Causes Water damage to all enemies.
Description
Aqua Breath is a Blu Mag spell for Quina in Final Fantasy IX that deals fractional Water damage to all enemies at a cost of 20 MP, though it tends to miss often. It cannot be reflected but works with Return Magic. Aqua Breath is used by Axolotl and Quale against the player party.
Obtain[]
Quina learns Aqua Breath by eating a Clipper, Axolotl, Sahagin, or Green Vepal. It can be the first Blue Magic spell Quina learns, as Axolotls appear at the Qu's Marsh where Quina is recruited.
Mechanics[]
FINAL FANTASY IX Remastered- Testing Aqua Breath with Elem-ATK and against enemy weak to Water
Aqua Breath deals a 25% of non-Heavy enemies' maximum HP as Water-elemental magical damage to them, making the spell similar in effect to Vivi's group-cast Demi. With Quina equipping Golden Hairpin or Golden Skullcap, or against enemies weak to Water, Aqua Breath deals 37% of the enemies' maximum HP as Water damage to them. With both effects stacking, Aqua Breath does 55% damage to all foes.
Damage is calculated as follows:
The chance of the spell hitting a target is calculated as follows:
![{\displaystyle Chance=50+Level+[Magic/4]-Target'sLevel}](https://services.fandom.com/mathoid-facade/v1/media/math/render/svg/f34931f4f727cdef3ea985de95cdc619f0adc55b)
Two randomly generated values determine if the spell will hit:
- A random number 0...99 >= Chance, the spell misses its mark
- A random number 0...99 < Target's Magic Evade, the enemy evades
Bosses (bar Earth Guardian) are immune to fractional damage.
Use[]
Aqua Breath is one of the few means of dealing Water damage, the others being Vivi's Water, Steiner's Water Sword, and Dagger's Leviathan. However, Aqua Breath is actually more comparable to Atomos, Demi, and Demi Shock, as it does fractional damage based on the target(s)' maximum HP. Unlike Demi, Aqua Breath's damage can be augmented with equipment, however, Vivi can still boost Demi with Reflectx2. Another possible boon to Aqua Breath is that it ignores a target's Reflect, but few enemies employ this status.
Aqua Breath's main downside is that it does not work on bosses (other than the Earth Guardian), as well as its poor accuracy, though it has better accuracy than Demi; however Vivi can boost his Magic Power with Focus to somewhat improve spell accuracy, whereas Quina must rely on their natural stats. Offensive Blue Magic spells in Final Fantasy IX are all random in some way, and especially with Water-boosting equipment, Aqua Breath can be potent, should it not miss. Because Aqua Breath's damage depends on the enemy's HP, dealing more damage the higher the enemy's maximum HP is, its damage does not depend on Quina's magic stat.
Etymology[]
Aqua is Latin for "water".