Ability Leveling

Most abilities available to a unit can be trained up to 20 points (some are automatically maxed and don't need to be trained). The cost of training an ability increases with each level. You have 99 skill up points available to use, and they regenerate at 1 every 30 seconds when used. Typically this cooldown should not be a problem unless you are leveling multiple abilities for multiple units in a short period of time.

Unlocking Skills
For main and basic job abilities, additional skills are unlocked as you level the ability to certain levels. To determine what level you need to unlock specific skills you can hold down on the ability in question in the abilities list. This will bring up an interface where you can see what skills are available and what level is required to unlock the skill.

Increased Skill Scaling
Many skills granted by abilities have benefits which scale based on the level of the ability. To determine if a specific skill scales with the ability level, you can look up the skill on the unit job page in Alchemist Code Database. If the Skill Effect section lists a different value for Min and Max, that means the ability scales (the min would be the scaling at ability level 1, and the max at ability level 20).

Which Abilities Not To Level
As a general rule you will want to level any ability that you plan to use on a unit and leave any abilities you don't plan to use at all untrained. That being said there are exceptions to this rule.

Ability Does Not Scale With Level
If the ability is a passive or reactive, there are some cases where the ability does not gain anything from leveling above 1 and is not automatically maxed. It is not harmful to max these, but it does not do anything useful and costs you zeni you might prefer to save. To check if the ability scales with level, you can look up the ability on the unit job page in Alchemist Code Database. If the Skill Effect section does not list a different value for Min and Max, that means the ability does not scale and does not need to be leveled. Some examples of passive/reactive abilities that don't scale with level are:


 * Cross-Counter
 * Counter Snipe
 * Clock Resist
 * Angel's Prayer

Ability Not Desired on Auto
Since units are frequently used on auto for quests, raids and arena, it can sometimes be a good idea to limit what abilities you train on a unit to better control the unit auto behavior. Keep in mind that you can't untrain an ability level once you have trained it, so it is best to look at what you get from the ability before you train it. For more information about the AI behavior of units (primarily in the context of arena but also useful information in general) see Arena Guide by Gagging. Each job page on this site also lists the AI priorities for the job.

Avoiding Use of Specific Skills
By limiting how far you train main or sub abilities, you can prevent the use of specific skills that may not be desirable on auto. Avoiding these skills will mean you do not have access to them on manual however, so you will have to make a judgement call on if you really want access to that skill when using manual. In some cases you might just pick one unit with the job to give the skill to, and leave it untrained on your others. Note that you should look at the scaling of the other skills the unit has access to on the ability before avoiding maxing the ability since it may reduce the effectiveness of those skills if they scale with level.

Some examples of specific skills you might wish to avoid:


 * Rain Snail - Avoid by limiting main/sub ability to level 19. This ability may be useful to have on one unit ( is preferred) but because it tends to be cast on auto when enemies are not in range it is preferred to leave it untrained on most diviners.
 * Divine Shot/Wide Barrage ( / ) - Avoid by limiting sub ability to level 19. This ability has a high miss rate and the AI likes to use it in auto because it hits multiple targets- in most cases you're better off not using it. The sub skills aren't terribly high priority though, so if you want this skill you could just train it for manual and use a different (possibly untrained) sub for auto.
 * Rampaging Asura - Avoid by limiting main ability to level 19. This is primarily so that when using her in auto on bosses she won't use the skill- it's potentially useful for manual purposes but if she uses it on auto it will significantly reduce her agility until the next turn, which can mean that you lose a lot more damage than the skill will gain you.

Keeping Main Ability for Alternate Job Untrained
In some cases the main job used by the unit is too important to go untrained, but there are some cases where you may want to force the unit to only use their sub abilities on auto (this is most common for raiding but can be used in other situations). Keeping at least one job main skills untrained to allow for this can be useful.

Some examples:


 * Main / Sub  | Main /Sub  - For units with chronomancer and enchanter, it may sometimes be preferred to run the enchanter job as the main job, but not train any skills on it and run the chronomancer sub job with skills leveled. This will force the unit to spend time using quicken instead of overclock, which can help get your units spend up very quickly. In some cases it can also be useful on bosses where delay is effective as they will also cast that on their sub. Note that some other units such as  may also wish to prioritize sub chronomancer and may prefer to leave a main job that has a support AI untrained. In the case of Vier this would be main chronomancer, which is only a good choice if you do not need her for main chronomancer for other situations.
 * Main - For units that have summoner, it often times is better to leave them unleveled as the AI for Summoners tends to be more offensive compared to the Enchanter varient which focuses on buffing first and debuffing last ( is such a case when you prefer [Molten Lightning] Lemniscate to be cast first instead of his quicken).


 * Sub - For units that have dancer, you ideally leave the Sub untrained as that Sub in general doesnt bring much for the unit and effects the AI behaviour in a bad way (additionaly  doesnt want to max her Dancer Main or Sub for auto debuffing). Dancers Gate 5 specialy  is not recommended as those can alter there AI in unexpected behaviour

Focusing Unit on Specific Skills
In some cases you may be bringing a unit only for one or a few specific skills. In those cases you may want to avoid training more than what is absolutely necessary to prevent the unit from wasting jewels or time casting undesired skills.

For example:


 * / /  is primarily used to support a raid using her Argentine Rusalka/ Indigo Kikimora/ Heavenly Rouge Harpy buffs with their gate 5 enlightenment. Since you don't generally want them to use most of their other abilities you may want to leave at least their  /  /  sub untrained so you can assign it to them to prevent them using those skills (although it may be also sometimes useful to use Letitia's trained Merchant sub). You might also train their  /  /  main skill only enough to unlock that skill, but it might be useful to also max it for Sovereign Oberon, so this is a judgement call.
 * Main / Sub  - By leaving Samurai main untrained on, you can force him to use his sub ability to CT down on enemy targets, which can be useful on some raid bosses that are vulnerable to it.
 * Main / Sub - If for whatever reason your  is not usable as a CT down auto bot you can use her (be aware that if she has any other skill beyond those 2 she will not use her CT down skill).
 * Sub -  can like other Priestess Job based Units use Captivating Dance on auto but how and in which scenarios requires more testing, so it is better to leave it unleveled if it actually effects her in a bad way.