Archives August 2022

In this update, we make some adjustments to the Generics Premade roster, a few changes to Uniques Premade including adding Zalbaag to the roster, and balance adjustments to Competitive Starter. This will be the last major save data update for the 2022 year unless an incremental is needed for fixes. Read the changelogs below for more information.

To download official version 2.3 save data, go here: Download Version 2.3

Generics Premade v2.1 Changelog
Uniques Premade v1.2 Changelog
Competitive Starter v2.1 Changelog

Generics Premade v2.1

To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Generics Premade

Cloud

• Swapped: Nature’s Wrath for First Strike.
  Comment: Nature’s Wrath enabled a relatively high amount of reactive damage due to Cloud’s MA. Instead of nerfing his MA (which is essential for his damage potential with Limit) we opted to switch his reaction to First Strike instead giving him better melee counterplay.

Lancer

• Reduced PA from 18 to 16.
  Comment: PA reduced to slightly decrease Lancer’s Jump from 324 to 288 unmitigated.

Paladin

• Increased PA from 14 to 15.
• Increased MA from 16 to 18.
• Comment: PA increase was to improve his basic attacks from 65 to 75 unmitigated and to also slightly improve his chance to rend via Arts of War. MA increased to improve the potency of his White Magicks.

Bouncer

• Swapped: Lifefont for Move +1.
  Comment: Between Lifefont, Soulbind, and Chakra abilities, Bouncer has a ton of passive healing that can make it challenging to out-damage her. Though that is a part of her design, we need to tone back some of the passive healing.

Guardian

• Increased PA from 13 to 15.
  Comment: PA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 65 to 75 unmitigated and to also slightly improve her chance to rend via Arts of War. Guardian did not receive a heftier PA increase for melee bonus due to affecting Arts of War further.

Apothecary

• Swapped: Ras Algethi (gun) for Mythril Gun.
  Comment: Being ranged support, Ras Algethi was enabling too much damage from safety. Apothecary’s basic attacks are now 64 instead of 144 unmitigated, the same as Stalwart.

Distractor

• Increased PA and MA from 13 to 15 respectively.
  Comment: PA and MA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 130 to 150 unmitigated since she attacks from melee range. This does also slightly buff the HP/MP damage of Witch Hunt and Mincing Minuet to 34 and 24 respectively.

Timewalker

• Increased PA from 14 to 21.
  Comment: PA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 75 to 108 unmitigated since she attacks from melee range.

Uniques Premade v1.2

Zalbaag joins the fight in the [Tank] role in this update! Zalbaag will be replacing Aliste since he was underutilized and gives us an opportunity to see how his Blade of Ruin abilities perform in PvP. To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Uniques Premade

Zalbaag (NEW)

• Immune: Slow, Stop, Immobilize (via Empyreal Armband)
• A master tactician, Zalbaag uses his Blade of Ruin skillset to reduce the enemy’s MP, Physical Attack, Magick Attack, or Speed stats drastically. This ability can also affect friendlies in the area so be careful who you target; requires cast time.
• Being an expert in field strategies, Zalbaag can utilize Speechcraft to either reduce his enemy’s CT (Stall), cause death to slowly KO the enemy (Condemn) or cause the enemy to only perform attacks and lose player control via Berserk status (Insult).
• Though he has a relatively low MP pool for his 20 MP-costing abilities, he can recover it by moving via Manafont.
• To view his character profile and abilities, visit: Zalbaag

Construct 8

• Increased PA from 10 to 14.
  Comment: Construct 8’s PA was increased to incentivize its damage capabilities. Pulverize does exceed the tank damage metric, but it requires Construct 8 to be at the same height and within 1 range as the target.

Cloud

• Swapped: Nature’s Wrath for First Strike.
  Comment: Nature’s Wrath enabled a relatively high amount of reactive damage due to Cloud’s MA. Instead of nerfing his MA (which is essential for his damage potential with Limit), we opted to switch his reaction to First Strike instead giving him better melee counterplay.

Competitive Starter 2.1

Starter 2.1 update focuses on balancing unique characters while limiting the amount of some PA/MA-stacking gear and setting a cap on WeaponPower, in order to tone down on some of the overall damage potentials in this format. To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Competitive Starter

Limited and Semi-Limited Gear Restriction Update
By reducing the number of available PA/MA-stacking gear on a team and setting a WeaponPower cap of 32, these changes generally bring down damage in the format. Coincidentally, these changes have also increased the viability of cast-time magicks as well as other abilities such as Auto-Potion and Doublehand allowing for more creative versatility.

• Limited: Murasame
• Semi-Limited: Rod of Faith, Wizard’s Rod, Runeblade, Lordly Robe, Brass Coronet, Bracer, Genji Gloves
• Banned: Crown Scepter, Stardust Rod, Dreamwalker, Nirvana, Chaos Blade, Valhalla, Vesper
  Comment: Murasame was switched from semi-limited to limited due to its instant AoE healing that was even effective on lower MA builds. This should incentivize using White Magicks/Items and other sources for healing instead of always relying on Murasame since it is now riskier to spam cast.
  
  Rod of Faith was switched from limited to semi-limited to help with the viability of caster-based compositions, which have improved this update from testing. Bracer and Brass Coronet in particular are semi-limited due to their +3 PA/MA-stacking value and the various staves and rods were banned due to the amount of additional MA you can get from these weapons, especially with Dual Wield.
  
  Vesper, Chaos Blade, and Valhalla were all banned due to them being above the 32 WP cap. All other endgame weapons are closer to each other making for better options for itemization. To note, Onion Sword is an exception since it is limited in job and requires to be point-blank on target.

Characters

• Removed: Speechcraft ability, Entice, from all characters in the roster as this ability is now banned.
  Comment: This ability was removed and banned due to limited counterplay options there were for it, potentially promoting unhealthy gameplay.

Mustadio

• Increased HP from 291 to 343.
• Increased Faith from 62 to 84.
• Increased MA from 11 to 15.
• Switched his job type from 16 Machinist to 22 Machinist, gaining innate Safeguard.
  Comment: Mustadio has always been overshadowed by Balthier. These buffs give him a bit more variance by now, having innate Safeguard (job only) and Mustadio being more magick-inclined while being slower and with less gear and skillset options than his pirate counterpart.

Agrias

• Increased PA from 11 to 13.
  Comment: PA increased to improve the damage from Holy Sword abilities.

Marach

• Increased MA from 11 to 16.
• Reduced Faith from 31 to 3.
  Comment: The MA increase and reduction in Faith are buffs to improve Marach’s job skillset to be more effective as he was in a tough spot due to most opposing targets having 60 Faith, causing his Nether Mantra to scale weaker. In addition, Marach is now also the best option for using Fell Sword attacks due to their low Faith scaling.

Rapha

• Increased MA from 14 to 17.
  Comment: MA increased to improve the viability of her Sky Mantra skillset.

Reis

• Reduced MA from 19 to 17.
  Comment: Though Reis is limited to gear due to her job, her high base MA when coupled with MA-stacking gear makes Iaido and her Holy Breath hit very hard. This MA reduction slightly reigns in some of the power she has.

Cloud

• Increased Speed from 11 to 12.
• Increased MA from 10 to 17.
  Comment: The MA buff is to focus on raising Limit’s viability in Starter, improving the unmitigated damage of his abilities. Cloud will still need some additional investment when factoring mitigation sources.

Construct 8

• Increased Speed from 11 to 13.
  Comment: This Speed buff was to help Construct 8 get more turns in the Starter speed metagame. Though it still cannot be affected by Haste, this does give Construct 8 an extra turn or two on average, increasing its viability as a pick. To note, Construct 8’s damage ignores all mitigation, so it always hits for 340 with Dispose.

Luso

• Increased PA from 16 to 18.
  Comment: Luso is notably an inferior version of Ramza when compared directly. This PA buff makes him stand out as one of the hardest-hitting physical unique characters while having drawbacks (mainly lower Bravery/Faith and lower MA compared to Ramza).

Balthier

• Reduced PA from 17 to 11.
  Comment: Besides Balthier having a very diverse skillset and stats/gear options, this nerf was to bring down some of his damage when utilizing Barrage with high-powered weapons (the biggest offender being Saggitarius Bow since it synergizes so well with his stats). The goal was to reduce his “one-shotting” potential, which is still doable with investment and Attack Boost/Vehemence. His overall total damage done with Barrage is down roughly 9% with this iteration.

Inventory

• Removed: Potion and Hi-Potion (Chemists still have these learned for mastery purposes).
• Increased X-Potion from 10 to 20.
  Comment: Due to the overall team damage reduction that was the focus of this update, Auto-Potion’s viability has improved when compared to Soulbind. When factoring incoming damage and these Br% reactions both proccing off HP loss, Auto-Potion is better healing when the damage taken is 300 or less, and Soulbind is better when the damage taken is 302 or higher. The removal of Potion and Hi-Potion was to reflect X-Potion being used in tandem with Auto-Potion at all times since damage is high in this format.