Terra Branford

Marksman

Terra can dominate the battle from afar with constant barrages of sorcery. Her powers charge the longer she goes without attacking, however, thus giving her access to an even more formidable occult arsenal. Use both strategies wisely.

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY VI

Year: 1994

Role: Terra is one of the strongest mages in the FINAL FANTASY canon, attributable to her half-esper lineage and her cruel upbringing as a kidnapped biological weapon for the Gestahlian Empire. She would be freed from Gestahl control by her communion with espers and come to oppose the evil empire as a member of the rebel group, the Returners.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011), WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY (2016)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks

HP Attacks

EX Skill

Bravery Attack Breakdown

Fira

Whether all at once or little by little, Terra generates and then discharges a fiery conflagration.

Uncharged, Terra can shoot up to seven small fireballs in a row at the target, channeling them through the tip of her sword. (You can change targets while shooting fireballs, but Terra doesn’t redirect her attention till the attack ends.) Individually, each is weak and easily negated by any of the opposing team’s projectiles. They also lack tracking capabilities. What’s great about Fira fireballs, though, is that if the enemy doesn’t guard or dodge, a full burst of seven fireballs will keep the opponent staggering for a long time—plenty of time for an ally to start their own free combo. A full Fira burst knocks the enemy off their feet a bit, but nothing like a melee combo.

The most interesting thing about uncharged Fira bursts is that Terra can launch them while continuing to glide around! Immediately after casting some type of charged spell on the ground, Terra can start shooting Fira fireballs to back up her original spell, while also repositioning as she pleases. Drop charged Blizzara with + , evasion cancel the recovery, then backpedal or move laterally while shooting Fira fireballs, doing a great impression of a bullet-hell jet; unleash a charged Tornado, evasion cancel backward, then start shooting Fira while gliding forward, behind the cover of the roaring, suctioning vortex!

Charged, Terra pirouettes with the sword and then sparks it off the ground, kicking up a series of 11 fire pillars that explode up from the earth in a path toward the target. Charged Fira has excellent range and speed, and decent tracking ability. It gives Terra plenty of fast frontal ground control, while letting her clip the feet of enemies trying to jump or fly over the flaming pillars—the attack isn’t stuck to the ground, and can climb to track rising prey. Charged Fira is like many shockwave-style HP Attacks, but longer-range than most. (And, of course, it’s not an HP Attack.)

Blizzara

Terra shapes hard ice into spears, then speeds them magically toward the target.

Uncharged, Terra begins gliding and generating hefty ice spears. Like with uncharged Fira, she can keep moving while firing multiple magic projectiles. After each spear is generated, it hovers slowly for about three seconds before rocketing toward the target. The spears are threats as soon as they’re generated, so they can serve as a kind of physical shield against flanking aggressors if Terra stays near them while avoiding incoming enemies.

Once in flight, Blizzara ice missiles are fast, with decent tracking. Starting up another round of uncharged Blizzara missiles while the previous batch is in flight does not make the initial projectiles disappear, unlike many such attacks. So if you want to go with a slow-burn of constant uncharged Blizzara fusillades, there’s nothing stopping you (except irritated enemy assassins, eventually, probably).

During charged Blizzara, Terra lays out a quintet of smaller ice balls in the air before her, in a pentagon. After about three seconds, they speed away toward the target, one right after another. Although they’re smaller than the uncharged ice missiles, they knock down foes with glancing hits, even if all the spheres don’t connect. They also have good tracking and speed, like most of Terra’s magic.

Because Terra stops moving and sets down the spheres all at once, this isn’t the physical deterrent uncharged Blizzara can be, since she can’t glide away from an encroaching enemy, laying ice blocks behind her. Charged Blizzara is great to set on a perimeter, though, creating a delayed and far-reaching projectile emissary you can fire and forget, evasion canceling from the recovery either to use an uncharged spell to back it up, or to maneuver to a new foothold while waiting for Terra to replenish a charged spell.

Tornado

Twirling as she charges up and releases the aerodynamic energy, Terra conjures up a giant sustaining gust of dangerous wind.

Uncharged Tornado features Terra staying in place and whipping up a huge double-vortex right in front of her. The wind eddies in place for four seconds, knocking aside anyone foolish enough to touch it. Uncharged Tornado is a great area-control attack, and one of Terra’s few options for breathing room against aggressing melee enemies. When feeling backed into a corner by the enemy team, cast Tornado and dash cancel around or through it at the end, whichever way puts the most enemies on the other side of the wind wall. From here you can start shooting back immediately through your own cover with uncharged spells, or (usually better) you can use the Tornado cover to regroup behind vanguard pals.

Charged Tornado sends one big vortex chugging slowly forward for six seconds. Because of its wide and long-lasting hit area, this spell is great for laying down backup fire for more aggressive teammates. The main reason for this is the incredible draw-in power: from as far away as one minimap circle, a charged Tornado will reel many characters in as fast as they can run away! If they don’t dash or sidestep away from the charged Tornado, it can easily drag them in. It’s especially easy for enemies to fall victim to a suction hit when they’re too busy engaged with your teammates to move away from the vortexes prudently. Teammates who see this coming can help coax or push them into the vortex, where your team can get a combo follow-up shot if you catch them after the wind sweeps them off their feet.

Terra can have both a charged and uncharged Tornado active at the same time, but following a charged Tornado with a charged Tornado (or an uncharged Tornado with another uncharged cast) causes the first vortex to disappear. Also, vortexes do not disappear when someone runs into them. An uncharged Tornado doesn’t stop being an impediment just because someone runs into it, and a charged Tornado can potentially tear through the entire enemy group, sending them all skyward, along with Terra’s Bravery. A charged Tornado dragging an enemy near a wall or especially into a corner may even hit the same foe multiple times before they can flip away, depending on the angle.

Holy

Gushing with heavenly energy, Terra spins and releases Holy magical globes that zoom toward her target.

Uncharged Holy has Terra hovering in place and launching up to five Holy globes at the enemy. Like with most of her uncharged Bravery Attacks, she can still glide around while conjuring Holy projectiles here. They track her target and follow with good range, though only the final Holy sphere knocks the enemy out of control on hit. Uncharged Holy is the aerial counterpart to uncharged Fira on the ground—low-risk harassment from afar, which can pay off if an attentive assassin ally swoops in to put the HP Attack capper onto the projectile combo.

Charged Holy features Terra generating all five Holy spheres at once, in a flat arc in front of her. Like with uncharged Blizzara, the projectile quintet is a physical barrier against enemies rushing in from the front or sides while Holy surrounds Terra. (The opposition can certainly blast through this projectile barrier with bigger projectiles, especially HP Attack projectiles, but that’s always a risk you take when fighting as a marksman character.) The Holy globes flit off toward the target after a split second, so they start out in kind of a fan but quickly converge. Charged Holy projectiles have higher projectile durability than with the uncharged version, so they’ll plow through a wider variety of the opposing team’s projectiles.

Once charged Holy is underway, it travels fast, with solid homing capability. This is a charged spell, requiring four seconds of inactivity beforehand, with an awkwardly late evasion cancel window. It therefore doesn’t synergize well in a projectile rain with other spells, nor does it hold enemies for a long time to set up allies when the orbs start hitting. Charged Holy’s main purpose is to overpower enemy projectiles and build up big bursts of Bravery from afar, when you have no current intention of moving in or changing position much. Charged Holy is most effective right near its max range, where all five projectiles can converge on the target. Any closer and you may score fewer hits. Farther away and you may miss completely.

Thundara

Terra gathers electric energy in her free hand, then sends it sizzling toward the enemy, ejecting them far away from her on any contact.

Uncharged Thundara is as close as Terra gets to having a melee combo. She lashes out with up to three lightning whips straight ahead, and the third lash knocks enemies away if it hits, potentially splatting them on a wall and creating another opening. Marksman characters generally do not have attacks capable of wall-pinning, so this is a significant tool for Terra, similar to some of Emperor’s pinning ranged attacks.

The range is short for a marksman projectile, but long for something that’s almost a physical hit-check. The individual Thundara bolts don’t track, but Terra herself turns to follow an enemy moving laterally around her, so even after an enemy dodges a bolt or two, there’s a chance the next one will hit if they stop moving quickly enough. It can be useful to perform just two lashes and watch what happens, forgoing the third lash when missing and instead evasion/guard canceling away to take another course of action. Guard canceling to fall straight down puts Terra in position to drop uncharged Tornado, excellent local cover, before exploring other runaway options (or returning to mid-range uncharged Thundara sparring).

Charged Thundara is much faster and more direct—Terra hurls all three lightning bolts as a single group, so they strike as one. Charged Thundara travels a little farther and faster than uncharged Thundara, and blasts victims it hits very far away, even if they’re guarding. When your goal is to smack someone far away, fast, charged Thundara is Terra’s best option.

Though it’s an aerial spell, you can cast “instant” charged Thundara just off the ground by tapping/releasing neutral for an air-dash, then immediately doing + . Evasion cancel forward from this, and if charged Thundara wall-rushes the target, immediately follow up with all hits of uncharged Thundara. After evasion canceling out of low-altitude charged Thundara, you’ll still be in the air enough to use the uncharged version and have it peel your target off the wall. There you go, a melee-esque combo for this half-esper magic master.

Flare

Terra’s casting warps the space at a remote location, bringing it to a thermonuclear boil that achieves critical mass after a few seconds. Flare is Terra’s most telegraphed but perhaps most fearsome spell.

Uncharged Flare involves Terra calling forth three consecutive explosions that damage anyone inside, though only the third one knocks people off their feet completely. The three bursts go off about one second apart, and Terra can glide around while manifesting explosions. Someone targeted and snagged by the first or second explosion will be juggled by the following ones too, if you follow through.

Charged Flare takes a second for Terra to conjure, then three seconds for the little boiling star to burst. During this three seconds, the cooking globe pulls in anyone nearby, just like charged Tornado. When the sphere goes nova, the burst begins at absurd size, bigger than any other Terra attack except charged Graviga. Anyone caught in the radius is sent tumbling out of control for a second.

In between casting charged Flare and its detonation, Terra can evasion cancel to create potentially devastating sequences, no wall hit needed. She might be able to hit targets with other, quicker attacks just before Flare explodes—so the delayed blast causes a self-combo. From long range, charged Flare evasion canceled to uncharged Flares can result in a small Flare blast immediately kicking the victim into the big one. From closer in, drop charged Flare, then evasion cancel forward to lash out with uncharged Thundara strikes, and perhaps you’ll end up catching and holding opponents till Flare ignites, a magic self-combo that can potentially score a wall hit and lead to even more chained hits. This is to say nothing of the potential of mixing in HP Attacks after casting a cooking Flare first.

The catch is that charged Flare takes about four seconds to go off and involves an obvious glowing cinder sucking in anyone nearby the whole time. It’s not exactly sneaky. But this isn’t a one-on-one game; if Terra drops Flares on top of enemies who are already under assault from her partners, those enemies have to deal with more than merely sidestepping away from glowing Flares. The Flare itself might not hit, but if it’s a big enough distraction, it’s worth it.

Charged Flare’s cast-and-forget nature, front-loaded damage, and long range make it ideal for dropping on top of any summoning cores that spawn as well, with a bonus possible if any enemy melee characters are in a rush for the core and end up eating Flare.

Graviga

Putting her whole body into the cast, Terra hurls an orb of dark energy straight toward the target.

Graviga orbs travel with decent homing ability, exploding when they hit either the end of their range or their target. The explosion expands quickly, covering a big blast zone in dark damage. Enemies are held in place and bathed several times in dark damage hits before being launched up out of the dissipating sphere.

In a way, Flare is a big explosion you conjure atop the foe from thin air, and Graviga is a big explosion you hurl toward them. In fact, the two attacks have decent synergy: cast Flare, evasion cancel away, then air-dash and throw Graviga out of the dash, into Flare’s orbit as it explodes.

Of Terra’s Bravery spells, Graviga features the least differentiation between the charged and uncharged versions. With every other Bravery Attack, the charged and uncharged versions share a common element, but beyond that, they’re pretty much different moves altogether. In contrast, charged Graviga is succinctly a bigger, badder Graviga. Charged Graviga’s explosive radius is comparable to charged Flare’s.

HP Attack Breakdown

Meltdown

During Meltdown, Terra summons a small sun to throw at the intended victim. The dense, flaming ball rolls relentlessly toward them, dealing instant HP damage to anyone in the way. Meltdown tracks well, and the charged version has insane range—any opponent on the minimap is fair game for charged Meltdown.

This is Terra’s most straightforward HP Attack. When in doubt, it’s hard to go wrong with a deadly projectile that has max-range potential.

Meteor

Unlike other attacks, Meteor doesn’t improve with charge; it requires a charge. Attempt this cast too soon after getting hit or using another move, and Terra’s cast will fail. When charge is built up, with a hand raised at the sky and a twirl, Terra calls down a rocky rain from above. A portal opens above the target (or as close as possible if they’re out of range) and dumps 10 meteorites down one after another. Meteor’s deadly hail lasts about a second and a half.

In effect, it’s like a continuously exploding Flare. Meteor doesn’t give too much warning before the pain descends, just a violet crackling of the sky where the rocks emerge. Someone paying attention can probably sidestep or dash away in time, but someone busy with anything else probably gets clipped. The long duration of rocks falling also allows for enemies preoccupied with Terra’s teammates to accidentally wander into the rain.

Riot Blade

Terra raises her sword arm and wills a spectral shield into being before her. The shield shimmers for half a second, and during this time Terra automatically deflects any Bravery Attack that touches her, responding with a series of magical light blades that dice the enemy up. Depending on Terra’s HP, the number of blade swipes the enemy must endure before the end is increased. If her health is critical, the Bravery addition before the finisher is substantial indeed.

Terra takes about a sixth of a second to raise her arm, generating the shield in the first place, so this is by no means an instant reversal to any incoming Bravery Attack. It won’t save you from attacks on top of Terra, which allows you no breathing room. It does allow deflection of anything you have a little lead time on, though, which changes the game in terms of Terra’s vulnerability to pursuing assassins. Whether that’s worth giving up a lethal ranged option is up to you; it’s usually better to fully press a class’s advantages (marksmen wreck people far away), rather than trying to shore up a gap you knew you’d have going in (marksmen don’t like being crowded).

Still, well-used, with good reflexes and matchup knowledge of opposing characters, few things can be as vexing to opponents as getting parried and countered repeatedly.

Chaotic Current

Terra builds up tension, then explodes in a pulse of energy as her sword orbits around her, glowing darkly. While building up energy, she can still move around, like during most uncharged Bravery Attacks. She herself is the center of the explosion, so nailing enemies with this attack means getting close. To help with this, on top of Terra being maneuverable pre-explosion, Chaotic Current pulls in anyone within one circle on the minimap. Picking this HP Attack adds another potential draw-in-type move to her arsenal, alongside charged Tornado and charged Flare. It can also be used as something of an emergency move against enemies rushing Terra down, another option besides Thundara for knocking away aggressors.

Unlike other attacks, Chaotic Current doesn’t have a charged form. Instead, Chaotic Current slightly changes how Trance works. Trance now lasts 22 seconds instead of 30, a loss of eight seconds. In exchange, however, unique EX Skill cooldown is reduced by about three seconds every time you hit an enemy with Chaotic Current.

Ex Skill Breakdown

Trance

Terra is the daughter of a human and an esper, magical creatures from another realm. This is the foundation of her tremendous magic power, and her EX Skill. During Trance, her esper half comes forth uncompromised by her human form, surging with extra power. For 30 seconds, her charge cooldown is three seconds (down from four seconds normally), she moves 20% faster, her Bravery Attack damage is boosted by 25%, and her Bravery damage defense is buffed by about 18%.

This is one of the most straightforward unique EX Skills. It’s easy to apply—you’re Terra, but better. Every so often, you can simply make Terra more powerful in every way. Don’t let it go to waste! Note that the timer for Trance changes if you pick the Chaotic Current HP Attack.

Battle Plan

The most important thing to address is Terra’s uniqueness: Terra’s vast spell arsenal is boosted by her ability to charge magic. If she goes four seconds without casting a spell (or getting hit), she grows in magic strength—her next spell will be an extra-strong “charged” version. As soon as she releases a magical effect or is struck by an opponent, the timer begins anew. (During her Trance EX Skill, this four-second charge timer becomes three seconds.)

Playing around the limits and strengths of the charge timer—learning to build and keep charge, using the right charge move for the situation, having good uncharged tactics to use immediately after using charged spells, escaping to rebuild charge, and so on—is key to playing Terra well.

Her range is enormous on almost all of her spells, and she has an assortment of faster and slower attacks spread between charged and uncharged magic, allowing her to throw a lot of different looks at the opposition. Uncharged spells tend to be almost like magic chains, which means she can fire several attacks in a row even if they’re missing, kind of like a magic-based, ranged Sephiroth. Charged spells tend to be much stronger blasts with fewer hits, intended less for harassment or setting up teammates and more for taking up lots of space, giving teammates cover, blasting away enemies, and raising Bravery fast.

Her melee is nearly nonexistent (with honorable mentions going to Thundara, Chaotic Current, and Riot Blade), so she’ll get chewed up by assassins and fast specialists who decide to make her a priority.

Her mobility is decent, with a quick dash start-up speed, an airy double-jump, and the ability to glide during most uncharged Bravery Attacks. But she has no extra mobility or height-gaining options beyond the universal ones.

The sum of all this is that Terra’s goal, ultimately, is to run away. With a reach that covers the whole minimap (especially if you select Meltdown as your HP Attack), she should stay well behind allies as much as possible, organically finding lots of openings to both build up charge and unleash it.

Nuking foes with charged magic provides crucial backup for your allied vanguards, who get much better results trespassing into enemy groups and tackling them apart when Terra is making a lot of noise around them.

Charged magic from behind friendly cover also sets up quick and powerful follow-ups, sequences that can put a lot of obstacles into opponents’ paths. This briefly asserts total magic control of areas and pathways, and continues emboldening vanguards, who will be happy to know more projectiles are coming to cover them, set up their combos, and bail them out of mistakes.

Assassin teammates will appreciate the one-two punch of Terra plus a tank, because it gives them a fight to circle the fringes of, cautiously looking for places to swoop in and deal the killing blow when enemies are busy dealing with a peppering of Tornadoes and Flare/Graviga explosions chased by uncharged Fira/Blizzara/Holy barrages. An enemy being locked down by Terra’s uncharged multi-hit spells is like a flashing neon sign that says PLEASE HP ATTACK ME.

It’s unlikely that foes will let you get away with this forever. When attacked directly by superior physical forces (which is everyone), you should often be saved by team cohesion: melees are heavily incentivized not to let their marksmen get hammered. Still, you’ll need to be ready to fend or flee when Jecht and Noctis come calling. Uncharged Tornado provides a shockingly large projectile shield to dodge behind if there’s time to set it up, and any opening to start dashing with a bit of cover can usually salvage the situation if you’re not too boxed in already. If there’s nowhere to dash toward safely, both charged and uncharged Thundara make strong mid-range boxing options when forced. Her Chaotic Current and Riot Blade HP Attacks both provide unique close-range attack options, strengthening her in this range. Beyond that, you’ll have to rely on generous blocking and effective sidestepping to survive close-range attacks till teammates can provide backup.

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