rpschamp

45 minutes ago, smileless said:

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.

 

It's funny, but in terms of the update, 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.

44 minutes ago, smileless said:

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

EDIT: Just confirmed that it does; tech bonus and counter bonus are added cumulatively, so yeah, it should be quite good against those enemy types.

3 minutes ago, smileless said:

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

Yeah, this team is really just great regardless. I think Star Lancer is the only definite choice. I do think Ninja Master pairs particularly nicely with Star Lancer, but keep Curse in mind; you can only get that here through Sage and Nightblade. It's also possible to just wear reflect armor for random fights, and you'll get a 175% reflection instead of the 100% you get from Curse.

My play style leans towards spell casting, so I may have a bias for Sage, so keep that in mind too; I know Bishop is well loved. I just don't think Bishop's final weapon advantage should be the deciding factor; Sage with her Agility weapon can hit almost as hard (30/light medium vs. 32/medium). Plus, you'll probably be using her heal weapon half the time. For this purpose, I like that Sage gets two options for heal weapons: the normal heal spell/item enhancing one, and her passive 15 HP/s one.

14 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?

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.

8 hours ago, smileless said:

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.

I completely agree, to the extent that after I started playing Sin of Mana, I played teams focused on dealing spell damage with Angela and Carlie (or Hawk) almost exclusively, since I never used this type of team in the original. Revised enemy counters, aggro shields, and new spell strategies (like Curse) all contribute to the new balance. My current game is the first time I've run Kevin in years.

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. Some ideas:

- 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.

- 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.

- 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).

On 5/6/2020 at 3:52 AM, smileless said:

The final weapons of Nightblade and Necromancer seem to go best with the armor that revives you at the cost of MP. 

With my Paladin/RuneMaster/Nectomancer run, for the Dragon Emperor fight I went on Gnome Day, Diamond Saber and just casted Earthquake with Angela, Half Vanish with Carlie until her hp reached half then switched to Machine Golem. I had Carlie equiped with Sage Armor, Protect Ring and the Ring that casts from HP. I barely have any money left haha, you really can afford only one of those Pedan armors.

Next in line are these teams:

Ninja Master, Vanadise, Duelist going to be fun using Duelist for the first time. I guess with his final weapon damage depends on how close he is to the target?

Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Necromamcer seems like a really fun one to try.

Since I'm planning to run Necromancer in my current game (and considering Rune Master for my next game), I have a few questions about your Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer team when you have some time:

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.

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

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?

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

Thanks!

On 5/6/2020 at 3:52 AM, smileless said:

Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Necromamcer seems like a really fun one to try.

Well, after playing a few bosses and the Seashore Cave with Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie, I've found myself too often wishing for a caster. As much as I'm enjoying Bastard Slam, I'm going to backtrack to the first class change and give Light Hawk, Light Kevin, Dark Carlie a try like I originally intended.

EDIT: This team is going very well so far. Thanks to Bill & Ben's corrected weakness, Hawk and Kevin wearing Siren's Claws and Carlie throwing Unicorn Heads took them down in a way I have never experienced. This is usually one of the hardest fights in the game for me, but the corrected weakness (along with the HP rasping weapons) makes a huge difference. My fight against Gorva was also a lot of fun; just to challenge myself, I let Carlie enter the spirit world and took him on with Hawk and Kevin. It helped that they were both resistant to dark, but I managed to get their Arrows and Heal Light up to around 200 damage per hit. Gorva went down not too long after one spell cycle. One more thing to note:

9 hours ago, smileless said:

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.

Thanks guys, I feel stupid, it's right there in the change log, I should have reviewed it when I ran into trouble. I also think that I was too under-leveled here; they were basically one-shotting me before I even got a chance to counter.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

The idea for that miniboss was simple:
a friendly reminder that you now always have the tool to deal with physical resistant mobs - counters. And that is preferably understood before they are everywhere in the moon forest and the player is locked into their final classes.

As such those mobs have double their naturaly magic defense, a full INT Angela deals barely double digit damage with her spells.

Also Camillas felt like a natural pick there, in vanilla they serve no real purpose ever, here they at least fit thematically to Jagan, basically his elite agents.

 

I do like the mini-boss and agree that it fits well thematically; now the appearance of you-know-who does not feel so random at the end of the cave.

One weird thing about the mechanics of this fight:

On 5/5/2020 at 2:49 AM, Nesouk said:

I actually didn't finish that run, did get to the God beasts beat the first 2 god beasts. 

Honnestly in no heal light run Fenrir Knight is probably the best character to have, especially if you have a mage, it's even more true now that she has Leaf Saber on top of moon saber, and her final weapon is really good.

Right now Death Hand and Wanderer are also really good, Wanderer was already good in no heal light run, now his magic shield give you all you need in regard to buffs, on top of all the utility spells and a consistent source of damage with Half Vanish. Death Hand give you that with Magic Shield to but also Speed Up, and his final weapon to reduce defense will help.

Rune Master is IMO Angela best class for no heal light the crowd control she get with LV3 Spells really going through areas with minimum damage.

Dark Hawk is always a solid choice regardless IMO.

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?

On 5/7/2020 at 6:23 AM, praetarius5018 said:

It should have nothing to do with your hardware. The SNES only had so much CPU power (~3.5 MHz I believe) so if the emulator is even trying to be accurate it will severly limit how many instructions are executed per frame (and ofc not all instructions cost the same).
If I can trust the logs I made with frame advance this averages to 10-12k instructions per frame.
What I did was to take several compressed functions that are used often like checks during attack swings and uncompress them, I have the rom space to do that vanilla did not, which saves about 200-300 instructions per section (~300-450 instructions down to ~80-170).
I doubt it is that notable, we're speaking maybe half a frame worth of instructions over a 30 frame attack sequence.

It may also be that I'm running Hawk, Kevin, Carlie instead of X, Angela, Carlie that I've been running for the past year, so I'm not locking myself up with spells as often.

Speaking of which, I'm loving Hawk, Kevin, Carlie on the new update; the new HP rasping on yellow damage weapons are great for Hawk and Kevin if you pump up their luck, and I've rediscovered the simple joy of the Bastard Slam. Bill & Ben were tough without Angela though.

On 5/5/2020 at 4:51 AM, praetarius5018 said:

It is +25% atk before defense so the actual damage increase will be much bigger.
Simplified imagine:
400 atk vs 300 def = 100 damage
500 atk vs 300 def = 200 damage, 25% more atk but 100% more damage

In this case, Dervish might be worth a try. I'm thinking a Nightblade/Dervish/Sage team should be able to finally get some use out of Rainbow Dust with the new Leaf Coat effect, among other cool things.

By the way, I'm really feeling the code optimizations during battle. Maybe I'm just noticing them because my hardware is over a decade old, but battle is now running near normal speed for me, maybe 50% faster at times. Your work on improving this game over these years is really appreciated :-)

21 hours ago, smileless said:

Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Necromamcer seems like a really fun one to try.

I'm probably going to go Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie this time, but I agree this one would be a lot of fun, especially on the hardest difficulty where Half Vanish is often your best damage source; Wanderer and Necromancer casting back to back while Kevin uses tech points for either final weapon or Beastman Collar healing, two double hitters, Dark Saber and dark resistance, and pretty much every support spell in the game (except for elemental sabers).

On 4/3/2020 at 11:45 AM, praetarius5018 said:

On 4/3/2020 at 3:01 AM, Kei said:

By the way, do you/anyone else know what the Dervish's final weapon effect actually do? Just an attack bonus for the wolf form, or? (Surely it doesn't actually turn Kevin berserk/uncontrollable?)

much more attack than regular wolf form at cost of defenses.

Is the +25% attack, -50% defenses listed in the documentation correct? Your comment above leads me to think it may be +50% attack, -25% defenses instead.

35 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

I actually didn't finish that run, did get to the God beasts beat the first 2 god beasts. 

Honnestly in no heal light run Fenrir Knight is probably the best character to have, especially if you have a mage, it's even more true now that she has Leaf Saber on top of moon saber, and her final weapon is really good.

Right now Death Hand and Wanderer are also really good, Wanderer was already good in no heal light run, now his magic shield give you all you need in regard to buffs, on top of all the utility spells and a consistent source of damage with Half Vanish. Death Hand give you that with Magic Shield to but also Speed Up, and his final weapon to reduce defense will help.

Rune Master is IMO Angela best class for no heal light the crowd control she get with LV3 Spells really going through areas with minimum damage.

Dark Hawk is always a solid choice regardless IMO.

Yeah, after giving this some more thought, it seems a little crazy, and a No Heal Light run without Fenrir Knight feels like it's missing something important. I will probably stick with Hawk, Kevin, Carlie for now (though I miss Angela) and either go Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer or some Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie. Dervish looks interesting to pair with Ninja Master and Sage (Energy Ball and Analyze; invert armor on Kevin for Protect Up, Speed Up, and Mind Up; Gigas Flail and Moon Saber to keep HP up), but his final weapon looks a little crazy with its 50% reduction to defenses. Death Hand's final weapon looks A LOT more useful. I can think of a No Heal Light run with Fenrir Knight in the future.

On 3/7/2020 at 1:14 PM, Nesouk said:

Alright decide to start my No Heal Light playthrough picked Lise, Hawk and Angela, of course the early game will not be different from a regular playthrough, just want to add however for Jewel Eater I found the helm sold at Dwarf Village to be really usefull against him making him even safer than before I manage to beat with my character never getting on critical HP , as his physical attacks are more dangerous than his magical one, so add that to my little early game guide I make earlier.

(PS : Also small note to early game cause I'm also testing that Dervish, Arch Mage, Bishop party that come to my mind earlier on, Kevin's prologue has a little advantage, his prologue is fill with Bound Wolf so if we are lucky he can get a Moon Coin for Full Metal Hugger, and it makes Full Metal Huger a joke, got probably the fastest kill I ever done on him thanks to that , tough I don't recommend grinding for it (I wasn't looking for it just get it by luck) as it can be annoying to get and the early game on hard already require to grind enough consumable as it is but it's good to know, as if Kevin wasn't already the best character for early game enough )

Anyway for my No Heal Light team decide to do thing a little differently than what I was planning earlier here's my team plan :

-Lise is going to be Fenrir Knight, obviously would be crazy to not go for this class on such a party, so that give me all debuffs a good shield user obviously her most attractive feature is her Final weapon for it healing on counter effect, but also Moon Saber for Draining HP.

-Hawk : Now this is where I'm gonna be bold, upon thinking it his Dark Classes seems like a good pick, Ninja Master could open counter for Fenrir Knight, and Nightblade could give Curse and good nuking with Black Rain, but I don't want to be stuck on Invert Armor with Lise, and so considering she already bring the debuff I don't think Dark Hawk will bring much.
And so I'm gonna do something different and go for his Wanderer class for a few reasons. First off his spells will give a lot of tools to play around, in a no Heal Light game I think Life Booster might prove more usefull, also has Lunatic (only class with both Life Booster and Lunatic by the way) he also has Transshape so Transshape + Shield combo will be a thing with Lise, Aura Wave will allow Lise to get her LV1 Tech ready faster, Anti Magic will prove usefull to on some fight (I'm going all out in this run as you can see XD), Mind Up is the most important buff for most of the boss fights (and will strengthen Angela) and on top of all this utility Dual Hitting Counter with Fireblaze is still a thing, also get a cheap fast to cast spell with Arrow, a guaranteed fix damage with Half Vanish and his Final Weapon, as well as Body Change while not wanted on regular playthrough if things get ugly I will not mind losing EXP to make mob fight easier. 

-Angela : Gonna go to Rune Master, the goal on this party will be trying for mob fight to minimize damage as much as possible, and so Rune Master being able to cripple mobs with Statut Effects is a no brainer for me, Wanderer's Antimagic will allow her to bypass immunities, and for boss fight she will mostly use her LV2 Spells.

Will see how it will turn out.

I'm now thinking of a No Heal Light team myself; I've wanted to run one for a while but with the recent update I have some new inspiration. After thinking of these same base resistance teams, I'm considering:

Ninja Master/Night Blade, Death Hand, Rune Master

Defensively, all three characters are resistant to Earth, and Angela has Diamond Saber, so I can keep melee/tech damage down significantly in the late game. Hawk and Kevin can get a lot of mileage out of Dragon Rings and their HP rasping weapons with their double-hits to keep their HP up, and I can use heal hurts armors/accessories for random enemies and use heal items between battles when necessary (Mad Beast Fangs may be useful too). For boss battles, I find that I mainly use items anyways rather than Heal Light until very late in the game, so I think I can make this work.

Offensively, this team will be a terror: I'll have two double-hitters with powerful level 3 techs/debuffs (with Beastman Collar for Hawk) and Rune Master to cast MT status spells. I can also use status reflect effects like Stone Cloud (convenient here since everyone resists Earth). It may also be interesting to explore some of the weapons and armors that strengthen on death (I usually run deathless, so this will be completely new territory for me).

The choice of Ninja Master vs. Night Blade is interesting: Ninja Master adds defensive options with MT jutsus and Transshape to keep Rune Master safe, but Night Blade brings two extra elements with Pressure and Curse and a final weapon that might actually get some use in an often low-HP environment.

I quoted Nesouk to get his opinion since he ran an No Heal Light team recently. Does this sound workable? I will be playing on Normal.

On 4/30/2020 at 3:41 PM, praetarius5018 said:

That is not an upgrade but a tradeoff!
You sacrifice a use of a tech to get spell X out ASAP.

Might be useful with the 3xTP = crit rate weapon to hold unto the insta cast for when you need it and until then enjoy the extra crits to compensate for the lack of techs or something.

One question on how Beastman Collar interacts with Warrior Monk's final weapon: When casting Heal Light, would his tech points count towards his healing power, or would they get removed by the Beastman Collar prior to the Heal Light calculation?

12 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

You get both, 1.5x from weakness and 0.5x from resist for 0.75x total.

This explains my results.

16 minutes ago, smileless said:

This seems like a very good strat to use for fights like Bigieu especially,  where her physical attacks hit like a friggin truck.

That's what I'm thinking; I can confirm it worked really well on Lugar.

Ninja Master, Dervish, Sage is also possible, trading Death Hand's final weapon, Magic Shield, Aura Wave, Lunatic, and Dark Saber for Power Up, Moon Saber, Antimagic, and Protect Up when inverted. The colors work out particularly nicely; I call this team "Purple Reign".

19 minutes ago, Kei said:

One question about element armor, if I have a weakness to an element and equip the armor/accessory that resists that same element, they cancel each other out and the character becomes neutral to it, right? So if I wanted to take a character that's weak to an element and give him resistance to it, I'd have to equip both the armor and the accessory. Is that how it works? 

I'm not actually sure about this and would like it confirmed. IIRC, when I put Mananan Robe (Shadow resistance) on Light Angela (weak against Shadow) and cast Evil Gate on her, it seemed to do less than neutral spell damage, but not quite the 50% damage reduction I was expecting.

On 5/1/2020 at 1:26 PM, smileless said:

Overall I would say Death Hand, Dragon Master, Sage was pretty fun overall.

I've been brainstorming more teams for Death Hand, and I came up with a variant somewhere between your team and my Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer idea:

Nightblade/Ninja Master, Death Hand, Bishop/Sage

This team can go for all Earth resistance/Diamond Saber if Carlie wears the Golden Robe, or Fire resistance/Flame Saber if Kevin wears the Blue Uniform. With Bishop, you get close to the three strongest hitters in the game with Power Up/Down and Death Hand rasping physical defense and the six main sabers. With Sage, you lose a saber and your third attacker but get two strong MT spell casters with Mind Up/Down and Death Hand rasping magic defense, as well as Leaf Saber and a passive heal (20% stronger in version 1.2). Either way, you can go for physical or magical damage depending on the situation. You also get all debuffs, most buffs, Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Aura Wave, Lunatic, and Life Booster (with Sage). Ninja Master can be substituted for Nightblade to trade Black Rain (Sage can already set Curse if you pick her) and some ST elemental spells for the MT stat downs and some extra support spells.

This is also close to the Death Hand, Archmage, Bishop team Nesouk suggested, sacrificing some magic power and Antimagic for a second double hitter. That team can go for all Earth resistance/Diamond Saber in the same way.

In general, I've become interested in these shared base resistance teams. Here's how it plays out for each element:

- Fire: Light/Dark Hawk, Dark Angela, Light Carlie (for example, the Nightblade, Magus, Bishop team Nesouk suggested)

- Ice: Light/Dark Duran, Light Kevin, Dark Lise

- Light: Dark Duran, Light Lise, Light/Dark Carlie

- Shadow: Light/Dark Kevin, Light Hawk, Dark Carlie (for example, Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer)

- Earth: Dark Kevin, Dark Hawk, Light/Dark Angela - no Diamond Saber or no Heal Light, so either not strictly possible or not favorable

- Wind: Light Duran, Light/Dark Lise, Light Angela - no Thunder Saber, so not strictly possible

Many more teams are possible than this by using elemental resist armor; for example, Light Carlie can sub into the Earth team by wearing the Golden Robe. I like this because the melee/tech damage reduction is significant (approaching 45% at higher damage), and it makes use of the elemental resist armor that has typically been underused.

1 hour ago, smileless said:

Sounds like a great team, love it. I think Wanderer may be better due to Magic Shield taking care of the teams defenses, and supporting Warrior Monks healing power at the same time.

Thanks! Aura Wave should be more important in this version since the tech weapons have been kicked down a point. Rune Earrings have also been changed to suck up more HP, so Leaf Saber should be more important as well.

20 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

That is not an upgrade but a tradeoff!
You sacrifice a use of a tech to get spell X out ASAP.

Might be useful with the 3xTP = crit rate weapon to hold unto the insta cast for when you need it and until then enjoy the extra crits to compensate for the lack of techs or something.

I didn't say Beastman Collar was an upgrade. It should still be great for Light Kevin since he accumulates tech points faster with his double hit, also with Warrior Monk's final weapon in addition to the weapon you mentioned. As far as I can see, Beastman Collar is the only way to cast an instant Heal Light, but he needs to tech up before he can do it again. Of course, plenty of other casters can cast Heal Light reasonably quickly by the second half of the game, so I'm not sure it matters too much, but it may enable a low Intelligence build for Kevin.

I did say that I thought Heal Light should be "upgradable" to Sudden, but this was just to keep the terms straight, since Sudden is listed in the skills file under "Possible Upgrades". Although with Sage Stone, this would also obviously be a tradeoff :-)

Another thing to mention: The new Beastman Collar now gives access to an instant Heal Light at the second class change. Should be great for Light Kevin!

(I always thought Heal Light should be upgradable to Sudden....) 

On 4/29/2020 at 5:09 AM, smileless said:

Yeah you're right. I think I will try a Warrior Monk based party next. For now I think I will start Death Hand, DragonMaster, Sage, this one should be fun.

Here's an alternative that takes advantage of a base resistance/elemental saber strategy:

Wanderer/Rogue, Warrior Monk, Necromancer

Every character here has a base resistance against Dark, and Necromancer has Dark Saber; cast Dark Saber on enemies and melee/tech damage goes down up to 45% for all characters without needing any resistance equipment. I tried this with my Wanderer, Grand Divina, Necromancer team, with Mananan Robe on Grand Divina; it worked wonders against werewolves, knights, and the like; Lugar was a joke. With Wanderer, this team gets all debuffs, all buffs except for the offensive half of Mind Up and Speed Up, two double-hitters with Power Up, Energy Ball/Analyze for critical hits, Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Aura Wave, Antimagic, and Leaf Saber to support two casters. With Rogue, you sacrifice Aura Wave, Antimagic, and Energy Ball, but pick up a better offensive caster and all buffs by inverting Necromancer.

The missing thing with this team is the basic elemental sabers, but with heavy damage already coming from two double-hitters and Necromancer, you should be fine just collecting/buying them for boss fights or going with elemental accessories instead.

EDIT: Actually, I may run this team instead of the Wanderer, Fenrir Knight, Grand Divina team I mentioned above since I haven't started that game yet. I've run Grand Divina in pretty much every team I've used recently, and I'm always looking to replace Lise, so this might give me some new perspective.

To commemorate the new update, I'm starting a new leafy moony "Flower Power" group of Wanderer, Fenrir Knight, and Grand Divina. I'm also trying to think of a killer team for the new Death Hand with his crazy physical/magical defense rasping final weapon, Magic Shield, and sharable Aura Wave. Please list any ideas!

On 4/21/2020 at 6:14 AM, smileless said:

Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer - it lacks Mind Up to boost Angela's damage but the sabers still do a fine job, 6 different sabers, Magic Shield, Black Course, Black Rain, Half Vanish, status infliction spells. This should be another fun one to try.  No speed up but might not be a real big deal, use Duran to draw enemies to him while Angela and Carlie do their spell casting.

Just an idea: Based on tests I did with my previous team, Rune Master should be able "charge" Paladin wearing reflect armor and the appropriate shield with a level 3 status spell off-screen, Stone Cloud for instance, after which he can heal up and enter the next screen. Then, any enemy attacking Paladin will have Petrify reflected back onto them until Paladin is hit with new spell, even after entering new screens. I was able to do this with Sleep Flower, but Stone Cloud or Cold Blaze would be even better.

On 4/21/2020 at 6:14 AM, smileless said:

Currently will be running a Dervish, Vanadis, Archmage party think I am decided on that now. Thinking on how I should build Dervish, I guess his stronger wolf form might have stronger lv3 tech too but weaker than Death Hand's?

The Dervish has changed a bit in 1.2 and now has Antimagic, but no Dark Saber. If you're planning to use the new update, I'd suggest reviewing the classes again since some of the skills have changed.

Two questions about the mob-scaling patch before I decide to apply it:

1) Is it based on the highest or lowest level of your characters? This could be important for Angela's Deathspell and other level-based magic.

2) Does it include bosses or mini-bosses as well as random enemies?