Advice, guide, and tips for new players

[Lightbearer]

I've beaten the game and A-ranked all of the battles. Here are some things new players might find helpful. There is no one perfect way to play the game since there is a surprising number of ways you can build your units and modify them with accessories and stat boosters. The intention is to provide information, guidelines, and build suggestions, but I don't think there is any "meta" build that everyone should follow. This is not a combat guide, which would require it's own write-up.

Update: Now that the game has been out for a while it appears the final stat values can vary wildly. For example, my Urs had the highest endurance (28) and lowest strength (14); some people had the exact opposite stats at tend game. This means that some of the builds I suggest won't work for your characters, but at least you can 1) see their entire skill list and 2) get an idea of how to build or modify other characters. For some characters I was able to provide more than one build path depending on their stat spread. And, I've tried to incorporate suggestions from the comments section to the best of my ability, but it's definitely worth a read on its own.

Feel free to share your thoughts, suggestions, and corrections.

Skill Investment

Universally, passive skills are strictly superior to active skills in the early game. You can start investing in active skills for most characters late mid-game (Chapter 16-18) once your builds start to come online and you get better weapons. At that point, it's a better investment to increase total damage % versus a single stat increase. A big problem is that if you spread your skill points around early on and don't sequence properly you're going to have mediocre units for most of your play through. So, to be clear, my suggestions mean do not put any points into the other skills until the ones I've listed are at a higher level. You will feel fairly under powered, in general, until about mid-game.

These are listed in priority. Most top-tier skills should be taken to level 4. Many of the level 5 skills are not worth the cost unless otherwise noted.

Sarah

You need to make a decision very early on whether you want Sarah to be a dodge tank or not. Otherwise you'll end up with a subpar jack-of-all-trades. My end game evasion was 171 and she was able to solo the final 3 maps with coverage from Urs. The Bloodthirsty Ring and Nimble Champion's Chain are mandatory for this build. Stay away from Berserkers and Whip Claws due to their high accuracy. She is, by far, the character with most killing and damage potential.

Early game: Doublestrike and Hero's Resolve to level 4. Butterfly Sting to at least level 2.

Mid-game: Lightfoot at max unlocks Art of Evasion. If you want a dodge tank killing machine these both need to be maxed. They provide 35 points of evasion (17 and 18 points, respectively). Sarah's speed stat will start going through the roof mid-game so pay attention to the enemy's hit rate as a sign she can start reliably dodging things once those values start <50% of whatever your tolerance level might be. Alternatively, when you receive the Bloodthirsty Ring is a good point to re-assess and see if she can start surviving on her own.

If not, ignore both of these and max out Butterfly Sting, Living Shadow, and Featherstrike in that order.

Late game: If dodge tank, then max out Living Shadow if you prefer to burst down dangerous enemies. Or, Featherstrike, because it allows her to attack 3x per round with 12 AP, it procs Doublestrike and chain attacks. She will rarely be defending so try to use up all of your AP each round. The downside to Featherstrike is that you are providing the enemy another opportunity to attack her, which, at some point, she will get hit versus ensuring a kill with Living Shadow.

She's a strong contender for any strength boosters to up her damage on both your turn and the enemies. Increasing her strength with accessories prior to using her as a full-time dodge tank is also recommended.

Glenn

Early game: Vigilance and Max Defense Enhancement to level 5.

Mid game: Born Leader and Joint Front to level 3.

Late game: Distribute remaining points across Born Leader, Joint Front, and Swift Stance depending on your play style and needs.

Staggering Stance eats up skill points that should go to Swift Stance; Triage is 11 AP and rarely used since Glenn should be attacking or defending on his rounds. Leave the healing to Karren.

Glenn becomes a competent tank around mid-game once you have maxed his defense passives. He is also the best contender for any endurance accessories and stat boosters. All of his passives require being adjacent to another unit. Vigilance allows him to attack an enemy and receive 0-1 points of damage; but, he should always defend at the end of each round even as a tank. Once his tanking abilities come online he should always be next to Urs. This allows you to create effective bottlenecks and "walls" as a form of crowd control and their attack passives synergize with each other.

Unfortunately, Glenn continued to be the biggest liability on the team. If you don't take him into the tank path and make him more of an attacker given his high strength and weapons, then you will be a squishy unit the entire game. That's definitely one route to go, but it limits your ability to participate in chain attacks or do more crowd control tactics. The later is important because on later maps you will be swarmed with enemies.

Lugh

Early game: Lone Wolf and Hero's Resolve to level 4. Eagle Eye to level 2; level 3, if needed.

Mid-game: Payback and First Strike to max.

Late game: Impaler to increase burst damage; or, any of the listed passives above to max depending on your preferences. I invested zero points in Martyr or Deadly Bite.

Lugh starts off fragile, but he will eventually become a "Blood Knight" that can refill his own HP and destroy weakened enemies on their turn. He boasts the highest attack in the game and the strongest weapons. Note that First Strike at max level only triggers at <99% HP, so make sure the weapon you're using with Payback does not heal him to full HP. Until he gets some levels in Payback and First Strike he needs to be protected.

Urs

Early game: Dedicated Defender (max) and Eagle Eye, at least level 2, likely 3 depending on what weapons you're primarily using. He has the lowest dexterity and accuracy weapons in the game.
Mid game: Joint Front up to level 4 once Glenn starts tanking adequately
Late game: Burning Roar (max) and additional points into Joint Front or Eagle Eye

The MVP of the game. His primary skill, Stone Soul, allows him to defend and counterattack. There is an error in his skill description! Mid-game his endurance will reach a point where all enemies will only do 0-2 points of damage. My end game endurance was 28 and even the final boss did 1 point of damage. Only multiple mages are a real threat. He is *not* a damage dealer and has the lowest strength growth to prevent him from being overpowered, but this can be mitigated with accessories, upgraded weapons, and Joint Front.

He can run into masses of enemy units and tank all their hits allowing the rest of the team to pick them off. Or, get surrounded by 9 enemies and toss out Burning Roar with a high crit weapon. (Be careful since you lose durability for every enemy unit that is hit). You can combine him with Glenn and dodge tank Sarah to create walls and bottlenecks. Or have him intercept all of the exploding minions that beeline for your units resulting in an insta-kill. You can throw on a +1 movement accessory and have him go way ahead of other units on escort missions to prevent the AI from committing suicide. Fun note, if the Enfeebler enemy hits him for 0 damage the attack/defense debuff won't trigger. There are a lot of creative things you can do with him.

Karren

Early game: Doublestrike and Covering Fire to level 4.
Mid-game: Hunter's Grace max as soon as it's learned.

From a damage perspective you have 2 quasi-builds. One is to take advantage of Whirlwind (4AP) and Doublestrike to be able to attack 2-3x per round. Although the damage modifier on Whirlwind is low; the benefit is that you get a 100% follow-up attack (via Doublestrike at max level) and the ability to proc 2-3x chain attacks with the rest of the team depending on your positioning. The downside is that this places her much closer to the front and the AI prioritizes her in almost all cases. I haven't personally tested this, but it competes with Overdraw as her most damaging attack. So, you probably have to pick one or the other.

Credit to @Noules for the information on Whirlwind. I didn't use it at all during my play through, but it's definitely a solid ability if used with the right build.

The other build is to maximize Farsight and primarily attack from a distance. It's a higher AP move that provides less damage and competes with Hunter's Grace, but it allows you to ensure Karren doesn't die because she will in one hit on later maps if you don't defend. Depending on your play style I would suggest maximizing Whirlwind, Farsight, Hunter's Grace, and put all remaining points into Lightfoot.

Or, Overdraw and Foresight, and put remaining points into Whirlwind and/or Lightfoot depending on your needs.

Personally, I put zero points into Lightfoot as she should never be getting hit as I kept her far out of enemy range or Faith as she has the highest faith growth stat in the game. I was able to max out all of the recommended skills by the final map at level 37.

Sarah has 3 potential roles: 1) burst down dangerous enemies from a distance, 2) maximize the damage of chain attacks via Doublestrike, Covering Fire, and Whirlwind and 3) heal your units to preserve your draughts. The latter becomes extremely important on harder maps, so I spent about 30% of my time healing and 70% damaging enemies. There are often 1-2 rounds on the larger maps where you have to walk to the next set of enemies and that is also the perfect time to heal everyone up. She remains very fragile throughout the entire game. Also, an excellent recipient for Krevagos's Collar (+15 critical hit) along with Sarah, but she should be wearing it once Sarah is a full-fledged dodge tank.

Finally, although some of her turns will be taken up with healing duties she is extremely good at deleting tough enemies from a distance. Her critical rate approached ~45% on the final maps and I could usually guarantee a kill when I used her.

Weapons

I wrote a more detailed post, but here is the gist:

1) Max out the second weapon each character receives. I was still using these on the final map and for skirmishes. It saves so much money over the long-run and with the skill builds I've suggested you'll never have issues with your damage.

2) Max out both critical weapons for each character as you get them. If you're tight on money and resources you can skip fully upgrading at least one for Urs, Glenn, and (maybe) Lugh. Sarah and Karren have the highest critical hit rate in the game so make sure you're taking advantage.

If you're getting all the treasures and collectibles from each map you should have more than enough resources to fully upgrade 3 weapons. I was able to do all of the above and max out the +5 strongest, non-legendary weapons for a total of 4 weapons. Plus, the merchant also sells upgrade materials.

Each character gets 2 legendary weapons. They cannot be upgraded and are prohibitively expensive to repair. Reserve for the last 2-3 maps. Trust me. Seriously, do not touch these things until then.

Note: Some weapons can be taken to +5, I don't know the criteria, but do this judiciously because you're basically sacrificing getting 2 weapons to +3 versus 1 weapon to +5.

Resource Management

Using the weapons I recommend will greatly reduce your repair costs. I never bought a new weapon throughout my entire play through. Prioritizing your attack passives first makes the weaker weapons equivalent to the non-upgraded stronger ones.

Ignore all of the mission goals as it is in your best interest to kill everything and get all treasures and collectibles on each map. It is okay to re-do maps for about the first 12 chapters if you missed anything, but that changes after a certain point mid-game. This approach extends your turns and might lower your ranking, but that only reduces your training experience 10-20 points versus getting more experience, extra weapons, or game-changing accessories.

Your only source of money is by selling the ORES you receive in battle ($150, $500, and $1,000, respectively) at the base merchant. Go to Merchant > Sell > Right tab to materials and they are at the very top.

Mid-game you can start doing Skirmish battles that offer multiple ores ($650 total). When you load the map make sure the enemies are actually carrying the ores and material. If not, reset. I've done a few maps where those items didn't drop. Pro tip: You can use broken weapons on maps where you greatly out level (~7-10 levels) the enemies; your higher speed and attack will offset the broken weapon penalty. Your first weapon is a great contender.

A handful of story battles cannot be redone and most skirmish battles become permanently inaccessible at certain points in the game so chests and collectibles are missable. The game will warn you, sort of, but pay attention to what is happening in the story. Spoilers: Chapter 15 is the turning point in the game. Skirmish will be locked until you reach the next safe harbor after Chapter 19, and old maps do not return. I strongly suggest you get everything on each map otherwise key weapons and accessories will be missed. "Storehouse" opens after Chapter 21 and the previous two skirmishes are wiped yet again.

Game information

There are 28 chapters and the Finale. The latter is like half a map since it's a small area with the final boss and endless waves of enemies.

My team was level 35-37 on the final map equivalent to ~70 total skill points for each character. The final boss is level 40, which I'm guessing is the level cap.

You can save mid-battle. To resume you need to go to Load, not Continue, on the Title Screen. The game also has an auto-save so make sure you're loading the correct save file.

The game will start giving you significantly more money (ores) and upgrading materials toward the mid-game. Money and resources are very tight early on, but this does improve pretty dramatically.

You get a second charge on your Draught after a certain point in the game!

There are 23 accessories, 10 types of ores (common/rare for each weapon type), and 6 stat boosters. You can comfortably sell some of the earlier accessories for $500 if you're short on cash since the later ones increase multiple stats.

Miscellaneous and random tips

You can save scum stats via Training Experience. Save, use the training experience to level-up a character. Unhappy with the results? Re-load and try again. This breaks the game and do not advise doing this unless you're really struggling. If you want to really embrace your inner scum-bag you can occasionally manipulate how much experience your units receive in story battles so that when the battle ends they are close to leveling up. Training experience is a limited resource, so only use it when a unit is 10-30 points away from leveling up. If you don't want to compromise the difficulty, then the only character where I could see this being legitimately helpful is Glenn and his endurance stat. They really need to increase that growth rate to make him more viable.

Some enemies will move if you pass a certain tile on the map even if they're not in range. I tested this out on multiple maps, especially the later ones. So if you feel like you're getting overwhelmed don't always rely on the assumption that an enemy will only move if it can hit you. This might also trigger reinforcements, too. Alternatively, you can use this to your advantage with Urs if you want to draw a significant number of enemies away from your other units.

Strongly suggest you save after each battle because you might accidentally buy a weapon, invest in a skill, etc. that you do not want. Also, save again before the next battle in case you need to make adjustments to your team. The game does not allow you to go back to camp after you've started a battle.

There is an end game Skirmish map called "Storehouse". Make sure you do this map because it has multiple legendary items, ores, and stat boosters. It becomes inaccessible around Chapter 25-26, I believe.

The escort missions can be a nightmare. The AI is suicidal per SRPG tradition. But, you can manipulate their movement by selecting the character, looking at their range, and using your units to block the end points of their range to force them behind you. Most of the time. Note that you are given an option to kill all enemies after the NPC reaches the target, so you don't have to grab treasures and collectibles before then. Chapter 16 in particular.

You can use other ore types to upgrade your weapons as long as you have at least one of the required weapon type. I found this on accident so play around. Also, do not waste the higher tier upgrading materials on +1 or +2 upgrades!

Beating the game once opens up "NEW GAME HARD". It doesn't say what the differences are and nothing seems to carry over. But, I haven't played to get to the base to see. Looking at the first map all of the enemies have +1 ATK, so I wonder if enemy stats are universally increased by 1-2 points per map.

[Kitten]

Wow! I'm amazed to see how much has been figured out about the AI. You're fantastic, Noules!

My personal takeaway is that it's probably best to give any attack increasing items to the character who is the tankiest in your party. This has double benefit - it both makes enemies more likely to target them, and increases the amount of damage they can deal with counterattacks when targeted.

Of course, the tip about switching to weaker weapons to avoid drawing the attention of the AI that Noules provided is also quite helpful.

[Noules]

Originally posted by jdmccoy7:

For a layperson what do you think are the primary takeaways the average player should know based on the formula and testing? This way I can add a few pointers to the guide; I know this is extra work, but I'm concerned I'm going to misinterpret something in what you've all written thus far.

Probably the best tl;dr is that the AI will tend to attack characters in range with higher MT weapons, because it will generally prioritize characters with high attack and low defense. Noting the effect of Attack on threat is probably the main takeaway, since it's not immediately intuitive, while I think most people automatically assume defense would be a factor in target selection.

Originally posted by Kitten:

Of course, the tip about switching to weaker weapons to avoid drawing the attention of the AI that Noules provided is also quite helpful.

This is probably the most relevant tip for casual players. Swapping to weak weapons at the end of turn for vulnerable characters (if not needed for support attacks) is a fairly simple rule that might make things easier.

The effect on range and the modifier on Karren are small enough that it might not be worth going into much detail on. The effect on skills on threat is actually fairly significant but it's probably not really worth going into detail unless someone really want to understand the minutiae about how the target prioritization works.

[Lightbearer]

My character stats before Chapter 29. This includes stat boosters. All accessories were removed. Apologies for the wonky spacing, but I think this allows for easier comparisons.

Sarah > Glenn > Lugh > Urs > Karren

HP: 37 > 45 > 40* > 46 > 32
Str: 20* > 22 > 23 > 16 > 19
Dex: 26 > 29 > 17 > 15* > 22
Spd: 32* > 14 > 9 > 6 > 23
End: 11 > 15* > 15 > 28 > 14
Fai: 9 > 5 > 6 > 2 > 18*
Eva: 161 > 63 > 46 > 38 > 96

The ">" does not mean greater than. It's just to demarcate columns.
The * denotes a stat booster was used.

[xBleacheDxSungasMx]

I had a blast with New Game+ Hard and Sarah dodging everything, and attracting enemies (though not quite all of them) with her lowest endurance stat. I kept Sarah at 8 movement most of the time to run around and grab chests quickly but toward end game since you can recollect all accessories you can have Krevago's Collar and Mosmos Scarf (crit chance/damage) on both Sarah and Karren. I still used starter weapons half the time to keep repair cost down as I never touched skirmishes on Hard. Unfortunately they seem to have removed training stat rerolling (save scumming) so a normal player's NG+ Hard experience may differ.
Note NG+ starts with no money but you can sell accessories and legendary weapons which do carry over.

[Spiral]

What's this topic doing buried on page 2?
Some good information here, thanks.

I don't know if it's worth the point investment for the dodge tank build as it only really pays off in the very late game. All the other characters except Sarah reach the point where I have all the skills I want, and I'm just buying non-essential incremental upgrades. If I could redo it I would have put considerably less points into Doublestrike to reach the evasion bonuses earlier and have more points for Featherstrike.

Even then it's a huge gamble if she will even dodge or not. I would guess my total dodge rate is only around 60% with around 150 evasion.

A couple of things I found useful:
The Tabar axe is the only weapon to give a stat increase, +5 to Faith. My Urs' had 0 Faith for the entire game and took massive damage from Evokers, even when defending.
Switching to the Tabar before ending his turn means he takes considerably less damage. I tested on the first cathedral map, 15 damage without it and 10 with it equipped.

The accessory Lygushka Shard doesn't have a very clear instruction to what it does, 'start battles with the first limit broken.'
It's regarding AP, start with 11 AP instead of 10.

[Spiral]

I just played the final 2 missions and have to conclude that the evasion gamble did not pay off.

At the end my Sarah was level 37 With Lightfoot and Art of Evasion maxed out and the Nimble Champion's Chain, my evasion totalled 148 and it wasn't good enough, I lost Sarah prematurely on both missions because she kept getting hit. All that point investment for nothing!

The aforementioned random skill growth means a high enough evasion stat can't be guaranteed and you won't know until near the end of the game.

Better a jack of all trades than semi-competent at one.

[All Zebest]

Excuse me, noob here. Could someone explain mi what exactly those 3 attribute do?
STR ; DEX: ; FTH ?

[xBleacheDxSungasMx]

Originally posted by All Zebest:

Excuse me, noob here. Could someone explain mi what exactly those 3 attribute do?
STR ; DEX: ; FTH ?

STR: Physical damage
DEX: Accuracy
FTH: Magic resistance

[All Zebest]

Originally posted by xBleacheDxSungasMx:

Originally posted by All Zebest:

Excuse me, noob here. Could someone explain mi what exactly those 3 attribute do?
STR ; DEX: ; FTH ?

STR: Physical damage
DEX: Accuracy
FTH: Magic resistance

Thank you.
By the way, I was wondering if it would be good to gime more strengh to Karen or to keep it for melee characters. And for dexterity, to keep it for Karen or Srah, or at the contrary giv it to Urs.