【Class Guide】 Dagmar

Astria Ascending Job / Class Build Guide.

Aims at optimizing the most use out of the Jobs / Classes available for Dagmar in Astria Ascending.

Notice

- You should join the Official Astria Ascending Discord for any questions you might have about the game: https://discord.gg/G4sM4MnjBM

- You can complete the game with any type of class and combination, even if post-game content might present a greater challenge.

• Use any build you like and any build you make up for yourself. Enjoyment is the first thing you should always aim for.
  
• You don't have to follow this guide to the letter, these guides are for optimizing, and so you may forfeit or ignore certain aspects of the builds for the sake of comfort.
  
• Some of these builds are aimed at long-term investment. A little knowledge or general JRPG knowledge might be required for some encounters. Should you have issues with certain fights in some capacity, switch your tactics around.
  
• With regards to the point above, most of these builds are aimed at the inevitability of post-game. I have done it with odd and sub-optimal class builds just for fun as well and knowledge goes a long way.

Basic Information

Main/Sub/Support Jobs explained

The way the game explains how jobs work can be confusing, even more so because the Journal has information about everything relating to the game, misinforms the players on about the classes. It should explain how it all works right away to make an informed decision and not regret it later. Only a small amount of information is wrong regarding this and is explained below.

- There is no way to 'respec' your character's classes in any way. Make a save point before changing and have that as your backup if you intend to do multiple playthroughs.

• Main Job - This is effectively the class your character becomes for the rest of the game. This choice allows you unrestricted access to Abilities, Support/Passive Abilities, Stat-Up nodes and is the starting point for all your builds.
  
  • What you may equip such as Weapons and Armors change to suit the Main Job, effectively replacing your equipment choices from your Base Job.
  
  
• Sub Job - This choice allows you access to a Jobs Abilities only. You won't have access to any Support/Passive Abilities or the features the Main Job would otherwise give you.
  
  
• Support Job - This choice allows you access to a Jobs Support/Passive Abilities only. Some Classes have some worthwhile Support/Passive Abilities that can make another job shine or make it even stronger than it was before.
  
  • It might be misleading to read the journal as it states otherwise.

Ophiuchus Abilities

In the menu, navigate to Journal > Jobs to see every class available and their abilities. You will notice that some Abilities are under the tag of Ophiuchus. In the class trees, there are Silver-star nodes, and all of these are related to Ophiuchus. You are only granted 1 choice for one single character. This comes in extremely late into the game.

• These abilities will not be considered for optimization, as you should have enough knowledge of the game at this point to know what you want to use should you ever want to use one of them.

Base Class

【Sorcerer】

Dagmar out the gate has a clear theme when his abilities are brought up and immediately identified; he's introduced to you as the game's elemental damage dealer. With such a strong identity, people are more inclined to lean on his theme of being an elemental attacker more than anything while having the Support/Passive abilities to assist with this. Fierceness (50% chance to cast the same single-target magical attack if the enemy's weakness is hit) pushes this thematic identity further.

Dagmar is a balanced character despite everyone stating otherwise, he gets outshined by others when fully optimized for damage. This isn't to say that he is weak, he can carry you to the end without issues as a Black Mage. He just lacks any inherent Support/Passive damage increases to his stats which matter due to how ATK/MAG vs DEF/MDEF scales, making him replaceable as the game goes on and in Post-Game.

As a Support, he gets to put this first point into practice as a Shaman if you use its abilities on an ally and watch them deal damage in numbers he can't reach, supplement this with Chronomancer abilities, and you got yourself a solid member of your team.

What he makes up for in the first portions of the game through his power, he immediately falls off when introduced to the Post-Game. Depending on what you want him to do, he has a place in anyone's party who needs him for what he has to offer; And after having enabled others to build themselves up until you decide to switch him out, he will have done his job to allow for your final party to shine thanks to him.

The builds and their roles

This should help you figure out what each build is supposed to be doing a majority of the time, and most of you are probably familiar with concepts like these.

• Tank - Provides damage mitigation for your team and takes on the big hits that would otherwise kill someone else.
  
• Support - Provides buffs for the party or debuffs upon the enemy.
  
• Healer - Restores the party more efficiently than everyone else, keeps your heroes up to speed.
  
• Damage Dealer - Destroys the enemy quickly, but needs the other roles on the team just as much as they need the Damage Dealer.
  
• Utility - Niche abilities or support/passive abilities that apply to specific situations and combinations, can overlap with certain roles.

For easier In-Game navigation on each color of the stars

This can help if you need to spot what you specifically want to look for.

	Abilities
	Support/Passive abilities (Support Slot +1 looks like this, but smaller)
	HP / MP increase
	ATK / MAG / DEF / MDEF increase
	AGI / EVA / ACC / LUC increase
	Ophiuchus, see Basic Information

Chronomancer

【Utility/Support】

Chronomancer is a unique class that might seem familiar to people playing JRPG's, but quickly note that its bag of tricks has its specific uses. Its signature ability, [Replay], lets us copy the last action of a party member - allowing it to have virtually all abilities available to our party members for the simple use of one action. [Reboot] is the game's singular most powerful recovery ability, fully recovering your health and mana and removing every status effect. [Return] restarts the entire fight you were in, turning bad RNG at the first few turns of combat into a victory. And Supplement as a support/passive ability is the most valued one to get, allowing for more turns in combat.

I consider this build to be Dagmar's best option all around since it has its uses from the start and
the moment you receive Infusions, all the way to Post-Game content. This is a powerful build and shouldn't be overlooked, Infusion spells are terrific despite only lasting for 1 turn when used on a strong physical attacker and only helps to further the Chronomancer's role, see Build Comments for more.


Pros :

• No MP issues.
  
• Reboot outright heals you to full HP/MP even if you didn't start as such, and removes all status effects.
  
• Replay allows for flexible attacks and FP generation on weakness.
  
• Supplement adds flexible turn orders and decisions.
  
• Stats can be invested in anything you wish to focus on.
  
• Infusion spells are powerful and cover all elements.

Cons :

• Infusion spells lasts for 1 turn and force you to only use them consistently if you want value out of it most of the time.
  
• Niché percentage-based abilities make one want to use consistent abilities instead.
  
• Delay is bugged and doesn't work as intended.

【Build】

Main Job

- Chronomancer

Sub Job

- Shaman

Support Job

- Black Mage

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- For comfortable MP management, but can go much lower with the right Support/Passive abilities and using Abilities correctly.
  
• ANY STAT --- STR/MAG for focusing physical/magical abilities when using Replay. DEF/MDEF for outlasting and never dying while supporting, MDEF has the most value Post-Game.
  
• AGI, ACC, or EVA --- Concerning the above, ACC should be used if you heavily lean on Replay'ing STR abilities. AGI can be invested if you like going first or in a particular order, but switch all of this to EVA in Post-Game.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Replay - Copies the last action performed by the selected ally.
  
• Withering - Decreases STR, DEF, MAG, and MDEF stats on a single target by 10%.
  
• Reboot - Restores the target to their initial state at the beginning of combat.
  
• Return - Relaunches the fight from the start with -5 FP.
  
• Recall - Brings back an ally that has been kicked from battle.
  
• {Elemental}fuse - (Shaman) Infuses all the target's attacks with XX element for 1 turns.
  
• Elementalus - (Shaman) Casts one random level 3 ("-us") elemental magic on a single target.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Supplement - 30% chance to act again just after the user's turn.
  
• MP Saver OR Half-MP - (Sorcerer/Black Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.
  
• Blossom - (Sorcerer) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Fierceness - (Sorcerer) 50% chance to cast the same single-target magical attack if the enemy's weakness is hit. (Works with Elementalus)
  
• MP Generator - (Black Mage, use Post-Game) Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Mute Shield - (Sorcerer) Increases resistance to Mute by 100%.
  
• Auto Haste - (Chronomancer) Automatically activates Haste.
  
• Foretelling - (Chronomancer) 10% chance to get 1 FP bonus when an ally hits an enemy's weakness.
  
• Rewind - (Chronomancer) 10% chance to get back FP when spending any amount of PP.

Build Comments

Chronomancer can be confusing to build due to its inherent utilitarian nature. This allows us to go any stat depending on what we want to do with it, be it STR/MAG/DEF/MDEF. The reasoning for this is Chronomancer doesn't deal a lot of damage, to begin with (Albeit Supplement lets us do "more"). Replay is the only one that makes use of STR/MAG since if you decide to Replay your allies' attacks, the stat used will be the same as the attack your members used (STR for physical/neutral, MAG for magical).

A common misconception about Infusion is that it works like Kress' Blade abilities, which they do not. It converts your physical attack into an element, allowing you to hit enemy weaknesses when used properly while using your STR stat fully. All around this is a very powerful utility build, Infusions are terrific abilities to use when used properly, and any strong attacker will deal an explosive amount of damage to anything in its way.

- The largest drawback by far is that Infusions lasts for 1 turn, and if you are forced to use different abilities or items with Dagmar in multiple turns you make the entire Infusion spells redundant. Use items when needed, use the correct Infusion/ability when needed, you have a lot of choices and it makes for a good class.


There is a way to make Elementalus attack enemy weaknesses consistently, check the official Discord[discord.gg] for more information on this.

[Replay], [Wither], and [Reboot]. These will be your best friends for a long time so make sure you use them liberally. [Recall] exists on the off-chance someone gets removed, use it so that your party member doesn't lose experience. Invest your stats in any way you see fit, damage or defense, it's all up to you.

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Shaman

  Due to Chronomancer, we can use Shaman with no drawbacks since we have most of the utility and support we need. Terrific choice all around and will make any physical attacker happy.
  
  
  • Picking Black Mage as your Sub Job has little merit, we do gain access to level 4 spells, but we don't have any of the tools that make Black Mage a great class.
  
  

• Support Job - Black Mage

  Double Cast doesn't work on Elementalus but we gain Half-MP and MP Generator in return.
  
  
  • Picking Shaman as your Support Job has no merit since we can't make use of the Support abilities properly. We make the entire build redundant with Shaman in this slot.

Support Abilities of note

Fierceness does work with Elementalus as noted previously, and you can generate some cheap FP with Omni abilities if Fierceness triggers.

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, the value depends on you, replace Blossom with this in Post-Game once they start attacking everyone more frequently.

Mute Shield allows you to avoid any stray effect that would otherwise make you unable to cast your damaging spells. Mute doesn't happen as often as one might think, but if another party member is quicker and in a supportive role, they can just remove Mute effect making this ability questionable.

Auto Haste is a permanent effect and can't be dispelled by anyone, even with Demote (Probably due to a bug).

Black Mage

【Damage Dealer】

Black Mage is the game's best elemental damage dealer. For a large part of the journey, there isn't much that can stand against the sheer power it carries, and it covers most of the elemental types excluding, Light, Dark and Neutral. [Double Cast] is what truly brings this class to bear and is part of the reason why no enemy will be able to properly stand against you for a large portion of the game. And no matter what, the Black Mage will cover all of what you need from a damage dealer.

Dagmar has a lot of Support/Passive abilities that naturally combine to make an easily built character, do be sure to use it as much as you can since his scaling is quite low until others catch up. It is very entertaining seeing him attack several times in a round so enjoy it while it lasts.


Pros :

• Varied attacks; covers a majority of enemies elemental weaknesses.
  
• Enemy resistances are a non-issue until post-game.
  
• MP isn't an issue.
  
• Very entertaining seeing spells cast multiple times.
  
• Can use Infuse spells for your allies.

Cons :

• Low damage scaling comparatively as the game goes on.
  
• Low Health and DEF.
  
• Overpowers the competition until post-game.
  
• May cause you to think the game is too easy/boring.

【Build】

Main Job

- Black Mage

Sub Job

- Shaman

Support Job

- Chronomancer

Stat investment:

• MP - 800~1000 --- To keep a steady supply of MP going, which will have a hard time running out. Rest into HP.
  
• MAG --- All of it here.
  
• AGI or EVA --- AGI to go first and wipe everything out on turn-1, switch fully to EVA in Post-Game if you start facing problems.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• One Omni ability to wipe out trash mobs.
  
• Any element for a boss' weakness.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Double Cast - Casts a single magical attack twice for 1.5x the cost.
  
• MP Saver and/or Half-MP - (Sorcerer/Black Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.
  
• Fierceness - (Sorcerer) 50% chance to cast the same single-target magical attack if the enemy's weakness is hit.
  
• Supplement - (Chronomancer) 30% chance to act again just after the user's turn.
  
• Blossom - (Sorcerer) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.

Free Support Ability choices.

• MP Generator - Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Mute Shield - (Sorcerer) Increases resistance to Mute by 100%.
  
• Auto Haste - (Chronomancer) Automatically activates Haste.
  
• Foretelling - (Chronomancer) 10% chance to get 1 FP bonus when an ally hits an enemy's weakness.
  
• Rewind - (Chronomancer) 10% chance to get back FP when spending any amount of PP.

Build Comments

Double Cast, Fierceness, Supplement all make for a nice combination of fireworks. Pound-for-Pound it won't be as strong as Ulan Black Mage as you keep scaling, but the numbers all add up as long as you abuse the weaknesses of enemies to make use out of Fierceness. Do consider using Infusion spells for your Physical attackers once his damage starts to drop off in the later stages of the game since he is their best friend. But if you can wipe out the enemy yourself on the first turn you might as well just do that instead.

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Shaman

  Doesn't offer us much in terms of Support/Passive abilities, but does offer us a way to make physical attackers deal more damage by letting them abuse weaknesses as well.
  
  
  • Picking Chronomancer as your Sub Job does give us utility options, but we most likely want to use as many damage-dealing spells as possible and to make the most use out of the Black Mage.
  
  

• Support Job - Chronomancer

  Has a lot of support abilities with different uses and purposes, but the real gem here is Supplement. Giving us a free turn to deal more damage isn't exactly a bad thing.
  
  
  • Picking Shaman as your Support Job has very little value and questionable qualities here, avoid or spend your last job token on this slot.

Support Abilities of note

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, the value depends on you, replace Blossom with this in Post-Game once they start attacking everyone more frequently.

Fierceness does exactly what it states, you will only get value out of this when you attack weaknesses.

Mute Shield allows you to avoid any stray effect that would otherwise make you unable to cast your damaging spells. Mute doesn't happen as often as one might think, but if another party member is quicker and in a supportive role, they can just remove Mute effect making this ability questionable.

Auto Haste is a permanent effect and can't be dispelled by anyone, even with Demote (Probably due to a bug).

Shaman

【Support/Utility】

Shaman is a criminally overlooked class, yet the job itself is good under the right circumstances. While Elementalus is a randomly casted spell, there is a way to make it consistently hit enemy weaknesses but that isn't the point of this class.

The main drawing point for Shaman is the Infusion line of spells. STR abilities scale better than MAG, yet a physical attacker's main weakness is a lack of Elemental options. With Infusions, you turn a target's physical attack into an element of your choice, and so your physical attacker can hit enemy weaknesses. You combine the weakness abuse of a Spellcaster with the scaling of a physical attacker, and the result is an explosive amount of damage that can't be overlooked. The largest weakness by far is that Infusions only lasts for 1 turn, forcing your character to only ever use Infusions to make it usable and give it the most value.

Despite having a cool aesthetic, the job itself is at its best in a Sub Job slot due to weak Support skills. You are better off going for the Chronomancer build option since they are identical in playstyle, but this one is worse unless you like the aesthetic of the class.


Pros :

• Infusion spells cover all elements and are incredibly powerful.
  
• No MP issues.
  
• Stats can be invested in anything you wish to focus on.
  
• Chronomancer abilities help round this class out with more utility and cover its weaknesses.

Cons :

• Infusion spells lasts for 1 turn and force you to only use them consistently if you want value out of it most of the time.
  
• Weak support abilities.
  
• Doesn't function well without a physical attacker.
  
• Weaker than a Chronomancer Main Job build.

【Build】

Main Job

- Shaman

Sub Job

- Chronomancer

Support Job

- Black Mage

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- For comfortable MP management, but can go much lower with the right Support/Passive abilities and using Abilities correctly.
  
• ANY STAT --- STR/MAG for focusing physical/magical abilities when using Replay. DEF/MDEF for outlasting and never dying while supporting, MDEF has the most value Post-Game.
  
• AGI, ACC, or EVA --- Concerning the above, ACC should be used if you heavily lean on Replay'ing STR abilities. AGI can be invested if you like going first or in a particular order, but switch all of this to EVA in Post-Game.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• {Elemental}fuse - Infuses all the target's attacks with XX element for 1 turns.
  
• Elementalus - Casts one random level 3 ("-us") elemental magic on a single target.
  
• Replay - (Chronomancer) Copies the last action performed by the selected ally.
  
• Withering - (Chronomancer) Decreases STR, DEF, MAG, and MDEF stats on a single target by 10%.
  
• Reboot - (Chronomancer) Restores the target to their initial state at the beginning of combat.
  
• Return - (Chronomancer) Relaunches the fight from the start with -5 FP.
  
• Recall - (Chronomancer) Brings back an ally that has been kicked from battle.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• MP Saver OR Half-MP - (Sorcerer/Black Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.
  
• Blossom - (Sorcerer) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Fierceness - (Sorcerer) 50% chance to cast the same single-target magical attack if the enemy's weakness is hit. (Works with Elementalus)
  
• MP Generator - (Black Mage, use Post-Game) Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Mute Shield - (Sorcerer) Increases resistance to Mute by 100%.

Build Comments

The handsome but weaker option to the Chronomancer variant. The problem lies entirely in the Support abilities. Infusions are good abilities to use when abusing enemy weaknesses properly, and any strong attacker will deal even more damage than what would otherwise be possible. Use items to heal your party where needed. If Infusions lasted for 2 turns you could weave in supportive abilities from the Chronomancer line more consistently, but since we don't have access to Supplement we are by far much weaker.

As mentioned before, there is a way to make Elementalus attack enemy weaknesses consistently, check the official Discord[discord.gg] for more information on this.

[Replay], [Wither], and [Reboot]. These will be your best friends for a long time so make sure you use them liberally. [Recall] exists on the off-chance someone gets removed, use it so that your party member doesn't lose experience. Invest your stats in any way you see fit, damage or defense, it's all up to you.

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Chronomancer

  Without this choice this class would have been much weaker, giving us more options to support our team is always a good thing.
  
  
  • Picking Black Mage as your Sub Job has little merit, we do gain access to level 4 spells, but we don't have any of the tools that make Black Mage a great class. We make ourselves even weaker by forgoing the Chronomancer abilities.
  
  

• Support Job - Black Mage

  Double Cast doesn't work on Elementalus but we gain Half-MP and MP Generator in return. The latter one has more value in Post-Game.
  
  
  • Picking Chronomancer as your Support Job is criminal and should not be considered. There are too many abilities that are too valuable to throw away just for Supplement, and we can't even use them properly. All around the Shaman becomes terrible without them, despite Supplement allowing us to weave in abilities other than Infusions; But it would just be attack spells.

Support Abilities of note

Fierceness does work with Elementalus as noted previously, and you can generate some cheap FP with Omni abilities if Fierceness triggers.

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, the value depends on you, replace Blossom with this in Post-Game once they start attacking everyone more frequently.

Mute Shield allows you to avoid any stray effect that would otherwise make you unable to cast your damaging spells. Mute doesn't happen as often as one might think, but if another party member is quicker and in a supportive role, they can just remove Mute effect making this ability questionable.

Sunny & Overcast aren't required and its effect can be forced by just entering and exiting a room until you hit the desired effect (sunny or stormy).

[HEKAU]

So I wanted to drop a few points to this series of guides' author.

1. Your guides are extremely helpful and useful. They each show that you've put in the time and effort to really understand each character, character's class, and class builds. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, it is very appreciated.

2. Will you finally publish Arpajo's class guide? I'm curious about your findings.

3. Could you make a shorter summation-focused guide of the best in slot class for each character whilst also including the best synergies for each class build in relation to party composition? I know you've stated in a few of your guides which class you think is best for each character, but this could be a more comprehensive albeit shorter guide that's like a "best of" with party synergy.

[grundzio12]

Hi, a few days ago you had the guides for Trials of Mana game, where are they?

[Pandada-sensei]

Hahaha, the Arpajo guide should have been posted last month.

But I have been exceptionally busy, I only just came home this week, so I'm working on smaller projects to get them done. The Arpajo guide however is about 66% done, since he doesn't have many viable builds for optimizing or min/maxing.

The last 33% should be easy, because it's mostly the exact same but just 'worse' than his most optimal choice.

[gorby.ashada]

Your guide is really thorough and usefull. Im waiting patiently for your arpajo guide.