Getting 1-shot by trash mobs, time to go back and grind?

[deadLine.Ono]

I'm on that map with all the stone creatures and I'm getting 1-shot by almost every trash mob. No way this is feasible if a character just dies if I miss a dodge/parry. Does this mean I need to go back and grind and invest in Vitality?

[Ratsplat]

Expert difficulty? Try Expedition.

[Ratsplat]

But otherwise, make sure you aren't in an optional area. But if you want to stay on Expert or whichever, you will need to learn parry and such.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by deadLine.Ono:

I'm on that map with all the stone creatures and I'm getting 1-shot by almost every trash mob. No way this is feasible if a character just dies if I miss a dodge/parry. Does this mean I need to go back and grind and invest in Vitality?

VIT, DEF and defensive picto/lumina make a huge difference.

Yes, you might want to grind or respec. Damage comes from weapon upgrades anyway and it’s so easier to play when you can parry just some of attacks and heal damage from other.

[Viper]

No way can you play on expert without being able to dodge and parry almost every attack.

[asdf]

Originally posted by Viper:

No way can you play on expert without being able to dodge and parry almost every attack.

That is actually not true. If you have the right character builds, you can beat nearly everything in the game without dodging/parrying anything even on expert difficulty. I believe the only "real" fights where it's actually required (ie. excluding the quests like the troubadour where you explicitly have to dodge) are the mime and Maelle in the prologue since you don't really have any options to do anything at that stage of the game. There are plenty of optional fights that you won't be able to beat at the time that they first become available, but if you revisit them later on a lategame build can still beat them without dodging/parrying.

[Agahnim01]

I'll copy what i wrote elsewhere, with some edits, because i'm a lazy ass:

The game is hard, especially at first, if you're not used to animation-based dodge windows mechanics... but they have mechanics in place to help you get better.

For example, the dodge window of opportunity is longer than the parry's, but the "Perfect dodge" is the same... so try your hand at only dodging at first, to memorize the patterns, then when you start getting only "Perfects" for an enemy, you can start trying to parry.

You also need to understand that character level isn't that important and putting all your attribute points in Vitality won't help you much passed the first few areas. The most important systems to keep an eye on are:

-Weapons: Make sure you level up your weapons, and make use of their passive skills. Also, weapons scale with specific stats... so it's useless to put all your points in "Might" if your weapon scales with Agility and Luck.

-Pictos: Pictos teach passive skills, but also offer stats boost, you can get very hefty stat boosts by equiping the right pictos after your done learning their Luminas.

-Luminas: Luminas are passive skills you can learn from pictos, and equipping the right ones will make the difference. Once they're learned, you can dismiss the picto and equip them as you want, as long as you have enough Lumina points... they range from simple, like making Health potions cure bad status ailments... to completely OP, like making you attack twice in a row, or do double base attack, or gain AP.

-Synergy: Make sure your party and loadout are properly synergized... for example, if Maelle has a skill equiped that swaps to virtuous stance when the enemy is burned, make sure at least one person in the party can inflict burn (this is a simple one, but as the game progresses, there will be much more complex synergies to think off to optimize efficiency in combat).

-Last but not least, if the game is too challenging for you at this point, there's no shame in using the story mode... my boyfriend played in story mode and still had a pretty big challenge, it's far from a "auto-win" mode. It can help you get a hang of the mechanics and systems, and then you can always change it back when you're more comfortable.

That's pretty much all i can think of right now... So, yes the game can be quite challenging to newcomers, but don't let yourself feel belittled by the boasting "Hardcore" souls-like players... the game has a lot of features in there to help you get through it and slowly ramp up.

[deadLine.Ono]

I managed to pass this area and now I'm even finding the game too easy and bumped it up to max difficulty. Aganim you are totally right, once I took a step back and carefully chose all the Pictos, Luminas, Attributes and Skills I became a literal killing machine... I went from being 1-shot to 1-shotting enemies.

That's really a big plus for the game.

[Veylox]

Vitality stat when levelling up doesn't do a whole lot, pictos are your main source of any given stat, not just a source of skills. I'm pretty sure defense also does more for you than vitality

But if you're getting one-shot, stop trying to survive the hits and focus on not taking them. Parrying is an option, sure, but so are shields. Shields pictos don't care if you have 10K HP or 10 HP. They'll tank anything regardless, and give you room to breathe.