Part 77: Basic Hybrid Jobs
Job Overview: Basic Hybrid JobsFellblade:
Requirements: 3 abilities (Knight, Wizard)
Unlocks: 4 abilities (Warmage*)
*=other jobs required.
Equipment: Sword, Dagger, Rapier, Robe, Light Armor, Shield
Mastery Bonus: Atk+5, MND+5, Crit+2
Personally, I love the Fellblade class. It’s nothing incredibly powerful, but is a nice, well rounded class with useful growths, active and passive abilities. For growths, it has above average growths in ATK and MND and average in basically everything else but speed which is a bit low. Their equipment is also solid, being able to use rapiers for stats, daggers for statuses, and get decent defenses through the use of shields. For abilities, they mostly get a bunch of cheap skills that are hybrid with a slightly lower modifier (~0.8x usually) that have a 2 square range, have a good chance of inflicting status effects, and are treated as a regular attack in all other respects i.e. they use the equipped weapon’s element and debuff infliction and trigger the evade attack skill. There are also 2 very useful passives: 1 that just raises the chance of inflicting debuffs by 10%, and one that allows all skills and spells to crit and restore a small bit of MP when that happens. Overall, it’s a solid job that you can’t really go wrong with. Though I’d probably not stick in the class itself, if only because other ones can be a bit more focused with what you want them to do.
Notable Abilities:
Poison/Sleep/Decay/Chaos Slice: 0.8-0.85x hybrid attacks that have a chance to inflict the named debuff, have a range of 2, and are otherwise treated as a normal attack. The class’s main abilities, they’re very solid and are able to both inflict good damage and mess with targets. They’re also either 8 or 12 MP, so they’re very spammable. Chaos slice is also interesting because it instead has a 100% chance to inflict a totally random debuff, which can be quite useful if you’re lucky.
Versatile: A passive that allows skills and spells to crit, and causes them to restore a bit of MP when it happens. It’s useful, both for the potential damage boost and MP help, and can be very useful when combined with the + crit chance passives that other classes have access to.
Malice: a 0.6x Magic attack that targets a full 3x3 square. It’s unique in that it spreads any debuffs from the center target to anybody else in the radius. While it’s a bit situational, you can either shove enemies around or just take advantage of their positioning to disable multiple enemies at once. Just be careful not to spread them to your guys as well.
Gambler:
Requirements: 3 abilities (Scoundrel, Wizard)
Unlocks: None
Equipment: Dagger, Spear, Light Armor, Shield
Mastery Bonus: HP+5, EVA+2, Crit+2
The Gambler job is one that I could see jumping into maybe, but one that I’m not a fan of overall. As a chassis its fine enough, with above average attack and speed, and average everything but RES. Its equipment is also decent, with solid survivability and the range boost from spears is always nice. However, other than the 2 late ones, I don’t really like the skills. The main 4 are the Wild Cards. Depending on which of the four you use, you can try to buff, debuff, damage, or heal the target. They’re unavoidable, which is nice, but are otherwise random in how effective they are, and can even backfire and apply the opposite effect. Like we saw in Oldebzar when Mercier poisoned himself, the backfires seem to happen depressingly often, even with their passive that boosts luck. The other abilities and passives are actually solid, but not enough to really make me want to spend much time in the class overall.
Notable Abilities:
Initative: A passive that gives the user a free turn at the start of combat. This can be nice to get an early buff off or start getting MP going. However, I think it’s generally more useful in the AI’s hands than mine because they have the numbers advantage to actually use extra free turns. When it’s on my guys, it often feels like the turn is wasted solely because it has to happen at the start.
Allure: a decently long ranged attack that has a 75% chance of inflicting charm on the target. Anything that makes fewer enemies target you is good, and charm is basically just a better berserk. The fact that it’s only 75% does hurt it a bit, but not enough to make it bad.
Quicken: A spell with a decent range that gives the target an immediate turn. Sadly, not as exploitable as in previous tactics games because it also gives the target a status that prevents them from being quickened for another 2 turns. Still, being able to swap turns around is very nice and can really save you if you time its use correctly.
Gadgeteer:
Requirements: 3 abilities (Scoundrel, Wizard)
Unlocks: None
Equipment: Maul, Mace, Light Armor, Shield
Mastery Bonus: ATK+2, DEF+5, RES +5
The gadgeteer is a class that I really haven’t used much. Not because it’s bad, but it’s just one that I rarely remember to actually go into. It’s also one that’s a bit unique compared to other classes, because its ability tree only has 3 parts. That’s because, instead of learning abilities, the Gadgeteer uses the gadgets that we’ve been finding and crafting throughout the game. And there are a lot of gadgets available. While no individual gadget is incredibly powerful (they’re often slightly inferior in either cost, range, or just damage compared to a similar ability), the class’s skillset opens up a ton of options. You can give an AOE haste, restore MP, shove someone, give offensive buffs, defensive debuffs, heal people, and even clear all buffs that an enemy has. Also, because there are only 3 abilities to learn, its incredibly easy to master. Growths-wise, the class is nothing special, with pretty much everything being slightly below average. Overall, it seems like a meh class in and of itself, but the skillset is always a decent option to use for support.
Notable Abilities:
Energizer: Restore 20 MP to the target, at a cost of 8 MP. This can be quite useful to jumpstart using expensive MP abilities early on or to continue using them without having to regenerate more. It’s just like using the MP stone item, but it’s not limited.
Perfect Focus: One of the 2 passives. This increases all damage and/or healing done while the user is at full HP. Obviously not useful on one of your front-liners, but this can be quite strong if you stick it on a gunner or a sorcerer who don’t need to be anywhere near their targets.
Mana Expert: The other passive, it makes the character start with 15 MP instead of 0. It’s another jumpstart to get into expensive abilities faster. This could be very useful to take people out early, but because it usually takes a few hits to actually down someone, I don’t usually think that this is worth a passive slot.