Part 25: Recitation Notes 5: Modifying Study Habits To Match Your Learning Style

Recitation Notes 5: Modifying Study Habits To Match Your Learning Style

Watching the Garuda fight, you might not think that the Eksir Berries had much of an effect. They did about 400 damage, about comparable to the party's normal attacks, and that's even hitting the Garuda's elemental weakness. This is because the Eksir Berries' primary purpose is to mess with Garuda's passive abilities.

Passive abilities are mutators that modify an enemy's combat abilities or the rules of the combat system. Regular enemies, rares, marks, and bosses alike can all have passive abilities, and the available combinations are what adds most of the complexity to the game and its strategy. Enemies aren't the only ones who get passive abilities, either; many of these effects, or similar ones with different strengths, can be used by the player characters, either through Licenses or equipment.

Passive abilities can be innate, added or removed by falling below a specific percentage of health, or manipulated by the enemy's active abilities or items. There are quite a few passive abilities, and they can be sorted into a handful of categories. Where applicable, I've named these passive abilities after the Licenses that grant similar abilities to the player characters, but keep in mind that the effects might not be exactly the same when the good guys learn them.

Damage Manipulation
These abilities change the amount of damage the enemy receives, takes, or heals.

Attack Up - increases physical attack damage by 20%.
Resist Guns - decreases damage taken from guns and measures by 87.5%.
Resist Damage - reduces all damage taken by 30%, with the exception of the 1000 Needles Technick.
Adrenaline - increases physical attack damage by 20% when in critical health.
Last Stand - decreases physical damage taken by 2/3 when in critical health.
Spellbreaker - increases magickal attack damage by 20%, healing by 50%, and rate for inflicting negative status by 100% when in critical health.
Focus - increases physical attack damage by 20% when at full health.
Item Lore - increases the healing of items and damage of Fangs by 50%.
Saber - increases physical attack damage by 100%, but causes enemy to also receive any damage dealt.

Keep in mind that boosts from multiple passive abilities can stack. An enemy may gain Attack Up after losing 50% HP, then additionally gain the effects of Adrenaline at critical health!

Immunity
These abilities allow the enemy to ignore types of attacks or certain rules of the combat system.

Safety - ignores instant death attacks, fractional damage, and certain Technicks.
Paling - ignores all physical attacks for some time.
Magick Shield - ignores all magickal attacks for some time.
White Wind - ignores all status attacks for some time.
Ignore Vitality - prevents the enemy's target from resisting status attacks with their Vitality.
Ignore Evasion - prevents the enemy's target from blocking physical attacks with shields or weapon parries.
Ignore Reflect - enemy Magick penetrates Reflect.
Ignore Weather - enemy's attack damage ignores the effect of weather and terrain.
Ignore Knockback - enemy is never pushed back by physical attacks.

Randomness
These abilities enable random events or change the chances that they occur.

Parry - enemy has a 25% chance to block physical attacks that penetrate shield/weapon blocking.
Shield Block - if enemy has physical or magickal evasion, it is increased by 10%.
Counter - enemy has a chance to counter physical attacks equal to half its Speed.
Counter Up - enemy's chance to counter is quadrupled.

Other

Instant Attack - physical attacks have no charge time.
Instant Magick - magickal attacks have no charge time.
Half MP Cost - halves the MP cost of enemy's spells.
No MP Cost - reduces MP cost of enemy's spells to zero.
Spellbound - enemy's positive status effects last 50% longer.
Brawler - enemy's Attack becomes the average of its level and Strength.
Change Weakness - enemy has one elemental weakness, which is reassigned when hit with that element.
Return Damage - attacker takes 5% of all damage they deal to the enemy.
Reverse Item - causes healing items to deal damage, status-curing items to inflict statuses, and attack items to heal.

Garuda starts its encounter with Attack Up and gains Instant Attack after using Enrage, and the Eksir Berries remove both passive abilities. The boss is not significantly harder without taking this step, but, since the Garuda is the only enemy in the game on which the Eksir Berries work, this was the only opportunity to show them off.