Nightmare build?

[Sasiccia]

Hi everyone.
I have completed my first playthrough and now i'm going for a nightmare one.
Does anyone have a good build/setup for each character (equip/master quartz/quartz?)
Unfortunately, i don't have much time to spend on the game so i would like to copy a build and go with that.

Thanks in advance to anyone :) .

[Songbird]

If you're carrying over everything, you are basically invincible and can do whatever you want.

If you're not carrying over everything, general Trails principles (for games where Delay sucks) apply: prioritize speed heavily early game, never sell Time sepith because you get huge value from Action/Cast quartz on everyone, etc. Since this game has Master Quartz, they are kind of build-defining; Pixie is ludicrously strong for the entire game, and you can eventually supplement it with Magius/Katze/Kusanagi/Chevalier on your other casters. Moebius is also an interesting option for a support caster who will mostly be spamming Fortuna; it's pretty useless before level 5, but all the space MQ suck stat-wise, and the level 5 AoE double effect items ability on Moebius is very very strong (just toss full HP/EP whenever, or 190 CP, or AoE stealth...). Assuming you have a tank character, they should get Aegis (easy S-craft insurance that gives super easy access to Adamantine Shield to support the backline) or Keeper (easy S-craft insurance that also draws aggro).

In the early/midgame, Force is extremely strong on Noel for clearing normal encounters. Noel's 50% strength debuff is also a godsend at this point, as none of the bosses have stat down immunity for the first few chapters. Noel generally remains extremely solid and useful until the end of chapter 3, whether for her AoE normal attacks, amazing S-Grenade 2, or her Str down debuff.

However, Nightmare makes physical damage almost useless lategame, and physical damage is also literally useless for the superboss/"suppose to lose" story encounters. This makes the ideal party generally use evasion tank Lloyd (buy a Kagemaru Haori and two Mishy Hats as soon as they are available, replace one with an Evergreen once you can farm up 80k, only use customized weapons with +evasion bonuses until his Zemurian Ore weapon). Other evasion tanks are possible, but Lloyd is in the party all game and can't really do anything better. An important thing to note about an evasion tank is that you lose a huge amount of evasion while casting arts, so you do have to be mindful of that.

This leaves Elie, Tio, and Wazy as arts users because they have the best orbments (and the best S-crafts, and the best normal crafts for lategame, coincidentally). Elie is a natural fit to throw the Jupiter Bell in her Wind slot, because having 0 delay on (Holy) Breath and Spark Dyne is absolutely incredible. Tio can go with Mercury Bell easily due to the water slot (being able to cast Teara for about 2-3 ticks and 0 delay is really nice), but Mercury Bell is locked behind a level 100 monster chest that isn't accessible for most of chapter 5 and is very hard to beat before that point, so she may want to focus on other elements until the final dungeon is open. Wazy can pretty easily go with any of the high elements by just throwing an EP Cut 3/Gold Gem in his space slot; Uranus Bell is available well before the other two higher element bells, and it works with Fortuna which is incredibly powerful lategame, so I mostly used that. There is no character naturally suited for fire arts, but Crimson Ray (15 fire) is the highest single-target damage in the game, and it's pretty easy to use it with Chevalier or even Pixie, so that's a useful option for boss fights.

Note that you are forced to use Randy for the chapter 4 Sigmund fight, and there is absolutely no point in having him do anything other than spam Adamantine Wall and Fortuna during it. Without carrying over levels, his S-craft will probably hit for 1-100 damage and his other attacks for 1. This is the level of uselessness I meant when I said physical attacks suck for superbosses on Nightmare.

[Sasiccia]

Wow man, thank you very much for all these advices.
Yes, i'm carrying over everything, so basically my currently team comp is (first run completed on normal):
-Lloyd: Evasion tank
-Tio: Support mage
-Randy: Physical attacker
-Wazy: Jolly (sort off, is like 75 arts 25% attack)
-Noel: I immediately swapped out because i never figure out what's her purpouse
-Ellie: Same as Noel

And my gameplay was really basic: Lloyd tank with Keeper, Randy attacking non stop with Chevalier, Tio behind the lines equipped with Canon with water bell and defensive S-Craft and Wazy with Pixie spamming Arts.

Now, based on your advices, my team comp should be:
-Lloyd remain the same.
-Tio same
-Ellie in with Criminal maybe? / Randy out
-Wazy switch to full mage

Backups: Randy and Noel equipped as Physical Attacker/Debuffer/Crowd Control in some fights

I'm not sure about Weapons/Gear/Accessories, my setup for endgame was:
-Lloyd Ultimate weapon/Kagemaru/ Evergreen and Sully's cap
-Tio Best weapon/best armor/ Grail Locket and True Gladiator Belt
-Wazy Ultimate Weapon/best armor/Gladiator Belt and Medal of Justice
-Randy best weapon/best armor/ brainless with STR+ accessories
-Noel/Ellie never used
I obviously need to redo bonding events in order to acquire the final boding events items, but basically i'm not sure if going full ATS on everyone is a good choice or i need to put on like some speed/ agl...

For now, i renew my thanks to you :) .

[Songbird]

Criminal sounds good with 90% crit, but honestly the damage output from it seemed to be really poor when I tried it. The base ATS on it is just so low that it doesn't hit for much, even with crits. You can try it, though. It may just require +200 ATS from accessories to get over the threshold of being good.

Elie is a really good caster in Azure due to the wind slot being even more useful (Spark Dyne is insanely fast to cast for the damage it does), and if you can make her slower than your other characters, she can cheese a lot of the monster chests (where you don't have Burst) by letting other characters instant cast full-field AoEs before enemies can get turns. Her healing S-craft is also very valuable for dealing with fights where 6+ enemies slam you with AoE before your first turn. She would probably be the best character in the game if Zero Field didn't exist.

Randy was almost completely useless in this game for me; unlike Zero, there is no real shining moment where Crash Bomb is better than S-Grenade 2 other than Geofront D (where it's still debatable because S-Grenade hits harder), and he doesn't really stand out in a game where anyone other than Tio with Force will hit like a truck for the first 2/3 of the game.

But if you carried levels, up until the very end of the game (and superbosses like Arianrhod), you can probably get enough done with a physical Randy, and of course you'll breeze through the first three chapters. I will stress that physical damage is *literally* useless on the superbosses on Nightmare and *cannot* be made to work. For the fights you have to win for the story, though, it will probably work OK even if it's a bit worse than ATS, and there is even the second phase of the final boss that is a bit easier if one character can do good physical damage.

[xXiaoDrag0n]

Why don't you try playing on Nightmare without carrying anything over, Nightmare is doable, even on NG, I am currently in the finale of this game, took me a few tries to win against Lynn and Aeolia, Arianrhod, and Arios though since I am playing Nightmare NG on a blind run

Based on my play through in Nightmare NG so far:

- Noel's Heavy Smash is useful especially during the early chapter since her craft can reduce the opponent's strength by 50%, which makes the battle a lot easier

- Ellie's Strike Bell can accelerate and remove your team members AT Delay and bring them to the top on turn bar, which is useful after using S-Crafts or there a lot of opponents having their turn before your team members can act which can be a game over in Nightmare. Her Aura Rain S-Break is a useful clutch heal if your team members HP are critically low and are going to be KO-ed. Since her quartz setup is primarily Wind Based, equipping Wind Bell on her will allow her to act instantly after using Spark Dyne.

I am using Tio as an Evasion tank instead of Lloyd since her default attack is magical base which allows her to deal a decent amount of damage (a couple of hundred each time instead of Lloyd dealing 1 damage each time he counters, bosses in Nightmare have high DEF) whenever she counterattacks when you have her ATS boosted with Fortuna, she also gains CP each time she counters which allows you to use 200CP Zero Field faster. I basically move Tio to the other end of the battlefield and have the rest use Dark Matter to pull the enemy toward Tio

Bosses S-Crafts are basically 1 Hit KO moves in Nightmare NG