This section is to help with the battles and the battle screen in The Legend of Dragoon.

Each character in the game is born with one of these elements. And these effect the way the character acts in battle. A character who is Water elemental will take more damage from his opposng element, Fire, and vice-versa.

An Earth elemental character will have more skill and power (so it does more damage) with an earth elemental attack item or spell then one with Wind. If the Earth elemental character used a Wind object, the item would have less power then it would normally if used on another character with a different element.

If a Light elemental character attacked a Darkness elemental monster, they would (usually) do more damage then a Water elemental character attacking the same monster. The Darkness elemental monster would also do more damage back to the light elemental character.

*Note* Thunder and Non-Elemental monsters and party members do not have this same problem, but nor do they have any strengths or weaknesses to exploit on enemies.

Elemental forces are as follows:

Element » Opposite
Fire » Water
Earth » Wind
Light » Darkness
Water » Fire
Wind » Earth
Darkness » Light

Each element also has a specific color attached to it. To tell each Monsters element, you just need to put the cursor on him as if to attack him. The color of the bar where his name is will tell you his element. The colors are as shown:

Element Color
Fire is Red
Water is Blue
Earth is Brown
Wind is Green
Light is Yellow
Darkness is Dark Blue/Black
Thunder is Purple
Non-Elemental is Grey

You must learn to use elements to your advantage in battle, or you will never master this game.

AT-Attack: This stat represents the strength of the characters physical attacks on an enemy.

DF-Defense: The higher this stat is, the less damage a physical attack from an enemy will do to the character.

MAT-Magic Attack: This stat shows the strength of a characters' magical attacks. The higher this point, the more damage the character will do with magical attacks.

MDF-Magical Defense: This stat shows how much or little damage you take from magical attacks. The higher the number, the less damage you will take from magical attacks.

Speed: This stat is not improved as you gain levels. The higher this stats is, the faster you will go in battle, and the more turns you will take.

A-HIT-Attack Hit: The higher this stat is, the higher chance your character will hit with a physical attack. This stat does not increasewhen you gain a level, only through the equipment.

M-Hit-Magical Hit: The higher this stat is, the higher chance your character will hit with a magical attack. This stat does not increase when you gain a level, only through equipment.

A-AV-Attack Evasion: The higher this stat is, the lower the chance is of a physical attack hitting you. This stat does not increase as you gain levels, only through equipment.

M-AV: The higher this stat is, the lower the chance is of a magical attack hitting you. This stat does not increase as you gain levels, only through equipment.

There are always three characters in your battle party. These characters are selected either by you, or the game, depending on the location you are at. Each character comes with a base set of stats that helps them damage enemies in whatever ways they can.

When a battle starts, the character or enemy with the highest speed will go first. Let us say the character and enemy parry looks like this:

Enemy A - 40 Speed
Enemy B - 50 Speed
Character A - 30 Speed
Character B - 70 Speed
Character C - 50 Speed

This is what the turns will look like:

Character B
Enemy B/Character C
Enemy B/Character C (whichever did not go before)
Enemy A
Character B
Character A

As you can see, Character B does what I call "lapping" of enemies and allies. With speed that high, character B takes two turns for each one turn an enemy does, and depending on the speed, maybe even three. It is even possible for character with over 100 speed to have two turns in a row.

Also note, that is not how a battle always starts. As sometimes the slower characters will go first, but even so, the character with the highest speed will always have more turns then the character with the lowest speed. Therefore, in The Legend of Dragoon, speed is a valuable asset that you will wish to heighten with whatever you can.

With a party of two enemies that looked like this:

*Key* for example below....
P Attack: Physical attack strength
M Attack: Magical attack strength
P Defense: Physical defense
M Defense: Magical Defense

Enemy A - 100/100 HP, 5 P Attack, 7 M Attack 4 M and P Defense.
Enemy B - 150/150 HP, 6 P and M Attack, 3 P and M Defense.
Character A - 200/200 HP, 8 P Attack, 3 M Attack, 7 P Defense, 2 M Defense.
Character B - 90/90 HP, 2 P Attack, 10 M Attack, 4 P Defense, 9 M Defense.

This enemy party is well balanced, while your party has strengths and weaknesses. As you can see, character A has stronger physical atacks, and stronger physical defense. He would be best at attacking Enemy B with his normal physical attacks, since they would do MUCH more damage then his normal magical attacks. Character B obviously would work better at attacking Enemy A with his or her strongest Magical attacks, since his or her physical attacks are not up to par.

So lets say we did that; that would bring the enemy party down to around...

Enemy A - 70/100 HP
Enemy B - 50/100 HP

But then, they get to attack you back. Enemy B would be best attacking Character B, since he has great skill in physical attacks, and would be much better at damaging him. Enemy A would be better at using a Magical attack on Character A because of Character A's lower magical defense.

After this happens...

Enemy A - 70/100 HP
Enemy B - 50/100 HP
Character A - 120/200 HP
Character B - 40/90 HP

You notice, that with Character A, the damage is higher. This is because Enemy A, which attacked Character A, had an extremely high magical attack while Character A has extremely low Magical defense. If Enemy A had chosen to use a physical attack on Character A, then Character A would have taken much less damage. More around 20 or 30 at most.

In other words: Each enemy and character has Strengths, and Weaknesses. Always try to exploit them with your attacks. If an enemy seems to be stong against magical attacks, use physical attacks on him. If an enemy seems to be stronger versus physical attacks, use magical attacks on him. Also, depending on the characters and enemies' element, you can do more, or less damage to an enemy in battle. Always try to target the enemy with the opposite element of the character so you can do more damage to the enemies.

A normal addition is done by pressing the 'X' button when you see a little white flash in the center of the screen. You have to learn how to time your button presses, since some members have faster attacks then others.

Sometimes, in battle, the normal Blue of an addition turns to Red. This means a Counter attack is coming. At this point, when you would normally press the 'X' button, press the 'O' Button. If done correctly, the Addition will continue as normal. If not, the addition will end there, and your party member will be flicked backwards, having damage done to him or her.

You also gain SP from additions. The amount of SP you get depends on the addition of which you have selected. For more information on Additions, see the page devoted to them.

As a Dragoon, you have two commands: Attack and Magic. You can not use items, which limits the Dragoon's usefulness later in the game. Dragoon Magic is talked about on the page devoted to Dragoons.

Dragoon Additions are different then the normal character additions. There is a little circle at the top of the screen with the Dragoon addition start. Press X to start the addition, and when the little light comes up to the top (12:00) of the circle, press X. If done correctly, then your addition will continue. You need to do this multiple times to get a 'perfect' which is the most damage you can do with a Dragoon attack.

After you use up all your SP, you will return to your human form. While in Dragoon form, your defense is higher thus you will take less damage which is useful during some points in the game.

Dragoons are somtimes limited in story battles, so do not completely rely on them. Also note that at the end of the game, with the mastered additions, Dragoon attacks wont do as much damage as those additions do. At that point, only transform into a Dragoon to attack magically, or reduce the damage given to you.