Final Fantasy Hacktics

Keeping the same flavor while giving the balance a revamp.

Currently in process of editing formations.
In the mean time have some shinies.

Uh, normally you're not supposed to break the Law on the first/tutorial mission of the game which i find pretty funny...

Quote from: Zeke_Aileron on May 23, 2018, 12:24:56 pm
Uh, normally you're not supposed to break the Law on the first/tutorial mission of the game which i find pretty funny...

It is part of the new learning curve.

Jokes aside, the tutorial can be a bit rough on hard if you're not careful.
There's also a little extra fun in the demo that plays when you leave the title menu run.

Quote from: DeSgeretjin on May 23, 2018, 09:50:19 pm
It is part of the new learning curve.

Jokes aside, the tutorial can be a bit rough on hard if you're not careful.
There's also a little extra fun in the demo that plays when you leave the title menu run.

Oh well that's interesting.

Edit: Ok, i saw the title screen demo, and it's pretty funny.

Thanks for this and all your work on the editors!

How long do you think it'll take to mess with the formations? Trying to decide whether to start on this version or wait for the next one. Looking forward to playing it either way.

Doing roughly 20 to 30 formations a day, so I'd say round 2 weeks.

Version updated, nearly final.
Formations are done alone with everything else.
All that is left is beta testing and final adjustments.

Hello! I've been following your hack for a long time and finally it appears to be -nearly- completed.

Is it playable or do you recommend a bit longer for you to adress your final touches before playing it?

Thanks again for your huge work!

It's playable.
The final touches are for player feedback.

Thanks! I'll start a new game tonight - might be a bit before I can provide you with meaningful feedback.

Small bug: the Loot skill appears to deal damage and not steal loot. Think I used it with Adelle.

Edit: nevermind, finally got the steal loot to fire. Looks like it's a certain % that's independent from dealing damage.

Similar to a clan's journey Moorabella also black screens.
The cause is known and is patched on parent post.

Not sure if this was intentional, but post-patch Luso's keeper class has gone a little wonky. When I started 0.98 Luso had the free energy skill that he learned from a card (the ace of spades?). After renaming the save file he can no longer use the skill or equip cards. I started a new game to see if it was just the save file - the Growth skill set got renamed Turning, and Luso can't use any of the skills even though he starts with the card equipped.

Made wrong patch, sorry.

Correct patch should be up.

First of all, thank you for all the work you put in the hack. It's awesome!

Bug report:

Keeper's Warp doesn't do anything, same as Gladiator/Fighter's Wild Swing.

Not only warriors and soldiers learn random passive abilities, it happened with my nu mous. When I changed class, the abilities disappeared. Nothing annoying, it only applies on non-learned abilites.

I don't know if it's intended but the yellow chocobo has a lot of Atk stat, like twice the normal rate.

Thank you again!

Edit: Warp worked on a monster when I tried it, weird. My first try was on human targets.

Thanks for feedback.

Warp subject to accuracy so it'd probably just missed even though the animation goes through regardless.

Wild swing is fixed and would be included in next patch.

The chocobo was a typo and is fixed.(It was actually 12x normal growth lol.)

Patch is up.

Few things I've noticed so far and currently remember thinking was off:

Ranger still get Item Lore from wiz hats, change log says they shouldn't.

Wideswing has increased aoe, roundhouse does not. I assume this was done to persuade use of roundhouse? Aurablast is a white monk skill just like roundhouse.

Luso randomly knows the water and aero spell under high magic, haven't unlocked Seer yet. do soldiers learn random stuff besides Support skills?

Red Spring only costs 8 Mana for a party wide haste that usually hits one or two people, even with low hit%. loving it, but maybe put it a little higher? Green Gear is 16 mp for only damage+poison. Silver disk is also 8mp, seems a tad low, but blind isn't a hindering status, though, so ehh.

Sheep count 20MP, Regular sleep spell is 12. They're the same aren't they?

Maybe give Keeper a few abilities on earlier weapons. Not much incentive to stay and use it as of right now (currently at sand Lord fight in galleria deep)

Good catch on the ranger.

Roundhouse use weapon elements and damage so can potentially be a lot stronger. You do also get white monks at the start unlike fighters being a locked behind ability and quest requirements. Maybe I'll add knockback and see how well that works, and give whirl burst more effect. Any suggestions?

Luso shouldn't know water and aero and it doesn't happen my side.

Consider that hastega can haste 5 people at once and costs 16mp. Red spring is fine.
The other mechanic skill are properly adjusted.
Green Gear is 12mp.
Black ingot 18 mp.
Chroma gem 18 mp.

Sheep count is on a skillset with really strong skills so it cost more compared to the sleep spell so the other skills in the skillset can be used less.

Keeper skills are strong, it make sense to have them available when you get access to skills with comparable strength.

Patch 0.985 is out.

Includes some targeting bug fixes i.e flintlock.
Experimental changes to dancer and bard.

I have been playing through this hack (In hard mode) for a while and decided to ask a few things.

First, why Aero and Water are so expensive if they are basically Blizzara? All units that can cast this spells are slow, sometimes they die before even casting the spell once (happened with a Bishop twice).

Is Cura working properly? It doesn't feel like it's scaling by 1,25. If it is working properly, isn't it a bit too weak? Using it seems like a waste of MP for a spell just slightly stronger than Cure.

How turbo-ether and megapotion work? You don't really explain what it does, and since it has uses I'm slightly confused.

Last thing, what are the current growths?

(Sorry if my grammar isn't good, English isn't my native language)

I think Turbo Ether is just an item only available to alchemists, as when I used it, I didn't have another use available. I assume it's the same for Mega Potion?

I agree with the Cure/Cura thing. Very underwhelmed with amount healed for twice the MP, I mostly just stick to items now. Item lore on Alchemist is a 200hp single target heal for pennies and suffices for almost every fight I've gotten into so far. (not including the Zingu Pearl story quest, I had a hard time getting through that with a hasted Item Lore Seeq Ranger, which isn't supposed to be possible.)

Spoilers is my Luso with those skills I mentioned, but I haven't updated my patch just yet either. Can use high magic without the job unlocked, has the skills somehow. Not sure if that's of any use to you, DeSgeretjin.  (warning, screenshots are huge, it's just a direct screenshot from my phone.)

QuoteRoundhouse use weapon elements and damage so can potentially be a lot stronger. You do also get white monks at the start unlike fighters being a locked behind ability and quest requirements. Maybe I'll add knock-back and see how well that works, and give whirl burst more effect. Any suggestions?

Well, that's fair, I was using Wide Swing with Gladiator and a White Monk sub-skill set on a Bangaa, wasn't considering the Fighter. I think that it's fine how it is, especially since Seeq 'Zerkers need something different from the rest with Furore.

The skills under "High Magic"


Job Selection Screen

Soldiers have been learning High Magick on my game too (just water tho)

Patch 0.986 is out.

Some mp adjustments made.
Tier 1 spells can be cast every turn with some mp left over.
tier 2 spells every 2 turns and tier 3 every 3 turns.
Mp also adjusted for some skills.

Cura is stronger.

Raptors loses bulwark and gain thunder flare.

Some bug fixes to chocobos and Raptors whirlwind.

Experimental fix to Soldiers learning some high magick.

Damn, you crank these out quick.

This hack looks great as a vanilla+ style of hack, I look forward to giving it a try in the next few weeks.

As someone who's in the early design phases of an A2 hack themselves, I have a technical question. I noticed in the Thief's skill section, you listed the skill Sneak, which gives invisibility and evasion+. Have you tested this skill to ensure it works properly, and if you have, how did you format the skill?

I ask because in my own experiments with the ability editor, I was unable to add the invisibility effect to any skill that didn't already have it in vanilla. So for example, if I were to add the invisibility effect targeting self to a random Thief skill, it would only half-work in game. The small 'invisible' text prompt would appear over the user's head as with any invisibility skill in the game, but they remained visible on the screen and were still targeted by enemies. I'm curious as to how you got that effect to stick.

Thanks in advance for any help, good luck with the hack!

Some spell effects are actually tied to animation data.
You would find that in the 14th byte of animation data for invis skill is 0E.
https://imgur.com/a/JDYTCrS (https://imgur.com/a/JDYTCrS)

Also I was running out of skill space so I just reused Vanish.
Sneak doesn't exist anymore.

Quote from: DeSgeretjin on July 04, 2018, 10:50:14 am
Some spell effects are actually tied to animation data.
You would find that in the 14th byte of animation data for invis skill is 0E.
https://imgur.com/a/JDYTCrS (https://imgur.com/a/JDYTCrS)

Also I was running out of skill space so I just reused Vanish.
Sneak doesn't exist anymore.

Ah, that makes perfect sense, I wouldn't have thought it was associated with the animation data. Thanks for the help!

Been trying out this mod on hard mode as well. Just having problems with my assassin who can't equip guns for some reason even though some skills of the assassin are tied to them. When I try to equip them it just says the usual "units with this job cannot equip this item". Any reason for this? (Sorry for stubby english).

That's because I forgot to save some of the changes made in the old patch.

New patch is up

Notes:
Many base stat changes.
Most notably Paladins are a lot more durable.
Seeq have generally stronger stats to make up for their mediocre jobs.
Berzerkers have increased spd and move.
Monsters and similar enemy units have their base attack set to 0 and their unarmed bonus increased to compensate, this has the effect of letting monster reach a higher attack cap. Skills has been modified to adjust to this change.

Some mana revamps.(Still experimental).

Enjoying the mod a lot so far, I really feel like I found the right one for me.

Got some extra info about the bug with Soldiers and Warriors gaining unintended support abilities if you don't already have it.
Soldiers are learning "Halve MP" from Barong, and Warriors are getting it from the Samson Sword. Warriors are getting "Impervious" from the Falchion. I'm not far enough yet to discover if there's more than that though.

I was really excited at first when I thought Luso had innate Halve MP so I started building him as a Keeper/Seer, until I realized it was just a bug. Still going to build him that way and resist the temptation of Halve MP and see how it goes!

General balance seems good so far. I can't just breeze through quests anymore and have had some very challenging missions due to being underleveled. My Tinkerer is the only thing that keeps me afloat...those battles against other Auction House contenders are really challenging early on! I actually had to plan a strategy against Graszton Seaways (who challenged me even though I didn't get 1st place in the auction?) so I'm looking forward to what's ahead. Archer seems underwhelming so far, but maybe I'm just spoiled by how fun they were in Clan's Journey. Pretty much only keeping him around for Hunting later on.

I'm excited about trying out Doublecast on Seers and Magick Frenzy on Red Mages, I think that's a great balance change to fix all the dumb stuff without removing those cool abilities completely. One complaint is that speed battles might be even more broken than they are in vanilla or other mods. In the first one "Veis, Assassin" against house Bowen, they took it to HP critical in about 3 attacks, and all I had to do was snipe the kill on my first real turn. The assassin never had the chance to do anything! "Wow, you really showed your stuff out there, going invisible and all that." It seems in general that enemies' equipment scales pretty rapidly, much more quickly than monster stats (at least in the early game).

Great to hear the feedback.

I actually have a fair idea on the support ability bug, just haven't gotten round to fixing it yet.

Hume's gets access to Halve mp anyway.

Dunno why you'd like archers in clan's journey and not this, they'd have basically the same skills.

There's really not much to do for speed battles due to AI limitations.

I finally finished up a 300-quest run of this mod.

Overall you've done a great job and on the whole I preferred playing your mod to pure vanilla. Since your mod is close enough to vanilla I'm not going to comment on every little thing; here are the things that stood out to me:

• Luso/Keeper: Great overall class; the MP costs are high enough to stop you from spamming the strongest abilities. However, early in the game Free Energy is really powerful compared to the competition. Did you intend for Luso to have Elusion as a starting passive ability? It's really OP, especially against the Illua battles where she can take out half your party before you can move. It still leaves you vulnerable to Time Blade (although you can fix that with an accessory), but not much else. The one thing I kept wondering was what to pair this class with. I think I probably should have just stuck to Items since it does so much. Does anyone think otherwise?


• Adelle/Heritor: Thanks for buffing the Heritor's stats; I actually had a reason to level up and play as one for a change. The Heritor skillset still isn't too OP; I mostly stuck to dual wielding and used Lennart or Hilo when I couldn't get close enough. Similar to the Keeper, I wasn't sure what to pair this job with. Small nit: Lennart (and Scathe) have a 100% accuracy rate. Is that intentional?


• Bard: I wonder whether Angelsong at 12mp is still too cheap; as soon as you get MP Channeling that's almost always my opening move.


• MP costs: While I get the reasons for adding MP costs to most things, MP Turbo sort of blows everything up because it's usually more effective to use a tier-1 ability that's under 20mp with MP Turbo than it is to use a tier-2 ability that's under 20mp without MP Turbo, and there are a lot of tier-1 abilities under 20mp, if not 10mp, even when using MP Turbo. Is there a flag that could prevent MP Turbo from affecting some abilities? Outside of one character I avoided it because it seemed cheap, but it's definitely an easy way to breeze through the game.


• Parivir: I think the fire/ice/lightning blades when hitting an elemental weakness (or using Geomancy to do the same) edge out dual wielding, but just barely to the point that it might not be worth it anymore (probably not if you also consider potential Counter damage).


• Doublecast: I think you should revisit which spells are able to be doublecast. I planned on a Blue Mage / Seer to doublecast blue magick, but when I finally learned everything and tried it out, I could only doublecast Quake. I get why that made sense for Magick Frenzy, but I think you should be able to doublecast almost all, if not all, of the Blue skillset. In vanilla Red Mages could doublecast Protect, Shell and Silence, which are similar to the buffs and debuffs in the Blue skillset.


• Trickster: can't learn Arise from the Cheer Staff even though it's listed as a Bishop skill on the item. This was the biggest bug I found in my playthrough.


• Alchemist: probably more of a niche job now that relies on Bio for damage and Toad for status. I briefly tried pairing it with a Sage to make use of Hi-Ethers, but it didn't seem necessary with Halve MP. If I really wanted an item user, I'd probably slap Items on Luso or Adelle, as mentioned above.


• Sage: very glad that Ultima now has range :)


• Magick Frenzy: I struggled with how to build a unit with this skill. I ended up leveling as an Assassin because it looked like they had the highest combined ATK + MGK growths, but I never got my character up to level 99 to try it out with what I think would deal the highest damage, which is to pair Red Magick with a Summoner and wield a high-attack staff. The tier-1 red spells just aren't strong enough to be worthwhile (unlike the tier-2 spells on the Seer combined with dual wielding in vanilla).


• Moogles: I feel bad about asking for more, but this race is still pretty useless, with the exception of the awesome Juggler and Bard skills. Its stat growths are meh, and more importantly, it doesn't have any good passives. These guys could really use a couple worthwhile passives, or a skill like Doublecast.


• Mog Knight: Hidden Mog is pretty underpowered, especially with its MP costs. Seemed like a downgrade from Ultima Charge.


• Raptor: This class became a one-trick pony for me with Thunder Flare, which, when combined with Unscarred, does obscene amounts of damage. However, without MP Channeling or that skill, the job is pretty underwhelming. I intended to level up my Raptor to 99 before flipping it into a Hunter with Devastation as a secondary, but never got there. The loss of the Raptor's other ranged options hurt it a decent amount (unless you primary with a ranged weapon).

That's all I have for now. Thanks again!

I just got up to Grazston and I've been enjoying this mod in Hard Mode!

My only complaint was how in vanilla you don't get to make that much out of the bazaar until the last third of the game and wished how you could do more with it early on like in a Clan's Journey but then I got the Loot skill in the Camoa arc and feel satisfied, was hoping to loot items that would let me get weapons with Keeper skill but no luck. Would be cool to have earlier access to Grias and the fatty ones though.

I also felt a bit resistance early on that Luso is more of a caster with Free Energy than a physical attacker but got used to it, I think I'm going to make him my doublecaster since that got moved to Humes.

Soldier bugs aside, loving this so far!

EDIT: Some modifiers don't seem to work, not seeing a damage increase with doublehand and sidewinder does the same as regular damage against monsters

Sidewinder looks like it deals the same damage in the pre-attack estimate, but it follows up with a second hit not shown in the estimate. I had the same initial reaction as you.

Not sure about Doublehand, never used it.

So I'm probably a bit halfway through clearing quests/being ready for the final tower, though just one chapter away from the final story chapter vs Illua and this is my main setup in this mod

1) Luso
Keeper
Seer
Bonecrusher
Geomancer

He went from being an OP 300 damage plus statuses elemental melee unit in Vanilla to an OP 700 damage elemental caster unit, Doublecast Mist Charge/Recharge on first turn, next turn he has 70ishMP ready for doublecasting Flare Star, Aero, Darkga, Water or Cura. Plus can Raise and Esuna if needed. Early game he was my Thief making sure to Loot until Adelle joins and takes that over and begins to make the full transition to caster. Seer is really the way to go with Luso in this mod.

2) Adelle
Heritor
Thief
Strike Back
Dual Wield

Not much change from vanilla, except Thief is actually useful in this mod, always Vanish for Evade bonus at start of battle then go on to wreck hell with dual attacks, Lennart or Wermut from afar if needed though she rarely has a need to do ranged attacks.

3) Hurdy
Juggler
Bard
Critical: Vanish
Ribbon-bearer

Not much change from vanilla either, the MP Battery and Smile support Hurdy is still just as viable. Moogles are alright early, once you get Air Render they're decent frontliners with 100% wool but lack of good damage modifier passives and lower stats than Bangaas makes them fall off. Once they get outclasses by Humes and Bangaas at meele units there's not much reason to use one until you get Hurdy. You can transform it into a Fusilier but won't make much impact.

4) Viera
Red Mage
Elementalist
Reflex
Turbo MP

Or

Viera
Red Mage
Summoner
Reflex
Halve MP
I change this unit depending on what laws are there or if I feel I need more support or more damage, likely the latter. With Doublecast gone the main thing for Vieras to keep up with Luso is Turbo MP, it turns Red Magic and Elemental Magic into -Aga strength spells plus extra sting from Rapier attack when paired with Magick Frenzy. I don't use Assassin for this because their abilities turn crazy expensive with Turbo MP, whereas Elementalists provide every element save Holy.

Without Blood Price there isn't much point in using Assassin either I think, maybe a melee status condition unit paired with Spell Blade but Elementalist with MP Turbo does that much better, ranged and will most likely inflict the better status condition of them all instead: Death from 0 HP.
edit: I forgot about Last Breath, you can make a murder machine like vanilla with Halve MP, use Vanish then have a 90% acc killing unit. You can compliment with Archer.

Another cool unit that didn't make it to my final team could be Fencer with Turbo, makes puny vanilla Swamstrike into a 300 damage nuke for just 8 MP.

5) Hume
Paravir
Paladin
Bonecrusher
Geomancy

The classic OP Paravir, I gave this to Frimelda and turned her into a holy damage tank.


6) Nu Mou
Alchemist
Time Mage
Evade Magick
Item Lore

OR

Bangaa
Cannonry
Sacred Blade
Magick Counter
Tank
This one I'll change depending on mood, its role is to essentially give an Ether to the Viera and then give Haste to the rest of the team or support with some damage.

Because Attack↑  and Pugilist don't seem to work I've found melee unit Bangaas pretty underwhelming, Cid has been benched for most of the game, I haven't gotten the armor for Unscarred to see if that one is any good. Was only doing decent damage during the mid-game with Bishop's Aero and Water but now I find better use in support with a Cannoneer. Just like vanilla, Grias and fatties join pretty late, by the time my party is 15 levels higher so I don't feel much desire to level one up to be able to see if this mod has made them any cool or worthwhile to use outside dispatching.

Hi,I really like your mod and you worked hard to make it.
I just started modding and trying all the tools in Current List of FFTA2 Editors and Modules,but it seems very limited.
So can you show me how to use and access hex to mod it.Tks u.

Ahoy, I'm a long-time FFTA2 fan, yet haven't modded it before 2021.

I'm playing this for the first time this weekend and I love it! Keeper Luso is a fantastic twist, and I can tell you spent a huge amount of time rebalancing the combat system, and it's so much more fun this way.

Just finally meeting Adelle, so I've barely begun-- I wanted to drop a kudos and huzzah on this great work, though. Excited to see what's in store!

This is my first of my two or three analysis that might, with time and will, come here to help you form an idea of the current status of the mod and perhaps improve it, if you find out the necessity.

Ima focus on unit job combos I've tried for the 24 slots, having let them all growth at least 50 of their 99 levels in the most favorable class for his final stats. Also have speed up the things (otherwise my 80hr savegame wouldnt yield max level clanmates). Cleared the campaign but still on the way to clear the towers, but that will be a section for another report.
To the matter, and for improving visibility/format, the units are sorted by score and divided wheter if they use Magick Atk or Attack stats. A final disclaimer before starting, for these are my personal thoughs and even if its based on gameplay, might differ with others' opinions.








Alright, thats 5 hours of condensed writing and formatting. hope it becomes useful for anyone.

Quote from: matchet on May 30, 2021, 04:36:28 amThis is my first of my two or three analysis that might, with time and will, come here to help you form an idea of the current status of the mod and perhaps improve it, if you find out the necessity.

Ima focus on unit job combos I've tried for the 24 slots, having let them all growth at least 50 of their 99 levels in the most favorable class for his final stats. Also have speed up the things (otherwise my 80hr savegame wouldnt yield max level clanmates). Cleared the campaign but still on the way to clear the towers, but that will be a section for another report.
To the matter, and for improving visibility/format, the units are sorted by score and divided wheter if they use Magick Atk or Attack stats. A final disclaimer before starting, for these are my personal thoughs and even if its based on gameplay, might differ with others' opinions.

spoiler: Clan Meteoro - Magick Department

spoiler: 5.0 - Bangaa <Trickster/Bishop> R:Magick Counter P:Halve MP

What can I say except he is the fastest a highest spd & matk rated unit in my entire clan? Have almost every important impeding debuff at his disposal, yet it is unlikely to be cast due to water, aero, break and the all-powerful Holy awaiting my figers to play among his insane base Matk.
A faster, hard hitting mage is the zenith of the AoE dps, must say. He is also a Bangaa. In bishop clothes.
[5.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 4.5 - Luso (Hume) <Keeper/Seer> R:Reflex P:Halve MP

He is fun, in a broken way. Access to tanky equipment and having the second tankiest stats of my magick users; is  able to Doublecast Free Energy, or Mist Charge, and will eventually be at disposal of also double-casteable Flare Star and White Out which does tremendous amount of damage and in AoE. Have I mentioned access to survival tools like Raise and Esuna? Oh, and you can reach almost every tile with Absolute Zero, which happens to Slow or Stop sometimes. So much fun!
[4.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 4.5 - Hume <Ninja/Blue Mage> R:Absorb MP P:Geomancy

Second faster magic caster from my clan (yep, a Trickster is faster than a Ninja. Deal with it). With that in mind, is with no doubt one of the three jobs that costs an insane amount of time to complete. That aside, many tools to play with your team, providing right equipment (Against Sleep and KO). Yet he has a fantastic Matk, so my focus on him mid-battle usually involves spamming Quake, which is the highest damage spell in his arsenal. To support a more tactical aproach, veils does decent damage in this mod, so keep an eye on Earth (Slow) and Water (Silence) mostly. Finally, yet pretty much MP costly, Angel Whisper for Reraise & Heal and White Wind for an up to 750+ HP aoe heal.
[4.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 4.0 - Nu Mou <Alchemist/Time Mage> R:Evade Magick P:Halve MP

He has not a low Spd as one could fear, which makes him usable in the support role, even having the worst Matk in the magick department of my clan (he does not use it much anyway). The plan consists in starting with a powerful Hastega on himself and other 4 party members. Astra, Reflect and Extend can become in utility given certain situations, but your two signature spells after Hastega are the flipcoins (Stop and Toad) and Bio (which apparently happens to poison with perfect accuracy in a mod that is aimed at very high base health points). Also, Turbo Ether and Items access.
[4.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 4.0 - Viera <Summoner/Elementalist> R:Absorb MP P:Magick↑

Congratulations on having, for once, the summoner Job somewhat balanced. I do usually keep myself spamming Fire Whips or Earth Heal most of the time, yet when certain conditions happens, a well placed Maduin Summon will strike severely. But the strongest spell by far is the Phoenix Summon, cappable of 100% HP reviving en masse. Second wind? She gives you a fresh new continue coin every (yet) several turns.
[4.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.5 to 2.5 (worth keeping an eye)

spoiler: 3.5 - Penello <Red Mage/Dancer> R:Critical: Quicken P:Concentration

So, Viera's Red Mages got Magick Frenzy but their overall stats between Matk and Atk becomes too difuminated for my tastes. Then the (improved) Dancer Job, came to my clan and I said "Why not?". Gotta say she is a party debuffer who happens to also damage (a bit) the enemy in the process. With MP sheanigans and Turbo MP she can become a fearsome Seer with impressive magic dmg, must admit.
[3.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.5 - Gria <Raptor/Geomancer> R:Magick Counter P:Resistance↑

When Tanks meets magick casters, a Gria is born. She can also equip tanky items thanks to Raptor job, has free flying movement and her best damaging skill that comes from Raptors, not geomancers (Thunder Flare) will benefit from a close combat aproach, and from reaching the back of your victim. Can also disable and decent dmg with Shield Bash. Unfortunately, she is tied to mono targeting most of the time. Still, I do appreciate her unique way of play.
[3.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 2.0 and lower (broken hopes and bigger dissapointments)

spoiler: 2.0 - Nu Mou <Sage/Black Mage> R:Absorb MP P:Magick↑

Having access to 5 of 8 elements sounds neat for the elemental game, yet has serious issues with MP costs that results in a notable loss in potential dps, due to the unability to cast non-elemental and superior spells like Protometeor, Scathe, Gigaflare and Ultima. Attach a Bangaa Cannoneer or a Nu Mou Alchemist to him or dont go for it as first option for AoE DPS. Also happens to be the SLOWEST unit on my clan (a whooping 40% slower than my top tier ones).
[2.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 0.5 - Montblanc (Moogle) <Black Mage/Animist> R:Magick Counter P:Archmage

Got him far too late to train him in speed and resulted in the second worst Spd unit in my clan. Might had put him in secondary Time Magick but whatever, his bad stats on my game wont be saved with the superb Archmage's exclusive passive ability. He is even having but a mediocre base Matk score!
[0.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: Clan Meteoro - Physical Department

spoiler: 5.0 - Viera <Sniper/Spellblade> R:Evade Magick P:Turbo MP

Wellcome to the Physical dps section. Its headed with this monstruosity. Thanks to Turbo MP and the adding of MP cost on almost every skill, you can find out that your Sniper is doing from x2 to x6 normal damage per turn. And she is tied with my Trickster in being the faster unit on my clan.
Your spamming of choice should be Doubleshot (Which does total x3 dmg), and eventually or with little help you can access to powerful Spellblade Skills to Sleep, Slow, Charm, Disable or even Drain and recover your HP!
Worth to note: Snipe for nonstop damage, even if sitting in the other corner of the map. Also Poison via Beso Toxico.
[5.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 5.0 - Viera <Archer/Fencer> R:Reflex P:Turbo MP

Wellcome to the Physical dps section, alternative version. Consider this one the little sister of the sniper/spellblade monster, and  these two are sit in the highest physical dps output throne of my clan. She also shares with her sister toppest speed of the clan. To the differences: your spammable and strongest skill of choice is Fencer's Shadowstick which also happens to Delay and Lower Spd stat. Im not laughing that hard, yet, because you can eventually reach enough mana to cast your "ultima-like" skill which is Fencer's Nighthawk. This one combined with a back strike and the effect of Focus at her disposal, results in the highest scored hit ever recorded on my game (two numbers that summed around 999). Balanced? Hell no. Funny? A very lot.
[5.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 5.0 - Gria <Raptor/Ravager> R:Strike Back P:Monkey Grip

Two Key Skills: Raptor's Thunder Flare for when melee is not avaiable, and Ravager's Full Assault for when it is. It is expected for you to wear a Sleep protection item (a ribbon, mostly), to result in a extremely potent attack (by far the highest melee atk in my clan) with zero downsides. Its like a buffed Bangaa's Jump with even more damage and no accuracy penalties. She also flies, which means its extremely easy for her to catch the back of his sure-to-be-obliterated victim.
[5.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 5.0 - Bangaa <Cannoneer/Gladiator> R:Reflex P:Attack↑

This is one of the three jobs that costs an insane amount to complete (this time due to having him growing 50 levels outside from his two final jobs). That aside, happens to be in tie with my other two faster members of my clan. Combine a very high pressence and range with his two superb skills to form an incredible comebacker considering him to have the less base atk of my physical department in the clan (a whooping 33% less base atk than my Seeq). You will see him throwing free Ether Shells for eveyone to keep casting their Ultimas, and more sooner than expected, throwing Ultimas by his own and even overpassing the Seeq in overall damage and utility. And all that from the safety of a very high range. A must have if you ask me.
[5.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 4.0 - Support - Hurdy (Moogle) <Juggler/Bard> R:Critical: Vanish P:Ribbon-bearer

The improvement in song's range makes him easier to use. He is also in possession of one of the highest speed stats in my clan, which is key for a Support. After an Angelsong and the two stat improvement songs, proceed to throw daggers or even basic hitting. He is not great as a healer or as a dps, but his stats-up should paid his slot. If you feel lucky, start throwing Rings to attempt to Stop enemies instead of Disabling them. Bonus points for having an unique way of play.
[4.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.5 to 3.0 (worth keeping an eye)

spoiler: 3.5 - Seeq <Lanista/Berserker> R:Dragonheart P:Attack↑

My only Seeq happens to be the highest rated base Atk stat of my clan. You will find yourself spamming Smite of Rage when melee is avaiable and Ground Shaker when is not, with Sword of Darkness as your sustain (Drain) attack on even skirmishes. That said, dont know why but he is not hitting as hard a he should, and that concern lowers my score. Also worth to note: Block! has a nice impact when being cast on up to 5 team members at the beginning of the battle.
[3.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.5 - Adelle <Heritor/Seer> R:Strike Back P:Doublehand

Perhaps not the best aproach for her, mind myself after the testing, yet I find her exclusive job, hard to pair with anything. Damage wise, she is underwhelming unless spamming Doublecast Lennart on two or more enemies (Fairy Shoes will help a lot here). Nesiaam is the second best alternative, if you want to flip a coin for Addle status.
Outside that, Adelaide is nice, as having Raise, Recharge and Esuna, yet only useful in conditions in which your real healer isnt avaiable for these needs.
[3.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.5 - Tank - Moogle <Moogle Knight/Animist> R:Evade Magick P:Ribbon-bearer[/spoiler

He exists for one single purpose: Cuisine. Unless being MP-infused by a Cannoneer or an Alchemist, save your precious Mana Points for it and keep just using Moggle Knight Abilities. His basic attacks also hits harder than expected for a tank-oriented support, and can also put his MP on Hidden Mog (dps) or Sheep Count & Toadsong (coinflip status) in pressence of another dedicated healer. Also, second higher tier in Spd on clan.
[3.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.0 - Frimelda (Hume) <Paladin/Paravir> R:Counter P:Dual Wield

Good and bad news here: she is a decent yet underwhelming (in comparison with others) Doublehand Basic-Hitter that happens to lack on critical↑ and attack↑ buffs, and outside from melee she is limited to a low damage Wind Slash ability, or just Covering an ally. Stadistically she is between the first and second place in tankiness. Alas, this mod aims to hit player tanks hard. The tank role is also oftenly out of real utility, for there arent chokepoints to stand the ground.
[3.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 3.0 - Hume <Hunter/Soldier> R:Reflex P:Attack↑

Consider him an imitator (with a second place in spd) of the duo of ranged Viera monsters. Should ask why in the hell his ultima shot cost freaking 120MP while other ultimas not (Gladiator's costs 32, lmao). He is however an unit of two main skills: Counter Force overrides his basic attack with higher dmg and secured Addle status, and eventually will gather enough MP to cast his ultima shot. Once. In a whole battle. With luck (seriously, its too much MP cost).
Other notable skills come from his secondary job, for Provoke is a secured Frenzy that can somewhat deactivate enemies like Flans, and the Crushes but mostly Break Assault might prove useful in durable monsters (which happens to be the 75% of the enemies in lv99)
[3.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 2.5 and lower (broken hopes and bigger dissapointments)

spoiler: 2.5 - Moogle <Flintlock/Fusilier> R:Return Fire P:Concentration

If someone incarnates better the prhase "look how they massacred my boy", is him. From Concentration directly going from S on FFTA to trash tier on FFTA2, and from having halved the accuracy of his two strongest shots that makes him exist: Stop and Charm. Not even considering to waste a turn into prime for a shot that wont worth two turns, and that any dedicated healer or best suited ranged weapon hitters will do twice as better. You either rennounce at charm and stop shot to perhaps cast one or two ultima shot a battle, or keep using them with a very rare chance of success in seeing any status proc within that mediocre dps.
This is also one of the three jobs that costs an insane amount to complete (this time due to having him growing 50 levels outside from his two final jobs).
[2.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 2.5 - Tank - Cid (Bangaa) <Defender/White Monk> R:Bonecrusher P:Pugilist

Perhaps it was another poor job choices for him, but I've tried to make Cid a hard hitting Tank as it is intended to happen with his special passive skill and his starting job, but the reality is tanking's not even a choice on this game and even less in this mod. Can, still, shine a bit in certain conditions with Revive, Holy Sign (Dispell) and Exorcise. And can also combo-ing a suicide Meltdown with Aura (Reraise), yet its only adviced when the enemy is stopped or sleeped.
[2.5/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 2.0 - Vaan (Hume) <Sky Pirate/Fighter> R:Bonecrusher P:Vigilance

Another unique character with unique class that seems to not pair with any other job im particular, so I put him a Fighter so he can still hit while outside from melee range. But happens to have a very bad dps output... unless you have tons and tons of time and fights to waste him spamming Swipe in order to empower Life of Crime to have a decent damage (still not spectacular, if you ask me).
[2.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 2.0 - Al-Cid (Hume) <Agent/Items> R: P:Item Lore

First of all, it gives me a lot of anxiety to have nothing avaiable forever on the reaction slot, and to be forced to have Items in the subjob slot. That downsides said, combined with bad overall in every stat, makes him very undesirable... but there is an "unless". You have to build a team with 4 or 5 females. This way he can cast his highest damage skill, Flourish, to make decent damages (yet nothing impressive for an almost one skill worth unit).
[2.0/5.0] - Personal Score

spoiler: 1.5 - Bangaa <Templar/Dragoon> R:Blink Counter P:Defense↑

By far my biggest fail in trying to make an atk, lance wielder Hybrid between dps and tanky support. The result is a stadistically decent tank which does pretty much chip damage with his skills (unless hitting a stop or sleep unit with Jump). Astra, Silence, Haste and the dragon related skills arent worthing enough to justify his low (yet not disastrous) Spd and dmg values. A shame.
[1.5/5.0] - Personal Score

Alright, thats 5 hours of condensed writing and formatting. hope it becomes useful for anyone.

Hi, im very interested in your builds, could you explain how did you level up your units? Thanks :)

Selfquoting what I wrote:

Quote[...]having let them all growth at least 50 of their 99 levels in the most favorable class for his final stats[...]

For which specific jobs, is something cannot exactly tell, but I followed a gamefaqs guide (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/937330-final-fantasy-tactics-a2-grimoire-of-the-rift/faqs/54084) about leveling minmaxing stats depending on the one or two stats you want to rise.

And by speeding up the things, it means what you think. Yes. Exp multiplier cheats since im not manually levelling a full 24 team roster with the game been beaten more than three times already.

Loving this mod so far.

Few things:

1. Units definitely learning random abilities. Luso learned Elusion and etc. lol
2. Maybe a change to Templar's Soul Sphere would be great. Templar having 2 skills that damage MP seems redundant.
3. Bishop can't learn Arise, says 0 AP required and doesn't even appear on skill select when weapon is equipped.
4. Slightly bothers me that Assassins don't use bow, mainly because of Lore. Guns are from Goug which is a Moogle machine city, hence the reason they're the ones with Fusiliers/Fusils, Flintlocks and Tinkers. Vieras are more attuned to nature, hence Elemental Magicks, Summons, Bows etc.
5. Summoner in Speed Battle Quests just keeps trying to use Carbuncle/Kirin etc through Magick Frenzy, ending up in nothing.


Also, what's Luso's unique class stat growth? Are the skills Magic based?

I went ahead and made some changes to the last patch available to fix the issues you mentioned.

I tried to fix the Soul Sphere issue by adding a low MP single target skill that removes debuffs.
I think I have solved bishop arise too.

Chocobo Knight still had many issues and I just tweaked the damage of chocobo meteor and flames, and also added resilience up to chocobo barrier.
I also increased move and jump of Chocobo Knights by 1 across the board, because it really felt underwhelming.

If anyone has the same problem I had trying to apply the patch and getting bugs in the tutorial, you probably have the wrong version of the game. Can't be (E), has to be (USA).

Ran across a bug where I'm getting penalized for using MP when the abilities I'm using don't cost MP. I believe it was the Dragoon's Jump I used.

Also I'm not sure if it's gambler fallacy, a bug in the display, or a hidden modifier but it seems to be a lot harder to hit dreamhares than the 21% miss chance implies. After multiple mission encounters and 4 attempts at a clan trial where I have to kill them it just doesn't seem right. I'd be buying lottery tickets if I hit as many misses as I've had at 21%.

When I download the patch (as a .rar) file and manually change it to .xdelta and use delta patcher I keep getting this message: An error has occurred: xdelta3: not a VCDIFF input: XD3_INVALID_INPUT. Does anyone have an idea on how I can fix this ?

Been playing this ROMhack on a softmodded 3DS, 20 hours in and already loving this purely because it doesn't feel like I'm missing out by doing the usual emulator trappings (Speed Hacks, Svae States, etc). Also loving the adjustments to stuff like Black Magic or Tinker. Solid stuff, even if I'm a bit offput by the MP costs thrown in/elements added in if only because it's more Law complacency to be worried about. (Negotiation-Teamwork Clan Trial was a near nightmare!)

Ran into a game crash on "Speed Battle, Kupo!" Though. Red screened, happened after I finished the fight. Seems like an issue with Twilight Menu++ unfortunately as I tried again to no avail.

Quote from: Tsukuyomi64 on February 25, 2023, 05:03:20 amWhen I download the patch (as a .rar) file and manually change it to .xdelta and use delta patcher I keep getting this message: An error has occurred: xdelta3: not a VCDIFF input: XD3_INVALID_INPUT. Does anyone have an idea on how I can fix this ?

You need to use a program like WinRAR or 7zip to extract the files and get the desired .xdelta file for the patcher.

Quote from: Safcar on March 16, 2023, 01:52:48 amSolid stuff, even if I'm a bit offput by the MP costs thrown in/elements added in if only because it's more Law complacency to be worried about. (Negotiation-Teamwork Clan Trial was a near nightmare!)

Please share your ideas about how to change MP costs!
I can change stuff in the mod editor and then post here.

As for the 3DS stuff,, I've never tried it so I can't help you about it... Hope you managed to solve it!

Quote from: JonWoo on February 22, 2023, 08:23:05 pmRan across a bug where I'm getting penalized for using MP when the abilities I'm using don't cost MP. I believe it was the Dragoon's Jump I used.

I honestly have no idea about why that happened. Can you confirm it was dragoons jump?

Maybe give Hunters/Rangers guns, might make them more interesting. Seems more fitting too.

i'm having a blast with this mod, im about 120 missions in. the changes to the gameplay keep things really fresh and the added challenge is appreciated, if a little bit wonky in some cases

for example, im at a point where most characters have 250-350 health and sometimes i will come across fights with similarly leveled enemy casters like scholars or illusionists and their spells will hit for around 200 damage, or black mages with insane scaling on the damage

the first fight vs ilua turn 1 walks forward a few steps and brings the entire party down into like double digits

i want to say i run into this about....30-40% of the time in fights against casters

the only other issue is accuracy, something is definitely wacky with it. it is not uncommon at all to miss 3-4 times in a row at above 80% chance to hit (personal longest streak i saw like this was 7 times), even "99%" will still miss a few times in a fight

despite all this the mod is still very fun and engaging, and some of the changes really cut out a lot of the really lame overpowered cheese you could do which i only see as a good thing