Level Scaling Problems

[[TIGS] starsrift]

I'm having a ton of trouble taking on the "Secret" Jobs. I have completed all character's level 3 quests and, discounting my protaganist (Ophilia),, everyone is at about level 49. But I can't seem to break the secret Job bosses - I've tried both the Runelord and the Starseer ones.

Should I start in on my chap 4 quests or just keep working at them? I'm confused on how to progress.

[Sakhari]

Your success with those bosses depends on your approach and stats/equipment. Story progression won't make much of a difference. They should be perfectly do-able at 49, though.

Without going into too much long-winded detail, approaches vary but personally, I usually take them in the order of Archmage->Runelord/Starseer->Warmaster. Archmage is probably the easiest to deal with first if you have the appropriate tools, the other three are much easier to handle (along with most of the game's content in general) when you have the Sorcerer job along for the ride, and Tressa as a Runelord makes the Warmaster fight almost impossible to lose.

To get started, a few general tips on the Archmage:

- The hardest part of this fight is surviving the opening debuff that stops you from buffing yourself for a few turns. Stack as much Elem. Defense as you can on your characters and ideally, equip everyone with the Cleric's Saving Grace passive. Assuming you've done a little exploring and have some decent armor, overhealing with that perk should give your team more than enough health to tank his attacks.

- Use the Hunter's Leghold Trap to control his turns and try to break him as quickly and often as possible to save yourself some hits until that debuff wears off.

- Once the debuff is gone, have a Dancer use their divine ability on a Cleric and then have the Cleric cast Reflective Veil on everyone as often as possible (another Cleric using a divine to ability on the first to double their casts doesn't hurt here). The Clerics and Dancer should use passives that extend buffs if possible. Once you have 3+ stacks of the Veil, each of the Archmage's attacks will instead hit him 12 times per cast, dealing a large amount of damage and breaking him if he's weak to the element.

- At this point, as long as you can keep casting the veil (use Pomegranates and Donate BP on your Cleric to get more stacks per cast if needed), there's a good chance you'll be able to wait him out until he kills himself (along with some hits from the characters that aren't involved in Veil-ing).

Not the only approach and it may not always go that smoothly but it's pretty easy to pull off at any level as long as you have enough health/defense and all of the key abilities.