Tag Teambuilding

PvP Job Series: Time Mage

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will have a look at the viability and the performance of the Time Mage job as the main role in PvP for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Based on the above ratings, Time Mage seems like a decent job role especially if looking for something in the mage department. Let’s focus more on the reasoning below.

For more information on this job, visit the job link: Time Mage.

Abilities

Time Mage’s Time Magicks ability tree primarily focuses on slowing down or speeding people up with a few damaging magicks in their arsenal. Like any other mage in Tactics, their magicks require time to cast, so it is always important to utilize Turn Order to get the best spells off. The status effect ones are also best served when the caster and target have fairly high Faith, increasing the odds of it landing. Let’s take a look at Time Mage’s notable magicks below:

Haste (action) – This ability applies a status effect that increase allies’ CT gauge by 50% causing them to get more turns often. Very vital in order to dominate the field quickly.

Slow (action) – This ability removes the Haste status (if any) and halves the target’s Speed stat, effectively reducing how often a character gets a turn.

Quick (action) – Has a chance to give the target an immediate turn once casted. This can be utilized with Turn Order to do “combos” or deal enough damage in a way to gain a KO against your opponent.

Mana Shield (reaction) – This Bravery-percent chance ability converts HP damage to MP instead and works as long as you have at least 1 MP if it procs. Very powerful, especially in the Starter format.

Swiftness (support) – This passive reduces the “Spell Speed” of all action abilities except for Aim, Sing, Dance, and Jump by half, rounded up. Very handy when Speed is king and you are trying to use magicks.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 75% | MP: 120% | SP: 100% | PA: 50% | MA: 130% | C-EV: 5 |
Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Staves, Hats, Clothing, Robes

Next up, let’s focus on Time Mage’s stats. When compared to Black Mage’s 100% SP and 150% MA, you will see that Time Mage is a statistically weaker version of Black Mage. Because of this, Time Magicks seems best as a secondary than using it as a primary, unless the game rules/format has job restrictions. One thing to mention is that Time Mage does have access to staves versus Black Mages with rods, so some gear choices may differ depending on the playstyle. Also, if you need Haste in a speedy format, Samurai’s Iaido has access to that in an instant ability which is likely better in the long run.

Conclusion

Time Mage is a decent job, but it is overshadowed by Black Mage as a main job. Their abilities are control-focused, but they are likely best used as a secondary. Mana Shield and Swiftness are strong and versatile abilities that will likely find their way in most builds.

by Tactics League PvP

PvP Job Series: Black Mage

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will have a look at the viability and the performance of the Black Mage job as the main role in PvP for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Based on the performance rating, Black Mage is definitely going to be a pick in most teams, especially for formats like Starter, so let’s deep dive into more of that below.

For more information on this job, visit the job link: Black Mage.

Abilities

Black Mage’s Black Magicks kit is focused on damaging magicks with a few dangerous status effects in Toad and Death. Like its restorative counter-part, White Mage, the effectiveness of their magicks are based on the casters and target’s Faith; the more they have, the greater the damage. While we won’t be going over each spell in their arsenal, we will highlight the ones you will likely come across in PvP:

Fire/Blizzard/Thunder and their -ara/-aga variants (actions) – These elemental damaging magicks are good for ranged damage though they do require higher charge time depending on the version used. Depending on the format, some enemies may be weak to certain element-types while either absorbing, halving, or negating others so it is mindful to check the target’s gear beforehand.

Magic Counter (reaction) – Though this requires some prediction picks regarding your opponent, Magic Counter is handy at being a possible check against certain incoming spells, causing the same magic casted at you to be returned back to them (normal conditions still apply, such as having enough MP and doesn’t work while silenced). This reaction can also proc off of magic guns, but does not work against Iaido or Arithmeticks.

Arcane Strength (support) – This passive increases all of your damaging attacks that are considered magical by 33%. This includes things like Iaido and Geomancy. This passive also slightly increases the chance of status effects from magicks such as Toad.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 75% | MP: 120% | Speed: 100% | PA: 60% | MA: 150% | C-EV: 5 | Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Rods, Hats, Clothing, Robes

So why does Black Mage have an overall rating of 4? First, let’s take a look at their primary stats listed above. What gives them such a high rating is their 150% MA. This makes them a very suitable role as a magic damage dealer and having a high base MA makes things like Iaido more potent which they are exceptionally well at with its mixture of damage and support skills. Also, having a 120% MP pool is nothing to scoff at either for sustaining magick casts.

Conclusion

Black Mage is a very versatile magic user with solid options for damage in their own kit and flexibility with other job abilities that center around Magick Attack. Similar to their White Mage counterpart, they are fairly squishy even in clothes, so they best serve from the back-row attacking from ranged.

by Tactics League PvP

PvP Job Series: White Mage

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will have a look at the viability and the performance of the White Mage job as the main role in PvP for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Based on the above ratings, White Mage is a good option for PvP. But why is that? Let’s look more into the job’s abilities and stats below.

For more information on this job visit the job link: White Mage

Abilities

White Mage’s ability tree, White Magicks, focuses on using curative spells to restore lost HP, remove status effects, improve damage mitigation, and they have a strong damaging ability in Holy. Keep in mind like any other magick, their effectiveness is based on the casters and target’s Faith; the more, the better. We won’t focus on each ability, but we will highlight the ones that will likely be used in PvP a lot:

Cure/Cura/Curaga (action) – The main HP restorative heal White Mages use to keep their allies alive. The higher the Cure, the stronger the heal, but also the longer it takes to charge the magick.

Esuna (action) – Status effects are fairly prominient in PvP, and Esuna does a great job with cleansing most effects that can cripple your units from acting effectively.

Holy (action) – Holy is a damaging spell that is single-target and very strong at what it does. Be careful though as their are gear or accessories that can absorb Holy-elemental damage, causing them to heal from it instead.

Arcane Defense (support) – This passive abilitiy reduces incoming magic-type damage by 33% really handy against Iaido and other forms of damaging magicks.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 80% | MP: 120% | Speed: 110% | PA: 90% | MA: 110% | C-EV: 10 | Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Staves, Shields, Hats, Clothing, Robes

Their stats aren’t anything particularly special, but the most noticeable thing is their Speed and PA. Because of them having 90% PA, White Mages can wield weapons like Zeus Mace and utilize things like Martial Arts or Arts of War (both of which rely on PA). Be cautious doing this, as this will have an effect on the upper-end of your healing with your White Magicks (which focus on MA), and attacking with Zeus Mace uses MA not PA for damage calculations. Overall this is probably not the best idea as they would be squishy in melee range since they can only equip clothing and robes by default. They will probably still function best in the back row, supporting their team.

Conclusion

White Mages are adept at what they do; providing healing and cleanses, and physical and magical mitigation (via Protect and Shell). They serve as a generally good main job when put into the support role and are best suited for back-row play.

by Tactics League PvP

PvP Job Series: Knight

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will have a look at the viability of the Knight job as the main role in PvP for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Based on the above performance, Knights are a solid job role, making them one of the better choices for PvP. Let us focus more on that below.

For more information on this job visit the link: Knight.

Abilities

A Knight’s biggest focus is their Arts of War ability tree, which focuses on rending or breaking various equipment or lowering the stats of their target. To make the most use of Arts of War you will need to be behind the target and have a notable amount of Physical Attack (PA) as their abilities use that in part in calculating the success rate of their kit. In addition to that, the better their weapon’s Power, the better the odds of successfully breaking the targeted gear. We won’t focus on each action ability as they function similarly to each other but we will highlight the more commonly used ones:

Rend Weapon (action) – This is the bread and butter ability to break an opponent’s weapon. Most jobs rely on their weapon to deal greater damage and some, especially the uniques like Cloud or Beowulf, lose a lot of their functionality to their skillsets when their weapons are broken. As always, your best results is striking from their rear.

Rend Shield/Rend Helm/Rend Armor (action) – Breaking a target’s shield will reduce their evasiveness, making it easier to get attacks and other abilities to hit. Breaking a target’s helm or armor is ideal if the have gear that is nullifying status effects or are providing them buffs like Protect, Shell, or Haste.

Parry (reaction) – This reaction ability is very good when coupled with weapons that have high parry rate such as Defender or one of the cloths as this unlocks their ability to act as a form of evasion from the front or sides. This ability is always on and does not require a trigger for it to proc.

Equip Swords (support) – Notably, this ability allows for other jobs to use swords (no Knight’s Swords or Fell Swords). This tends to find its way on builds that want to access the variety of different swords and it was worth mentioning because of that.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 120% | MP: 80% | Speed: 100% | PA: 120% | MA: 80% | C-EV: 10 | Move: 4 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Swords, Knight’s Swords, Shields, Helm, Armor, Robes

Besides being able to break weapons and lower the stats of others, Knights also have a good mixture of stats and with a C-EV of 10 coupled with a shield, they can also become agile against incoming damage. Their base Move of 4 helps with quickly getting into position for rending. Notably, their PA is a good starting ground for raising their physical power more to become more successful with their Arts of War.

Conclusion

Knights are a solid option for primary jobs looking to make tankier setups and wanting to add some control elements through their action abilities. Their abilities’ range is also based on their weapon so you can even use Arts of War from afar and you can also get another chance to break by dual-wielding.

by Tactics League PvP

PvP Job Series: Archer

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will have a look at the viability of the Archer job as the main role in PvP for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Based on the statcard, Archers are effective in PvP as well as having decent primary job stats for an early job option. Their biggest advantage is the versatility of bows, being the only generic job besides Onion Knight that can equip it. We will break down the scoring below, starting with abilities.

For more information on Archer visit the job link: Archer.

Abilities

Archers’ biggest feature in PvP is the ability to equip bows as a job. The bow’s advantage is using height to reach distant targets and the “arc” of the arrow projectile getting around certain objects. However, they are probably not going to be scoring much out of their own action abilities as there are innate issues with their ability tree, Aim, that we will highlight:

Aim (action) – The concept of Aim seems cool in story content, but it has some real issues in PvP that have some similarity to casting magicks. Each version of Aim, from Aim +1 through Aim +20 requires charging and while you are charging up your Aim attack, the Archer cannot move or the Aim will fail and if the target moves before the ability goes off, the Aim will likely result in no damage (it is tile-targeted). This also poses a risk in that while charging up, the Archer will take increased damage due to casting (other cast time abilities share this penalty as well). All in all, it is ideal to avoid using really high Aim variants altogether and either focus with just Attack or no more than Aim +2 unless the game play is very slow in nature. Checking the turn order is important in the success of casted abilities.

Adrenaline Rush (reaction) – Adrenaline Rush is a fairly good reaction ability in general, increasing the character’s Speed by 1 each time it procs (the chance is based on their Bravery). Increasing Speed helps a unit get their turn faster and some abilities also do increased damage based on Speed, like Ninja’s Throw.

Concentration (support) – Concentration causes the target’s evasion stats to be ignored most cases (there are a few things that this does not apply to like Arts of War) so that even if they are using Reflexes or running high evasion gear, most of it does not count. This ability can be handy for melee builds that want to ensure their hard-hitting attack always connects.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 100% | MP: 65% | Speed: 100% | PA: 110% | MA: 80% | C-EV: 10 | Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Bows, Crossbows, Shields, Hats, Clothes

Though Archers are not considered a starter job (they require Squire job to be Lv. 2) they are a good job in general for having instant ranged damage. Their job stats aren’t really going to excel in any particular area, but their decent PA and Speed and 10 C-EV can be handy, especially in slower formats.

Conclusion

The Archer job is a decent spec for ranged damage in PvP. Their job ability probably won’t see much effective play, but some of their other passive abilities may find their way into other builds. Their access to bows leaves a set of options for playing from safety; taking advantage of the high ground on certain maps.

by Tactics League PvP

PvP Job Series: Chemist

As we continue the Tactics PvP Job Series, today we will be discussing the merits of Chemist as a primary job in PvP and outline their abilities and functions for competitive use.

PvP Performance Statcard

Effectiveness

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Stats

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Overall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Chemists can be fairly decent in PvP as highlighted above. Probably not the best option for high-level play, but they do bring a few things to the table which we will highlight more below.

For more information about this job, visit the job link: Chemist.

Abilities

Chemists’ biggest advantages in PvP are being able to equip guns and having an innate ability to Throw Items. Guns excel at having a far range to deal damage and with their magic variant you can possibly cast higher-level magic of that weapon’s type (such as Blaze Gun having a 30% chance to cast Fira, or a 10% chance to cast Firaga). With that being said, there are a few other abilities we should highlight:

Throw Items (built-in due to job) – Throw Items allows the Chemist to toss restorative consumables to allies within 4 tiles. This can be very handy in getting X-Potions, Remedies, or Phoenix Down usage without having to be directly in battle.

Safeguard (support) – This ability protects equipped gear from being destroyed by Arts of War or stolen via Steal or Piracy. This is a great support ability for builds that are reliant on weapons to use their abilities, such as Dark Knight or Cloud’s Limit command without fear of the gear being removed.

Auto-Potion (reaction) – Though there are probably better reaction abilities to slot, Auto-Potion is a notable one when coupled with high Bravery as the higher the Bravery of the character, the higher the chance they will consume the weakest potion available after taking damage. You can manipulate this by carry only X-Potions in your inventory so that when you proc this reaction, you will heal for 150 each time!

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 80% | MP: 75% | Speed: 100% | PA: 75% | MA: 80% | C-EV: 5 | Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Knives, Guns, Hats, Clothing

As a starter job, Chemist isn’t going to be an ideal main job for PvP. Their stats don’t offer much to work with, but their Speed is decent while you progress towards the advanced jobs, such as Ninja.

Conclusion

Similar to its other base job counter-part in Squire, Chemists aren’t an ideal main job to bring in most PvP matches. However, they do offer some flexibility with having innate Throw Items and can equip guns so they may find some niche uses as a primary job on the team. They only have 3 Move and 3 Jump so they will need investment in those areas to not fall behind the group, but they can make up for that by having access to ranged options in their kit.

by Tactics League PvP