【Class Guide】Alassia

Astria Ascending Job / Class Build Guide.

Aims at optimizing the most use out of the Jobs / Classes available for Alassia 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 Job

【Summoner】

Alassia is the game's premier Utility character and might find her way into different parties and compositions. Closer into the story you will notice that she is the only character that can make use out of Summons, creatures that replace your entire party whose duration is based on the amount of Focus Points you have upon summoning. Due to her class combinations, when used correctly, can be used to generate Focus Points (FP) when able for the party.

Her main concern is the class selection; All of her classes as a Main Job require good abilities or support/passive abilities from other classes to really shine. Individually they already function well enough but come at odds with each other by sacrificing what makes them stand out. Summons may not pack the punch that people wish for them to do, due to how each individual character when built correctly already does a lot on their own.

• Alchemist is the only one to really make the most use out of her Job combinations and is her most optimal choice. You don't miss out on too much and end up receiving the other Job's powerful stand-out points. Alchemist is also the one class that will only function greatly when used as a Main Job and is incredibly mediocre or worthless in the Sub or Support slot.
  
  
• Chronomancer's [Replay] ability allows her to be a flexible choice when it comes to attacking (Copies the last action performed by the selected ally), if a party member is attacking an enemy weakness then replay that ability. A good Utilitarian class by itself and has useful abilities for the party, especially the game's most powerful recovery: Reboot, which will restore all HP/MP regardless of what it was before combat, and remove all buffs/debuffs.
  
  
• White Mage suffers from only having Healing and Light Damage spells. The healing can be supplied by items (money doesn't become a concern), and the healing abilities themselves are incredibly powerful on their own, which can cause overhealing in large amounts. The Support/Passive abilities on offer are however nice additions, and thematically if you don't like using items then this is a good choice.

On the point of Summons

As this ability is only available for Alassia, some of you might actually like to use them as you gain new ones throughout the game. There isn't too much to spoil about them other than the first point made; They replace your entire party and are based on the amount of Focus Points (FP) you have once summoned.

With that in mind, Summon Master and Summon Legend can be used if you really like using them, and will be listed in all of Alassia's classes. (+1/+2 extra FP for the creature to use when summoned).

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

Alchemist

【Utility/Damage Dealer/Support/Healer】

Alchemist is probably the most overlooked class, despite being such a strong class choice when looked at closely. This class will ONLY work at its best when picked as a Main Job. The other misconception might stem from people thinking you need to spend money, but Alchemist comes with an ability to help with this called [Distillate]. (It's misspelled as Distilate)

This is a powerful ability that only costs you 50 MP, and as it states will generate one Ore item (Single Target) and one Crystal item (Omni/Multi target) of EACH element, including Neutral in place of physical. This generates an item of each level up towards level 3 which scale with MAG (Neutral/Force scaling with STR), and there are 9 elements, and since Ore and Crystal are separate items you will have gained up to 54 new items in your inventory all at once for the cost of 50 MP. You can sell these items too.

All 9 elements are at your disposal with a 50% increase in item power. The increase in power also helps with recovery, as HP/MP items become stronger for a lower budget (50% is instead 75%, etc). Because of this, it can function as a fully acceptable Healer until the strongest recovery items are available.


Pros :

• Great combination of abilities and support/passive abilities.
  
• Attacks with all elements available in the game.
  
• Single+Multi targetted spells without MP cost due to being items.
  
• Can stack Full MAG for the 8 elements.
  
• Good Force user with Full STR.
  
• Well-designed skill tree for easy choices.

Cons :

• Needs to invest in stats right away once you start using Ores/Crystals.
  
• Cannot use Focus Points to power up your items.
  
• Using Distillate can take a while until you reach enough item stacks to use your ores/crystals.
  
• Inventory in combat gets cluttered by Distillate (You can scroll down pages faster by tapping left/right instead of down/up)

【Build】

Main Job

- Alchemist

Sub Job

- Chronomancer

Support Job

- White Mage

Stat investment:

• MP - 500~600 --- For comfortable MP management with Chronomancer abilities, can go lower if confident.
  
• MAG or STR --- MAG for all the elements, but if you want to use Force go for STR, and STR can be the better option for Post-Game.
  
• AGI --- AGI to go before the enemy in combat, switch fully to EVA in Post-Game if you start facing problems.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Distillate - Generates one ore item and one crystal item of each element.
  
• {Elemental} Crafter + Omni Crafter - Enables the use of XX Ore/Crystal item in battle.
  
• Omni Force Crafter - Enables the use of Neutral Ore/Crystal item in battle. (Allows access to the rest of the elements)
  
• 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.
  
• Replay - (Chronomancer) Copies the last action performed by the selected ally.
  
• Recall - (Chronomancer) Brings back an ally that has been kicked from battle.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Transmutation - Increases item potency by 30%
  
• Item Potency - Increases item potency by 20%
  
• MP Synthesis - Restores 5% of the user's max MP when dealing physical or magical damage.
  or
  
• MP Generator - (White Mage, Post-Game) Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Duplication - 20% chance to prevent items used in battle from being consumed.
  
• Rescuer - (White Mage) 20% chance to automatically cast Raise on a single KO'd ally.
  
• Vaccine - (White Mage) 20% chance for any negative effect on the user to be negated at the beginning of the turn.
  
• Auto-Raise - (White Mage) Automatically revives the user when KO'd (once per battle).
  
• MP Saver / Half-MP - (Summoner/White Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.
  
• Summon Master - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 1 extra FP.
  
• Summon Legend - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 2 extra FP.

Build Comments

Try to get the Alchemist as one of your first Job picks in your party to get [Distillate] running right away and your inventory built up. Make sure you have Item Potency+Transmutation no matter what before you start using Ores/Crystals. Pick any Element you wish as you will have all of them eventually, or go the Neutral/STR route entirely. Since you can't use Focus Points for your items when generated, your party can make use of them instead, don't forget that you can heal just fine with Items.

My Recommendation: After unlocking Distillate you gain access to the +20 stat increase node AND [Omni Aero Crafter] so bear this in mind. Grab ahold of Omni Aero so that you have a powerful Multi attack for cheap value ([Ice Crafter] can help at Blazing Sands and beyond) make sure you have Erio+Umbror to cover Light/Dark. Get Stat increases to make use of the extra power, afterwards, you can start picking Single/Omni elements as you wish.

Feel free to make use of all the Chronomancer abilities in various ways, do mind that [Replay]'s stat is based on the same stat of the ability it copies. Reboot+Omni Cast from Harnesser is a fantastic recovery ability.

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

  Lets us have all the utility in the world, [Wither] will be a life-long partner, [Replay] will have its fun uses and [Reboot] is powerful when combined with a Harnesser's [Omni Cast] ability.
  
  
  • Picking White Mage as your Sub Job is overkill, most of the things offered can be done through items, the new thing offered would be Eriorima (Light Level 4).
  
  

• Support Job - White Mage

  Gives us some nice supplementary Support Abilities that all have value. Use them depending on your own personal preferences and needs.
  
  
  • Picking Chronomancer as your Support Job is pretty good. Supplement is powerful in its own right and worth it alone to deal more damage, but we miss out on so many decent Abilities for the right situations, while making the Sub Job slot redundant.

Support Abilities of note

Transmutation+Item Potency can't be stressed as to how important this is for the Alchemist to function. Not having access to level 4 spells puts you at a slight disadvantage, but these two ensures you won't be behind.

MP Synthesis works on your elemental items and generates twice on Omni/Multi casted damage, Force too. When rotated correctly you will never have real issues with your MP if you have to use Chronomancer abilities often.

Rescuer has a lot of value for just existing, free resurrections without spending a turn are quite valuable when triggered and has no limit. The user of this needs to be alive for it to work (So no 4-player wipe with a sudden revive).

Vaccine can be great, enemies consistently use status effects throughout the game, spending a turn not recovering can be valuable.

Auto-Raise has value, especially in Post-Game, where dying to bad RNG is very real so it's helpful.

Chronomancer

【Utility/Support/Healer】

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.


Pros :

• High AGI.
  
• Reboot outright heals you to full HP/MP even if you didn't start out 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.

Cons :

• Balanced weapon stats in both STR/MAG means lower damage comparatively.
  
• 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

- Alchemist

Support Job

- White 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 (Or Alchemist items). 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.
  
• Erio/Umbre + Omni Crafter - (Alchemist) Enables the use of Erio/Umbre Ore/Crystal item in battle.
  
• Distillate - (Alchemist) Generates one ore item and one crystal item of each element.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Supplement - 30% chance to act again just after the user's turn.
  
• MP Saver and/or Half-MP - (Summoner/White Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%
  
• MP Synthesis - (Summoner) Restores 5% of the user's max MP when dealing physical or magical damage.
  or
  
• MP Generator - (White Mage, Post-Game) Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Rescuer - (White Mage) 20% chance to automatically cast Raise on a single KO'd ally.
  
• Vaccine - (White Mage) 20% chance for any negative effect on the user to be negated at the beginning of the turn.
  
• Auto-Raise - (White Mage) Automatically revives the user when KO'd (once per battle).
  
• Auto Haste - Automatically activates Haste.
  
• Foretelling - 10% chance to get 1 FP bonus when an ally hits an enemy's weakness.
  
• Rewind - 10% chance to get back FP when spending any amount of PP.
  
• Summon Master - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 1 extra FP.
  
• Summon Legend - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 2 extra FP.

Build Comments

Chronomancer can be confusing to build due to its inherent utilitarian nature and combined with Alassia's class selection this can become even more confusing. 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).

[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.

[Distillate] from Alchemist generates items that are sellable, and use {Element}/Light/Dark on enemy weakness, or generate FP on weakness.

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

• Sub Job - Alchemist

  We don't have the increase in Item power to really make these spells shine with our MAG, but at least you have access to both Light/Dark damage. If you are already attacking enemy weaknesses with a different party member, you can just Replay that attack to generate more FP; but they most likely don't have access to either Light/Dark damage, which you should be using. If you are STR-based, you can use Force to an alright degree.
  
  
  • Picking White Mage as your Sub Job is redundant. While our healing spells drain MP we can make use out of items to produce equal (or better) amounts of healing instead. Curus/Omni Curus can be used with low/medium MAG to heal for a good amount. Access to Light spells allows us to generate FP on Light weakness or deal damage if we are fully built into MAG with Level 4 Eriorima. Curima is also redundant, we got Reboot which overshadows it and we can use Potion X for the same effect.
  
  

• Support Job - White Mage

  Actually values with Rescuer and MP Generator. A 20% Raise can free up a valuable turn, and 10% MP from taking hits (which will happen frequently in Post-Game) will let you sit comfortably without ever thinking about MP.
  
  
  • Picking Alchemist as your Support Job is a very redundant pick and we don't have to think about it, the only one we can make any real use out of is Duplication. We would make the White Mage slot in Sub Job equally redundant.

Support Abilities of note

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

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, value depends on you.

MP Synthesis works on Replay and generates twice on Omni/Multi casted damage, damage Items/Force too.

Rescuer has a lot of value for just existing, free resurrections without spending a turn are quite valuable when triggered and has no limit. The user of this needs to be alive for it to work (So no 4-player wipe with a sudden revive).

Vaccine can be great, enemies consistently use status effects throughout the game, spending a turn not recovering can be valuable.

Auto-Raise has value, especially in Post-Game, where dying to bad RNG is very real so it's helpful at times.

White Mage

【Healer/Utility】

White Mage presents itself as your classic JRPG staple with a familiar name but lacks a few of the margins that would otherwise make it stand out. For people who love the theme of a party member who recovers and supports their party, the White Mage will immediately stand out in its ability to only Heal, remove debuffs and deal Light damage. What the White Mage lacks in support can be made up with a good Sub Job, but we also risk potentially missing out on abilities that could have been better spent elsewhere.

There are two ways of playing a White Mage Alassia and they are both optimal in their own way, but you are better off playing the Main Job versions of Alchemist/Chronomancer instead. Since we are supposed to supplement our Main Jobs with the class system, we end up in a situation where the White Mage's duty can be done by another party member just as efficiently through items.


Pros :

• High MAG.
  
• Heals for a high amount on lower MAG than expected.
  
• Can invest in defensive stats if Healing is your only concern.

Cons :

• Lacks inherent party-support in its kit.
  
• Healing becomes overkill and can overheal on Medium-High MAG.
  
• Items produce more efficient healing and are % based.

【Build】

Main Job

- White Mage

Sub Job

- Chronomancer

Support Job

- Alchemist

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~1000 --- Mileage may vary, but you need a comfortable amount of MP after all!
  
• MAG, DEF, MDEF --- MAG for focusing magical abilities when using Replay. DEF/MDEF for outlasting and never dying, MDEF has the most value Post-Game.
  
• EVA --- Turn order might be important, so AGI isn't invested as you most likely will want to heal your party at the end of the turn instead.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Curus + Omni Curus - Restores a large amount of HP to single/all targets.
  
• Clearor - Removes all status effects from a single target.
  
• Raisus - Raises a single target with a large amount of HP.
  
• Omni Eriorus - Deals a large amount of light-elemental damage to all targets.
  
• Eriorima - Deals a huge amount of light-elemental damage to a single target.
  
• Curima - Restores all HP to a single target.
  
  Chronomancer:
  
• 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.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• MP Saver and/or Half-MP - (Summoner/White Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%
  
• Rescuer - 20% chance to automatically cast Raise on a single KO'd ally.
  
• Vaccine - 20% chance for any negative effect on the user to be negated at the beginning of the turn.

Free Support Ability choices.

• MP Generator - Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Auto-Raise - Automatically revives the user when KO'd (once per battle).
  
• MP Synthesis - (Summoner) Restores 5% of the user's max MP when dealing physical or magical damage.
  
• Summon Master - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 1 extra FP.
  
• Summon Legend - (Summoner) Summons will arrive on the battlefield with 2 extra FP.

Build Comments

Both of her job choices in the other slots have their merits, but the most optimal route would be Chronomancer in Sub to make use out of as many abilities as possible while using [Replay] on high MAG. As much as it seems like the natural choice/progression to go with Chronomancer in Sub Job, Alchemist has its merits with its item, alongside the high MAG White Mage comes with it. Though you are breaking the theme and using items for elemental damage.

Use Replay on your allies dealing magical damage if there is nothing to heal, if a Harnesser is available you can use [Omni-Cast] on [Reboot] to fully restore HP/MP and reset buffs/debuffs OR use [Curima] if you need to preserve the buffs.

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

  [Reboot] is much stronger than White Mage's strongest heal, Curima (But it doesn't reset buffs), and even then we might overheal our allies with Curus with a decent amount of MAG. We can use [Replay] to a good degree, but since we are swimming in MAG we are limited to using it on MAG abilities only. [Wither] will always remain relevant, while the rest of the abilities speak for themselves if you actually need them.
  
  
  • If a spell-casting theme and using MP is important to you, then having Alchemist in this slot, is not it. With the high MAG at our disposal, we can make use out of every single element as we need up towards level 3. We won't be as strong as an Alchemist Main Job, but at least we are making use of the MAG. Combined with Chronomancer in Support we can make use of it further when Supplement triggers for more damage.
  
  

• Support Job - Alchemist

  Extremely redundant, we can't make use out of this slot at all.
  
  
  • Chronomancer in Support Job allows us to have Supplement, a second turn can always mean more for your team, if you don't need to heal you could throw out damage, and then another one on top of that.

Support Abilities of note

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, value depends on you.

MP Synthesis works on Replay and generates twice on Omni/Multi casted damage.

Rescuer has a lot of value for just existing, free resurrections without spending a turn are quite valuable when triggered and has no limit. The user of this needs to be alive for it to work (So no 4-player wipe with a sudden revive).

Vaccine can be great, enemies consistently use status effects throughout the game, spending a turn not recovering can be valuable.

Auto-Raise has value, especially in Post-Game, where dying to bad RNG is very real so it's helpful at times.