I have modified the "calculator" job as it's hardly used.
I found the calculator attacks couldn't be modified so well in the patcher, so I found some blanks at the end of the list of abilities (just under "parasite") I gave these abilities new names in the text editor, descriptions, status inflictions, ect.
my problem is the following:
I wanted to install "counter" and "mp switch" as the support and reaction abilities. when I do, it just places "mp switch" in both slots, the characters do counter-strike, but the mp shield tends to only absorb damage *some* of the time..
also, when I get a playable character, the abilities button is greyed out. It says I haven't learned any battle combos or something to that effect. I set the abilities to 100% chance to learn with 0 jp cost.
Should I just grab some already-existing abilities and change those around? I need 5 that I won't encounter from another job class in the campaign. I wanted to change the calculator's job commands, but the patcher wouldn't let me change very much with those.
IIRC, Calculator is one of the hard-coded jobs that need ASM to be mucked around with, first. And it's normal for most reaction abilities to only activate some of the time and not every time; most of them are Brave-based.
I wanted to set brave 100 and faith 0 as an innate value, but I had trouble achieving that.
So should I reprogram current existing abilities? Or should I use a different job class entirely?
Only one reaction ability can proc at a time. It will proc in a priority order, and if the first check fails it'll go to the second attack. So for something with Counter and MP Switch and 70 brave being hit by a move that can be countered, it will counter at 70%, MP switch at 21%, do nothing at 9%. You will never see both happen at the same time.
There is a priority with some reaction abilities, regardless of which order you put them in. Also some reactions don't play too well with each other either. Anything with the countergrasp trigger seems to outprioritize anything else.
I'll play around with it and see what it does without counter. Although your breakdown of priorities explains perfectly the way the AI had been acting.