Part 78: Badge Jobs Part I

Running a bit behind on having a full update ready, so instead here’s a quick job overview.

Job Overview: Badge Jobs Part 1

As a general trend, none of the badge jobs unlock any other jobs.

Werewolf



Requirements: 4 abilities (Mercenary), 1 Badge: Lunar Crest, Non-Story Character

Equipment: Dagger, Sword, Light Armor

Mastery Bonus: HP+10, ATK+5, Crit+2

The Werewolf is the most basic badge job since you can get access to it pretty early on. That’s not to say that it’s bad though. It has pretty good growths, with the 2nd highest attack in the game, above average speed, and about average in everything else but defense. The class itself is also the most mobile base in the game, with the most movement and tying for the highest jump. Equipment-wise it’s a bit lacking, since swords aren’t necessarily the strongest weapons and could really use more defense than light armor often gives. The job has a good number of useful abilities, including a leap attack that both moves the user and then damages everyone they land next to, a burst-AOE that has a chance to root (though it scales off of magic), and a pretty spammable strong hit that has the prevent-raise property like collect pelt/bounty. Both passives are also good, and are a decent reason to dip into this class on their own. Overall, I like the job a lot. It’s useful both while you’re in it and later on, for both abilities and general stats. Though I’d probably move on to another overall class, if only to get access to some better weapons.




Notable Abilities:

Leap: This a pretty unique ability, in that it moves you to the target space and does not require you to swap spaces with a target unit like sabotage or any of the monster ones. Once you’re there, it does a 0.75x hit to all adjacent targets. It does require that you actually damage a unit during the attack, so no using it to jump around the battlefield. I like this because it has a decently long range and is a solid way to quickly close in on the enemy. Maybe not necessary on a Werewolf itself, but it can work really well on a slower and less mobile class, especially with the huge vertical range.

Howl: Deal a 1x Magical attack that hits a large area around the user and can inflict root. While you probably won’t get much use out of this in Werewolf thanks to its low magic growth, this is a relatively cheap (10 MP) attack that can be used to hit a lot of enemies at once. It combos well with leap if you can set something up like a quicken, and mass status effect infliction is always strong.

Know Weakness II: A 25% crit chance boost. Notably, because it has a different name, it stacks with the boost from the regular Know Weakness. Combine them with some mastery bonuses, some boosting equipment, and a high crit chance class and you can pretty reliably get a 50% damage boost.

Blood Trophy: A 1.8x hit that prevents the target’s revival. It’s somewhat spammable since it only costs 18 MP and the perma-death effect is super useful. I also swear that it actually deals more damage than a 1.8x should, since it usually deal way more than double a single normal hit would.

Vessel:



Requirements: 5 abilities (Mender, Wizard), Badge: Bone Crest Non-Story Character

Equipment: Scythe, Rapier, Crossbow, Light Armor, Shield

Mastery Bonus: MP+5, MND+5, Water/Fire/Earth/Lightning Res +5

For flavor, Vessels are effectively the summoners of this game. They have a bunch of abilities, each of which has a different element, AOE, cost, and strength, though they’re all at least decently expensive since the cheapest one costs 12 MP. These abilities are all unique, in that they are in a special category, called Special, that means they effectively can’t be prevented through statuses or evaded through reactions. All of them scale only off of MND, which is great because this class has the 2nd highest MND growth in the game. It also has the highest MP growth in the game (which is okay I guess), and is slightly above average in everything else but HP and SPD. The class is very weird with its equipment, with its best magical weapon being a rapier but you could also use a crossbow (or a scythe for some reason?!?), and it wears light armor and can use a shield. The passives do encourage using a rapier over the other 2, because one boosts both ATK and MND by 20% of the other stat, and the other gives you a bonus on your next hit after using a regular attack. It seems to encourage a style of play where you get in close and alternate between summoning and just whacking people. Overall, this one of my favorite classes because of the variety of moves it gets. Plus I just think the base outfit looks cool.



Notable Abilities:

Hallowed Mind: Gives the character a 0.45x boost to damage the next turn after using a regular attack (0.35x if it’s a ranged attack). A very interesting passive that can be useful in this class, but really comes into its own if used on a Fellblade or Warmage because their abilities either incorporate a regular attack or count as a regular attack.

Quetzalcoatl: A 20 MP attack that deals 1.55x thunder damage in a straight line. It only has a vert of 3 after the start, but it goes on essentially forever. It’s situational, but on some maps this can let you hit a ton of people from really far away for quite solid damage.

Fafnir: A 22 MP attack that hits an enemy for a 2.3x hit of earth damage. It's single target, has pretty long range, and cannot be evaded, which is pretty nice. As mentioned by TheGreatEvilKing, this is the single strongest magical attack in the game. It's slightly expensive, but guaranteed damage is great, especially when it's actually a very high amount. Also, because it's elemental damage it's not even too difficult to make a build that shoots up the damage even higher.

Immortal Souls: The only non-elemental ability, this is a 30 MP attack that hits a 3x3 square of for 2x damage. It’s pretty strong and hits a huge area, what’s not to like?

Physie: A 1.3x heal that hits the 4 adjacent spaces to the caster, and also restores 5 MP. While I probably wouldn’t use it often due to the short range and high cost, it is a strong heal and is always a nice option to have.

Vampire:





I know we haven’t seen this job yet, but I’ve had the crest sitting in my inventory for a bit and just haven’t actually had someone fill the requirements to be one. Still, it fits so I might as well cover it now. Where Werewolf was the physical class and Vessel was the magical, the Vampire is sort of a hybrid class. It has a number of attacks that use either ATK or MND, and 1 ability that’s actually a hybrid and uses both. The basic 2 abilities have a high chance of inflicting bleed, and the most of later ones either do bonus damage or inflict other statuses if the target is bleeding. So it has a interesting feel, but I generally think that it’s too much work to make the other attacks usable. Growth-wise, the class is actually very good. It’s pretty much above average in everything except HP and Speed. While it is below average in Hp, its speed is near the top. For equipment, the job has pretty typical rogue stuff, though I think it makes a lot more sense to just use the ranged weapons. It also has access to both robes and light armor. Overall, I think this is a solid enough class, but not one that I ever gravitate towards. Other than 1 passive, which is really good, it seems like a lot of other classes get better or more focused skills. While there are classes that could make use of this job’s skills as backups, the Vampire class itself is decently out of the way from their typical path.



Notable Abilities:

Bat Form: Effectively gives the character flying. I was wrong when describing Reiner’s Spymaster, as this is the only other ability that changes a character’s movement type. Mobility is really good in this game, so I’d say that it’s often worth it to use a slot for the boost.

Charm: Like the name says, you charm the target. 100% accuracy for such a strong effect is awesome, with the only downsides being a very short range and semi-high MP cost.

Blood Suck: A 0.75x magical attack that absorbs all damage you do and gets a 0.45x boost if the target is already bleeding. This could be solid, but I don’t think that Vampire has the stats or equipment to really make use of it. It could be a fun way to keep a warmage going, since it can be cast with their main ability, or could be used as a backup for a pure caster though.

Night Embrace: A 3.2x physical hit that inflicts sleep if the target is already bleeding. It’s definitely a strong hit and being able to disable the target is nice, but the 1 square range really hurts its use. I can see some use cases for this in some close-range classes, but I think I would generally prefer something like righteous blade’s lower cost or snipe’s long range.




Also, is the new format I used for Vampire significantly better than the previous one? It feels to me like it conveys the info a bit better than the previous one.