Character builds?

[Huzzy]

I've started playing EBF4 again from scratch, after playing recklessly for my first time on Kongregate, and on Epic difficulty for the second playthrough (again on Kongregate). At that time, I had Matt for damage, Natalie for M. Damage and healing, Anna for support and Lance didn't get to do much, since I had made that first playthrough on normal, I put all the skills on the other 3 and barely used Lance.

Later on, in the next gameplay, it became clear that it was necessary to use all four characters to have a strong team, so I am starting another game on Steam with Epic dificulty, but I'm trying to think very well about what I should do, and because of that I haven't raised my skills much yet.

I have all chars already, but I don't know exactly how to build them.

So, my question is, how do you guys recommend building/are building your team right now?

Some things I remember are:
-Matt normally gets more HP than the rest of the party, and also does significant damage than the others, specially if you chose his sword correctly.
-Natalie does significant magical damage.
-Anna's magical attacks were normally weaker than the rest of the team.
-I didn't you Lance much, but his skills were rather weak too, specially bullet hell, didn't do that much fire damage, but it may be because of my bad build of him.
-There's only one revive skill (which I had on Natz, and Anna would revive Natz with coffee if necessary).
-There are two skills that heal all the team at once, those being HealMore and the Power Metal skill (although I didn't like to use power metal unless extremely necessary, it was quite a bother since it was louder than the bgm and was weaker than Healmore).
-Anna has two healing skills with her, and I think one of them also blesses the target.
-Should also keep in mind that some skills may have changed and there may be new skills.

Also, I'm sorry if there was already a discussion, I searched I little but didn't find anything except a "Anna's build" topic. Which wasn't exactly what I wanted.

Right now I don't know where to put revive and healmore, and where to put special skills such as cleanse, protect, barrier, bind, syphon, solar flare, so I'd like help from any experient players out there.

Sorry for the long post.

[MegaNuke]

I only use 3 characters. I never use the backup. My team is Natalie, Anna and Lance. I never used Matt.

[Huzzy]

On what difficulty do you play? I played like that too, but when I went to my second play it just became impossible to do that. So I want to start using all four soon.

[MegaNuke]

I play the game on normal mode. And i play all the needed bosses and marathons on epic difficulty for the achievements. 95/104 right now.

[FoxMelody]

I think that both tactics will work. Either using all 4 characters and utilizing backup slot bonuses such as health and mana regeneration or completly ignoring Lance/Anna focusing only on 3 rest.
I myself didn't use Lance too much during story but still gave him some skills and food so on Battle Mountain on Epic i can safely switch if necessary.

[Huzzy]

That didn't go well for me. Especially on boss battles, it was incredibly common to have the front 3 be taken out in one turn. So I pretty much had to use all four on those higher levels.

But ignoring that, what skills did you guys put on your chars? Especially revive and healing skills.

[Halcyonic Chaos]

Mine is Matt, Natz and Anna early game. Anna is swapped with Lance for most of the mid game, then back to the orginal team switching between Anna and Lance for Defense for the former and Lance for the latter.

This works like a charm even on Epic against Godcat.

If in doubt, go with the classic trio.

[Huzzy]

I guess I will put the buff and debuff skills with Anna again, but I don't get what you said about Lance. Maybe give debuff skills such as bind and syphon to Lance and leave Anna with cleanse, protect and the likes of that. Godcat wasn't the hardest boss for me, though. It was Rafflesia with no doubt, specially the white healing plants were a pain to deal with. I'm just too unsure of who to give the revive and the healmore skills.

I don't have a line-up though. I use all 4. Just checked my save, everybody was lvl 40+. I guess when you get around there trouble starts. For instance, many enemies could hit-kill any char, so I pretty much had to use all 4, even if it was just to leave someone healing at the back.

[Halcyonic Chaos]

Originally posted by -#HuzzaH#-:

I guess I will put the buff and debuff skills with Anna again, but I don't get what you said about Lance. Maybe give debuff skills such as bind and syphon to Lance and leave Anna with cleanse, protect and the likes of that. Godcat wasn't the hardest boss for me, though. It was Rafflesia with no doubt, specially the white healing plants were a pain to deal with. I'm just too unsure of who to give the revive and the healmore skills.

I don't have a line-up though. I use all 4. Just checked my save, everybody was lvl 40+. I guess when you get around there trouble starts. For instance, many enemies could hit-kill any char, so I pretty much had to use all 4, even if it was just to leave someone healing at the back.

I have Protect on Matt. Anna Has Guardian and Cleanse, Natz has Purify and Healmore and Lance has the medpack and Debilitate.

Also if you have it, try firespin on natz and combo it with lance if you have buffs up and have the health to survive.

As for bind and syphon, leave them with Anna. (She's my main sabeteur.)

Whenever in doubt and you have SP, use the ancient monolith summon.

[Huzzy]

I think I will make Matt and Natz the dmg (well, not like you can really do damage without using any elemental magic, though. Guess Matt is more of a meat shield after all) and m.dmg ones, respectively, having Anna and Lance for alternated support, like you do since I remember their damage being rather weaker compared to the other two. Having Anna do the healing with her two natural skills. Might give her revive also and put the rest of support stuff on Lance, plus have him do some damage too, especially with limit breaks. Thanks for the tips.

[Lighthalzen]

I always use all characters but i beef up Matt mostly.

Boosting Matt with HP - DEF - ATTACK perm-stat foods is a good idea.
Boosting Natz with HP - MAG DEF - MAG ATTACK perm-stat foods is another good idea..
Boosting Anna with HP - MAG ATT - ATTACK - EVADE perm-stat foods ..i dont wanna repeat anymore
Boosting Lance with HP - ATTACK - EVADE - ACCUARACY (sorry for my english ;3)
is even better.

But yea , its prefferable to play the game on any difficulty except Epic for the first time but at the newgame + it should be an Epic only run. (cause you have all skills and stats boosted)

Give Natz the Black Hole -Limit Break- instead of Lance, its magic attack., also give her Absolute Zero -another Limit Break- instead of Anna.

[Rocket2049]

matt is your physical attacker, giving him every attack boost is a good idea since he's the one who kills enemies most of the time
and natalie's magic attack is pure murder on mobs, give her all magic attack, and since she's your healer give her a lot of evade

[APoCaLyPSE666NoW]

I don't understand why EBF4 don't allow to fight with 4 heroes at same time. I hope next sequel will do that & forget this 3+1 concept.

I just get my team level 22 destroyed by Pretorian. Easy win for this boss. All my heroes meet death Early. Why is worth to add last heroe (+1) if he fight alone when all others (3) are dead ? Nothing.

This heroe number about system fight is very curious.

Anna (100% played)
Matt (100% played)
Natalie (100% played)
Lance (never played except when others are all dead)

Matt isn't "human tank" promised by intro. He need a lot to become tank.
Natalie become interresting only when she get aoe spells.
I think Lance can be awesome.

But can Lance replace Matt in any difficulty ?

Can Anna be kicked to that team :
Matt
Lance
Natalie ?

[FoxMelody]

Originally posted by APoCaLyPSE NoW:

I don't understand why EBF4 don't allow to fight with 4 heroes at same time. I hope next sequel will do that & forget this 3+1 concept.

I just get my team level 22 destroyed by Pretorian. Easy win for this boss. All my heroes meet death Early. Why is worth to add last heroe (+1) if he fight alone when all others (3) are dead ? Nothing.

This heroe number about system fight is very curious.

Just revive them and remember to use some defence/magic defence buffs so they won't die so easly in first place.
I think there is only place for 3 players + backup because in EBF3 there were only 3 players, and developer wanted to keep the balance as just adding 4th slot would change a lot (and that would require to increase number of enemy slots as well) with AoE spells and buffs and the overall damage of player's party, so instead he added a backup slot with tactical possibilities.

[NisseDood]

Originally posted by Jasza676:

Originally posted by APoCaLyPSE NoW:

I don't understand why EBF4 don't allow to fight with 4 heroes at same time. I hope next sequel will do that & forget this 3+1 concept.

I just get my team level 22 destroyed by Pretorian. Easy win for this boss. All my heroes meet death Early. Why is worth to add last heroe (+1) if he fight alone when all others (3) are dead ? Nothing.

This heroe number about system fight is very curious.

Just revive them and remember to use some defence/magic defence buffs so they won't die so easly in first place.
I think there is only place for 3 players + backup because in EBF3 there were only 3 players, and developer wanted to keep the balance as just adding 4th slot would change a lot (and that would require to increase number of enemy slots as well) with AoE spells and buffs and the overall damage of player's party, so instead he added a backup slot with tactical possibilities.

And how the game looks now, it would probably look cramped as hell with the increased player/enemy count on screen.

[Rocket2049]

I use Matt, Anna, Lance as my team.
physical dealer, magic dealer (and healer), status effect spam (poison can be deadly)
I seriously almost never use Anna, and when I do all I use her for is Freeze Arrow
I've never had all three of my party members wiped through epic the entire 1st playthrough.