Demi Shock (Final Fantasy IX)

Demi Shock
(グラビデ拳, Gurabide Ken?, lit. Gravide Fist)
Availability
Obtained	Rune Claws, Avenger
Character(s)	Amarant
AP	50
Classification
Type	Fractional damage ability
Skillset	Flair & Elan
Effect	Deals 20% of the target's max HP as damage to them
Specifications
MP cost	20
Hit rate	50% base accuracy

Amount of damage depends on the enemy's HP.

Description

Demi Shock is a Flair/Elan in Final Fantasy IX used by Amarant to attempt to damage one (Flair) or all (Elan) enemies with 20% of their maximum health for a cost of 20 MP. It is Amarant's only fractional damage ability, but is not particularly useful due to its less than stellar hit rate and low power.

Obtained

Demi Shock is learned for 50 AP from Avenger and Rune Claws. Avenger is stolen from the Earth Guardian and bought in Bran Bal and Daguerreo in the endgame. Rune Claws is found in the final dungeon.

Mechanics

Demi Shock deals 20% of the enemy or enemies' maximum HP as fractional damage to them. When Amarant is in Trance, Flair becomes Elan and Demi Shock targets all enemies. Demi Shock does not work on bosses.

The chance for Demi Shock to work against regular enemies is calculated as followed:

$Chance = 50 + Level + [Magic / 4] - Target's~Level$

Two randomly generated values determine if Demi Shock 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

Use

Demi Shock is Amarant's only fractional damage ability. It is the weakest fractional damage ability in the game, losing out to Dagger's Atomos, Vivi's Demi, and Quina's Aqua Breath. It could still be useful in damaging enemies without killing them for Quina to eat them. However, its major downside is also that it is learned late into game when the player should easily be able to do 20%+ damage to a random encounter in one turn in various ways, even with normal attacks, and Quina will already have all of their Blu Mags if the player has been acquiring them at the earliest. Demi Shock also only works half the time, the best chance being against enemies on a much lower level, against whom Demi Shock will be weak.

Etymology

In English, the skill is named after the Demi spell, which Vivi can also use in Final Fantasy IX. [view · edit · purge]Demi is a prefix meaning "half", from the Latin dīmidium meaning "divided in half".

The version of Demi Shock used via Elan is known as "Graviga Fist" (グラビガ拳(けん), Gurabiga Ken?) in Japanese, to denote a higher level of the Demi spell.