Part 81: Final Normal Classes

And because that was a relatively short one, here is

Job Update: Final Normal Classes:

Sorcerer





Unlocks:

6 abilities (Lich*)

*= other jobs required

The peak of regular magic attackers, the Sorcerer is a pretty one note job. Of course, that note is “blast the entire the battlefield with solidly powerful magic”, so it’s still a very powerful class. Most of its stats are solidly below average, especially speed which is one of the lowest growths in the game, but it has the 3rd highest MND growth and an above average Res growth as well. Combined with a limited equipment selection, the Sorcerer is probably not a class I’d try to use as a base chassis for the long term. Despite the mediocre stats, the class itself is definitely worth dipping into and/or mastering due to its strong abilities and passives.



Notable Abilities:

--Storm: All of the active abilities of the class are essentially the same thing: spend a lot of MP to hit all enemies with an elemental or non-elemental magic attack with decent power. They’re all quite expensive, but that actually combos with the other passives quite well.

Eruptor: A passive that’s pretty simple, but quite useful. Each turn the character doesn’t deal damage, they get a 0.18x bonus applied to their next hit (up to 0.72 after 4 turns). Because you can still heal or buff, this can be a great way to boost your sorcerer’s damage while still letting you do other things

Economy: An incredibly simple passive. Just cut all MP costs down by a third. This is useful in basically any situation, since it either lets you cast a spell a turn earlier, spam things more effectively, or do things like keep Mystic Shield up and running more easily.

Warmage





Unlocks: None

The Warmage is the final hybrid class, and it is great. It starts off with above average offensive growths and speed, without too much compromising on survivability. Then it goes to a great equipment selection that allows you to customize how you want to deal damage. You can use Scythes to get big single hits in, use a rod to focus on doing more magical damage, or use a mace if you really wanted to. Both the rods and maces can be dual-wielded if you want to get more damage in that way too. Getting both robes and light armor allows for versatility though I generally lean robes because they usually boost your MND more than armor boosts your ATK. The abilities are pretty simple, essentially single target spells, AOE hybrid bursts, and then Infused Edge to combo them with the strong basic attacks. Overall a pretty great job, and one that you could definitely leave a character in as their final choice. That said, the skillset in general is good as well, and can definitely see some strong use as a secondary skillset too.



Notable Abilities:

Leech Mana: A passive that converts about a tenth of the damage that a regular attack does into MP. This is great for this class, since it’s relatively MP hungry and can allow you to much more easily build up MP to use the bursts or Pulsar.

Haste: A reaction ability that counters by hasting the unit. Haste is a good buff, especially on an offensive unit, so getting easy access to it is really nice. I think that slow is better because it can affect multiple enemies and benefit the whole team but this is still pretty useful if you don’t bring a buffer along.

Infused Edge: The core of the class, this ability seems pretty simple on the face of it. You do a normal attack, and then cast a single target version of any spell the character knows on the same target. At base, it’s pretty powerful and can boost your damage a lot.

What really makes it shine is combining it with other classes. Dual-wield lets you hit twice before casting a spell, combining that with doublehand lets you dual wield Scythes and then cast. The Vessel’s Hallowed Mind essentially gives the spell component a 0.45x boost, and the Hallowed Body passive massively boosts both of the attacking stats. You could use it as a Gunner or Ranger to blast people from range with huge damage, or you could slap a Plague Doctor’s skillset on as a secondary and then both damage and inflict a big variety of debuffs.

And then there’s this skill’s very interesting interaction with a specific weapon. That weapon is the Auto Crossbow. On the face of it, it’s a pretty basic weapon: an elementless crossbow that we’ve been able to purchase in a shop for quite a while now. However, it does have one unique quality: when you use a regular attack, the auto crossbow will hit the targeted square AND the three squares right behind it. This only applies to regular attacks, and not to any abilities, even if they use the weapon to determine range. But because Infused Edge makes a regular attack it, in fact, does get the extra squares. And then, because they were part of the targeted area, the supposedly single target spell is also applied to them. So by using the auto crossbow you’re suddenly able to hit up to 4 enemies with effectively 2 powerful attacks a turn. 3 if you dual wield a 2nd crossbow. (Thanks to Veryslightlymad for telling me about it on Discord).

Duelist





Unlocks: None

The Duelist is the final purely physical class. Statwise, it’s pretty much what you’d expect, with a very high ATK growth, a high HP growth and decent DEF and SPD, but below average magical growths. Its equipment is also relatively limited, though daggers and rapiers are solid enough weapons. The name describes it pretty well, in that the class is focused on one-on-one combat. It has no ability that targets more than 1 square and even has a passive that boosts their damage every time they target the same unit. However, as a trade-off only the Revive spell takes MP. Every other ability is available at all times and they are all pretty powerful. Overall, it’s a class that I really like and is totally viable to stick with as your primary. I just rarely end up using it because it’s a pain to actually reach since you need to go through almost every other physical job to do so.



Notable Abilities:

Flowing/Blazing/Earthen/Thundering Flourish: These are the main attacks of the class and they’re really strong. They all hit with a 1.55x modifier (for comparison, Kyrie and Anadine’s Wrathful Blow/Enraged Blow hit for 1.6x but take ¼ of their health and cost MP), and have a 25% chance of inflicting a corresponding debuff.

Evade Skill: One of the most powerful reaction abilities, Evade Skill makes it so that the unit is entirely immune to most non-magic abilities. This is both great at keeping your units alive in general and also for dodging annoying status effects from classes like Gunners.

Leech Life: The unit absorbs about 1/3 of the damage done by their regular attack as HP. While useful on a Duelist for keeping them up, it works really well on classes like the Warmage or Fellblade since they use regular attacks almost every turn.