Limit Break

Limit Breaks are group oriented ultimate abilities that can alter the outcome of a battle. They can be performed after charging up a limit break meter.

Limit Breaks are specific to each party role. Tank's limit breaks reduce the damage taken for the entire party for a short time. Damage Dealer's limit breaks deal a massive amount of single target. Caster's limit breaks deal devastating area of effect damage. Healer's limit breaks restore HP and MP to the entire party.

For example, Monk and Dragoon are both damage dealers. They can both use damage dealer limit breaks such as Bladedance and Final Heaven.

Limit Breaks are only usable in a party environment. There are 3 levels of limit breaks, the 1st level can be used in a party with 4 or more members, the 2nd level needs a full party of 8 members, the 3rd level requires a full raid of 24 players, with the exception of dungeons and trials: an additional bar is added at the start of the boss fight.

Tank Limit Breaks

Tank Limit Breaks require Gladiator, Marauder, Paladin or Warrior.

Shield Wall

Shield Wall is the level 1 limit break for tanks. It reduces damage taken by all party members by 10% for 10 seconds.

Mighty Guard

Mighty Guard is the level 2 limit break for tanks. It reduces damage taken by all party members by 20% for 15 seconds.

Last Bastion

Last Bastion is the level 3 limit break for tanks. It reduces damage taken by all party members by 50% for 12 seconds.

Melee DPS Limit Breaks

Melee DPS Limit Breaks require Lancer, Pugilist, Rogue, Dragoon, Monk or Ninja.

Braver

Braver is the level 1 limit break for damage dealers. It executes a single target attack with potency of 2300.

Bladedance

Bladedance is the level 2 limit break for damage dealers. It executes a single target attack with potency of 5000.

Final Heaven

Final Heaven is the level 3 limit break for damage dealers. It executes a single target attack with potency of 9000.

Caster DPS Limit Breaks

Caster DPS Limit Breaks require Thaumaturge, Arcanist, Black Mage or Summoner.

Skyshard

Skyshard is the level 1 limit break for casters. It delivers an area of effect attack with potency of 1400.

Starstorm

Starstorm is the level 2 limit break for casters. It delivers an area of effect attack with potency of 3000.

Meteor

Meteor is the level 3 limit break for casters. It delivers an area of effect attack with potency of 5400.

Healer/Support Limit Breaks

Healer/Support Limit Breaks require Archer, Conjurer, Bard, White Mage or Scholar.

Healing Wind

Healing Wind is the level 1 limit break for healers. It restores 25% of HP and MP of all nearby party members.

Breath of the Earth

Breath of the Earth is the level 2 limit break for healers. It restores 60% of HP and MP of all nearby party members.

Pulse of Life

Pulse of Life is the level 3 limit break for healers. It restores 100% of HP of all nearby party members and revive any party members that are KO'd. Members that are resurrected via the limit break will also have 100% of their MP restored.

Meter Mechanics

Tanks

Generate Limit break on taking damage. *This is the main way people generate LB by stalling in Titan phase 1. If you have an off-tank, having him get hit by landslides in Phase 1 helps generate LB significantly faster.

Generate Limit break on interrupting enemy abilities (only some abilities, usually only boss abilities and not all of them). *This is the main way Limit Break is built on Ifrit

DPS

Generate limit break on dealing critical damage. *This is the main way DPS build LB

Generate limit break on killing enemies.

Healer

Generate limit break on healing a tank from critical health (~10% health). *After the healer heals a tank from critical damage, limit break is built continuously over time until the LB is used.

Generate limit break on critical healing.

I wanted to clarify that each of the methods LB is built is exclusive to that job's role. For example, a DPS or Healer getting hit by damage will NOT generate any limit break. Only Tanks taking damage will build it. Similarly, only a DPS who deals a critical damage will generate LB. Healers and Tanks do not generate LB from critical damage.

Notes

The primary method of accruing limit break appears to be entirely time: damage taken, damage dealt, healing done all have an effect that, if it exists, is next to insignificant. Pulling a single tonberry and turning your back to it while everyone else stands around picking their noses was building limit just as fast as leisurely DPSing down a pair of tonberries was going just as fast as full out cooldown burn on an entire AOE pack of tonberries and buzzards. It's possible that this effect is magnified in full groups to the point that it actually matters, but you'd want a decent sample size of raid boss videos with combat logs to accurately identify any differences on that front. (Honestly, anyone with Titan experience knows this is pretty obvious: otherwise, why do higher DPS groups always have less limit in heart phase than lower DPS groups?)

Group diversity does seem to have an effect on rate of limit build, but I didn't have enough people around to test with a satisfactory variety of compositions to really make it obvious. 4x ACN did seem to be building slower than DRG/BLM/WHM/SCH, though, so.. Confirmation bias is possible here since I didn't have a stopwatch handy and we didn't feel like standing around long enough to build entire bars.

The observed idea that LB only builds at a constant rate after an LB triggering effect fires appears to be largely nonsense - there appears to be instead an invisible section of bar that has to (slowly) fill before it starts showing actual build. Yes, this is as obnoxiously weird as it sounds, and made me go 'and now we're not building at al-- wait, there it goes' while doing essentially nothing different between tests while full HP mobs poke me for tiny damage values.

There are, of course, the special triggers like interrupts on Ifrit that change things up. No surprises here, aside from sussing out what other ones might be on other bosses.

Things that need verification and additional comments: Is the rate of build determined by party content or surviving party content? Is 'group diversity' checked only against the living? (Assuming group diversity matters, of course.) Is diversity determined by 'primary stat' or by class/job specifically? Do the oft-mentioned 'critical save' heals actually do anything? Or status effects? If you plan on checking it out yourself, learn from my mistake and bring a stopwatch to get something a little more accurate. Also, check one thing at a time: according to various people roughly everything increases LB, so eliminate as many factors as possible when testing.