PvP Patch v5 Focused: Abilities

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)
• Ice – Inflicts: Immobilize (Black Magicks, Summon’s Shiva, Dragon Tech, and Reis’s Ice Breath)
• Lightning – Inflicts: Blind (Black Magicks, Summon’s Ramuh, Dragon Tech, and Reis’s Thunder Breath)
• Wind – Inflicts: Confuse (from Windslash Bow)
• Holy – Removes: Reraise, Regen, Haste (White Magicks’s Holy)
• 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!