I couldn't miss the chance to practice my drawing!
Your mistakes were twofold, I'm afraid. You sprung your trap without looking to see if the game you hunted was the one you'd snare. And you sold me short, I'm no thief. I'm a Sky Pirate.
Balthier
Sky Pirate is a special job in Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. It is Balthier's default and exclusive job that focuses on guns. It costs 6,600 JP to master. It is an enhanced combination of the Thief and Machinist jobs, with the Plunder abilities having a higher rate of stealing compared to Steal, while also boasting from superior stats and more equipment options.
Stats[]
A pirate who sails the open sky, free from all laws and obligations. He never lets a mark escape.
Description
| Prerequisite | Weapons | Helmet | Armor | Equip Shields? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | Guns, Swords, Polearms, Knight Swords, Knives, Crossbows, Bows | Helmets, Hats | Armor, Clothes, Robes | Yes |
| Move Rate | Jump Rate | Speed | Physical Evasion Rate | Base Attack | Base Magic | Base HP | Base MP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 | 8 | 25% | High | Low | High | Low |
Abilities[]
Innate abilities[]
Piracy[]
Sky pirate job command. Unsurpassed in gunplay and thievery. No prey goes uncaught, no target unscathed.
Description
Plunder abilities generally have a 10% greater chance of success than normal Steal abilities.
The success rate for Plunder Heart is as follows:
The success rate for all other abilities is as follows:
Amount stolen for Plunder Gil is equal to Speed * Level.
Amount of EXP stolen for Plunder EXP is equal to Speed + 15.
| Name | Range | Effect | Speed | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leg Shot | Depends on equipped weapon | 0 | Now | 200 |
| Inflict damage to the legs, preventing movement. Effect: Immobilize. | ||||
| Arm Shot | Depends on equipped weapon | 0 | Now | 300 |
| Inflict damage to the arms, preventing weapon use and spell casting. Effect: Disable. | ||||
| Seal Evil | Depends on equipped weapon | 0 | Now | 200 |
| Petrify the cursed beings known as the undead. Effect: Stone. | ||||
| Barrage | Depends on equipped weapon | 1 | Now | 1200 |
| Unleash 4 attacks with the emphasis on speed. Each strike inflicts half the usual damage. | ||||
| Plunder Gil | 1 | 1 | Now | 0 |
| Pilfer gil from the target. | ||||
| Plunder Heart | 3 | 1 | Now | 250 |
| Capture the target's heart, enthralling them. | ||||
| Plunder Helm | 1 | 1 | Now | 450 |
| Purloin the target's equipped helmet. | ||||
| Plunder Armor | 1 | 1 | Now | 550 |
| Purloin the target's equipped armor. | ||||
| Plunder Shield | 1 | 1 | Now | 450 |
| Purloin the target's equipped shield. | ||||
| Plunder Weapon | 1 | 1 | Now | 750 |
| Purloin the target's equipped weapon. | ||||
| Plunder Accessory | 1 | 1 | Now | 600 |
| Purloin the target's equipped accessory. | ||||
| Plunder EXP | 1 | 1 | Now | 350 |
| Filch experience points from the target. | ||||
Reaction abilities[]
| Name | Description | Trigger | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Counter Tackle | Counterattack with a tackle. | Physical Attack | 180 |
Support abilities[]
| Name | Description | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Equip Axes | Equip axes, regardless of job. | 170 |
| Beastmaster | Adds an ability to all monsters in neighboring tiles with an elevation difference of 3h or less. | 200 |
| Defend | Defend oneself against an attack. Adds the Defend command. | 50 |
| JP Boost | Increase the amount of JP earned in battle. | 250 |
Movement abilities[]
| Name | Description | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Move +1 | Increase Move by 1. | 200 |
Gameplay[]
Leg Shot.
The Sky Pirate is a powerful and versatile special job that combines traits from Machinist and Thief, focused on dealing physical damage with a wide variety of weapons, being able to steal from opponents, and capable to crippling the movement and actions of its foes. Its high stats and equipment options makes it a force to be reckoned with. Its Leg Shot and Arm Shot can easily change the tide of battle, and enable other jobs deal more damage; Dragoons, in particular, can easily hit foes affected by Leg Shot. Seal Evil can be used alongside the Mystic's Corruption spell by turning enemies into undead and petrifying them. Balthier is the only playable Sky Pirate (should the player recruit him in The War of the Lions).
Thanks to its versatility, the Sky Pirate can be played as virtually any kind of physical attacker, melee or ranged, as it can equip guns, swords, knives, polearms, bows, and crossbows (likely as homage to Final Fantasy XII, where Balthier originates from where player characters can equip any weapon). The Sky Pirate is the only non-Knight job (other than Ramza's Squire and Luso's Game Hunter) capable of equipping Knight Swords; the Sky Pirate can deal the most damage in the game by equipping the Chaos Blade and using its Barrage ability, easily dealing over 2000 damage with 100% accuracy. Barrage also helps weapon debuffs trigger more often since it is 4 attacks.
To get the most of the Machinist and Thief abilities from the Sky Pirate, improving its speed is key, since all its abilities' success rate depend on Balthier's Speed stat. The Archer's Concentration will improve Plunder rates, the Knight Sword Excalibur lets the player to try again while having a faster turn due to Haste (and Plunder again without needing to get hit from Adrenaline Rush, though Haste does not improve plunder rates since Speed is not directly boosted).
Alternatively, Reequip can help with this strategy for a faster or safer (protection from debuffs, using the best properties of specific shields or equipping what was plundered though innate safeguard already protects from replacing broken/stolen equipment) following turn when needing close range, but the needed equipment must be unequipped first. It uses the action for the turn without gaining JP, and it would replace other support abilities.
Certain equipment (Balthier starts with a Mirage Vest that boosts Speed) and Tailwind (from Ramza's Squire or Luso's Game Hunter) can also raise Speed. In addition, the Sky Pirate naturally has the highest Speed growth, vastly superior to any other job. This means that the player can invest in other attributes, such as raw attack power, which also helps with Counter as Balthier starts with the Monk unlocked (unlike other special characters outside guests), though guns do fixed damage (or random and Faith-based for elemental guns).
The Sky Pirate has second highest physical evasion after Ninja, and tied with Agrias's Holy Knight. By equipping it with high evasion shields, cloaks, and the Shirahadori reaction ability from the Samurai, the Sky Pirate becomes difficult hard to hit.
Other appearances[]
Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade[]
- Legend Cards
This section is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.Gallery[]
This gallery is incomplete and requires Barrage, Plunder Gil, Plunder Heart, Plunder Helm, Plunder Armor, Plunder Shield, Plunder Weapon, Plunder Accessory and Plunder EXP added. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by uploading images.Etymology[]
Air pirates, also known as sky pirates, are a type of stock character from science fiction and fantasy. Fictional air pirates typically operate as pirates in the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet or moon, and travel by aircraft, as opposed to the more traditional pirates on the high seas, who travel by ship.