Best Ex gem setup for each character?

[Unseen]

I'm at end game and I was wondering what the best ex gem setups are for each character? I got lloyd and collete setup good. But the others I'm not to sure about. Collete is setup according to the thief guides and she's pretty much an item finder. I know she might be good with other setups but I just want her to make money right now. But as for genis, raine, kratos, regal, and presae I have no idea.

[darth.crevette]

For Presea, you can't go wrong with Suppress (or Glory, I guess), although you might want to use P. Charge/Over Charge to perform her Mystic Artes.

For Regal I use Glory and nothing else.

For Raine and Genis, Concentrate gets them uninterruptible cast; it will also give Genis Rhythm and Spell Charge, which work great if you're controlling him yourself.

Kratos has many great choices. I tend to go with Super Blast but it's probably sub-optimal.

You haven't mentioned Sheena, but I use Spirit Healer + Blood Spirit on her; she'll never run out of SP.

[Unseen]

Ok thanks for the advice I'll look those over and yea sheena kinda goes over my head a little I like her summons but it sucks you can't always cast them. I like her character a lot but in battle she just seems a little odd but maybe there's something I'm missing.

Also will go back to the previous save before flanoir to work on zelos when I'm done with everything else. He's not my favorite character in the game but I will need to do his coliseum stuff eventually which looks challenging.

[Aifread]

Have you looked into all the compound EX skills? Those are the big game changers. "Best" is subjective, but these are all very very good to have.

Lloyd
Ability Plus + Sky Combo = Sky Cancel

This lets you do a very fast Rising Falcon out of a jump which is great for both damage and positioning, as well as combo into it from Sword Rain: Alpha or Omega Tempest.

Colette
Magical + Resurrect + Angel Song = Reslience

This is huge. Lets her cast spells without getting interrupted by enemy attacks. If you use Colette primarily as a spellcaster on late game optional bosses it's a must.

Genis
Speed Cast + Spell Save + Spell Charge + Rhythm = Concentrate

Same as Resilience but for Genis. No reason to have any other set up than this imo.

Raine
Happiness + Item Pro + Speed Cast + Spell Save = Concentrate

See Genis. Mandatory.

Kratos/Zelos
Sky Combo + Super Chain + Spell Charge + Speed Cast = Landing, Concentrate, Aerial Spell

This gives you a bunch of great stuff to work with. I shouldn't have to explain Concentrate and why it's good, but Aerial Spell lets you throw basic spells into regular combos, which combined with Super Chain and spell cancelling opens up your options immensely and lets you do some really crazy stuff. Landing is a bonus that you get as a result of the other two and assists with Aerial Spell shenanigans. You do miss out on Slasher with this setup but the unique combos it lets you do more than makes up for it.

Presea
Guard Plus + Vitality + Revive + Endure = Glory

Prevents all staggering. Broken.

Regal
Guilt + Vitality + Guard Plus + Flash = Glory

See Presea. Even more broken on Regal because he can spell cancel too, infinite comboing things to death without a care for anything else.

Sheena I don't really have much to say about because she's honestly pretty weak compared to the rest of the party and doesn't have any broken EX skill setups like the others do. Some like Dash are really good on their own and are a welcome addition on Lloyd too.

[Unseen]

Ok sounds like good advice especially kratos and zelo was wondering what I should do for kratos. I do have his ex skill that lets him do like 6 basic attacks without stopping which was good initially but that combination sounds better.

Oh btw how tough is maxwell? One reason why I need a good setup for sheena but like you say I don't really understand how she works, some guides I've read say she can keep enemies staggered but I'm not sure how all that works.

Trying out the setups for each one individually and can already see the differences in mythos castle, presea was getting beat up pretty bad by those angels but with this setup she's a rock.

[Aifread]

I think Maxwell is the easiest of the optional bosses. He has meteor storm which can be nasty but it's avoidable with a well-timed U-Attack. I'd argue even some main story bosses before him are harder. I don't think you have much to sweat with him.

The staggering thing is probably referring to her Force Seal tech which is pretty good. IMO her real X-factor is her access to a lot of elemental-resisting equipment which you can use to make her immune to pretty much any element you want if you stack them right, which unfortunately isn't all that useful for Maxwell.

[Unseen]

Ok thanks for the advice I actually found Yuan and Kvar to be pretty hard bosses even more so than the kratos fights. Yuan had a pretty cool fighting style as well kinda like darth maul. Would be nice if he was an optional character or maybe a mod somewhere, as he is kind of a stuffy scumbag but he kinda grows on you towards the end.

[Aifread]

Yeah for sure the harder boss fights in this game are the ones with multiple enemies at once like Yuan, Sylph, and the dragon in the sky.

[Unseen]

Yea Sylph was definitely the worst summon to battle imo.

[darth.crevette]

Originally posted by Aifread:

Yeah for sure the harder boss fights in this game are the ones with multiple enemies at once like Yuan, Sylph, and the dragon in the sky.

What makes the dragons hard is not that there's multiple enemies imho, rather it's the big one spamming instant-cast earthquakes covering the entire arena...
And I always find Sylph to be pretty easy, since they're pretty weak indivisually. The summon spirit that gave me the most trouble was actually Efreet... if you wait until you come back from Tethe'alla to fight him lol, in that case he gets a BIG powerup and high-level spells.

[Unseen]

I didn't wait to fight him so I actually had an easier time with him than sylphs who I fought on hard mode. But sylph wasn't as bad as Kvar to me anyway that guy was a real headache and I had to grind a lot of desians just to beat him.

These setups work really well particularly like Genis setup all I have to do is sit back and tap a button makes exp farming very simple.

Well beat Mithos on hard and it only took me 2 tries and first try was kind of a poor setup and I had no life bottles. So yea great ex sphere setups. I found mithos to be pretty easy with Genis spamming meteor, Maxwell was also easy, so was the sword dancer (well he was harder than maxwell and mithos). Now I have to beat Abyssion.

By the way any advice to easily do the coliseum? I find the arena to be even worse than any of the team battles least for me cause it feels like you don't get many options strategically and you die very fast. Any help with that would be appreciated.