Onion Knight

Specialist

This smart aleck is a triple threat when it comes to battle: in addition to being an onion knight, he can unleash devastating melee attacks as a ninja or assail his foes in powerful spells as a sage. How to bring out the best in him is up to you.

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY III

Year: 1990

Role: The fabled Onion Knights of Ur are spiritual descendants of the Warriors of Light and go on their own globe-trotting quests to dispel the forces of evil. Battling the minions of the wizard Xande, they eventually discover a more sinister presence behind him—Cloud of Darkness.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011)

Arsenal

All Jobs

Bravery Attacks: Onion Knight

Bravery Attacks: Ninja

Bravery Attacks: Sage

HP Attacks

EX Skill

All Jobs

Rush

With all of Onion Knight’s jobs, whether flying or standing, dashing  is a special command movement, not an attack. Upon activation, he zips forward in the chosen direction with a burst of extra speed. During Rush, Onion Knight plows through spells. He still takes the Bravery damage (and thus his foe still gains Bravery too), but he won’t be interrupted, thrown off his feet, or hurled into a wall.

No part of this is an actual attack, but the latter portion of Rush can be canceled into a sidestep or an attack (Bravery or HP, either type). Dashing, then Rushing, then canceling the tail end of Rush with a sidestep is a great way to suddenly seem to sidestep twice. This can be used for tricky movement, with several different goals, whether as another dodge option besides sidesteps, or to juke and feint while trying to coax reactions from the enemy.

While dashing around enemies, playing a waiting game, you might see an incoming projectile or HP Attack, use Rush to dodge it, when suddenly another projectile or HP Attack is about to hit. Most characters have to hold the “L” here, out of dodging options, but Onion Knight can sidestep one more time from the end of Rush.

When dashing aggressively toward an enemy, like chasing down opposing marksmen as a ninja, you might anticipate that they’ll try to use one of their few close-range options to blockade your advance. Once their inevitable defensive attack is initiated, you can Rush out of the way (or right through it, if it’s a spell), then cancel the end of Rush into an attack to immediately punish them for the whiffed move.

After dash canceling to chase victims following melee combos (like the onion knight’s Sundry Strikes, and most of the ninja’s arsenal), you can use Rush out of the dash to gain ground even faster, and for tricky redirects when you re-engage.

Rush also enhances Onion Knight’s runaway ability, giving him the chance to basically dodge twice in the same direction back-to-back, which can’t be done simply by sidestepping rapidly; there’s a delay between them.

Onion Knight Bravery Attack Breakdown

Sundry Strikes

Onion Knight lunges forward with a series of lightning-quick stabs, traveling a good distance before he gives up, if no one ends up caught on his blade. On a successful hit, he moves from the opening-stab combo to a hit that knocks the victim away, allowing for a dash cancel follow-up and/or a wall hit.

The onion knight’s job has only one melee option, but it’s pretty good. Sundry Strikes is the same on the ground and in the air, and it has good range, since Onion Knight slides forward stabbing for a bit. If only the last thrust connects, it won’t build up as much Bravery as if the whole thing does, but it still allows the follow-up knockback strike.

The move’s only disadvantage is that it has no swiping coverage, horizontally or vertically. It’s a needle-strike straight ahead, so you have to catch agile opponents off guard with it, lest it get sidestepped.

Scoring consecutive Sundry Strikes hits eventually automatically changes Onion Knight’s job to ninja, where he gains a much better version of this attack (along with more melee options).

Blizzard

Standing on the ground, the versatile knight uses his sword to cast a frigid spell out upon the land. A damaging ice ball tears along the turf, leaving a trail of ice behind it. This leading ball of Blizzard deals damage on hit.

The longer it travels before hitting, the more Bravery damage is dealt. You get the most damage only for hitting with Blizzard at the end of its range. On downslopes and level ground, Blizzard travels its full range and has decent tracking ability to leave the ground and catch someone at low altitude. Blizzard can sometimes have trouble navigating upslope, though, especially at steep or irregular angles. When shooting at enemies uphill, err toward jumping/neutral dashing so you can cast Fire at low altitude, instead of risking a Blizzard shot that gets snuffed out by the slope.

As an onion knight, casting magic doesn’t just give a ranged option. It can also trigger an automatic promotion to sage. It takes three Sundry Strikes starters to swap from onion knight to ninja, or three Blizzard and Fire hits to automatically change to sage. These can build concurrently, so if you hit twice with melee and twice with magic, the fifth hit’s type determines your job swap.

Blizzard/Fire Range: Damage

Fire

In mid-air, Onion Knight launches a magic fireball from his sword at the opponent. On hit, Fire deals Bravery damage, and it has decent tracking ability. Pretty straightforward.

Like Blizzard, Fire deals more damage farther away, with the same range and damage variations. It also builds Onion Knight toward an automatic sage job swap, if you continuously pelt the opposing team with Fire and Blizzard casts. The third successful shot should change his job, if you don’t make it to ninja first with melee stabs.

Ninja Bravery Attack Breakdown

Ceaseless Strikes/Breakneck Pierce

This is Onion Knight’s significant upgrade from Sundry Strikes, beginning with a similar lunging, repeated needle-stab, before moving into the finishing hit. On the ground, Onion Knight slaps the enemy away with a two-hit launching swipe; in the air, he finishes with a single cross-blade spiking hit. Either finisher allows for a dash cancel to chase enemies down.

Although the finisher is slightly different, the first poking stage is the same, whether on the ground or in the air. This is the primary opening strike for Onion Knight against opponents on a relatively even plane, and it deals significantly more Bravery damage as a ninja than as an onion knight. Simply using the first stage and letting it finish without a finisher, then starting it up again, is a good way to pressure a solo marksman, who doesn’t have options to deal with this without teammates nearby. Slam someone into a wall with this combo, then do it again, racking up tons of Bravery with a basic sequence.

Whirlwind Slash

Onion Knight springs up off the ground, leaping up-forward, both swords twirling like rotors. If a foe is caught up in the blades, it’s possible to tack on a spiking double-sword hit. This can wall-splat them, leading to combo opportunities for the ninja or his teammates.

The range listing here is for enemies even with Onion Knight. His leaping travel means he’ll whiff over the heads of ground-level enemies outside of basically point-blank range. Measured diagonally, the range is tremendous, making Whirlwind Slash great for shooting down enemies who are jumping or dashing around nearby. This can clip the feet of enemies floating/flying at standard double-jump height. Having this anti-air angle covered with Whirlwind Slash is one of many ways the ninja job outdoes the onion knight’s melee.

Wind Shear

With lightning speed, Onion Knight hops into a blur, swords outstretched, generating a wicked gale that sucks in victims nearby.

His Wind Shear is ridiculously fast, one of the quickest attacks in DISSIDIA. Hitting after just a sixth of a second, Wind Shear’s tornado can be piloted as needed for another second and a half! Anyone wandering too close will have to dash or sidestep to outrun Wind Shear bearing down on them. On hit, it tosses victims away with a single brutal gust.

Wind Shear can’t be dash canceled on hit, but the latter part of Wind Shear’s spin can be evasion canceled on hit, whiff, or block. Onion Knight as a ninja is already a fast character, and abusing Wind Shear in close—and erratically evasion canceling out of it before going into more attacks or aggressive movement—adds to his intimidation factor as an assassin. Wind Shear’s gust reaches surprisingly high, too, pulling in airborne enemies who aren’t already clearing over double/triple-jump height when the twirling ninja passes under them.

Shuriken

Now THAT’S a ninja star. Onion Knight leaps and hurls an enormous Shuriken he produces from who-knows-where, sending it spinning toward his target.

The Shuriken makes a flat, wide projectile, a little different from the usual sphere-shaped fireballs used by many fighters. When it hits, it sticks in place on the enemy, continuing to spin and hitting them a couple times before knocking them away. This short delay can be enough for allies nearby to take advantage, catching the victim with their own attacks off the Shuriken. At the right angles near a wall, the spinning Shuriken’s finishing slash can also flatten foes across the wall, allowing more hits before they can recover.

Shuriken isn’t long-lasting enough to use as any kind of marksman-like ranged threat. It’s more like a mid-range poke. If you want projectile backup as a ninja, you’ll either have to get it from a marksman teammate or lay it down first as a sage, then job-change and follow it in.

Wheeling Thrust

Onion Knight pinwheels from the air down toward the ground, fists and feet the whole way. Any hits drag the victim along, where, at the bottom of his path, Onion Knight brings all his momentum into an upside-down two-sworded swat that launches the victim out to the edge of mid-range, a good bit of Bravery sapped.

This dive-bombing Bravery Attack goes hand in hand with the ninja’s fast speed and air mobility. His triple-jump allows him to get over the heads of most other characters, though max triple-jump height is too far for Wheeling Thrust to reach anyone standing on the ground.

This is a perfect combo to follow up by dash canceling back in after opponents. They don’t get thrown too far, and Onion Knight can reach that distance extra quick with the combination of a dash cancel and the unique Rush move.

Sage Bravery Attack Breakdown

Blizzaga

With an upward flick of his wand, the sage sends an ice ball along the ground, trailing ice in its wake. The explosion on hit is bigger than using Blizzard as an onion knight, so this has potential for nailing multiple foes if they’re close enough.

Blizzaga’s tracking and range are better than the onion knight’s Blizzard. Blizzaga still has the same problem with upward slopes, though. It works together with Firaga as a quick mid-to-long-range projectile. If there’s time, it’s best to get Thundaga/Aeroga in play before using Blizzaga/Firaga.

Aeroga

Onion Knight doubles over before springing up, wand spinning, to release a powerful, long-lasting ball of wind. This big projectile has enormous range and travels very slowly, lasting almost seven seconds. Whether it hits someone or simply hits its max range, it discharges in a huge shockwave.

Aeroga has enormous range, reaching anyone on the minimap. It travels slowly, taking almost seven seconds to reach the end of its path. The slow travel speed means it’s not going to hit anyone unless they’re just sitting there watching it coming, but that’s not how battles play out. Aeroga is great for helping clog the field, giving the target something to run from/accidentally get hit by, providing frontal projectile cover for Onion Knight, and putting a moving hazard on the field that the target’s teammates may very well run into while being too busy engaged with your friends to notice. With long range in hand and great homing, it’s also perfect to fire and forget at summoning cores, so you can quickly return your attention to the opposition.

Aeroga travels at about the same speed as Onion Knight running (also true of its aerial analog, Thundaga), so it’s possible to follow Aeroga in as your cover, running alongside or even within it. If the situation calls for a shift to ninja, you can pick an opportune victim, cast Thundaga and Aeroga back-to-back, then job-change and rush in as a ninja, with two sage nukes still churning ahead of you. If the target is cornered or near walls and reacts poorly, this can get gnarly for them, as you can potentially self-combo as the ninja off the sage’s nukes.

Casting Aeroga while a previous instance of it is still on the field makes the first spell disappear harmlessly.

Flare

With a swing of the wand, Onion Knight quickly ejects a smoldering globe that travels a short distance, then explodes with devastating force. When the globe goes, its blast radius is as wide as three globes end over end!

Flare is a tool for prying aggressors off Onion Knight on the ground. As a sage, Onion Knight has a total lack of close-range Bravery Attacks. The closest he gets are Flare and Holy in the air. (Though three of his HP Attacks are close-range, so that’s something to keep in mind.)

Firaga

With a backhand flick of the wand, Onion Knight hurls a bigger, better fireball than the basic Fire spell. Firaga travels farther, with better tracking and a much bigger area-of-effect explosion on hit.

This is the sage’s standard-bearing harassment/standoff projectile, with a decent mix of all attributes and nothing too unusual going on. From a mid-to-long-range standoff, team vs. team with neither having an obvious advantage, slow-rolling Thundaga balls backed up by a rhythm section of constant Firaga casts helps deter frontal assaults and set up temporary mobile cover for your own melee allies to rally behind.

Thundaga

With an aerial forward flip into an overhead wand flick, Onion Knight sends a ball of lightning crackling slowly toward the target. When it strikes something or meets the end of its path, the ball blossoms into six lightning bolts, striking the same area at once. This electric explosion, like the ends of most of Onion Knight’s spells, is great for catching teammates or enemies near a wall struck by Thundaga.

Thundaga is the electrical, airborne counterpart to grounded Aeroga, and a great complement to it. Like the wind spell, Thundaga lasts just short of seven seconds, and with a range of five—basically max, with very few exceptions—any adversary on the minimap is a viable target.

Evasion cancel from the recovery of Thundaga to quickly cast another aerial spell, or dash in after the lightning ball to close distance. If there’s an assassin nearby or an attack incoming, guard cancel to fall earthbound quickly. If the coast is clear on the ground, immediately cast Aeroga and evasion cancel forward. Now you have BOTH long-lasting homing spells on-screen at once and several seconds to use them as cover, chase in after someone behind them, or back them up with quicker spells.

Also like Aeroga, you can’t cast Thundaga again without nullifying any previous instance of Thundaga. If you want multiple slow-moving spells on-screen together, hand off between wind and thunder.

Holy

Thrusting the wand from his hip to above his head, Onion Knight underhand-tosses a holy grenade, which shortly bursts into a momentary pillar of light. The shorter range and quicker release of Holy make it appropriate for getting assassins and vanguards off you at mid-range, like Flare on the ground.

This light pillar hits enemies above or below where Holy detonates; foes can’t avoid this tracking spell by double/triple-jumping over it, nor by falling quickly under it. It also has potential for hitting enemies who are hiding on a lower level, just beyond a barricade or ledge, if the splash damage reaches down to their heads.

HP Attack Breakdown

Sword & Sorcery

In Onion Knight’s most flexible and straightforward HP Attack, he surges forward with a lateral sword slash aimed at the midsection. On hit, this single swipe deals heavy damage and carves an opening for Onion Knight to rush in close and blast foes backward hard with an explosive magic spell into their chests.

The range on Sword & Sorcery can be increased a little by holding the button, charging the attack. The range increase isn’t great enough to use this attack on targets in motion, though, only against targets distracted by nearby friends.

In any job, Sword & Sorcery is a reliable way to deal a potential knockout shot to the beginning of mid-range. It’s great for piling on when teammates create long openings, like with a vanguard’s slow combo or a marksman’s multi-projectile barrage, and for capping off wall hits with a bang.

Spirit Surge

During this HP Attack, Onion Knight simply explodes, unleashing his pent-up job energy as a mid-range area-of-effect burst. The damaging radius expands quickly from Onion Knight, dissipating after a second. Anyone caught within receives Onion Knight’s Bravery balance as HP damage.

Spirit Surge’s range is much bigger as a ninja or a sage. However, using Spirit Surge as ninja/sage will revert him to onion knight form. This is the only way to change back to onion knight without getting knocked out.

Thankfully, though, as a big bonus while using Spirit Surge, you only need to land a single melee attack or spell to transform—one-third the usual number of landed blows needed to automatically transform from onion knight to an advanced job!

Like Sword & Sorcery, Spirit Surge is an effective close-range HP Attack on any job, with a bonus for the advanced ones. But using it means juggling jobs more frequently, which requires some mental gymnastics, since you’re reset to onion knight with every discharge, and this might put you on an awkward advanced job for a given situation (mage when your team could use an assassin, or vice versa), or simply the advanced job you like playing less. It’s usually better to land the hits you can get in skirmishes, rather than focusing too much attention on what kind of hit. For example, forsaking spells and saving onion knight exclusively for a single melee stab, getting you back to your preferred ninja, can be detrimental if rushing in for melee gets you killed, or holding off on ranged attacks costs your team in space control.

Blade Torrent

Onion Knight hops in place several times to psych himself up and tense his muscles for a pounce, then he suddenly springs forward, slashing with his sword. On hit, he proceeds into a rapid dicing combo, slashing the enemy repeatedly, building extra Bravery before the punishing HP hit at the end.

For onion knight and sage, this melee HP Attack is inferior to Sword & Sorcery, which offers those jobs more range and builds more Bravery. For onion knight, landing Blade Torrent goes halfway toward a ninja promotion.

For ninja, it’s a different story. Ninja’s Blade Torrent range is comparable to uncharged Sword & Sorcery, while dishing out more Bravery damage before the finale. If you plan to spend basically 100% of your Onion Knight time as a ninja assassin, there’s a compelling argument for picking Blade Torrent. If you plan to be fluid with job-swapping, Sword & Sorcery and Spirit Surge are stronger choices.

Meteor

Onion Knight calls down a rain of meteors from a portal that opens just above the victim’s head (or as close to it as possible, range allowing).

Compared to other HP Attacks, Meteor’s biggest advantage is that it isn’t blocked by physical obstacles. If someone is on the other side of a barrier or wall that would block typical direct attacks, you can still open a Meteor portal right above their heads from behind cover.

Meteor is a spell, counting toward a sage transformation when used as onion knight. It only takes two Meteor hits, as opposed to three Fire/Blizzard hits. With the sage job, Meteor has greatly enhanced range.

If your favorite Onion Knight job is sage, Meteor is here for you. It’s also great on stages with confined quarters or lots of obstacles, like Midgar. Attacks that come right down on top of targets don’t care when sightlines are broken, allowing you to bomb from behind cover with enhanced range as sage. The ability to bomb behind cover, coupled with the decent range on any job, means that Meteor isn’t quite as sage-skewed as Blade Torrent is ninja-skewed.

EX Skill Breakdown

Change Jobs

Onion Knight’s EX Skill allows him to swap between his three jobs. When in onion knight form, using Change Jobs has a 50/50 chance of changing Onion Knight into either a ninja or a sage. If Onion Knight is already in ninja or sage form, using Change Jobs swaps between them.

When using Change Jobs, Onion Knight gains 500 Bravery and restores 525 HP. Onion Knight is also fully invincible for a second after swapping jobs; with immaculate timing, a job change can be used to dodge incoming attacks or summon spells.

Ninja is an assassin-type job, granting Onion Knight increased speed, a triple-jump, and much better melee attacks.

Sage is a marksman type—and among the more aggressive ones available, too—with lots of long-range, direct-assault magic. Onion Knight trades his sword attacks for a full suite of attack spells.

If Onion Knight is incapacitated, in addition to coughing up a point to the other team, he’ll be reverted to onion knight form. The HP Attack Spirit Surge also changes him back to onion knight from ninja or sage.

Battle Plan

Onion Knight is a humble, plucky, sarcastic warrior who begins in something of a stunted role. Initially, as an onion knight, he’s like a stripped-down version of both of his other, more advanced jobs. Onion knight form is like the understudy to ninja and sage; the neutral (air or ground) >  combo for onion knight is inferior to the ninja’s basic melee combo, and the onion knight’s command of Fire and Blizzard can’t compete with the increased range and variety of the sage.

As an onion knight, he is simply underequipped for the task at hand. He’s too limited in this state to even be clearly labeled as a marksman, assassin, or vanguard. Thus, juggling between his job roles as needed must become second nature, so you can access a fuller arsenal.

The most direct route to swapping roles is the Change Jobs EX Skill, but that’s only available every 75 seconds. However, Onion Knight can also graduate from the onion knight job by consistently striking foes with either melee or magic moves. To automatically upgrade from onion knight to ninja, keep landing >  Sundry Strikes combos. To upgrade from onion knight to sage, keep harassing foes with long-range Blizzard and Fire (+ ).

Building to either ninja or sage is somewhat like trying to activate Garland’s Deranged Soul buff. You need three melee or magic strikes (though you’re not racing an invisible timer to get the buff, like with Garland). Land two of each, and the fifth attack type determines which job Onion Knight becomes. HP Attacks (except Spirit Surge) are worth a little bit more and upgrade to ninja or sage in two hits.

Whether a situation calls for ninja or sage varies depending on your teammates, the opposing team’s composition, and perhaps the battlefield. If you’ve teamed up with a vanguard and an assassin, playing as a ninja creates a melee-heavy team. The converse is true if you’re with two marksmen, then swap to sage; that could be good or bad, depending on how effective the opposing players are at dealing with keepaway. As for the arena, locations with lots of height changes and obstacles are more conducive to ninja. Faster running and a triple-jump means ninja is nimbler navigating more complex terrain, and these areas naturally lead to more close- to mid-range encounters. Whereas wide-open stages are a delight for sage, who can pump out multiple long-range hazards at once with the best of them.

The strength of Onion Knight is his flexibility; his weakness is that he must jump through an onion-knight-job-sized hoop to get to ninja and sage. Onion knight’s melee attack is great, but it’s just one attack. You also have to work with occasionally less-than-ideal advanced job situations since, after first changing to ninja or sage, you’ll probably still be waiting on the initial availability of the Change Jobs EX Skill, should you want to swap.

As a ninja, Onion Knight is a speedy assassin type, suited for hunting preoccupied enemies and opposing marksmen. He’s much faster and nimbler, his neutral  combos are even better than the onion knight’s, and he gains melee attacks for all angles. If the team already has specialized magic-slinging backup, focus on ninja and rush down strays broken off from the pack.

Sage, on the other hand, is best suited as the specialized magic-slinging backup. Spell reach is unsurpassed, and he can keep the projectiles coming in all mid- and long-range situations with lots of effective attack spells. However, one of the reasons sage is so incentivized to stay very far away and abuse this long reach is that options are extremely limited in close, if enemy melees close in. Sage has no melee attacks, and the closest-range spells (Holy and Flare) can easily miss an agile attacker circling and sidestepping. This gap in ability can be shored up a little with the use of his HP Attacks, any of which is potentially useful for surprising a close-range attacker, if there’s a chance to get a word in. You can also consider picking extra EX Skills that give a little insurance against rushers, like Slowga and Bindga.

Gallery

Appearance

Weapons