Act IV Battle Tips/Strategies?

[risu5_waffles]

So, i struggled a bit wiv fights in Act III, but i made it through eventually (usually by crutching on Taunt and Splash Heal, which made for very sloggy, but ultimately winnable fights). Now that i'm in Act IV, tho', and the slate of abilities on the VIII Trinkets is just not clicking wiv my brainmeats.

Any of y'all have any battle strategies you can share for Act IV? i know i could just futz around and experience until something works, but it'd be a little easier wiv a starting point to go from. Thanks in advance for any help you can give, and have a great day.

[Susurrus]

If you hit an enemy with Slow after they're Staggered, they stop. That's very useful, especially against bosses.
My loadout uses a few DLC equips, but as a rough summary that changes depending on available items:

Attack / Ravage (1st Element)
Slow / Destroy (1st Element)

Taunt / Ravage (2nd Element)
Life / Destroy (2nd Element)

(???) / Ravage (3rd Element)
(???) / Destroy (3rd Element)

The "(???)" slots are flexible, currently 'Withstand' and 'Channel Heal', but the rest are fairly stable for me.
Main strategy is having Val constantly draw attention, Sam maintaining healing.
Build Stagger, use Slow to convert it from a Stagger into a freeze, and make sure to exploit elemental weaknesses & avoid accidentally healing the enemy.

[toasty frosting]

An upgraded Fix Point is a good answer to Hi Stagger/Black Shirts/Super Turtles. With the help of another ravage attack (i.e. not Fix Point), you can get nearly instant staggers. For bosses however, Illegal Fireworks is the better option since it's an actual instant stagger.

Slow is practically an auto-include. Stops staggered enemies and counts as a hit for combos. Can free up one of Valentin's boards for a normal attack and bonus exploit damage.

Rust is another great pick. It delevels the target and applies periodic ravage hits every few seconds while it's up. The detonation attack can be powerful, but it's the first two effects that are the real prize.

Smite is worth taking on Grace if only because Devil Clock missions that require you to finish off enemies with it start showing up. It's also stupidly strong once the stagger multiplier gets high enough. You can use Knives as an alternative but they're consumable.

Having a Fast trinket on everybody besides Grace will let them act both at the start of the battle without needing to swap boards, but also frees them up while Grace is charging the Sword of Fate. YMMV about dropping Valentin's level once Level X becomes available, but Angela and Sam really appreciate the extra freedom and don't need the extra defense.

I think Boost is kind of a waste because 5 Battle Energy exists. Unless they stack. But it's hard to fit it into Sam's board as it is.

What other attacks you include are a matter of taste, I feel. Acts II and III can be really punishing about elemental loadouts. IV, not so much. But note that Bombs start showing up in Act IV, and attack all skills and Burn will set them all off at once. Just something to keep in mind and not necessarily a warning to stay away from AOE.

As for boards/paradigms...I'm definitely not an expert on the subject, but I tend to go with:
B1: Tank/Heal/Ravage
B2: Tank/Ravage
B3: DPS +Slow

I never really found a perfect place to put my heal-focused board, but the Fast passive helps if you have it on Board 1. In my case, Valentin and Angela have Fast trinkets on Board 3, but since Sam's Fast is on her Life spell, she gets it on Board 1. DPS on the third board is a bit messy with regards to Smite because you're either resigning Grace to being dead weight for most of Stagger (if Smite is on Board 3) or having to work around the Sword of Fate windup (if Smite is on Board 1 or 2). That's one of the nice things about Knives, at least.

And don't forget to use your Field Guides when you find a new enemy if you haven't been doing that; they'll usually inform you of their main gimmick. The bombs and swords especially.

[risu5_waffles]

Thanks both of you! i've kind of gotten used to hitting problems wiv a brick, and when the brick doesn't work, well, just get a bigger brick. Games where you actually need to think about how abilities work together to make fights smooth kind of throw me for a loop.

(i mean, heck it took all the way from Final Fantasy's first release up to Persona 5Royal to figure out buffs/debuffs are actually useful, and not just a wasted turn in battle)

[Humblepopstar]

Thirded Slow as an incredibly important option. I set up my endgame boards as follows:

Attack/Bleed
Slow/Juggle

Taunt Attack/Ravage All
Life/Attack All

Attack/Ravage
Auto Burn/Smite

Never quite figured out the third board, but switching to the second as soon as battle began got around the cooldowns and let Valentin start taunting right away while Angela built up stagger. The first board was where I'd switch once enemies were staggered so that I could stop them and build up combos. Having Ravage All and Auto Burn also meant that I could stagger enemies other than the one I was targeting directly, so I could switch between who I was slowing/stopping.