Nesouk

Honnestly considering that my Ninja Master Crit build with Energy Ball, Detect, Crit Weapon and Crit helm wasn't landing that much Critical Hit, for me a weapon that deal no damage except with Crit is just a complete waste, Crit are not enough common for me to considere Sword Master Final Weapon worth it. As for Curse/Spike Armor it really all depend of if you want to profit from the effect of another Armor or not, the Curse upgrade also allow to completly reflect Jutsu and Hawk light spells for some reasons which I don't think Spike Armor does that so that's a plus, for me Nightblade is also a better screen clearer for mob fight through Black Rain or his LV3 tech than Ninja Master. I admitadly don't use Fireblaze personnaly, I don't find any fight to last long enough to make this accessory truly worth it outside of the final bosses, the Counter are more interesting for the increase damage they deal for me, and admitadly I'm just bad at landing counter, good counter Duo with Duran and Hawk would be Lord and Ninja Master tough ^^. Yes Saber increase the damage of the spells of the corresponding element as well, Arch Mage can therefore deal some serious damage if you combine her final weapon, Saber, Mind Up, Mind Down and Corresponding Day she can no joke almost hit the damage cap on bosses that has a weakness with such set up (Rogue can also get a similar set up with his Final Weapon).

Overall bosses have less Max HP into 2.0 so they die faster compare to previous version, but they should last long enough to see about everything their fight has to offer.

Leaf Saber isn't really needed you can replace it with Tree Spirit Ring or just use Rune Earrings once you get enough AGI and the Helm that reduce cast time, casting from HP is good cause managing your HP is just so much easier than managing MP, meanwhile having Saber for each element for +20% IIRC damage bonus on Angela's spell is always valuable, even better once you get Arch Mage's Final Weapon. As for Light Carlie I think Sage is a better pair with Swordmaster than Bishop, Swordmaster just completly negate the need for Sage to wear a Whitelight Ring for making Sabers MT that is taken care of by Swordmaster, and with Saint Beam and Dark Force she has 2 spells that can be boost by Swordmaster, also Life Booster, Heal Light, Mind Up, Tinkle Rain and her very good final weapon. Dragon Master I feel actually negate the purpose of having all sabers in the first place, with her weapon her Anti Magic make ennemies that have a weakness weak to everything, so technically you really only need 1 Saber (either works) with her for your physical fighters. For Kevin I think Warrior Monk is a better choice just for the convenience of having Power Up and Mind Up without the need of Invert Armor Warrior Monk + Sword Master could go well with Dark Hawk (either tough I think I would choose Nightblade just for screen cleaning ability with MT Shuriken and Black Rain as well as his ability to reduce max HP, set Curse upgrade and inflict Silence on the troublesome mob that can use tech like the Knight type) if you want a manpower team.

Depend on how you want to play each character, VIT and PIE should be invest to at least 20-25 by the end of the game to have decent resistance then : -Ninja Master : If you want to play him as a caster then you should focus on AGI for the damage of his spells and PIE to reduce the casttime, you can also get minor damage bonus by investing in INT. If you want to play him as a Crit Build, since he has a exclusive debuff that make target more vulnerable to Crit, then you should invest on LUCK and STR and also AGI to have a better Hitrate and increase damage from LV1 Tech if you plan to use Counter. -Vanadis : Considering your team I don't think LUCK is a stat you should invest in, since she will be your healer and buffer you should invest in INT to reduce her cast time, other than that PIE and VIT are good stat. -Duelist : There is 2 way to go with him you either invest in INT to reduce his cast time and get some bonus damage in his LV3 Tech or you ignore INT (you can reduce his casttime for Saber spell to 0 with Sage Stone and shouldn't need to cast more than 1 per fight and thanks to his Final Weapon his LV3 Tech is already very powerfull (can even hit the 999 with Saber for weakness exploit)) and instead invest in AGI so he miss less often.

Could also do Wanderer, Gran Divina, Necromancer lose the Protect Up but you still have Mind Up and don't need an Invert Armor on Necromancer, Necromancer has also better offensive spell especially with Black Rain.

Episode 6 : Going back to Jad and Rabite Forest to encounter Don Perignon not a lot much to say about this episode it's mainly a plot episode. Episode 7 : Going to search Jinn, after reaching the Mana Stone of Wind finally getting our first Class Change I choose the following : -Duran as a Knight : Duran will be mostly a support character in this playthrough, so Knight is to get the passive effect of Heal Light and Protect Up. -Lise as Rune Maiden : Mainly for personnal reason I often play her Light Classes so for this playthrough decide to use her Dark Class for debuffing. -Angela as Delvar : Like Lise I often play Light Class for Angela, decide to show her Dark Class for once, and the Delvar honnestly sucks in Vanilla so I think this is a good to show how much this class has change. Then grind LV19 to get our first spells, and then I utterly destroy Tzenker didn't stand a chance between Molebear's Claw usage, Speed Down, Angela's Diamond Missile and Duran still hitting like a truck at this point of the game.

I wonder however does anyone found a good team for Swordmaster ? Or my question should be more if going Dark with Duran is there any reason to pick Swordmaster over Duelist ? Cause I mean Speed Up and Energy Ball are nice, but on the other hand Duelist has Aura Wave and Anti Magic which makes him more valuable already, the only thing Swordmaster has over Duelist are Saint Saber and Moon Saber not sure if that is worth trading Aura Wave, Anti Magic and Duelist's higher damage potential with his LV3 Tech. Well I was thinking of some team : -Swordmaster, Sage, Vanadis Here Swordmaster interest is that he free Sage from the Sabers duty allowing Sage to not needing Whitelight Ring he also can ehance Sage's Magical damage with Saint and Dark Saber which Sage doesn't have (I actually think for these reason Sage is a good pair with Swordmaster). Vanadis with Invert Armor can be the debuffer since Sage act as an healer this free Vanadis from support role allowing her to have a more offensive role, thanks to Swordmaster having all Saber we can use Vanadis's Final Weapon effect to it's fullest and exploit any weakness with Freya. Replacing Vanadis by Star Lancer is an option, losing the effect of Freya but you get the fastest caster in the game, Aura Wave and a more usefull summon overall. -Swordmaster, Warrior Monk, Arch Mage Needless to say Arch Mage enjoy the Sabers from Swordmaster to boost her spells, while Swordmaster enjoy her Aura Wave, Warrior Monk act as the main healer and bring Power Up and Mind Up the only buff lacking is again Protect Up. Arch Mage has Power Down and Mind Down so that's taken care of as well as Aura Wave and Anti Magic and strong magical damage.

Actually I found over the course of my multiple playthrough (all on Hard) that I overestimate the HP Armor, they are actually never mandatory even on Hard due to their poor defense, actually I found that for bosses the armors that stand out for me are : -The second armor of the game : Actually have the best overall defense until you reach the Pedan armor (the Armors at Dwarf Village have an higher Physical Defense but lower Magical Defense, and the undead armor has the best defense but their negative effect is annoying) and give a small increase to Heal Light and Items which is always nice. -Spike Armor : If you don't have Curse Upgrade, this armor just straight up cheese Bigieu and Black Rabite making them take 999 damage every hit they land on you ^^ -The Armors the allow to cheat death : If like myself you like to use the accessory which make you consume HP instead of MP, this armors allow you to basically use your otherwise useless MP to survive what would be otherwise a fatal hit, even if you aren't in that case this armor is just extremely 15MP is nothing when you have a stock of Magic Walnut and MP Absorption. -The Armors that remove weaknesses : Obviously this is usefull especially early game some boss can really wipe the floor with any character they can exploit a weakness (Tzenker against Dark Kevin/Dark Angela/Hawk, Genova against Light Kevin/Dark Carlie/Duran or Gorva against Light Angela/Dark Duran/Lise...etc...) in which case these armor is probably your best shot at survive, they are also very usefull against Archdemon's first phase to prevent his Anti Magic to makes you weak against every element. Then you have some more character/classes specific armor : -Armors that increases damage from spells : Obviously good for offensive caster mainly Angela and Carlie. -Armor that increase spell's level and make them neutral : Make spell cast usefull for boss that resist everything (Dolan) or doesn't have weakness again good for Angela and Carlie. I'm honnestly just not convince on Life Booster, for me the defensive buffs are just more important, maybe I should try harder with it. Regarding Aura Wave it also happen that some of the best class for Tech user build (namely Duelist and Death Hand) already have it ^^.

Honnestly for me the only fights were Anti-Magic is usefull are : -Lugar : If you have a physical heavy team then yeah Anti Magic will be usefull, you can do it without Anti Magic just fine it just make it longer. -Earth God Beast : Pretty much the only boss were it is truly mandatory in order to exploit his weakness and kill him before his defense became to high. -Archdemon : Very usefull for the first phase to cancel his Dragon's Eye buff (unless you have Necromancer's Black Curse) Otherwise Anti-Magic isn't needed, for mobs you really should have a team that can deal some form of Magical Damage, or you can deal with them with Spike Armor or curse upgrade, even my man power team (Paladin, Nightblade, Death Hand) had some magical damage with Nightblade's spell and late game Paladin's Turn Undead. So considering how little use I have for Anti-Magic it's not a huge lost for me to not have someone that can cast it. As for Aura Wave, it can be good if you have a tech heavy user who doesn't have Aura Wave already, then again in the case of Angela, Hawk and Carlie team Hawk + Triple Tech Point Weapon + Mistscreen Charm in any class already get up to 8 point per attack due to dual wielding which is more than enough for the god beast which require LV2/3 tech. Arch Mage VS Magus is really a matter of style to, but in the case where you already have a debuffer like Dark Hawk already I don't really see a reason for picking Arch Mage, considering Invert Armor have low defense, Angela being already frail and with Hawk and Carlie you don't get a Shield user to back her up I'd rather take Magus, Magus also has better AoE cleaning potential thanks to her Final Weapon and higher INT (also don't need to focus on PIE for Magus so you should max her INT and AGI earlier), lack of Holy Damage in this case is compensate by Light Carlie, Arch Mage is undeniably better on bosses that have a weakness tough. As for Ninja Master/Nightblade I'm honnestly fairly convince that as an all Ninja Master is the better class, heck it's one of my favorite class in the game purely and simply, Ninja Master is both effective and very straightforward to use, I honnestly propose a team with Nightblade for diversity altough Nightblade is pretty damn good to, must tough that I'm not really convince on Nightblade's final weapon, much like Death Hand on paper their final weapon seems good for tech user but then you realise they are base on gimmick that in the end isn't really effective compare to just stick with the Triple Tech Weapon to get the LV3 tech faster. As for Bishop in general I honnestly don't use her Final Weapon and Stick to the Weapon that boost Heal Light, Magic Shield for me is a really good spell which I think is quite underrated on this forum, setting both Def Up and the Defensive Mind Up at the same time has it's advantage, like if one of your character die after ressurecting him, instead of casting both Protect Up and Mind Up to rebuff them just cast Magic Shield and you're good to go, same if an ennemy use Anti-Magic on one of your character, also the boosting heal light power stack with Mind Up which make Heal Light really powerfull as a result, really good counter against Lightgazer's gimmick, good also for undead type ennemies and for healing in general, on top of that 4/5 of her sabers are MT naturally so unlike Sage there's no reason to use a Whitelight Ring which free an accessory slot, admitadly Turn Undead is pretty much useless so are Sage's Life Booster (suprinsingly never that buff usefull enough to bother with it) and Rainbow Dust, Leaf Saber is great for sage but then you can do the same set up I did with Paladin using the accessory that make you cast with HP instead of MP, this accessory is just great allow to cast pretty much non-stop, make Heal Light basically completly free of charge, and the down effect is quickly compensate when you start investing in AGI and equipment that reduce cast time. I don't deny that Sage is also very good AoE passive healing is good, Leaf Saber is good, being able to cast both Light and Dark spell is usefull to, but in the end both Bishop and Sage are good on their own right and I feel which one you choose vastly depend on play style and team composition.

I did thought of this 3 at one point and was thinking of this group : -Nightblade, Magus, Bishop You get all the buff with the exception of Speed Up (which isn't as needed as Protect Up or Mind Up) without the need of invert armor (need Whitelight Ring on Magus however) and all debuff (albeit they are stuck being ST) as well as Lunatic/Deadly Weapon and Magic Shield (get access to Magic Shield + Mind Up for really good Heal Light for Bishop) and 5/6 Sabers. Magus and Bishop combine can exploit every weakness, Magus is a solid nuker with her Final Weapon, Nightblade can either be a physical damage dealer with a Tech User build (having access to a good FST and Dual Hitting) or a caster thanks to Black Rain being quite powerfull (and able to set Curse), he can also set Poison and Silence which has it use, Bishop can also get physical with her final weapon if ever needed, also Death Spell can be usefull. The team really only lack Anti Magic, but again it really isn't that needed outside of 2 or 3 bosses. Also could do this : -Rogue, Arch Mage, Bishop This team would be caster heavy with Rogue being a powerfull physical caster and Arch Mage magical caster. The team get all debuff with Rogue (Crescent Missile, Landmine) and Arch Mage, Rogue's Speed Up to reduce the casttime and thanks to Bishop's Magic Shield you also get the Defensive part of Mind Up and can still use the Saber + Element Resistance gear combo if needed. Get also the Sabers safe from Dark Saber, HP Down with Rogue's Deadly Weapon and thanks to a big emphasis on Luck Rogue is also good to set Statut Effect through weapon and Anti Magic with Arch Mage. Rogue and Bishop can also be turn to physical damage dealer later on.

The team I suggest might be to Physical oriented admitadly, Wanderer is an interesting choice tough but in fact in my team you could replace God Hand by Warrior Monk perfectly fine I think, another team that come to mind : -Warrior Monk, Arch Mage, Rogue Now with Arch Mage and Rogue you have all debuff, Aura Wave and Anti Magic, and you got here arguably the best Magic Caster and the best Physical Caster (especially once they get their final weapons), also Rogue main stat being Luck (you need to increase it to 25 IIRC just to learn all his spells) he is perfect for doing statut effect through weapon and Crit Build, Warrior Monk however need to be on support bring Power Up and Mind Up and Leaf Saber for MP Substain, you lose the elemental saber tough, you could give him the Claws that make his attack rely on PIE so that he can still throw a punch when healing isn't needed.

Hmm this is quite a tough team to do here, I'm gonna put my idea but might definitly not be optimal : Gran Divina, God Hand, Ninja Master Begin of the game shouldn't be to hard thanks to Kevin and Hawk being heavy hitter. After the first class change : -Kevin being Monk means you get Heal Light don't make him healer tough, this is just merely to beneficiate from Heal Light passive of healing your all team after the victorious fight so I'd advise still focusing Kevin as a heavy hitter and relying on item to heal (could use Sage Stone and Whitelight Ring to pull off some instant Power Up during mob fight, but sadly Power Up don't came until Salamando and at this point you should be close to get the second class change so not worth wasting your money on that). -Hawk being a Ninja grab Whitelight Ring for him to make Shuriken MT, focus on Agility and PIE and just use to him to help Angela cleaning the areas with Shuriken, use Jutsu's debuff on bosses. -Angela as Sorceress is a big help for Mid game, this is the only middle class that get all elements so she can easily exploit weakness to nuke mobs, after Bucca Island go grab a Magatama at the secret shop at Sultan, the Curse Upgrade of the Magatama is awesome for mob fight and thanks to Evil Gate the sorceress is the only middle class that can use it. After the second class change : -Kevin as a God Hand : I suggest grab him the Invert Armor this way you'll get Mind Up through Mind Down (need also the Whitelight Ring you can take it from Hawk since he no longer needs it as a Ninja Master) and through Life Booster you'll be able to reduce bosses's Max HP, for bosses weak to Fire, Earth, Water or Air you can use a counter base strat once you get God Hand and Ninja Master's final weapons. -Hawk as a Ninja Master : Having all debuff MT helps for mob fight, he no longer need Whitelight Ring so give it to Kevin, you can either use Hawk as a caster with his Jutsus or you can use him as a Crit user since he get the unique Detect Debuff, as mention earlier you can also do a counter base strat once he get his final weapon (and use the Fireblaze accessory with either Kevin or Hawk). -Angela as a Gran Divina : She can still nuke stuff and take advantage of the Magatama's curse upgrade for mob fightn you'll need Whitelight Ring to make Heal Light and Tinkle Rain MT, in boss fight she will be your main support by healing with Heal Light, buffing with Speed Up and once you get her Final Weapon she can set the Sabers's buff on your team. Now the issue with this team is you don't get Protect Up, this a hard buff to get with these 3 character as only Dervish with Invert Armor can get it, so for this I suggest grinding or buying Bulette's Scales, this team also lack Anti-Magic but this isn't as important except for Earth God Beast (and Archdemon if you take Hawk as the main character to cancel his full buff through Dragon's Eye) so you shoudn't more 4-5 Specter's Eyes.

OUPS I always mix up the 2

Honnestly final dungeon set up vary a lot depending of build generally spreading each of the 3 groups needs 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 Physical Damage dealer and 1 Magical Damage dealer some characters can do both, and also need to cover at least Slow and Sap for bosses if to be specific then : -Group 1 has to fight Guardian and Kaiser as such because of Kaiser this group need a lot of Elemental option to play with Kaiser's gimmick -Group 3 has to fight Inferno and Gold-D both of which are weak to Water therefore character that has good Water element option (Vig Edgar/Vig Mog with Trident, Magic Mog with Water Rondo, Shadow with Wave Scroll or Strago with Tsunami) are great here. -Group 2 has to fight Atma and Green-D, Atma is weak to Ice while Green-D is weak to Holy and Fire. In my current playthrough with the build I have I think I'm gonna go like this : Group 1 : Magic Terra, Stam Cyan, Magic Setzer and Vig Sabin -Terra bring Ice, Fire, Bolt and Wind so quite a good elemental cover as well as good healing spell like Cure 3, Life, Life 2 and Regen X she also have Shell for support. -Stam Cyan is mainly here to be a tank, he can also set Sap with Empeworer and pretty good at cleaning Mobs with Mutsunokami and Eclipse (good for set Blind) -Magic Setzer is mainly the healer even if he runs out of MP Go Fish can be good he also bring Poison Element for Kaiser's gimmick, and Blackjack is a good Random Cleaner -Sabin bring the damage also complete the team with Holy element with Aurabolt for Kaiser, can set Sap and 2 Stormfang will be use full on Guardian, Chakra and Mantra can also come handy for some situation. Group 3 : Speed Shadow, Vig Mog, Stam Edgar, Magic Relm -Shadow with insane speed is good to set Haste X, he can also set Regen and Image if needed against Inferno and Gold-D he can bring the pain with his Scrolls. -Vig Mog will mainly Jump with his Trident for Inferno and Gold-D fight, Slow X will be use on Inferno and his arms he isn't really good for mob fight tough. -Stam Edgar is mainly a Tank will be setting Slow and Sap on the bosses, Nirvana Band allow for some back up heal with Cure 2 if needed, Summoning Golem and Safe are also good option, Atma Weapon for getting some damage, Noiseblaster and Flash for Mob fight. -Magic Relm is mainly here to heal, thanks to Osmose she shouldn't have trouble keeping her MP high enough, Meteor is good for Random cleaning and Flare is good against bosses, also if ever needed Warp for escaping mob fight. Group 2 : Magic Celes, Magic Strago, Speed Gau and Vig Locke -My Celes is actually more balance with a little Magic Focus, anyway Runic is a nice Defensive option, main healer with Cure 2, also Dispel, Regen, Safe all good and nice can deal damage to Ultima through either Icebrand's proc or Ice 3 and to Green-D with Illumina's proc. -Magic Strago can clean mob fight with Black Omen, set sap with Blaze and Slow can also set Safe with Shield and Shell with X-Shell and can his MP back with Osmose or Raid, main damage dealer against Ultima with X-Ice 2, can get some decent damage on Green-D with Blaze also has Holy Wind for healing. -Speed Gau can Haste X and Regen through Stray, Nastidon's Rage for Ultima, Revenant Rage for Green-D (maybe Witch Rage could be good to) -Vig Locke physical damage dealer, will use Icebrand for Ultima and Flamtongue for Green-D, 2 Wing Edges is also strong but I fear he might lose to much defense for not wearing a Shield, also can back up with Life/Life 2 if even needed.

Haven't update this in a while despite some episode having be post sorry about that : Episode 3 : Escaping from Jad (did farm Moon Coin on Bound Wolf of screen), Maïa has our first accessories to get, otherwise just progressing through the story and beating the incomplete version of the Machine Golems. Episode 4 : The infamous Dwarf Village then Jewel Eater fight, think I handle this part pretty well definitly did go smoothly than previous playthroughs, Dwarf get us our holy Beastman Collars which will be very usefull for money for a good chunk of the game, did do a backtracking before Jewel Eater to prepare properly, it's amazing how easy Jewel Eater really is once you know what to do, was the first I was using Steel Gauntlets with Salamando day very good for this fight. Episode 5 : Some bad luck on my way to Forcena and during Altena's invasion could have handle this part better, did grind some Molebear's Claw off screen they will come handy for the next boss.

It's finish since over 2 years already ^^"

I put on spoiler in case people want to find by themselves :

Have you try any offensive rage instead of defensive ? IIRC the Rain Man Rage you can get on the World Map before Vector works wonder in Magitek Factory and Mine Caret. 1 advise with Gau would be to always carry Green Cherries which allows you to cancel a Rage to do another one if you need to change strategy midway, Gau can pretty much adapt to any situation, you really need to learn which Rage does what (consult the Printme for that). One problem with Gau is if you really want to get the maximum out of him you need to invest a lot of time in learning Rage (thankfully WAAAAAAY less time than in Vanilla thanks to the number of Rages being reduce and the possibility to Leap outside of Veldt).

Probably just emulator settings stuff.

For a physical team I think there is really only 2 bosses that need anti magic which are Lugar cause he resist physical and Earth God Beast to exploit his weakness, physical team's worst ennemies however for me is the Fire God Beast to destroy the furnace in the back don't hesitate to stock Ice coins and Undine statues for this one.

Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Sage is close to my very first team on this mod which was Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Bishop, I had never play Vanilla prior to this mod yet this team carry me through this mod on hard despite obviously having little to no knowledge of the game and mod mechanic, so I say if this team can carry a beginner playing for the first time ever on hard then I think it's safe to assume it's a pretty solid team, not to mention back then Lise could not equip Shield now she can so that's an option, and contrary to Bishop Sage can exploit the curse upgrade with Dark Force, a downside of Sage compare to bishop she need whitelight ring to make her sabers MT. Ninja Master, Vanadis I think Duelist and Death Hand would be good if you want physical damage as for Angela any of her class would do tough I think either Grand Divina or Rune Master would be better. Rogue, Vanadis, Dark Carlie an interesting team, I think Necromancer is the best pick for Dark Carlie personnaly would completly free Rogue of the Debuff duty letting him do damage.

Not possible with my team sadly, so in the end still relying on buff and Debuff is the way to go with the team I had despite being annoying to keep up with him.