Catch and stop enemy attacks.
Description
Shirahadori, also known as Swrdgrab, is a Samurai support ability in Final Fantasy V. It provides a 25% chance to evade a physical hit in the early stages of hit determination, functionally equivalent to the Catcher equipment property. This means it precedes checks related to hit chance and evasion, rather than decreasing the former or improving the latter. As such, the ability grants a straight boost to a character's survivability against physical attacks.
Obtained[]
Shirahadori is innate to Samurai, and will be granted to any character equipping the job. After the character masters Samurai, it becomes innate to their Freelancer and Mime jobs. Upon reaching job level 3 as a Samurai, for 100 AP total (60 AP from level 2), the Shirahadori ability can be equipped by any job.
Use[]
Shirahadori is a plain upgrade to a character's survivability against physical damage. It is very useful for Samurai, and a strong reason to master the job for Freelancers and Mimes to gain the ability. However, for most other jobs, it is not worth equipping in the ability slot because there are other means to resist physical damage that use an ability slot more efficiently than equipping Shirahadori, such as Blink or Golem. Shirahadori could be useful in the physical side of the Fork Tower where magic-use is forbidden.