Preparing for New Game Plus (For those who have multiple playthroughs)

[thepowerofmediocrity]

Fellow members,

I am only a few tasks away from completing the Last Remnant at 100% (the only tasks I have left are the guild tasks for making weapons and the 2 Conqueror battles) and this game is so much fun that I'm willing to go back to the beginning and do the show all over again. Before I bought this game from Steam, I had it and played it on the Xbox360- fruitless rare hunting and technical issues and all- so my first runthrough was a new game plus save with $250,000 and nothing else, the increased money at the beginning offset by playing hard mode and attempting low BR strategies. I will also fully disclose that I use TLRPlanner extensively to guarantee rare spawns, monitor my units' skills growth and to teloport throughout maps I've been through numerous times (looking at you, Desert Pillars Quest)

Now that I'll be rolling in money from having all the quests and guild tasks complete, I want to take this game to its limits: Mystic Seal grinding and attempting to beat the Fallen and the Enlightened Seven with a low enough BR that I can use the majority of them on my squad. I would love to use the Seven in this playthrough, but by the time I was able to hire them, they were essentially outclassed by the people I have.

The twist for this next playthough, outside of the Mystic Seal grinding, is that I want to use all the nontraditional characters that I never used the first time. My current playthough has only 1 soldier who isn't a unique leader - since I looked up all the weapon arts the generic leaders use, I want to use as many of them as possible. The challenge for sure is finding good generic leaders while having Rush carry the team through the beginning stages, which will undoubtedly be harder without the likes of David and Torgal around.

Here is my union set-up for the first playthrough. It's served me well the whole run; I beat the first set of DLC bosses around BR 75 and I beat the Enlightened Seven, the Idols, Demigod, and the Lost from BR 95-101. The only two fights I can't get through now are the Conqueror fights- once I run through Ancient Ruins a few times to harvest Dragon Manes, those two are going down with this union setup:

Union 1 [CRIMSON FLARE V]: Rush / Leshau (Mild Evocations with the occasional Bluff) / Lecetius (Cachexia User) / Yuniver (Mixed Message) / David (Grenade Impact, also I'm really dumb for not letting him learn Remedies in an attempt to keep to the spirit of the XBox version, but he's really fast, has great evasion and good HP, so he's okay)
Union 2 [HEAVEN'S DOOR]: Torgal / Caedmon / Baulson / Blocter [Everyone who has Weapon Arts uses them and Blocter's just there for the status immunity]
Union 3 [REJUVENATING WATER V]: Irina (Yeah I gave her the Nightbloom and I only slightly regret it because Katana takes far too long to level up) / Pagus (Finally got the Commander class at BR 99) / Paris (Wards + Mixed Message) / Glenys (The highest HP and strongest hitter of anyone with developed Remedies)
Union 4 [ANIMALCULE V]: Zolean / Nora (Silence Immunity) / Megeleus (the OP Healer who really needs to start asking for my Imperator's Staff that's laying in my inventory) / Violet (Really just here for Hexes and Remedies) / Wyngale (The most hilarious character in the entire game)

As you can see, this was a Mystic Arts oriented run - next time around, I'm going with Combat Arts. I will be training Rush to be an Ordainer, Emmy to be a Ninja with Nightbloom, and Wyngale to be a Warlock. Outside of those, I aim to give those I didn't use [Duke of Ghor!] a chance to shine.

The other thing I'm going to rely heavily on this this run is Item Arts. Outside of herbs, I used nothing that wasn't a Combat/Mystic Art and I want to see how the Items stack up. Sadly, the best shards user is Khyrnia, which doesn't even come up until after I've beaten the Fallen. I know Gaou has advanced Lotion arts, but who can I rely on for Potions, Traps and Shards (I know Rush starts with everything, but I need him to focus on Combat Arts and Herbs to not flounder at the first few bosses)?

I would like to say thank you to the pinkpanther, Zloth, and all the other veteran TLR players for all the discussion threads that I studied to deep down into the finer particulars of the game. I know pinkpanther specifically has videos of Rush and David only surging through the game - that's dedication right there. If you have advice on various generic leaders like Wyatt, Perneth, and Semry, please share what you know.

[Misfiring]

Shards are really viable only on the lategame because you can't buy it's material before Aquaduct. David is actually the earliest leader who learns Shards, but even that is at BR50 so if you doing a low BR run you may not get it early.

I'm surprised so little players use Roberto. He's easily the best unique leader for Potions, and Legendary Bard clears all status ailments (including Curse) the next turn. Not only that, he can use the Frostblade so he can do damage too.

As for Traps, Irina is the best at it because she can become Alchemist. Allan starts with some experience in Traps too, but you really only need one Trap user.

Explosive? Khyrnia, no questions asked.

Khyrnia, Irina, Roberto and Gaou easily forms the best item art union you can get.


Ordainer takes way too long to get and requires you to have multiple types of weapons. Gladiator can do just as much damage and is a lot easier. Not sure about making Emmy a Ninja, it goes against her defensive style.

[PinkPаптҥэя]

First of all congrats for beating the game and for the determination to do another one.
I know that feeling from the first run, not having known enough about the game to fully enjoy it.
Having learned a lot during that first playthrough, now comes the time to do it right!

Originally posted by thepowerofmediocrity:

I will also fully disclose that I use TLRPlanner extensively to guarantee rare spawns, monitor my units' skills growth and to teloport throughout maps I've been through numerous times (looking at you, Desert Pillars Quest)

Nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't do stuff which would otherwise be impossible and don't disclose that. For everybody going deeper into the numbers (e.g. for achieving certain classes) such tools are indispensable, since the game more or less hides this info from the player.

Good unique leaders I missed in your party (you might check them out this time):
Jager, Duke Ghor, Gaou, Darien, Roberto, Jorgen (Sage), Nora, Rhagoh, Sibal

Particularly Jager & Duke Ghor are the best heavy hitters in the game.
- Gaou/Darien deal decent damage and at times may throw in some healing.
- Roberto as Bard clears status effects and otherwise is a decent defensive unit.
- Jorgen (Sage) is a good fighter and later learns Psionics, which are super useful.
- Nora (as Bludgeoner, immediately switch off her mystics!), is a prime damage dealer.
- Rhagoh has an awesome amount of AP to support the other units in his union, otherwise he's just there for healing. But any good union better keeps one spot for a good healer when things get rough, right?
- Sibal enters the game a bit behind stat-wise, but he gets a great weapon, so you might consider him as well.

Good generics? Melphina guild is the best place to check!
Scouts/Fighters: Faye (Celapaleis), Munia, Neo, Vinnery
Hexes: Wyatt (Celapaleis), Perneth (Athlum), Lukorra

Wyatt is the only unit in the game which can achieve Cachexia in time for the Fallen without grinding.
Other Cachexia candidates are Perneth and Lukorra, but they come less developed than Wyatt.
Unfortunately Madd0x & Leshau have to start Hexes from scratch; so they are out of the question.

Classes:
I think the classes you described for your units conflict with your goal of a low-BR run.
It's either one or the other: Low-BR (which implies efficiency and only very selective grinding) or extensive grinding for classes. The latter in my opinion is not worth it, since classes' benefits rarely warrant extensive efforts.
So I'd say in a run without unit restriction, Ordainer (and Ninja for that matter) is almost impossible to achieve without a huge grindfest. Using a Ragna-rock however, Rush is able to achieve Ninja (which is a great class for him) with a reasonable effort.

There are other classes however which have decent benefits and can be attained with very little efforts:
Baulson, Torgal -> Bard: Just disable everything from the beginning except combat arts and start using potions as soon as they become available
Blocter -> Axman: Disable Herbs from the very beginning.
David, Gabriel, Oakes -> Assassin: Use only combat arts and herbs

Item Arts:
The problem with them is that although Rush has all of them at his disposal from the very beginning, the ingredients for the better stuff starts popping up quite late. E.g. for Wyrmskeep, which marks mid-game, the only decent offensive IA you have access to is Frost Tincture.
Still I'd consider Khrynia the best unit for checking out IAs, but I wouldn't rely on IAs to be a greater part of a playthrough.
The only situation where I'd consider IAs essential are restricted runs with only few units, where you severely lack AP.

Basically everything real good in this game doesn't come until after the Fallen battle, when the main plot is almost over. After finally having access to the most desirable things in the game, all that's left is the DLC bosses and the final battle.

Prime example are The Seven:
In order to enjoy some of them, you have to do the E7 battle at the earliest possible time, which means beating the E7 right after the Fallen.
The E7 battle requires either a lot of luck or some really well developed stats, which you usually don't have yet just after the Fallen battle, so most of the times the Seven come too late to be useful.
Still it's worth checking out the Twins doing their Twin Snowpetal...!

As for the early game:
Rush can carry himself through the early battles on his own, if you craft him (and Baulson, as soon as you have him) some epic tier weapons, like the Parrying Tataraichi or in case of Baulson an Optimal Naginata.
You need to plan in advance and carry over all the required materials from your previous run.

Other things to plan for are materials for:
- Ragna-rock
- Bedazzling Anklet for Dave, Black Belts for your combat focused troops, Damascene Bracelets for HP.
- All the end game weapons for those units, which are not getting a remnant weapon during the game.

If you prefer the traditional early-game approach, good early-game generics are Semry (great weapons later in the game) or Oakes (can become Assassin, but more difficult weapon upgrades).

There's a lot to plan for a NG+; I'm sure I only touched the surface, still I hope my tips can be useful.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

Thank you both for your replies. To better clarify, for this run, I plan on doing every low BR trick possible [Mystic Seal grinding, Lavafender grind to get high chains and so forth] UNTIL I can recruit the Seven; once I get them and place them on my team, anything goes. Thankfully I don't have to beat Demigod before the Seven because I personally found Demigod to be harder due to the EoT attacks coupled with Bewitch use.

I have Rush's equipment planned out aready, I will craft Shield of the Vanquisher, Ragna-rock, and Dwarf's Gratitude (another +1 to Combat Art Growth) - I recognize I'd go mad trying to get Ordainer if I didn't have Skill Growth accessories from the beginning.

For the leaders I didn't use (You mentioned Nora, but she's already in Union 4 of my first playthrough), I have listed Jorgen (Sage), Duke, Gaou, and Rhagoh on my list to recruit for the reaons you already stated. The other leaders simply don't have enough role compression for what I'm trying to accomplish, especially if I'm going to use the Seven (thus Young instead of Roberto would be holding the Frostblade).

The only leader who comes reasonably early and with no BR requirements that can use traps is Allan, which I would be okay with using, but would likely require me to replace Semry with him since Allan can also learn Holy Win and with my requirements I have to compress as many soldier roles as possible. The IA usage isn't terribly important to me - they're more of a curiosity than anything - but they do appear to be a good way to keep AP costts low once I near the end and a good number of my troops can use Wepaon Arts.

[PinkPаптҥэя]

Ooops yes, I overlooked your Nora...

Originally posted by thepowerofmediocrity:

... I will craft Shield of the Vanquisher, Ragna-rock, and Dwarf's Gratitude (another +1 to Combat Art Growth) - I recognize I'd go mad trying to get Ordainer if I didn't have Skill Growth accessories from the beginning.

Dwarf's Gratitude won't make sense for getting Ordainer faster because:
Art growth ≠ Skill growth

Art growth: Knee Splitter → Peerless Knee Splitter V
Skill growth: Knee Splitter → Cross Slice → Requiem

Although it derives from the same weapon EXP, skill growth in this game is independent of art growth, so to improve your skill growth, you would need the Doom Chain instead or later in the game the Rubber Soul.

Also using Dual Wield together with the Ragna-rock would make gaining weapon EXP even faster: 3x instead of 2x, because with growth boost equipment the off-hand contributes to weapon EXP too.
While the SotV is the best shield in the game, more or less enabling Rush to go solo, it's not helping getting Ordainer (or Ninja) quicker, using Dual Wield with skill growth boost equipment however will.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

I looked into it and you're right about that, and thank you for the tip about Duel Wielding, I hadn't known about that. However, I can't craft both Doom Chain and Ragna-Rock because they both require the drop from the Fallen. It appears then that my best bet to expedite Weapon EXP is to grab the Rubber Soul in Dilmoor. The reason I have it set up like that is because the first couple of bosses are the hardest because of how limited your skills and team set-up are at the time, and from my experience facing those bosses, a Double Strike -> Double Strike 2 can make the difference between beating the first boss and wiping from it. Plus, the Curse immunity is very nice for a certain monster that tends to dominate newer teams.

As a side note, I beat the White Conqueror at BR 105, avenging a previous failure where my Combat union had a Critical Offense Chain when the Conqueror was at 80,000 HP... and then promptly missed the trigger. :( This time I was able to use Cachexia enough times to keep my team relatively healthy and I was able to override the Conqueror's Overdrive by using Rush's and Torgal's unions (chocked full of AP thanks to Rejuvenating Water) to bypass the damage theshhold. That battle really is all about keeping your Morale up, because otherwise those EoT attacks simply massacre everyone. With that, I received enough money to finish crafting the weapons and finished every guild task, and all that remains is the final battle. This is the time to have everything for my New Game Plus prepared.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

To serve as an update for what has happened with all the new game + prep so far (After all the DLC content I had to get through, the final boss was simply laughable):
I went through all the Disc 1 content at BR 16 - I may had been able to get through it quicker, but I did not want to give any mercy to the Gates of Hell and I wanted time to develop Gaou before the fight. Between fighting every rare monster I can get a hold of and doing the "Beat 12+ unions in 3 turns to minimize BR gain" for everything else, the game has been relatively smooth so far. There's a big jump between the Gates and the Six Bases, so I'm taking my time and getting everyone's weapons up to par for the best of my abilities.

None of what I had been attempting could have happened without the OP Shield of the Vanquisher and a rotating set of accessories: Hinnah's Earring for the additional evasion, Damascene Bracelet for the HP, and the growth bracelets for specific grinding. I hadn't considered obtaining various bracelets for the others, but I'm at a low enough BR where it isn't that big of a deal, and it's nice being magnanimous and giving your teammates everything you obtained through various quests and treasure hunts.