rpschamp

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but Vanadis pairs nicely with Swordmaster since her final weapon gives her summon and any non-elemental items (darts, axes, shurikens) the element of any saber cast on her. This can help if she is the only caster on the team since you can get magical damage in any element out of one spell, and is especially useful against enemies with maxed out physical defense or immunity or bosses who can't be reached by melee (Xan Bie's furnace, Fiegmund).

It was reported elsewhere on this forum that Swordmaster's crit rate can reach 80% with his final weapon, which should do a lot of damage. Even with this though, the build has to be very specific, and Duelist's final weapon is still probably better in most situations. Reflect armor does indeed reflect physical spells, and the reflect rate is 175%, more than Curse's 100%.

Don't forget that Ninja Master offers Swordmaster a unique crit buff with his Analyze spell. Swordmaster's final weapon runs on critical hits, so Ninja Master is the class best suited to help him reach his maximum damage potential. Of course it's not at all necessary to go this path if you are not interested in maxing out his final weapon, Swordmaster has plenty to offer otherwise. Apart from Swordmaster's final weapon, choosing Ninja Master or Nightblade depends mostly on whether you prefer MT stat debuffs or Curse/Silence. Since I can already get an enhanced Curse effect from reflect armor, I usually go for the MT stat debuffs. Ninja Master also gets a final weapon that can be used to very easily chip away at a target's defense with Fireblaze equipped, which would be especially useful for a team that depends mostly on physical damage.

Thank you; I will report back when I get a chance to test.

I think there is some miscommunication. To make things clearer: If I cast Sleep Flower on Hawk, who is wearing reflect armor and a Wind God Bracelet for sleep immunity, and I send him out into a pack of physical attackers, what will happen after they hit me? I can imagine several possible results: 1) Physical damage is reflected at the usual multiplier and the attackers fall asleep, as long as no new spells are cast on Hawk. 2) The attackers fall asleep, but then are immediately woken by the physical damage reflected from their own hit. 3) The attackers fall asleep but no physical damage is reflected since the last spell overrides the physical attacks. 4) Same as 1), but only for the first attacker, since the first attack "replaces" the effect of the last spell. 5) Same as 2), but only for the first attacker, since the first attack "replaces" the effect of the last spell. 6) Same as 3), but only for the first attacker, since the first attack "replaces" the effect of the last spell. If you're not sure or it's inconvenient to test this, don't worry about it; I will eventually try it myself since I'll be running Grand Divina with any of these groups. As you can see, the mechanism of how this plays out will determine whether or not this is a useful strategy.

Yes, I see the Necromancer as the better offensive choice and Evil Shaman as the better defensive choice for the Light Hawk Team, especially with Evil Shaman's MT Power and Mind Down spells, useful for quickly attenuating incoming damage from groups of enemies. A lot depends on how useful that Dark Saber/Demon Neckband combo would be to make up for lost defensive options. The advantage of the Dark Hawk team would be that Ninja Master would keep the MT Power and Mind Down spells as well as Necromancer's offensive spells and Dark Saber, but Carlie would be stuck with invert armor if I wanted access to Protect Up and Mind Up and I would lose a bunch of support spells. Also, Black Rain should not be much more powerful than Evil Shaman's Ghost Road or Demon Breath, but it would be cheaper, and having a Curse option on Carlie as well as Angela would be especially nice if this MT Sleep Flower/reflect thing works.

Sleep ends when taking damage or after a fixed amount of time - lag and the other usual culprits can extend that though. So there are no other factors that affect Sleep Flower's duration? I noticed in the past that some enemies, e.g. werewolf types, tend to wake up earlier, but I did not extensively test. Also, can you confirm whether casting Sleep Flower on your team equipped with reflect armor will then reflect sleep status onto enemy attackers? It should depend on whether the reflected damage hits before or after the sleep effect. (I should have kept my old teams around so I could test this myself....)

To finish with this Hawk, Angela, Carlie team discussion: I've decided to go with light Angela and dark Carlie to unlock this team's full nuke potential. Angela can do massive damage in many elements no matter what path she chooses, but Carlie has much more spell damage diversity when she goes dark. This leaves me with Grand Divina for Heal Light, which is my favorite Angela class, so no problem there. So, my team choices depend on which path I choose for Hawk: Team 1): Light Hawk -> Wanderer, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman (or Necromancer) Team 2): Dark Hawk -> Ninja Master, Grand Divina, Necromancer Team 1) will be dependent on Whitelight Rings for MT Mind Up and MT Protect Up, while Team 2) will be dependent on Carlie's invert armor to use Black Curse for stat buffs. Given this, Team 1) seems the better overall choice, since sacrificing an accessory slot on both Hawk and Carlie should be less important than sacrificing an armor slot on Carlie. Team 1) will also have access to a bunch of support spells (Antimagic, Aura Wave, Lunatic, Life Booster) that will decrease its dependency on found items; it's missing stat buffs/debuffs (Power Up, Protect Down, Speed Down) can be recovered through items purchased at Byzel and Deen (Drake's Scales, Bottles of Ashes). Team 1) could substitute Necromancer for Evil Shaman to gain a saber/resist option and better damage spell diversity, but it would lose its easy defensive options in Evil Shaman's Protect Up and MT Power/Mind Down spells. I'm also looking forward to testing the status/reflect phenomenon discussed above with MT Sleep Flower and reflect armor; I suppose it depends on whether the damage or the sleep status is applied first (damage applied after sleep should immediately wake the sleep-afflicted enemy, while sleep applied after damage should leave them snoozing).

I agree that in general Duelist is better than Swordmaster, if only because of Eruption Sword. Maybe an advantage for Swordmaster could be brought out with his final weapon? I would suggest trying: Swordmaster, Ninja Master, Vanadis Vanadis should have stats allocated to maximize her cast speed and magical damage, since your other two won't provide any. Swordmaster and Ninja Master should be built for critical hits. Basically just spam sabered Freyas and jutsus/shurikens for random enemies while Duran keeps them occupied with melee and shields. For bosses, stat buff/debuff and crit buff/debuff should be at maximum potential, and Ninja Master goes to work with Fireblaze. This team could pull off a lot of damage if used correctly. Also, I was thinking of a simpler status/reflect combo that many teams could use: cast Sleep Flower on your whole team with reflect armor and Wind God Bracelets. This way you don't take any damage from Angela's level 3 spells, and everytime an enemy hits anyone, it falls asleep, until another spell targets you. Body Change might work as well, but then you lose the experience; plus the enemies should change back if they hit you again. You may not even really need the bracelets for this since only the initial spell should put you to sleep. I don't have a group that can try this at the moment, but someone who does should be able to confirm whether this works. Does anyone know what determines the duration of Sleep Flower?

Life Booster is certainly not as useful as Protect Up for random fights since it's only ST. Definitely useful for the God Beasts though when you want to invest more time buffing for a longer battle.

One set to add to your required armor list: the deny counterattack armors, first version found at the Dwarf Village. These are extremely useful for casters against bosses that counter spells a lot, especially Bill & Ben, the Machine Golems, Lugar, and even Jewel Eater and Gildervine (phase 2). Plus, those physical defense armors are obviously a good bet for much of the early game when there are no attacks that hit against magical defense, especially for shield bearers (they can take the brunt of Bill & Ben's counters, for instance).

Yes but that is not a specific effect of anti-magic; that reflection works with the last spell that was cast on the boss - technically that is a vanilla bug I abused here, regular attacks are not supposed to be reflected but I enabled that, reflected "damage" is handled based on the last spell used on the original target; for spells that works fine since the reflected spell is obviously the last used spell, for regular attacks this is naturally not the case since there is not spell involved. That whole process also works for you if you e.g. use thorn armor or the curse effect. Thank you for the details on the mechanics (and one less use for Antimagic!). The Rune Master is such an awesomely weird class! I assume this status/reflect strategy does not work for techs since those should work as spells. In general, the saber/resist strategy seems safer since it can't be cancelled by techs/spells, as long as you are careful about who to cast it on. Life Booster is good for deathless players like myself who prefer not to wear HP armor against every boss (those deathless weapons are pretty damn nice), and it works well with passive heal. In fact, adding 20% to your HP should in the worst case be almost as good as a 25% physical defense buff, but in most cases better since those extra HP also cover magical damage; add in passive healing, and it's pretty much better in all cases since those extra HP keep getting refilled. It's also GREAT against Xan Bie: it raises the 100 HP low ceiling to 120 and saves a few deaths. Rainbow Dust though is not often a good option due to enemy resists and I'd gladly see her trade it for Aura Wave (maybe in the next update, Praetarius? (~wishful thinking~)). I never realized that Magic Shield stacked with Mind Up for heal power buff. I can see now that Bishop has several great defensive options with both Protect Up and Magic Shield. Your points are well taken here. Really, a magic-oriented team should be able to get by with just Specter's Eyes; I don't even like to waste one on Lugar when I have Angela around to bomb him to death. I do like being able to cancel saber spells and such during random fights but it's by no means necessary. And Aura Wave has limited necessity since level 2 techs work just as well as level 3 techs for Dolan and Mispolm, as long as you're willing to spend your money on those 3 tech-point weapons. And so.... Based on this vibrant discussion (thank you Praetarius and Nesouk!) I'm down to four teams, listed from light to dark: 1) Wanderer, Grand Divina, Necromancer/Evil Shaman A fast-casting team particularly strong in support spells and controlling the pace of battle; Grand Divina casts damage spells instantly, and Transshape should be useful in avoiding melee damage. Evil Shaman seems the more reliable defensive option with Protect Up and MT stat debuffs, but Necromancer adds a saber/resist strategy and damage options in neutral element magical, physical, and HP-based damage. 2) Rogue, Archmage, Bishop A strong-casting team that does not rely as much on spell-power buffs. Here, I agree that the Bishop's reliable defensive options outweigh the need for extra elemental diversity since Archmage and Rogue are such strong, diverse casters. No Mind Up, but the final weapons for Archmage and Rogue make up for that for everyday fights, and scales can be used for boss fights. 3) Ninja Master, Rune Master, Sage The strongest team in terms of status effects; random enemy battles should be a lot of fun. No Protect Up, but Ninja Master's MT Water Jutsu and Sage's passive heal should make up for it during random battles, and Life Booster will be even more help during boss fights. Both saber/resist and status/reflect strategies available. Sage's Holy and Dark spells help Rune Master and Ninja Master with elemental diversity. Needs Specter's Eyes. 4) Nightblade, Magus, Bishop A team strong in the fundamentals with almost all buffs/debuffs and strong, straight-forward options for both magical and physical damage. Magus's 25% bonus for MT spells will be great for random battles, and damage type diversity and defensive options mean no problem for boss fights. Nightblade can wear spell level armor to pump out a neutral level 3 Black Rain with the 25% bonus for MT-always spells (for 8 mp and optional Curse upgrade!) to wreak havoc alongside Magus. The more I think about this team, the more I like it. Needs Specter's Eyes. No invert armor for any of these teams; I agree that it limits the wearer and takes some of the fun out of the game. This is especially important for groups that have no access to Protect Up. It's also a sign of great design to see every final class represented in these four options. It would be fun to dive into each of these and work out the most important considerations for Hawk/Angela/Carlie. If I have to take one though, I'm leaning towards 3) or 4).

I was just in the process of adding a comment to check with you on that, thanks for the correction. Still, if you don't want to rely on the physical immunity-bypass weapons or the spell level armor, being able to cast Antimagic during random battles is a useful option to break immunities, and it can be used to cancel sabers or most buffs bosses cast on themselves. Two questions while you're here, Praetarius: 1) Does Antimagic cancel Mispolm's self-status reflection spells like Stone Cloud? 2) Can sabers be cast on any boss for a saber/resist strategy, in particular the Jagan team, Bigieu, DSK, or the Black Rabite?

Thanks for your suggestions. Regarding your first team, I think Nightblade vs. Ninja Master is really just a matter of style. Both have unique things to offer: Nightblade gets Black Rain (really powerful with spell level armor, especially for its low MP cost), Blow Needles, and a final weapon that is actually pretty good in a couple of boss fights where you're trapped at low HP. Ninja Master on the other hand gets those group jutsu debuffs for groups of enemies (MT Power Down and Mind Down would be quite useful for this team) and his final weapon/Fireblaze stackable physical defense shred for bosses, particularly those with maxed out magical defense that a magic-focus team would otherwise find difficult to damage. As for Magus vs. Archmage, I guess it depends on whether you think the Antimagic and Aura Wave are worth the times you need wear inversion armor for Mind Up and Power Up. For me, they are. Antimagic, necessary for some bosses, has more uses than you think once you can cast it without wasting a Specter's Eye (even the gauge cancel is useful against tech-heavy enemies), and Aura Wave is really helpful during a couple of the tech-dependent boss fights (Dolan, Mispolm) and those where you want to go for extra tech damage (Xan Bie, Zable Fahr). Apart from not needing the inversion armor for her buffs, Magus does not seem to offer much over Archmage, and loses Holy damage as well. Maybe one problem is that I'm typically underlevelled and hardly ever get to use Deathspell. Also, I lose light Angela's useful elemental spread during the early game. For your second team, Rogue/Archmage is always a fun combo. His level 3 tech is aesthetically my favorite in the game (different colors every time!) and his physical damage options are easy and powerful. Ninja Master has his advantages, but I will think more on this; it may be time to give Rogue another shot with this magic-focus team, especially if I'm not as dependent on that final weapon/Fireblaze combo. Speed Up is great too. In general, I am not as in love with Bishop as the rest of this forum. She only gets one element to cast and her final weapon is really not that much better than her agility-based weapon if you keep up with that stat. Magic Shield is okay but usually I would go for Protect Up (which she already has), Mind Up, Tree Spirit Rings, and Magic Walnuts anyways, so it's never much of a draw. I have played both Bishop and Sage, and Sage just has so much more I can use: her final weapon with it's passive group regeneration (twice as powerful as Mad Beast Fang, and without using three accessory slots) by itself is worth the price of admission, but she also gets Mind Up and Holy and Dark MT level 2 spells, always useful for a magic-focus team, as well as Life Booster and Leaf Saber. And again, I rarely get to use Turn Undead because of the level requirement. Her major draw for this team is Protect Up, especially since I otherwise have access to Mind Up. Decisions, decisions....

Good luck with your decision! I'm starting a new team as well. Inspired to break out of Lise-dependency by the discussion above, I've decided to go with my three favorites: Hawk, Angela, and Carlie. Since this is probably the most spell-oriented group of characters in the game, I realize that running without a shield might make things difficult at times, but I'm optimistic that I can make it work. Here are some ideas I've come up with; anyone, please offer comments or suggestions of your own to help me make my decision. - Wanderer, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman/Necromancer With Evil Shaman, this team has the four major stat buffs/debuffs (Protect Up, Power Down, Mind Up, and Mind Down), the six major sabers (team cast only), fast damage spells in every element (multiple in most), Heal Light (on a great caster), Tinkle Rain x 2, Antimagic, Aura Wave, Transshape x 3, Life Booster, Lunatic, etc. This team would be mostly reliant on MT magical damage to blast enemies away before they can do much damage. Getting cast speed and magic power up as fast as possible will be very important; Grand Divina in particular will be great for knocking mobs all over the screen to keep them occupied once she can cast almost instantly. Once Angela gets her sabers, this team can do more melee damage for those later bosses that really need it. Switching out Evil Shaman for Necromancer trades Protect Up for Dark Saber, which can be cast on a group of enemies while wearing Demon Neckbands to reduce melee damage by ~45%. I have not tried this strategy before and don't know whether it will work on bosses (I can see potential for the Jagan and Bigieu fights), but the benefits against random enemies alone are enticing. The question is whether Protect Up or a saber/resist strategy would be overall better for physical defense, since there are still plenty of physical spells that won't take the sabered element and would be missing the Protect Up. Necromancer also gets a better selection of elemental and non-elemental damage type than Evil Shaman. I won't lose much in terms of support spells (Antimagic, Transshape, and Lunatic are already covered), but I will trade the ever-useful MT damage/debuff spells Ghost Road and Demon Breath for Black Curse, good for bosses but not so good for teams of enemies. - Ninja Master, Archmage, Bishop/Sage With Bishop, this team would be more physically-oriented with two heavy melee hitters, five of the six major sabers, Power Up and Protect Down, and Ninja Master to chip away at physical defense with his final weapon and Fireblaze, a combo that just kills it against late-game bosses. I would recover Protect Up but lose Life Booster and Lunatic, and Archmage would need inversion armor for her buffs, which is not always convenient. Getting Heal Light after the first class change would be really nice, though. As an alternative, I could bring in Sage for her final weapon that provides HP regeneration, super useful on a team full of glass cannons (except during the one or two boss fights that cancel it). I would also recover Life Booster, useful for a couple of the God Beast fights, and trade Saint Saber for Leaf Saber, useful for when I would rather wear something other than Tree Spirit Rings. Importantly, this team would have no access to Protect Up, but the amount of healing going on and the option for a saber/resist strategy may make this more bearable.

Kevin, Hawk, and Angela should be an interesting team; two dual hitters and the most powerful caster means a lot of damage potential. The team Nesouk suggested should be quite powerful (I am playing a similar team at the moment with Dragon Master instead of God Hand). Here are two alternatives: 1) Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Grand Divina This team should play similar to Nesouk's team until the second class change, with Hawk playing somewhat differently; Arrows is a fast and powerful spell which costs only 5 mp compared with Shuriken's 8 mp, so Ranger can cast almost twice as much as Ninja and help pick off enemies that Angela weakens with her MT magic. Both Hawk and Kevin will also have MT level 2 techs here which should be useful for taking out groups of enemies. After the second class change, Wanderer will be more useful than Ninja Master for spell damage: he gets spells that hit against physical defense (Arrows), magical defense (Poison Bubble), and neither (Half Vanish, empowered with his final weapon). Wanderer will also get Antimagic and a bunch of support spells including Aura Wave, Energy Ball, Lunatic, and Life Booster. Aura Wave in particular makes a few of the God Beast fights significantly easier (with the right setup, both Hawk and Kevin can reach a full tech bar in one double hit). Kevin will get Leaf Saber, instead of Moon and Saint Sabers, great for casting support (and Saint Saber would be half redundant anyways with Grand Divina's final weapon). In terms of buffs/debuffs, since Wanderer provides Mind Up, you can use invert armor on Kevin for Mind Down, Power Down, and Power Up. So, this team will be similar to Nesouk's with access to Mind Up, Mind Down, and Power Down, but not Protect Up; differently from Nesouk's, you will have access to Power Up and Speed Up instead of Protect Down, Speed Up, and Speed Down, but you can make up the Protect Down with a Fireblaze on one (or both) of your hitters. Compared to Nesouk's team, this team should perform about as well with physical damage but better with magical and general spell damage, and have access to Antimagic, Aura Wave, and both Life Booster and Lunatic. Nesouk's team's advantage would be the MT jutsus and Shuriken which should enhance MT spell damage and reduce enemy group stats without requiring a Whitelight Ring. 2) Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Rune Master This team will be similar to the one above but trading your more powerful healer, Tinkle Rain, and Holy and Dark damage for Rune Master's level 3 status-inflicting spells and earlier access to the basic elemental sabers. MT snowman status should be a riot on this team with two dual hitters to follow it up. MT silence and ST petrify status will also be useful against tons of annoying mobs. Honestly, it's difficult for me to recommend Rune Master over Grand Divina on almost any team since Grand Divina is just so damn good. Since Rune Master is mainly geared towards mob battles, this team would not perform as well against bosses, especially with the loss of your more powerful healer and Holy and Dark damage options. But Rune Master is a really fun class to play and will make mob fights more enjoyable, especially in the second half of the game when they become more difficult.

The main advice I can give for the ladies against Dolan is to get your physical defense in order - the Maia armors worked for me. Both of your casters have element neutral spells, so just chip away and use Lise to cancel Spiral Moon and try to stay alive.

Thorns are generally no good against bosses who counterattack frequently. Though I'm kicking myself a little for unequipping Magatama before the Machine Golem fight; I just wanted to reduce any counterattacks as much as possible, but from your success it seems like it does more good than harm. This team in general has problems with bosses that hit hard against physical defense. Dolan was my biggest problem, by far. For Bill and Ben, the best you can do is use your shield to keep pulling them away from your casters while your casters focus on killing one after the other with single-target spells. It helps to get a little lucky that they don't cast Thunder Jutsu 50 times. I found the second fight more manageable than the first, but not by much. It would be great to figure out a way to reliably kill them before they split. Also, I probably had an easier time with Bill and Ben using dark Lise since they can use jutsus to easily mess with your stat ups but could do nothing to remove my stat downs, while I could just remove their stat downs with Stardust Herbs. This way I could maintain a constant stat advantage against them.

Cardinal Eye: Does Pressure work on Lightgazer? Has anyone found any other use for it? Magatama's Curse is so useful, I'd suspect there would be some great use for it's counterpart.

One aspect of Vanadis where she definitely beats Star Lancer is her sprite. Gold, magenta and teal are much more compelling than Star Lancer's basic sky blue and pink. Plus, once sabered up, she can MT damage against both physical and magical defense better than any of Lise's other classes, as long as she isn't busy healing. I think her best role is as a secondary healer and reliable MT damage dealer.

You make a good point, I think it's easier to think broadly in terms of end game setups than the details of those setups. Personally, I don't like to lead with Vanadis because I prefer having a supporting character cast Heal Light to keep my lead character free. And having Lise in any other position wastes most of her shield strategy. Honestly, I would rank her 3rd or 4th in terms of which Lise classes I think are most effective overall. This is why I think she may be overused; she seems more effective in certain setups at first glance than she actually is. Spreading out the important buffs and debuffs might do more to attract other setups, but it's not necessary for balance purposes.

I think the point is that players want to get the most mileage for their support characters, and she happens to have both Heal Light and all the stat ups, two of the most essential support sets in the game. The way to make her less essential would be to spread out these abilities more to other classes so that more class combinations could give you the full set, or at least the most important ones like Heal Light, Protect Up, Power Down, Mind Up, and Mind Down. It's tough to do this in a balanced way without unbalancing the other classes, though; maybe just giving more of the important buffs or debuffs to other characters would work.

I found an easy way to get all the final weapons pretty quickly, usually in less than an hour, that doesn't use save states. After the third Godbeast, head to Moonreading Tower. Save outside. There are two rooms on the first floor; go back and forth until you find a Lesser Demon. Use Beastman Collars to farm these guys until you get three W/A seeds - these should be all you need. Then head back to Mintos, make sure you have 20 item seeds, and save at the inn. Reload from your save point to start. Plant all three W/A seeds; if there is a final weapon in them, remember the position. Reload from your save point and fill the non-final weapon positions with item seeds. Basically, you can advance the list of final weapons by planting item seeds; if the third W/A seed is a final weapon, then using two item seeds followed by a W/A seed will also give you that weapon, but save you the other two W/A seeds. If you want, you can go even further down the list by using more item seeds before W/A seeds; with 20 item seeds and 3 W/A seeds, you have 23 list positions to check. There are even more positions to check if you keep mixing the order of the seeds, but 23 positions should on average give you the three final weapons. If you can't find one or two of them, keep your extra W/A seeds and check later when the the RNG has reset. The basic trick here is that restarting from a save point does not seem to automatically reset the RNG with respect to items from planted seeds. I have not looked at the code at all, so all this was just found by experiment, but I imagine it should work with any setup. Note: ??? seed items seem to be on a separate list that item seeds do not advance, so you cannot choose your class change items this way. But you can use item seeds to advance all the other seed items I believe.

If by best you mean most necessary for an optimized party, I'm with you. She was and always will be the ultimate team player. I just want to encourage people to try classes other than Vanadis; it seems she's the most used, and perhaps overused, class on this mod.

Just a few notes on Lise, since I've used both light and dark Lise in recent groups: - If there's anyone you'd want to wear invert armor, it's Lise: she has the best overall Vitality and Spirit scores of any character, so she can take the most setback in terms of defense; also, she's usually not a focus character for physical or magical damage, so you won't be losing too much on offense either. Still, if you can find a way around it, it's always nicer to keep her armor slot free for other options. - If you're not using a Rune Master, Star Lancer's Marduke should be a huge benefit to pretty much any party. It's hard to overstate how much more useful this summon is than any of Lise's other options. Heavy tech users and casters all can be disabled by this, and her final weapon brings it out even faster. The only really annoying tech user immune to Silence I can think of are Werewolves, so you'll have to find another strategy for them. - If you already have another healer, try someone other than Vanadis; having Heal Light on a non-focus character with all the stat buffs makes this class really attractive, but her other classes can give the same buffs with better strategic options. Star Lancer not only gets her most useful summon, Marduke, but also Aura Wave, Energy Ball, and Lise's strongest ST Level 3 tech in the game, great for boosting physical power on any team. Fenrir Knight's counter-heal is just awesome for magical teams; running her with a heavy MP user like Necromancer or any Angela class will save you a lot of time siphoning back MP. I also find that controlling Fenrir Knight as a lead character is nicer than Vanadis, since counterattacks can be performed actively, while casting Heal Light takes significant cast-time through most of the game where you can't control your other characters; plus, if you're using Lise as a shield-bearer, it's usually best to keep her mobile. Dragon Master's enhanced Anti-magic is awesome for boosting elemental damage, so she's great to pair with Archmage who gets bonus weakness damage or other classes who only have access to one or two elements. - Not that it matters too much, but dark Lise has the best overall stats in the game. It's possible to end the game with stats at 26/26/26/26/26/26 if this kind of thing delights you.