Elena as an item user, and maybe some other character builds.

[Bearded Goblin]

Spoilers abound? It's a 22 year old game.

Soooooo...I stumbled on this a long time ago back on the DC version, and I've never seen anybody post builds for the game. In general, the game isn't particularly difficult, so you can kind of do what you want without much issue, but this particular build is...Well it's a little broken. Specifically Elena as an item user. Forgive me because I do not have screen shots of this as I don't currently have an active save with it fully fleshed out (but I'm working on one!)

So basically, Elena didn't really have much of a niche in the game after building the other characters for me. Ryudo hits hard, Roan casts magic, Tio is a dodgy tank (go go evasion!), so Elena kind of...existed? She had some heals, but with Tio dodging every single strike, she kind of wasn't needed. I went down the list and realized that they had some weird skills that I didn't really touch because I just don't use items. These would be Skilled Item Use and Item Recover.

Skilled Item Use: Cuts execution times for item commands.
Item Recover: Cuts IP recovery time after using items.

I'm sure you've used the move recover and magic recover, so they do very similar to these things. There are 2 of each of these, as well! What this means is that items are instant use, and she gets thrown WAY back up the COM/ACT bar again so she can do it again. But why would why this matter? Items are limited unless you just buy a ton of them and this seems a really niche use case to bother with.

2 words. Magic Staves.

There are 3 primary ones that exist from Cyrum Kingdom, just after St Heim Papal State. They cast Burnflame, Howlslash, and Tremor. There's also an early one that casts Burn from Liligue, which will work until you get the other 3. Using one counts as an item and the 3 are AOE. They don't scale, so even at end game you're just doing like 3-500 damage, but due to those skills above she will typically go about 4-5 times for everybody else only going 1 time.

Besides the obviously ridiculous amount of damage she's doing, machine gunning AOEs endlessly, it also stalls out monsters horribly. Enemies almost never get a chance to attack before they die, and this includes the few boss fights that she actually participates in. She will kill steal from every character during their killing blow. And while she won't quite outpace a pure magic build in damage, she does come close. It's also a lot less interruption if she gets canceled.

So give it a try sometime. You'll likely be surprised by how stupid it can get. Just...remember it's going to get REALLY annoying.

There ya go!
There ya go!
There ya go!

Any other builds you found that are just incredibly broken?

[AlphaPHK]

Hey there! I was just starting a "Item Only" Run, and this build is interesting! Good to know that there's a bunch of magic staves that are usable by Elena, too bad she's usually away from Valmar Battles.

As for other broken builds... I don't consider this one broken, but I like the Decoy + Counter with Tio, who comes with a bunch of equipment that raises Evasion, so she becomes "Ultra Instinc Tio"... but again I don't find it super broken, since you gotta wait for enemies to hit you, and with 3 other people smacking everything while they aim for one person, I'd say Tio don't have many chances to dodge stuff.

...
That's really the only build I can think of, lol
I'm good with coming up with ideas for Grandia Xtreme or III, unfortunately this one is just too easy to make anything creative work in battle, as slapping enemies head-on with speacials and magic is always better.

[ÄmJii]

I accidentally ended up using Elena exactly this way in late game. I had her equipped with Dragon Staff and she ended up spamming Dragon Zap against the Valmar's Core. Best part is Zap occasionally stuns some of Valmar's body parts, resetting their ACT gauge. Quite RNG, but dealing 1000+ dmg with chance to stun is nothing to scoff at.

[SMMFO]

"Items are limited unless you just buy a ton of them and this seems a really niche use case to bother with."

I know this is a thread necro but even without staves, item spamming can be broken when used judiciously (i.e. boss fights).

I abused Elena and item skills to get all party buffs and enemy debuffs off and running in no time flat; boss fights even on hard mode became a joke

[Hariman]

Huh. Interesting.

I never figured this out, and just managed with the various characters' strengths. I think I used Elena for heals/buffs/and maybe a little damage.

It's been a while.

[Ryochan7]

I read this before beating Grandia 2 again. Thank you for the skill tip. Definitely needed that skill combo for Elena at the Room of Chaos. I used it more for quickly casting healing items rather than offensive magic spells though. For the most part, I used Elena mainly for casting healing spells and buffs.

Also, one skill combo that was vital for me was equipping Millenia with a combo of Fighting Spirit and Move Recovery.

Fighting Spirit: Increases SP recovery from damage
Move Recovery: Cut IP recovery time after using moves

My party was at level 46 so that is a bit under leveled for the end game from what I have read. Got stuck at Valmar's Eye as there are many enemies that attack constantly. I almost quit but I equipped those two skills to experiment and then realized how quickly Millenia's SP gauge filled from the constant attacks. I was then able to spam Fallen Wings and that boss battle became much easier.

[FafnirChaos]

No Elena is the TANK - She has such high defense that you can buff that.

here's a video(that got copyright striked a long time ago and had to put free music over it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olLrbQoBbYU