Academy is a new, guided approach to helping newcomers to Final Fantasy Tactics or story-experienced players learn the important steps to fast-track their success in Tactics League PvP.
Headed, in part, by Tactics League member, Mistral, who now goes by The Countess, This program is split into five courses, ranging from basic teambuilding and getting familiar with unique characters and generic jobs, to testing your new team into Practice Mode, refining the team some more to improve it, and eventually working your way into setting up ZeroTier and having your first Melee, which is the PvP mode.
Academy is a Tactics League Discord-exclusive program as it is also entwined with various channels and links to help you throughout your curriculum.
If you have ever been interested in trying out our PvP offerings, join the Tactics League Discord, experience Academy, and be the next competitive challenger!
The last of the PvP Patch v4.0 Focused series, this article focuses on the new equipment in version 4 in tandem with its included save data, hosting a plethora of new weapons and gear at your disposal – there are many new toys to use and new ways to build up your units! Additionally, several existing gear received updates to improve their viability, but for this article, we will focus on the many new equipment options.
New Weapons
The next major update has 10 brand-new weapons that are accessible in both Standard and Rendezvous. Many of these weapons are designed to incentivize attacking with them as they all have potentially powerful effects or can be built to do so. With the guaranteed cast in Chantage, attacking is even more powerful and considerable; the same goes for evasiveness.
As a general reminder, all weapons that have a “Casts:” line defaults to a 50% chance to trigger their ability.
Lastly, the WP standardization of all sword-type weapons have been adjusted: Fell Swords from 24 to 22, Knight’s Swords from 22 to 20, and Swords from 16 to 18.
Apocalypse (Fell Sword)
18 WP and 20 Block
Dark Element
Casts: Celestial Void (from Rapha’s Sky Mantra, 50% max. HP damage if at least 1 status was inflicted)
Tiny Bee (Non-Magick Gun)
13 WP and 5 Block
4 Range
Can be uniquely Dual Wielded
Adds +1 PA
Zanmato (Katana)
25 WP and 10 Block
Adds +2 MA
Casts: Intimidate (Speechcraft, -20 Bravery)
Note: There is no corresponding Iaido ability with this katana and is purely for attacking
Thief’s Knife (Knife, formerly Orichalcum Dirk)
16 WP and 5 Block
No longer Inflicts: Slow
Dual Wieldable
Casts: Mug (smartly randomizes a Steal Equipment ability on hit, guaranteed to activate if triggered)
Caladbolg (Knight’s Sword)
20 WP and 20 Block
Water element
Casts: Leviathan (Summon)
Adds +1 PA and MA
Kunai (Ninja Blade, reworked weapon)
14 WP and 5 Block
3 Range
Weapon attacks are flagged as <Direct> and not <Striking> (attacks check Line of Sight)
Usable to create “ranged” melee attacks if in the Right Hand
Zephyr Pole (Pole, formerly Cypress Pole)
Removed Halves: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth
16 WP and 10 Block
Wind element
Forced Two-Handed
Adds +2 PA and MA
Note: Damaging poles now use [greater of your PA or MA * WeaponPower] instead of [MA * WeaponPower]
Crown Scepter (Rod, reworked weapon)
Removed +4 MA from its original version
8 WP and 4 Block
Equip: Atheist
Effect: Reverses Faith-based magicks calculations to use [(100 - Faith)/100 * (100 - targetFaith)/100] instead of [Faith/100 * targetFaith/100]
Nirvana (Staff, reworked weapon)
No longer Holy element
10 WP and 20 Block
Bestows: Protect, Shell on hit (guaranteed, can trigger certain Reactions)
Immune: Atheist, Doom
Flametongue (Sword)
18 WP and 10 Block
Fire element
Casts: Fire Breath (from Reis’s Dragon, using MA * 14)
New Gear
There are also new additions to headgear, body armor, and accessories in update 4, furthering your theorycrafting potential!
Chaos Helm (Helm)
+150 HP
Boosts: Holy, Dark
Cursed Garb (Clothing)
+100 HP
Adds +2 PA and +1 SP
Equip: Undead, Poison
Immune: Regen, Reraise, Haste
Peytral (Heavy Armor)
+160 HP
Initial: Protect, Shell
Ringmail (reworked Clothing)
+120 HP
Initial: Protect, Shell
Ever Coat (Clothing)
+120 HP
Boosts: Fire, Lightning, Ice, Wind, Water, Earth
Samite Coat (Robe)
+120 HP and +40 MP
Adds +1 MA
This new robe is set to be a “bulky” option for casters and is similarly designed to Celebrant’s Miter and uses the same HP metric as clothing-type items
Chantage (Accessory)
Sets your weapon attack’s Cast and Status Effect chance to 100% (up from 50%)
Note: This only works on regular attacks and does not augment the status chance of abilities
Bravely Armlet (Accessory)
Increase your Bravery by 10 at the end of each of your Active Turns
Elven Cloak (returning Accessory)
12% Physical and Magical Accessory Evasion
Adds +1 SP
Thief’s Gloves (reworked Accessory)
Removed the increased multiplier to Steal Equipment abilities
New Effect: Steal Equipment abilities now bypass a target’s Safeguard while equipped
Adds +1 SP
Note: Steal Equipment abilities will no longer be evadable in version 4
With new weapons and gear to equip and build off of, PvP Patch version 4.0 Beta is looking to further expand theorycrafting! This update will launch on March 12th!
In PvP Patch version 4, there are a ton of current ability adjustments going into to improve abilities that were underperforming or to better fit select abilities in line with the patch’s goals. This article will focus on the brand-new abilities coming with the update, the Reaction, Support, and Movement abilities, and a few new ones in Ja-Magicks.
Conjure Up New Elemental Spells in Ja-Magicks
To increase the accessibility of wind, water, and earth abilities, Ja-Magicks (Sage’s skillset) gained new faith-based abilities in Aeroja, Waterja, and Quake.
These abilities still follow the same rules as other magicks in the skillset; they cannot be cast while silenced, can trigger Magick Counter, unevadable, and mimicable.
Let’s take a closer look at how each one functions:
Aeroja
Wind element
3 Range, 3 AoE, 3 Vert. (enemy only)
99 MP, 35 PWR, 4 Speed
Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
19% chance to Remove: Float, Haste per target
Waterja
Water element
4 Range, 2 AoE, 3 Vert. (enemy only)
99 MP, 40 PWR, 4 Speed
Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
19% chance to Inflict: Silence per target
Quake
Earth element
4 Range, 2 AoE, 5 Vert. (enemy and ally)
99 MP, 38 PWR, 5 Speed
Non-reflectable, Non-evadable
19% chance to Inflict: Immobilize per target
New Reaction/Support/Movement Abilities
Version 4 also brings about 6 new non-action abilities, furthering build-crafting and new strategies! Let’s take a look at each one:
CT Boost (Reaction)
This new reaction has a Bravery% chance to increase your current CT by 5 after taking any HP damage. Though this value appears small, it can add up quickly factoring that your unit’s Speed also normally affects your CT gains and this can be used to close the gap faster.
Critical: Flee (Reaction)
Critical: Flee is a rework of Critical: Recover MP. This ability now has a Bravery% chance while HP critical (20% of your max. HP or less) to increase your CT by 25 and your Move by 2. One interesting note with Critical: Flee is that the Move bonus persists even if you are no longer critical, KO’d, etc. so this ability can have a long-lasting effect in a single game!
Replenish (Reaction)
This rework of Absorb MP now restores HP and MP equal to 4 times the MP cost of an MP-costing ability that you were affected by either from damage or from a beneficial ability. For example, White Magick’s Barrier would restore 256 HP and MP to you at a Bravery% chance to trigger.
Monkey Grip (Support)
A fan favorite from the Tactics Advance series, Monkey Grip allows all forced two-handed weapons (Axes, Bows, Knight’s Swords, and Fell Swords) to become one-handed, allowing for the slotting of a shield in the opposite hand. This passive is great for enabling utility through your shield, as you gain evasiveness and any other additional properties your shield provides. Note that Doublehand (Onion Knight in particular) does not add the damage bonus since you are wielding a two-handed weapon in one hand. This ability is not innately set to any job for balance purposes.
Nimble (Movement)
Nimble is a brand-new movement ability that provides three important status immunities: Slow, Stop, and Immobilize. With Nimble providing 3 status immunities in the Movement slot, you do not gain any additional Move or Jump stats.
Dexterity (Movement)
Dexterity is the second brand-new Movement ability that interacts with your Class Evasion (C-EV), allowing it to be treated from all sides instead of just the front against incoming physical attacks and evadable abilities and additionally grants +1 Move and Jump stats. Dexterity is especially potent on jobs that have a solid C-EV baked in, such as Thief, Ninja, or Monk, and even for unique characters, such as Agrias, Mustadio, or Cloud.
With new abilities to cast in Ja-Magicks and a plethora of new Reaction, Support, and Movement abilities, PvP Patch version 4 is bringing new, creative ways to play both Standard and Rendezvous formats!
In version 4, two new characters in Standard and Rendezvous formats join the unique roster: Alma and Valmafra! These two will be replacing Ovelia and Balthier respectively. Let’s dive into each character’s profile so you can learn more about them and what makes them unique in their own way.
Alma, Cleric
Alma joins the version 4 roster, replacing Ovelia. At first glance, with Alma and Ovelia both having Holy Magicks, it may appear as to why she replaced Ovelia in the first place. Let’s compare the two stat-wise and you will see that Alma is different in her own right:
Ultimately, Alma has better stats to work with, notably her Faith and Speed. Because she has high Faith, she doesn’t necessarily need Faith status via Luminous Robe to have excellent casts though you can still of course opt for the Faith route if needed. Her 12 Speed also means she needs little to no investment in that category and she can typically be built in whichever way you choose allowing for better build versatility compared to Ovelia. The trade-off for these stats is lower HP bulk and Bravery, but that is intentional for balance’s sake.
Alma has the same innates as Ovelia, except Charm immunity instead of Stone immunity.
Alma can equip the following: Staves, Hats, Clothing, Robes.
Lastly, let’s take a look at her abilities in Holy Magicks:
Aegis – Bestows: Protect, Shell, Haste, Reraise, and Regen on one target. The cost was increased from 30 to 40 due to the amount of buffs it bestows at once.
Displena – Removes: Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Oil, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Stop, Charm, Sleep, Immobilize, Disable, and Doom statuses from one target.
Barrier (from White Magicks) – Large area Bestows: Protect, Shell to nearby allies.
Curaja (from White Magicks) – Large area HP healing that only affects allies (ally only change in v4.0 and Iaido-like)
Arise (from White Magicks) – Revives a fallen ally with full HP restored.
Holy (from White Magicks) – Deals holy-elemental magic damage to a single target.
Chant – Restores 2/5th of your max. HP to a nearby ally at the cost of 1/5 of your max. HP (range increased to 3 in v4.0)
Valmafra, Witch of the Coven
Valmafra is the second unique addition to the Standard and Rendezvous roster in version 4, replacing Balthier. In the original game, she was not assigned anything as she was considered a “dummied” character – the opportunity presented itself by making her a new and exclusive character that rivals other unique characters.
Valmafra is designed as an offensive magick caster, the first of the type. Her skillset is a combination of both the classic Red Mage and Elementalist, having abilities from 5 faith-based magick skillsets: White, Black, Time, Mystic Arts, and Ja-Magicks, we will go into that more in a bit.
First, let’s take a look at her stats profile:
Valmafra boasts a modest 13 PA and 15 MA, allowing her to utilize her stats for both physical and magical setups. She also has 12 starting Speed, which doesn’t require much more investment if at all.
Valmafra also has innate Swiftness in her Witch of the Coven job allowing for flexibility in either offensive or defensive Support and can equip: Swords, Knives, Rods, Staves, Hats, and Robes.
Lastly, let’s take a closer look at her Magicks skillset, including her signature ability, Divine Ultima:
Holy (from White Magicks) – Deals holy faith-based magic damage.
Graviga (from Time Magicks) – Deals 50% of the target’s max. HP.
In PvP Patch version 3, many gender equality changes were made to close the gap between male and female build varieties; hair adornments, bags, perfumes, and the Tynar Rouge accessory were now accessible to males. Additionally, the reaction abilities, Fury and Magick Boost, that were gender-locked to Bard and Dancer were added so that either gender could use either ability. These improvements were well-received and opened up build diversity in a positive way. However, there is one outlier that version 4 is addressing – the gap between male magical and female physical specs.
The changes you will read more about are centered around improving the male and female Squires in both Standard and Rendezvous and have minimal impact on unique characters.
To resolve this task, this required a two-pronged approach:
First: Fixing the stat disparity by adjusting PA/MA values of the base Squire stats – the result is that male Squire will now have 13/12, and female Squire will now have 12/13, a +1 stat increase from version 3.
Second: Fixing the PA and MA multipliers (also known as PAM and MAM) marginally; most jobs received a 5% bonus to these multipliers depending on needs. For example, White Mage’s MAM was increased from 110% to 115% which resulted in generic male White Mage specifically getting an extra +1 MA.
Combining the base Squire stat increase and job PAM/MAM resulted in: Male White Mage – 11/14 (+1 MA) Female White Mage – 10/15
Lastly, to make sure being a male or female gender still played a role in the higher HP or MP spread, male Squires received +8 HP and female Squires received +9 MP.
The accomplished goal of these changes is that the total stat spread (between PA and MA) is no more than 1 point between either gender. You can still build “optimally” and use a female White Mage, or you can choose for whatever reason (aesthetics, sprite design, wanting to use the additional PA) and go male White Mage instead and perform well and with a bit more added bulk!
The result of these adjustments to male White Mage for example is:
Male White Mage – version 3Male White Mage – version 4
Another example of these base stat and job PAM/MAM adjustments are female Monks. In version 3, running a female Monk was very much not desirable, because there was realistically little to be gained from doing so (comparing Martial Arts, a female Monk had a marginally better Doom Fist).
In version 4, this changes quite differently, as you will now see that a female Monk is viable and even plausible for running secondary Dance or Arts of War:
Female Monk – version 3Female Monk – version 4
And lastly, to quell any worries about how these job PAM/MAM changes affect unique characters let’s compare Agrias as a Dark Knight in version 3 and version 4:
Agrias Dark Knight – version 3Agrias Dark Knight – version 4
Dark Knight’s PAM was increased from 130% to 135% resulting in a +1 PA value for female Dark Knights. This ultimately sets generic female Dark Knights to 16/11 while male Dark Knights retain 17/10 and the +1 PA translates as a minimal difference here with Agrias.
In PvP Patch v4.0, you can truly play any gender, and any job and perform well competitively. I look forward to seeing new builds and creations once we enter public beta on March 12th!
As part of our community mission to provide a home for multiplayer Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, we wanted to include a save that hones in on some of the game’s toughest PvE battles that you can take on with a buddy online wherever you have an internet connection and ZeroTier/PPSSPP. This supported save is included with our latest v2.5 save data update which you can read more about here.
✅Features
All 15 Rendezvous missions unlocked (game cleared)
This save is built similarly to how Starter is; the inventory is limited in quantity and characters have all jobs and abilities unlocked
Ramza is listed as R-Ramza so you can track multiple Rendezvous saves within the Tactics League save data if needed
📃Important Details
The PvP Patch must be disabled as this mode was designed with “vanilla” or original gameplay in mind
It is highly recommended to have an original version of your FFT WotL backup ready so you can play with original text/descriptions
Characters on the roster should not be modified, except via gear and abilities, and should retain their original Br/Fa values and stats
Any stat changes, including EXP/JP, while in Rendezvous are reset after the mission ends
Arithmeticks are disabled automatically in Rendezvous
Characters that “crystalize” are not permanently removed from the party roster
Multi-part missions, such as Brave Story, do not reset HP/MP, KO’d characters or status effects, inventory changes (such as katana breaks)
🏆Challenge and Scoring
You can always take on these missions with a friend casually, but why not add a little extra difficulty for added fun and strategy? The game’s Treasure Wheel dictates not only how many chests you get from completion but also your “Star Rating.” This Star Rating or the number of chests increases the fewer units you and your partner take on a mission together in addition to completion.
To go for a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐score:
Ideally, both players bring no more than 1 unit each. However, this may vary from mission to mission
Have zero party members KO’d by the time the mission ends (reviving does not penalize scoring)
KO as many enemy characters as possible
At a later date, we are working on featuring a competitive-style Rendezvous challenge for everyone in the Tactics League Discord to participate in, so make sure to start learning these missions and prep to show your PvE prowess. If you have not already joined our Discord hop in and find a partner!
