The Quickening system replaces the Limit Break system that was common in some of the predecessors to Final Fantasy XII. Quickenings can be used during battle as a quick means of dealing heavy amounts of damage to an enemy or a group of enemies. They are highly effective against bosses, hunt marks and other enemies with high HP.
You will not have access to any Quickenings when you start the game, but they can be unlocked by activating Quickening Licenses on the License Board. The Quickening Licenses are found in different spots on each of the License Boards for the 12 different Jobs – check out the License Board section for more information.
Each character can unlock a maximum of 3 Quickening Licenses but you will notice that there are 4 Quickening Licenses on each of the License Boards. Once you unlock the third and final Quickening License, the fourth Licenses, whichever one you did not activate, will disappear from the License Board and you will no longer be able to activate that space.
It is critical that you make sure that you activate specific Quickening Licenses on each of the License Boards to make sure that you do not lose access to some of the other Licenses that may be important to that character. Scroll down to the Locked Licenses section below for more information about which Licenses are hiding behind a Quickening License for each job.
Once one of your characters gains access to a Quickening License and can use Quickening in battle, a new Mist Charges bar will appear under their HP and MP indicators in the bottom-right side of the screen. These bars indicate how many Mist charges each of your characters has left and they will slowly recharge over time as your characters move around (similar to how MP recharges).
The first Quickening that your character unlocks will require 1 Mist Charge to use, the second requires 2 Mist Charges and the third requires 3 Mist Charges. Quickenings that require all 3 Mist Charges are the strongest and will do the most damage when used, according to the following:
Quickening Level 1: 90
Quickening Level 2: 140
Quickening Level 3: 230
The damage is also based on the strength stat of the character using their Quickening.
So how do you chain Quickenings and what are the mechanics behind the timer that appears on the screen when you initiate a Quickening? Learning how to chain your Quickening attacks is critical to ensuring that the Quickenings do a high amount of damage to the intended target.
The Quickening cinematic will begin as soon as you select the “Mist” and then the “Quickening” option on the battlefield. The character that you selected will begin performing whichever Quickening at whichever level you selected. While that character is completing their Quickening, a timer will appear in the bottom-right section of the screen, along with a list of your other party members, one of their Quickenings (or “Mist Charge”) and the button used to initiate the next attack.
The idea behind chaining your Quickening attacks is that you want to press the button to initiate the next Quickening as soon as it appears and as quickly as possible. As you do this, Mist Charges will be spent completing the Quickening, but you may also see an option listed called “Mist Charge”. Pressing this button will not initiate another Quickening, but it will recharge that party member’s Mist Charges allowing them to complete more Quickenings.
Your goal should be to select the “Mist Charge” option as soon as it comes up in order to keep the Quickenings coming and build up a larger and larger chain. If there are no buttons that you can press, you should press the 
Button to do a ‘reset’ and hope that you are luckier the second go around.
It will become apparent very quickly that the ability to chain Quickenings requires getting extremely lucky sometimes. There are times when you are going to get unlucky and will not be able to build a high chain, either due to not seeing the “Mist Charge” option come up or by not being given the option to select a Quickening.
A special type of attack will occur at the end of your Quickening Chain when you meet certain conditions. In order to activate a Concurrence, your chain will need to have a specific number of Level 1 Quickenings, Level 2 Quickenings or Level 3 Quickenings according to the following chart:
| Concurrence | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Attack Strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inferno | 3 | - | - | 90 |
| Cataclysm | 6 | - | - | 110 |
| Torrent | 2 | 2 | - | 130 |
| Windburst | - | 4 | - | 155 |
| Ark Blast | 2 | 2 | 2 | 175 |
| Whiteout | - | - | 4 | 205 |
| Luminescence | 3 | 3 | 4 | 215 |
| Black Hole | 4 | 4 | 4 | 253 |
The higher level Concurrences can be extremely difficult to get, and the fact of the matter is that you will have to get extremely lucky while completing your Quickening Chain in order to activate them.
This ends up being a pain point for many players as there is a Trophy that requires completing every Concurrence. Some tips for completing these requirements are included in the section below.
The difficulty in obtaining the Mistwalker Trophy tends to be achieving the higher level Concurrences; mainly Black Hole, but Luminescence and Whiteout can be difficult as well. Here are some tips for achieving this requirement and obtaining the Mistwalker Trophy:
From there, it is just a matter of getting lucky. Note that it quite often takes several hours of attempts in order to successfully obtain this Trophy. Below is a video demonstrating a successful Quickening Chain that did result in the Black Hole Concurrence and achieving the Mistwalker Trophy:
Mist Walker
The Mist Walker Trophy is obtained by using Quickenings to perform all of the different Concurrences in the game as indicated above.
You should have a plan in mind when it comes to selecting which Quickening you unlock on each of the License Boards. The Quickenings each cost a different amount of License Points (either 50, 75, 100 or 125) but it does not matter which of the 3 out of 4 you select – your character will still have the same 3 Quickenings. I.E. the 125 LP Quickening License is not more powerful than the 50 or 75.
The strategy comes in to play when you consider the interaction between the two Jobs you have selected for your characters. For example, the Bushi License Board has additional Licenses that can be unlocked if you activate the 75 LP, 100 LP and 125 LP Quickening Licenses, but if you selected another job that would have benefited from unlocking the 50 LP Quickening License, you will have to select which Licenses you will be comfortable not having access to.
A list of the Jobs, Quickenings and the Licenses they unlock are included below:
| Job | Quickening (50 LP) |
Quickening (75 LP) |
Quickening (100 LP) |
Quickening (125 LP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archer | White Magick 4 | - | - | - |
| Black Mage | 70 HP | - | - | 390 HP |
| Bushi | - | 305 HP Battle Lore |
390 HP Battle Lore |
435 HP |
| Foebreaker | - | - | 390 HP | Battle Lore |
| Knight | - | - | - | 390 HP Revive Excalipur |
| Machinist | - | - | - | Magick Lore (x3) |
| Monk | - | White Magick 9 | - | Phoenix Lore |
| Red Battlemage | White Magick 2 | 230 HP | - | 435 HP |
| Shikari** | Ninja Swords 1 | Ninja Swords 2 | Ninja Swords 3 |  Yagyu Darkblade& Mesa |
| Time Battlemage | - | 150 HP | - | - |
| Uhlan | - | - | Black Magick 5 Black Magick 6 |
- |
| White Mage | 150 HP | 190 HP | Battle Lore | - |
** With most of the License Boards, you can get away with many of the different selection options, but the Shikari job class requires some strategizing. Ninja Swords 1 provides access to a number of weapons, so you should select that one, and Yagyu Darkblade and Mesa are absolutely required for end-game content, so you should select that one, but what about Ninja Swords 2 and Ninja Swords 3? The choice is yours…
The general consensus is that the Koga Blade (Ninja Swords 2) is better than the Iga Blade (Ninja Swords 3), but just be aware that the Koga Blade is an Earth-elemental weapon, which means that during many of the battles the sword will actually end up healing the target rather than inflicting damage. Regardless of that fact, it is recommended that you select the Ninja Swords 2 option and unlock the 50 LP, 75 LP and 125 LP Quickening Licenses for the Shikari.
