Final Fantasy VIII statuses



The following is a list of status effects in Final Fantasy VIII. Status effects are applied by being hit by status spells and other abilities that inflict status effects. Enemies have innate immunities, but player characters must utilize the Junction system to be protected against negative statuses. The ST-ATK-J ability lets players add negative status effects to normal attacks. This can be detrimental if an ally winds up confused and attacks the party. Some positive status effects can be permanently applied to player characters via passive abilities learned by Guardian Forces.

The number of status ailments on player characters is a determining factor in calculating their Crisis Level, which affects the potency of Limit Breaks. Certain Limit Breaks in the game can be used to inflict negative statuses to enemies, while others apply beneficial statuses to the party.

Visual
Characters each have a brief and unique death animation. When allies are KO, they lay on the ground until revived and their ATB bar is emptied. Enemies fade out and are removed from the battle field after their death animation is finished.

Enemies struck by Sudden Death will skip their normal death animation and simply fade out red after being struck.

Effect
Sudden death is when a character is instantly killed, whereas normal Death occurs when HP reaches 0. When all enemies are dead, it is considered a Battle Victory. When the entire party is dead, it is a Game Over. There are no scripted battles which call for death to the heroes in Final Fantasy VIII, so it is in the players' best interest to survive the best they can by replenishing their HP as needed.

Phoenix Downs and Life magic revive to fallen allies, but may cause instant death to undead, including targets that have the Zombie status. On the flip side, utilizing Death spells or attacks against the undead may fully replenish their HP.

Guardian Forces can die if they run out of HP.

Duration
Remains until cured.

Visual
Afflicted unit has green bubbles above their head.

Effect
When an afflicted combatant takes an action, they take damage equal to 5 to 7% of their maximum HP. The damage is non-elemental, thus even if the player junctions the afflicted to absorb Poison damage, they still take damage.

Duration
Poison remains if not cured, even after battle.

Visual
Character is turned into gray stone and becomes immobilized. Damage and healing do not affect petrified characters.

Effect
Petrification flags the afflicted unit as defeated, and is thus essentially similar to the Death status. If all player characters become petrified it is a Game Over. When an enemy is petrified in battle, the player earns EXP based on the HP damage done prior to petrification. Petrify can be a useful asset to low level sessions where one might still want to gain AP but not so much EXP.

Duration
The effect remains until cured, even after battle.

Visual
The afflicted has a dark cloud over around head, shrouding their vision.

Effect
Darkness reduces a character's Hit Rate by 75%. Characters with base hit rate of 255% are unaffected, such as Squall and Seifer, although Darkness disables the gunblade's trigger making them unable to deal additional damage.

Duration
Remains until cured, even after battle.

Visual
The afflicted has a speech bubble with "..." above their head.

Effect
Silence disables the Magic, Draw and GF commands. Rinoa is immune to this status during her Angel Wing Limit Break.

Duration
Remains until cured, even after battle.

Visual
The afflicted turns red with steam rising out of their head.

Effect
The Berserk status raises physical attack damage by 50%, but the afflicted does nothing but attack random foes until the state is removed.

Rinoa's Angel Wing Limit Break is similar but with magic spells instead of attacks. She is immune to Berserk when in Angel Wing as well.

Duration
Remains until the end of battle unless cured.

ST-ATK-J
N/A

Visual
The afflicted turns green.

Effect
The afflicted receives damage from curative items and magic, and is instantly killed by Life magic and items. Targets under this status gain innate immunity to Instant Death and Doom, take double damage from Holy-elemental attacks, and become resistant to physical attacks, halving the damage. Draining HP from a Zombie unit damages the drainer, unless both the caster and the target are undead/Zombie.

Duration
Remains until the end of battle unless cured.

Visual
The afflicted unit leans over with Z's floating above their head.

Effect
Sleep temporarily prevents a character from acting, lasting for approximately 13 seconds. Regardless, the character's Evasion is not reduced, so it is possible they may avoid attacks while sleeping.

While induced with Sleep the Protect, Shell and Regen statuses do not expire. Whereas Protect and Shell still provide physical and magical defense, respectively, Regen and Poison remain dormant until the character is reawaken.

Some bosses and enemies, especially in the earlier portions of the game, are vulnerable to Sleep. By using this status effect with ST-ATK-J, players may exploit this weakness by utilizing magic spells on the inflicted, taking little to no damage throughout the whole battle.

Means of removal
This effect will be removed if the inflicted character is physically attacked, however they will continue to sleep through magical attacks. Alternatively, Remedy and Remedy+ as well as the Esuna spell will remove this status.

Visual
The afflicted character moves slower. ATB bars are blue.

Effect
Halves the Speed of the afflicted character.

Duration
Does not expire. Removed at the end of battle.

Visual
The afflicted character is stopped in place. ATB bar is grayed out and does not move.

Effect
Stop lasts for around 13.3 seconds, and targets under Stop are unable to avoid attacks. If the target was afflicted with any status effects prior to being stopped, the status effects are halted as well; spells like Poison and Regen won't damage or heal, and effects like Protect won't wear off.

Duration
Expires after an unknown period. Removed after battle.

Visual
The afflicted character has red numbers above their head.

Visual
The combatant is knocked, blown off, sliced in half of or otherwise removed from the battle field.

Effect
Removes the affected character from battle.

Teaching Quistis the Degenerator blue magic and sending her into combat will allow plenty of quick kills, EXP and AP. This is often used as a method to grind in areas such as the Islands Closest to Heaven and Hell, where all foes are level 100 regardless of party's average level.

There is no curative items or spells, nor is there any ST-ATK or ST-DEF junctions related to this effect.

Visual
The character is slightly darker, similar to the Darkness effect but without the smoke. The dark hue alternates as if in the manner of glowing.

Effect
A cursed character is unable to use their limit break. However, if the limit break command was selected before the hero was inflicted, they will still use it.

The player's party has no means of inflicting curse, since most enemies don't use Limit Breaks.

Duration
Remains until cured, removed after battle.

Visual
The target is discolored in a violet hue, as if to signify they are suffering from deteriorating effects or are maligned to a vulnerable state.

Effect
Units afflicted by Vitality 0 have their Vitality and Spirit stat set to 0, placing them at an extremely dangerous vulnerable position where attacks have full effect without the factor of defense.

Duration
Remains until the end of battle unless cured.

Visual
The effect places the target in a cinematic movie-esque montage that evokes a happily ever after type ending; upon the end of the sequence, the target is instantly defeated akin to the manner of Blow Away and Death, either never seen again in regards of monsters, or are subdued or subject to their destruction in regards to bosses.

Effect
With the exception of Undead monsters, any opponent, including bosses, are instantly defeated; resistance to instant death is bypassed and ignored. Enemies cannot afflict this effect, being player only accessible.

Visual
The afflicted unit glows a yellow gold hue.

Effect
The Crisis Level of an afflicted unit greatly escalates, allowing either the player to easily access Limit Breaks, or for opponents and monsters to access higher level attacks akin to that manner.

Effect
When the target is struck by a Physical attack, a steep concave blue light shield manifests.

Effect
Targets under this effect have any Physical type damage afflicted to them reduced by half.

Visual
When the target is struck by a Magical attack, a wide spherical magenta light barrier manifests.

Effect
Any Magic based damage afflicted to the target is reduced by half.