Lance issues to cover before EBF5

[Mathcat]

So, throughout my 10 playthroughs of EBF4 (Newgame+'s including), I've noticed that Lance tends to be my least used character. I gauge that there are three reasons for that:

1.) Having to divide magic specials between Natz and Lance
As Lance tends to hit stronger on the magical side, he requires skills on the magical. However, as Natz has stronger magical stats, it becomes difficult to decide who gets which of the magical skills (the bubble and airwave lines, especially).

2.) Low special access.
If you look at each character's accesibility of skills, Lance has the lowest number of specials to access. This lowers his potential of build flexibilty compared to other characters, especially if you want to make a physical build because, again, Natz has to have most of the magic.

3.) Elemental inconsistency???
Lance at base only has access to 4 elements with attacks that can hit hard (Thunder,Fire,Dark,Bomb), which while tied with Matt (Fire,Ice,Earh,Holy) leaves him with a lot to be desired. As aforementioned, Lance has to fight with Natalie for other magical elements. Holy Fire and Blizzard, which give Lance other elements, are late-ish game unlocks, so it leads him to get benched more often in normal fights. As for attacks based on his weapon (Hyper Beam and Unload), they tend to burn a lot of turns, as one takes two turns to use and the other requires Matt to repeatedly buff, or someone to toss beer to Lance.

4.) He's a nazi

Now the obvious answer to solve this in EBF 5 would be to increase Lance's availabilty to magic specials. However, I believe there's a better solution; Increase his physical apecials access and minorly buff his base physical attack. This would allow him to retain his all-rounder role while also reducing his reliance on magic. That, and potentially decrease the attack debuff on Unload as well as its power value to compensate, in order for it to be used over more turns without wasting other character's turns.

[Natzor]

Originally posted by Mathcat:

So, throughout my 10 playthroughs of EBF4 (Newgame+'s including), I've noticed that Lance tends to be my least used character. I gauge that there are three reasons for that:

1.) Having to divide magic specials between Natz and Lance
As Lance tends to hit stronger on the magical side, he requires skills on the magical. However, as Natz has stronger magical stats, it becomes difficult to decide who gets which of the magical skills (the bubble and airwave lines, especially).

2.) Low special access.
If you look at each character's accesibility of skills, Lance has the lowest number of specials to access. This lowers his potential of build flexibilty compared to other characters, especially if you want to make a physical build because, again, Natz has to have most of the magic.

3.) Elemental inconsistency???
Lance at base only has access to 4 elements with attacks that can hit hard (Thunder,Fire,Dark,Bomb), which while tied with Matt (Fire,Ice,Earh,Holy) leaves him with a lot to be desired. As aforementioned, Lance has to fight with Natalie for other magical elements. Holy Fire and Blizzard, which give Lance other elements, are late-ish game unlocks, so it leads him to get benched more often in normal fights. As for attacks based on his weapon (Hyper Beam and Unload), they tend to burn a lot of turns, as one takes two turns to use and the other requires Matt to repeatedly buff, or someone to toss beer to Lance.

4.) He's a nazi

Now the obvious answer to solve this in EBF 5 would be to increase Lance's availabilty to magic specials. However, I believe there's a better solution; Increase his physical apecials access and minorly buff his base physical attack. This would allow him to retain his all-rounder role while also reducing his reliance on magic. That, and potentially decrease the attack debuff on Unload as well as its power value to compensate, in order for it to be used over more turns without wasting other character's turns.

Well he is kind of hybrid as far as skills go (a bit more towards magic but he still got decent physical skills), but yeah i do agree, and as far as support, Anna does a better job (not to mention she comes with evade boost on her that can't be transferred to the others). He kind of lacks holy/ice attacks that actually deal a decent chunk of damage (the specials CERTANLY doesn't help either) which can be useful for certain enemies. Other than his multi hit bomb skill, he really has a need for strong single target spells, and Natz can mostly cover for multi hit moves, and can learn almost every elemental multi hit skill (except holy) meaning she has far more use in most situations. I guess that's what you get when making a jack of all trades character though.

[TOYSIPO2]

I know this comment is freakin' way outta season, bu~t...

Lance and Anna I both find equally useless(which is not to say that they are useless) in comparison to Natalie and Matt; mostly because they're jack of all trades-esque characters with focuses in either attack or magic.

Lance's wind can be made up with Power Metal, but this denies Matt a wind attack. I find this justified, because Matt's almost always a kinda ♥♥♥♥♥ mage, so I try to keep any and all magic-based skills out of his reach as I can. To this end, I gave Fright to Anna, and later gave Dark Flare to Matt just to cover the base of a dark attack, even if that turned out to also be a magic attack (mostly just because Fright is comparatively more useful and powerful when in the hands of a capable magey person)

Holy Fire can be given to anybody, but fits best on Lance because he's the only character without natural Holy abilities, and it's magical. It also gives him another way to dispell stuff (but you'll still want to use crush a lot for that).

Lance is just kinda out of luck when it comes to water or ice; your best bet is to equip the guns (which I can't realy do because I play on Epic and not catering to resistances vs damage when you really need the resistance gets you wiped like freakin' fog on a window). I gave him Rain and Hail, which I never use unless I really want to set up for elemental combos... which you don't get too many opportunities to do on Epic, I find.

That said, I made him have a lot of technical things like Syphon, Debilitate and Cleanse and all that- except for Solar Flare, which Natalie got just to mitigate the debuff stuff to more people.

You can give him Sand Dune for Earth; doesn't make terrible sense because it's a physical, I know, but it's better than leaving him earthless in most cases, since everyone else has their Earth things. 'Sides, you'll likely be attack-buffing him because of his bullet abilities from time to time.

Now, Anna is the one I have a harder time finding good specials for. Beserk and Hellfire cover her fire ineptitude, Fright and Screamer cover her dark ineptitude (and are generally the go-to magic defense annhilator in most cases). I gave her Icicles for the ice stuff, but y'know, let's face it, Icicles isn't a terribly powerful spell. I gave her Purify. That's all I really have to say; her basic abilities cover a lot of bases, even if they're also quite restricted. I also gave her the Sawblade series for some good non-elemental fun, and to give her specials a little variety. Sacrifice is also dark-elemental, but I don't think you want that to be anybody's regular go-to dark-elemental attack.

Natalie I gave a lot to. I gave her the Gaia series, Blast, Airblast series, Bubble series...

She only has Guardian in terms of buffs, for now. She has enough responsibility stitching together her fellow lemmings as is.

Matt gets the obvious ones, Spark series, Geyser series, etc. Bamboo Trap, too. Gave him Protect and Dispel.

now what I wanna see is someone who gives Heal and Heal More to Matt

I also want to note that Lance's Unload is incredibly powerful. Consistently buffing him every time he gets the -45 atk forom using it is worth it, sometimes- he can really drill down foes. Conversely, if you want crowd control, he's got hyper beam for that. I find him a lot more versatile in attack than Anna, but Anna's attacks can hit really hard when you buff her right, too. Personally, I alternate my characters all the time (I kinda have to, to keep them from dying horribly most times). Some waves you just don't need Matt or Natalie for, and others you need a little of everyone.

Also, if someone dies, it's generally nice to just send them to the bench/revive then bench and let them go get McDonalds. Keeps your party from being stuck in total recovery mode, and lets you fix up the dead guy at your leisure. Or, if you revived him, he should be rarin' to go. Sans the buffs requried to not die again immediately, of course.

[Mathcat]

Well, as you said that most of Anna's skills cover her well, that was what I refer to compared to Lance: He needs specials that are equally or better suited with the other players in order to have good coverage. Unlike Anna, whose stongest skills are the the damage type as her elemental damages, Lance has one that takes multiple turns to use, and another that doesn't, AND makes forces you to waste multiple turns to use consistently (Because someone has to give Lance an attack buff/ cleanse, or else unload can't be useful.)

[ShinkuTear]

One thing that could *maybe* solve some of the issue, is if a stat booster shop made us apply the booster to a character at the same time, and booster price was partially tied to how many that character has used on that stat, partially to how many they have used total

So if Matt has +50% STR from stat boosters, and Lance +0% STR, it would be far cheaper to boost STR on Lance. But if Lance has +50% MAG and HP, while Matt still only has +50% STR, it would be more even in price, or maybe even favor Matt.

I might have explained that poorly, but the idea is that Hybrids like Lance and Anna don't have to fight with the Pure to be effective, and also partly(?) preventing mass stat booster use.

[Chalino]

Atleast his only healing spell cures negative status effects.
I don't see what's wrong with him being a nazi

[Natzor]

Originally posted by TOYSIPO2:

I tend to find anna more useful due to her having more support abilities that helps out in battle (evade is pretty much a given on epic even if it is rng dodge), and her being the only one with access to party bless can be quite useful in certain situations. Her specials are surely as weak as lance (pretty much tagged any support or debuff skills on her which was fairly few), but her other main skills are still somewhat useful throughout 3 runs (although mostly for stagger or freeze to finish bosses quicker). Lance meanwhile has only a single target heal (which while it does heal status ailments is alright, having party status ailment heal and party heal through natz makes it kinda not as useful) and everything else is just damage. Might be my fault for pumping (almost) all my stats into Matt/Natz, but hey, my damage carries does matter, and natz can still deal with crowds, making a support pretty much the only viable role left for party nr. 3 imo.