Ace

Marksman

Ace uses luck to his advantage in battle. Thanks to how quickly Cut Cards charges, he can constantly fill out his hand and play cards to support his allies or activate potent attacks. Draw early and often to have your gambits pay off!

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY Type-0

Year: 2011

Role: Ace is “No.01” of fourteen members of Class Zero, a secretive group of elite cadets formed by the sorceress Arecia Al-Rashia. Dr. Al-Rashia adopted Ace when he was eight. Under her wing, Ace developed skills in magic, with his weapon of choice being a deck of playing cards.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: Theatrhythm FINAL FANTASY Curtain Call (2014), DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY Opera Omnia (2017)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks

HP Attacks

EX Skills

Bravery Attack Breakdown

Flourish

Ace throws four waves of cards at his target from long range. He launches three cards in the first three waves, then sends a five-card spread for the last wave.

Grounded neutral  and airborne neutral  are your main attacks. They can be used often and in most situations. Flourish covers a large distance and vertically tracks upon each wave, so even if the enemy evades the first set, your subsequent card throws will be aimed at the foe’s new location. The projectiles themselves don’t actively track, but they have a decent spread.

Flourish provides excellent utility for team combos with its stun effect on hit, giving your teammates ample time to capitalize with their own attacks.

As such, your gameplay largely revolves around getting into a safe position to launch your cards and setting up your teammates.

The attack is partitioned into four inputs, so it’s incredibly versatile, as its effectiveness doesn’t depend on connecting with its full sequence.

Ante Up

Ace forms a magical sphere encircled with cards and launches it at the enemy. Upon impact, it detonates several times, eventually blasting the enemy away.

Ante Up is one of your fastest projectiles and is superior in situations in which you need to deal a quick burst of damage, such as on a summoning core.

Its knockback effect makes it a strong defensive tool against foes approaching you head-on, particularly if you’re isolated from the rest of your team.

Spiral Gambit

Ace lays down a beaming pillar of energy that wards off foes from the area.

Spiral Gambit is a trap-type attack that persists for its entire seven-second duration whether it hits enemies or not.

Its primary use is for fortifying a defensive posture around a specific area (such as around a summoning core). For instance, as soon as a summoning core appearance is announced, and if you’re near its spawn point, you can rush over to the incoming summoning core location to place a Spiral Gambit trap, giving your team a significant advantage over the core.

Additionally, Spiral Gambit can be used, situationally, to nullify high-priority projectiles (such as Terra’s charged ), either on reaction or preemptively.

Jackpot Shot

Ace fires several radiant fast-flying laser beams that pierce through an enemy from long range.

Jackpot Shot covers a massive horizontal distance with a unique flight pattern. Upon release, the lasers have a slight shotgun-spread effect (potentially hitting multiple foes), before converging halfway through flight, where they become much more focused with a mild tracking effect. This can make the attack somewhat inaccurate from close- and mid-range, then increasingly accurate over time as it closes in on the target.

Like Ante Up, Jackpot Shot excels for high burst damage from long range, great for taking down summoning core health or for following up on another teammate’s opener attacks.

Smart Cards

Ace sends forth an orb of energy that slowly and relentlessly pursues his target. Upon impact, the target is knocked away a short distance.

This is one of Ace’s most powerful attacks for controlling space from the air. It persists for 10 seconds (or until it makes contact with an enemy). Additionally, two Smart Cards projectiles can be launched at any one time; if a third is cast while two already exist, the first one vanishes.

You can use Smart Cards to create a persistent threat on the battlefield for both offensive and defensive purposes. Its slow travel speed forces the foe to react to it, deterring and altering their potential aggression. It’s also an excellent support attack for your vanguard and assassin, clearing a path and giving them a strong ranged attack to work off of, as the enemy has to retreat or guard the projectile.

Like with the Emperor’s Red Soul, you can cast Smart Cards once each on two different targets to sow chaos amongst enemy ranks.

Wild Card

Ace swiftly throws a single card at a foe. If it meets its mark, he instantly teleports to the enemy and follows up the projectile hit with a melee strike, blasting the enemy away to mid-range.

The Wild Card projectile has a fast travel speed, but a limited horizontal range compared to Ace’s other ranged attacks. Its main strength lies in its teleport effect.

While it’s generally preferable to attack from mid and long range as a marksman, you can take advantage of Wild Card’s teleportation effect to evade pursuing enemies. For instance, if you’re being chased by an assassin or vanguard, you can target a foe or object (like a summoning core) in the opposite direction, then dash at said target and go for a Wild Card teleport, dealing damage while evading your pursuer. This technique is especially effective for engaging summoning cores quickly in order to gain a positioning advantage.

HP Attack Breakdown

Fire RF

Ace musters his magical strength, conjuring a formation of blazing cards. As he releases them, they form a massive fiery spear that hurtles at his target.

Fire RF is a straightforward mid-range HP Attack that can be charged by holding (dramatically increasing its range). Like most projectile HP Attacks, the fireball pierces through all Bravery-based projectile attacks. This HP Attack supplements Ace’s overall toolkit in a balanced way. Without charge, it covers ample horizontal distance, giving you an unguardable threat from just past mid-range. With charge, its distance coverage is increased to match the range of your Flourish attack.

Its quick travel speed, decent vertical movement, and flexible range make it an incredibly versatile HP Attack, well-suited for most situations. Additionally, Ace can take a page out of Cloud’s book and use the ability to charge attacks to throw off enemies who try to anticipate his timings.

This attack has some tracking and should be mentioned. For example, while grounded the fire projectile can curve upward to hit an enemy above you if they are far away enough for the fire to travel most of its length. So along with great horizontal movement, it has decent vertical movement.

Blizzard Bom

Ace surrounds himself with a shell of ice that detonates, expelling nearby foes from the vicinity.

Blizzard BOM is a defensive HP Attack designed to protect you from opponents in melee range.

While it can be difficult to use offensively, Blizzard BOM boasts a large area-of-effect hit that instantly emanates around you upon its release, potentially hitting enemies attacking you from all sides, including from the sides and rear. However, it requires superb timing to use effectively.

Its start-up speed is fast enough for it to be used as a follow-up to wall pins or to capitalize on teammate attacks as long as you’re in range to execute it. Equip Blizzard BOM if you prefer to have an instant defensive maneuver against vanguards and assassins.

Thunder SHG

Ace fires a phalanx of electrified cards in a cone in front of himself, shocking and hurtling enemies to long range.

Thunder SHG is a swift, frontal HP Attack with limited vertical and horizontal range. It’s ideal for a more aggressive playstyle, as its charge and launch speed make it difficult for opponents to react to. For example, you can use Smart Cards to cover your advance on a particular enemy, then dash in with an unguardable Thunder SHG attack to quickly devastate guard-prone enemies. Like Blizzard BOM, you can hold to charge the attack, increasing its effective range, although at the risk of telegraphing your attack.

Monolith Beam

Ace invokes a high-powered laser beam column that searches for and tracks his target, devastating foes caught in its path.

Monolith Beam is a complete column attack that covers an incredibly vast vertical space. Its pursuit property forces enemies to be constantly on the move to avoid taking HP damage.

While it’s a strong HP Attack for pressuring foes from range and from any altitude, it leaves you entirely vulnerable to attacks, due to its significant cast time and lack of defensive utility. Generally, if you’re being focused by a vanguard or marksman, you’ll have neither the time nor the space to safely cast Monolith Beam. However, if you can pull it off, it’s an exceptionally powerful attack for surprising clumps of unsuspecting enemies who are preoccupied with fighting your teammates.

EX Skill Breakdown

Drawing Cards and Playing Your Hand

Ace’s unique EX Skill is a somewhat elaborate mechanic that allows you to cast one of four types of abilities, each with three levels of potency. Because cards are drawn at random, luck plays a large role. Deciding how and when to draw additional cards, along with how and when to show your hand, is an important skill to master in effectively playing as Ace. The following is a list of rules for playing cards:

Show of Hands executes one of four types of abilities, depending on what’s in your hand.

Red is associated with damage. Playing a red-based hand executes Burst, a high-damage attack.

Yellow is associated with attributes. Playing yellow cards results in a damage, defense, and speed boost to all nearby allies.

Black is associated with time. Playing a black-based hand inflicts a Stop effect on enemies.

Blue is associated with restoration. Playing blue cards heals lost HP and grants bonus Bravery to nearby allies.

The ability cast is prioritized first by the highest number of same-colored cards in your hand, and then by the last card drawn. You can have up to four cards in your hand.

With two reds and one blue, Show of Hands executes Super Burst. If you were to draw a second blue card afterward instead of executing with three cards (making your hand two reds and two blues), Show of Hands would execute Super Charge.

If you have a hand consisting of blue, red, and yellow, and then black is drawn last, your Show of Hands executes Short Stop.

If you have a four-card hand, drawing another card discards and replaces the oldest card in your hand.

Say you’ve drawn cards in this order: red, blue, blue, yellow. Drawing a blue afterward would result in a hand of blue, blue, blue, yellow.

Cut Cards (drawing) is on a 10-second recast time, while Show of Hands has no recast time and can be used as long as you have a card in your hand.

While Cut Cards is limited by its recast time, Show of Hands is not. This means you can cast and play your hand at any time as long as you have at least one card. This also means you can use abilities back-to-back. For instance, if you have three blues drawn, you can cast Mega Charge, then draw a yellow card and immediately cast Force, giving your allies a large heal and then giving them an attribute buff following it.

The third potency level of the four abilities is drastically more powerful than the first two.

If you have two black cards drawn, you may want to take the 25% chance of drawing another black card in order to gain the Mega Stop ability. Mega Stop is a direct area-of-effect attack that completely stops enemies in a small area for six full seconds. Whereas Short Stop and Long Stop are slow-moving projectiles, Mega Stop is much more difficult to avoid.

Cut Cards / Show of Hands

Cut Cards

Show of Hands

Ace uses Cut Cards to draw one of four types of cards and adds it to his card “hand,” which floats above him. With Show of Hands, he plays his hand and, depending on the cards he’s drawn, executes a special technique.

Generally, using Show of Hands is based on luck and timing. Since you can’t predict or manipulate what types of cards you draw, most of your decision-making concerning his unique EX Skill revolves around what ability you have access to as you draw your cards. For instance, if you have a hand of two blue cards, it’s usually best to stay near your allies to give them a boost in HP and Bravery to maximize your efficiency.

Show of Hands: Burst

Burst (Red)

With one to two red cards, Ace delivers a swift magic missile attack that deals a high amount of Bravery damage to his enemy.

With three red cards, Ace quickly conjures an explosion from long range directly on his target, dealing heavy damage over a small area.

Burst and Super Burst are fast magic missiles that deal a decent amount of damage. Mega Burst is a quick-starting direct explosion with exceptional range. Enemies take massive damage over a small area around the target. However, this move can easily be sidestepped by the target, so use it on unsuspecting or wall-pinned enemies.

Stacking red cards is arguably the least effective color to stack. As you already have plenty of other sources of Bravery Damage, Burst doesn’t provide Ace with anything he doesn’t already have in his arsenal. Try to get rid of red cards if you draw them first. One blue card provides the team with 600 HP AND Bravery (200 to each character), whereas one red card only amounts to 336 Bravery for Ace. Also, three Bursts do more damage to a single target than one Mega Burst.

Burst does have one advantage, and that is speed. Use it to quickly interrupt someone who is in the middle of an attack.

Show of Hands: Force

Force (Yellow)

With one to two yellow cards, Ace provides a slight boost in damage, defense, and speed to nearby allies.

With three yellow cards, Ace dramatically increases these stats for 20 seconds.

Force and Super Force moderately enhance your allies’ stats for up to 15 seconds, so bring allies within range before using it. Mega Force is much more powerful, almost doubling your team’s damage output while almost halving their damage taken for 20 seconds. If you have two yellow cards, it’s usually worth going for a third, as this drastic boost in attributes can instantly turn the tides of a losing match (or “snowball” an advantage to victory).

Show of Hands: Stop

Stop (Black)

With one to two black cards, Ace sends out a slow-moving tracking sphere that chases his target and inflicts them with Stop upon contact.

With three black cards, Ace causes a large detonation around his target that inflicts the Stop effect for six seconds on all foes within range.

Stop is a debuff that causes the victim to become paralyzed, unable to move or act, leaving them extremely vulnerable to follow-up combos.

Although Short Stop and Long Stop are slow projectiles, their tracking abilities can force enemies into a defensive retreat, as the on-hit Stop effect can be devastating. Just don’t let your projectile track into obstacles or uneven terrain if your foe moves behind them.

Mega Stop is a large area-of-effect attack targeted directly at an enemy up to 3.0 range. While drawing three cards of the same color is rare, you can potentially score a multi-kill if you’re able to land Mega Stop on multiple opponents, thanks to its incredibly long six-second Stop duration.

The Stop debuff also goes away when the target is hit, so be sure to capitalize on foes with a full combo. While Mega Stop’s area-of-effect is incredibly powerful, Short Stop and Long Stop often get the job done just as well. Even a brief Stop effect is enough to interrupt a foe’s attack or to slow them down enough to get caught by a pursuing ally.

Show of Hands: Charge

Charge (Blue)

Charge and Super Charge boost both HP and Bravery to nearby allies by 200 and 500, respectively.

Mega Charge restores these values by 1000.

While the blue effect is simple, it’s one of the most powerful support abilities in the game, especially its mega version. While most HP-restoration effects are applied over a certain period, Charge restores HP instantly. Stay near your allies with three blue cards in your hand, and if you time it correctly, you can restore almost a third of everyone’s HP total. Additionally, the next HP Attack of each of your party members will inflict an additional 1000 HP damage, thanks to the huge Bravery boost.

Battle Plan

As a marksman, your general strategy is to work with your teammates by providing long-range projectile coverage, allowing your allies to be aggressive. Ace’s grounded/airborne neutral  (Flourish) and airborne +  (Jackpot Shot) are exceptional lockdown attacks that fulfill this purpose well. Ace is very much a jack-of-all-trades, with a toolkit that borrows from other characters. He can charge his attacks like Cloud, he can deploy traps and slow-moving projectiles like the Emperor, or he can constantly fire quick shots at distant foes like Terra. He can heal allies like Y’shtola, and he can buff them like Kuja. Playing Ace will test your proficiencies with all these strategies, as he does not have the luxury of going into battle with an immutable plan. Although Ace does have attacks for every occasion, he does slightly better on wide-open maps where his projectiles can fly freely without being nullified by a wall. He isn’t shy on high verticality maps either, as Spiral Gambit and Monolith Beam easily deter aerial assaults.

Flourish is a four-part ranged combo with flexibility in its “force combo” property, allowing you to throw out one to four waves of cards. Depending on the situation and how much pressure you’re under, you can opt to cast fewer waves (in order to quickly get yourself out of harm’s way, for instance). Each wave of cards provides enough of a stun effect for your teammates to follow up with combos of their own, so much of your combat plan should revolve around getting into position to launch waves of Flourish. Jackpot Shot doesn’t lock enemies down for as long as Flourish does, but its tracking property, along with its speed and high burst damage, makes it a better option for keeping enemies on their toes. Airborne +  (Smart Cards) rounds out your strong air-projectile arsenal with a slow-traveling tracking orb that pursues enemies. You can have up to two Smart Cards spheres out at any time. An effective aerial ranged-attack rotation would be:

Smart Cards > Smart Cards > Flourish OR Jackpot Shot

Use Smart Cards to provide cover for your subsequent Flourish or Jackpot Shot attacks. Mix up your Flourish and Jackpot Shots to lure out mistakes from evading enemies.

To set up a strong defensive posture, use both grounded +  (Spiral Gambit) and Smart Cards. Spiral Gambit plants a long-lasting trap-type column that blasts away any enemies who run into it. It’s especially effective for defending and controlling the area around a summoning core. For example, when a summoning core is about to spawn (indicated by an audible sound, Moogle’s chat warning, and a flicker of the HUD), rush over to the incoming summoning core location and plant a Spiral Gambit nearby. It persists for seven seconds and can deter vanguards and assassins from engaging into the area.

Ace is one of the fastest marksmen in the game in terms of attack speed. Additionally, he has a unique teleport attack that enhances his mobility. If you can connect with dashing >  (Wild Card), you can instantaneously teleport to a target, including a summoning core. With proper positioning and timing, you can use this ability to evade foes who are chasing you. However, the teleportation portion requires the initial Wild Card projectile to connect (you can teleport to an enemy even if the card is guarded).

Although your marksman duties are straightforward, you have an additional role on the team as the occasional support. Ace’s unique EX Skill opens up a myriad of possibilities, with several implications that directly affect your decision-making in combat. Cut Cards (drawing cards) is on a short 10-second timer (made even shorter as you land attacks), so be sure to maximize your card-playing potential by drawing cards frequently, weaving in the skill where you can between your normal attacks. Choose Bahamut as a summon to greatly increase the amount of cards Ace can draw during a match.

While this luck-based mechanic leaves much to randomness, a large part of playing Ace effectively is making smart decisions based on your Cut Cards draws. Since the four types of abilities resulting from Show of Hands vary widely in their effects, making proper use of your hand on a case-by-case basis is crucial. You may need to alter your positioning if you draw several blue or several yellow cards in order to apply their support-type effects. Or you may draw red and black cards that are offense-oriented, in which case you may have to get into a specific range of an enemy to optimally score some damage. While his third stage unique EX Skills are game-changing, do not underestimate the power of throwing out constant 1s and 2s as well. Your strategies shouldn’t be reliant on reaching the third stage of a specific card color, but you should be aware of the best ways of utilizing those attacks when you do chance upon the rare opportunity. For details on these abilities, see “Drawing Cards and Playing Your Hand.”

Ace’s variety of HP Attacks emphasizes certain aspects in combat. Fire RF is a balanced HP Attack that can be charged to shoot its fireball farther. Fire RF supplements his Bravery Attacks well and can be effective in most situations. Blizzard BOM is your designated defense-oriented HP Attack, projecting a swift blast all around you and knocking away enemies within melee range. Thunder SHG is an offense-oriented attack with a wide arc and a relatively fast start time. Against groups of clumped-up foes, Thunder SHG can deliver a devastating amount of HP damage. Monolith Beam is a direct-casted column that can be used from a far distance and from essentially any altitude. While it leaves you vulnerable to aggression, its persistent tracking effect makes you a dangerous long-range combatant if you’re left unchecked.

One strategy is to use Blizzard BOM with the Share Bravery EX Skill. Blizzard BOM makes you an unappealing target for enemy assassins and vanguards, which can leave you with the freedom to sit back and decimate your opponents with endless Bravery Attacks. Instead of moving in to put yourself at risk to use Blizzard BOM, Ace can simply give his Bravery to his allies while his never-ending projectiles continue fly across the battlefield.

If you prefer a more control-oriented strategy, try using Mega Stop with Bindga, followed by Ante Up or a Flourish combo to lock down a foe for potentially over 10 seconds!”

Ace brings a unique asset to the team, with his heavy emphasis on lockdown effects and his plethora of card attacks. With some luck, his card-playing mechanic can potentially have a devastating impact. While much of his abilities depend on the luck of the draw, an essential part of mastering and optimizing Ace’s powers involves learning to manipulate your card hands in accordance with the current battlefield situation.

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