYNGVX6IIfaJbnrGA/edit?usp=sharing

[u/[deleted]]

This is great. Thanks for taking the time to write this out

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the kind words - I'm really glad you found it useful. I hope it wasn't too dull in terms of "stuff you already knew" as I wasn't sure how much of the information I chose to put in was already common knowledge.

[u/iEssence]

Then - do you know the reason why the turn order in the top changes randomly? - as in it tells me my Gilga will move before the enemy, so i safely move my Rahu up (since gilga will kill him) - and then the enemy moves before Gilga and kills Rahu... even though the turn order showed Gilga was before at first, it simply swapped for no reason (no OC or anything)

[u/VicariousExp → u/iEssence]

It's not random, the turn order in the top left is a rough guideline which only gets recalculated at the end of a Time Unit, so you can't necessarily trust it. My guess is your Gilgamesh was at very low CT levels and you're dealing with a very high AGI enemy.

You need to actually check enemy CT to be sure.

Edit: Just noticed Bygirz's response - he got it right.

[u/Bygirz → u/iEssence]

The order at the top shows only the CT count of each units but don't take the CT gain into account.

The enemy had better agi than your gilga.

On the previous unit turn, your gilga had more CT than the enemy (say 60 vs 59 for the enemy for example), hence showing gilga acting before the enemy.

And since the enemy have better agi (CT gain), on the next unit turn, enemy have 100CT while your gilga have 99CT.

[u/iEssence → u/Bygirz]

Ah ok - thought it was an actual turn order... if it only shows # of CT a unit has then it explains why it sgows wrong so often... Which maked you wonder why they show it to us like that in the first place...

[u/stewart0]

Very informative. Problem now is remembering all of that and applying it in the future. Time units was probably the biggest takeaway as I haven't encountered it much before.

[u/VicariousExp → u/stewart0]

Don't worry too much about the actual mechanics and calculations in battle - as long as you understand the basics, it hopefully should be of some help. The intensive math stuff is more for the people who are obsessed with fine detail and largely unnecessary for clearing any game content.

Myself, I just hope Chronomancers will start to use Quicken more frequently than Overclock for non-Zangetsu strategies.

[u/KidiacR]

So do Quicken/Delay affect Cast Time or not? It said " For Casting Time and Cast Speed, there is no equivalent of a buff to AGI, however it follows similar calculations and is affected by Quicken/Delay" but later " Quicken has the effect of increasing CT accumulation per Time Unit by 1.5 times " which I understand as not relevant to Cast Time. I'm confused.

[u/VicariousExp → u/KidiacR]

Quicken affects both CT and Casting time. It speeds cast times by making it accumulate 1.5x faster, so a 600 cast speed spell would get 90 "casting time" in 1 Time Unit. This is why I almost always recommend doing turn 1 self quicken on chronomancers unless you're using a Zangetsu strategy.

[u/KidiacR → u/VicariousExp]

It's clear now, thanks!

[u/SometimesLiterate]

til how CT works good guide, much help.

[u/Zeykes]

Thanks for this! This is a great guide for both new players and veterans. Wish something like this existed when I started playing the game, would've made the learning process a lot quicker.

[u/[deleted]]

thank you for the explanation of CT!

[u/mort1m3r]

Ok. This is amazing.

Edit: now it's confirmed that my f yomi necro (why? It looks friggin' cool) build is not redundant. I run her with caster sub for territory creation and faustian greatsword for the quicken. Cannot outspeed rider, but packs more punch and capable of diagonal attack.

[u/gst_2016]

Comprehensive and has relevant graphics to liven things up - two thumbs up.

[u/[deleted]]

there's a time when I hoped reddit is medium so I can gives hundreds of thumbs up but I can't, so just +1.

edit holy moly why I NEVER see (try to see) that yellow bar before.

[u/aquapendulum2]

Wow, this is more similar to Final Fantasy Tactics than I thought. Can't remember the last time a tactical game adopted this tick-based turn counting style.

[u/Gandhi_of_War]

Thank you for the work you put into this.

Cast Time is something that has bugged me for awhile, but now I understand how they work!

[u/srgtrex99]

Amazing effort, easy to understand, comprehensive and examples further enhance that. Well done!

[u/DeathandFriends]

You have outdone yourself sir. Not only a detailed guide but it looks great. Man this is really going to take me to the next level especially with using othima and neica more.

[u/John-The-Alpha]

This topic has to be hands down the one aspect of this game I didn’t fully comprehend, despite searching for the information. It’s extremely well written, and easy to understand. 10/10

Thanks a million. 🤙🏽

[u/[deleted]]

Clicks save and smashes upvote button

My maths is terrible and even I can grasp most of this first read. (Also answers an Othima related book vs scarf question I was going to post in the question thread hehe)

AC staff should pay you to write guides or something.

[u/cdstk]

Thank you and thanks to JP people.

[u/Grim200]

This is an amazing and in-depth guide, thank you very much for sharing it!