Final Fantasy Resonance stats explained: what every attribute does and how to raise it

Open Equipment and Abilities in Final Fantasy Resonance and every character shows a column of eleven numbers under their HP and MP. It looks like one list, but it works as two layers. Six of the numbers (Strength, Stamina, Magic, Spirit, Speed and AP) are the ones that grow and the ones you can raise on purpose. The other five (Physical Attack, Physical Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense and Sanctity) are what those six turn into once your gear is added, and they’re the numbers a fight actually uses.

Reading the status screen

The panel shows a character’s level, HP, MP and the Vision they’re wearing, then the eleven numbers. This is Fina at level 40 in one of the official screenshots, with each attribute next to the battle stat it feeds.

Look at the gap between the first and third columns. That gap is her equipment. Each battle stat is its attribute plus what the gear adds: Strength plus the weapon is Physical Attack, Stamina plus the armor is Physical Defense, Magic plus the weapon is Magic Attack, Spirit plus the armor is Magic Defense, and Spirit plus the Sanctity on her gear is Sanctity. A healer in good equipment can sit far above her raw numbers.

What each stat does

Strength

Strength feeds Physical Attack, which sets the damage of basic attacks and physical skills. Rain and Lasswell lean on it, and so do most of the Visions in the physical lane. It grows every level, and weapons bring their own Physical Attack, so a new weapon usually beats a handful of Strength points early on. Bravery (a White Magic buff Jake learns at level 10) raises it temporarily, and so does Nichol’s Formation: Regroup, for three turns. Deprotect works from the other side by lowering an enemy’s Physical Defense, though some enemies resist it.

Stamina

Stamina turns into Physical Defense, and that’s all it does. Don’t expect extra HP from it, because HP grows separately. Armor adds to Physical Defense directly. Protect and Protectga give a temporary boost (Rain learns them at levels 9 and 22), and some accessories hand out Protect by themselves, the Protect Ring and the Protector’s Seal among them.

Magic

Magic is what powers Magic Attack, the damage of black magic and magic skills. Healing doesn’t use it, because that’s Sanctity’s job. Weapons and grimoires add to it, Faith raises it temporarily, and Formation: Regroup lifts it together with Physical Attack for three turns.

Spirit and Sanctity

Spirit has two jobs. It adds to Magic Defense, which cuts magic damage, and to Sanctity, which decides how hard a heal lands and how hard Light magic hits. A point of Spirit is never wasted, even on someone who never casts a healing spell.

Sanctity is Spirit plus the Sanctity on your weapon and armor, and accessories add neither. The skills that run on it are Fina’s Shining Arrow, Holy Ray (her Limit Burst) and Luminant Cannon, Sakura’s Luminant Glim, and the Banish line that comes with the Leah Vision. Holy runs on it too. Bows are Fina’s best source of it. The Shortbow carries 27 and costs 600 gil in Felicitas. At the top sits Lorica Sancta, a light armor with 255 Sanctity from the Colosseum (the first-time reward for Champion Battle 2). It also boosts healing by 10 percent and Light damage and stagger power by 30 percent.

Some effects raise healing without touching the Sanctity number at all. Healing Magic +10, +20 and +30 percent show up on gear and Visions, and they raise the potency of a heal on top of what Sanctity already gave you.

Speed

Speed decides where a character sits on the turn order strip, and a higher number acts sooner. It doesn’t feed a battle stat. Lasswell starts at 11 against Rain’s 7 and pulls further ahead, going from 11 to 16 at level 2 while Rain goes from 7 to 10. Haste and Hastega raise it temporarily, and Slow cuts it.

AP

AP is the budget for equipped abilities, and everyone starts at 100. Each Vision adds 8 at Mastery Rank 4 and another 8 at rank 9, so one taken all the way up is worth 16. Rain’s AP went from 100 to 108 at level 8 because Tronn reached rank 4 in the same battle, and Fina’s screenshot shows 180. Once you have AP to spend, the best ability setups are worth a look.

HP and MP

HP and MP aren’t attributes, and they don’t come from Stamina or Magic. They rise with levels (Rain’s HP went from 270 to 326 at level 2) and then get topped up by Mastery, dialogue answers and character quests.

How the damage formula uses them

All of it ends up in one formula. The game’s data puts damage per hit at 0.6 times (the attacker’s level plus 2), times a curve of attack divided by defense, times the skill’s power, plus a few multipliers on top. The plus 2 means a level 1 character already counts as level 3. The part you control is the ratio between the attacker’s attack and the target’s defense.

Read that as a shopping guide. When your attack only matches the enemy’s defense you deal the base amount, and double it and you deal nearly three times as much. Upgrades pay off most while your attack is somewhere between one and two times the enemy’s defense. Beyond three times, every added point does less and less, and the curve never climbs past 5. Once you’re there, spend points elsewhere, on Speed or the other attack stat.

The same curve works against you, with the enemy’s attack divided by your defense. An enemy hitting with twice your defense gives 2.85. Raise your defense until the two match and it gives 1, about 65 percent less damage.

The multipliers are simple. Each hit varies by 5 percent either way, critical hits deal 1.5 times, and an element the enemy is weak to deals 1.5 times (half if it resists, nothing if it’s immune). An attack that hits every enemy deals 40 percent to each. Stagger runs on its own table, where a weakness triples the damage to the gauge. Evasion can’t rise above 75 percent. Your party’s hits cap at 9,999, and Terra’s Break the Limit lifts that to 99,999.

Ways to raise a stat

Level ups

Every level raises every attribute, and the battle stat follows the attribute point for point. Rain’s Strength went up by 4 at level 2 and so did his Physical Attack, and his Stamina went up by 7 and so did his Physical Defense. The two starting characters grow in different directions.

Rain’s growth leans toward Stamina and HP and Lasswell’s toward Speed and Magic, which suits a Sentinel and a Breaker.

Gear

Gear adds straight to the battle stats. Weapons bring attack, armor brings defense, and bows, grimoires and robes are where Sanctity lives. A new town usually sells better gear than you’re wearing, so check the shop comparison before you spend any gil, a habit worth building from the very first chapter.

Mastery bonuses

Mastery Ranks give permanent stat points on top of the abilities. They belong to the character who earned them, and they stay when you swap Visions. This is what each stat can pick up from a single Vision by rank 9.

Getting there costs MRP, and there are quick ways to farm it. Which Visions are worth taking to rank 9 for their abilities is a separate question, with the stat points as a bonus.

Dialogue answers

Eight story scenes ask Rain how he wants to respond, and each answer gives a small permanent boost. You only get one answer per scene and it can’t be undone. Apart from the first, the boost goes to the person Rain is talking to. Each answer is worth either 3 points of a stat, 10 MP or 30 HP, and the exact wording of every answer is easy to match against this table.

Character quests

Finishing a party member’s own quest gives them a fixed bonus, with no choice involved. Every one includes HP +100 and MP +30, plus two attributes.

The bonuses double as a hint about what the game thinks each person is for. Jake and Lasswell get Strength, Sakura and Nichol get Magic, Fina gets Spirit, Rain gets Stamina, and Nichol and Lasswell get Speed.

Buffs and debuffs

Buffs and debuffs move a stat for a while, and each has a mirror image. Debuffs aren’t status ailments, so Esuna and items can’t remove them. Regen, Reflect and Reraise are buffs too, and Stagger defense down is a debuff that works on the stagger gauge.

Which stats to raise first

Put points into the stat a character’s best skills run on, and use the tooltip bar from earlier to check. Rain wants Stamina first and Strength second. Lasswell wants Strength and Speed. Fina wants Spirit, because it feeds her healing, her Light magic and her defense at once. Nichol wants Magic and Speed, Jake wants Strength, and Sakura wants Magic. When an answer offers a stat that character’s quest also rewards, take it and let the quest top it up.

The stat points are small next to levels and gear, so don’t agonise over any single pick. A permanent +3 matters far less than the weapon you buy next.