Powerful starter spirits + teamwide passive list

[Hentaika]

Another short post for those who want some great early spirits to start the game with.

Helps those who are having trouble early on and those technically last for quite a while before getting outdated.

Use this topic to farm the 'correct stats' I recommend:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1074190/discussions/0/3826413850809636123/

Best starter spirit:

Dreadpupil - core skill is bone drill 30 SP/350 power dark element MATK. This one will one shot most stuff, the power is unparallel for the low SP cost. The debuff is massive afterwards BUT you just swap it out for something else if there is more than one enemy.
Other useful skills - sandstorm+gravel seal combo when dark element skill above doesn't work.
Another useful one is 'nether's call' - this makes you and your opponent stop at '1 HP' instead of dying. This is very useful not only for getting a few extra attacks in but also for some testaments.

This one has no nice early trinket BUT there is one interesting 'special item' for it.
Once you are done with forest - you can explore Millenniburg location with own set of enemies. There is one sidequest there inside the wall you can easily spot.
Once you get done with it and get the spirit - you will see a chest which gives infinitely usable special item which gives +4 MATK buff when you start battle for 10 steps. This is perfect before some tough fight to essentially remove almost any enemy that isn't strong vs dark or magic direct dmg.

Recommended stats - max MATK/AGI, avoid PATK.

Nice early spirits:

1) Fungusvine - early indirect damage king. You get him via sidequest in the forest: Naberius tongue('history' sidequest tab).
Likely one of the first sidequests you complete.
Best skills:
Tangled Roots - 30 SP 400 indirect dmg to you and enemy. If you are supposed to die - you survive with 1 HP instead.
Spring breeze - passive, recover 50% HP in ~3 seconds whenever you swap this spirit in.
The above 2 skills make absolutely monstrous early combo. You can spam 400 guaranteed damage in random encounters and even if enemy can attack you first - you usually recover much more than it can take down.
Gets much weaker once that's not enough to one shot.
Another 2 skill combo:
Sunken earth + raindrop.
Sunken earth is 35 SP 3 AGI debuff to enemy. Raindrop is 20 SP gives 2 mdf/agi + regenerate to yourself. With this you can make yourself nigh immortal while slowing the enemy insanely.

Nice trinket for this one is entangled vines - you will get them as reward for bossfight with Thornslie in the swamp of the forest. Those deal 20% enemy max HP indirect damage whenever you take any damage. Considering you are nigh immortal if you want to - this is pretty massive.

Best Stats: Max HP+AGI+DEF/MDF spread for remainder.
This one can get pretty monstrous max HP resulting in very good value from it's swap in passive.

2) Brocadetail - yet another massive indirect damager dealer. Common enemy in Forest so super easy to get.
His max HP growth is absolutely insane, slightly higher than even fungus.
This pairs amazingly well with his best skill:
Dark Vortex - 25 SP, deal indirect damage equal to 50% of CURRENT HP. If you fully min max the HP stat - you can deal over 300 damage which ignores element/defenses of enemy.

Pairs extremely well with trinket from 'east bakery' of academy you can get in the oven for 2k crystals which gives shield equal to 20% max HP whenever you are swapped in - this kinda ensures that you can cast this before enemy damages you much.

Best stats: HP/AGI as high as possible, the other stats hardly matter.

Slightly later on - Chimera in the optional 'maze' dungeon during main story of academy old building is a better alternative to this one.

3) Culoldie - a random enemy in forest.
The interesting use of this one is not actually as 'main' spirit but as a supportive swap one.
It has one good passive and one good active.
Passive is Jujitsu - gain extra AGI equal to 50% of your def. So you stack DEF/AGI and become ultra fast.
The useful active is 20 SP gives next swapped spirit 40% MAX HP shield. Needless to say this is pretty powerful considering how we rely on swapping a lot.

4) Songsparrow - this one is a hidden enemy in the forest that's pretty easy to miss since it's not marked by any sidequest.
To get it - go to forest from the academy. Once you reach the place with 'exp water' near big forest area entrance - you are very close. From this place - directly west across the water is a suspicious dangling vine. If you approach it and click the 'interact button' - you can climb up for a secret location with a tree which allows you to fight the enemy.

This one is ultra fast and ultra squishy.

A good 'swapper'. The reason I recommend it is a 20 SP 'fleece bomb' which removes opponents ability to get SP for quite a while if he doesn't remove it in some way. This is pretty much nigh complete disabling of opponent.
Pair it with passive 'tiny' which gives a small HP shield to it whenever it's swapped in and it likely won't die to some random attack either.

It also has 'gravel spike' skill which does 2 def/mdf/agi debuff for 35 SP. This is a pretty powerful total debuff.

5) Doubtie - this is kinda a better version of dreadpupil. You get him via quest chain in academy regarding books. The books in question are in the central building of academy. After those you need to interact with books in NE corner of the academy location(near tutorial statues) - this is where the 'encounter' is located. After which you need to interact with books in library again and then go back to successfully capture it.
Instead of MATK this one has a 30 SP/350 power PATK.

What makes Doubtie amazing however is passive + talent.
Talent is give ~2 seconds worth of confuse to enemy upon swapping out(heavy CP reverse)
Passive is 'self doubt' - allows you to be swapped out as early as 25% CP.

So you deal massive damage at start of combat > swap out with barely any time lost and give enemy reverse CP.

Deception is another nice skill to take which pretty much counters any opponent who tries stacking buffs.

Best stats: Patk/Agi - nothing else matters much.

6) Thronea - you get it as part of dean quest after the forest completion. Dean is in the school building to the west on 2nd floor. Dump the papers on floor 1 and an event will happen. You need to defeat it in 2 turns.
Entangle vine trinket + Fungusvine 400 indirect damage two times trivializes this.

It's fully immune to indirect damage as one of talents. Pair it with mdef/agi+regenerate buff for 20 SP and you can become nigh immortal to majority of creatures in the game if you stack def/hp/agi(no mdef because it's already high via 5 stacks)

Add some direct damage decrease trinket to further improve your tankiness.

The only weakness of this one is pretty much enemy debuffs/instant kills. And it's pretty slow play compared to other recommendations.

Key skills:
Raindrop - 20 SP 2 MDF/AGI + regenerate
Teamwide passive - 10% SP discount to skills. Works on all creatures even if this one dies.
Dragonfall - 45 SP 220 power water physical which gives +2 AGI AND gives field buff to water damage to further increase damage from further uses.
Pump Bash - 30 SP 150 power water phys make enemy swap creature. Kinda nice if a specific one is causing you trouble or stacking too many buffs.

Teamwide passives:

Those can be kinda neat if you tend to be doing majority of work with 1-2 spirits.
Those work regardless of what happens with said spirit - even dying is fine.
I will list ones I spotted so far, let me know if you notice ones I missed.

1) Tintling - element remix passive. Reverses how all elements interact.
So fire becomes strong vs water for example.
This one doesn't state that it's team wide but it actually is.
This is HUGE as it essentially makes it possible for your favorite damage dealer to be strong in two elements instead of one. Assuming you can afford 1 extra slot that is.

1) Thronea - 10% SP discount passive. This spirit is also above in the early good spirit list.

2) Alkaid - sidequest reward in Mellinburg wall. Accessable after forest completion.
Has teamwide passive for 'CP' to be pushbacked more.
This requires explanation of how CP damaging works.
Generally the more you/your opponent presses the 'overcharge' - the more SP you regen but also the more you get pushed back if you get attacked.
With no other bonuses - you need ~75% CP overcharge to fully destroy opponent CP bar.
Alkaid's bonus is approx 50% CP damage increase. So to fully destroy opponent CP you now only need ~50% CP.

The spirit itself is pretty solid dark patk damage dealer with different debuffs.

3)Ample - sidequest reward in fall breeze plain(week 10 is when you access it approx)
This one gives +20% DEF/MDF This is pretty huge if you maximize those and get some form of indirect damage immunity to become essentially immortal.
As an active spirit - it can be used as instant kill via pushback, ideally paired with Alkaid and some other spirit with long lasting suffocation, otherwise it's pretty hard to use it...
Alternatively can be used as swap supporter.

One mid-late game overpowered combo

Instant kills ANY random encounter almost instantly(and pretty much any fight which is not resisting indirect damage since it will deal over 100% HP damage):
Doubtie spirit as combat starter with Ocean Ocarina trinket(change swap SP to 45) + Tribute as one of your spirits.
Doubtie has usual self doubt passive for swapping at 25%
Tribute consumes all SP and deals indirect damage based on it with move itself taking away 5. It deals ~1.(3)% HP per 1 SP with Hush passive. So you need ~75 SP consumed to get. a 100% HP damage.
So battle starts > swap doubtie into tribute > click the move > done
Almost no random encounter in the game can do anything against this.
In fact even majority of 'tournament' type fights can be cheesed via such swapping, just ensure you have some backup spirits who can do at least something if indirect damage is a problem.

Tribute trinket doesn't matter too much in such case but I generally enjoy Witchcraft Blade the most - steals 10 SP when dealing under 75 direct magic damage - assuming you have 0 MATK exp you should be doing ~50 damage with the skill +/- a bit depending on opponent but rarely any higher. This triggers AFTER your SP is fully spent, so you will start with 10 SP. -10 to opponent is always neat in endurance fights.

[Ciaran]

This is really useful info. I actually didn't realize how absurd Doubtie was until I read this thread. I would like to contribute one other strong early game dragon spirit: Marsh.

Marsh is able to kill almost any enemy in a single 3 skill combo. It's incredibly powerful early on especially. The combo is Panic > Corrupt > Ebon Touch, and requires the fourth skill to be the Hush passive to boost up indirect damage. It will deal well over 100% of the enemy's max HP, requires no offensive stats on your part, and only is countered by enemies that can quickly buff via attacking or have passive resistance/immunity to indirect damage.

1. Panic puts -1 level to all enemy stats and the Panic debuff, which prevents them using support skills to clear their debuffs. The Abyss talent also triggers to chip away a small amount of the enemy's health via indirect damage.
2. Corrupt doubles their negative stat levels and applies the Fatigue debuff, which weakens their skill damage and helps you to finish the combo without dying early (though Marsh is reasonably tanky and the combo is super fast, so this is unlikely.) This also triggers the Abyss talent to chip away some more of the enemy's health.
3. Ebon Touch, which is boosted by the Hush passive, will utterly destroy the enemy. Even the likes of the Stargazer boss fight, which has a huge passive resistance to indirect damage, will almost be one-shot by this simple combo.

For best results, build Marsh by maxing AGI and DEF, and putting all of the remaining exp into MDF. Survival and speed are your only necessities for this to work. An easy trinket to acquire early to compliment this build is the Jasper Pendant (buy in the Shopping DIstrict toy shop) to further boost survivability. Food that starts the battle with weakening enemy stats (like Cucumber) can also potentially cut out the necessity to use Corrupt at all, allowing for a 2 turn kill that doesn't get shut down by instant kill immunity.

[Hentaika]

Problem with marsh is that it's... too much for any serious fight and too much for a weak fight and unsuitable for prolonged fights.

The only difference is that 'too much' is in different context.

Majority of random fights either die to Fungus outright or die via Fungus > Chimera indirect combo, which is almost guaranteed not to give an enemy chance to move thanks to chimera paralyze on swapping into it... and even if someone does manage to throw a move in - not the end of the world since chimera certainly won't die.

Majority of serious opponents are either immune to indirect or take 1/3rd-1/5th from it.

Majority of them won't let you have 3 turns without screwing you up in some way either.

Debuff food does help it against 1/3rd the damage ones at least.

But those are usually better done with direct burst.


The later strategies are very broken in comparison too, so it's not too great long term. But as a generic debuffer who can also deal good indirect damage - he is decent, just not as good as other ones.

[Hentaika]

I think that's all of the teamwide passives but if you found any other - let me know, I might have missed some.

[Deworx]

Well, i did get the Achievement using 1 Spirit to defeat Tan Yatin with Marsh. Even tho the last unit reflected Weakning stats. His passive still dealt enough indirect dmg, together with getting a short Physical Immunity after every skill [Is his second passive, might need to swap with Duel Spirit] (which can be timed) and as accessory i used Rime Arrow. (More cp, cause sp cost is already quite low for his skills - more cp gain is needed to have the immunity when it's required). Food with suffocate and consumable for speed. I do think this counts as a serious fight.

And yeah, Tan Yatin switched monsters quite frequently.. but if she didn't, her monster was dead, cause Marsh with that setup (max speed/hp then mdef) can easily use 2 skills inbetween opponents.

[Hentaika]

Originally posted by Deworx:

Well, i did get the Achievement using 1 Spirit to defeat Tan Yatin with Marsh. Even tho the last unit reflected Weakning stats. His passive still dealt enough indirect dmg, together with getting a short Physical Immunity after every skill [Is his second passive, might need to swap with Duel Spirit] (which can be timed) and as accessory i used Rime Arrow. (More cp, cause sp cost is already quite low for his skills - more cp gain is needed to have the immunity when it's required). Food with suffocate and consumable for speed. I do think this counts as a serious fight.

And yeah, Tan Yatin switched monsters quite frequently.. but if she didn't, her monster was dead, cause Marsh with that setup (max speed/hp then mdef) can easily use 2 skills inbetween opponents.

Early on almost any spirit can do it since game assumes you are under level 20 for ~25% of the game. Later on you can refight her any time while having nigh immortal holy dragon, so hardly matters.

[Zagaran]

I'm surprised Manti is not on the list for early good ones, given how one can get it right after grabbing Fungusvine via interacting with the stumps.

Is there any drawbacks to it even early on?

[Hentaika]

There is - as you mentioned you got fungusvine. No real reason to use anything for a reaaaaally long period of time.

Until the infamous doubtie combo that is.