Final Fantasy Hacktics

(Understood.)

It occurred to me while remaking "Blinded by the Light" (the team) into "No Angels" that I've actually come to agree with making Oil apply to Dark and Holy elements now that Oil no longer doubles elemental damage. Before I was mostly against it applying to Dark and Holy elements since it would make Demi 2 into AoE Death and Dia would become really obnoxious what with Weakness still doubling damage (which probably needs to change anyway, for Shields' sake). With that aspect gone, I think Oil working for all elements would probably be fine now, especially since it helps get around Cursed Ring generally telling Holy absorb to screw off and making Dark element to be so "conflicted" due to its continued overuse (in part due to Quickening).

Not a huge deal to me either way though. I just figured I'd post this before it ended up slipping my mind.

(If it happens, then I'd be fine with renaming Oil something else like "Imperil" or "Expose" or even "Libra" or "Achilles", though that's of course not necessary either.)

Quote from: White Knight Wiegraf on March 29, 2015, 05:43:13 amI do see most teams have Haste somewhere... so why not make the Undead impossible to be Hasted. In most games I've played, the undead are inherently slow. And they can't regen either. So I guess Regen could be disabled too. Kind of like how Reraise is by default. That would indirectly buff Poison status since the Undead could not cancel it out with stuff that adds Regen like Masamune or Nurse. Regenerator would become useless on Cursed Ring users. I'm forgetting stuff probably but just throwing my idea.

I can get behind the "Regen can't stack on top of Undead" part and not just because it's something that I've been thinking about for my own patch(es). Another reason I agree with it is because Regen makes it really difficult currently to keep track of who the hell is Undead currently due to the status order making Regen's coloration take precedent over Undead's coloration, especially since Regen still works on the Undead normally.

So either making Regen (and Poison, I guess) unable to stack on top of Undead or pulling an FFVIII (?) and making Poison heal Undead units while Regen harms them would work for me as far as Regen goes with regards to Undead.

As for making Undead immune to Haste, as much as the overabundance of Haste annoys me despite being unfortunately understandable, I can't agree with this for three reasons. The first reason is that even if Undead was made immune to Haste, Quickening would still be usable by Cursed Ring units and it's the far more egregious problem, even compared to Masamune the ability. The second reason is that Slow is still pretty crippling and having no way to combat that just because you want to use Cursed Ring or, worse, get hit by Zombie or Necromonicon seems a bit much. The third and final reason is that FFMaster eventually wants to add monsters to Arena (still) and presumably two of those will be the Always: Undead monsters that are Skeleton and Ghost and it also seems overmuch to weaken them before the word "go" is even uttered as far as they are concerned.

Not that I'd be against trying it if other people are for it. I just think other anti-Haste options can be taken instead (or first), like changing Counter Tackle so you can't kill yourself with it or making Oil and Stop both cancel and block Haste. Stuff like that.

Still, both of those are good, interesting suggestions.

(Give into the darkside of Haste 2 & Slow 2, Shintroy. You know you want to....)

Ugh. I still need to catch up on White Knight Wiegraf's videos.

In the meantime, I'll just say thanks to him and silentkaster.

I also realized that I forgot to comment on Joorum's first video and "Springtime Sisters" coming back, though at this point I don't really remember much about either of those outside of who won. So I guess I'll have to re-watch those two too. Sigh.

I at least updated the Mime entry yesterday morning in the other thread finally, but I should probably edit it (and the Lancer post) more.











Good game to White Knight Wiegraf.

(*raise hand*)

I guess I should make a note about Two Swords in the Mime post as well though even though it's suppose to be about Mimes changed.

Anyway, I'm a bit...unsure about how edits are supposed to work. Are we re-running these with edits after the current Round Robin is done? Or are the edits supposed to be for the current Round Robin? I'm guessing it's the latter, but...yeah.

Regardless, I made a change to Shamanness just in case:





Oh, whoops. I forgot to comment on the last matches:

(You missed Regenerator, technically, silentkaster as well as the fact that the first Cure was changed specifically this version to to combat Poison. Otherwise, yes, you got everything.)

Regardless, yeah, Poison's sole use basically is screwing over Phoenix Down. If that goes away, then Poison is utterly worthless even with as annoyingly long as it lasts. Cure got changed to keep it from screwing over mages (and usually just mages), which was basically the few other things Poison was/is actually good at. With that more or less gone, screwing over Phoenix Down and Berserk units is all it has. Taking away screwing over Phoenix Down (and Wish) means that Poison status might as well not even be in Arena anymore.

That said, there really does need at least one accessory that is Immune: Poison again. Hence why I've been harping about 108 Gems getting it back. In fact, I'm not entirely against two since making Magic Ring lose Earth would be fine with me since Quake and Earth Slash need to be nerfed regardless and yet Titan still needs a buff.

Quote from: silentkaster on March 26, 2015, 09:55:06 am
Typing from a phone so response won't be too detailed. Actually, the +1MA could probably go from the Bag. However, there is no viable way, with the exception of the unreliable Finger Guard, to block Talk Skill. Even Chakra Band doesn't block against the most (arguably) useful Talk Skill, Mimic Daravon. This blocks the status used by Talk Skill and is a good balance. It will probably mostly see use from support units without providing MA. It does still leave them open to DS and Berserk so it doesn't completely blunt Talk Skill. That was my thought behind it.

I see. I can get behind that I suppose, even if the part I put in bold rather ignores how Defense Ring single-handedly blocked every status Talk Skill could inflict as recently as the last version of Arena. I mean, that was half of the reason I suggested Stall in the first place, even if I now somewhat regret that.

Still, given how obnoxiously long Sleep lasts (since it hasn't been changed from vanilla), I am totally not against anything else being Immune: Sleep even if its Sleep CT really does need to be reduced by half, if not more. At this point, between Stop the spell and Stall somewhat running wild, I'm also not against something else being Immune: Stop either.

Quote from: Shintroy on March 27, 2015, 09:32:32 am
*Squire stuff*

*Chemist stuff*

*Paladin stuff*

*Archer stuff*

*Monk stuff*

*Priest stuff*

I'll stop here for now. It's more than I expected.

Geez. I feel extra long-winded now if that's more than you expected to type. Regardless, I'll use spoilers of my own to try to keep this post uncluttered. There's no need for me to (directly) comment on Chemist (again) though since I already did that above.











Shrug.

(Blegh. I thought I was caught up barring Silentkaster's newest post, but I appear to have missed White Knight Wiegraf's last two videos. Damn it. Add that to backlog.)

In the meanwhile, I at least finally got up my teams again before going for exercise, so there's that at least. I still need to update that Mime thing, which I should do immediately after this, lest I forget yet again:

(...And of course I still can't get around to fixing things in time. I should have my teams back up by sometime later today though.)

Someone nag about making an edit to the Mime post in the Team thread with regards to both not using MP and with regards to Berserk status if I haven't done so by later today, please.

Quote from: Barren on March 23, 2015, 08:54:15 am
Well do you need some of my settings Damned?

Sure. That worked quite well before, but that was on an Asus laptop as well. This one is an Acer and I'm not sure how much of a difference that will make. On top of that, I'm not sure which version of ePSXe "should" work best on it even if it was working since last time you helped a while back--gee, like two years now--that was ePSXe 1.7 or something, which I still have. It's just that it's now up to ePSXe 1.925 or something, which I've also downloaded but haven't had anymore success with getting to run well, though at least it's running at all (for a bit).

On top of that, I don't have anything to record anymore even if I can get ePSXe to work, but one thing at a time.

(I honestly don't remember the entirety of what I wanted to post when I asked silentkaster to remind me, but putting things off for at least a couple of months will do that, especially with my horrible memory.)

Regardless, I can agree with both of the above comments about Genji Helmet, which literally no one is using, and Silk Robe needing improvements still. Genji Helmet as +1 Speed would definitely see some use too, especially if Quickening dies as it should.

****

Re: (Re)Making An Accessory that has Immune: Poison vs. Light Robe and P Bag gaining Immune: Poison: Between the two options, I still think the better one would just be to give 108 Gems back Immune: Poison since it's currently nigh-worthless without any status immunities. Meanwhile, Light Robe and P Bag see a bunch of use still and, on armored units at least, there's have way to be Immune: Poison via Platina Helmet; Monks also get the still-immunity-bloated Chakra Band. Not that there shouldn't be more Immune: Poison items or at least one that any unit can use; I just don't think it should be by way of Immune: Poison being innate on Light Robe and P Bag. That may just be me though.


Re: Crisis on Infinitely Superfluous C Bag: I'd be up for changing C Bag due to simple fact that even in vanilla, "+2 MA" is easily the most used Item Attribute. So C Bag being the least used bag is hardly surprising. That said, giving it that many immunities seems a bit...weird-slash-overmuch. Why immunity to all three of those things, silentkaster?

****

So yeah, I can't really remember what I was going to say about here before, but I know at the very least that I was going to reiterate that I increasingly agree with Dokurider's suggestion for an Accessory that is Immune: Blind & Charm. I thus again reiterate that I think N-Kai Armlet would be the best fit for it despite being already decent since we really do need another Immune: Blind accessory, if only so that Angel Ring doesn't have a monopoly given all the many people that use Grand Cross.

Sure, it would be another blow to Dark element users as a source of offense, but, honestly, Dark element as viable offense isn't going to be picking up any time soon. Dark doesn't benefit from Oil--it shouldn't, at least as long as Demi is Dark element. Dark easily has the worst weapons right now, which adding Balmung would help, but not by much. And Cursed Ring isn't going anywhere in popularity, at least as long as Quickening remains.

So, yeah, let's please add Immune: Blind to N-Kai Armlet in the next version, FFMaster.

(Beyond that, I think I was going to start suggesting that we try to replace Mime with some other class given how mechanically broken Mime still is or maybe even outright introduce other human classes, but that can wait. To be truthful, though, all of my ideas for "replacements" are leaning towards mage classes.)

(Check this off as one more thing I am now caught up on.)

Thanks for doing this, TrueLight. I didn't expect this go anywhere for several reasons, especially since I figured formerdeathcorps was going to end up rather busy and disappear again, but it's nice to see that this finally got enough people to sign up to kill each other.

I do feel a bit odd that my unit ended up on the team that ended up hogging all of the Summon Magic it seems like, especially since all three of us have Fairy, but that's true randomness for you. Thanks, random.org.

Fellow teammates-slash-victims, if we want a team name, then I personally think we should go with "Dr. D and the Women". We could also use "Three Women and a Barry Berserker" though. Shrug.

Anyway, as far as commentary on the matches so far go:

(And as the days go by, I become ever lazier and lazier.)

An instance of this is not getting around to the stuff I said I would do Saturday night/Sunday morning, though I should stop expecting to get stuff done around that time when it's one of the few times I actually watch TV. Still, "Half of No Quarter" shouldn't have fought again and I have no one to blame but myself for not deleting it sooner given I said I would do so after it first fought. "Whoops".

Regardless, I'll re-watch the other five videos later still. For right now, I'll just say thanks, Otabo, and thanks, silentkaster, though I could hardly hear you mid-match during your recording this time, silentkaster. The in-game sound effects were too loud relative to your voice, especially Haste 2 and Slow 2, which were basically destroying my ears at the normal volume I use for videos. Just for your information and all that next time around. Still, thanks.

GG to both Anima Zero and Shadowdragon15.











Sigh. So much to catch-up on still, like always. Regardless, I'll try to see if I can start recording things again by next weekend, especially since I'm not doing anything. As it is though, ePSXe is still acting weird on my newest laptop and I have no idea how to fix that most basic thing even before all the other potential issues.

In the meantime, I need to update a bunch of things in the next couple of hours since this is probably all the time I'll get today or, at least, two hours is all the time I should take given how behind I am.

(Ugh. I'm an idiot. Like always, I knew I forgot something. In this instance it was noting that Mimes still don't use MP for some stupid reason. I'll fix that later, just like I should finally update my team entries tonight.)

Since I'm still around for all your foddering needs, I'd still be interested in seeing how horribly my "Esper Family Outing" team does against Barren's "Tri-Absorb" team; I suppose that team is called "Multi-Absorb" now though. Feel free to also throw said team at Otabo's "Magical Thorns"--despite the fact that the Bard now absorbs Ice--given Otabo says he wants to fight mage-heavy or status-heavy teams with it and "Esper Family Outing" is definitely the former. Besides, I imagine he wouldn't mind beating up on Summoners and I'm feeling even more masochistic than usual.

Outside of that, I need to re-watch like four or five videos since I don't really remember what happened in anything of them with great detail outside of the fact that I surprisingly barely lost to White Knight Wiegraf. So belated GG with regards to that. In the meanwhile, now that I'm caught up on the other matches, I can comment on those.











Also, to Barren, regarding Float: Indeed, Float--both the general status and thus the Movement--will make the unit immune to Earth elemental abilities, but will not prevent that same from getting hit by regular attacks using Earth-elemental weapons. So while every Earth-based ability, such as Earth Slash or Quake, will miss a Floating unit even if it's weapon based, the actual weapon shots from  any Earth-elemental weapon will still do normal damage if it hits; it's been like that since vanilla.

As such, despite the many things in vanilla that can be improved upon, I personally don't that particular quirk is actually a flaw. At the same time, I won't stand in the way of anyone wanting to nudge FFMaster about trying to change it. If that's the case, though, then I personally would rather see the Float Movement buffed to do something else alongside Always: Float, especially since Volcano is a rarely used map that currently also has really poor starting positions relative to its terrain; meanwhile, Feather Boots is easily "fixed" by just giving it Null: Earth on top of Always: Float if people think three barely used weapons hitting Float that ("logically") "shouldn't" is actually a problem.

P.S. For the record, to be perfectly clear, if you use a Grand Cross unit with an Earth-elemental weapon and Float, they'll still be immune to their own Grand Cross. This despite the fact that another unit using an Earth-elemental weapon can damage them with melee if the Grand Cross unit doesn't actually absorb Earth (which is unlikely since it would otherwise likely be pointless if you're using Float on that unit in the first place).

I see. Thanks, especially for the BATTLE.BIN thing even though I currently won't understand most of it. Good to know for other people at least.

Regardless, waiting is completely fine with me, especially since I'm not guaranteed to finish this (like always) and I read you were pretty busy with summer. It's just good to know about how easy or not it may be to do things given how many things are technically possible. The third thing with Berserk is pretty coincidental though, even though it seems like you and I want it for rather differing purposes and styles of Berserker.

Congrats on both noticing and fixing such an obscure issue Choto and Grond, especially given it was solved so quickly. I'd been noticing things were off with Draw Out for years in ARENA, but I thought that was largely because of something that FFMaster might have inadvertently changed. I never really noticed Elmdor was/is apparently so buggy since usually he was too busy using Blood Suck or Rafa was too busy dying or the Assassins were too busy being bigger issues. I wonder if this works if you change what weapons Draw Out or what Draw Out generally uses. It seems like it should, but only testing would confirm that, which can wait.

Anyway, since I'm posting in here again, I might as well dump three somewhat general status-related things that have come up while working on my own newest patch that I might actually finish for once. These might be better off in "Help!" section technically since they're more questions than outright requests, at least in the sense that I don't expect them to fulfilled anytime soon, if ever. There's no reason, however, not post them here in case anyone else might be interested in tackling them provided they can be tackled:


1. Is there a(n easy) way to go about fixing Frog's behavior for the A.I. in terms of making it so that A.I. Frogs don't run far (far) away from their team? Staying away from the enemy and/or staying behind their teammates when possible is generally fine, but given I'm not hoping for miracles that I don't believe in anyway, I'd be fine with just making it so that Frog A.I. has the A.I. attack as "normal" despite the drastic change to the unit. (Speaking of which, on a related note, has anyone looked into the far, far more minor issue of why A.I. Frogs' attacks supposed ignore Countergrasp reactions?)

2. Is there some way to essentially "fold" Invite into Train so Invite's space on the status list can be used by something else? Or does Invite essentially have to be separate for Train to work properly even if one is not actively using it for something? I'm guessing it's the latter, but there's no reason not to ask really since it isn't abundantly clear due to the rather opaque way that Invite works in general with its invisible, weird flagging.

3. Finally, is there anyway to (easily) assign Berserk status a skill set like Blood Suck (A7) and Frog (A8) have? Between the two "types", I'd personally prefer if it was like Frog's skill set where you--well, the A.I.--are restricted to moves that can only be used if you already had them in either your Primary or Secondary skill set. This compared to Blood Suck's type, where it just seems like A7 outright hijacks anything else could unit originally do and causes them to only use abilities within that skill set since no one but Elmdor has (that version of) Blood Suck (the attack).


Regardless, thanks in advance and good work once again.

(I should really see if I can get Camtasia working again on this new laptop since I still have Internet. Hell, I should see if I can get Internet working on this new laptop given how ancient this desktop is.)

In the meantime, thanks once again to silentkaster, TrueLight and Barren for recording videos as usual. Also thanks for the reminder, silentkaster, though of course by now I had forgotten what I was even going to say next in there. I think I can dredge up most of it before tonight ends, but who knows; that's literally an entirely different discussion though.










And since I've watched Barren's latest two just now, I'll actually remember what happened in them.





Good games to Barren. Since "third time's a Charm and all that", if anyone wants to record it, I wouldn't mind my "Esper Family Outing" fighting Barren's "Tri Absorb" even if I expect to be less of a fight and more of slaughter for me as per usual.


P.S. Also, yes, Barren, since no one has confirmed it for some reason, you were/are correct in calling the logographs that White Knight Wiegraf used for his team name "kanji" provided that his team name is actually meant to be pronounced in Japanese and not Chinese.

(Hey, silentkaster, when you post, remind me to post in the Balance thread before I forget again please.)

Speaking of music, I forgot to say that I find the sudden influx of Sonic music rather amusing, though I'm overall fine with it.

Quote from: White Knight Wiegraf on February 23, 2015, 01:54:46 pm

spoiler: vs Otabo

A bit late to comment on my match, but...

Mime has some problems it seems. Perhaps I should have studied them a bit more, but learning the hard way is fine, too. I've noticed it never tried to Mimic bow attacks. Does that have something to do with the equipped weapon? I assume you guys probably know more than I do, I don't really watch other matches.

Constantly picking on the Geo really helped Otabo here. My Geo is the only big AoE damage dealer, and keeping her down (or Stopped/Berserked in this case) prevented that. I'm not sure what she has equipped, but some tweaks are probably needed for that character as well. I'll have to look into that, probably later this week. Good match.

Oh. You are still around. Well, to answer your question, you can look at the post about (new) Mimes I made in the A.I. Team Building Guide 2.0.

To clear things up without you having to look there, though, Mimes' weapons tend to change and outright disappear one anyone else on their team makes a melee attack, though there was a hazy issue with weapon-lending between enemy Mimes that still hasn't been cleared up. On top of that, Defending, Charging & Performing seems to "glitch" permanently on Mimes if they get killed while Defending or interrupted while Charging & Performing, with the latter being while White Magic among many other job classes are basically worthless on them unfortunately: they get interrupted by anything their teams do and their previously Charging spells don't go off at all.

(Finally edited my last post to have the links it should have had days ago. Such sloth.)

Anyway, due to such sloth, you guys get spared my boring match analysis for once. A whole of Mimes in the three videos before the Rivalry one, though, so I suppose as much as I've forsaken that class, it was interesting to see what more could be gleaned about their behavior. It doesn't seem like any weapon sharing beyond Mimes went on in Otabo's match though. Hmmm....

As for the Rivalry, not much to say there except that I figure CT5Holy will again be lamenting how stupid the A.I. can act, especially given the way his Dancer acted in the first round of the third match. Terpsichore Christ she was dumb.

Regardless, as always thanks TrueLight and Barren. Belated thanks to TrueLight for the song name too. I suppose I'll have to check out the Xenogears series' OSTs sooner rather than later despite still having no desire to ever play those games.

(Thanks for the videos, silentkaster and TrueLight.)

Also, it's good to see that Barren isn't encased in snow given all the storms still hitting Boston and that side of the country in general.








So, in the fight between Anima Zero and Barren, I recognized "Temporal Despair" from OC Remix's remixes of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and "...And In Her Self-Loathing and Despair, She Found Wrath" from OC Remix's remixes of Chrono Trigger; I'll edit in the links later.

May I know what the third song was though, TrueLight? I didn't recognize it, though it was something that remained greatly of The Outer Limits's opening theme for all things.

Regardless, thanks again.

Spoiler EDIT: Whoops. I forgot add an extra end-spoiler tag.

Lazy EDIT: Finally got around to adding the links to those two things. My, how intensive.

(Damn it. I always miss a typo or omission, even in shorter posts.)

I must say I like that idea. I vaguely thought of something along those lines when considering alternatives, but then dismissed it between Diamond Armor's ubiquity and the fact that the new Chirijiraden would easily out damage it. Still, it somewhat ties into the actual abilities of Kiyomori the ability and would actually be useful while letting Samurai use something other than Diamond Armor--say, perhaps, Carabini Mail--with it instead; it also be a less suicidal option than the new Chirijiraden. Not sure if it "should" get more W-EV though--like 25%--between male Samurai's general lack of active healing and the fact that I admittedly wouldn't mind giving the proposal for the new Masamune 20% W-EV on top of its Range and other things.

Shrug. It's not like I'll ultimately decide these things anyway.

Regardless, before I forget again, someone has done the 70/70 thing with Kikuichimo(n)ji on a (male) Samurai, but it was with Two Swords rather than the innate Two Hands. The damage was pretty good, like 300~ average when just one procs went off IIRC. It's been a while though since anyone used it since I think that person was Darkblade and that was like two years ago already at least.

(Also, before I forget, part of the reason for switching Muramasa and Spell Edge back with each other is because 100% Faith coming from faster units, one of which has innate access to Two Swords, is pretty overpowering and the new Muramasa is horrifically underpowered compared to it on top of that. Add in the fact that having access to Faith is overshadowing most of the other Ninjato and directly undermines Ninja's elemental -tons, which have been seeing a lot less use lately despite Atheist Bow now existing and the changes to Poles and, yeah, it really needs to change back.)

I guess you have a point about my proposal for the new Kiyomori katana. I wonder if just adding +1 Move to that would "fix" it given that I can't really think of anything else to do even though that obviously steps on Knives' space a bit.

All I know is that Kiyomori really shouldn't be "C Bag: The Katana" since otherwise female Samurai aren't going to ever use any of the other Katana, though maybe the changes to Asura Knife, Kotetsu Knife and Heaven's Cloud the katana would see that change. Hell, even the nigh exclusive use of Kiyomori wouldn't be such a problem if male Samurai weren't so...mediocre at best.

(Well that's out of the way at least.)

That went about as well as expected. I would have preferred if other teams were used given I just updated those, but seeing how I clearly have no business making teams in the first place, much less trying to "fix" them", it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, thanks for the video, Barren. Now you can record actually decent matches.

(I do so loathe double-posting, but if I must....)





Given it came up a while ago, I figure that I might as well post relatively comprehensive list of facts about Lancer's Jump even though most of this can easily be found in Aerostar's still useful "Final Fantasy Tactics Battle Mechanics Guide". Hereafter it will be referred to as the "BMG": http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197339-final-fantasy-tactics/faqs/3876.

We might as well start with the obvious and work our way down to the esoterica:


1. Jump's Invincibility: While Jumping, a Jump user cannot be targeted or affected by anything other than already afflicted Slow or Haste, which merely affects CT earned as we will go over later. As such, a unit using Jump is completely invincible from it starts until when it resolves. Any spells targeted on them that go off while they're jumping will fizzle unless it potentially affected more than them, in which case it will act normally otherwise if there are any other valid targets. Even map wide abilities like Lore, Dance or Song will miss Jumping units, even if in the case of Lore or Song the ability hitting them would otherwise have been beneficial to them. Finally, Jump's invincibility is somewhat transferred to the space that user originally bounded from as no unit can move onto that space, even via knockback; moving through or targeting that space with delayed actions abilities still works normally though. [/so obvious it may verge on condescension]


2. Jump's JP Parameters: Level Jump skills control the horizontal. Vertical Jump skills control the vertical. These are the Outer Limits. Both skills make any values below them redundant to buy. And due to the nature of how Jump currently works, Jump is the only ability in the game where all four units on a team can have access to it. [/still so obvious it may verge on condescension]


3. Jump's Other Parameters: Jump is affected by Defense UP, Protect and presumably Unyielding as far as damage reduction goes. As far as damage boosting Jump goes, Jump is affected by Sleeping, Frog, being equipped with a Spear and Zodiac Compatibility. Jump is not affected by Attack UP, Martial Arts or Two Swords (in the sense that you'll strike with both weapons; upper/right-handed weapon takes priority) or Two Hands; Jump is supposedly affected by Overwhelm though. Jump cannot be evaded, but still counts as a physical attack and thus triggers Reactions that react to physical attacks as well as still triggering Counter Flood currently. Finally, Jump can (thankfully) only target panels, not specific units, though the A.I. is generally very good at Jumping only if it will assuredly hit the target.


4. Jump's Base Damage: With any weapon, its damage is [PA * K] * WP, where K is 1 unless the weapon is a Spear, in which case K is 1.5 (or 3/2). If the Jump user is barehanded, then Jump damage is [(PA * Br) / 100] * PA...or, at least, it was originally if FFMaster changed it. Also, for all the many other things it ignores, Jump is affected by the user (and the target's) Fury from what it seems, even when not barehanded.


5. Jump's Resolution Time: This is pretty easy to calculate actually since it is not affected by Short Charge and neither Haste nor Slow directly affect Jump's resolution time since, in fact, nothing can (currently): CT = [50 / Jump user's base Speed], rounded up.

For example, a 10 base Speed unit like a Lancer with a Javelin will have their Jump land within 5 CT. An 11 base Speed unit, such as a Lancer with a Javelin and a Zephyr Shield, and a 12 base Speed unit, such as a Lancer with a Javelin, a Zephyr Shield and Sprint Shoes, will also have their Jumps land within 5 CT. A 13 base Speed unit, however, such as a Lancer with a Javelin, a Zephyr Shield, the new Genji Armor and Sprint Shoes will have their Jump land within 4 CT; incidentally, 13 base Speed is the fastest a Lancer can get (now) without using Equip Clothes to get access to Thief Hat or, sigh, Quickening.

(Note: This is yet another way that Quickening breaks the game and why it should die in a fire between it both potentially decreasing Jump's landing time and making it more & more difficult to land Jumps, but I'll stop before I digress.)


6. Jump's Element: Jump is always, always non-elemental regardless of the weapon used. So a Holy Lance unit with Jump that otherwise can't strike a unit equipping a Chameleon Robe, Cursed Ring, Small Mantle or the new Diamond Shield can Jump on that same unit for damage. Similarly, given that Jump normalizes damage like Meatbone Slash does, Jump users with Blood Sword or Bloody Strings can Jump on an Undead unit without hurting themselves; they don't drain damage from the Jump though due to this normalization.


7. Jump's Interaction With Status and Movement for the User: As alluded to under the first point, Slow and Haste do still affect a Jumping unit, if only with regards to the CT when they land. Normal Jumpers generally land with ~50 CT, but Hasted Jumpers originally landed with ~75 CT; due to the necessary reduction in Haste's Speed boosting, this may have been reduced to ~63 CT--until now, it's never occurred to me to check. Similarly, Slow's effect--if any-- on the CT is rather nebulous currently given the BMG doesn't mention it oddly, but I'm at least fairly certain that it doesn't leave the user at a mere ~25 CT even with a crippling as Slow is. Then again....

Beyond that, most statuses maintain their normal effects with regards to Jump, though any status that allows you to Jump will have its CT countdown (if any) temporarily frozen while Jumping, including the aforementioned Slow and Haste I believe. The two big exceptions for "normal" relations with regards to Jump are Poison and Regen, of which Jumpers can avoid the damage and healing by Jumping since the normal checks for those don't get to go off; their CT countdowns are still presumably frozen though.

I suppose that Blind technically is an exception since while Blind will still affect the user (infinitely) as far as normal weapon strikes concerned, Jump's inability to be evaded trumps it and thus Blind is basically useless against a unit that can land Jumps.

(And, no, Death Sentence/Doom isn't affected since that counts down at the beginning of your turn, so even Doomed Lancers are dead (wo)men walking...well, jumping, current issues with the Immune: Dead equipment aside.)


8. Mimes and Jumps: Supposedly, Mime can instantly mimic Jump even in vanilla, but I can't personally ever recall seeing this happen. Similarly, despite the fact that FFMaster has generally kept all abilities able to Mimic'd in Arena currently, for better for worse, I can't recall seeing a Mime mimic Jump. It's probably happened, but I just don't recall it if it has.

Far more intriguing is the still yet unanswered question of what would happen if one gave the new Mime Jump secondary, said Mime Jumped and then something that could be Mimic'd happened.... I find it likely that nothing detrimental would happen in actuality, but it's also entirely possible it would break something and maybe even outright crash the game. Guess we'll never know though.... (Hint hint. Someone test this please.)


9. The Best Part of Waking Up...Is Not a Lance In Your Face:  As I'm sure most of us used to vanilla FFT have noticed at one point or another, the A.I. is rather...weird when Jumping on Sleep-afflicted units. The weirdness comes not from Jumping on enemies for often fatal damage, but that A.I. will very often figure it's somehow a very good idea to Jump on a Sleeping ally, often for fatal damage, to wake them up...dead. This despite the fact that it would pretty much always be both less damaging and quicker to just jab said ally awake with a regular weapon attack, especially if a Spear. As yet, no one seems to know why this happens--I'd wager it's probably a glitch or just bad coding--and thus no one has fixed. Thankfully, the A.I. will (usually) choose better methods of getting rid of Sleep such as Maiden's Kiss if the Jump user has them available, but just be mindful of this in as much as you can actually control it.


10. The Only Way that Jump Can Be Evaded: Since Jump, for all its oddities, is still a physical attack that takes the weapon (type) used into account, there is one way that Jump can actually be evaded in Arena: Projectile Guard. If the user of Jump has a Longbow, a Crossbow or a Gun as his/her weapon, then his/her Jump will have the same chance of triggering Projectile Guard as any other attack where that unit uses his/her weapon in the actual attack.

(Or, at least, this was the case in at least one previous version or Arena. I'm admittedly unsure if it's the case still, though I doubt that FFMaste would have changed it given it's only come up once in all of Arena and it was pretty hilarious. Regardless, try to avoid using either of those three weapon types with Jump unless your team really needs it for some reason.)


11. Lancer's Jump Card: Going back to Jump being the only skillset where everyone on a team can learn it despite Arena's limit of two repeats per team otherwise, I suppose I should mention the easily forgotten fact that Lancers also innately have access to Jump even if they don't buy any of the Level or Vertical upgrades. Indeed, all Lancers have access to a Range 1, Vertical 1 Jump from the word go. Despite the fact that much has changed in the transition from vanilla to Arena, this presumably hasn't. Whether the A.I. would actually use it (competently) though....


12. The Blind Jumping The Blind: Speaking of A.I. short-coming, the A.I. as a whole is rather blind to an unfortunate number of things and Jump seems to be one of them. "Seems" being the key word here is part of why I'm ending this list on what's ultimately a theory, but given my observances of the A.I.'s various failings, among them is the fact that A.I. will quite often "kill-steal" from a Jumping ally rather than choosing to do a (far more) productive option even if it has the choice. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I wouldn't entirely be surprised if A.I. was generally outright incapable of seeing how much damage Jump can do given the whole "LET ME WAKE YOU UP WITH DEATH!" thing Jumping units tend to have going as detailed in number 9. It thus wouldn't be surprising to me if we found out (eventually) that all the A.I. sees as far as Jump is concerned is "does damage" and "can't be evaded". It would certainly explain some things....


As for avoiding this and other A.I. stupidity, you can't unfortunately to be completely honest. So just like you'll face-palm for the A.I. basically always refusing to just Jump out of the way of an incoming spell or charged abilities even if it doesn't have a valid target in range, this too will often happen. Learn to cope (or weep completely silently).

In the meantime, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, so I'll probably have to edit this eventually.