CTB System
CTB is the name given to the brand spanking new system used in Final Fantasy X's combat. Although the mysterious coloured bars may look confusing at first glance, the dynamics behind them are really quite simple. With a little study, they can be mastered. Although such an in-depth knowledge of CTB won't offer much in the way of tactical bonus, it's still nice to know how everything works under the hood. Prepare yourself for some reverse-engineering that would make Rikku proud.
Those Coloured Bar Things
The key to understanding CTB lies in unraveling the turns window that appears in the top right-hand corner of the battle screen. It shows who will take the next 16 moves, both monster and party, with the active fighter at the top. All combatants have an internal clock, the value of which is shown by a light pink bar. I don't know how large this bar actually is, but it's either analogue or divided into more than 10 segments. Because of that, we'll define 1 "timer" (t) to be a full pink block. In the example on the right, Auron has about 1/8t on his clock.
Clock values higher than 1 are shown by the bar gradually turning purple, and values higher than 2 make the block darker still. Clocks of 3 or higher are shown by a full dark block, as in the bottom of the example. So from this, we can see that Tidus's next turn is about 2.1t away. As he decides what to do, that value will change to reflect his action. In this case he is about to use an Item, which is a relatively quick thing to do. Auron and the monster have yet to choose anything, so the game simply assumes they'll perform standard attacks.
When Tidus finally gets around to doing something, he is given a new clock value based on a number of factors. Then all of the timers count down together until someone's hits 0 (Auron will be next) and the whole process starts all over again. In many ways it's the opposite of the old ATB system, in which everyone's clock (ATB bar) was the same size but they counted up at different speeds. Now everyone has their own clock, and they all count down at the same rate.
Action Times
Different actions may take different lengths of time to recover from. In the example below, it can be seen that for Wakka to Attack would set his clock to ~2.3t, while using an Item would only set it to ~1.6t. That small difference moves him in front of the monster with a clock of ~1.8t.
It's difficult to tell exact clock values because of the resolution of the screen, but it can be shown that using an Item takes 2/3 of the time it takes to Attack. In fact, all actions take an integer multiple of the time it takes to change Weapon or Armour. We'll call this base time. A table of known multiples is shown below.
| Action | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Weapon, Armour, Escape | 1 |
| Defend | 2 |
| Attack | 3 |
| Item | 2 |
| Skill | |
| Dark Attack, Sleep Attack, Silence Attack, Zombie Attack | 3 |
| Dark Buster, Sleep Buster, Silence Buster | 3 |
| Triple Foul | 3 |
| Delay Buster | 8 |
| Power Break, Magic Break, Armour Break, Mental Break | 4 |
| Full Break | 5 |
| Extract Power, Extract Mana, Extract Speed, Extract Ability | 3 |
| Quick Hit | 2 |
| Special | |
| Flee | 2 |
| Steal | 3 |
| Use | 2 |
| Aim, Cheer, Focus, Reflex, Luck, Jinx | 2 |
| Lancet | 2 |
| Guard, Sentinel | 3 |
| Threaten | 3 |
| Entrust | 3 |
| Black Magic | |
| Fire, Fira, Firaga | 3 |
| Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga | 3 |
| Water, Watera, Waterga | 3 |
| Blizzard, Blizzara, Blizzaga | 3 |
| Bio | 3 |
| Demi | 3 |
| Death | 3 |
| Drain, Osmose | 2 |
| Ultima | 6 |
| White Magic | |
| Cure, Cura, Curaga, Regen | 3 |
| Scan | 3 |
| NulBlaze, NulShock, NulTide, NulFrost | 2 |
| Esuna | 3 |
| Life, Full Life | 3 |
| Haste | 4 |
| Hastega | 6 |
| Slow | 3 |
| Slowga | 4 |
| Shell, Protect, Reflect, Dispel | 3 |
| Holy | 4 |
| Tidus' Overdrive | |
| Spiral Cut | 3 |
| Slice and Dice | 4 |
| Energy Rain | 5 |
| Blitz Ace | 7 |
Base Times
The base time depends on Agility, with low-level fighters taking much longer to recover than the faster ones. To give it comparatively, an Agility of over 200 causes an Attack to take less than 0.5t. That's fast. We'll let you know exactly how Agility determines base time when we've analysed it enough.
The final factor in deciding base time is Haste/Slow status. Under Haste, base time is halved, and it is doubled when afflicted with Slow. In addition, inflicting Haste will cut their current clock in half, while Slow will double it.
| Agility | Base time (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 10 | 0.7t |
| 200+ | 0.15t |
Conclusion
That is all you need to know about the inner workings of CTB. All that's left to determine is whether or not the bar is divided, and if so into how many pieces, and to analyse the numerical relationship between Agility and base time.
