Spell exploit? Or as designed?

[Powersword]

Can't help but notice Renas star flare is poisoning enemies then I realised shes using the cestus of poison, but surely that would be for combat and not affecting spells? If that as designed then that would mean spell casters weapons are extremely op.

[Almighty Boof]

Mages need all the help they can get, especially when compared to fighters. Mages got a huge boost from the original, but they still do not hold a candle to fighters. The way INT scales on weapons is far less than the way ATK does. Also, casting times and interrupts severely limit the amount of damage mages can do when compared to fighters. Another thing is I do not know if it would be worth putting a status effect Factor on a mage weapon as opposed to something like Reckless Magic, MP Drain, or even INT Up.

That being said, I was sure to get all four mages with Claude and found myself able to dominate in lower levels of Maze with all four mages in battle. With the addition of Break Damage Limit, Gathering Stars, and Reckless Magic, mages have become huge damage dealers in battle and if spell animations are turned off, it is sometimes possible to annihilate everything before my full fighter team could!

[LazyAmerican]

But man is it disappointing to not see the animations lol...you want to feel the power of whatever it is you're hurling at your enemies. That being said, I'll skip enemy animations every time lol.

[Professor Rappy]

Mage like Leon can potentially solo the all end game boss alone provided you give him correct factors

[Xengre]

I'm betting it is a glitch but I just tested and it works on all of her spells I just tested, not just Star Flare. How odd.

Originally posted by Almighty Boof:

Mages need all the help they can get, especially when compared to fighters. Mages got a huge boost from the original, but they still do not hold a candle to fighters.

Actually, this is untrue.

Most people think this is so because they're grabbing insanely powerful physical dmg weapons via outside info (Goodie Box farming, Aerterna, etc.) but if you play "normally" in progression odds are you will not find any of those in your first run (or several even, maybe Aeterna after a ton of save scumming late game when you start messing with customization hard and only the more dedicated players really digging through every single possibility).

In normal progress they're mostly even until around the second continent. About that time mages start pulling ahead. This is because the starting spells are absolutely awful for them. I'm baffled by just how bad those starting/early several spells actually are, especially for Celine and Leon. However, their mid and especially their later spells are very powerful (you got to set to short animation in settings tho for those later spells... ugh cutscenes otherwise).

At this point once you start getting those better spells AND don't forget to disable all the trash ones (honestly requires manual testing or someone telling you which suck and which do not) they're start to decimate physical dmg dealers and this does not change until post game.

Magic users absolutely decimate physical characters in terms of combat.

Physical users may be doing 1-5k per hit at a time and are not realistically going to go over the dmg limit. Meanwhile, an unoptimized for pure dmg Celine or Rena can be hitting 8-13k spells on all targets and the cast rate is pretty fast. If you're dealing with 3-5 mobs they're doing a total of 24-65k dmg compared to those physical dmg dealers.

It isn't until you get to bosses they start coming up more evenly, but they will still compete against bosses with the right setup falling either close or pulling ahead.

You also need to keep an eye out for the right robes for them, though, because until very late game they provide a huge chunk of their INT stat. Fortunately, casters are less dependent on extreme accessories like +1 hit, Berserker, etc. and can already do this so you can dedicate to -50% MP and another accessory.

Unfortunately, my knowledge ceases at end game because I've not done post game with them, yet, so I can't say if people are in fact correct or wrong about casters in the post game but from what I've seen of physical oriented characters like Ashton, Precis, etc. they're quite the monsters finally post game so.... I'm not holding my breath. Then again, when casters dominate 98% of your playthrough I think it is fair game if physical DPS finally pull up.

[Powersword]

That’s true in this version mages are casting much faster and are also using spells much more effectively. Supportive and attack spells are being used in rapid succession. Spells such as angel feather are much quicker in this version and I’m pretty sure in the original it was a single use spell where now it appears to be the group

[AH-1 Cobra]

Mages are pretty bad in this unless you put them on assault. The best use for them on assault is to cast angel feather, power up, guard up, reflection, etc. They got zero use in your active battle party over a character with killer moves.

[Powersword]

Ive got celine and Rena on default and they are formidable. Maxed out there casting speeds never need to wait more than 2 seconds for any type of cure. And while Rena isnt healing shes frequently casting star flare which does good damage.

[JunK]

i'll always prefer fighters. being able to surround the enemy and just bash away is an insane amount of damage especially with the correct gear/factors.
mages are definitely way better in this version than previous tho, but still not worth it IMO. they are great for support, but yeah thats what assault is for. you can still get all your buffs/debuffs you want

[AH-1 Cobra]

Originally posted by UnholyBlood:

Ive got celine and Rena on default and they are formidable. Maxed out there casting speeds never need to wait more than 2 seconds for any type of cure. And while Rena isnt healing shes frequently casting star flare which does good damage.

Wait until Celine gets Meteor Storm, and 3 fighters end up blowing through any fight before she gets a single spell off. The cast times are atrocious for any of the really beefy damage spells, the damage inflicted doesn't justify the cast time.

Like, even if Meteor Storm hit for nothing but full 99999s on every tick, that's less DPS than any fighter with comparable gear could have done in the same amount of time, because the cast time is really long. Equipment that allows you to hit for up to 99999 with meteor storm, mid tier spells like thunderstorm hit for a measily 10-12k per tick, which is really bad, and low level spells like fireball hit for like 4-5k.

Considering fighters have killer moves that can hit 8+ times for 40k-99k per tick, and how huge the cast time is for the spells that actually do beefy damage, even mages at their absolute best potential are trash tier compared to fighters.

And before anyone says "well that's end game, and doesn't reflect their usefulness through the story" that's total bollocks. Mages completely lack any decent INT boosting equipment until the very end of post game, so they're actually comparatively worse to fighters pre-post game than they are in post-game. Leon and Celine both get their strongest spells and best gear in post game. Fighters got rings they can craft which doubles their damage straight up, goodie box items, or high attack weapons they can customize fairly early. They close the gap a little in post game, whereas the gap continues to widen up until post game for mages.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Claude gets his 2 best killer moves by level 20, he has Meteor Palm & Sword of Life.

With buffed Sword of Life, you really don't even need Rena to be a healer anymore. In fact at level 20, Claude doesn't even really need Rena and Celine, and he never starts needing Rena and Celine at any point beyond that. So even in the very beginning, like level 20, fighters just dominate, and never stop. It's actually a smart choice to just solo with Claude early on so he gets more EXP.

[Almighty Boof]

Originally posted by AH-1 Cobra:

Mages are pretty bad in this unless you put them on assault. The best use for them on assault is to cast angel feather, power up, guard up, reflection, etc. They got zero use in your active battle party over a character with killer moves.

This is a bit extreme. Mages are not as effective as fighters, but they still have use in battle parties.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Originally posted by Almighty Boof:

Originally posted by AH-1 Cobra:

Mages are pretty bad in this unless you put them on assault. The best use for them on assault is to cast angel feather, power up, guard up, reflection, etc. They got zero use in your active battle party over a character with killer moves.

This is a bit extreme. Mages are not as effective as fighters, but they still have use in battle parties.

Why and how do they have a use in battle parties, when you can recruit 8 characters and you only have 4 slots in your active battle party?

Mages are bottom tier in your active battle party, and top tier on assault just because of their buffs. Assault attacks are limited to 9999 damage, which makes assault for offensive purposes useless, and makes buffs on assault considerably more valuable. Mages have a place, it's just not in your active battle party if you have even a single fighter you can swap in their place.

Buffs like Angel Feather take time to cast, and you can cast these immediately through assault, so you get your buffs up quicker and without having a slot filled with dead weight who's standing still casting a buff you can get immediately by not having them in the party.

These are simple facts. I mean the game isn't that hard, people can use whatever and still win, but the problem in this game is that fighters got buffed way more than mages did.

They didn't buff mages nearly enough. All mage weapons should have higher INT than attack, the cast speeds for all spells should be 2-3x faster, they should have added some spell damage boosting rings comparable to the Berserk Ring and Ring of Might. If they did all this, then mages might actually be comparable to fighters.

[Powersword]

Originally posted by AH-1 Cobra:

Claude gets his 2 best killer moves by level 20, he has Meteor Palm & Sword of Life.

With buffed Sword of Life, you really don't even need Rena to be a healer anymore. In fact at level 20, Claude doesn't even really need Rena and Celine, and he never starts needing Rena and Celine at any point beyond that. So even in the very beginning, like level 20, fighters just dominate, and never stop. It's actually a smart choice to just solo with Claude early on so he gets more EXP.

always need my healers for heals and the occasional stone/paralysis cure, so I can concentrate on the mirror slash. Also with just got celine a maxed out staff that has instant death as factor. Very useful for big mobs.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Originally posted by UnholyBlood:

Originally posted by AH-1 Cobra:

Claude gets his 2 best killer moves by level 20, he has Meteor Palm & Sword of Life.

With buffed Sword of Life, you really don't even need Rena to be a healer anymore. In fact at level 20, Claude doesn't even really need Rena and Celine, and he never starts needing Rena and Celine at any point beyond that. So even in the very beginning, like level 20, fighters just dominate, and never stop. It's actually a smart choice to just solo with Claude early on so he gets more EXP.

always need my healers for heals and the occasional stone/paralysis cure, so I can concentrate on the mirror slash. Also with just got celine a maxed out staff that has instant death as factor. Very useful for big mobs.

Mirror Slash? Why? Meteor Palm does more damage for lower MP cost, does 8 hits of good multiplier, and faster.

[Powersword]

prefer the look for one thing :)