Units

Note: If you are looking for the Worthwhile Units page, click this link instead.

Unit Management
It is very important to understand how to equip, enhance, and awaken your units, as well as how to build and change parties. This page will give you the information you need to do all those things.

Building a Party
To build a party, tap the Units button from the Home screen. You will see a screen that looks something like this: You can leave this screen by tapping "Home" in the lower left, or "Back" in the upper left.

Units Page Breakdown
The Units/Manage Party page has a few different elements. As you can see, the navigation buttons from the Home screen remain on the bottom, but let's briefly go over the other parts:
 * Top-right: Arena button and/or Gear icon: The Arena button allows you to set separate teams for Arena battles. The gear icon changes a few other settings. You will probably not be worrying much about the Arena until you've progressed through the Colosseum first; by that time, you should be experienced enough to figure out the Arena on your own.
 * Main display: Current units in your current party. There's no official name for this display, but I call it the "character pedestal" display, the "unit carousel," or the "party carousel." You can have up to 5 parties; to switch between parties, swipe left or right across the character pedestal display.
 * Squares just below character pedestals: Esper slots. Tap to choose a different Esper for the slot. Whatever character is above that Esper gets its bonus effects in battle, and can summon that Esper when the Esper summon bar is full.
 * View/Sell: Allows you to view all your units. You can tap on any unit for more information about it. If you wish to sell units, tap the red "Sell" button at the top right of the screen, then tap units to sell, and click the Sell button at the bottom of the screen when you're ready. I don't recommend selling any Rare Summon units (acquired with Lapis or Rare Summon Tickets).
 * Enhance Units: Allows you to fuse units together to grant EXP, TMR, or stat boosts to one of them, while sacrificing the other. This is explored at length farther down the page.
 * Awaken Abilities: If you have some level 100 characters, a lot of items with names like "Black Heavicryst" and "Healing Purecryst," and a million or two gil burning a hole in your virtual pocket, you can unlock powerful secondary effects for certain character abilities from here. Generally speaking, this is something players reserve for endgame progression.
 * Awaken Units: This is where a unit that has reached its maximum level at its current star ranking can be ranked up to the next rank, resetting its level to 1, raising its level cap by 20, improving its base stats, and unlocking new abilities. We explore this in detail farther down the page.

Now then, let's take a look at the main display area, the one with your current adventuring party displayed on it. Note that you can have up to 5 parties with 5 members each; you can switch between them by swiping left or right across this area. (The same unit can appear in multiple parties.) For the most part, newer players aren't likely to need more than one party, but as you progress, it will gradually become more useful.

You can add a unit to any empty pedestal by tapping it; you can also remove or swap a character that's already on the team, which we'll get to in a moment. Tapping an empty pedestal will show you all your units except units that have already been placed in the current party. (The view will be very similar to the view from the View Units button.) You can tap one to add it to the party, or tap and hold to view its details before deciding. The order in which you add the units, and their subsequent formation on the battlefield, does not matter.

There are occasions where you'll want to reduce party size or (more commonly) where you might want to swap one or two characters for other units, but leave the rest of your roster intact. To do this, select the unit you want to remove by tapping on it. You will see a submenu that looks like this: From here, tap "Swap." If you want to completely remove the unit without replacing it, tap the blue arrow at the top-left that says "Remove." Otherwise, find the character you want and tap it, same as usual.

Using the Party Unit submenu
The submenu that comes up when you tap a unit already in your party has a few other options besides "Swap." Let's take a moment and review them. Essentially, these buttons are shortcuts to the rectangular buttons on the main Units screen. They save a step because you don't have to select the unit from a big list, as you normally would.
 * Equip lets you equip items and abilities on your units. Different units have different available item types and ability slots, which can be seen from the character equip screen. We will explore this important process in detail below.
 * Enhance takes you to the Enhance Abilities menu for the selected character.
 * Awaken takes you to the Awaken screen for the selected character.
 * Set as Team Lead changes the current unit to your Team Leader for this party, which affects what unit your friends will see in their lists.

Equipping Your Party
Now that you have selected 5 units for your party, they will need equipment. You won't have a lot of equipment at the beginning of the game; however, some basic equipment can be purchased in most larger towns and cities. In addition, you can acquire new equipment by completing side quests, collecting materials and crafting some, or finding treasure chests on the ground during Exploration missions. In the meantime, use whatever equipment you have, starting with Rain (or your Team Leader) and then going on to the rest of the party until you run out.

The first thing you should do is assign Espers. You should have at least one; you might have one or two more, depending on how far you've gotten and how diligently you've been exploring and talking to people in towns. Tap a square underneath one of your party members (usually starting with the Team Leader) and then tap the Esper you want to assign. That Esper will remain attached to the character slot, rather than the actual character; if you were to swap that slot for a different character, the Esper would then be attached to that new character instead.

Once all your Espers are assigned, it's time to add equipment and abilities. For characters in your party, this is easy: just tap the character, and then tap the Equip button that appears. For characters not in your party, tap View/Sell first, and then tap the character you wish to equip. You will see a screen that looks like this: Let's take a quick look at our options.

The Equip Screen
This screen is broken into several parts. We'll start at the top.
 * Resistances: This small button in the upper right lets you quickly check the unit's current levels of resistance to the elements and various status ailments.
 * Stats: This large button switches to another screen, as seen in the image to the right. (The name of the button changes to Equip on this screen; tapping it will switch back.) The Stats screen also displays current resistance levels. In addition, it offers the following information:
 * The unit's current stats, including HP, MP, ATK, DEF, MAG, and SPR.
 * The types of equipment the unit can use.
 * What the unit's Limit Break attack does.
 * How far along the unit's TMR prize is to completion. (In the image at right, it has been completed.)
 * Any magic spells the unit has learned (under the "Magic" tab).
 * Any special abilities the unit has learned (under the "Special" tab).

For the most part, we'll be using the Equipment and Abilities tabs. To equip an item, tap the slot you want to equip, and then select an item from the list of available items. This process is the same for adding equipment to an empty slot, or changing equipment in an occupied slot.
 * The Equipment tab, which displays all six equipment slots (right hand, left hand, head, body, and two accessories), and what's currently in each slot, if anything.
 * The Abilities tab, which displays the unit's available ability slots (between 0 and 4, depending on the unit), and what's currently in each slot, if anything.
 * The Remove All button, which does what it says.
 * The Optimize button, which is best avoided. It will try to optimize your unit with the equipment and abilities you have available, but it's not as clever as you are at making these sorts of decisions.
 * The Toggle View button, which toggles the display of the unit's current equipment between showing stat values and showing special abilities. However, this button isn't reliable at showing all the effects of your equipment - for example, it won't show HP or resistance increases granted by equipment - so it's better to inspect it yourself by tapping and holding on a piece of equipment, if you need to know all its properties.

If an item is already being used by another unit, that unit's picture will be shown in the corner of the item's button. You can swap items between characters as you please, but each item can only be equipped to one character at a time. If your unit is unable to wear a piece of equipment, it will be darkened on the list and you will not be able to select it for that unit.

Once you've assigned equipment to your party members as you see fit, it's time to assign abilities. Tap the Abilities tab and assign abilities to any open ability slots you find. Again, if you have few or no special abilities, that's okay: they can be acquired just like equipment, by crafting them or winning them from challenges. Equipment is your first priority; abilities are important, but not necessary until the late game.

Enhancing Your Units / Special Units
Now that you have a party together, it might be a good idea to enhance them if you have the right materials. Units earn experience by questing and fighting, but they can also gain experience by being fused together with other units. In addition, it's possible to increase TMR percentage through unit fusion, allowing you to earn TMRs much faster.

To fuse two or more units, first tap the Enhance Units button, and select a base unit (or tap the Enhance button on your unit submenu). This base unit will be retained after the fusion, and will gain its benefits. Other units fused to the base unit will disappear forever. There is also a gil cost associated with each fusion, so be sure you have enough gil before going fusion-crazy.

To fuse, select up to 5 other units by tapping the empty slots at the bottom of the fusion screen. You can tap them again to change or remove them. Once you're happy with the setup and the gil cost, tap the Fuse button at the bottom of the screen, watch the animation (or skip it by tapping on the screen), and voila - a successful fusion!

What units are best for fusion?
There are two basic types, depending on your goal. The first are special units; the second are duplicate units. Let's explore each type in detail.

Special Unit Types
There are four basic types of special unit in FFBE. A special unit is a unit that is not intended for combat use, but rather for unit fusion or earning gil. Whenever you have a special unit, know that it is intended to be used, whether now or later, to enrich the rest of your game. Here are the four types and what they do:
 * 1) Gil Snappers look like golden or bejeweled turtles. Their only purpose is to be sold for a lot of gil, so sell them as soon as you get them. The larger the Gil Snapper, the bigger the payoff.
 * 2) Metal Cactuars are silvery enemies that look like cacti with comical faces on them. The only purpose of a Metal Cactuar is to be fused to another unit in order to quickly raise its level. If you get one, consider using it to strengthen any character you use that hasn't yet hit its level cap. As with Gil Snappers, the larger the Metal Cactuar, the more unit experience it grants, except for the last type, King Metal Minituar, which looks like a trio of smaller Cactuars and provides even more experience than its larger cousin, the Metal Gigantuar.
 * 3) Trust Moogles are small creatures that look like a cross between a fairy and a bear. Trust Moogles can be fused with other units to advance their TMR percentage. Raise the percentage to 100%, and that character will give you its Trust Master Reward. TMRs are generally the most powerful abilities and equipment in the game, so being able to get them quickly/easily is a big deal. Trust Moogles range in effect from a 1% to 100% TMR boost, with most being 1%, 5%, or 10%. The higher the star ranking of a Trust Moogle, the bigger its toy star (you'll see when you get one), and the more trust it confers on the fused unit. If you have your eye on a particular unit's TMR, consider fusing Trust Moogles to it.
 * 4) Important note 1: Story characters (like Rain and Lasswell) do not have TMRs.
 * 5) Important note 2: It is possible to fuse Trust Moogles with each other to save space. For example, you can fuse a 5% Trust Moogle into a 10% Trust Moogle, and get a 15% Trust Moogle (you can fuse for any amount up to 100%). This can be a useful way to save unit slots if you're saving up for a special TMR.
 * 6) Magic Pots are ornate urns with little goblins peeking out of them. They are used to increase a unit's stats beyond their usual maximum. There are Magic Pots for all core stats, plus Magic Pots that add experience to a unit's limit break (Limit Breaks can rank up and get stronger with repeated use). It's best to save pots for when a unit has attained its maximum star rank, but feel free to use them any time you think you'll be using a character for a long time to come. As with other special units, the larger the Magic Pot, the more pronounced its effect.

Duplicate Units
If you have 2 of the same unit, you can fuse them together to add 5% to the base unit's TMR, plus give them a little experience. This is a generally acceptable way to earn TMRs quickly, but you should be careful, because with some units, it pays to have multiple copies. As a general guideline, it is always a good idea to fuse duplicate free units you've summoned with Friend Points - these units are almost useless in combat, and their TMRs are weak but free to earn over time - and it is never a good idea to fuse duplicate 5-star base units, as they are too rare to justify losing one for a 5% TMR boost to the other.

To recap, enhance your units with special units - metal cactuars in particular - and then consider fusing duplicate units for extra TMR percentage if it seems to make sense. When your units have reached their maximum star potential from awakenings, fuse Magic Pots to the ones you plan to use the most.

Awakening Units
Once a unit has reached its maximum level, it may be time to awaken it, resetting its level to 1, increasing its level cap, improving its stats, and allowing new, stronger abilities to be learned. Unit awakening requires special materials and a bit of gil. The maximum star ranking any unit can be awakened to is 6; you can check a unit's potential maximum star ranking by viewing it in View/Sell and looking at the stars at the top of its details page. The empty stars represent higher ranks it hasn't yet attained. Not all units can be awakened to 6 stars, so be careful when deciding which units to focus on.

To awaken a unit, that unit must first be at its maximum level, and you must then provide the necessary materials for the ceremony. To see which of your units are eligible for an awakening, tap the Awaken Units button. Any unit that isn't darkened can potentially be awakened. You can tap that unit to see exactly what's required in terms of materials and gil.

Once you have decided on a unit to awaken, and you've gathered what you need, simply tap on it in the Awaken Units menu, and then tap "Awaken" at the bottom of the screen.

Awakening units is a critically important part of progressing through FFBE, and you should never neglect it for the units you use the most. (You do not have to awaken units you aren't currently using, or that you're only keeping for TMR reasons.) Without awakenings, a 3-star base unit like Exdeath (for example) will have a level cap of 40, and will never learn its most powerful abilities. Awakening it once will raise that cap to 60; subsequent awakenings will increase the cap to 80 and then 100 at the 6-star level. The game provides enough materials from regular questing and exploration to awaken 3- and 4-star units fairly reliably; for 5-star units, the materials required to awaken to 6 stars are currently only available from special Vortex quests, so as your party ranks up into the 5-star range, start keeping an extra eye on the limited-time Vortex quests that are available each week.

Awakening Abilities
This works in a manner similar to awakening units, but it's a late-game concern that you should explore on your own once you've completed the story and are at the point where you're attempting optional challenges and participating in the Arena on a regular basis.

So What Kind of a Party Should I Build?
There's no one right answer to this, so experiment a lot and see what works best for you. Most people recommend having a healer, a tank, and some way to dish out damage; beyond that, it's pretty up in the air. Some people prefer to have 2 healers, a tank, a support unit, and one attacker; others might prefer to have one healer, no tank, and four attack units. Your needs may also change over time as your party faces different types of challenges - personally speaking, I used to run a fairly aggressive team with a healer, one support unit, and three damage-dealing units, but I found that the late-game content is much easier with a healer, a tank, a support unit, and two damage dealers. For certain battles, I've even gone with a healer, a tank, two support units, and only one damage dealer. And remember: you can always use your Friend List to supplement your party with a sixth member, to help fill roles as needed.

If you are at a total loss, you can check this list of Worthwhile Units I put together to get some guidance on the sorts of things an experienced player might look for in a unit. The list is not comprehensive, but it can help guide your thinking when assessing a unit you haven't seen or used before.