Shantotto

Marksman

Though she begins by casting arcane magic that hits hard, Shantotto’s strategy changes when her defenses are marred. Growing in size until she practically blots out the entire sun, her salvos of spells make her foes tuck tail and then run.

Original Appearance: FINAL FANTASY XI

Year: 2003

Role: This acclaimed resident of Windurst Walls is one of the strongest magic practitioners in all Vana’diel, and she knows it. Her magic-wielding power is outstripped only by her arrogance. It’s not unearned, though. This pint-sized wizard has taken part in pushing back the forces of evil for decades, while playing a little loose with ethics sometimes when after magical baubles she’s interested in. And that’s to say nothing of perhaps her most memorable trait: she speaks in metered rhyme.

Other Noteworthy Appearances: DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY (2009), DISSIDIA 012 FINAL FANTASY (2011), WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY (2016)

Arsenal

Bravery Attacks: Normal

Bravery Attacks: Enraged

Bravery Attacks: All Times

HP Attacks

EX Skill

Normal Bravery Attack Breakdown

Shantotto commands a tier of black magic mostly forgotten, and in some places forbidden. This means Freeze is like an ultimate form of Blizzard, Tornado is an ultimate form of Aero, and so on. These spells are much larger in surface area and effect than most standard black mage equivalents. Shantotto only has the fortitude to cast these ancient nukes when she has over 2500 HP, and hasn’t yet dipped below that figure either.

Freeze

This icy rock Shantotto throws will shortly plow through all her foes. It’s big and homing, travels fast, and knocks them down within the blast.

This huge, spiny ice bolide has decent tracking ability against foes moving laterally, and will probably catch them at the edge of its range if they don’t dash or sidestep to move faster. When it hits the target, its impact area swells a little as it shatters, so it has a mild chance of catching enemies besides the intended target with splash damage, in confined spaces or against a clustered enemy team.

Tornado

This whirling torrent on the ground draws in foes from all around. They’ll get caught up if in the path, swept aside by the twister’s wrath.

Tornado is a crowd-control option for the space between Shantotto and her target on the ground. This slow-moving vortex has decent range in a vacuum, reaching halfway to the minimap’s edge, but it’s low for a projectile. It makes up for this by taking six seconds to whirl toward its terminus. This gives you time to cast Tornado and evasion cancel out, ready to act again quickly. That can involve supplementing Tornado with more spells, or switching focus to shoot spells at a different enemy. Tornado enhances its chances of striking foes by dragging in any viable targets, which helps cause glancing hits when they’re too distracted to move away immediately.

Casting Tornado again while a previous instance is still on the field causes the first one to vanish.

Quake

The Taru calls for a slab of earth to jut from the surrounding turf. Enemies standing upon the rise will get launched up, to their surprise.

The jagged platform that thrusts upward damages anyone it hits, but doesn’t reach high enough to smack double-jumpers. It’ll catch them if they’re low-altitude dashers, though.

The greatest strength of this move is that it doesn’t matter if something is in between Shantotto and her target. She can safely cast Quake at enemies on the other sides of walls and other obstacles, while all her other spells would be impeded by the barriers. She herself is shielded in this position—unless her opponents also have attacks like this.

Flare

Shantotto hurls a little star from right up close to somewhat far. It blazes in fast but without much homing, a dumbfire tool for mid-range zoning.

Flare is easily dodged by anyone moving perpendicular to Shantotto. The main uses of this attack are to deter assassins moving in straight for Shantotto, and to fire it into groups of fighters already engaged, spicing up the encounter. If you want a mid-air projectile with any kind of realistic tracking ability, use Flood.

Flood

A trembling globe of shimmering waterslowly floats in for a splashy slaughter. It takes a while to make its way, which gives you time to make a play.

Flood’s range and homing ability are good, while its travel speed is slow—it takes five seconds to reach its max distance. It’s an aerial counterpart to Tornado on the ground, a way to put out something that occupies the field for a long time. In fact, if there’s open terrain between you and the enemy party, you can put out both at once: cast Tornado, dash cancel it with , then immediately cast Flood. Evasion cancel forward out of Flood, and now you have a few seconds to work with/hide behind both slow, homing projectiles together.

Only one Flood projectile can be active at a time. Try to cast another, and the first one disappears.

Burst

Your foe’s in for a shocking fate if they don’t vacate the electric gate. The ring calls down a lightning bolt to deliver your foe a frightening jolt.

Once the lightning triangle causes the ball-lightning burst, it persists for almost a second, enough time that a foe dashing nearby without paying attention might fly right into Burst in progress. It also makes this a good attack to target at enemies about to resurrect from being knocked out, or who’ve just air-recovered—if you have a sense of when their invulnerable periods will end, you can greet them with a Burst that, perfectly timed, they won’t be able to avoid.

Although the radius for this attack isn’t as big as Quake on the ground, Burst isn’t limited to targeting enemies at ground level. During skirmishes between your allies and two or three enemies, sending Burst into the mix has a good chance of clipping someone, even if it doesn’t end up being the bogey you’re focused on.

Enraged Bravery Attack Breakdown

When push comes to shove and Shantotto is brought under 2500 HP, her temper takes over and she dispenses with the ancient magics in favor of mashing out contemporary versions. Of course, it’s still Shantotto, an unsurpassed spellslinger, so she’s not just going to cast Blizzard once, not when she’s angry, not when casting it five times in a row rapidly works just as well (and feels more cathartic). In addition to setting aside ancient magic in favor of machine-gunned spells, Shantotto’s movement speed increases a bit when she’s enraged. Even if she’s healed back over 2500 HP, she’ll stay mad—there’s no going back unless she’s incapacitated.

Blizzard

Though angered, Shantotto can chill out by tossing lots of ice about. Her rapid-fire ice cube barrages will split up hostile entourages.

Up to five Blizzard shots can be cast in a row, potentially locking up a target with hits, as they must either dodge, block, or eat them all. Only the final shot knocks targets off their feet on hit, so if you stop the chain-casting short of all five Blizzard shots, it’ll hold them for a while, but it won’t take them out of commission for a moment. These ice shots don’t have homing ability, so you’ll strictly be relying on target selection, timing, and quantity to make these shots count.

Shantotto can move around during this casting, along with other enraged variants, which is good for continuing to dodge enemy activity during these longer casting periods.

Aero

A storm front’s coming for the foe with gusts let loose from casting Aero. Tornado was one, but this is more, not one nor two nor three but four.

Little Aero storms have great homing ability, in contrast to several mainstay Shantotto ranged attacks like normal-mode Flare and enraged Blizzard. They even do a decent job of tracking assassins who triple-jump over the line of Aero shots. Like Blizzard, Shantotto can move around while firing Aero, between one to four casts; unlike Blizzard, any of the Aero shots hitting will knock the victim off their feet, setting them up for other immediate hits if other Aero shots are inbound, or if allies are nearby to scoop them up. Since any Aero twister knocks down, it’s really unlikely they’ll all score hits as a combo.

If you realize you need to take evasive action, you can stop the multi-cast with a guard or evasion cancel.

Stone

Three slabs of stone raised from the soil will work as an assailant’s foil. If any should smack against a foe, upon their form the rest follow.

This is a rapid-fire mini-Quake. Any of the jutting pillars will knock victims off their feet, setting them up for follow-ups, but these don’t extend as wide around or as high up as Quake, naturally. Any double-jumping character can clear the top of the first Stone pillar, then they can dash safely over the tops of the second and third.

When a foe does get caught by the Stone trio, the final one pops them up where they can air-recover, though perhaps not before a friend keeps hitting them. In fact, Shantotto herself can attempt to self-combo off triple-Stone from mid-range, by evasion canceling forward immediately after the third cast, then starting up a multi-shot Blizzard or Aero cast. Depending on positioning and opponent attentiveness, enemies may not be able to air-recover and flip out of the path of the incoming shots in time. This lets Shantotto build up tons of Bravery at once while holding a foe for a long time, keeping them out of commission and potentially setting up an ally for an HP Attack home run.

Fire

Windurst’s pride starts a conflagration aiming for total devastation. The enemy’s plan is what she’ll smother with one fireball after another.

Between one and five Fire shots can be used in a row, and they’ll all lock down a blocking enemy, or combo them on hit. The enemy doesn’t get knocked down until the end, giving plenty of time for teammates to chip in. As with other enraged spells, Shantotto can glide around while spell-casting, which is especially useful for shooting multiple fireballs while moving forward at the enemy to press the attack and hold them for friendly combos.

Water

While Flood sent forth one ancient bubble, here’s a quartet for their trouble. Drown your foes in airborne squalls with these homing Water balls.

Water’s multi-shot spell works like Aero on the ground. Up to four shots can be sent enemy-bound, with good tracking ability and reach. Also like Aero, any hit from Water globes knocks targets off-balance, forcing them to air-recover or risk being vulnerable to follow-up hits. This means a glancing blow from an unfinished casting of Water or Aero is more meaningful while enraged than from Blizzard/Fire/Thunder/Stone, which require the full chain to sweep enemies off their feet.

In other words, you can feel freer to cancel out of Aero and Water with guard or evasion canceling. Don’t feel as obligated to finish out casts of these spells, since they’re more valuable “incomplete” than the ones that don’t always cause a knockdown.

Thunder

A triple-casted lightning spell will microwave the target well. Bolts pop from the very air, shocking fighters floating there.

The sparks that appear around the target foreshadow that they’re about to get zapped. They can sidestep or dash, but they’ll have to do it for every stage you cast. If any stage hits, proceeding to the final casting stage will pop them up, into position for continued punishment from allies. Like with Stone on the ground, by evasion canceling the last Thunder cast and beginning another multi-hit spell, you may even make this happen without allies.

Against undistracted enemies targeting Shantotto, Thunder is the wrong choice compared to linear, space-controlling spells. But against distracted, dogfighting enemies, or against enemies on the other side of obstacles, Thunder is a great option for harassment.

Both Spell-Casting Modes

Bio

This noxious cloud of green ichor carries forth a poisoned spore. If it splashes sick upon the foe, their Bravery shall downward go.

Bio doesn’t build much Bravery for Shantotto, but it does a normal amount of Bravery damage to the enemy over time, spaced over 10 seconds, if they don’t use a common EX Skill to remove status effects.

Bio is a smaller projectile spell than her ancient magic, but in line with her enraged-state spells’ sizes. It’s the only spell that’s fundamentally the same in both states, though the projectile is bit bigger, and the poison effect saps more enemy Bravery when Shantotto is enraged.

HP Attack Breakdown

Retribution

Like a boomerang the staff is thrown to trace an arc and return home.The toss is one they’ll wish they’d vaulted as their Bravery is softened, and HP assaulted.

Shantotto’s one and only physical attack, a staff weapon skill. This is as close as she gets to a close-range tool or a straightforward follow-up for an ally’s combos and wall hits.

Vidohunir

As Shantotto’s casting power grows, a globe of light impels her foes. Upon release, a nova so bright afflicts foes with a defense blight.

The gathering light globe that kicks off this attack is always placed right by Shantotto, but the explosion is wide, reaching to the first minimap circle. This attack can be delayed by holding down the input, which doesn’t add to damage or the debuff effect, but does give more time for the draw-in effect to pull enemies close enough for the splash damage to reach them when the explosion is detonated.

This HP Attack lacks the range and versatility of her other options, but it has one potent feature: on hit, a 30-second defense debuff is inflicted, increasing the damage the target takes from Bravery Attacks by about 30%! This can greatly accelerate the opposing team’s demise if this member becomes careless with getting chewed apart, coughing up lots of bonus Bravery for your side.

Divine Malison

Portals wink open up above to shower the ground in holy love. Six light bolides plummet down, exploding when they strike the ground.

This flexible HP Attack builds upon the strength of Quake/Stone and Burst/Thunder, potentially destroying targets on the other sides of walls, ledges, pillars, and so on, without requiring a direct line of sight. Calling for Divine Malison above fights between your teammates and enemy groups can also lead to hits as opponents inadvertently fly into a light meteor while scrambling away. This is also the only HP Attack that allows Shantotto to move while casting, making it her most evasive option.

There’s a mild random element to the attack’s range and speed, since the holy impactors fall randomly. The overall splash area, between falling threats and impact explosions, is generous, and the threat period is lengthy, as the holy shower takes about a second and a half.

The debuff this attack inflicts reduces the target’s Bravery defense by about 6% for 20 seconds. Not a huge amount, nothing like Vidohunir. More meaningfully, Divine Malison also reduces their guard stamina for 20 seconds, so it takes one fewer blocked attack to shatter their guard and leave them totally helpless, reeling.

Salvation Scythe

Shantotto could be a great dark knight, considering her black magic’s bite. A dark tooth projects across the screen acting like a giant guillotine.

Shantotto uses a melee weapon to trigger this HP strike, but it behaves like many shockwave moves, coursing across the stage toward the intended target as a series of tall bursts. If the would-be victim takes evasive action, dashing or sidestepping, the roaming tooth-pillar will track a bit, trying to snake toward them.

On top of having excellent reach and cutting a forbidding vertical swath, able to slice even high fliers, Salvation Scythe inflicts a unique 20-second debuff. This slowly reduces Bravery by 400 over time (like normal-mode Bio, dashing , and Divine Malison) and reduces attack power by about 12%. Uniquely, Salvation Scythe’s debuff also prevents the auto-recovery of Bravery after the target has been broken by Bravery Attacks, or has just consumed all of their Bravery by landing an HP Attack. The foe is therefore less of a threat to HP while the debuff is active, and their Bravery will be easier to break.

EX Skill Breakdown

Colossal Shantotto

Before the foes’ astonished eyes Shantotto swells to ginormous size. Gathering magic in her hand, she scatters it across the land.

Colossal Shantotto is exactly as advertised. In sheer threat area, it’s one of the biggest attacks in the game. Shantotto’s attack is a huge, wide pillar that travels quickly all the way out to max minimap range. It deals an impressive amount of Bravery damage to anyone it hits, so she can end up in one-shot HP Attack territory instantly if this happens to catch multiple opponents.

Shantotto is invincible when the move begins, so you can (and should) use Colossal Shantotto as a kind of panic button, whether to escape two-on-one or three-on-one scenarios where you’re being overwhelmed without help, or to intentionally dodge big telegraphed attacks, like a summon’s ultimate blow.

Of course, it’s also great to proactively send Colossal Shantotto’s nuke pillar barreling into a group of enemies, if the right opportunity opens up.

The only thing stopping this from seeming totally unfair is that it doesn’t have any tracking. After charging magic in her right fist for a second, Shantotto pitches the pillars directly at the target, and the line doesn’t budge from that vector. It’s still a huge enough hitting area to work well for glancing blows, but it won’t catch attentive targets who are moving in a wide circle, even just running. This also has an extremely long cooldown, so Shantotto won’t be able to use it more than three or four times per match. This makes a whiff is particularly painful!

Battle Plan

Shantotto is a pure marksman type, entirely dedicated to providing ranged support for the team. Her Retribution HP Attack aside, she has no melee attacks at all, no real close-range plan beyond universal options: guarding, sidestepping, dashing away. Note also that her spells generally travel on a horizontal track; her ability to track targets much higher or lower is limited. Wide-open, flatter stages suit her best, while arenas with a lot of verticality are not her favorite places.

With a mastery of all forms of black magic, Shantotto begins battles by flexing her superior grasp of spell-casting, using enormous ancient magic spells. She stays like this until her HP is depleted below 2500, at which point she begins glowing, moving more quickly, and using her “enraged” move set. Bruised and angered, Shantotto sets aside her show-off spells and dusts off tried-and-true staples to send in chain-casted clusters at her adversaries.

As long as allies aren’t incapacitated, the Share HP EX Skill can be used to enter the enraged state at will. HP Regen can be equipped in tandem with Share HP, so Shantotto can replenish some HP after intentionally dropping enough life to become enraged. This is useful after being knocked out, to quickly reenter the enraged mode, or when enemies are purposely avoiding dealing damage to Shantotto. Allies with healing abilities can help out with HP replenishment too.

When calm, Shantotto’s advantages lie in territory control. Tornado and Flood (+ ) are long-lasting, intimidating projectiles to keep out between Shantotto and the enemy team’s direction. Ground zero for team skirmishes will be much friendlier for your allies if you keep these projectiles rolling over it, primarily aimed at the enemy’s main tanking threats. They’ll clash with ranged threats from enemy marksmen, score clipping hits against assassins flitting about, and greatly strengthen your own vanguard’s case when they go in after opposing brawlers.

When Flood and/or Tornado are in motion, choose an enemy target as central to local battles as possible and cast Burst (airborne + ). This centers an electrical area-of-effect explosion wherever they are, which might not hit, but will at least force them to scurry away. Unexpected scrambling is something your allies might capitalize on, and gives the enemy chances to run into your slow projectiles that are still rumbling along. The HP Attack that supplements this long-range artillery shelling best is Salvation Scythe, which gives Shantotto a credible shockwave attack to go with her elemental nukes. Divine Malison is also a decent mid- to long-range tool, as the light meteor shower can police the mid-range border.

When enraged, Shantotto plays much differently. All her spells except for Bio become multi-cast attacks and extend their range to the fourth minimap circle. Her spell hits stop being so forceful, and the magic blasts themselves are smaller. Instead of large bursts, she distributes spell power across several casts of a weaker spell, which, perhaps counterintuitively, makes her stronger on the battlefield. This lets her put more threats on the field at once, and makes her much better at attacking foes directly while creating potential openings for friends. She’s also a faster character, able to continue gliding around while multi-casting nukes.

Aero and Water (airborne/grounded + > x3) replace Flood/Tornado as the best general space-control/homing tools, when in standoffs with enemies at mid- to long-range. Up to four can be thrown per cast. Closer in, especially when providing support fire for melee friends locked in battle, use flurries of Blizzard and Fire (x5), which arrive at targets more quickly and potentially lock them in place, hit or block, creating a perfect opening for a friend to combo a guaranteed HP Attack. Creating lots of these multi-hit holding opportunities is one of the best ways to help nearby melees, thus helping the team put points on the board.

In this state, Divine Malison and Salvation Scythe both provide different benefits to ranged fighting. They both offer mild debuff effects on hit, too.

In contrast to those, her Retribution HP Attack is here in case you must have a close-range option available. It’s a good one, if you want the versatility, at the expense of adding more teeth to her mid- to long-range bombing.

Vidohunir is an interesting option, a close-range attack most noteworthy for its extreme defense debuff, much more impactful than her other HP Attack debuffs. Of course, this is a harder attack to land, as basically a close-range explosion that requires Shantotto to wade into a range she’s ill-suited for. If you can find places to fly in and drop it on a distracted enemy or two, and if allies pummel them while they’re enfeebled, the effect can really add up. Allies dealing lots of bonus Bravery damage will get to potential HP killshots faster, especially mixing in Share Bravery EX Skill use. Bio (especially enraged) also gains more appeal in this scenario, helping push the edge by reducing the target’s Bravery yet another way.

Because all of Shantotto’s magical HP Attacks inflict great debuffs (especially Vidohunir!), you should opt to use HP Attacks often regardless of your Bravery. While one-hit knockouts are always nice, these debuffing HP Attacks really lend themselves to frequent use. Not only will they complicate things for foes trying to guard against your allies, they’ll enhance the whole team’s performance.

If you’ve picked Vidohunir or Retribution, those happen to be just about your only scary defensive options when enemies come calling for you (which will happen soon, if you’re doing your duty in being annoying as a long-range harasser). That is, until your EX Skill cooldown is done and Colossal Shantotto is available for use. This massive dumbfire shockwave travels farther than any other Shantotto attack, builds an incredible amount of Bravery on hit, and, most importantly, renders Shantotto invincible during use. As with her enraged mode, this goes to show that Shantotto will suffer lesser creatures to knock around her tiny, weak form for only so long before she snaps, briefly revealing her true power level.

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