There are two different types of status effects in the game and various terms are used to describe them throughout this strategy guide:
When it comes to controlling your party members and their roles, Status Enhancements are generally cast by your Synergists on your party members and Status Ailments are cast by your Saboteurs on enemy combatants.
Status enhancements can provide a wide range of benefits to your party members in battle. They may either be cast by a Synergist, equipping certain accessories that cast them or initiated through the use of an Aegisol or Fortisol. The impacts of these enhancements cannot be overstated and it’s important to cast them on your party members for many of the more difficult battles in the game.
Synergists can also cast Status Enhancements to counteract Status Ailments. For example, the status ailment of Debrave, which will reduce a target’s physical attack power, can be countered by having the Synergist cast Bravery. Note as well that some enemies will cast status enhancements on themselves which will need to be Dispelled or counteracted.
As a reminder, Synergists and Saboteurs with a higher Role Level will cast status enhancements that last longer. Check out the Role Bonuses page for more information.
Here is a list of the status enhancements you will encounter in Final Fantasy XIII:
Game Description | Additional Details | |
---|---|---|
Barfire | Raise target's fire resistance. | |
Barfrost | Raise target's ice resistance. | |
Barthunder | Raise target's lightning resistance. | |
Barwater | Raise target's water resistance. | |
Bravera | Significantly raise target’s Strength for a short time. | Strength +75% |
Bravery | Raise target's Strength. | Strength +25% |
Enfire | Add fire attribute to target’s COM, RAV, SEN, or SAB attacks. | |
Enfrost | Add ice attribute to target’s COM, RAV, SEN, or SAB attacks. | |
Enthunder | Add lightning attribute to target’s COM, RAV, SEN, or SAB attacks. | |
Enwater | Add water attribute to target’s COM, RAV, SEN, or SAB attacks. | |
Faith | Raise target's Magic. | Magic +25% |
Faithra | Significantly raise target's Magic for a short time. | Magic +75% |
Haste | Accelerate target’s ATB gauge recharge rate. | ATB Gauge refill rate +50% |
Protect | Raise target's physical resistance. | Physical Resistance +33% |
Protectra | Significantly raise target's physical resistance for a short time. | Physical Resistance +50% |
Shell | Raise target's magic resistance. | Magical Resistance +33% |
Shellra | Significantly raise target's magic resistance for a short time. | Magical Resistance +50% |
Veil | Raise target’s status ailment resistance. | |
Vigilance | Boost target’s odds of interrupting actions and avoiding interruption of own. |
Status ailments impact enemies and party members by making them more susceptible to various game mechanics (weaker to physical attacks, damage from Poison, unable to take certain actions, etc.). These ailments can greatly increase the effectiveness of your party members against enemies that are afflicted with them, but they can also have a highly detrimental effect on your party members if they are hit with any by an enemy.
Saboteurs can be used to load up enemies with status ailments and, once Libra has been used to expose an enemy’s weaknesses to status ailments, the Saboteur will focus on debuffs that will have the largest impact in battle.
Note that every party member and enemy has a chance to resist status ailments that are cast on them, which means that a Saboteur may need to cast them a few times in order for them to be properly applied.
Here are the status ailments available in the game and their impact:
Game Description | Additional Details | |
---|---|---|
Curse | Lower target’s odds of interrupting actions and avoiding interruption of own. | |
Cursega | Render targets within a wide radius interruption-prone and deal magic damage. | |
Daze | Stun target, rendering it vulnerable, and deal magic damage. | Stuns the target until they are hit again. |
Dazega | Stun and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | Stuns the target until they are hit again. |
Death | Slay target instantly, dealing magic damage instead if unsuccessful. | Has a low chance to instantly kill the target (1%). |
Debrave | Reduces target’s physical power. | |
Defaith | Reduces target's magic power. | |
Deprotect | Reduce target’s physical resistance and deal magic damage. | Decreases resistance to physical damage by 89%. |
Deprotectga | Reduce physical resistance and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | Decreases resistance to physical damage by 89%. |
Deshell | Reduce target's magic resistance and deal magic damage. | Decreases resistance to magical damage by 89%. |
Dispel | Reduce magic resistance and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | Decreases resistance to magical damage by 89%. |
Fog | Remove target’s most recent status enhancement and deal magic damage. | |
Fog | Disable target’s spell-casting abilities and deal magic damage. | |
Imperil | Disable enemy spell casting and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | |
Imperilga | Reduce target's elemental resistances and deal magic damage. | |
Pain | Reduce elemental resistances and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | |
Painga | Disable target's physical abilities and deal magic damage. | |
Poison | Disable enemy physical abilities and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | |
Poisonga | Poison target and deal magic damage. | Deals 1% damage every 3 seconds. |
Slow | Poison and deal magic damage to targets within a wide radius. | Reduces the ATB gauge fill rate by 50%. |
Slowga | Reduce ATB gauge recharge rate and deal magic damage within a wide radius. | Reduces the ATB gauge fill rate by 50%. |