Damage Priority

Damage Priority is a gameplay term in Dissidia Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. It is a value used to determine what attacks can be blocked or not.

There are two main types of attacks, Ranged and Melee, and three levels of priority, low, medium and high. Low attacks can be blocked normally, medium attacks stagger the blocking character, and high attacks crush guards. What happens to the attacker depends on if the move is Ranged or Melee - genereally, blocking a Melee Low attack will cause the attacker to stagger, while blocking a Ranged Low attack will not. There are two other types of attacks - some special ranged attacks cannot be blocked, but are canceled out by dashes and other attacks, while other attacks cannot be blocked or deflected in any way. Melee attacks will deflect or cancel out Ranged attacks of the same priority - a Melee Medium attack will deflect or cancel out a Ranged Medium attack, but will fail against a Ranged High attack. Thus, Melee High is the highest normal block priority, and with the exception of a few special techniques

Blocks also have priority. All Dashes, Blocks and attacks with Block effects will deflect Ranged Low projectiles. Dashes will fail against any attack higher than Ranged Low attacks. A normal Block will deflect Low priority and Ranged Medium attacks, but blocking the latter will cause the blocking character to stagger. With the Precision Block ability equipped all blockable attacks can be blocked, but blocking any attack higher than Low priority will still cause the blocking character to stagger. Jecht's Jecht Block can block all attacks, but blocking Melee High attacks will stagger both characters. The highest possible Block priority blocks all attacks and does not cause the blocking character to stagger, but there are only three ways to acheive this - Exdeath's Omni Block, Ultimecia's charged Knight's Spear, and a Level 2 Assist Change. Various attacks also have block effects, but the priority varies on an individual basis. Attacks with Magic Block only block Ranged Low attacks.