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In this update, we make some adjustments to the Generics Premade roster, a few changes to Uniques Premade including adding Zalbaag to the roster, and balance adjustments to Competitive Starter. This will be the last major save data update for the 2022 year unless an incremental is needed for fixes. Read the changelogs below for more information.

To download official version 2.3 save data, go here: Download Version 2.3

Generics Premade v2.1 Changelog
Uniques Premade v1.2 Changelog
Competitive Starter v2.1 Changelog

Generics Premade v2.1

To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Generics Premade

Cloud

• Swapped: Nature’s Wrath for First Strike.
  Comment: Nature’s Wrath enabled a relatively high amount of reactive damage due to Cloud’s MA. Instead of nerfing his MA (which is essential for his damage potential with Limit) we opted to switch his reaction to First Strike instead giving him better melee counterplay.

Lancer

• Reduced PA from 18 to 16.
  Comment: PA reduced to slightly decrease Lancer’s Jump from 324 to 288 unmitigated.

Paladin

• Increased PA from 14 to 15.
• Increased MA from 16 to 18.
• Comment: PA increase was to improve his basic attacks from 65 to 75 unmitigated and to also slightly improve his chance to rend via Arts of War. MA increased to improve the potency of his White Magicks.

Bouncer

• Swapped: Lifefont for Move +1.
  Comment: Between Lifefont, Soulbind, and Chakra abilities, Bouncer has a ton of passive healing that can make it challenging to out-damage her. Though that is a part of her design, we need to tone back some of the passive healing.

Guardian

• Increased PA from 13 to 15.
  Comment: PA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 65 to 75 unmitigated and to also slightly improve her chance to rend via Arts of War. Guardian did not receive a heftier PA increase for melee bonus due to affecting Arts of War further.

Apothecary

• Swapped: Ras Algethi (gun) for Mythril Gun.
  Comment: Being ranged support, Ras Algethi was enabling too much damage from safety. Apothecary’s basic attacks are now 64 instead of 144 unmitigated, the same as Stalwart.

Distractor

• Increased PA and MA from 13 to 15 respectively.
  Comment: PA and MA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 130 to 150 unmitigated since she attacks from melee range. This does also slightly buff the HP/MP damage of Witch Hunt and Mincing Minuet to 34 and 24 respectively.

Timewalker

• Increased PA from 14 to 21.
  Comment: PA increase was to improve her basic attacks from 75 to 108 unmitigated since she attacks from melee range.

Uniques Premade v1.2

Zalbaag joins the fight in the [Tank] role in this update! Zalbaag will be replacing Aliste since he was underutilized and gives us an opportunity to see how his Blade of Ruin abilities perform in PvP. To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Uniques Premade

Zalbaag (NEW)

• Immune: Slow, Stop, Immobilize (via Empyreal Armband)
• A master tactician, Zalbaag uses his Blade of Ruin skillset to reduce the enemy’s MP, Physical Attack, Magick Attack, or Speed stats drastically. This ability can also affect friendlies in the area so be careful who you target; requires cast time.
• Being an expert in field strategies, Zalbaag can utilize Speechcraft to either reduce his enemy’s CT (Stall), cause death to slowly KO the enemy (Condemn) or cause the enemy to only perform attacks and lose player control via Berserk status (Insult).
• Though he has a relatively low MP pool for his 20 MP-costing abilities, he can recover it by moving via Manafont.
• To view his character profile and abilities, visit: Zalbaag

Construct 8

• Increased PA from 10 to 14.
  Comment: Construct 8’s PA was increased to incentivize its damage capabilities. Pulverize does exceed the tank damage metric, but it requires Construct 8 to be at the same height and within 1 range as the target.

Cloud

• Swapped: Nature’s Wrath for First Strike.
  Comment: Nature’s Wrath enabled a relatively high amount of reactive damage due to Cloud’s MA. Instead of nerfing his MA (which is essential for his damage potential with Limit), we opted to switch his reaction to First Strike instead giving him better melee counterplay.

Competitive Starter 2.1

Starter 2.1 update focuses on balancing unique characters while limiting the amount of some PA/MA-stacking gear and setting a cap on WeaponPower, in order to tone down on some of the overall damage potentials in this format. To view the updated roster, visit: Tactics League: Competitive Starter

Limited and Semi-Limited Gear Restriction Update
By reducing the number of available PA/MA-stacking gear on a team and setting a WeaponPower cap of 32, these changes generally bring down damage in the format. Coincidentally, these changes have also increased the viability of cast-time magicks as well as other abilities such as Auto-Potion and Doublehand allowing for more creative versatility.

• Limited: Murasame
• Semi-Limited: Rod of Faith, Wizard’s Rod, Runeblade, Lordly Robe, Brass Coronet, Bracer, Genji Gloves
• Banned: Crown Scepter, Stardust Rod, Dreamwalker, Nirvana, Chaos Blade, Valhalla, Vesper
  Comment: Murasame was switched from semi-limited to limited due to its instant AoE healing that was even effective on lower MA builds. This should incentivize using White Magicks/Items and other sources for healing instead of always relying on Murasame since it is now riskier to spam cast.
  
  Rod of Faith was switched from limited to semi-limited to help with the viability of caster-based compositions, which have improved this update from testing. Bracer and Brass Coronet in particular are semi-limited due to their +3 PA/MA-stacking value and the various staves and rods were banned due to the amount of additional MA you can get from these weapons, especially with Dual Wield.
  
  Vesper, Chaos Blade, and Valhalla were all banned due to them being above the 32 WP cap. All other endgame weapons are closer to each other making for better options for itemization. To note, Onion Sword is an exception since it is limited in job and requires to be point-blank on target.

Characters

• Removed: Speechcraft ability, Entice, from all characters in the roster as this ability is now banned.
  Comment: This ability was removed and banned due to limited counterplay options there were for it, potentially promoting unhealthy gameplay.

Mustadio

• Increased HP from 291 to 343.
• Increased Faith from 62 to 84.
• Increased MA from 11 to 15.
• Switched his job type from 16 Machinist to 22 Machinist, gaining innate Safeguard.
  Comment: Mustadio has always been overshadowed by Balthier. These buffs give him a bit more variance by now, having innate Safeguard (job only) and Mustadio being more magick-inclined while being slower and with less gear and skillset options than his pirate counterpart.

Agrias

• Increased PA from 11 to 13.
  Comment: PA increased to improve the damage from Holy Sword abilities.

Marach

• Increased MA from 11 to 16.
• Reduced Faith from 31 to 3.
  Comment: The MA increase and reduction in Faith are buffs to improve Marach’s job skillset to be more effective as he was in a tough spot due to most opposing targets having 60 Faith, causing his Nether Mantra to scale weaker. In addition, Marach is now also the best option for using Fell Sword attacks due to their low Faith scaling.

Rapha

• Increased MA from 14 to 17.
  Comment: MA increased to improve the viability of her Sky Mantra skillset.

Reis

• Reduced MA from 19 to 17.
  Comment: Though Reis is limited to gear due to her job, her high base MA when coupled with MA-stacking gear makes Iaido and her Holy Breath hit very hard. This MA reduction slightly reigns in some of the power she has.

Cloud

• Increased Speed from 11 to 12.
• Increased MA from 10 to 17.
  Comment: The MA buff is to focus on raising Limit’s viability in Starter, improving the unmitigated damage of his abilities. Cloud will still need some additional investment when factoring mitigation sources.

Construct 8

• Increased Speed from 11 to 13.
  Comment: This Speed buff was to help Construct 8 get more turns in the Starter speed metagame. Though it still cannot be affected by Haste, this does give Construct 8 an extra turn or two on average, increasing its viability as a pick. To note, Construct 8’s damage ignores all mitigation, so it always hits for 340 with Dispose.

Luso

• Increased PA from 16 to 18.
  Comment: Luso is notably an inferior version of Ramza when compared directly. This PA buff makes him stand out as one of the hardest-hitting physical unique characters while having drawbacks (mainly lower Bravery/Faith and lower MA compared to Ramza).

Balthier

• Reduced PA from 17 to 11.
  Comment: Besides Balthier having a very diverse skillset and stats/gear options, this nerf was to bring down some of his damage when utilizing Barrage with high-powered weapons (the biggest offender being Saggitarius Bow since it synergizes so well with his stats). The goal was to reduce his “one-shotting” potential, which is still doable with investment and Attack Boost/Vehemence. His overall total damage done with Barrage is down roughly 9% with this iteration.

Inventory

• Removed: Potion and Hi-Potion (Chemists still have these learned for mastery purposes).
• Increased X-Potion from 10 to 20.
  Comment: Due to the overall team damage reduction that was the focus of this update, Auto-Potion’s viability has improved when compared to Soulbind. When factoring incoming damage and these Br% reactions both proccing off HP loss, Auto-Potion is better healing when the damage taken is 300 or less, and Soulbind is better when the damage taken is 302 or higher. The removal of Potion and Hi-Potion was to reflect X-Potion being used in tandem with Auto-Potion at all times since damage is high in this format.

Are you looking to get into your first Competitive Starter game? A seasoned Tactics PvP player looking for some tips for your next Starter matchup? This article gives some essential tips to help lead you to your upcoming victory in this fast-paced format.

💊 Buff-Up Early

With the Competitive Starter format being considered an endgame-based PvP mode with access to endgame gear, it is even more important to get your defenses and other beneficial effects early onto your team so they can perform and sustain damage as best as they can. Some of the best ways to go about this are to either:

● Use Iaido’s Kiyomori to provide Protect and Shell (33% damage mitigation from physical and magick attacks).
● Use Iaido’s Masamune to provide Haste and Regen (faster turns and passive healing over time).
● Equip gear that has Protect, Shell, or Haste innately, such as Lordly Robe or Brigand’s Glove.

📑Team Composition and Adjusting to the Map

The overall goal of your 5-unit team and how they synergize is very important, but also don’t forget that the map plays a role in certain picks as well. Small maps, such as Lionel Castle Oratory, are very close-quartered and the opponent is usually in range to strike first turn if they plan to, so bringing slower characters or builds that require set-up time is not ideal. As a suggestion, usually have 1 or 2 extra units set up to swap in quickly into your team concept.

⚔️Know the Meta Abilities

In the current (and likely foreseeable future) metagame, there are 3 commonly used skillsets: Darkness, Iaido, and Throw. Each of these abilities can easily hit hard so knowing how to prepare against them is one part of the battle ahead and we will briefly go over each one and a few counters:

● Darkness – Skillset is entirely physical damage so Protect or Defense Boost support ability are the best defensive options.
● Iaido – This magick-based skillset’s damage can be mitigated using Shell or Arcane Defense support ability.
● Throw – This physical damage ability scales up with the user’s Speed as well as the damage of the thrown weapon. Lowering the target’s Speed is one way such as Rend Speed, but damage can also can be mitigated through Protect, Defense Boost, and the summon Golem. Also to note that Throw is evadable whereas Darkness and Iaido are not, so Shirahadori reaction ability and good evasion stats play a role as well.

⚠️Glass-Cannon is Not Always Best

Sure, in Competitive Starter you can opt for your builds for full damage or stat-stacking well into 30+ Physical or Magick Attack to do some insane damage, but you run the risk of being frail and if your opponent is defensively built or can slow the pace of the game down through status effects, you may quickly become crippled in offensive power and lose your damage-specced units as a result. Here are some tips to consider:

● The map will play a role in how risky you can spec for a glass-cannon-like build.
● Outside of team-comp predictions, it is typically ideal to have at least 2 units be fairly bulky; meaning they have a marginally high amount of HP, elemental or status resistances, and passive recovery methods, such as Manafont + Mana Shield, Soulbind, or even Lifefont to keep them sustaining damage.
● If you are running full damage specs, consider using Ovelia for her Aegis (for reraise specifically), slotting Dragonheart reaction, or using White Magicks to apply Reraise instead.

Hopefully, these tips get you on the road to success in your next Starter match. If looking for more ways to get prepared for the format, also check out the Starter: Abilities for Any Team guide for additional resources.

Today, we released an update that fixes a few bugs and addressed inventory counts in the SLOT 4/Starter save file. Read the changelog below for more information.

To download official version 2.2.1 save data, go here:
https://mega.nz/file/h4dSFLbZ#LzMaLdoC2hMGc4K2HMY0LlkfF4QYEk3UbnC4wQGXElc

Ramza

• Rollback his Chapter 2/3 sprite to Chapter 4 as it was disabling Shout and Ultima abilities when switching off his Squire job. The sprite is tied to his skillset so he needed to be swapped back in order to have access to his full abilities.
  
  Note: He will still use his Chapter 2/3 sprite in Generics and Uniques Premade since he is played as is without job switching.

Alicia (Female Generic)

• Fixed a previous issue where she had higher Physical Attack than the rest of the generic roster in Starter. She is now no longer stronger than the rest.

Inventory

• Reduced Materia Blade from 3 to 2 since Cloud had one slotted (originally making the inventory count a total of 4).

Looking at making your first Competitive Starter team? Already have one but looking for tips to improve it? This article covers the abilities that are battle-tested and should be considered when theory-crafting your next PvP squad. We will break each section by ability type and you can jump to each one using the table of contents below. Now, let’s get right to it.

YouTube video/audio version of this guide: https://youtu.be/l6QvfMG0KU4

Action Abilities

Iaido

● Kiyomori – For Protect and Shell; 33% damage reduction from physical and magical attacks.
● Masamune – For Regen and Haste; healing-over-time at the end of each of your turns and faster turns to act more frequently.
● Chirijiraden – Strong melee area magic damage.
● Kiku-ichimonji – Strong line-based magic damage up to 8 tiles away.

Darkness

● Sanguine Sword – HP sustainability and damage while in melee range.
● Unholy Sacrifice – Considered a “bomb,” deals a ton of damage in melee but the caster also takes a ton of damage in return; good against tight formations.

Summon

● Golem – Covers all allies with a damage shield equal to the caster’s max HP that absorbs damage from basic attacks, Throw, Jump, and Aim.
● Zodiark – Though it has a long cast time, it can be used as a “walking bomb” on an ally for later turns, dealing massive magic damage to all enemies in the area.

Martial Arts

● Shockwave – Line-based earth physical damage up to 8 tiles away.
● Aurablast – Ranged single-target physical damage.
● Revive – Instant resurrection of a fallen ally. Both the caster and the target need to be on the same height.
● Chakra – Instant area healing that also restores MP. Can also be used in conjunction with Mana Shield.

Throw

● Instant ranged damage that is based on the caster’s Speed and the Power of the weapon being thrown. Useful for high damage with tossing end-game weapons, like Chaos Blade or Excalibur.

Jump

● Deals delayed damage to a single target. Handy at pre-emptively avoiding incoming damage and effects since the character is “out of play.” Jump scales best when equipped with a polearm.

Reaction Abilities

● Mana Shield (Time Mage) – Bravery% chance to absorb incoming damage to your MP instead of HP. Very good at sustaining hard-hitting moves as long as you have at least 1 MP left.

● Shirahadori (Samurai) – Decreases the chance of being hit by incoming types of damage (like Throw, Jump, Attack, Guns, Bows) by reducing the hit rate of those types of attacks. Higher Bravery will further reduce the chance of being hit.

● Reflexes (Ninja) – Doubles the character’s physical and magical evasion rates at all times. Works best in tandem with shields like Escutcheon “II” to evade the front and sides or when equipped with cloaks as they provide the best evasive coverage regardless of side.

● Soulbind (Arithmetician) – Bravery% chance after taking HP damage to restore HP equal to half the damage taken and return that amount as damage to the attacking character. A good option for bulky and defensive characters and can be used to punish ranged abilities such as Kiku-ichimonji and Shockwave.

● Dragonheart (Dragoon) – Though there are sources to get the reraise status (White Magicks or Ovelia’s Aegis), being able to have an option to get it from taking physical damage is also a boon especially when most damage you will see is likely to be physical-type. Being able to revive in the mid-to-late game can be crucial to making a comeback. This ability is also Bravery% chance.

Support Abilities

● Arcane Defense/Defense Boost – Great magic or physical damage mitigation by 33% respectively that stacks with Protect and Shell. Also good options for when you predict your opponent is stacking heavy into things like Iaido (use Arcane Defense) or Darkness/Throw (use Defense Boost).

● Arcane Strength/Attack Boost/Vehemence – Arcane Strength (for magic) and Attack Boost (for physical) are great options, especially when stacking damage potential. Vehemence is risky as it causes you to take 50% more damage, but it also increases your damage dealt by 50%, sacrificing sustain for power.

● Dual Wield – Being able to have two one-handed weapons equipped for stat stacking or optimization can be pretty important when min-maxing builds. This is also a handy option with Arts of War since each ability has two chances to rent gear or reduce stats instead of one.

● Swiftness – This ability is very important when focused on using magicks or Summon, as this reduces the Spell Speed of those abilities in half, rounded up. Since Starter is primarily about speedy plays and magicks are naturally slower, Swiftness is crucial for magicks to compete against instant cast abilities.

Movement Abilities

● Manafont – Being able to restore MP from simply moving at least 1 tile can be potent when also combining this ability with Mana Shield.

● Move +2/Jump +2 – Traversing the map quickly is king, so having more options is always a plus. Move +2 in most cases should always be your go-to for movement.

● Teleport – A bit more of a niche ability, Teleport enables the unit to be able to traverse anywhere on the map, with the chance of it failing by 10% per tile past their normal Move stat. This can be handy in risky plays with things like Chirijiraden or Unholy Sacrifice or even immediately placing a Summon “bomb” into the enemy stack quickly before it goes off.

Today, we are launching an update to the official save data that brings a host of changes to generics premade, monsters premade, and competitive starter.

To download the version 2.2 save data go here: https://mega.nz/file/B9k1Vb5L#EM4HYhkgQrDlXoZhFhbaAZJK-CZC90l4EjOIkyPYpT4

Starter 2.0

[Characters]

• Set each character’s Level and Exp to 99. Each generic character is treated as if they leveled from 1 to 99 as a Squire. Each unique is treated as their special job from Lv. 1 to 99. Please do not Level Down/Up the characters for integrity purposes.
• All generic characters have their Bravery and Faith set to 60. Please do not modify these values.
• All unique characters have their starting Bravery and Faith value. Please do not modify these values.
• Removed all Arithmeticks action abilities from each character. You can still use Arithmetician’s passive abilities and can still use the Arithmetician job but they will not have usable action abilities.
• Removed Move/Jump +3 from all characters due to map changes.

[Ovelia]

• Added Ovelia to replace Orlandeau. She has innate Arcane Defense, Defense Boost, and stone immunity.

[Equipment]

• Removed permanent re-raise gear: Onion Armor, Grand Armor, Brave Suit, Chantage, and Angel Ring.
• All equipment (weapons, armor, and accessories) have had a global reduction to a maximum of 3.
• All end-game and specific gear have been either limited to 1, or semi-limited to 2.

[Consumables]

• All consumables have had a global reduction to a maximum of 10.
• Elixir has been set to a maximum of 1.
• Phoenix Down has been set to a maximum of 5.

For integrity purposes, there is a Trello board link with a list of all the “naked” stats of each character in the roster as well as the limited, semi-limited, and consumable and gear limits found here: https://trello.com/b/AB4q4R3R/tactics-league-competitive-starter-20-templates

Monsters Premade 1.1

[Kaiser/Cockatrice]

• Increased MA from 19 to 24.
• Comment: This increase was to buff the damage on Featherbomb, which was lacking compared to other ranged abilities but is still less than others to reinforce its melee usage. It will now deal 48 damage un-mitigated.

[Hardthorn/Elder Treant]

• Increased MA from 15 to 24.
• Comment: This increase was to buff the damage on Leaf Rain. Hardthorn is a [tank] and its damage is AoE, but it is also underperforming especially when coupled with Leaf Rain having 0 vert. It will now deal 72 damage un-mitigated.

[Rancor/Sehkret]

• Increased MA from 14 to 24.
• Comment: This increase was to buff the damage from its Beastmaster ability, Breathe Fire. This ability was underperforming and there was not much reason to try to unlock to use in the first place, even against a fire-weak monster. It will now deal 96 damage un-mitigated.

[Blaze/Grenade]

• Increased MA from 19 to 24.
• Comment: This increase was to buff the damage on Flame Attack. It will now deal 72 damage un-mitigated.

[Soulcage/Skeletal Fiend]

• Increased MA from 21 to 25.
• Comment: This increase was to buff the damage of its Anima abilities as they were underperforming compared to other ranged attacks. It will now deal 50 damage un-mitigated.

Generics Premade 2.0

[Beowulf]

• Reduced his maximum MP from 264 to 154 .
• Comment: This change was to reduce his ability to constantly cast Spellblade abilities; this should give more thoughtful play in using his kit and more counters to him by using abilities that drain MP.

The Tactics League official game settings and map pool is getting some changes today that we are going to go over. As a reminder, these settings are for use with our official save data it isn’t necessary when playing a few casual games with a friend.

Game Settings Changes

We have added a 40 Action Limit to all premade and starter formats. This was done in preparation for future tournaments; to reduce stalling and make each turn more impactful in the course of the game. The new game settings are as followed:

Map Selection – Manual

Time Limit – 15 minutes

Action Limit – 40

Special Controls – Off

Trap Placement – None

Arithmeticks – Allow (this setting needs to be allowed for premades that use it)

Map Pool Changes

We have also changed our map pool selection. We have removed maps classified as large-size as they tend to cause games to take much longer and can also be used to promote stalling. We have also added 2 new maps and re-classified Gariland as a medium-sized map, making its return instead of being removed. Here are the changes:

Removed large maps:
Araguay Woods, Balias Swale, Monastery Vaults – Level 3, Zeklaus Desert

Added maps:
Mandalia Plain (small), Dorvauldar Marsh (med), Gariland (med)

We hope that these changes provide positive changes to PvP Tactics. We are always looking at feedback, so make sure to post in our Discord if you have any.

For the new map pool and game settings, visit game settings.