Barnacle_Ed

Character/Job Party Recommendations

518 posts in this topic

The debuff missing on Dervish, Power Down and Mind Down, are actually the 2 most important one ^^ well on Hard at lease maybe on Normal they aren't as needed but I'd say it's a bit safer to get them, on the bare minimum for a safe playthrough you should get also Protect Up, Mind Up and Heal Light. Dervish himself is a powerhouse, especially since he get a stronger version of Wolf Form than Kevin's other classes in this mod, I actually think if you get good at counter (a new mechanic in this mod) with this improve Wolf Form and either his final weapon or the one that increase counter damage he could deal impressive damage, so considering you want to avoid Charlotte and Angela here's my suggestions :

-Dervish, Dragon Master, Paladin : You get Power Down and Mind Down with Dragon Master, she also get you Lunatic which is quite good to make bosses less longer as well as Antimagic which later in the game she can improve with her final weapon to make target that have a weakness weak to everything could make the few selection of Dervish's Saber usefull (like to know how good Moon Saber could get with that). Paladin is better than Lord IMO cause he bring Magic Shield which also increase both Physical and Magical defense and strengthen his Heal Light making him a better healer, with his Final Weapon Paladin can also deal good Magic Damage (which Dervish and Dragon Master lack) with Turn Undead.

-Dervish, Ninja Master, Paladin : Ninja Master bring MT Debuff and also his unique Detect Debuff which combine with Dervish's Energy Ball could be good for Crit Build, with his Final Weapon he can open the counter for ennemies weak to his spell considering you have the 2 Dual Hitter a counter base strat might prove deadly. Lise as Vanadis will be your healer and also set buffs. Paladin keep all his advantage I mention earlier + this time his Antimagic will be usefull since this team is mostly physical having Antimagic to remove the ennemies resistance to physical is usefull.
You could also replace Duran by Lise and pick Vanadis she'll then be your healer and you'll get Power Up to increase the damage, be aware that if you Vanadis however it's no Heal light until LV42-43 IIRC so you'll had to rely on item until she gets it.

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13 hours ago, Iejirisk said:

Trying my best to avoid angela and charlotte, which limits my options a decent bit.  At first I was thinking Lord(or Paladin maybe)/Starlancer as partners for my Dervish run, though I'm wondering how much one would miss the stat debuffs aside what the dervish gets. Any suggestions?

Just a heads-up since you're new to the mod, Angela and Carlie play a lot better here due to the revised counter system. Enemies build up counters to all attacks using an aggro system, meaning that Angela won't get a counter response to every spell. Also in this mod, it's usually better to go for a balanced team that can at least do some of both physical and magical damage, since some enemies and bosses have maxed out defense against one or the other, so taking just one of Angela or Carlie can be very useful at times.

Among the stat debuffs, Power Down and Mind Down are the most important, so while the Dervish ones are still nice, you would rather go for the other two. You cannot achieve Power Down or Mind Down through purchasable items either, except for a couple of purchasable class change items (Dark Carlie can purchase Black Curse, and Dark Lise can purchase MT Mind Down), and these are very expensive.

If you're willing to take one of either Angela or Carlie, Evil Shaman and Archmage are both good choices for a physical team. Evil Shaman gets two spells, Ghost Road and Demon Breath, that do MT Power Down and MT Mind Down as well as damage; Archmage gets the normal Power Down and Mind Down as ST spells that can be upgraded to MT by an accessory. Both of these classes gets Antimagic, which can be nice for a physical team to reduce physical immunity; Archmage also gets Aura Wave to pump up your physical fighter's techs (which, like spells, don't get countered as often).

If you still don't want either Angela or Carlie, you're best choice for Power Down and Mind Down is Dark Hawk or Dark Lise. Just be aware that Most of Hawk's spells (with the exception of Wanderer's Half Vanish and Poison Bubble) do physical damage, not magical, so any enemy with physical immunity or maxed out physical defense will be difficult to kill with this type of damage. All Lise's classes do get a summon that does magical damage, but this is a little clunky since it costs so much MP.

For the team you suggested, the only way to get Power Down and Mind Down would be either to switch Lise to one of her dark classes or have her wear the invert armor that inverts her spells to stat down spells (which can be cast on the enemy by holding Y while choosing the spell during battle). Invert armor does restrict your abilities to wear other armor though. Dragon Master would be a good partner here since her final weapon upgrades her Antimagic spell to clear all immunities and resistances and propagate any weaknesses to all elements, allowing you to clear physical resistance and making your sabers more useful. Even though Paladin's Antimagic would be less useful in comparison, I still think he might be a better choice for this team since his Magic Shield gives you the defensive part of Mind Up (as well as Protect Up and some other benefits) and his final weapon gives him an MT magical damage spells to add to Lise's summon. Paladin, Dragon Master, Dervish would be lacking Power Up and the offensive part of Mind Up, but these are not as important as the defensive halves, and I think this team would be pretty powerful regardless; for mobs you can use Paladin's and Dragon Master's MT damage spells and just pound things to death, and for bosses you can power up with any saber (Dervish's Moon Saber and Leaf Saber should be good choices here) and cast Dragon Master's Antimagic, increasing your melee damage output by 60% in almost all cases (10% base saber bonus plus 50% weakness bonus). Anyways, you can buy Drake's Scales and Sahagin's Scales to pump up your damage when you need to. The team I'm running now has a similar dynamic.

EDIT: Nesouk and I responded at the exact same time with the exact same team, so that one is probably a good bet. His Ninja Master option is also good, but also consider Nightblade instead of Ninja Master, since his Black Rain can add to your MT damage output and apply Curse, an awesome effect that causes an enemy's physical damage to be applied back towards itself. Just remember that Dark Hawk's spell damage is physical instead of magical (Lise's summon damage is magical), so it won't help against those bosses with maxed out physical defense.

Edited by rpschamp

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Actually yeah Dervish, Nightblade, Paladin should be close from Death Hand, Nightblade, Paladin party I runned a few months ago. To add to that regarding this party Nightblade also get Blow Needles which inflict Silence which is perfect to prevent mobs that has a powerfull counter to ever counter (most noticably the Knight, Ninja and Bee line of ennemies which have some powerfull AoE counters that can be deadly), Deadly Weapon to reduce bosses HP, Fire Breath can be usefull on ennemies weak to it and Poison Breath is a nice non-elemental spell, also Dervish can boost the damage of Black Rain with Dark Saber. I suggested Ninja Master cause Dervish has Energy Ball which goes nice with Ninja Master's Detect and I think Dervish has a really good potential for Counter base strat, so I think Dervish would have a good sinergy with Ninja Master.

Also if you have MP issue you can always equip the Rune Earrings accessories which makes you consume HP instead of MP but in proportion it doesn't that much HP and HP are way easier to recover than MP, making high costing spell much easier to cast back to back (like seriously Paladin is a mob killing machine with this, his final weapon and Turn Undead (which normally cost 15MP spam XD), Rune Earring as the side effect of increasing your cast time but this can be overcome by putting enough point in the stat that affect cast time (see the classes document) and certain gear, so IMO one of the best accessory in the modxD.

Tough one team that could be fun with Dervish if we don't restrain character is : Dervish, Bishop, Archmage get all debuff with Dervish and Archmage and all Sabers with Dervish and Bishop, Protect Up and Magic Shield (don't forget it also improve Heal Light and the Heal Light's buff from Magic Shield/Counter Magic isn't the same as Mind Up so they do stack if you have both in your team ^^) with Bishop, physical and magical damage with Dervish and Archmage, Aura Wave and Antimagic if needed.

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1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

Tough one team that could be fun with Dervish if we don't restrain character is : Dervish, Bishop, Archmage get all debuff with Dervish and Archmage and all Sabers with Dervish and Bishop, Protect Up and Magic Shield (don't forget it also improve Heal Light and the Heal Light's buff from Magic Shield/Counter Magic isn't the same as Mind Up so they do stack if you have both in your team ^^) with Bishop, physical and magical damage with Dervish and Archmage, Aura Wave and Antimagic if needed.

Dervish, Bishop, Archmage sounds killer and you would have both Kevin and Carlie on their quest so you can hit all the plot points as well :-) Bishop's final weapon is driven by Spirit and hits about as hard as Duran does, so she could make up some physical damage in the second half of the game.

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5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

snip

 

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

snip

Didn't expect responses so soon haha, thank you! My issue with angela and charlotte are unfortunately the characters themselves, not their classes. They just annoy the crap out of me personally. The main reason I was looking at lord originally was because of his final weapon with the whole counter state on L2/3 which sounded nice, but the opinions on paladin definitely sound nice to the point you made me sway that way haha.  Last bit being dragonmaster vs dark hawk (i like both options there)  are super tempting.  The anti-magic combined with moon saber just sounds perfect to be honest and something I'd love to try, though having access to hawk's debuffs are also rather nice sounding. Id assume i'd have to depend on duran more for anti-magic if i went with hawk.  There's a lot more nuances to this mod than I first expected, but in the end it just makes me even more excited for it since it's putting a fresh spin on what has been my favorite game for a long time.

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Coming back from a playthrough where I builded Lord as a physical fighter and use the hell out of his Final Weapon, I can guarantee using Lord for Counter is really great especially with Hawk or Kevin and his LV3 Tech deal a ton of damage, however I think to use Lord in that way efficiently it's better to put him in a team where there is someone else that can take the role of Healer, this way Lord is free from the Healer role and can be focus as a fighter, using Heal Light only for emergency, which is quite hard to do when you want to avoid Carlie, Angela and Light Kevin ^^. 

Unfortunatly this is a trope in Square games at this point, the annoying/unlikable character that happen to be fun to play in gameplay, I admit Carlie annoys me can't deny how she is usefull in gameplay. As for Angela I actually like the character, especially some of her animation and interaction with Duran when having both of them for Dragon Emperor story (ever try to enter Duran's home with both him and Angela in the party ? the dialog is funny XD), and gameplay wise I'm a sucker for mage actually I love playing magic caster in my games (except when it really sucks of course or when I want to change a little), so I might be bias but while I think Lise is the best character to optimize a party, Angela might be my favorite character with Hawk no matter which class she is just awesome to have in a party and each of the 4 classes play differently and so there is a ton of possible team building with her, just cause she can fit any party just need to know what you need (want healing and Support pick Gran Divina, want great firepower but also some help for the physical fighters pick Arch Mage, want some crowd control through Statut Effect and Sabers pick Rune Master or want good Firepower with Buff and potential boss busting with Deathspell pick Magus).

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My issue is Kevin is just my alltime favorite character and usually try to include him in every party just about. Trying to do something different as I don't often do his dark side classes, but I've never touched dervish I admit, hence this run. I think I'll go with the  Dervish/Paladin/Dragonmaster  as I've never really played around with Lise before (wierd I know. Though my parties were usually kevin/charlotte and whoever i wanted for the story so I was never really lacking for support).  I'll definitely let you know how the moon saber/ anti magic works when I eventually get there haha.  Thank you again for the tip on duran's turn undead + his final weapon! That was definitely something I had overlooked when reading the docs.

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Good choice. Also, Dark Lise has the same debuffs as Dark Hawk so you're not missing out :-)

One of the things I love about this game is the personality of the characters. Some of them inspire love, others hate, but at least they inspire! I feel like Square did a decent job here providing a variety of personalities for players to work with.

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49 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Good choice. Also, Dark Lise has the same debuffs as Dark Hawk so you're not missing out :-)

One of the things I love about this game is the personality of the characters. Some of them inspire love, others hate, but at least they inspire! I feel like Square did a decent job here providing a variety of personalities for players to work with.

Woo, just beat the full metal hugger after a bit of trial and error. Still struggling to wrap my head around the fast/strong attacks though I admit. Seems like no matter what I do I attack like I would in vanilla and don't see any AT showing up n whatnot.  Also being stubborn and playing on hard. Frustrating, yet I like how winning even basic mob fights can feel rewarding since you can't just bumrush it lol.

Edited by Iejirisk

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1 hour ago, Iejirisk said:

Woo, just beat the full metal hugger after a bit of trial and error. Still struggling to wrap my head around the fast/strong attacks though I admit. Seems like no matter what I do I attack like I would in vanilla and don't see any AT showing up n whatnot.  Also being stubborn and playing on hard. Frustrating, yet I like how winning even basic mob fights can feel rewarding since you can't just bumrush it lol.

I think the AT strategy that was possible in the original game is not possible here.... I seem to remember Praetarius took it out (Somebody please confirm?). Here, the difference between fast and strong attacks is how long you hold down the attack button for each attack. To be honest, the precision is not great on my end.... I think it largely depends on your software setup and controller.

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Fast and strong attack depend of if you are going into a direction or not, if you stand still it's a Strong attack if you move while attacking it's a fast, the best way for me is simply to hold the attack button move if you want to keep doing Fast Attack and don't move if you want heavy attack.

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5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I think the AT strategy that was possible in the original game is not possible here.... I seem to remember Praetarius took it out (Somebody please confirm?). Here, the difference between fast and strong attacks is how long you hold down the attack button for each attack. To be honest, the precision is not great on my end.... I think it largely depends on your software setup and controller.

I've disabled AT mode because it causes like 20 bugs just by itself.

Fast attack - tap attack for a few frames, max length varies by lag, may be just 1 frame if you are down to a 1v1 situation; or just hold any direction while attacking
Strong attack - hold the attack button and NO direction button whatsoever

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On 2/18/2020 at 6:28 PM, Iejirisk said:

I got the mana collection on the switch and was...more than disappointed that none of the bugs were fixed which prompted me to go on the hunt for the rom heh. Came across the sin of mana and have been loving it so far. Struggling with a party I want to try though after all of the research on the mod itself.  So far I really want to run a Dervish. Always used god hand in the base game, looking for something different.  Trying my best to avoid angela and charlotte, which limits my options a decent bit.  At first I was thinking Lord(or Paladin maybe)/Starlancer as partners for my Dervish run, though I'm wondering how much one would miss the stat debuffs aside what the dervish gets. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the game and the forum :) it honestly makes sense to me personally that they'd leave the game in the Collection unedited to "preserve it as it was released" but yeah Praetarius' excellent work here really improves the game a lot.

 

Personally I consider Mind Down and Power Down necessities in any party; they really reduce the incoming damage on boss fights. Angela (for Arch Mage) or Carlie (Evil Shaman) would give the party all stat downs, moon and leaf sabers, anti magic, and solid magic damage support. I'd pick one of them and add in Lise as Vanadise if I was going to play a Dervish party without restrictions. You could, of course, add in Dark Hawk or Lise instead and avoid casting Dervish's stat down altogether, or give him the debuff reversing armor for Def Up and Speed Up...though I don't see that latter plan working out particularly well since Light Duran already has Def Up in either form.

If you really want to avoid Angela and Carlie, I'd strongly suggest Paladin for the party since Def Up and Magic Shield will help a lot defensively and he has anti magic for those annoying physical-immune enemies. not having Tinkle Rain is pretty do-able in my experience tbh. I'd probably look at Ninja Master to round the party out from there - sure there's some overlap in stat downs, but you get MT elemental spells and he's a strong physical attacker who makes good use of sabers. With leaf, moon, dark, and saint sabers you have a lot of options for offensive buffs too! If you can live without Anti Magic and/or really want Tinkle Rain you could go for Vanadise instead of Paladin but I think the first class change will be really difficult with that team personally.

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Aaaaaaaand I totally didn't see there was a 13th page to the thread now so I missed all the great replies from Nesouk and rpschamp. Good job, Ed.

I'll agree that Dervish, Bishop, Archmage sounds like an outstanding party with lots going for it.

Edited by Barnacle_Ed

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So, I played around a little with Duran/Angela/Hawk and got bored.... Now I'm back to Duran/Angela/Carlie (on Friday, after I hopefully pass my thesis defense). I thought of this crazy variation on a team we were discussing recently:

Duelist, Grand Divina, Necromancer

Duelist shields the casters and slams things with his level 3 tech while Grand Divina supports, damages, and heals, as before. Necromancer is the new element - with invert armor and purchasable Bottles of Ashes, I'll have access to all buffs and debuffs in one spell, cast three times, and one item. Rune Earrings would be great for her, since her spells cost so much anyways - I could ignore intelligence and boost her other stats. Her final weapon would fit well with this build, increasing spell damage with lost HP; I could even consider a death score build at this point. This team would be capable of crazy damage, both physical and magical. It sounds fun and different from what I'm used to so I might go for it. Any thoughts?

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Could also take Light Duran for easier mid game Paladin, Gran Divina, Necromancer could be good you are free to decide which of Duran and Angela you want to be the Healer/Support and build the other more offensively in any case you'll get Magic Shield to strengthen the Heal Light with Paladin, and the 6 Main Sabers with Gran Divina. I'm not a fan of using Necromancer for buffing with Invert Armor, and Bottle of Ashes are quite expensive.

You could also do Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer you still get all 6 Sabers (Paladin gets Saint, Necromancer get Dark and Rune Master get the rest), Curse upgrade with Necromancer's Black Rain, amazing crowd control with Statut Effects with Rune Master for mob fight and a very good support and tank with Paladin.

Might ask what did you found boring for Duran, Angela and Hawk party ?

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Nothing wrong with Duran/Angela/Hawk. I think I've just played too many similar parties in the past (Light Duran or Lise for tank/support, Hawk for physical damage, Angela for magical damage). But I'm looking for something different with this magical focus group, and replacing Carlie with Hawk didn't leave me with the dynamic I wanted, at least for the early and mid game.

On the face of it, invert armor on Necromancer to cover all buffs/debuffs seems to have some problems, the main one being the lack of easy MT Power and Mind Down for use against mobs. But this is really a very specific ability restricted to just a few classes in the game. Other problems are that it's not convenient to apply just one buff when you just want to counter a specific debuff, it leaves Carlie on invert armor, and Bottles of Ashes are expensive. But there are also some benefits - the main one being that you only need one spell to cover all buffs/debuffs when choosing your teammates. This gives you more options for choosing teammate combinations that don't otherwise cover the necessary buffs/debuffs. Leaving Carlie on invert armor is not ideal, but Necromancer may be able to work a low HP strategy out of this. Also, having access to just one of either buffs or debuffs should be fine for mobs - saving a Bottle of Ashes to get both buffs and debuffs for each God Beast doesn't seem like too much of a burden, it only takes up one item slot, and it gives you something to do with all the extra money you tend to accumulate during the second half of the game.

Light Duran is really nice for that level 18-38 stretch, but he doesn't have as much growth potential as Duelist. Grand Divina gets Heal Light right at level 39 and gives Duran the freedom to go for his highest damage class. Despite missing Magic Shield, Grand Divina is a better healer than Paladin, and having Heal Light on a character you don't directly control is better for control purposes since it takes time to cast. And as I've detailed before, Duelist/Grand Divina should have a lot of synergy with Transshape and Sleep Flower. There is a lot to be said for Rune Master, though, and Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer should be an awesome team in its own right.

I think my strategy might be to go for Duelist/Grand Divina/Necromancer first, and if it's not working out, drop back to a save file at the first class change and go for the less risky team of Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer. I would really like to start testing more unconventional teams at this point to see if I can open up new ways to play this mod.

Edited by rpschamp

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Would like to try a no heal light team actually, see if we can make this work, I have some ideas :

-Fenrir Knight, Magus, Dervish : Invert armor on Dervish to get all buffs, Moon Saber and Fenrir Knight's final weapon on top of items to heal, Mad Beast Ring should be usefull to heal between each zone without consuming item, if all fail for bosses Magus deathspell could be an option.

-Star Lancer, Rune Master, Nightblade : All buffs with fast speed cast with Star Lancer, Rune Master allow to both nuke and cripple the mob fight while Nightblade debuff and can nuke either with Black Rain or his LV3 Tech, Fireblaze with counter for bosses.

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No heal light sounds extremely bold...good luck!

Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer seems like a plenty safe fallback if the Grand Divina party falls apart, Rune Master is pretty great and her sabers will also benefit most of Carlie's summons. I also wonder if you could make Angela a Magus instead here - you'd only have Saint and Dark sabers, but you pick up Lunatic and Ancient and Deathspell. Not sure if they're comparable in terms of damage at end game (I still haven't made a Magus party I've been happy with yet) but Lunatic is always nice for boss fights.

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9 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Fenrir Knight, Magus, Dervish : Invert armor on Dervish to get all buffs, Moon Saber and Fenrir Knight's final weapon on top of items to heal, Mad Beast Ring should be usefull to heal between each zone without consuming item, if all fail for bosses Magus deathspell could be an option.

-Star Lancer, Rune Master, Nightblade : All buffs with fast speed cast with Star Lancer, Rune Master allow to both nuke and cripple the mob fight while Nightblade debuff and can nuke either with Black Rain or his LV3 Tech, Fireblaze with counter for bosses.

I have thought about this No Heal Light team before.... To start, I think your #1 should be Fenrir Knight, obviously for her final weapon but also for her debuffs, Moon Saber, and her ability to use shields so you can better control incoming melee damage. Next, you'll want a heavy caster who can stay safe and throw bombs while Lise distracts and counter-heals. Rune Master may be the best choice for this since her best spells inflict statuses, debilitating the enemy significantly and limiting incoming attacks. Silence in particular will be pretty nice to limit spell and tech damage (except from werewolves, which can be petrified). She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus). Then for your third, I would go for someone who could make up the missing buffs or debuffs, depending on whether someone wears invert armor, and also do some physical damage. Here, Ninja Master seems like a great option; his final weapon lets you open up counter opportunities if the enemy is weak to one of the four basic elements, notably every final dungeon boss on Hawk/Lise's quest. This will let you better control your healing during some of the more difficult fights. Fenrir Knight can wear invert armor for buffs when you need them, and Ninja Master can debuff and help Angela bomb the crowd. So, my unstoppable No Heal Light team would be:

Fenrir Knight, Ninja Master, Rune Master

Weaknesses include no holy or dark damage, but Rune Master's final weapon lets her ignore resistances and immunities for her level 2 spells so you should always be able to do spell damage. Plus, Hawk and Lise can always go physical with sabers and Fireblaze, which should possibly be equipped on both Hawk and Lise here. Also no Antimagic, but with all the spell damage, that shouldn't be a concern. To help with the healing and reduce incoming damage, team members can equip Dragon Rings, Mad Beast Fangs, and those armors and accessories that boost defenses like crazy but take damage from Heal when you want to conserve items.

3 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer seems like a plenty safe fallback if the Grand Divina party falls apart, Rune Master is pretty great and her sabers will also benefit most of Carlie's summons. I also wonder if you could make Angela a Magus instead here - you'd only have Saint and Dark sabers, but you pick up Lunatic and Ancient and Deathspell. Not sure if they're comparable in terms of damage at end game (I still haven't made a Magus party I've been happy with yet) but Lunatic is always nice for boss fights.

The first thing for me to figure out is which of Angela's status spells work best with Duran's shield resist/reflect armor. Sleep Flower has a lot of potential here since it works on a bunch of late game enemies (including dragons and werewolves), does no damage when self-cast, casts quickly, and should not accrue aggro/hate when reflected. Rune Master has Petrify, Silence, Snowman, and Poison, but all of these come with level 3 spell damage when self-cast, take time to cast, and might better be used directly on mobs. Nightblade gets Silence and Poison on low level spells, so he could be good to pair with Grand Divina for more status/reflect options. This is what I was thinking with my current Duran/Angela/Hawk group, but I ended up missing the Angela/Carlie dual-caster effect too much (Shuriken costs way too much for early game Hawk, and holding out half the game for Black Rain didn't feel optimal).

Edited by rpschamp

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6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus).

Small to big error here; sabers increase attack power (the stuff before defense is subtracted) not damage, so you'll probably see a bigger increase than just 10%.

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13 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:
20 hours ago, rpschamp said:

She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus).

Small to big error here; sabers increase attack power (the stuff before defense is subtracted) not damage, so you'll probably see a bigger increase than just 10%.

Thanks for the correction. This is one of those niche strategies I have not tried out yet nor have yet to confirmed if anybody else has. I still think it has potential, even if the decrease in melee/tech damage is less than 45% (I imagine it would be at least comparable to the 25% Power Down effect).

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22 hours ago, rpschamp said:

The first thing for me to figure out is which of Angela's status spells work best with Duran's shield resist/reflect armor. Sleep Flower has a lot of potential here since it works on a bunch of late game enemies (including dragons and werewolves), does no damage when self-cast, casts quickly, and should not accrue aggro/hate when reflected. Rune Master has Petrify, Silence, Snowman, and Poison, but all of these come with level 3 spell damage when self-cast, take time to cast, and might better be used directly on mobs. Nightblade gets Silence and Poison on low level spells, so he could be good to pair with Grand Divina for more status/reflect options. This is what I was thinking with my current Duran/Angela/Hawk group, but I ended up missing the Angela/Carlie dual-caster effect too much (Shuriken costs way too much for early game Hawk, and holding out half the game for Black Rain didn't feel optimal).

Ah, I forgot that you're planning on a reflect armor strategy. I don't think the Rune Master makes a lot of sense in that case, for the reasons you've listed - she's fantastic as a standalone caster who fires damage spells directly on mobs after buffing the party with sabers but I agree her spells set doesn't really lend itself to a reflection strategy.

Nightblade seems like it would be interesting for sure; Blow Needles can also get the Curse upgrade in addition to the silence it causes, making it seem like a very compelling option for this plan.

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Plus there is kind of no purpose to pick Rune Master for Reflecting strat, pick her Final Weapon, Rune Earring and you can stunlock the mobs with Statut Effect such as Snowman easily, in fact put Snowman to all mobs then petrify them one by one is a viable strat when ennemies aren't immune ^^.

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