i need tips, this battle is breaking me!

[icarus the improviser]

there is this battle, that made me throw my waterbottle across the room, that i have no idea how i can win, its a battle that you do after you get of a boat in drakesmouth seaway, you are cornered in the first city you are in, where you met the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ alphonse, and you are surrounded by assassins, a gunner, and a werewolf, and by the life of me i can't win!

ok, so the team that i used was a assassin/gunner(maxed in both), a ranger/gunner(maxed in both) a bountyhunter/gunner(not maxed in either), a warmage/fellbalde(maxed in fellblade), a fellblade/werewolf(maxed in werewolf), and of course our lord herself, kyrie, a marked/merc(maxed on both)

as you can see the strategy my entire team had was based on debuffing enemies untill they useless, and then i move in for the kill, crippling enemies/muting them/ putting them to sleep/ rooting them in place, before they can do anything, and meanwhile i have a damage dealer completely bash them over and over while they are useless, or use oportunistic shot to ♥♥♥♥ em up, everyone of my debuffer shotters are fast, but the assassins i am fighting are way faster, and they simply buff themselfs with mirage/mass barrier before i can act, and even if i manage to cripple them, they are all equipped with crippling daggers, so one strike from them, and my characters are useless! and if i don't cripple them, they spam me with sleep bombs/ double strikes and everyone gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

man, wtf do i do now? use ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wizards? my wizards suck! 2 of my wizards are level 23, two others are level 29/33, and my gunners are level 30+, and if level isn't a problem, then the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ classes are, i have a lich, that has one hability unlocked, he is also a low level alchemist, i have a warmage/fellblade, wich needs mana before he can become usefull, and the assassins will spam us with sleep bombs before i can do anything, i have a vessel, that has 2 habilities unlocked(she used to be a healer), and i have yates, wich is a wizard/himself.

the only way i am seeing of winning that, is either brute force it, wich is not going to work with them putting everyone to sleep, or using magic, wich all my magic character sucks at their classes, what do i use for the battle? basic wizard class? thats not gonna cut it, so wtf do i do now? do i have to level up their classes untill they are all buffed? do you know how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long that will take!? battles in this game are long, and i have to win high level ones to get good AP, and my wizards are not high level, ♥♥♥♥ man, i don't know what to do, i need tips, tips, and more tips.

can anyone help me!?

[Talana 💃]

I suggest you use mostly ranged attacks, and teach your characters "evade magic". Alphonse is vulnerable to water,thunder and especially Holy.

Here is what`s suggested in a guide from Neoseeker :
....make Kyrie a Marked/Mender, while the rest of your party can adopt of the roles of Fellblade, Templar or Ranger. Fellblade can give characters the Versatile Passive, which along with Know Weakness ( Ranger Passive) will increase the damage dealt during this fight. Ranger, has Know Weakness, Rain of Arrows and Balm, which can cure most of Alphonse's debuffs . Templar is there when you need MP, but can also contribute to healing . Primarily rely on Evade Magic, ranged attacks (to avoid Counterattack), Running Treads and Life Font for healing.

Hope this helps

[icarus the improviser]

This comment is awaiting analysis by our automated content check system. It will be temporarily hidden until we verify that it does not contain harmful content (e.g. links to websites that attempt to steal information).

[Alskandar]

A few tips for this fight:

1. You can buy Vigil Bands from most/all stores, which will make your units immune to Sleep.

2. You can equip your units with the Evade Attack counter to prevent the assassins from applying damage and debuffs with their dual wield attacks. This will also prevent any of the Fellblade enemies from using Slice abilities, which count as attacks. Evade Attack comes from the Templar; it may be a bit of a grind to acquire, but fortunately many of your units should have already unlocked Templar.

3. If you do both of the above, the assassins lose most of their offensive potential, and you can ignore them and focus on the other enemies. You don't actually need to defeat every enemy to beat this particular level.

4. Kyrie can remove debuffs with Field Aid, and the Ranger can remove them with Balm.

5. Mirage and Barrier only prevent a single effect each. Worst comes to worst, you can overwhelm them by focusing fire.

Unfortunately, having such a heavy focus on skills and debuffs may be holding you back; some enemies are just going to be stronger against specific attack types. Having a greater variety of attack methods will help you avoid this type of bottleneck. I can give you a few suggestions about how to level up your wizards faster if that would help.

I hope you find this helpful, and please respond if you have any more questions!

[icarus the improviser]

YES PLEASE! TELL ME HOW TO LEVEL THE WIZARDS UP FATER!

thank you man! everyone has templar unlocked, but i only have one proficient at it(my tank), so yeah, it will take a while to grind it, i gave everyone resilience, thinking it would stop sleeping or any other debuff after a round, but it ins't working, so that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me.

i will start the grind, hopefully it won't take to long.

[Alskandar]

One of the quirks of the XP system is that the amount of XP a unit gets for taking an action depends on the relative level of the acting unit and the target. If the target is higher level, the unit taking the action will gain more XP. What this means is that you can deploy some low-level wizards and higher level units on the same map, and then have your wizards target the higher level units with abilities in order to generate extra XP. It doesn't matter what abilities you're using, as long as they have some effect, positive or negative. Also, since your wizards will be targeting your own units, the level of the enemy units doesn't matter, and you could play on a low-level map that doesn't pose a danger to your wizards while doing this.

[icarus the improviser]

interesting.

altough i don't understaned exactly the idea, it ins't necessarely xp that they need, they need AP, to level up their class, since they are so unproficient at it, does the AP gain works the same as the xp system in this case?

thank you for your help man, you are saving my game.

[Alskandar]

No, XP and AP are completely different systems. This method won't help you get your AP up faster. The best advice I have for grinding AP is to take advantage of vicarious AP* by leveling multiple characters in the same class at the same time.

*Whenever any character gets AP from a battle, each of your other characters gets a small percentage of that AP. If you have all your characters leveling in one class, this can add up to quite a bit of bonus AP.

[IRuleAll]

i cant do anything to this stage on very hard, i just hit a massive wall with this level on very hard. they literally kill and disable 1/2 to 3/4 of my team before i even get a single action. usually both my mages are dead before they even move and reiner is usually basically dead. this is the first level on very hard where i just dont understand how you can even win when they kill half of your team before you even act.

[Mechalibur]

Hm, I didn't run into any issues like on my Very Hard run. My general strategy was take out the two assassins on one side so we wouldn't be flanked, spam Revive 2 on my Mender to pick up everyone that falls, and slowly whittle down the attacking assassins. I made sure to give everyone Sleep immunity as well to protect against Sleep Powder.

If your characters are dying on turn 1, you might be underlevelled or might want to put a defensive passive ability on them like Health Expert.

[IRuleAll]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Hm, I didn't run into any issues like on my Very Hard run. My general strategy was take out the two assassins on one side so we wouldn't be flanked, spam Revive 2 on my Mender to pick up everyone that falls, and slowly whittle down the attacking assassins. I made sure to give everyone Sleep immunity as well to protect against Sleep Powder.

If your characters are dying on turn 1, you might be underlevelled or might want to put a defensive passive ability on them like Health Expert.

its not just the assassins that are the problem. the werewolf has iniative and he comes in and always crits for 200-250 dmg, and then he goes again before my mages, and the vampire in the water is terribly annoying. there is no formation i can put my mages where they arent getting side attacked and back attacked before they even move. my guys are not under leveled at all, if anything they are over leveled because i have used the same 6 party members for the vast majority of the game on my first play through(and when i finally gave up and lowered the difficulty down 1 step, this level has a max cap of 37 while the previous levels ranged from 45-52, so i was probably over leveled, because the elite enemies were 50+). the only way i see being able to beat that fight on very hard with my party is to farm up initiative so my mages can actually move and not get completely destroyed before they even move. because there is no way my team with mages that have speed around 135-145 are every going to out turn assassins and vampires that are at 190 speed and a werewolf thats over 165.

[{FC}[ZA]Althor]

Berserk and Charm are not to be underestimated, when there are so many enemies on the field a Gambler of your own may help to temporarily turn an enemy into a friend. Knight has an easy Berserk with Provoke. If your units are having trouble surviving till they can act it may help to build less glass cannon, more tank. As always, having several methods of healing available on varied units is super handy.

[Mechalibur]

Yeah, it was a tough fight for me, but none of my units were dying on the very first turn, even on Very Hard. If your characters dying turn 1 no matter what you do, then you might want to build them more tanky.