Barnacle_Ed

Character/Job Party Recommendations

518 posts in this topic

6 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I'm starting to consider my next playthrough. There's one combo I'd like to try, which I haven't tried for 15+ years since it was so OP in the vanilla game: Light Lise and Dark Hawk (or alternatively Dark Lise with invert armor). In addition to that, I'd like to have healing, sabers, some elemental spells, and possibly a debuff to lower enemies' max HP. Who should I pick as the third character, and which classes would you recommend?

Sorry, I read the term "possibly" to mean that it wasn't high on your list of priorities. Even without the Moon Coins, I still think Ninja Master would be more fun. The MT stat debuffs are really that good, both defensively for lowering incoming physical or magical damage or offensively to boost your spells. Plus Marduk is just way better than Blow Needles. The level 3 FST and Black Rain are really nice though, so Nightblade should be good as well; also his colors fit nicely with the rest of the team (Midnight Marauders?).

Edited by rpschamp

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10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Duran Duran!

The game has to decide who Duran is talking to.... Does the first Duran respond with Angela's text about her story in Altena?

Or... the game crashes?

Will Duran Duran ever make it to Seito Wenderu?

His intro dialog plays twice, he is not added to the party and the npc Duran just disappears, letting me continue but with only 1 character in the party :/

9 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

So you actually went to test having the same character in the party multiple times? :D I suppose he'll free his stunt doubles from prison after FMH.

The stunt double causes a softlock; he is not added to the party and just stays in the way.

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2 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

His intro dialog plays twice, he is not added to the party and the npc Duran just disappears, letting me continue but with only 1 character in the party :/

I take it that to get this to work, you'd have to reroute all the event scenes for every character. Not sure if it would be worth the effort!

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I'd have to understand why the 2nd character is not added to the party...
this can be an issue in the event itself or a global method that says I already have Duran in the party so it doesn't need to add Duran(2).
Or maybe it does add Duran(2) but his data is empty because his data was saved to Duran(1)'s data

in total: no idea

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13 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

@Nesouk SL/NB/GD definitely sounds like an option. How would the following teams work:
Star Lancer, Nightblade, Bishop/Sage
Vanadis, Nightblade, Duelist/Swordmaster
Vanadis, Ninja Master, Death Hand

Team 1 : In my opinion you just can't go wrong with Star Lancer, Dark Hawk and Light Carlie, Star Lancer/Ninja Master/Bishop was my team for my first playthrough, this team was good enough to carry me a newbie who had never played vanilla Seiken Densetsu 3 prior to this mod, and who played this mod on Hard right away with almost no knowlegde on either the base game mechanic or the mod mechanic (I actually would like to retry the same team with the knowledge I had on this mod now could be fun), so I say if this team can do that then high chance are this is pretty amazing team, that probably could be amazing in the hand of a more experience player.

Team 2 : That's actually a team I had in mind for pairing Duelist and Nightblade, I think Duelist is better than Swordmaster here, this team looks great tough I fear Vanadis might be to busy on healing and support duty to do anything else, but I think Duelist and Nightblade could be a pretty deadly duo for clearing the screen with LV3FST (or Dark Saber + Black Rain) helped by Duelist's Aura Wave, Hawk is also again good for Counter and Fireblaze combo regardless of the class due to Dual Hitting and with her Final Weapon Duelist can make Vanadis's Freya elemental for weakness purpose, and Duelist's Anti Magic give this team a way to deal with physical resistant ennemies as this team lack Magic damage otherwise.

Team 3 : Sounds good to me, IMO Death Hand is the best LV3 Tech use in the game due Kevin's raw power amplify by his Wolf Form + Dual Hitting and Aura Wave which allow him to fill is tech bar in no time + Natural boost to his LV3, I would argue against his final weapon tough unless you have Necromancer I don't think his final weapon is good as it's too annoying reapply the debuffs instead I recommend the Fill Tech x3 weapon he can no joke use his LV3 Tech almost all the time xD, plus with Ninja Master you have a solid character for counter and Fireblaze to reduce bosses defense and Death Hand's sabers are always nice to have (he does lack Saint Saber tough).

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28 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Sorry, I read the term "possibly" to mean that it wasn't high your list of priorities. Even without the Moon Coins, I still think you'd be better off with Ninja Master. The MT stat debuffs are really that good, both defensively for lowering incoming physical or magical damage or offensively to boost your spells. Plus Marduk is just way better than Blow Needles. The level 3 FST and Black Rain are really nice though, so Nightblade should be good as well; also his colors fit nicely with the rest of the team (Midnight Marauders?).

The ST stat debuff shouldn't be a problem if you have Angela around, I can hardly see a mob fight turning wrong when you have Marduke to silence mobs to prevent possible counter, and have 2 solid nukers with Gran Divina and Nightblade (either through Black Rain or LV3FST for him).

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4 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

The ST stat debuff shouldn't be a problem if you have Angela around, I can hardly see a mob fight turning wrong when you have Marduke to silence mobs to prevent possible counter, and have 2 solid nukers with Gran Divina and Nightblade (either through Black Rain or LV3FST for him).

For the most part you're right; its only those mobs you can't silence that also do a ton of tech damage that might leave you longing for MT Power Down (werewolves come to mind). MT Mind Down should not really be as important, since Black Curse compensates with increased base damage and that 25% always-MT bonus.

Edited by rpschamp

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2 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

For the most part you're right; its only those mobs you can't silence that also do a ton of tech damage that might leave you longing for MT Power Down (werewolves come to mind). MT Mind Down should not really be as important, since Black Curse compensates with increased base damage and that 25% always-MT bonus.

Hmmm...I guess the armor that have a chance to deny ennemies counter might help mitigate this issue for the werewolves type of ennemies.

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2 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Hmmm...I guess the armor that have a chance to deny ennemies counter might help mitigate this issue for the werewolves type of ennemies.

It should. By the way, do you make much use of the early low-chance deny-counter armor you can buy at the Dwarf Village? I've found the "low chance" description to be misleading and this armor to be indispensable to casters against bosses all the way up to the God Beasts.

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Just now, rpschamp said:

It should. By the way, do you make much use of the early low-chance deny-counter armor you can buy at the Dwarf Village? I've found the "low chance" description to be misleading and this armor to be indispensable to casters against bosses all the way up to the God Beasts.

I honnestly never tried it ^^ but I could definitly see it being really usefull especially for Bill and Ben as without it caster are pretty much useless against them due to their counter making casting to risky especially in the first fight against them.

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Just now, Nesouk said:

I honnestly never tried it ^^ but I could definitly see it being really usefull especially for Bill and Ben as without it caster are pretty much useless against them due to their counter making casting to risky especially in the first fight against them.

Both Bill/Bens, Machine Robos Redux, Lugar, Jewel Eater, Gildervine Phase 2, and probably some others I'm not thinking of. I pretty much equip them at every boss when I have two casters going, except for Gorva and maybe Tzenker.

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Weeeell :

-Machine Golem Redux : Now my strat for them is to solo them with one character, abusing Counter and Fireblaze thanks to their slow animation which works really well, and as such they shouldn't do much counter.

-Jewel Eater : Honnestly never had issue with Counter with him, beside I never do 2 casters against him due to Carlie dying way to easily due to her weakness and honnestly not being worth keeping alive cause unlike Angela's Fireball you can't even strengthen her Holy Ball through the day system, I just don't bother with her and let her die ^^

-Lugar : I find him to not do to much counter (except of course if you use Spike armor or Curse upgrade XD), and generally at this point you should have enough way to reduce the damage and heal right away.

-Gildervine : Is honnestly the easiest boss in the game already, no need to make him easier xD and I actually prefer Spike armor in that fight to deal with the mobs during the first phase.

EDIT : Also just checking but you can petrify Werewolves type of ennemy so for these, maybe bumping Hawk's Luck a bit and use the weapon that can inflict petrify might be a good idea.

Edited by Nesouk

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We were discussing a team of Star Lancer, Ninja Master/Nightblade and Grand Divina before. Do you think the team would be better or worse if you replaced Star Lancer with Dragon Master, who uses inverted armor? DM doesn't get AW or EB, but with her ultimate weapon, she gets the empowered Anti-Magic, so every element turns into a weakness, and with Ninja Master's ultimate weapon, every element can then force enemy into counterable state. Oh, and how hard is it to use the Fireblaze strategy with Hawk when he doesn't have Kongo Rakan (i.e. before farming the weapon, or when using a non-NM class)?

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Not that hard actually which is why I opted to use Dancing Dagger with Ninja Master even against mob where I can't really use a global weakness, I only use Kongo Rakan against bosses that have a weakness NM can exploit, equip Hawk with Fireblaze and Mistscreen Charm he can then get his LV1 Tech in one swing, wait for mobs to attack as soon as you see an attack use the LV1 Tech or as soon as you see a Text box pop up for a spell in coming. Or you can just set the AI to use LV1 Tech, it's not as precise of course but you can be sure the AI will hit a counter and unlike you the AI can't miss the LV1, even if it has enough Tech Point for the LV2 it will still cast the LV1 ^^.

Invert Armor has pretty low defenses so probably would be best to use it on bosses, and also you can't access them until the God Beasts are release, which mean you had to deal up to that point with no buffs (or relying on items) and since Gran Divina don't get Sabers until her Final Weapon you also will have to rely on items if you want them, furthermore Star Lancer is a faster caster than Dragon Master (thanks to gear) so she set the buff faster, and Marduke is a better summon than Jormongand, so I'd say overall Dragon Master would be an harder run, tough the Empewored Anti Magic with Ninja Master could be deadly on bosses that have weaknesses (all of them except Mispolm (due to his gimmick this strat would be useless), Dolan and Archdemon (as I assume you wil run the Archdemon Route) IIRC).

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Alright, SL-Dark Hawk-GD it is then. ^_^ How should I distribute the stats of the final classes? Grand Divina needs agility (for cast time), vitality, intelligence and spirit (for her healing spells), and her spell bonus damage is determined by luck, but I can only max about 4 stats out of 6. Star Lancer needs strength, vitality, intelligence (for cast time) and spirit, and she needs some agility to hit targets, and increasing luck would increase Marduke's damage and her crit resistance. Dark Hawk requires strength, agility, vitality, spirit and luck, and spell bonus is determined by intelligence.

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For the cast time you don't need to max out the corresponding stat especially for Star Lancer combine her final weapon + the helm that reduce cast time and just 20 INT is enough to almost instant cast Marduke ^^, for Angela and Hawk getting around the 25 should be enough, I honnestly don't bother with the stats that give small bonus damage to spell for the most part my 2 cents :

-General : VIT and PIE regardless of character these are definitly stats you want to increase maybe not maxing out but should be invest a bit, especially on Hard.

-Star Lancer : INT for cast time but she doesn't need to max it out, VIT and PIE cause since she is the Shield user she's gonna be your tank, PIE also increase Marduke, then it depend on how you want to use her, if you don't plan for doing physical damage with her STR and AGL can be ignore, you could then focus on LCK for Crit Res and boosting Marduke, if you want damage from physical then invest in STR and AGL. 

-Dark Hawk : AGL is no brainer for Hawk, then for Nightblade I suggest focusing on STR and INT to take full advantage of his LV3 FST (INT increase the damage of LV2/3 Tech) and Black Rain. For Ninja Master I suggest STR and LCK, you won't use LV3 Tech or spell as main source of damage, Ninja Master is good for Crit Build thanks to his unique Detect Debuff (and you have Energy Ball with Star Lancer) so Luck is good.

-Gran Divina : AGL up to 20-25, then VIT, INT, PIE first then the rest on luck, I don't think I need to explain why xD

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Just to agree, I've played both Ninja Master/Star Lancer/Grand Divina and Ninja Master/Dragon Master/Grand Divina, and Star Lancer is the better choice. Not only does she have better abilities for this team, but you'll be able to wear whatever armor you want. At least on Hawk/Lise's quest, empowered Antimagic is not worth resigning yourself to invert armor during boss fights.

Edited by rpschamp

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IMO Dark Hawk as an all isn't very good to pair with Dragon Master, I'd argue Dragon Master would go better with Classes that more or less misses elemental damage and have buff like Magus who is missing Holy but have Power Up and Mind Up, or Rune Master who miss Holy and Dark or Light but have the 4 main sabers, Carlie who miss 4 element as Sage and 5 as Bishop but have usefull defensive buffs.

Also continuing Lord, Sage, Ninja Master party :

-Fegmund : An easy boss, Sage's final weapon actually overlap with his gimmick so at the start they kinda cancel each other, later tough the HP Depletion take the advantage, anyway counter with Fireblaze with Duran casting his LV3 Tech for opening the counter is still a good option when he is on reach Sage keeping spamming Heal Light, when he goes under the group Ninja Master can deach out good damage with Shuriken and Sage to with Dark Fore Lord turning into the healer for this phases.

-Earth God Beast : Only fight where I buy a Specter's Eye for exploiting is Air weakness, Thunder Saber, Ninja Master doing counter with Thunder Jutsu and his Final Weapon, the Fireblaze canceling is increase on Physical Defense, Duran draw his attention with a Shield (preferably the one that protect him against Silence) tough his Iron Claw is pretty deadly.

Edited by Nesouk

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On 9.2.2020 at 11:57 AM, Nesouk said:

-Earth God Beast : Only fight where I buy a Specter's Eye for exploiting is Air weakness, Thunder Saber, Ninja Master doing counter with Thunder Jutsu and his Final Weapon, the Fireblaze canceling is increase on Physical Defense, Duran draw his attention with a Shield (preferably the one that protect him against Silence) tough his Iron Claw is pretty deadly.

It's good to know there's only one boss fight where you really need Anti-Magic. What about Lugar and BR?

I started a new game with Lise, Hawk and Angela. I'm following your earlier advice of farming 5-6 Matango Oils for FMH and Jewel Eater. Lise and Hawk are on level 6 already, and I've only been able to farm 2 Matango Oils so far (I'm currently playing on Hard). I'm kind of considering save state scumming since farming is all about luck anyway. As it's been a few years since I last played the mod, I noticed that the more recent versions have two different standard attacks, light and heavy. Which one do you usually use for single hitters, and which one for double hitters? In Lise's intro battle, I used the heavy attack, and it's also handy for starting battles against sleeping enemies, but otherwise, I preferred to use the light attack, since it has a much shorter cooldown, making you less likely to get stunlocked by enemes. I also noticed that it's more effective to save your level 1 techs until an enemy attacks, so you can boost the damage by countering with a level 1 tech.

EDIT: Lise and Hawk are on level 8, and I still have only 3 Matango Oils. I hate RNG farming. >:(

EDIT 2: After reaching level 9 and obtaining only 3 Matango Oils, I had had enough, so I went to fight Full Metal Lagger. This early game is really terrible in gameplay design, since you have such limited options, and the terrible lag and unresponsive controls during the first boss don't help. Currently, I'm farming Moon Coins from the wolves. Angela got from level 4 to level 8 before I got my first Moon Coin. This is going to take forever. Surely you guys use save state cheesing to save your nerves? It requires no skill to obtain rare drops, only luck.

Edited by Serafie1999AD

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For Lugar Anti Magic is really helpful especially if you lack Magic Damage, but not mandatory, for BR it's not needed either plus at one point he cast it on himself ^^.

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On 2/8/2020 at 4:49 AM, Nesouk said:

Having played Duelist, Arch Mage, Vanadis I can assure than Arch Mage works wonder with Duelist, this is maybe one of the most "Boss killer" party even without Protect Down or Fireblaze with Saber of corresponding weakness on corresponding Day and Power Up and his Final Weapon Duelist does insane damage even hitting the 999 cap on some bosses, same with Arch Mage Mind Up + Mind Down + Saber + Corresponding Day and Weakness + Final Weapon with this 2 you just destroy most God Beasts with both ridiculous Physical and Magical damage. But yeah I also think Swordmaster would be a good teammate for Arch Mage. 

So, I had my heart set on doing a Duelist + Bishop setup for my Dark Duran playthrough...but Duelist/Swordsmaster, Archmage, Vanadise seems pretty great and like something I'd rather try out honestly. Especially since I did a team with Bishop not too long ago and I just so happen to have a save with a Duran Angela Lise party already B| I'm kind of leaning towards Swordsmaster here just to try it out honestly. He can buff Archmage and Vanadise more quickly before throwing Energy Ball on himself then diving into the fray. I'm not gonna bother with his final weapon though...maybe I'll use the "increased critical damage" weapon.

 

I've realized the only downside to the Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk, Rune Master party - no dark spells to proc Curse with. I had mistakenly thought that Demon Breath was able to. Clearly I should have read the manuals more carefully! Still though, this party is just murdering god beasts. Evil Shaman's final weapon might be my new favorite thing about this mod, the lovely elemental nukes at my disposal just tear everything to pieces after a quick Lunatic cast. Kevin even deals half decent damage by stacking sabers and power up too.

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My best pick for Swordmaster would be Fill Tech Bar x3 weapon, his LV3 Tech isn't as strong as Duelist but still quite powerfull, I feel this is the most reliable way to deal damage with him, IMO Swordmaster VS Duelist is trading some raw power and better self substain, for Speed Up, Saint Saber, Moon Saber and naturally MT Flame, Diamond, Ice and Thunder Sabers.

Yeah I did the same mistake of thinking Demon Breath could set curse xD

Speaking of just beat Zable Fahr, found a fun thing on the top right of the arena, there is a spot where you can hit both the middle and right head with one swing with Duran, as such Duran was getting 4 tech point per hits, and got his LV3 in no time, thanks to that I was able to do a lot of counter with Hawk. To the point I think I manage to reduce his defense to the maximum possible.

One thing I had the armor that resurrect by consuming MP on Duran... seems it wasn't doing shit, the Deathspell were still killing him, is Deathspell pierce thiq armor effect ?

Edited by Nesouk

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On 09/02/2020 at 9:29 PM, Serafie1999AD said:

EDIT: Lise and Hawk are on level 8, and I still have only 3 Matango Oils. I hate RNG farming. >:(

EDIT 2: After reaching level 9 and obtaining only 3 Matango Oils, I had had enough, so I went to fight Full Metal Lagger. This early game is really terrible in gameplay design, since you have such limited options, and the terrible lag and unresponsive controls during the first boss don't help. Currently, I'm farming Moon Coins from the wolves. Angela got from level 4 to level 8 before I got my first Moon Coin. This is going to take forever. Surely you guys use save state cheesing to save your nerves? It requires no skill to obtain rare drops, only luck.

Didn't see your edition, so sorry for the late reply, honnestly I did all the grind legit the first time (except the moon coin didn't know about them at that time ^^), it did take a while tough I admit I didn't have an RNG this bad XD.

Since then I does use Save State cheesing yes, to save time, and because as you say Save State or not this require no skill just luck, so I rather get it done quickly (also to avoid being overlevel) and to get to the interesting part, same for ??? Seeds and W/A Seeds later on in the game.

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On 2/10/2020 at 11:01 PM, Nesouk said:

My best pick for Swordmaster would be Fill Tech Bar x3 weapon, his LV3 Tech isn't as strong as Duelist but still quite powerfull, I feel this is the most reliable way to deal damage with him, IMO Swordmaster VS Duelist is trading some raw power and better self substain, for Speed Up, Saint Saber, Moon Saber and naturally MT Flame, Diamond, Ice and Thunder Sabers.

Lv3 tech spam seems good to me, so I'll be sure to pick up the fill tech bar sword for him. Since the party is going to have Archmage as well for heavy damage dealing (Vanadise isn't exactly a wimp either) I feel like I'd rather go Swordsman here personally. Fast MT saber cast for him -> Mind Up from Vanadise with whitelight ring -> Archmage throwing out spell of choice to hit elemental weakness seems like it'll wipe screens with ease and there's honestly no doubt about the bossfighting potential of this party. Plus it can actually use Magatama thanks to the Dark Force of Archmage!

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Well I stand by my point that Dragon's Hole is the hardest final dungeon by far, screw this place really, it's confusing, every area looks alike, the ennemis are extremely annoying, that plateform force encounter is tough, and don't get me started on that freaking room before Korren where I feel like I'm playing a God of War game (which have this habit of putting a room near the end of the game that got dozens and dozens of ennemies attacking you).

Other than Blackshine Knight is actually a really fun fight, when you know what to do, and havd a double hitter like Hawk.

Really liking Lord, Ninja Master and Sage really :

-Lord : I feel like offensively Paladin is better for AoE aka mob fight. However Lord excel at ST damage and so contrary to Paladin is offensively better for bosses. His LV3 Tech deals a lot of damage and the fact he can open Counter for any ennemies is really good, pairing him with Kevin or Hawk is definitly a good move. Also he has some good support skill.

-Sage : Honnestly even with max out PIE, I don't think her Final Weapon is that good, the Regen just never catch up with the damage receive and the regen stops while Carlie is casting.... which is obviously a problem when the character is suppose to be a spell caster, IMO this final weapon isn't as good as it sound, and Sage is probably better of with the weapon that increase Heal Light. Well still have some advantage over Bishop like better damage with Saint Beam, Dark Force and Rainbow Dus and Curse with Dark Force.

-Ninja Master : Hawk is just the master of counter, he can deal a ton of damage like this, open more counter with his final weapon, debuffing all ennemies, Ninja Master is just an awesome class plain and simply.

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