Archives 2024

In PvP Patch version 4, there are a ton of current ability adjustments going into to improve abilities that were underperforming or to better fit select abilities in line with the patch’s goals. This article will focus on the brand-new abilities coming with the update, the Reaction, Support, and Movement abilities, and a few new ones in Ja-Magicks.

Conjure Up New Elemental Spells in Ja-Magicks

To increase the accessibility of wind, water, and earth abilities, Ja-Magicks (Sage’s skillset) gained new faith-based abilities in Aeroja, Waterja, and Quake.

These abilities still follow the same rules as other magicks in the skillset; they cannot be cast while silenced, can trigger Magick Counter, unevadable, and mimicable.

Let’s take a closer look at how each one functions:

• Aeroja
  • Wind element
  • 3 Range, 3 AoE, 3 Vert. (enemy only)
  • 99 MP, 35 PWR, 4 Speed
  • Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
  • 19% chance to Remove: Float, Haste per target
    
• Waterja
  • Water element
  • 4 Range, 2 AoE, 3 Vert. (enemy only)
  • 99 MP, 40 PWR, 4 Speed
  • Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
  • 19% chance to Inflict: Silence per target
    
• Quake
  • Earth element
  • 4 Range, 2 AoE, 5 Vert. (enemy and ally)
  • 99 MP, 38 PWR, 5 Speed
  • Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
  • 19% chance to Inflict: Immobilize per target

New Reaction/Support/Movement Abilities

Version 4 also brings about 6 new non-action abilities, furthering build-crafting and new strategies! Let’s take a look at each one:

CT Boost (Reaction)

This new reaction has a Bravery% chance to increase your current CT by 5 after taking any HP damage. Though this value appears small, it can add up quickly factoring that your unit’s Speed also normally affects your CT gains and this can be used to close the gap faster.

Critical: Flee (Reaction)

Critical: Flee is a rework of Critical: Recover MP. This ability now has a Bravery% chance while HP critical (20% of your max. HP or less) to increase your CT by 25 and your Move by 2. One interesting note with Critical: Flee is that the Move bonus persists even if you are no longer critical, KO’d, etc. so this ability can have a long-lasting effect in a single game!

Replenish (Reaction)

This rework of Absorb MP now restores HP and MP equal to 4 times the MP cost of an MP-costing ability that you were affected by either from damage or from a beneficial ability. For example, White Magick’s Barrier would restore 256 HP and MP to you at a Bravery% chance to trigger.

Monkey Grip (Support)

A fan favorite from the Tactics Advance series, Monkey Grip allows all forced two-handed weapons (Axes, Bows, Knight’s Swords, and Fell Swords) to become one-handed, allowing for the slotting of a shield in the opposite hand. This passive is great for enabling utility through your shield, as you gain evasiveness and any other additional properties your shield provides. Note that Doublehand (Onion Knight in particular) does not add the damage bonus since you are wielding a two-handed weapon in one hand. This ability is not innately set to any job for balance purposes.

Nimble (Movement)

Nimble is a brand-new movement ability that provides three important status immunities: Slow, Stop, and Immobilize. With Nimble providing 3 status immunities in the Movement slot, you do not gain any additional Move or Jump stats.

Dexterity (Movement)

Dexterity is the second brand-new Movement ability that interacts with your Class Evasion (C-EV), allowing it to be treated from all sides instead of just the front against incoming physical attacks and evadable abilities and additionally grants +1 Move and Jump stats. Dexterity is especially potent on jobs that have a solid C-EV baked in, such as Thief, Ninja, or Monk, and even for unique characters, such as Agrias, Mustadio, or Cloud.

With new abilities to cast in Ja-Magicks and a plethora of new Reaction, Support, and Movement abilities, PvP Patch version 4 is bringing new, creative ways to play both Standard and Rendezvous formats!

In version 4, two new characters in Standard and Rendezvous formats join the unique roster: Alma and Valmafra! These two will be replacing Ovelia and Balthier respectively. Let’s dive into each character’s profile so you can learn more about them and what makes them unique in their own way.

Alma, Cleric

Alma joins the version 4 roster, replacing Ovelia. At first glance, with Alma and Ovelia both having Holy Magicks, it may appear as to why she replaced Ovelia in the first place. Let’s compare the two stat-wise and you will see that Alma is different in her own right:

Ultimately, Alma has better stats to work with, notably her Faith and Speed. Because she has high Faith, she doesn’t necessarily need Faith status via Luminous Robe to have excellent casts though you can still of course opt for the Faith route if needed. Her 12 Speed also means she needs little to no investment in that category and she can typically be built in whichever way you choose allowing for better build versatility compared to Ovelia. The trade-off for these stats is lower HP bulk and Bravery, but that is intentional for balance’s sake.

Alma has the same innates as Ovelia, except Charm immunity instead of Stone immunity.

Alma can equip the following: Staves, Hats, Clothing, Robes.

Lastly, let’s take a look at her abilities in Holy Magicks:

• Aegis – Bestows: Protect, Shell, Haste, Reraise, and Regen on one target. The cost was increased from 30 to 40 due to the amount of buffs it bestows at once.
• Displena – Removes: Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Stop, Charm, Sleep, Immobilize, Disable, and Doom statuses from one target.
• Barrier (from White Magicks) – Large area Bestows: Protect, Shell to nearby allies.
• Curaja (from White Magicks) – Large area HP healing that only affects allies (ally only change in v4.0 and Iaido-like)
• Arise (from White Magicks) – Revives a fallen ally with full HP restored.
• Holy (from White Magicks) – Deals holy-elemental magic damage to a single target.
• Chant – Restores 2/5th of your max. HP to a nearby ally at the cost of 1/5 of your max. HP (range increased to 3 in v4.0)

Valmafra, Witch of the Coven

Valmafra is the second unique addition to the Standard and Rendezvous roster in version 4, replacing Balthier. In the original game, she was not assigned anything as she was considered a “dummied” character – the opportunity presented itself by making her a new and exclusive character that rivals other unique characters.

Valmafra is designed as an offensive magick caster, the first of the type. Her skillset is a combination of both the classic Red Mage and Elementalist, having abilities from 5 faith-based magick skillsets: White, Black, Time, Mystic Arts, and Ja-Magicks, we will go into that more in a bit.

First, let’s take a look at her stats profile:

Valmafra boasts a modest 13 PA and 15 MA, allowing her to utilize her stats for both physical and magical setups. She also has 12 starting Speed, which doesn’t require much more investment if at all.

Valmafra also has innate Swiftness in her Witch of the Coven job allowing for flexibility in either offensive or defensive Support and can equip: Swords, Knives, Rods, Staves, Hats, and Robes.

Lastly, let’s take a closer look at her Magicks skillset, including her signature ability, Divine Ultima:

• Holy (from White Magicks) – Deals holy faith-based magic damage.
• Graviga (from Time Magicks) – Deals 50% of the target’s max. HP.
• Unholy Darkness (from Mystic Arts) – Deals dark faith-based magic damage.
• Arise (from White Magicks) – Revives a fallen ally with full HP restored.
• Curaga (from White Magicks) – Restores HP to nearby allies and enemies.
• Firaga/Thundaga/Blizzaga (from Black Magicks) – Deals fire/lightning/ice faith-based magic damage.
• Aeroja (NEW from Ja-Magicks) – Deals large area wind faith-based magic damage with a 19% chance to Remove: Float, Haste.
• Waterja (NEW from Ja-Magicks) – Deals water faith-based magic damage with a 19% chance to Inflict: Silence.
• Quake (NEW from Ja-Magicks) – Deals earth faith-based magic damage with a 19% chance to Inflict: Immobilize. Affects allies and enemies.
• Divine Ultima – Self-Iaido-ranged faith-based non-elemental magic damage. Affects allies and enemies.

Join the Tactics League Discord for the PvP Patch version 4.0 Beta launch on March 12th!

In PvP Patch version 3, many gender equality changes were made to close the gap between male and female build varieties; hair adornments, bags, perfumes, and the Tynar Rouge accessory were now accessible to males. Additionally, the reaction abilities, Fury and Magick Boost, that were gender-locked to Bard and Dancer were added so that either gender could use either ability. These improvements were well-received and opened up build diversity in a positive way. However, there is one outlier that version 4 is addressing – the gap between male magical and female physical specs.

The changes you will read more about are centered around improving the male and female Squires in both Standard and Rendezvous and have minimal impact on unique characters.

To resolve this task, this required a two-pronged approach:

• First: Fixing the stat disparity by adjusting PA/MA values of the base Squire stats – the result is that male Squire will now have 13/12, and female Squire will now have 12/13, a +1 stat increase from version 3.
  
• Second: Fixing the PA and MA multipliers (also known as PAM and MAM) marginally; most jobs received a 5% bonus to these multipliers depending on needs. For example, White Mage’s MAM was increased from 110% to 115% which resulted in generic male White Mage specifically getting an extra +1 MA.
  
• Combining the base Squire stat increase and job PAM/MAM resulted in:
  Male White Mage – 11/14 (+1 MA)
  Female White Mage – 10/15
  
• Lastly, to make sure being a male or female gender still played a role in the higher HP or MP spread, male Squires received +8 HP and female Squires received +9 MP.
  
• The accomplished goal of these changes is that the total stat spread (between PA and MA) is no more than 1 point between either gender. You can still build “optimally” and use a female White Mage, or you can choose for whatever reason (aesthetics, sprite design, wanting to use the additional PA) and go male White Mage instead and perform well and with a bit more added bulk!

The result of these adjustments to male White Mage for example is:

Another example of these base stat and job PAM/MAM adjustments are female Monks. In version 3, running a female Monk was very much not desirable, because there was realistically little to be gained from doing so (comparing Martial Arts, a female Monk had a marginally better Doom Fist).

In version 4, this changes quite differently, as you will now see that a female Monk is viable and even plausible for running secondary Dance or Arts of War:

And lastly, to quell any worries about how these job PAM/MAM changes affect unique characters let’s compare Agrias as a Dark Knight in version 3 and version 4:

Dark Knight’s PAM was increased from 130% to 135% resulting in a +1 PA value for female Dark Knights. This ultimately sets generic female Dark Knights to 16/11 while male Dark Knights retain 17/10 and the +1 PA translates as a minimal difference here with Agrias.

In PvP Patch v4.0, you can truly play any gender, and any job and perform well competitively. I look forward to seeing new builds and creations once we enter public beta on March 12th!

This article is focused on going over the plethora of status effect changes you will encounter in PvP Patch v4.0 Beta. Although status effect changes are considered Quality of Life, because there are some major changes, in particular, Protect and Shell, these deserve their segment, especially considering Standard and Premades set the minimum need of both buffs as a part of the damage balance.

This is a must-read especially for those currently familiar with PvP Patch version 3.0!

Protect and Shell

As Protect and Shell set the damage mitigation standard for Tactics PvP, there has been community feedback on mostly the interaction and need of either playing it safe and using gear-sourced (or Equip) versus using ability-sourced (such as Kiyomori or Barrier). There are several areas of improvement needed for the ability-sourced versions to make it viable and ultimately a better choice when considering the action spent to cast.

In version 4, to better balance both sides of gear-sourced and ability-sourced Protect and Shell, the following key changes will occur:

• Gear-sourced Protect and Shell will now use <Initial> instead of <Equip>. This means that Protect and Shell are no longer permanent unless the gear is broken or stolen and now exist on a duration like Kiyomori or Barrier currently does. Because you are granting these buffs via gear, the cost is now a shorter duration versus being ability-sourced, and depending on how long a game goes, you may need to reapply it mid-game.
  
• Protect and Shell’s duration has been increased from 15 to 22 game clockticks. Gear-sourced Protect and Shell will expire around the 24th Act and ability-sourced around the 34th Act.
  Note that the more units that are KO’d the faster the ticks speed up just like any other status effect with a duration so the Act in which they expire is ultimately variable.
  
• Protect and Shell now persist while KO’d – This change is because, in version 3, ability-sourced versions are removed when a unit dies in battle, making it even more perilous than its gear-sourced equivalent. Sourcing it either through gear or an ability, you now have one less worry to contend with but keep in mind that Protect and Shell can “fall off” since its duration runs even while dead.
  
• Because of the <Initial> change to gear-sourced Protect and Shell, Protect and Shell is now interactable the same you currently can with ability-sourced. That means you can now use abilities like Rapha’s Heaven’s Wrath, Luso’s Dischord, Arts of War’s War Cry, Mystic Arts’s Harmony, and Giant’s Axe attacks to properly remove these buffs from a target. This change is to set better expectations with how these interactions work instead of “Well I can’t use these since they are using <Equip>.”
  
• Additionally, Arts of War’s Bulwark now grants Protect and Shell with Defending as a new ability option, but in a “t-shape” AoE and the Sortilege accessory now grants extended Protect and Shell duration from 22 to 36 ticks (lasting 40+ Acts), as a part of a new status extension system that will come with version 4.

Atheist, Charm, and Sleep Uptime Reduction

These three status effects have had their duration reduced in version 4. The changes were ultimately because they create high-impact/effect scenarios:

• Atheist’s duration has been reduced from 20 to 16. This change was due to the fact that there isn’t a ton of sources that can directly remove it, though the Eight-Fluted Pole can now do so with a single attack on an affected target. The status duration also needs to be plentiful for builds that benefit versus Atheist, such as Marach’s Nether Mantra.
  
• Sleep’s duration has also been reduced from 20 to 16 to give a bit more leniency on a well-slept target, though you are still going to want to hit them with HP damage or cleanse it as they do take 1.5x more physical damage.
  
• Charm’s duration has been reduced from 18 to 12. Because of the potential that Charm has in swaying an outcome, an affected unit will now be freed from it in roughly 2 unit turns, the same as Haste. Once more, it is still usually better to HP damage or cleanse Charm to avoid a bad time!
  

Invisible

A few changes has happened with Invisible status, notably that NPCs can now target you whereas before they could not until you took an action. This change is mostly due to community feedback regarding “de-aggroing” enemy NPCs in Rendezvous and allowing them to position in an advantageous spot for AoE damage. Here are the gist of the changes:

• Doubles your evasion rates while active – this functions similarly to the Defending status and Invisible and Defending can both stack on each other creating low hit windows against incoming physical damage. Invisible still ignores the evasion rates of a target both physically and magically.
  
• NPCs can target you but you are de-prioritized while Invisible. With doubled evasiveness, NPCs may consider not engaging an Invisible unit in the future, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t alright if the conditions dictate you are still the best target/in range/taken prior damage.

Veil (formerly Invulnerable)

By request and as an effort to improve interactions in the game state, Veil (which was formerly Invulnerable and sourced only via Steadfast Ring) has been renamed to fit the naming convention better from other Final Fantasy games and now has a proper status pop-up when it has expired! Note that Veil will typically expire shortly after its bearer has taken an action/turn so make sure to take advantage of its short window of opportunity!

PvP Patch v4.0 Beta will be released on March 12, 2024. Be sure to join the Tactics League Discord for a heads start on the update and be a part of our growing community!

The 4th version of the PvP Patch has a ton of new features and enhancements that ultimately strive to improve your Final Fantasy Tactics multiplayer and single-player experience. This focused article and future ones will hone in on certain major changes so that you can be better informed before the massive changelog is released on patch day.

Practice Mode

The new Practice Mode feature is a rewrite of all the random encounters in Araguay Woods to serve as the best place to practice your new team against NPC teams that are built in mind of the Standard format (previously known as Starter). You can encounter 8 different teams, each led by a unique character that follows the same ruleset convention used in Standard – these fights are a challenge and can down your team if you aren’t careful!

Let’s take a look at each enemy team and how you can encounter them:

• West (from Dorter)
  • Rapha – Chemist, Archer, Thief, Geomancer
  • Delita – Dragoon, Onion Knight, Chemist, Archer
  • Agrias – Time Mage, Knight, Dragoon, Summoner
  • Mustadio – Dark Knight, Samurai, White Mage, Mime
• East (from Fort Besselat)
  • Construct 8 – Bard, Dancer, Dragoon, Monk
  • Cloud – Geomancer, Squire, Archer, Black Mage
  • Valmafra – Orator, Dark Knight, Mystic, Thief
  • Meliadoul – Archer, Geomancer, Ninja, Bard
• Special Encounter (regardless of direction)
  • Alma, Marach, Reis, Beowulf, and Luso

Quality of Life Updates

There are several new additions to the game systems and combat improvements to help with the general “feel” and interaction of Final Fantasy Tactics. A huge shout-out to Tzepish for many of these new changes being integrated into the PvP Patch! Let’s take a deeper dive into each key change:

Unique Characters can now be Renamed at the Warrior’s Guild

In PvP Patch version 3, the feature of being able to rename your generic characters, Ramza, and Construct 8 was well received and added an extra uniqueness to your team. This is being expanded in version 4, where you can now rename any character, including unique characters. Let your imagination run wild, but keep in mind to not be offensive!

Iaido Abilities and Unholy Sacrifice Now Display Their Damage and Status in the Damage Preview

One new addition is that Iaido’s damaging abilities and Darkness’s Unholy Sacrifice will now display their damage and status infliction instead of previously displaying a “00%” hit rate. Note that while this now does show the damage dealt, this value is based on the caster’s mitigation sources and modifiers and their status immunities, so this isn’t 100% reflective of what type of damage or status that can be dealt. As a reminder, always use the Help menu and the “Calc” field to properly figure out how much damage your unit can deal for accuracy.

Midlight’s Deep’s Maps Brightness Improved!

Yes, you can venture forth into the Midlight’s Deep maps (also known as Deep Dungeon from PSX FFT) against another player with some lighting! This is still a work in progress, and one of the hopeful goals in the future is to have the brightness at maximum or near it. For now, these maps are now playable in Melee mode. Note, that this change does not affect the campaign’s Midlight’s Deep maps – this solely affects Melee currently.

Campaign’s First Encounter, Orbonne Monastery – Improved

Though the Tactics League PvP Patch is designed in mind for multiplayer content, the enemies in the first story battle now have their equipment set to Random, meaning that the game will now decide the best options based on the gear’s “level.” This change was made because of feedback where people were interested in the PvP Patch but wanted to try it in the campaign, but came across the first battle’s enemies with endgame gear! As a reminder, this change is to help the prospect of playing with the PvP Patch in the story, but the patch is still not balanced for campaign, so progress at your own risk.

PvP Patch v4.0 Beta will be released on March 12, 2024. Be sure to join the Tactics League Discord for a heads start on the update and be a part of our growing community!

This month, we have two major, upcoming events: the Update 4 Exhibition live stream featuring WngMan vs. Pista, the 1st and 2nd runner-up of the 2024 Starter – Winter Cup #1, and the public release of PvP Patch v4.0 Beta!

Update 4 Exhibition – March 11, 2024 @ 9 PM EST

The date is set and locked in. WngMan and Pista’s prize from the 2024 Starter – Winter Cup #1 competition is early access to the PvP Patch v4.0 Beta one day before the public release. Additionally, they will live stream a best-of-3 series at both the Tactics League Discord and https://www.twitch.tv/tacticsleague

This isn’t a sanctioned competition, but a friendly, chat-and-hangout session, while we go over some of the new changes coming in the 4th version of the PvP Patch.

PvP Patch v4.0 Beta – Public Release – March 12, 2024

The longly anticipated version 4 update is scheduled to be released the next day after the Update 4 Exhibition, with patch notes going live first on the Tactics League Discord starting at 1 PM EST and the PvP Patch + save data bundle becoming available to download shortly after the changelog.

This update is massive in scope; by far the biggest update that has been worked on, with many quality-of-life enhancements, new gear, new abilities, new characters, and more! To view the high-level overview, visit PvP Patch v4.0 Beta – Overview.