Feral Skills Guide by Shoya

This guide will attempt to list all known Feral Skills, plus some limited info about how these skills work. It will not talk about where to find the skills.

The ??? mark means the information needs to be verified. If you can, please make the correction or post it in the Discussion. Any other comments also much appreciated.

While I collected all the initial info for this Guide myself (including the skill list), I will now start to rely on the Allakhazam posts and comments on this wiki in order to add more details about how skills work. My thanks go to everyone who has or will share their knowledge.

Soul Plate
If you trade a Soul Plate such as this:

 (FP:8)[TinyMandragora]

to an Official Screener NPC (e.g., Idjham at the Annihilation battle cage counter), he will tell you this:

Using this soul plate, I can forge a soul reflector containing a level 1 mandragora-type monster, or add the following skill to an existing reflector:

~ Beast Killer (lv. 1) ~ Adds the effect of Beast Killer FP requirement: 8

In simple language, it means that you can either create a monster from this plate, or teach an existing monster the mentioned skill (but not both!).

If you want to create a monster, you trade an Official Screener the Soul Plate and one ice crystal. If you want to add the skill, you trade him the Soul Plate and the Soul Reflector containing the monster to be trained. In either case, your account will be charged 1 jetton, and the soul plate will disappear.

The name TinyMandragora in this soul plate tells you who it was obtained from -- very useful if you see a soul plate in the bazaar, and want to hunt for it yourself instead of buying it. The names of monsters in soul plates are limited to 14 characters; any further characters are simply cut off.

Each Soul Plate has a level associated with it, which determines the initial level of the monster or skill you create from the plate. The soul plate level depends on the level of the monster captured on the plate, and can range from 1 to 10 (lv. 10 soul plate was reportedly obtained from Amaltheia). It seems the formula is = / 10, rounded up. You can see the precise level by trading the soul plate to an Official Screener, but you can make a good guess by examining the monster from which the soul plate was captured.

Based on the information given by the Offical Screener NPC, it seems that the only monster attributes that affect the battle in the Colosseum are:
 * Family
 * level
 * job (main and support)
 * discipline level
 * temperament

If the NPC is not hiding any relevant information, there is no difference between monsters within one Family: for example, Tiny Mandragora and Korrigan should fight the same assuming their other attributes (level, etc.) are identical. One observation that raises doubt about this statement is that the same Family monsters may have different colors when they fight in the Cage; this suggests that some additional attributes of the original monster may carry over into the Colosseum monster. But it is also possible that the color is simply used for aesthetic reasons or to reflect the monster's temperament or discipline. If anyone has any ideas on this subject, please put it in the Discussion page.

Some monster families (e.g., Cerberus Family) are not allowed in the Pit, at least for the time being. Therefore, soul plates that captured them can only be used to add skills to the existing monsters.

Equipping Skills
Each skill has a cost in feral points (FP). The possible costs of feral skills are: 5, 8, 12, 17, 23, 30, 38, 47, 58, 70.

Each monster also has a maximum FP capacity. Once you exceed that capacity, you can't teach your monster any more skills unless you remove one of the existing skills. A monster's skill capacity ranges from ~30 to ~80 FP or so. The FP increases by 1 every even level of the monster (e.g., at monster lv. 10, 12, etc.).

Since the FP capacity is used by the Square Enix developers to balance the battlefield, a monster with unusually large FP capacity is likely to be relatively weak on its own. Similarly, FP cost of a skill tends to reflect the power of the skill in the right context.

Most monsters are born without any feral skills; but some are born with 1-2 skills. That is usually a disadvantage, since in-born skills cannot be removed, and yet they still take up the FP capacity (???). The in-born feral skills seem to be identical to skills that can be obtained from a soul plate.

Removing a high-level skill is quite painful: even if you later re-equip that skill, the level won't return (confirmation needed???). Of course, a low-level or a level-free skill is easily replaced, since all possible soul plates are available at a very modest cost from bazaars.

Skill Level
Most feral skills have a level attribute. As your monster fights, both the monster's own level and the level of the equipped skills increase. The only skills that do NOT have a level are:


 * skills that have a specific number in the description (like +25, +25%, etc.)
 * skills in the Jobs category
 * skills in the Scrolls and Related category

The skill level increase by 1 every single fight, regardless of winning/losing. The skill cap is not currently known. A lv. 17 monster is known to have a lv. 27 skill right now.

Skill Prerequisites
The only restriction on equipping the skills is that some skills are compatible only with certain types of monsters. For example, a Manticore-type monster which naturally has WAR job, cannot be equipped with the skill Main Job: MNK.

There is no level restrictions on skills. That is, a skill of the highest level found on a soul plate (lv. 9) can be equipped to a lv. 1 monster, and it will have full effect.

Of course, some skills may be equippable, but have no effect.

The Job Trait: XXX skill is useless unless the monster already has the corresponding job as main or support job.

Note that the following skills also enable the trait, not only enhance it (verification needed???):


 * Double Attack Rate +15% enable double attack trait
 * Triple Attack Rate +15% enables triple attack trait
 * Additional  Damage +25 enables additional damage trait
 * Auto Refresh +??? enables auto refresh trait
 * Auto Regen +5 enables auto regen trait
 * Auto Regain +3 enables auto regain trait
 * Subtle Blow Rate +15% enables subtle blow trait

Monster Jobs
A monster may be born without a job, with a main job only, or with both main and support jobs. I am collecting information about which monsters have which in-born jobs, and which monsters can be changed to which jobs/subjobs, but most likely the sheer amount of information would prevent me from ever collecting enough to make it worth including here.

It is not clear at this time what exact role the job has. One thing seems certain: passive job traits are not enabled by default; they need to be enabled with the Job Trait: XXX feral skill. It is possible, but far from certain, that the job also affect:
 * the monster's stats (STR, attack, accuracy, elemental magic skill, and so on)
 * the monster's skill in the weapon it is assumed to use in melee
 * the monster's ability to cast spells, use ninjutsu, summon pets, etc

Jobs

 * Main Job:  (8 FP)
 * Support Job:  (8 FP)
 * Job Trait:  (12 FP)
 *  can be any existing job, except COR, PUP, BLU

Stats

 *  +25 (17 FP)
 *  Bonus (23 FP)
 *  can be: STR, VIT, AGI, DEX, INT, MND, CHR)


 *  +15% (23 FP)
 *  Bonus (30 FP)
 *  can be: Attack, Magic Attack, Accuracy, Magic Accuracy, Defense, Magic Defense, Evasion


 *  Attack +15% (12 FP)
 *  can be: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Ice, Thunder, Darkness, Light, Neutral
 * Neutral Attack is an attack not affiliated with any element.

Attack Traits

 * Subtle Blow Rate +15% (23 FP)
 * Subtle Blow (30 FP)
 * Critical Hit Rate +10% (30 FP)
 * Critical Hit Rate Bonus (38 FP)
 * Double Attack Rate +15% (30 FP)
 * Double Attack (38 FP)
 * Triple Attack Rate +15% (47 FP)
 * Triple Attack (58 FP)
 * Attack Speed +50 (58 FP)
 * Attack Speed Bonus (70 FP)

Additional Damage

 * Additional  Damage +25 (30 FP)
 * Additional  Damage (47 FP)
 * <Elemental> can be Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Ice, Thunder, Darkness, Light

HP

 * HP Max +50 (8 FP)
 * HP Max Bonus (12 FP)
 * HP Max +15% (23 FP)
 * HP Max Rate Bonus (30 FP)
 * Auto Regen +5 (38 FP)
 * Auto Regen (47 FP)

MP

 * MP Max +50 (5 FP)
 * MP Max Bonus (8 FP)
 * MP Max +15% (12 FP)
 * MP Max Rate Bonus (17 FP)
 * Auto Refresh +??? (???)
 * Auto Refresh (38 FP)

TP

 * Store TP (47 FP)
 * Store TP +10% (38 FP)
 * Auto Regain +3 (58 FP)
 * Auto Regain (70 FP)

Casting

 * Interruption Rate -25% (23 FP)
 * Interruption Rate Bonus (30 FP)
 * Magic Casting Speed +15% (23 FP)
 * Magic Casting Speed Bonus (30 FP)

Scrolls and Related

 * <Type> Scrolls (17 FP)
 * <Type> can be Bard, Black Magic, Ninjutsu, White Magic, Dark Magic
 * Ninja Tool Supply (8 FP)

The Ninja Tool Supply feral skill is incuded in this category because if you want your monster to use ninjutsu, you presumably need to teach him both Ninjutsu Scrolls and Ninja Tool Supply.

Magic Skill Bonus

 * <Skill> Bonus (17 FP)
 * <Skill> can be Dark Magic, Divine Magic, Elemental Magic, Enfeebling Magic, Enhancing Magic, Healing Magic, Ninjutsu

Seems like Enhancing Magic Bonus is rather useless. It might be useful for BarXXX and Instant Stoneskin, but it seems like the potency of those feral skills is based (primarily or exclusively???) on the level of the skill itself rather than the enhancing skill of the monster.

Status Attacks

 * Poisoning Attack (17 FP)
 * Aspir Attack (23 FP)
 * Bio Attack (???)
 * Blinding Attack (23 FP)
 * Binding Attack (23 FP)
 * Dia Attack (23 FP)
 * Gravity Attack (23 FP)
 * Paralyzing Attack (23 FP)
 * Sleep Attack (23 FP)
 * Slowing Attack (23 FP)
 * Curse Attack (30 FP)
 * Silencing Attack (30 FP)
 * Stun Attack (38 FP)
 * Viral Attack (38 FP)
 * Draining Attack (38 FP)
 * Amnesia Attack (47 FP)
 * Terrorizing Attack (70 FP)
 * TP Drain Attack (???)

Instant Buffs

 * Instant Bar<Element> (8 FP)
 * <Element> can be Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Ice, Thunder
 * Instant Bar<Status> (8 FP)
 * <Status> can be Blind, Paralyze, Petrify, Poison, Sleep, Stone, Virus
 * Instant Blink (12 FP)
 * Instant Aquaveil (12 FP)
 * Instant Stoneskin (17 FP)
 * Instant Protect (17 FP)
 * Instant Shell (17 FP)
 * Instant <Type> Spikes (30 FP)
 * <Type> can be Blaze, Ice, Shock, Dread

Instant buffs are already active at the beginning of the battle, so they don't cause any delay during the battle. While the feral buffs are of course similar to the same-name regular buffs, their potency may be quite different, since they depend on the feral skill level in addition or instead of the usual factors. E.g., the feral Barstone is not determined purely by the monster's enhancing magic skill (and in fact, may not be affected by it at all).

Resists

 * <Element> +2 / <Opposite Element> -2 (5 FP)
 * <Element> Bonus / <Opposite Element> Penalty (8 FP)
 * <Element> Resistance +2 (8 FP)
 * <Element> Resistance Bonus (12 FP)
 * <Element> can be Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Ice, Thunder, Darkness, Light
 * <Opposite Element> is the element strong to <Element> (e.g., if <Element> is Water, then <Opposite Element> is Thunder)
 * <Type> Damage Resistance +15% (30 FP)
 * <Type> Damage Resistance Bonus (38 FP)
 * <Type> can be omitted or can be Magic, Breath; if omitted it means Physical (???)

Intimidation

 * <Type> Killer (8 FP)
 * <Type> can be Beast, Lizard, Vermin, Plantoid, Aquan, Amorph, Bird, Undead, Arcana, Dragon, Demon

Empty Killer skill seems to be missing, but this is irrelevant since Empty monsters are not currently allowed in the Pit.