This incremental update addresses most bugs reported with v5.0, removes the bonus +HP gear damage from Crush Helm/Armor, and some monster buffs.
If you are already on version 5, you DO NOT need to update your save data. Make sure to patch using an unmodified, USA-region backup of your FFT WotL ISO!
Fixed Invisible status not applying doubled evasion rates
Fixed Silence status prohibiting Iaido
Fixed Purification cleansing Curse status (only Esuna and Holy Water are able)
Removed % text from Steal Helm
Corrected Ultima’s Speed text
[Campaign] Fixed Mustadio and others wanting to join the party while your party is full, giving you a join request instead of outright not prompting the opportunity to dismiss units instead to make room
Learn on Hit Functionality
Learn on hit now ignores your status except if considered KO’d to make for an easier time triggering learn prompts, from abilities like Mind Blast Note: the “Learn?” prompt doesn’t display if under a disabling status (such as Vampire or Confuse) but the ability is still being automatically learned in Blue Magicks
“Learn (ability)?” prompt should always display regardless if Battle Prompt is ON or OFF
Abilities
Crush Helm/Crush Armor – Removed the equipment +HP damage difference when targeting helms or armor for this update When this was changed, this was primarily to buff Meli from feedback in v4 on her damage performance. However, Meli also isn’t the only one with access to these skills or the ability to Cast them (like Orlandeau or Ashley) so for this iteration, this change is being removed to tone down on the overperformance of using these skills with these units combined in All-Stars. I’ll reassess if it is worth re-adding in a later update.
Equipment
Thief’s Cap – Increased +HP from 60 to 70
Acacia Hat – Increased +HP from 50 to 60
Monsters and Monster Abilities
Goblin family
Black Goblin:
Increased HPM from 86 to 94%
Replaced Counter with First Strike
Gobbledygook – Replaced Counter with Fury
Bird family
Beak – Increased Vert. from 0 to 2
Jura Aevis – Increased HPM from 90 to 114%
Steelhawk:
Increased HPM from 85 to 94%
Replaced Innate: Pierce with Attack Boost Monster abilities don’t get blocked by Golem so this is to give them a bit more usable innate, buffing Talon Dive specifically.
Ghost family
Replaced Counter with Shirahadori for each monster
Ghoul – Increased PAM from 90 to 110%
Ghast – Increased PAM from 93 to 103%
Dryad family
Dryad:
Increased MPM from 160 to 200%
Increased SPM from 120 to 135%
Replaced Counter with Mana Shield
Elder Treant – Replaced Innate: Counter with Resilience
Leaf Rain – Increased Vert. from 1 to 2
Guardian Nymph and Shell Nymph – These abilities now hits the caster as well
Squid family
Mindflayer:
Increased HPM from 105 to 124%
Skill Drain (formerly Level Drain):
No longer lowers the target’s Level by 1 and instead lowers the target’s PA/MA/SP by 2.
It’s almost time for the PvP Patch v5 Beta. That said, there is some news to share regarding map pool changes coming to Standard and map-specific ones for the new 4v4 All-Stars format debuting on Tuesday, March 18th. This information is coming out ahead of time so there’s one less headache or news to follow with the plethora of changes coming in version 5. Let’s first talk about small map changes coming to Standard.
Standard: Oratory is out – Roof is in
The small map, Lionel Castle Oratory is being removed entirely from the map pool for this iteration and is being replaced by Riovannes Castle Roof as a new small map. Roof’s spawning is still close-quartered being separated by a 5-tile difference for both Host and Guest, however, Roof improves on aspects such as neutral spawning and height, as well as being fairly symmetrical, so neither player has an advantage initially.
Riovannes Castle Roof will be updated into Tavernmaster and a part of the ruleset changes on day 1 of the Version 5 Beta.
Riovannes Castle Roof
All-Stars Format Maps
With All-Stars being 4v4, the current v4 map pool was analyzed to determine what maps wouldn’t feel good to play on with a smaller team size. This led to adding two small maps specifically for All-Stars and not a part of Standard: Monastery Vaults – Level 1, as it is small enough for fast engagement time, but there are several quirks about the map, especially its underpasses and Limberry Castle Undercroft, with its neutral spawning, tight-quartered arena making for frantic battles likely on turn 1.
With All-Stars being 4v4, deployment positioning is more vital than ever before.
The All-Stars map pool will only feature these maps in its rotation:
Zeirchele Falls, Mullonde Cathedral Nave, The Yuguewood, Araguay Woods, Golgollada Gallows, and Mandalia Plain
Monastery Vaults – Level 1 Spawning
Limberry Castle Undercroft – Spawning
New small maps to play, a bit more neutral balancing for small maps in Standard, and tailored maps for All-Stars are all a part of making the version 5 experience a fun and successful one for the future ahead.
Version 5 introduces a way to circumvent the recruitment process for acquiring monsters (with Traitor status being removed, and it being the original only way to recruit them), and monsters are on track to become usable in the future in competitive PvP.
Hire Monsters at the Warriors’ Guild
In the Campaign article, there was a mention of there being future updates to the Warriors’ Guild. This update comes right before the version 5 public beta (huge thanks to @Tzepish <3) and it changes the system to allow for hiring both female and male Squire in one option and now introducing the new option: Hire Monster.
Hire Monster randomly generates any of the regular monsters (no special monsters sorry!) at your highest party level member so they don’t have to be grinded before they can catch up with the rest. This highest level scaling also applies to the Hire Squire option but they will still start with their preset gear and 0 JP across jobs. One neat aspect about this new feature is that generated monsters have slight deviations in their stats too, so one Chocobo is not the same as the other when it comes to stuff like HP, MP, Power, or Magick.
Since this new method fixes the ability to experience Campaign with monsters who received hefty ability updates and some stat balancing, you’ll be able to bring them alongside your journey into the Zodiac Brave Story by simply dismissing units ahead of time if space is limited, heading to the Warriors’ Guild, selecting Hire Monster, and hiring new units for a 3,000 Gil fee.
An Update to Beastmaster Ability
To improve this ability’s viability with monsters and to resolve an issue that causes the recently announced 3 range to bug out in situations, this ability will now unlock your monsters’ hidden abilities at any location on the map. Yes, that means you can get your Squeal or Gigaflare on from the other side as long as the Beastmaster unit is not KO’ed or mid-jump (from Jump) or under Sleep, Disable, Stone, Vampire, Chicken, Toad, Confuse, Berserk, Stop, or Veil.
In the picture below, here is an example of a Dark Behemoth using its hidden ability, Almagest, several tiles away from Ramza, who has Beastmaster.
A Future in Competitive
With the ability to hire monsters and they generate at your party level, there’s finally a future for them regarding competitive play in Standard. Monsters have received numerous updates in job stats and abilities to balance them better while aiming to improve them overall for Campaign and Standard.
Now to set expectations, monsters have their limitations, most do not have access to Protect or Shell, Defense Boost, or Arcane Defense (but a select few do) and will rely on their human allies in most cases to provide these buffs, but there is a potential in the future metagame. Giving up a generic human job for a monster, may or may not be worth the trade-off, but experiment now that it is a possibility. Stay tuned for potential ruleset updates regarding monsters being allowed in future competitions!
As we approach the March 18th public beta date, it’s time to highlight some action ability changes with version 5. This article will focus on some of the major changes that you will need to know about ahead of time so you can start planning for the future. This will be a decently long read, but one worth having from start to finish.
Distinction in Elemental Abilities
Abilities like Fira, Blizzara, and even Reis’s Breath abilities (except Holy Breath) essentially acted the same in version 4, where there was no distinction between choices. That changes in version 5, with select elements and abilities now having a 19% status chance associated with them; making choices even more impactful than ever. Let’s do a quick rundown about what was changed:
Fire – Inflicts: Poison (Black Magicks, Summon’s Ifrit, Dragon Tech, and Reis’s Fire Breath)
Dark – Inflicts: Curse (Mystic Arts’s Unholy Darkness)
As mentioned, these distinction updates only affect the listed abilities. They also affect weapons that cast their ability, like Vitanova (Holy) and even Glacial Gun (Black Magick’s Blizzard series)!
A Reworked and Improved Black Magicks
One skillset that wasn’t as performant was Black Magicks. Between the distinction updates listed earlier and a reworking of the abilities and even new ones, Black Magicks will be a future contender in a competitive environment for Black Mage and as a secondary for casters. First, let’s go over how the skillset was reworked:
Level 1 Black Magicks (Fire, Blizzard, Thunder) got a PWR increase from 18 to 25 each.
Level 2 through Level 4 abilities were condensed and restructured. What this means is that:
-aja variants (Lv. 4s) have now become the -aga (Lv. 3) variants, copying over all ability data, including costs and AoE. After this copy, their cast times were reduced from 5 to 4.
– aga variants (Lv. 3s) have now become the -ara (Lv. 2s) variants, copying over all ability data as well. After this copy, their cast times were reduced from 3 to 2.
This ultimately removes the original four-step progression of these abilities and leans the skillset. More importantly, it gives space to introduce 3 NEW abilities to take over those slots!
With 3 new ability slots, I aimed to diverse and strengthen the kit as a whole, bringing about new ways to play Black Mage, and to utilize their destructive arsenal with the following, including an upgrade to the original Poison ability:
Scathe – Consider it a faith-based Kiku-ichimonji (from Iaido), at 1 speed and non-elemental damage at 25 PWR. This ability does not damage allies in the line.
Doomsday – This 3 ranged, Iaido-AoE, Dark-elemental magick deals 40% max. HP damage to those affected and has a 19% chance to Inflict: Doom.
Curse – This instant single target ability has a variable chance to Inflict: Curse, the new negative status. Curse lowers the target’s damage done and healing received by 33% and is permanent until cleansed.
Bio (Poison upgrade) – The original Poison ability got a massive upgrade, as this ability uniquely does not calculate with Faith, and is guaranteed to Inflict: Poison as long as the target was not immune with a 50% HP loss to boot! This ability is the only “magick” in the game that can be cast on low-faith/Atheist targets as a means to give Black Magicks an option when normally countered. This ability has a 3-speed cast time.
With faster cast times, more power, and more options, Black Magicks is much better and more appealing than ever before!
Iaido 2.0
One skillset that has always been performant even in the original game is Samurai’s Iaido. However, with that being said, Iaido was never really competitive on its own derived job, so there have been pretty sizable changes to it.
Damaging abilities will now use [(MA + PWR) / 2 * PA] calculations instead of [MA * PWR]. This change is to not only buff Samurai’s signature skillset for their use but also widen the number of jobs, including physical ones, that can utilize Iaido. Yes, this is a nerf to Magick-stacked jobs, like the tried-and-true Iaido Black Mage, but with some additional base job PA enhancements, mage jobs can still utilize Iaido effectively, albeit they will need to go more into PA this go around instead of stacking straight into Magick. Jobs that can hybridize their stats well, like Samurai and Geomancer, will find newer heights in this reworked Iaido. Let’s look at the PWR changes to compensate for this new hybrid formula:
Ashura – from 10 to 14
Kotetsu – from 12 to 16
Ama-no-Murakamo – from 13 to 18, now Inflicts: Curse instead of Undead at 19% chance
Muramasa – from 15 to 18
Kiku-ichimonji – from 14 to 16
Chirijiraden – from 17 to 22
Additionally, the break chance of Iaido has gone up from 33 to 50% per cast. This is to reduce same-ability spamming, especially with the skillset having a wider audience to use it. The Safeguard support ability will additionally lower the break chance of Iaido to 25% if slotted. With an increase in break chance, the “support” Iaido abilities, Murasame and Osafune, respectively got a slight PWR (14 and 16) increase in potency and still use [MA * PWR].
Lastly, based on community feedback, the Zanmato katana now has an ability assigned to it called “Advent of Might,” which increases the Bravery of all allies affected by 4. This katana is still limited in Standard, and being able to improve your group’s Bravery in a single cast can be advantageous not only to Samurai and unarmed Monk but to better reaction chances too at the start of a fight.
Damaging Stat Reduction Abilities
To improve Arts of War’s Rend Stat abilities (Rend Speed, Rend Power, Rend Magick specifically), these abilities will now deal minimal damage using [PA * (WP / 2)] on hit in addition to their stat reduction. With being able to apply chip damage mitigated and lower a unit’s vital stats in one go, Rend Stat abilities got an enticing buff that not only improves Knight but the skillset as a whole.
Additionally, Mustadio’s Disassemble ability deals minor damage too but uses [PA * (MA / 2)] instead in addition to lowering a target’s PA and MA by 2.
The Safeguard ability will also lower these stat reductions by 1, so getting hit by Rend Power would be a -2 Power loss instead of 3 for example.
Don’t sleep on these abilities, especially for openers and high-threat targets!
Mastery Arts is a Fully Slottable Secondary
With version 5 being the last, major update series, it is fitting to get the Onion Knight’s skillset to become usable as a secondary, especially since it is considered a generic job. You will now be able to wield Mastery Arts on any character, including Uniques, which uniquely grants them access to Focus for the first time.
Additionally, Mastery Arts is fully viewable from the skillset menu too, so you can find out what exact abilities they have instead of having to wait to go into battle.
Updates to Sword Skills
Some changes went into select “sword skill” skillsets and abilities to improve their viability in general.
First, Holy Sword and all abilities, except Unholy Sacrifice, in Darkness, now scale with [weapon] instead of [PA * WP]. Because these abilities already require a “sword-type” weapon and these weapons use [PA * WP] anyway, you won’t see any changes to their output. However, when using abilities with dual wield or with other weapons, these will use that weapon’s base calculation. A prime example of this is using a katana in the main hand and a one-handed sword in the off-hand for Darkness Ninja. Though katanas have more WP than a sword, because of Bravery scaling, the damage will be a bit less upfront unless you can reach near-max Bravery.
Abyssal Blade got a buff in its row scaling now using +2 PWR for the first row, +1 PWR for the second, and divide by 2 for the third. These changes impact Cloud’s Blade Beam as well.
Meliadoul’s Crush Helm and Crush Armor abilities now deal the max HP difference properly so there isn’t a “loss” in damage due to hitting these equipment. This is a fairly notable buff to Meliadoul’s toolkit and damage potential. Additionally, based on requests, she now has Crush Shield too!
Beowulf’s Spellblade got a hefty change where though it still requires a sword-type weapon, it no longer calculates against his and the target’s Faith, allowing for Spellblade to be more versatile against Atheist and lower-faith targets. PWR changes were made to these abilities as they now use [% = MA + PWR] to determine their status chance, but it should be roughly near the same as it was in version 4 with some slight deviations, like Break having a bit lower chance due to a technical KO in Stone infliction.
Additionally, Spellblade’s Drain and Syphon now scale with [weapon] too but at 70% of the damage done, as a slightly weaker version of Sanguine Sword and Infernal Strike, to give him more physical options in his kit. With these changes, Beowulf is certainly able to “check” select uniques and generics better and is a more flexible combatant.
New and Improved Reaction/Support/Movement Abilities
One big goal of version 5 is to improve on lesser-used R/S/M abilities so that it empowers players with even more options than they already had! Of course, with a major update, new abilities are being added, so let’s look at these first, starting with Supports:
2 NEW Support Abilities – Pierce and Power Throw
Pierce – Normal Attacks, Magicks, Jump, and Throw bypass Golem and Reflect.
Power Throw – Increase damage with Throw by 43%.
3 NEW Movement Abilities – Tactical Shift (by Tzepish), Stealth, and Athleticks. Note that Tactical Shift is an upgraded Treasure Hunter that allows you to still find hidden items in Campaign:
Tactical Shift – Restores your Move command after a killing blow with a normal attack.
Stealth – Bestows: Invisible after moving at least 5 tiles at once.
Athleticks – Increases your Power and Magick by 1 for every 5 tiles moved at once.
Improved R/S/M Abilities:
Resilience (Reaction – formerly Resilient) – Applies an 8% damage reduction at all times while slotted (this affects normally mitigation ignored sources). While charging, remove the physical damage penalty and reduce all damage taken by 50%. Notably, this includes incoming magic-based abilities with this change too, and not just physical.
Ward (Reaction) – Grants Curse and Doom immunity at all times while slotted.
Earplug (Reaction) – Grants Confuse and Charm immunity at all times while slotted.
CT Boost (Reaction) – Increased CT gained from 9 to 12.
Critical: Restore (Reaction – formerly Critical: Recover HP) – Additionally restores MP as well HP to full if triggered while in critical.
First Strike (Reaction) – Now can trigger against all incoming Steal abilities.
HP Boost (Support) – Increases base HP from 20 to 25%.
Safeguard (Support) – Additionally lowers Iaido break chance to 25%, reduces Stat Reduction loss by 1, and prevents items from being stolen or broken.
Concentration (Support) – Uses additive calculations instead of multiplicative, improving hit rates by approximately 10% more.
Equip Bludgeon (Support) – Now includes Knives.
Monkey Grip (Support) – Now fully works with Reequip.
Beastmaster (Support) – Extends the range of friendly monster’s hidden abilities from 1 to 3 and slotting Beastmaster enables the slotting of Blue Magicks as a secondary ability.
Nimble (Movement) – Added +1 Move.
Conclusion
There are even more ability changes than what was previewed today but this highlights the most notable ones. With only a week left, version 5 is changing the game and opening up new possibilities for creativity. See you all on the 18th!
The Version 5 Exhibition match will take place LIVE on Twitch and the Tactics League’s staging channel on Sunday, March 16th at 7 PM EDT. Guitarmanager and Rumer, the 1st and 2nd place winners of the 2025 Winter Cup #1 event that was held on February 23rd will get their hands on this massive update a few days ahead of the public beta and showcase some of the new changes in a best-of-3 series match!
It won’t be long before everyone can get their hands on PvP Patch v5 Beta! The beta will go public and downloadable on March 18th shortly after the changelog is posted in the Tactics League Discord. Website updates will follow behind it. If you are eager to participate in campaign or multiplayer, join the server early and get accustomed to the current v4.4 patch, making transitioning into version 5 a bit easier.
Join the Tactics League Discord today and become a future beta tester of this year’s series of updates!
In the fourth article of the Version 5 Focused series, we go over one of the bigger aspects of what this newest update focuses on: major quality-of-life changes that improve and add various aspects to not only the PvP Patch but to Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions in general. There’s a lot to cover, so we will focus on the bigger highlights you want to know once the public beta is out. Just to note, though Campaign received several QoL changes, we will focus on that in a separate article later this week.
⚙ Customized Options
PvP Patch v5 will add a requested feature that is scarcely available in other FFT mods; the ability to change your team’s battle color via the new “Battle Palette” Option! Helmed by @Tzepish, this modifies the previous Cursor Repeat Rate setting to now allow you to change your generic unit’s color according to the various enemy factions you encounter in the campaign. You’ll be able to finally put some extra customization with your team in addition to being able to change your unit’s name via the Warriors’ Guild from a previous update.
Additionally, with Spell Quotes being reintegrated, the “Display Ability Names” setting is now named “Ability Names and Quotes” which disables or enables ability name display and Spell Quote pop-ups. This setting is enabled by default.
The “Display Earned EXP/JP” setting now affects the enemy team’s EXP/JP display as well as disabling or enabling the celebration they do when they gain a job level as a means to speed up battles.
💬Spell Quotes Integration
A feature disabled in the original War of the Lions, Spell Quotes have returned and are fully usable in both Campaign and Multiplayer modes. There are a few caveats with Spell Quotes returning to ensure it doesn’t impact live gameplay performance in general. Thank you to @Tzepish and @3lric for the translated text and optimizations!
Spell Quotes can occur 35% of the time
Invisible, chicken, or toad-status units or Mimes cannot quote
Some generic abilities, such as Steal and Speechcraft, do not have quotes set
Quotes, when triggered, are fairly short-lived so that they do not take away much time from Melee. Note that quotes do not consume a player’s timer while being displayed
☠ Status Effects
Version 5 introduces Curse status – a new negative effect that reduces the target’s damage dealt and healing received by 33% while affected denoted by a new status bubble. Curse status is a new form of “damage reduction” that affects mitigation-ignored sources, like Axes or Knight’s Mow Down, and lowers the HP restored from sources like Regen or Elixir. Additionally, Curse is a permanent debuff until removed via Esuna or Holy Water. Curse is accessible via the following abilities:
Curse (NEW Black Magicks) – variable status chance to single target Inflict: Curse, instant cast
Ama-no-Murakamo (Iaido) – 19% status chance to Inflict: Curse in an AoE
Unholy Darkness (Mystic Arts or Ebon Blade) – 19% status chance on hit
Accursed Umbra (Ashley’s Break Arts – Axe) – 100% status chance on hit
Float status increases your effective Height from 2 to 4; this change affects Longbow’s variable range by 1 depending on targeted tiles, allowing your bow and arrow to go further distances even if the map is not as favorable!
Reflect status now has a status bubble to show units affected and Veil additionally displays a yellow-invisible tint to improve status messaging. Poison and Vampire’s status bubbles have been removed to allow for Curse and Reflect, but these still have their respective status color.
⏰Updated Melee Mode Timers
As part of efforts to speed up gameplay and overall competition total time-per-game, Tactics League’s Standard ruleset will now use a 12-minute timer with a 20-second reset time instead of the previous 15-minute timer with a 15-second reset time. Though the initial time window is shortened per player, the 20 seconds on reset if you reach zero on the main timer gives a bit more flexibility with decision-making making and the extra 5 seconds surprisingly cuts down on those “nail-bitter” situations where you only have a few seconds to spare to commit to an action. I will be monitoring these timer changes as a whole going into the beta and am hopeful that it will help game time and reinforce the need to think ahead more off-turn.
Conclusion
With v5 being the final series of updates, Quality of Life changes are a bit focused on ensuring the final product is ready for the future and beyond. There are a handful of other lesser-important QoLs (but still impactful nonetheless!) that will be mentioned going into v5’s changelog.
