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Overall, for all characters you want to have action 4 or 5 and cast 2, better on one line, so they can buff themselves for +50% spd at the start of combat.
For most part of ch.8 you'll be limited in number of casters you can have with you.
For melee characters you generally want attack quartz on, and no defence quartz on them. Also, in case of ch.8, you should remove cast 2 from them and use move/hit/impede/status. Anything that fits your style of play. In case of hard combat don't forget to buff their attack with mass buff like Zodiac or Estelle's Morale craft or la Forte.
For arts users you really want action+cast+EPcut first. Then, for damage dealers, mind. For support HP. Add wind quartz on the line with water quartz to have powerful mass healing.
Do not use really expensive damaging arts, they're mostly useless. Defence quartz is really good on all casters in line with EP cut for earth guard.
- Choose arts you want from the Bracer book first then target them in your setups
- Classify each character with a role, e.g. the healer, debuffer, etc. This will help guide your quartz setup.
- Melee characters with bad ATS don't get arts. They get quartz depending on the stat benefits.
- Everyone gets Action quartz.
- Arts users get Cast quartz.
- If room to spare, give every one a high level water quartz so all characters have access to the Tear line. Healing does set heals in the game so melee characters can be good off-healers.
I used Kloe. Equip all the ATS-boosting stuff on her you can find, equip the cast-speed-up quartz on her, she starts doing ridiculous damage.
2) Anyone who may want to cast anything should get Cast 2.
3) Anyone who wants to attack with arts should use Mind and avoid Shield.
4) Anyone who wants to attack with physical should use Attack and avoid Defense.
5) With the above essential stats in mind, physical characters are relatively easy because you can pretty much just stick things for stats. Things like Move quartz, Strike 2, Hit, what have you. They're good candidates to put utility things like Heaven's Eye on too.
6) For casters, fill up their elementally locked slots with the highest EV quartz you can, then figure out some spells you want them to get and go from there.
It should be noted that high level attack spells tend to be horribly bad in this game. Spells have an integer damage bonus added to an (x*ATS-y*ADF) formula, and the bonuses are minuscule. The strongest spell in the game adds a mere 400 extra damage or so to the basic formula. They also have differing casting time, and high level spells tend to take longer to cast. Zodiac also sucks compared to La Forte because buffs are only applied to raw stats (not equipment), so the extra DEF buff aspect will shave off around 200-400 damage per hit at the end of the game. If you have the free slots leftover (mostly applies to Estelle, Kevin and Olivier), focus on getting extra elements, useful support spells like La Forte and such rather than going for the flashy damage spells.
I figure it'll be:
Estelle: Physical Attack... because I've got 2 Magic attackers already (below)
J: Physical Attack
Going with these 2 because they are the lowest leveled people
Kloe: AOE Healer (those 4 water quartz kinda limits where she can go)
Oliver: Mixed? Went with Attack 4 and Mind 4, but from what I'm reading, it's a lot better to specialize.
For the final boss:
Estelle: Main Healer... somehow
J: Physical Attacker
Kevin: Because he has to be there for the final confession/confrontation (Also Magic attacker)
Zane: Physical Attacker (that +60% str and def is too good)
Action is #1 on the list a few posts back because it's the most important, basically. If the mechanics work the way they do in Cold Steel, Speed (and thus Action) affects how quickly spells cast and how long the delay is afterward.
So you have 8 slots. If you're pondering tradeoffs to make in filling them, never ditch Action. If you want to cast regularly, never ditch Cast 2. It's less clear, but probably if you want physical damage, Attack is a must-have, and likewise for Mind. (Acting often is priority #1, doing good damage when you act is #2.)
If you wanted to build a character that was good at physical and magic, that is 4 must-have slots right there. That's half the quartz allotment!
Then there are accessories that up either physical or magical attack. If you don't have to worry about status effects, you'll want to double-dip on the same stat for a pretty big boost. And if you do, then obviously you have to pick one or the other.
In short, generally not a good idea.
There's a Cast Quartz that affects cast speed. I think action only affects number of turns you get.
Guess Oliver's gonna be a physical attacker then
What some of the above posters fail to mention about those high level arts is although their scaling is basically linear they tend to get massive increases in effective "range" (AoE). Nuking the field so your character builds half a bar of cp can be a literal lifesaver at times. They can also come with some great debuffs... KO (Death Scream) being perhaps foremost.
As for Zodiac, it's oft unappreciated. Having the ability to buff your entire party regardless of whether the enemy's knocked your party into the stratosphere or not is pretty nice in and of itself but it provides both the defense and offense buffs that you need in a single cast (saving you "time"). Defense wise a mere 25% might feel like nothing until you realize that -500 damage saved your healer from biting it. Defense plays a huge role even if it is... muted at times. Don't believe me? Equip the armor pieces of the cat maid gear and report your findings =P.
And I mainly meant things like Arc Prominence and Cocytus when I mentioned "high level spells". Kloe's three-water restriction pretty much forces her to get Cocytus anyways, but all the other characters have little reason to use up multiple slots to get them when they can get the much easier to get and more useful Death Scream (and maybe Titanic Roar) instead.
And Action does affect how quickly your spell comes out. Mechanically, Casting a spell lets character takes two quicker turns, one of which is used to cast the spell, so SPD will affect that.
Please note that this FAQ is for Cold Steel. I don't know whether the way delay works was changed between this game and Cold Steel. I do know that Cold Steel shows you the delay values and Sky doesn't.
In CS at least, Speed clearly affects the casting time of spells (just look at the giant chart about halfway through). The Cast quartz also affects casting time; but for the best effects, you also want a high speed character.
Reducing the delay after casting seems to be a mechanic introduced in CS. However, the raw delay is affected by Speed.
If the mechanics work like Cold Steel's mechanics, then Action stacks with Cast.
Also, you don't need Kevin in final party, but that one battle is much easier with him.
About ingenuity: I used it on my "field caster" - character who wipes out enemies in regular battles with magic.
I heard that Kevin has a special conversation with the final boss (Weiss), and i want to watch that convo. Is it true? If not I'd rather take him out and put Kloe in
On final boss he have one unique line, but it's more of a comical relief
Yeap is true. Anyways I used Estelle, Joshua, Kloe, and Kevin from the battle with Loewe onwards in Nightmare during my first play through.
Estelle for 2nd Earth Waller, Titanic Roar and La-Tear All
Joshua for Death Scream/TitanicRoar to build up CP for Phantom Raid and 3rd Earth Waller
Kloe for La-Tear All and Coyotpus
Kevin for Grail Sphere and the main Earth Waller along with some Titanic Roar or Geo Castrophere if possible.
This setup is pretty much the best support, defense, and offense setup to me.