Part 79: Advanced Physical Jobs
Job Update: Advanced Physical Classes:Reaver
Unlocks:
3 abilities (Duelist*)
*= other jobs required
The next step in close range physical attackers, the Reaver is essentially a berserker. Its growths are entirely focused on hitting hard and being nearly dead, with the 2nd highest attack growth and tied for the highest HP growth, but its defensive growths, mind, and MP (for what that’s worth) are all terrible and the speed is just slightly below average. This theme is continued with their equipment, which is limited to swords, axes (which are usually 10-20% stronger than swords but decrease defense a bit), and light armor. As for abilities, many of the active ones are similar to the Demon Knight’s, but less powerful and/or with a lower cost. But the passives are absolutely amazing and synergize very well with both the class itself and a lot of other classes. Overall, I love this class, and I think one of the only things that lets it down is that it doesn’t have access to scythes.
Notable Abilities:
Into the Fray: A passive that increase damage or healing dealt by a significant amount (from 0.125x up to 0.85x) depending on the number of adjacent enemies (The specific values are 1=0.125x, 2=0.32x, 3=0.55x, and 4=0.85). This passive is absolutely insane for a melee attacker. At base, you’ll be getting a 0.125x damage boost which is decent in and of itself, and if you can work the positioning right then you can get some absolutely absurd number going.
Bloodlust: A passive that increases the damage you deal, depending on how much HP the character has lost. I haven’t found the exact scaling formula for this, and it’s definitely not a 1:1 percentage, but it is still very significant when you get low. This is the real meat of the combo with Demon Knight and can really help to turn a struggling fight around as you get a huge damage boost just before you die.
Whirling Blow: A 0.95x hit that targets all adjacent units and costs 0 MP. It’s a nice way to give a melee character an AOE attack and it combos very, very well with Into The Fray.
Spread Pain: Deal 1x Magical damage and transfer all debuffs to the target. It won’t be strong, but It’s a very nice way to clear debuffs while leaving healers free to actually heal or do damage.
Desperate Blow: A 16 MP attack that deals as much damage as the character is missing HP. It’s fixed damage, so you can’t take advantage of Bloodlust, but this can be a great way to knock out physically defensive enemies or to weaken enemies for kills with Collect Pelt/Bounty.
Gunner
Unlocks:
4 abilities (Assassin)
In contrast to the Reaver, who’s all about getting close, the Gunner is all about staying far away. Their growths aren’t amazing, with above average HP, attack, and defense and about average speed but below average magical growths and low MP. Their equipment is also incredibly limited as they can literally only equip guns and light armor. However, they’re the only non-unique/badge class that can equip guns, which are pretty nice. They have low attack compared to bows, but a much longer range and are one handed (so can either be used with a shield or dual wielded!). As for abilities, the class’s actives focus on debuffing the target, with 4 separate ones that have a chance of debuffing and then a separate ability that deals more damage for each debuff on the target. There are a few damage ones, but the only notable one is Focus which is situationally useful. Overall, on its own, the class is not too great, as the skillset is not amazing. But combo it with secondary skillsets to get things like the Knight’s One For All (to target every enemy in your massive range with attacks) or the Ranger’s Sniper Shot and you can do some great work.
Notable Abilities:
Focus: Spend a turn and 6 MP to double the damage or healing that you do on your next action. It’s very situational and doesn’t really synergize with the base kit, but can be amazing with strong single hits on a secondary skillset to 1 shot things.
Magical Bullet: A 1x attack that hits res instead of defense. It’s not incredibly strong, but can be a nice way to take out things like Pekites with lopsided growths.
Concentration: A passive that boosts your accuracy by 20%. It’s nice and basically makes it so that you’ll only miss against things like Assassins with stacked evasion passives.
Height Advantage: The other passive, which increased damage done by 0.05x (up to 0.4x) for each level of height that you’re above the target. It’s another situational one, but on certain maps this can rocket your damage up a ton.
Peddler
Unlocks:
3 abilities (Duelist*)
*= other jobs required
Unlike many other classes, the Peddler is a very supportive class that specifically focuses on traps and items. It has just below average attack and mind but everything else is just above average, and decently varied equipment (though I don’t know why you’d ever pick axes). The abilities are what make this class interesting though. It has 4 traps to put down that end the victim’s turn and either automatically inflict a status effect or take ½ of their hp away. They have an AOE haste ability and a crit up. However, what I think are most interesting are the item abilities. They have a passive that doubles the potency of any item (potions heal 200 hp a pop, mana stone can restore 40 MP, and rocks can deal 100 fixed damage) and an active ability that makes an item AOE (though it specifically cannot be used with phoenix ashes or the mana stone). While it’s not as broken as, say, FFTA2’s Ranger with reverse items, they can be very powerful while your item stocks last. I don’t typically use the skillset, just because I prefer other ones, but it can definitely be a useful secondary one. Definitely no reason to stick in the class itself though.
Notable Abilities:
I effectively went over them already, but anyway
Item Potency: A passive that doubles the strength of an item. It’s great for making potions into strong heals, giving a unit a big MP boost, or just inflicting consistent damage with rocks
Patented Usage: Use 14 MP to turn an item into a small AOE. Combos very well with Item Potency to let you turn the Peddler into a versatile supporter.
Lacerating/Immobilizing/Alluring/Painful Trap: Lets you put down a trap that stops whichever enemy crosses them and either debuffs or hurts them. It can be tough to actually get the AI to hit them, but they’re definitely interesting abilities.