Chaos Frame: Grinding, or Suicide?

[GrandMajora]

Alright, I'm trying to prepare my Chaos Frame to recruit Cressida in Chapter 4 of the Chaos Route, and I need some advice on how to do this.

I've heard that you can improve your chaos frame by hiring a bunch of Galgastani soldiers and then letting them get knocked out in Training battles. But I have also read that leveling up units will improve your chaos frame with that unit's faction.

As somebody who's already beaten Law route, my current level cap is 45, and will hopefully be 50 by the time I beat the first chapter of CODA.

So which option would be more effective? Should I let them all get the ♥♥♥♥ kicked out of them, or should I try to power level them all to 50 before taking on Cressida's recruitment mission?

[Pickleton]

The common strategy in PSP was the "death march", where you would go into a battle, surround 2 strong characters (with Counterattack IV) with weak Galgastanis and then have your character counter them all to death. Retreat and repeat.
If incapacitates aren't a bother for you, that's a good strat.
If you're still going no-incap, zombies apparently still count. You could WORLD back to the Ch1 Nybeth fight and recruit a few from there (I believe they're always Galgastani), and make a big party of just weak Galgastani zombies. Then you can basically just go into Phorampa or some other dungeon you can retreat from, find a battle where nobody has exorcism, equip the zombies for high defense to reduce chance they'll all be stilled at once, but no weapon so the fight drags on, set to AI control and come back like 20 minutes later. You'll probably get good helping of CF that way.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

The common strategy in PSP was the "death march", where you would go into a battle, surround 2 strong characters (with Counterattack IV) with weak Galgastanis and then have your character counter them all to death. Retreat and repeat.
If incapacitates aren't a bother for you, that's a good strat.
If you're still going no-incap, zombies apparently still count. You could WORLD back to the Ch1 Nybeth fight and recruit a few from there (I believe they're always Galgastani), and make a big party of just weak Galgastani zombies. Then you can basically just go into Phorampa or some other dungeon you can retreat from, find a battle where nobody has exorcism, equip the zombies for high defense to reduce chance they'll all be stilled at once, but no weapon so the fight drags on, set to AI control and come back like 20 minutes later. You'll probably get good helping of CF that way.

I can't recruit zombies without a Lich, as they're considered Umbra units. Necromancers can only recruit skeletons and Ghosts.

And I can't get necromancer marks without Cressida.

I managed to recruit a pair of necromancers, but the shops don't carry any necromancer spells.

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by Pickleton:

The common strategy in PSP was the "death march", where you would go into a battle, surround 2 strong characters (with Counterattack IV) with weak Galgastanis and then have your character counter them all to death. Retreat and repeat.
If incapacitates aren't a bother for you, that's a good strat.
If you're still going no-incap, zombies apparently still count. You could WORLD back to the Ch1 Nybeth fight and recruit a few from there (I believe they're always Galgastani), and make a big party of just weak Galgastani zombies. Then you can basically just go into Phorampa or some other dungeon you can retreat from, find a battle where nobody has exorcism, equip the zombies for high defense to reduce chance they'll all be stilled at once, but no weapon so the fight drags on, set to AI control and come back like 20 minutes later. You'll probably get good helping of CF that way.

I can't recruit zombies without a Lich, as they're considered Umbra units. Necromancers can only recruit skeletons and Ghosts.

And I can't get necromancer marks without Cressida.

I managed to recruit a pair of necromancers, but the shops don't carry any necromancer spells.

Yes you can. Zombies say they're umbra when you cursor on them, but they're still the same race as what they were.
I've been bringing my 2 zombies from the Nybeth fight everywhere with me to passively grind Galgastani rep as I go through the game.

[Ginebro]

Never tried leveling them up, if so go ahead and use all those exp charms, you will never use them otherwise.

Did the death march thing in porompa woods, is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slow, like reaaally slow. Also make sure you improve the frame just before the recruit mission, i had to save her twice because there's some mission on her chain that lowers your frame.

[knockoffsoda]

I've never done a death march since it sounded super tedious, but I got Cressida a couple different times in the PSP version. There are ways to boost your Galgastani Chaos Frame in that game just through the choices you make.

The two biggies I recall were finishing the Pirate's Treasure quest and declining to take the treasure (all races like it) and refusing to punish your Walister/Galgastani soldiers when they are sacking Heim after you win that battle with Catiua dead. Obviously those two races like that decision, but the Bakrum hate it.

I also think you get increases in reputation to all races when you unlock the Forbidden Shrine quest and then refuse to do it in your conversation with Mreuva, saying you don't know if you can handle the power. That one I'm a bit less sure of though and would have to double check.

Anyway, unless they massively reworked things, you should still be able to get her without a death march.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by knockoffsoda:

I've never done a death march since it sounded super tedious, but I got Cressida a couple different times in the PSP version. There are ways to boost your Galgastani Chaos Frame in that game just through the choices you make.

The two biggies I recall were finishing the Pirate's Treasure quest and declining to take the treasure (all races like it) and refusing to punish your Walister/Galgastani soldiers when they are sacking Heim after you win that battle with Catiua dead. Obviously those two races like that decision, but the Bakrum hate it.

I also think you get increases in reputation to all races when you unlock the Forbidden Shrine quest and then refuse to do it in your conversation with Mreuva, saying you don't know if you can handle the power. That one I'm a bit less sure of though and would have to double check.

Anyway, unless they massively reworked things, you should still be able to get her without a death march.

By the end of my Law playthrough, I had 65 chaos frame with Galgastani. I'm redoing a Chaos route in World and it got booted down to 35.

Hiring new units won't be a problem, as I've got 65 million something Goth. Depending on how effective the grinding strategy is, I can just power level a bunch to 50, fire them all, then repeat.