Min-maxing

Min-Maxing is a gameplay term used in reference to many video games, particularly RPGs. Min-maxing refers to maximizing the potential strength of a character through a specific and planned-out skill path as they level up and, at the same time, minimizing their weaknesses. In the Final Fantasy series, getting the most out of a character's stats usually means keeping the character at a low level to exploit level up stat bonuses acquired later in the game, or giving the character specific skills to influence their stat growth.

Final Fantasy IV
In the DS release only, at Level 71 characters stop gaining stats innately. Instead, further stat boosts are dependant on what augments the player has given the character, each augment being tied to one or more specific stats and thus giving a set boost to those stats on level up. The stat boosts are HP +10, MP +5, Strength +1, Speed +1, Stamina +1, Intelligence +1, and Spirit +1. By giving the proper augments to each party member, they will gain in all stats at each level up, allowing for an extra +280 HP, +140 MP, and +28 in all other stats once they hit level 99.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
When he defeats Dark Kain and becomes a Holy Dragoon, Kain Highwind will retain his level, but his stat growth is different from his time as the Hooded Man. Most of his stats simply change to their Holy Dragoon values, but his HP and MP remain as they were when he was the Hooded Man. Thus, keeping Kain at a low level up until the battle will result in significantly higher HP and MP as Kain levels up afterwards than if he leveled up as the Hooded Man. At Level 50, the level cap in Kain's Tale, the Hooded Man has 3,150 HP and 105, while if the player keeps the Hooded Man at his starting level of 15 and levels Kain to 50 after he becomes a Holy Dragoon, he will have 4,036 HP and 206 MP.

Final Fantasy VI
Espers grant bonuses to stats at level up, so the best way to maximize stats is to keep characters at a low level until the player earns stronger espers, so that they will get more stat boosts. The best espers for this are as follows:


 * Bismarck, Raiden, Gilgamesh - Strength +2
 * Zone Seeker, Valigarmanda - Magic Power +2
 * Golem, Lakshmi, Leviathan - Stamina +2
 * Odin - Speed +1
 * Cactuar - Speed +2
 * Bahamut - HP +50%
 * Diabolos - HP +100%
 * Crusader - MP +50%

As Leviathan, Gilgamesh, Cactuar and Diabolos are espers exclusive to the Finest Fantasy for Advance release, in the SNES and PlayStation versions of the game, Odin is the only esper to grant a Speed bonus, so for purposes of min-maxing it is best to not upgrade it into the Raiden magicite.

Guaranteeing 9,999 HP and 999 MP at level 99 without equipment bonuses is fairly simple. With regards to HP and MP growth, at level 99 all permanent characters have well over 9,700 HP at minimum, and at least 990 MP, with the exception of Umaro who has 989. All characters gain different HP and MP per each level, and between level 50 and level 77, a character will gain at least 130 HP, while MP growth is maximized between level 10 and level 35.

To ensure 9,999 HP, a character must equip Diabolos for any two levels between the given range, or equip Bahamut from Level 68 to 71 - the most any character needs for 9,999 is an extra 216 HP, which Diabolos's 200% bonus ensures regardless of specific level, while for Bahamut the three given levels offer 160 and 162 increases to HP, the highest of any natural gain, which multiplied by 150% will give a net bonus of 240 HP. 999 MP is easier to track, as each character gets 11 MP from level 97 to 98 and 13 from 98 to 99, so the player just needs to remember to equip Crusader for the last level or two. Otherwise the player can focus on leveling up Strength, Stamina, Speed and Magic Power at all other times.

If playing the Advance release, the player may take advantage of the Level Reset Glitch to maximize character stats.

The maximum effective value for all stats is 128. While Magic will still have an effect over 128 via equipment boosts, any Strength over 128 is wasted. Also, any Speed over 235 will cause an extremely slow ATB bar, due to how the game works.

Final Fantasy VIII
Some Guardian Forces have innate support skills that grant a permanent increase to base stats on level up, so to maximize stat growth the player should keep their characters at a low level. The five bonus abilities and the GFs that bear them are:


 * HP Bonus - Brothers
 * Str Bonus - Ifrit
 * Mag Bonus - Siren
 * Vit Bonus - Carbuncle
 * Spr Bonus - Leviathan

Uniquely, the Cactuar GF has all five of these abilities itself. Unfortunately due to a limit of four support skills at a time, it is impossible to equip all of these abilities at once, so the player will have to leave one stat out, or can raise them all equally. The HP Bonus ability is fairly useless, however, as it only gives 10 HP per level up. HP maxes at 9,999 while the other four stats max out at 255. Using junctions it is possible to get a character's stats to these values without any bonuses, but the bonuses allow the player to reach the maximum value with lesser spells, freeing their stronger stock to junction to stats that cannot have bonus increases.

Alternatively, particularly if levels are already maxed, the Devour command may be used on certain opponents in order to permanently increase stats. Uniquely, Pupu may be Devoured in order to boost a single character's Spd stat.

Final Fantasy IX
Characters gain greater stat boosts due to the stat values on their equipment. The equipment with the greatest stat values are found at the latest portions of the game. Therefore, in order to maximize their stats, one must remain at level 1 until all of the best equipment becomes available.

With the use of the Add Status ability and the Stop ability to avoid gaining experience, it is possible to keep the entire party at Level 1 until the player reaches Pandemonium, at which point there are 3 encounters that force Zidane or several characters to gain levels. After those encounters, there are none that require the party to gain experience until all the equipment in the game becomes available.

Due to a bug, Marcus' stat growth transfers to Eiko without effecting her level. In order to 'fully' maximize Eiko's stats, Marcus must be leveled to 99 before he leaves the party in Disk 2, though this process can take several days worth of real time.

Final Fantasy X
Once the player earns the ability to purchase Clear Spheres at the Monster Arena, they can use them to blank spots on the Sphere Grid and fill them in with stat-boosting spheres of their choice. Stat boosting nodes created this way offer higher boosts than pre-existing nodes, and the player can eventually choose to blank ability nodes as well. HP caps at 99,999, MP at 9,999, Strength, Defense, Magic, Magic Def, Agility, and Accuracy cap at 255, Evasion caps at 133, and Luck at 122. There are 751 nodes on the Sphere Grid that can be cleared and filled in with other spheres.

With 63 nodes allocated to each of the primary six stats, the stats will increase by 252 each, which is enough with the character's natural stats to get 255. With another 63 nodes to get Evasion and Luck at their maximum values, this leaves 310 empty nodes for HP and MP. With each HP node granting +300 HP, this works out to a boost of 93,000 HP. Getting to 99,999 requires another 23 nodes, so the player will have to leave out the maximum values from at least one stat to get maximum HP. This also leaves no room at all for MP increasing nodes - getting 9,999 MP requires 249 nodes for MP spheres, which grant +40 MP each. In tandem with armor abilities though that can increase maximum HP, the player can still reach 99,999 HP with only 310 HP nodes, while the lack of MP growth can be compensated for with armor abilities to increase MP and reduce the MP cost of abilities.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Serah and Noel can increases their HP, Strength, and Magic using small and large nodes on the crystarium. Typically, Noel will finish with higher HP and Strength than Serah, but with less Magic. Large nodes give certain bonuses depending on which role is leveled up:
 * Commando - +2 Strength
 * Ravager - +2 Magic
 * Sentinel - +6 HP
 * Saboteur - +2 Strength (going from odd to even level), +2 Magic (even to odd)
 * Synergist - +6 HP (going from odd to even level), +2 Magic (even to odd)
 * Medic - +6 HP

There are 197 large nodes that can be filled in each character's crystarium. One recommended strategy is to use all the available large nodes to increase Serah's Magic and Noel's Strength. After maximizing those stats, the player can use the remaining large nodes to increase Serah's HP and Noel's Magic. Doing so will give the following stats: It is recommended to save the game before filling in nodes, particularly when obtaining Saboteur and Synergist large node bonuses.
 * Serah: 6,619 HP - 402 Str - 880 Mag
 * Noel: 8,550 HP - 851 Str - 509 Mag

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Each character's stat growth is determined entirely by their Job when they level up after gaining 100 exp. It is thus simple to predict when a character will level up during a battle and change their Job to obtain desired stats. The character's secondary A-ability does not affect stat growth.

The following table lists the best Jobs per race to equip for each stat, along with that Job's stat growth.