[Proposal] Personal Limit Breaks

[therpgfanatic]

We should be able to equip multiple limit breaks, similar to how we can have cross-class skills. A party should also not share a single limit break gauge.

There are a few reasons for this.

1. The current system is too easy for trolls to abuse in the Duty Finder. There are many stories of people purposely wasting a Limit Break right before something like Titan HM heart phase and then mocking the other players when they wipe. Because it is possible to reach the heart phase before the 15 minutes abandon / vote kick lockout ends, this can be extremely frustrating to deal with if the party strategy was to do something like auto-attack to build up a limit break.

2. The current system heavily favors damage Limit Breaks; tanks are never allowed to use their limit breaks, save for one encounter (Ultima HM) and the healing limit breaks have even less value as White Mages and Scholars are both capable of keeping a party topped off while also having extra time to do some DPSing. Therefore we should be able to switch what Limit Break we want to use as per the encounter demands, and not be restricted by what class we happen to be playing.

3. Limit Breaks in prior Final Fantasy games have always been a signature move personal to a character. I’ve never seen a Final Fantasy where the entire party shares a limit break bar before, and I don’t like this system. A shared Limit Break actually goes against the concept having a personal avatar in an MMO; it makes as much sense as having the entire party share a single HP, TP or MP Bar.

I propose that the developers make the limit break system work more like FF 12 Quickenings; more powerful limit breaks require more bars than less powerful limit breaks. The limit breaks can be abilities that require a 1-3 limit gauge bars in order to activate. This is compatible with the current graphics and system that has Limit Breaks divided into 3 levels of strength.

I would make the existing Limit Breaks into Abilities that are unlocked by leveling a class to certain thresholds (but reduce their potency, since now multiple characters will be using limit breaks during fights). A character can then slot the Limit Break ability into their hotbar to use on demand when the appropriate amount of Limit Gauge is acquired by the player.

Example: Braver is unlocked by leveling a Pugilist or Lancer to level 20 and can be used when at least 1 Limit Gauge bar is full. It consumes 1 Limit Break bar.

With Limit Breaks working this way, a character could have multiple Limit Breaks they use as the situation demands. You could also have new Limit Breaks earned as achievement awards (example: Get Gold in Odin’s FATE and you learn his Zantesuken Limit Break move, or defeat Titan Extreme and earn the ‘Anger of the Land’ Limit Break that summons Titan to do a magic-based AoE attack that stuns for 2 seconds)

It is important to note that I’d suggest leaving the accumulation of limit break points as they are. Players still earn points to their limit break gauges for the same kinds of things as they currently do, save perhaps that group auto-attacks do not contribute to personal limit break gauges. Otherwise things like avoiding AoEs, interrupting important spells, etc still increase the Limit Break gauge as normal.

I would also suggest leaving it so a player must be in a party to use Limit Breaks; with the same parameters as now for unlocking the tiers;

Level 1: Must be in a light party of four to seven players.
Level 2: Must be in a full party of eight players, or be in a light party and engaged with a boss.
Level 3: Must be in a full party and engaged with a boss.

To help the developers I will give a detailed breakdown of how I think the current Limit Breaks should be changed into personal Limit Break abilities:

=Damage LBs=

Current damage for Limit Breaks is as follows:

Attack 1 Braver: Delivers an attack with potency 2300.

Attack 2 Bladedance: Delivers an attack with potency 5000.

Attack 3 Final Heaven: Delivers an attack with potency 9000.


Obviously this needs balancing, as an eight man party tossing out 2,300 + potency attacks at once would be broken.

This is how I propose re-balancing the damage limit breaks:

Currently, a level 3 requires eight players in the party, so 9,000 divided by eight is 1,125.

With this information in mind, to balance the damage of personal limit breaks I propose 1,125 potency to be the max. potency a Level 3 personal Limit Break can have.

This would make Level 1 single-target damage Limit breaks have 375 potency and Level 2 Limit Breaks have 562.5 (round up or down; your preference Yoshi).

What is happening here is that, rather than the party sharing one massive attack, the massive attack is fragmented into pieces that individual party members can use.


Pugilist or Lancer level 20 will unlock Braver
Pugilist or Lancer level 40 will unlock Bladedance
Pugilist or Lancer level 50 will unlock Final Heaven

As for the Black Mage LB.....currently the Magic damage limit Break is as follows:

Magic Attack 1 Skyshard : Deals elementally neutral damage with a potency of 1400 to all enemies near point of impact.

Magic Attack 2 Starstorm: Deals elementally neutral damage with a potency of 3000 to all enemies near point of impact.

Magic Attack 3 Meteor: Deals elementally neutral damage with a potency of 5400 to all enemies near point of impact.

As with the melee damage Limit Breaks, we will split the max potency into eight parts; 5400 divided by 8 is 675.

Level 1 is 225; level 2 is 337.5; level 3 is 675.


Thaumaturge or Arcanist level 20 will unlock Skyshard
Thaumaturge or Arcanist level 40 will unlock Starstorm
Thaumaturge or Arcanist level 50 will unlock Meteor

=Defense LBs=

The Defense Limit Breaks are currently as follows:

Defence 1 Shield Wall: Reduces damage taken by all party members by 10%: Duration: 10s.
Defence 2 Mighty Guard: Reduces damage taken by all party members by 20%: Duration: 15s.
Defence 3 Last Bastion: Reduces damage taken by all party members by 50%: Duration: 12s.

Currently these limit breaks are useless, as there are few situations the Limit Breaks would make any difference; save for Last Bastion having some use during one phase of Ultima Weapon Hard Mode while using a particular strategy. Because of the poor utility I suggest you could actually implement the Defensive Limit Breaks as stand-alone limit breaks with their current effects intact. This is just my assumption, and if I'm wrong play-testing should decide if the effects need nerfing.

This is how I would have them unlocked;

Shield Wall : Achieve Gladiator or Marauder level 30.

Mighty Guard: Achieve Gladiator or Marauder level 40.

Last Bastion : Achieve Gladiator or Marauder level 50

=Healing LBs=

Healing Limit Breaks are currently,

Recovery 1 Healing Wind: Restores 25% of own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Recovery 2 Breath of the Earth: Restores 60% of own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Recovery 3 Pulse of Life: Restores 100% of own HP and the HP of all nearby party members including ones KO'd.

I would suggest adding these as personal Limit Breaks with the current parameters that they have. They are not particularly powerful considering that Medica II is more than capable of replenishing 40%-50% of a non-tanks HP, which is all that is necessary in most cases. This is just my assumption, and if I'm wrong play-testing should decide if the effects need nerfing.

I proposed that they can be unlocked by leveling a Conjurer / Archer to 20, 40 and 50.

[therpgfanatic]

New Limit Breaks

If the developers made Limit Breaks personal, it would open up a whole new subsystem of Limit Breaks to earn. This would give players another activity to pursue (acquiring rare Limit Breaks) and allow for other cross-promotion events (i.e. re-releasing an HD version of FF 8? Let us learn Squall’s Rough Divide or Rinoe’s Angelo Recover through a cross-game event like the one you did for Lightning Returns).

I’m going to toss out a bunch of ideas of Limit Breaks I’d love to see.

Firstly....

Blade of Light - This is the same thing our characters do to Lahabrea during the end game cut-scene; summon a relic weapon made of light and release a massive light slice. I propose it is a Level 3 single target damage attack that also has some other secondary effect, perhaps Blind or something. Unlocked after obtaining Warrior of Light Achievement. Deals damage to a single foe.

=Summon limit breaks=

I really think Summons more similar to how past Final Fantasy games have used summons ought to be included, and personal limit breaks are a great way to do it.

Summon Knights of the Round - The ultimate Final Fantasy 7 summon should make a re-appearance! It Should require a quest to defeat the knights, each one appearing in a FATE (perhaps even a new Primal fight in Ishengard? That would make sense, as they are a knightly bunch). The knights would appear and attack a single target, in an attack called "Ultimate End". Level 3.

Summon Odin - Obtain 50 Odin Mantles and buy an Odin Materia from the shop. Using it teaches the character ‘Summon Odin’, that causes him to appear and cast Zantesuken on all enemies.

Summon Griever -- Like Knights of the Round, this summon has only appeared in one game, Final Fantasy 8. It ought to make a reappearance (nay, it deserves one!). Griever should appear over the player and perform Shockwave Pulsar on all enemies.

Summon Boko: Achieved when completing the quest for our fighting chocobo companion. Uses Choco Ball on a single opponent.

Summon Tonberry : Achieved after defeating the Tonberry King in Wanderer’s Palace. Uses Everybody’s Grudge, that deals damage based on the % between max HP and current HP of the player (the less HP the player has, the more damage it will do), up to a max of 1,125 potency.

Summon Cactuar - Reward for getting a gold in Cactaur Jack FATE. Does 1,000 Needles and deals 1,000 damage always. Level 1 limit.

Summon Ifrit - Reward for defeating Ifrit Extreme. Uses Hellfire on a single target.

Summon Titan - Reward for Titan Extreme. Uses Anger of the Land on all opponents.

Summon Garuda - Reward for Gardua Extreme. Uses Splistream.


You get the idea. Most of the Notorious Monsters could be a Limit Break, and they wouldn't necessarily need to be a bunch of different effects from the core class Limit Breaks; it could be mostly cosmetic even, another kind of vanity.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

Add this idea to my wish list!

[Seif]

Yes please! Especially tanks get the short end of the stick in all this.

[jlewiss]

love everything about this idea

[Sixoa]

yes please !

[Cspr_Answrth]

I'm game... because, well, BRD.

[Tonkra]

There have been plans in the past for summoning Ifrit, Garuda etc. once in the openfield pvp by a GC.

And that even the weather will change that everybody can see that a primal was summoned..

dunno if these plans have been dismissed already...

[Bixby]

I definitely support the idea of making LBs individual instead of party-based. Preferably with lots of individual flare & sparkle depending on class (so tired of seeing my MNK swing a sword).

The only issue(s) I see with this particular implementation are hotbar clutter and party exclusion.

In a lot of cases, you could probably get away with putting one, maybe two LBs on your bar depending on what the fight called for. But I could also easily see it being "gimped" if you didn't have your whole LB arsenal easily available. I mean, I bound 6 of my 23 possible LBs, but if I'd only had that one bound, we could have won.

And I could also see "LFM Fenrir XM, must have Zantesuken" or dozens of variations on the theme. Can't heal this fight unless you leveled a tank to 50.

[XzaviyrVL]

I'm all for this but, and I may be wrong in saying this, but wouldn't we lose some damage if the other 4 non dps classes (considering we're in an 8 man)haven't leveled a DPS to obtain a damage LB? You'd lose roughly 50% of the potency a group LB supplies. If they could find a way to scale it so that the available # of DPS LB's total the full 9k a group one would then that'd be perfect!