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Yes, some of the attacks with Lailah/Edna when armatized are sluggish, but as you unlock more combos you will not find it to be that big of a deal. They are more power/wide arc oriented unlike Mikleo and... the wind one is another issue entirely. They have fewer attacks and are intended to feel much stronger, and they are due to the stat/skill combination, but you can bypass some of these concerns with dodging, magic, etc. and the right choices of armatizing or not vs certain enemies (dodging counts as a move so you can dodge + dodge + some action and it will act like the 3rd action such as casting a spell faster or 3rd hit in that combo). Once you get Rose you are no longer really "forced" to have certain people as you can swap between everyone on the fly. You just can't have 3+ Seraph in your party at once on the field but you can swap between all of them mid battle. You don't get Alisha after she is gone sooooo, yeah, you get everyone and it isn't all that forced.
You can have your various combinations as you can swap Seraphim on the fly mid combo among other tactics. You MUST have Rose + Sorey in the party at all times but this isn't a big deal due to how the Seraph swapping functions.
The AI dies easily vs boss-like enemies because they are intended to be quite powerful to the point that, unless you are significantly geared up they can potentially 1-hit you. This isn't an issue of the AI but an issue of design to prevent armatization from being OP due to the massive stat boost (not that this actually works once you figure things out as most bosses on first run at hard/intense can heal you when you block their hit with good stats). It tries to enforce blocking/evading and combo-locks while not making combo-locks OP (invuln status). Unfortunately, AI can't properly block/evade so they are very susceptible to bosses just as YOU are if you don't block/evade. Sucks, but I am sure the question came up of "how good to make the AI at blocking/evading without it being too good" and then adding it or not and they opted out.
You really have to gear up properly and use the proper stratgies to take on enemies and not get a death in battle for the grade bonus. Story bosses this is fairly doable. Many mutant hellions found in fields/dungeons... this is definitely not to be expected unless you come back to them later or are properly prepared (dangerous encounter equipment farming, normins, enemy level manipulation, etc. skills, etc.) as well as using the right tactics to combo-lock (utilize armatization or four seperate people combo locking? etc.) and strategies (spread out, blah blah).
Try farming some better gear with dangerous encounters after you have access to normins and play on hard or higher for better loot.
This system is actually really fluid, and transits really well in and out of the field travel mode. I don't think the usual systemw ould ahve worked witht hat kind of transition as they never had field obstacles, while in this game, the walls, and rocks becomes a part of the fighting zone.
Well, I'm just very confused trying to memorize all the artes in the entire game, because of the basic attacks being artes.
Armatization kind of made the game easier, as it acts almost like instant revival.
If ther eis one system I favorite, that would be Tales of Xillia, where you can throw in the entire cast of 8 charcaterts and swap on the fly, with linked combos.
They didnt keep dieing on my first playthru, they not dieing now on my chaos playthru (and I have yet to get my elite equipment back).
The only thing I can think of is people are rushing the game and thus getting under levelled in the process.
I agree the battle system has flaws tho. e.g. I barely ever use martial artes as I dont like the preconfigured move set. Just hidden and seraphic artes for me.
Also make sure you put some effort into the strategy settings.
I'd fuse weapons and armor when I'd get back to town or at an in the field shop, replacing them when new weapons came along that were better than my fused items, starting the cycle over again, but even still the allied AIs just could not stand up to the damage bosses dish out.
I'd usually win the battles first time but I would spend more time juggling spinning plates keeping the AIs alive than actually fighting the boss.
The key point is to figure out what to set the AI's strategy to as this is the most vital part. They kept derping hard until I sat down, thought about each of them and set up strategy that'd work with their skillsets. After that performance sky rocketed and I actually cleared a few boss fights without a single item use or micromanaging the party. Unless you set them up right they'll flounder about like idiots and die horribly.
On most of the boss fights I've done pretty well, keeping everyone alive isn't nearly as hard if you realize you can swap the seraph partners rapidly, if one of them is getting creamed swapout and spread the damage out or armatize and let off some recovery and break fusion. Might not always keep the elemental advantage but swapping outs alot easier on the grade than a KO. Plus as all your seraph tag team around they'll let off their buffs and stack it up after awhile making the fights easier. Same with debuffs.
Also noticed you can increase the ninny factor of the team by changing how soon they'll heal to the higher levels. 75% makes them very skittish after taking a heavy hit and as they run away constantly you can swap in Mikleo and let off his recovery arte and get everyone on their feet again and get into a cycle of Team Blitz -> Team Ninny running as everyone suffers counter attacks -> Healing and repeat.
I've kinda noticed the main theme of the battle system is "get exactly what you put into it". Haven't had a single major roadblock fight so far by using the system as intended.
I have observed the AI and noticed the following issues which is annoying.
AI melee will combo (and as such plezur works great), but AI seraph only combo if they using martial artes not seraph, I then watched them to see how often they defend which is very irregular so healing for defence is also out.
For sure tho put plezur on sorey, rose and alisha.
Now, don't think I am saying you are bad or playing the wrong way. Merely take this as advice to alleviate some of your problems and you might enjoy it a bit more, hopefully.
You seem to be playing on a pretty low difficulty setting if they are lower level then you or even equal level (this simply does not occur at hard/intense/chaos (maybe not even moderate, never played it tho). Despite this you can't use it as a guage of power since levels mean very little since they don't inflate your HP or stats significantly. Levels are largely skill progression for characters.
The core stats will tend to come from good equipment and armatization (combining stats). You are buying/fusing gear and, unfortunately, that is a bad way to play Tales of Zestiria which is unfortunate. Shop gear, largely, sucks in the game. What you want is to cause dangerous encounters by grouping a bunch of enemies together on the field (where they are close enough to make the black aura) and fight them finishing them with Mystic Artes if possible on the last few enemies (later you can armatize to deal AoE Mystic Artes, unlocked for each Seraph during the story). Dangerous encounters boost enemy level and item drops are determined by enemy level (tier such as adamantite/topaz/etc.) and what an enemy can drop (ceremonial sword/tiara/boots/etc.). This can allow you to very heavily inflate your stats. The part where fusing comes into play, before post game basically and on your first run (NG+ this changes), is for trying to moderately control what skills/links you get on the good gear. Sometimes you just have to opt for the heavy stat increase rather than the skills, but when possible try to make it a little more favorable with fusion if you can acquire multiple stronger items. Do it correctly and you can even get topaz/adamantite items quite early in the game from mobs (using normins to also boost mob level). Defeating these mobs may be difficult and require multiple tries until you start getting some of the drops to flesh out your character's equipment and learn how to handle a specific area's mobs (possibly only opting to fight specific mobs such as non-casters).
The AI dying thing, due to lack of block/evade from AI, can be a pain. Once you get Rose, however, this is substantially alleviated as Rose can armatize when close to death or dead to save/revive herself and use a nice heal. Later, Edna gets a really nice AoE heal as well. You can also use one of the AD Skills to force swap (without pausing) your AI's Seraphs so they can go on break to heal up while a healthy one stays out to fight. You can also set skills and foods that have a chance to revive upon death automatically a set number of times a fight.
The "target enemy weakness" and "spread out" strategies are pretty useful. You can focus on comboing powerful enemies appropriately timed with teammates and manage SC to keep more powerful enemeis from having a chance to retaliate. There is a AD Skill that draws aggro when you guard/charge which can also help a bit.
Note: Some mutant hellions (two of them in particular) will hit VERY hard regardless of your stats, basically, on first run through the game and some may be harder for some people so be aware. Really, it isn't that big a deal if you can't get the bonus grade for no items used/no deaths (tho it can be fun to try) in a boss battle because you can earn grade (and most people will) from other methods rather than bosses.
Raising levels of characters accounts for about 50% of stats with good equipment. (more if poor equipment). Herb usage also plays an important role, remember arte attack, attack and focus are inherited on armetization but not defense stats. So I would suggest pumping arte attack on either laila or mikleo (I chose mikleo due to his 80% cast unnamed weapon). But put all the other stats on sorey.
Those boss creatures roaming field maps need to be beaten as they are a big source of extra HP since almost all of them drop HP orbs.
Auto dodging skills probably are worth keeping on during a first playthru, my observation is they dont seem to have much affect on grade anyway. I would also suggest enabling the skill that draws enemies to you when guarding, then guard not only as a means of defending and recovering BG but also to draw the enemies towards you.
Which defense stat is more important? I would probably say magic defense on a first playthru. Physical defense on a second when you have access to bulk preventi's, this is because magic attacks usually are multiple lower damage hits and physically is usually a more powerful single hit. But without any preventi, magic will be the overall higher hassle to deal with.
As said above boss's hit hard regardless of stats, you need to get used to guarding or evading in this game (ideally both). If allies are in poor health hit down on the right stick so they keep running away from enemies and spam healing spells.
By far the best way to deal with mobs of enemy casters is with AoE spells yourself, trying to control them with martial artes only and you will get overwhelmed.
You know, I neevr ever used herbs in any Tales of game. Because I hold them off until I figure out who I want to use them on.
Then before I knew it, I finished the game, and the herbs are just there.
In some cases, getting a 100+ combo can prove unbelievably frustrating (mimics fleeing and no way to stop it) and in others it can be downright fatal (if the final boss takes advantage of it).
It's just too long, and the idea of punishing high combos is frankly ridiculous. To me it's the biggest failure of the Zestiria combat system, even more so than the bad AI and flaky camera.
What difficulty do you play on? It's a pretty easy thing to show AI deficiencies, and the majority of the players can't be wrong. But if you're playing on Normal or even Simple I guess they wouldn't cause enough problems to really frustrate you.
first playthru was moderate for first 1/3 of game, after I changed to a mixture of hard and insane (but dropped to moderate for bosses for the extra exp). There was the occasional battle where things got heated but certianly far from been battle after battle.
Second playthru was all insane including bosses.
Third is currently all chaos.
I'm pretty confident defense stats combine in some manner when armatizing. My Edna has far higher defense and arte defense than other Seraph in my party, or did until recently, and on bosses that would instant kill me when armatized with the other three would take 5-6 of their strongest hits to kill Sorey + Edna armatization whom I prioritized defensive stats on (such as vs the Scorpion and some other mutant hellions that hit hard on Intense).
I will disagree with his point of defense focus. I say focus defense over arte defense, but focus both over other stats when possible. Most boss attacks that hit you will be physical oriented and they tend to be fast and may hit multiple times. Some spells hit multiple times or once, the number not really mattering as most boss spells that hit tend to hit extremely hard... in many cases outright killing or near insta-killing whoever gets hit (unless armatized with very significant arte defense + guarding). Often, most spells can actually be very easily evaded while physical not so much because they are wide range AoE where spells tend to be linear/location focused AoE and have a cast time that gives you a heads up to dodge (even on harder difficulties despite being much shorter). You can also interrupt using seraphic artes as chrcoluk mentions (particularly with dodge + dodge + cast if you need to stop a group of casters ASAP). This method also allows you to heal off physical attacks without spamming items against bosses even on harder difficulties and wait for openings, making a skilled player borderline invincible for most of the game.