Story characters worth leveling

[cmd1095]

It's been a heck of a long time since I played this game back on the DS, and I was wondering which story/DLC/etc.. characters are worth the time and effort to grind up as opposed to making generic class characters.

I'm reaching the point where I can't use everyone at once now, and while Laharl and Pleinair are doing fine (especially Pleinair, she can solo most of the story stages so far), and Flonne makes a decent off-healer, Etna has struggled to accomplish anything and I just got Hoggmeiser so idk where he's at yet

[Z3n]

Well, at that point, the next notable story characters you will get are at the end of Episode 9. Monsters are kinda bad in D1. Except Thursday, I guess.

You can use the master/student system to teach spells.

For example, with Flonne, create a healer, and with the healer, create red/green/blue mages. In battle (on the Training Stage for example), put the healer next to a mage, the healer will be able to cast the spells of the mage. Cast those spells repeatedly with the healer till they reach lvl 1, at which point the spells are learned. Teach the healer the elemental spells of the mages, teach Flonne the elemental and healing spells of the healer. Give everyone a staff. When the mages learn new spells, teach them to the healer. When the healer learns new spells, teach them to Flonne. If you don't want to level up 3 different mages, you can use a star mage (learns star spells, which are neutral, needs lvl 5+ red+green+blue mages of the same gender to unlock) or a prism mage (learns all 3 kinds of elemental spells up to Omega tier, needs lvl 35+ star mage to unlock).

The basic healing spells are great to have on any character as a form of first aid.

Magic starts okay, and only gets better and better, in power, range and AoE, as your staff mastery and skill levels increase.

[Bomb Bloke]

Etna's of note as the only story character to be playable in every stage.

But really, though, concentrating all of your training into a couple of generics (one to act as a combatant, one to act as a thief) is the way to go.

[Pickleton]

Flonne is arguably the best mage in the game during the main story, because she has high staff growth and 100% in all aptitudes, which makes her able to take a punch or two before going down. The generic mage/skull have horrid HP/DEF aptitudes, so I teach her the first tier of all elements early on and use her as my omni-mage until the post-game.

[AGA | prinnyuber]

Laharl, Etna, and Flonne aside the people in the EDF (Jennifer, Gordon, Kurtis, and Thursday) is a good start. They are good candidates to do item worlding. Maderas and Hoggmiser should be the buffers of the SC characters. Pair them up with Clerics/healers then transmigrate clerics/healers to monsters to give them more power to their attacks. Want to take a step beyond? Make a star mage to learn star spell for both Hoggmiser and Maderas then transmigrate the star mage/skull as soon as you use the tera star spell to level 2 to Cleric/Healers.

To me, you need all the help you can get. X.x

[gghadur77]

Etna is amazing, I don't know what you're talking about. Prinny Raid is one of the most flexible skills for a melee user in terms of targeting, since it works like a single target spell rather than having a fixed hitbox that sticks out from your character like a horse wiener in one of only four directions. Give her an axe rather than her default spear and you can deal chimp damage to enemies from a distance. You might also need to give her a pair of glasses instead of armor so that she can hit anything, but if you keep her a space or two back she should be safe enough.

Sexy Beam sucks though; from what I've read it is based off INT. Don't ever use it. Later on Etna gets some move with a quilt-like AoE pattern called Chaos Impact, and that's good. With smart positioning you can use it to hit multiple enemies for high damage while putting your allies in the 'holes' in the pattern so they aren't hit.

[lPaladinl]

I mean anything is "worth leveling" if you want to use that character. You can solo the entire game with any character you want if you put the time in.

I personally just played the entire game as Laharl after a while and realised it was a much faster way to grind. At that point if I wanted to use other characters it was easier to power them up than if I used them earlier on. Problem is by that point it feels kinda pointless to me. Especially for Monsters.

Bomb Bloke was hinting at that concept when they mentioned Etna. She's the only character (other than making your own non-story characters) that can be used in all stages and game modes, and she's unlocked immediately in every game mode. So she's kinda the penultimate choice for steamrolling the game with, without using any other characters. Since any progress you make on her can always be used at any point in time.

For example, with me choosing to use Laharl for my run, he's not available in Etna Mode. So I had to basically rely on my gear from Laharl to carry her. Any progress I made in Etna Mode at that point will not carry over to Laharl since I can't use him, and Etna Mode can be good for some grinding at certain points.