I'm by no means an expert, but I've had the pleasure of playing Tactics Ogre when it was on PlayStation 1. I also enjoyed the PSP version, and fell in love with it all over again with the One Vision mod. This game is easily my favorite game of all time, and that statement still holds true today.

I was trying to get through my first playthrough on Reborn in hard mode (no incapacitated units/no chariot use) while also recruiting units that are useful, but I gave up that dream midway chapter 4. It's a lot harder than it sounds! There were a lot of difficult fights resulting in some rather unapologetic RNG situations which led me to restarting far too many times. Knowing that no chariot use no longer has a title attached to it, I figured I'd forgo that and stick to enjoying the game. That being said, I'm still bound to be missing many observations for end-game as I haven't completed all of the activities.

Please note, some of tips are basic while others are more nitty-gritty for the enthusiasts. Don't worry about memorizing them all, as that's what this guide is here for!

Scroll through item/spell/skill slots when slotting things using a controller!
On PS controller, hold "square" + "L2" or "R2"
On Xbox, hold "X" + "LT" or "RT"

Don't sell your crafting texts and codices!

I believe in the PSP version, you get to keep the crafting recipes even after selling the texts. In Reborn, you do not get that luxury.

For example, I sold the "On Medicine I" and lost access to those recipes. I wasn't able to repurchase it and I wasn't sure if it would drop elsewhere. Luckily I had an auto-save file before I sold the item.

Keep an eye on the attack turn order! This is really important if you plan on setting up combos or to recruit new units.

Remember, multiple actions will increase the wait time before your unit acts again, so don't take unnecessary actions!

You can also use spells like Torpor or Boon of Swiftness to alter a unit's recovery time.

Anyone who's played the PSP version knows how incessant the enemy spellcasters were with status spells and impair your units. Now the tables have turned!

• Big baddie causing problems? Try putting them to sleep!
  
• Afraid of the berserker constantly crushing your units? Paralyze or charm them!
  
• Friendly AI units keep killing a new potential unit you're so desperately trying to recruit? Let that AI catch some Zzz's!

Having a hard time recruiting? Here's a couple tips.

• First off, you cannot recruit units in training!!
  
• Another huge note - some status effects prevent recruitment!! For example, a frightened unit is considered to be an invalid recruit target. This is very important to remember!
  
• Disarm and unequip any guest units to reduce their chances of killing off your fresh meat.
  
• Make sure the target has less than 25% health, the lower the better.
  
• Make sure the recruiting unit is directly adjacent to the target.
  
• Be prepared to heal your new recruit once you get them! I tend to save the action of my recruiter to use a heal item on them immediately after a successful recruit.
  
• Use the help menu to find the category of the target if you are unsure what race the target is in order to equip the correct recruit skill. To do this, open up their condition page, press the help button, and navigate over to their sprite. For example, to recruit Beast units, use the Subdue skill from Beast Tamers.

For more in-depth information, check out LordBlade's awesome guide!
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888330097

While crafting is optional, it is more than highly recommended.

After a certain point in the game, crafting becomes available. Take your time with it! Certain items gain effects after being upgraded! Boots/leg guards are the real MVP! I STRONGLY suggest upgrading these first.

Check out some of the upgraded weapon effects as well, as they can turn useless weapons into something deadly (looking at you, Breached).

All armor has some innate resistance if you check their status page. Those numbers reduce overall damage. How it's reduced, I'm not entirely sure - reduced multipliers, percentages? If you know, please share!



Upgrading armor (helmets, body armor, gloves, boots) increases those resistances which in turn can absolutely help squishy units take much less damage! For example, upgrading a basic Warrior's or Defender's Ring will increase resistances to blunt, slash, and pierce from 1 to 3!










Of course, the most important thing is to get the total defense value as high as you can get it.

Don't be afraid to sell extra gear if you're low on funds. If you haven't access to particular "extracurricular" activities for funds and treasure yet, sell any unnecessary weapons and armor.

Stats can make characters much more effective.

If you want your healer to heal more, raise that Mind MND stat! (unconfirmed)
Want to pull of Matrix style dodges? Avoidance AVD is your friend.
Need to hit harder? Raise Strength STR or Dexterity DEX!
Want more accuracy with spells? Take a look at raising the Mind MND stat!

Stats can be raised using green cards found on the field after defeating foes, or through Charms! If you ever need help understanding what the stats do, the help menu is your buddy!

Bows have been really tuned down this time around. They are not entirely useless, however. It seems damage is based on sheer stat number, along with multipliers.

Allow your bow users to handle "soft" units, or pick off enemies with low health. This can be very effective with winged or flying units as they can reach high places to pelt enemies from above.

To make them effective on armored units, either try using their finishing skills, attacking an enemy inflicted with the Breached status, or attacking an enemy inflicted with Fear! Also, being on higher ground will increase damage output.

If all else fails, increasing the unit's Dexterity (DEX) by substantially will make bows powerful. Let's hear those arrows sing!

Items are great to turn the tide of battle. Make sure all your units have items equipped!

It is recommended to carry at least one healing item and a blessing stone to revive incapacitated units.

Other recommendations...

• Carry Grimoire Exorcisme to destroy stilled undead units.
  
• Weaken a boss's physical attacks with Brand of the Sacrifice.
  
• Use Echo Stones to reduce magic damage dealt by a boss.

Want to make items even more effective? Some units have the ability to throw items. Experiment with this ability and toss some consumables! Some may have explosive results... Bull's eye!

I'm personally not a huge fan of the buff card system, but use it to your advantage! Go out of your way to grab those cards. It can be the difference between a downed friendly unit or an unstoppable one. On the flip side, if you don't grab them, the enemies will!

This is such a helpful feature! Use this to prepare your troop composition and skills. I try to keep one of every unit that is able to use certain recruit skills in case I find someone/something I want in my party!

Also, once you have access to "extracurricular" activities, you can walk into a dungeon map to scout, see what units are there, and back out if you don't like the units you are up against. When walking into the stage again, the units will be refreshed along with the composition .

Friendly berserker got your allies in the crossfire? Equip a one hand weapon and shield to prevent this! Attack with the shield on a single unit to save that Berserk proc for the thicc unit comps.

Looking for some amazing sushi tanks? Beast units are fantastic tanks that can dish out incredible damage.

Personally, I recommend getting an Octopus ASAP. Their physical stats are bonkers, and they are capable of dealing insane AoE (area of effect) damage! Pair them with a beast tamer and you've got yourself a living sushi weapon.

Make sure to have beast tamers on hand with the appropriate recruit skill to grab yourself a meat shield (Tame for Dragons and Subdue for Beasts).

OH and hear me out, beast units are fantastic archers.

MP is the bread and butter of this game.

Units with Meditate are great in that they are able to pull off finishing moves and spells more often than not! Those without it must take care when using MP in order to have it available in times when it matters most. Nothing is worse than getting up close and personal with the boss and you're a few points short of a finisher because you casted heal earlier!

Also, the Drain Mind spell is a great way at disabling enemies from pulling off finishers on your units!

Certain classes swordmaster and ninja make great assault units with versatile play styles. They are effective as melee harassers, single target multi-hit spellcasters, status appliers, and even healers! Recruit them the chance you get before you are able to grab their classmarks!

Matching a character's elements with elemental spells and items gives a damage boost! For example, casting a fire spell on a fire unit will deal more damage than if they were to cast an earth or water spell.

Additionally, this can be used to deal more damage to enemies of an element weak to the attacker. Here's a chart for reference.


This also includes finishers! If using a non-elemental finisher (slash, crush, pierce), the attacker's element will be factored in. However, finishers with innate elemental affinities will take precedence over the attacker's elemental affinity.

Weapon skill now increases offensive spell damage! Make sure you pair a weapon skill on your spellcaster. The weapon skill will also gain experience when you cast offensive spells.

For spell accuracy, make sure your spellcaster has the passive ability "Concentration" for the effect Spellstrike, otherwise use the item "Black Lizard Powder" for the effect.

Need some cash? Auction off your large units (beasts, dragons, etc.). Be sure to look for new items in the shop after auction...

To save yourself some time for a side quest later in the game, try to Tame all the different types of dragons (9 in total).

You should upgrade your armguards and legguards to +1 as soon as possible!






Armguards +1 grants Jump which lets your unit jump +1 higher, making it much easier to climb things, while legguards +1 grants Swiftfoot which gives +1 move to movement distance.





There are also some body armors that grant the Wade ability which allows the unit to move a bit further through water, but it's not as important as +1 move and +1 jump when it comes to moving around the battlefield.

All weapons are linked to a weapon skill. As the skill increases in levels, so does the weapon's damage and accuracy. This also works for weapons associated with spells like rods. As the skill increases, the character will also learn finishing moves - the first being at skill level 10.

Skill levels and finishing moves gained with the weapon are transferable between classes as long as the class can wield the weapon!

Early on, damage between ranged/melee/magic is fairly even. As time goes on, melee damage will often out-damage ranged and magic by a fair amount.

Ranged damage is good against lightly armored enemies like casters, but their damage will drop sharply as the game progresses. Magic will often times also drop in damage, though magic users have a lot of utility in the added effects they can afflict on enemies.

Overall, it's recommended to use a mainly melee oriented team for maximum effect!

One thing I haven't seen anyone notice at all yet is that you can actually target enemies slightly out of your visible bow range and still hit them! This applies to shortbows and longbows.

However, this does not work for crossbows, blowguns, and spells. These things require a target within range.

Instead, they follow a different rule - you are able to target other units (friend or foe) within range in order to hit units in between the selected target! This also includes targeting destructible objects, such as bushes and crates. There are some exceptions to this, such as Drain Life, where you cannot target a friendly unit.







Ex: (x)- - -(o)<----(o)

Rampart Auras holding you back from eviscerating your foes?

Some units have the passive skill Siege which allows them to ignore Rampart Aura effects. Combined with upgraded leg guards, the -1 movement penalty is negligible.

Keep in mind that flying units are unhindered by Rampart Aura. Also, you may use large creatures (beasts, dragons, golems) as a stepping stone to avoid the auras.

If you haven't found one already, certain units Terror Knights can cause the Fear effect with their skills and abilities.

I recommend slotting one of these into the party. Pair this unit with a 2-hand sword capable of the Breach effect? You'll mow down tanks with ease. These units can easily make the toughest tank a helpless blob of meat on bones.

For the stat nerds...
Fright increases damage taken by the unit ~20%, while also reducing the damage they deal by a whopping ~65%!
Breach reduces an enemies defense, increasing physical damage they take by ~55%!

An opponent with both the Breached and Frightened status takes an additional ~80% of damage!

Most staffs (staves) increase the range of spells by +1. Some give more range after upgrading!

Early on, it's recommended to give a staff and shield to give your spellcasters the added range for utility and defense for survivability.

If you don't want to use a shield, try using a dagger! Daggers provide the Parry ability, allowing you to completely block attacks at a set chance.

Shields are wonderful defensive items. They greatly reduce arrow damage taken as well as soak up a bit of melee damage.

If you need to increase survivability of your "squishy" units, look to equipping a one-handed weapon and shield!

For those who want more versatility in their fighters, a one-handed melee weapon and ranged weapon (shortbow, crossbow, blowgun) are also great options!

When destroying obstacles such as crates and trees, they spawn buff cards. Throw rocks to destroy crab grass on your opening moves to grab those buff cards!

Rocks also work great to remove statuses such as Charm and Sleep, as well as remove buffs such as Nullify or Evade. Rocks are no longer for cavemen, but for skilled tacticians as well!

When beasts and dragons show up to fight your team, a Dragoon is almost mandatory. Their Beastbane/Dragonsbane skill provides a huge boost to the next standard melee attack for not just themselves, but any teammates standing within 3 spaces. It helps neutralize those huge HP pools monsters have.

A Dragoon with a bane activated can then use the appropriate Slayer skill. A standard attack with both of these active can inflict some serious damage (~1280 at Lv. 21 against a Lv. 22 dragon in Phorampa, no blue cards on the Dragoon nor adverse status effects on the dragon, and NOT a crit!).

Consider using 2 Dragoons when several monsters show up in case the Beastbane/Dragonsbane skills struggle to proc. These skills won't multiply finishers, however, nor ranged attacks.

Ninja skills can add status effects to your basic attacks and can use bows.

The effects from Benumb, Bridle, and Envenom affect all basic melee and indirect attacks.


They might make better archers than actual archers, since you can apply poison, silence, and stun from afar to neuter casters or apply poison to whittle down tanky enemies. Also, Shortbow+1 applies stun, while Baldur Bow+1 applies silence.

For Arrows and Archers, this time around they made it more important what attack type an attack is VS the resistance of a target. For example, once the Baldur items become available piercing, attacks become really bad... but crushing really strong because that is what Baldur armor lacks.

For Beast/Dragon units, they seemingly don't have resistance types because those are on armors, so they inflated the HP of Beast/Dragon units, meaning you can still do pretty decent damage with arrows on them... unless the unit has a crazy high Vit-stat.

(foodvac) Don't worry too much about grabbing every loot bag. Anything on the ground will automatically be collected at the end of the battle. If an enemy picks up a loot bag and you kill them, they will drop what they picked up. But if they escape or aren't killed by the end of the battle, then you won't get the original loot back. This doesn't apply if they picked up a green stat boost card, as that will be lost forever.

(Lithariel) If an Undead unit picks up a bag and is stilled, then you won't get the bag. You have to exorcise it in order for the bag to drop.

(geologyrox) You may also take items back from units that landed on a bag if you recruit them.

Be careful of knocking off units from cliffs as well, as this prevents the defeated unit from dropping anything!

Helpful links gathered from the interwebs!

WIP Drop Tables[docs.google.com] by Reddit u/Valleyboy26 and u/Kataks.

Tactics Ogre Reborn Weapon Skill Table[docs.google.com] by Reddit u/VicariousExp.

Special Witch Deneb Recruitment Guide[docs.google.com] by MerRyanSG.

Buff and Debuff Effectiveness by Reddit u/Molassesonthebed.