Category Article

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!

Greetings and cheers! It has been an exciting time here at Tactics League; we just completed our first-ever cup, and back in October 2023, our first-ever tournament. With it, a growing community has reached new landmarks in competition, and people are eager to come check out what Tactics PvP is all about.

Now the future of the Tactics League’s PvP Patch is almost here! Today, I want to share a high-level overview of what to expect in the upcoming version 4.0 beta update. This isn’t everything, but you will see more focused articles about certain changes to follow as well leading up to the public beta release.

🤩 Meet Our New Uniques: Alma and Valmafra

• This hefty update adds both Alma Beoulve and Valmafra Lenande to the uniques roster, replacing Ovelia and Balthier respectively!
• Alma – A glorified Cleric, uses her supportive Holy Magicks to provide powerful status effects to allies and additionally has access to some high-level White Magicks as well. With her base 87 Faith and innate Arcane Defense, Defense Boost, and Charm immunity, Alma is ready to provide aid and comfort on the battlefield.
• Vamlafra – A Witch of the Coven, has learned the trades of White, Black, Time, Mystic Arts, and Ja-Magicks and is likened to that of both a Red Mage and Elementalist. With her Magicks using a blend of all 5 skill sets, she can cast damaging magicks quickly thanks to her innate Swiftness.
• Both of these new characters will be available in both Standard and Rendezvous formats.

⏫ Quality of Life Updates and Practice Mode

• The Starter format (the competitive/slot 3 save) has been renamed to Standard to follow other naming conventions used in other competitive games and to set the tone that this is the main competitive format; it is still the Esports-driven format you have come to expect!
• Araguay Woods is the new home of Practice Mode – where all 8 encounters (depending on how you enter Araguay Woods) are a team of 5 led by a unique character each, tailored similarly to popular and niche setups from Standard. This is the perfect place to practice and test your new squad offline before venturing out into Melee! You might even come across a rare 5 unique character team encounter…
• You can now rename your unique characters at the Warriors Guild!
• Iaido and Unholy Sacrifice now properly show their damage/status in the damage preview.
• Night-time conditions no longer penalizes Bows and Crossbow attacks.
• Improved AI behaviors, such as better decision-making with casting Protect/Shell.

💤 Status Effect Updates

• Protect & Shell:
  • All equipment that provides Equip: Protect/Shell now all provide Initial: Protect/Shell, meaning that gear provides Protect/Shell in a duration the same way Kiyomori or Barrier does.
  • This also means that gear-sourced Protect/Shell is now interactable with abilities or attacks; such as War Cry, Harmony, and Giant’s Axe.
  • The duration of Protect/Shell has been increased.
  • Protect/Shell now persists while KO’d so you can return to the fight with it intact (but they are still on a duration).
• Veil (formerly Invulnerable) – Renamed to fit the theme better and it now has a status pop-up when it has expired from Steadfast Ring (rejoice!)
• Invisible – Doubles your evasion rates while active (until you take an action or get hit) and NPCs can now target you but at a lower priority to do so.
• Atheist, Sleep, and Charm have had their status durations reduced to lessen the duration they have over a single game, but are still impactful and worthwhile to inflict.

👥 Base Stats and Gender Equality Updates

• The base HP, MP, PA, and MA of all generic squires in all Tactics League formats have been increased to improve their stat spread transition to other jobs.
• Almost all generic jobs have also received a slight increase in their MA/PA, resulting in better viability of male magical or female physical setups with the total stat spread being no more than 2 points between either gender; you can play any job on any gender and they all can now perform well!

🧙‍♂️ Jobs Updates

• Many jobs received a slight boost in their PA/MA multipliers to better offset the disparity between male magical and female physical setups. Note that while these are stat increases, these don’t “add” any further power to any job.
• Chemist received a hefty boost to their HP and now innately increase Potions and Ethers HP/MP restore by an additional 50.
• Summoner received a boost to their maximum MP and now boasts the highest MP out of all caster jobs.
• Sage’s base Speed has been increased from 10 to 11.
• Mimes can now equip a limited set of gear and gain a new functionality in “copy weapon,” allowing them to slot the previous acting ally’s weapon temporarily; there’s a lot more potential and tricks with Mimes!
• Dark Knight now has innate Lifefont instead of Immune: Faith to reduce highly situational passives.

✨ Abilities Updates

• Meliadoul’s Unyielding Blade has been renamed to Unyielding Strike and now works with any weapon!
• All 8-range abilities have been reduced to 6-range: Dispose, Shockwave, and Kiku-ichimonji. This change is to promote engagement.
• New Ja-Magicks and further additions to Wind, Water, and Earth abilities: Aeroja, Waterja, and Quake!
• Ninja’s Throw is no longer evadable and the quantity of shuriken-type items have been reduced in Standard.
• Fixed the unarmed attack calculation and buffed the damage potential via Brawler.
• New Reaction/Support/Movement abilities: CT Boost, Critical: Flee, Replenish, Monkey Grip, Nimble, and Dexterity!
• Shirahadori has returned but has been reworked – it no longer affects normal attacks, but it now sets the hit rate of unevadable physical abilities to 60%.
• MANY improvements to underutilized abilities, such as Magick Counter now being able to trigger off of unique magic abilities, Bravery Boost and Faith Boost being guaranteed to trigger, and Lifefont and Manafont now being stackable.

🗡️ Equipment Updates

• A plethora of new weapons have been added: Apocalypse, Caladbolg, Tiny Bee, Zanmato, Kunai, Thief’s Knife, Zephyr Pole, Crown Scepter, Nirvana, and Flametongue!
• Many existing weapons have received updates to improve their viability, such as Nagnarok functioning like Ribbon but with positive status immunities included, or all Poles now scaling with the greater of your PA or MA * WeaponPower.
• Ringmail (clothing) and Peytral (heavy armor) are new additions that provide Initial: Protect/Shell as options; this greatly expands on gear-sourced selections, especially for jobs that need it!
• New additional gear as well, such as Chaos Helm and Cursed Garb.
• All “Boosts” or “Halves” element equipment that previously affected Fire, Lightning, Ice, and Wind now affect all elements, except Holy and Dark.
• New accessories to deck out your team, such as the guaranteed weapon cast/status effect with Chantage, increase your Bravery over time with the Bravely Armlet, and some evasiveness while gaining +1 Speed with the Elven Cloak. Also, look out for several reworked or improvements to existing accessories.

📝Addressing Community Feedback

• This update’s long-term goals are: to further expand theorycrafting, improve game or match resolution in competitions, and improve many underutilized abilities/jobs/gear.
• The Protect/Shell changes are from feedback about the typical desire to need always gear-slot Protect/Shell. The <Initial> change, increased uptime, and persistence on death are all about improving these vital buffs as a whole. Additionally, Ringmail and Peytral (alongside Lordly Robe) provide all jobs access to gear-sourced Protect/Shell so you can further your theorycrafting without making sacrifices.
• Addressing revivals or chain-resurrection: The potency of Ramza’s Encourage, Martial Art’s Revive, and Summon’s Faerie have all seen a slight reduction to create a margin of error to reduce chain-resurrection and to demote the push for draw games. Phoenix Down has also been reduced to 3 in Standard, but now restores 20% of your maxHP to compensate. Reraise’s spell speed has been reduced slightly to incentive pushing towards bestowing the reraise status but with more counter-plays.
• Bardsong’s Life Anthem has received a slight potency reduction to reduce total healing done in situations where you get back-to-back casts.
• Forbidden Dance and Nameless Song’s hit rate increased significantly, though Forbidden Dance is slower now but more consistent. Nameless is also more consistent, but Protect or Shell has been re-added to reduce the opportunity for constant Reraise or Haste rolls.
• With changes to incentivize weapon attacking and the reworked Chantage accessory, evasiveness will play a more important role in the future.

Another competition is in the history books as our first-ever cup, a single-elimination style competition was a success!

To watch (or rewatch) the tournament in its entirety with chapters to jump to specific matches:

WngMan and YoshnJa had a post-event interview talking about February 11, 2024’s event, which can be found here:

The 2024 Starter – Winter Cup #1 Champion, WngMan

WngMan has successfully fought to maintain his champion title, though it wasn’t a breeze; Pista, the 2nd runner up, took a win during their 3-game series with their first game and it really set a shocker throughout. WngMan was met with a tough opponent, one who was his first time competing in a Tactics League competition!

Pista’s team had an overall successful run through the event, and he proved that faith-based magicks are definitely viable in the metagame. Using the zoning potential of Summons and Time Magicks, Pista was a force to be reckoned with, lowering his opposition’s mobility options by controlling sections of each map he played on and enabling his power stacked Agrias to move in and sweep for the finish.

Jokerfisch, a returning player from the 2023 Opener, performed very well with his new team; definitely pushing more aggression against his opponent and even ran an interesting set up on his main unique, Cloud, which was equipped with the Steadfast Ring, an accessory that gives its bearer a short period of invulnerability, allowing Cloud to be able to engage with his arsenal of AoE attacks in Limit when he was able to do so early without fear of retaliation initially.

We also had a new competitor finished 4th, Mistral! Mistral led her female-only team (with a Bard included but he was dubbed “Fayt(Girl)” so that counts :p) to the semifinals where she put up a gracious fight against Pista for the chance to take on WngMan directly. Though she was bested this time, I am positive she will be coming back in full force for the next competition.

Dr. Jay, known for his innovation and antics with team compositions, brought a new team into the competition led by a 20-Speed Mustadio, which was capable of casting turn-one Hasteja due to blistering high speed and Swiftness, enabling his team to get the leg-up on his foe. Though he was bested by Jokerfisch in Round 1, he put up a fight that pushed to Game 3, though ultimately finishing in 5th. He truly is one of the best theorycrafters in our community and I can’t wait to see what else he has cooking in the future.

Rumer, another returning player from the 2023 Opener, brought a team that followed inspiration from the Golden Sun series, led by Meliadoul. His first match was against WngMan, so he had a tough ladder to climb automatically. Though he didn’t succeed in stopping WngMan’s winning streak, I love the fact that a thematic-esque team put up a fight especially in their first game which you can find here: https://youtu.be/GEYg79T42KI

Lastly, for our 7th and 8th ranked competitors; Space Monkey and Hew, both came into the event as first-timers with ambition to perform well and get a first-time experience in Tactics PvP competition. Space Monkey has taken a lot of effort to ask questions, reiterate, and improve as a whole to do his best within the days leading up to the event. Hew is also new to the Tactics League Discord, but he has shown some very interesting builds before and even during the event. I would definitely keep my eyes on them in the future.

Results and Registered Team Rosters

With our second ever-event and our first-ever single elimination cup completed, it is once again proven that people enjoy Final Fantasy Tactics and even more so, a fierce, live competition. We also had a phenomenal uptick in viewership, both on Twitch and the Discord’s streaming channel, and we are just getting started!

While the event is over, the match data and team rosters are now publicly available to view on both Google Sheets and PDF format which can be found below:
2024 Starter – Winter Cup #1 Competition Data – Google Sheets

It’s time for another competition!

The upcoming event will be our first-ever cup, focused on faster runtime by being single-elimination and with less Competitor Point distribution.

This Starter format-focused event is scheduled for February 11, 2024, with check-in starting at noon EST and kick-off starting at 12:30 PM EST. This tournament will be live-streamed via the Tactics League Discord and the Tactics League Twitch channel.

The 1st and 2nd place winners of the event will be invited to participate in a future Update 4 Exhibition (date is TBD) that will give them early access to PvP Patch version 4 beta while showcasing the match on the Tactics League’s Discord and Twitch channels. Keep an eye out for when this event will happen!

For more information, please check out our recently added Events page and the 2024 Starter – Winter Cup #1 page.

What a special previous Sunday we had! After talks and hopeful planning for years, we have finally completed the first-ever Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions live PvP tournament!
Let’s go over some of the finer details of the competition.

To watch (or rewatch) the tournament in its entirety with chapters to jump to specific matches:

The 2023 Opener Champion – WngMan

The predictions around the Tactics League Discord were indeed true; WngMan would make it to the end and claim Champion of the 2023 Opener. Having succeeded through the Winners bracket, WngMan would later face off against Jokerfisch who crawled through Losers originally for the Grand Finals where he struck a 2-0 victory against Joker.

However, Jokerfisch had a surprise ending too, claiming 2nd place, as the prediction would be that WngMan would face off against Dr. Jay in the Grand Finals, but Jokerfisch pushed through a three-game Winners Round 3 victory, causing an upset against the predicted final battle and went up against the ultimate challenge.

Dr. Jay, who claimed 3rd, pushed an inspiring new setup that revolved around using the Squire’s Reequip ability to change his Ramza’s (dubbed “Combat Mode”) gear to adjust to the situation at hand. His handy Thief, “Dayspring,” wielded her Durandal and played some very intriguing spellcaster plays that many would say are very “off-meta” or “not fit for the job,” but in the game of Final Fantasy, anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Rumer, a recently joined member of the Tactics League Discord, finished 4th, eager to learn the ways of the PvP Patch and the evolving metagame, placed well for having just gotten involved with PvP.

And lastly, our friend and one of the server’s most senior members, Mikey from Tactics Live Tournament, took the 5th place spot. Though Mikey made quirks about finishing early, it wasn’t about the competitive push for 1st in the end, but just the fact that one of his YouTube channel’s goals of having a Final Fantasy Tactics tournament has finally reached fruition.

Results and Registered Team Rosters

As a momentous occasion to etch in video game history, the 2023 Opener proved that there is definitely an interest in Tactics PvP. People from all over different social networks, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and other Discord servers, joined the event presentation and stream and witnessed history for the first time.

While the event is over, the match data and team rosters are now publicly available to view on both Google Sheets and PDF format which can be found below:

2023 Opener Tournament Data – Google Sheets