Latent and Hidden Effects

Introduction
Many items' ingame descriptions do not fully describe their effects. This article is designed to help you become acquainted with such items and how to use them.

Latent Effects are item attributes that are triggered under certain, unstated circumstances.

Hidden Effects are item attributes that are not reflected in the item description at all.

Some effects are both latent and hidden.

HP-triggered Effects
The following weapons' damage ratings vary depending on the wielder's current HP.

The following weapons' accuracy ratings vary depending on the wielder's current HP.

The following items' latent effects are triggered at certain levels of HP.

HP-and-TP-triggered Effects
The following job-specific rings and earrings have latent effects that are only active when the following two conditions are met: your HP is low and your TP is below 100%. When only one of these two conditions are met, the effects are not active.

Note that when the table says "HP &le; 75%" that means that should expand to 75% or less, which means current HP is anything under 76% of current maximum HP. If you have 1001 maximum HP, 76% of that is 760.76, so the latent will be active at 760 HP.

Some of these items ignore the effects of Convert HP to MP gear on your maximum HP, so the latent can be active much higher than 76% of your actual maximum HP. Two such are Sorcerer's Ring and Conjurer's Ring. However, Minstrel's Ring and Medicine Ring do not work this way, they just use your maximum HP.

TP-related Effects
The following set of weapons have latent (and hidden) effects when the person using them has less than 100% TP. Note that the effect is active during weapon skills because of the order in which events occur while using a weapon skill--TP is set to zero before the weapon skill activates. Also, the single-handed ones work regardless of whether they are equipped in the main or sub slot.

The following items of the Hachiman Armor set (Lv.70 SAM) have latent effects that activate in the opposite way, compared to the weapons above. The latent is active when your TP is greater than or equal to 100%, and is not active during weapon skills.

Subjob-triggered Effects
The various Latent Effects on the following series of Level 30 earrings, mantles, belts, and shields are triggered simply by having the appropriate subjob.

Atypical Damage Type Weapons
Most weapons of a certain category deal the same type of damage. The following weapons are exceptions. Despite having an uncharacteristic damage type when meleeing, these weapons still use normal damage types during weapon skills.

Elemental Staves
The Level 51 Elemental Staves have very potent hidden effects which make them useful to various jobs. These effects conform to the standard elemental strengths and weaknesses.

Weapon Skill Point Effects
The following weapons have latent effects that are governed by a system that keeps track of how many Weapon Skill Points you have accrued using them on Easy Prey or harder enemies. Single-handed weapons need to be equipped in the main slot in order to advance this counter.

Each weapon skill you perform using these weapons on Easy Prey or tougher enemies grants you a number of points as follows:
 * 1 point for a weapon skill that does not produce a skillchain effect
 * 2 points for a weapon skill that produces a level 1 skillchain effect
 * 3 points for a weapon skill that produces a level 2 skillchain effect
 * 5 points for a weapon skill that produces a level 3 skillchain effect

Weapons "of trials" are involved in obtaining quested weapon skills. The holder of the weapon must accrue 300 weapon skill points to deactivate the latent and then return it to the quest giver before continuing in the quest.

Weapons from the various 30-Kindred's Seal BCNMs require the holder to accrue 500 weapon skill points to activate the latent high damage rating (and on most, critical hit rate). Note that the critical hit rate modifier does apply to all attacks while that unlocked weapon is equipped.

Combat-related Effects
The following items' latent effects only activate under certain circumstances during combat. The latent effects that drain HP, MP, or TP deactivate when the user no longer has enough left for another tick of drain.

Status-related Effects
The following items active when under the corresponding positive status effect.

The following items active when under the corresponding negative status effect.

Food-related Effects
The following equipment allows consumption of raw ingredients. Raw fish is normally restricted to Mithra only while raw meat is normally restricted to Galka only.

The following table lists equipment that is affected by the food that the player is eating, and food that is affected by equipment that the player is using.

Party-related Effects
The following weapons' attributes change depending on the current state of your party.

Relic Weapons
In addition to its other unique characteristics, each fully-upgraded relic weapon can occasionally double or triple their base damage. During this effect, the base damage formula becomes : floor( ( D+ (aD) + fSTR(2)) * n) where n is the hidden n-fold damage multiplier of a particular weapon.
 * This increased base damage cannot be activated during weapon skills.
 * Although it is possible for the 3x damage effect of Mandau to occur during Sneak Attack and Trick Attack when Thief is set as the main job or sub job.

Elemental Gorgets
Elemental Gorgets are rewards of the quest In the Name of Science. These gorgets improve both Weapon Skill accuracy (by unknown amount) and TP Modifier by 25/256 (0.0976...). To trigger the effects, the player must use a Weapon Skill with the same Skillchain property as the gorget name.
 * For example:
 * Sidewinder has the skillchain properties of Detonation, Reverberation, and Transfixion; therefore, the Breeze Gorget, Aqua Gorget, or the Light Gorget would all enhance Sidewinder equally when equipped.
 * Arching Arrow only has the skillchain property of Fusion; however, since Fusion is a combination of Transfixion and Liquefaction, either the Light Gorget or Flame Gorget will enhance Arching Arrow.

Relic Weapon skills have the ability to continue level 3 skillchain (Light/Darkness) once, but the Light/Darkness attribute does not contribute to elemental attribute of the following gorgets
 * For example:
 * Tachi: Kaiten has "can continue Light skillchain" and "has Fragmentation" properties, but the gorgets that will affect Tachi: Kaiten accuracy and damage are the Breeze Gorget and Thunder Gorgets only (due to its Fragmentation property). Neither the Light Gorget nor Flame Gorget will enhance Tachi: Kaiten.

Undocumented Latent Effects Triggers
The following items have latent effects whose triggers have not been fully documented. If you come into possession of any of these items and determine how to activate their latent effects, please feel free to update this page.

Items added in the July 24, 2006 version update:

Items added in the October 18, 2006 version update:

Items added in the November 22, 2007 Expansion/version update:

Items added in the March 10, 2008 version update:

Items added in the June 9, 2008 version update:

Items added in the September 9, 2008 version update: