Battle Regimens and Incapacitation

In another post by Square Enix they have explained how battle regimens work and the effects they have. This is a game mechanic that isn\'t very well understood by the FFXIV community so the information given by Square Enix will hopefully get more people using them. As taken from the Lodestone site; \"Battle Regimens are combat tactics which party members may employ against a single enemy. By coordinating and executing battle commands in a precise order, players may cause certain additional beneficial effects to occur. A Battle Regimen begins with the stacking of battle commands. All party members who wish to take part in the Battle Regimen must stack their actions in the correct order against the desired target. One of the members then initiates the Battle Regimen, and the stacked actions will be executed automatically. Executing a Battle Regimen 1. Consult with other party members to determine the best Battle Regimen to use against a specific target. The battle commands and the order in which they are to be executed should all be decided. 2. Wait until your position in the queue comes around to switch to Battle Regimen mode and select the battle command you wish to stack. *A single party member cannot stack more than one action in a Battle Regimen. 3. After all participating party members have stacked their battle commands, one of the party members selects to initiate the Battle Regimen. 4. Once the Battle Regimen is initiated, the stacked battle commands will all be executed automatically, chaining together to create additional effects. * Please note that factors such as distance from the enemy may prevent stacked battle commands from being executed once the Battle Regimen is initiated. In these cases, the Battle Regimen will not end, but will instead proceed on to the next command in the queue.\" The list of additional effects can be found below. Additional Effect Combination Example Lowers a target’s physical defense Normal attack => Normal attack Light Slash => Heavy Strike Lowers a target’s magic defense Normal attack => Magic attack Light Slash => Phantom Dart Increases a target’s casting time/raises MP costs Normal attack => Magic spell Light Slash => Fire Lowers a target’s TP progression/raises TP costs Normal attack => Weaponskill Light Slash => Red Lotus Maintains the effectiveness of class abilities when used by different classes Magic spell => Magic spell (both from same class) Weaponskill => Weaponskill (both from same class) Trunksplitter => Brandish Increases player damage Weaponskill => Weaponskill ? Magic spell (weaponskills from different classes, finishing spell is optional) Magic spell => Magic spell => Weaponskill (spells from different classes, finishing weaponskill is optional) Blizzard => Scourge => Puncture The next part of the article talks about incapacitation. This basically means that by using certain weapon skills on the right kind of monsters you can do damage to parts of the monster. This serves three purposes, to weaken the enemy, to prevent it from using its special attacks and to influence the loot that drops. So it is definitely worth using these. But how do you know which skill to use and on which kind of monster? The tables below will help you. The first table shows the kind of weapon skill that affects the body part and which part. Head Limbs (Right) Limbs (Left) Limbs (Lower) Other (Right) Other (Left) Other (Outer) Sword -- Riot Blade -- Red Lotus II Spinstroke II -- Luminous Spire Hand-to-Hand Concussive Blow II -- -- Seismic Shock II Victimize II Simian Thrash Pounce Axe Skull Sunder II -- Maim -- -- Brutal Swing II Trunksplitter II Polearm -- Moonrise II Chaos Thrust Skewer II -- Twisting Vice -- Archery Shrieker Barrage Foeseeker -- Bloodletter -- -- The second table shows which body part can be damaged for each genus of monster. Head Limbs (Right) Limbs (Left) Limbs (Lower) Other (Right) Other (Left) Other (Outer) Hippogryph Head -- -- -- -- -- -- Opo-opo Head -- -- Legs -- -- -- Gnat Head -- -- -- -- -- -- Cactuar -- -- -- Legs -- -- -- Giant crab -- -- -- -- -- -- Shell Salamander -- -- -- -- Right Wart Cluster Left Wart Cluster -- Wolf Head -- -- -- -- -- -- Boar Head -- -- -- -- -- -- Ahriman Eye -- -- -- -- -- Tail Wight Skull Right Humerus Left Humerus Femur -- -- -- Dodo Head -- -- Legs -- -- -- Coblyn -- -- -- -- -- -- Ore Cluster Aldgoat Horns -- -- -- -- -- -- Imp Head -- -- -- -- -- -- Flytrap Maw -- -- -- -- -- -- Antling Mandibles -- -- -- -- -- -- Humanoids Head Right Arm Left Arm Legs -- -- --