This update introduces new ways to team-build via Equipment Sets, a few generic job updates, various ways to enhance Arts of War, buffs to Cloud and Aerith’s Limits, a buff to Curse status, some ability buffs, new gear, and a few updates to existing ones and Tactics League format updates.

Beware that a save data update is required for this patch, and updating your save data will reset all existing teams! Any incremental updates to v5.4 will be amended to this post.

To download the all-in-one package that includes the PPF file and save data, please visit Downloads. To learn more about how to apply the PPF patch, visit Tutorials.

Make sure to always patch using an unmodified, USA-region backup of your FFT WotL ISO, and do not override an already patched copy!

Bug Fixes

• Roster Expansion: Fixed an issue with Unit Slots 25 – 28 failing to load text data while viewing abilities and equipment Help menus in Deployment, which could also result in a game crash. This fix should also apply to those garbled job names we have rarely encountered
• Fixed Chantaged procs/casts sometimes not triggering when they should
• Fixed an issue where Ghost-type monsters could mount chocobos lol
• Fixed erroneous weapon sprites being used with Iaido and Sword Spirit instead of the selected katana’s sprite
• Curse Status:
  • Fixed an issue where weapon attacks that had Absorb HP functionality were double-reduced by Curse status
  • Fixed an issue where HP absorption was not reduced by Curse status 

Quality of Life Updates

• Practice Mode (Practice-One/Araguay Woods)
  • Spawns have been adjusted to replicate the Melee mode versions (instead of spawning in corners)
  • If entering from the West (from Dorter), you’ll spawn in the Host position (this includes rare encounters)
  • If entering from the East (from Zeirchele Falls), you’ll spawn in the Guest position
    Finding the means to update the map spawning was, for the longest time, just a dream, but I stumbled upon it, and even addressing multiplayer map spawns can become a reality.
    
• Campaign
  • Poacher’s Den – You can now use this shop without needing the Poach ability slotted on a unit
    
  • Ramza
    • Updated the Ch. 2 & 3 Job title from Heretic to Squire as originally intended for story progression. Ramza’s Ch. 4 version is the only one labeled as Heretic. Monkey Grip remains on Ch. 2 and Ch. 3 versions
    • Additionally, the Tactics League save data properly uses the Ch. 4 version with the Ch. 2 & 3 spritesheet
    • NOTE: That with this corrected change, Ramza during event sequences will shift to his Ch. 4 sprite during those times
      This is to clean up the save data to properly use the Ch.4 model with the Ch. 2 & 3 spritesheet while also correcting the inconsistency that his Ch. 2 & 3 versions aren’t considered a “Heretic” yet, based on the story.
      
    • Delita
      • Reverted Sprite and Portrait from King to Holy Knight (this includes multiplayer)
        I did like Delita with the swagger, but ultimately, this is to ensure that cutscenes load and use the proper sprite so it doesn’t appear odd during those moments.
        
    • Argath (Campaign version)
      • Now uses the correct Fundaments skillset with Deathknight (All-Stars) version being fixed
      • Added Crossbows as available equipment
        
    • Elidibus (Midlight’s Deep and multiplayer)
      • Replaced Midgardsomr with Sylph (Summon)
        
• Status Effects
  • Curse – Decreased the afflicted’s damage dealt and healing received from 33% to 50%
    This buff to Curse status is to ensure it simply can’t be beaten out by other 33% sources and to increase its overall potency and usage as a debilitating effect.
    
• Battle Prompts
  • Added a Battle Prompt for Take Aim and Break Aim that warns of moving cancels the currently charged ability (huge shout-out to @Tzepish for this!)
    
• AI Behavior
  • Fixed Garment Ring equipped AI from using abilities outside of their normal means
  • Fixed Darkness skillset usability 
  • Improved AI ability prioritization 
  • Fixed AI using sword skills while not having a sword equipped due to Steal/Rend/Crush
    
• Ability Quotes
  • Removed quotes from Construct 8’s abilities
    These were added in mostly for fun, but they ultimately just repeat the ability name used, and that’s it, so I ultimately preferred to leave them out for this iteration.
    
• UI Updates
  • The post-action message pop-up now displays in the correct order, as highlighted above a unit’s head, instead of displaying in reverse order when there is a change to Power, Magick, Bravery, Faith, or Speed
    
• Text Updates
  • Help: Added rider stat context and rider status immunities to Adept Rider as a means to provide context in-game
  • Help: Replaced “ATK (Phys.)” and “ATK (Mag.)” with “Power” and “Magick” respectively
    This is to finalize a trend that was started a while back to label these stats as mentioned in various other Help menus and guides.
    
  • Help: Regen – Removed erroneous “Speed” (this ability is instant cast)
  • Removed “holy” from Chaos Blade’s flavor text (it is not a Holy-type weapon)
  • Updated various flavor text to conserve text memory (mostly campaign items, but a few save data-based ones as well)
  • Help: Added Calc to Counter Throw reaction
  • Help: Magick Counter, Shirahadori, Death Strike – Removed the “Affected Abilities” section as text memory is getting very low with the addition of Equipment Sets

Jobs

• Thief
  • Added Innate Backstabber – Increases damage done with normal attacks by 25% if attacking from behind (back attack)
    This new passive is unique to Thief as a means to give them higher damage potential with normal attacks by rewarding good positioning.
    
• Chemist
  • Labeled “Increases the potency of Potions and Ethers by 50” as Efficacy Boost (functionally no change)
  • Increased PAM from 80 to 100% (+3 Power to generics)
    
• Archer
  • Labeled “Increased critical strike chance by 5%” as Hawkeye
    
• Orator
  • Increased PAM from 85 to 95% (+1 Power to generics)
    These subtle increases in Chemist and Orator’s Power are to provide an easier time for these jobs to have better damage potential with Knives, albeit how much further this pushes that direction will be a total toss-up, as Guns are much more popular on these jobs due to build archetypes and safety.
    
    Note: neither job will receive a +Move increase to push towards melee, because their core functionality does not demand it, and to maintain skillset/positioning balance as well.

Action Abilities

• Holy Sword (Delita and Agrias)
  • Judgment Blade – Increased Vert. from 0 to 1 (still 2 Range, 1 AoE)
  • Cleansing Strike – No longer Inflicts: Doom and instead has a 25% chance to Remove: Protect, Shell, Reraise, Haste from the target
    I know Holy Sword can feel kinda lackluster, but not terrible, so I am buffing Judgment Blade so it can work better around ledges, and Cleansing Strike is a more rewarding offensive skill than trying to maybe just get rid of Reraise.
    
• Unyielding Strike (Meliadoul)
  • Abilities now scale with [Weapon]’s base calculation instead of [PA * WP], similarly to Holy Sword (“base” means, for example, using a Runeblade still scales with PA because swords are by default set to that)
    This is a nerf to scaling abilities functionally because of high WP, but otherwise Unyielding still packs a punch, including the consideration of Divine Knight’s innate Pierce and the means to utilize Vehemence easier with the Gladiator Set.
    
• Aimed Shot (Mustadio)
  • Burial (formerly Seal Evil) – Renamed to differentiate from Aerith’s Seal Evil 
  • Overload – Decreased recoil damage from ½ to ⅓
    This recoil reduction is intended to reduce situations in which Mustadio finds himself near death from using his ability.
    
• Limit (Cloud)
  • Meteorain:
    • Increased AoE from 2 to 3
    • Increased PWR from 18 to 20
      
  • Cherry Blossom:
    • Increased AoE from 2 to 3
    • Increased PWR from 20 to 22
      A trend you will notice between Cloud and Aerith is that several AoE skills have greater area coverage. This is for several reasons; one, because these skills have lower “activation use” typically in a game, and two, it should feel a bit more rewarding to use your Level 3 or 4 Limits. The PWR increase to the magick Limits is to give them more oomph, even if you opt out of non-magick specs, and a bit more power if you choose to build for it.
      
• Limit (Aerith)
  • Healing Wind, Breath of the Earth, Fury Brand, Pulse of Life, and Great Gospel – Increased AoE from 2 to 3
    As a means to improve Limit’s performance and as a support-type, this AoE range buff gives Aerith greater coverage of her Limits, ultimately making them more impactful as they should be with their built-in limitations.
    
  • Seal Evil – Increased Range from 2 to 3
    I was skeptical about this ability being 3 range on original release, but as a support-type, Aerith shouldn’t need to get in the fray too up close to use her skills.
    
  • Pulse of Life – Decreased PWR from 70 to 60 due to the increased AoE
    
• Break Arts (Ashley)
  • Vile Scar (swords) – This ability now Inflicts: Poison and Slow on success instead of separate 25% rolls for each
  • Ignis Wheel (flails) – Increased Oil chance from 33 to 50%
    
• Huntcraft (Luso)
  • Added Venom Fang (cats), Breathe Fire (minotaurs), and Twister (Behemoth) abilities
  • Assigned JP Costs to each respective ability for story progression as: 200, 400, and 600
  • Reorganized the skillset
    These enhancements are to make Huntcraft feel more unique regarding past changes to monsters and Blue Magicks to ensure Luso has more flexibility in his kit.
    
• Piracy (Balthier)
  • Fires of War – Added 19% Inflicts: Poison
  • Tides of Fate – Added 19% Inflicts: Silence
    
• Blade of Ruin (Zalbaag, All-Stars)
  • Magicksap, Powersap, Speedsap, Mindsap – Increased Vert. from 0 to 1
    These abilities already come with a hefty MP cost and sword requirement. Increasing the Vert. makes it a bit easier for Zalbaag to neuter grouped up targets.
    
• Arts of War
  • Saint Cross – Increased Vert. from 1 to 2
    
  • Rend Speed/Power/Magick – While unarmed and with Brawler, damage calculates as [PA * (PA / 2)] instead of zero WP, which previously resulted in no damage, but still damaged stat.
    This creates viability with Monk or unarmed builds wanting to use Arts of War Rend abilities.
    
  •  Rend MP:
    • This ability now deals MP damage based on [weapon] calculation and can additionally critically strike. NOTE: This change also affects Blade of Ruin’s Magicksap ability
      
    • The Brawler change above with Rend Speed/Power/Magick does not affect Rend MP and instead uses the traditional Power and Bravery calc for unarmed damage
      Though the percentage of max. MP could net more value in certain situations; this change ultimately makes Rend MP more weapon agnostic and should result in more damage than before, in addition to factoring in critical strikes.
      
• White Magicks
  • Regen – Increased Vert. from 0 to 1
    
• Black Magicks
  • Curse – Decreased PWR from 75 to 60 to account for the buff to Curse status
    
  • Doomsday:
    • Decreased PWR from 180 to 42 to accommodate the change from status magick to damaging magick (still retains its 19% Doom chance)
    • Increased MP cost from 52 to 64
      The intention for the original Doomsday was to essentially be a Dark Graviga with Doom chance added. Though it functionally wasn’t an issue, this change and buff to it are to strengthen it as an option in the Black Mage’s kit and ultimately consider it as one of their greatest sources of AoE damage.
• Summon
  • Midgardsomr – Removed this ability from Summon and from Elidibus’s The Dark (campaign only)
    This ability filled the role of Wind magick, but with the change to Sylph going that route and needing ability space for the future, Midgardsomr was put on the chopping block.
    
  • Moogle:
    • Additionally Removes: Curse
    • Increased MP Cost from 20 to 32
      This change was to make sure there was an additional source to counter Curse status and to increase the cost on non-Summoners.
      
  • Leviathan – Added 19% Inflicts: Doom 
  • Salamander – Added 19% Removes: Protect, Shell, Regen
    These two summons have always been in an odd spot. Though they have a few unique differences, they tend not to find popularity. The “role play” is for Leviathan’s tidal wave to near-drown enemies, and Salamander’s fire being able to cleanse important buffs.
    
  • Sylph:
    • This ability now deals faith-based, Wind-elemental magic damage in addition to retaining Silence infliction
    • Hardcoded the status chance to 75% to ensure that its niche is functionally the same, but its hit rate is no longer affected by caster/target Faith values (thus it can never 100% Silence, but with a small fail window).
      NOTE: 80% was the average hit rate before Faith status
    • Decreased PWR from 180 to 30 to accommodate the change from status magick to damaging magick 
    • Increased MP cost from 26 to 42
    • Increased Tick from 3 to 4
    • This ability is now flagged to trigger Nature’s Wrath since it is Wind-elemental damage
    • This ability replaces previous instances of Midgardsomr
      Though it has a niche (and the intention was to preserve it), Sylph was notoriously viewed as the “Wind” summon, but wasn’t treated as such. This change shifts this designation away from Midgardsomr and allows me to make room for new abilities.
      
    • Lich – Added 19% Inflicts: Undead
      A thematic change and one that grants AoE Undead as an option once more (previously from Ama-no-Murakamo).
      
• Ja-Magicks
  • NEW Curseja (replaces Blindja):
    • Faith-based “t-shaped” AoE Curse infliction instead of Blind
    • Decreased PWR from 200 to 120
      This change was done to provide an AoE, faith-based Curse (and more reliable than Ama-no-Murakamo), with Blindja practically unused.
      
• Blue Magicks, Monsters, and Monster Abilities
  • Blue Magicks 
    • Goblin Rush (and Goblin family) – Increased the recoil from ¼ to ⅓
      Though the damage from this ability is supposed to be a lighter version of Mow Down, it also dealt next to no recoil damage with its past iteration.
      
  • 🦑Squid Family
    • Removed Ink ability from all monster skillsets
    • Squidkraken and Mindflayer – Added Swiftness innately 
    • Piscodaemon – Replaced Ink (Hidden Ability) with Dischord
    • Squidkraken and Mindflayer – Replaced Ink (2nd Ability) with Leviathan (Summon). NOTE: casting abilities as a monster ignores MP cost
      Ink is just one of those abilities that doesn’t bring enough value to even consider using one of the squid monsters. Piscodaemon, having Dischord, gives another option to utilize it with naturally higher Speed. Leviathan replaces Ink as these monsters are considered caster-style beasts, so giving them magick felt more appropriate here. 
      
    • 🐷Swine Family
      • Snort – Increased PWR from 10 to 20
        This is to ensure that Snort becomes the best option to charm with and even stronger against unmitigated targets.
        
    • 🥗Malboro Family
      • Malboro – Increased PAM from 105 to 125%
      • Ochu – Increased PAM from 110 to 120%
      • Greater Malboro – Increased PAM from 125 to 135%
        These increases to their Power are to ensure Tentacles hits fairly well mitigated considering their base bulk at 60 Bravery.
        
      • Purify (formerly Lick, Malboro and Ochu):
        • No longer Bestows: Protect, Shell, Reflect
        • Now Removes: Stone, Blind, Silence, Curse, Oil, Toad, Poison, Slow, Stop, Sleep, Immobilize, Disable, and Doom, and restores 50% target’s max.HP if a status was removed (the healing damages the undead)
        • Increased Range from 1 to 2
        • Decreased Vert. from 3 to 2
          This gives Purify usable utility, similar to Summon’s Moogle, covering more statuses plus a heal, but single target and not influenced by faith.
          
        • 🐮Minotaur Family
          • Breathe Fire:
            • This ability is now a 2-range cone attack instead of a 2-range line
            • Increased PWR from 12 to 14
              These changes are to set it apart from Dragon’s Fire Breath and Tri-Flame.
              
        • 🌴Dryad Family
          • Dryad, Treant, Elder Treant – Added Sleep immunity
            
        • 🐂Behemoth Family
          • Almagest (Dark Behemoth) – Reverted AoE size from 1 to 2

Reaction/Support/Movement Abilities

• Poach (Support, REWORKED):
  • This ability additionally now grants a 50% chance to smartly randomly Steal Equipment (like Thief’s Knife) with normal attacks versus humans within 2 range. “Cast” from weapon attacks will not proc this way, but Status Inflictions can still happen.
  • This ability still “poaches” critical or KO’ed monsters to the Poacher’s Den
    • Note from earlier that you no longer need to slot Poach to use the Poacher’s Den
      This change is to give this ability some functional use in multiplayer. Being a classic-derived skill from Thief, this ability allows you to trade weapon casts for equipment removal. Note that this ability is not innate to any job, so there is a trade-off for using this skill.
      
• Catch Projectiles (Reaction) – Additionally reduces the hit rate of incoming Book attacks or abilities that use its range
  Guitar and Wngman had brought this up a while back, and reasonably, Books should be counterable by this reaction.
  
• Brawler (Support) – As mentioned in the Action Abilities section, this ability allows unarmed Rend Stat attacks to calculate with [PA * (PA / 2)] instead of normally treating unarmed as 0 WP

NEW Equipment Sets

Equipment sets are new and inspired by Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (or Reborn), taking mostly uncommonly sought-after or thematic gear and providing special bonuses if you have all 3 pieces equipped in their respective Head, Body, and Accessory slots. Sets never require weapons or shields to activate. These sets are powerful once they’re active, but with their own limitations on base stat gains and becoming subject to being broken or stolen to lose their effect (ahem, Safeguard ahem). There are 9 sets as of this update:

• Iai Strike – +20% critical chance and HP-damaging Iaido can critically strike
  • Genji Helm, Genji Armor, and Genji Gloves
    
• Tactician – Restores your Move command after a successful KO
  • Gaius Helm, Grand Armor, Gaius Calgae
    
• Duelist – Increases the critical chance of Rend Stat abilities (from Arts of War and Blade of Ruin) by 50% if used in melee range (within 2 tiles), and a KO with one increases your CT by 50 and Power by 1.
  • Close Helm, Maximillian, Brigand’s Gloves
  • NOTE: For Zalbaag’s Blade of Ruin, abilities will trigger the “melee range” even if cast outside of the normal 2 range 
  • NOTE: The CT and Power bonuses apply to kills outside of 2 range
    
• Gladiator – Reduces Vehemence damage taken by 30%, but your movement range is reduced by 1
  • Vanguard Helm, Carabineer Mail, Bravely Armlet
  • NOTE: This only affects the Move command and not other sources like Throw’s range
    
• Healer – Cure abilities additionally restores 50% MP of the HP restored (excludes caster), and triggering a Cup of Life doubles the overflowed healing
  • Red Hood, White Robes, Red Shoes
  • NOTE: Vs. Undead, Cure still damages HP, but Cup of Life continues not to do so
    
• Master Thief – Steal Equipment’s range increased to 2, and Steal Equipment bypasses Reaction ability 
  • Thief’s Cap, Black Garb, Thief’s Gloves
    
• Arcane Spirit – Reduces the charge time of generic skillset Magicks (White, Black, Time, Mystic Arts, Summon, Ja-Magicks) by 2
  • Celebrant’s Miter, Sage’s Robe, Empyreal Armband
  • NOTE: This does not affect magicks placed in other unique skillsets. For example, Curaja in Alma’s Holy Magicks is unaffected by this; this only works within the original, generic skillset
  • NOTE: This Set does stack with Swiftness
    
• Martial Spirit – Physical attacks and abilities are unevadable and damaging Martial Arts (or abilities that use its formula) absorb HP
  • Headband, Jujitsu Gi, Battle Boots 
    
• Terramancer – Geomancy is single target, doubles effective Power (in calculation only and affects abilities that use its formula), and has a 50% status chance 
  • Lambent Hat, Gaia Gear, Japa Mala

Equipment – Weapons

• Bows
  • NEW Seventh Heaven (limited):
    • 20 WP, 8 Block
    • Holy Element
    • Casts: White Magicks’ Holy with a 50% chance to Remove: Reraise, Regen, Haste (compared to the normal 19% chance)
    • Uses Magick instead of Power in the standard Bow calculation [(MA + SP) / 2 * WP]
      This is the introduction of a “magic” bow that plays very well with Magick-based jobs, and of course, as well with female Archers.
      
  • Perseus Bow:
    • Decreased WP from 20 to 14
    • Attacks with this weapon now ignore the target’s mitigation but are still subject to damage reduction sources, such as Curse or Resilience
      
• Cloths
  • NEW Moonsilk (limited):
    • 20 WP, 20 Block
    • Dark Element
    • +1 Speed and Initial: Veil
    • Effect: Polka and Heathen Frolic lower Power or Magick by an additional 1
      
• Crossbows
  • Gastrophetes – Increased WP from 16 to 18
    
  • Hunter’s Mark – This weapon’s normal attacks deal 10% more damage to monsters
    This is to give the crossbow a bit more utility and some more campaign viability, with monsters being overall bulkier and tougher to fight.
    
• Harps
  • NEW Angel Lyre (limited):
    • 20 WP, 6 Block
    • Holy Element
    • +1 Magick and Move
    • Effect: Battle Chant and Magickal Refrain additionally increase Bravery by 3
      Both Moonsilk and Angel Lyre were designed as damaging-capable weapons in addition to enticing the less-used +/- Power and Magick Bardsong and Dance for added potency.
      
• Guns
  • Ras Algethi – Added Initial: Invisible
    I felt Ras Algethi needed a little more stand-out, so this gives the gun an option to ignore evasion for select, instant ranged abilities.
    
  • Tiny Bee – Added Casts: Trigger Happy (50%, uses 1…10 * PA random scaling with Knockback if possible)
    These iconic guns didn’t feel as iconic to use, so now they have the potential for more firepower at the cost of RNG. 
    
• Knight’s Swords
  • Defender – This weapon now passively causes Rend Stat abilities to deal [Weapon] damage. This additionally affects Blade of Ruin Rend Stat abilities
    • For example, with Defender, Rend Power deals [PA * 22] (Defender WP) instead of [(PA * WP) / 2] in addition to -3 Power
      Though the Defender has great overall stat passives (Defending and status immunities), this change is to empower it as a Knight’s weapon for Arts of War busting.
      
  • Caladbolg – Replaced Casts: Leviathan with Maelstrom (Sky Mantra, Removes: Float and Haste and deals 50% max. HP if removed)
    Taking inspiration from Apocalypse, this change gives Knight’s Swords access to a Sky Mantra skill with better payoff if targeting ability-sourced Haste or Float.
    
• Knives
  • Mage Masher – Inflict: Silence now happens 100% of the time instead of 50%
    This buff is to fulfill this item’s niche, especially since it has its moments but is usually not sought after as a counter-type weapon.
    
  • Main Gauche – Added, “normal attacks bypass reaction if final strike”
    NOTE: While dual-wielding, the off-hand must be Main Gauche to be considered the final strike
    NOTE: This excludes Mana Shield due to the nature of how it triggers and always-on Reactions
    This gives this limited weapon a bit more usability with attacks and pairs nicely with Thief’s innate Backstabber.
    
• Poles
  • Whale Whisker (semi-limited):
    • Increased WP from 19 to 24
    • Now adds +1 Move and Jump while equipped
      Whale Whiskers’ niche in vanilla was to be coupled with Doublehand, so I am envisioning that same purpose here: making it more appealing for raw attacks as well as easier to get into range for said attacks.
      
• Rods
  • Stardust Rod – Added +1 Move and Magick
    
• Shields
  • Adamant Shield – Renamed for shorter naming convention
    
• Staves
  • Dreamwaker – Added Sleep immunity
    
• Swords
  • Coral Sword
    • Now Casts: Water Anima [MA * 14] instead of a special version of Quicksand

Equipment – Gear

• Accessories
  • Jade Armlet and Guardian Armlet – Added +1 Speed
    Similar to Nu Khai Armband, these armlets were decent before, but the Speed bonus definitely gives them better appeal, especially if seeking status coverage.
    
• Clothing
  • Black Garb – Added Stone and Blind immunity
    
• Hair Adornments
  • Headband (Changed from Hat, now limited) – This item has been re-classified from Hat to Hair Adornment, notably now equippable on Monks. This change also makes it easier to consider Martial Spirit Set on Monk, and this item is now usable across all jobs, specifically Heavy Armor jobs, though note that Vanguard Helm outshines it on those jobs due to increased HP
    Headband has decently been viewed as a hair adornment or an item that would fit Monks well, but they could never equip them since they cannot equip Hats. This does give Monks higher damage potential, but they are a damage-dealing job, and this item will be limited across all formats.
    
• Hats
  • NEW Regal Plume (limited):
    • +80 HP, +64 MP, +1 Power and Magick
    • Adds Red Magicks as a quaternary command, which includes:
      • Cure, Cura, Esuna, Regen, Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, and Bio
        This is a means to be able to make Red Mage-based builds without stepping too much into White or Black magicks. Note that as a 4th command, it will override Garment Ring if both are slotted. 
        
  • Thief’s Cap – Increased +HP from 70 to 80
    
  • Acacia Hat – Increased +HP from 60 to 70
    
• Helms
  • NEW Gaius Helm (limited):
    • +175 HP, +1 Power
    • Effect: Rend Stat abilities ignore the target’s evasion (applies to Arts of War and Blade of Ruin skillsets). 
    • NOTE: Rend Stat abilities still have a separate hit rate calculation that is based on their PWR, so the ability can still fail to hit, but is no longer affected by evasion.
      
• Heavy Armor
  • NEW Adamant Armor (limited):
    • +255 HP, Initial: Slow, and Barette immunities (KO, Stone, Confuse, Vampire, Curse, Berserk, Stop, Charm, Sleep, Doom)
    • Effect: Reduces Movement range by 1 (does not affect abilities that scale with Move, such as Throw)
      
  • Cursed Armor – Added Absorbs: Dark
    
  • Platinum Armor (Peytral) – Renamed and reassigned to Peytral, as it was formerly the same item, but for Campaign/Practice Mode use
    
• Robes
  • Cursed Robe:
    • Increased +MP from 150 to 200
    • Decreased +Magick from 3 to 2
    • Added: “Sets undead revive counter to 1”
      Cursed Robe could use a change to set it apart from the other variants; this one allows you to have an even faster revive chance, but still at a 60% window to do so.
      
  • Samite Coat (limited):
    • Increased +HP from 140 to 150
    • Added: “Caps incoming HP damage to 300” (after all other multipliers)
    • This item is flagged as Rare to avoid AI from selecting it as equipment
    • Moved from Ch.2 “Save Ovelia” to Ch.4 Start to treat it as endgame gear
    • Increased Gil Cost from 10,000 to 65,000 Gil
    • This item is now limited across all formats

4v4 All-Stars Format Updates (Slot 1)

• Boco (chocobo)
  • Increased base Magick from 14 to 17
    
• Zalbaag
  • Fixed missing Death Strike from base skillset
    
• Celia and Lettie
  • Decreased base Magick from 17 to 16
    
• Byblos
  • Increased base Magick from 20 to 24
  • Added Gigaflare [MA * 11] to skillset
  • Reordered the skillset list so that Gigaflare appears first and Chant appears last
    
• Argath (Deathknight)
  • Now uses the Deathknight portrait in Formation and Deployment to help discern this as a different (and deader) version of Argath
  • Assigned Fell Sword skillset, making the skillset viewable within all menus instead of previously only in battle
  • Added Confuse and Curse immunities
  • Increased Move from 3 to 4
  • Added Crossbows to equipment
  • Added Rend MP, Rend Speed/Power/Magick to Fell Sword 

Limited and Semi-Limited Gear Restriction Update

• NEW Limited: Gaius Helm, Regal Plume, Adamant Armor, Seventh Heaven, Angel Lyre, Moonsilk, Headband
  
• NEW Semi-Limited: Whale Whisker, White Robe, Japa Mala
  To specifically address Cashmere: I am glad to finally see it getting some use, but out of safety to avoid trolling/griefing, I am scaling this item back to limited because of the nature of the “stun lock” it has.

Back on March 3, 2026, PPSSPP publicly released their latest update, version 1.20. With it, came a wealth of improvements to the emulator, but notably for us at Tactics League, a major built-in feature that will make playing FFT WotL over the internet easier than ever before.

Introducing Ad Hoc Relay Servers

One of the (apparent) hurdles in getting more community members involved with the PvP Patch or just playing FFT WotL online multiplayer in general, even with the original game, is the amount of various installations you need to complete to be able to do so. Previously, we used ZeroTier VPN to handle the PSP’s local network mode (named Ad Hoc) over the internet by tunneling the connection over a virtual LAN environment. For those not technically inclined, it could be a difficult task or even off-putting to continue with getting set up for online play.

Now, with PPSSPP v1.20+, the ZeroTier step is no longer necessary, port forwarding your router or firewall isn’t as needed either (though enabling PPSSPP through Windows Firewall is still a good idea for the sake of less headaches), and even mobile connections (4G/5G) can play too versus Wi-Fi or other mobile users without extra steps to do so.

Ad Hoc Relay Servers forward these “local” network packets from one player to the other via a central server (in this case, we will be using socom.cc) which also removes a lot of the technical hurdles that comes about with networking. What this means for players is that we can use the settings directly in the emulator to set up a connection and battle it out without needing a VPN or even sharing our VPN IP address to make that connection – faster gaming and smoother connections for all!

Join our Discord and Better Matchmake

Even with this new feat, matchmaking with another player is a bit troublesome as the game requires one player to “Host” a game while the other “Joins.” There is a 30-second window before the fails to connect to others as it doesn’t have a lobbying system found in more modern games.

The Tactics League Discord is the avenue to find players, create fairer matchmaking (by using our bot to determine who is Host or Guest), and of course communicate and grow. If you are interested in partaking in Melee or Rendezvous, I encourage you to join our Discord today!

The holidays are just around the corner, and the time to gather with family and friends is drawing near. Before all of the festivities come, download and check out the last update of 2025, with Mime transitioning to Blue Mage, many Quality of Life updates, a few balance passes, and even more updates to monsters to give them the last boost they need to enter the competitive arena.

The notes for the minor update v5.3.2 on January 20th can be found here.

To download the all-in-one package that includes the PPF file and save data, please visit Downloads. To learn more about how to apply the PPF patch, visit Tutorials.

Make sure to always patch using an unmodified, USA-region backup of your FFT WotL ISO, and do not override an already patched copy!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Aerith’s Great Gospel failing to restore HP/MP and apply Protect/Shell to others if she had Protect/Shell immunity via Nagnarok. Aerith specifically will restore HP/MP, but will not gain Protect/Shell due to the granted status immunities

Quality of Life Updates

• Campaign
  • Random Encounters
    • Improvements to “random units now have smarter selection of equipment choices (special thanks to @Tzepish for this from WotL Tweak)
      
• Soundtrack
  • Vastly expanded the number of available soundtracks that can be heard in Melee mode! The new track list can be randomly one of:
    • Unavoidable Battle, Run Past Through the Plain, Backfire, Bloody Excrement
    • Decisive Battle, Night Attack, Under the Stars, Remnants
    • Antipyretic, Trisection, Antidote, Tension
    • Enemy Attack, Apoplexy, Battle on the Bridge
      
  • For Single Player, this track list includes the above revised list and restores the 4 original random encounter soundtracks: Desert Land, Apoplexy, A Chapel, Random Waltz
    Mods do it best! Thank you to @Tzepish for discovering the means to expand on the soundtrack list!
    
  • The Treasure Wheel screen now plays the “Treasure” soundtrack instead of “In Pursuit”
    Being rewarded should sound more uplifting, not like you are being chased or chasing after something lol.
    
• Midlight’s Deep
  • Completion of Terminus for the first time now grants you a one-item Treasure Wheel roll
  • Subsequent completion of Midlight’s Deep stages after a full completion allows for a one-item Treasure Wheel roll at the end of the battle
  • Multiplayer Items (or some Tactics League exclusive items that were using MP item space) can now be acquired in single player, such as Fell Swords. The full list of acquirable items is:
    
    • [Weapons] Thief’s Knife, Sasuke’s Blade, Iga Blade, Spellbinder, Moonsilk Blade, Orochi, Ultima Weapon, Moonblade, Onion Sword, Flametongue, Excalipoor, Defender, Excalibur, Ragnarok, Save the Queen, Durandal, Caladbolg, Chaos Blade, Masamune, Chirijiraden, Rod of Faith, Zeus Mace, Stardust Rod, Nirvana, Dreamwaker, Crown Scepter, Staff of the Magi, Perseus Bow, Sagittarius Bow, Javelin II, Gae Bolg, Gungnir, Deathbringer, Chaosbringer, Arondight, Valhalla, Balmung, Apocalypse, Earthbreaker, Golden Axe, Francisca, Ras Algehti, Fomalhaut, Tiny Bee, Vesper
      
    • [Shields] Escutcheon II, Kaiser Shield, Genji Shield, Venetian Shield, Reverie Shield, Adamantoise Shield, Onion Shield
      
    • [Headgear] Genji Helm, Grand Helm, Brass Coronet, Extension, Circlet, Onion Helm, Acacia Hat, Vanguard Helm
      
    • [Armor] Genji Armor, Maximillian, Peytral, Grand Armor, Onion Armor, Lordly Robe, Sage’s Robe, Mirage Vest, Minerva Bustier, Ever Coat, Brave Suit
      
    • [Accessories] Brigand’s Gloves, Gaius Caligae, Bravely Armlet, Garment Ring, Invisibility Cloak, Onion Gloves, Sage’s Ring, Pearl Rouge, Empyreal Armband
      A new way to earn MP items from the true end-game content in single player. A big shout-out to @Tzepish for deciphering the treasure wheel code after I came across it! Yay, teamwork 🤝
      
• Melee Mode
  • Melee Mode no longer has a gil fee cost
  • Removed the Treasure Wheel feature post-game
    Removing these now means that you can load back into the Tavern faster and without the need to reload your save (though you can still always do so).
    
• Rendezvous Mode
  • Chicken Race – Replaced Revenants with Ghouls
    Revenants now have Master Teleportation as of this update, and this RDV mission can already be tough with limited mobility, so these monsters are being replaced to reduce guaranteed movement with regular Teleport.
    
• UI Updates
  • The Arithmeticks menu (for Orran in All-Stars and Campaign) now displays the Reflect icon in the Ability list
  • Monster’s hidden ability is now viewable (and thus Help can be used) while in the Party Roster and Warriors Guild menus
    
• AI Behaviors
  • Units with Throw Items support will now correctly throw at 4 Range instead of their Move, as intended by this ability (credit @Tzepish)
  • AI is now aware of Garment Ring functionality and can utilize it based on gender (see Accessory changes below)
  • Bardsong and Dance AoE fix for AI usability 
  • AI improvements to unlock and use hidden abilities when an allied Beastmaster is present
  • Reduced AI prioritization of Golem HP while you have an active Golem (less likely usable to “cheese” the AI now)
  • Reis’s Dragon X abilities are now flagged for AI usability
    
• Text Updates
  • Corrected Life’s Anthem’s PWR in the Help menu (70 PWR, not 90) 
  • Help: Remove the job list from all accessories, as all accessories are equippable by every generic job
  • Help: Added Clothing job list to Minerva Bustier
  • Help: Added additional flavor text to Bracer
  • Help: Removed Traitor status from all items mentioned, as the status effect does not exist in the mod
  • Help: Updated Beastmaster description
  • Help: Added “Blue” to equipment job lists
  • Help: Added doom immunity context to Undead status 
  • Additional text improvements and spacing

Jobs

• NEW Blue Mage (fully reworked Mime):
  • Blue Mage is a fully equippable (within its limits) and ability-selectable generic job
  • Mimicry and Copy Weapon are no longer accessible with this job change
  • Starting generic stats (Male/Female): 359/343 HP, 50/60 MP, 14/13 PA, 13/14 MA, 11 Speed, 4 Move, 3 Jump, 12% C-EV
  • Can Equip: Knives, Swords, Rods, Shields, Hats, Clothing, Robes (and all normal accessories)
  • Innate: Beastmaster, Concentration, Status Boost
  • Prerequisites: Squire Lv. 5, White and Black Mage Lv. 3
  • Blue Magicks skillset is now selectable as a secondary skillset without the need for slotting Beastmaster and is treated in the same manner as Mastery Arts (if you have previous saves with Beastmaster + Blue Magicks equipped, you can safely unequip Beastmaster)
  • New sprites using “Animist_Male” and “Animist_Female” by Elric (from Jot5 mod)
    Controversial to a select few that have enjoyed the original Mime throughout the years, one of the biggest reasons this change happened was to remove the “free-actions” mimicry imposed in a PvP environment, fully flesh out the “Blue Mage” archetype that Mime was in earlier iterations, and make for a (hopefully) healthier competitive experience and improve engagements all around.
    
• Stat Growth Changes
  • Changed the following Growth values of select jobs to improve certain stats when at Lv. 99, notably for Practice Mode. Decreasing Growth increases +Stat per level:
    • Serpentarius (Elidibus, campaign variant) – PA Growth from 70 to 20
    • Riskbreaker (Ashley) – HP Growth from 15 to 12
    • Bard – HP Growth from 20 to 12
    • Dancer – HP Growth from 20 to 12
      
• Archer – Increased MAM from 100 to 110% (+1 MA both genders)
  Small MA buff to help aid Archers using magic-based longbows/crossbows. 
  
• Bard – Increased PAM from 100 to 107% (+1 PA, starting 14 PA/16 MA generic)
  Power increased to even out initial stats for hybridization usage.
  
• Dancer:
  • Increased MAM from 105 to 109% (+1 MA, starting 15 PA/15 MA generic) 
  • Increased Move from 3 to 4
  • Added Poles as available equipment
    Magic increased to solidify Dancer’s base stat potential and for better hybridization. Movement increased as Dancer’s weapons rely on melee range, and to get Dancer up to par with other popular Garment Ring bearers’ base Move. Poles..well I am sure you get the reasoning lol.

Action Abilities

• Dragon (Reis)
  • Dragon’s Gift:
    • This ability’s healing has been reverted to its vanilla version, which functions like Chant, healing the target for ⅖ of your max. HP and recoiling ⅕ damage to Reis
    • This ability can now restore HP even if the target was not under an applicable status effect
    • The healing from this ability doubles to ⅘ of your max. HP instead if the target is a Dragon or Hydra-type monster
    • No longer damages undead
      
  • Dragon’s Might:
    • This ability now doubles the Bravery and Power/Magick/Speed granted if the target is a Dragon or Hydra-type monster (to +10 Bravery, +2 Power/Magick/Speed)
      These changes are to improve Reis’s Dragonkin (or Dragoner) side of herself, allowing her to strengthen her capabilities among Dragons and Hydras while still keeping these abilities usable with non-Dragon/Hydra units.
      
• Piracy (Balthier)
  • Steal Heart (renamed from Plunder Heart) – Renamed as it sounds better lol
    
• Black Magicks
  • Curse:
    • This ability is now faithless and calculates using [MA + 75]
    • Increased MP cost from 24 to 32
    • This ability is still magic evadable
      Similar to Bio, this change is to give Black Magicks options versus Atheist or low-faith targets. Keep in mind that with this change, this ability can no longer reach a base 100% hit rate unless certain thresholds are met.
      
• Arts of War
  • War Cry – Flagged for Vertical Tolerance and increased Vert. from 1 to 2
    This ability went under the radar of being able to remove Protect/Shell from a far vertical distance, and now has limitations imposed.
    
• Aim
  • Charge Weapon – This magic ability can now critically strike
    The first generically accessible spell crit ability is now available on the job that has enhanced crit chance.
    
• Martial Arts
  • Aurablast – Increased PWR from 2 to 4
  • Shockwave – Increased Range from 5 to 6
    Though Shockwave’s Range was reduced to compensate for Monk’s increased Move, based on more recent trends, Shockwave’s Range will be restored to its prior state (and not the vanilla 8 range).
    
• Steal
  • NEW Thievery (replaces Steal Limelight):
    • A new ability that rewards you for successive Stealing/Renting equipment
    • 2 Range, 2 Vert.
    • Deals unevadable, mitigation-ignored [200 * number of empty equipment slots] damage
    • Can trigger counter-reactions, Nature’s Wrath, and Shirahadori
    • Does not work against monsters or fully equipped (all 5 equipment slots occupied) units
    •  700 JP Cost
    • NOTE: Forced two-handing weapons still treats the opposite off/main hand as “empty”
      This skill is inspired by FFIX. Though Steal Limelight by design wasn’t problematic, I felt that Thief needed access to a damage skill, but more so unique in a way that fits their theme. Thievery has the highest damage potential suitable for mid/late game finishes and caters towards teams that build more for Stealing and Renting equipment.
      
• Summon
  • Titan – Added a 19% Inflicts: Confuse
    
• Bardsong
  • Rousing Melody – Uses Seraph Song effect to display “Haste” bestowal per target
    This change is to improve messaging for which units gained Haste instead of needing to check the status screen or faster marching.
    
• Dance
  • Mincing Minuet – This ability can additionally trigger Nature’s Wrath since it is considered physical damage
    
• Darkness
  • Unholy Sacrifice:
    • This ability now calculates using [MA + (0.5 * maxHP)] instead of [(MA * MA) + (0.13 * maxHP)]
    • Reduced the Recoil from 60 to 40%
      This nerf to this skill is to push its use case more towards bulkier units and less MA-stacking. This directly benefits female DK, which the original changes were meant to target.

R/S/M Abilities

• NEW Status Boost (formerly Halve MP, assigned to Summon skillset and innate to Blue Mage):
  • Increases the 19% status chance of applicable abilities by 8% (increases the 19 to 27%)
  • This includes abilities like Nether Mantra, Animas, “Lv. 1” Summons and Odin, Geomancy, Iaido, or even the proc from abilities like poison status from Black Magicks’s Fire or Dragon Tech’s Fire Breath; abilities that have an auxiliary status proc chance to hit
  • This excludes abilities that are focused on status chance, such as Spellblade, Mystic Arts, Doom Fist, Beso Toxico, etc.
  • 300 JP Cost
    A new support ability to those who enjoy Geomancy, Iaido, or just want to gamble with chance to get more status capabilities off and turn the tides of battle.
    
• Halve MP – Now hardcoded to Summoner job and replaced by Status Boost above
  Though hardcoding Halve MP gets rid of future accessible slotting, the decision to do away with Halve MP comes with the simple question of “how often would you ever slot this in Support if not already a Summoner?”
  
• Dragonheart, Fury, Magick Boost, and Adrenaline Rush – These reactions can no longer trigger from allied damage (this also includes from original allies, even if under charm/confuse)
  This update addresses some commonly used Reactions that can no longer benefit from team-damage to ensure triggering only on opposition interaction and reduce some “gray areas” where these were used before.
  
• First Strike:
  • No longer cancels the applicable attack or ability entirely and resumes it second after your “first strike” occurs. Your counterattacks this way are unevadable
  • Added Throw context to Help since this command is weapon-ranged
    This change could be considered a nerf to functionality, but it is ultimately to get this reaction to its verbose intention; you strike first, and the attacker goes second instead of never even having a chance to do so, while now enabling unevadable counterattacks by you, giving space to finish them off before they follow up.
    
• Shirahadori – Updated the hit rate and forecast context to “set to 40%” instead of “set to 60%” to improve the accuracy of the math behind determining how this ability functions (it does 100 – 60 = 40%).
  Thank you for the suggestion @guitarmanager. 
  
• Nature’s Wrath – This ability no longer targets allies within the AoE
  A small quality of life change to this reaction to avoid potentially statusing/damaging them if they were near the offender. Don’t sleep on it!
  
• Concentration – Additionally increases the magical hit rate of abilities by 50% of the target’s total magic evasion additively
  Concentration works for all hit rate types now, both offensive and status magicks, and evadable physical attacks and abilities too.
  
• Safeguard – Additionally, fully prevents CT loss from abilities like Stall or Last Waltz
  
• Catch Projectiles – Successful evasion of arrows, guns, or harps will now display as “Caught” and not “Missed” (and to note this does not add those items to the inventory magically)

Blue Magicks, Monsters, and Monster Abilities

• Monster Class-Evasion (C-EV) Updates
  • All Monsters’ C-EV now also affects evadable magic hit rates
    This buff to monsters is to treat their C-EV as a means to allow the ability to passively dodge incoming evadable magicks from all sides (physical still only from the front unless they have Dexterity) due to their shortcomings of non-equipment.
    
  • Treant Family:
    • Added 10% C-EV to all members
      
  • Malboro Family:
    • Added 8% C-EV to Malboro and Greater Malboro
    • Added 12% C-EV to Ochu
      
  • Hydra Family:
    • Added 8% C-EV to Hydra
    • Added 6% C-EV to Greater Hydra
    • Added 5% C-EV to Tiamat 
      
• 👺Goblin Family:
  • Black Goblin – Increased HPM from 94 to 114%
  • Gobbledygook – Increased HPM from 98 to 118%
  • Added Blind, Stop, and Sleep immunities
    This family had no prior elemental mitigation or immunities, unlike others, so this is overdue. 
    
• 😼Cat Family:
  • Coeurl
    • Increased Move from 4 to 5
    • Increased HPM from 91% to 102%
  • Vampire Cat:
    • Increased Move from 3 to 5
    • Increased HPM from 99% to 108%
      
  • REWORKED Ambush (formerly Claw – Cat family):
    • This ability now prevents the target’s reactions when used
    • Uses [PA * 16] and physically evadable
    • This excludes Reflexes as the evasion increase is “an applied stat at battle start.”
      A little change to make our felines more fierce.
      
  • Venom Fang (Red Panther and Coeurl):
    • This ability now deals 30% of the target’s max. HP in damage in addition to Slow and Poison infliction
    • This ability is now magically evadable instead of physically evadable
    • This ability will still not trigger counter-reactions, even with this change
      
  • Cat Scratch (Cat family):
    • Change calc from [1…15 * PWR] to martial arts [(PA + PWR) / 2 * PA]
    • Decreased PWR from 15 to 3
    • Added a 19% Chance to Inflict: Berserk, Doom 
    • This ability can now 10% critically strike due to the change to martial arts calc
      Having a pseudo Throw Dagger ultimately did not measure up to this ability’s potential, so I changed it to lean more towards what a cat scratch could cause: either you getting rabies or a serious open wound that will lead to your demise.
      
• 🦅Bird Family:
  • Jura Aevis:
    • Increased HPM from 114 to 120%
    • Increased PAM from 115 to 129% (approx. +4 PA)
  • Steelhawk:
    • Increased HPM from 98 to 108%
    • Increased PAM from 122 to 130%
    • Replaced Attack Boost with Brawler (Talon Dive damage increase)
  • Cockatrice – Increased HPM from 101 to 114%
  • Glitterlust – Now fully reduces CT to zero instead of 30, and increased the Range from 1 to 2
    
• 👻Ghost Family:
  • Ghast – Increased HPM from 96 to 102% (approx. +40 HP)
  • Ghoul – Added Drain Touch as a 3rd ability
  • Revenant:
    • Added Sleep Touch as a 3rd ability
    • Replaced Teleport with Master Teleportation (only one in family capable)
      
• Ahriman Family:
  • Bewitching Gaze (Ahriman and Plague Horror):
    • Increased PWR from 45 to 70 to ensure this ability has a 100% base chance based on the monster’s average MA. This ability is still physically evadable
    • Removed Blind infliction to increase the eligibility of a better negative effect rolled
    • Corrected the Help menu for this ability so that it is 1 out of 5 debuffs at random
      
• 🐷Swine Family:
  • Wild Boar – Increased HPM from 132 to 164% (approx. +110 HP)
    
• 🐂Minotaur Family:
  • Wisenkin and Minotaur – Replaced Counter with Shirahadori
  • Sekhret:
    • Added innate Instant Cast
    • Replaced hidden ability Breathe Fire with Titan (Summon)
    • Replaced Counter with Nature’s Wrath
      
• 🌳Treant Family:
  • Added Immobilize immunity to all members
  • Treant:
    • Decreased MAM from 64 to 50% (approx. -5 MA)
    • Added innate Status Boost (now Cup of Life, Status Boost, Lifefont)
    • Replaced 3rd ability, Magick Nymph with Earthsplitter
  • Elder Treant – Added innate Defense Boost (now Cup of Life, Arcane Defense, Defense Boost)
  • Leaf Rain – Added 19% Inflict: Sleep per target
  • Guardian Nymph – Increased PWR from 10 to 20
    
• 🥗Malboro Family:
  • Added Bio (Black Magicks) to all as a 3rd ability. Note that monsters are excluded from MP costs when cast from self. This ability still has a cast time.
  • Malboro – Replaced Bonecrusher with Replenish
  • Greater Malboro:
    • Decreased MP Growth from 30 to 8 (requires rehiring)
    • Increased MPM from 10 to 145% (approx. starting 145 MP)
    • Replaced Replenish with Magick Counter
      
• 🐲Hydra Family:
  • Tiamat – Decreased MAM from 120 to 110% (approx. -2 average MA)
    This is to reduce some of the damage potential its skillset has, also factoring that it has the best MA growth out of the family, which in turn means it was always going to be the strongest magically.
    
• Blue Magicks
  • Replaced Cat Scratch with Goblin Rush. The ability will automatically appear as automatically learned for campaign progression if you had it formerly acquired.
  • Earthsplitter – Added 19% Inflict: Immobilize and increased Vert. from 1 to 2
  • Vampire – Increased Vert. from 1 to 2
  • Spark – This ability can now critically strike and added Help text that specifies it damages the caster
    

Equipment – Weapons

• Crossbows
  • Glacial Bow – Now Casts: Ice Anima instead of Blizzara
  • Boltsnipe – Now Casts: Thunder Anima instead of Thundara
    
• Poles
  • Eight-Fluted Pole – Additionally Removes: Undead, Vampire, Confuse, Charm, and Sleep
    Attacks with this weapon now remove any negative effect except KO and Chicken, making it a prime choice for spot removal if the opportunity arises.
    
• Rods
  • Dragon Rod:
    • Changed Element from Dark to Holy
    • Replaced Casts: Dark Whisper with Casts: Holy Breath (Reis) at [(MA + PWR) / 2 * MA], note this ability does not multi-hit
    • Updated the palette 
      
• Staves
  • White Staff:
    • Now restores 30% of the target’s max. HP if an applicable status was found and removed (similar to the old version of Dragon’s Gift)
    • Additionally Removes: Confuse, Vampire, Curse, Blind, and Silence (note that this weapon does not cleanse as many statuses as Eight-Fluted Pole)
    • This attack will zero out if no applicable statuses are found
    • The healing from this attack deals damage to the undead
      
  • Nirvana – Additionally Bestows: Haste on hit
    This weapon grants a unique way to get guaranteed, instant Haste on to others without fail, in addition to Protect and Shell. With Haste’s effective Speed being lowered to 25%, this weapon can now provide the means to do so.

Equipment – Gear

• [Rare] Item Flagging – Cursed Shield, Cursed Armor, Cursed Garb, and Cursed Robe are flagged as Rare, removing the ability for these gear options to appear on randomly generated units
  
• Heavy Armor
  • Platinum Armor (campaign only) – Increased +HP from 150 to 160 and added Initial: Protect, Shell
    This change is so that there is both an option of heavy armor protect/shell for solo play (after saving Rapha in Ch. 3), and so that I can generate AI units with it since Peytral is considered an MP item.
    
• Accessories
  • Garment Ring:
    • No longer grants Perform command, which contained all of Bardsong and Dance
    • Now adds Bardsong if female gender, Dance if male gender, or Perform (both Bardsong and Dance) if Onion Knight job as a quaternary command (note that to avoid learned skillset issues, Mincing Minuet and Life’s Anthem are in the first ability slot and not the second)
    • Increases the chance of primary (skillset) Bardsong or Dance by 5% if Bard or Dancer job
      This major rework of this accessory is based on feedback regarding Bard and Dancer jobs since the original version was released. The ring intended to enable cross-gender performances, after a very thorough (and lengthy lol) discussion with @acook10 @wngman @guitarmanager, they helped address Garment Ring’s pain points regarding Bard and Dancer jobs, notably full access to both skillsets and creating redundancy for Bard or Dancer to utilize.
      
      This now grants the opposite gender’s Bardsong or Dance, so the original intention is still in effect, but now requires you to either be a Bard or Dancer to get the full ability list – or – slot Bardsong or Dance as a secondary to do so. This change also gives Bards and Dancers a buff and a reason to use the ring, as they have even further hit rates, factoring in their innate Performing Arts.
      
  • Jade Armlet – Replaced Undead immunity with Curse immunity
    
  • Cherche – Decreased the MP restored from 20 to 18%
    This slight nerf is to bring Cherche a bit closer to Manafont and increase demand a bit more towards max. MP to make up for it.
    
  • Tynar Rouge – Decreased +Power and Magick from 2 to 1
    This is to claw back some of the damage potential this accessory provides while still being a staple item due to the volume of buffs it provides. Notably, this does hit certain “even numbers” checkpoints, which may require some re-assessing or Genji Gloves, for example, to make up for it.

Practice Mode

• This update introduces The Yuguewood as an additional Practice Mode location, purposeful for testing your teams against pre-configured AI comps, but on more neutral terrain
• Araguay Woods is now called “Practice – One” and The Yuguewood “Practice – Two” on the World Map
• Practice Mode teams specifically now have previously inaccessible multiplayer gear equipped, allowing for more diverse teams. Some gear updates to Practice One teams also happened with this new addition, such as Agrias now having Tynar Rouge instead of Bracer
  
• Practice-Two – West Team (from Riovannes Castle)
  • Delita – Dancer or Ninja, Orator, White Mage, Geomancer, or Mystic
  • Beowulf – Dragoon, Thief, Time Mage or Archer, Bard or Samurai
  • Balthier – Bard or Thief, Squire, Chemist, Blue Mage, or Knight
  • Rapha – Dark Knight or Monk, Archer, Black Mage, Sage, or Knight
    
• Practice-Two – East Team (From Yardrow)
  • Marach – White Mage, Geomancer, Dark Knight or Knight, Chemist or Bard
  • Reis – Bard, Dancer, Onion Knight or Ninja, Monk or Summoner
  • Luso – Behemoth, Blue Mage, Thief  + 1 randomly of: Red Chocobo, Black Chocobo, Sekhret, Mindflayer, Tiamat, Red Panther, Gobbledygook, Grenade, Pig, Floating Eye, Dryad, or Dragon 
  • Alma – Dark Knight, Onion Knight, Thief or Archer, Dragoon or Dancer
    
• Practice-Two – Special Encounter Team (only from Yardrow)
  • Agrias, Aerith, Mustadio, Construct 8 or Elidibus, Cloud or Ashley
    • Cloud’s weapon is randomized, and Ashley’s weapon and shield are randomized as well
      
• Practice-One Updates
  • Gear adjustments to various units take advantage of multiplayer items
  • Cloud Team (East) – Replaced Squire (M) with Blue Mage (M)
  • Aerith Team (East) – Replaced Monk (F) with Blue Mage (F)
  • Meliadoul Team (East) – Fixed Meliadoul not being able to use Jump

Incremental Update v5.3.1

And we’re back! This incremental update resolves known issues with v5.3, adds some Mustadio and Balthier buffs, and updates/improves select Help menu text.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved the Melee Mode War Funds gil lost post-melee issue. You may safely continue a Melee without loss of Gil as intended, allowing for quicker in-between games (and as a reminder, inventory losses or changes are restored post-melee)
  
• Pierce support ability no longer increases the damage done by Gravija or any ability that uses its formula
  
• Added break chance bypass for Iaido with Magick Counter to fix a bug that could cause a “__shattered!” because the game was unable to fetch the proper Item ID this way

Quality of Life Updates

• UI Updates
  • Monsters’ hidden abilities are now also viewable while in the Deployment screen
    
• Text Updates
  • Renamed all of Meliadoul’s Unyielding Strike abilities to their PSX equivalents (and renamed Crush Shield to Omen Fang, ty for the suggestion @tzepish) 
  • Help: Added critical chance labels to Rend Power/Magick/Speed, Beam, Skill Drain, and Disassemble since the damage they could deal also had a chance to strike critically
  • Help: Corrected Cat Scratch Help PWR from 3 to 4
  • Help: Corrected Cloths showing that Blue Mage can equip (they cannot innately)
  • Help: Added “Radius: 1” to abilities that use Weapon Range
  • Help: Added missing “Curse” text to White Staff’s list of cleanses
  • Help: Determined and updated the accurate Dark Whisper status chance as 5% each instead of 25%. This ability adheres to the normal 19% proc rate, which then determines the infliction rate at 25% of the base 19% value, rounding up to 5 (from 4.75).

Action Abilities

• Aimed Shot (Mustadio)
  • Leg Shot and Arm Shot – Increased PWR from 50 to 60
    Mitigation lowers their hit%, so this is to compensate for that, plus a marginal buff to mustard’s staple skills.
    
  • Seal Evil:
    • Decreased PWR from 70 to 65
    • Additionally can stone Vampire and Curse-affected units
      
  • Recharge – Is now Weapon Ranged instead of 3 Range (this also means it can strike twice with dual wield)
    These buffs to Aimed Shot are to bring them a bit more up to snuff and to improve Mustadio’s viability with his abilities, as well as providing better use-cases for his abilities that see rarer play.
    
• Piracy (Balthier)
  • Elem. of Treachery:
    • Elem. of Treachery can no longer target allies
    • Increased PWR from 20 to 22
      
  • Fires of War:
    • Fires of War can no longer target allies
    • Changed calculations from Martial Arts [(PA + PWR) / 2 * PA] to Geomancy [(PA + PWR) / 2 * MA]
    • Increased PWR from 12 to 14
    • This ability is no longer weapon ranged and is instead Iaido-like at 2 Range, 2 Vert.
    • Since it is now classified as magic damage, it can no longer trigger counter-reactions but can now trigger Magick Counter (including Nature’s Wrath)
    • This ability can no longer critically strike
      
  • Tides of Fate:
    • Can no longer target allies
    • Increased PWR from 15 to 17 to better justify the higher MP cost
      
• Fundaments
  • Taunt – Changed the effect to White Talk Skill for better smack-talking accuracy

Monsters

• Behemoth – Fixed Move from 3 to 4; this was supposed to have been 4, so it might have been a patch save issue prior
  
• Sekhret – Decreased PAM from 173 to 143% (approx. -5 Power)
  This was helping to enable a high amount of Nature’s Wrath potential – still factoring that it has access to Beef Up without Beastmaster.

Incremental Update v5.3.2

This second incremental update to v5.3 addresses a few more minor, but important fixes and changes, adds a requested feature of the Jump ability showing the number of turns until you land from the menu, and some buffs to our favorite robot, Construct 8. This is the last update to v5.3 as focus shifts towards For Glory! and other community endeavors.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the visual text bug with status Iaido stating “Osafune Shattered!” if its corresponding katana broke upon cast
  
• Fixed a softlock from the original game that revolved around having Fly movement ability + Float status while mounting a chocobo (credit to @Tzepish for this fix) 

Quality of Life Updates

• UI Updates
  • Jump (from slotting Dragon Tech) is now treated as a skillset instead of strictly a command, providing the number of turns before the Jump lands and allowing for the use of the Left/Right D-Pad Turn List window as well (credit to @Nyzer for the PSX version and @Tzepish for assisting me in this hack)
    Another QoL request from the original game, being able to view the number of turns before a Jump lands instead of mathing out the Jump Time and Speeds between the jumper and target.
    
• Text Updates
  • Additional improvements in Help menus and spacing
  • Corrected Nether Mantra’s PWR in calcs, it is 4 PWR, not 3

Jobs

• Automaton (Construct 8)
  • Increased Move from 3 to 4
    C8’s limited 3 Move made it harder to generally engage with its melee capabilities. Keeping in mind its former range reduction of Dispose in consideration, this increased Move is to help it get around easier and allow it to get better positioning for attacks or Pulverize in later game situations.

Action Abilities

• Unyielding Strike (Meliadoul)
  • Reordered the ability list so that it matches the normal Equipment List, making it (hopefully) easier to determine which ability destroys which slot, while retaining the community-voted change of the PSX naming. This may take some time to adjust to if you are used to the original order:
    • Hellcry Punch (weapon)
    • Omen Fang (shield)
    • Blastar Punch (head)
    • Shellbust Stab (armor)
    • Icewolf Bite (accessory)
      
• Tasks (Construct 8)
  • Salvo – Construct 8 can no longer target itself for this ability to fix an issue with recoil sometimes not being applied
    
  • Pulverize – Increased Range from 1 to 2, Vert. from 1 to 2, flagged Linear Range (remains t-shaped) and Direct
    Pulverize deals less damage versus unmitigated normal attacks at the cost of recoil, but undodgeable, so this gives more options for C8 to use when in melee range of a threat.

Equipment – Weapons

• Shields
  • Genji Shield:
    • Changed the palette to match it closer to Genji Armor & Gloves
    • Additionally, updated the flavor text as it is no longer “pitch-black” but now “vermillion”
      A set of Genji gear can now be fully fashionably attired.

Incremental Update v5.3.3

The third incremental update to v5.3 addresses an issue with inventories restoring to their original state after a multiplayer game has ended. This fix is part of efforts to no longer need to restart the emulator/save data after every game and should be the last “bug” associated with this QoL.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the inventory failing to restore its prior backup after Melee mode. Consumables, item breaks/steals, katana breaks, etc., all restore to their prior state and quantity as originally intended

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!

Today, we go over how the fifth and final version of the PvP Patch will finally support the Campaign so you can embark on a single-player adventure with one of the greatest stories in video game history and suit up afterward to take on some of Tactics League’s best players in competitive PvP. Let’s go over these changes below.

Party Roster Expansion

Though this was first mentioned in the v5 Focused series, the roster expansion is a very important detail for those looking to progress the story once more or for the first time. The expansion unlocks the four reserved Guest slots to be fully usable, expanding the party limit from 24 to 28. Leveraging this also allows for more unique characters to join your party permanently in the story and for Tactics League PvP, but there are a few important notes to share:

• Guest characters are fully deployable (for the first time) in both story and random encounters. Note that because of this, you can have duplicate Guest characters in a mission, such as two Delitas in the Chapter 1 fight in Garland. If you want to keep things true to form, avoid deploying these Guests where they normally would already spawn.
• Guest characters are also fully dismissable now so keep cautious of this and always remember to save in between battles.
• NPC-controlled mission-based Guest characters do update their stats, gear, and abilities if they already exist in your party.

Progress Faster with Always-On EXP and JP Boost

Everyone loves being able to build their party and further explore the creative offerings of Final Fantasy Tactics, and version 5 is supporting that by ensuring that the EXP and JP Boost support abilities are always enabled – you won’t need to slot these abilities to quickly start watching your units grow in levels and unlock abilities faster.

Additionally, the Bard and Dancer jobs both now support spillover JP whereas they originally did not and Onion Knight Base and Master versions can now accrue EXP and JP as well; all a part of making sure you can progress in the way you choose to.

Warriors’ Guild Changes and Zodiac Signs

A few changes also went into the Warriors’ Guild unit recruitment. Such as:

• New hires are always 60 Bravery and 60 Faith to conform to the Tactics League Standard format.
• Female-generated Squires will start with an Oak Staff instead of a Dagger since their Magick scales better with this starting weapon.
• New hires always have the Serpentarius Zodiac Sign.
• The hiring cost is now a flat 1,500 gil instead of being 1,000 gil + equipment price.

There may be additional changes to follow with the Warriors’ Guild in a later update during beta.

Additionally, the Zodiac Compatibility system is fully disabled. This change is to follow suit with the Serpentarius-neutral sign that is already used in Tactics League game formats to set expectations early that this system no longer plays a role in this mod. Units with different signs that you come across in the Campaign did not have their signs changed.

Errands Unit Customization

Ever deployed a unit on an Errand and maybe forgotten to remove gear from them beforehand? Or do you want to deck them out in the latest fashions while they are away? Or even change their job or abilities while unavailable? Now you can with this quality of life change! The picture below is a screenshot of being able to use the Outfitters on “unavailable” units deployed on an Errand.

Encounter Updates and Monster Improvements

One of the main goals of the Campaign is to set some expectations heading into Melee. Additionally, one area that I felt needed improvement was monsters and monster abilities. The following changes have been made to story and random encounters in general:

• All non-unique units are set to 60 Bravery and 60 Faith, including monsters.
• Monsters in story-based encounters and Midlight’s Deep now use Party Level +2 level scaling unless they were already assigned a higher value by default; this is to improve their combativeness while not hopefully making them overbearing for most players.
• Many monster abilities have been improved, notably in their PWR (which dictates its base damage/healing or chance); you should see more non-attack-like monster abilities happen due to this change and monsters are a bit more challenging, especially in mid-to-end game encounters!

One of the bigger goals was to avoid changing encounters from their original design; besides the NPCs now having access to stronger gear and abilities due to the PvP Patch, the majority of fights are familiar as intended. However, with access to new stuff, some battles may require a bit more strategy and careful planning as some can be quite surprising to handle if you are not prepared, such as Argath’s battle at Fort Ziekden.

With Aerith joining the Tactics League roster in Standard, a change was made to Cloud’s Sal Ghidos event that now has her staying instead of fleeing and fighting alongside Cloud and friends. Aerith will now also join your party roster alongside Cloud after a successful finish now scaled with your party level instead of the original Level 1 join-in!

Tactics League-Exclusive Abilities and Equipment Balancing

Efforts were made to all Tactics League-exclusive abilities to now have a JP cost associated with them to ensure they are a part of the campaign progression and some equipment balancing was made to reduce getting your hands on powerful gear early game, such as moving the updated Knives, such as Blind Knife or Tiptaptwo later into Chapter 1 instead of being a part of the starting Chapter 1 inventory. Keep in mind, that with some changes, the “balancing act” isn’t perfect, but suitable for those wanting to go from start to finish with the PvP Patch in Campaign.

Conclusion

Though the PvP Patch was originally multiplayer-focused only, community feedback and requests stoked a change in heart with version 5 to ensure that those who wanted to enjoy this mod in a single-player setting could now from start to finish, with bigger hopes that you can become better accustomed to changes and more ready to enter the true endgame: PvP.

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.