Part 39: viii. Arcanas

viii. Arcanas

Arcana are special Mystic Arts, that are cast not by an individual, but by a group casting certain spells on the same turn. They are extremely powerful, but also extremely difficult to learn, and require certain circumstances to trigger. Arcana will hit the entire battlefield, regardless of range or deadlock. Only the current leader of a union can learn the Arcana, and they can’t be inflicted with any status effects which would prevent casting (in addition to the obvious ones, this includes Poisoned and Cursed).

There is one arcana for every Mystic Art school except for Wards, which is purely a line of buffs.

Arcana also don’t level through use – instead they get upgraded when the leader learns the next tier art.

Example:

Invocations progress in power like so (from lowest to highest)

• Spark
  
• Wind Shear
  
• Caustic Blast
  
• Permafrost
  
• Wildfire
  
• Grenade Impact

To learn Blackout II, the leader has to use either Wind Shear V, Caustic Blast III, Permafrost II, or Wildfire. To learn Blackout III, you need Caustic Blast IV, and so on… (Grenade Impact is not used for Blackout on the PC version, it is instead used for the brand new Crimson Flare Arcana instead.


Arcana videos may contain SPOILERS for future units.





Blackout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oGNdQ_tdvA

Blackout is the simplest Arcana to learn and to use. It also technically does the least damage, but that’s like saying “it’s just a small nuclear bomb”.

Blackout I’s Conditions are:

• The union needs 96 AP to use it (if not reduced by the Orb formation)
  
• The leader has to use any of Spark V, Wind Shear IV, Caustic Blast II, or Permafrost.
  
• Two other units in the union can use any other Invocation or Evocation art. This is why it’s the easiest one to learn, it’s very flexible.

Whiteout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RMaAEC2hNE

Whiteout is the Evocations Arcana. It does more damage, has a higher AP cost. It requires the leader to cast Mystic Missile V / Flash Arrow IV / Silencer III / Eclipse II / Snare Shot, plus three other units (up from Blackout’s two) to cast any Evocation or Invocation art. If you have a group focusing on Evocations, it should be possible to get someone to cast this. The trouble is that Evocations tend to be weaker damage-wise, so they’re less popular than Invocations.

Unfortunately, in my playthrough, I’ve disabled Torgal and Caedmon’s Evocations because they were interfering too much with the Combat Arts commands. I can probably still show it off, but later.



Animalcule

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORRg0Fr4yYg

Animalcule is the Hexes Arcana. More damage, higher AP costs, but the really great thing is that it can inflict Paralyze, Silence, Poison, and Blacked Out status effects.

It requires the leader to use Poison Gas V / Paralyze Gas IV / Smoke Canister III / Silent Gas II / Dispirit, plus three other unions can use any Hex. Hexes are pretty good, so finding enough people who can use Hexes shouldn’t be a problem. You just need to put them all into one group.



Rejuvenating Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kucXt3bMDM

Rejuvenating Water is the Remedies Arcana. It restores a substantial amount of HP and AP to all allied units on the battlefield who are not KO’ed (and probably clears any status effects). That’s actually the biggest problem with it, in fact. Most of the time you get this, you’ve taken enough damage that one or more unions are dead, and this does nothing for them.

The leader needs Restore V / Refresh IV / Rejuvenate III / Revitalize II / Support, and three other units need to cast a Remedies art.



Fatal Eclipse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHbCflBFUpQ

Fatal Eclipse is the Psionics Arcana. The AP cost is about the same as Animalcule, but it does extreme damage.

The conditions are harder to meet, though. The leader has to use one of Confuse V / Enrange IV / Addle III / Maledict II / Mixed Message, and one other unit has to use an Invocation, one unit has to use an Evocation, and one a Hex art. So that’s pretty tricky.



Crimson Flare

Crimson Flare is a new Arcana for the PC version.

The leader has to use the Grenade Impact Invocation, and one other unit has to use an Invocation, one unit has to use an Evocation, one a Hex, and one a Psionics art. So, yeah, that’s really hard to do.