Luck (stat)

Luck is a recurring stat in the Final Fantasy series, although it is not as common as other stats. It usually affects things such as Critical Hits and finding rare items, but also can influence other stats like Evasion and Accuracy. In other games, where there is no luck stat, there are other stats which determine these instead.

Final Fantasy
Luck makes its first appearance in the original Final Fantasy. In this game, it, along with character level, was meant to determine the success or failure of fleeing a battle. However, the calculation did not work exactly as intended in the NES version, resulting in the Running Glitch.

Final Fantasy VII
Luck appears as a battle element in Final Fantasy VII, not to be confused with "All Lucky 7s". High luck affects the character's critical hit rate, chance to avoid attacks and chance to hit.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-
The higher Zack's Luck, the more critical hits and better Item Drops he gets. The player increase the Luck stat by equipping accessories and Materia that give boost to Luck. The player can boost the Materia's Luck stats via Materia Fusion up to +100 per Materia.

Final Fantasy VIII
In Final Fantasy VIII, players are able to junction magic spells to the characters' luck stats. The way to do this is to have a GF learn Luck-J either on its own or with a Luck-J Scroll. Luck affects the character's hit accuracy (unless the character already has 255% hit rate), evasion, critical hits, and increases the chances of Odin and Gilgamesh appearing during battle.

Final Fantasy IX
In Final Fantasy IX, luck appears to affect the rate of being inflicted by status ailments and success rate of Zidane's Steal.

Final Fantasy X
Luck in Final Fantasy X affects the character's chances of critical hits, the chances of evading attacks, and accuracy. However, unlike its predecessors, it can only be upgraded via the use of a Fortune Sphere to activate a Luck node on the Sphere Grid.

Although raising the Accuracy stat gives better hit rate in most cases in the short run, it has its limitations. Some enemies are so evasive that no matter how high one's Accuracy is, they will never have above a 25% chance of hitting them. Other enemies may not have any Evasion, but are evasive directly due to their Luck stat. While under Darkness, one's hit rate is reduced to 10% regardless of Accuracy. In all three cases, raising Luck will improve the chances of hitting, while raising Accuracy will not.

On the other hand, an increase of 1 Luck has the exact same impact on evasiveness as an increase of 1 Evasion. For example, the most accurate attack in the game requires a combined total of 290 to ensure dodging it; it does not matter whether this is 255 Evasion and 35 Luck, or 35 Evasion and 255 Luck, or anywhere in between.

Luck is generally the sole determinant of critical hits; the chance of inflicting one is simply the user's Luck minus the target's Luck. However, when using physical attacks, equipment (including armor) generally provides a small critical hit bonus. This is 3% for most equipment, but drops from Penance give 10%, and drops from Dark Aeons or certain Monster Arena creations give 6%. Some enemy attacks also carry a bonus critical hit chance.

Despite common misconceptions, Luck does not affect anything apart from accuracy, evasion and critical hits. It does not affect the likelihood of a character being targeted, the chance of a successful and/or rare steal, or the chance of a rare item drop.

The abilities Luck and Jinx claim to increase and decrease the targets' Luck stat respectively, but do not give the full effect of higher/lower Luck. Each use of Luck ability adds 1% to accuracy and 1% to the chance of landing a critical hit; unlike a genuine Luck stat increase it has no impact on evasion or on the chance of receiving a critical hit. Jinx reduces targets' evasion chance by 1%, and increases the chance of landing a critical hit on them by 1%, but has no impact on the target's accuracy or their chance of landing a critical hit themselves. The effects can be stacked of up to five points.

Final Fantasy X-2
Luck affects the girls' chance of critical hits, avoiding attacks, landing attacks, and finding rare items. Rabite's Foot and Key to Success accessories raise Luck.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Luck is a Clan Privilege in Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift. It raises Evasion and chance of the Opportunity Command.

Dissidia Final Fantasy
Luck in Dissidia Final Fantasy affects many aspects in the game. Luck can be raised with a number of accessories, and some equipment sets, such as the Genji Set. Having higher luck increases the rate EX-Cores appear. Also, if a character has high luck, they experience a higher percentage of Battlegen accessories being dropped. Lastly, high luck increases the chance of enemies dropping their accessory or equipment during battle.