Well, the game's been around for a few weeks, so I thought I'd write up a little bit about abilities. Some of them have changed since FFTA, for better or for worse, and the MP mechanics have made changed how useful some of the others are by quite a bit. And, of course, there are plenty of new classes to explore as well.
First, the reaction abilities. These have received the biggest direct change from FFTA.
Reflex: In FFTA, Reflex blocked all standard attacks, and was one of the best reaction abilities in the game. In A2, Reflex only avoids melee normal attacks. Still powerful, but decidedly scaled down, and now completely inferior to Strikeback.
Archer's Bane: FFTA's dodge arrows originally avoided all arrow-based attacks and abilities (except ones like Faster). Any skill that was weapon based and used with a bow, like an Archer with Holy Blade or Rend Speed, was useless against this command. Now, it blocks only standard bow and greatbow attacks. This means that a lot of powerful abilities, like Beso Toxico, Sonic Boom, the Ultimas, and Weapon/Armor Shot, bypass this ability, making the ability far less useful, and mean that it should be replaced by Return Fire on any character who can learn it.
Blur: A new ability, similar to Archer's Bane, except it blocks gun and cannon based attacks. Generally, I don't think there are enough gun and cannon users that you face to make it worthwhile, but worth noting, all the same.
Strikeback: Probably the most powerful reaction command for melee characters, it blocks a melee attack against you and lets you return one. Only a slight change since FFTA, it no longer works like Return Fire if the character who has it is equipped with a bow/ranged weapon (it did that sometimes, but not always, in FFTA).
Return Fire: Remains unchanged since FFTA. Blocks an arrow based normal attack and sends an arrow back to the enemy. Doesn't work against guns or cannons, and there is no gun/cannon version of this ability.
As far as I know, no reaction ability blocks a Trickster's cards. If there is one, please feel free to post it.
Counter: The other contender for best melee reaction ability, Counter will let you attack any melee range opponent who hit you with any damaging attack or ability. If hit by a ranged attack, you cannot Counter it, even if your character has a ranged weapon (and they'll perform a tackle to Counter a melee attack, rather than a bow shot). This move can counter spells and abilities, but does not prevent them from hurting you.
Absorb Magick: Rather than absorbing the MP used to cast a spell at the user, it now absorbs some of the damage done as MP instead. Useful against a much wider range of attacks, but only activates from an attack that hurts the user.
Absorb Damage: An new one that absorbs 1/10 the damage done by an attack as health, rounded down. Fairly nice, but seems to have trouble coping with Doubleshot, Doublecast, and Dual Wield.
Bonecrusher: A Counter Attack that damages an enemy for more damage than the user took from the initial attack. Like Absorb Damage, this ability seems to have trouble calculating out damage taken from the Double Attack abilities. Only reflects physical damage done at melee range. Counter is generally better, IMO.
Magick Counter: Cast a spell back at the caster that was used against you, requires enough MP to cast the spell. Unchanged since FFTA, I believe, but given the new MP system, hardly worth it.
Sticky Fingers: Catches an item thrown against you. Can gather some quite nice items, but only in certain missions. Requires a lot of planning to use efficiently. Unchanged since FFTA.
Critical Berserk/Quicken/Haste/Vanish: Critical Vanish is new, but works the same way as the other Critical abilities. Anytime a damage dealing attack of any sort leaves a character in HP Critical status, the buff is applied to the unit. This is slightly changed since FFTA. In FFTA, the attack had to reduce a character from above Critical status to below Critical status. So a character had to be healed above Critical status for the ability to be used more than once. In A2, even if the attack hits a character below the Critical point, if the character survives the attack, the buff will be applied again.
Dragonheart: Applies Reraise when a unit takes damage, but only works once, so don't bother with it, better to use a Blue/White Mage to instill Reraise manually.
I think that is all of the reaction abilities, but I am not positive, as I somehow feel I might have missed one. I'm a little tired of typing right now, but I'll update this thread with more info later. Thanks for reading, and feel free to post your own information!
