Character/Job Party Recommendations

Hi folks, found out about this patch fairly recently and I'm finally getting around to trying it. Thanks Praetorius Praetarius for your hard work on it! I noticed that there was a party discussion thread on the InsaneDifficulty archives but I also understand that some of the character classes have changed since several of these party recommendations were made, so I was hoping to start a new thread of party ideas for my first couple of playthroughs here. I hope people are actually still reading this forum since it feels kind of quiet on here. 

I'm planning to do is 1 playthrough for each of the "plot pairs" for a total of 3 playthroughs (Angela+Duran+x, Carlie+Kevin+x, and Hawk+Lise+x), and I wanted to make sure that the parties I'm working with will at least be semi-viable for this goal. I think I have a party set for my first run but I'm not sure about the subsequent ones yet. Here's what I got so far but I greatly appreciate any constructive criticism:

Angela (main character) as Arch Mage, Duran as Lord, Kevin as Dervish.

Arch Mage brings a lot to the table with Anti-Magic, 2 debuffs, Aura Wave, and lots of AoEs. The Dervish seems to be a natural companion for it since it has the other 2 stat downs, leaf saber for MP, moon saber for HP, and the physical strength that Angela is lacking to keep the party more balanced. The Lord then acts as healer, has 2 of the 4 stat ups, Life Booster to keep Angela alive, and Energy Ball to help Kevin hit harder  - there's overlap on the Speed Down debuff but that's the only bit of overlap I could find for the party.

The big downsides here are no Power Up, Mind Up, elemental sabers, and Lunatic which means that bosses might take a while to kill...but otherwise I'm pretty happy with how this looks on paper. Plus I've never played through Angela's story before and I'm looking forward to it!

Carlie (main character) as Bishop, Kevin as God Hand, Lise as Dragon Master.

Bishop seems like the ultimate support class with MTHL, MT tinkle rain, MT elemental sabers, ST saint saber, Def Up, and - as an added bonus - the almighty Turn Undead spell which should be very useful in Carlie's quest. I'm not totally sure about making Kevin a God Hand but it means having an off-healer, Power Up, a second saint saber caster, and he's a pretty strong attacker to boot. Finally, the Dragon Master is strong defensively and another pretty good attacker who also has all the stat downs and anti-magic.

I'm really not sure about this party since Bishop and God Hand together feels kind of redundant. Suggestions appreciated!

Hawk (main character) as Ninja Master, Lise as Vanadise, Duran as Duelist

I think this is the party I'm least sure of; It's pretty hard to go wrong with the combination of Dark Hawk + Light Lise and Duelist hits like a freight train, but I worry that relying as Vanadise as a main healer is going to be tough. Especially since she only gets Heal Light and Tinkle Rain on the 2nd class change, and making both MT will take an item slot. Other than that though this has stat downs, stat ups, elemental sabers, Anti-Magic and really good attacking power.

Feedback and help greatly appreciated!

11 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Praetorius

can this typo finally die please? I've read my name wrong in exactly this way so many times, it ceased to be funny 3 years ago.

Angela (main character) as Arch Mage, Duran as Lord, Kevin as Dervish.
I'd suggest Kevin as Godhand instead and then the armor that inverts (de)buffs on him.
Duran stays the main healer, Kevin can help throw one when Duran is out of mana.

Carlie (main character) as Bishop, Kevin as God Hand, Lise as Dragon Master.
Looks good.

Hawk (main character) as Ninja Master, Lise as Vanadise, Duran as Duelist.
Alternatively: Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Bishop
Bishop's final weapon runs on PIE, so is roughly as strong as Duelist on a medium weapon, while still having some spell damage to boot

12 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

can this typo finally die please? I've read my name wrong in exactly this way so many times, it ceased to be funny 3 years ago.

Whoops. My bad dude, edited original post to fix my typo 

I totally forgot to check the endgame gear for each character...good to know that God Hand's final armor and Bishop's final weapon do some interesting stuff. I'll have to check out the others as well. Thanks for the build feedback! Quick question on the Angela/Duran/Kevin party though: Will not having leaf saber for Angela be a liability in longer fights?

If it proves a problem, give her a Rajin's Staff from the elf village or the Tree Spirit Ring from the ice town.
Same MP steal effect but stacks with other sabers for magic element boost.
Also much earlier available.

Clearly I need to re-review all the potential items for each character. Thanks for the explanation. I guess to make sure I'm being clear, I'm not hell-bent on having Kevin in the party nor am I dead set on having Angela as Arch Mage (though it does seem like a strong class). This is definitely some food for thought however.

14 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Alternatively: Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Bishop

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

well marduke always works, and ninjamaster with acala (ignore physical immunity weapon) can multitarget shuriken and melt the pesky gremlins in like 2-3 shots , same for boulders/powerbuilders on normal
since hawk scales stupid with spirit and agility you can ignore strenght for the most part or completly and just focus on agi+pie+luck and then vit and a bit of int , with carlies energyshields you get +10 max mp and double mp regeneration, more then pouring loads of points into int will ever give you
set hawk on lvl 1 tech only since it hits twice for 130% damage and give him a fireblaze
if you use a lvl1 tech while an enemy is attacking or after they attacked it deals boosted damage, called a counter, scales with agility, hawk proc that twice
when you counter an enemy with a fireblaze you multiply their physical defense with 0,75 . multiple times
just firejutsu slimes and the likes to death
anti magic safe for some bosses is heavily overrated

Bishop with energyshield and tree spirit ring (mp drain) doesnt need int either since carlie doesnt get anything out of intelligence , so she can stay stupid like she is
carlies bishop weapon scales of pie , so you just need to speck into 4 stats instead of 6 , capping everything and with her final weapon she is as powerful as a duelist

I'm glad to hear that Bishop is, apparently, crazy strong with her final weapon and her stat allocation is simple - makes me more confident in the Carlie+Kevin party.

For Angela+Duran I've decided on Carlie there as well. Arch Mage, Lord, and Sage (as per a suggestion in the old thread) seems neat...if a little lacking in raw damage. With mind up and down, though, both casters should hit pretty hard!

Finally I'm now trying to avoid Carlie in the final Lise+Hawk party since I'd prefer to avoid using her 3 times over. And I'd also like to have anti magic. I'm considering making hawk a Wanderer (since I've never tried it and it looks interesting) then adding in something like Dervish to change things up a bit. 

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

Duelist (saber, anti-magic, aura wave), Necromancer (debuffs), Vanadise (buff, heal)

Lord (heal, def/speed up, life booster, energy ball), Bishop (heal, def up, magic shield, saber), DragonMaster (debuffs, anti-magic, lunatic, sleep)

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Duelist (saber, anti-magic, aura wave), Necromancer (debuffs), Vanadise (buff, heal)

This sounds pretty good. Just to add options, are Energy Ball (self), Saint Saber and Moon Saber worth giving up Anti-Magic and Aura Wave (i.e. taking Swordmaster instead of Duelist)? Alternatively, I could take Evil Shaman instead of Necromancer, so I won't get Black Curse, but I get Power Down (via Ghost Road), Anti-Magic (to compensate for Swordmaster not having it), Demon Breath, Lunatic and Transshape.

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Lord (heal, def/speed up, life booster, energy ball), Bishop (heal, def up, magic shield, saber), DragonMaster (debuffs, anti-magic, lunatic, sleep)

This doesn't sound bad, either. For buffs, you get all of them, except Power Up (Energy Ball and Sabers somewhat make up for it). A combination of Life Booster and Lunatic is also nice. I still haven't found much use for Sleep Flower, but Anti-Magic is nice, especially with the Dragon Master's ultimate weapon. Unfortunately, the party has very limited physical AoE (only Lise's level 2 tech), and while the party has Sabers, the only elemental spells to benefit from the Sabers are Holy Ball and Saint Beam.

So I'm projecting myself into my next playthrough already, so currently I'm playing Star Lancer, Ninja Master and Bishop (so Lise, Hawk and Carlie), which by the way for me is a really good team I didn't found any situation where that team couldn't respond in one way or another I was worried about the lack of Anti-Magic (once I learned what it does), but so far it didn't hurt me at all (didn't even need Specter's Eye at all up until now). 

When I will be done with this playthrough I want to try the other 3 characters which are Duran, Kevin and Angela. I looked up and for now what seem on paper to be the best team for me would be Lord, Warrior Monk and Arch Mage as this team would get all Up, all Down (except Defense Down), Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Life Booster, Aura Wave and Anti-Magic but my issue are that there is no Sabers except Leaf (that isn't to troublesome just I will not be able to perform with Angela at her best and Sabers could be handy for some fights) and more importantly this party will make me running with Knight, Monk and Sorceress at first and I fear this might be rough as this team will only give me Defense and Power Up and no stat down at all, I also fear this party would lack physical strength. So do you think there would be a better team with this 3 or is this one good enough despite the cons ?

It is kinda hard to lack physical strength with Kevin AND Duran and the same party.

You could always give Duran an Estoc/Mythril Sword (PIE based) and then put all into PIE for strong heal and attack.
Or same for Kevin with Moogle Claw/Mythril Knuckle.

Though in that setup I'd choose one main healer and only give that one the PIE-based weapon.

So in the end as I say, I'm currently playing as Duran, Kevin and Angela as I want to test these 3 (currently on Bucca Island), so in the end I did go for Gladiator, Monk and Sorceress and I plan to go Swordmaster, Warrior Monk and Arch Mage will see how it turns out (for now it's definitly different like the early game and Tzenker were quite easier than my previous team, however Genova and Bill&Ben were harder then Gorva was easier (altough this time he got the time to use his Deathspell ^^)) the biggest concern is the lack of Def Up but Bullet's Scale can be farm or buy, I plan to use Duran as my main physical damage dealer using his FST with the weapons that increase Tech Points might be good combine with his Sabers (also boosting Angela's damage with said Sabers), I'm going to use Kevin as my main healer/support with the weapon that use PIE instead of STR he should also be able to do respectable damage without investing in STR as for Angela of course gonna be the main Random Cleaner as well as applying Anti-Magic on bosses also Power and Mind Down will be usefull.

God Hand / Arch Mage / Fenrir Knight

What would you guys say about this team? Am I missing crucial things?

Just got up to the first class change in this mod and loving it but would like some advice wrt to classes. My team is Angela/Kevin/Carlie and I largely picked the team around the concept of actually using Dark Carlie for once in my life. With all the magic Evil Shaman seems a shoe in. Kevin will be going Light to pick up healing, probably headed toward Warrior Monk for Leaf Saber and Mind Up.

Angela though, I haven't got a clue what to do. Anyone got some advice/guidance for this?

If you go Evil Shaman with Carlie then there is definitly no reason to go Arch Mage as the main ability from Arch Mage are mostly cover by Evil Shaman (Power Down, Mind Down and Anti-Magic especially), I also don't think Magus would be the best choice as Mind Up and Power Up are already cover by Kevin's Warrior Monk tough Magus has powerfull nuke with Ancient and Lunatic, I would go more toward either Grand Divina ou Rune Master :

-Grand Divina would give you a second (and potentially better) Heal Light user as well as Tinkle Rain, Speed Up and also Transshape which can have it use, the Tier 1 spells of every element while it would seems strange to keep the lower tier spells in a RPG it turns out they are the best offensive spell especially for bosses cause they have a lower MP cost and faster casttime and so have a higher DPS than LV2/3 spells, also with Grand Divina's final weapon she can use the Tier 1 spells to get Sabers of the corresponding element by casting them on your team.

-Rune Master is more offensive than Grand Divina it would give you the 4 main elemental Sabers, and also is the only class of Angela that get access to the Tier 3 spells for Fire, Ice, Wind and Earth which are very good tool for Crowd Control as not only they deal a lot of Damage but also inflict statut effect very good for mob fight and Rune Master's final weapon make them AoE, for bosses the Sabers skill are very good and I would suggest to stick to the Tier 2 spells for better DPS.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

the Tier 1 spells of every element while it would seems strange to keep the lower tier spells in a RPG it turns out they are the best offensive spell especially for bosses cause they have a lower MP cost and faster casttime and so have a higher DPS than LV2/3 spells, also with Grand Divina's final weapon she can use the Tier 1 spells to get Sabers of the corresponding element by casting them on your team.

You're forgetting a tiny detail - you are hitting the boss more often this way so bosses with retaliation attacks trigger those more often (every X number of hits with spells adding more to that meter).

For this detail, armors that deny counter attack should be useful. Playing a few games up through the God Beasts with Grand Divina, the only boss where this became a problem was Bill and Ben, especially since I had to use high physical defense armor to survive their Level 2 tech counters. In this case, cast with caution and only when sufficiently healed. This is only really a problem the first time you meet Bill and Ben as the second time their counters are not as powerful relative to your hit points, plus your defensive options should be improved.

Anybody mind with a quick review of this setup (playing on Normal):

Duran - Lord (heals, buffs, energy ball)

Hawkeye - Ninja Master (crit damage, debuffs)

Angela - idk between Rune Master or Magus

Rune Master gives access to high ST damage and status effects along with sabers while Magus gets that fullscreen damage, Power Up, Mind Up (mt). I feel like I'll manage either way, but just wanted to get some input before I save with Angie as Magus. 

This hack is incredible! Thanks, y'all.

Well since you're on Normal I don't think the ennemy hits nearly as close as Hard, so Mind Up might not be as crucial as it is in Hard, I think the Sabers from Rune Master might be more interesting  not only for boosting both Hawk and Angela's damage but also some bosses have a strategy relying on casting Sabers on your team so that you heal them so having a way to overwrite these seems crucial (especially the Fire God Beast) also Rune Master LV3 spells are good crowd control option once you get Rune Master's Final Weapon.

Ah, you know, I forgot Sabers boost the elemental damage from Angela's nukes as well! I see your points, my team wouldn't really have a way to set snowman/stone/silence without her Rune Master's  level 3 nukes, and elemental weaknesses notwithstanding they still boost power by 10% vs. Power Up's 25%. I guess without having Antimagic it may be good to have heavy nukes and disables like that. Heh, I was excited to use Magus because I like her color palette and I use RM a lot in Vanilla SD3, but having not played her yet in Hardtype I may as well rekindle my love for Angie's DL. 

Thank you for the response.

Well for setting statut effects, you still could use some weapons that can inflict statut effects, by the way a little off topic but regarding these kind of weapons I want to ask about Kevin and Hawk since they have an innate Double Hit with their normal attack does both hit have the same odds for inflicting statut effect as one hit of the other characters or does the odds per hit are reduce for Hawk and Kevin ?

Also for Anti-Magic you can buy Specter's Eye if you really need it.

Kevin and Hawk use luck+2 for status proc chance, everyone else uses luck+10

So Hawk and Kevin have an overall lower chance to inflict statut effect through these weapons ? Well I suppose it makes sense Kevin's regular attacks already hit like a truck no need to give him another advantage, same for Hawk especially since 3 of his final classes have mean to inflict statut effect through their abilities.

By the way speaking of Kevin does anybody has a good team for Death Hand ? I never saw it mentionned is Death Hand's good ?

they have less chance per hit but hit twice per attack, so once you get some more luck stat they come out ahead in chance per attack to succeed with the status effects

On 6/30/2019 at 1:02 PM, blackrabite said:

Anybody mind with a quick review of this setup (playing on Normal):

Duran - Lord (heals, buffs, energy ball)

Hawkeye - Ninja Master (crit damage, debuffs)

Angela - idk between Rune Master or Magus

I'm late in my reply but, FWIW, in my Angela + Duran playthrough i wound up doing Lord, Archmage, Nightblade. Archmage brings a lot of neat tools to the table (including the all powerful anti magic) and with the armor that turns debuffs into buffs, you have all 4 stat ups between her and Lord. Nightblade hits harder than ninja master so its a personal preference for me as I like bosses to go faster. Obviously thats a no-go if you made Angela a Delvar at first class change though.

EDIT: Regarding a Death Hand party, I usually struggle with making dark Kevin work since i usually like to make him a healer tbh. I'd think you would want light Duran (light Carlie makes less sense since you already have elemental sabres) and a strong debuffer. Maybe something like Paladin (heals, saint sabre, anti magic, and some buffs) with Necromancer (crowd control, TR, and the wonderful black curse)? Just spitballing ideas.

Honnestly Hawk's Dark Class are both good I prefer Ninja Master cause higher Agility (= Stronger Jutsus/Shuriken, better Evasion and Hit Rate), higher Luck (better for Crit Build and Crit Resistance) combine with Detect (reduce ennemy's crit resistance) and of course MT Jutsus and Shuriken are very good for debuffing Random (and some multiple bosses like the Golem Machines) which was pretty valuable for me on Hard (especially considering that unlike regular stat Down Whitelight doesn't make Jutsus MT). On that note Arch Mage also goes well with Nightblade cause of Aura Wave.

For Death Hand yeah I definitly think Paladin is a good pair cause of Anti-Magic, Def UP, Magic Shield (which increase Magic Defense) and Saint Saber being one of the sabers Death Hand lack, for the third member well Necromancer could work I guess, I was also thinking of Lise's Star Lancer with Armor that invert Debuff and Buff it would give every MT Debuff and Star Lancer's Marduke is a very good crowd control option thanks to Silence, I don't know if the armor that invert Buff/Debuff also affect Aura Wave and Energy Ball if not then these are still good buffs for the others, or Dragon Master could also be an interesting option (would replace Paladin by Lord then I think) especially once it get it's final weapon that make Anti-Magic propagate weakness, then you would just have to cast it and then just have to cast any Sabers Death Hand has just to get increase damage.

Also while I'm on it, since I'm doing my Dragon Emperor storyline run currently and already decided the team (Duelist, Arch Mage and Vanadis), I plan to do the Dark Lich route afterward with Kevin and Carlie but I want to experiment with Light Hawk and Dark Carlie so I thought of this set up :

Hawk as Rogue - Carlie as Evil Shaman - Kevin as Warrior Monk

Rogue and Evil Shaman get all debuff through their abilities (Def Down with Cutter Missile, Speed Down with Landmine, Power Down with Ghost Road and Mind Down with Demon Breath)
The team also get all buff (Speed Up with Rogue, Def Up with Evil Shaman and Power Up and Mind Up with Warrior Monk).
Anti-Magic with Evil Shaman. Reduce Max HP option with Rogue and Evil Shaman. Heal Light with Warrior Monk, Tinkle Rain with Evil Shaman.
Rogue also get MT Sleep Flower and Body Change which seems good for Crowd Control, also seems that by increasing his Luck, PIE and INT he could be a powerfull pseudo-mage (especially with his final weapon) boosting his Luck could also makes him valuable with weapon that inflict Statut Effect.
This team seems promising the only thing it misses are Saber spells, having only Leaf Saber (which admitadly is a good one tough).

What do you think ?

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Hawk as Rogue - Carlie as Evil Shaman - Kevin as Warrior Monk

Rogue and Evil Shaman get all debuff through their abilities (Def Down with Cutter Missile, Speed Down with Landmine, Power Down with Ghost Road and Mind Down with Demon Breath)
The team also get all buff (Speed Up with Rogue, Def Up with Evil Shaman and Power Up and Mind Up with Warrior Monk).
Anti-Magic with Evil Shaman. Reduce Max HP option with Rogue and Evil Shaman. Heal Light with Warrior Monk, Tinkle Rain with Evil Shaman.
Rogue also get MT Sleep Flower and Body Change which seems good for Crowd Control, also seems that by increasing his Luck, PIE and INT he could be a powerfull pseudo-mage (especially with his final weapon) boosting his Luck could also makes him valuable with weapon that inflict Statut Effect.
This team seems promising the only thing it misses are Saber spells, having only Leaf Saber (which admitadly is a good one tough).

What do you think ?

I think the combo are cool.

If you use buff/debuff-invert armor then Carlie/Rogue will cover all buff the same way they cover all debuff. And you're practically immune to all debuff cuz enemies will not bother to "buff" you up, and the only thing they can do is anti-magic you and status effect. His Leaf Saber is neat got for both himself to heal/debuff/buff, and for Carlie to cast her spell.

Evil Shaman also has weapon that reduces stat, so it make screen clearing faster.

Rogue is a self-sustained physical caster, so he never worries about MP, which is niche.

For Warrior Monk, it is a nice choice cuz Light-path Kevin accesses to Heal Light at lv18, which will replace Carlie dark-path's lack of healing. So your run will 100% fully-heal from the get-go. Warrior Monk also has strong Heal thanks to final weapon and several items that boost heal.

Both light-path of Kevin/Rogue are accessed to multi-target Tech lv2, so they will clear screen pretty fast. By the time they reach 2nd class change, Carlie will be the main screen-wiper, while Hawkeye just nuke the heck out of whatever stay alive. Kevin has only one job: get into the fray to attract their attention, hold X and run in circle until other two finishes casting. Or go with tech-up weapon and spam tech lv2/lv3.

4 minutes ago, tkh1208 said:

If you use buff/debuff-invert armor then Carlie/Rogue will cover all buff the same way they cover all debuff. And you're practically immune to all debuff cuz enemies will not bother to "buff" you up, and the only thing they can do is anti-magic you and status effect. His Leaf Saber is neat got for both himself to heal/debuff/buff, and for Carlie to cast her spell.

AH I think you misunderstood the armor in question invert buff and debuff effect from spell cast by the one who wear the armor, for instance if I wear this armor with Carlie and cast Demon Breath instead of reducing Magic and Magic Defense it will increase it (but still do damage tough), but if let say Kevin cast Mind Up on Carlie she will get the Mind Up buff like normal, therefore in this configuration it's not recommended cause all the spell from Rogue and Evil Shaman that inflict debuff also deal damage so you effectivly hit yourself just to get a buff not viable in my opinion (also it would be a total waste on Rogue because his Speed Up is self only meaning he can't cast it at the ennemy (he can make it MT with Whitelight Ring tough) so you would get a speed down that you can only cast at your team also Rogue's debuff spell are single target only until you get his final weapon that make Land Mine MT).

Quote

 

Evil Shaman also has weapon that reduces stat, so it make screen clearing faster.

Rogue is a self-sustained physical caster, so he never worries about MP, which is niche.

For Warrior Monk, it is a nice choice cuz Light-path Kevin accesses to Heal Light at lv18, which will replace Carlie dark-path's lack of healing. So your run will 100% fully-heal from the get-go. Warrior Monk also has strong Heal thanks to final weapon and several items that boost heal.

 

Yeah that Evil Shaman's final weapon looks really nice, I wonder however does the effect of this weapon stack with the Debuffs or is it like the ennemies spawn with all debuff already apply, also does it affect bosses (I assume not for the later and if both are true then that would be really OP XD).

I don't think anyone will have trouble with MP in this set save for some fights thanks to Kevin's Leaf Saber, Rogue damage depending on Luck with his final weapon giving a chance to deal double damage depending on Luck with his spell (so basically crit with spell) seems interesting this way I will have to focus on Luck and PIE (to reduce cast time) and maybe INT, also Sleep Flower and Body Change for the mobs seems to be quite a lot of mobs susceptible to these.

For Kevin the Final Weapon seems nice but I think I'm gonna stick with his weapons that makes his attack dependent of PIE instead of STR, this way I can completly ignore his STR and focus on his VIT (boost wolf form), INT (reduce cast time) and PIE (increase Heal Light) this way Kevin can be both a good Healer while still dishing respectable damage, and also get more resistant to tank easier.

2 hours ago, Nesouk said:

AH I think you misunderstood the armor in question invert buff and debuff effect from spell cast by the one who wear the armor, for instance if I wear this armor with Carlie and cast Demon Breath instead of reducing Magic and Magic Defense it will increase it (but still do damage tough), but if let say Kevin cast Mind Up on Carlie she will get the Mind Up buff like normal, therefore in this configuration it's not recommended cause all the spell from Rogue and Evil Shaman that inflict debuff also deal damage so you effectivly hit yourself just to get a buff not viable in my opinion (also it would be a total waste on Rogue because his Speed Up is self only meaning he can't cast it at the ennemy (he can make it MT with Whitelight Ring tough) so you would get a speed down that you can only cast at your team also Rogue's debuff spell are single target only until you get his final weapon that make Land Mine MT).

Ah I see. I thought it made the debuff/buff you receive to be reverse, instead of it is the caster who cast inverted buff/debuff.

With this knowledge on Invert Armor, I think of a team with:

Reisz, Hawkeye, a healer

1. Riesz:
   +Dragon Master using Invert Armor: instead of debuff, she just buff the party, while maintaining super Anti-Magic that spread weakness (if any) to all elements. She also has a very useful summon. I assume her Lunatic can do HP boost with invert armor too.
2. Hawkeye:
   +Rogue: self-sustained caster who never worries about MP and can deal defense/m.defense/speed debuff. He can also multi-target casting, but it requires his final weapon, which means lv60+. Thanks to Dragon Master, he never worries about resistance and just nuke the heck out of the boss.
   +Ninja Master: good replacement for Dragon Master who dons in Invert Armor. Or he can be the one who wears invert Armor and cast debuff, but not recommended cuz he will also damage your party. His final weapon is cool to tag along with Dragon Master's spread-weakness anti-magic, forcing enemy into counter-able state to eat even more damage, and the weapon itself has the highest counter damage. Also has exclusive debuff on critical resistance. For normal encounter, he can just throw cast mind-down Jutsu and let enemy play with Poisonous Dragon from Riesz, and throw some Shurikens if necessary.
   +Nightblade: he is fine during boss fight cuz he can still debuff. A shame that Whitelight ring doesn't help his jutsus to be multi-target, but can still clear screen with Black Rain. Have deadly weapon for HP reduction which will replace Dragon Master's Lunatic who wears Invert Armor. He has a final weapon that forces him to be below 300HP to deal more tech damage, which sounds dangerous. Unless I misunderstand how the weapon works.
3. A healer:
   +Bishop: multi-target saber buffer. Thanks to Dragon Master, it is not matter which Saber she needs to buff. Can kill undead and hit as hard as a fighter beyond lv60+ thanks to PIE-based final weapon.
   +Sage: Have Leaf Saber which means the party will never run out of MP to cast something. Can also nuke the screen with either Saint Beam or Dark Force. Have a passive-HP-regen weapon for party that can heal up to 12 per second, which is helpful when the game starts to queue screen-freeze attacks and takes ,ore time than usual for everything to cast.
   +Paladin: have Saint Saber to pair with Dragon Master's weakness spread. Can nuke the screen with either his tech or his final weapon with Turn Undead, and instant kill Undead.
   +Lord: have no Saber, but can help inverted Dragon Master to cast two party-wide buff Speed Up and Defense Up. Have Energy Ball. Have stronger tech lv3 (cuz single target) and tech-damage up for Final weapon, making him good for boss fighting.
   +Godhand: need Whitelight Ring to heal party. Have Moon Saber for more party self-sustained. Can cast Mind Down, which pair wells with Rogue to reduce magic damage
   +Warrior Monk: Have helpful Leaf Saber, and is the best healer-fighter class thanks to his weapon that boosts Heal Light. Can cast Power Down if pair with Rogue to reduce physical damage.
   +Grand Divina: late-game buffer/healer, so it means you gonna go through 38 level relying completely on item healing. Gonna need Whitelight Ring. Can multi-cast Saber of all six elements on your own party via damaging spells to take advantage on Dragon Master's anti-magic, though it will hurt a bit. Having Double Spell being non-elemental means she is good at screen-clearing without caring about weakness, but a bit weaker at boss fighting.

37 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Yeah that Evil Shaman's final weapon looks really nice, I wonder however does the effect of this weapon stack with the Debuffs or is it like the ennemies spawn with all debuff already apply, also does it affect bosses (I assume not for the later and if both are true then that would be really OP XD).

It is a separate effect from the regular debuffs, so yes they stack.

2 hours ago, tkh1208 said:

Ah I see. I thought it made the debuff/buff you receive to be reverse, instead of it is the caster who cast inverted buff/debuff.

With this knowledge on Invert Armor, I think of a team with:

Reisz, Hawkeye, a healer....

I  also think one other character that can truly beneficiate from Invert Armor is Kevin with both God Hand and Dervish, as a Dervish he has Def Down and Speed Down give him that armor then he get Def Up and Speed Up, Def Up being probably the most important buff of the game add to that that none of his other ability are affected by Invert Armor so he can still be a hard to kill powerhouse (while having both Moon and Leaf Saber) so basically this gives Dervish much more utility. As for God Hand the Invert armor allows him to get Power Down and Mind Up, Mind Up being the second most important Buff and Power Down being the most important Debuff (as oppose to Power Up which while nice isn't as necessary) furthermore Counter Magic with Invert armor would still allow him to reduce Magical Defense and Life Booster would allow him to reduce ennemy's max HP.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

It is a separate effect from the regular debuffs, so yes they stack.

OH My this sounds ridiculously good, does it works on bosses ?

2 hours ago, Nesouk said:

OH My this sounds ridiculously good, does it works on bosses ?

yes it does
this is a flat -2 to their character stats so it loses a bit steam later on when they reach 30+

Yeah but there is still the HP max reduction of 12.5%, which I guess like the other stack with Lunatic (which a 25% HP reduction I assume) meaning if I understand correctly you can take off a third of a boss Max HP just like that, this considerably reduce the time spend on bosses (especially Final Boss like Archdemon has over 32k IIRC so that would put him at around 21k for instance don't know about Dragon Emperor and Dark Lich tough).

Party Combo: Paladin, Warrior Monk and Dragon Master

Pro:
-An all-fighter party that does not shy from anything.
-Duran will instant kill any Undead, while Riesz will poison the rest. In late-game, Duran will also become a nuker with Turn Undead dealing non elemental damage, along with his full-screen tech.
-Kevin will heal even better with his final weapon.
-Kevin and Riesz will deal better damage on single-target thanks to their tech, thus better boss DPS.
-Have two AoE healer by default, and are accessed early in the game (lv18+). By focusing on better healing, both Duran and Kevin can use PIE-based weapon for greater attack, and they are very tough against magical attack.
-Riesz, meanwhile, can go VIT and PIE to become tankish. After 2nd class change into Dragon Master, she will also hit stronger with summon thanks to higher PIE. Her summon also cause poison.
-Have Leaf Saber, which I consider important in long boss fight. Since the party are all fighter, they will quickly regain MP through hitting. Thanks to Dragon Master's super anti-magic, Leaf Saber will hit pretty hard, especially on Dryad Day.
-Cover important buff (Mind Up, Defense Up*, Power Up*, Magical Shield for better healing, if stack with Mind Up), and all debuff (Lunatic, all stat-down). These buff are all spread out across party, so you will not need to worry about MP burden on single caster, and you can finish casting many buffs for bosses with long entrance.

Cons:
-All of them are physical hitters. Those pesky physical resistant monsters are gonna be a pain if your Riesz runs out of MP.
-Kevin being a single-target tech user for lifetime. Riesz too for her level 3 tech.
-Duran needs to access to his final weapon to nuke, thus lv60. Otherwise, your party will go brawling for most of the time, unless you meet some unlucky undead.
-Since you go all PIE, you get stuck with PIE-based weapon for Duran and Kevin for pretty long, thus not being able to use Duran's AoE tech at fullest (unless you go STR and use tech-boost equipment, but it will become a pain to rise PIE/INT for his Turn Undead later). And Riesz don't have a PIE-based weapon (either LUCK or INT).

INT weapon is actually suprisingly good for Riesz, since INT reduce her castime, which is quite valuable for a support character like Riesz, it is therefore interesting to raise it for her, INT weapon allow you to don't give a damn about STR and focusing on her INT and PIE for faster and stronger cast while still contributing for physical damage with her regular attack, definitly worth it while you are waiting for her final weapon.

Alternatively you could go with Carlie's Sage instead of Warrior Monk, gave up on Power Up but Sage also has Leaf Saber and Mind Up, it also bring the 4 main sabers (with Paladin this give you a total of 6 out of 8 sabers, worth it for the time you are waiting Dragon Master's Final weapon), powerfull nuke with Saint Beam (which can be boost by Paladin's Saint Saber) and Dark Force, Tinkle Rain and the passive healing from her final weapon.

On that subject how does Paladin's Turn Undead perform in comparaison to let say Angela's Ancient/Double Spell or Lise's Summons ?

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

INT weapon is actually suprisingly good for Riesz, since INT reduce her castime, which is quite valuable for a support character like Riesz, it is therefore interesting to raise it for her, INT weapon allow you to don't give a damn about STR and focusing on her INT and PIE for faster and stronger cast while still contributing for physical damage with her regular attack, definitly worth it while you are waiting for her final weapon.

Alternatively you could go with Carlie's Sage instead of Warrior Monk, gave up on Power Up but Sage also has Leaf Saber and Mind Up, it also bring the 4 main sabers (with Paladin this give you a total of 6 out of 8 sabers, worth it for the time you are waiting Dragon Master's Final weapon), powerfull nuke with Saint Beam (which can be boost by Paladin's Saint Saber) and Dark Force, Tinkle Rain and the passive healing from her final weapon.

On that subject how does Paladin's Turn Undead perform in comparaison to let say Angela's Ancient/Double Spell or Lise's Summons ?

Yeah, Sage sounds like a good idea.

Paladin'S Turn Undead depends on PIE/INT/Level, so the higher your level the stronger.

Edit:

I think that Necromancer is actually cooler than I thought:
-Black Curse with Invert Armor = full buff on single target. Maybe a bit MP hog, but as long as you stock up enough Walnuts. Also, if a boss anti-magic, or a character die, you won't need to waste time casting back the buff on the unlucky.
-Cover all elements except Moon and Leaf with her single-target summon. Can still clear screen with Black Rain (which is boosted by AGI, unless it works not like Hawkeye's Black Rain). Cannot go wrong with Dragon Master.
--Can make use of AGI/VIT-based weapons. Both are good: AGI makes Charlotte casts faster and more evasive, while VIT makes her tougher physically.

So, a party combo will full-buff Necromancer is:
-Necromancer with Invert Armor. Your friendly single-target nuker with some Light/Dark AoE.
-A debuffer: Dragon Master vs Ninja Master/Rogue. I prefer Dragon Master cuz Anti-Magic, Lunatic and poison Summon that kill monster for breakfast, though Ninja Master can be as relevant in normal encounter with multi-target Jutsu. Nightblade is not a bad choice either for screen clearing with Black Rain, silence magic/tech monsters, and debuff boss. Rogue is simply a self-sustainable nuker/debuffer who never worry about MP, but lacks of Power Down.
-A class with heal: If you go with Light-path Duran/Kevin, you don't need to worry about healing. If not, you go with Grand Divina, who can give multi-saber buff for like 4 MP with final weapon, and care less about elemental weakness with Double Spell, but this is at lv38+ so be prepared to be item-reliant. Personally, I think Paladin is a good healer and undead-killer, while Warrior Monk  has Leaf Saber and Power Down, which pair wells with Rogue.

Hmm the idea cross my mind but in the end I'm not convince Necromancer would be a good for buffing, Black Curse cost a lot of MP and I assume has a longer cast time than the normal buff so not only it cost a lot of MP but I think regular buff spell would be faster to set on everyone (if Black Curse could get the sudden modifier tough that would be a different story sadly it doesn't), I think Necromance is still badass tough, Elemental sniping is definitly a thing, Black Rain looks like a very good screen cleaner and Necromancer have the Dark Saber to boost it also she get Half Vanish which is really promising against High HP monster (this fucking Knights) and bosses (despite the 320/400 cap).

Also since we cover a lot of what Dragon Master can do, has anybody try Fenrir Knight ? Lamia Naga inflicting Sleep seems cool, obviously having all MT Debuff is a thing, and Moon Saber for self sustain and his Final Weapon look ridiculously good if you pair her with a caster, altough I'm not sure how do you perform counter attack I never notice any noticeable increase damage even when hitting the ennemy after right after their spell, tough Ninja Master's final weapon could allow him to trigger it by hitting weaknesses with his Jutsu (that limit Fire, Air, Water and Eath weak ennemies tough (also physical if Shuriken counts)).

30 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Hmm the idea cross my mind but in the end I'm not convince Necromancer would be a good for buffing, Black Curse cost a lot of MP and I assume has a longer cast time than the normal buff so not only it cost a lot of MP but I think regular buff spell would be faster to set on everyone (if Black Curse could get the sudden modifier tough that would be a different story sadly it doesn't), I think Necromance is still badass tough, Elemental sniping is definitly a thing, Black Rain looks like a very good screen cleaner and Necromancer have the Dark Saber to boost it also she get Half Vanish which is really promising against High HP monster (this fucking Knights) and bosses (despite the 320/400 cap).

Also since we cover a lot of what Dragon Master can do, has anybody try Fenrir Knight ? Lamia Naga inflicting Sleep seems cool, obviously having all MT Debuff is a thing, and Moon Saber for self sustain and his Final Weapon look ridiculously good if you pair her with a caster, altough I'm not sure how do you perform counter attack I never notice any noticeable increase damage even when hitting the ennemy after right after their spell, tough Ninja Master's final weapon could allow him to trigger it by hitting weaknesses with his Jutsu (that limit Fire, Air, Water and Eath weak ennemies tough (also physical if Shuriken counts)).

Yeah, Black Curse costs a lot and it will require Walnut.  Also, you will want AGI weapon and Leaf Saber/ring, so that you can recover MP quickly for another cast if you take control on Carlie. Or you can equip Rune Earring which makes you cast from x5 HP amount, consuming 75 HP/cast, and wear cast-time reduction helmet to balance the longer cast time. Cast from HP also means that you are free from MP worries and have more choice to heal up with items than just Walnut, like a single chocolate will give you enough HP for 4 Black Curse.

Fenrir Knight can be a good healing class if you are good at doing counter-attack with Lv1 Tech during their casting stance or after their attack, giving party more leeway with MP. Summon gives sleep mean you can damage and crowd-control at the same time, let you leisurely pick monster one by one. Also benefit from Invert Armor as all stat-buff.

This discussion about invert armor came up at a convenient time. I'm currently planning a party around Dragon Master with Angela and Carlie to take advantage of the empowered Anti-Magic, and I was thinking to use the invert armor to cover my spread of necessary buffs and debuffs. Strangely, I think a good Angela class here would be Archmage. Her final weapon gives her 200% on weaknesses, which with Dragon Master should almost always apply, and she provides both Mind Down and Power Down. With Dragon Master inverted, that should cover the whole spread of necessary buffs and debuffs for a magic team, leaving Carlie the option to go with the mighty Sage, a class that not only also takes good advantage of empowered Anti-Magic, but brings healing, sabers, and a bunch of support skills that work well for a magic team.

Yeah the combo of Saber + Archmage 200% weakness + Empower Anti-Magic + Mind Up and Down might make Arch Mage the ultimate random cleaner in this configuration.

On 7/6/2019 at 1:31 AM, Nesouk said:

Hawk as Rogue - Carlie as Evil Shaman - Kevin as Warrior Monk

Rogue and Evil Shaman get all debuff through their abilities (Def Down with Cutter Missile, Speed Down with Landmine, Power Down with Ghost Road and Mind Down with Demon Breath)
The team also get all buff (Speed Up with Rogue, Def Up with Evil Shaman and Power Up and Mind Up with Warrior Monk).
Anti-Magic with Evil Shaman. Reduce Max HP option with Rogue and Evil Shaman. Heal Light with Warrior Monk, Tinkle Rain with Evil Shaman.
Rogue also get MT Sleep Flower and Body Change which seems good for Crowd Control, also seems that by increasing his Luck, PIE and INT he could be a powerfull pseudo-mage (especially with his final weapon) boosting his Luck could also makes him valuable with weapon that inflict Statut Effect.
This team seems promising the only thing it misses are Saber spells, having only Leaf Saber (which admitadly is a good one tough).

What do you think ?

I've been thinking about doing a light Hawk playthrough at some point and this sounds like a neat team to try it out with  I always forget that Cutter Missile and Landmine have built-in debuffs. Makes Rogue even more appealing.

Although what I was currently thinking of for said party before your post was: Wanderer, Bishop, Fenrir Knight. Attacker party with elemental sabers, saint saber, moon saber, two Transshape casters, all debuffs, Def Up, and all of Wanderer's nifty tricks up his sleeve. It's too bad Wanderer no longer has Counter Magic, but he does have Mind Up...does Magic Shield stack with that? I forget. Also not having a FST to take advantage of aura wave kind of sucks, but MT Sleep Flower + Holy Ball and whacking things to death should be "fine" for crowds.

33 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

It's too bad Wanderer no longer has Counter Magic, but he does have Mind Up...does Magic Shield stack with that? I forget. Also not having a FST to take advantage of aura wave kind of sucks, but MT Sleep Flower + Holy Ball and whacking things to death should be "fine" for crowds.

Magic Shield increases heal effect.

Also, not having FST means that you can exploit Sleep Flower to fullest potential for screen-clearing by killing one-by-one. Single-target tech also hits harder, and you won't get annoyed by Warrior Monk's throw cuz it is single-target anyway. Evil Shaman also has Single-target summon to nuke them down, and AoE to clear trash if necessary.

3 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

I've been thinking about doing a light Hawk playthrough at some point and this sounds like a neat team to try it out with  I always forget that Cutter Missile and Landmine have built-in debuffs. Makes Rogue even more appealing.

Although what I was currently thinking of for said party before your post was: Wanderer, Bishop, Fenrir Knight. Attacker party with elemental sabers, saint saber, moon saber, two Transshape casters, all debuffs, Def Up, and all of Wanderer's nifty tricks up his sleeve. It's too bad Wanderer no longer has Counter Magic, but he does have Mind Up...does Magic Shield stack with that? I forget. Also not having a FST to take advantage of aura wave kind of sucks, but MT Sleep Flower + Holy Ball and whacking things to death should be "fine" for crowds.

Mind Up and Magic Shield stack for Heal Light yes combine with Protect Earrings and the Weapon that increase Heal Light and you can reach some crazy level of healing with Heal Light (My Carlie was healing around 700 with MT Heal Light with that set up).

Must admit that Wanderer doesn't appeal to me most of his ability seems to situationnal, altough Half Vanish with his Final Weapon look crazy strong and he is one of the only 2 classes (other being Magus) that learn Poison Bubble the offensive Leaf Elemental spell.

24 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Must admit that Wanderer doesn't appeal to me most of his ability seems to situationnal, altough Half Vanish with his Final Weapon look crazy strong and he is one of the only 2 classes (other being Magus) that learn Poison Bubble the offensive Leaf Elemental spell.

I unfortunately have to agree that most of the Wanderer abilities are pretty low impact, especially since dark Lise can also bring anti magic in this party. The boosted half vanish is cool, but AFAIK still won't work on bosses and is only ST...

I was thinking of giving him a weapon that scales with spirit so he can do a decent autoattack after throwing out all his buffs; energy ball and sabres should help him do decent damage to a def-downed anti magic'ed boss after opening with Lunatic. Should.

Well Half Vanish works on bosses, so it could be interesting for bosses that has a lot of HP (looking at you final bosses), also since it ignore Defense and the damage is constant regardless of buffs and debuff or element resistance it can be good against bosses that are very resistant (looking at you Dolan you fucker) also very good against some mobs that have a lot of HP, very high resistant to pretty much everything yet can still demolish you rather easily (this goddamn Knights and also Golems). Downside is it capped at 400 on Luna's Day which means it will cap once the bosses get more than 12800HP or 800HP for the mobs. Well PIE weapon seems interesting since you need his PIE to get his spell and to reduce castime anyway.
Also in this set up maybe give a shield to Lise so that she can grow aggro, then keep transshape on her could be an interesting strat for mobs and bosses that rely a lot on physical like Bigieu for instance.

Wait, Half Vanish does work on bosses? I've always heard that it does not but Lunatic works instead. That's how I remember it anyways...

Lise with a shield seems perfect for that setup. Good idea.

31 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Wait, Half Vanish does work on bosses? I've always heard that it does not but Lunatic works instead. That's how I remember it anyways...

that's the way it was in vanilla.
here it does work on bosses but at reduced power

8 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Wait, Half Vanish does work on bosses? I've always heard that it does not but Lunatic works instead. That's how I remember it anyways...

It works on bosses in this mod except instead of 1 half of HP it does 1/32 of HP on bosses (Max HP with Wanderer's final weapon), it was quite broken in fact before Praetarius nerfed it to 320 max damage (400 during Luna's day) on Final Bosses with Hawk you were looking at 999 damage guaranteed regardless of buff/debuff per cast  (for comparison Carlie as Bishop with 32 PIE, Mind Up, Mind Down and Saint Saber was dealing 263 with Holy ball to Archdemon on my playthrough).

Guess I'm just forgetting things in my old age then  320 max damage on bosses still seems reasonable enough for endgame tbh. Especially for a support-focused Wanderer.

After some play-testing and thought, I've decided to start a game with a femmes fatales crew of Fenrir Knight, Archmage, and Sage. I took an earlier crew with these characters (but different classes) up to the God Beasts and was amazed at how well they performed, especially against the multi-melee bosses Bill & Ben and Machine Golems. A shield bearer can do a lot to distract, leaving the two casters to bomb away. The hardest battle up to the God Beasts was probably Jewel Eater, and this was mainly because I forgot to account for Carlie's weakness to earth (incidentally, this was the first time I used a Matango Oil in many many games).

Archmage and Sage compliment each other well: they can both cast level 2 holy and dark, and Sage can power up the Archmage's other elements and the attacker with her sabers. Archmage gets the two most important stat-downs for a magic team, Power Down and Mind Down, so all that is needed are the stat-ups and a way to distract melee mobs. While Dragon Master may sound like a good idea with empowered Anti-Magic to boost the casters, Archmage already gets normal Anti-Magic, and the casters have enough elemental variety that at least one of them can almost always find a weakness without it. Fenrir Knight looks like a great alternative, providing an alternate source of HP and MP recovery that doesn't require casting, especially important if you're playing solo and want to keep your main character free to control your other characters! (N.B. Praetarius: the ability to control your second and third characters with L and R while casting would be a great gameplay update for solo players!) Lise's light classes would be interesting choices for this team as well and wouldn't require invert armor to achieve the stat-ups, but they don't seem to add as much value as Fenrir Knight with her final weapon (Star Lancer would be a strong contender if Marduke could be insta-cast). This team has two heavy bombers and a shield-bearer to keep them safe, three forms of healing including Sage's final weapon (and not counting items), all the sabers except holy and dark, Anti-Magic, Life Booster, and all the important stat-ups and stat-downs. Vive les femmes!

Star Lancer could cast Marduke Very fast if you stack up INT the helm that reduce cast time and her final weapon, problem with star lancer here is that Aura Wave and Energy Ball are wasted on a magical team.

By the way just curious has anyone try the opposite a man power team with Duran, Kevin and Hawk, I don't think it would be hard To find a good party for this team (I think something Lord, God Hand (with invert armor) and Ninja Master could be effective).

Star Lancer's extra spells would certainly be wasted (and Archmage already gets Aura Wave), but Marduke is so good, she's worth considering, and her armor slot would be freed. Still, shield-bearing counter commander seems to be the natural role for Fenrir Knight, and all her spells here (except Mind Up) would be unique. The only other character who would enhance her role would be Ninja Master with his final weapon; subbing out either of the casters for him would lead to interesting teams as well that would play differently but are certainly worth trying out (with the guaranteed counter recovery, you may even be able to forgo Heal Light and run with a Rune Master, though Grand Divina, Bishop, and Sage seem like more natural choices).

I'd like to see a sausage party with Sword Master and Ninja Master focused on critical hits to take full advantage of the former's final weapon. God Hand or Warrior Monk would be the third pick, but I don't play Kevin often so I'll leave that to a specialist to decide.

16 hours ago, rpschamp said:

N.B. Praetarius: the ability to control your second and third characters with L and R while casting would be a great gameplay update for solo players!

with pleasure, can you provide the code for that?
I tried that once and I could only manage to make it so that using L/R cancels the casting, obviously not what you'd want.

7 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I'd like to see a sausage party with Sword Master and Ninja Master focused on critical hits to take full advantage of the former's final weapon. God Hand or Warrior Monk would be the third pick, but I don't play Kevin often so I'll leave that to a specialist to decide.

If you take Swordmaster and Ninja Master I don't think Kevin is a good choice, as you need Def Up, Mind Up and Heal Light no way to get Def Up and Heal Light, you can get Mind Up and Heal Light with both God Hand and Warrior Monk but not Def Up, you can get Def Up with Dervish but not heal light or Mind Up.

I should have assumed you would have already tried this. But actually, a casting cancel might be useful as an optional patch, if only for the character that you control. I would assign it to the select button so it's not likely you would accidentally trigger it. Partners' spells could be cancellable with L/R, but this would not be as useful. I'm thinking of those times when you accidentally choose the wrong spell or when you start casting but then Bill & Ben start kicking the shit out of your teammates and they need an instant chocolate to avoid dying.

My coding experience does not extend to hex editing, which I assume is your primary tool, so I don't think I could be much help at the moment.

28 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

If you take Swordmaster and Ninja Master I don't think Kevin is a good choice, as you need Def Up, Mind Up and Heal Light no way to get Def Up and Heal Light, you can get Mind Up and Heal Light with both God Hand and Warrior Monk but not Def Up, you can get Def Up with Dervish but not heal light or Mind Up.

I might just bite the bulette (!) and stock up on scales for bosses. It might be well worth it for the avalanche of critical hits this team could dish out. But I just remembered that Sword Master's Energy Ball is stuck on self-cast, so Lord might be a better option anyways.

However you slice it, the sausage party is going to be pretty one-dimensional. At least Hawk can cast some damage spells.

14 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I might just bite the bulette (!) and stock up on scales for bosses. It might be well worth it for the avalanche of critical hits this team could dish out. But I just remembered that Sword Master's Energy Ball is stuck on self-cast, so Lord might be a better option anyways.

However you slice it, the sausage party is going to be pretty one-dimensional. At least Hawk can cast some damage spells.

I honnestly Feel like end game scales just aren't good compare to just have à caster, not only because of the money and/or time require to farm them, but you might struggle if the boss love To debuff you (worst being Dragon Emperor I seriously don't see how you can beat him on hard without someone that can cast Mind Up).

Also yeah that's why I suggest Light Duran To not get a one dimensionnal party, both Paladin and Lord would be good here, the Paladin is a good support that get anti magic and with his Final Weapon can be a good nuker with Turn Undead, Lord could however be pretty good with his Final weapon for a counter base strategy (also better if you have Kevin as a God Hand and his final weapon that increase the counter window, in fact now that I think of it Lord and God Hand could be an awesome team with Fenrir Knight).

On 06/07/2019 at 10:31 AM, Nesouk said:

Hawk as Rogue - Carlie as Evil Shaman - Kevin as Warrior Monk

Rogue and Evil Shaman get all debuff through their abilities (Def Down with Cutter Missile, Speed Down with Landmine, Power Down with Ghost Road and Mind Down with Demon Breath)
The team also get all buff (Speed Up with Rogue, Def Up with Evil Shaman and Power Up and Mind Up with Warrior Monk).
Anti-Magic with Evil Shaman. Reduce Max HP option with Rogue and Evil Shaman. Heal Light with Warrior Monk, Tinkle Rain with Evil Shaman.
Rogue also get MT Sleep Flower and Body Change which seems good for Crowd Control, also seems that by increasing his Luck, PIE and INT he could be a powerfull pseudo-mage (especially with his final weapon) boosting his Luck could also makes him valuable with weapon that inflict Statut Effect.
This team seems promising the only thing it misses are Saber spells, having only Leaf Saber (which admitadly is a good one tough).

So want to make a quick review of this team since I came up with it, so right away I say the biggest disappointment here is Warrior Monk, looking back I think God Hand would have been better for an healer, thing is his Final weapon isn't as good as I thought it would, it turns out that putting the weapon that increase Heal Light and Items is better for strengthing up heal light than Warrior Monk's final weapon, to put in perspective with 28 PIE (max for Warrior Monk) and Protect Earrings with Diamond Knuckle Kevin's Heal Light for 514 while with Holy Claw heal light does 374 with empty tech bars up to 491 with full tech bar so we have a flat almost 40% bonus against a 30% bonus you have to build up, so yeah this final weapon is really questionnable sacrificing Tech is quite a high price for getting an effect that really isn't that effective (not to mention Holy Claw's effect doesn't affect Healing Items unlike Diamond Knuckle) at the end of the day. Warrior Monk is still good for buffing, debuffing and Leaf Saber tough.

Now Rogue however does't disappoint, now Sleep Flower is honnestly useless but that's about it Rogue's weakness exploiting potential is honnesltly maybe even better than Angela his elemental spell doesn't cost to much, are powerfull and relativly fast to cast things get crazy once he get his final weapon the double damage makes any spell strong but with weakness it's a flat 300% bonus (not counting potential day bonus and saber bonus), even without Mind Up or sabers he can come very close from the 800, it helps that Luck is such a good stat, when he doesn't have MP Rogue can just attacking with Crit he does good damage (and also chance to proc statut effect with equip with such weapon), also Land Mine being MT is really good for random cleaning and making thing safe thanks to the Speed Down effect, also Reducing Max HP and Defense is valuable for boss fight.

Evil Shaman I found her to be quite good once you get the Armor that increase LV Power and remove element for Resistance/weakness purpose, she can just apply Power Down and Mind Down effect of Ghost Road and Demon Breath to any one, also Evil Shaman has I think the earliest access Anti-Magic so that's a plus, also one good thing about Dark Carlie in general, the item that allow to turn into a Necromancer is available on shop, that item effect is Black Curse so Dark Carlie give basically access to a buyable Shadow Zero's Eye quite usefull for boss fight .

Warrior Monk's final weapon:
it is less meant to be a pure healer weapon, more like a assisting healer.
Build up TP wait til you need to heal, do so, follow up with the Lv3 tech and build up again.
WM shouldn't have enough max MP to just spam heal light so he can unleash his techs while you wait for that to build up again, possibly with a leaf saber.

I get the following values with 16 PIE:

random claw - 237 heal
diamond claw - 350 heal
holy claw, 0 TP - 237 heal
holy claw, 5 TP - 300 heal
holy claw, 9 TP - 350 heal

with 2x protect earring
random claw - 372 heal
diamond claw - 485 heal
holy claw, 0 TP - 372 heal
holy claw, 5 TP - 472 heal
holy claw, 9 TP - 552 heal

Holy Claw just scales differently than diamond; HC adds your TP to PIE for heal purposes so it is better to get an incompetent healer into the competence zone.
Diamand and the earrings increase the multiplier of heal light on PIE.

2 hours ago, Nesouk said:

also one good thing about Dark Carlie in general, the item that allow to turn into a Necromancer is available on shop, that item effect is Black Curse so Dark Carlie give basically access to a buyable Shadow Zero's Eye quite usefull for boss fight .

very expensive though, not really a good replacement for a debuffer.
Well, one dark Charlie already learn black curse herself the other has at least half of it in ghost road + demon breath.
I mean, sure, if you are willing and able to burn that much money that would make Evil Shaman certainly the better of the two.

39 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Warrior Monk's final weapon:
it is less meant to be a pure healer weapon, more like a assisting healer.
Build up TP wait til you need to heal, do so, follow up with the Lv3 tech and build up again.
WM shouldn't have enough max MP to just spam heal light so he can unleash his techs while you wait for that to build up again, possibly with a leaf saber.

I get the following values with 16 PIE:

random claw - 237 heal
diamond claw - 350 heal
holy claw, 0 TP - 237 heal
holy claw, 5 TP - 300 heal
holy claw, 9 TP - 350 heal

with 2x protect earring
random claw - 372 heal
diamond claw - 485 heal
holy claw, 0 TP - 372 heal
holy claw, 5 TP - 472 heal
holy claw, 9 TP - 552 heal

Holy Claw just scales differently than diamond; HC adds your TP to PIE for heal purposes so it is better to get an incompetent healer into the competence zone.
Diamand and the earrings increase the multiplier of heal light on PIE.

Funny still with 28 PIE but adding a second Protect Earring (so 2 Protect Earrings) I get this :

-Holy Claw at max TP : 602
-Diamond Claw : 598

So 2 thing out of this : 2 Protect Earrings makes Heal Light better with Holy Claw than Diamond Claw (altough at 28 PIE the difference is really extremely small), and apparently the more PIE you have the more Diamond's bonus get closer and eventually better than Holy Claw's bonus, sadly since I want Leaf Saber and Mind Up to be MT in my team I have to use a Whitelight Ring so no 2 Protect Earrings.
So my guess is Holy Claw would be more valuable if Warrior Monk was build as a secondary back up healer (if you have another main healer in your team), sadly I build him as a main healer since he was the only one with Heal Light in my team, as a result I max out his PIE quickly and so the Holy Claw's effect isn't as valuable as it could have been.

39 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

very expensive though, not really a good replacement for a debuffer.
Well, one dark Charlie already learn black curse herself the other has at least half of it in ghost road + demon breath.
I mean, sure, if you are willing and able to burn that much money that would make Evil Shaman certainly the better of the two.

Didn't say it was a good replacement, but it's an available option can be good on bosses as it take less time to cast than setting all the debuffs one by one, also in case of boss like Gildervine who absorbs both Ghost Road and Demon Breath making Evil Shaman unable to set her debuff without Anti Magic it allow to debuff without wasting time or MP on anti magic, altough this issue with Evil Shaman is solve later once we get the armor that increase spell's LV by 1 since it also make them ignore resistance and weakness (by the way is this armor allow Rune Master's LV3 Spells to apply statut effect on ennemy that would normal drain said spell (I suppose the answer is yes but just want to be sure) ?), so it can be usefull but of course can't afford to use them on every single boss fight.

49 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

by the way is this armor allow Rune Master's LV3 Spells to apply statut effect on ennemy that would normal drain said spell (I suppose the answer is yes but just want to be sure) ?

the description is to be taken literally - resistance and weakness are ignored, absorb is not

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

the description is to be taken literally - resistance and weakness are ignored, absorb is not

Then in that case it's probably an oversight but I can assure you it ignore absorb to, I just cast Holy Ball on a Grell Mage, who absorb Holy, with this armor on my Evil Shaman and it did Normal Damage to it. And I can safely say that it's the case for all the ennemies that absorb Light in the Ancient Ruin of Light since I use Holy Ball quite a lot, can also assure that ennemies that absorb water (tested on Slime Prince and Bee type of ennemies) take damage from Ghost Road with this armor ^^.

Following Nesouk's example, here's a review of my current group and favorite to date, Les Femmes Fatales: Lise as Dragon Master, Angela as Archmage, Carlie as Sage.

This group is the strongest magical focus group I've played. For random encounters, Lise controls the field using a shield when necessary, and Angela and Carlie clear screens with MT Level 2 spells. For bosses, Dragon Master uses her invert armor for buffs, Archmage covers the two most important debuffs, Power Down and Mind Down, and nukes, and Sage provides Leaf or basic elemental sabers, healing, and extra nukes when necessary. What's particularly great about this team is how it scales with the increasing difficulty of the game: at the first class change you get MT damage spells and Heal Light, at the second class change you get spell level upgrades and increased access to buffs and debuffs, and at your final weapons you get Spirit Cane, which gives Archmage an extra 50% damage boost against weaknesses, Gigas Flail, which provides another option for group healing, and Dragon Lance, which through empowered Anti-magic almost guarantees the double weakness boost for Archmage and the weakness boost for Sage, who otherwise only has access to two elements. Dragon Lance also helps for those situations where a boss otherwise resists everything, i.e. DOLAN, allowing Archmage and Sage to continue their work and preventing your magical focus group from resorting to melee. I've taken this group up through the God Beasts, and Mispolm has been the only battle where I've found an advantage in abandoning casting for an alternative damage strategy, and here the low melee damage of your casters actually helps you to accumulate tech points while minimizing thorn damage.

Strengths of this group? Combat is nicely streamlined: Lise distracts while Angela and Carlie slaughter. Learning the weaknesses of every enemy is actually kind of fun, and it's satisfying to figure out the shortest path through a group of enemies. Treasure hunting is super easy: this group gives you a ton of control over which enemy you kill last, and since Angela and Carlie provide most of the damage, Lise can be pumped full of Luck to increase your rare item gain. Lise's shield enables her to pull certain melee-heavy bosses like Bill and Ben, the Machine Golems, or Lugar away from your casters, leaving Angela and Carlie free to knock the bosses around the field, one spell after another. Bosses that rely on swarm damage like Genova and Gildervine are a joke. Also, surprisingly, you are immune to most status effects while casting, so you can use this to your advantage against Cockabirds or Frost Dragons if you want to keep that accessory slot for something else.

Weaknesses? Since it can be seductive to pump most of your early stat gain for your casters into Intelligence or Spirit, especially with thorn armor to take care of heavy melee-ers, high physical damage from Level 2/3 techs can catch you off guard. For this reason it's important not to ignore your Vitality stat or at least be willing to change up your equipment for added protection when necessary. Also, DOLAN. Because he has no weaknesses, the best you can do is remove his resistances with empowered Anti-magic or use equipment that neutralizes your element. Because you can't get the weakness bonus that gives Archmage such an advantage on pretty much every other boss, this battle can take some time. It doesn't help that he's primarily tuned for big group physical damage, this group's main weakness. I clocked the fight around 20 minutes on my current playthrough, though it seemed more like 30 or 40.

Similar groups and substitutes? A similar group that wouldn't depend so much on empowered Anti-magic would be Lise as Vanadis, Angela as Rune Master, and Carlie as Necromancer, as Rune Master's Rune Staff and Necromancer's Great Demon offer ways around elemental resistance without having to rely on neutral spell armor. Rune Master would not be able to exploit weaknesses as powerfully or consistently as Archmage, but she would get some helpful status effects with her Level 3 spells, and Necromancer would help out more with single-target weakness damage. Lise would also not be reliant on invert armor for buffs. Dark Hawk could be an interesting substitute for Necromancer as well to bring up the melee damage, or even Rogue and Archmage. I may give some version of this group a try after I finish my current playthrough. For my current group, I tried Fenrir Knight as an alternative to Dragon Master, more focused on HP/MP recovery with her final weapon than casting damage. Not being able to hit a weakness or bring down resistances was a disadvantage for certain bosses though, and I found that I didn't always have the option to go for counters (again, DOLAN). In the end, I would rather rely on Leaf Saber and Magic Walnuts than give up empowered Anti-magic.

Thanks again, Praetarius; your great work on this game and consistent updates (especially the recent Lise-shield update) have made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience with every group I play.

27 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Also, DOLAN. Because he has no weaknesses

technically he is supposed to be weak to non-elemental (he resists all elements)

I think at this point I've only not yet read about esoteric team compositions that try to focus around the more niche stuff like Balmunk and Fireblaze.
Go on.

Full female seems really fun, especially now that Lise has access to shield to get the aggro ^^, alternatively I think using Dragon Master, Bishop and Magus could be interesting Bishop could provide Physical damage endgame with her Final Weapon which this team otherwise lack, Bishop provides also 5 Sabers, Def Up, Turn Undead and also Magic Shield makes her the best healer in the game and on top of that she mostly doesn't need whitelight at all (maybe just for Zable Fahr to get Saint Saber MT).

This mod definitly has a huge replay value, even the 3 same characters can lead to various team composition depending on how you choose the class, I definitly have some team I want to try on on future playthrough. On my LP I plan to go Lord, Fenrir Knight and for Angela I hesitate between Rune Master and Magus, I really want to try Dark classes for Angela and they both seems good Rune Master bring the 4 main sabers and crowd control with statut effect on her LV3 spells, however I think thanks to her Final Weapon removing the 20% debuff when casting MT Magus could very well be the best random cleaner in the game, just get her final weapon give her the armor that allow spell to ignore resistance/weakness and just spam the spell you want (preferably spell of the corresponding day to still get the bonus damage from it), when facing a boss that has a weakness just remove said armor (it helps that Magus can exploit every weakness save for Holy) or could rely on Deathspell but I don't think this would work for me so far I've always been below boss's Level in all my playthrough  (finish both my Star Lancer/Ninja Master/Bishop and Duelist/Archmage/Vanadis playthrough at LV93), Magus also having Lunatic, Power Up and Mind Up is also interesting.

I also want to give a shot to that Fenrir Knight, Ninja Master and Grand Divina team I was thinking the other day, also really wish to try some classes just haven't figure out with which other to pair them (mainly Kevin's Death Hand and Hawk's Wanderer) so much team to try out  

Before the Lise-shield update, I tried a similar team of Ninja Master, Star Lancer, and Grand Divina. This team had a ton of damage options, though in the second half of the game I found Grand Divina more difficult to crank out damage than I expected; she would have to cast three or four spells where Archmage with her weakness bonus could get away with one or two. In theory, this isn't so bad, since her spells come out so fast, but in practice I found that she sucked up both time I had to control the field and do other things with my lead character and MP from throwing out so many spells. Fenrir Knight could help with the latter, but honestly it's tough to use your lead character to the best advantage when Grand Divina is just constantly on the spell menu. I don't see a way around this except with a more advanced system where shortcuts could be assigned.

On a different topic, I contend that between Sage and Bishop, Sage is the better healer, her final weapon providing an alternative to Holy Flail for situations where passive healing is advantageous, especially if you want Carlie casting spells other than Heal Light more often. Gigas Flail is so much better than Mad Beast Fang, healing at more than twice the rate but also affecting the entire group. Interestingly, because its HP gain is static, it encourages the use of defense boosting armors rather than HP boosting armors, each HP being much more meaningful for the former. I'll admit though that I haven't really given Magic Shield a fair chance, and if its physical defense bonus stacks with Defense Up, it may be quite useful for a magical focus team. Between Bishop and Sage, I see the main difference being a physical fighter versus a more versatile caster/healer by the end game, aside from minor differences like MT sabers versus Leaf Saber and Life Booster. Spells like Turn Undead never appealed to me because, like you, I'm almost always under-leveled.

Which brings me to Magus, the only Angela class I haven't tried. Death Spell, like Turn Undead, never appealed to me. For direct damage, I'd go for Archmage; for damage type versatility, I'd go for a light class with holy damage; for recovery options, I'd go for Grand Divina; for crowd-control options or low magic-power function, I'd go for Rune Master. Apart from the fact that all Angela classes are pretty much awesome, I can't think of too many teams where I'd see an advantage in choosing Magus, unless you plan to be over-leveled or don't have another way of casting Mind Up.

In the team you suggested of Dragon Master, Magus, and Bishop, however, I can definitely see her potential, but not from spell damage: her combined +30% damage from neutral spell armor and +20% MT damage would just equal the normal +50% damage from hitting a weakness, considerably below the +100% MT or +140% ST damage Archmage gets from hitting a weakness, which she almost always can, especially with Dragon Master around to help when necessary. Her advantage would instead be in her buffs, as everyone would benefit from her Mind Up, and both Dragon Master and Bishop could use her Power Up for an alternative damage source against magic-resistant bosses like Dolan. Plus, Dragon Master wouldn't be stuck on invert armor for boss battles where you want a better defense boosting armor as well as the group Defense Up. Also conveniently, Bishop would supply the missing Holy element for spell damage. This team has the potential to be quite powerful and versatile for a team with two casters, and I'd love to see how it would play out.

Concerning Rogue: How often does his double-spell damage hit? From what I can tell from the mechanics files, at max Luck it should be about 1/3 of the time. In this case, Rogue and Archmage should do about the same damage on average for ST spells: (150%+150%+300%)/3 = (200%+200%+200%)/3 = 200%. Archmage would still have him beat on MT spells since she can hit six elements at Level 2. Rogue and Archmage together, led by Vanadis, should make an awesome casting team, capable of dealing both physical and magical spell damage at the highest level, hitting all the buffs and debuffs, and having shields, healing, and Anti-magic. No sabers, but not a big loss with magical damage. This is one of the magical focus groups I'm considering for my next playthrough.

Concerning Death Hand: He looks like the only class who could compete with Duelist for tech damage. I've been thinking that if I ever need a break from playing magical focus teams and decide to try Kevin/Carlie's quest, I would build a team around Death Hand to take full advantage of his tech power. With his final weapon and Fireblaze, he could combo his own Level 1 tech counter into a debuff-powered Level 3 tech, and fast as hell, since Kevin's hits come out so quickly. Dark Hawk, Rogue, or Evil Shaman would make good teammates to feed Death Hand group debuffs for his Level 3 tech; of these, I think Evil Shaman would be best since she also provides both Anti-magic for those enemies with physical immunity and, more importantly, magical damage for those with just really high physical defense; this is why I think she edges out Hawk whose spells all hit against physical defense. Your other teammate would ideally provide healing and buffs, so basically Vanadis. She could also help Evil Shaman with magical damage in some cases, her final weapon lending another purpose to Death Hand's saber spells.

I actually did some math the other day for Angela's class and in term of DPS I came to this conclusion at same LV of INT, Grand divina has the best DPS on all situation until you get the final weapons (which should be around the third or fourth God Beast) then things change a bit :

-Grand Divina keep the best DPS if you are against 1 target with no weakness.

-Arch Mage has the best DPS if ennemy has a weakness, and if all ennemies have the same weakness then she also surpass the others (altough very slightly against Magus)

-Magus has the best MT damage, if ennemies has no weakness (or your wearing Ancient Coat) her AoE damage is better also if all ennemy has the same weakness, then guess what she is very close from Arch Mage, due to not having the MT malus, basically on MT with weakness Magus hit 150% while Arch Mage hit for 160% (80% x 2) and this is not counting Magus has an higher INT. And if you are not running Dragon Master it will be pretty rare to encounter a group of ennemies having all the same weakness (heck often you can encounter a group with an ennemy that is weak to an element while the other absorb said element), in which case Magus can get the Ancient Coat and dont give a damn.

So overall in term of damage Arch Mage is the best for boss that has a weakness, Grand divina for bosses that don't have a weakness and Magus for AoE, and in term of utility I say all of Angela classes have thing in her favor.

For Death Hand I was thinking of Necromancer actually, Black Curse inflicting all debuffs at once would potentially be a great combo with Death Hand's final weapon, for the third member I was thinking of either Paladin (for heal light, Shield to get the aggro, Saint Saber (which Death Hand lack), Def Up, Magic Shield, Anti magic and late game AoE nuke with Turn Undead) or Vanadis (all buffs, Heal Light, tinkle rain, Shield, potentially good damage with her summon and death hand sabers), that or death hand could go well with Dragon Master spreading weakness Anti magic.

I feel the disadvantage of Death Hand over Duelist, is really duelist require almost no set up to reach his insane damage potential, while Death Hand require a set up and someone that can keep the debuff up. On the subject of having good LV3 tech damage I wonder how Nightblade perform with his final weapon, how much damage he gains from being below 300 hp ?

Also yeah Rogue is inferior to Arch Mage due to lacking some element (water and wind) and outside of land mine all his spell are st only, the double spell damage proc 1/3, however Rogue has some advantage I feel that Rogue casttime is better than Angela, also unlike Arch Mage who have to invest in both INT and PIE to max her damage, Rogue just have to invest in 1 stat Luck, and conviniently this stat allow him to be a decent physical damage dealer when he can't exploit a weakness, due to the very high Crit Rate and damage, he can also set statut effect quite efficiently with weapons that inflict them, which can be usefull.

Grand Divina: Your numbers look good, I'm just saying that DPS isn't the whole story. Having to cast twice as many spells is a handicap itself as it sucks up attention and down-time. With Heal Light and Tinkle Rain, I still think she's a great choice for many teams.

Magus: One handicap that hasn't been mentioned is that she lacks Holy damage. Despite weaknesses being rebalanced, Fire and Holy still seem like the big two, and without Carlie (or Rogue) to make up for it, Magus teams will be missing that direct Holy damage that comes in handy in so many situations.

Rogue: Counting Physical as an element, he actually casts as many elements as Archmage, they're just not as useful and mostly stuck as single-target. Still, he get's Fire and Holy, and with his final weapon he's the best caster in the game to hit against physical defense. I'm now more seriously considering running him with Archmage as a teammate to see just how useful physical casting is compared to taking Carlie as a second magical caster.

Death Hand: I thought about Black Curse as well, but that spell sucks up 15 MP (in general, Necromancer spells are MP heavy), and MP drain items still seem to slow to win that back to keep up with his techs. Rune Earrings might be a solution with maxed out intelligence and cast-time gear. At some point, though, you might as well just be casting damage spells for less MP rather than feeding Death Hand's tech damage. Rogue might actually have the quickest and cheapest methods to feed debuffs to Death Hand through Land Mine (MT, 5 MP) and Cutter Missile (ST, 7 MP); teamed with Vanadis, though, you'd still be missing Mind Down.

Death Hand vs. Duelist: Duelist is certainly easier to set up, doesn't eat debuffs, and his Leaf Saber can be nice for his teammates. Death Hand, though, should have an advantage in speed. With his final weapon, Mistscreen Charm, and Aura Wave, Duelist takes three attacks to reach his Level 3 tech. With the same setup, since Kevin hits twice with each attack, Death Hand takes 1.5 attacks, meaning two attacks with the option to miss one hit. With only the Mistscreen Charm or Aura Wave, Duelist takes five attacks and Death Hand takes three. So, Death Hand can throw out more techs, but since his tech eats the Protect Down debuff, you will need to find a way to reapply it if you want it to factor into the tech damage. Death Hand can reapply it himself with Fireblaze equipped, but this will use another two attacks, plus require that one of these be a successful counter. All things considered, Duelist certainly seems like the safer and more consistent bet, but since Death Hand is certainly racking up more damage between Level 3 techs, it's still not clear to me who can reach a higher DPS, especially with team support for debuffs. Someone can try to calculate it but it might be more reliably tested.

I imagine that Death Hand might be more useful for setting up really quick combos, like MT damage/debuff spell - Level 3 tech to take out a room full of enemies, while Duelist might be better for coralling a crowd of enemies with his shield aggro and throwing his Level 3 tech right before or after a caster nukes the field. After this discussion, the Duelist strategy appeals to me more, but I'll leave it to a physical team specialist to correct me if my impressions are wrong.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Magus: One handicap that hasn't been mentioned is that she lacks Holy damage. Despite weaknesses being rebalanced, Fire and Holy still seem like the big two, and without Carlie (or Rogue) to make up for it, Magus teams will be missing that direct Holy damage that comes in handy in so many situations.

Let's actually take a look thanks to the documentation with the mod we can see for sure, so there is 97 monsters in total and here how the weaknesses are spread :

Air : 15 monsters (2 Monsters weak to other element as well)
Dark : 16 monsters (1 Monster is weak to other element as well)
Earth : 15 monsters (5 monsters weak to other elements as well)
Fire : 17 monsters (6 monsters weak to other elements as well)
Holy : 15 monsters (1 weak to other element)
Leaf : 6 monsters (4 weak to other elements)
Moon : 7 monsters (all weak to other elements as well)
Water : 14 monsters (4 weak to other element)
Physical : 9 monsters (all weak to other elements as well)

Also there is 7 Monsters with no weakness.

I honnestly don't found holy to be that prominent, of course it depend of the areas, there's actually more ennemies weak to Dark than Holy suprisingly enough, and thinking back I remember using Dark Force way more than Saint Beam with my Arch Mage, but in any case I don't see the lack of Holy damage as a deal breaker, the only monster against which it's truly annoying to not have Holy damage is Gremlin as he absorbs or Void every other elements but this is quite a rare monster and you can bypass his resistance with Ancient, Anti Magic or Ancient Coat anyway, and you have 2 other teammate to compensate (or even nullify the issue with Dragon Master's anti magic) anyway.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Grand Divina: Your numbers look good, I'm just saying that DPS isn't the whole story. Having to cast twice as many spells is a handicap itself as it sucks up attention and down-time. With Heal Light and Tinkle Rain, I still think she's a great choice for many teams.

Well I don't mind that, I think that's more of a personnal issue there, casting multiple spell isn't an issue for me if each cast is 3 time faster than casting 1 big spell, and if you want a big spell with longer cast time then there is still Double Spell which is non-elemental. Grand Divina also get Speed Up and sabers to boost her own spells and her allies, also Transshape with a shield user could be nice on random, grand divina has a lot going on for her as a support character honnestly that happen to be able to pack a lot of damage.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Death Hand: I thought about Black Curse as well, but that spell sucks up 15 MP (in general, Necromancer spells are MP heavy), and MP drain items still seem to slow to win that back to keep up with his techs. Rune Earrings might be a solution with maxed out intelligence and cast-time gear. At some point, though, you might as well just be casting damage spells for less MP rather than feeding Death Hand's tech damage. Rogue might actually have the quickest and cheapest methods to feed debuffs to Death Hand through Land Mine (MT, 5 MP) and Cutter Missile (ST, 7 MP); teamed with Vanadis, though, you'd still be missing Mind Down.

I suppose you meant Rune Earrings with maxed out AGL not INT, cause Carlie cast time depend of AGL not INT, which is actually good for Necromancer since she gets Black Rain, I think the Rune Earrings might be a good idea for that purpose, I think it could work with Paladin or Vanadis, alternatively could go with Dragon Master who can provide the debuffs as well as making ennemies weak to Death Hand's Sabers.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Death Hand vs. Duelist: Duelist is certainly easier to set up, doesn't eat debuffs, and his Leaf Saber can be nice for his teammates. Death Hand, though, should have an advantage in speed. With his final weapon, Mistscreen Charm, and Aura Wave, Duelist takes three attacks to reach his Level 3 tech. With the same setup, since Kevin hits twice with each attack, Death Hand takes 1.5 attacks, meaning two attacks with the option to miss one hit. With only the Mistscreen Charm or Aura Wave, Duelist takes five attacks and Death Hand takes three. So, Death Hand can throw out more techs, but since his tech eats the Protect Down debuff, you will need to find a way to reapply it if you want it to factor into the tech damage. Death Hand can reapply it himself with Fireblaze equipped, but this will use another two attacks, plus require that one of these be a successful counter. All things considered, Duelist certainly seems like the safer and more consistent bet, but since Death Hand is certainly racking up more damage between Level 3 techs, it's still not clear to me who can reach a higher DPS, especially with team support for debuffs. Someone can try to calculate it but it might be more reliably tested.

Well I don't know how much damage Death Hand gain with each Debuff's consume so can't really say, another more niche thing Death Hand is apparently the only class that can cast Lunatic as an MT spell, don't know if it's a mistake in the document, but if it is true a good use of Death Hand could be to cast Life booster on everyone at once with this with the Invert Armor, but that's a niche. I think you are right on Death Hand getting more hits and on paper building his tech faster than Duelist tough, I think I'm definitly gonna give a shot to a Death Hand party next time, his potential seems good.
Having a shield is definitly a plus for Duelist tough as he can act as both a tank and Damage Dealer, tough I liked my set up where I was using Sage Stone and White Light Ring allowing him to instantly set the Sabers on him and his teamates (to strengthen Angela's nuke for Mob fight) or instantly fill his Tech Bar with Aura Wave whenever he have enough MP for it (proves suprisingly effective with Leaf Saber ^^).

I like your tabulation, but it also depends on how the resistances fall; e.g., if I run into three enemies, each with different weaknesses and resistances, what is the least number of spells I can cast to blast through everyone? One interesting thing about Holy and Dark from your table is that most of those monsters are weak to no other elements, so you can't compensate with other elements when you need to prioritize these enemies. Some of these are especially annoying, like Cockabirds for Holy or Silver Wolves for Dark. I admit I may have some left over bias from the original game and maybe need to try to work in other elements more regularly, especially Water and Earth.

I think everyone has their tolerance for number of spells cast per battle, especially with random encounters. If I can cut that number in half, I can save half my sanity (and as a regular Angela user, I think I have a pretty high tolerance for this sort of thing). But also remember that the more spells you cast, the more chances you have to be counter-attacked and the more chances enemies get to sneak in extra spells or techs due to lag issues. Spells aren't cast in a vacuum, as much as we'd like them to be. Still - I love the Grand Divina - my first true love in this mod.

Yes, I did mean Agility for Necromancer. With Rune Earrings, revive armor, and her final weapon, Necromancer could split time between buffing Death Hand when her HP are high and direct damage spells for extra damage when her HP are low. This might make quite a strong team with Vanadis for a third.

Extra damage for Death hand is in the tech damage mechanics file, and it depends on the buff. With Black Curse, the multiplier should be (3+2+1+1+1)/3 = 267%, so pretty substantial.

Also, I'm not sure if that multitarget Lunatic is a typo - Ninja Master's jutsus are also exclusively multitarget. That would be a nice bonus for Death Hand. Praetarius, can you confirm?

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

another more niche thing Death Hand is apparently the only class that can cast Lunatic as an MT spell, don't know if it's a mistake in the document

not a mistake, it is in really set as one/all lunatic - don't ask me what I with thinking with that. though I won't change that now.

50 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I think everyone has their tolerance for number of spells cast per battle, especially with random encounters. If I can cut that number in half, I can save half my sanity (and as a regular Angela user, I think I have a pretty high tolerance for this sort of thing).

is that with the patch that lets you skip spell animations or without?

My guess is you were thinking Spiral Moon without the damage.

I am not skipping spell animations - I generally like the down-time to plan my next attack (or take a sip of beer). If I play Grand Divina again though, I may reconsider.

Yeah the patch that cut animation and Fast forward option make spell more tolerable ^^.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Yes, I did mean Agility for Necromancer. With Rune Earrings, revive armor, and her final weapon, Necromancer could split time between buffing Death Hand when her HP are high and direct damage spells for extra damage when her HP are low. This might make quite a strong team with Vanadis for a third.

Extra damage for Death hand is in the tech damage mechanics file, and it depends on the buff. With Black Curse, the multiplier should be (3+2+1+1+1)/3 = 267%, so pretty substantial.

That would be nice, either Vanadis or Paladin as a third could work I think both get Heal Light and Shields (better shields for Duran tough), Lise's get all buff and Tinkle Rain, Paladin get Saint Saber, Anti Magic, Magic Shield and Turn Undead (with his Final Weapon).

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

I like your tabulation, but it also depends on how the resistances fall; e.g., if I run into three enemies, each with different weaknesses and resistances, what is the least number of spells I can cast to blast through everyone? One interesting thing about Holy and Dark from your table is that most of those monsters are weak to no other elements, so you can't compensate with other elements when you need to prioritize these enemies. Some of these are especially annoying, like Cockabirds for Holy or Silver Wolves for Dark.

Yeah there is variable that's why at say it depends of the situation, for instance in area like Ghost Ship who is filled with Holy weak ennemies, same with Dark Castle IIRC in these area not having Holy Magic will indeed hurt, while a place like Bucca's island cave who is fill with Dark weak enemy not having Holy Magic will not be a huge deal, then again you can get Dragon Master's uber Anti Magic and make these ennemies weak to everything (tough not really reliable to cast it over and over considering how much it cost) or bypass their resistance with Ancient Coat so there is ways around it.

18 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

My guess is you were thinking Spiral Moon without the damage.

probably, I faintly recall someone wanting proper spiral moon on kevin - because that would totally make sense - and this would indeed by a way to give them what they asked for without giving them what they want.

So now Nesouk has me excited to run a Duelist group; I haven't played him since the original game. I'm thinking casters for his teammates to take advantage of his Leaf Saber and because he probably supplies enough physical damage already. God Hand might also be a fun teammate but I can't get the buffs/debuffs to work out. Any ideas from recent Duelist games? Duelist, Vanadis, Archmage sounds great since it can hit all the buffs/debuffs except for Speed Down by using Fireblaze. Or I could take Carlie and someone else with buffs and just manipulate the RNG to collect Bottles of Ashes from ??? seeds for bosses.

Before I forget to ask again: Is the Fireblaze defense debuff functionally the same as the Protect Down spell?

Also, can Vanadis's final weapon give her summon its element from a weapon element accessory, or does it have to be a saber spell?

Fireblaze defense shred is seperated , every counter mutiplies regular enemys defense by 0,75 stacking multiplicative.
so 200 defense becomes 150 then 113, 84, 63 
defense down reduces defense by 10 but then slaps a damage multiplier of 1,25 to your physical damage
against bosses they loose half your STR stat additive

fireblaze and protect down stack

Wow. That's amazing and not at all obvious from the included files. What exactly do you mean by "defense down reduces defense by 10"? Is the minus 10 or half your Strength stat the additive part of Protect Down, meaning you can cast it multiple times to increase the effect? More importantly, does a counter with Fireblaze lower just physical defense or magical defense too? The item description just says "defense". If not, is there another way to multiplicatively lower magical defense, or is physical defense special in this regard?

It was my understanding that the most you could get out of buffs/debuffs was 25% plus or minus from the basic Up/Down spells or other spells/items that replicate their effects. Can other buff/debuff spells apart from Protect Down can be cast multiple times for additive effects? If so, this changes the game considerably and is crazy to learn after a year or so of play.

with they stack i meant that fire blaze an protect down stack with each other, not with themself
fireblaze just reduces physical defense everytime it procs, can proc twice on kevin and hawks lvl 1 tech in a row 
from the mechanics guide:
16) if Lv1 tech and successful counter attack and Fireblaze equipped:
    reduce target physical defense permanently!!
        -25% for regular enemies
        -STR/2 for bosses
        -1 for bosses that are "immune" to this effect
since the defense loss is permanent it cant be dispelled by antimagic or deathands final weapon

fireblaze modifies physical defense only but directly, repeatable until it hits 0
-25% for regular enemies
-STR/2 for bosses
-1 for bosses that are "immune" to this effect

I've no idea what he meant by the -10; def up/down just slaps a x0.75/x1.25 multiplier on the damage

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Also, can Vanadis's final weapon give her summon its element from a weapon element accessory, or does it have to be a saber spell?

saber only

didnt the defense buffs/debuffs also add/substract a flat 10
or was it only the buffs ? ^^

Holy Shit Fireblaze really work like that ? I thought it was just applying the def down effect, man that makes Lord and Ninja Master who can force counter state with their final weapons even more valuable than I thought.

Duelist has some really good potential, having most Sabers, Anti Magic and Aura Wave already makes him valuable, and also Aura Wave already makes him self sustainable in regard to tech building, I think some team that come in my mind :

-Duelist, Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk

-Duelist, Nightblade, Vanadis

Yeah, I read that in the mechanics, I just didn't realize it was repeatable! So Hawk and Kevin can add two debuffs per counter with their double hits.... The fact that they're permanent is great for Death Hand who eats everything else with his final weapon. I can definitely see Death Hand outpacing Duelist for single targets now, especially during boss fights. In general this mechanic makes melee/tech damage a much more viable strategy.

How about this team: Duelist, Vanadis, God Hand. This team takes full advantage of having all sabers at hand. Final weapons all work well together here. During fights when you need magical damage, Vanadis comes through with her sabered-up summon, while your fighters heal and whittle away physical defense using Fireblaze. All buffs, defense debuff through Fireblaze, and either Mind Down or Power Down with invert armor, depending on the boss. Two healers, a shield bearer, and tons of MT tech damage! (A team without Angela is almost inconcievable to me, especially on her quest with Duran, but it may be time to branch out.)

9 hours ago, LittleBigTrouble said:

didnt the defense buffs/debuffs also add/substract a flat 10
or was it only the buffs ? ^^

neither should have that; maybe you confuse it with saber which gives +10% atk on top of the element?

On 20/8/2019 at 2:05 PM, rpschamp said:

Yeah, I read that in the mechanics, I just didn't realize it was repeatable! So Hawk and Kevin can add two debuffs per counter with their double hits.... The fact that they're permanent is great for Death Hand who eats everything else with his final weapon. I can definitely see Death Hand outpacing Duelist for single targets now, especially during boss fights. In general this mechanic makes melee/tech damage a much more viable strategy.

Well melee was already viable without it, but yeah I can definitly see Death Hand doing more damage than Duelist, and as I say I see a lot more value in Lord's and Ninja Master's final weapon being able to provoke the Counter State to take advantage of Fireblaze could really have impressive result.

On 20/8/2019 at 3:15 PM, rpschamp said:

How about this team: Duelist, Vanadis, God Hand. This team takes full advantage of having all sabers at hand. Final weapons all work well together here. During fights when you need magical damage, Vanadis comes through with her sabered-up summon, while your fighters heal and whittle away physical defense using Fireblaze. All buffs, defense debuff through Fireblaze, and either Mind Down or Power Down with invert armor, depending on the boss. Two healers, a shield bearer, and tons of MT tech damage! (A team without Angela is almost inconcievable to me, especially on her quest with Duran, but it may be time to branch out.)

That could work to, to be honnest Vanadis seems like the perfect pair for Duelist ^^, Duelist, Ninja Master, Vanadis could work to (tough I personnaly think Lord would be a better pair with Ninja Master ^^), Ninja Master's Jutsus being able to deal AoE damage (which can be boost by Duelist's sabers), debuffs and with his Final Weapon force a couterable state which Hawk can then take advantage himself with Fireblaze if the target is weak to his Jutsus, Ninja Master is also a good fighter himself, Vanadis can do her healing/Buffing job or put a shield to get the aggro and Duelist build his tech, apply the sabers or Aura Wave.
Or Duelist, Star Lancer and Warrior Monk give invert Armor to Warrior Monk so that he get Power Down and Mind Down and he would be your main healer, Star Lancer with her Final Weapon and the helm that reduce cast time is probably the fastest caster in the game, she could buff the team quite fast, or fill Duelist tech bar with fast Aura Wave cast, boost critical rate with Energy Ball and have Marduke who is still an awesome summon for random fight and Duelist can keep doing his job.

EDIT : Well since rpschamp decide to do a girl only team, I'm gonna give a shot to man only team, doing the Archdemon route, think I'm gonna try Death Hand, Dark Hawk (unsure between Ninja Master and Nightblade) and Paladin.

EDIT 2 : Started the man only team did go to Tzenker, have to say this was the easiest early game I ever had, I even manage to first try that pain in the ass that is Jewel Eater this is the first time I beat him first try, Full Metal Huger give me trouble mostly cause Kevin was weak to Holy, the Machine Golems got completly destroy by this team, as for Tzenker I just made sure to buy the Byzel armor for Hawk and Dark Kevin to remove their weakness to Wind and to have gotten some Molebear's claws and I destroy her, Hawk's Shuriken are so good in this fight for their Accuracy debuff and good damage at the same time, Kevin can just beat the shit out of her (reach 70 damage per hit and over 200 with LV2 tech).
Must say I'm quite worried for Genova tough as the problem is Bashkar, Ninja and Knight have no AoE whatsover (unless getting Whitelight Ring for Ninja so that he can cast his Shuriken MT but that's not an option right now).

OK quick review of Duran, Kevin and Hawk team, to put it simply I'm amaze by how this team perform so far.

The early game up to Tzenker is almost child play with this team, only random ennemies that pose problem are Slime as they resist physical and even then with well place counter they aren't that much trouble, and on the fun factor not having spell make the combat feel more dynamic. Jewel Eater can still be an issue due to his normal attacks hitting like a truck, but on the other hand this team can kill him faster than any other team.

After change class to Ninja, Bashkar and Knight this team carry Tzenker as I mention earlier. I was worried about Genova due to the lack of AoE but nope, strat is don't give a shit about the mobs and focusing on him after reducing his defense with Thunder Jutsu, carrying some stardust herbs to dispel his debuff, byzel's armor to Duran and by being cautious the fight did go well, use LV1 tech this way we can hit the mobs to.

Bill and Ben were troublesome however, Shuriken reducing their accuracy definitivly help tough, Knight protect up is also usefull, set everyone on LV1 Tech and procede by being cautious eventually they go down.

Once on the ghost ship whitelight ring for Ninja and Knight, a funny thing I didn't know if the one character that has heal light is the one cursed it doesn't matter auto heal at end of the battle will still apply so I could go with Hawk and Kevin just fine.

Gorva is more annoying than hard since he spent so much time out of reach, this team being physical can't do much outside of Ninja, so Gorva end up being an endurance fight.

Bucca island cave altough not as easy as a team with sorceress (her just having Evil Gate makes a huge difference), this team perform well MT Shuriken reducing accuracy and Knight's MT protect up and heal light makes the team quite safe, Kevin can just punch everything.

Team Manpower, I like it. I expected Tzenker to be a difficult battle since she's hard to reach half the time but I guess not? Also, for deathless players, do you think it's possible to beat Gorva before he casts Deathspell? I'm wondering if you can use Heal Light to damage him.... Otherwise with only Shuriken I just don't see it happening without stocking up on tons of projectiles at Byzel. Which might be a good idea anyways since only one of your characters can cast for damage through the majority of the game.

I took a break from my ladies for now to work up a Rogue/Archmage team. I want to test the efficacy of having a physical and a magical caster vs. having two magical casters.

Tzenker was suprisingly easy her weakness to both Earth and Physical makes this team able to damage her very efficiently, with Hawk being able to debuff her accuracy she can't do much, you have to be aware tough that both Hawk and Dark Kevin are weak to wind if you don't cover their weakness as I did then yeah I guess she can be deadly, as for beating Gorva before Deathspell yeah I definitly don't see how it would be possible not only Hawk and LV2 Tech are your only source of damage, but he has quite a good Evasion lot of my hits were missing despite having cast Earth Jutsu on him, and he spend so much time out of reach that sadly can't do much against that I took 3 Deathspells before beating him. Didn't try Heal light if it works then Knight (or Monk depending of the team) with 2 Protect Earrings might be able to do it otherwise I don't see how to beat him before Death spell with these 3.

So Bill and Ben nothing to say they are like in Rolant they just hit harder, but this time I have MT Shuriken and MT Protect Up so more easy to survive their hit, so second class did go Death Hand and Paladin for Kevin and Duran as I planned, for Hawk I decided to go Nightblade with Hawk at the end of the day (I think Ninja Master would be better but I want to try out Nightblade, I keep a save before the second Class Change if I see I can't handle this then I'll go back and pick Ninja Master instead), will still rely on MT Shuriken (with Whitelight Ring) for mobs until I get Black Rain which might be good with Death Hand being able to boost it with Dark Saber. Death Hand gonna be Tech Damage dealer must say he definitivly build his damage faster than Duelist his LV3 Tech is less powerfull though, also an annoying thing until I get his Final weapon there is only 1 chance out of 2 he does the AoE or the Throw. Paladin is going to be mostly support until late game where he will be able to get an AoE spell with Turn Undead.

Continuing the Manpower, I honnestly begin to consider that this is the best team I ever had, the only thing I would change would be to replace Nightblade by Ninja Master to get MT Debuff which would be better otherwise this team is just good plain and simply and I think I almost set as to how to play them (just waiting for the final weapons) :

-Deathhand : Just the resident puncher, for now I'm playing him with weapon that fill tech bar x2, Mistcreen Charm and Whitelight Ring he fills his tech bar lightning fast not even taking Aura Wave into account, for now the only downside being that it's never guaranteed that he will perform his FST, and he can also buff everyone with his Sabers when there is a weakness to exploit, and he is pretty hard to kill on top of that, as for stat once his spells are learned (through INT) I focus on his STR, AGL and VIT it works well for now.

-Nightblade : Now the only reason I took Nightblade over Ninja Master is.... well I just wanted to give him a shot but I honnestly think Ninja Master would have been better, that's not saying Nightblade is bad, he is pretty good himself, Shuriken can be made MT with Whitelight Ring and their accuracy debuff is pretty usefull since most mobs attacks physically, also for his unique spell Fire Breath and Poison Breath didn't thought they would be usefull but they actually came handy Fire Breath damage are pretty good against target weak to Fire (Slimes and Carmillas) and Poison Breath is decent non-elemental option who can set poison, Blow Needles is very usefull when against a mobs that has powerfull tech (the Knights type especially) and the big one is Black Rain a pretty powerfull AoE which can be boost by Death Hand's Dark Saber, as for the rest I focused on his PIE, AGL and LCK so once he is caster against Mobs and on boss fight after setting the debuff he can join Death Hand for Melee damage through Crit Build.

-Paladin : Now the big tank/healer of the team, obviously having MT Heal Light and MT Protect Up is a good thing, on top of that he has Anti Magic which allow this party to have a counter against ennemies resistant or immune to physical damage, he also has Saint Saber which give this party acces to all 6 main Sabers with Death Hand and Magic Shield this spell seems so underrated in this forum so I'm gonna put it simply, this spell give Def Up and the Defensive part of Mind Up at once this is great cause this party lack Mind Up but it doesn't end there, it also boost the Healing Power of Heal Light so basically acting as a Mind Up for Heal Light, a good use of it is also casting it just after resurecting a dead member this way the character get the 2 Defensive buffs (also work if one character get hit by Anti Magic). Also on that subject I want to talk about the Rune Earrings, it take a long time to make up for the increase cast time (lot of investment in INT and the Helm that reduce cast time) once you do however the pay off is great, magic costing HP instead of MP allow the Paladin to cast way more spells than he normally could (like he can cast 3 Magic Shield in the row no prob while with MP he would need a Walnut), more so it basically make Heal Light completly free of charge and totally make up for the fact that this team doesn't get Leaf Saber. And of course Paladin is a great tank as well thanks to Shield especially the ones that increase defenses. I really like the Paladin now he has so much going on for him.

This team cons are obvious however : 

-Outside of Hawk and LV3 Techs there is no AoE option (and importantly no AoE option up to the Ghost Ship), also sadly unlike Duelist Death Hand can only cast Aura Wave on himself.
-No Mind Up, Power Up or Speed Up, Magic Shield makes up a little of the lack Mind Up but this is still an issue altough Matango Oil and Sahagin Scales are an option, Power Up would have been nice since this team is mostly physical and Speed Up is always nice to have.
-Debuff are ST only outside of Shurikens (solve if you take Ninja Master instead of Nightblade).

As for the bosses up until now :

-Machine Golems : Suprisingly I found soloing this guys with this team to be the best option, thing is Paladin still has trouble casting his MT Heal Light at this point, so keeping everyone alive is quite tough, so keeping the all team alive is really hard so I just decide to solo them, it is suprisingly effective because they are very easy to counter and so it's easy to take advantage of the Fireblaze here, so just do a hit an run strat using LV1 Tech, healing with items, buffing with items (I had Drake Scale and Siren's Claw to spare) and cover the weaknesses with Byzel's Armor.

-Lugar : Anti Magic is the key, once he has been Anti Magiced and Debuff with Hawk this team can destroy him, he still hit like a truck so be carefull.

-Gildervine : Death Hand's Flame Saber and LV3 Tech along with MT Shuriken allow to deal with the mobs and the quite easily once he is alone he is honnestly a joke.

-Drangaard : I just use Blow Needles at each phase to Silence him, this is more meant to be a source of money than anything else anyway.

-Dolan : Now everybody know how much I hate this fucker, in fact I again had some cheap deaths where the game won't let my character cast his LV3 Tech between Energy Ball and Spiral Moon, outside of that however this team perform very well against him by far the smoothest fight I ever had against him, in fact this is the first time I beat him without the Armors that increase HP, basically Kevin can take care of his gimmick with Aura Wave he can build his tech bar in no time, Hawk debuff him and together with Kevin they do most of the Damage, Duran just set the Magic Shields and then spam Heal Light for the entire fight (or heal with items), if someone die (possible if he crit with his Normal attacks) then I just throw Angel's Grail and have Duran cast Magic Shield on him.

Are you making use of fireblaze on preffereble hawk or kevin ?
since it reduces physical defense it also buffs the damage of hawks spells constantly, especially against bosses, just set one of them to lvl 1 tech only with the item equipped
another toy u can try is the magatama on hawk and let him cast black rain on normal enemies and watch the carnage unfold

Well Hawk is always set on LV1 Tech with Fireblaze, but to be honnest it really doesn't prove that usefull, mobs die to fast to fast to make Fireblaze relevent, and I never saw that much of a difference on bosses outside of Machine Golems. For mob now that Paladin has his Final Weapon him and Hawk can just spam AoE to take care of the mobs, Paladin's Turn Undead is really great for AoE damage.

Speaking of the Final Weapon, I honnestly not sold on Death Hand's Final weapon, I think it's mostly due to my team not being good at setting either debuff on multiple ennemies or multiple Debuff on 1 ennemy at once (not to mention that on bosses it's annoying to debuff them again), so can't really take advantage of it as a result it's only advantage is that it guaranteed Kevin will do his FST, but by the time he build his Tech Paladin and Nightblade can clean the room, so I'm sticking with the Rock Claw with Kevin so he can build his tech Lightning fast to use them.

Hawk is more builded for being a caster currently so his final weapon is useless for me, hmmm might try the Magatama Black Rain with Bishamon, Crystal Ring and the Skuleton Mail.

nah just magatama is enough, no need to boost his magic damage, it inflicts a debuff that makes normal fights pretty easy (reflects 100% of the damage they do)

I'm starting a Rogue/Angela team and I need help picking a third teammate. I've been wanting to run Rogue for a while to see how well physical casting can work, especially with Fireblaze around, plus Luck is such a great stat. I'd like to pair Angela with him for elemental variety and MT damage; plus this will allow me to directly compare the most powerful physical caster directly against the most powerful magical caster.

I'm thinking of running either light Kevin or dark Carlie as the third. (I'm not interested in Lise or Duran for this team.) Light Kevin would give me two double hitters, open up my Fireblaze potential, and allow me to run Archmage or even Rune Master, but I would be missing some important skills like Protect Up no matter how I choose the classes. Dark Carlie would stick me with Grand Divina, but the casting potential of this team would be unreal, plus the buffs/debuffs may work out better, especially with Evil Shaman. It seems though that Angela's sabers might be wasted on this team....

Any suggestions from people who have played or thought of similar teams?

So Rogue, Angela and you don't want Lise or Duran so it's either Kevin or Carlie so for me well here my thought :

Rogue, Arch Mage and Bishop : 

Get all debuff with Arch Mage and Rogue, Bishop provide Def Up and Magic Shield give the defensive part of Mind Up, Bishop also give 5 sabers to boost Rogue and Arch Mage, you also get Anti Magic and Aura Wave from Arch Mage.

Rogue, Magus and Warrior Monk :

Give Invert Armor to Warrior Monk to get Power Down and Mind Down, Warrior Monk provide Leaf Saber for MP management, Magus provide Power Up and Mind Up as well as Lunatic for bosses, you are missing Protect Up so will have to use scale for that.

Rogue, Grand Divina and Dervish :

I'm less sure for this one, my idea is that Grand Divina will provide Sabers with Dervish completing it with Moon and Leaf saber, give Invert Armor to Dervish so he get Protect Up, for Power Down and Mind Down you could rely on scales with Invert Armor, the like of mind up isn't as detrimental cause you can rely on scales or can farm Matango Oil which are very easy to get.

Rogue, Rune Master, Sage :

Honnestly doing a team of Rune Master and Rogue seems tricky without Vanadis, Sage provide Holy and Dark Element that Rune Master lack as well as Leaf Saber and Mind Up and her Final Weapon, you are lacking Power Down, Mind Down and Protect Up so you will had to make for it with items.

Rogue, Rune Master, God Hand :

Invert armor on God Hand to get Power Down and Mind Up, so now you miss Protect Up and Mind Down compare to the previous team.

Rogue, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman :

Get all debuff, anti magic, Def Up, speed up, the 6 main sabers this team only lack Mind Up as an essential, this look good on paper.

10 hours ago, LittleBigTrouble said:

nah just magatama is enough, no need to boost his magic damage, it inflicts a debuff that makes normal fights pretty easy (reflects 100% of the damage they do)

Huh not you are talking about but Magatama don't give such debuff, from what I tested Magatama basically give Black Rain 20% chance to inflict 25% more damage, on night so Bishamon and Crystal Ring boost the damage further, Skuleton Mail is because most mobs in Dark Cave and Dark Castle nullify Dark Element. 

And that work well I can basically kill mob by just spamming Turn Undead and Black Rain with Kevin throwing is tech in.

However I'm hitting a wall with Jagan currently the lack MT Mind Up is a huge problem for this fight, Jagan's Ancient 2 does crazy damage and he can cast Black Curse on me and his mobs are making things worse especially that freaking Bloody Wolf.

Rogue, Grand Divina, Dervish is interesting. Protect Up is a must for Rogue and Angela, and being dependent on invert armor prevents Dervish from using more defensive armor when he needs it. But Kevin and Hawk would make great use of all the sabers and Fireblaze; this team would be both a physical and magical powerhouse. And I would only need to keep two types of scales stocked; Kevin would use them as Power and Mind Down and someone else as Power and Mind Up. I could only really do this for boss fights, since the defensive effects alone would cost at minimum five scales.... At least I'd have a purpose for all that late game money! I can predict the Dervish build being difficult; with competition between Whitelight Ring, Fireblaze, Sage Stone, invert armor, and elemental weakness/resistance equipment, there would be a lot of compromise. Maybe I ditch the Sage Stone at least and put stat points into Intelligence? Plus, no Mind Up for random fights in the late game might occasionally be in issue (not as much as no Protect Up would be, though).

Just checking: Dervish keeps Bloody Wolf and Suzaku Sky Dance in this mod, correct? I have never played dark Kevin to the end.

Also, what quest do people recommend? I have only been to the final areas of Hawk/Lise's quest so far in this mod; with this team, I could choose any of the three. I think Nesouk commented that the Dragon Emperor is a bit of a letdown compared to Archdemon, but I'm curious about Kevin/Carlie's quest. Of the three final areas, Mirage Palace definitely looks the coolest, and I like the mirage theme. How do the final areas and bosses compare among the three quests in terms of difficulty? Have they been rebalanced in this mod?

49 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Also, what quest do people recommend? I have only been to the final areas of Hawk/Lise's quest so far in this mod; with this team, I could choose any of the three. I think Nesouk commented that the Dragon Emperor is a bit of a letdown compared to Archdemon, but I'm curious about Kevin/Carlie's quest. Of the three final areas, Mirage Palace definitely looks the coolest, and I like the mirage theme. How do the final areas and bosses compare among the three quests in terms of difficulty? Have they been rebalanced in this mod?

Actually between Archdemon and Dragon Emperor, Dragon Emperor was IMO the hardest route, Dragon Hole is waaay harder than Dark Castle, it is fill with the most annoying ennemies in the game, and my god that last room before Korren where the game goes God of War mode giving you dozens of ennemis to fight with no break is a nightmare on hard.

Archdemon route had hardest sub final bosses, Jagan and Bigieu are both really brutal, Darkshine Knight and Korren are the most fun tough since they almost force you to use counter which I think was nice (altough Korren being able randomly cast MT Deathspell is bullshit, but sadly base on what Praetarius said nothing can be done about it).

Dragon Emperor looking back is actually the hardest final boss between him and Archdemon, I looked down on him back then cause I had the perfect counter with Light Lise, but the fact that almost ALL of his AoE spells give you all the debuff at once makes him very dangerous, it's just impossible to keep all buff set you need to at least be able to keep the Mind Up active to stand a chance which without MT Mind Up isn't gonna happen, and if it's like Vanilla he has the highest HP of the 3 final bosses which cement him as a huge war of attrition.

Very interesting. From anyone who has tried it, is the Mirage Palace route still much easier than the other two? I'd love to try it, I just don't want to play all the way to the end of the game and be stuck without a challenge. I always thought it had the coolest concept of all three final areas, and Dark Lich is pretty cool visually with the shifting backgrounds.

58 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

altough Korren being able randomly cast MT Deathspell is bullshit, but sadly base on what Praetarius said nothing can be done about it

it has to come from somewhere but I looked for several hours and didn't find it - at which point I declared it not worth the search: there's accessoires to defend against it

for the routes I tried to stick with the general consensus on the difficulty level in vanilla;

as for which enemies are present - that is mostly a wash since enemies can get randomly replaced with different enemy types from a certain pool and the endgame pools are relatively similar. and which enemy types are the most dangerous can actually vary by team setup.

Thanks for the quest info; it's more or less what I assumed. Also, on second thought, I think I'm going to be lame and go with light Lise as my third teammate. I was hoping to replace her with Kevin or Carlie for some variety, but MT Mind and Power Up may be just too useful to go without. Maybe when I'm feeling braver.

So, we have:

Rogue, Vanadis, Archmage: Great final weapons on Rogue and Archmage, but with no sabers, Vanadis's final weapon would be wasted on this team.

Rogue, Vanadis, Grand Divina: Either eye farming with the Rogue or scales and invert armor on the Grand Divina to make up the Mind and Power Down. Apart from this, the sabers make this team much more fun. Grand Divina would generally not be as powerful as Archmage after reaching the final weapons, but perhaps more useful all around. With two healers, Grand Divina can pick up some of the MP burden to leave room for Vanadis's summon.

Rogue, Star Lancer, Grand Divina: Aura Wave, Energy Ball, and Marduke would all be useful for this team. More physical than the previous; Star Lancer would be more geared for tech damage with Aura Wave and her ST Level 3 tech than Vanadis with her summon. She would also not be dependent on Whitelight Ring which unburdens her for other roles. A simpler, cleaner team than the previous, but with one healer, perhaps not as adaptable. I honestly don't think I can lose with any of these three, but I'm leaning towards Grand Divina to take advantage of the sabers.

Power Up is nice to have but honnestly not mandatory, really Def Up and Mind Up are the 2 big ones and I say Speed Up is better to have than Power Up as an all, in my manpower playthrough I don't have Power Up but physical damage are still good enough.

The main issue with Lise and Angela is only 1 of their classes learn Heal Light, it's annoying since this basically mean you are limited to Rogue + Vanadis or Rogue + Grand Divina one good thing with Gran Divina and Lise you can use Transshape on Lise with a shield which should Protect her in mob fights since mobs tend to generally use more Physical attacks.

You could also go Rogue, Vanadis and Rune Master make for the lack of Power Down and Mind Down with Invert Scales or Eyes and profit from Rune Master's LV3 spells and their statut effects, you lose Saint and Dark Sabers tough but still get 4 Sabers for strengthen Freya, Rogue's spells and Angela's own spells

Yes I actually meant Protect Up instead of Power Up, thanks for catching that. The buffs that keep you alive. Because you can't benefit from your Power Up if Dolan is knocking you flat on your ass. I was also thinking of that Transshape shield combo; I didn't get to use it last time I played Grand Divina because the update wasn't out for Lise yet.

Rune Master might be an interesting choice. Marduke is slightly more useful than her Level 3 Air spell, but Snowman should be a definite upgrade from Sleep Flower, and Petrify would be great for werewolves and other annoying mobs. My Holy and Dark damage would be limited to my Rogue though.... It's a tough call. Maybe I'll branch off at my first class change and try both!

On 26/08/2019 at 11:01 PM, LittleBigTrouble said:

nah just magatama is enough, no need to boost his magic damage, it inflicts a debuff that makes normal fights pretty easy (reflects 100% of the damage they do)

Just to clarify about my response from earlier, I realise I completly miss the point of that Curse Upgrade I didn't understand that "Additionnaly damage is always shared with 100%." in the description, so it does give you a Reflect 100% to the physical damage they do, Holy Shit this is awesome this basically completly negate the need of Thorn Armors, goddamn and I checked and all of Angela's classes except the Rune Master has access to that as well as Carlie's Sage and Necromancer and Rogue to (altough ST only for Rogue).

Another reason I tend to prefer light Angela over dark; she gets access to Curse as soon as you get the Pihyara Flute, which can make the section of the game between your first and second class change a good deal easier if you are still waiting to learn Heal Light :-)

7 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Another reason I tend to prefer light Angela over dark; she gets access to Curse as soon as you get the Pihyara Flute, which can make the section of the game between your first and second class change a good deal easier if you are still waiting to learn Heal Light :-)

To be honnest just the fact that she had all Element available already make this part of the game easier with the Sorceress, like the fact that Sorceress is the only middle class to get an MT Dark Spell make the bucca Island cave section a complete joke (as outside of Slime and Necromancer everything in this cave is weak to Dark), now that I know about the curse upgrade I'm even more convince that Sorceress is the best middle class in the game purely and simply ^^.

But learning about that Curse upgrade make me hype for Necromancer who might be even more badass than I thought.

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Marduke is slightly more useful than her Level 3 Air spell.

Wouldn't the LV3 Air spell with Rune Master's ultimate weapons and Ancient Coat to bypass resistances be basically a more powerfull version of Marduke ?
On a side note beat Jagan with the man power team, definitly using the spike armor on Duran with shield is a good move, the mobs are immortal but they still get knockback from the repel damage which give some momentum, this fight is rough because on Ancient 2 to be honnest the rest of it is manageable.

So far the hardest boss with this team was definitly Xian Bhe, cause he goes completly against that team possibilities, the furnace has an extremely high physical defense, and so Hawk spell and Kevin can't do anything about it, the only thing this team has that does good damage against it is Paladin's Turn Undead, but obviously spamming it would take to much time so I had to use all the Ice Coin and Undine Statue I had to make Paladin's job easier. The second problem is Xian Bhe has 2 moves that has a Mind Down effect (Fire Jutsu and Gigaburn), so this team not having Mind Up has trouble keep up with it, also Duran is stuck with Byzel armor as he would be weak to Xian Bhe attacks without it.

I also thought would have trouble with Zable Farh, due to not having MT Debuff and only Turn Undead against the right head, but it did go well, Turn Undead for the right head at the beginning, has to use some Walnut so that Hawk can set the debuffs fast (mainly Fire and Thunder Jutsu) but Death Hand with Paladin's Saint Saber is quite effective for damage.

Ahh Bucca Island Cave.... My favorite spot to farm ??? seeds! Papa Poto rare drops are 50% ??? seeds and 25% Poto Oils. Spend a couple hours farming at the second gold statue, get your class change items and sell the rest for 1000 each, then head right over to Sultan's Secret Shop to purchase few choice accessories. Light Angela makes this a breeze, and the jazzy cave music keeps things upbeat.

Speaking of farming, I'm planning to take full advantage of my Luck stat with my Rogue playthrough. Moon Coins for every major boss, including Full Metal Hugger (the drop in boss difficulty will make it easier for me to pump all my stat points into Luck). ??? seeds at Bucca Island until I have enough for Dragon Rings and Magatama. W/A seeds at Moonreading Tower right after the third Godbeast. Battum's Eyes, Slime's Eyes, Specter's Eyes, Shadowzero's Eyes; all the eyes.

Also, I'm glad that Manpower is working out. It seems to be kind of the mirror image of my Femmes Fatales; surprisingly strong in most situations but annoyingly difficult in a few. I haven't completed the final area with mine yet as I got kind of bored of them, but I look forward to hearing how Archdemon goes with your group. With this next group I'm looking for more variety and I'm excited to have Hawk at the helm again.

Funny enough since my first playthrough I never grind in this mod (outside of the LVUP for the second class change), which I think is great and show how little grinding mean in this mod, obviously if you are willing to grind much then you can pretty much do anything through Items ^^, Rogue is definitly the most no brainer for Luck base build, the fact that just to unlock his spell you 25 Luck already makes him good for that.

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Also, I'm glad that Manpower is working out. It seems to be kind of the mirror image of my Femmes Fatales; surprisingly strong in most situations but annoyingly difficult in a few. I haven't completed the final area with mine yet as I got kind of bored of them, but I look forward to hearing how Archdemon goes with your group. With this next group I'm looking for more variety and I'm excited to have Hawk at the helm again.

Archdemon sure will cause some trouble this time cause of the fact he has very high physical Defense and the only Magic this team has is Turn Undead and almost 32k HP (25k with Lunatic) to go through, yiiish this is gonna be fun ^^.

Also yeah the man power team is proving efficient for most of the game, the good thing is there is multiple way to go with them I took this team cause I really wanted to try Nightblade and Death Hand, but team like Ninja Master, Lord, God Hand or Wanderer, Lord, Warrior Monk or even Nightblade/Ninja Master, Duelist, Warrior Monk could have work.
I'm definitly happy with the result tough this team rock despite of her cons, also disappointed that I can't take full advantage of Death Hand's final weapon with this team, but hey next time I take Death Hand I think I will pair him with Necromancer and probably Vanadis could be a fun team.

Well beat Bigieu with Man Power team, really I don't see how to reasonnably beat her on Hard without Damage Reflection from either the Thorn armors or the Curse Upgrade, even with Attack Down and Def Up she does nearly 700 per hit and she hit twice each or maybe stacking Evasion and set Speed Up on use and Speed Down on her could work but yeah, son only Black Rabite and Archdemon left.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like a good rare item farming session every now and then. Forced grinding is no good, but a treasure hunt can be fun, as long as it's optional.

Alright game beaten with Team Man Power on Hard, Black Rabite his pretty much like Bigieu Thorn armor or Curse upgrade help immensely and so for Archdemon..... He was way easier than I thought he would, basically the key factor here was the Fireblaze, since he is highly resistant to physical and seems to almost constantly cast I figure using Fireblaze and setting Hawk to LV1 Tech might end up in a lot of Counter think I was right so basically strat is as follow with everyone equip with Byzel's Armor :

First Form :

-First phase since Antimagic 2 is impossible to avoid I just use a specter eye and Thunder Jutsu and Saint Saber on Kevin and just try to do as much damage as I can.
-After Antimagic 2 and Dragon's Eye another Specter's Eye I start casting Heal Light with Paladin and Fire Jutsu with Hawk and Lunatic with Kevin, this way I avoid Tidal Wave's sleep effect.
-It is then a matter of setting the debuff (Fire and Thunder Jutsu especially for the first form), Magic Shield on Duran so that he can Heal as much as he can (also since he is always the target of ST spell due to Shield it's a good to increase his defense).
-If does another Antimagic 2 and Dragon Eye I just use Antimagic with Paladin and Debuff him again.

Second Form :

-Now Water Jutsu is usefull as he has a physical attack, Curse effect is also usefull that's free 600 damage when he does his physical attack (the one when he pull a sword out of the ground).
-Duran set Magic Shield on everyone, Saint Saber on Kevin and Hawk then he is on Heal bot mod, and rebuff with Magic Shield if someone die. Also Duran was the target of almost all his spells due to the shield which makes really easy to keep Kevin and Hawk alive, tough I had to be carefull on Duran due to the sap effect of Demon Scream but if he die I just use an Angel's Grail and cast Magic Shield
-Kevin and Hawk does most of the Damage, Kevin was reaching over 400 damage per LV3 tech and 71 per hit, also sometime Hawk was Pulling off over 100 per hit with his LV1 (I assume this is an accumulation of both Counter and Critical otherwise I don't know why he was pulling such damage) all without Power Up.

So the most dangerous attack is Catastrophe who does around 500 AoE, his Demon Breath mean recasting Magic Shield on everyone tough, as long as Duran keep up and I keep an eye on Duran's HP it's a fairly easy fight with this team. Still think Dragon Emperor is the hardest Final Boss (this team would have never been able to keep up with Dragon Emperor's constant debuff).

So overall for the Nightblade, Paladin, Death Hand, I'm very satisfy with this team it was a blast to play with it, really fun to get more physical with bosses, mobs fight are overall quite easy once we get Black Rain + Magatama and Paladin's final weapon with Kevin LV3 tech in the mix. I also really try my best to avoid Thorn and HP increase armors this time around so more fun time.

EDIT : Upon further testing I don't know if it's a glitch but I realise that the Curse upgrade also completly reflect his jutsus (I mean by that the character take no damage while Archdemon take all the damage), this make the first form considerably easier.

On 27.8.2019 at 8:32 PM, Nesouk said:

Actually between Archdemon and Dragon Emperor, Dragon Emperor was IMO the hardest route, Dragon Hole is waaay harder than Dark Castle, it is fill with the most annoying ennemies in the game, and my god that last room before Korren where the game goes God of War mode giving you dozens of ennemis to fight with no break is a nightmare on hard.

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

sorry, that exceeds what I can do with SD3

8 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

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

Well save stating after beating that room and before Korren is an option I guess.

11 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

sorry, that exceeds what I can do with SD3

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

yes I switched rooms but I didn't create new ones - I've nothing that has a save statue and fits into the room progression and interior.
and I can't add further "npcs" to existing rooms

Has anyone tried using Wanderer, and if so what parties did you use? It's the only class I can't come up with a good party for.

I also tried a Death Hand recently and was kind of disappointed with the results with it. He was paired with a Paladin and a crit build Ninja Master. The Death Hand tech damage with his final weapon wasn't great. Do you have to pair him with a necromancer with Black curse for it to be viable? I ran a Duelist in another party and his damage was much better and the classes guide says both classes get an increase to lv3 techs.

For Dervish with his final weapon how much attack and defense is affected by the berserker wolf form? Is a Dervish more viable than a Death Hand for pure damage? What are some good parties with the Dervish?

Also for the Sword Master's final weapon what's the benefit of this weapon? It says regular damage is 1 and crits and techs do normal damage unless I'm missing something?

Having play both Duelist and Death Hand, I can now confirm that the main benefit of Death Hand over Duelist is how fast he build his tech bar, also yeah for me Death Hand's final weapon doesn't seem worth it unless you have Necromancer, otherwise setting all debuff and reapplying them after each LV3 tech is annoying, I honnestly found better to stick with the weapon that fill tech bar 3 time faster, then focus on STR, AGL and VIT with Mistscreen Charm and Aura Wave he can fill his LV3 tech bar in 1 attack, with just Saint Saber and Def Down no Power Up I was reaching over 400 per tech on Archdemon, so definitly better DPS than Duelist.

Wanderer is a tricky class, I honnestly can't of many team where he could truly be usefull, Wanderer, Bishop, Arch Mage or Wanderer, Lord, Warrior Monk might work, but I don't know.

I plan to do a playthrough with Dervish soon, plan to do Dervish, Sage, Arch Mage will see how it goes.

Also has anyone tried a party based on counter attacks? I assume God Hand, Lord, Ninja Master is the way to go with using fireblaze?

Never fully focus on Counter personnaly, your team might work for that or replacing Kevin with Lise would work to, any of Lise's classes could be good with Lord and Ninja Master for me :

-Vanadis would have all buff and Heal Light, making you completly free to build Lord as a fighter.

-Star Lancer bring Aura Wave so that Lord could get access to his LV2/3 tech faster, to proc the counter, all buffs and Marduke is very good for crowd control.

-Dragon Master bring her improved Anti Magic, which would make any oppenent that has a weakness weak to Ninja Master's jutsus, allowing to provoc the counter state very easily.

-Fenrir Knight could take advantage of Lord and Ninja Master ability to provoc counter, by using counter herself to heal the party.

Of course using invert armor to get all buff in the case of Dragon Master and Fenrir Knight.

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.

Honnestly Lise is just the best character in the game, she is by far the most valuable character in the game, really it's pretty hard to screw up any team composition with Lise.

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.

you can bet people would've cried bloody murder if I had taken stuff away from Lise.

also not sure what I could've really done with her;
debuffers usually have the full set of debuff effects and giving her light classes only 2-3 main buffs while the dark classes have the full suit would be weird.

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.

Light Lise has a massive mp+casttime problem - yes, she can fulfill all of that alone but she has to sacrifice a ring slot, needs mp support and time; while she prepares to cast a heal she can't prepare a buff. Needing that one accessoire slot for multitarget could be taken by a more dedicated healer for a heal power ring.
Plus if she is your only healer you have to suffer about another 30% of the game with just item healing where you could have already a healer - you're mostly discussing endgame setups but what about the journey to get there?

And giving her a shield for aggro on top of that might actually be detrimental because she has to stay still to cast for some time.
She basically does a lot of different things at the same time several of which kinda contradict each other.
Need to cast buff <-> need to cast heal (can only cast 1 spell at a time)
Need to stay still to cast <-> need to run around to manipulate mobs.
etc.

some alternatives to cover that with 2 chars (and get some other extras):
Lord + Warrior Monk
Lord + Magus (w/ whitelight ring)
Necromancer with invert armor + any healer

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.

To be fair tough I don't think Vanadis is her best class sure it's good to have both Buffs and Heal Light on 1 character this is a no brainer, however if you are relying only on her for both healing and buffing she will have to keep up on her own and spend a lot of time at it, that is basically what happened in my Vanadis, Duelist and Arch Mage playthrough against boss fight Lise had no time to do anything else than healing and buffing especially against Dragon Emperor where she could do nothing else than healing and Mind Up for the all fight, this kinda limit the class's potential which is a shame as she has other thing that could be interesting like her Summon with Sabers or her LV3 Tech which is quite powerfull or eve Shield which I find useless on Vanadis since she is constantly casting, hence why I think it's better to spread buffs and Heal Light in a team, and for Heal Light it is easy to do as everyone but Hawk has at least 1 final class with Heal Light. And this is why I consider Star Lancer better, especially with latest update which had make Vanadis's Buff spell ST only forcing her to use Whitelight Ring, Star Lancer keep her spell MT so she has an accessory slot free compare to Vanadis, and having faster cast time means she set the buff faster and can spend more time doing other thing like Marduke, Physical fighting or Aura Wave or who knows.

And you don't actually need all buffs to be honnest, like my man power team only had Def Up and Magic Shield and yet was fine for most of the game, so yeah the thing is on paper having all buffs seems like a no brainer which is why I had taken Lise in my very first playthrough, in the end you don't need all buffs but a first timer is more likely to pick Light Lise for this reason alone cause she is the only character to have all the buffs.

As for Dark Class Lise they feel not as essential cause unlike Light Lise there is 2 alternative to get all debuffs which are Necromancer and Dark Hawk, so with 3 characters that can get all debuff it's way easier to get them without Lise which in the end make her Dark Classes more balance as she is good to have but not essential (tough out of the 3 she is the best to put Invert Armor on to get all buffs as her spells are MT (unlike Black Curse) and don't do Damage (unlike Jutsus) but Invert armor is kinda niche).

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

some alternatives to cover that with 2 chars (and get some other extras):
Lord + Warrior Monk
Lord + Magus (w/ whitelight ring)
Necromancer with invert armor + any healer

You need Whitelight Ring for Warrior Monk to for make Mind Up MT, I'm not sold on Necromancer with Invert Armor tough especially to keep up with Boss that can debuff you often (again Dragon Emperor).

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.

Well on the subject of sprite it's honnestly purely subjective personnaly I prefer Star Lance over Vanadis ^^.
My problem with Vanadis's Freya is the Chibiko effect and the half XP penalty from it, I know it was worse in the vanilla game but that doesn't change the fact that I just don't want to risk losing half the XP just for using an AoE, this is honnestly an annoying side effect when you want to do MT Damage as it is not possible to keep track of ennemies remaining HP, IMO since this is the only Lise's summon that can be buff through other mean than Stats, Mind Up and Mind Down that effect should be remove I think that would encourage people to use Freya more, and would give another good thing for Vanadis.

By the way I'm giving a shot to the Femme Fatales formation, decide to go a different set up than yours see if they can be played in a different way and choose Star Lancer, Necromancer and Grand Divina, almost reach the God Beasts, so far the hardest fight was by far Bill and Ben they are nightmare for this team especially once they split up, I end up having to cheese them by using my allies's corpses to block them which suprisingly works and is hilarious to watch XD, also try the Curse upgrade.... a fucking mistake never do it again it turns Bill and Ben into Shadow Dive spammers, however I can now confirm that the Curse completly reflect the Jutsus and Shuriken and I think some of Light Hawk spell like Arrow so this isn't something exclusive to Archdemon.

Also try the curse on Lugar which while effective make this fight a fucking mess, he was spamming Moon Saber, Energy Ball and Protect Down for some reasons and occasionnaly throwing a tech and some punch, I think hitting himself makes him go nuts XD. As for the other bosses basically :

-Full Metal Huger : The lack of physical power make this fight dangerous as it's harder to overcome his healing, making the fight longer as a result.
-Jewel Eater : Actually this guy is not an issue to me anymore, just grid Bullette's Scales from Ogre Boxes, really Bulette's Scales makes a huge difference in this fight, was able to first try him with not of the girl dying.
-Tzenker : Non issue this team stomp her, especially since both Light Angela and Lise resist Wind.
-Genova : The most dangerous thing here is if the Shapeshifter turn into Lise and decide to spam her LV2 tech which is FST and combine with Genova's AoE and Power Up can make this fight quite hard.
-Machine Golem : Curse upgrade is extremely effective here, with Protect Up and Speed Up for defensive purpose.
-Gildervine : Will forever be the easiest boss in the game both Angela and Carlie can destroy him with Ghoul and Fireball, compare to man power team the first phase is even easier with both of them having MT, it also happen that I learn Black Curse just before him so I put that into good use ^^.

As for how I play the team :

-Star Lancer : For now I found a fun set up, with Sage Stone, Shield and MP Steal weapon, this is quite a good set while waiting to learn all her spells before investing into INT and before getting the Helm that reduce cast time and her final weapon, she can cast a buff instantly then just has to hit an ennemy 2 or 3 time to get enough MP back for casting another buffs, all while distracting the ennemies from Carlie and Angela with a Shield, plan to use her mostly as a a buffer who can put some physical damage, once I'm confortable enough with her Spell cast time I will invest toward STR and AGL cause this team lacks physical damage.

-Necromancer : Must say one downside is she takes quite a long time to learn Black Curse (LV44 at best), I'm still waiting to learn Black Rain (have to wait LV51 for it now) so I'm not set on how I gonna play her, Black Curse is definitly a must for boss fight not as pratical on mobs tough, it also cost a lot MP however so I think I definitly gonna get Rune Earrings for her to negate this issue, otherwise since I plan to invest a lot in AGL I equip here with the weapon that take AGL for damage calculation, might be good for getting some Physical damage when needed, for now she is mostly an ST elemental sniper as she can exploit all weaknesses but ST only outside of Holy Ball and even has a strong Non-Elemental spell with Great Demon.

-Grand Divina : The wait for Heal Light is thankfully not as long as Vanadis (LV39 for Grand Divina VS LV43 for Vanadis), she need Whitelight Ring to get Heal Light MT tough as well as Speed Up, still hasn't learn Double Spell yet, her LV1 spell are solid good damage and fast to cast, Evil Gate to set Curse and she with Necromancer sniping are very efficient duo for mob cleaning with Star Lancer ehancing them with Mind Up, just unlock Transshape will give a shot to that Shield wielder + Transshape combination, I'm looking forward to get the Sabers with her Final Weapon.

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.

12 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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.

Well Thorn work against Lugar cause he spend more casting Buffs (even if he already set them) and Protect Down instead of doing actual damage, so thorn help just make the fight kinda messie.
I use Thorn for Bill and Ben cause I just wanted to see if the Jutsus are truly reflected from any oppenent and not just Archdemon, after that test I only for the first phase where he is alone, the second fight was worse for me they hit really hard in the second fight and not having debuffs yet is an issue, admitadly I should probably have farm Slime's Eye or Bottles of Ashe would have make this fight way easier, only to reliably kill them before they split is tossing throwable items until they die I don't think there is any other method, but the fact that they counter every 2 spells by Shadow Dive makes Magic kinda hard to use against them.

Dolan is my worst ennemy in this mod I still really don't like him and how you can basically die cause the game decide to be an ass to you, tough the man power team did pretty well against him, I'm definitly not looking forward to him with this team. Also on that subject test the Shield + Transshape combo a bit it seems to work pretty damn well, the only issue is it's hard to tell when Transshape effect is over as sometime the character visually transparent but has in fact come back to normal.

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.

Well I'm not on Dolan yet usually I do him as the third or fourth god beast, so we will see how he goes once I get to him.

Well Dolan beaten still the cheapest boss of the game wasn't worse than with other team tough, thing that can screw you over are the same :

-His physical attack with the HP Reduce from Spiral Moon, his instant-kill if it crit.
-His Half Vanish + Spiral Moon combo if guaranteed death on the target if the game doesn't let you open the menu.
-Still possible to die due to the game not loading your LV3 tech

So since he resist everything and I don't have Anti-Magic I decide to just give up on magic casting and focus on melee damage, I must say giving the weapon that take AGL for Damage calculation on Necromancer was definitly a good move, Agility is so important for her for Black Rain and Cast Time so I invest a lot a lot in it as a result she currently does better physical damage than Lise  (was hitting Dolan for 50-60 per hit and around 220 for her LV3 tech which is pretty good for a suppose mage), and thanks to having a Shield Lise is always the target from Dolan's Physical and Half Vanish so at least who is probably gonna die so my strat as follow :

-Lise set Power Up, Mind Up, Protect Up and Aura Wave on herself and Carlie, I control her at the beginning while Carlie is casting Black Curse then I take control of Carlie.
-Carlie end up being the main damage dealer once she has set Black Curse, thanks to Lise's shield I know she isn't gonna get caught in the deadly combos mention earlier so she isn't gonna lost her buff soon.
-Angela was my main healer, for Howl and Graviton Press a single Item Seed with the Druid Cane is enough, one good thing is Dolan act pretty much in a set pattern so Spiral Moon is predictable the challenge is to star casting Heal Light a little before Spiral Moon and the Heal Light should be cast a little after Spiral Moon. Using Tree Spirit Ring for MP management and she is also my emergency tech user if Dolan happen to do Energy Ball then in guard stance.

Using Angel's Grail when Lise die (she then as to rebuff herself), and keeping track of Dolan's patterns which are as follow :

-Pattern 1 : Energy Ball > Howl > Spiral Moon
-Pattern 2 : Body Change > Physical attack/Graviton Press > Physical Attack/Graviton Press > Energy Ball > Body Change (come almost instantly after Energy Ball) > Half Vanish > Spiral Moon (come almost Instantly after Half Vanish, mashing Menu Button might give you chance to save Lise with Item but not guaranteed)
-Pattern 3 : Energy Ball > Guard > Spiral Moon

Sometime in the middle on Pattern 1 and 2 he put himself into a guard stance but isn't actually protected, also cast Moon Saber at around 20-25% HP left, but that doesn't matter it's really just to indicate you that you're almost done.

Yeah I lost so much time on this fucking boss that I ended up knowing him by heart.

EDIT : Have a question about the armors that revive at the cost of all your MP, when your character survive an attack this way, does he keep the buffs he had before the fatal attack ? Cause I think of giving this kind of armor a shot especially for my Necromancer since I give her Rune Earring she doesn't use her MP for spell casting, but I would like to know if getting revive this way still require to rebuff or not.

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Sometime in the middle on Pattern 1 and 2 he put himself into a guard stance but isn't actually protected, also cast Moon Saber at around 20-25% HP left, but that doesn't matter it's really just to indicate you that you're almost done.

actually this fake defending is his aggro reaction - theoretically meant as a way to buy some time before spiral moon

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

EDIT : Have a question about the armors that revive at the cost of all your MP, when your character survive an attack this way, does he keep the buffs he had before the fatal attack ? Cause I think of giving this kind of armor a shot especially for my Necromancer since I give her Rune Earring she doesn't use her MP for spell casting, but I would like to know if getting revive this way still require to rebuff or not.

status effects, buffs and debuffs should still stay active

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

actually this fake defending is his aggro reaction - theoretically meant as a way to buy some time before spiral moon

status effects, buffs and debuffs should still stay active

Well if that's the intention it does work I happen to miss my timing on the Heal Light because of Dolan wasting time by faking defense wasting 9MP for nothing, which mean Magic Walnut if Grand Divina doesn't have at least 18MP

OK That's good to know, will not get it yet tough cause it cost quite a lot (32k Luc is no joke).

Also on subject on trying stuff out, I try equipping Earth Armlet my goal was to make monster pop up at LV60 earlier to get W/A Seed earlier, it does work 6 Earth Armlet increase monster's LV by 12, don't have the exact LV but this mean could get W/A Seeds this way maybe even before the first God Beast, to bad I didn't think about that earlier now they are LV62 jump at LV74 with Earth Armlet as a side effect however monsters gives massive XP, I'm LV62 and I get 50k from just 1 LV74 monster, which make me think of my issue with Vanadis's Freya this could solve the issue and possibly turn Vanadis into a good character for Levelling and farming W/A Seed early getting half XP for such high value isn't that big of a deal as oppose to turn ennemies into Chibiko to reduce how much damage they deal while doing damage at the same time, next time I'll play Vanadis I might try doing this. 

It's been long since I played this game, first time I played I used Duran/Angela/Kevin party, went with lord/archmage and god hand.

Wanted to get back to try several more plays with different teams

One with Lise+Hawk in a party for their quest, and with Kevin+Carlie too. I am undecided for the third character and classes, but for  Kevin+Carlie mains I feel Carlie should definitely be Bishop. What are some recommended teams for that?

After I finish those then I will do three more plays for fun with one character per storyline with a Duran main, Lise main, and Kevin or Carlie main (undecided on this) rule being not having two characters from the same storyline. What teams would you recommend for that?

If you plan on going Bishop with Carlie, then Warrior Monk might be a good pick complete Bishop's Def Up with Mind Up and Power Up (also Mind Up + Magic Shield makes Bishop's Heal Light very strong), Warrior Monk provide also Power Down and Speed Down as well as Leaf Saber for MP management, if you do that your team need a debuffer with Mind Down and so excluding Invert Armor here's what I would considere :

-Arch Mage : Seems like the best pick here, it would provide you with Mind Down and Anti-Magic, also provide magic damage which Bishop + Warrior Monk lack and Bishop with her Sabers can increase her damage (except for Dark), also Aura Wave in case you want to build Warrior Monk as a tech user.

-Dark Hawk : Either Ninja Master or Nightblade, Ninja Master would provide all the MT debuff, his unique detect debuff, could have a good synergy with Bishop since Bishop's final improve her LV1 Tech while Ninja Master can force the counter state to improve LV1 tech damage even further, Nightblade on the other hand bring Black Rain as a good screen cleaner (especially with the Curse Upgrade) or his LV3 Tech, also Deadly Weapons to reduce boss's Max HP.

-Dark Lise : Either Dragon Master or Fenrir Knight, Dragon Master seems the best pick for me Anti-Magic spreading weakness would make up for the fact Bishop can only exploit one element, Dragon Master also bring Lunatic for boss fight, Fenrir Knight could be interesting if you're good with counter for managing MP but you already have Leaf Saber for that, in any case Lise would also provide a shield use meaning she could draw the aggro on her, which is especially interesting for ennemies that cast Magic as it's almost guaranteed that she will be the target so you could prepare for it as a result.

As for a team of Hawk and Lise well the easiest way would definitly to go Light Lise and Dark Hawk nothing can go wrong from having all Buff and Debuff then it's really up to you you can implement any character in it :

-Duran : If you go Vanadis with Lise then go Dark with Duran Swordmaster provide every Sabers, a good FST LV3 Tech and Energy Ball (can be good with a crit build Hawk), Duelist lack Moon and Light saber but provide Anti Magic and Aura Wave and arguably the strongest LV3 Tech in the game. If you go Star Lancer with Lise then Light Duran might be better, Paladin is a very good healer that has Anti-Magic and Magic Shield and later in the game has a very good AoE with Turn Undead, Lord would goes well with Star Lancer's Aura wave and his LV3 Tech could provide a good counter base strat with Hawk.

-Angela : Like Duran every classes would be good here however she almost force Lise to go Vanadis and either way you will not get Heal Light before the second class change, Grand Divina would bring the 6 main Sabers later in the game, she would be a good teammate for Vanadis as she having Heal Light and Tinkle Rain would free Vanadis from the healer role and her giving sabers would have a good synergy with Vanadis's Final Weapon and summons, can also pull off the Shield + Transshape combos with Lise, Arch Mage's spell damage are still very great as well as Anti-Magic and Aura wave, Rune Master's bring statut Effect quite good for Crowd Control and the 4 main Sabers good for Vanadis and exploit weakness in general and Magus get Lunatic and late game is potentially the best screen cleaner on top of having Dark Force to make use of the curse effect.

-Carlie : Light Carlie is best for me either Bishop or Sage, allow Lise to go Star Lancer or free Vanadis from healer role, Sabers in both case are good, either passive healing from Sage's final weapon or Mind Up + Magic Shield for Bishop for healing, one advantage of sage tough is being able to exploit Light and Dark weakness might be more appealing since you already have Hawk for Fire, Ice, Air and Earth. Dark Carlie mean Lise would have to go Vanadis to get Heal Light however since both Necromancer and Evil Shaman gives the 2 main Debuff (Power Down and Mind Down) this would allow you to go Light with Hawk and get either Rogue for a powerfull caster or Wanderer for all utility spell.

-Kevin : Light Kevin can be build as a good healer whou can put some punch, God Hand can boost healing power of either himself or Vanadis with Counter Magic, he can be good for a counter base strategy with Ninja Master, Warrior Monk can assist Light Lise for setting buff with Power Up and Mind Up and also have Leaf Saber for MP management. As for Dark Kevin I think Death Hand would definitly be better than Dervish, Death Hand is a very strong physical damage dealer who bring the Sabers and Lunatic, and potentially best character for LV3 tech user as he can ehance himself with Aura Wave, build his Tech Bar in no time thanks to Double Hit and his LV3 Teh as base boost which stack with Wolf Form, Saber, Power Up and Def Down.

Ok seems fair

What suggestions do you have about teams with one character per storyline? One with Duran as a main, one with Lise, and one with Carie or Kevin as main?

Honnestly there is just way to much team possible for me to list them all, so I would rather suggest to watch what each classes can do and choose what looks good to you as a general guide there is only 5 thing that I highly recommand to have for your teams to works these are :

-Protect Up : The most important buff in the game simply, outside of bosses (most of the time) physical is very dominant in mob fight, and even bosses have at least one powerfull physical attacks.

-Mind Up : Second most important buff very important for boss fight, as a lot of boss fight can cast powerfull spells you need to have a defense (Note : Magic Shield and Counter Magic gives the Defensive part of Mind Up which is the most important one).

-Power Down : Like Protect up very usefull in mob fight where physical attacks are dominant.

-Mind Down : Like Mind Up very important in boss fight where there's a lot of spells.

-Heal Light : I don't even think this hack would be even close to be doable without this spell (Has anyone seriously been insane enough to complete this mod without an heal light ? If so I would love to know how and with which team)

These are the 5 things that you should aim to have sooner or later when composing a team.

It's not doable without a healer, but it's very doable without Heal Light, given how powerful items become with the increased healing gear and how they're pretty much free by endgame.

It's just very inconvenient.

On Hard I have a hard time seeing how you can beat some dungeons and their boss with Items only, especially the long ass final bosses, maybe if you use Fenrir Knight's counter, Moon Saber or the Mad Beast's Ring intensivly but it really sound tedious as hell

I should have mentioned it before, I don't plan to play the more tedious difficulties, easy or normal difficulty is as far as I will go.

Hard really isn't as tedious as it sound, it's more like you need to know what you're doing to avoid having to grind like crazy, I actually never played the vanilla game or the lower difficulty of this hack and I enjoyed the mod for the most part, but fair enough well as a result I don't think buff/debuff is that important on Easy/Normal as for Heal Light while maybe not necessary it's such a quality of life improvment to have it that I still recommend getting it regardless ^^ 

Ok I decided on doing Hawk/Lise storyline, and so far I am in between:

Ninja Master, Vanadis, Magus, Duelist or Death Hand being a third pick

Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Sage

Rogue, Vanadis, Evil Shaman or Necromancer

Hm what do you guys think?

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.

I think for a physical focused team antimagic should be essential if I am not wrong (correct me here) so death hand may be out of window in that regard, and NM/Vanadis/Duelist works better in that regard, no energy ball for Ninja Master tho.

Ninja Master, Star Lancer and Sage look good too even tho it lacks antimagic but I may only buy some specters eye for certain bosses that need it anyway, they have more variety so I will just spam her magic I guess not too much elemental variety but it has leaf saber and has rainbow dust most of the time you still need to use antimagic for rainbow dust but I doubt at the same time that spell will be used a whole lot, looking back at the previous play with archmage.

Ninja Master, Vanadis, Grand Divina/Rune Master

Hmm dilemma dilemma, might as well just pick one of them at random haha.

Also I assume Vanadis final weapon effect only applies for Lise am I correct?

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.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

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.

It's been a long time since I played but from what I remember in that fight that to get rid of the furnace you would need to use gnome magic moreso than undine.

Xan Bie and the furnace have different weaknesses, one to undine, other to gnome.

I'm pretty sure the furnace has no weakness at all - you may just have fought the boss on gnome day.

24 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I'm pretty sure the furnace has no weakness at all - you may just have fought the boss on gnome day.

Oh ok I see, that makes sense.

Ok in the end I picked Hawk, Lise and Carlie. I think I will go with the more classic Ninja Mastet/Star Lancer/Bishop but we shall see.

Ok now that I finished Lise/Hawk storyline with the Ninja Master/Starlancer/Bishop team, time to go for the Dark Lich next. I might go with Warrior Monk, Dragon Master, Bishop.

Just finished my first play through with this mod!  I let a randomizer decide my characters and classes which felt like a mistake the further I got into the game.

Finished with 

Carlie: Bishop

Duran: Duelist

Lise: Dragon Master

Obviously I had a lot of overlapping skills there, and I felt pretty lacking in a lot of situations.  I want to do another playthrough with the 3 characters I did not play. Kevin, Angel and Hawk.  I was looking for some recommendations on class set up with these 3.

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.

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 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.

Wow this was a lot more detailed answer than I was expecting!  I appreciate it you two, I'm still undecided as you gave me lots of options but I guess I have until lv 18 to make my decision .I am leaning for the first team suggested but no anti magic on a physical team does have me a bit worried... but it would leave me with a much different feeling team than my previous game which is ultimately the goal.  When I get some more time on my hands Ill let you guys know how it goes ^^.  Currently only at the first boss with first pick angela, had to run back to town to restock on candy

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.

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.

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....

13 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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)

Sorry to disappoint you but enemies don't build tech bars, they treat them as spells and use them whenever they feel like it.

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?

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

1) Does Antimagic cancel Mispolm's self-status reflection spells like Stone Cloud?

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.

If you dare you can combine thorn armor, a petrify immunity ring and a stone cloud cast on your party to have most enemies commit suicide by "reflected" petrification.

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

2) Can sabers be cast on any boss for a saber/resist strategy, in particular the Jagan team, Bigieu, DSK, or the Black Rabite?

You can - though if you should is another matter; sabers still boost the damage of spells of their element so it may be more of a detriment depending on the boss.

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.

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

1) Does Antimagic cancel Mispolm's self-status reflection spells like Stone Cloud?

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.

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

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

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~)).

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

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

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.

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

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.

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).

33 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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~)).

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 ^^.

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).

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.

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.

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?

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).

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.

On 1/12/2020 at 4:55 PM, rpschamp said:

Does anyone know what determines the duration of Sleep Flower?

Sleep ends when taking damage or after a fixed amount of time - lag and the other usual culprits can extend that though.

17 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

On 1/12/2020 at 10:55 AM, rpschamp said:

Does anyone know what determines the duration of Sleep Flower?

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....)

26 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

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.

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.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

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....)

In vanilla it was (25-target's luck) times some amount of frames, the same value is used for half vanish for some reason which obviously makes that buff really useless at high levels.
Since I couldn't really separate those two instances at the time I just changed it to a constant value.
The caster isn't known anymore at the point where the effect starts so that was no option either.

The reflect physical routine only cares about the last spell used on you, it doesn't matter how long ago, it just needs to have been the last one.

55 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

The reflect physical routine only cares about the last spell used on you, it doesn't matter how long ago, it just needs to have been the last one.

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.

regular attacks don't count as spells so 3-6 are out.
it should be 1) but in typical SD3 fashion it might just be a coin flip every time between 1 and 2

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

On 1/11/2020 at 2:10 PM, Nesouk said:

-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.

FWIW the last Duran-Angela-Kevin party I went with was Lord, Warrior Monk, Archmage since I found that leaf saber from Warrior Monk was great for keeping everyone's MP topped off; I'm not sure if an Angela-focused party really "needs" another saber at all tbh. Plus, having 2 healers was useful in emergencies. Worked decently well but I'm sure it could be improved on!

I feel like a Swordmaster party is going to want light Kevin (probably as God Hand) since he can heal while still taking great advantage of the sabers. Carlie as a Bishop can also do a ton of damage with her final weapon, but then you have an overlap on all the elemental sabers which kind of defeats the purpose of going Swordmaster in the first place...I'm personally not a fan of going into Bucca Island without Heal Light, but Lise as Vanadise could also be an option and she also has stat magic.

If you really want Anti Magic in the team, Dragon Master seems like a strong choice from there as Lise is also a heavy hitter who also brings MT debuffs to the table. Alternatively you could go for one of Hawk's dark forms for an all-male party with Kevin healing, as Hawk also make good use of the sabers while still providing debuffs and spell support from his jutsus.

TLDR I think Swordmaster, God Hand, Dragon Master would be a decent party. Doesn't have much spellcasting power outside of Lise's summon but honestly I don't think it needs more than that. Throw sabers then power up on the team, MT def down enemies, and go ham!

Any suggestions on how I would allocate my stats for a team of the following?

Hawke/Ninja Master

-Focus on Agi/Vit/Pie

Lisa/Vanadise

-Focus on Pie/Lck/Vit

Duran/Duelist

-Focus on Str/Vit/Int

This is my first time playing SD3 and I installed the mod cause I'm always up for a challenge, but wasn't really sure if level ups in this game were like other ARPGs where you dump your level ups into like 3 stats and ignore the others. If anyone had any suggestions on this, it would be appreciated!

VIT is going to be important for everyone in any class. I try and shoot for 25-ish by endgame on most characters, maybe a little more for anyone who's going to be using a shield and a target for monster hate.

Ninja Master: Your main debuffer so you want him to have fast cast time and to unlock his all jutsus asap. That means PIE (also improves magic defense) and AGI (also improves jutsu damage, chance to hit, and attack speed) respectively.

Vanadise: Your healer and buffer, so again you want her to have fast cast times and a big Heal Light. That means INT for the former, then LUCK and/or PIE for the latter. PIE is probably more important, however, since it also boosts magic defense and unlocks her spells.

Duelist: This is where things get interesting imo. Ideally you want him to cast Anti-Magic and a saber on himself then go attack which means high INT (or a Sage Stone but that'll deplete all his MP with one cast) for cast speed. As a strong attacker class he needs STR and AGI for damage and accuracy in melee. Then everyone needs some VIT and PIE to stay alive. I'd probably stop investing in INT at 18 once he gets Aura Wave, then focus AGI and defensive stats for a while. You only really "need" Anti-Magic in 2 or 3 boss battles so you can bring a few MP-restoring items for those fights.

2 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

FWIW the last Duran-Angela-Kevin party I went with was Lord, Warrior Monk, Archmage since I found that leaf saber from Warrior Monk was great for keeping everyone's MP topped off; I'm not sure if an Angela-focused party really "needs" another saber at all tbh. Plus, having 2 healers was useful in emergencies. Worked decently well but I'm sure it could be improved on!

 

I feel like a Swordmaster party is going to want light Kevin (probably as God Hand) since he can heal while still taking great advantage of the sabers. Carlie as a Bishop can also do a ton of damage with her final weapon, but then you have an overlap on all the elemental sabers which kind of defeats the purpose of going Swordmaster in the first place...I'm personally not a fan of going into Bucca Island without Heal Light, but Lise as Vanadise could also be an option and she also has stat magic.

If you really want Anti Magic in the team, Dragon Master seems like a strong choice from there as Lise is also a heavy hitter who also brings MT debuffs to the table. Alternatively you could go for one of Hawk's dark forms for an all-male party with Kevin healing, as Hawk also make good use of the sabers while still providing debuffs and spell support from his jutsus.

TLDR I think Swordmaster, God Hand, Dragon Master would be a decent party. Doesn't have much spellcasting power outside of Lise's summon but honestly I don't think it needs more than that. Throw sabers then power up on the team, MT def down enemies, and go ham!

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.

23 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

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)

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.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

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.

Regarding Leaf Saber: The whole motivation for going with Warrior Monk on that playthrough is because I got frustrated relying on items for MP leech effects with an Angela-Duran-Hawk party  2 healers and a spell spammer with infinite mana makes bosses a lot easier when you're bad at this game like me. Do sabers affect spell damage as well? I was under the (likely incorrect) impression they only affected melee attacks.

Sage would definitely be better than Bishop for a Swordmaster party. I still think it'd be worse off than either of Kevin's light classes, but I do like the HP regen from the Sage's final weapon. Plus it would mean some badly-needed spell support and Mind Up.

Fair point on Dragon Master being better in a 1-saber party. Now that I think about it Arch Mage would probably be better as an Anti-Magic caster instead for spell support, Mind Down, and Power Down. And the elemental weakness damage bonus from her final weapon, as you said. Certainly seems more compelling than Wanderer to me.

Swordmaster, Warrior Monk, Nightblade seems like it would be a solid all-male team. Strong boss-fighting potential for sure.

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 ^^.

5 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Do sabers affect spell damage as well? I was under the (likely incorrect) impression they only affected melee attacks.

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).

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

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.

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%.

59 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

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).

It speaks volumes about the depth of the mechanics of this game and/or my own ignorance if I'm still learning things about it after all these years ^^

Given that sabers boost magic damage, Arch Mage with Swordsman seems like a great fit! Now what would make a good healer for this setup? Sage seems reasonable enough as discussed earlier. I still lean towards God Hand however. I also have to wonder if Vanadise would make sense; stat ups are always nice, even if not having Heal Light until second class change is kind of brutal.

1 minute ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

It speaks volumes about the depth of the mechanics of this game and/or my own ignorance if I'm still learning things about it after all these years ^^

this only applies to this mod, so you are excused

30 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

It speaks volumes about the depth of the mechanics of this game and/or my own ignorance if I'm still learning things about it after all these years ^^

Given that sabers boost magic damage, Arch Mage with Swordsman seems like a great fit! Now what would make a good healer for this setup? Sage seems reasonable enough as discussed earlier. I still lean towards God Hand however. I also have to wonder if Vanadise would make sense; stat ups are always nice, even if not having Heal Light until second class change is kind of brutal.

Vanadis is a good pick, but yeah you have to manage without Heal Light until LV43, so unless grinding up to Gildervine at least, that's indeed quite brutal but at least Arch Mage mean you get Sorceress has a middle class which IMO is the best middle class in the game access to Holy Ball makes the Ghost Ship very easy, Holy Ball also makes this goddamn Cockabird more manageable and then Evil Gate make Bucca Island Cave a lot more easy due to almost everything in this cave being weak to Darkness, this Cave is an Evil Gate spam with Sorceress, and after Bucca Island early access to the Curse upgrade which makes mob fight a lot more easy.

Alternativly tough you could replace Arch Mage by Dark Carlie's Evil Shaman you lose Spell damage and Aura Wave but Evil Shaman has Power Down, Mind Down (through Ghost Road and Demon Breath) and Anti Magic also has spell of each element that Swordmaster can boost except Dark but ST Only outside of Holy Ball, Ghost Road and Demon Breath but she has Transshape (for Transshape + Shield combo with Duran), Protect Up and Lunatic, then by picking up Light Kevin you can get Mind Up (either directly with Warrior Monk or through God Hand's Counter Magic to get the defensive part of it) as well as Power Up and have a healer.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

Vanadis is a good pick, but yeah you have to manage without Heal Light until LV43, so unless grinding up to Gildervine at least, that's indeed quite brutal but at least Arch Mage mean you get Sorceress has a middle class which IMO is the best middle class in the game access to Holy Ball makes the Ghost Ship very easy, Holy Ball also makes this goddamn Cockabird more manageable and then Evil Gate make Bucca Island Cave a lot more easy due to almost everything in this cave being weak to Darkness, this Cave is an Evil Gate spam with Sorceress, and after Bucca Island early access to the Curse upgrade which makes mob fight a lot more easy.

Alternativly tough you could replace Arch Mage by Dark Carlie's Evil Shaman you lose Spell damage and Aura Wave but Evil Shaman has Power Down, Mind Down (through Ghost Road and Demon Breath) and Anti Magic also has spell of each element that Swordmaster can boost except Dark but ST Only outside of Holy Ball, Ghost Road and Demon Breath but she has Transshape (for Transshape + Shield combo with Duran), Protect Up and Lunatic, then by picking up Light Kevin you can get Mind Up (either directly with Warrior Monk or through God Hand's Counter Magic to get the defensive part of it) as well as Power Up and have a healer.

I fully agree that Sorceress is the best middle class, and farming Bucca Island for ??? Seeds (which Sorceress makes super easy thanks to Evil Gate) really helps with the second class change. Replacing Arch Mage with Dark Carlie's Evil Shaman kind of defeats the purpose of Swordsman here right? Since the main idea of "Arch Mage's elemental spells with Swordsman's elemental sabers" sounds most intriguing of the ideas here so far. So that effectively means one of Vanadise, Sage, or a Light Kevin for healing.

All of these can get pretty easy access to Mind Up, though of course Sage and Vanadise don't need to use items to MT it. And everything but Vanadise means some slight overlap in sabers, but Vanadise means not getting Heal Light until really late as discussed...

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

this only applies to this mod, so you are excused

Hooray for me being exused!

2 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

I fully agree that Sorceress is the best middle class, and farming Bucca Island for ??? Seeds (which Sorceress makes super easy thanks to Evil Gate) really helps with the second class change. Replacing Lise with Carlie kind of defeats the purpose of Swordsman here right? Since the main idea of "Arch Mage's elemental spells with Swordsman's elemental sabers" sounds most intriguing of the ideas here so far. So that effectively means one of Vanadise, Sage, or a Light Kevin for healing.

All of these can get pretty easy access to Mind Up, though of course Sage and Vanadise don't need to use items to MT it. And everything but Vanadise means some slight overlap in sabers, but Vanadise means not getting Heal Light until really late as discussed...

Actually since last update Vanadis's buffs have become ST Only so you need Whitelight Ring to make her buff and Heal Light MT. As for Light Carlie defeating the purpose of Sword Master it depend which Light Carlie, Bishop defeat the purpose of Sword Master cause like him she get the 4 main saber MT by default and Saint Saber, so the only element left is Dark so no real reason to pick Sword Master if you have Bishop, Sage however get her Saber ST Only unlike Sword Master and since this the only reason you want Sage to have a Whitelight Ring, having Sword Master means Sage has no reason for Whitelight Ring and have an accessory slot free, since Sword Master take care of Sabers support she can do other thing cause unlike Sword Master her selection of spells allow her to do other task than Sabers, furthermore Sage has Saint Beam and Dark Force but not the corresponding Saber which Sword Master has so he boost her spells to ^^

Definitely made a bad typo and that "Lise defeats the purpose of Light Carlie" should have read "Replacing Arch Mage with Dark Carlie's Evil Shaman" - I've edited my post. My bad. I fully agree that Bishop and Swordmaster don't belong in the same party though.

I'd also forgotten that Vanadise is now ST buffs only since I never use the class tbh; Star Lancer just feels so much better most of the time I'm considering a Light Lise in a party.

With all that said and taken into consideration: Sage does seem appealing for a caster party since, as you said, she brings much more to the table than her sabers. Mind Up is always helpful and Life Booster is quite good too. No Def Up in the party might be problematic however, but I guess the same would be true with any party featuring a light Kevin instead!

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).

7 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Definitely made a bad typo and that "Lise defeats the purpose of Light Carlie" should have read "Replacing Arch Mage with Dark Carlie's Evil Shaman" - I've edited my post. My bad. I fully agree that Bishop and Swordmaster don't belong in the same party though.

I'd also forgotten that Vanadise is now ST buffs only since I never use the class tbh; Star Lancer just feels so much better most of the time I'm considering a Light Lise in a party.

With all that said and taken into consideration: Sage does seem appealing for a caster party since, as you said, she brings much more to the table than her sabers. Mind Up is always helpful and Life Booster is quite good too. No Def Up in the party might be problematic however, but I guess the same would be true with any party featuring a light Kevin instead!

Evil Shaman spells are also elemental so she also benefit from the Sword Master's Sabers, the difference being that she hit less harder than Arch Mage and her spell are ST only for the most part, however she get Protect Up, Transshape and Lunatic so between Arch Mage and Evil Shaman it's really a matter of losing some Raw Power for a little more utility, Evil Shaman also has a good Final Weapon that reduce ennemies stat even on boss independantly of buff (best benefit for bosses being reduce HP max by 12.5% which stack with Lunatic for a total of 30% HP Max reduction so a boss that has let say 10000HP Max will be reduce to 7000 just like that, to put even more on perspective with final boss Arch Demon has 31760 max HP so that would put him at 22232 almost 10000HP less so that's quite significant).

On 1/15/2020 at 11:54 PM, Nesouk said:

Evil Shaman spells are also elemental so she also benefit from the Sword Master's Sabers, the difference being that she hit less harder than Arch Mage and her spell are ST only for the most part, however she get Protect Up, Transshape and Lunatic so between Arch Mage and Evil Shaman it's really a matter of losing some Raw Power for a little more utility, Evil Shaman also has a good Final Weapon that reduce ennemies stat even on boss independantly of buff (best benefit for bosses being reduce HP max by 12.5% which stack with Lunatic for a total of 30% HP Max reduction so a boss that has let say 10000HP Max will be reduce to 7000 just like that, to put even more on perspective with final boss Arch Demon has 31760 max HP so that would put him at 22232 almost 10000HP less so that's quite significant).

Now, I do like Evil Shaman especially for that final weapon of hers - even if I didn't realize how significant the stat and health reduction can be on bosses. I honestly don't see the class as being a high-damage spell caster though. Even with the effect of Sabers she seems more of like a supportive caster to me but she's a great supporter; Demon Breath, Ghost Road, Protect Up, and Transshape give her a lot of utility as you said.

I honestly feel like Angela as a Rune Master might be a better way to do sabers with Evil Shaman - then you have 2 really strong spell casters who can both take advantage of elemental sabers for spellcasting purposes. Add on a healer with Mind Up (eg: either Light Kevin, though God Hand has to use buff invert armor and both need whitelight ring) and you should basically be good right? That does mean having to use the honestly-inferior Delvar instead of Sorceress for Angela's first class change, but Enchantress still brings Holy Ball and Monk is just good period so that seems like a fine party. Even if it completely misses the initial point of "a swordsman party" 

Evil Shaman is less focus on damage than Angela's classes but really her damage on Single Target by exploiting weakness is pretty good actually, add Mind Up and Saber she can bring good damage (but she indeed lack good nuking option), on top of doing the debuff and support I can definitly see her working with Swordmaster (Swordmaster, Evil Shaman and either Light Kevin or Vanadis could be a good team IMO), as an all she is more of a versatile caster, on the Dark Carlie side Necromancer is more suited for offense tough thanks to Black Rain and Half Vanish mainly and her Final Weapon which is quite good.

That being said currently I want to try a team with the Lord, I always end up picking Paladin when I go Light with Duran and always end up using as a pure support (until late game where Paladin get a solid nuking option with his Final Weapon and Turn Undead), so I see Lord as a more offensive option for Light Duran. I'm dead set on pairing Lord with Ninja Master, Ninja Master is a solid teammate for Lord, Lord get Energy Ball which combine with Ninja Master's Detect allow Crit build to be complete, Lord also get Life Booster which may come Handy but most importantly is Ninja Master and Lord ability to proc Counter endgame, as already mention Ninja Master can proc the counter with his Jutsu for any ennemy weak to it, meanwhile Lord can proc Counter with his LV2/3 Tech (on top of getting a bonus damage) with his Final Weapon, so for the ennemies that Ninja Master can't proc counter Lord allow to do it, so you can take full advantage of the Fireblaze in virtually any fight. So this 2 are a solid team together now the question is which would be the third member here are my guest for now :

-God Hand : This could be the best pick for a full counter party, there is no need for invert armor cause this team is fully about physical damage so Mind Up isn't needed and God Hand get the defensive part of it (as well as boosting Heal Light) with Counter Magic, he also has Life Booster so with Lord you get 2 Life Booster caster, Moon Saber could be really good in long fight, and most importantly his final weapon allow to extend the Counter window so with Ninja Master and Lord procing the counter this can be deadly also like Hawk he hit twice with his LV1 so these 2 with Fireblazes could be a deadly duo. Tough this team issue is it has 0 magical option, having only Ninja Master and God Hand's LV3 tech for AoE and no Anti Magic for monster resistant of immune to physical. (PS : Warrior Monk might be a good pick as well for a more support third member)

-Sage : Sage get Mind Up to complete the defense with Lord's Protect Up and Speed Up, no Power Up but she provide 4/6 Sabers to boost the physical damage and provide some much needed Magic Damage with Saint Beam and Dark Force, also get Life Booster so 2 Life Booster use with Lord (so much easier to set up during boss fights), Sage being one of the best healer in the game (with Heal Light and Passive healing) she completly free Lord to be build as a physical fighter (tech user build to Tech advantage of his final weapon). 

-Grand Divina : Might seems odd since that mean no Mind Up, but the lack of Mind Up is actually fairly easy to solve by farming Matango Oil which is a consumable available very early and can easily be farm in the Rabite Forest near Jad (there is even an area where the ennemies are stuck at LV2 (even after the other areas of the forest have been upscale to LV18), so you can easily farm them at that spot for easy Matango Oils). And so with Gran Divina you get the 6 Sabers at around the half of the game, the best middle class in the game for Ghost Ship and Bucca Island (and early access to Curse), a good nuker who can exploit all 6 elements, good old Transshape + Shield combo and a solid healer as well... this might actually be very interesting to play.

-Vanadis : Might be a decent pick as well for all buffs and Heal Light, would lack magic damage as only Freya would be able to provide it, but Freya has the annoying effect of halving EXP, and since Lord and Ninja Master doesn't have Saber Vanadis couldn't ehance it.

-Star Lancer : Seems more interesting than Vanadis, while she doesn't get Heal Light which mean Lord will have to be a healer, Star Lancer is the fastest caster in the game, she also bring Aura Wave which would be usefull with Lord's tech using, bring all the buff MT and Marduke's silence effect is always nice to have.

-Fenrir Knight : Need invert armor to get all buffs, otherwise Fenrir Knight might be an interesting Ninja Master and Lord grant her an easy access to Counter, which would allow to take full advantage of her Final Weapon for recovering HP and MP, Moon Saber and Transshape are also good support ability and Lamia Naga setting Sleep might have it's use.

21 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

there is even an area where the ennemies are stuck at LV2 (even after the other areas of the forest have been upscale to LV18), so you can easily farm them at that spot for easy Matango Oils).

Just as a warning/reminder, if you are significantly higher levelled than the monster the chance for rare items is cut drastically (1/8 of base chance).
So that might get frustrating as a farm.

Admitadly never farm that much so I didn't know that, so I suppose if you go without Mind Up and have to rely on an item like Matango Oil should farm as much as possible early on Jad Forest, then can farm it once returning at LV18, afterward once they start appearing on chest rulette you could aim to fight Kaiser Mimic they are a dangerous ennemy but they give Sahagin's Scale reliably and through the Chest Roulette there will always be at the same LV as you so this shouldn't be an issue to get them from it.

TBH I feel like Lord is more of a support class than Paladin, at least in the general case when not going for a counterattack party. Paladin gets FST and non-elemental Turn Undead with final weapon so Duran has a few nice attacks at end game. Lord when I pick him basically is "MTTR MTHL DefUp and SpeedUp" without much offensive upside. I'll admit that I haven't done any counter shenanigans using his final weapon however...I usually throw on a sword that uses PIE for damage calculation and call it a day.

If you want to go all-in on a counter strategy I feel like Fenrir Knight or God Hand are the most attractive options of the bunch listed here. Fenrir seems really interesting TBH - the buff overlap with Lord kind of sucks but between her final weapon counters and moon saber you probably won't need to heal too often. God Hand feels like it'll be less all-in on countering and jutsu->FST seems like a reasonable way to damage a screen full of enemies, plus he still has moon saber and power up. 

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm now giving an Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk, Rune Master party a whirl on Carlie's quest. Should make great use of those elemental sabers!

Funny cause for me Paladin feel more like a suppport/tank, with Magic Shield and an external Mind Up he can get Heal Light almost as strong as Bishop's combine with Protect Earring and weapon that increase Heal Light and item recovery, Magic Shield and Protect Up get all the defense you need on top of him being a Shield user to grow aggro IMO just invest in nothing but VIT, INT and PIE and you are set these are the only stats he need and you get yourself a character that is quite hard to kill, heal suprisingly well and cast his spell reasonnably fast, end game I just switch between his final weapon for Turn Undead spam against mob fight and the few bosses where I need magic damage (Xian Bhe's Furnace and Zable Fahr right head mainly) and for most boss fight he raise the defenses, use Anti Magic if needed, eat the ennemy's spells with the Shield that increase his magic defense and is just an heal bot ^^.

I think I'm gonna try Ninja Master, Lord and Sage seems like the safest way for me ^^

I'll need to try a more supportive tank Paladin build at some point, that sounds fun.

Maybe I'll use the newfound knowledge of sabres affecting spells to try and get a strong Saint Beam party going...Paladin Archmage Sage actually sounds half decent! I'm not sure if it needs the improved Anti Magic of Dragon master since not many enemies have Holy resistance right?

Right and the one that are resistant are generally easy to spot on (mainly the Poto, Pakkun and Grell line of ennemy as well as most ennemy that can use Heal Light like Silver Knight and Silver Wolf), for these ennemies you could either use Anti Magic to remove their resistance or use the armors that make the elemental spells ignore Resistance and Weaknesses, cause even with this type of armor the elemental spells still get a boost in damage from the Sabers and Days, tough if you play Paladin with Arch Mage and Sage you have these ennemies weaknesses cover as well and Turn Undead with Paladin's Final Weapon is still very strong.

That's true, Sage can do elemental sabers on Archmage in a worst case. Plus both of them also get Dark Force which tears the few holy enemies in game to pieces.

With that said, it of feels like a "lazier" version of the party I'm currently running (Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk, Rune Master) in that it would mostly be reliant on Saint Beam spam instead of picking the right element for the job. Plus no Lunatic or Evil Shaman final weapon means bosses will take a longer. Might be nice as a beginner caster party since it seems pretty forgiving though.

IMO Beginner caster would be Dragon Master, Magus, Bishop get all the Sabers from Bishop, all buff except Speed Up, all debuff (including Lunatic) once you get Lise's final weapon you can make ennemies that has weakness weak to everything, just do this cast the Saber of corresponding day with Bishop and nuke with Magus (also Profit of Mind Up + Magic Shield on Bishop for insane healing), or if you just want to say "screw this" just LVUP Magus and spam the Deathspell for guaranteed 999 damage every cast  

That's a fair point on deathspell "spam" (idk if I'd really call it spammable at a whopping 20MP cost) being the ultimate ez modo caster setup. Nice all-female team too.

I hit the first class change for my Evil Shaman-Warrior Monk-Rune Master playthrough and there's a very small part of me that wonders if I should have made Angela a Grand Divina instead...I forget how long level 2 spells take to cast at lower levels and the Divina still gets sabers, albiet much later than the Rune Master. It's a good reminder to me to pump Angela's AGI later on. Definitely before she gets to MT LV3 spells.

If you pump her AGI reasonnably the cast time for LV2 is fine, in any case Delvar should keep casting LV1 spell for Nuking mob, her LV2 Spells are more for bosses or when you have particulary annoying mob that you want to get rid off ASAP, one advantage of the Delvar over Sorceress is since all of her spell are base on INT you can ignore PIE and focus on her INT to reach her max damage potential sooner than Sorceress, in fact over my playthroughs on Hard for Base and Second class I find it better to focus on the offensive stats (STR for physical fighter, INT and/or PIE for caster) to deal as much as possible, then for caster (Angela and Carlie (Duran and Lise are mostly support on their second classes so you can just equip them with Sage Stone to just negate the cast time, Hawk's spell I found them to come off fast enough without the need to invest in PIE and Kevin doesn't need to cast in his Second class (Heal Light is just not good to cast in battle early on and you don't get Power Up until Salamando at which point you should be really close to the Final Class (if not already have them) and his Bashkar Class simply doesn't have spells to cast ^^)) invest in the stat that reduce casttime and only then invest in the defensive stat, since the Final class will start with the max stats of the Secondary class and I find that you don't keep the Secondary Class long enough for the lack of VIT and PIE to be truly significant so I just prefer focus on increasing my damage.

Also for Death Spell just Rune Earrings and keep a healer around ^^

By the way got the Second change for my Ninja Master, Lord and Sage really nothing to say about the early at that point up to the first class change I just do the same thing regardless of the team, I notice people have trouble with the early game of this mod, took me a long time to figure a good routing but for those interest here you go :

-Stat wise focus on STR regardless of the character (yes even for Angela and Carlie you need Strength early on for FMH)
-After getting the Fairy just farm the Rabites for 5 or 6 Matango Oils (depending of if you pick Carlie as a third or not)
-At Wendel sell any unecessary item (Coins for instance) buy the Second armor and Second Weapon for everyone, for Duran, Hawk or Lise buy the helm that increase Attack power, for Kevin, Carlie and Angela buy the helm that increase defenses (the reason we buy this one for Kevin is because he is naturally weak to Light so he need a lot of defense to survive FMH's Holy Ball), and as much Puipui Grass and Round Drop as you can
-For FMH (should be LV7-8) the hardest thing is you need to outdamage his Healing which can be tricky, I found however that if you keep moving mos of the time FMH will keep moving to and take more time to initiate his actions, so less healing to outdamage, the Matango Oils Defensive Mind Up Effect makes everything survivable, just be sure to keep at least 2 character alive so that he keep casting Holy Ball MT (25% damage reduction) and keep your HP high for his Dive Attack and it should be easy.
-Now for Carlie and Angela you can start focusing on INT or PIE to boost her spells
-At Jad just farm 4-5 Moon Coins (should be enough for until Gorva), Bound Wolf is the only monster that can appear here so the game is basically beggin you to farm these
-At Wendel buy 2 Leather Gauntlets for Kevin, Duran, Hawk or Lise no accessory for Angela and Carlie.
-The 2 Machine Golem fight is just a glorified mobs fight nothing special here, they are particulary easy to counter tough.
-At Dwarf Village buy the weapons that cost 200 Luc (less powerfull that the other one but less expensive, better Hit Rate and Faster Cooldown) for physical fighter, 6 Beastman Collars, Crystal Rings for caster and Steel Gauntlet for Fighters (probably won't have enough at first I suggest just buying the Beastman Collars and doing one full trip in Dwarf Caves (until just before Jewel Eater) then come back to buy the rest before Jewel Eater)
-Farm 3 Bulette Scales from Ogre Boxes.
-For Jewel Eater (should be LV13-14) try to enter his fight on Salamando's Day to get a bonus damage from the Steel Gauntlet (also for strengthen Fireball is you have Angela) use Bulette Scales and Matango Oils and you should be safe from his attacks, use a Moon Coin to make the fight shorter, his Speed Down is basically harmless here also if you have her I suggest to ignore Carlie for this fight her weakness to earth makes her hard to keep alive.
-Then there is nothing special until Tzenker just get the Armor that cover weaknesses at Byzel and Petrify Protection for these damn cockabirds, and farm Molebear's Claws near Forcena for Tzenker.

Here you go now for how Ninja, Knight and Priestess perform the mid game :

-Tzenker with Ninja's Shuriken, Priestess's Holy Ball, Moon Coin and Molebear's Claw on Gnome's Day didn't even last 2 minutes no joke
-Genova was tougher him Powering Up his mobs and making the game lag preventing us for opening the menu is really what kills us, on top of doing Protect Down and Mind Down, this is a really clunky fight, I just throw a Moon Coin and Thunder Jutsu on him, then spam MT Holy Ball with Carlie and focus on Genova with Hawk throwing Stardust Herbs when he cast Protect Down and Mind Down and just pray for the best.
-Bill and Ben : Tough fight here I just ignore Carlie spell caster are just bad for this fight so I let them kill her, I use my remaining Bulette's Scales and Bird Scales to get Protect Up and Speed Up, cast Earth Jutsu to reduce their Hit Rate and hope my character evade as much as possible, using Bird and Bulette Scale I have left to counter their Earth and Thunder Jutsus and keep my HP high in case of Shadow Dive.
-For the Ghost Ship I pick Carlie and Hawk buy the weapon that fill tech Bar faster I really try to counter as much as possible with Hawk thanks to this weapon one swing get him his LV1 tech, Ghost Ship is Priestess's time to shine almost everything here is weak to Holy, so Holy Ball is absolutly great here, same for Gorva just Moon Coin him, Earth and Thunder Jutsu then spam Holy Ball with Carlie and hitting him when I can with Hawk I even manage to kill him before Deathspell this time ^^
-For Seashore Cave surprisingly this goes very well Priestess's Holy Ball is useless cause most mob absorb Holy, but her Sabers give a good buff to Duran and Hawk for Physical Damage if use on the corresponding day, using Protect Up with Whitelight Ring with Duran for staying alive, and that was easier than expected.
-Grind for ??? Seed on Papa Poto on the first area of Subzero Field, got a terrible luck with ??? Seed items, got the one for Lord and Ninja Master fairly fast but goddamn the Bottle of Salt just wasn't showing up after like 50 attempts I just give up, the good thing is that gave me a lot of money (over 30k), decide to do the Sub Zero Field first this isn't to hard just the Mage type of ennemy can be trolly.
-For the Machine Golem soloing them is really the best strat for this fight IMO, Hawk is really good for that due to how Slow they are they are very to Counter as a result they are probably easiest fight to use Fireblaze, buffing Hawk with Carlie's Thunder Saber, Duran's Protect Up, Matango Oil and a Drake's Scale then using 1 Bulleye Die (for instant MT Fire Jutsu) and 1 Nighteye Die (For instant MT Thunder Jutsu) and just doing an hit and run strat very easy fight as long we are cautious. Getting Undine first allow to get Water Jutsu for the Power Down debuff which trust makes Bill and Ben significantly easier.
-Bill and Ben 2, they hit a lot harder than before but more tool for us, MT Protect Up with Duran (Whitelight Ring), Bird's Scale and Saber from Priestess then Water and Earth Jutsu on them (have to use Magic Walnut to chain the Jutsus on both of them with Hawk) and the fight became a lot safer, tough they can still troll if we get a bad RNG on the evasion side, if both of them focus one character then can melt his HP very fast if he doesn't evade enough, like the first time tough I just ignore Carlie for this fight once she set the saber I just don't care for her, I just make sure to resurrect her before killing the last one so that she doesn't get the death penalty.

And I just got my second class change and stop there for now, so Knight, Ninja and Priestess are overall pretty solid for the mid game, Duran is quite tanky and deal good damage and his Protect Up is valuable at this point, Priestess's Sabers really help for the offensive and the occasionnal Holy Ball for nuking if needed, Hawk's jutsu being ST only they aren't very good for mob but they are usefull for Bosses and once his strength increase a bit Hawk is a solid fighter.

For now I'm gonna play Lord as a Tech user his LV3 looks quite strong single target damage, I will keep focusing on Debuffing and Counter with Ninja Master and Sage is mostly a support for now.

46 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

-Grind for ??? Seed on Papa Poto on the first area of Subzero Field, got a terrible luck with ??? Seed items, got the one for Lord and Ninja Master fairly fast but goddamn the Bottle of Salt just wasn't showing up after like 50 attempts I just give up, the good thing is that gave me a lot of money (over 30k), decide to do the Sub Zero Field first this isn't to hard just the Mage type of ennemy can be trolly.

And that's why the 2nd desert town sells the items; like 5-6 seeds should be enough. out of the possible 6 items you need 3 so the first planting has a 1/2 chance to give you the right one, getting the second item is then 1/3 and the last 1/6. So you should be quite likely to get 2 with 5-6 seeds then sell the 3-4 wrong items and buy the missing from that money.

13 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

And that's why the 2nd desert town sells the items; like 5-6 seeds should be enough. out of the possible 6 items you need 3 so the first planting has a 1/2 chance to give you the right one, getting the second item is then 1/3 and the last 1/6. So you should be quite likely to get 2 with 5-6 seeds then sell the 3-4 wrong items and buy the missing from that money.

Yeah forget to precise I end up buying the last one at the desert town, tough generally I get the 3 with ??? Seeds, this time was an exceptionnal case of bad luck never had such a bad RNG on class change items ^^

I will say that my Delvar definitely maxed out on damage faster than Sorceress; pumping INT, AGI, and LCK first means she was able to pump out 200-ish level 1 AOE damage through bucca island even without Evil Gate. I'm a big fan of Monk as well (Kevin in the early game pumps out silly amounts of damage) and any Holy Ball caster helps out a ton with the annoying Gorva. I'm now right around the corner from second class change after really taking my time to get there - life's been busy and I haven't had much play time!

Currently for my run after this I want to do a playthrough with a light Hawk, since I somehow haven't yet used either of his light forms in this rom hack yet. Kind of leaning towards Wanderer since Half Vanish spam seems like a lazy way to quickly chip away at a boss. Which appeals to me 

I'm debating between 2 parties atm but I totally appreciate other suggestions:

1) Wanderer, Bishop, Fenrir Knight. More of an attacker party with Wanderer providing support. We don't need empowered anti magic since Bishop has all elemental sabers and saint saber, plus she does a lot of melee damage with her final weapon. FK is a mana battery in long fights with her final weapon and her summon puts whole screens to sleep (though I guess Sleep Flower kind of does the same thing but without any damage). We've got Def Up, Mind Up, Magic Shield, and all debuffs...but no Speed Up - I'm not sure if that's a problem for Wanderer at and game or if he can hit the cast speed threshold without Speed Up for maximum Half Vanish spam. 

2) Wanderer, Lord, Necromancer. More caster focused than the top party but the Lord is a reasonably decent melee combatant with a PIE-based weapon. This party has Speed Up which again might be important, but we do lose out on elemental sabers (dark saber is way less useful than a full elemental saber package, of course). Necro can still do elemental spells with her summons and they should hit pretty hard with Black Curse, Mind Up, and her final weapon. Plus she's a backup Tinkle Rain caster. Doesn't have the mana restore from a countering Fenrir Knight, but Tree Spirit rings and Poison Bubble exist.

It's worth noting that neither party has access to a FST so the Aura Wave from Wanderer isn't particularly well utilized. I don't see any particularly glaring weaknesses otherwise but I might have missed something obvious!

Actually why not mix both of your party suggestion ? ^^

-Wanderer, Lord and Fenrir Knight : With Wanderer having access to Aura Wave he can complement well the Lord giving him access to his LV2/3 Tech faster, then with his Final Weapon Lord can proc the counter state for Fenrir Knight to restore HP and MP or Wanderer to apply Fireblaze, on top of that the Fenrir Knight has Moon Saber and Wanderer has Anti Magic so you can use that to heal, you also have 2 Transshape user, 2 Life Booster user and 2 Shield Users so that's nice no elemental Saber tough.

Honestly, I briefly thought about it since Lord + FK is a party mix I've been wanting to try out for counterattack shenanigans. 

My big gripe with this party though is it won't have any AoE spells after first class change and needs to wait until Whitelight Rings at the absolute earliest, which is kind of annoying. Ranger at least has Spikes for Tzenker, but no holy balls for Gorva might be rough.

I'll agree that jt looks neat at end game but the group might struggle before the 2nd class change. And even then it doesn't really pick up until getting final weapons on everyone. So I'm a little hesitant on it.

For Gorva when I was running Duran, Kevin and Hawk what I found the accessories that makes weapon elemental to be usefull when you don't have a solid spell caster (Hawk can work tough with either Shuriken or Arrow), you can pick up an accessory that make your physical attack elemental (Dwarf Village sells the one that make Element Fire and is quite cheap, the Merchant on the Ghost Ship sells the one that make element Wind), make sure to go on the Ship on the corresponding day of this accessory and your physical fighter will be able to do some decent damage against Gorva (especially if you debuff his defense), the main point is since you will have to use Stardust Herb to cancel Black Curse, Buffs and Sabers spell are useless but this accessories gives you element regardless of Stardust so you get a bonus damage from it, combine with Speed Down and physical fighter can actually perform reasonnably on this fight.

The ideal for mid game if you don't have AoE spells is to be good at Counter, try to regroup the mobs in one place and use a LV1 Tech to hit them all it is quite effective ^^, for Bucca Island maybe the Bunny Egg accessory from Dwarf Village could be usefull for physical fighter, never tried myself but since it give Shadow Element to your physical attack and most ennemies in Seashore Cave are weak to Dark this might be worth a try. Also casting Protect Up with Knight is definitly something to do, debuffing Speed is good on mob fight since they use a lot of physical.

Anyway continuing my Lord, Ninja Master and Sage playthrough currently reach the God Beast :

-Lugar : Did it without Anti Magic Fireblaze doesn't seem to work here, clearly was landing counter but the damage didn't seem to increase. So had to rely on Sage's Saint Beam for Damage with Hawk and Duran distracting him, long fight but not tough.

-Gildervine : This team destroy him, Flame Saber on Salamando's Day and the Fireblaze accessory make short work of him, Spike Armor allow to deal with the mob, and Dragon Shield on Duran makes him immune to Sleep and constantly grow his agggro, thank to the Fireblaze I was hitting for 150 per hits with both Hawk and Duran, Magic Circle doing over 600 damage so he didn't last for long.

Also got the Final Weapons, found you can actually get them before even the first God Beast all you have to do is wear 6 Earth Bracelet and you can found monsters over LV60 (62 to be more precise), Mispolm's area is good for that as quite a lot of mobs here can drop W/A Seeds, these make the fight a lot tougher (and also give you a shit ton of EXP like I was getting nearly 50k per mob at the beginning XD) but with Spike Armor and by being cautious it's doable.

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Lugar : Did it without Anti Magic Fireblaze doesn't seem to work here

it might be that his physical resistance would cause the difference between before and after reduction to be rounded down to the same effective value for the damage calculation - the minimum effect of fireblaze is -1 def (well until you hit 0 def), so it never works not at all

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Gildervine : This team destroy him, Flame Saber on Salamando's Day and the Fireblaze accessory make short work of him, Spike Armor allow to deal with the mob, and Dragon Shield on Duran makes him immune to Sleep and constantly grow his agggro, thank to the Fireblaze I was hitting for 150 per hits with both Hawk and Duran, Magic Circle doing over 600 damage so he didn't last for long.

it is no secret that I dislike this boss in all aspects, so maybe by "accident" he became weak to physial and fire - no surprises here

I feel Lord really gonna be interesting to play for counter base strategy as far as I tested there is to way to profit from his Final Weapon :

-You set him and the character you want to counter (in my case Hawk) on "don't use tech" setting, take control of character you want to counter, constantly check if Duran has his LV2/3 ready, when that's the case and your character is ready to throw his LV1 quickly switch to Duran for casting his LV2/3 then use your LV1 on the target.

-Take control of Duran, set your counter on "Using his LV1 Tech", when you can initiate the LV2/3 wait for the other character to have enough tech point or his LV1, as soon as he get access to LV1 throw the LV2/3 with Duran and let the CPU do the counter.

Really like that as you have to pay attention to use this weapon efficiently, this is gonna be fun, I think maybe I should buy for Hawk the weapon that increase Counter Damage when facing bosses where Hawk can't exploit weakness could give some interesting result.

54 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

I feel Lord really gonna be interesting to play for counter base strategy as far as I tested there is to way to profit from his Final Weapon :

-You set him and the character you want to counter (in my case Hawk) on "don't use tech" setting, take control of character you want to counter, constantly check if Duran has his LV2/3 ready, when that's the case and your character is ready to throw his LV1 quickly switch to Duran for casting his LV2/3 then use your LV1 on the target.

-Take control of Duran, set your counter on "Using his LV1 Tech", when you can initiate the LV2/3 wait for the other character to have enough tech point or his LV1, as soon as he get access to LV1 throw the LV2/3 with Duran and let the CPU do the counter.

Really like that as you have to pay attention to use this weapon efficiently, this is gonna be fun, I think maybe I should buy for Hawk the weapon that increase Counter Damage when facing bosses where Hawk can't exploit weakness could give some interesting result.

Sounds like a lot of micromanagement to me personally  since I'm lazy I'll probably just have the AI use Duran and cast lv2 tech whenever it's ready, manually control Lise as FK to time counters more effectively, then have Wanderer casting in the background as much as possible in the meantime. Admittedly the Half-Vanish spam is still going to be micromanage-y with this setup however...

You know what maybe I'll wind up just doing Necromancer instead of FK after all!

10 hours ago, Nesouk said:

For Gorva when I was running Duran, Kevin and Hawk what I found the accessories that makes weapon elemental to be usefull when you don't have a solid spell caster (Hawk can work tough with either Shuriken or Arrow), you can pick up an accessory that make your physical attack elemental (Dwarf Village sells the one that make Element Fire and is quite cheap, the Merchant on the Ghost Ship sells the one that make element Wind), make sure to go on the Ship on the corresponding day of this accessory and your physical fighter will be able to do some decent damage against Gorva (especially if you debuff his defense), the main point is since you will have to use Stardust Herb to cancel Black Curse, Buffs and Sabers spell are useless but this accessories gives you element regardless of Stardust so you get a bonus damage from it, combine with Speed Down and physical fighter can actually perform reasonnably on this fight.

The ideal for mid game if you don't have AoE spells is to be good at Counter, try to regroup the mobs in one place and use a LV1 Tech to hit them all it is quite effective ^^, for Bucca Island maybe the Bunny Egg accessory from Dwarf Village could be usefull for physical fighter, never tried myself but since it give Shadow Element to your physical attack and most ennemies in Seashore Cave are weak to Dark this might be worth a try. Also casting Protect Up with Knight is definitly something to do, debuffing Speed is good on mob fight since they use a lot of physical.

Changing weapon element for Gorva is a good idea, in the case where one has to rely heavily on physical attackers for the fight. And yeah cancelling the black curse he does is a key part of the fight in any party IMHO! That's a good point about Bunny Egg for Bucca Island, I honestly forgot is existed...methinks I'll have to make use of that in my next playthrough.

I like micromanaging I think it's fun.

On that note I found 2 interesting thing about Sage's Final Weapon :

1-The regen effect isn't active while Carlie is casting so that's unfortunate but whatever.

2-This one is huge there is a glitch with Xian Bhe, I'm pretty sure Sage's final weapon regen effect is the cause (might work with Mad Beast Ring if so), for some reason the regen effect completly reverse his gimmick what I mean by that is when Carlie isn't casting and the regen effect is active instead of decreasing our Max HP his attacks increase our Max HP, I litteraly got to 999 Max HP with everyone by the end of the fight, as a result due to his low damage Xian Bhe is turn into a completly free fight  
EDIT : After testing the Xian Bhe cheese only happen if you have Sage's Final Weapon and the Life Booster buff.

nah, this got nothing to do with the life regen ring.

the thing is that certain actions - like getting hit by spells - cause stats to be recalculated.
so you get hit, maxHP drops to current HP then maxHP gets increased by 25%. you just hit the treshold where the damage intake is less than the 25% bonus.

also for the same reason I did not give him a maxHP debuff as an attack; that would rip through your HP pool in seconds.
800 maxHP with debuff set, take 1 damage -> 599 maxHP, take another 1 damage -> 448 maxHP

Gildervine dead in my Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk, Runemaster game. Smooth sailing so far...Bill And Ben were somewhat challenging (mostly because I'm a dummy and forgot casting on them was a bad idea) but everything else has been smooth sailing.

Thought about it a while longer and I think I'd rather go dark Duran instead of light Hawk for next run. Been doing a lot of caster parties recently. So with that in mind I'm now planning Duelist, Bishop, and Ninja Master. 

Duran is mostly going to use anti magic and aura wave (maybe leaf saver on Carlie at times) so the overlap on sabers isn't a big deal. Bishop turns into another strong attacker at end game, plus she has magic shield and def up in addition to magic support if needed. Dark Hawk does the usual dark Hawk thing of jutsus - Ninja Master means better AoE, which this party needs, and easier counter enabling for Fireblaze on bosses.

The group lacks power up but it does have sabers instead. It also lacks Lunatic so bosses may take a little longer than my current team. The play style seems super straightforwards though.

Actually I wonder if a team with both Duelist and Nightblade to good LV3 Tech User.

Anyway beat my archnemesis on this mod Dolan, I must say with Lord and Ninja Master this was actually fun to do, opt for a strat that require some Micromanagement but turn this fight into a more fun one, I decided to use my Eyes item to quickly debuff him instead of casting each Jutsus one at a time got a deathless fight :

-Lord : With Shield he is guaranteed to be hit by Dolan's physical and Half Vanish, actually with a Shield User the armor that increase HP is good in this fight goes Dolan regular almost always crit for 500 damage in my case so HP Armor, the Shield that increase physical defense with the usual buff/debuff guaranteed Duran will survive the regular attack even with the Max HP down (Life Booster is just to troublesome to keep active in this fight). Duran also set Energy Ball on Hawk and deal good damage with his LV3 Tech thanks to his final weapon and the helm that boost LV2/3 tech (around 287 at the beginning of the fight did go up to nearly 400 by the end of the fight thanks to Fireblaze) with Mistscreen Charm for getting his tech faster.

-Ninja Master : Equipped him with the Fireblaze, Mistscreen Charm and Dancing Dagger (boost Counter Damage), I actually decide to put his IA on using LV1 Tech with the opening Duran open with his Final Weapon and when the AI happen to land counter on herself (plus the AI sometime cast the LV1 tech 2 times in the row AND sometime cast LV1 tech even when his gauge is fill enough for the LV2 damn the Computer is a Cheap Bastard and for once it works to our advantage XD), and so Hawk can deal some impressive damage (he almost reach the 100 per hit with Counter by the end of the fight) on top of reducing Dolan's defense with Fireblaze.

The micromanagement is at the end of the second part of his pattern when Dolan cast Energy Ball + Body Change then Half Vanish + Spiral Moon after dispelling Energy Ball with Duran I quickly switch to Hawk, reason is the next part of his AI after Spiral Moon is Energy Ball then immediatly guard, the lack of Aura Wave and the fact he hit only one time make it really for Duran to get his LV2 tech before the Guard, thanks to hitting twice Ninja Master can reach it in no time, so for this part of the AI I switch to Hawk to deal with Energy Ball then come back to Duran and proceed normally. OH And Sage is really just here to spam Heal Light she got nothing else to do in this fight ^^

Nightblade is definitely the better boss fighter and double T3 spam with Aura Wave could be fun. I feel like this group is going to need the MT jutsus from Ninja Master more though since its spell support is otherwise pretty lacking. Plus, there's the potential option of giving Duelist the Fireblaze as Ninja Master hits elemental weaknesses with his final weapon to help this team pump out more damage.

I've got time to think about it for sure.

4 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Anyway beat my archnemesis on this mod Dolan,

did you notice any improvement with him in the current version compared to earlier versions?

4 hours ago, Nesouk said:

reason is the next part of his AI after Spiral Moon is Energy Ball then immediatly guard

he doesn't guard, he only has a guard pose - as reaction to reaching the aggro threshold.
once again - where other bosses answer with a spell when they get hit enough, Dolan just takes a moment to pose which does nothing but give you a bit more time to cancel his gimmick.

55 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

he doesn't guard, he only has a guard pose - as reaction to reaching the aggro threshold.
once again - where other bosses answer with a spell when they get hit enough, Dolan just takes a moment to pose which does nothing but give you a bit more time to cancel his gimmick.

No the one you talk about is the fake guard which he does when you hit his Revenge Value, but he does have a real guard, he use the Real Guard directly after using Energy Ball in the third part of his pattern, and you can't imagine how that can be frustrating when he does it and you have a bad RNG, your hit doesn't connect and you don't have enough Tech Point to cancel the Energy Ball before he put himself in guard, cause as soon as he goes out of his guard he cast Spiral Moon in other words if you don't have enough Tech Point before he put himself in the Guard Stance you are pretty much dead.

Well exemple are better than talk, so here is my old video of Dolan :

https://youtu.be/Mkk51MeBbXw?list=PLu3lFfLxm77agUXNBzlLxMh5tpq2JTJ6y

The part of his pattern I'm talking about start at 6:21 you can see he uses Spiral Moon, then at 6:44 he uses Energy Ball and directly put himself in guard and this is a true gard you can see none of my hit connect, and it has the sound effect indicating he is defending, his Defense effect last even a short while after his sprite is no longuer in guard stance, then after the guard he almost directly cast Spiral Moon. 

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

did you notice any improvement with him in the current version compared to earlier versions?

I honnestly didn't notice any difference, still the good old Dolan, still can randomly die cause the game refuses to load your LV2/3 tech sometime  . Was he suppose to have something different ?

5 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

I honnestly didn't notice any difference, still the good old Dolan, still can randomly die cause the game refuses to load your LV2/3 tech sometime  . Was he suppose to have something different ?

one part of the AI was changed from
energy ball - body change - wait - spiral moon
to
energy ball - wait - wait - spiral moon

6 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

No the one you talk about is the fake guard which he does when you hit his Revenge Value, but he does have a real guard, he use the Real Guard directly after using Energy Ball in the third part of his pattern

oh, that one... never mind then >.>

I tried the Hawk/Angela/Carlie team up to the God Beasts and decided I wasn't a fan. Having three casters clogs up the action and leaves you vulnerable; until everyone can cast quickly, it forces you to leave a character open, limiting his/her potential as a caster and defeating the purpose. Also, the lack of a shield to protect your casters made some parts of the game much more difficult than I thought it would. It was worth a shot, but for now I'd like to try something more balanced.

So, I've decided to go with Duran/Angela/Carlie instead. I want to keep the concept of a magic-focus team, and Duran (especially dark Duran) seems like a good compromise between the physical damage of Hawk and the defensive tactics of Lise. I would love to run Duelist here; his tech damage should be able to compete with anything Hawk can put out.

So far I'm thinking:

1) Duelist, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman

For random enemies, Duelist will distract with a shield while charging his level 2/3 techs, Grand Divina will bomb and heal, and Evil Shaman will debuff and bomb. Angela and Carlie can both help Duran with Transshape to limit his melee damage and Sleep Flower (I think this should work nicely with reflect armor and Dragon Shield/Wind God Bracelet), while Duran can help Angela and Carlie with Leaf Saber. Duelist's final tech should be great with a shield, due to the proximity damage. For bosses, I'll need Sahagin's Scales (and to a lesser extent, Drake's Scales). Evil Shaman might be interesting to spec as a battle mage, sacrificing intelligence for strength, and just rely on Leaf Saber or Tree Spirit Rings to keep her MP up; this would let her contribute more in fights against bosses with maxed out magical defense.

2) Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer

What a beautiful balance of spells: six sabers provided across three characters, Heal Light and Tinkle Rain provided across two characters, all debuffs in one spell, and the two major defensive buffs. No repeats! I lose physical damage giving up Duelist, but gain some back with Necromancer's Black Rain. Paladin loses some healing power to Grand Divina, but the heal buff from Magic Shield might more than make up for that. I would also get Heal Light and Protect Up after the first class change. I'm not quite sure how to spec Paladin here: it seems he should need intelligence for his cast speed and his final weapon, but he'll need to keep his strength and agility up so he can provide physical damage when necessary; maybe a balanced growth with more into strength and less into luck would be best.

Feel free to offer comments or suggestions!

This one could work to :

-Paladin, Arch Mage, Sage : Sage and Paladin cover Mind Up and Protect Up, Paladin also has Magic Shield to strengthen Carlie's Heal Light, they are both great healer having 2 Healer can actually be usefull in some situation, or you are free to play one or the other more offensively, Paladin can do pretty good physical damage and FST LV3 (which Arch Mage can help with Aura Wave) or serious AoE Neural damage with Turn Undead and he is a really good tank, Sage can assist Arch Mage for more magical damage, also this team get the 5 out 6 main Sabers save for Dark Saber and Arch Mage get Anti Magic, Power and Mind Down and powerfull magic damage. 

Continuing on Lord, Ninja Master and Sage I have actually a Hard Time to use Ninja Master's final weapon effectivly (I think I should invest more in PIE to reduce the cast time more) really think letting the AI use LV1 Tech (while maining Lord to open the counter window when I have the LV2/3 tech ready) is suprisingly effective at landing counter, as such I equip Hawk with the weapon that increase counter damage, for Lightgazer having 2 healers is actually really effective in this fight Lord and Sage can keep the HP up the only dangerous thing in this fight is the Geyseblast + Prisoner combo at the beginning which really hits hard other than this combo the fight is easy, landing counter is pretty easy with Hawk and with the weapon + Def Down + Fireblaze + Diamond Saber + Gnome Day man does he bring the pain  

On 2/6/2020 at 10:27 AM, rpschamp said:

So, I've decided to go with Duran/Angela/Carlie instead. I want to keep the concept of a magic-focus team, and Duran (especially dark Duran) seems like a good compromise between the physical damage of Hawk and the defensive tactics of Lise. I would love to run Duelist here; his tech damage should be able to compete with anything Hawk can put out.

So far I'm thinking:

1) Duelist, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman

Really not a fan of Grand Divina in this party. Honestly idk if having Angela in a Duelist party makes a lot of sense in the first place...maybe an argument could be made for Archmage as a debuffer but I'd honestly rather have someone that can Protect Down instead. I'd suggest replacing the Divina with Warrior Monk for Mind Up, Power Up, Speed Down, and a stronger Heal Light. Alternatively you could make Carlie a Bishop (Def Up, Magic Shield, and sabers are basically all the buffs you should need for Duelist honestly) and dark Hawk or Lise as a debuffer.

Quote

2) Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer

This is better than the party above. Necromancer's summons have elemental properties - except for Great Demon - so the sabers from Rune Master should let Carlie put out some decent damage after she casts Black Curse. Still, no Mind Up to help the casters deal even more damage kind of sucks...you could always farm up a bunch of Sahagin's Scales for bosses since Rune Master wipes crowds with ease I guess. Or consider making Angela a Magus instead, since she can Mind Up herself and you'll still have Saint Saber.

EDIT: Thinking about it a little more, Magus in this party seems really solid. She can Power Up Paladin's physical attacks, Lunatic bosses, and keep up her own MP with Poison Bubble while hurling out loads of strong damage spells. This does mean no sabers for Necromancer's summons...but really Carlie's primary use here is for Black Curse, Tinkle Rain, and applying the Curse debuff anyways!

21 hours ago, Nesouk said:

This one could work to :

-Paladin, Arch Mage, Sage : Sage and Paladin cover Mind Up and Protect Up, Paladin also has Magic Shield to strengthen Carlie's Heal Light, they are both great healer having 2 Healer can actually be usefull in some situation, or you are free to play one or the other more offensively, Paladin can do pretty good physical damage and FST LV3 (which Arch Mage can help with Aura Wave) or serious AoE Neural damage with Turn Undead and he is a really good tank, Sage can assist Arch Mage for more magical damage, also this team get the 5 out 6 main Sabers save for Dark Saber and Arch Mage get Anti Magic, Power and Mind Down and powerfull magic damage. 

I do like double-healer parties tbh; it adds an extra safety blanket in the event that things go horribly wrong or if you're bad at this game (like me!) - I did a Lord, Arch Mage, Warrior Monk playthrough fairly recently and it was smooth sailing through basically the whole game. Sage + Arch Mage is a good combo with a lot going for it. I still have to try out Paladin in this rom hack but his final weapon looks great, especially when the ladies in this party also have strong MT spells. If I wasn't already set on my next party I'd consider trying this one.

3 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Really not a fan of Grand Divina in this party. Honestly idk if having Angela in a Duelist party makes a lot of sense in the first place...maybe an argument could be made for Archmage as a debuffer but I'd honestly rather have someone that can Protect Down instead. I'd suggest replacing the Divina with Warrior Monk for Mind Up, Power Up, Speed Down, and a stronger Heal Light. Alternatively you could make Carlie a Bishop (Def Up, Magic Shield, and sabers are basically all the buffs you should need for Duelist honestly) and dark Hawk or Lise as a debuffer.

I think Gran Divina in Duelist, Gran Divina, Evil Shaman team is mainly for Gran Divina being able to heal, and once you get her Final Weapon she can replace Duelist to buff with Sabers freeing Duelist from this duty (freeing an accessory slot cause Duelist need Whitelight Ring to make Saber MT) allowing to focus on physical damage, Aura Wave and Anti Magic if needed so IMO Gran Divina isn't a bad choice here.

IMO Angela can fit well with Duelist :
-Arch Mage : Give Aura Wave allowing to free Duelist from having to cast it and get boosted by Duelist's Saber (on top of her Final Weapon increasing the damage even further)
-Rune Master : Free Duelist from Sabers duty and can cripple the ennemies for Duelist (Silence preventing ennemies to counter Duelist's LV3, Snowman increasing the damage of the next incoming hits), IMO Rune Master is Angela most self-substain class.
-Magus : Give Power Up to Duelist to increase his damage even further, Lunatic to shorten the fight, Deathspell is still an option and good elemental damage overall, and potentially the best nuker with her Final Weapon.

Duelist honnestly I feel can easily fit in a team I mean he is almost self-sustain with Sabers and Aura Wave with Anti Magic for the ennemies that resist/immune to physical damage, he only lack Power Up and Protect Down to maximize is damage, I'm really considering pairing him with Nightblade could be fun with Both being LV3 Tech user and Hawk being a good user of Fireblaze and counter

Thank you guys for your input and suggestions. I do love Archmage/Sage; I've run these two together in two groups so far, one with Dragon Master and one with Rogue. They wreak absolute havoc casting level 2 MT spells back to back and cover many of the essential buffs/debuffs and sabers pretty nicely.

I decided to limit my options here strictly to Duran/Angela/Carlie. As with Archmage/Sage, for a magical focus team, there is really no replacement for Angela/Carlie casting back to back through the early, mid, and late game. But who to take for a third? Duran and Lise both have shields, which make this team vastly easier to use, both for random enemies and for bosses like Bill/Ben, Lugar, and Machine Golem Redux that you need to keep away from your casters. Lise's focus is on stat buffs though, rather than abilities, which are more difficult or just not possible to replace. For example, there is just no way for Lise to achieve the physical power of a Duelist with his final weapon. Duelist doesn't get the stat buff/debuffs, but other teammates can cast them, or they can be bought. I've tried several Lise/Angela/Carlie teams and loved them, but I often find myself wanting the option to get at more physical damage when I need it. Hence my idea to give Duran a shot.

To think about what groups might be interesting to try, I tried to simplify my options. Since the main point of this group is spell power through Angela and Carlie, I thought about the role Duran could play beyond shield-bearing tank/distractor and came up with two cases: 1) Duran goes light so he can focus on recovery/defense and leave Angela and Carlie to focus on spell power, and 2) Duran goes dark so he can contribute a ton of that missing physical damage.

1) Light Duran - With Duran casting Heal Light and Protect Up, there are more options here. Paladin/Necromancer and Archmage/Sage are great combinations to start with. Paladin/Necromancer could work well with Rune Master or Magus; with Rune Master, you'll be missing Mind Up and Power Up (though Magic Shield should be sufficient for Duran), and with Magus, you'll be missing Earth/Air/Water/Fire sabers. I find the scales easier to replace than the sabers, plus the Rune Master gets a bunch of nice status effects (most importantly, Petrify), so I would go for Rune Master. Now, compared to Rune Master/Necromancer, Archmage/Sage would recover the missing Mind Up as well as Aura Wave, Leaf Saber, Life Booster, Gigas Flail, and a second healer, but miss out on Black Curse, level 3 status spells, and a second strong elemental caster. I see Archmage/Sage as the more defensive option and Rune Master/Necromancer as the more offensive. But I would probably take Lord here instead of Paladin for the Speed Up/Down and final weapon which should help against bosses with maxed out magical defense, since Archmage already covers Antimagic.

2) Dark Duran - This is honestly a tougher team to put together since if I want Heal Light, I need either Angela to go Grand Divina or Carlie to go light. Since light Carlie uses up her spell options with the same sabers as dark Duran, Grand Divina seems like the better option, leaving Carlie to go dark so both Angela and Carlie have access to damage spells in most of the elements. The point of this group would be to have Duelist control the field with a shield and throw techs while Angela and Carlie sit back casting. Duelist works wonders with a shield and proximity damage, and Grand Divina has a two spells that work nicely with this: 1) Transshape to protect him from melee damage, and 2) Sleep Flower, which, cast on Duran wearing reflect armor and Dragon Shield, should cause any enemy that attacks him to fall asleep. Since Duelist and Grand Divina contribute very little in terms of stat buff/debuffs, though, Evil Shaman seems like Carlie's best option to pick up MT Power Down, MT Mind Down, and Protect Up, three of the four most essential. The major missing skill here is Mind Up, so again I'd have to go with Sahagin's Scales for boss fights. Evil Shaman's MT Power and Mind Down should be all you need in terms of buffs/debuffs for random battles, and for bosses, she can purchase Bottles of Ashes, which cast Black Curse, so I can pump up my Duelist when I need the physical damage. The only Angela/Carlie classes that provide Mind Up are Magus and Sage; Magus would force me to choose light Carlie and miss out on the debuffs and spell damage, while Sage would leave me without Protect Up and force me to double up on five saber spells. Actually, I could see an argument for Archmage/Sage here; I did a calculation for both elemental weakness and non-weakness situations and Archmage/Sage should contribute ~10% more spell damage on average. They would miss the shield spells Transshape and Sleep Flower though, as well as Bottles of Ashes. Sage has Life Booster and Gigas Flail, so I can see that team having some advantages. But I think Archmage/Sage would work better with Lord or Paladin anyways.

So, between:

1) Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer

2) Lord, Archmage, Sage

3) Duelist, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman

Team 2) would definitely be the most straightforward with a second healer and easy offensive/defensive options, but would not have access to a purchasable Protect Down for those bosses where you need to rely on physical damage. Team 1) would give you more diverse elemental damage and status effects, but require you to keep a stock of Sahagin's Scales for boss fights. Team 3) has some unique advantages for random enemies with shield spells and MT stat downs, and should be able to scale up damage for boss fights with Sahagin's Scales and purchasable Bottles of Ashes (a few extra items for boss fights should not be much of a burden, especially by the end game when you have unused money lying around). This team should be strongest in physical damage per time and at least competitive in magical damage per time (Grand Divina can pump out a lot of damage when she needs to with her instant level 1 spells). Given that Duelist should be the strongest shield runner with his final weapon, I would like a way to get him to work on a magical focus team that can benefit most from a shield user. Getting the buffs/debuffs to work out, though, is admittedly a struggle.

27 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

I think Gran Divina in Duelist, Gran Divina, Evil Shaman team is mainly for Gran Divina being able to heal, and once you get her Final Weapon she can replace Duelist to buff with Sabers freeing Duelist from this duty (freeing an accessory slot cause Duelist need Whitelight Ring to make Saber MT) allowing to focus on physical damage, Aura Wave and Anti Magic if needed so IMO Gran Divina isn't a bad choice here.

IMO Angela can fit well with Duelist :
-Arch Mage : Give Aura Wave allowing to free Duelist from having to cast it and get boosted by Duelist's Saber (on top of her Final Weapon increasing the damage even further)
-Rune Master : Free Duelist from Sabers duty and can cripple the ennemies for Duelist (Silence preventing ennemies to counter Duelist's LV3, Snowman increasing the damage of the next incoming hits), IMO Rune Master is Angela most self-substain class.
-Magus : Give Power Up to Duelist to increase his damage even further, Lunatic to shorten the fight, Deathspell is still an option and good elemental damage overall, and potentially the best nuker with her Final Weapon.

Duelist honnestly I feel can easily fit in a team I mean he is almost self-sustain with Sabers and Aura Wave with Anti Magic for the ennemies that resist/immune to physical damage, he only lack Power Up and Protect Down to maximize is damage, I'm really considering pairing him with Nightblade could be fun with Both being LV3 Tech user and Hawk being a good user of Fireblaze and counter

I forgot to make the point about Grand Divina's final weapon, so thank you, Nesouk. Also, it was your posts about running Duelist on one of your previous teams that got me thinking about what he might be capable of; because Grand Divina and Evil Shaman get Transshape and Sleep Flower, I think they could be awesome teammates. (I'm assuming this Sleep Flower self-cast/immunity/reflect thing works, but I see no reason why it shoudn't).

If I could, I might try Duelist, Evil Shaman, and Sage, to get that missing Mind Up and a stronger healer with a passive heal option. Grand Divina gets better damage spells and elemental diversity than Evil Shaman, though, so she still has a lot to contribute. Duran and two Carlies would be quite a ridiculous team, but until Praetarius feels like working that weirdness out, I guess we're stuck with only one.

22 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I decided to limit my options here strictly to Duran/Angela/Carlie. As with Archmage/Sage, for a magical focus team, there is really no replacement for Angela/Carlie casting back to back through the early, mid, and late game. But who to take for a third? Duran and Lise both have shields, which make this team vastly easier to use, both for random enemies and for bosses like Bill/Ben, Lugar, and Machine Golem Redux that you need to keep away from your casters. Lise's focus is on stat buffs though, rather than abilities, which are more difficult or just not possible to replace. For example, there is just no way for Lise to achieve the physical power of a Duelist with his final weapon. Duelist doesn't get the stat buff/debuffs, but other teammates can cast them, or they can be bought. I've tried several Lise/Angela/Carlie teams and loved them, but I often find myself wanting the option to get at more physical damage when I need it. Hence my idea to give Duran a shot.

Well Lise is more meant to be a jack of all trick, so definitly when you are looking for physical damage Dark Duran is the best pick of the 2, having all buffs on one party member is convenient tough, and while they are buyable, deep down it's easier to just have them directly than having to do extra grind for them even if the later is definitly possible.

By the way we are talking about Duelist but I think Swordmaster would fit even better in a Magical Oriented team, as he get absolutly all the Sabers and the 4 main one are naturally MT, if he can't get Duelist's raw power his LV3 is actually still pretty strong plus let's not forget that Speed Up also reduce the cast time, so this can be quite a good buff for spellcaster, Swordmaster, Arch Mage, Sage could work very well.

29 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If I could, I might try Duelist, Evil Shaman, and Sage, to get that missing Mind Up and a stronger healer with a passive heal option. Grand Divina gets better damage spells and elemental diversity than Evil Shaman though, so she still has a lot to contribute. Duran and two Carlies would be quite a ridiculous team, but until Praetarius feels like working that weirdness out, I guess we're stuck with only one.

HAHAHA if we could pick a character twice things would be funny ^^

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

If I could, I might try Duelist, Evil Shaman, and Sage, to get that missing Mind Up and a stronger healer with a passive heal option. Grand Divina gets better damage spells and elemental diversity than Evil Shaman, though, so she still has a lot to contribute. Duran and two Carlies would be quite a ridiculous team, but until Praetarius feels like working that weirdness out, I guess we're stuck with only one.

I suspect that the event system wouldn't like that very much.

Any takers for 3x Kevin in that scenario?

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

I think Gran Divina in Duelist, Gran Divina, Evil Shaman team is mainly for Gran Divina being able to heal, and once you get her Final Weapon she can replace Duelist to buff with Sabers freeing Duelist from this duty (freeing an accessory slot cause Duelist need Whitelight Ring to make Saber MT) allowing to focus on physical damage, Aura Wave and Anti Magic if needed so IMO Gran Divina isn't a bad choice here.

IMO Angela can fit well with Duelist :
-Arch Mage : Give Aura Wave allowing to free Duelist from having to cast it and get boosted by Duelist's Saber (on top of her Final Weapon increasing the damage even further)
-Rune Master : Free Duelist from Sabers duty and can cripple the ennemies for Duelist (Silence preventing ennemies to counter Duelist's LV3, Snowman increasing the damage of the next incoming hits), IMO Rune Master is Angela most self-substain class.
-Magus : Give Power Up to Duelist to increase his damage even further, Lunatic to shorten the fight, Deathspell is still an option and good elemental damage overall, and potentially the best nuker with her Final Weapon.

Now, while I agree that Duelist is pretty self-sufficient, I still have to stick to my earlier point that it's tough to justify any Angela in a party with him over someone else. Unless, of course, you want a challenge.

Grand Divina: Yeah she gets HL, TR, speed up, decent casting of all LV1 damage spells, and eventually all sabers...but honestly Bishop does nearly all of the same things better and earlier. Divina has the edge in damage spells, sure, but Bishop still has Saint Beam and you can always make up for this with your final party member.

Rune Master: Again, Bishop does sabers better. I will agree that MT'ing silence or snowman is outstanding and that this class is pretty great - I'm getting some great mileage from her in my current team - but her complete lack of stat magic would probably make for a tough playthrough (or require a LOT of farming to compensate for)

Magus: Magus + Duelist is definitely a ballsy all-out damage team. Whatever healer you pick for the group will certainly have their hands full  I feel like this party would also struggle in the stat magic department, even with her Power Up.

Arch Mage, as I said earlier, I could at least see an argument for. Aura Wave and Anti Magic means Duelist doesn't have to waste his time casting them anymore. Useful stat downs for boss fights. Strong damage spells that, as you said, all benefit really from the Duelist's sabers - especially with her final weapon. However, I must wonder if Swordmaster would be a better partner for the Arch Mage in general!

51 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Well Lise is more meant to be a jack of all trick, so definitly when you are looking for physical damage Dark Duran is the best pick of the 2, having all buffs on one party member is convenient tough, and while they are buyable, deep down it's easier to just have them directly than having to do extra grind for them even if the later is definitly possible.

By the way we are talking about Duelist but I think Swordmaster would fit even better in a Magical Oriented team, as he get absolutly all the Sabers and the 4 main one are naturally MT, if he can't get Duelist's raw power his LV3 is actually still pretty strong plus let's not forget that Speed Up also reduce the cast time, so this can be quite a good buff for spellcaster, Swordmaster, Arch Mage, Sage could work very well.

I fully agree with both of these points.

Lise is a strong and flexible character that, to me, is meant more as a "force multiplier" that makes a good party even better rather than necessarily hard-carrying the party by herself. She's the glue that can fill any cracks you might have in terms of stat magic or healing or Anti Magic in a team since she can spec into any of of these as needed. It's pretty tough for me to imagine a group she would seem out-of-place in.

I've actually toyed with the idea of doing a Swordmaster, Arch Mage, Vanadise run eventually. Vanadise's final weapon means that her Freya summon can do elemental damage when she gets the saber buff. Arch Mage, as discussed above, makes great use of sabers for her damage spells. Though I'm not a fan of Swordmaster's final weapon, there's plenty of other options for him at end game (ignore physical immunity, HP steal, increased counter damage, and faster tech bar all come to mind). Though you have to go through Bucca Island without heals, you'll at least have Evil Gate. The only other drawbacks of this party are no way to reduce enemy HP and no Protect Down, meaning boss fights might drag on, but other than that it's super straightforward.

15 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I suspect that the event system wouldn't like that very much.

Any takers for 3x Kevin in that scenario?

Triple Death Hand party, easy 

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

By the way we are talking about Duelist but I think Swordmaster would fit even better in a Magical Oriented team, as he get absolutly all the Sabers and the 4 main one are naturally MT, if he can't get Duelist's raw power his LV3 is actually still pretty strong plus let's not forget that Speed Up also reduce the cast time, so this can be quite a good buff for spellcaster, Swordmaster, Arch Mage, Sage could work very well.

Swordmaster/Archmage/Sage would be an interesting alternative to Lord/Archmage/Sage; you would be trading Protect Up and a better final weapon for three extra sabers. I do prefer Lord's level 3 tech with his final weapon to Swordmaster's; I'm convinced that Ragnarok is not great unless you're on a team with Ninja Master.

By the way, has anyone been brave/stupid enough to run a team without Heal Light? I feel like there are tons of interesting teams that would be possible if you based your strategy completely around item healing or alternative methods like Dragon Ring or Mad Beast's Fang. You could make better use of all that heal hurts gear. One strategy would be to skip most random battles and just level up around Gold Statues, saving your items for boss fights and relying on passive healing when you're stuck to recover HP. In general, the classes without Heal Light are more powerful, so I'm sure you could build some awesome teams without that restriction.

24 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Grand Divina: Yeah she gets HL, TR, speed up, decent casting of all LV1 damage spells, and eventually all sabers...but honestly Bishop does nearly all of the same things better and earlier. Divina has the edge in damage spells, sure, but Bishop still has Saint Beam and you can always make up for this with your final party member.

I don't think Bishop can be really compared to Grand Divina in terms of damage spells; Grand Divina gets the six major elements, ST or MT, and can cast these instantly by the end game. Bishop gets one element, which is great for dark enemies, bad for holy ones, and missing the 50% weakness bonus for the other four types. Grand Divina also gets Transshape and Sleep Flower, which should work great with the Duelist carrying a shield (Sleep Flower self-cast with Dragon Shield and reflect armor should put all attackers to sleep immediately). Bishop's healing is more convenient as it's naturally MT, but Grand Divina's is just as powerful. Plus, since all her damage spells are instant, she's always free to heal.

The advantage I see to Bishop is Protect Up and Magic Shield, but not much else. But as an atheist, I might be biased ;-) More seriously, I've only played Bishop in one group, going for Sage in most other situations, so I could be missing something.

20 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Lise is a strong and flexible character that, to me, is meant more as a "force multiplier" that makes a good party even better rather than necessarily hard-carrying the party by herself. She's the glue that can fill any cracks you might have in terms of stat magic or healing or Anti Magic in a team since she can spec into any of of these as needed. It's pretty tough for me to imagine a group she would seem out-of-place in.

I agree with this too, and I've used Lise in almost every party so far because of this. I think I've just gotten bored of her and started looking for non-Lise solutions. If I find any good ones I'll be sure to let everyone know ;-)

48 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I don't think Bishop can be really compared to Grand Divina in terms of damage spells; Grand Divina gets the six major elements, ST or MT, and can cast these instantly by the end game. Bishop gets one element, which is great for dark enemies, bad for holy ones, and missing the 50% weakness bonus for the other four types. Grand Divina also gets Transshape and Sleep Flower, which should work great with the Duelist carrying a shield (Sleep Flower self-cast with Dragon Shield and reflect armor should put all attackers to sleep immediately). Bishop's healing is more convenient as it's naturally MT, but Grand Divina's is just as powerful. Plus, since all her damage spells are instant, she's always free to heal.

The advantage I see to Bishop is Protect Up and Magic Shield, but not much else. But as an atheist, I might be biased ;-) More seriously, I've only played Bishop in one group, going for Sage in most other situations, so I could be missing something.

IMO Bishop and Grand Divina serve two different purposes at the end of the day. Divina is a "healer who can also rapid-fire off damage spells and sabers" while Bishop is a "healer with defensive stat ups, sabers, and turns into a melee DPS machine with her final weapon" . I tend to prefer Bishop as a dedicated healer since Protect Up and Magic Shield are fantastic at keeping a party alive, and again she gets Holy Light at first class change which really helps speed leveling up early on. FWIW in my upcoming Duelist party I plan on using Bishop as the team's dedicated healer, and Hawk as a Ninja Master to cover debuffs and elemental damage.

44 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I agree with this too, and I've used Lise in almost every party so far because of this. I think I've just gotten bored of her and started looking for non-Lise solutions. If I find any good ones I'll be sure to let everyone know ;-)

That's fair, I used Lise in basically every team I ran in the base game and got sick of her as well for a while  the good news is it's much easier to build a functional party without her in this rom hack!

10 minutes ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

46 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I agree with this too, and I've used Lise in almost every party so far because of this. I think I've just gotten bored of her and started looking for non-Lise solutions. If I find any good ones I'll be sure to let everyone know ;-)

That's fair, I used Lise in basically every team I ran in the base game and got sick of her as well for a while  the good news is it's much easier to build a functional party without her in this rom hack!

True that, it was almost never advisable to go Lise-less in the original :-)

3 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I suspect that the event system wouldn't like that very much.

Any takers for 3x Kevin in that scenario?

Triple Death Hand party, easy 

Death Hand, God Hand, Dervish. Invert armor on Dervish for Protect Up when you need it.

But c'mon - Evil Shaman, Sage, Necromancer. Three strong casters with at least two in each element, best healer in the game, Protect/Mind Up, MT Power/Mind Down, Black Curse, six sabers, Antimagic, Lunatic, Life Booster.... Bishop could sub for Evil Shaman if you prefer for Saint Saber and a spirit weapon. Unleash the demons.

6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

But c'mon - Evil Shaman, Sage, Necromancer. Three strong casters with at least two in each element, best healer in the game, Protect/Mind Up, MT Power/Mind Down, Black Curse, six sabers, Antimagic, Lunatic, Life Booster.... Bishop could sub for Evil Shaman if you prefer for Saint Saber and a spirit weapon. Unleash the demons.

and how do you get past FMH or Jewel Eater?

I'm starting to consider my next playthrough. There's one combo I'd like to try, which I haven't tried for 15+ years since it was so OP in the vanilla game: Light Lise and Dark Hawk (or alternatively Dark Lise with invert armor). In addition to that, I'd like to have healing, sabers, some elemental spells, and possibly a debuff to lower enemies' max HP. Who should I pick as the third character, and which classes would you recommend?

12 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Now, while I agree that Duelist is pretty self-sufficient, I still have to stick to my earlier point that it's tough to justify any Angela in a party with him over someone else. Unless, of course, you want a challenge.

Grand Divina: Yeah she gets HL, TR, speed up, decent casting of all LV1 damage spells, and eventually all sabers...but honestly Bishop does nearly all of the same things better and earlier. Divina has the edge in damage spells, sure, but Bishop still has Saint Beam and you can always make up for this with your final party member.

Rune Master: Again, Bishop does sabers better. I will agree that MT'ing silence or snowman is outstanding and that this class is pretty great - I'm getting some great mileage from her in my current team - but her complete lack of stat magic would probably make for a tough playthrough (or require a LOT of farming to compensate for)

Magus: Magus + Duelist is definitely a ballsy all-out damage team. Whatever healer you pick for the group will certainly have their hands full  I feel like this party would also struggle in the stat magic department, even with her Power Up.

 

Arch Mage, as I said earlier, I could at least see an argument for. Aura Wave and Anti Magic means Duelist doesn't have to waste his time casting them anymore. Useful stat downs for boss fights. Strong damage spells that, as you said, all benefit really from the Duelist's sabers - especially with her final weapon. However, I must wonder if Swordmaster would be a better partner for the Arch Mage in general!

Having played Duelist, Arch Mage, Vanadis I can assure than Arch Mage works wonder with Duelist, this is maybe one of the most "Boss killer" party even without Protect Down or Fireblaze with Saber of corresponding weakness on corresponding Day and Power Up and his Final Weapon Duelist does insane damage even hitting the 999 cap on some bosses, same with Arch Mage Mind Up + Mind Down + Saber + Corresponding Day and Weakness + Final Weapon with this 2 you just destroy most God Beasts with both ridiculous Physical and Magical damage. But yeah I also think Swordmaster would be a good teammate for Arch Mage. 

And I suspect Magus would be the same maybe even better for mob fight with her Final Weapon + Armor that make spell neutral + Saber + Using spell of corresponding day, and for bosses Deathspell is an option, tough the problem with pairing Magus and Duelist is you need Stat Down, Protect Up and Heal Light but most classes that have Heal Light don't have Stat Down, the best pick would probably be picking Warrior Monk use Invert Armor to Power Down and Mind Down and Heal Light and farming Bulette's Scales for boss fight. IMO while this can work Magus would work better with Light Duran.

I do agree that Duelist + Rune Master would be tough ^^

Regarding Grand Divina VS Bishop really depend, IMO Gran Divina offers more option overall and is the best Spellcaster of the 2, tough Def Up and Magic Shield does give an edge to Bishop regarding Defenses, honnestly I do agree that Bishop is worth considering over Gran Divina just for these 2 spells depending of which team you plan to do.

12 hours ago, rpschamp said:

By the way, has anyone been brave/stupid enough to run a team without Heal Light? I feel like there are tons of interesting teams that would be possible if you based your strategy completely around item healing or alternative methods like Dragon Ring or Mad Beast's Fang. You could make better use of all that heal hurts gear. One strategy would be to skip most random battles and just level up around Gold Statues, saving your items for boss fights and relying on passive healing when you're stuck to recover HP. In general, the classes without Heal Light are more powerful, so I'm sure you could build some awesome teams without that restriction.

I feel like if you want to do without Heal Light you'll need to heal through other means, I feel the Fenrir Knight would be really interesting in that kind of set up her Final Weapon gives a good source of healing and she does have Moon Saber for draining HP, with Invert Armor she gets all Buffs could be paire with Ninja Master to access Counter more often and getting the MT Debuff, and Ninja Master is good physical damage dealer third party could be Arch Mage to get all elemental spell, Aura Wave and Anti Magic. Tough personnaly I wouldn't be crazy enough to try a no Heal Light party XD.

1 hour ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I'm starting to consider my next playthrough. There's one combo I'd like to try, which I haven't tried for 15+ years since it was so OP in the vanilla game: Light Lise and Dark Hawk (or alternatively Dark Lise with invert armor). In addition to that, I'd like to have healing, sabers, some elemental spells, and possibly a debuff to lower enemies' max HP. Who should I pick as the third character, and which classes would you recommend?

Dark Hawk and Light Lise are pretty easy to do depending of which class you go, considering you want Healing, Sabers and Elemental damage however the most logical pick would be Angela and I can see 2 teams :

-Nightblade, Star Lancer, Gran Divina : This team get everything you want, Nightblade get Deadly Weapon for Max Hp Reduction, with Star Lancer's Aura Wave you can take full advantage of Nightblade's LV3 FST, Star Lancer also provide Marduke and once she get the good gear and stat she can cast him almost instantly, Grand Divina provide Heal Light, Elemental damage for the 6 main elements and with her Final Weapon all 6 Main Sabers, only downside are no Anti-Magic (tough this shouldn't be an issue here) and Debuff are ST only.

-Ninja Master, Vanadis, Rune Master : The healing is provided by Vanadis who is on a more support role here, Rune Master bring Elemental spells and Sabers for the 4 main elements, and the LV3 Spells which can be great for crowd control with the statut effect attach to them, Ninja Master means all Debuff MT so he can help Rune Master's with AoE cleaning, and with Counter strat and Fireblaze he can be a pretty good physical damage dealer when you need it.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

12 hours ago, rpschamp said:

But c'mon - Evil Shaman, Sage, Necromancer. Three strong casters with at least two in each element, best healer in the game, Protect/Mind Up, MT Power/Mind Down, Black Curse, six sabers, Antimagic, Lunatic, Life Booster.... Bishop could sub for Evil Shaman if you prefer for Saint Saber and a spirit weapon. Unleash the demons.

and how do you get past FMH or Jewel Eater?

They would be tough. It would be advisable to farm a Moon Coin for each fight, the first just outside Jadd and the second in Jadd castle. For FMH you can put all your stats into strength (with maybe one agility and two vitality) and just try to keep your HP up. It would take a few tries but I think you could eventually get through it. At least by Jewel Eater you'd have Holy Ball; everyone could wear defensive gear and use Matango Oils to try to compensate for Carlie's earth weakness and just bomb him to death. Again, it might take a few tries and you'd burn a lot of healing items. Things would get easier after the first class change.

I just love the idea of three Carlies running around, pounding things to death. Has anyone seen The Brood by David Cronenberg?

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Nightblade, Star Lancer, Gran Divina : This team get everything you want, Nightblade get Deadly Weapon for Max Hp Reduction, with Star Lancer's Aura Wave you can take full advantage of Nightblade's LV3 FST, Star Lancer also provide Marduke and once she get the good gear and stat she can cast him almost instantly, Grand Divina provide Heal Light, Elemental damage for the 6 main elements and with her Final Weapon all 6 Main Sabers, only downside are no Anti-Magic (tough this shouldn't be an issue here) and Debuff are ST only.

Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Grand Divina - Kongo Rakan and Fireblaze against bosses, Analyze and Energy Ball for critical hits against bosses, MT stat downs, Marduk, and Grand Divina for random enemies. Nightblade has fewer advantages: Grand Divina can apply Curse faster with Evil Gate, MT Fire Jutsu will out-damage Black Rain by boosting Marduk and Grand Divina's magic by 25%, you already have MT Silence with Marduk, and Ninja Master's final weapon is much more useful. MT Water Jutsu is also useful for reducing damage from those tech-heavy werewolves you can't silence. Deadly Weapon? Moon Coins are common enough; just pick a bunch up in Jadd Castle. Save Nightblade for those groups where there's not much MT damage magic to boost or you need a Curse or Silence caster. But I think maybe Nesouk was just trying to include Nightblade for variety.

TBH, Hawk/Lise/Angela is a really fun game, and there are a several cool ways to play it. Ninja Master, Vanadis, Rune Master sounds like a blast. Rogue, Archmage, Vanadis also works, but you'll be missing the sabers. Pairing Ninja Master with Fenrir Knight (with invert armor) would also give you more chances to use Fenrir Knight's counter recovery with Ninja Master's final weapon, but you'd need another way to heal for those fights where you don't have a basic elemental weakness to exploit.

Duran, stop talking to yourself!

also, any bets on what happens next?

21 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Duran, stop talking to yourself!

also, any bets on what happens next?

Duran Duran!

The game has to decide who Duran is talking to.... Does the first Duran respond with Angela's text about her story in Altena?

Or... the game crashes?

Will Duran Duran ever make it to Seito Wenderu?

4 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Nightblade, Star Lancer, Gran Divina : This team get everything you want, Nightblade get Deadly Weapon for Max Hp Reduction, with Star Lancer's Aura Wave you can take full advantage of Nightblade's LV3 FST, Star Lancer also provide Marduke and once she get the good gear and stat she can cast him almost instantly, Grand Divina provide Heal Light, Elemental damage for the 6 main elements and with her Final Weapon all 6 Main Sabers, only downside are no Anti-Magic (tough this shouldn't be an issue here) and Debuff are ST only.

-Ninja Master, Vanadis, Rune Master : The healing is provided by Vanadis who is on a more support role here, Rune Master bring Elemental spells and Sabers for the 4 main elements, and the LV3 Spells which can be great for crowd control with the statut effect attach to them, Ninja Master means all Debuff MT so he can help Rune Master's with AoE cleaning, and with Counter strat and Fireblaze he can be a pretty good physical damage dealer when you need it.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Grand Divina - Kongo Rakan and Fireblaze against bosses, Analyze and Energy Ball for critical hits against bosses, MT stat downs, Marduk, and Grand Divina for random enemies. Nightblade has fewer advantages: Grand Divina can apply Curse faster with Evil Gate, MT Fire Jutsu will out-damage Black Rain by boosting Marduk and Grand Divina's magic by 25%, you already have MT Silence with Marduk, and Ninja Master's final weapon is much more useful. MT Water Jutsu is also useful for reducing damage from those tech-heavy werewolves you can't silence. Deadly Weapon? Moon Coins are common enough; just pick a bunch up in Jadd Castle. Save Nightblade for those groups where there's not much MT damage magic to boost or you need a Curse or Silence caster. But I think maybe Nesouk was just trying to include Nightblade for variety.

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

@Nesouk SL/NB/GD definitely sounds like an option. How would the following teams work:
Star Lancer, Nightblade, Bishop/Sage
Vanadis, Nightblade, Duelist/Swordmaster
Vanadis, Ninja Master, Death Hand

24 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Duran, stop talking to yourself!

So you actually went to test having the same character in the party multiple times? I suppose he'll free his stunt doubles from prison after FMH.

6 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I'm starting to consider my next playthrough. There's one combo I'd like to try, which I haven't tried for 15+ years since it was so OP in the vanilla game: Light Lise and Dark Hawk (or alternatively Dark Lise with invert armor). In addition to that, I'd like to have healing, sabers, some elemental spells, and possibly a debuff to lower enemies' max HP. Who should I pick as the third character, and which classes would you recommend?

Sorry, I read the term "possibly" to mean that it wasn't high on your list of priorities. Even without the Moon Coins, I still think Ninja Master would be more fun. The MT stat debuffs are really that good, both defensively for lowering incoming physical or magical damage or offensively to boost your spells. Plus Marduk is just way better than Blow Needles. The level 3 FST and Black Rain are really nice though, so Nightblade should be good as well; also his colors fit nicely with the rest of the team (Midnight Marauders?).

10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Duran Duran!

The game has to decide who Duran is talking to.... Does the first Duran respond with Angela's text about her story in Altena?

Or... the game crashes?

Will Duran Duran ever make it to Seito Wenderu?

His intro dialog plays twice, he is not added to the party and the npc Duran just disappears, letting me continue but with only 1 character in the party

9 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

So you actually went to test having the same character in the party multiple times? I suppose he'll free his stunt doubles from prison after FMH.

The stunt double causes a softlock; he is not added to the party and just stays in the way.

2 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

His intro dialog plays twice, he is not added to the party and the npc Duran just disappears, letting me continue but with only 1 character in the party

I take it that to get this to work, you'd have to reroute all the event scenes for every character. Not sure if it would be worth the effort!

I'd have to understand why the 2nd character is not added to the party...
this can be an issue in the event itself or a global method that says I already have Duran in the party so it doesn't need to add Duran(2).
Or maybe it does add Duran(2) but his data is empty because his data was saved to Duran(1)'s data

in total: no idea

13 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

@Nesouk SL/NB/GD definitely sounds like an option. How would the following teams work:
Star Lancer, Nightblade, Bishop/Sage
Vanadis, Nightblade, Duelist/Swordmaster
Vanadis, Ninja Master, Death Hand

Team 1 : In my opinion you just can't go wrong with Star Lancer, Dark Hawk and Light Carlie, Star Lancer/Ninja Master/Bishop was my team for my first playthrough, this team was good enough to carry me a newbie who had never played vanilla Seiken Densetsu 3 prior to this mod, and who played this mod on Hard right away with almost no knowlegde on either the base game mechanic or the mod mechanic (I actually would like to retry the same team with the knowledge I had on this mod now could be fun), so I say if this team can do that then high chance are this is pretty amazing team, that probably could be amazing in the hand of a more experience player.

Team 2 : That's actually a team I had in mind for pairing Duelist and Nightblade, I think Duelist is better than Swordmaster here, this team looks great tough I fear Vanadis might be to busy on healing and support duty to do anything else, but I think Duelist and Nightblade could be a pretty deadly duo for clearing the screen with LV3FST (or Dark Saber + Black Rain) helped by Duelist's Aura Wave, Hawk is also again good for Counter and Fireblaze combo regardless of the class due to Dual Hitting and with her Final Weapon Duelist can make Vanadis's Freya elemental for weakness purpose, and Duelist's Anti Magic give this team a way to deal with physical resistant ennemies as this team lack Magic damage otherwise.

Team 3 : Sounds good to me, IMO Death Hand is the best LV3 Tech use in the game due Kevin's raw power amplify by his Wolf Form + Dual Hitting and Aura Wave which allow him to fill is tech bar in no time + Natural boost to his LV3, I would argue against his final weapon tough unless you have Necromancer I don't think his final weapon is good as it's too annoying reapply the debuffs instead I recommend the Fill Tech x3 weapon he can no joke use his LV3 Tech almost all the time , plus with Ninja Master you have a solid character for counter and Fireblaze to reduce bosses defense and Death Hand's sabers are always nice to have (he does lack Saint Saber tough).

28 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Sorry, I read the term "possibly" to mean that it wasn't high your list of priorities. Even without the Moon Coins, I still think you'd be better off with Ninja Master. The MT stat debuffs are really that good, both defensively for lowering incoming physical or magical damage or offensively to boost your spells. Plus Marduk is just way better than Blow Needles. The level 3 FST and Black Rain are really nice though, so Nightblade should be good as well; also his colors fit nicely with the rest of the team (Midnight Marauders?).

The ST stat debuff shouldn't be a problem if you have Angela around, I can hardly see a mob fight turning wrong when you have Marduke to silence mobs to prevent possible counter, and have 2 solid nukers with Gran Divina and Nightblade (either through Black Rain or LV3FST for him).

4 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

The ST stat debuff shouldn't be a problem if you have Angela around, I can hardly see a mob fight turning wrong when you have Marduke to silence mobs to prevent possible counter, and have 2 solid nukers with Gran Divina and Nightblade (either through Black Rain or LV3FST for him).

For the most part you're right; its only those mobs you can't silence that also do a ton of tech damage that might leave you longing for MT Power Down (werewolves come to mind). MT Mind Down should not really be as important, since Black Curse compensates with increased base damage and that 25% always-MT bonus.

2 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

For the most part you're right; its only those mobs you can't silence that also do a ton of tech damage that might leave you longing for MT Power Down (werewolves come to mind). MT Mind Down should not really be as important, since Black Curse compensates with increased base damage and that 25% always-MT bonus.

Hmmm...I guess the armor that have a chance to deny ennemies counter might help mitigate this issue for the werewolves type of ennemies.

2 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Hmmm...I guess the armor that have a chance to deny ennemies counter might help mitigate this issue for the werewolves type of ennemies.

It should. By the way, do you make much use of the early low-chance deny-counter armor you can buy at the Dwarf Village? I've found the "low chance" description to be misleading and this armor to be indispensable to casters against bosses all the way up to the God Beasts.

Just now, rpschamp said:

It should. By the way, do you make much use of the early low-chance deny-counter armor you can buy at the Dwarf Village? I've found the "low chance" description to be misleading and this armor to be indispensable to casters against bosses all the way up to the God Beasts.

I honnestly never tried it ^^ but I could definitly see it being really usefull especially for Bill and Ben as without it caster are pretty much useless against them due to their counter making casting to risky especially in the first fight against them.

Just now, Nesouk said:

I honnestly never tried it ^^ but I could definitly see it being really usefull especially for Bill and Ben as without it caster are pretty much useless against them due to their counter making casting to risky especially in the first fight against them.

Both Bill/Bens, Machine Robos Redux, Lugar, Jewel Eater, Gildervine Phase 2, and probably some others I'm not thinking of. I pretty much equip them at every boss when I have two casters going, except for Gorva and maybe Tzenker.

Weeeell :

-Machine Golem Redux : Now my strat for them is to solo them with one character, abusing Counter and Fireblaze thanks to their slow animation which works really well, and as such they shouldn't do much counter.

-Jewel Eater : Honnestly never had issue with Counter with him, beside I never do 2 casters against him due to Carlie dying way to easily due to her weakness and honnestly not being worth keeping alive cause unlike Angela's Fireball you can't even strengthen her Holy Ball through the day system, I just don't bother with her and let her die ^^

-Lugar : I find him to not do to much counter (except of course if you use Spike armor or Curse upgrade XD), and generally at this point you should have enough way to reduce the damage and heal right away.

-Gildervine : Is honnestly the easiest boss in the game already, no need to make him easier  and I actually prefer Spike armor in that fight to deal with the mobs during the first phase.

EDIT : Also just checking but you can petrify Werewolves type of ennemy so for these, maybe bumping Hawk's Luck a bit and use the weapon that can inflict petrify might be a good idea.

We were discussing a team of Star Lancer, Ninja Master/Nightblade and Grand Divina before. Do you think the team would be better or worse if you replaced Star Lancer with Dragon Master, who uses inverted armor? DM doesn't get AW or EB, but with her ultimate weapon, she gets the empowered Anti-Magic, so every element turns into a weakness, and with Ninja Master's ultimate weapon, every element can then force enemy into counterable state. Oh, and how hard is it to use the Fireblaze strategy with Hawk when he doesn't have Kongo Rakan (i.e. before farming the weapon, or when using a non-NM class)?

Not that hard actually which is why I opted to use Dancing Dagger with Ninja Master even against mob where I can't really use a global weakness, I only use Kongo Rakan against bosses that have a weakness NM can exploit, equip Hawk with Fireblaze and Mistscreen Charm he can then get his LV1 Tech in one swing, wait for mobs to attack as soon as you see an attack use the LV1 Tech or as soon as you see a Text box pop up for a spell in coming. Or you can just set the AI to use LV1 Tech, it's not as precise of course but you can be sure the AI will hit a counter and unlike you the AI can't miss the LV1, even if it has enough Tech Point for the LV2 it will still cast the LV1 ^^.

Invert Armor has pretty low defenses so probably would be best to use it on bosses, and also you can't access them until the God Beasts are release, which mean you had to deal up to that point with no buffs (or relying on items) and since Gran Divina don't get Sabers until her Final Weapon you also will have to rely on items if you want them, furthermore Star Lancer is a faster caster than Dragon Master (thanks to gear) so she set the buff faster, and Marduke is a better summon than Jormongand, so I'd say overall Dragon Master would be an harder run, tough the Empewored Anti Magic with Ninja Master could be deadly on bosses that have weaknesses (all of them except Mispolm (due to his gimmick this strat would be useless), Dolan and Archdemon (as I assume you wil run the Archdemon Route) IIRC).

Alright, SL-Dark Hawk-GD it is then. How should I distribute the stats of the final classes? Grand Divina needs agility (for cast time), vitality, intelligence and spirit (for her healing spells), and her spell bonus damage is determined by luck, but I can only max about 4 stats out of 6. Star Lancer needs strength, vitality, intelligence (for cast time) and spirit, and she needs some agility to hit targets, and increasing luck would increase Marduke's damage and her crit resistance. Dark Hawk requires strength, agility, vitality, spirit and luck, and spell bonus is determined by intelligence.

For the cast time you don't need to max out the corresponding stat especially for Star Lancer combine her final weapon + the helm that reduce cast time and just 20 INT is enough to almost instant cast Marduke ^^, for Angela and Hawk getting around the 25 should be enough, I honnestly don't bother with the stats that give small bonus damage to spell for the most part my 2 cents :

-General : VIT and PIE regardless of character these are definitly stats you want to increase maybe not maxing out but should be invest a bit, especially on Hard.

-Star Lancer : INT for cast time but she doesn't need to max it out, VIT and PIE cause since she is the Shield user she's gonna be your tank, PIE also increase Marduke, then it depend on how you want to use her, if you don't plan for doing physical damage with her STR and AGL can be ignore, you could then focus on LCK for Crit Res and boosting Marduke, if you want damage from physical then invest in STR and AGL. 

-Dark Hawk : AGL is no brainer for Hawk, then for Nightblade I suggest focusing on STR and INT to take full advantage of his LV3 FST (INT increase the damage of LV2/3 Tech) and Black Rain. For Ninja Master I suggest STR and LCK, you won't use LV3 Tech or spell as main source of damage, Ninja Master is good for Crit Build thanks to his unique Detect Debuff (and you have Energy Ball with Star Lancer) so Luck is good.

-Gran Divina : AGL up to 20-25, then VIT, INT, PIE first then the rest on luck, I don't think I need to explain why

Just to agree, I've played both Ninja Master/Star Lancer/Grand Divina and Ninja Master/Dragon Master/Grand Divina, and Star Lancer is the better choice. Not only does she have better abilities for this team, but you'll be able to wear whatever armor you want. At least on Hawk/Lise's quest, empowered Antimagic is not worth resigning yourself to invert armor during boss fights.

IMO Dark Hawk as an all isn't very good to pair with Dragon Master, I'd argue Dragon Master would go better with Classes that more or less misses elemental damage and have buff like Magus who is missing Holy but have Power Up and Mind Up, or Rune Master who miss Holy and Dark or Light but have the 4 main sabers, Carlie who miss 4 element as Sage and 5 as Bishop but have usefull defensive buffs.

Also continuing Lord, Sage, Ninja Master party :

-Fegmund : An easy boss, Sage's final weapon actually overlap with his gimmick so at the start they kinda cancel each other, later tough the HP Depletion take the advantage, anyway counter with Fireblaze with Duran casting his LV3 Tech for opening the counter is still a good option when he is on reach Sage keeping spamming Heal Light, when he goes under the group Ninja Master can deach out good damage with Shuriken and Sage to with Dark Fore Lord turning into the healer for this phases.

-Earth God Beast : Only fight where I buy a Specter's Eye for exploiting is Air weakness, Thunder Saber, Ninja Master doing counter with Thunder Jutsu and his Final Weapon, the Fireblaze canceling is increase on Physical Defense, Duran draw his attention with a Shield (preferably the one that protect him against Silence) tough his Iron Claw is pretty deadly.

On 9.2.2020 at 11:57 AM, Nesouk said:

-Earth God Beast : Only fight where I buy a Specter's Eye for exploiting is Air weakness, Thunder Saber, Ninja Master doing counter with Thunder Jutsu and his Final Weapon, the Fireblaze canceling is increase on Physical Defense, Duran draw his attention with a Shield (preferably the one that protect him against Silence) tough his Iron Claw is pretty deadly.

It's good to know there's only one boss fight where you really need Anti-Magic. What about Lugar and BR?

I started a new game with Lise, Hawk and Angela. I'm following your earlier advice of farming 5-6 Matango Oils for FMH and Jewel Eater. Lise and Hawk are on level 6 already, and I've only been able to farm 2 Matango Oils so far (I'm currently playing on Hard). I'm kind of considering save state scumming since farming is all about luck anyway. As it's been a few years since I last played the mod, I noticed that the more recent versions have two different standard attacks, light and heavy. Which one do you usually use for single hitters, and which one for double hitters? In Lise's intro battle, I used the heavy attack, and it's also handy for starting battles against sleeping enemies, but otherwise, I preferred to use the light attack, since it has a much shorter cooldown, making you less likely to get stunlocked by enemes. I also noticed that it's more effective to save your level 1 techs until an enemy attacks, so you can boost the damage by countering with a level 1 tech.

EDIT: Lise and Hawk are on level 8, and I still have only 3 Matango Oils. I hate RNG farming.

EDIT 2: After reaching level 9 and obtaining only 3 Matango Oils, I had had enough, so I went to fight Full Metal Lagger. This early game is really terrible in gameplay design, since you have such limited options, and the terrible lag and unresponsive controls during the first boss don't help. Currently, I'm farming Moon Coins from the wolves. Angela got from level 4 to level 8 before I got my first Moon Coin. This is going to take forever. Surely you guys use save state cheesing to save your nerves? It requires no skill to obtain rare drops, only luck.

For Lugar Anti Magic is really helpful especially if you lack Magic Damage, but not mandatory, for BR it's not needed either plus at one point he cast it on himself ^^.

On 2/8/2020 at 4:49 AM, Nesouk said:

Having played Duelist, Arch Mage, Vanadis I can assure than Arch Mage works wonder with Duelist, this is maybe one of the most "Boss killer" party even without Protect Down or Fireblaze with Saber of corresponding weakness on corresponding Day and Power Up and his Final Weapon Duelist does insane damage even hitting the 999 cap on some bosses, same with Arch Mage Mind Up + Mind Down + Saber + Corresponding Day and Weakness + Final Weapon with this 2 you just destroy most God Beasts with both ridiculous Physical and Magical damage. But yeah I also think Swordmaster would be a good teammate for Arch Mage. 

So, I had my heart set on doing a Duelist + Bishop setup for my Dark Duran playthrough...but Duelist/Swordsmaster, Archmage, Vanadise seems pretty great and like something I'd rather try out honestly. Especially since I did a team with Bishop not too long ago and I just so happen to have a save with a Duran Angela Lise party already  I'm kind of leaning towards Swordsmaster here just to try it out honestly. He can buff Archmage and Vanadise more quickly before throwing Energy Ball on himself then diving into the fray. I'm not gonna bother with his final weapon though...maybe I'll use the "increased critical damage" weapon.

I've realized the only downside to the Evil Shaman, Warrior Monk, Rune Master party - no dark spells to proc Curse with. I had mistakenly thought that Demon Breath was able to. Clearly I should have read the manuals more carefully! Still though, this party is just murdering god beasts. Evil Shaman's final weapon might be my new favorite thing about this mod, the lovely elemental nukes at my disposal just tear everything to pieces after a quick Lunatic cast. Kevin even deals half decent damage by stacking sabers and power up too.

My best pick for Swordmaster would be Fill Tech Bar x3 weapon, his LV3 Tech isn't as strong as Duelist but still quite powerfull, I feel this is the most reliable way to deal damage with him, IMO Swordmaster VS Duelist is trading some raw power and better self substain, for Speed Up, Saint Saber, Moon Saber and naturally MT Flame, Diamond, Ice and Thunder Sabers.

Yeah I did the same mistake of thinking Demon Breath could set curse

Speaking of just beat Zable Fahr, found a fun thing on the top right of the arena, there is a spot where you can hit both the middle and right head with one swing with Duran, as such Duran was getting 4 tech point per hits, and got his LV3 in no time, thanks to that I was able to do a lot of counter with Hawk. To the point I think I manage to reduce his defense to the maximum possible.

One thing I had the armor that resurrect by consuming MP on Duran... seems it wasn't doing shit, the Deathspell were still killing him, is Deathspell pierce thiq armor effect ?

On 09/02/2020 at 9:29 PM, Serafie1999AD said:

EDIT: Lise and Hawk are on level 8, and I still have only 3 Matango Oils. I hate RNG farming.

EDIT 2: After reaching level 9 and obtaining only 3 Matango Oils, I had had enough, so I went to fight Full Metal Lagger. This early game is really terrible in gameplay design, since you have such limited options, and the terrible lag and unresponsive controls during the first boss don't help. Currently, I'm farming Moon Coins from the wolves. Angela got from level 4 to level 8 before I got my first Moon Coin. This is going to take forever. Surely you guys use save state cheesing to save your nerves? It requires no skill to obtain rare drops, only luck.

Didn't see your edition, so sorry for the late reply, honnestly I did all the grind legit the first time (except the moon coin didn't know about them at that time ^^), it did take a while tough I admit I didn't have an RNG this bad XD.

Since then I does use Save State cheesing yes, to save time, and because as you say Save State or not this require no skill just luck, so I rather get it done quickly (also to avoid being overlevel) and to get to the interesting part, same for ??? Seeds and W/A Seeds later on in the game.

On 2/10/2020 at 11:01 PM, Nesouk said:

My best pick for Swordmaster would be Fill Tech Bar x3 weapon, his LV3 Tech isn't as strong as Duelist but still quite powerfull, I feel this is the most reliable way to deal damage with him, IMO Swordmaster VS Duelist is trading some raw power and better self substain, for Speed Up, Saint Saber, Moon Saber and naturally MT Flame, Diamond, Ice and Thunder Sabers.

Lv3 tech spam seems good to me, so I'll be sure to pick up the fill tech bar sword for him. Since the party is going to have Archmage as well for heavy damage dealing (Vanadise isn't exactly a wimp either) I feel like I'd rather go Swordsman here personally. Fast MT saber cast for him -> Mind Up from Vanadise with whitelight ring -> Archmage throwing out spell of choice to hit elemental weakness seems like it'll wipe screens with ease and there's honestly no doubt about the bossfighting potential of this party. Plus it can actually use Magatama thanks to the Dark Force of Archmage!

Well I stand by my point that Dragon's Hole is the hardest final dungeon by far, screw this place really, it's confusing, every area looks alike, the ennemis are extremely annoying, that plateform force encounter is tough, and don't get me started on that freaking room before Korren where I feel like I'm playing a God of War game (which have this habit of putting a room near the end of the game that got dozens and dozens of ennemies attacking you).

Other than Blackshine Knight is actually a really fun fight, when you know what to do, and havd a double hitter like Hawk.

Really liking Lord, Ninja Master and Sage really :

-Lord : I feel like offensively Paladin is better for AoE aka mob fight. However Lord excel at ST damage and so contrary to Paladin is offensively better for bosses. His LV3 Tech deals a lot of damage and the fact he can open Counter for any ennemies is really good, pairing him with Kevin or Hawk is definitly a good move. Also he has some good support skill.

-Sage : Honnestly even with max out PIE, I don't think her Final Weapon is that good, the Regen just never catch up with the damage receive and the regen stops while Carlie is casting.... which is obviously a problem when the character is suppose to be a spell caster, IMO this final weapon isn't as good as it sound, and Sage is probably better of with the weapon that increase Heal Light. Well still have some advantage over Bishop like better damage with Saint Beam, Dark Force and Rainbow Dus and Curse with Dark Force.

-Ninja Master : Hawk is just the master of counter, he can deal a ton of damage like this, open more counter with his final weapon, debuffing all ennemies, Ninja Master is just an awesome class plain and simply.

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Sage : Honnestly even with max out PIE, I don't think her Final Weapon is that good, the Regen just never catch up with the damage receive and the regen stops while Carlie is casting.... which is obviously a problem when the character is suppose to be a spell caster, IMO this final weapon isn't as good as it sound, and Sage is probably better of with the weapon that increase Heal Light. Well still have some advantage over Bishop like better damage with Saint Beam, Dark Force and Rainbow Dus and Curse with Dark Force.

I find Gigas Flail to be pretty useful up through the God Beasts and for random encounters most of the game, but towards the end of the game Holy Flail is definitely more effective for bosses. It's nice to have both options and choose the best for each situation. You can also equip Mad Beast Fangs for an extra 50% or so HP regen boost.

3 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Ninja Master : Hawk is just the master of counter, he can deal a ton of damage like this, open more counter with his final weapon, debuffing all ennemies, Ninja Master is just an awesome class plain and simply.

Since you've played Nightblade through the whole game, do you find Ninja Master's MT Mind Down or Nightblade's Black Rain to be better for MT damage? Without having played a Nightblade through the God Beasts, I would assume that a caster team would prefer the MT Mind Down to boost subsequent spells but a physical team would just go for the higher base damage of Black Rain.

Also, my thesis is wrapping up so I'm finally going to get to the Duran, Angela, Carlie team I've been planning. I've decided to give up the Duelist idea (Grand Divina's instantaneous cast time would kind of defeat the purpose of this shield/caster team) and go with Light Duran for Heal Light and Protect Up at the first class change and more class change options for my casters. At this point I'm thinking Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Carlie for power casting and status/reflect effects or Light Duran, Archmage, Sage for power casting and extra support spells (Aura Wave, Leaf Saber; not having to choose between Mind Up and elemental sabers). I may try a few options and play around a bit.

4 hours ago, rpschamp said:

At this point I'm thinking Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Carlie for power casting and status/reflect effects or Light Duran, Archmage, Sage for power casting and extra support spells (Aura Wave, Leaf Saber; not having to choose between Mind Up and elemental sabers). I may try a few options and play around a bit.

It's pretty hard to go wrong with a party that has Archmage and Sage in it IMO - Lord kind of seems like the better choice to me since you already have anti magic and he is a pretty strong melee fighter, plus speed up and speed down.

Dark Angela and Carlie is more fun to think about imo, but I've used both Lord and Archmage a lot alread. Necromancer and Paladin complement each other pretty well, but you only have Magic Shield and no Mind Up between the two of them...Magus might fit that party better than Rune Master since she can Mind Up herself and has Lunatic in her large arsenal of damage spells. Plus she also has dark force so she can use Magatama if you can't spare an accessory slot for Carlie.

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention, good luck with the thesis! It took me a LOT of effort to finish mine (to say nothing of defending it) but it was well worth it in the end.

4 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I find Gigas Flail to be pretty useful up through the God Beasts and for random encounters most of the game, but towards the end of the game Holy Flail is definitely more effective for bosses. It's nice to have both options and choose the best for each situation. You can also equip Mad Beast Fangs for an extra 50% or so HP regen boost.

Since you've played Nightblade through the whole game, do you find Ninja Master's MT Mind Down or Nightblade's Black Rain to be better for MT damage? Without having played a Nightblade through the God Beasts, I would assume that a caster team would prefer the MT Mind Down to boost subsequent spells but a physical team would just go for the higher base damage of Black Rain.

Honnestly Giga Flail disappointed me, the problem is I cast a lot with Sage in this team, between the Sabers, Mind Up, Dark Force for Curse all the time she is casting the effect stop, so this already is an issue but secondly even without the equipment to boost it spamming Heal Light is a far better way to heal, maybe it's because I'm on Hard but the damage I receive is just to high for Giga Flail to have any kind of relevance, so yeah this weapon is pretty useless to me, and so I stand by my point that Bishop is the better healer.

As for Ninja Master VS Nightblade well the thing is I never use them in a casting focus party, Lord, Sage, Ninja Master is more physical and Nightblade, Death Hand, Paladin is physical heavy. If I had a pick tough Curse effect is just much more usefull, and it happen that Black Rain is also one of the most damaging spell in the game. Yeah the spike armors reflect 170% instead of 100%, but curse effect require only 1 accessory slot while Spike armor require 3 Armors, and Curse has other benefit.

Then again if you are in a caster focus party, chance are you have another caster that can do the Curse effect, Black Rain still does more damage than Jutsu, the question is then are the mobs tough enough to make the Mind Down relevant or is Black Rain raw power allow for a kill fast enough that the Mind Down wouldn't be necessary.

For a Light Duran, Dark Carlie, Dark Angela my pick would be either Lord, Magus, Necromancer or Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer personnaly.

Magical focus groups: I think the formula here is 1) Angela for her spell power and damage versatility, 2) Hawk or Carlie as a second caster, and 3) Duran or Lise for a shield runner. I've played several variations of this group up through the God Beasts and found two that I really like:

1) Ninja Master, Star Lancer, Grand Divina - This was more of a mixed magical/physical team capable of ramping up either damage type, depending on the circumstance. For mobs, I could lead with Hawk or Lise, depending on whether I preferred a double hitter and Marduke or a shield runner and Fire Jutsu to complement Angela's spell barrage. For bosses, I either pumped up Angela and turned her loose for magical damage or focused more on saber spells and Fireblaze for physical damage.

2) Fenrir Knight, Archmage, Sage - Fenrir Knight was nice as a complement here since her final weapon gave her something active to do other than distract enemies while Archmage and Sage bombed them to oblivion. Maybe one of the reasons Gigas Flail worked nicely here was that I had HP coming in from Fenrir Knight's final weapon as well. The spell chain here was devastating, 80% of the time. Still, I found myself in a few situations (Dolan in particular) where I found that this group had difficulty with damage diversity.

I would like to test more variations of this group. For this Duran, Angela, Carlie group, I'm gravitating towards Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Carlie. One advantage Duran has over Lise is shield variety, so I'd like to play on this. This is why the status/reflect strategy (using reflect armor to reflect the status of the last spell cast on you to all melee attacks, as with Mispolm and Petrify) appeals to me: Duran can choose his status immunity and also get a shield with one accessory slot. Rune Master gets several statuses to choose from with her level 3 spells, and Evil Shaman gets Sleep Flower which has the added bonus of not dealing damage. Necromancer, though, gets better damage diversity in general, helping solve the major problem I had with the Fenrir Knight, Archmage, Sage team. I have never tried this status/reflect strategy before, so I cannot attest to it's overall usefulness, but it at least gives Duran something to do while Angela and Carlie are casting.

Of course, Lord, Archmage, Sage looks fantastic, but I don't think it will be very different from the Fenrir Knight, Archmage, Sage group I've already played, so I think I will be trying something different this time.

9 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention, good luck with the thesis! It took me a LOT of effort to finish mine (to say nothing of defending it) but it was well worth it in the end.

Thank you, it has been a long journey for me, and while I've grown accustomed to the grad school existence, I'm looking forward to trying something new (and hopefully putting away a little more money for the future in the process).

Lord, Archmage, Sage compare to Fenrir Knight Lord can reach higher damage I think endgame due to his Final Weapon, tough not as high as Duran dark classes.

Then if you want a party that can deal both kind of damage Duelist, Arch Mage and Vanadis is a very strong party, this team can reach insane damage with both Duelist for physical and Arch Mage for magical. Might be possible to replace Duelist by Swordmaster, or replace Duelist by Death Hand for even faster LV3 Tech, and MT Lunatic (can be MT Life Booster with Invert Armor), tough you lose Shield Death Hand I think has a better DPS and 2-hit LV1 Tech for Fireblaze abuse.

If you want to deal statut effect through reflection, assuming it work of course, Rune Master might be a best pick, could be funny cast MT LV3 spells on your team, then Curse on the ennemies then enjoy, don't think there is another classe that has as statut. Tough I already seen some weird thing with physical reflection like ennemies getting snowmaned, silenced, poisonned AND put to sleep at the same time for no reason, or ennemies getting petrified for no reason, or sometime I get Silenced while fighting Mispolm when i get thorn damage de.spite having use nothing that could Silence him, and him not casting anything with Silence effect on him.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

If you want to deal statut effect through reflection, assuming it work of course, Rune Master might be a best pick, could be funny cast MT LV3 spells on your team, then Curse on the ennemies then enjoy, don't think there is another classe that has as statut. Tough I already seen some weird thing with physical reflection like ennemies getting snowmaned, silenced, poisonned AND put to sleep at the same time for no reason, or ennemies getting petrified for no reason, or sometime I get Silenced while fighting Mispolm when i get thorn damage de.spite having use nothing that could Silence him, and him not casting anything with Silence effect on him.

These effects are based on the last spell cast on you, in this case probably from the enemies you are fighting. Mispolm casts Stone Cloud (and maybe some Silence spell) on himself so you can get those effects from attacking him.

Sleep Flower is another status spell that should work that Rune Master does not have. It also deals no damage, which should be nice here. There are a few classes with this ability, Grand Divina and Evil Shaman being two of them. Body Change is another one, but I'm not as interested in this effect.

39 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Sleep Flower is another status spell that should work that Rune Master does not have. It also deals no damage, which should be nice here. There are a few classes with this ability, Grand Divina and Evil Shaman being two of them.

That would at least give Sleep Flower one use. At the moment, I find the spell utterly useless. Sleep doesn't last for long, and it's cancelled the moment the enemies take damage (unless the sleep status expires even sooner than that), and it seems it just increases the enemies' aggro, making them counter with spell/tech when they wake up.

45 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

That would at least give Sleep Flower one use. At the moment, I find the spell utterly useless. Sleep doesn't last for long, and it's cancelled the moment the enemies take damage (unless the sleep status expires even sooner than that), and it seems it just increases the enemies' aggro, making them counter with spell/tech when they wake up.

If you have the spell in one of your groups, you can test it by equipping a Wind God Bracelet with reflect armor and self casting. The bracelet should grant immunity, and the target of your spell should now reflect sleep onto incoming attackers. I have a bad habit of deleting old games, otherwise I would test it myself.

Most of the status/reflect possibilities deal damage with the spell; Sleep Flower and Body Change do not. I'm not too interested in Body Change because of the Chibikko/experience issue, but Sleep Flower could be really useful for slowing down incoming attackers, especially for a magical focus group that would not keep waking them up with melee. (It would also give me that great feeling of repurposing a once useless spell.) Stone Cloud would be another fun one to try (with Gauntlet or Earth Shield), but you'll have to have a way to quickly recover that level 3 earth damage, maybe by timing a Heal Light to apply right after.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

These effects are based on the last spell cast on you, in this case probably from the enemies you are fighting. Mispolm casts Stone Cloud (and maybe some Silence spell) on himself so you can get those effects from attacking him.

For the Snowman + Poison + Silence case it happened on Knight type who had no statut on their attacks, and none of my team can inflict these statut neither the ennemy.

Same for Mispolm he doesn't cast any spell on himself that inflict Silence,  and I didn't anything that could silence so no ideas where the silence come from.

7 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Same for Mispolm he doesn't cast any spell on himself that inflict Silence,  and I didn't anything that could silence so no ideas where the silence come from.

his killstinger spell inflicts mute

5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Magical focus groups

fun fact - where I'm from a "focus group" is a collection of idiots occupied with meetings while the rest does actual useful work - hope that doesn't apply here

3 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

That would at least give Sleep Flower one use. At the moment, I find the spell utterly useless. Sleep doesn't last for long, and it's cancelled the moment the enemies take damage (unless the sleep status expires even sooner than that), and it seems it just increases the enemies' aggro, making them counter with spell/tech when they wake up.

I missed this bit about the aggro.... If this is true, then this combo may not be as useful as I anticipated. The point would be to slow the enemy down, but if Sleep Flower speeds up techs, then you would be better off doing this with Stone Cloud instead and wearing the resist Earth accessory to mitigate damage.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Magical focus groups

fun fact - where I'm from a "focus group" is a collection of idiots occupied with meetings while the rest does actual useful work - hope that doesn't apply here

True, but the magical focus groups cast spells at those meetings, so they're at least entertaining.

7 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I missed this bit about the aggro.... If this is true, then this combo may not be as useful as I anticipated. The point would be to slow the enemy down, but if Sleep Flower speeds up techs, then you would be better off doing this with Stone Cloud instead and wearing the resist Earth accessory to mitigate damage.

the extra aggro should only apply if they get hit directly with the sleep flower spell not the reflected variant.
this is purely an effect of a spell hitting a monster, nothing special.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

his killstinger spell inflicts mute

He doesn't cast it on himself, so doesn't explain why sometime my character get Silenced by hitting him.

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

the extra aggro should only apply if they get hit directly with the sleep flower spell not the reflected variant.
this is purely an effect of a spell hitting a monster, nothing special.

Thank you, this is what I initially assumed.

I tried the Sleep Flower reflecting tactic with reflect armor and the accessory that protects from sleep. Yeah, it works. However, it's still not a very useful tactic, since the enemies wake up when they next take damage, and I think it's better to setup your spell usage and equipment for other purposes. The ironic part is, the enemy dragons used petrifying breath on me, and it turned out to be a much more effective tactic, as the enemies soon got themselves petrified by attacking me.

Is the sleep effect increase the damage of next physical hit ? If yes having an easy way to put sleep like this could be good, can definitly see using a counter on an ennemy that just got Sleeped by attacking you. Snowman could also be a good statut for that kind of strat actually and it so happen that Duran is naturally resistant to Ice ^^.

sleep only upps crit chance

3 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I tried the Sleep Flower reflecting tactic with reflect armor and the accessory that protects from sleep. Yeah, it works. However, it's still not a very useful tactic, since the enemies wake up when they next take damage, and I think it's better to setup your spell usage and equipment for other purposes.

For a caster team though that does not often use melee, this could be great, since the only attacks that wake enemies up are coming from high damaging spells. Paladin, Rune Master, Evil Shaman, for instance, with Paladin only attacking selectively and mostly using his shield to corral enemies (like a sheep dog haha). Here you’d have the choice of Sleep Flower or Stone Cloud.

While great against mobs, though, I’m not sure how effective this team would be against bosses.... I’m thinking it might be better instead not to build your team around this tactic but maybe take either Rune Master or Evil Shaman to use it when convenient. Could make some parts of the Dragon Hole much easier :-)

And yes, Snowman would be great too, especially for melee teams, and also those enemies that resist Petrify :-)

Really Darkshine Knight and Korren are so much more manageable when you have a Dual Hitter like Hawk or Kevin and Fireblaze to double counter them, wishbone on the Shield wielder definitly help if Korren decide to spam Deathspell or even cast MT Deathspell, we'll see how Dragon Emperor goes now that I know his gimmick and what spell he can use I think it will be a better fight.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

Really Darkshine Knight and Korren are so much more manageable when you have a Dual Hitter like Hawk or Kevin and Fireblaze to double counter them, wishbone on the Shield wielder definitly help if Korren decide to spam Deathspell or even cast MT Deathspell, we'll see how Dragon Emperor goes now that I know his gimmick and what spell he can use I think it will be a better fight.

A double-hitter, hmm.... I've been thinking about this too. A close alternative to Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Carlie would be Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Hawk, trading some spell power for someone who can melee when necessary. I'm thinking Paladin/Lord, Rune Master, Nightblade/Ninja Master would be a pretty terrifying team. Here, I can see taking the Nightblade instead of the Ninja Master for Black Rain, since Rune Master doesn't need the MT Mind Down as much as Angela's other classes, and Angela would be working crowd control anyways with her MT status effects. I would be missing my Sleep Flower but with Hawk instead of Carlie, I'd be going with more melee anyways. What do you guys think?

Well Dragon Emperor defeated, even tough it did go better I still stand on my opinion that he is the hardest final boss, the main problem with his gimmick are Magic Attacks, the problem is unlike Physical Offensive and Defensive debuff are contain into one spell, normally this is good except for this fight, if you don't have Magic Shield or Counter Magic you can't raise his Magic Defense without raising his Magic Attack, and due to his Gimmick if you can't raise his Magic Defense you can't prevent him from reducing your buffed Magic Defense the perfect scenario would be as follow :

-Cast Protect Up on him, then Protect Up on the team
-Power Down on the team then on him
-Magic Shield/Counter on him then Mind Up on us

But sadly Lord/Ninja Master/Sage doesn't have Magic Shield or Counter Magic, and so the issue his spells hit like a fucking truck, with neither Buff or Debuff if he hit a weakness that's 999 guaranteed, and even without weakness his spell hit for 700-800, Byzel Armor aren't an option due to the low defense and low HP factor, Life Booster is an option but that mean you have to cast Life Booster on him making this fight even longer. So the only real way is to put Mind Down on him and keep Mind Up on the team, thank god Sage is perfect for this since she has both Mind Up and Heal Light so basically :

-Cast Water Jutsu on myself then on him.
-Protect Up on him then on me
-Fire Jutsu and Mind Up

After that :

-Sage just spam Heal Light and Mind Up throughout the all fight, really have nothing else she can do.

-Ninja Master and Lord deals the damage, due to Protect Up on him and Power Down on us I'm doing really low damage early on, BUT Fireblaze with Lord to open the counter as much as possible slowly increase our damage until are damage became decent, to put in perspective at the start Hawk's LV1 without Counter deal 20 per hit, once he is fully debuff with the Fireblaze he deals 90 damage (125 per hit with Counter) and by the end of the fight Lord deals over 400 with Magic Circle.

My main issue was running out of item especially Angel's Grail since I used a lot of them against Black Rabite.

So yeah that conclude this team, well this was a blast to play I am pretty satisfied with Lord as a fighter he is amazing with Hawk or Kevin he makes counter, and so Fireblaze, so much easier to use effectivly, it's also fitting since now the 2 sub-final boss of his scenario are focus on countering ^^, and thanks to the bonus damage of his Final Weapon and other gear Magic Circle deals a lot of Damage, so really Lord is probably the best ST LV2/3 user in the game thanks to that.

Ninja Master is still the old good Ninja Master we know and love nothing to add, tough I didn't found his Final Weapon as usefull as it sound and end up keeping the Dancing Dagger for most of the game, just to maximize his Counter damage.

And Sage well definitly not convince on her Final Weapon but definitly a good character.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

A double-hitter, hmm.... I've been thinking about this too. A close alternative to Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Carlie would be Light Duran, Dark Angela, Dark Hawk, trading some spell power for someone who can melee when necessary. I'm thinking Paladin/Lord, Rune Master, Nightblade/Ninja Master would be a pretty terrifying team. Here, I can see taking the Nightblade instead of the Ninja Master for Black Rain, since Rune Master doesn't need the MT Mind Down as much as Angela's other classes, and Angela would be working crowd control anyways with her MT status effects. I would be missing my Sleep Flower but with Hawk instead of Carlie, I'd be going with more melee anyways. What do you guys think?

Well if you want melee damage Nightblade is definitly an option, you could also take Kevin doing Paladin, Arch Mage, Death Hand using Magic Shield for Defenses, Power Down and Mind Down for debuffing, Death Hand + Paladin give you all 6 Main Sabers for Arch Mage, Death Hand is just a powerhouse and thanks to Aura Wave is self-substain can either use him as LV3 Tech User or Counter strat since he is Dual Hitter like Hawk and you got Anti Magic so that both Death Hand and Arch Mage can keep bringing the pain both physically and magically.

11 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Power Down on the team then on him

That makes no sense, you just need to power down him, he'll power down you then with the next attack, so you can just keep normal power on you until he does and get some "free" damage.

11 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Life Booster is an option but that mean you have to cast Life Booster on him making this fight even longer.

No, it only raised maxHP, current HP stays where it is.
The only effect Life Booster on him has is to move his "50% HP" reaction to a bit earlier, nothing else.
Unless he was Zable Fahr, THEN it'd hurt you.

11 hours ago, Nesouk said:

My main issue was running out of item especially Angel's Grail since I used a lot of them against Black Rabite.

Were you out of money? You could put extra grails into storage and take them out after beating BR.
Or beat BR then go back and buy more, the path stays open, you can just run past him (and tank his opening Dark Force Tidal Wave if you're too slow).

28 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

That makes no sense, you just need to power down him, he'll power down you then with the next attack, so you can just keep normal power on you until he does and get some "free" damage.

Correct that's a mistake on my part.

29 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

No, it only raised maxHP, current HP stays where it is.
The only effect Life Booster on him has is to move his "50% HP" reaction to a bit earlier, nothing else.
Unless he was Zable Fahr, THEN it'd hurt you.

Forgot that it didn't impact current HP so I guess this would have been an option with the Byzel armor, otherwise I was using the "consume MP to cheat death armor" which has a good HP so my character are already in the 900 range so at that point Life Booster wouldn't have change much ^^.

31 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Were you out of money? You could put extra grails into storage and take them out after beating BR.
Or beat BR then go back and buy more, the path stays open, you can just run past him (and tank his opening Dark Force if you're too slow).

BR actually open with Tidal Wave ^^. Other than that YEAH I was low on money after buying Honey Drinks, Poto Oils and Angel's Grai before coming to Mana Holyland, after beating BR I had 8000 left, so could have go buy some more Angel's Grail, but I honnestly didn't want to do backtracking, I actually retry Dragon Emperor afterward if you make sure to keep the Mind Up and your HP to the max it's mostly fine actually, some attacks really hit hard but thankfully most of the time he does give enough time to heal and Mind Up again, if not Mind Up then when he hit a weakness that's when one shot can happen, the worst ennemies is actually the lags cause by the text boxes that sometime prevent you to do anything.

Alright fellow boardsmen, I'm finally starting my game today, I'm going with Light Duran, Angela, Dark Hawk (substituted for Dark Carlie for extra physical damage). I'll split the team into two at the first class change and go Light Angela -> Grand Divina with one and Dark Angela -> Rune Master with the other. One of my goals is to play out this status/reflect thing and determine whether Sleep Flower (no damage, light status) or Petrify/Snowman (heavy damage, heavy status) is more useful. Apart from status/reflect, Grand Divina and Rune Master both seem like competent teammates for Light Duran and Dark Hawk, so I think this will be a fun game.

I got the mana collection on the switch and was...more than disappointed that none of the bugs were fixed which prompted me to go on the hunt for the rom heh. Came across the sin of mana and have been loving it so far. Struggling with a party I want to try though after all of the research on the mod itself.  So far I really want to run a Dervish. Always used god hand in the base game, looking for something different.  Trying my best to avoid angela and charlotte, which limits my options a decent bit.  At first I was thinking Lord(or Paladin maybe)/Starlancer as partners for my Dervish run, though I'm wondering how much one would miss the stat debuffs aside what the dervish gets. Any suggestions?

The debuff missing on Dervish, Power Down and Mind Down, are actually the 2 most important one ^^ well on Hard at lease maybe on Normal they aren't as needed but I'd say it's a bit safer to get them, on the bare minimum for a safe playthrough you should get also Protect Up, Mind Up and Heal Light. Dervish himself is a powerhouse, especially since he get a stronger version of Wolf Form than Kevin's other classes in this mod, I actually think if you get good at counter (a new mechanic in this mod) with this improve Wolf Form and either his final weapon or the one that increase counter damage he could deal impressive damage, so considering you want to avoid Charlotte and Angela here's my suggestions :

-Dervish, Dragon Master, Paladin : You get Power Down and Mind Down with Dragon Master, she also get you Lunatic which is quite good to make bosses less longer as well as Antimagic which later in the game she can improve with her final weapon to make target that have a weakness weak to everything could make the few selection of Dervish's Saber usefull (like to know how good Moon Saber could get with that). Paladin is better than Lord IMO cause he bring Magic Shield which also increase both Physical and Magical defense and strengthen his Heal Light making him a better healer, with his Final Weapon Paladin can also deal good Magic Damage (which Dervish and Dragon Master lack) with Turn Undead.

-Dervish, Ninja Master, Paladin : Ninja Master bring MT Debuff and also his unique Detect Debuff which combine with Dervish's Energy Ball could be good for Crit Build, with his Final Weapon he can open the counter for ennemies weak to his spell considering you have the 2 Dual Hitter a counter base strat might prove deadly. Lise as Vanadis will be your healer and also set buffs. Paladin keep all his advantage I mention earlier + this time his Antimagic will be usefull since this team is mostly physical having Antimagic to remove the ennemies resistance to physical is usefull.
You could also replace Duran by Lise and pick Vanadis she'll then be your healer and you'll get Power Up to increase the damage, be aware that if you Vanadis however it's no Heal light until LV42-43 IIRC so you'll had to rely on item until she gets it.

13 hours ago, Iejirisk said:

Trying my best to avoid angela and charlotte, which limits my options a decent bit.  At first I was thinking Lord(or Paladin maybe)/Starlancer as partners for my Dervish run, though I'm wondering how much one would miss the stat debuffs aside what the dervish gets. Any suggestions?

Just a heads-up since you're new to the mod, Angela and Carlie play a lot better here due to the revised counter system. Enemies build up counters to all attacks using an aggro system, meaning that Angela won't get a counter response to every spell. Also in this mod, it's usually better to go for a balanced team that can at least do some of both physical and magical damage, since some enemies and bosses have maxed out defense against one or the other, so taking just one of Angela or Carlie can be very useful at times.

Among the stat debuffs, Power Down and Mind Down are the most important, so while the Dervish ones are still nice, you would rather go for the other two. You cannot achieve Power Down or Mind Down through purchasable items either, except for a couple of purchasable class change items (Dark Carlie can purchase Black Curse, and Dark Lise can purchase MT Mind Down), and these are very expensive.

If you're willing to take one of either Angela or Carlie, Evil Shaman and Archmage are both good choices for a physical team. Evil Shaman gets two spells, Ghost Road and Demon Breath, that do MT Power Down and MT Mind Down as well as damage; Archmage gets the normal Power Down and Mind Down as ST spells that can be upgraded to MT by an accessory. Both of these classes gets Antimagic, which can be nice for a physical team to reduce physical immunity; Archmage also gets Aura Wave to pump up your physical fighter's techs (which, like spells, don't get countered as often).

If you still don't want either Angela or Carlie, you're best choice for Power Down and Mind Down is Dark Hawk or Dark Lise. Just be aware that Most of Hawk's spells (with the exception of Wanderer's Half Vanish and Poison Bubble) do physical damage, not magical, so any enemy with physical immunity or maxed out physical defense will be difficult to kill with this type of damage. All Lise's classes do get a summon that does magical damage, but this is a little clunky since it costs so much MP.

For the team you suggested, the only way to get Power Down and Mind Down would be either to switch Lise to one of her dark classes or have her wear the invert armor that inverts her spells to stat down spells (which can be cast on the enemy by holding Y while choosing the spell during battle). Invert armor does restrict your abilities to wear other armor though. Dragon Master would be a good partner here since her final weapon upgrades her Antimagic spell to clear all immunities and resistances and propagate any weaknesses to all elements, allowing you to clear physical resistance and making your sabers more useful. Even though Paladin's Antimagic would be less useful in comparison, I still think he might be a better choice for this team since his Magic Shield gives you the defensive part of Mind Up (as well as Protect Up and some other benefits) and his final weapon gives him an MT magical damage spells to add to Lise's summon. Paladin, Dragon Master, Dervish would be lacking Power Up and the offensive part of Mind Up, but these are not as important as the defensive halves, and I think this team would be pretty powerful regardless; for mobs you can use Paladin's and Dragon Master's MT damage spells and just pound things to death, and for bosses you can power up with any saber (Dervish's Moon Saber and Leaf Saber should be good choices here) and cast Dragon Master's Antimagic, increasing your melee damage output by 60% in almost all cases (10% base saber bonus plus 50% weakness bonus). Anyways, you can buy Drake's Scales and Sahagin's Scales to pump up your damage when you need to. The team I'm running now has a similar dynamic.

EDIT: Nesouk and I responded at the exact same time with the exact same team, so that one is probably a good bet. His Ninja Master option is also good, but also consider Nightblade instead of Ninja Master, since his Black Rain can add to your MT damage output and apply Curse, an awesome effect that causes an enemy's physical damage to be applied back towards itself. Just remember that Dark Hawk's spell damage is physical instead of magical (Lise's summon damage is magical), so it won't help against those bosses with maxed out physical defense.

Actually yeah Dervish, Nightblade, Paladin should be close from Death Hand, Nightblade, Paladin party I runned a few months ago. To add to that regarding this party Nightblade also get Blow Needles which inflict Silence which is perfect to prevent mobs that has a powerfull counter to ever counter (most noticably the Knight, Ninja and Bee line of ennemies which have some powerfull AoE counters that can be deadly), Deadly Weapon to reduce bosses HP, Fire Breath can be usefull on ennemies weak to it and Poison Breath is a nice non-elemental spell, also Dervish can boost the damage of Black Rain with Dark Saber. I suggested Ninja Master cause Dervish has Energy Ball which goes nice with Ninja Master's Detect and I think Dervish has a really good potential for Counter base strat, so I think Dervish would have a good sinergy with Ninja Master.

Also if you have MP issue you can always equip the Rune Earrings accessories which makes you consume HP instead of MP but in proportion it doesn't that much HP and HP are way easier to recover than MP, making high costing spell much easier to cast back to back (like seriously Paladin is a mob killing machine with this, his final weapon and Turn Undead (which normally cost 15MP spam XD), Rune Earring as the side effect of increasing your cast time but this can be overcome by putting enough point in the stat that affect cast time (see the classes document) and certain gear, so IMO one of the best accessory in the mod.

Tough one team that could be fun with Dervish if we don't restrain character is : Dervish, Bishop, Archmage get all debuff with Dervish and Archmage and all Sabers with Dervish and Bishop, Protect Up and Magic Shield (don't forget it also improve Heal Light and the Heal Light's buff from Magic Shield/Counter Magic isn't the same as Mind Up so they do stack if you have both in your team ^^) with Bishop, physical and magical damage with Dervish and Archmage, Aura Wave and Antimagic if needed.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

Tough one team that could be fun with Dervish if we don't restrain character is : Dervish, Bishop, Archmage get all debuff with Dervish and Archmage and all Sabers with Dervish and Bishop, Protect Up and Magic Shield (don't forget it also improve Heal Light and the Heal Light's buff from Magic Shield/Counter Magic isn't the same as Mind Up so they do stack if you have both in your team ^^) with Bishop, physical and magical damage with Dervish and Archmage, Aura Wave and Antimagic if needed.

Dervish, Bishop, Archmage sounds killer and you would have both Kevin and Carlie on their quest so you can hit all the plot points as well :-) Bishop's final weapon is driven by Spirit and hits about as hard as Duran does, so she could make up some physical damage in the second half of the game.

5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

snip

5 hours ago, Nesouk said:

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Didn't expect responses so soon haha, thank you! My issue with angela and charlotte are unfortunately the characters themselves, not their classes. They just annoy the crap out of me personally. The main reason I was looking at lord originally was because of his final weapon with the whole counter state on L2/3 which sounded nice, but the opinions on paladin definitely sound nice to the point you made me sway that way haha.  Last bit being dragonmaster vs dark hawk (i like both options there)  are super tempting.  The anti-magic combined with moon saber just sounds perfect to be honest and something I'd love to try, though having access to hawk's debuffs are also rather nice sounding. Id assume i'd have to depend on duran more for anti-magic if i went with hawk.  There's a lot more nuances to this mod than I first expected, but in the end it just makes me even more excited for it since it's putting a fresh spin on what has been my favorite game for a long time.

Coming back from a playthrough where I builded Lord as a physical fighter and use the hell out of his Final Weapon, I can guarantee using Lord for Counter is really great especially with Hawk or Kevin and his LV3 Tech deal a ton of damage, however I think to use Lord in that way efficiently it's better to put him in a team where there is someone else that can take the role of Healer, this way Lord is free from the Healer role and can be focus as a fighter, using Heal Light only for emergency, which is quite hard to do when you want to avoid Carlie, Angela and Light Kevin ^^. 

Unfortunatly this is a trope in Square games at this point, the annoying/unlikable character that happen to be fun to play in gameplay, I admit Carlie annoys me can't deny how she is usefull in gameplay. As for Angela I actually like the character, especially some of her animation and interaction with Duran when having both of them for Dragon Emperor story (ever try to enter Duran's home with both him and Angela in the party ? the dialog is funny XD), and gameplay wise I'm a sucker for mage actually I love playing magic caster in my games (except when it really sucks of course or when I want to change a little), so I might be bias but while I think Lise is the best character to optimize a party, Angela might be my favorite character with Hawk no matter which class she is just awesome to have in a party and each of the 4 classes play differently and so there is a ton of possible team building with her, just cause she can fit any party just need to know what you need (want healing and Support pick Gran Divina, want great firepower but also some help for the physical fighters pick Arch Mage, want some crowd control through Statut Effect and Sabers pick Rune Master or want good Firepower with Buff and potential boss busting with Deathspell pick Magus).

My issue is Kevin is just my alltime favorite character and usually try to include him in every party just about. Trying to do something different as I don't often do his dark side classes, but I've never touched dervish I admit, hence this run. I think I'll go with the  Dervish/Paladin/Dragonmaster  as I've never really played around with Lise before (wierd I know. Though my parties were usually kevin/charlotte and whoever i wanted for the story so I was never really lacking for support).  I'll definitely let you know how the moon saber/ anti magic works when I eventually get there haha.  Thank you again for the tip on duran's turn undead + his final weapon! That was definitely something I had overlooked when reading the docs.

Good choice. Also, Dark Lise has the same debuffs as Dark Hawk so you're not missing out :-)

One of the things I love about this game is the personality of the characters. Some of them inspire love, others hate, but at least they inspire! I feel like Square did a decent job here providing a variety of personalities for players to work with.

49 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Good choice. Also, Dark Lise has the same debuffs as Dark Hawk so you're not missing out :-)

One of the things I love about this game is the personality of the characters. Some of them inspire love, others hate, but at least they inspire! I feel like Square did a decent job here providing a variety of personalities for players to work with.

Woo, just beat the full metal hugger after a bit of trial and error. Still struggling to wrap my head around the fast/strong attacks though I admit. Seems like no matter what I do I attack like I would in vanilla and don't see any AT showing up n whatnot.  Also being stubborn and playing on hard. Frustrating, yet I like how winning even basic mob fights can feel rewarding since you can't just bumrush it lol.

1 hour ago, Iejirisk said:

Woo, just beat the full metal hugger after a bit of trial and error. Still struggling to wrap my head around the fast/strong attacks though I admit. Seems like no matter what I do I attack like I would in vanilla and don't see any AT showing up n whatnot.  Also being stubborn and playing on hard. Frustrating, yet I like how winning even basic mob fights can feel rewarding since you can't just bumrush it lol.

I think the AT strategy that was possible in the original game is not possible here.... I seem to remember Praetarius took it out (Somebody please confirm?). Here, the difference between fast and strong attacks is how long you hold down the attack button for each attack. To be honest, the precision is not great on my end.... I think it largely depends on your software setup and controller.

Fast and strong attack depend of if you are going into a direction or not, if you stand still it's a Strong attack if you move while attacking it's a fast, the best way for me is simply to hold the attack button move if you want to keep doing Fast Attack and don't move if you want heavy attack.

5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I think the AT strategy that was possible in the original game is not possible here.... I seem to remember Praetarius took it out (Somebody please confirm?). Here, the difference between fast and strong attacks is how long you hold down the attack button for each attack. To be honest, the precision is not great on my end.... I think it largely depends on your software setup and controller.

I've disabled AT mode because it causes like 20 bugs just by itself.

Fast attack - tap attack for a few frames, max length varies by lag, may be just 1 frame if you are down to a 1v1 situation; or just hold any direction while attacking
Strong attack - hold the attack button and NO direction button whatsoever

Oh fair enough! That explains a lot, so I just need to practice countering then. Thank you for clearing that up!

On 2/18/2020 at 6:28 PM, Iejirisk said:

I got the mana collection on the switch and was...more than disappointed that none of the bugs were fixed which prompted me to go on the hunt for the rom heh. Came across the sin of mana and have been loving it so far. Struggling with a party I want to try though after all of the research on the mod itself.  So far I really want to run a Dervish. Always used god hand in the base game, looking for something different.  Trying my best to avoid angela and charlotte, which limits my options a decent bit.  At first I was thinking Lord(or Paladin maybe)/Starlancer as partners for my Dervish run, though I'm wondering how much one would miss the stat debuffs aside what the dervish gets. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the game and the forum  it honestly makes sense to me personally that they'd leave the game in the Collection unedited to "preserve it as it was released" but yeah Praetarius' excellent work here really improves the game a lot.

Personally I consider Mind Down and Power Down necessities in any party; they really reduce the incoming damage on boss fights. Angela (for Arch Mage) or Carlie (Evil Shaman) would give the party all stat downs, moon and leaf sabers, anti magic, and solid magic damage support. I'd pick one of them and add in Lise as Vanadise if I was going to play a Dervish party without restrictions. You could, of course, add in Dark Hawk or Lise instead and avoid casting Dervish's stat down altogether, or give him the debuff reversing armor for Def Up and Speed Up...though I don't see that latter plan working out particularly well since Light Duran already has Def Up in either form.

If you really want to avoid Angela and Carlie, I'd strongly suggest Paladin for the party since Def Up and Magic Shield will help a lot defensively and he has anti magic for those annoying physical-immune enemies. not having Tinkle Rain is pretty do-able in my experience tbh. I'd probably look at Ninja Master to round the party out from there - sure there's some overlap in stat downs, but you get MT elemental spells and he's a strong physical attacker who makes good use of sabers. With leaf, moon, dark, and saint sabers you have a lot of options for offensive buffs too! If you can live without Anti Magic and/or really want Tinkle Rain you could go for Vanadise instead of Paladin but I think the first class change will be really difficult with that team personally.

Aaaaaaaand I totally didn't see there was a 13th page to the thread now so I missed all the great replies from Nesouk and rpschamp. Good job, Ed.

I'll agree that Dervish, Bishop, Archmage sounds like an outstanding party with lots going for it.

So, I played around a little with Duran/Angela/Hawk and got bored.... Now I'm back to Duran/Angela/Carlie (on Friday, after I hopefully pass my thesis defense). I thought of this crazy variation on a team we were discussing recently:

Duelist, Grand Divina, Necromancer

Duelist shields the casters and slams things with his level 3 tech while Grand Divina supports, damages, and heals, as before. Necromancer is the new element - with invert armor and purchasable Bottles of Ashes, I'll have access to all buffs and debuffs in one spell, cast three times, and one item. Rune Earrings would be great for her, since her spells cost so much anyways - I could ignore intelligence and boost her other stats. Her final weapon would fit well with this build, increasing spell damage with lost HP; I could even consider a death score build at this point. This team would be capable of crazy damage, both physical and magical. It sounds fun and different from what I'm used to so I might go for it. Any thoughts?

Could also take Light Duran for easier mid game Paladin, Gran Divina, Necromancer could be good you are free to decide which of Duran and Angela you want to be the Healer/Support and build the other more offensively in any case you'll get Magic Shield to strengthen the Heal Light with Paladin, and the 6 Main Sabers with Gran Divina. I'm not a fan of using Necromancer for buffing with Invert Armor, and Bottle of Ashes are quite expensive.

You could also do Paladin, Rune Master, Necromancer you still get all 6 Sabers (Paladin gets Saint, Necromancer get Dark and Rune Master get the rest), Curse upgrade with Necromancer's Black Rain, amazing crowd control with Statut Effects with Rune Master for mob fight and a very good support and tank with Paladin.

Might ask what did you found boring for Duran, Angela and Hawk party ?

Nothing wrong with Duran/Angela/Hawk. I think I've just played too many similar parties in the past (Light Duran or Lise for tank/support, Hawk for physical damage, Angela for magical damage). But I'm looking for something different with this magical focus group, and replacing Carlie with Hawk didn't leave me with the dynamic I wanted, at least for the early and mid game.

On the face of it, invert armor on Necromancer to cover all buffs/debuffs seems to have some problems, the main one being the lack of easy MT Power and Mind Down for use against mobs. But this is really a very specific ability restricted to just a few classes in the game. Other problems are that it's not convenient to apply just one buff when you just want to counter a specific debuff, it leaves Carlie on invert armor, and Bottles of Ashes are expensive. But there are also some benefits - the main one being that you only need one spell to cover all buffs/debuffs when choosing your teammates. This gives you more options for choosing teammate combinations that don't otherwise cover the necessary buffs/debuffs. Leaving Carlie on invert armor is not ideal, but Necromancer may be able to work a low HP strategy out of this. Also, having access to just one of either buffs or debuffs should be fine for mobs - saving a Bottle of Ashes to get both buffs and debuffs for each God Beast doesn't seem like too much of a burden, it only takes up one item slot, and it gives you something to do with all the extra money you tend to accumulate during the second half of the game.

Light Duran is really nice for that level 18-38 stretch, but he doesn't have as much growth potential as Duelist. Grand Divina gets Heal Light right at level 39 and gives Duran the freedom to go for his highest damage class. Despite missing Magic Shield, Grand Divina is a better healer than Paladin, and having Heal Light on a character you don't directly control is better for control purposes since it takes time to cast. And as I've detailed before, Duelist/Grand Divina should have a lot of synergy with Transshape and Sleep Flower. There is a lot to be said for Rune Master, though, and Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer should be an awesome team in its own right.

I think my strategy might be to go for Duelist/Grand Divina/Necromancer first, and if it's not working out, drop back to a save file at the first class change and go for the less risky team of Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer. I would really like to start testing more unconventional teams at this point to see if I can open up new ways to play this mod.

Would like to try a no heal light team actually, see if we can make this work, I have some ideas :

-Fenrir Knight, Magus, Dervish : Invert armor on Dervish to get all buffs, Moon Saber and Fenrir Knight's final weapon on top of items to heal, Mad Beast Ring should be usefull to heal between each zone without consuming item, if all fail for bosses Magus deathspell could be an option.

-Star Lancer, Rune Master, Nightblade : All buffs with fast speed cast with Star Lancer, Rune Master allow to both nuke and cripple the mob fight while Nightblade debuff and can nuke either with Black Rain or his LV3 Tech, Fireblaze with counter for bosses.

No heal light sounds extremely bold...good luck!

Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer seems like a plenty safe fallback if the Grand Divina party falls apart, Rune Master is pretty great and her sabers will also benefit most of Carlie's summons. I also wonder if you could make Angela a Magus instead here - you'd only have Saint and Dark sabers, but you pick up Lunatic and Ancient and Deathspell. Not sure if they're comparable in terms of damage at end game (I still haven't made a Magus party I've been happy with yet) but Lunatic is always nice for boss fights.

9 hours ago, Nesouk said:

-Fenrir Knight, Magus, Dervish : Invert armor on Dervish to get all buffs, Moon Saber and Fenrir Knight's final weapon on top of items to heal, Mad Beast Ring should be usefull to heal between each zone without consuming item, if all fail for bosses Magus deathspell could be an option.

-Star Lancer, Rune Master, Nightblade : All buffs with fast speed cast with Star Lancer, Rune Master allow to both nuke and cripple the mob fight while Nightblade debuff and can nuke either with Black Rain or his LV3 Tech, Fireblaze with counter for bosses.

I have thought about this No Heal Light team before.... To start, I think your #1 should be Fenrir Knight, obviously for her final weapon but also for her debuffs, Moon Saber, and her ability to use shields so you can better control incoming melee damage. Next, you'll want a heavy caster who can stay safe and throw bombs while Lise distracts and counter-heals. Rune Master may be the best choice for this since her best spells inflict statuses, debilitating the enemy significantly and limiting incoming attacks. Silence in particular will be pretty nice to limit spell and tech damage (except from werewolves, which can be petrified). She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus). Then for your third, I would go for someone who could make up the missing buffs or debuffs, depending on whether someone wears invert armor, and also do some physical damage. Here, Ninja Master seems like a great option; his final weapon lets you open up counter opportunities if the enemy is weak to one of the four basic elements, notably every final dungeon boss on Hawk/Lise's quest. This will let you better control your healing during some of the more difficult fights. Fenrir Knight can wear invert armor for buffs when you need them, and Ninja Master can debuff and help Angela bomb the crowd. So, my unstoppable No Heal Light team would be:

Fenrir Knight, Ninja Master, Rune Master

Weaknesses include no holy or dark damage, but Rune Master's final weapon lets her ignore resistances and immunities for her level 2 spells so you should always be able to do spell damage. Plus, Hawk and Lise can always go physical with sabers and Fireblaze, which should possibly be equipped on both Hawk and Lise here. Also no Antimagic, but with all the spell damage, that shouldn't be a concern. To help with the healing and reduce incoming damage, team members can equip Dragon Rings, Mad Beast Fangs, and those armors and accessories that boost defenses like crazy but take damage from Heal when you want to conserve items.

3 hours ago, Barnacle_Ed said:

Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer seems like a plenty safe fallback if the Grand Divina party falls apart, Rune Master is pretty great and her sabers will also benefit most of Carlie's summons. I also wonder if you could make Angela a Magus instead here - you'd only have Saint and Dark sabers, but you pick up Lunatic and Ancient and Deathspell. Not sure if they're comparable in terms of damage at end game (I still haven't made a Magus party I've been happy with yet) but Lunatic is always nice for boss fights.

The first thing for me to figure out is which of Angela's status spells work best with Duran's shield resist/reflect armor. Sleep Flower has a lot of potential here since it works on a bunch of late game enemies (including dragons and werewolves), does no damage when self-cast, casts quickly, and should not accrue aggro/hate when reflected. Rune Master has Petrify, Silence, Snowman, and Poison, but all of these come with level 3 spell damage when self-cast, take time to cast, and might better be used directly on mobs. Nightblade gets Silence and Poison on low level spells, so he could be good to pair with Grand Divina for more status/reflect options. This is what I was thinking with my current Duran/Angela/Hawk group, but I ended up missing the Angela/Carlie dual-caster effect too much (Shuriken costs way too much for early game Hawk, and holding out half the game for Black Rain didn't feel optimal).

6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus).

Small to big error here; sabers increase attack power (the stuff before defense is subtracted) not damage, so you'll probably see a bigger increase than just 10%.

13 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

20 hours ago, rpschamp said:

She also gets sabers in the four basic elements which besides being good for offense, could be cast on the enemy with resist gear to decrease melee damage by 45% (half of 110% with the basic saber bonus).

Small to big error here; sabers increase attack power (the stuff before defense is subtracted) not damage, so you'll probably see a bigger increase than just 10%.

Thanks for the correction. This is one of those niche strategies I have not tried out yet nor have yet to confirmed if anybody else has. I still think it has potential, even if the decrease in melee/tech damage is less than 45% (I imagine it would be at least comparable to the 25% Power Down effect).

22 hours ago, rpschamp said:

The first thing for me to figure out is which of Angela's status spells work best with Duran's shield resist/reflect armor. Sleep Flower has a lot of potential here since it works on a bunch of late game enemies (including dragons and werewolves), does no damage when self-cast, casts quickly, and should not accrue aggro/hate when reflected. Rune Master has Petrify, Silence, Snowman, and Poison, but all of these come with level 3 spell damage when self-cast, take time to cast, and might better be used directly on mobs. Nightblade gets Silence and Poison on low level spells, so he could be good to pair with Grand Divina for more status/reflect options. This is what I was thinking with my current Duran/Angela/Hawk group, but I ended up missing the Angela/Carlie dual-caster effect too much (Shuriken costs way too much for early game Hawk, and holding out half the game for Black Rain didn't feel optimal).

Ah, I forgot that you're planning on a reflect armor strategy. I don't think the Rune Master makes a lot of sense in that case, for the reasons you've listed - she's fantastic as a standalone caster who fires damage spells directly on mobs after buffing the party with sabers but I agree her spells set doesn't really lend itself to a reflection strategy.

Nightblade seems like it would be interesting for sure; Blow Needles can also get the Curse upgrade in addition to the silence it causes, making it seem like a very compelling option for this plan.

Plus there is kind of no purpose to pick Rune Master for Reflecting strat, pick her Final Weapon, Rune Earring and you can stunlock the mobs with Statut Effect such as Snowman easily, in fact put Snowman to all mobs then petrify them one by one is a viable strat when ennemies aren't immune ^^.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking that her spells would be better for direct targeting. The only enemies a reflect strategy might help her with are Power Boulders to get around their spell repel. 

Rune Master is great; crazy against mobs and able to sneak around resist/immunity (DOLAN). Once you've memorized the status immunities she becomes a huge help as mobs get tougher in the second half of the game. Snowman and Petrify just can't be reproduced at her efficiency with any other class.

If forced to rank Angela's classes, I would still probably put Grand Divina on top for her versatility, Rune Master second, Archmage third, Magus fourth. I used to love Archmage, but I find that her final weapon leaves her without many options when she can't find a weakness, making her awesome in most situations but not so great in some of the more difficult ones (DOLAN). But she still has great support abilities. I haven't given Magus nearly as much of a shot as these other classes; Mind Up and Power Up are always nice, but for pure MT spell casting I'd still almost always go with Rune Master for the statuses.

Paladin/Grand Divina/Nightblade gives you three low- or no-damage status/reflect spells and plenty of damage options; I may keep this file around in case I decide to go back to it. Since I haven't played a Paladin to his final weapon, could someone tell me what kind of damage to expect out of Turn Undead? Is there a spell level associated with it? Is it on par with Black Rain? Is it controlled by spirit or intelligence (or both)?

I passed my defense today, so I'm rewarding myself with a couple of beer/video game days this weekend before they start to look around for me back in lab :-) Time to finally get this Duran/Angela/Carlie team going!

My opinion with Magus is while the Rune Master is probably her best class for handle mobs, Magus is the best nuker overall but I think Magus can potentially be the best boss buster class in the game, Deathspell for guaranteed 999 is really a thing if one can keep being around the same level of the bosses (or reduce their LV with Red Moon Horn) and to shorten the boss fight further she has Lunatic to reduce their Max HP (now I imagine that with Evil Shaman's Final Weapon for a total of 30% Max HP reduction with Lunatic then a 999 deathspell spam, definitly looks like the noob strat XD).

I do agree however that Magus lack utility compare to Angela's other classes, Gran Divina is an awesome support, Arch Mage is a really good magic damage dealer and great support for physical fighter thanks to Anti-Magic and Aura Wave and Rune Master is IMO her best class to deal with mob fight.

On 2/27/2020 at 11:13 PM, rpschamp said:

Paladin/Grand Divina/Nightblade gives you three low- or no-damage status/reflect spells and plenty of damage options; I may keep this file around in case I decide to go back to it. Since I haven't played a Paladin to his final weapon, could someone tell me what kind of damage to expect out of Turn Undead? Is there a spell level associated with it? Is it on par with Black Rain? Is it controlled by spirit or intelligence (or both)?

I passed my defense today, so I'm rewarding myself with a couple of beer/video game days this weekend before they start to look around for me back in lab :-) Time to finally get this Duran/Angela/Carlie team going!

Congrats on the thesis defense and hopefully this party has treated you well this weekend!

If I'm ranking Angela's classes for myself...I'd put Grand Divina on the bottom, if only because I feel like its identity is all over the place whereas her other 3 classes have more clear-cut roles. Magus is a boss killer and heavy nuker who doesn't need to rely on hitting weaknesses. Rune Master is a crowd clearer with LV3 elemental spells and elemental saber support for the party. Archmage is a debuffer and weakness-exploiting spell nuker. Divina is kind of a healer but also gets lv1 spells but also can do sabers eventually, but honestly I find it really rare that I personally want/need all of these things on a single character in a party. I'd rather make her a Rune Master then have a light Duran/Kevin if I want a nuker who can saber, or make her an Archmage then pair her with dark Duran or light Carlie for saber support in a magic team. It's cool that she has the option to fill many roles but I honestly would much rather have a better defined individual Angela who focuses hard on spell damage and leave the healing to someone else.

IMO Gran Divina is the closest thing this mod has of the Red Mage class in Final Fantasy series, and the Red Mage is my favorite class in FF so I might be bias here, but I love a spellcaster that is balanced get a little of everything without being specialize, which is why I like Gran Divina you can just tuned her however you like depending of the situation and her teammates, you can either focus on support with Sabers, Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Speed Up and Transshape or use her as a nuker, with LV1 Spells being cheap and fast to cast, give her an armor that allow to deny counter to avoid counters as much as possible and she can nuke mobs very efficiently, and she can ehance herself with the Sabers and if all fail she have a Neutral Spell that is quite powerfull and fast to cast if there is no weakness to exploit. So IMO she isn't a specialist like her other classes, but her Jack of all tricks nature make it so she can make herself usefull in virtually any situation.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

IMO Gran Divina is the closest thing this mod has of the Red Mage class in Final Fantasy series

I think Vanadise fits that bill better.
RM also can handle physical combat which GD clearly can't.

38 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I think Vanadise fits that bill better.
RM also can handle physical combat which GD clearly can't.

Except RM is also suppose to have at least the low tier elemental spell, which Vanadis doesn't, Vanadis can also be specialize for doing good physical damage, and due to good defensive stat and shield can act as a tank so IMO she is closer to Kain's Holy Dragoon class in FFIV : The After Years (basically Paladin but with Spears instead of Sword) than a Red Mage.
GD can't handle physical combat really well which is why I insisted on "closet thing to a Red Mage" her spell selection is really close to a Red Mage, but she lack the physical part of Red Mage.

to me a RM is equally inept with physical (ideally sword) and magic, can heal and knows some status related spells (most often armor buff, poison and mute)

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.

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

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.

Sounds good, I agree that Wanderer has advantages here. He's more of a caster than Dark Hawk and will compliment Rune Master's MT direct damage with single-target direct damage spells Arrow and Half Vanish which can cast cheaply and quickly while Fenrir Knight keeps the casters safe with her shield. You can also try Sleep Flower self-cast / reflect armor / Wind God Bracelet here that you wouldn't have access to with Dark Hawk. For heavy physical damage fights you can just buy Bulette's Scales get the the Protect Up.

My Duran/Angela/Carlie group is going well so far; I should hit my second class change this week. Having Light Angela and Dark Carlie on the same team is just really nice mid-game; you can either have two MT dilrect damage or one MT and one heavy ST direct damage caster, depending on the situation. Apart from nuking mobs, this works well in multi-boss fights like Bill & Ben and Machine Robos where Angela can keep bringing heavy damage to all bosses at once while Carlie can focus on one at a time to stagger when they hit their 25% HP attacks.

I'm thinking of going back to a Lise/Angela/Carlie group afterwards to compare with this run, but I want to see how Duran and invert-Necromancer work out first.

I don't plan on using Sleep Flower + Reflect Armor strat considering that I already have Rune Master which with her Final Weapon should be better for setting Statut Effects, not mentionning Snowman and Petrify are better statut if you want to cripple mobs. Also I plan on trying the Armors and accessory that greatly increase Defenses but make Heal Light and item hurt, already confirm with Praetarius that HP Drain, Fenrir Knight's Final Weapon and Mad Beast Fang should still work. Wanderer main point really are all his utility spell which should come handy in a no Heal Light run.

Bulette's Scales will be farm indeed, at least Ogre Box should be easy to farm from trap chest (easier than Kaiser Mimic at least), we will see.

I honestly think that Dervish, Arch Mage, Bishop party is going to out-preform my current Warrior Monk, Rune Master, Evil Shaman team overall. This group isn't bad by any means - it really excels on boss fights since they start with a decent percentage of their health knocked away by Evil Shaman's final weapon and Lunatic before you blast them with elemental spells up the wazoo - but even though the team has sabers it's pretty lacking in physical damage. Warrior Monks is also honestly a weaker healer than I expected it to be...this isn't a huge deal for this particular team however.

On the other hand, Arch Mage is a plenty strong solo caster to support Dervish and Bishop smacking things to death while saber'd up.

Actually I think your team should be better for mobs, due to Rune Master statut spells.

I was also disappointed with Warrior Monk, honnestly think it's Kevin least good class, it has good buffs spells, but God Hand is better at healing thanks to Counter Magic, also better Saber, can be use for Counter strat with his final weapon, Warrior Monk's Final weapon seems worthless to me, if you want better healing weapon that boost Heal Light is better. And for damage his Dark Classes are far better.

That said continue Kevin, Angela, Carlie team, completly wreck Gorva with Bashkar and Sorceress, Moon Coin then Bashkar with Steel Armlet on Salamando day deals a lot of damage to the guy and Sorceress spam Holy Ball, manage to beat him before he even use Black Rain so deathless fight.

For seashore cave Bashkar with Bunny Egg, Sorceress with Evil Gate destroy the mobs, Priestess is honnestly kind of useless tough ^^".

So, through a failed hard drive and a couple of careless decisions, I ended up deleting my Duran/Angela/Carlie game without having a backup. Luckily I lost no major work in this process, so no big deal. But I will probably not be continuing with the Duelist/Grand Divina/Necromancer plan. I wanted to give Dark Duran a chance, but after playing with him up through about 40% of the game, it's clear that his advantages do not appear until the late game. Light Duran gets Heal Light and Protect Up at the first class change, two hugely useful abilities that you learn when just when the battles start to get more difficult. Dark Duran's sabers are just not as useful when you need them to be.

I did, however, fall in love with Dark Carlie. I raised her spirit, then luck, then agility; the luck increase surprisingly added something like 40% to her spell damage. Having both Light Angela and Dark Carlie mid-game was much more powerful than Light Angela/Light Carlie I used on a previous team; I could handle most groups of mobs in two or three spells, and Dark Carlie was out-damaging Angela pretty regularly for boss fights.

I plan to keep Angela/Dark Carlie as the backbone of my team when I get a new game going, but I'm thinking to change the main character. Light Duran is the obvious choice for early Heal Light, Protect Up, and shields, but the devil inside me is urging me to give that aborted Hawk/Angela/Carlie team another chance. Lise is another option of course. I will report back once I get the game going and make some progress.

EDIT: Just passed FMH with Hawk/Angela/Carlie. If Nesouk can be brave enough to try a No Heal Light run, I can be brave enough to try this star-crossed team.

For now just beat Tzenker and got the first class change, with the No Heal Light.

Tzenker is still an easy boss, Molebear's Claws + Diamond Missile, Ranger attacking when she is on range and Arrow when off-range and Lise debuff her with Speed Down.

Funny cause for me Dark Duran was a huge help mid game on my Duran, Angela, Lise party, I didn't have Heal Light until Vanadis using his Sabers on corresponding day give a huge boost to damage, pretty usefull especially in the Desert area actually where a lot of ennemies are weak to either Earth or Wind.

Also for Angela and Dark Carlie actually how about Magus + Evil Shaman just these 2 give you the most important Buffs and Debuffs and elemental damage, all you need is a Heal Light user as a third member.

EDIT : OK I finally test the Dwarf Village's Armor that allow to deny counter on Bill and Ben with Angela and... goddamn this armor is really in that particular fight for Angela, she can finally be relevant in this fight as thanks to this armor she proc Shadow Dive a lot less, as a result she can bombard spell as ever and geez just having Angela being able to do that make this fight a LOT faster, best way for this fight is probably coming on Salamando Day use the Steel Armlet for the physical hitter and Fireball with Angela.

On 3/12/2020 at 11:00 PM, Nesouk said:

Also for Angela and Dark Carlie actually how about Magus + Evil Shaman just these 2 give you the most important Buffs and Debuffs and elemental damage, all you need is a Heal Light user as a third member.

EDIT : OK I finally test the Dwarf Village's Armor that allow to deny counter on Bill and Ben with Angela and... goddamn this armor is really in that particular fight for Angela, she can finally be relevant in this fight as thanks to this armor she proc Shadow Dive a lot less, as a result she can bombard spell as ever and geez just having Angela being able to do that make this fight a LOT faster, best way for this fight is probably coming on Salamando Day use the Steel Armlet for the physical hitter and Fireball with Angela.

I honestly thought for a long while about making Angela a Magus for my current party, but decided the AoE status effects and sabers of Rune Master won out. I think it'd do best with a Lord or Paladin with dual shields to draw aggro off the casters.

I'll have to remember the counter-deny armor the next time I play a caster-heavy playthrough on Bill And Ben...Kevin carried my current party hard in that fight without said armor 

Why Dual Shield ? One shield is enough (the aggro effect doesn't stack). Light Duran, Magus, Necromancer could be a cool party actually.

Also as said on the discord beat the Machine Golem with my usual solo strat and without using any Healing Items, stacking armor that make Heal Light hurt (best defense among armor), Blackshade Ring and Dragon Ring for stealing HP with Protect Up really is a good strat that allow to tank damage much better, can't wait to get Moon Saber to be able to equip 2 Blackshade Ring for max defenses ^^

On 3/13/2020 at 2:00 AM, Nesouk said:

EDIT : OK I finally test the Dwarf Village's Armor that allow to deny counter on Bill and Ben with Angela and... goddamn this armor is really in that particular fight for Angela, she can finally be relevant in this fight as thanks to this armor she proc Shadow Dive a lot less, as a result she can bombard spell as ever and geez just having Angela being able to do that make this fight a LOT faster, best way for this fight is probably coming on Salamando Day use the Steel Armlet for the physical hitter and Fireball with Angela.

That armor is a life-saver for a caster team through the early and mid game. Angela and Carlie can essentially juggle bosses like Bill & Ben and Machine Golems to death without fear of too much retribution. I use it on almost every boss except the few with weak/no counters.

Got my Hawk/Angela/Carlie team up to the ice fields. This is the team I've been looking for and I'm really happy I came back to it; I love playing these characters and gave up too early on them the first time. Shields, while helpful, are not necessary for a decoy; you can get a similar effect without them if you play your lead character correctly, just less room for error. I went light for Hawk and Angela and dark for Carlie, and plan to go Wanderer, Grand Divina, Necromancer (or Evil Shaman) at this point. Magus/Evil Shaman would also be a nice choice if Hawk had a class that learns Heal Light.

I'm glad to know the No Heal Light team (Team Zombie?) is working out! I'd like to hear how much the game changes once you get Fenrir Knight's final weapon. Some of the death score weapons/armor might also be interesting to try here, maybe to boost Wanderer's damage in the late game?

Not really team Zombie, I will not give such armor and accessorie to Angela, cause she is mostly casting so she can't take advantage of HP drain, also it's not safe on some fights, Bill and Ben for instance combo you way to fast to make HP Draining Zombie viable.

Curious what would be a good class for Charlotte,Kevin and Duran?

Paladin, Death Hand. Necromancer would be good. Get the six main Saber, Black Curse could make Death Hand final weapon worth it for boss fight, Necromancer also bring elemental damage, Magic Shield for defense, Black Rain and Death Hand LV3 Tech for mob cleaning as well as Turn Undead once Paladin get his Final Weapon. Also antimagic for good mesure.

Very nice. Thank you!

Just an update on my Wanderer, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman/Necromancer team. I'm at the final class change and I'm playing around a bit with both Evil Shaman and Necromancer, trying to decide which one to take. This is a tougher decision than I thought it would be because they both seem pretty awesome, so I tried to think of who had the advantage in different functions and apply an arbitrary rating to be added up (+1-5 for the winner in each case, out of 15 total for defense and 15 total for offense; the advantages Evil Shaman might have in support spells don't really apply here, since Wanderer and Grand Divina already cover everything she offers).

Defense:

Party buffs: Evil Shaman gets Protect Up, and Wanderer, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman can cast Mind Up, Speed Up, Protect Up one-two-three. This is incredibly fast and effective, but requires three Whitelight Rings. On the other hand, unless I give Necromancer invert armor, her party will be missing Protect Up. I can see inverted Black Curse being useful in some situations, but in order to get the whole party buffed she will have to cast three inverted Black Curses wearing invert armor and probably Rune Earrings to access the MP. Until she can get her cast time way down, this will occupy her and leave her vulnerable for quite some time. Evil Shaman definitely has the advantage here. (Evil Shaman + 4)

ST debuffs: Necromancer has the advantage here with Black Curse, but it's really only an advantage for random enemies. For bosses, it's not difficult to manipulate the game into feeding you Bottles of Ashes from ??? seeds, and even before the second class change I have enough in my inventory for almost all the remaining boss fights. Necromancer also gets an additional debuff through her Dark Saber, described below, which in some cases can more than make up for the lack of Protect Up. (Necromancer + 3)

MT debuffs: Evil Shaman can cast Ghost Road and Demon Breath, both useful for both defense and offense. Evil Shaman's final weapon also contributes to this purpose, though it's usefulness may decrease towards the end of the game as stat decreases become less meaningful. Necromancer gets Dark Saber, which can be cast on a group of enemies to take advantage of dark resistance. This is a surprisingly convenient strategy for this group, since Wanderer and Necromancer both naturally resist dark, and Grand Divina can add dark resistance with her Mananan Robe. Still, Evil Shaman has the advantage here due to the simplicity and flexibility of her spells. (Evil Shaman + 3)

Offense:

ST damage: Necromancer has the advantage here due to damage diversity (more elements, a non-elemental spell, and a HP-based spell). Plus, her final weapon looks pretty damn effective, but I've never used it before so I'm not really sure. Could someone who has used Necromancer tell me how much extra damage to expect with her final weapon if, let's say, an endgame Necromancer is down 400 HP and casting one of her level 2 ST summons? HP armor and Wanderer's Life Booster should also be useful here. (Necromancer + 3 to +5, depending on how effective her final weapon is)

MT damage: Evil Shaman's MT damage through Demon Breath or Ghost Road should hit almost as hard as Necromancer's Black Rain, since the damage stat is a little higher. Demon Breath also enhances Angela's subsequent spells by 25%, which is a big boost since Grand Divina can fire off multiple spells in quick succession, even at moderate agility. All in all, I think Evil Shaman has the advantage here due to Demon Breath; plus, she can mix in Ghost Road to debuff the enemies further. (If only Hawk's spirit weapons hit against magical defense!) (Evil Shaman + 2)

Curse: Evil Shaman cannot apply Curse, but Grand Divina can apply it with Evil Gate and Necromancer with Black Rain. Evil Gate is faster, but Grand Divina's accessory slots are more precious due to her greater dependency on the Whitelight Ring and Protect Earrings. Assuming Necromancer can get her speed up, freeing up one of Angela's accessory slots should give her the advantage here; plus Black Rain is the more powerful spell. (Necromancer + 2)

Overall/Questions:

Overall, Evil Shaman gets a +4 for defense, while Necromancer gets between a +3 and +5 for offense, depending on how much her final weapon can add to her spell damage. Pretty evenly matched! So, would a team of Wanderer, Grand Divina, Evil Shaman/Necromancer better profit from enhanced defense or enhanced offense? My feeling is that for the second third of the game, due to my vitality stat running low while I fill out my spell roster, Protect Up will be really nice to keep myself alive when I need it, and Ghost Road and Demon Breath will make random battles easier, giving Evil Shaman the advantage. For the final third of the game, I would like to ask anyone who has used Evil Shaman or Necromancer what you think of their final weapons. Does Evil Shaman's final weapon stay useful up through the final boss? How much damage does Necromancer's final weapon add to her spells, and how does the damage boost compare to other methods (e.g. Mind Up, equipment boosts, etc.)? Based on my estimation from the mechanics files, Necromancer's final weapon should be able to boost her spells as much as Duelist's final weapon boosts his level 2/3 techs (up to +250 damage before multipliers), which seems like A LOT, with the caveat that she has to be able to function at low HP. This may give her the advantage in the end.

EDIT: Regarding casting sabers on enemies and using resist gear: After reviewing the mechanics files, it seems that the greater the difference between the enemy's attack and your defense, the greater the percent damage reduction, approaching 45%. Let's look at some examples (I'm not sure if these values make sense, but the examples should make the point):

Enemy attack 300, player defense 100: Normal damage = 200, sabered/resisted damage = (330-100)/2 = 115 = 42.5% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 150: Normal damage = 150, sabered/resisted damage = (330-150)/2 = 90 = 40% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 250: Normal damage = 50, sabered/resisted damage = (330-250)/2 = 40 = 20% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 280: Normal damage = 20, sabered/resisted damage = (330-280)/2 = 25 = 25% increase

The funny thing is that in low damage situations, you can actually end up increasing enemy damage this way. The important thing is though that in high damage situations, when you really need it, you can reduce enemy weapon or tech damage by close to 45%. So, when enemy weapon or tech damage is your main source of damage and they are doing a lot of it (werewolves, knights, ninjas, Lugar, Bigieu, etc.), a saber/resist option may be even more useful than Protect Up.

On 3/31/2020 at 3:22 PM, rpschamp said:

The important thing is though that in high damage situations, when you really need it, you can reduce enemy weapon or tech damage by close to 45%. So, when enemy weapon or tech damage is your main source of damage and they are doing a lot of it (werewolves, knights, ninjas, Lugar, Bigieu, etc.), a saber/resist option may be even more useful than Protect Up.

 

I'm playing with a friend right now a party of Ninja Master, Dervish and Paladin, and that strat intrigues me, but I'd need a Demon Neckband to turn Hawk resistant to dark (and it lowers defenses), so I'm wondering if it'd be worth it. Don't remember if that can be bought before Lugar (I think the cats only appear when you're doing the god beasts?), but I think I'll try it against Bigieu (looking forward to but also fucking scared of that fight)

Demon Neckband can only be bought from the cats when you're fighting the God Beasts, so not yet.  With your team, since Duran is a Paladin, I would stick with Protect Up for most situations since that gives a 25% reduction on all physical damage without the extra equipment. But for those heavy melee/tech damage situations when you want the extra defense, your easiest path is through Dark Saber: Duran can wear Swordsman Armor or Demon Neckband, Hawk can wear Demon Neckband, and Kevin, who naturally resists dark, has the option to wear Whitelight Ring if you want to target all enemies.

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Demon Neckband can only be bought from the cats when you're fighting the God Beasts, so not yet.  With your team, since Duran is a Paladin, I would stick with Protect Up for most situations since that gives a 25% reduction on all physical damage without the extra equipment. But for those heavy melee/tech damage situations when you want the extra defense, your easiest path is through Dark Saber: Duran can wear Swordsman Armor or Demon Neckband, Hawk can wear Demon Neckband, and Kevin, who naturally resists dark, has the option to wear Whitelight Ring if you want to target all enemies.

Yes, that's what I was thinking on doing, thanks for the heads up.

Also I'm kinda torn up between Paladin and Lord (we didn't get to the second class change yet); we're going for crit and evade on our guys (Duran with a shield and geared for evade plus the AI evade bonus makes for a very durable tank against random mobs), so MT Speed up (and a second energy ball caster) from Lord would be very nice on this team. However, not choosing Paladin means I don't get Saint Saber/Turn Undead (which are huge on Hawk's route), and also Anti-magic which is expensive at the black market.

Maybe choosing Lord just for MT Speed up isn't worth it since Ninja Master already has MT debuffs, but I dunno. Thoughts?

I would go for Lord, if only for Tinkle Rain and Life Booster which are always useful; you can keep some Papa Poto's Claws for Saint Saber during important battles, Turn Undead is most useful when you're overlevelled and least need it, and Antimagic is only necessary against one or two bosses. But the main reason is that Lord's final weapon opens up counterattacks on level 2/3 techs, and both Ninja Master and Dervish are awesome Fireblaze/counterattackers due to their double hits. Fireblaze chips away at defense, -25% per hit against random enemies, and -Strength/2 per hit against bosses (except the few that are immune). Set Hawk and Kevin on their level 1 techs with Fireblaze and their counterattack weapons and you should be set.

The main advantage I see to Paladin here is Magic Shield, which can raise your magic defense and healing power, potentially important for this team.

You're right, I didn't even check the Lord's final weapon against the Paladin's...Sure seems a lot more useful, since I was already planning to use Fireblaze along with Ninja Master's final weapon to force counterable state, but the Lord's looks much easier to proc (could always use both though). I was thinking mainly about going crit setups with energy ball+analyse, but this'll make me rethink that...

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?)

I think I someone said it’s just an attack bonus but I’ve never used it so I’m not sure. You’ve already chosen your final classes, correct? If not, I wonder if Death Hand for Kevin might make more sense since Lord already offers Energy Ball and Dervish’s debuffs are already covered. If you’re still early in the game, you might also consider Kevin’s light path; God Hand gets both Power Up and Counter Magic to cover your magical defense (it does not reflect spells in this game) while keeping access to Saint and Moon Sabers.

The cool thing about your team that you can try both critical hit and counterattack setups and see which one you prefer. If Duran is your lead character though, the counterattack setup should work well against his sub-bosses who I think require counterattacks to beat them.

8 hours ago, 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.

42 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

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

I love the idea of the Sufi "whirling dervish" applied as a berserker form, an attack state of religious ecstasy beyond concern for self-preservation. Good job with this one!

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

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

Interesting, I'll have to see in practice if it's worth it though

7 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I think I someone said it’s just an attack bonus but I’ve never used it so I’m not sure. You’ve already chosen your final classes, correct? If not, I wonder if Death Hand for Kevin might make more sense since Lord already offers Energy Ball and Dervish’s debuffs are already covered. If you’re still early in the game, you might also consider Kevin’s light path; God Hand gets both Power Up and Counter Magic to cover your magical defense (it does not reflect spells in this game) while keeping access to Saint and Moon Sabers.

The cool thing about your team that you can try both critical hit and counterattack setups and see which one you prefer. If Duran is your lead character though, the counterattack setup should work well against his sub-bosses who I think require counterattacks to beat them.

We didn't choose our final classes yet, we're at Ninja/Bashkar/Knight, so no light Kevin. Lead character is Hawk and my friend is playing Kevin. He doesn't like stopping the action all the time so I tried to make a team that revolves mostly around basic attacks and lv1 techs, that's why Dervish seemed the logical choice. Death Hand with Lunatic and elemental sabers seems very appealing, but Dervish does have Moon saber, and I also wanna try out that final weapon so I guess I'm going with Dervish on this one. 

15 minutes ago, Kei said:

We didn't choose our final classes yet, we're at Ninja/Bashkar/Knight, so no light Kevin. Lead character is Hawk and my friend is playing Kevin. He doesn't like stopping the action all the time so I tried to make a team that revolves mostly around basic attacks and lv1 techs, that's why Dervish seemed the logical choice. Death Hand with Lunatic and elemental sabers seems very appealing, but Dervish does have Moon saber, and I also wanna try out that final weapon so I guess I'm going with Dervish on this one. 

Those level 1 techs are perfect for a counterattack strategy; plus, it's more fun to try to time your counterattacks than just attack away racking up critical hits.

I also find myself making decisions more on what interests me than what will necessarily work out best, but Dervish also gets Leaf Saber which Ninja Master will love, so not a bad choice at all, good luck! (Also remember for the future that Death Hand's multitarget Lunatic can be flipped with invert armor, leading to the only multitarget Life Booster in the game! I don't know exactly how useful that would be but it sounds kind of awesome.)

Remember to come back and post your evaluation of Dervish's final weapon once you get a chance to try it!

32 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Those level 1 techs are perfect for a counterattack strategy; plus, it's more fun to try to time your counterattacks than just attack away racking up critical hits.

I also find myself making decisions more on what interests me than what will necessarily work out best, but Dervish also gets Leaf Saber which Ninja Master will love, so not a bad choice at all, good luck! (Also remember for the future that Death Hand's multitarget Lunatic can be flipped with invert armor, leading to the only multitarget Life Booster in the game! I don't know exactly how useful that would be but it sounds kind of awesome.)

Remember to come back and post your evaluation of Dervish's final weapon once you get a chance to try it!

Sure, we're doing both counters and crits, it's just a matter of which one we'll be gearing up for. Also nice thinking on the inverted Lunatic, that armor + the targetting option opens up so many strategies it's crazy, I'll keep that in mind for future playthroughs. It'll probably take a while before we get to the final weapons since we don't play that often, but I'll remember to comment about it when we do!

So, I've finally gotten my group far enough to play around with this self-cast status/resist/reflect thing. All the status spells I have to cast with my team are Sleep Flower and Body Change. I haven't tried the latter since I'm missing a Moon Ring, but reflect armor/Wind God Bracelet/self-cast Sleep Flower puts every incoming attacker to sleep (who does not resist sleep). Since I'm running a caster team, this basically slows down attackers so my MT spells can get out faster relative to their attacks. This is going to be great for those particularly melee damage-heavy sections of the game (werewolves, knights, dragons, etc.) that caster teams typically have trouble with.

But the most surprising thing is that you can self-cast the spell once, off-screen, before entering an enemy screen, and every new enemy screen from there will be subject to the same effect until someone casts a spell on you.

Rune Master should be killer with this strategy. Reflect armor/resist petrify/self-cast Stone Cloud while you're safe, then heal before entering a screen with enemies, and every enemy that attacks you for the rest of the dungeon will be petrified (unless they resist it), until someone casts another spell on you. Bring a shield along to focus the attacks on your reflector.

The next group I'm thinking of running to take advantage of this effect is Vanadis/Rune Master/Necromancer. Paladin could substitute for Vanadis to take advantage of Earth Shield, but he's weak to earth and lacks the Mind Up and Speed Up that would be useful for a caster team.

Thinking to try a Duelist party on Duran's path. Necromancer and Vanadis sounds like decent picks for that. Have Carlie be the main healer till the final class change then building Vanadis into the main healer.

Also a possible strategy with Black Course for the Dragon Emperor think could work:

41 minutes ago, smileless said:

Thinking to try a Duelist party on Duran's path. Necromancer and Vanadis sounds like decent picks for that. Have Carlie be the main healer till the final class change then building Vanadis into the main healer.

Also a possible strategy with Black Course for the Dragon Emperor think could work:

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Use a Pakkun Oil on him and cast speed up on him before casting Black Course? That way only his physical atk/magic power decreases, rest stay the same, and will lower only the party's physical atk/magic power.

 

As a Necromancer, Carlie can never use healing magic.

16 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

As a Necromancer, Carlie can never use healing magic.

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Pakkun Oil casts Magic Shield on one party member. You can't target enemies with items that are meant for your party, and vice versa.

 

I know Necromancer can't use healing magic, that's why I said Vanadis will be the healer.

Oh didn't know that about items, haven't tried that out before. Gotta think of another strat then.

13 hours ago, smileless said:

 

I know Necromancer can't use healing magic, that's why I said Vanadis will be the healer.

So how are you going to "have Carlie be the main healer till the final class change"? If you make her a Necromancer, she won't be able to heal ever, not even before the class change.

12 hours ago, smileless said:

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One and possibly only way to have an easier time against Dragon Emperor with that party is having Necromancer with the Invert Armor and Whiteline Ring so she multi targets black course and buffs your party in one spell, while having Vanadis with an invert armor to slowly debuff the Dragon Emperor or farm a Shadowzero's Eye to debuff him, so she could have a different armor instead.

 

10 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

So how are you going to "have Carlie be the main healer till the final class change"? If you make her a Necromancer, she won't be able to heal ever, not even before the class change.

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Black Curse can't be multitargeted, not even with a Whitelight Ring.

 

She could heal plenty with items with the right built. Does the job fine. Didn't necessary mean just by heal light (my bad if it came that way)

Ok thanks for letting me know about that. Guess there is nothing else to do but to make sure to have at least Mind Down and Counter Magic or Magic Shield then for that battle.

6 minutes ago, smileless said:

She could heal plenty with items with the right built. Does the job fine. Didn't necessary mean just by heal light (my bad if it came that way)

It's gonna be annoying not having Heal light until the second class change because of the auto-healing after victory though, and you're gonna dump a lot of money on healing items. Still, it's doable if you have the patience

13 hours ago, Kei said:

It's gonna be annoying not having Heal light until the second class change because of the auto-healing after victory though, and you're gonna dump a lot of money on healing items. Still, it's doable if you have the patience

Well I managed with the Hawk, Lise, Carlie team just fine without heal light till after second class change, even those parties I played that had heal light I didn't use it that much until after second class change, healing items become very efficient with the right set up. Good if you want to have it but to me it wasn't mandatory till second class change, I think it was manageable just fine.

5 hours ago, smileless said:

Well I managed with the Hawk, Lise, Carlie team just fine without heal light till after second class change, even those parties I played that had heal light I didn't use it that much until after second class change, healing items become very efficient with the right set up. Good if you want to have it but to me it wasn't mandatory till second class change, I think it was manageable just fine.

It's not really for use in battle per se, more of a convenience for the post-battle auto heal. But yeah, it doesn't take too long from the first class change to the second one in this hack, thankfully, so I guess it's pretty manageable

17 minutes ago, Kei said:

But yeah, it doesn't take too long from the first class change to the second one in this hack, thankfully, so I guess it's pretty manageable

With Genova, Gorva and 1-2x Bill/Ben that section certainly shouldn't be underestimated, though.

Gorva sure gave me a tough time when I played with Hawk/Lise/Carlie, I admit haha. A heal light user would be useful there, sometimes he takes a bit longer before his next attack so you have more time to toss a heal light here or there.

Man, Dragonmaster is just too good, going to make really good use of that final weapon of hers (finally managed to get it). First time trying that class and am loving it. 

Tried a team suggestion I saw some weeks ago of Lord/DragonMaster/Bishop, going really smooth so far. Beat Dangaard, Mispolm, Landumber and Dolan, had a bit a tough time as usual against Dolan because I didn't have my tech ready in time so I had to be extra careful there on techs managing, but I did it in the end, and I managed to also do some farming and got Carlies and Lise's final weapons.

Next is Xan Bie and the first boss I will flex with Lise's final weapon , then I will try to get Duran's final weapon

On 11.4.2020 at 10:36 AM, smileless said:

 

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Lord was dealing 999 damage on Fiegmund

 

On which difficulty level are you playing exactly? The damage seems amazingly high.

Your party composition is quite impressive, and it's a very good defensive party. The biggest problems with the group is that it's slow to buff (Magic Shield has to be cast on characters one at a time), there's no double hitter or Aura Wave (so tech-building is slow), there's no Mind Up for boosting attack magic, and AoE attack magic is limited to MT Holy Ball, powered up by Saint Saber. Then again, if an enemy has any weakness, Dragon Master's powered up Anti-Magic makes the target weak to everything, making up for the limited elemental coverage. Other than that, two Heal Lights that are available after the first class change, and you have two tanks, a wide range of elemental Sabers, powered up Anti-Magic, debuffs and Lunatic. The hardest parts are probably against

1 hour ago, Serafie1999AD said:

On which difficulty level are you playing exactly? The damage seems amazingly high.

Your party composition is quite impressive, and it's a very good defensive party. The biggest problems with the group is that it's slow to buff (Magic Shield has to be cast on characters one at a time), there's no double hitter or Aura Wave (so tech-building is slow), there's no Mind Up for boosting attack magic, and AoE attack magic is limited to MT Holy Ball, powered up by Saint Saber. Then again, if an enemy has any weakness, Dragon Master's powered up Anti-Magic makes the target weak to everything, making up for the limited elemental coverage. Other than that, two Heal Lights that are available after the first class change, and you have two tanks, a wide range of elemental Sabers, powered up Anti-Magic, debuffs and Lunatic. The hardest parts are probably against

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Dolan and Mispolm, since you'll have a harder time filling up your tech bar.

 

I am playing the Normal difficulty patch.

Yeah, it's pretty slow to buff, having to cast Magic shield one by one is a problem. And tech building is slow (probably should use that ring rhat ups the tech points).  But I take my time with it, am in no rush, I try to speed it up with Magic Walnuts, Carlie has that helm thay shortens cast time while I near maxed out her AGI by now. Already maxed out PIE, her final weapon runs on tha so that's great, becomes a very strong physicsl hitter too when needed, and her lv1 tech becomes decently strong.

Empowered Anti-Magic really helped this party from the lack of elemental coverage. 

Finished Duran's path with that party. Went pretty smooth, only Black Rabite proved to be a problem, the Dragon Emperor battle was fine:

Now thinking on my next team, since I took care of Dragon Emperor, will go after the Archdemon next.

Fenrir Knight, Death Hand, Paladin sounds like a nice party I might choose tho seems to be heavy physical reliant, it got debuffs, sabers, def up, magic shield, anti-magic, heal, Kevin with a strong lv3 tech, also his lunatic is multi target which might help against mobs too for a team like this, tho without Necromancer I don't think I can make use of his final weapon but fine by me, I will just do without it and the weapon that fills tech bar x3 to unleash the beast.

Or might go with a Hawk, Angela, Carlie or Kevin:

Nightblade, Magus, Bishop - debuffs, magic shield, turn undead, sabers, mind up for magus, def up, would have been nice to have a leaf saber for angela, might farm crawlers claws for endgame at very least

I might not actually pair Kevin with Angela and Hawk, seems like that team might lack def up, unless I wanna have an evasion heavy build but I think it's too risky.

Wanderer, Paladin, Necromancer might be pretty good too, it lacks saber spells but has Light and Dark Saber

Thoughts?

I learn the hard way that honnestly focusing on Evasion is for the most part not worth it, cause most gear that increase Evasion has low defense, and so you take a lot of damage from unavoidable attacks, one big exemple of that is Bill and Ben 1 while increasing Evasion does allow you to dodge their regular attacks, your defense get to low to survive their shadow dive.

So IMO it's better to balance a bit between defense and evasion, and Protect Up is really to important to miss.

Fenrir Knight, Death Hand, Paladin sound good to me, you could alternativly do Fenrir Knight, God Hand, Lord for Counter strat capitalizing on each Final Weapons, dedicate either God Hand or Lord as a support and the other as a fighter.

For Nightblade, Magus, Bishop you can replace Leaf Saber by equipping Tree Spirit Ring. You could also use a Wanderer, Arch Mage, Bishop party keep Mind Up with Wanderer with all his utility spells, a powerfull nuker complete with Power and Mind Down with Arch Mage complete with Bishop's sabers and support spells.

Wanderer, Paladin, Necromancer sounds good, sabers aren't a necessity as long as you have 1 or 2 to counter some bosses casting Sabers on you it should be fine. If you want Saber you could replace Hawk by Lise go Light with her and go Dark with Duran so Vanadis, Necromancer and either Duelist or Swordmaster down side is you'll have to play up to LV43 without Heal Light, it can be tough but it's doable.

On 4/15/2020 at 7:05 AM, Nesouk said:

I learn the hard way that honnestly focusing on Evasion is for the most part not worth it, cause most gear that increase Evasion has low defense, and so you take a lot of damage from unavoidable attacks, one big exemple of that is Bill and Ben 1 while increasing Evasion does allow you to dodge their regular attacks, your defense get to low to survive their shadow dive.

You're right. Only way I see with a Hawk, Angela Kevin party is by going with Nightblade, Grand Divina and Dervish. Dervish needs to always have the Invert armor to get def up, you will have no other option in terms of armor for him. But then you will lack mind up or a way to boost angela's power I guess you could stack on sahagins scales at least on important fights, while using her final weapon you could use her spells to boost magic damage too by casting them as sabers, Hawk debuffs. Kevin does also have some nice sabers, his final weapon might be a no go tho with a team like this. Which would be fine I guess.

On 4/15/2020 at 7:05 AM, Nesouk said:

Fenrir Knight, Death Hand, Paladin sound good to me, you could alternativly do Fenrir Knight, God Hand, Lord for Counter strat capitalizing on each Final Weapons, dedicate either God Hand or Lord as a support and the other as a fighter

Hmm do you think the fireblaze strategy is enough fot mobs that are tough to beat with a physical heavy party and no antimagic? Well on the other hand Lise has her summon too, might make more use of that for mobs. This is a great team, the 3 of them with their final weapons help greatly one other. The playthrough I just finished was similar (Lord, Dragonmaster, Bishop), similar in the sense it used Lord's final weapon to their advantage for counter.

That team is going to have a tough time on Fiegmund and Xan Bie om the other hand. For Xan Bie I cannjust stack in sabers and ice coincs if I can afford. It might be a good idea to farm a demon claw or two for fiegmund from those magic seeds.

On 4/15/2020 at 7:05 AM, Nesouk said:

For Nightblade, Magus, Bishop you can replace Leaf Saber by equipping Tree Spirit Ring. You could also use a Wanderer, Arch Mage, Bishop party keep Mind Up with Wanderer with all his utility spells, a powerfull nuker complete with Power and Mind Down with Arch Mage complete with Bishop's sabers and support spells.

Another fantastic team as well. I will probably use one for Hawk as a main, other with Angela or Carlie as a main.

On 4/15/2020 at 7:05 AM, Nesouk said:

Wanderer, Paladin, Necromancer sounds good, sabers aren't a necessity as long as you have 1 or 2 to counter some bosses casting Sabers on you it should be fine. If you want Saber you could replace Hawk by Lise go Light with her and go Dark with Duran so Vanadis, Necromancer and either Duelist or Swordmaster down side is you'll have to play up to LV43 without Heal Light, it can be tough but it's doable.

I might do Vanadis, Duelist, Necromancer another time, since I just finished a Duran, Lise, Carlie playthrough wanna play a bit with other characters. Wanted to try it before on Duran's path but scrapped it, will probably pick Lise as a main with that team. Duelist LV3 tech power is going to be pretty insane with that set up I imagine.

So many teams to try out. Now seems like the time to do them, being stuck at home haha.

HAHA In my case I'm not stuck at home and still working, so not much more time than usually.

I think I am gonna be bold and pick Fenrir Knight, Lord, God Hand next, Lamian Naga being the only damaging spell not sure how this will go.

Gotta take my time with that. Then I will run the Fenrir Knight/Paladin/Death Hand for another time and then compare the two.

I understand Kevin is nowhere near as powerful as he is in the vanilla game but is he still the best physical attacker by a significant margin?

Maybe not by a significant margin but, yes he is still the best physical attacker.

Ok I just beat the Archdemon with Fenrir Knight, God Hand, Lord. The team worked much better than I thought it would but you really gotta stack on coins for few fights like Fiegmund and Xan Bie. And Bigieu even on Normal it's so tough. 

And I had to fight Jagan twice, game froze once after I beat him after I casted a spell on a mob. 

Now onto the Kevin's route. Might try a Kevin, Lise, Angela pick. I think Dervish, Vanadis, Archmage sounds pretty good.

Kevin with his strongest wolf form and some sabers, Vanadis with buffs and heals, Archmage with antimagic, mind down, power down, nukes enemies.

31 minutes ago, smileless said:

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Buffs/debuffs, fireblaze strat, and Lord with his final weapon was doing a whooping 800 damage on this fucker.

 

8 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

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Yeah, definitly should nerf that weapon.
The MAIN effect is triggering counterframes, the increased damage was just supposed to be a small extra.

 

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?

Future:

Ninja Master or Nightblade, Vanadise, Duelist - need more thinking, might pick Nightblade but Ninja Master might work even better with MT Jutsu's, sabers. Might lean more towards NinjaMaster, Vanadise already has to sacrifice a ring slot for whiteline ring.

Or: Rogue, Vanadise, Archmage or Evil Shaman

Death Hand, Vanadise, Necromancer - this one should be fun, one of those times where it's time to bring out Death Hand's final weapon.

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.

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.

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!

37 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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.

Yeah I saw it, decided to go with Death Hand instead.

38 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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.

Sounds like a viable strat, I like it. It's something I haven't done before also, so I will give it a try.

On 25/04/2020 at 5:42 PM, rpschamp said:

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!

I think Death Hand, DragonMaster, Sage might be a great one. Empowered antimagic, curse upgrade, Kevin helps Sage's healing with Magic Shield and his Magic shield could replace def up which this party would lack, and his final weapon helps Carlie's spell power. Make full use of Dark Saber and Dark Force with Empowered Antimagic and Curse Upgrade.

On 25/04/2020 at 5:42 PM, rpschamp said:

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!

I'm currently gonna play Death Hand, Dark Hawk (not sure which one) and Gran Divina. I theorize however a solid team would be Death Hand, Bishop, Dark Hawk Bishop now having Power Up you get all buff except offensive Mind Up, all the 6 main Sabers, all debuffs both Kevin and Hawk are solid damage dealer, not sure which Hawk Ninja Master is Ninja Master, now that he has Silver Dart Nightblade can exploit the 6 main element. Only thing missing is Anti-Magic might need to get consumable on some fight like Xian Bhe.

Or Death Hand, Bishop, Arch Mage could work to trading Speed Down and Protect Down for Anti Magic and a powerfull caster.

Other ideas with Death Hand :

-Death Hand, Lord, Fenrir Knight : Fenrir Knight now has Leaf Saber for MP management, now Counter allow to bypass physical resistance and immunity so Lord being able to open Counter will allow to damage even ennemies that resist physical so this is great especially with Fenrir Knight being able to Heal through Counter, you're still missing Power Up sadly.

-Death Hand, Dark Carlie, Gran Divina : More magic oriented miss Mind Up but eventually get all Sabers and with Death Hand's final weapon get an alternative way to reduce Magic Defense, speed up, with Necromancer it get Black Curse, powerfull spells and Half Vanish, with Evil Shaman you get Antimagic and more utility spells overall.

-Death Hand, Ninja Master, Lord : Get both Energy Ball and Detect for Crit Build (now that there is new weapons for it), Lord and Ninja Master can open counter for physical resistant ennemies, Death Hand can power up Lord's Heal Light

Personnaly on Kevin's side I liked to also give a shot at Warrior Monk now that he is quite a unique class, since it is the only class in the game to naturally have Heal Light and being able to debuff (missing only Protect Down).

Now with the Leaf Coat Spell Upgrade, I think some nice teams could come out of that. 

"Next fire elemental spell or lv2/3 tech deals increased damage"

Rogue, Wanderer, Nightblade, Magus, Dervish could make some use of the Earth Bracelet. DragonMaster + Rogue might turn out to be a nice combo, with Rogue making use of all these spell upgrades.

Oh Yeah I forgot about that new upgrade, would give Poison Bubble finally a reason to exist

I agree on Warrior Monk, seems like a pretty damn good class to try it now as well. Loving the update in general.

Thinking of parties with Warrior Monk in them:

Warrior Monk, Wanderer, Rune Master

Debuffs, heal, Magic Shield, Anti-Magic, 5 sabers that might work as replacement for Mind Up, Half Vanish.

Or replace Rune Master with Grand Diviba and get Speed Up, Transshape + 6 additional sabers. Magus might work too, no sabers but she gets her own Mind Up, Death Spell.

Warrior Monk, Swordmaster, Vanadise - heal, debuffs, Lise is free from her role as a healer and on bosses she could make use of her final weapon by using any element. Duran with that crit build. Might troublesome on mobs tho you will lose a lot of exp with Lise's summon, and no anti-magic, might want to rely on counters to take some of them out.

You could choose instead of Vanadise Wanderer for Magic Shield, Anti-Magic, Half Vanish.

I think one good class to pair with Warrior Monk is Star Lancer, these 2 get all buffs, all debuff except Protect Down, Energy Ball and Detect as well as Aura Wave which sync well with Warrior Monk's Final Weapon (also if you run crit build and use the weapon that increase Crit Rate with TP) and good old Marduke.

With this 2 you techncally can with anyone IMO.

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.

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.

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....) 

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.

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 :-)

A question about this new property for Wendel-class weapons: "strong attack can use 5 MP to have regular cooldown". The documentation claims this can be done, but it doesn't explain how it can be done. Do you need to press a certain button during a strong attack, or is the cooldown automatically lowered if you have at least 5 MP to spend?

10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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 :-)

Nah, Sudden is only intended for buffs; I'm not a fan of "easy healing" since that leads to stupid situtations where it doesn't matter if the boss deals 1% damage or 99% damage with an attack.

4 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

A question about this new property for Wendel-class weapons: "strong attack can use 5 MP to have regular cooldown". The documentation claims this can be done, but it doesn't explain how it can be done. Do you need to press a certain button during a strong attack, or is the cooldown automatically lowered if you have at least 5 MP to spend?

It happens automatically if you have 5+ MP and do a strong attack.
I mainly made this effect to give Angela and Charlie something to do before FMH.

4 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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.

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.

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.

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

Next I think I will do Paladin, RuneMaster, Necromancer party. No speed up, but I think I will play very defensively with this party and using reflect armor+stone cloud combo with Paladin for mobs. While for bosses there is magic shield, sabers, black course, half vanish, and other spells that Angela and Carlie provide. Duran can throw in here and there turn undead to get rid of those undead mobs (those friggin Dragon Zombies), and be a tank, don't think I would use his final weapon here, there is enough spells that Angela and Carlie provide. Of course you could also make use of the curse upgrade with Necromancer, more of a safe strategy on bosses tho with that I feel.

Speaking about Turn Undead, it and Death Spell just became a lot more useful with the mob scaling patch since it would always hit on same level mobs, right? Did anyone do a playthrough with that patch on yet?

1 hour ago, Kei said:

Speaking about Turn Undead, it and Death Spell just became a lot more useful with the mob scaling patch since it would always hit on same level mobs, right? Did anyone do a playthrough with that patch on yet?

Enemies with death spell will also have the same advantage over you, like those power boulders for example. Tho am not sure if there is any other mob that casts spells like death spell.

6 hours ago, smileless said:

Enemies with death spell will also have the same advantage over you, like those power boulders for example. Tho am not sure if there is any other mob that casts spells like death spell.

That makes sense, but I think it's only fair (since Gorva doesn't have Death Spell anymore, at least...).

Aside from that, I was thinking that maybe the scaling patch doesn't just incentivize skipping fights whenever you can, then? That's if bosses scale to player level as well, though.

Bosses also scale to your level though their stats/gimmicks are ofc. optimized for their intended level(s).
At least one godbeast is 100% unbeatable if you never class change.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Bosses also scale to your level though their stats/gimmicks are ofc. optimized for their intended level(s).
At least one godbeast is 100% unbeatable if you never class change.

I see, that makes sense. I think I'll refrain from using the patch then, as it probably makes the game a bit easier overall

I don't think the scaling works as intended in the early game. I loaded up an early save in the Cave of Waterfalls, all the enemies were on level 1 (even though my characters were on level 9), and Full Metal Hugger took me 20 seconds to beat on Hard difficulty.

sorta, I forgot to exclude the dummy data of the not-yet-gotten allies from the level calculation there, so they default to 1 until you pick the 2nd partner

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

sorta, I forgot to exclude the dummy data of the not-yet-gotten allies from the level calculation there, so they default to 1 until you pick the 2nd partner

Is this possible to fix by averaging only according to your present 1-2 members when you have less than 3 party members? I thought you said that the enemey level is scaled according to your highest level, though, so the missing party members being on level 1 shouldn't affect the enemy level.

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.

47 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

47 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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, 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).

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 is 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

- 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 damage reduction is significant (approaching 45% at higher damage), and it makes use of the elemental resist armor that has typically been underused.

 

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

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? 

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.

39 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? 

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

1 minute ago, praetarius5018 said:

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

Interesting, so to actually have a resistance I'd have to use the remove weakness armor + resist element accessory right?

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.

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?

I been thinking on a duran/kevin/hawk team

I definitely want to go Gladiator for Duran, Monk for Kevin and Ninja for Hawk. But I'm not so sure about my last tier classes tho.

On one hand, sabers for swordmasters and multi target elemental sabers but duelist got aura wave and anti magic alongside eruption sword.

God hand is very good with life booster, counter magic with stat buffs/debuufs and healing alongside tinkle rain. However warrior monk got multi target healing with body change and analysis (what does this spell do anyway)

There Ninja Master vs Nightblade. Do I want multi target jutsu or the extras stuff nightblade has alongside fire/poison breath that are useful.

6 hours ago, Kei said:

Interesting, so to actually have a resistance I'd have to use the remove weakness armor + resist element accessory right?

I usually use the helms that remove the weakness of either base or advanced class depending with the resist armor for god beasts, while for final battles the remove weakness armor or the ring from Jad that can't be unequiped.

3 hours ago, HeavyC4 said:

I been thinking on a duran/kevin/hawk team

I definitely want to go Gladiator for Duran, Monk for Kevin and Ninja for Hawk. But I'm not so sure about my last tier classes tho.

On one hand, sabers for swordmasters and multi target elemental sabers but duelist got aura wave and anti magic alongside eruption sword.

God hand is very good with life booster, counter magic with stat buffs/debuufs and healing alongside tinkle rain. However warrior monk got multi target healing with body change and analysis (what does this spell do anyway)

There Ninja Master vs Nightblade. Do I want multi target jutsu or the extras stuff nightblade has alongside fire/poison breath that are useful.

Quite tricky with last update Kevin's Light path is pretty unique in that he is a healer but also a debuffer, so he and Dark Hawk are similar in that department. You'd want at least Protect Up and Mind Up.

Warrior Monk's analysis decrease the target resistance to Crit, in other word it increase your chance of inflicting Crit. Ninja Master has it to and it could have a good synery with Sword Master's Energy Ball.

I'd say God Hand, Swordmaster and Ninja Master are a potential good combo, God Hand give Power Up, can assist Hawk with debuff duty, Counter Magic to increase Magic Defense and his Heal Light power, Swordmaster complete the offensive buff duty with Sabers and Moon and Leaf Saber can be usefull to, he also has Speed Up to decrease cast time and Energy Ball to increase Crit Rate finally Ninja Master is your debuffer with Jutsus and Detect. You'll lack Antimagic so might have to buy some for some bosses and Protect Up, you can farm Bulette's Scales on Ogre Box for this, or you can choose to give the Invert Armor on God Hand turning his debuff spells into buff spells.

4 hours ago, HeavyC4 said:

I been thinking on a duran/kevin/hawk team

I definitely want to go Gladiator for Duran, Monk for Kevin and Ninja for Hawk. But I'm not so sure about my last tier classes tho.

On one hand, sabers for swordmasters and multi target elemental sabers but duelist got aura wave and anti magic alongside eruption sword.

God hand is very good with life booster, counter magic with stat buffs/debuufs and healing alongside tinkle rain. However warrior monk got multi target healing with body change and analysis (what does this spell do anyway)

There Ninja Master vs Nightblade. Do I want multi target jutsu or the extras stuff nightblade has alongside fire/poison breath that are useful.

If you wanna do Durans path, you might need a Magic Shield or Counter Magic user. Wont tell you where, you will find out eventually, or you can try it without either of them it is doable but it's more difficult.

I personally was thinking of running Swordmaster, Warrior Monk, Wanderer. You got debuffs, power up, Magic Shield (which has the defensive part of mind up and def up, which covers that for the three of them), Swordmaster would also selfcast speed up and energy ball, also has every saber. Has antimagic, also could attack magically too, half vanish with Wanderers final weapon is pretty good.

Other Lord (heal, def up, speed up, speed down, energy ball), Ninja Master (debuffs), God Hand (power up, def down, mind down, counter magic, moon saber). No antimagic but since counter attacks now ignore physical resistance would be a pretty good team to make use of counter attacks, but you will still need antimagic fot some bosses so might wanna buy some specters eye.

Or you can switch instead of God Hand for Death Hand but lose some debuffs and power up for dark saber, magic shield, aura wave, lunatic. I would prefer more God Hand for that set up tho.

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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?

It removes the TP when calculating the cast time so way before the point the game checks for the WM weapon.

16 hours ago, smileless said:

I usually use the helms that remove the weakness of either base or advanced class depending with the resist armor for god beasts, while for final battles the remove weakness armor or the ring from Jad that can't be unequiped.

 Good thinking, I totally forgot about those helmets

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.

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.

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 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.

31 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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.

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

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.

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).

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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.

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.

After the latest patch, I think this party would be excellent:

Death Hand, Dragon Master, Bishop:

For buffs, you get double Magic Shield, Speed Up, Power Up and Aura Wave, and for debuffs, you get Power Down, Def Down, Mind Down, Speed Down, Lunatic and empowered Anti-Magic. For Sabers, you'll get Diamond, Thunder, Flame, Ice, Saint and Dark, which is useful until you get Lise's ultimate weapon. For attack magic, you have MT Holy Ball, Saint Beam, Turn Undead and Jormungand, which aren't much, but it's still better than nothing, especially after getting Lise's ultimate weapon. You'll also have Heal Light after the 1st class change.

39 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

After the latest patch, I think this party would be excellent:

Death Hand, Dragon Master, Bishop:

For buffs, you get double Magic Shield, Speed Up, Power Up and Aura Wave, and for debuffs, you get Power Down, Def Down, Mind Down, Speed Down, Lunatic and empowered Anti-Magic. For Sabers, you'll get Diamond, Thunder, Flame, Ice, Saint and Dark, which is useful until you get Lise's ultimate weapon. For attack magic, you have MT Holy Ball, Saint Beam, Turn Undead and Jormungand, which aren't much, but it's still better than nothing, especially after getting Lise's ultimate weapon. You'll also have Heal Light after the 1st class change.

Sounds pretty good and similar to one that I finished with the new update, Death Hand, Dragon Master but went with Bishop fot Carlie for that curse upgrade with dark force, dark saber and empowered antimagic combo once I got Lise's final weapon.

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 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?

5 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I hope this doesn't reveal too much, but after this new Seashore Cave mini-boss, I'm no longer excited about a No Heal Light team.

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 5/6/2020 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:

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!

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

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

I haven't it probably was removed

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

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).

I actually run Gran Divina, Star Lancer, Necromancer an all around great team, that has almost everything cover, just lack some physical damage.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

17 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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?

35 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

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

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

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

Which of these do you think would work the best?

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

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

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.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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.

19 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

15 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

huh, I really forgot to write that down...

5 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

huh, I really forgot to write that down...

  Reveal hidden contents

Lv2/3 tech with fire saber gets x1.5 damage
fire spells get x1.25 attack before defense

 

Well, that should be about 2.5 x the saber effect, so not so bad. It might also be more effective for high level spells like Rainbow Dust since the spell level modifier actually decreases with level before defense is subtracted.

It's too bad Jormungand doesn't Leaf Coat all enemies instead of Poison, I'd love to follow that up with Rainbow Dust or Rune Master's MT Blaze Wall!

48 minutes ago, smileless said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

29 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the advice! In normal conditions, I'd take Bishop instead of Sage, but here Sage might be more versatile: Star Lancer already covers buffs and Saint Saber, so Bishop has overlap with her skills, and Star Lancer gets both Saint and Dark Saber, so she can boost Sage's Saint Beam and Dark Force. Bishop becomes a strong fighter when you are able to farm her ultimate weapon, but what about before that?

4 hours ago, rpschamp said:

 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.

I can think of only one enemy that resists both Light and Dark, namely the Evil Shaman.

2 hours ago, smileless said:

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

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

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

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

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

9 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

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

10 minutes ago, Serafie1999AD said:

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

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

How I did it in my current play:

Beat third god beast - get a weapon/armor seed

Beat another one - get another W/A seed

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

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

4 hours ago, Serafie1999AD said:

I wonder if Rainbow Dust can benefit from the armor that turns every spell into neutral element. Dragon Master's empowered Anti-Magic could be great with Rainbow Dust

The neutral spell element armor would boost the damage, but only half a level, since the spell levels are capped at 3.5. Still, it would be better than the 75% modifier you get from resistance plus weakness or worse you get from immunity. As for Dragon Master's Antimagic, I used to think it would net you four weaknesses, i.e. 150%^4 = 506%, but the game only counts one weakness or one resistance; still, 150% is a nice modifier.

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

Basically Diamond Saber on mobs + Protect Up + Water Jutsu

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

Is there any sort of high-level description of what the various classes' niches are? In the vanilla game, it’s fairly easy to understand the strengths of the classes because they’re pretty simple. The reworked classes seem much more complex and I’m having a hard time pigeonholing them. Of course, that might be intentional

There are no such clear cut roles here, at least not by intention.

Going by how good most (de)buffs are that was some necessity to make them available on multiple characters, and if multiple classes were just "clones" like dark-Hawk, dark-Lise and necro-Charlie are as debuffers all with the same full set it'd get boring fast. So mix and match it was.

5 hours ago, smileless said:

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

Basically Diamond Saber on mobs + Protect Up + Water Jutsu

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

 

One takes so much melee/tech damage in the endgame, I feel like any team should be designed to have this option open. All it needs at minimum is one person with one saber spell in one of the six major elements. Also, it's not really my idea, Praetarius suggested it in an old post on this forum :-)

After playing around with this Hawk/Kevin/Carlie team, I'm thinking now of a larger project: running a melee/tech-damage focus team and a spell-damage focus team side-by-side. I'd like to experience how each strategy functions at different points in the game. Right now I'm thinking:

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

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

This will be a longish project since I only really get to play on weekends, but a fun one I think :-)

On 5/12/2020 at 8:22 AM, Nesouk said:

I actually run Gran Divina, Star Lancer, Necromancer an all around great team, that has almost everything cover, just lack some physical damage.

Just curious, how often were you using Star Lancer's aggro shields by the endgame with this team?

Lise was my tank in this set up, so I had pretty much always her with a Shield to allow Angela and Carlie to nuke ^^

24 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Lise was my tank in this set up, so I had pretty much always her with a Shield to allow Angela and Carlie to nuke ^^

I'm thinking of a spell-damage team, similar to yours, where a tank or a shield wouldn't be necessary; since Angela can cast her spells instantly, she should always free to knock enemies back, thus having no need for a shield. With her in the lead position, her two partners would be free to cast their own spells, maybe Wanderer and Necromancer to add to the damage, or Star Lancer to summon, or even someone to cast a Heal Light in case an enemy manages to get through.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Angela can cast her spells instantly

Where does this idea come from?

25 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Where does this idea come from?

I was referring to Grand Divina's level 1 damage spells; at max agility she can fire them off more or less instantaneously, at least last time I played her on a previous version of this mod. I'm not sure if the cast times of her level 1 spells have been lengthened in the current version.

I have always run Angela with a shield user, but once she maxes out her agility, wouldn't her lack of a cast time obviate the need for a shield? I may be thinking too optimistically. In any case, it would help to have a shield user around during the time when she is reaching that level as Grand Divina.

I'm imagining two types of spell-damage teams: one with longer cast times that requires shields, and one with at least one character with short to zero cast time that can operate without a shield by constantly knocking enemies back with instant or close to instant damage spells.

Also, one more question while I have your attention: Does invert armor flip crit rate buff/debuff spells like Energy Ball and Analyze?

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

21 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

21 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

31 minutes ago, smileless said:

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

As I understood it, the weapon just gives a huge bonus to attack (at the cost of defense), so it should affect even techs

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Also, one more question while I have your attention: Does invert armor flip crit rate buff/debuff spells like Energy Ball and Analyze?

The arbitrary list only includes:
atk, def, m.def, m.atk, hp, mp, hit, evade

so no.

1 hour ago, smileless said:

I wonder if by having a stronger wolf form also imcreases his lv3 tech. While his final weapon I assume only effects normal hits and level 1 tech I suppose?

It increases his attack stat so all physical damage except for traps and ninjutsus which he doesn't have anyway.

2 hours ago, smileless said:

23 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

2 hours ago, smileless said:

23 hours ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

I feel less certain about this team. My idea here was that Wanderer and Necromancer could be set to casting while Grand Divina fires off instant (or close to instant) damage spells; melee would not even be attempted in the endgame. The problem with this strategy though is that it has no contingency plan; if enemies get through, there's no easy way to heal and back out. And as you said, I would have to Magic Shield three characters to get my defenses in order if I want to be able to take any hits.

I'm thinking now instead that a shield user offers too many advantages to ignore; plus, the point of this project is to compare melee/tech and spell damage strategies, and most spell damage teams would be wise to bring along shields. I would prefer Lise to Duran in this case since I'd like to keep both teams on the same quest, and Lise has other options that make her a more natural fit for a spell damage team (Mind Up, summons, etc.). In addition to the Star Lancer/Grand Divina/X (Evil Shaman, Necromancer, or Ninja Master) ideas that were discussed before, I'd like to consider Fenrir Knight as potential a team leader. Her final weapon is just awesome for MP recovery, and helps with HP recovery as well; with her shields and final weapon, she offers unique advantages to a spell-damage focus team. Some ideas:

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

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

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

59 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

The arbitrary list only includes:
atk, def, m.def, m.atk, hp, mp, hit, evade

so no.

If this is true for all spells that affect atk, then an inverted Necromancer casting Dark Saber on all enemies should apply a -10% to atk instead of a +10%, thereby making this saber/resist strategy even more powerful. Thanks!

28 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

37 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

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

39 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

41 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

If this is true for all spells that affect atk, then an inverted Necromancer casting Dark Saber on all enemies should apply a -10% to atk instead of a +10%, thereby making this saber/resist strategy even more powerful. Thanks!

No that remains +10%.
By the time the +10% is applied the game doesn't know anymore who inflicted it.
For regular buffs this is no problem since each of the mentioned buffs has an existing debuff counterpart, sabers don't.

9 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

No that remains +10%.
By the time the +10% is applied the game doesn't know anymore who inflicted it.
For regular buffs this is no problem since each of the mentioned buffs has an existing debuff counterpart, sabers don't.

I see; thanks for that clarification! I thought I uncovered an extra net -20% attack power debuff there haha.

26 minutes ago, smileless said:

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

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

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

12 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

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

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

On 5/14/2020 at 2:08 PM, smileless said:

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

Well, since Kevin and Hawk are probably going to have their tech gain brought down to 1 TP per attack in 2.0, I've decided to give up this spell-damage team for now and just focus on Purple Reign, my Ninja Master/Dervish/Sage team. I'm finally going to get a chance to start this week; I'm very excited about this run. It will be a good sendoff to everybody's favorite level 1 tech prodigies.

On 5/14/2020 at 1:28 PM, smileless said:

On 5/14/2020 at 12:42 PM, rpschamp said:

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

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

Did you ever end up running one of these groups? I've been focused on other things this past month, but am now picking up my Ninja Master/Dervish/Sage team again. I'm close to my second class change and deciding between Ninja Master and Nightblade. Having two double-hitters is a lot of fun and a nice break from my usual Angela-driven teams. I'm wondering if you ever ended up playing this or some other Hawk/Kevin/Carlie variation we talked about.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Did you ever end up running one of these groups? I've been focused on other things this past month, but am now picking up my Ninja Master/Dervish/Sage team again. I'm close to my second class change and deciding between Ninja Master and Nightblade. Having two double-hitters is a lot of fun and a nice break from my usual Angela-driven teams. I'm wondering if you ever ended up playing this or some other Hawk/Kevin/Carlie variation we talked about.

I haven't tried it yet but I left that party at like level 12 or something but I plan on continuing it at some point (the Wanderer/WM/Necromamcer one)

Alright been a while I haven't posted here (or rather have actively play the mod), so even tough 2.0 is on the way, I'm gonna give my thought in regard to the new Death Hand, played up the the God Beasts only Zable Fahr left, my team is Gran Divina, Ninja Master and Death Hand, Gran Divina and Ninja Master haven't change at all (just Ninja Master getting Transshape) gonna focus on Death Hand here.

He lost a bit of raw power but overall this is still Kevin and he can still deal high damage, plus he gain great utility with Magic Shield still convince this is a great support spell, especially with Gran Divina who has Heal Light but neither Mind Up or Magic Shield herself and has a high INT giving her quite a huge MP Pool and a good MP regen rate. For his other spell Aura Wave is always nice to have and he can put it on other character unlike before, Dark Saber is situationnal and MT Lunatic is welcome, don't have much use for Speed Up as Gran Divina already have it. His new final weapon is really nice on bosses since they tend to take quite a while, 2 fights in perticular when it comes really handy :

-Dolan : Since you are gonna use LV2/3 a lot in this fight, and he has a great defense but with his Final Weapon Death Hand help against his high defense (since Fireblaze is hard to use in this fight due to the need to save TP for LV2/3) making Death Hand really good in this fight.

-Land Umber : Granted you can already do it with Fireblaze and landing counter but Death Hand's LV2/3 is easier to use basically his Final Weapon makes him the Perfect Counter against Land Umber gimmick (Ninja Master being also great to counter his gimmick with his Final Weapon + Fireblaze) as it doesn't matter how much he raise his defense can always lowering it ^^.

So yeah the new Death Hand is fun, less power but more utility, like it. While I'm on it opinion on other changes :

-Yellow Number heal type of weapon : Already discuss this on Discord but while it is a good reason to invest in Luck early, this weapon is broken especially on Hawk and Kevin to the point that I stop using it after a certain point, the effect is a good idea but it should be nerf a bit.

-Consume HP to cast accessory : Well this is pretty big nerf, basically the only character that beneficiate from this accessories now are the character that can cast Heal Light, assuming the PIE make Heal Light strong enough it can give an infinite heal light, pretty much the only use for this accessory now is to save Magic Walnut on Heal Light user ^^ (won't work on Lightgazer tough for obvious reason), infinite cast of LV3 Spells with Rune Master, Half Vanish on Wanderer might be possible with intense healing from external source. Anyway think it's good it still have some uses, but isn't as broken as before.

-Crit Reworks : Well this is one change I'm less fan of, while yeah Crit are more viable now, this change ends up beneficiate the ennemies more than the player, the amount of Crit the ennemies get has become ridiculous and their damage is through the roof, on Hard now LCK is pretty much a stat you MUST invest to have decent chance of not getting one shot left and right by ennemies crit.

On 7/25/2020 at 6:41 AM, Nesouk said:

-Yellow Number heal type of weapon : Already discuss this on Discord but while it is a good reason to invest in Luck early, this weapon is broken especially on Hawk and Kevin to the point that I stop using it after a certain point, the effect is a good idea but it should be nerf a bit.

I agree here; I've been running Ninja Master, Dervish, Sage, and these weapons are basically indispensable for my two double-hitters. I think Praetarius plans to nerf these by taking away the heal on Level 1 tech, though, which should nerf them by up to 50%, depending on how you use your double-hitters. This might be sufficient.

On 7/25/2020 at 6:41 AM, Nesouk said:

-Consume HP to cast accessory : Well this is pretty big nerf, basically the only character that beneficiate from this accessories now are the character that can cast Heal Light, assuming the PIE make Heal Light strong enough it can give an infinite heal light, pretty much the only use for this accessory now is to save Magic Walnut on Heal Light user ^^ (won't work on Lightgazer tough for obvious reason), infinite cast of LV3 Spells with Rune Master, Half Vanish on Wanderer might be possible with intense healing from external source. Anyway think it's good it still have some uses, but isn't as broken as before.

Also agree. I've been happily using this on my Sage, but I can't imagine many other classes benefiting except for Bishop, Grand Divina, and maybe Heal Light-oriented Light Duran or Light Kevin. Damage casters in general are going to have a hard time using this.

On 7/25/2020 at 6:41 AM, Nesouk said:

-Crit Reworks : Well this is one change I'm less fan of, while yeah Crit are more viable now, this change ends up beneficiate the ennemies more than the player, the amount of Crit the ennemies get has become ridiculous and their damage is through the roof, on Hard now LCK is pretty much a stat you MUST invest to have decent chance of not getting one shot left and right by ennemies crit.

While this is not a debilitating problem for high Luck builds (which happens to be my entire current team), I can imagine this would really hurt casters that ignore their Vitality and Luck stats. Maybe this is intended?

On 7/25/2020 at 6:41 AM, Nesouk said:

So yeah the new Death Hand is fun, less power but more utility, like it.

I had a tough time choosing between Death Hand and Dervish for my current team; I went with Dervish, mainly for Anti-magic and Poison Breath to support Sage's Rainbow Dust, which I can happily say I'm finally getting some use out of in the current version! I'm at the God Beasts as well, but early in the process; I've had to take a lot of time off to prepare for a new job, new location, etc., but I plan to do a write-up once I finally get the final weapons and finish off the God Beasts. Overall though, Hawk, Kevin, Carlie are pretty crazy in the current version; Praetarius's plan to nerf tech points on the double-hitters in 2.0 should help to balance the melee.

Kevin's definitly one of the big change in last version, I also hesitate trying Dervish, the Anti-Magic must certainly be nice ^^. However next team I'll play will be with Warrior Monk the idea of it being the only healer with debuff spells makes him interesting think I'm gonna do Warrior Monk, Star Lancer and Swordmaster on my next play.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I think Praetarius plans to nerf these by taking away the heal on Level 1 tech, though, which should nerf them by up to 50%, depending on how you use your double-hitters. This might be sufficient.

It will only proc on crits and counters.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

While this is not a debilitating problem for high Luck builds (which happens to be my entire current team), I can imagine this would really hurt casters that ignore their Vitality and Luck stats. Maybe this is intended?

From what I've heard noone ever skimps on VIT and half the caster have luck as secondary damage stat.

Overall I think the threat of crits is overstated; I had a test Angela with 15 VIT (never put a point there) take a measly 100~120 damage from lv90+ Nightblades on a non-crit.
She'd still need 4-5 crits to die - and I'm not a fan of facetankable content.

Would the following work?

Duelist, Warrior Monk, Magus

I really want to create a party with Duran as Duelist and thought this would be a good combo.

Ideally I wanted to base a party around Kevin (Duelist), and some combo of Charlotte / Angela but Couldn't come up with anything, I feel like it'd be too hard to get this party started with Charlotte / Angela dying too frequently early game.  Would be really worried about the Bill / Ben fight for one.

Also, what is the recommended stat allocation for leveling?  I generally focus STR/VIT/LUCK for melee then INT/VIT etc for casters.

I get I can spec Duran as light if I wanted to for healing and I could Pump PIE as there are weapons that scale off of that.  Does it do as much dmg as if I pumped STR and used a normal weapon for him?

Duelist is really easy to place in a team, he does a lot of damage with his techs, has Aura Wave for that, Saber to ehance the damage even further and even Antimagic for ennemies that resist physical. 

Magus is a good pair for him she get Power Up to increase his damage, he has Saber to increase Magus's damage and with recent patch you can use the Leaf Coat augment with Magus's Poison Bubble to increase Duelist tech damage even further.

Warrior Monk is good here as he is the only healer with the 2 most important debuffs, Heal Light is great to have, and he can deal some damage himself.

You'll be missing Protect Up but unless you play on the hardest difficulty, it should be fine, otherwise probably will have to grind some Bulette scales from Ogre Boxes.

As for leveling to sum up up to Full Metal Hugger STR is the most important stat, even for Angela and  Charlotte don't bother with anything else as FMH is a Damage Race so you want as much damage as possible.

7 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Duelist is really easy to place in a team, he does a lot of damage with his techs, has Aura Wave for that, Saber to ehance the damage even further and even Antimagic for ennemies that resist physical. 

Magus is a good pair for him she get Power Up to increase his damage, he has Saber to increase Magus's damage and with recent patch you can use the Leaf Coat augment with Magus's Poison Bubble to increase Duelist tech damage even further.

Warrior Monk is good here as he is the only healer with the 2 most important debuffs, Heal Light is great to have, and he can deal some damage himself.

You'll be missing Protect Up but unless you play on the hardest difficulty, it should be fine, otherwise probably will have to grind some Bulette scales from Ogre Boxes.

As for leveling to sum up up to Full Metal Hugger STR is the most important stat, even for Angela and  Charlotte don't bother with anything else as FMH is a Damage Race so you want as much damage as possible.

Thanks!  Yea I am playing on Tough mode at the moment and finding it a bit too easy so far, I may repatch the game to Hard.  Also I found a bug, I'm not sure if it is in the vanilla rom or not.. but when you cross over the waterfall with the fairy early on and cross back over to back track to jadd (I was low on supplies) there are lvl 17 enemies there.  Since I had Kevin + Duran I could dispatch them pretty easily and was getting 2k exp per kill.  Needless to say I abused it to get over leveled for the area and went back to face the boss haha.

1 hour ago, Highandry said:

Thanks!  Yea I am playing on Tough mode at the moment and finding it a bit too easy so far, I may repatch the game to Hard.  Also I found a bug, I'm not sure if it is in the vanilla rom or not.. but when you cross over the waterfall with the fairy early on and cross back over to back track to jadd (I was low on supplies) there are lvl 17 enemies there.  Since I had Kevin + Duran I could dispatch them pretty easily and was getting 2k exp per kill.  Needless to say I abused it to get over leveled for the area and went back to face the boss haha.

 

I think it's in Vanilla the devs probably didn't thought someone would come back, and so the ennemies are automatically scale to a LV you're suppose to have when you come back later.

To be fair you do have Kevin and Duran which for the early game (until you change Class) are IMO the best character of the mod ^^

On 8/15/2020 at 11:54 AM, Nesouk said:

I think it's in Vanilla the devs probably didn't thought someone would come back, and so the ennemies are automatically scale to a LV you're suppose to have when you come back later.

To be fair you do have Kevin and Duran which for the early game (until you change Class) are IMO the best character of the mod ^^

Yea true, now that I think about it, I do remember years ago running into the same issue.  Except you couldn't abuse it like you could in this game since this mod gives you extra experience due to the level difference.  Not complaining cause it makes the painful parts of the game that much easier!

Btw, what would you say is the most OP party in this mod?  I do want to try the hardest difficulty next

On 15.8.2020 at 4:49 PM, Highandry said:

Also I found a bug, I'm not sure if it is in the vanilla rom or not.. but when you cross over the waterfall with the fairy early on and cross back over to back track to jadd (I was low on supplies) there are lvl 17 enemies there.  Since I had Kevin + Duran I could dispatch them pretty easily and was getting 2k exp per kill.  Needless to say I abused it to get over leveled for the area and went back to face the boss haha.

Going by the code this would be more a sequence break than a bug.
Maybe that is the reason the rabite family gives so pitiful exp - they might have known of this and lazily patched it that way.

Well, there's not much I can do against people that love to grind.

12 hours ago, Highandry said:

Btw, what would you say is the most OP party in this mod?  I do want to try the hardest difficulty next

Honnestly I don't know I run several party but none strike me as OP per say, the mod is pretty well balance each party has it's pro and con.

The party I found the best for me was Duelist, Arch Mage and Vanadis this is really good especially on the God Beast part, due to having really high damage potential both in Magic and Physical and a good support with Vanadis, but even that party has it cons, the biggest one being the lack of Heal Light up to LV42 IIRC which unless you grind a lot mean you won't get Heal Light until Gildervine at least, and while it's manageable when you know what you're doing, not having Heal Light is quite annoying.

15 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Honnestly I don't know I run several party but none strike me as OP per say, the mod is pretty well balance each party has it's pro and con.

The party I found the best for me was Duelist, Arch Mage and Vanadis this is really good especially on the God Beast part, due to having really high damage potential both in Magic and Physical and a good support with Vanadis, but even that party has it cons, the biggest one being the lack of Heal Light up to LV42 IIRC which unless you grind a lot mean you won't get Heal Light until Gildervine at least, and while it's manageable when you know what you're doing, not having Heal Light is quite annoying.

Yea I hear that.  Thats why I made Kevin a Monk, I did not want to be without heal light till 2nd class change.

By the way, this is probably a basic question that stems from the vanilla ROM and I forgot about it...

But I have Kevin as a Monk and have 14 CON but he has not learned power up yet, is that because I haven't gotten the corresponding spirit?

6 hours ago, Highandry said:

Yea I hear that.  Thats why I made Kevin a Monk, I did not want to be without heal light till 2nd class change.

By the way, this is probably a basic question that stems from the vanilla ROM and I forgot about it...

But I have Kevin as a Monk and have 14 CON but he has not learned power up yet, is that because I haven't gotten the corresponding spirit?

Correct you need the Fire Spirit to learn Power Up, to be honnest you shouldn't aim for it while in Class 2, in this mod you are suppose to change to Class 3 at least just after getting Salamando and Undine, so at best Power Up on Monk is only for 1 dungeon and 1 boss fight if you go for Salamando first, and personnaly I prefer going for Undine first, as she teach Power Down (or Water Jutsu for Dark Hawk), making mob fight and the second Bill and Ben fight much easier.

19 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Correct you need the Fire Spirit to learn Power Up, to be honnest you shouldn't aim for it while in Class 2, in this mod you are suppose to change to Class 3 at least just after getting Salamando and Undine, so at best Power Up on Monk is only for 1 dungeon and 1 boss fight if you go for Salamando first, and personnaly I prefer going for Undine first, as she teach Power Down (or Water Jutsu for Dark Hawk), making mob fight and the second Bill and Ben fight much easier.

Yea that fight was extremely rough for me.  I'm level 50 with my party now and I just took a break because I'm getting whooped by anything and everything.  I'm going after my first god beast I have to spam heal to survive every screen while heading for the earth god beast.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong, I have Magus, Warrior Monk and Duelist.  I have the reflect physical damage armors on Kevin and Duran.

Any suggestions?  I'm still on difficulty 4/5.  I don't feel like my gear is outdated or anything, but it is hard to afford new gear.

For Kevin I have the reflect armor, latest weapon that scales with PIE

My guys stats are 

Duran - 242/153/70/111

Kevin - 226/148/67/165

Angela - 171/132/49/161

On 8/18/2020 at 8:10 PM, Highandry said:

Yea that fight was extremely rough for me.  I'm level 50 with my party now and I just took a break because I'm getting whooped by anything and everything.  I'm going after my first god beast I have to spam heal to survive every screen while heading for the earth god beast.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong, I have Magus, Warrior Monk and Duelist.  I have the reflect physical damage armors on Kevin and Duran.

 

Any suggestions?  I'm still on difficulty 4/5.  I don't feel like my gear is outdated or anything, but it is hard to afford new gear.

For Kevin I have the reflect armor, latest weapon that scales with PIE

 

My guys stats are 

Duran - 242/153/70/111

Kevin - 226/148/67/165

Angela - 171/132/49/161

Anyone?

I think you take more damage thanks to the reflect physical damage armors.

Since you have Magus and Duelist for mob fight you could get an armor with better defensive stat, use Magatama on Magus and she can inflict Curse with Dark Force, for ennemy that absorbs/reflect Dark use Duelist's Antimagic, can also use the new Shields available on Deen and Altena on Duelist for increase defense and draw the aggro, for a stronger heal try to grind Warrior Monk's Final weapon, you can use Power Down with him to reduce the damage take. On hardest difficulties having to heal often is normal.

After a long time, I think I want to try out a Rogue, Warrior Monk, Star Lancer set up. Rogue seem like will be the spell caster in that team, Star Lancer buffs and can boost further Rogue's dark/light spells, has Marduke, Warrior debuffs, Rogue also got a def debuffing spell, where the Warrior Monk lacks it.  MT Sleep Flower. Team lacks more elemental sabers and Anti-Magic tho.

Building it around the curse upgrade, you could also use the dark saber on enemies since Rogue and WM got Dark resistence with Star Lancer equiping some equipment that resists dark and weakness removing equipment.

Be aware that Rogue's spells take the Ennemy's Physical defense into account and not Magic Defense, so against ennemy with High Physical Defense (like Xian Bhe's Furnace and Zable Fahr's right head) your only good offensive spell is Marduke, Rogue is still really good since you have to invest a lot in Luck just to get his spells, he gains a lot of benefit from it not only power his spells it also make him good for Crit Build (and with Star Lancer and Warrior Monk you have both Energy Ball and Detect) and Weapons that inflict Statut Effect.

On my side I finish my Death Hand, Ninja Master, Grand Divina playthrough and with it complete my first run with Mirage Palace route thing I have to say :

-Death Hand is definitly more versatile and a good mix of support and Damage, as well as much more usefull Final Weapon that what he uses to have, I did make a mistake with him however but I'll talk about that later, in any case he is fun to play, is no longer a "Duelist Like" character altough I liked the old Death Hand can't deny the new one is more his own thing. Not much else to say about Ninja Master and Gran Divina already cover them in previous posts.

-Mirage Palace route definitly had the easiest Final Bosses, Deathjester hit hard and can be annoying but is just a matter not losing track of the real one, Heath is just annoying running around but his attacks aren't to threatning and he can be sort of stunlock in the correct position as for Dark Lich since he is an Undead the best option is definitly to Heal Light him to Death was able to deal 999 damage with Gran Divina this way (Magic Shield + Protect Earring + Druid Cane), battle still last a while cause as all final boss he has a lot of HP to go through, and can be tricky due to using multiple gimmick of the previous God Beasts at once. However while the bosses where fairly easy goddamn I thought Dragon Hole was bad, well Mirage Palace is horrible, it last way to long for my taste, have a lot of force Fights including the "God of War" like with Dozens of ennemies to kill in succession (thank god it isn't right before the boss unlike Dragon Hole), annoying ennemies... It's just a pain to go through, I honnestly got tired by the end and just end up running away from every encounter, I don't think I'll ever do this dungeon again.

And I'm now doing a playthrough with Duran, Kevin and Lise as Swordmaster, Warrior Monk and Star Lancer so things to note :

-The Crit rework : I already mentionned it in a previous post, and after discussing with Praetarius about Crit mechanic, it become apparent that with the last update LUCK has become a Stat just as important as VIT and PIE to survive on Hard, my mistake with Death Hand is I didn't put a single point in LUCK as a result Death Hand was getting Crit by absolutly everything, which cause him to being quite hard to keep alive, so now pretty much has to invest in Luck for Defensive purpose, I'm testing what value would be cumfortable enough. Also as a result the Steel Bracelet has become a very valuable accessory for no-luck focus Build that 50% Crit Resistance is usefull.

And so this cause me to reroute my early game play, previously I focused on the offensive Stats then focusing on VIT and PIE, well for this run I change this a bit, the offensive are still the first to invest however after maxing them I decide to focus on VIT and LUCK instead of PIE, and while it certainly help for mob fight (especially in Dwarf Cave) the main reason for this is Jewel Eater, Jewel Eater Crit for over 200 damage WITH bulette's scale so this is a one shot at this point, so obviously can't let that happen, so now upping the Luck to 5/6 is pretty much needed and add the Steel Bracelet and he should barely got any crit which up the chances to survive, suprisingly the lack in PIE isn't to bad for his spells. After Jewel Eater we can do pretty much whatever in term of stat since their won't be any bosses before the Second Class Change.

So for this run I'm still trying to get my LUCK up there, I think for Kevin and Lise I'm gonna aim at 20-25 for the end of the game, since I'm doing a Crit Build with Swordmaster I'm gonna max out his Luck by the end. And since we are at it I'm testing stuff I haven't tested/use in previous runs :

-So first off the Dwarf Village armor is a really good one for mob fight that I have underestimate, as it give a good bonus in Evasion but also a godd Crit Resistance, very good for mob fight, the new effect of adding TP per dodge has an unfortunate glitch but it can be work around and it's in fact a really good effect to pretty much guaranteed to land Counter for character build around Countering.

-Next the Reflex tier armor, I definitly should have use that Armor for Gran Divina in my previous run, the recovering more MP per tick is really usefull and would have probably work wonder with Angela's High INT and Death Hand's Magic Shield, feel dumb for not having thought about that, but in any case I'm making good use of this Armor with Star Lancer, since as a support character she can end having to cast a lot of spells it's really usefull to manage her MP, and the big Magic Defense it give is nice for bosses since Bosses tend to cast a lot of spells.

-Now for Warrior Monk's Final Weapon 2 update ago I stated how I was very disappointed by that Final Weapon as back then even with a Full Tech Bar it increase to healing was inferior to the "Stronger Heal Light" tier of weapon, but now it is much better now at base it increase his healing power and the bonus grow stronger with TP, I had fear it might be OP but it isn't it's a better increase while not being stupidly high (tough I guess maybe with 2 Protect Earrings it might be), so now it heal better than the "Stronger Heal Light" weapon with also a slightly better attack power.

-Profit for this run to try the new effect of Colichemarde more seriously since I started building Duran for Crit as soon as Class 2, and this weapon serve it's purpose, Duran gets a good amount of Crit and in Class 3 as Swordmaster when he get Energy Ball, and we can also get the Crit Helm combine with Fencer Armband, and Duran Crit quite a lot, and when he crit over Double Damage so that's actually really usefull.

-And so let's talk about his Final Weapon, now with the Crit being buffed it's a good weapon of course, Duran Crit quite often and with Energy Ball combine with Warrior Monk's Detect and access to all Sabers to exploite any weaknesses (or day system) Swordmaster can make great use of this weapon, the 1 Damage on normal hit isn't an issue anymore cause the Crit Rate is decent enough and they deal a lot of damage and we can still deal Damage through Tech as unlike Colichemarde we don't need to save our Tech Point to ehance the effect (in that regard it's really the logical next weapon for Swordmaster after Colichemarde), so yeah a good weapon. Duran has a really good versatility for his Dark Classes, Duelist is totally focus on dealing Damage with raw power and powerfull tech, Swordmaster is more focus on Support with all the Sabers and doing damage with Crit.
And so for Crit Build Swordmaster is really good using Ragnarok, Skull Head and Fencer Armband makes him really great and he can still use his Second Accessory slot to put a Shield for Defensive purpose.

So yeah overall keeping the Luck up to date really make this run going a lot smoother than the previous one currently defeated 5 God Beasts, for now I say the Hardest boss were Land Umber and Xian Bhe, since this team lack Defense Down option and Magic Damage outside of Marduke as well as Land Umber being one of the 2 bosses were Crit don't work at all he ended up being quite annoying to deal with this team, Xian Bhe is tough for the same reason, Crit doesn't work on him and lack of Magic Damage make the Furnace a pain to destroy and then his Lava Wave is dangerous as it deal over 100 damage to everyone with apparently no way to reduce it, since he reduce our Max HP down to 100 at that point it become a party wipe, pretty much force to let a character die to revive at full HP to be safe and it doesn't help Duran and Light Kevin are both Weak to Fire.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

then his Lava Wave is dangerous as it deal over 100 damage to everyone with apparently no way to reduce it

it ignores defense and is non-elemental so I can only think of magic power debuff and evil shamans weapon (well, and difficulty setting). if all else fails you can use the armor that lets you defy death at cost of mp

1 minute ago, praetarius5018 said:

it ignores defense and is non-elemental so I can only think of magic power debuff and evil shamans weapon (well, and difficulty setting). if all else fails you can use the armor that lets you defy death at cost of mp

Yeah but since I did him as my second God Beast that Armor wasn't available yet ^^", I had Mind Down on him wasn't enough reduce the Damage to around 130 maybe Evil Shaman weapon and Life Booster would help possibly.

Yeah I was thinking to try Swordmaster and do a build around his final weapon, Warrior Monk Seems like a perfect partner for him.

Swordmaster, Warrior Monk, Wanderer so it can do also some magical damage mainly when you get his final weapon via Half Vanish, but also got Anti-Magic, Lunatic, Magic Shield. Kevin heals, debuffs. Swordmaster got all sabers, self speed up and energy ball. Team lacks a def down reducer tho, and a def up so you would have to use Duran to draw agro and have Hawk to cast Magic Shield on him when fighting mobs. Or use Transshape on him

Swordmaster, Vanadies, Ninja Master - similar to a team I used with Duelist instead but this time focusing on crit build for Swordmaster. You have no heal light till after the final class change (level 43 or something), you really want to use have those weapons that heal HP till you get Heal Light. And no Anti-Magic. But besides that it got Buffs, debuffs, Sabers, Transshape for your agro user. If it comes down to spells and you really have to use it on a certain boss then it might be a good idea to get Lise's final Weapon just in case for those few fights, Duran with sabers would allow her to attack with any element using her summon. But most of the time she will be the healer/tank role preferably, with the few exceptions where you need spells like one of the two Zable Fahr heads for instance.

Also you could do Swordmaster, Vanadis, Arch Mage similar to a team I played just replacing Duelist, Arch Mage keep Power Down and Mind Down the 2 most important Debuff, but also Anti Magic and Aura Wave usefull for ennemies resistant to physical and enabling more Tech from Swordmaster, having access to all Sabers mean Swordmaster can increase damage of every spell that Angela has combine with her Final Weapon the team got good damage both Physical and Magical. Vanadis being the buffer, healer and can do some Magic Elemental damage with her Final Weapon and Duran's Saber if ever needed.

Or could go Swordmaster, Vanadis, Nightblade get access to all Debuff as well as HP Max reduction with Deadly Weapon, Silence with Blow Needles which is usefull for ennemy with Strong Tech (Knight and Bee type come to mind) and Spellcaster like Wizard, can also set Curse with Blow Needles and Black Rain and Leaf Coat with Poison Breath (could be use with his LV3 Tech, Fire Breath or Vanadis's Final Weapon + Duran's Flame Saber).

I copied a save file just before doing the final class changes, Level 38 Ninja, Valkyrie Gladiator. I will try both Nightblade and Ninja Master with Swordmaster at some point, for Ragnarok max potential you would want Ninja Master with Analyse I feel. While building Ninja Master to use Counters since this team lacks anti magic, while Hawk's spells are physical. Silence is really a valuable tool tho as well and Deadly Weapon. Will try both anyway and see which one I fare better with, never used Swordmaster before this should be fun.

So a question when it comes to Ragnarok does it take the STR stat into consideration (since it does 1 damage regular attacks)? Or is it a purely LCK reliant weapon?

It still take Strength into account for Crit and Tech.

Alright Swordmaster, Warrior Monk, Starlancer run done a good party :

-Swordmaster was basically my damage dealer for most of the game with Crit Build focusing on LCK then STR and once they are max out just focus on VIT and PIE (more PIE cause of Crimson Wizard and Dragon Emperor heavily focusing on Magic), altough for the endgame I decided to buy Pedan's weapon that allow to ignore physical resistance/immunity, as I found out there was a lot of mobs like this in the Final Dungeon, so for mobs I was using this weapon, and then swapping back to his Final Weapon. His damage were pretty could reach over 200 per Crit with Saber of corresponding weakness. Use the Fencer Armband for pretty much the all game obviously, since no Armor ehance Crit I just used the High Evade one, and then the Revive by consuming MP one near the end (and boy did this armor save my ass a couple of time on Black Rabite), the high Luck means also not much Crit from the ennemies.

-Warrior Monk boy I love this Class for Kevin, a Healer that can debuff is fun by the end of the game with Max out PIE, Protect Earring, Mind Up, Holy Glove with Full TP he could heal the party for 700HP, since I max out his PIE and VIT and get a cumfortable LCK toward the end I decided to max his STR and there you have it a great healer with decent damage capability as well as debuffing, a great partner for Swordmaster with Power Up and Detect.

-Starlancer typical Buffer I end up building her as a Tank investing primarly on VIT, PIE and LCK toward the end I also increase her AGL..... just because I needed someone with high AGL for Trap Chest (honnestly if you don't invest in AGL the Ring just get so ridiculous and he take forever to stop once you press the button, so really yeah having a character with AGL high is more than welcome for that), in any case typical buffing, Marduke is still an excellent crowd control spell thanks to Silence, Aura Wave synergise well to maximize Warrior Monk Tech Gauge fast in order to max out his Final Weapon effect, and Energy Ball allow for Swordmaster to not with having to cast it.

On various subject :

-LUCK importance : outside of Swordmaster which I obviously max out LUCK, I ended with 25-26 LCK with Starlancer and Warrior Monk, with Steel Bracelet to be safe and it paid off the Ennemies critting wasn't nearly as bad as my previous run and did say much less Crit from physical focus fight like Black Rabite, so I guess on Hard investing in LCK to around this value is very much welcome (until 2.0 bring the accessory to disable Crit at least ^^).

-Black Rabite without Thorn Damage : I wanted to beat this little bastard without Thorn Damage from either the Armor or Curse, gonna say it this fight is really tough with Reflected Damage, but first off having invest in Luck he doesn't get nearly as much Crit this already help, then I used rpschamp strat of casting Saber of the Character Resistance, since Swordmaster and Warrior Monk are both resistance to Ice I cast Ice Saber on him he still deal a lot of damage but not nearly as bad, I ended up having to use 17 Angel's Grail, killed like 7 LV99 Great Demons (fuck this bastards seriously), Duran only died one I have some close call but the Armor that resurrect upon Death save my ass, this is a real rough fight without Reflect Damage but at least now I've done without it (next time I'll try Bigieu without it).

-The Sabers on character resistance tend to work specifically on bosses that rely on Physical it was really good against Darkshine Knight notably, I guess I could have use it on some other boss like Dolan (since if you have a character with a Shield he will always target that character with his physical might be good to give him the Saber of this character resistance).

In any case fun run, think I'm gonna redo a run of Dark Castle with the last update, I'm thinking of picking Lise, Hawkeye and Carlie and go Fenrir Knight, Wanderer and Bishop.

17 Angels Grails sheesh.

Well I still haven't finished my run, I beat 2 GB, stopped playing the game at Mispolm due to the bugs again, like the item ring wont assemble and would freeze the game, happened to me twice in that fight. And it's not the same rom I used before, I downloaded a different one but still similar problems pretty much in all my runs occur. Despite how amazing this mod is, these bugs kills the enjoyment to me at the same time also.

7 minutes ago, smileless said:

17 Angels Grails sheesh.

Well I still haven't finished my run, I beat 2 GB, stopped playing the game at Mispolm due to the bugs again, like the item ring wont assemble and would freeze the game, happened to me twice in that fight. And it's not the same rom I used before, I downloaded a different one but still similar problems pretty much in all my runs occur. Despite how amazing this mod is, these bugs kills the enjoyment to me at the same time also.

Tell me about it the last update has been really bad on this, the worst offender of this are Dragon Emperor the fight can last over an hour with how Bulky he is nothing worst than the game softlocking after you manage this guy for dozens of minutes, but at least starting from a fresh load (an actual true reset) and rushing to him up the odds of not getting softlocked significantly....... however fucking Dangaard on the other Hand is probably the worst boss for technical issue, no joke I don't think it's possible to beat him without speeding the fight with Silence without the game softlocking, I've tried 5 times in a row to beat him without Silence reseting my game each time prior and every time it end up softlocking (the First and Third phase seems to be the worst), and even with Silence it can still glitch out and in the worst way possible like getting a Black Screen after his death animation -_-.

Whatever Prae tried to do to reduce the lag in the last update, I'm afraid due to this game wackiness it end up making it even worse than before.

Well, at least now I know that lag problem isn't on my end...also got a playthrough on hold cause of it

Alright progressing in my Dark Castle run, as said pick Lise, Hawkeye and Carlie decide to go Fenrir Knight, Wanderer and for Carlie I change my plan a little and go Sage instead of Bishop, trading Power Up and Saint Saber for Mind Up and Dark Force still haven't got the Final Weapon for Lise and Hawk but so far :

-Fenrir Knight : I'm playing her with a Shield and Sage Stone for mob fight, so that she can set Debuff ASAP combining this with the MP Stealing weapon so that she can recover MP fast to cast another debuff or Transshape if needed, for bosses I use Mistscreen Charm and a Shield so that she can build tech fast to use Counter, for now I'm keeping investing in the defensive stat, but once it's high enough I'm gonna build her for a Counter build increasing AGL and STR, with the Helm that increase Counter Damage and her Final Weapon.

-Wanderer : Well boy he has a lot going on for him. So first off his best trait is definitly his huge utility, Max HP Down, Max HP Up, Poison, Aura Wave, Antimagic he has it all combine with a good Defensive Spell in Magic Shield, which works very well for him as he consume a lot of MP, since he is here I'm also trying to play with Statut Effect more mainly Chibiko (which is usefull against these goddamn Cockabird and Crawlers) and Poison (which is usefull against a lot of ennemies particulary the Wolf and Knight type of ennemies who hit really hard and have a lot of HP). And for offense he lacks an AoE but Half Vanish is a really good spell that deals it's damage regardless of the situation or ennemies (also good to keep track of how much HP is left to the boss in boss fight) and Arrow is suprisingly good being very cheap, fast to cast and doing decent damage. For now I'm playing him with the MP Steal Weapon, planning to make him a caster Build focusing mainly on his INT and PIE for a bigger MP Pool and faster cast speed (maybe LCK to for increasing Arrow). He is pretty free in regard to accessories not sure what I could give him, the new Leaf Coat upgrade could have some synergie with Sage's Rainbow Dust (if it work with it of course), Fireblaze and setting him to use LV1 Tech could work to I guess, or using Statut Protection depending of the ennemies. For Armor I'm using the Reflex tier that 3 MP Regen combine with Magic Shield's increase MP Regen Rate is quite usefull.

-Sage : Pick her mainly for having some nuke, Sabers and good healing, this is Light Carlie so always good as a healer, Dark Force give access to Curse which is usefull and Wanderer can Anti Magic ennemies that Void or Absorb Dark, Mind Up is also a good buff as well as Tinkle Rain, I guess I could also try to put Life Booster into better use with 2 characters that can cast it it could prove usefull. I'm gonna obviously focus on PIE and the defensive stats might put some point in AGL for faster cast time to, not going to use her Final Weapon this time.

For now the run did go smoothly

-Ranger was quite good early on as a caster Arrow and Spike are pretty good spells (Spike is especially good if you have Diamond Saber and are in Gnome Day).

-Rune Maiden need Whitelight Ring and Sage Stone to be efficient I think, but she is decent tank and physical fighter.

-Priestess is really great on the Ghost Ship especially against Gorva, now that she can throw Heal Light at him it's a really effective strat against him.

Also both Ranger and Rune Maiden have FST LV2 so that is nice. Hawk is still great with Fireblaze and Counter.

For now beat Lightgazer doing him early seems to be a good call his Heal Light and Geysblast + Prisoner are more manageable, can counter his Saint Saber by Leaf Saber (which doesn't stregthen his Geysblast), Sage with both Holy Flail and Protect Earring keep a strong Heal despite the nerf, Wanderer's Half Vanish is a good damaging spell once it start doing less than Arrow I switch to Arrow which does 195 to Lightgazer, the boss is still annoying cause of the constant teleportation (more annoying is the fact he can teleport a second right away, if he does he is invulnerable during the entire animation, which makes me lose MP) but to hard.

And beat Mispolm, Wanderer is MVP for this fight with Lunatic, Aura Wave to increase TP gain to deal with his gimmick and Half Vanish to deal damage regardless of his gimmick (tough it's more efficient to follow the gimmick unless you are trying to cheese Mispolm), also Tinkle Rain is a really valuable in this fight so thanks Carlie.

EDIT : Fiegmund down a joke with this party, Wanderer does 375 damage with Arrow so don't even need Half Vanish, just use Arrow Sage Heal Light allow to keep with the HP depletion, thanks to Magic Shield, Mind/Power Down his damage aren't impressive, using Leaf Saber to keep the MP high, and after him I unlocked the W/A Seed and the Final Weapons.

Dolan : Well still a fucker anyway, but this team has definitly advantage for him :

-First off Wanderer, seriously Wanderer is an MVP for Dolan, first off his Final Weapon with Half Vanish, against a resistant boss like Dolan having a character that can deal fix damage like this speed up the fight immensly, second Aura Wave which obviously is a big help to deal with his Gimmick and finally Life Booster allow Lise to survive the Half Vanish + Spiral Moon combo. Also if anyone happen to die Magic Shield is perfect to buff them again. And since he double hit he almost always have a LV2/3 take ready in case I screw up.

-Sage I use her as the Healer of course, also use her for casting Thunder Saber on Dolan to allow Lise to tank his physical strike, and use Leaf Saber (it was Dryad Day.

-Fenrir Knight a Shield User is always welcome as Dolan is guaranteed to go for them with his physical attacks and Half Vanish, I had Mistscreen Charm on her so I was building Tech fast, it's suprisingly easy to land Counter on Dolan thanks to his long animation you bet I took advantage of that to mitigate the damage and almost never run out of MP with Fenrir Knight's Final Weapon, it's better to know the pattern to know when it's time to stock Tech Point to dispel Energy Ball and when counter can be use.

Did use a Specter Eye and some Eyes at the beginning to set things up fast, a tough fight but at least thanks to Wanderer it is shorter (advise : the Best moment to use Half Vanish is when he goes into Guard Stance (his real one not the fake one), he does nothing for a while which allow to chain like 4 Half Vanish in a row for 1280 damage without worry).