Cecil Harvey

Vanguard

Cecil is perfect for airborne skirmishes as a paladin and a formidable threat on the ground as a dark knight. Switching between the two enhances his attributes for a time, so remember to switch jobs periodically.

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY IV

Year: 1991

Role: Cecil was once a captain for the Kingdom of Baron’s Red Wings, an elite air force increasingly notorious for severely curtailing the lives of anyone standing in the way of their lust for crystals. Cecil’s own conscience intervened just as circumstances also did, cutting him off from his homeland and command and setting him on a quest of redemption and discovery that would ultimately go to the moon and back. There turns out out to be much more to the dark knight who became a paladin than his history as a repentant enforcer.

Other Noteworthy Appearances:FINAL FANTASY IV: The After Years (2009), DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks: Paladin

Bravery Attacks: Dark Knight

HP Attacks

EX Skill

Paladin Bravery Attack Breakdown

Light Slash

Cecil steps forward, swinging his sword ahead in a wide swath from his right to his left. If this connects, Cecil can spring forward, whirling his sword back the other way and smacking his opponent twice more, sending them flying a short distance.

In paladin form, Cecil’s ground arsenal is limited to Light Slash. This is a functional enough ground combo, which knocks the opponent a short distance away at the end, allowing for immediate pressure with a dash cancel after them. A combo follow-up may be possible if they splat against a wall, or if they simply don’t recover quickly.

If the initial swing misses, evasion cancel away from nearby enemies to recover more quickly and possibly dodge retaliation.

Radiant Wings

Starting off the ground, Cecil whirls toward the target suddenly with a triple slash. While Cecil can’t track sharply up or down with this attack, anyone relatively level with him will get clipped, and from surprisingly far away for an airborne melee strike. If any of the three slashes connects, Cecil can transition into a high-flying finisher, zipping to smack them on all four sides and send them hurtling down and away.

Paladin Cecil is at home in the air, and Radiant Wings is the cornerstone of his airborne rushdown. The range and speed are excellent, and if any of the first three slashes hits, the follow-up is assured with another  press.

A wall-rush opportunity can easily arise if Radiant Wings slaps an opponent into a vertical surface. Both stages are multi-hit, which gives nearby allies plenty of time to tack on their own combo attacks. With very coordinated friends in two-on-one situations, attack with airborne  alone, trusting your allies to keep the pressure going, hit or guarded.

Sacred Cross

Cecil erupts upward with the momentum of his upswinging arm and sword, letting them carry him higher than jumping. If this sword uppercut hits, Cecil can follow up with a backhand smash that sends opponents flying back down to earth. Dash canceling straight in after them allows for continued pressure, or even a combo.

The sword-uppercut portion really does carry Cecil a bit higher than a jump, so this can help him climb and stall in mid-air, much higher and longer-lived than most other vanguard characters who can’t do better than double-jumping and dashing. Jump > air + > double-jump > air +  is functionally a quadruple-jump, with a full dash gauge left for high-altitude maneuvering.

While the sword swipe tends to miss against foes on an even plane with Cecil, it has terrific reach against anyone diagonally above him. This attack easily shoots down higher fliers, and surprises enemies standing on platforms or near ledges, unaware that Cecil is just below them, out of sight off the edge. Sacred Cross accounts for any enemy above Cecil that Radiant Wings would miss.

Saint’s Fall

Cecil dives down at an enemy below him, arms and sword outstretched, a shockwave generated by his passage. The shockwave through the air means this attack hits a little better than it looks. It’s not just the sword’s tip; it’s more like Cecil himself is a projectile. On a successful hit, Cecil redirects his momentum and rebounds up into the victim, launching them a huge distance away.

While the lateral reach of Saint’s Fall is half a minimap circle, making it seem like a short-range move basically, the diagonal reach is very good. Cecil can double-jump to max altitude and still hit the heads of standing characters from a generous distance away. While Radiant Wings gives huge lateral range in mid-air and Sacred Cross serves as anti-air above, Saint’s Fall is good for most angles under Cecil. He adjusts the angle to be steeper if someone is close underfoot, but he can’t aim Saint’s Fall straight down, so it may miss from double-jump height against someone directly below.

The angle of attack (death from above, ideally against unsuspecting targets), the speed of the combo (it’s over very quickly), and the result (it launches the victim farther than Cecil’s other combos) make this great for breaking up enemy clusters. With some backup, of course, target a duo or trio and move above into attack range, looking to Saint’s Fall one of them away. If possible, change targets right before dive-bombing one of them opportunistically so they don’t have much notice from the red target line.

searchlight

Cecil cuts short a dash to cast a holy glyph that briefly spins in mid-air near a target, emitting five light projectiles before vanishing.

Searchlight has two big weaknesses. The first is that, while the glyph itself has good range for its initial placement, the light projectiles it ejects have relatively limited range. They’re almost like an extended melee attack from wherever the glyph first appears. So Searchlight is great to drop into groups who are preoccupied, or in cramped quarters like in FFVII’s Midgar, but it doesn’t do any good against someone dashing across an arena, who will quickly vacate the glyph’s range.

The second weakness is that Searchlight is that rare attack that doesn’t make enemies flinch. They’re heavily incentivized not to let the projectiles hit them because they shouldn’t want Cecil’s team to build up Bravery, but Searchlight doesn’t interrupt their actions. So you can’t drop Searchlight and expect that it will set up a combo for Cecil, nor that it might save Cecil or his teammates if they start getting hit, the way some delayed projectile attacks can. Searchlight is strictly for creating annoyances on the fringe and building Bravery.

But with those caveats aside, this is a unique way to build up Bravery and annoy opponents. The rest of Cecil’s paladin attacks are high-commitment and move him closer to danger, but this one can be thrown out cavalierly from safety, and should be. On top of being used to pepper the edges of enemy groups, coaxing reactions from them, and piling up Bravery safely, Searchlight is also a great tool to drop to chip away at summoning cores without occupying too much of Cecil’s time.

If you evasion/dash cancel from Searchlight and try to cast another glyph too quickly, nothing will happen. Evasion cancel immediately after dropping Searchlight to get to your next action or position faster, but wait until the first Searchlight disappears naturally before casting another one.

Dark Knight Bravery Attack Breakdown

Shadow Bringer

Cecil steps forward and sweeps his dark sword from ahead past his shoulder to the left, ending at his rear foot. If he catches prey in this cross-body slash, he can follow with up to two powerful combo hits. The third hit is a harpoon thrust that launches the victim a tremendous distance backward on hit, easily smashing them against any wall in the way.

While paladin Cecil rules the skies, mostly with lengthy sword slashes, dark knight Cecil stalks the ground, mostly with far-reaching, dark projectiles. This is his ground-based melee combo, sporting short range but great power and flexibility.

With allies in reach, use the first two swings as a hit-check, staggering the enemy and letting them continue the combo (perhaps trading it back to Cecil after he recovers from Shadow Bringer’s second swing). In advantageous situations, it’s better to keep enemies around and continue piling up on them, rather than knocking them far away and giving them a chance to breathe. But if allies are preoccupied, let it rip, especially to break up coordinated enemy groups. Blast someone away and immediately redirect attention to someone else nearby, while taking stock of ally locations.

Dark Bane

Holding his sword like a cannon, Cecil charges up dark energy and quickly releases it in a pulse, like a high-powered energy slug. It travels rapidly out to its max range, walloping any foe in the way and punting them across the arena.

For a single hit that travels so quickly, Dark Bane deals incredible Bravery damage and tosses the victim clean out of relevance to the local battlefield. This is as close as anyone gets to having a close- to mid-range shotgun. It’s a big part of Cecil’s ground domination as dark knight, and his power as a tank and rallying point for allies. The single heavy, quick hit is also great for smashing a summoning core hard.

The only weakness to Dark Bane is that it doesn’t angle upward to hit enemies high off the ground, or right above Cecil.

Abyssal Gate

Cecil beckons a gathering dark void around the target (or as close to the target as possible, if it’s out of range). The dark energy sucks in enemies nearby before exploding after a second, harming anyone within the blast radius.

Abyssal Gate can be charged for a slightly longer draw-in period, increased range, and more Bravery damage. Typically, it’s better to drop it, evasion cancel forward, and get back to adding in more projectiles quickly instead of building for a slightly stronger hit.

While Abyssal Gate is easy for enemies to see coming, and to dodge, it’s one more obstacle on the battlefield for them to deal with—advantageous in certain situations. Weaving in Abyssal Gate with Gravity Orb casts allows Cecil to contribute to skirmishes in the sky nearby, outside the range of Shadow Bringer and Dark Bane. From mid-range, after executing Abyssal Gate and dash canceling forward, Cecil might be in range to juggle them immediately with Gravity Orb for an incredibly strong two-hit sequence.

Nightfall

Gliding through the air, Cecil suddenly slides toward the target a bit, then slashes twice—first to the right, then to the left—cutting a broad fan directly in front of him and scorching the air with his dark blade. After the initial two hits, he flips forward and drags the target to the ground, slamming the earth with a violent shockwave that launches them away and can hit anyone else nearby.

If there’s no one to cut in the way, Cecil simply whiffs the two swings harmlessly. Evasion cancel to regain control more quickly after the second one (or guard cancel to fall straight down to the ground, where dark knight Cecil is more effective). If following through with the full combo, dash cancel after the ground-pound to chase the victim and keep up the attack.

Nightfall doesn’t have any vertical flexibility, so it’ll miss targets who aren’t on an even plane with Cecil. Try his HP Attack to shoot at different angles in mid-air, or switch jobs to paladin.

Gravity Orb

Sweeping his left hand upward to the sky, Cecil gathers and releases a homing ball of dark energy that slowly tracks the target for about three seconds. If it hits the enemy, it’ll knock them down, dealing respectable Bravery damage.

Whether dark knight or paladin, Cecil’s dashing attack is a projectile designed for harassment. Gravity Orb has massive range and lasts a long time. Like Abyssal Gate, it’s unlikely to fool many adversaries on its own, but it’s great to put up as part of a smokescreen of projectiles in a group-on-group stalemate, or to pile on threats for a foe already under assault by teammates. Its long reach and slow travel speed also make it perfect for rushing in behind as a kind of moving piece of cover for Cecil. Get close enough when it hits someone, and combos immediately afterward are possible.

Throwing Gravity Orb while another casting is already on-screen causes the first orb to evaporate instantly.

HP Attack Breakdown

Luminous Blast

After striking a pose with his holy sword, Cecil twirls in place and flings out a shimmering holy sphere that travels for a second before exploding. Anyone caught in the wake of the traveling sphere or its expanding holy explosion is softened up by several minor Bravery blows before eating the HP damage due.

With decent range and a good area of effect, Luminous Blast is easy for Cecil to apply. Throw it at enemies bouncing off ground slams or reeling from wall rushes; throw it into distracted, dogfighting groups; throw it from the edge of group standoffs.

When the Job Change buff is active, Luminous Blast gains a mild draw-in effect, helping it nail foes.

Tenebrous Blast

This is the dark knight counterpart to Luminous Blast. Cecil strikes a pose with his dark sword, then whirls around and unleashes an extremely slow, long-lasting orb of dark energy. This deadly globe lasts for 10 seconds before it explodes, expanding as it dissipates. During this time, it lazily tracks whoever was targeted, unless it’s intercepted by an equally powerful spell or slaps into a wall or background object.

Tenebrous Blast is like an amped-up version of Gravity Orb and should be used accordingly in tandem with it, if choosing this HP Attack. Ten seconds is an eternity in the game, plenty of time to do lots of other stuff in between releases of Tenebrous Blast. While the orb glides toward the prey, send Gravity Orbs and Abyssal Gates in too, or charge in to use Dark Bane, or go for direct melee attacks.

If you shoot Tenebrous Blast, then do it again, the first Tenebrous Blast will disappear. But you can use Tenebrous Blast to set up cover for paladin Cecil, then perform other HP Attacks too, by job-changing right after its release. Chase in the dark projectile as the light knight, flying in with his superior air attacks; you can even put Luminous Blasts on-screen while Tenebrous Blast continues its languid travel!

Paladin Force

Cecil instantly swaps to paladin (if he’s not in paladin mode already) and charges a glyph on his left hand. After a second he hurls it forward, and it zips across close range almost instantly. If it hits the enemy, Cecil pulls himself in to their location and executes an intricate rising combo, building up extra Bravery before slamming the enemy down with HP damage in the finale.

While Cecil charges up Paladin Force, he’s vulnerable to interruption, but once he hurls the little energy ball, he’ll overpower incoming Bravery Attacks. Paladin Force is straightforward to apply, whether tacked onto ally combos and wall hits, used as bait, or as a poke with decent (if not exceptional) range. And of course, it’s tailor-made for players who prefer to stay in paladin mode as much as possible.

Soul Eater

Cecil shifts to dark knight form (if he’s a paladin) and surges forward with a midsection sword thrust, which transitions into a short, powerful blowback combo on a successful hit. The short, sweet combo of body blows builds up a bit of extra Bravery before the HP slam (though not as much as Paladin Force).

Like Paladin Force, Soul Eater can get interrupted while Cecil gathers strength, but once he’s charging forward, he’ll win if he encounters other melee attacks. It’s less safe to use freely like Paladin Force, since Soul Eater turns Cecil into a sword-tipped, shoulder-checking projectile, while Paladin Force allows Cecil to hang back and toss small orbs of energy. It does, however, suit players who want to mostly stick to a ground-based dark knight game.

Holy FLame

Cecil raises his sword aloft and then spikes it down before him, starting a gathering of holy magic around the target (if the target’s too far, then as close as possible to the target). After a moment, the gathering forces of light burn off in a series of explosive blue pillars. Any of these suffices to hit the enemy and sear them with HP-erasing holy damage.

All told, there are eight flaming blue pillar eruptions occurring for about one second. Like many similar attacks, Holy Flame is easy for enemies to see coming—the gathering light telegraphs it—but they might be otherwise occupied or accidentally move into the radius while dueling some other opponent, or the HP Attack might be used to combo after an ally from mid-range, and so on. Holy Flame doesn’t just deal damage, though. It also cures some of Cecil’s HP, in an amount equal to three-tenths (rounded down) of the Bravery accumulated when Holy Flame hits. With 3500 Bravery in hand, it’s easy to see what a turnaround a Holy Flame hit can make, not only possibly knocking someone out instantly and scoring the team a point, but also healing Cecil for over 1000 HP—a meaningful chunk.

It’s worth noting that, unlike Dark Flame and other direct projectiles, Holy Flame isn’t blocked by pillars, walls, or other obstacles, and can be targeted at the other side of impediments.

Dark Flame

Cecil plunges his dark sword before him, and a series of dark pillars erupt in a rapid, treacherous path that snakes to follow the target if necessary. Any hit scorches the target with HP damage.

There’s no extra Bravery damage before Dark Flame, but the speed and range of the attack more than make up for it. This is one of the strongest HP Attacks in the game, forcing the other team to respect its presence. Nine dark pillars erupt in total, reaching from Cecil to long range in a couple of seconds. This can easily overtake enemies who are busy paying attention to something else.

There’s a unique caveat to this move’s power. Every cast saps 400 HP from Cecil’s health pool. Frivolous use of Dark Flame is both scary for the other team, and quickly dangerous for Cecil himself. One solution is to swap back to paladin and go for Holy Flame absorptions to replenish the lost HP. Cecil can still cast Dark Flame with less than 400 HP available. He’ll be reduced to 1 HP, but the attack will still do full damage.

EX Skill Breakdown

Change Jobs

In FINAL FANTASY IV, the characters’ personalities were driven by their vocations. Cecil exemplifies this with his journey from the dark to the light, growing from dark knight terror to paladin redeemer. In the world of Spiritus and Materia, Cecil can shift between his identities on a whim (cooldown pending!).

After changing jobs with his unique EX Skill, Cecil gains an attack and defense buff that lasts for 30 seconds but decays in effectiveness every 6 seconds. It starts at full strength (+ 25% attack, + 12.5% defense) and diminishes bit by bit, leaving Cecil at normal power before the timer runs out. The cooldown for Job Change is also 30 seconds, so it’s possible to keep the buff active almost all the time.

Cecil has one second of windup after the button press before he swaps jobs. During this period, he can be interrupted by attacks, which both prevents his job-change attempt and wastes his EX Skill, forcing him to wait for the cooldown timer again. This means you’ll want to be cautious about risking a job change near enemies. However, immediately after the one-second windup, Cecil not only changes jobs but also becomes invincible for 1.5 seconds! Change Jobs also grants Luminous Blast a mild draw-in effect.

Thanks to the invulnerable period, with good timing (or dumb luck!), Change Jobs can be used to dodge and pass through incoming attacks. This is most applicable intentionally against big incoming marksman-style projectiles, like some HP Attack shockwaves. While these might be extremely threatening attacks, they also have extremely reliable timing, allowing you to time the invincible portion of Change Jobs (the second half, basically) for when the projectile arrives. This can also be an effective tool for dodging summoned guardian strikes. (Something like Cecil’s own Luminous/Tenebrous Blast that moves slowly and/or explodes, splashing a bigger area, is not a good candidate for this kind of precise dodging, since the hurting portion lingers too long.)

Battle Plan

With the ability to Job Change between distinctive interpretations of the vanguard role, Cecil is like two characters in one.

When selecting Cecil, follow the key prompt to choose whether he begins as paladin or dark knight. Both are viable and bring their own set of strengths to the team. Weaving between them is what makes Cecil unique. Choosing which to start as, and how and when to swap between them, is up to you.

Paladin dominates the air as an aggressive, melee-centered vanguard. He’s almost an assassin, able to glide around with high mobility and wait for the right moment to swoop in unexpectedly. With his variety of aerial Bravery Attacks, Cecil can strike anywhere nearby in mid-air and stay in flight for extremely long periods for a vanguard (with more height than usual too).

On the ground, paladin Cecil has only one Bravery Attack, an unremarkable combo. There’s a trick to using air attacks from a seemingly standing position, though: tap neutral for an air-dash straight at the current target, then immediately perform the desired airborne Bravery move. This adds the tiniest bit of start-up thanks to the preamble rushdown dash, but it’s nice for giving paladin Cecil more options at low altitude where he’s not supposed to be strong (particularly Radiant Wings and Searchlight as pokes, and Sacred Cross to shoot down fliers overhead).

Dark knight dominates the ground as a real bully of a heavy marksman. Tenebrous Flame and Dark Flame HP Attacks, and Gravity Orb and Abyssal Gate Bravery Attacks, are all tremendously far-reaching, and Dark Bane is the single hardest hit in Cecil’s whole arsenal. The cost is that dark knight Cecil is weak in mid-air, with few options besides guarding to fall to the ground quickly and get back to wrecking enemy team cohesion with dark projectiles.

If you greatly favor one job or the other, use Paladin Force or Soul Eater as your HP Attack, accordingly. This means you can pretty much stay in the desired job almost full-time. You can, of course, still change situationally, and to keep the Job Change buff active. (If there’s a brief lull in the action around you, use Change Jobs to swap off your preferred job, then immediately whiff the appropriate job-changing HP Attack to morph back. Voilà, you didn’t really swap job roles, but you now have buffed stats for half a minute. Keep this up whenever possible.)

If you like both jobs and fluidly swap between them as the situation (and Change Jobs cooldown timer) allows, then you’ll probably eventually

settle on Holy Flame/Dark Flame, one of the more novel HP Attack combos in the game. Holy Flame can strike behind walls and replenish Cecil’s health, and Dark Flame blankets more arena space in HP-destroying energy than any of Cecil’s other HP Attacks. Though this comes at a cost of a bit of his own blood, it’s still a very strong attack.

If opting to use Luminous Blast/Tenebrous Blast instead, one sneaky way to force the issue when you have lots of Bravery and want to cash in with a knockout (or when you want to push forward for your team as a projectile-crazy rallying point) is to launch Tenebrous Blast as dark knight, evasion cancel forward, job-change to paladin, then rush forward. Tenebrous Blast will continue chugging along, giving you plenty of time to accompany it with up to three Luminous Blast shots before the dark orb explodes.

Broadly, both classes have similar team functions, though the details differ greatly. In either job, Cecil’s damage is above average, and his attacks are a forceful presence, providing a beefy center for assassins and marksmen to coordinate with.

To punt aggressors far away from friends and thin out enemy groups, paladin can use Saint’s Fall (aerial + > ) while dark knight can use Shadow Bringer (grounded > > ) and Dark Bane (grounded + ). This removes threats temporarily, but also enables more immediate mismatches and two-on-ones/three-on-ones with foes still on their feet.

For projectile harassment, paladin has Searchlight and dark knight has Gravity Orb, both activated with dashing  (airborne or grounded). Dark knight also has the rest of its arsenal as projectile threats, minus neutral  melee moves.

Setting up opportunities for allies isn’t one of Cecil’s outstanding strengths, though he can wall-splat victims with the best of them as either job. As dark knight, consider cutting Shadow Bringer short with only two slashes (grounded > ), keeping opponents close and giving nearby friends a free HP Attack shot. Paladin Cecil doesn’t have a chain that’s useful to interrupt in the same way, but you can use multi-hitting Radiant Wings (airborne > ) similarly, since they hold enemies briefly during Cecil’s long air combo. These tactics are also worth keeping in mind when smacking summoning cores and building up that gauge, since you’ll have chances to hand off combos not only to teammates, but also to the massive strikes of summoned creatures.  

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