Of the value of Lost Arts

[Macros]

Basically, I'm questioning whether those things are worth it.

I mean, they're definitely cool. Yet the combo long cast time + takes all your EP + need to be at full EP to be cast make them of dubious value to me. The "nukes" arts aren't that much better than the regular high level arts, and those can be cast repeatedly and faster. The healing lost art is of dubious value when you have some perfectly servicable healing arts and crafts already. The only one I can see being consistently interesting is the one rearranging the initiative order.

Now, part of those problems can be avoided when only banking on a zero-arts turn. But 1) it's random, 2) when it comes, it's not always possible to give it to the character with the right art. Plus, it means having one of your precious orbment slot stuck with something that might or might not help, when you could instead get stat-boosting quartzs, or things that add nasty debuffs to your regular attacks, or three or four arts that you can cast more than once in a blue moon.

So thoughts? (next time: is Valimar a waste of space when summoned into a regular battle?)

[pelthis]

Yeah, imho they're pretty useless. I still used them because it was fun but the points you mentionned there made them not so relevant. Zero arts turn are the way to go. It can be used in overdrive too, but still sucking your whole mana bar, So I guess on fighters characters who don't need mana anyway it's still okay-ish, even though they won't have optimal damage. But overall only grail burst seems relevant to me.

About Valimar, I think it sucks. I tried it once or twice for the sake of it, but... meh. Why use Valimar when you can cast Spirit Unification who does basically the same but still let you use your whole party and for a way smaller cost ?

[Honbuk]

Would still equip them. They are really powerful when used on free art turn

[The Tempted Man]

Valimar's implementation in the game is a joke. In regular battles, you have 3 turns with him and he doesnt even do that much damage, while you can go super saiyan white and then you have also 3 turns of power up, better damage and overdrive on top of it.

In those knight battles, aiming for those body parts doesn't sound fun imho.

[Walke_893]

Lost Arts are a lot more powerful if you know how to use them and build around them. They are also more useful on higher difficulties.

First off, the two offensive Lost Arts, Lost Eden and Sol Eruption have the very rare attribute of All Cancel. In other words they are Arts that can cancel all buffs and shields on an enemy. They also deal neutral damage thus any enemy with low efficacy to Arts can still be hit for massive damage.

The Healing art Artemis' Tears is not just a healing art but it actually gives you temporary HP. In other words, if you use it you get healed and get given temporary HP equal to your current max HP. This is a useful art to use to bypass specific endgame bosses with all cancel abilities.

Grail burst is obvious, a better chrono burst. Tempestuous Roar recovers 100CP and gives CP regen of 30.

It is actually very easy to build a caster to be able to cast Lost Arts with very low cast delay. Toval is the best example of this. Then there is the fact you can use overdrive to exploit its instant casting. You can also use EP Cut to reduce the cost or alternatively you can use Aries Master Quartz to recover EP when using offensive arts.

Yes, they are gimmicky but used properly they are anything but useless.

[Tiasmoon]

They are at their best when you need immediate damage, and during Overdrive/zero cast, or when using Grail Burst/acceleration effect on the caster.

Also, EP Reduction quarts reduce their EP cost. (keep in mind -cost and -cast/delay isnt additive so you cant get it down to 0)

The support Lost Arts are all very strong, I'd say those always have value in using.

As for Valimar, I never really used him. I guess you might be able to use him to soak damage and get a couple of turns of easy damage.

[~Adri~]

Largely useless for the reasons OP mentioned. I slap the buff ones on a physical character because:

1) they ain't going to use much art anyways

2) the buffs don't scale with EP, might as well put it on a physical

[Wilq]

Lost Arts are anything but useless especially in mid-game sequence. They basically win the battle for you when you use them during zero-art turn.

The only reason I use Valimar is to "reset formation".

[marionettethree]

I use Valimar for those "kill monsters" quests.

[Redzeth]

I just put 1 on each character of my party so I could just use it on a zero-arts turn

[Entelechia]

Hades Gem + Calamity/Pandora MQ + Overdrive make them a very good tenderizer move used in between 4S-class S-crafters in an Overdrive.

Not like you're short on cheesing moves in this game, but yeah, I'd hardly call them useless.

Valimar is fun since EP is plentiful with Ingenuity and/or Dragon Vein quartz (which you get very early in the game), essentially a jail out card if you find a particular random battle difficult.

[Radene]

Originally posted by Redzeth:

I just put 1 on each character of my party so I could just use it on a zero-arts turn

Or in overdrive, on characters that don't generally do arts. Like Fie and Alisa in my case. Emma's my mage.