Zalbag is the only character in Final Fantasy Tactics to have the Destroy Sword ability, which functions in a fashion similar to Knights' Battle Skill ability. Instead of "breaking" (or rending) a single unit's stats using this power, however, Zalbag is capable of affecting multiple units at once.
in-game descriptions. | mechanics. | videos.
original psx translation text: Destroy Sword: Arc Knight Job Command. Destroys parameters.
war of the lions text: Blade of Ruin: Ark knight job command. Destroys other units' attributes.
japanese text: 破壊魔剣: アークナイトのジョブコマンド。パラメータを破壊する技。
range and affected tiles: Every Destroy Sword ability is able to target a tile within horizontal radius of 4 and ignoring height (comparable in range to most of Beowulf's Magic Sword abilities). A ruin ability will affect any units within a 2 tile horizontal radius of the targeted tile (a cross covering 5 squares, as one sees with Agrias' Stasis Sword attack) but may only target units on tiles with the same vertical height value as the tile targeted (again, comparable to Stasis Sword).
charge time and speed: All Destroy Sword abilities charge at a rate equal to 3 "clock ticks" (a clock tick being an increment of a character's CT equal to their Speed stat). For Zalbag, who has a consistent speed of 8, this means that each of his abilities should charge in 24 CT (12 if he happens to be using Short Charge!).
success rate: The success rate for all Destroy Sword powers is equal to:
(User's Magic Attack + PWR) x (User's Faith/100) x (Target's Faith/100)
where PWR is equal to 250 for all four available abilities.
For example: If Zalbag (who enters the Igros battle with a Magic Attack of 9 and a Faith of 72) were to attempt to use Mind Ruin on Dycedarg (who enters the same battle with a Faith of 77), the resultant equation should be: (9 + 250) x (72/100) x (77/100), which equals a roughly 143% chance of hitting! (...this would be exceptionally useful if Zalbag were ever actually inclined to use his Destroy Sword powers in said battle.)
effects: The effects of a successful hit with a Destroy Sword ability are as follows:
| ability. | effect. |
|---|---|
| magic ruin. | lowers targets' MP |
| speed ruin. | lowers targets' speed by 3 |
| power ruin. | lowers targets' physical attack stat by 5 |
| mind ruin. | lowers targets' magic attack stat by 5 |
For comparison, the Knights' Battle Skill ability Speed Break reduces a target's speed by 2, and Power Break and Mind Break reduce their targeted stats by 3.
Below links to a video showing the animations of Destroy Sword abilities, collected by the fine people at FFHacktics. It should be noted that it does not show the power itself in action, but rather it appears to show a hacked ability that does 999 damage to units but uses a variety of power/spell animations to demo them for other hackers.
magic ruin.
speed ruin.
power ruin.
mind ruin.