smileless

My bad, in that case yeah it could work for Kevin.

I don't think shields would really fit someone that knows martial arts, monks and such

Don't think any other character needs shields, Duran and Lise are more than enough, imo.

I wouldn't Cold Blaze inlict sleep instead. Still think Rune Master will be pretty strong even without the snowman status, you still have stone cloud for petrify, single target but you can use it on the most troublesome mob you find to deal with (as long as it wont resist petrifs that is).

But yeah I think more opinions are needed for this, for me it's fine tho as long as sleep wont crash the game same way as snowman tends to do.

Maybe have Vanadise final weapon remove the chibiko status inflicted from Freya?

Snowman makes a lot of sense for her but due to the game going apeshit with the snowman status I think it might be better to avoid it.

Counters are performed when you use level 1 techs shortly after an enemy performs an attack be it physical or magical.

"inbattle item usage requires 4 TP"

Hm I think with that feature it would be nice to remove the restriction to switch ring menu to other characters if they are in the middle of attack.

12 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Star Lancer, Grand Divina, Necromancer/Evil Shaman can go for an easy Saint Saber/shared Light Resistance with Dusk Dress on Angela. It's too bad though, I'd really like to find a Lise/Angela/Carlie pairing that works well with Fenrir Knight to take advantage of her final weapon, but I'm not sure if the simplicity of the Star Lancer setup can be beat.

Yeah I wouldn't risk replacing Starlancer with Fenrir Knight there, but your other two options with Fenrir Knight looks good tho, in this one Starlancer simply works a lot better.

28 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Dervish's final weapon raises raw attack power so it should affect all levels of techs. My idea here is that double hitters are much better at rasping back HP than single hitters, so by throwing in passive heal, Water Jutsu, saber/resistance (with Diamond of Flame Saber here), and Protect up if you have Dervish inverted, you should be able to rely more on melee/techs in the endgame.

Yeah saw it. Both this and the Wanderer/Warrior Monk/Necromancer sound pretty damn good, I might try either of the two on my next run now that I finished my current run earlier.

37 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Fenrir Knight/Grand Divina/Necromancer: Necromancer can be inverted into a ST buff machine with Black Curse. Interestingly, the inversion may help the saber/resist strategy by adding a -10% instead of a +10% to enemy attack power (I have not confirmed this). Apart from this, you have lots of good elemental damage options, good heal options, and a second Transshape caster; the opening play would be Power Down by Fenrir Knight, Transsshape on Fenrir Knight by Grand Divina, and Dark Saber on all enemies by Necromancer; then, distract with Lise and buff/bomb with the others. The equipment requirements for this to work are heavy though; you need armors and helms on Lise and Angela for shared Dark resistance and invert armor on Carlie if you want further buffs. Still, I think this team could be quite effective.

Yeah I don't think I wiuld sacrifice all these slots, at very least I would choose Starlancer here instead of Necromancer so you free Dark Carlie from the role as a buffer and have a different armor for her while you have multi target def up as option for mob fights.

Carlie should debuff the heaviest hitter among the mobs, and Angela spams her spells. Haven't checked what shared resistance could be taken to advantage here tho.

39 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

- Fenrir Knight/Magus/Bishop: This team would have worked better in the previous version of this mod when Bishop had Protect Up. Still, Magus can bring heavy damage, and you have good options in both elemental and neutral spell damage. Shared Fire resistance through Valkyrie Mail

Even without protect up it's still doable I say, use Magic Shield on Lise she is the one that the enemied will attack, power down, flame saber on mobs, Magus spams spells.

41 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Fenrir Knight/Wanderer/Sage: No Angela! What kind of spell-damage team is this? Well, Fenrir Knight has her summon, Wanderer has Half Vanish, and Sage has some MT options. This team does well with buffs/debuffs and healing; my main concern is the lack of basic elemental damage options. Shared Fire resistance through Valkyrie Mail.

Wanderer also has Anti-Magic, you have the Curse Upgrade as option to take advantage of here.

Agreed, the moment you use melee/tech damage in endgame you get just too much damage to tank mormally by just buffs and debuffs even on Normal, this strat worked like a charm to me. At least melee heavy teams should have this strat open, if you have a caster or two you can get around mobs fine enough, stall them or just nuke them.

21 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Ninja Master/Dervish/Sage: I'm extremely curious about Dervish's Berserker wolf form; the attack boost looks insane. Dervish can add Protect Up and Speed Up to Sage's Mind Up with invert armor, Ninja Master and Dervish can go for critical hits with Analyze and Energy Ball, and Dervish can Boost Sage's Rainbow Dust with Antimagic and Poison Breath/Leaf Coat. Plus, this team will have Moon Saber and Leaf Saber which I'd like to explore more; Moon Saber together with the yellow damage HP rasp weapons and Sage's passive heal could be just enough to keep two double-hitters afloat in the endgame.

Never played Dervish, but this sounds like a pretty damn powerful team for him. I wonder if by having a stronger wolf form also imcreases his lv3 tech. While his final weapon I assume only effects normal hits and level 1 tech I suppose?

21 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Wanderer/Grand Divina/Necromancer: Grand Divina/Necromancer is a great combination for spell damage in the six major elements and Heal Light. Plus, Grand Divina can switch to team leader once her spells become instant, allowing three casters with Wanderer and Necromancer sniping away threats with Half Vanish/elemental/Leaf Coat damage. The major question for me is whether this team can work smoothly without shields. Star Lancer would be good option in place of Wanderer to address this problem, but at the moment, I think I'd rather have Wanderer's double hit and spell versatility than Star Lancer's shield option and useful but MP-heavy summon. I will think on it some more.

Sounds nice, but you should be willing to cast Magic Shield on all 3 chars but on the upside it boosts magic and physical defense along with healing power for Grand Divina. It has also Speed up which all benefit ftom these two spells.

There is no mind up for this team keep in mind but once Grand Divina gets her final weapon she could boost spell damage using her spells as sabers, so I would aim to get her final weapon as soon as W/A seeds become available to get.

17 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

That's funny. I've beat the game 12 times now, 9 times with the vanilla game, 3 times with this mod. I've never had crashes with the vanilla game. For this mod, most crashes I've had were due to the casting times bugging out and freezing the game, but they were in older versions, and a lot has happened after that to make the game more stable. Back then, I started to use save states after every battle on this mod just in case the game would crash. Nowadays, it's not really necessary, but I still do it just in case, and out of habit. Maybe it's your cartridge, ROM or emulator?

The original game crashed to me before too at thr corridor of wind when going back and forth to that area, was using zsnes back then, but that was a long time ago.

You are right tho, I should find a different ROM and see if it happens again, I have always used Snes9x, not sure which one is at fault but it's worth testing.

Not sure why it happens more frequent now. I am in dark castle currently the part where tou fight the full metal hugger and I can't seem to manage to get past Genova and to the next statue without the game just freezing or glitching, this is like the third time trying. The screen glitched completely when I fought Jagan but at least the save was near, but that portion of Dark Castle seems impossible due to the game.

No wonder the original game never came outside Japan. Such a bug-fest.

@rpschamp I have been using your idea by casting saber on enemies for my Ninjamaster/Vanadise/Duelist run. Very helpful for the final arena so far, bought the whiteline ring for Duran, and the armor for Duran and Lise that resist earth, while NM naturally resists earth. 

Basically Diamond Saber on mobs + Protect Up + Water Jutsu

Should have done that with Jagan fight for that annoying Bloody Wolf and Camilla. Oh well, you learn the hard way.

7 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

you make me want to work on this even less than before...

Why?

6 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

Sounds like Haddaway's "What is Love". 😂 By the way, is the Lightgazer less annoying to target with spells after the latest patch?

I missed it like one or two casts, and missed 2 level 1 tech attacks, but it felt less annoying than before for sure to me

9 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

Rainbow Dust is indeed one of the least useful ultimate spells since usually an enemy resists at least one of the 4 elements, essentially making the spell subpar. It's still useful against some dangerous enemies, such as Mushrooms, Wizards, Kaiser Mimics, Crawlers and Carmillas. I wonder if Rainbow Dust can benefit from the armor that turns every spell into neutral element. Dragon Master's empowered Anti-Magic could be great with Rainbow Dust, but then this team needs some major changes, as Ninja Master and Dragon Master have massive overlap, and it probably isn't worth it to use invert armor on DM, when you could use Star Lancer instead. As for Bishop, Lord and Dragon Master, that's also a very effective combination, especially after Bishop got MT Power Up in the latest update, but it only has single-hitters and no AW, so bosses like

10 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

can be really hard to beat. Bishop, Lord and Dragon Master are also heavily reliant on their ultimate weapons, making their best strategies not applicable for roughly 90% of the game.

Well you can start getting the weapon/armor seeds after you beat three god beasts.

How I did it in my current play:

Beat third god beast - get a weapon/armor seed

Beat another one - get another W/A seed

Beat another one for one more W/A seed, getting the 3 final weapons that way.

Before that fot Carlie you could use the weapon that boosts heal light+items, Lord running on the PIE weapon, Lise maybe use one of those weapons from the dwarf village seems pretty nice to restore hp when yellow damage occurs.

Another weird glitch happened whete the screen "froze" in the lightgazer fight, the boss is moving his eye and two characters are moving their heads back and forth but everything is frozen. Lise was casting buffs then everything went crazy then lol.

29 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

This makes me think now that since Ninja Master can open up counters with his final weapon, Bishop can take advantage of that, maybe even with a Fireblaze.

Well, you have convinced me a bit, I now see it like this:

- Star Lancer, Ninja Master, Bishop: Ninja Master opens counters, Energy Ball/Analyze, everyone goes wild; best physical team, but no Curse. Reflect armor is better anyways! Transhape/shields.

- Star Lancer, Nightblade, Bishop: Curse, so more armor choices, but no ability to open counters in the late game. 

- Star Lancer, Ninja Master, Sage: Strong MT spell damage with MT Fire Jutsu followed by Saint Beam/Dark Force and Marduk, Curse, passive heal option. Energy Ball/Analyze, Transhape/shields.

- Star Lancer, Nightblade, Sage: Strong MT spell damage with Black Rain or Poison Breath to enhance Rainbow Dust, Curse, passive heal option.

I would personally go for Star Lancer, Ninja Master, and then Bishop for better boss fighting or Sage for better mob fighting.

Those are all fantastic teams imo, it all depends on personal preference on how they want to play. Can't go wrong with any of them really.

19 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

It's funny, but in terms of the upgrade, I think that Bishop got the best bonus; her final weapon is now more important due to new counter power against physical resistance. Also, even though I've always liked Sage, I've always hated Rainbow Dust and almost never used it; I get that it fits thematically (philosopher of the elements; a doctor of Ancient Greece, perhaps), it's just that it's rare to find a situation where it's actually effective, and at 11 MP, it's way less useful than Black Rain, which costs 8 MP and can add Curse. With the update though, I'm wondering how much it can be boosted with Leaf Coat (I couldn't find it in the mechanics). If it's at least a 50% boost, it might be nice to throw after Nightblade hits the target enemy with a Poison Breath; this will help the damage modifier come out positive in those situations where the enemy has both a resistance and a weakness. In this way, spells that can add Leaf Coat may helpful in enhancing Rainbow Dust's ability to actually kill enemies it can already damage, rather than using Antimagic to reduce immunities to resistances in enemies it might not kill anyways. This is all conjecture though; I haven't seen anyone posting about Leaf Coat yet.

I only ran Sage once but I don't think I used Rainbow Dust more than once or twice and that just for fun, otherwise I kept using the curse upgrade and spammed dark force while Dragonmaster with her empowered antimagic making any monster with a weakness making weak to everything, Death Hand had Dark Saber, Magic Shield.

Bishop was pretty powerful on my run with Lord and Dragonmaster, that was before the current update, that party with the current updste should work even better. Lord uses his level 2/3 tech to open up a counter, Lise and Carlie set with their level 1 techs and when possible equipping fireblaze on bosses. Dragonmaster inflicting poison to mobs and/or debuffs and with the empowered antimagic making use Bishop's lack of elemental spells (only light). And man I hate those Dragon Zombies, Turn Undead took care of them.

I think that was one of the teams I enjoyed playing the most so far. Only difficulty I had was against Dolan because none of them are double hitters but just set to no tech use for all characters for better tech management for that fight. It might take longer but safer.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

I did forget about that level 1 tech advantage for the Bishop's final weapon. I assume that it still applies in the case of a counterattack? Regardless, it should help against physical resistance, but you could also just MT Sage's Saint Beam or Dark Force against physically resistant enemies instead.

That's true. Bishop is also a caster herself so it's situational moreso where you use her spell, but only restricted to light elemental. I guess a matter of preference here, I beat the game before with Ninja Master, Starlancer and Bishop, I was thinking post update to try out with Sage now instead and see how it goes, Starlancer also has access to Light/Dark Saber and boosts Sage's saint beam/dark force to a maximum. 

My worry is just lack of antimagic to make full use of curse upgrade or Rainbow Dust but it's doable without that too.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

On this team in particular, I think Sage has more to offer than Bishop, since Star Lancer already covers your stat buffs pretty completely. Two spell damage elements are much better than one, and I don't think there are any enemies resistant to both Light and Dark, so your Sage should always be able to cast something. Also, you'll get these spells 20 levels earlier than Bishop's final weapon; Sage will be fully functional before you get to the God Beasts. Sage also gets a final weapon that gives passive healing (20% stronger in this update) which can be nice when plowing through dungeons. Leaf Saber has it's purposes too.

If you take Bishop, then Nightblade is important for Curse if you don't want to wear reflect armor all the time. If you take Sage though, Ninja Master vs. Nightblade is more a matter of preference/style, since Sage can Curse and Star Lancer can Silence. In general, I think Ninja Master is more complimentary to Star Lancer. As you mentioned, Ninja Master gets Analyze which is nice with Energy Ball if you're going for critical hits. Ninja Master also gets Transshape, so if you're leading with Star Lancer and using a shield, you can use her to draw and evade all melee. MT Fire Jutsu will also help boost the damage of Saint Beam, Dark Force, and Marduk. On the other hand, Nightblade has good elemental spread, and his Poison Breath should now be able to enhance Rainbow Dust by adding Leaf Coat.

In summary, I would go for Star Lancer, Ninja Master, Sage, but you won't go wrong by choosing something else.

When you put it this way you can't go wrong with either choice really.

35 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I was thinking of something like this, except Light Carlie instead of Grand Divina to get healing and Sabers earlier. In a team of Light Lise, Dark Hawk and Light Carlie, I'm still trying to decide which couples to use. Lise as a Star Lancer seems like the better choice now that Carlie is already taking care of healing.

Bishop vs. Sage:
Bishop's ultimate weapon makes her a strong fighter, Turn Undead also has its uses, and Magic Shield is great if you need to reapply defensive buffs on a single character. On the other hand, Sage gets Leaf Saber for MP restoring, Dark Force for curse effect, and Rainbow Dust against a few enemies who aren't resistant to earth, wind, ice or fire.

Ninja Master ve. Nightblade:
Ninja Master's Analyze should work well with Lise's Energy Ball, and his ultimate weapon is there to make way for Fireblaze + counter, and Lise's Aura Wave lets you have a level 1 tech ready quickly. Nightblade gets Deadly Weapon for lowering bosses' HP, and Black Rain for curse effect.

Which of these do you think would work the best?

I think Ninja Master works best with Bishop and Starlancer. You have Energyball, Analyze, Bishop is a strong caster and her final weapon makes her strong physically too with her level 1 tech and now Counters ignoring physical resistance, have NM and Bishop with their level 1 techs go wild, you got Marduke.

I think Sage would be better with anti magic user for her rainbow dust.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Missing Angela, I'm trying to come up with a new team for her to play after my Wanderer/Warrior Monk/Necromancer run. I was originally thinking Dark Hawk/Dark Angela/Light Carlie to take advantage of the shared fire resistance; Nightblade/Magus/Bishop sounds strong, but I've never really enjoyed playing Magus or Bishop. Vanadis/Nightblade/Rune Master could be fun, but this sounds quite similar to the team that you just played.

What I'd really love to do is come up with a killer spell-damage team for Grand Divina. I used her extensively in older versions of this mod; to me, the most interesting thing about her is how she transforms into an instantaneous elemental spell-damage dealer by the second half of the game (after building up her Agility). One way to really properly use this would be to transition her into the lead character and set her partners to spells that require cast time while she fires off instant damage spells one after the other, keeping attackers occupied by knocking them about the screen. Her first partner might be someone like Light Lise or Wanderer (or maybe Paladin) with access to buffs, damage spells, and possibly shields for the early game, and her second partner either Dark Hawk or Dark Carlie with access to debuff and damage spells. Someone with a saber spell would also be nice if you want to go for shared resistance

You could also use Warrior Monk to free Lise from her role as a healer, misses only one debuff and has leaf saber, and have Vanadise make use of her final weapon on boss fights to do elemental damage assisting Angela, Grand Divina with her final weapon or Rune Master would be great picks there.

Nightblade/Magus/Bishop sounds pretty strong also, Bishop cleaning those annoying dragon zombies, Magus has death spell. If you level up to 99 and face Dark Lich you will do you will have two spells to Nuke this boss. Death Spell also works greatly on bosses with no weaknesses but I recommend probably having one of those rings that absorb mp.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

- Grand Divina, Star Lancer, Evil Shaman: Femmes Fatales reboot. Evil Shaman gets some nice MT damage/debuff spells, while Star Lancer gets Marduk to add to the damage and Saint Saber to go for an easy shared Light resistance with Dusk Dress on Angela. Lise can keep the team safe in the first half of the game with shields.

This looks pretty damn good. Might take this suggestion for my all female and all male teams I plan on running at some point. 

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Grand Divina, Star Lancer, Ninja Master: Similar to above, but with more debuff range, Analyze to support Star Lancer's Energy Ball, and an exchange of Evil Shaman's raw spell power for Ninja Master's melee capability and versatility. This team is harder to get shared resistance, but it is possible through Saint Saber, Dusk Dress, Utsushimi Cape, and Silver Wolf Garea. The lack of Antimagic should not be a major problem.

Yeah don't think lack of Anti Magic is an issue here, you have coverage of six main elements, Marduke and Hawkeye also has Shuriken to take care of those mobs that reflect elements when needed or stick to counters with him. Wanted to run this team back then.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Grand Divina, Wanderer, Necromancer: I played this team through the first few God Beasts and can confirm that it is awesome, even more so in the current version since Wanderer now gets Magic Shield. Shared Dark resistance through Dark Saber, Mananan Robe, and Eremos Crown. No Mind Up or Power Up, and more importantly, no shield user, so it takes some practice if you're used to the aggro advantage (the first time I tried these three, I gave up, but I found them easier the second time).

It would be nice to play it more defensively with this, now it's much better due to Magic Shield taking care of physical and magic defense.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

1) Rune Earrings have been changed in this version so that they subtract max HP x MP cost/32, and Necromancer's spells generally have a high MP cost; by this formula, Black Curse costs almost half your HP. I assume that for longer battles, you would constantly rely on revive armor to keep her from dying. How did you manage keeping her alive to recover the 15 MP between revives? I'm wondering whether it's worth it to build up her Intelligence stat to keep her MP regeneration high for this purpose

I used Magic Walnuts, tho keep in mind the only fight I tried that strat was on Dragon Emperor as I bought that armor only then.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

2) Did you notice whether Rune Earrings still lengthen cast time? I notice that this text was removed from the documentation.

I haven't it probably was removed

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

3) Did you find Black Rain to still be useful, now that Necromancer's neutral element spell armor can no longer be used to bypass absorb/reflect?

It was useful but you have to be careful at it. Ideally with the curse upgrade I used also Carlies Gremlin summon to inflict curse on enemies one by one, or use antimagic if there was a dark resistant enemy.

I also had Archmage and her final weapon which allowed me to multi target Cold Blaze very useful for mobs.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

4) Did you try the petrify resistance/reflect armor/Stone Cloud strategy with Paladin and Rune Master? If so, was it useful?

I think I would find this strat more useful if I didn't hace Necromancer, since I got her with shadow spells  curse upgrade was very useful. 

If I had Paladin, Rune Master, DragonMaster/Fenrir Knight/Warrior Monk let's say I think that strat would be a lot more useful than when you can use curse upgrade instead. But same idea still, I have used that strat but with Curse. Rune Master and Necromancer was a very powerful combo.

Personally it was fun for me, I never used a party of Duran/Angela/Carlie in the original game, I hated using them, could lead to some of the worst teams in the game at least for me. Sin of Mana really nailed the balance, at least for me in Normal mode.

5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I hope this doesn't reveal too much, but after this new Seashore Cave mini-boss, I'm no longer excited about a No Heal Light team. In fact, this is a problem for teams that don't get Heal Light at the first class change.... Is there another strategy to beat this boss, apart from over-leveling? (To be fair, I was level 26 versus mini-boss level 32, but I'm not sure an extra six levels would have made much of a difference.)

Or maybe this is a way of giving an extra advantage to teams that learn Heal Light at the first class change?

Counters wreck that miniboss, and with my Ninja/Valkyrie/Gladiator run I had those weapons from dwarf village equipped that restore hp when dealing yellow damage.

I used them till I got heal light with Vanadise, I think those were a pretty nice addition to help the the portions of the game that had no heal light. But still I can't imagine doing no heal light runs post final class change.