New Starter

[TeddyHoward]

Well just recently purchased this game and was really confused with the subject of magic circles and what mana,SP,and job skills are so my question is if there is some one that would mined explaining these topics?

[Donoghu]

Okay!

First, let's start with the basic...

The Magic Circles are primarly simply you character's "bonus" and "negates". Each classes got their own magic circles. Each of your characters got one equipped. (If I'm not mistaken, you can switch between them with "i" and "L") Note that switching character is switching your main character. So, if you wish to use another character, just switch it in the magic circle menu. (Make sure you quit that menu with your main character or the one you wish to play with as the one in the center of the circle.)

The magic circle is also the place where you can change your equipment. Note that to change the equipment of your sub-characters, you need to switch to their own circle. Note also that you can equip the same item to all your character so keeping any item 2x is useless unless you can take some title from them (I'll explain those later. Let's just say that titles are the "special effects & bonus" of items you randomly find) You can equip any item to any classes, but some classes recieve bonus from specific types of items.

The sub-characters are the characters that are around your main (the one you're controling). As sub, they are really usefull for 2 things :
- They act as main shields. When you play, you'll see a green arrow on top right of the screen. From that arrow, you'll see up to 4 faces. Those are your "shield" from your subs. The subs are recieving EXP from dungeons as well as the main. Also, while they act as shield, their def/res stats affect how much damages they take from attacks and they HP is the HP of the shield. (So, if you put for exemple a magic kind of character in your front sub, you'll have a physical weak front def.) If they die as shield, they come back alive only once you get out of a dungeon. You can have up to 2 subs per sides (depending on your magic circle capacity). The first sub to be put in from each side is the one further from your character. Note that the "soulmate" attribute "bonus&curse" make it so that if one of the 2 with that "special" block dies, the other dies as well. You can heal them with either magics or Healing traps (the red heart traps)

- They act as mana sources for bonus. Depending on their classes, levels and their equipment bonus (sub-bonus), those subs make it possible to activate bonus and curses. Curses automaticaly activate if you put a sub in a point which is linked to it (links = red arrow small arrows that are connected to subs' spots.) Those curse are things like "HP-X%" or "DEF-X%" which reduce either your main stats or your sub stats if activated. To activate bonus, you need to place the artifacts in the spots for them. Each artifact cost a number of mana from the pool of the linked sub. (Througth some low levels one may not cost any mana) The are special weaker artifacts that can be put "almost" anywhere (green gems). They act as "replacements" whenever you wish to skip a artifact spot or if you're now on mana from the subs. If an artifact you placed is gray/dark, it mean it's not active. Either it's not totally linked to the Subs or the subs lack of mana to use it. Some artifacts have special effect that reduce the cost of mana around them.

Job skill slot are simply spot that you need to put a subs in so that the character can learn the skill in question. Most of the time, those skill spots have weakness which you must endure until you learn the skill. (The white magics have some really bad weakness with some of the job spots like "DEF-50%" or "HP-80%".) You're NOT obligated to learn those skills or to use the magic circles you're not interested in. Depending on the classe and level, you get new circle every 2-5 levels. Some are obviously balanced while some offer less weakness for less bonus.

Before, I wrote about "titles". Titles are simply special effect on equipment and artifacts. For exemple, it could be a stat bonus like +1 ATK or +2 DEF, but it can still be a bonus on HP, SP, skills effects, elemental attributs, etc. Even the "Edit" title which is the one which make you able to change the look, name and description of an item. (your basic set got the "Edit" Title.)
You can "remove" Titles from any item, but you'll loose the item. You need 3 of the SAME title to put it on an armor and 4 of the SAME title for any weapons. So, in other words, if you wish to put a +5 Ice damage on a weapon, you need to destroy 4 weapons, artifacts, shields or armors with that +5 Ice damage to be able to put it on the weapon of your choice.
Since I still haven't tried to add title up to now, I don't know if you loose the title after using them like you loose the item from taking their title.
You can do all those thing from on of the bird-thing in the ship at the town. (You'll get access to it during the 1st act/chapter/training.)

[TeddyHoward]

ah thank you very much this has been informative