As a Kevin fanboy, I'm disappointed in this remake because...

[EbonySeraphim]

As a Kevin fanboy from the original they made Duran possibly the stronger physical fighter even at night in the end game (class 4; level 85+ or NG+). I repeatedly spec'ed out Kevin Fatal Fist/Annihilator and Duran Edelfei/Berserker versus Black Rabite (only fight that has a duration worth examining once 99), and generally Duran comes out on top at being able to kill Black Rabite consistently faster with a pretty generalized setup. I did this fight at least 50+ times on each character, tweaking their abilities and definitely running the same ability configuration more than once to fish out some variance in the fight and just to get a feel on tends rather than anecdotal numbers. For all of the attempts, I basically went all out versus the boss without using class strikes because they introduced other issues outside of pure damage dealing. Read on if you're curious about my findings:

Simply put, Concentrate I and II (+65% critical rate) are too strong and still allows for Moon Energy / Wolfiend Oil / Death Aura to boost critical rate for Duran to probably around 85%. Kevin has no way to get his critical rate that high and needs the help of Reisz's Pinpoint I chain ability which is only a only 10% boost, but without which, Kevin's damage is even more behind. I think Werewolf Kevin is about a 25% damage boost from my estimates and it doesn't take up an ability slot, and Kevin easily has the highest strength and base attack in the game so it seems like Kevin is well ahead. However, his inability to critical hit above 30% (if that even) really puts a damper on what is offered through Critical Damage I and II (70% damage increase on critical hit). Duran's 85% boosted critical rate takes great advantage of Flourish I and II -- also 70% damage increase on critical hit. Kevin's other unique ability damage boosts are similarly bad. Finishing Blow I and II are gated behind an enemy being at 30% or lower HP, basically meaning you take those boosted percents and multiply by .3. This makes both of them together an effective 21% damage increase even if in that last 30% of a bosses health, Kevin is dishing 70% more damage (wow!) If you take Kevin's critical rate at 30%, and multiply Critical Damage I and II by .3 as well, you'll notice you also get 21% overall damage increase. Compare to Duran's 85% critical rate, and 70% critical damage boosts, he sees a 59.5% overall damage increase. Fortitude IV is a huge damage boost for Kevin, except waiting for status ailments is pretty dumb even if it's available in the Black Rabite fight (Lava Wave). Also, you have to make sure no AI ally is set to use healing items or have no ailment removing items available, because they'll use it and cause you to lose your damage boost. Essentially, Kevin only flashes higher damage output if it's at night AND he's able to satisfy two or MORE of the following conditions:

• Enemy is in the last 30% of their health
  
• Kevin has a status ailment on him
  
• Kevin is critical hitting the enemy

If Kevin is under only one of those conditions, end game Duran is coming out on top. All that being said, there is still an argument FOR Kevin still to be considered the general best physical fighter in the game for most people who are new to the game. And that's for the following reasons:

• All of the above hinges on Duran getting critical hits and his critical rate really isn't going to be high enough until 3rd job, if not really 4th to be reliable. Without them (i.e. most of the game), Kevin stands the stronger character at night, and daytime Kevin is competitive by being able to exploit other advantages listed below.
  
• Kevin's Dark path level 3 class strikes are the best in the game for the game's primary content. They have great AoE, and very high damage even on single targets. On bosses with multiple hit boxes, they do even more damage than single target class strikes.
  
• Kevin's light path level 2 class strike (Spin Kick) is extremely good (same as Duran's Dark level 2), but Kevin adds frequent and consistent CS usage abilities with Divine Fist. I was able to clear many of the last rooms by using Kevin's Spin Kick and regen enough CS to use it again the very night fight without using NG+ level items and abilities.
  
• Kevin power hits often in his combo finishers so he can more reliably apply status effects with any % chance like Toxic, Charred, Retribution(instant kill), Beastman's Pride, and Broken Lines. Broken Lines is for any critical hit rather than power hits, so by end game, Duran carries Broken Lines better than Kevin. Anything tied to power hitting more often is a bad fit for Duran.

Anyone else disappointed or happy with how their favorite character has been changed? I personally think Hawkeye got a little worse too. Everyone else got better this remake, while Kevin got the biggest nerf.

[Chadwick Strongpants]

Nice essay, but Kevin was actually glitched in the original game which led to him becoming insanely powerful.

If anything they fixed him in the remake.

[Shuichi Niwa]

Hawkeye not really changed, except now his Dark melee classes (Nightblade and later Avenger) rely more on instant death than pure damage, which is fitting for an Assassin type melee fighter so no complain here. Master Ninja is still the same as before, with a little damage boost and the ability to instant death enemies when he get to Avenger so for me, aside from the Class Strikes Master Ninja is better than Nightblade now.

I also heard his Light path is buffed (never used them so don't really know).

Dunno if Duran become strongest or not, in the original game he was already the strongest character but I never enjoyed using him. Not in this remake either, playing Duran is a bother in early levels since he deal too little damage compare to Hawkeye and Kevin. Heck, his melee is even inferior to Angela in Class 1...

Also, Angela pretty much nuked everything that stand in her way so... don't really care if Duran is now stronger than Kevin or not =))

[EbonySeraphim]

Originally posted by Goon for Hire:

Nice essay, but Kevin was actually glitched in the original game which led to him becoming insanely powerful.

If anything they fixed him in the remake.

How was he glitched? I'm not sure that's the basis of why he was best in the original.

EDIT: Also,I write em for me more than anyone else.

[Chadwick Strongpants]

Originally posted by EbonySeraphim:

Originally posted by Goon for Hire:

Nice essay, but Kevin was actually glitched in the original game which led to him becoming insanely powerful.

If anything they fixed him in the remake.

How was he glitched? I'm not sure that's the basis of why he was best in the original.

EDIT: Also,I write em for me more than anyone else.

https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf_Kevin_Bug

Basically, getting hit by an enemy in werewolf form caused his damage to increase by no small amount, which was not supposed to happen. I'm not sure if it's a one time thing during combat but if not, it certainly would lead to obscene amounts of damage after a while.

[Sev]

Yep Duran outscales Kevin. Remember on Black Rabbite Duran does not get the benefit of Attack Saber 1 and 2 as well.

The trade off is I think Kevin is MUCH better T1 and T2 and probably better T3 (since Duran does not really take off till he stacks 2 x Crit chance 2 x Crit damage.

T4 is honestly such a small part of the game. I prefer Kevin being better probably 90% of the game over 10%.

[grasida]

Great analysis. Hopefully a class balance mod can address some of these problems in the future.

I think the problem is Edelfrei in particular in class 3. I like this class a lot in the original, but it just gets too much now. The light classes don’t seem broken at all while Duelist doesn’t get offensive stance and concentrate and its damage boosts are more situational and rely on getting hit or dealing self damage. Edelfrei is not only one of the top damage dealing classes, it’s also completely self sufficient in terms of buffs and debuffs and is arguably the best support class as well. Berserker is also silly in class 4, though. He should not have concentrate 2.

Overall, based on the amount of support and utility the various classes offer, damage output (on average, obviously a pure damage, zero support class like Rogue be a top damage dealer) from most to least should be something like — Angela, Kevin, Duran = Hawkeye = Riesz, Charlotte. Given how powerful Edelfrei’s sabers are, it should be a mid-high tier damage dealer, not top tier.

My favorite class, in the original and the remake, is Nomad and he got hit pretty hard. Nomad was never the best, but Nature Aura was really overpowered on some setups, lunatique was very strong against bosses and he had the double hit and poison bubble to provide decent supplemental damage. Sleep Flower was situational, but hit the whole screen with 100% accuracy and Wall just completely shut down certain bosses. In the remake Nature Aura is still good, but it’s hard to find a team where Divine Fist wouldn’t be better, Lunatique doesn’t work on bosses and is literally useless, Sleep Flower hits a small AoE with poor accuracy and his defensive spells, while a lot of fun, are far from game changing. The damage output of Poison Bubble and his melee is decent once he has all his skill trees filled out, but far from amazing. It’s really weird and a shame that such a niche class in the original was the target of multiple nerfs, while Ninja Master, arguably Hawkeye’s best class, was significantly buffed.

[Sev]

Originally posted by grasida:

Great analysis. Hopefully a class balance mod can address some of these problems in the future.

I think the problem is Edelfrei in particular in class 3. I like this class a lot in the original, but it just gets too much now. The light classes don’t seem broken at all while Duelist doesn’t get offensive stance and concentrate and its damage boosts are more situational and rely on getting hit or dealing self damage. Edelfrei is not only one of the top damage dealing classes, it’s also completely self sufficient in terms of buffs and debuffs and is arguably the best support class as well. Berserker is also silly in class 4, though. He should not have concentrate 2.

Overall, based on the amount of support and utility the various classes offer, damage output (on average, obviously a pure damage, zero support class like Rogue be a top damage dealer) from most to least should be something like — Angela, Kevin, Duran = Hawkeye = Riesz, Charlotte. Given how powerful Edelfrei’s sabers are, it should be a mid-high tier damage dealer, not top tier.

My favorite class, in the original and the remake, is Nomad and he got hit pretty hard. Nomad was never the best, but Nature Aura was really overpowered on some setups, lunatique was very strong against bosses and he had the double hit and poison bubble to provide decent supplemental damage. Sleep Flower was situational, but hit the whole screen with 100% accuracy and Wall just completely shut down certain bosses. In the remake Nature Aura is still good, but it’s hard to find a team where Divine Fist wouldn’t be better, Lunatique doesn’t work on bosses and is literally useless, Sleep Flower hits a small AoE with poor accuracy and his defensive spells, while a lot of fun, are far from game changing. The damage output of Poison Bubble and his melee is decent once he has all his skill trees filled out, but far from amazing. It’s really weird and a shame that such a niche class in the original was the target of multiple nerfs, while Ninja Master, arguably Hawkeye’s best class, was significantly buffed.

I am not even sure Sword Master is the issue. Yes Attack Saber 1 and 2 are good but due to the mana costs is basically boss only. I reckon DD Kevin can probably out DPS DL Duran or at least be even. Energy Ball is competitive with Concentrate 1.

It's the double stacking crit chance and crit damage that really generates the biggest hits. The difference between critting 30% of the time for say 200% damage and 70% of the time for like 300% is massive.

[grasida]

Originally posted by Sev:

Yep Duran outscales Kevin. Remember on Black Rabbite Duran does not get the benefit of Attack Saber 1 and 2 as well.

The trade off is I think Kevin is MUCH better T1 and T2 and probably better T3 (since Duran does not really take off till he stacks 2 x Crit chance 2 x Crit damage.

T4 is honestly such a small part of the game. I prefer Kevin being better probably 90% of the game over 10%.

The thing is that of Kevin’s tier 3 classes, only Warrior Monk provides appreciable support, and healing is much less valuable now in general. Duran’s dark classes, Edelfrei in particular, boosts the whole team’s damage by a huge amount pretty reliably in a lot of fights while also dealing a ton of damage. Even if Kevin is stronger than Duran for most of the time you’re in class 3, the gap should be bigger given the other things Duran brings (again, I think this is only really a problem with Edelfrei, Duran’s other tier 3 classes are okay).

[Sev]

Originally posted by grasida:

Originally posted by Sev:

Yep Duran outscales Kevin. Remember on Black Rabbite Duran does not get the benefit of Attack Saber 1 and 2 as well.

The trade off is I think Kevin is MUCH better T1 and T2 and probably better T3 (since Duran does not really take off till he stacks 2 x Crit chance 2 x Crit damage.

T4 is honestly such a small part of the game. I prefer Kevin being better probably 90% of the game over 10%.

The thing is that of Kevin’s tier 3 classes, only Warrior Monk provides appreciable support, and healing is much less valuable now in general. Duran’s dark classes, Edelfrei in particular, boosts the whole team’s damage by a huge amount pretty reliably in a lot of fights while also dealing a ton of damage. Even if Kevin is stronger than Duran for most of the time you’re in class 3, the gap should be bigger given the other things Duran brings (again, I think this is only really a problem with Edelfrei, Duran’s other tier 3 classes are okay).

Remember Attack Saber only affects melee damage. In a melee heavy party Duran is extremely powerful but considering the popularity of Angela it's less of an issue. Energy Ball can also be cast on other members too and it affects both melee and magic.

I am wary of nerfing Swordmaster because outside of that class there is a pretty big drop off. Although you could argue Kevin suffers from the same issue.

[grasida]

Not only does Edelfrei provide huge support for a melee heavy party, it’s also basically 100% self-sufficient in terms of damage potential. Even on a magic focused party, between Edelfrei and any of Kevin’s classes except for maybe Warrior Monk (and I don’t think Warrior Monk is really worth it because healers aren’t really worth it), Edelfrei is still likely a better choice. It will probably do more damage in most boss fights and still supports casters with Provoke, which helps quite a lot.

I haven’t played a party with Angela yet, though. Based on what I’ve read about her, she probably could use some kind of nerfs, too. As I said earlier, I think she should be clearly the strongest damage dealer, given that she relies on MP and provides basically zero support. But it seems almost impossible to make weaker classes or defensive classes useful if the strongest simply vaporizes everything in seconds.

[EbonySeraphim]

Originally posted by Goon for Hire:

Originally posted by EbonySeraphim:

How was he glitched? I'm not sure that's the basis of why he was best in the original.

EDIT: Also,I write em for me more than anyone else.

https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf_Kevin_Bug

Basically, getting hit by an enemy in werewolf form caused his damage to increase by no small amount, which was not supposed to happen. I'm not sure if it's a one time thing during combat but if not, it certainly would lead to obscene amounts of damage after a while.

Whoa! I entirely noticed this about the original but I didn't know it was a bug. I thought it made sense he was getting buffed after getting hit since he had the highest HP in the original. I once had an all male Dark+Dark party versus a strong enough boss in the original and all of them got up to hitting for max instance damage or damn close it per swing on class 1 techs. That is what made Hawkeye and Kevin the clear damage leaders in the original (they had more hits to give). Well, if that was a bug, then I guess Duran was supposed to be the strongest in the original. Duran did have the highest STR stat in the original over Kevin, and Kevin had more vitality so that would have made sense as the intent.

What irks me about this game is Kevin now clearly has the highest STR number and rankings in the character select show him with A rated strength. His stats as Fatal Fist -> Annihilator have +60 STR versus Duran's +30 from the training point allocations. His attack stat with the best gear are better than Duran's by a good margin and daytime normal Kevin hits confirm this -- they are higher than Duran without crits. All that sort of goes out the window in the late game when Duran is doing nothing but crits and Kevin's added damage sources are all wonky. Duran also benefits from Wound boosting his power hit which is a clear majority of any of the longer combo damage. I did the math and +30% to just power hit damage is the same as +20% increase to all of your damage.

Originally posted by Sev:

Yep Duran outscales Kevin. Remember on Black Rabbite Duran does not get the benefit of Attack Saber 1 and 2 as well.

The trade off is I think Kevin is MUCH better T1 and T2 and probably better T3 (since Duran does not really take off till he stacks 2 x Crit chance 2 x Crit damage.

T4 is honestly such a small part of the game. I prefer Kevin being better probably 90% of the game over 10%.

Yeah, but Charlotte has Attack Saber II as well, and either version always comes with multicast so if Kevin is an ally to that, it's on him just the same. Duran's advantage is he can bring it to an all physical party and give +25% to 3 physical DPS. Charlotte tries to make up for it with Attack Boost All I and II, but it's hard to know how that ends up working out in the end.

Originally posted by Sev:

I am not even sure Sword Master is the issue. Yes Attack Saber 1 and 2 are good but due to the mana costs is basically boss only. I reckon DD Kevin can probably out DPS DL Duran or at least be even. Energy Ball is competitive with Concentrate 1.

It's the double stacking crit chance and crit damage that really generates the biggest hits. The difference between critting 30% of the time for say 200% damage and 70% of the time for like 300% is massive.

DD Kevin could only potentially out DPS DL Duran if class strikes were involved in situational AoE, or you introduced Kevin getting hit with a Special Effect to trigger Fortitude IV. Moon Energy + Pinpoint from Reisz on Kevin at best matches Concentrate I on Duran giving around 30% crit rate. Concentrate II alone is better than where Kevin ever gets, and Duran can still benefit from Moon Energy and still take other valuable abilities. This is why Kevin doesn't keep up by late game even at night. If you see only a clip of Kevin doing damage in the last 30% of a boss' HP, Kevin will seem more deadly if he's hitting those crits, but the lack of that DPS for the other 70% of that bosses HP is where he flat out loses.

I should have been clearer in the original post that though Kevin was clearly behind, it wasn't by a mile, but it was clearly noticable unless he was getting very lucky with his critical hits, or I was using Fortitude + Rage, and Black Rabbite gave me a Jumbonk (Rabite Drop?) + Lava Wave for me to soak up bonuses. It's too contrived to be generalized.

Originally posted by grasida:

Not only does Edelfrei provide huge support for a melee heavy party, it’s also basically 100% self-sufficient in terms of damage potential. Even on a magic focused party, between Edelfrei and any of Kevin’s classes except for maybe Warrior Monk (and I don’t think Warrior Monk is really worth it because healers aren’t really worth it), Edelfrei is still likely a better choice. It will probably do more damage in most boss fights and still supports casters with Provoke, which helps quite a lot.

I haven’t played a party with Angela yet, though. Based on what I’ve read about her, she probably could use some kind of nerfs, too. As I said earlier, I think she should be clearly the strongest damage dealer, given that she relies on MP and provides basically zero support. But it seems almost impossible to make weaker classes or defensive classes useful if the strongest simply vaporizes everything in seconds.

I actually don't think Angela is as busted as folks have claimed her to be. She's strong, but requires a front liner for Magus. Ancient Curse does not cast quickly. For a smaller boss (like Black Rabite) it won't connect on a lot of hitboxes so the damage isn't all there, and no other element will do any damage to it. Grand Diviner is also very strong versus a lot of monsters in the game, but still doesn't efficiently cut through enemies with shields unless Doppleganger is cast, which is then slow and needs protection.

Edelfrei definitely is very self sufficiently and really does not need damage abilities from other characters in the game unless sabers/elemental damage are out of question. Then he benefits just like anyone else from general increases from Mighty III and Cheat.

[zghuang213]

Another thing you could possibly do to further increase Kevin's crit rate is to use Fellow Bond (Hawkeye) which increases luck by 50.

However I am not sure if luck is really related to crit rate, or if so by how much.

[grasida]

Originally posted by EbonySeraphim:

Yeah, but Charlotte has Attack Saber II as well, and either version always comes with multicast so if Kevin is an ally to that, it's on him just the same. Duran's advantage is he can bring it to an all physical party and give +25% to 3 physical DPS. Charlotte tries to make up for it with Attack Boost All I and II, but it's hard to know how that ends up working out in the end.

I doubt Charlotte will be able to make up for Provoke + the extra damage Duran is doing by himself. Provoke increases your overall damage in a lot of fights, after all, even for melee characters not using Ambush 2, because it means you have to spend less time dodging attacks.

Charlotte, with instantly casting multi-target heal light, made it almost impossible for your team to die in the original, but healing is just not nearly as good now, while healing classes seem to largely be balanced as if it were still as important as it used to be.

[Sev]

Originally posted by EbonySeraphim:

Originally posted by Goon for Hire:

https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf_Kevin_Bug

Basically, getting hit by an enemy in werewolf form caused his damage to increase by no small amount, which was not supposed to happen. I'm not sure if it's a one time thing during combat but if not, it certainly would lead to obscene amounts of damage after a while.

Whoa! I entirely noticed this about the original but I didn't know it was a bug. I thought it made sense he was getting buffed after getting hit since he had the highest HP in the original. I once had an all male Dark+Dark party versus a strong enough boss in the original and all of them got up to hitting for max instance damage or damn close it per swing on class 1 techs. That is what made Hawkeye and Kevin the clear damage leaders in the original (they had more hits to give). Well, if that was a bug, then I guess Duran was supposed to be the strongest in the original. Duran did have the highest STR stat in the original over Kevin, and Kevin had more vitality so that would have made sense as the intent.

What irks me about this game is Kevin now clearly has the highest STR number and rankings in the character select show him with A rated strength. His stats as Fatal Fist -> Annihilator have +60 STR versus Duran's +30 from the training point allocations. His attack stat with the best gear are better than Duran's by a good margin and daytime normal Kevin hits confirm this -- they are higher than Duran without crits. All that sort of goes out the window in the late game when Duran is doing nothing but crits and Kevin's added damage sources are all wonky. Duran also benefits from Wound boosting his power hit which is a clear majority of any of the longer combo damage. I did the math and +30% to just power hit damage is the same as +20% increase to all of your damage.

Originally posted by Sev:

Yep Duran outscales Kevin. Remember on Black Rabbite Duran does not get the benefit of Attack Saber 1 and 2 as well.

The trade off is I think Kevin is MUCH better T1 and T2 and probably better T3 (since Duran does not really take off till he stacks 2 x Crit chance 2 x Crit damage.

T4 is honestly such a small part of the game. I prefer Kevin being better probably 90% of the game over 10%.

Yeah, but Charlotte has Attack Saber II as well, and either version always comes with multicast so if Kevin is an ally to that, it's on him just the same. Duran's advantage is he can bring it to an all physical party and give +25% to 3 physical DPS. Charlotte tries to make up for it with Attack Boost All I and II, but it's hard to know how that ends up working out in the end.

Originally posted by Sev:

I am not even sure Sword Master is the issue. Yes Attack Saber 1 and 2 are good but due to the mana costs is basically boss only. I reckon DD Kevin can probably out DPS DL Duran or at least be even. Energy Ball is competitive with Concentrate 1.

It's the double stacking crit chance and crit damage that really generates the biggest hits. The difference between critting 30% of the time for say 200% damage and 70% of the time for like 300% is massive.

DD Kevin could only potentially out DPS DL Duran if class strikes were involved in situational AoE, or you introduced Kevin getting hit with a Special Effect to trigger Fortitude IV. Moon Energy + Pinpoint from Reisz on Kevin at best matches Concentrate I on Duran giving around 30% crit rate. Concentrate II alone is better than where Kevin ever gets, and Duran can still benefit from Moon Energy and still take other valuable abilities. This is why Kevin doesn't keep up by late game even at night. If you see only a clip of Kevin doing damage in the last 30% of a boss' HP, Kevin will seem more deadly if he's hitting those crits, but the lack of that DPS for the other 70% of that bosses HP is where he flat out loses.

I should have been clearer in the original post that though Kevin was clearly behind, it wasn't by a mile, but it was clearly noticable unless he was getting very lucky with his critical hits, or I was using Fortitude + Rage, and Black Rabbite gave me a Jumbonk (Rabite Drop?) + Lava Wave for me to soak up bonuses. It's too contrived to be generalized.

Originally posted by grasida:

Not only does Edelfrei provide huge support for a melee heavy party, it’s also basically 100% self-sufficient in terms of damage potential. Even on a magic focused party, between Edelfrei and any of Kevin’s classes except for maybe Warrior Monk (and I don’t think Warrior Monk is really worth it because healers aren’t really worth it), Edelfrei is still likely a better choice. It will probably do more damage in most boss fights and still supports casters with Provoke, which helps quite a lot.

I haven’t played a party with Angela yet, though. Based on what I’ve read about her, she probably could use some kind of nerfs, too. As I said earlier, I think she should be clearly the strongest damage dealer, given that she relies on MP and provides basically zero support. But it seems almost impossible to make weaker classes or defensive classes useful if the strongest simply vaporizes everything in seconds.

I actually don't think Angela is as busted as folks have claimed her to be. She's strong, but requires a front liner for Magus. Ancient Curse does not cast quickly. For a smaller boss (like Black Rabite) it won't connect on a lot of hitboxes so the damage isn't all there, and no other element will do any damage to it. Grand Diviner is also very strong versus a lot of monsters in the game, but still doesn't efficiently cut through enemies with shields unless Doppleganger is cast, which is then slow and needs protection.

Edelfrei definitely is very self sufficiently and really does not need damage abilities from other characters in the game unless sabers/elemental damage are out of question. Then he benefits just like anyone else from general increases from Mighty III and Cheat.

My point was comparing Kevin v Duran before class 4. I agree at T4 Duran is better but T4 is only a very small part of the game.

Although the importance of power attack boosting passives has got me thinking that Dark Charlotte is the best support in the game. Early on she is the heal queen making everything safe and easy while getting Mighty 1 (+5% power attack damage). Her T4 class gets Mighty 3 chain skill (+30% power attack) in addition to the -17% stat debuff and weakpoint auras..

[Nooneyouknow]

Originally posted by Sev:

It's the double stacking crit chance and crit damage that really generates the biggest hits. The difference between critting 30% of the time for say 200% damage and 70% of the time for like 300% is massive.

As near as I've been able to tell, critical hits in this game are 1.5x base (this game has absolutely massive RNG vairance, at least on spells, all I've really been able to test with yet). So Flourish 1 and 2 would bring critical damage to 255% damage. Kevin should hit the same crit damage total with Critical Damage 1 and 2, so the biggest difference is going to be rate.But, Kevin should also be using significantly more Class Strike because of the payback series. Now, I haven't gotten Kevin to T4 yet, or done a dark Duran run at all, so it's possible that his class strikes simply aren't good enough to make up for it.

Originally posted by EbonySeraphim:

I actually don't think Angela is as busted as folks have claimed her to be. She's strong, but requires a front liner for Magus. Ancient Curse does not cast quickly. For a smaller boss (like Black Rabite) it won't connect on a lot of hitboxes so the damage isn't all there, and no other element will do any damage to it. Grand Diviner is also very strong versus a lot of monsters in the game, but still doesn't efficiently cut through enemies with shields unless Doppleganger is cast, which is then slow and needs protection.

You absolutely don't need a front liner for Magus, because Magus gets Spell Resistance and Spellbinder gets Spell Resistance II. Your cast is never going to be interrupted, and Victory Heal puts you right back to full. Also, the vast majority of Ancient's damage is in the final meteor.