Character Ranks and Bonds Guide

The Fairy Tail anime/manga has a huge variety of recognizable and unique characters. The game allows you to recruit 16 characters during your playthrough, mostly belonging to your guild while others coming from other allied guilds. Strengthening these characters is necessary to progress through the game and overcome its increasingly difficult challenges. In our dedicated character guide, we will discuss how to take advantage of these important aspects of the game.

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Recruiting New Characters

You’ll start off with the two main guild members, Natsu and Lucy. To add more guild members to your party, just continue with the story progress then complete their respective Character Stories to recruit them.

Leveling Up and Stats

Whenever you win a battle, all participants will get Experience Points (EXP). The other members of your team that did not take part in battle will still earn 50% of the EXP gain. Performing Magic Chains and Link Hunts can also provide bonus EXP. Once you’ve earned enough EXP, the character will level up, permanently increasing his/her stats and unlock additional Lacrima Slots.

Character Ranks

Character Rank is different from character level. Increasing a character’s rank will provide various benefits to the character like new Magic Chain commands, additional Lacrima Slot, new skills, etc. You can increase a character’s rank by accessing the Guild Ledger (This is the same book where you can access the upgrade and remodeling options for your Facilities) and spending Fairy Points. Fairy Points are only used for this purpose so there’s no use holding on to them unless you’re saving these points to increase the ranks of your favorite character(s).

Character Ranks can be increased up to Rank 10 but will be initially capped; locked ranks will be represented by the lock icons instead of stars. To remove these locks, you have to complete the Character Stories for each respective member. As discussed earlier, continue through the story to unlock more Character Stories.

All characters share the same 7 skills/benefits on the same character ranks while their Rank 2, 6, and 10 skills are unique to them. Here’s the list of the same rank skills/boosts you can find on all recruitable characters:

Character Rank Skill	Description
Rank 1: Magic Enhance	Adds new command to the Magic Chain; enhances power of finishers.
Rank 3: Heavy Armor	Unlocks one Lacrima equipment slot.
Rank 4: Costume (Alternative Color)	Costume (Alternative Color) can now be used. (Changes costumes via Lucy’s House)
Rank 5: Follow-up Enhance	Increases damage dealt by Follow-up Attacks
Rank 7: Rapid Refresh	Restores MP at the end of battle from 2% to 5%
Rank 8: Magic Chain Enhance II	Adds new command to the Magic Chain; enhances power of finishers.
Rank 9: Awakening Enhance	Restores 50% HP when Awakened. Extends Awakened status by 1 turn

Here are also some of the unique skills per character. We will expand the list as we continue with the game and recruit more characters.

Character	Rank 2 Skill	Rank 6 Skill	Rank 10 Skill
Natsu	Fire Dragon’s Zenith (Critical rate increased by 30% while Awakened)	Fire Dragon’s Essence (Critical hit guaranteed when attacking while Awakened)	Crimson Lotus: Exploding Flame Blade (Unlocks skill)
Lucy	Celestial Protection (HP cannot be reduced below 1 when taking damage while HP is at 30% or above)	Captivating Pose (Has a chance to give an ally an Extra Turn and gain CHANCE at the beginning of battle.	Summon Aries (Unlocks skill)
Gray	Master’s Teachings: Speed (When attacked, 5% of clothes coming off and increases Gray’s SPD by 10% for the remainder of the battle.	Master’s Teachings: Attack (When attacked, 5% of clothes coming off and increases Gray’s ATK by 10% for the remainder of the battle.	Ice Make: Floor Unlimited (Unlocks skill)
Erza	Titania’s Zenith (Increases ATK and DEF by 10% when HP falls at 30% or lower)	Titania’s Essence (Increases ATK and DEF by 10% when HP falls at 50% or lower)	Crimson-Black Twin Blades (Unlocks skill)
Wendy	Sky Dragon’s Zenith (Extends buffs applied by Wendy by 1 turn)	Sky Sisters’ Dance (Has a chance to give an ally an Extra Turn and gain CHANCE at the beginning of battle.	Deus Eques (Unlocks skill)
Juvia	Rain’s Blessing: Defense (Increases DEF for each ally with Regaeneration x2%. If Gray is on your team, this is increased to x3%)	Rain’s Blessing: Attack (Increases ATK for each ally with Regaeneration x2%. If Gray is on your team, this is increased to x3%)	Water Jigsaw (Unlocks skill)
Gajeel	Iron Dragon’s Zenith (Raises Critical Rate by 30% when attacking an enemy inflicted with a Status Ailment)	Iron Dragon’s Essence (Critical Hit guaranteed when attacking an enemy inflicted with a Status Ailment)	Iron (Unlocks skill)

Bond Ranks

The more frequently you use the same characters, the faster their bonds will grow. Each character has three Bond Rank levels; you can see these via the Team tab in the main menu. Character Bonds unlocks permanent Magic Chain buffs between the bonded characters as listed below, making it quite ideal to utilize this very useful feature.

* Level 1: Magic Chain rate increased

* Level 2: MP cost for Magic Chains is reduced.

* Level 3: Small chance that prevents a Magic Chain from failing

As mentioned above, completing quests often with the same characters will deepen their Bonds. Once you have gained enough Bond points for the respective characters, a note icon will appear over their heads while in town. Simply talk to the character to trigger a conversation between the characters and increase the bond between the two.

If you see a portrait of a character hovering above the head of another character, that means that the Bond between the two is ready to be ranked up. Simply switch your avatar to one of the bond-ready characters and talk to the other to rank up the bond between the two.

Magic

Magic plays a pivotal role both to the plot and overall gameplay. Each character has their own set of magic spells to use for offense, defense, and support. The available magic for characters also determines the characters’ role in battle. For example, Erza and Natsu have a wide array of damaging skills, Wendy has a lot of support and recovery spells, while Lucy has a good balance of offensive and healing spells. The best thing about healing magic is that they can be used outside of battle via the Magic tab. Characters will unlock more magic spells by leveling up and increasing their Character Ranks.

Magic have their own respective MP costs. High-tier spells obviously cost more but as you level up, the power and MP cost of your spells will also increase. If you’re doing short Requests or missions, you can go ahead and use high-tier spells to quickly wipe out groups of enemies. However, if you’ll be exploring new fields, hold off using these MP-guzzling spells for the meantime since running out of MP will also result in a game over. You can review the available magic per character by accessing their Status screens.

Please refer to our dedicated Magic and Magic Chain Guide to an intensive coverage of magic-related topics like Magic Chains, Extreme Magics, elements, and more.