Phantasy Star IV: No spoilers Mini-Guide for casual players by Frya

[JohannDaart]

INTRODUCTION:

Guide is aimed for casual players, that want to enjoy PSIV story without reading big guides.
At the end of the guide, there's a list of possible Combination Attacks in order of availability and progress through the main story.

TIPS:

- Mages like Hahn, Rune, Raja have very weak basic attacks, it's better to equip them with two shields, so they take less damage. Ultimately Silver Shields, that can be bought in Tyler town on Dezoris, the winter planet, are the best ones they can carry.

- Characters in front of your team will take more damage than characters that are on the back. It's best to put tanky characters with lots of HP and Defense (like Wren, Chaz, Rika) in front and characters like mages on the back of your team.

- Chaz Hinas and Ryuka are teleport techniques. Hinas teleports outside a dungeon and Ryuka teleports between towns.

- Don't ignore Chaz TSU/GITHU/NATHU techniques. His offensive skills are very strong, but TSU has lots of damage too. Also Rune GRA/GIGRA/NAGRA techniques are very strong against most monsters, NAGRA can sometimes clear all random monsters in one turn.

- Agility stat determines the order of who will perform action during the combat first. You will often command Rika (she has high Agility stat and healing techniques) to emergency-heal whole team (SAR) or a team member close to death (RES), to prevent loosing him. In general, after start of a turn, Rika will always perform her action first, before any enemy or your other team members. Rika has great damage from her Doubleslash, but half of the time she needs to be used in a healer role, while Chaz will pump damage to the enemy in every turn.

- Set up Macro A so your team fighters use basic attacks and mages defend. Make them attack in order of their Agility stat, the fastest character should attack first.
So for example: Rika Attack > Wren Attack > Chaz Attack > Rune Defend > Raja Defend.
This Macro will allow you to clear weak random monsters. It's also handy for quick-finishing one last monster on low HP without needing to give command to the whole team separately. Rika will clean up fast with her powerful basic attack.

- Protective aura spells, that rise Defense stat during the combat (Rika DEBAN, Raja BLESSING, Wren & Demi BARRIER, Kyra WARLA), will make important fights much easier. Also SAR techniques (heal whole team), make this game so easy...

- Combination Attacks & Macros:
It's important to set up macros considering team members Agility stat. Characters that have the lowest Agility should use their spell first, otherwise, combo might be interrupted by enemy attack.
For example, in Grand Cross combo (Rune + Chaz), Rune should use EFESS before Chaz uses CROSSCUT. Rune Agility is lower compared to Chaz, so making Chaz go first would give enemy a window of opportunity to interrupt the combo before Rune had a chance to use his spell.
During boss battles, it's not that easy to use combos, because every turn counts in terms of healing and defensive spells. If you have a combo performed by 2 out of your 4 team members, it's best to set up a macro with 2 characters performing combo, and the other 2 using protective spells.
So Grand Cross macro should look like this:
Rika DEBAN + Wren BARRIER + Rune EFESS + Chaz CROSSCUT.

- Grand Cross is probably the best combo out there, it does around 700-800 dmg to Darkness enemies that you will often meet, and you can use it many times before resting. Combined with protective spells, it's a great opener for boss battles. In comparison, Destruction is the strongest combo, but it's capped at 999 dmg, and spells that are needed for it are scarce (POSIBOLT and LEGEON).

- During boss battles, it's good to start with protective spells in the first turn. So macros with combination attack + other team members using protective spells (like DEBAN/BARRIER) are very useful.
In later turns, you will need to heal your team (with SAR & RES spells and STAR-DEW & MATE items). Turns in which your whole team will be nearly full HP are the opportunities to use combination attack macro again. You will be able to use Macro once in 3-4 turns.
So usually, boss battle will go like this, in turns:
1) Protective spells + Combination Attack macro 2) Half your team heals, half does dmg 3) Half your team heals, half does dmg 4) Combination attack + protective spells macro, and so on...

- PSIV is very linear game. There's only the main story line + Hunter's Guild Quests (Aiedo town) + Anger Tower on Rykros planet (it's available only after getting Elsydeon from Lutz). Hunter's Guilds Quests are worth it, they are the only way to get the best equipment for Wren, making him very, very strong.

- The funniest way to get levels in dungeons is to save up your skills and Technique Points (using weaker skills and basic attacks) while traveling through the dungeon to the boss, then using what's needed on boss, and after defeating boss, instead of teleporting out of the dungeon, traveling back through the dungeon on feet, using up all your Macros, TP and skills unused during boss battle on random monsters. Blowing up random monsters with combination attacks in one turn is so fun. That way you will have levels, without grinding too much.

- Final battles are easier if you pick Raja as a fifth member. He is a powerful healer, and his Ataraxia skill restores Technique Points to the whole team and cures paralysis (op). His Saint Fire is also great against Darkness monsters that you will meet at the last stage of the game. You will fight with evil and he is a priest, enough said...
Hahn is a nice choice if you want to play with Combination Attacks, but at that stage of the game, you won't have that many opportunities to use them anyway, they loose a bit of their impact in the late game.
Gryz is the hardest choice as a fifth member, maybe he is strong, but his utility is very low. Also Gryz has no spells needed for Combination Attacks.

- If you intend to pick Raja and do Hunter's Guild quests to get the best equipment for Wren, you don't need to grind levels / overlevel your team. You will easily defeat final boss. Playing on emulator with quick saves makes it even easier. Chaz on level 45 is enough to finish this game without any grinding, even if you play it for the first time.

- Before final boss, buy lots of STAR-DEWs and TRIMATEs. Also, bring 3-5 REPAIR-KITs for Wren from Weapon Plant (there's an unlimited supply of them in it).

EFFECT REMOVAL TECHNIQUES:

• Paralysis can be cured with RIMPA (Chaz, Hahn, Raja, Kyra) or RIMIT (Hahn, Raja).
  
  
• Sleep is cleared by AROWS (Rune).
  
  
• Poison can be healed with ANTI (Chaz, Hahn, Raja, Kyra).
  
  
• Death can be reverted by REVER (Chaz, Raja) or REGEN (Raja).

CORE TEAM COMBINATIONS:

You will have them available just by following main story. Core characters in the game are Chaz, Alys, Rune, Rika, Wren. Having them in your team is not your choice, they are all needed for the main story arc.

• Triblaster - FOI + WAT + TSU
  (It will not work with advanced versions of these techniques.)
  
  Requires Chaz and (Alys/Kyra and Hahn/Rune, or Hahn and Rune)
  
  - It's good in early-mid game for clearing random monsters.
  
  
  
• Blizzard - WAT/GIWAT/NAWAT + ZAN/GIZAN/NAZAN/HEWN
  
  Requires Chaz/Alys/Hahn and Rune, or Chaz/Alys and Hahn
  
  - Good early-mid, becomes obsolete late.
  
  
  
• Firestorm - FOI/GIFOI/NAFOI/FLAELI + ZAN/GIZAN/NAZAN/HEWN
  
  Requires Chaz/Alys/Hahn and Rune/Kyra, or Chaz/Hahn and Alys
  
  - Good on Dezolis winter planet.
  
  
  
• Lethal Img - ILLUSION + DEATH
  
  Requires Alys and Rika
  
  
  
• GrandCross - CROSSCUT + EFESS
  (Rune needs level 29 to learn EFESS!)
  
  Requires Chaz and Rune
  
  - Great against Darkness monsters.
  
  
  
• CircuitBrk - HIJAMMER + TANDLE
  
  Requires Rune/Kyra and Wren
  
  - It's great against robots.
  
  
  
• ShootinStr - BURSTROC > FOI/GIFOI/NAFOI/FLAELI
  
  Requires Wren then Alys/Rune/Kyra
  
  
  
• Destruct - DEBAN > MEGID + LEGEON + POSIBOLT
  (Chaz MEGID needed from Anger Tower on Rykos)
  
  Requires Rika then Chaz and Rune and Wren
  
  - Strongest combo in the game.

COMBINATIONS THAT DEPEND ON TEAM CHOICES OR NEED OVERLEVELING:

To have them available, you will either need to overlevel during early-mid game, so your characters will learn spells needed for them quicker than in casual playthrough, or pick certain character as a fifth member during late game.

• SilentWave - AIRSLASH + PHONON
  (Chaz needs level 13 to learn AIRSLASH!)
  
  Requires Chaz and Demi
  
  
  
• Black Hole - GRA/GIGRA/NAGRA + NEGATIS
  (Rune needs level 32 to learn NEGATIS!)
  
  Requires Rune and Kyra
  
  
  
• CondctThnd - WAT/GIWAT/NAWAT > TANDLE
  (Kyra needs level 39 to learn TANDLE!)
  
  Requires Hahn then Rune, or Rune then Kyra
  
  - Great against robots.
  
  
  
• Holocaust - SAVOL + DIEM
  
  Requires Hahn and Rune
  
  
  
• ParadinBlw - RAYBLADE + ASTRAL
  
  Requires Chaz and Hahn
  
  
  
• PurfyLight - HOLYWORD + EFESS
  
  Requires Rune and Raja

[DarthNocturnal]

I assume you'll be putting this in a community guide then? On the forums, it'll just get pushed back to older pages, which means few, if any, will be able to see it.

[JohannDaart]

It wouldn't be a bad idea, but Steam gives me an error during creation of a guide in guides section...

[8bitGuru]

I hope you're able to put this into a community guide at some point though as it is awesome.