Serafie1999AD

@rpschamp Ninja Master doesn't have ways to reduce enemies' max HP, which is what I wanted in my listing. Having NM and SL also means you won't have any level 3 FST. As for Moon Coins, I'm personally against my strategy being dependent on farming items, since that's against two of my gameplay principles: 1) I don't want to rely on luck (which is the case when farming rare drops), and 2) I'd rather rely on the party's skills as much as possible, and minimize replacing missing abilities with consumable items (which is why I don't like using Byzel in the vanilla game, as the Black Market items can replace entire classes). @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 So you actually went to test having the same character in the party multiple times? I suppose he'll free his stunt doubles from prison after FMH.

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?

Yes, they are. Duran's shields can also be worn by both Duran and Lise. It's said in the equipment guide (i.e. the file armor_elements_stats.xls), under the rings tab: "all accessoires can be equipped by any character". Since the equipment contain special effects that aren't told by the game in any way due to technical reasons, you should keep the equipment guide open whenever you play the game.

This team lacks Anti-Magic, which is especially problematic for this team, considering Hawk's debuffs are elemental-based. If an enemy absorbs certain elements, the jutsus of those elements won't be able to debuff the enemy. By the way, if you have Grand Divina cast elemental spells at your party and she has her final weapon, how much damage do her spells usually cause, i.e. how risky is it to cast spells at your own team?

This sounds like a nice party, especially since I've been trying to find teams where Grand Divina is useful. For weaknesses, the group is physically quite weak, and doesn't have very good options for physical AoE, except for Lise's level 2 FST. Do you think the team would work better with Hawk as a Nightblade instead? With Grand Divina providing Dark Saber via Evil Gate, Nightblade can use a boosted Black Rain for AoE damage. Blow Needles is useful for silencing spell-casters, and Deadly Weapon lets you reduce enemies' max HP. Sure, Dragon Master also has Lunatic, but if you give her the invert armor, her Lunatic will increase the target's max HP instead.

No, I'm not. As Praetarius said, the method is not a spell. However, one of Star Lancer's spells makes the method much easier to execute.

The Spiral Moon effect is a puzzle. Notice that Dolan begins the fight by casting Spiral Moon, which doesn't kill you, so it doesn't automatically kill you. You'll need to figure out a certain method to make Spiral Moon deal less damage. Hint 1: the method is available for every party. Hint 2:

You already changed the order of rooms in Rolante, which switched the location of the save statue. Can't you do the same here?

It would be nice if a save point was added in the room between the marathon battle and Koren. It's just cheap to make the player fight two really tough battles on a row with no chance of saving between them, especially if Koren cheeses you with MT Death Spell.

I'd like to hear some strategic views about physical attacks: when is it better to use normal hits, and when should you use heavy hits? In case you're wondering, I'm talking about this (from the readme file):

This team is otherwise amazing, but it doesn't have Anti-Magic. Therefore, rather than taking Necromancer, you may consider taking Archmage or Evil Shaman instead. The former gets multitargettable level 2 elemental spells, Anti-Magic, Mind Down, Power Down and Aura Wave, while the latter gets level ~2 summons, Anti-Magic, Ghost Road (MT Power Down), Demon Breath (MT Mind Down), Lunatic (max HP down), Transshape and an additional Protect Up.

I'd like to know which difficulty people are using when playing this Sin of Mana hardtype hack for SD3. So far, I don't think I've heard anyone saying they've actually beat this hack on the hardest difficulty, and almost all playthroughs on YouTube are on Normal (or Tough?) difficulty. I think I've seen one playthrough on Hard difficulty, and it never got further than the battle of Rolante.

I see, I misinterpreted the part in the change overview file that said: Do you have any practical strategies for using Sleep Flower? For the first 3 playthroughs of Sin of Mana, the spell has been utterly useless, and I have never found any use for it.

I've got some questions about your mod's mechanics: 1) If you cast Sleep on enemies, will it lower their aggro? 2) Lord's ultimate weapon (Sigmund) has a description, "Lv2/3 tech gets attack bonus based on target's attack and enables counterable state." What does the note "enables counterable state" mean? 3) Will Evil Shaman's ultimate weapon (Juggernaut) and the Red Moon Horn accessory lower even bosses' stats?

This sounds pretty good. Just to add options, are Energy Ball (self), Saint Saber and Moon Saber worth giving up Anti-Magic and Aura Wave (i.e. taking Swordmaster instead of Duelist)? Alternatively, I could take Evil Shaman instead of Necromancer, so I won't get Black Curse, but I get Power Down (via Ghost Road), Anti-Magic (to compensate for Swordmaster not having it), Demon Breath, Lunatic and Transshape. This doesn't sound bad, either. For buffs, you get all of them, except Power Up (Energy Ball and Sabers somewhat make up for it). A combination of Life Booster and Lunatic is also nice. I still haven't found much use for Sleep Flower, but Anti-Magic is nice, especially with the Dragon Master's ultimate weapon. Unfortunately, the party has very limited physical AoE (only Lise's level 2 tech), and while the party has Sabers, the only elemental spells to benefit from the Sabers are Holy Ball and Saint Beam.

I'd like to try Duran, Lise and Carlie on my next game. Which classes would you recommend? I was thinking of something with sabers, stat-ups and stat-downs, but I'd also like to have access to Heal Light.

I think the most important thing would be to ensure that the players won't end up soft-locking the game. If you end up in a situation that you're unable to proceed until you spend several hours to grind for gold to restock your healing items, and even after that, if you're not able to proceed until you can afford some the of the newer equipment, that's just weak game design in my eyes. I've never encountered this problem on the Normal difficulty level, since you usually won't use so many healing items during dungeons that you'll have to spend all your money to restock them (also, I never buy Angel's Grails until late-game, and I don't buy equipment that I don't need). However, I'm not sure how badly resource management becomes an issue in early/mid-game on the hardest difficulty.

Check the skills_consumables_traps.xls file, spells tab, the F column. If the spell has multi-target as a possible upgrade, it means it is affected by the Whitelight Ring.

You need the corresponding spirits to learn the spells: water spirit for Ice Saber, Mind Up and Water Jutsu, and fire spirit for Fire Saber, Power Up and Fire Jutsu. It was that way in the original game too, though for balance reasons, there are a few spells that are exceptions. The spells tab in the skills_consumables_traps.xls mentions the element of each spell.

This combination lacks Anti-Magic, though. This means if an enemy nullifies, absorbs or reflects a certain element, the Ninja Master will be unable to debuff the enemy with the Jutsu of that element. For bosses, you can buy a few Specter's Eyes from Byzel's Black Market, but they're awfully expensive, so there's not much you can regularly do against monsters like Gremlins or Power Builders. Some monsters also nullify physical attacks, so without Anti-Magic, the best you can do against them is a Saber-powered Jutsu (or Saint Beam).

Make sure you're not wearing any equipment that makes you immune to chibikko, such as the undead armor (Hauberk for Duran, Chain Vest for Kevin, Soft Leather for Hawk, Bat Coat for Angela, Sailor Dress for Carlie, Chainmail for Lise).

Death Hand, Duelist and Bishop? It sounds like there's quite a lot of redundancy with the Sabers. I'd probably have used Dervish instead, to get Protect Down and Speed Down. Protect Up and Magic Shield as your only buffs, too. Tell me, on which difficulty did you play, and how was it to play with such limited buffs/debuffs, and next to no elemental spells? I have two questions about this counter mechanic: 1) can you counter enemy spells and techs too, not just physical attacks? 2) can you counter non-sprite bosses too (e.g. Full Metal Hagger, GBs, final bosses)?

How necessary is Anti-Magic in the latest version? In some of the earlier versions (around v0.5), it was practically compulsory, as Specter's Eyes cost way too much in the Black Market, some enemies were immune to physical attacks, and some bosses were just almost impossible to damage without Anti-Magic In the latest versions, though, there are weapons that bypass the physical immunity, the hate mechanics work in a different manner, and the boss designs have been completely changed. Praetarius, would you have a list of bosses where Anti-Magic is needed, so I can consider if it's worth it having a party without Anti-Magic, the answer depending on how many Specter's Eyes I need to buy/farm?

Has anyone found use for Light Carlie (Bishop/Sage) or Grand Divina yet? I'd like to hear party combinations where those 3 classes work effectively with the other characters.