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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 first incremental update to competitive version 5 adds quality of life enhancements that will help with team building and better AoE targeting details, improved longbow targeting, Auto-Battling for multiplayer modes, AI behavior updates, some love to Flails and Axes to enhance the uniqueness in their selection, and a new ability dedicated to chocobo riding. Many thanks to @tzepish for these. Many of these will also be part of WotL Tweak in a future release!

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

• Resolved the “map glitching” issue related to toaded units
  First reported by @guitarmanager, this was a weird issue to trace and fix, but it was related to the status effects rewrite that was a part of the v5.0 update.

Quality of Life Updates

• Ability Target Cycling
  • You can now press the Square button while in the Forecast screen (before committing to an action) while targeting unit(s) within an AoE to preview their forecasted damage/healing for each unit instead of only relying on the targeted unit
    
  • The forecast now always displays one of the target’s info within the area, even if they were not originally selected via the cursor (ideal for abilities like Shockwave or -aja spells), instead of showing up as “00%” if a unit was not selected
    This makes getting the proper damage/healing/hit rate more accurate than just relying on self-targeting (which Iaido/Saint Cross/Unholy Sacrifice/Self-Destruct does) as well as just being able to generally see all targets within an AoE’s effectiveness, allowing for speedier decision making!
    
• Party Roster Reordering!
  • You can now use the L/R buttons to reposition units within the Party Roster and change their “order number”
  • Only works if the Sort Units mode is set to “Number,” which it is by default
  • Note that Ramza cannot be reordered due to campaign reasons
    Another big PSX QoL hack is now available. You can reorder your party as you see fit, making it easier to line up “teams” and reserved units near the top instead of by their default order listed.
    

• Smarter Longbow Arc Targeting
  • The original version would prioritize avoiding allies when picking arcs, which caused weirdness like firing directly into obstacles, or always picking a high arc when targeting allies
    
  • This new version now prioritizes hitting your original target instead of checking for allies in its path
    This is a major QoL to how longbows function with targeting, especially at short ranges.
    
• Help (Select) Now Usable While Selecting a “Move” Destination
  • Previously, you would need to be fully out of menus for the Help window to function notably for Geomancy information, but now this works as well during tile selection when performing a Move command
    
    
    
• Melee Mode
  • Auto-Battle (New Option, replaces the former “Arithmeticks” setting):
    • Allows or disallows the use of the [AI] menu command for both the Host and Client; this allows players to now host something similar to the FFTBG Twitch channel or to do “Ghost” battles
      
    • Replaces the former Arithmeticks game option for the Host, allowing for Orran’s Arithmeticks to be usable at all times since it is uniquely restricted to him
      
    • Note: Live competitions require this setting to be set to [Disallowed]
      This reworked setting gives the Host the ability to enable the AI to do battle for both players if set (though this requires each unit to individually have it enabled), especially for fun or casual settings.
      

• Rendezvous Mode
  • The [AI] menu command is now usable at all times instead of being disabled in this mode
    
  • Orran’s Arithmeticks is now allowed in this mode and removed the mentioning of Arithmeticks in the opening dialog for Rendezvous
    
  • Note: It is now “legal” to use the AI command even for the Rendezvous Leaderboards due to this change
    In the vanilla game, Arithmeticks was disabled in Rendezvous mode for good reason, but with it now only being tied to Orran in the PvP Patch, there is no reason for it to continue to be.
    
• Text Updates
  • Fixed erroneous ability cast text on Glacial Bow, Boltsnipe, and Fire Bow
  • Additional text adjustments and updates
  • The original “Potion” is named “Auto-Potion” across all mentioned text, and updated the Auto-Potion reaction to state it heals for 150 HP to dissuade that it only provides this value by default
  • Fixed Arise’s Spell Quote
  • Updated Protect status Help menu
  • Removed Magma Surge listings on terrain Help menus since it is no longer accessible
    
• AI Behavior
  • AI units in critical will now prioritize moving towards a “healer” instead of just fleeing by default (will continue to flee if no healer found)
    
  • AI units will no longer consider Jump on sleeping allies (lol)
    
  • AI will now only ignore Doom status if you have 1 tick remaining instead of just ignoring the unit until they die (or if KO immune)
    This sets better expectations for the AI to appropriately determine if a doomed unit is worth going after in consideration, instead of just removing them from the targets list.
    
  • AI handling of Cloud, Aerith, and Ashley are now “aware” of the player limitations of Limit Breaks or Break Arts and will only use them in the same manner players are normally restricted by (must have taken damage to unlock Lv. 2+ Limits with Lv. 1s being initially unlocked and Break Arts are strictly only tied to his equipped weapon instead)
    This change sets the expectation that the AI can no longer freely use their skillsets while the player has imposed restrictions, and creates fairer situations.
    
  • AI Beowulf can now use Spellblade regardless of the target’s Faith/Atheist
    
• Practice Mode (Araguay Woods)
  • Some select units now have their weapons randomized instead of being set, allowing for more variance in practice fights
    
  • Implemented 2 additional units into each team to replicate the “reserves” found in competitions. These units will randomly take an already pre-determined one’s slot if it rolls to do so. The following changes were made to each team:
    
    • Elidibus Team (West)
      • Squire (M) may spawn instead of Mime (F)
      • Dancer may spawn instead of Ninja (M)
        
    • Ashley Team (West)
      • Ashley’s main and off-hand weapons are now <random> instead of Excalibur to simulate Reequip, and with the above change to AI now following the limitations in Break Arts
      • Thief (M) may spawn instead of Squire (F)
      • Sage (M) may spawn instead of Samurai (F)
        
    • Mustadio Team (West)
      • Samurai (M) may spawn instead of Samurai (F)
      • Mystic (F) may spawn instead of Knight (M)
        
    • Agrias Team (West)
      • Bard may spawn instead of Black Mage (F)
      • Chemist (F) may spawn instead of Summoner (F)
        
    • Construct 8 Team (East)
      • Archer (M) may spawn instead of Dragoon (M)
      • Knight (F) may spawn instead of Monk (M)
        
    • Cloud Team (East)
      • Onion Knight (M) may spawn instead of Archer (M)
      • Time Mage (M) may spawn instead of Squire (M)
        
    • Aerith Team (East)
      • Geomancer (F) may spawn instead of Orator (F)
      • Monk (F) may spawn instead of Thief (M)
        
    • Meliadoul Team (East)
      • Thief (F) may spawn instead of Bard
      • Summoner (M) may spawn instead of Ninja (M)
        
    • Special Encounter Team (5x Uniques)
      • Set all Levels to Party Level instead of Lv. 99 as intended for campaign reasons
      • Delita may spawn instead of Balthier
      • Rapha may spawn instead of Beowulf
      • Marach may spawn instead of Luso

Jobs

• Divine Knight (Meliadoul)
  • Decreased PAM from 120 to 110% (-1 PA, from 16 to 15)
    This reduction in PA is due to a change to her innate Pierce to keep her job damage potential relatively the same with Unyielding Strike/any other PA-based skillsets.

Action Abilities

• Limit (Cloud)
  • Finishing Touch – This ability is flagged for vertical tolerance
    This was supposed to be set for vert tolerance in the last update, but I have seemingly missed it lol.
    
  • Omnislash:
    • Decreased PWR per hit from 75 to 50%
    • This ability no longer randomly hits within the area and hits all enemies five times each per target
    • This ability can now be physically evaded based on the weapon type
    • This ability is no longer affected by Shirahadori (since it is now checked by evasion)
      The changes to Omnislash are primarily to remove the “feels bad” from multiple random whiffing of what is considered one of the strongest abilities in the game. Because it requires unlocking and can be countermeasured by not “hard stacking” or evasiveness, this ability shouldn’t have additional consequences to demote unleashing its potential if unlocked in battle, and can be avoided by killing Cloud (which reduces Limit Level back to 3 if it was at Lv. 4).
      
  • Cherry Blossom – Fixed an issue where this ability had a very low status chance to inflict. This ability now uses a base 100% status chance (previously 19%) that then rolls at a 25% chance each for Blind, Poison, or Immobilize per target hit to ensure it has the intended status hit rate
    Cherry’s status chance in v5.0 was basically 25% of 19% per status rolled – you would rarely see it land one. With this correction, it will flourish better as an ultimate limit skill. 

Monster Abilities

• Tentacles (Malboro and Squid family) – Increased Range and Vert. from 1 to 2
  
• Malboro Spores (Greater Malboro) – Increased Range from 1 to 2 and Vert. from 0 to 1

R/S/M Abilities

• NEW Adept Rider (Movement, assigned to Fundaments or the unique’s skillset for 300 JP) – A new movement ability that expands on chocobo riding ONLY while mounted:
  • Mounting no longer consumes your Move, allowing you to Move after mounting 
  • Reduces your damage taken by 10% while mounting (similar to Resilience’s all-time reduction)
  • Access to your Chocobo’s skillset based on the Chocobo type via the Chococraft command, including its hidden Beastmaster ability
    • Chococraft abilities use the rider’s stats, not the mount 
    • NOTE: If you are using Dragon Tech as a secondary or are using Elmdore or Isilud on their main job, their tertiary skillset (Jump or Vampire) will override Chococraft!
      
      
      
• Ward (Reaction) – Slotting this ability additionally grants Initial: Protect, Shell
  This buff to Ward is to entice it as an option for those who prefer Initial mitigation via ability, while allowing it to be more impactful in that it can consistently refresh uptime from taking HP damage.  
  
• Pierce (Support) – Additionally increases your damage done by 5% at all times
  Pierce has a niche in being a great option versus Reflect and Golem, but there are times when neither is present, so this ability falls short very quickly against other damage done modifiers. This extra 5% helps offset some of that while buffing all damage types instead of specific ones like Attack Boost or Arcane Strength. Notably, this also makes it a stronger option for those focused on Jump (as the only support ability capable of technically buffing it).

Equipment – Weapons

• Removal of <Rare> Flagging on Select Equipment – The following equipment had the flag removed from them, which previously disallowed randomly generated units from being able to roll them as equipment options:
  • Knight’s Swords – All except the Tactics League-exclusive ones 
  • Shields – Genji Shield, Kaiser Shield, and Venetian Shield
  • Note: This does mean that randomly encountered units, such as Knights, can now roll this equipment; however, the item’s “enemy level” still dictates if they can be legally equipped or not
    This change is mostly to improve Practice Mode’s Ashley, but also provides a potential outlet to finding these weapons/shields in encounters, albeit still scarce by design due to item level limitations.
    
• Axes
  • Golden Axe:
    • Decreased WP from 18 to 16
    • Now Holy-elemental
      
  • Francisca:
    • Increased Range from 1 to 2 and is now flagged <lunging> instead of <striking> like Poles and Polearms; notably, back-targeting can cause a “miss” with attacks, so make sure you select a valid target
    • Decreased WP from 18 to 12
    • Now 50% Casts: Crush Helm instead of Rend Helm, allowing it to deal additional damage if the item breaks. Note that this portion of damage also ignores mitigation due to being sourced from an axe
    • Updated the Help menu
      This change to Francisca is to treat it more like a “Throwing Axe,” dealing less damage upfront for an additional range. The basic attack + Crush Helm cast is nothing to scoff at. Hold on to ya heads! Thank you to @thecountess for the suggestion!
      
• Flails
  • Increased the Range of all Flails from 1 to 2
  • All Flails are now flagged as <lunging> instead of <striking>
    
  • Morning Star:
    • Added +1 Magick
    • Increased Block from 5 to 10
    • Added 50% Inflicts: Blind
      
  • Vesper:
    • Decreased +Power from 2 to 1
    • Added HP Absorption on damage dealt and 50% Inflicts: Slow
      Flails were overall lacking before, so I revisited the archetype in previous FF titles to try to improve them as well as provide a bit more uniqueness to the weapon type.
      
• Shields
  • Ice Shield, Flame Shield, and Lightning Shield:
    • Removed their respective elemental Weakness
    • Decreased P-Ev. of each shield from 40 to 30%
      These shields have always been niche, and will probably continue to be in the future, but their biggest drawback is the Weakness associated with them. The removal of their weakness is to (hopefully) allow for more build diversity to utilize their Boost/Absorb element without needing to “cover” the weakness aspect and place that more on Oil/Breakage.
      
• Staves
  • Staff of the Magi:
    • Decreased WP from 15 to 14
    • Added +1 Magick
      
• Swords
  • Coral Sword – Added +1 Magick

The third major beta update of version 5 is now released, sporting a few new system-related enhancements and other combat changes.

If you are already on version 5, you DO NOT need to update your save data.
Make sure to always patch using an unmodified, USA-region backup of your FFT WotL ISO, and do not override an already patched copy!

To download this update, please visit Download.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Steal Limelight/Glitterlust/Snort would sometimes display -20 CT instead of -30 CT in the forecast (visual bug fix)

Quality of Life Updates

• Melee Mode
  • Midlight’s Deep multiplayer map variants now have their lighting fully restored, while ensuring campaign variants still require crystals for brightness
    
  • Increased the Timer from 12 to 13 minutes (this affects all Tactics League competitive rulesets)
    Based on feedback, I want to compromise in the middle by adding an extra minute, but am still wanting to have a slightly shortened timer due to improved time-per-game. I will be monitoring both replay and spoken feedback in the future.
    
• Systems/Limit Level System (Cloud & Aerith)
  • Cloud and Aerith now start battles with Limit Level 1 unlocked. Some changes occurred to Level 1 abilities now that they are no longer initially locked:
    • Braver – Decreased damage bonus from 10 to 5%, still evadable
    • Seal Evil – Decreased Range from 3 to 2
      This is a change to the LLS I want to explore. Going into v5, I suspected that players would try to “not go after” either of these characters to avoid triggering their limit (and rightfully so), which ends up making their unique effectiveness a bit less than I would like. Weary of this and currently seeing these results happening, the goal is to test both of these uniques with their Level 1 abilities unlocked at battle start, still giving you merit to preserve Limit Level if so (and reaching lv. 4 faster too as a result), but also they can use their initial skills right a way as well.
      
• Systems/Traps
  • Improved the traps found on tiles for both campaign and melee formats. Thank you to Tzepish for this hack and improvement. Here are the following changes:
    • Degenerator – No change, still -1 Lv.
    • Death – Inflicts: KO instead of Doom
    • Hypnogas – No change, Inflicts: Sleep
    • Sten Needle – Inflicts: Immobilize & 25% max. HP damage instead of only 20% max. HP damage
    • Mine – Inflicts: Oil & 50% max. HP damage instead of random minor damage & Oil
    • Mossfungus – Inflicts: Poison and 25% max. HP damage instead of only Poison (will not deal damage if poison immune)
    • Cursed Stone – Inflicts: Curse instead of Undead
    • Updated the Help menus for each trap during the Trap Placement screen (melee) with these changes
      These improvements to traps should make them a bit more impactful and dangerous during encounters, especially for melee when played for fun.
      
• Systems/Mechanics
  • Bow Arrow Animations
    • Improved the animation queuing with abilities that have an effect assigned. Abilities with an effect will no longer display the “arrow” and will only play the effect on target one time (to continue to remove double damage display/effects). Abilities with no effect, such as Attack, Take Aim, or Barrage, will still display its arrow visually en route to the target
      
  • Added missing status text for Veil and Curse in the Reequip – View List screen

Jobs

• Bard
  • Increased HPM from 100 to 105% (generic 285 to 299 HP)
  • Increased MPM from 50 to 100% (generic 50 to 101 MP)
    These stat adjustments to Bard are to ensure that the job can better compete against the recent Garment Knight builds to provide better “stat” options on job choices. The intention is that though Bard is less bulky than Knight, they have Performing Arts innately, so they can build more into HP Boost or any other support option than Garment Knight can. This also puts Bard in a better position for spellcasting. 

Action Abilities

• Break Arts
  • Sunder:
    • Increased PWR from 4 to 6
    • Increased Range from 2 to 3
    • Updated the spell quote
      During Alpha, Sunder was originally 6 PWR, but it was scaled down due to the +HP armor difference change that is no longer active in crush abilities, so I am reverting the PWR to its original state to enforce this as the hardest “hitting” single-target Break Art. The range buff is to get it up to standard with other bladed weapons’ range, especially with recoil.
      
• Piracy
  • Tides of Fate – Changed animation to use Waterja’s effect
    This was changed due to not getting proper hit reactions when it hit multiple targets in the cone.
    
• White Magicks
  • Regen – Increased PWR from 170 to 180 (approx. 3% increased hit rate)
    
• Black Magicks
  • Bio – Decreased MP cost from 60 to 48
    
• Time Magicks
  • Hasteja and Slowja – Increased MP cost from 30 to 48
    Ability cost increases to justify their wide-area impact, excellent hit rate even without Faith, and ally/enemy only targeting capabilities. This also puts pressure on non-caster jobs to build a bit more for MP.

R/S/M Abilities

• Reflexes – Additionally increases your Class Evasion (C-EV) by 8% while slotted
  With Reflexes being half the value than vanilla, this buff is to fit the theme of improving your endurance by strengthening your class evasion automatically which in turn is also factored into the increased evasion rates. This is the only method that can enhance class evasion.
  
• Bravery and Faith Boost – Both abilities additionally now increase your Bravery or Faith by 10 while slotted
  This is to improve these abilities and provide an option to augment your Bravery or Faith stat pre-battle as the only means of doing so.
  
• Celerity – This ability now grants Initial: Invisible
  This was added to give it a “passive” effect like Ward and Earplug, albeit this isn’t an immunity.

Equipment – Weapons

• Magick Guns – Decreased WP standardization from 20 to 19
  Mag guns are overperforming slightly, so I am going to dial down the WP a tad and re-assess from there, keeping in mind they are still stronger due to Black Magicks.
  
• Staves
  • Nirvana – Added +1 Power and Magick

Practice Mode

• Ashley Team (West)
  • Improved Ashley’s decision making to use more of his abilities and not focus mostly on Items

The second incremental update during the version 5 beta phase hopefully addresses a KO bug that causes failure to revive fallen members, monster improvements, some human job adjustments, and ability balancing.

If you are already on version 5, you DO NOT need to update your save data.
Make sure to always patch using an unmodified, USA-region backup of your FFT WotL ISO, and do not override an already patched copy!

To download this update, please visit Download.

Bug Fixes

• Might have resolved the “false KO” bug that would affect reviving KO’d units
  I was unable to replicate this bug but several code adjustments were made that may have resulted in fixing the issue. As always, please record beta gameplay to help with leading towards replication/reporting. 
  
• Fixed the Warriors Guild “Max.” value from 24 to 28 as intended

Text Updates

• Added damage calc to Beam’s Help text
• Added an exception to Lv. 3 Black Magicks for Magick Counter (they aren’t counterable or reflectable, but evadable) Help text
• Added Agrias’s innate to the job wheel
• Fixed Delita’s job wheel text
• Added text to Critical: Flee’s Help that the Move bonus persists even outside Critical

Learn on Hit Functionality

• Removed the Yes/No prompts and force set it to Yes instead. The prompt will now state “Learned (ability)!” and proceed. Note that this prompt still does not activate under certain statuses but the ability is still being learned (Mind Blast or Goo for example)
  This change is to speed up Learn on Hit and to remove any possibility that you misclicked on No causing an event to be missed not only with Blue Magicks but also Zodiark or Ultima. 

Spell Quotes

• Increased the text delay if a quote is active from 1 to 2s
  Based on feedback, quotes are going away a bit too fast, so I am upping the delay time by an additional second, with the caveat of avoiding having quotes slow down an active multiplayer game. 

Melee Mode

• Clash (formerly Special Controls):
  • Renamed to put more emphasis on what this setting does
  • Significantly updated the Help menu for this Melee Option to improve the messaging on what this feature does
    Note: This setting is to be set to OFF in Tactics League multiplayer formats.

Jobs

• Netherseer/Marach – Increased job HPM from 100 to 112% (+37 HP)
• Skyseer/Rapha – Increased job HPM from 100 to 110% (+29 HP)
  These job HP adjustments are to help them survive a bit better for melee builds.
  
• Witch of the Coven/Valmafra – Increased job HPM from 100 to 106% (+16 HP)
  
• Knight – Increased MAM from 96 to 103% (+1 MA to most uniques, no change for Generic Male, +1 MA for Generic Female 14/14)
  This MA increase is due to the PWR reduction of Saint Cross to offset some of the difference (and emboldens the job with better magic-speccing).
  
• Geomancer – Increased MAM from 105 to 112% (+1 MA to all)
  This increase in MA is to improve starting Geomancy potential on the job and to ensure a better stat difference compared to similar jobs.

Monsters and Monster Abilities

• Squid Family:
  • Piscodaemon
    • Increased PAM from 90 to 105% (avg. +4 PA)
  • Squidkraken
    • Increased SPM from 101 to 114% (+2 Speed)
      
• Bird Family:
  • Jura Aevis
    • Increased PAM from 105 to 115% (+1 avg. PA)
  • Steelhawk
    • Increased PAM from 108 to 122% (+2 avg. PA)
      
• Ahriman Family:
  • Floating Eye – Added Beam as a 2nd ability
    
• Pig Family:
  • Pig
    • Increased HPM from 120 to 140% (avg. +93 HP)
    • Increased PAM from 70 to 105% (avg. +7 PA)
    • Squeal (hidden ability) – Increased Range from 1 to 2
  • Swine
    • Increased HPM from 110 to 152% (avg. +176 HP)
    • Increased Move from 4 to 5
  • Wild Boar
    • Increased HPM from 102 to 132% (avg. +114 HP)
      
• Dryad Family:
  • Elder Treant
    • Increased SPM from 100 to 112% (+1 Speed)
      
• Malboro Family:
  • Added Blind, Oil, and Poison immunities to all
  • Malboro – Replaced Counter with Bonecrusher
  • Ochu – Replaced Counter with Ward
  • Greater Malboro:
    • Increased SPM from 100 to 111% (+1 Speed)
    • Replaced Counter with Replenish
    • Malboro Spores – This ability is no longer evadable

Abilities

• Break Arts (Ashley)
  • Shadoweave – Increased Range from 2 to 3
  • Sunder – Decreased Recoil from 60 to 40%
  • Ignis Wheel – Increased status chance of Oil from 19 to 30%
    These are subtle buffs to specific abilities. With Crush Armor no longer dealing the +HP gear difference and Sunder being single-target, the recoil damage can be less. Ignis status chance was increased to entice it, especially as a recoil ability. Oil’em up 😉
    
• Arts of War
  • Saint Cross – Decreased PWR from 20 to 18
    Some PWR was lowered from this ability to increase MA demand notably. Note that female Knight did get 1 more MA that directly helps offset this PWR loss. Saint Cross is still performant when pushed to its upper potential.
    
• Darkness
  • Unholy Sacrifice – Decreased the HP percentage scaling from 29 to 3%. To provide contextual differences between earlier versions and this one with the v5.2 female Knight (which got a +1 MA increase):
    • v5.1 – 617 HP + 21 MA + Boost: Dark w/ Arc Strength = 986/638
    • v5.2 – 617 HP + 22 MA + Boost: Dark w/ Arc Strength = 864/576
      This ability has been on my radar for quite some time but I wanted to carefully assess where its upper potential lies and even though the percentage difference is a drastic drop in scope, the damage difference isn’t a massive nerf but rather to bring this ability more in-line with the caveat that it can be boosted with a 19% Slow chance.
      
• Steal Limelight, Glitterlust, Snort – Increased the -CT from 20 to 30
  These bump in CT reduction further entice these abilities in the need to gain ahead of the target when the opportunity comes.
   
• Shirahadori – This reaction no longer reduces the hit rate of Monster “basic attack” abilities like Charge, Talon Dive, Tentacles, etc. as they are already subject to physical evasion

Equipment – Gear

• Mirage Vest – Increased +HP from 70 to 80
• Ninja Gear – Increased +HP from 20 to 40
  With Ninja Gear being limited in Standard, and the overall need for better bulk in demand, this item has a slight HP bump though limited due to +2 Speed and Invisible.

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.

With the PvP Patch v4.0 Beta launch, the existing map pool has also received some updates to spruce up and adjust maps based on community feedback. Let’s look at which maps are joining and which are being retired in their stead.

Sal Ghidos (replaces Dorvauldar Marsh)

Sal Ghidos is a new medium-sized map that will replace Dorvauldar Marsh entirely. The issue with Dorvauldar is that the host side can have a mobility disadvantage if they are not using movement options, such as Fly or Levitate. Though it is an incentive to use these abilities, a player shouldn’t be pigeonholed to needing these abilities to be able to engage with their opponent. Sal Ghidos features a shortened distance but with many housing or rooftops to utilize and is a great map for archery and other ranged abilities.

Mullonde Cathedral Sanctuary (replaces Monastery Vaults – Level 2)

Mullonde Cathedral Sanctuary is a new small-sized map joining the rotation and replacing Monastery Vaults – Level 2 (the map with the bookcases). Though the host and guest spawns appear close, the coffin in the middle actually prohibits forward movement, so players will need to work around the sides to engage. The spawn heights between both players are also the same, so there aren’t any tactical advantages unlike Monastery Vaults. This map feels and plays great as a small map and is likely to be the best “small”map to play competitively on in the future.

Limberry Castle Inner Court (replaces Goug Lowtown)

Limberry is another medium-sized map that will be replacing Goug Lowtown. Though Goug is fundamentally playable, it does have some odd advantages for the guest player being able to get an early, vertical position on the guest. The map also didn’t feel the best to play on as echoed by several community members, so the change is to replace it with a map that promotes engagement, shorter distances but still reasonable set up time, and even some space to work off of for builds that enjoy higher sight-lines.

These maps are officially entering the map rotation on March 12th during the PvP Patch v4.0 Beta! Join the Tactics League Discord and check these new areas and all of the changes coming with this update!