Guide DANG IT

Quick guidelines to know about this game, stats description, item description, damage idea, what to do and whatnot.

Why? Because I'm bored of having to look for it in gamefaqs, that's why.

Introduction

Started this game and found there was no guide, and no real tutorial or good explanation (I still don't know how some damages are even calculated...); so I went blind into it.

Game is not so bad, and not so good either, conversations are insanely bizarre (hello, yeah teacher, I'm a terrorist, can I go out of class, pls? They want to kill the president [and this is ALMOST literal]), there is no enemy info, magic consume slots who almost CAN'T regen (except healer, thank god....) except going back to base, and maps are big and convoluted (which I think is a pro).

The problem comes with RNG and equipment.

If you don't upgrade equipment, enemies outdamage you by a fair amount, but materials don't drop so much to be making your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ combat knife+10 (which is way worse that almost any weapon 4 levels higher...), and you wasted almost every single material you got, so, good luck with that.

Well, all that said, let's start with some basic info.

Stats

Basic info, dood...

This game got 6 main stats and many other substats that are BADLY explained, helped by so many accronyms....

• STR: Strength.
  The only selfexplanatory stat, you want physical damage? you increase STR. Each point increases your base damage by 2-3 points approx.
  
  
• WIS: Wisdom?Wizardry?
  Whatever, what you need to know is that this stat increase your magic damage, ONLY for the Wizard class (WIS skills). And I'm not even sure about that,
  
  
• SPI: Spirit? mental strength? INTELLIGENCE?
  Probably last one, as this stat is the one used to increase some abilities from the scholar. The important part is that this stat works with HEALS, mainly, and is used in trap disabling and identifying (only scholar).
  
  
• PHY: Physical prowess.
  This attribute is mainly used to determine your MAX HP, as it increase the hp you gain from level up, it probably increases def too, not sure.
  
  
• SPD: Speed.
  This one helps you attack first, hit more easily, and evade attacks (except magic). What is NOT explained is that your secondary weapon (sub weapon) damage depends on SPD, and that you need to reach 25 SPD with the character for second hand weapon to do 100% damage instead of less (will explain a bit more later).
  
  
• LCK: Luck.
  Strange stat this one. Seems to affect mainly probabilities, mainly helps you afflict or defend against status effect (death, poison, paralize...), main stat for the thief class (scholar).
  That means that it even affects how much your average damage is, as in a weapon with 20-80 damage with high luck will probably do on average more damage than the same weapon with less luck. (Tested in the bonus points, seems to work that way).

Secondary Stats

I'll explain here, as they are quite confusing most of the time.

Unity Rating: Ability to recharge your unity bar, it depends on level and your team unity rating. It increases by being used, so spam it, is not bad at all, even if it's not sooo realiable. A good one is the Unity to make your team act faster than enemies for a turn or more, or the one that let's you hit every single attack to one row.

Damage: it's quite self explanatory, but don't know exactly in which way STR affects damage, it could be increased % based on weapon damage or could be different.

But damage has aspects close to secret:

Multiple Attacks: Some weapons attack more than once per attack action, this is not displayed in the status screen, but in the items description it shows as Max. Attacks. That means that every turn, your char tries to attack enemies as many times as is displayed in the equipment for each hand (for example, 2 weapons with 2 attacks, could hit 4 times each turn), and for every succesful attack, the damage stack. So if I were to hit twice with a weapon I'll do double the damage displayed, so don't laugh at knuckles base damage with their 3-5 attacks.

Dual wielding: EVERY character can dual wield weapons, this is important, as my scholar goes double shoting ♥♥♥♥ and affecting with statuses to 1 enemy that way; the only restriction comes with weapons, as some can and some can't be equipped as sub.

The problems comes with SPD, as you need to have 25 SPD total (with bonuses and so) for the damage of your offhand to be full.

Miss Chance: is the modifier you give to your enemy when you try to hit them. Basically, when is positive and high, you are basically making harder to hit an enemy; while when is negative, you are counter affecting the enemies evasion. Negative is Good!!

Evasion: Literaly, same as Miss chance, but in this case, this modifier applies to enemies when they try to hit you. Negative is Good!!

Sample:

Warrior got a Miss Chance of -5 and an Evasion of -4
Monster got a Miss Chance of 1 and an Evasion of 2.

When it tries to hit you it goes so:
(1) - (-5) - Random = 1 + 5 - Random.
If result is higher than 0, it fails. (random can be negative too)

When you try to hit the monster, it goes so:
(-5) - (2) - Random (could be positive),
If result is less than 0, then you hit.

Defense: This goes to reducing damage. Not sure if it works for every attack of the enemy or the total, but basically, if you recieve damage and then reduce it completely, it only hits for 1 point total. High is good, but if enemies can't hit you, then they do 0 damage anyway.

Range (weapons):
S= Single target, only if you are in front row.
M= Can attack from the back.
L = Can Attack the enemy back row.
L L = Can attack any row.

Classes

This game is a bit particular about chosing a class, mainly because they offer you a premade team build with classes and attitudes (races, really), which is not bad, but didn't work for me.

The class is like an equipment for your character, it gives you stats, abilities, skills and magic (or not), and you can swap it to other class at base camp. This should help you decide which build is better, but the problem comes with stats and builds, since you can't change the stats you already selected leveling with other classes, so that Wizard is going to be the BEST Warrior, surely.

Other important thing about classes, is that every class comes in 2 genders, and each gender increases different stats by their own level.

To explain this, remember I just said classes are equipment? then a level 3 warrior equipment gives different stats than a level 3 knight equipment (this stats do change when swapping classes).

Simple explanation, your char gets to level 14 and has 12 STR (9 + 3 points from level up) and his class (warrior) gives 3 additional STR for a total of 15. This appears as 15/12 in the character screen, so don't worry, even if it gets strange when you add equipment stats, but oh well...

• Warrior: DPS/Tank. Strong and resilient.
  Quite good with 2 handed weapons, 1 handed weapons, shields and almost any single weapon. Got skills that hit a ton, but take time to charge or have low hit. Not my prefered class, even if it's not that bad.
  
  
• Knight: Tank with some DPS. Protector of teammates, useful.
  This class could have been better if it started with Aegis, a skill that even if is not perfect, helps a lot to protect your teammates. This class main attraction is his ability to defend allies when they receive damage, the chance is a bit random, and it doesn't work on AoE attacks. It's quite useful, but makes combat last more as doing less dps.
  
  
• Wizard: DPS/support. Almost crap.
  Quite bad, more so at start of game, but quite needed in a lot of places, but mainly at start of game when money is a problem.
  What's the problem with this class? Magic SLOTS non rechargable (and enemies not displaying weakness even when you got a scholar in your team...). You go for like 10 minutes, and if you want this class to do damage, 2 minutes after starting have no more magic slots to use. Simple as that... once you reach certain levels, that get's better, but the moment you really need AoE's is the moment you'll see why this class is BAD. The best point of this class is probably supporting other classes, seeing as at level 28 it gets a skill that increase physical damage of party by 50% permantly after use. I have no more wizards in my party...
  
  
• Physician/Cleric: Heal/support. Almost a must have.
  seeing as there are a lot of team builds without cleric, but the class is quite solid (except for damage), and even with slot problems, you get enough to go by, and only in bad maps you'll really need a healer wasting slots in a combat.
  
  
• Scholar/Thief: Support class. Almost mandatory for dungeon crawling.
  Strange class, full of support skills and spells, even at navigating game. Not even DPS, but with an EX equipped you can go trying to inflict enemies with status effects. All said, I'd love to swap it, but is needed for unlocking items without dying, unlocking door, finding secret doors, identifying items, and some spells are quite useful in a fight (inmunity to physical damage in that turn could help a lot...); like I said, strange class...
  
  
• Archer: DPS. Strong single target DPS.
  Strong class at 1v1, even if not so against mobs, can attack any enemy line and even select enemy directly if you want to pinpoint attacks. Got a nice skill but it mainly autoattacks, and the class let's you select arrows as second attack that inflict bad statuses to enemies. Other important thing is that you don't need the 25 SPD for second attack to do 100% damage; and STR is main stat for damage for this class too.
  
  
• Samurai: DPS. Best class, hands down.
  Very strong spammeable AoE, risky but strong 1v1, and katanas usually let you instakill enemies if you are lucky (pun intended?). the class has skills that helps dual wielding any 1handed weapon as sub weapon, so it's quite recommended to get 25 SPD and go dual wielding. There are teams going 5 Samurais and 1 healer... so yeah, strong class; quite literally 2 Samurais at front line can wipe enemies mobs completely, and with 3 is even sweeter.
  
  
• Assasin: DPS/Tank. Useful class, evasion tank and lots of dedicated equipment..
  Best way to use Assassins is in front line, evading every single attack that goes their way and swapping exclusive equipment that deals against enemies weakness... mainly 1v1 though, so it suffers against many enemies. Not my choice.
  
  
• Monk: DPS/Tank. Good class and very strong 1v1.
  Can almost one shot bosses after concentration. Dual wielder as every fist can be equipped at sub, Evasion oriented. got a skill that let's him counter every enemy attack at him, so not bad.
  
  
• Conjurer/Pokemon Master: DPS/Healer. Strange class.
  Many spells that inflict statuses to enemies, and has the ability to capture up to 3 monsters (any normal or rare monster) to have him as a 7th ally. Haven't tested it yet, but in the board they weren't quite pleased with monsters as being squishy and not very reliable.

Team Builds

IMPORTANT

First of all, if you started with the base chars, swap them as soon as you can, even if you want to recreate the base team.

The reason for this is that you get while creating your char some bonus stat points, that usually are 3-5 but they go as high as 10.

Gotta say that you'll probably NEVER see a 10, but they exist; what you should aim for is a 7 that is quite nice, and you don't need to reset bonus for hours.

Just so you know, this bonus gauge is dependant on the luck of your char, and the probability of getting a 7 is probably 1-5%, and I have never seeing an 8 for my chars. Just saying.

Once you get this bonus, you should INMEDIATELY, reach 10-15 PHY with ALL YOUR CHARACTERS. The reason for this is that Phy decides your level up increment of HP, so its better to level it up from start even if your damage is not that high.

Base Team

Samurai - Warrior - Knight
Wizard - Scholar - Physician

Samurai is your main DPS, and can decimate big waves with his skills, dual wielding is almost mandatory with him, so you let your Warrior and your Wizard end wave or bosses, while knight protect teammates (wait till level 14, all said).

Pros-
You get all permanent support spells
Wizard can chose element to affect enemies (even if I have yet to know what enemy is weak to what)
Knight protects whole teammate once he reachs level 14
Warrior can do lots of damage to bosses
Cleaning waves is ok
Dungeon crawling thief in party
Healer

Cons-

Slow cleaning, more chances of something going wrong
Slot dependant, you have to go recharge many times
Dps is not so high


Result:

An ok party to learn how to play, but magic in this game is lackluster, Wizard being one of the worse classes.

Base Team Upgraded v1 (pre-monk)

Samurai - Warrior - Knight
Archer - Scholar - Physician

There are lots of dps and single target, all physical but with enough variety to be able to survive with whatever drops you end getting.

Samurai damages whole wave while monk, warrior and archer finish it, and any boss that appears will die once second turn starts. You still get enough support skills, heals and some debuffs with the healer and the physician, mainly used on hard fights.

You can start with v1, and then swap the knight once you reach the level cap. One thing is not so known is that exp gets divided between teammates, but if only 1 character can level up, then he gets 6 times the normal experience speed; and with the item that let's you equip ANY level equipment on levels 1... he can be unstoppable even just created.

Pros
You get most support spells
Warrior Knight and Samurai can tank easily the front row
Knigh protect teammates
Enough AoE damage
Cleaning waves is ok
Dungeon crawling thief in party
Scholar and Physician don't need so many slots to go
Healer
Drops are variated

Cons
Cleaning waves is not so fast, and some enemies can decimate you from the back row.
Not enough 1v1 damage
You'll probably will have to go rest for slots sometime
enfloat item dependant (500gp) crazy waste once you reach dispel areas

Result:
Very good party to start game, learning the basics, until you unlock monk, the lack of wiz can be annoying with Enfloat, but once you reach those points youll have enough money, as your party can go with level 6 risk without problems.

Base Team Upgraded v1 (post-monk)

Samurai - Warrior - Monk
Archer - Scholar - Physician

There are lots of dps and single target, all physical but with enough variety to be able to survive with whatever drops you end getting.

Samurai damages whole wave while monk and warrior and archer finish it, and any boss that appears will die once second turn starts. You still get enough support skills, heals and some debuffs with the healer and the physician, mainly used on hard fights.

Pros
You get most support spells
Monk, Knight and Samurai can tank easily the front row
Strong against bosses
Enough AoE damage
Cleaning waves is ok
Dungeon crawling thief in party
Scholar and Physician don't need so many slots to go
Healer

Cons
Cleaning waves is not so fast, and some enemies can decimate you from the back row.
Backrow is unprotected
You'll probably will have to go rest for slots sometime
enfloat item dependant (500gp) crazy waste once you reach dispel areas

Result:
Very good party for wiping enemies and even farm, the lack of wiz can be annoying with Enfloat, but once you reach those points youll have enough money, as your party can go with level 6 risk without problems.

Oriental frontline

Samurai - Samurai - Monk
Archer - Scholar - Physician

There are lots of dps and single target, all physical but with enough variety to be able to survive with whatever drops you end getting.

The pair of Samurais can decimate waves almost alone, and the monk and archer are very good 1v1. Scholar helps dungeoing and Physician keeps party going.

Pros
You get most support spells
Front row can survive damage
1 Round wave cleaner
1v1 high damage dealers
Dungeon crawling thief in party
Almost no need of spells to fight and survive
Healer

Cons
Repeating a class has the problem of finding good equipment for both
Back row is unprotected
Only warrior can survive an instakill spells
enfloat item dependant (500gp) crazy waste once you reach dispel areas

Result:
My comp at the moment, is quick, is strong, and I keep going at high level maps without problems.

Stats Builds

Dual Wielder
13 PHY - increases your max hp by a lot.
20 SPD (25 via items, if not, upgrade, but usually 20 is enough (80% damage approx even without items)
Max STR - max your dps
Then you chose between SPD/PHY/LCK - Speed if you want more EVASION, PHY if you want to be able to survive more hits or LCK if you want to use statuses like KO, poison or so.

Quick wave cleaner, usually strikes first, takes time to do lots of damage.

2 Handed / Archer
13 PHY
Max STR
LCK / SPD / PHY - LCK if archer as almost all arrows get status effects, mix of SPD and PHY or only PHY if front row, helps a lot.

Preferable with a weapon with status effects like KO or Paralize, or just raw damage with lots of hits, your call.

Wiz Glass Cannon
10 PHY
Max WIZ
13 PHY
LCK/PHY - LCK helps evading status effects, so is not a so bad stat, just not perfect.

If you are going to use a wiz, at least make him do damage...

Meat Tank
MAX PHY
MAX LCK
SPD/STR

almost no damage, but TONS of life; and luck helps against status effects.

Evasion Tank
13 PHY
MAX SPD
MAX LCk
STR/PHY

Not so much damage, but can dual wield and apply status effects as well as ignore them.

Healer
13 PHY
MAX SPI
Max LCK
PHY/SPD

Enough hp, strong heals, survivality.

Scholar
13 PHY
Max LCK
Any- SPD for starting faster, SPI for identifying (probably), PHY for just being a survival of sorts or STR for doing damage with your EX (it might work...) or even WIZ... maybe spell items use WIZ for damage... wont waste them though.

Really, just inflict as many statuses with your EX weapon and help the party

Extra Tips

Explore and enjoy game.

If you want to farm, use the chain item that let's you attract monsters.

Don't waste Metal MT upgrading low level equipment, drops are usually BETTER without wasting material, save them for any equipment that seems useful.

Be careful about paranormal enemies, almost ALL weapons are weak against them and youll need to affix weapons to damage them correctly; learn from this and exploit weakness (inh for goblins and trolls, Consctructs for most of machines, Fauna for most animals and plants, and bizarre enemies are mistery.

Light and Dark elements are instakill. Same as KO effect.

I still don't know what angst does...

When a monster is paralyzed, let the samurai do an assault, enemy cant retaliate so it will probably kill it with only 1 skill.

This game don't explain element weakness nor monsters elements... is chaotic.

Many times, Evasion is better than Defense. Some times, it isn't.

Spam Unions, fast, sure hit and barrier are always useful.

If you CAN survive level 6 risk, do it as it makes drops better, and if you are lucky and find a high level weapon, you can decimate enemies easily from that point onward.

This game has 2 level caps that are story dependant, 15 (midgame) and 40 (endgame); use them to level up faster secondary bloods/jobs on 1 char as the exp is not divided and they level up 6 times faster (a quick run in 15 mins makes your new char level 14-15 for example).

This is an advanced tip for those who want perfect stats:

Unity Gauge increases with uses, but that increase also INCREASES YOUR STATS by the same percentaje.

For example, if your character posses 10 STR with a unity gauge of 105+5% it will then add an extra point to STR.

The 100 means the party compatibility between party members, and is calculated as follow:
Party Member > Evil | Neutral | Good
\/Your character
Evil +0 +5 -10
Neutral +5 0 +5
Good -10 +5 +0

A balanced party will have 3 neutral people and then, 3 evil OR 3 good (do not mix them for optimal results), that way, all your party will end with 115 (15% extra stats) (They need to be level 15 for that or use U-bst items for bypass the limit).

The + xx% is a number that goes up to 50% and increases the same way, but not caring about party compatibility, but mostly how many unity skills used with the same party.

That means that all character would end with 65% extra stats (and if you create a character with the most useful character that would mean 33 of main stat [13 +20] to a total of 55 aprox).

Another option, if you want 1 or 2 characters with an extra 10 or 5% respectively, just use 1 Evil/good + 5 neutral or 2 Evil/good + 4 neutral (yeah, there are some other combinations, but this should be good enough).

Warriors are meh... the need for concentration and the way they stop after finishing a row just make them waste movements most of the time... The thing is that I swapped my warrior for a Conjurer (didnt remake the char, just used the warrior build (STR/LUK/15PHY/13 AGI), and looking online found VERY GOOD monsters to tame (Lizardman, Daughter, Tiger, 741 something...). And they DESTROY THINGS EASILY while the Conjurer has a Rush-like spell that he can spam all day if there is a Physicist in the party...

I repeat, this is not recommended, is just some information about the system, use it however you want.

[Clead HeavenHell]

Let me check quickly, but if I remember correctly, you cannot save in dungeons unless you use a relatively uncommon item, and you basically lose progress if you get wiped out (run away and return to base if you feel in danger).

Will answer back once I got the game running.

[ONE IN A MILLION]

this is very good. an incredibly useful guide, hoever, i still don't know how to even save in dungeons. i tried checking every button i have, then i tried the key binding menu to see if there was a key to open a menu or another for quick saving like a dedicated save key. any help?

[Clead HeavenHell]

If I remember right, they are based in the same version of D&D (2e), but even if the dialogs are a bit "cringy", the gameplay is quite decent.

The second game has even better gameplay, because they added the "multiclass" system (Warrior/Archer, Samurai/Ninja, Knight/Academics, Wizard/Physician...)

[playoftheyear]

Awesome, great way to understand the games inner complexities, I need to go back and recall the Wizardry days for this game, it looks like

[Clead HeavenHell]

I know, right?

[playoftheyear]

hilarious

[Syrel]

Academics use Wisdom, the game mentions they use Wisdom, both the Blood Codes give Wisdom(also the Acad+ trait on gear, thats worth extra Academics skill, but most gear with it is also Academic Locked, so you can't really make a Mage into one with it)

I've also seen that my Mage with his like 30 Wisdom(its like 20 base + Bonuses and Unity) is most often right of the people who aren't my Academic(who's sitting on like... 6 base and 9 total Spirit, and 25ish total Wisdom and always right)

[Clead HeavenHell]

Spirit is the attribute for scholars/academic, that why INTELLIGENCE seems realistic enough following the archetipe (or are you going to say that Academics need Faith [that is probably what they were going for with SPIRIT but they missed misserably...]).

I am a D&D fan, and I understand that Intelligence is for Wizards, because they STUDY miracle magics from gods to recreate them, but in this game, they should have mixed together the attribute for Wizards and Academics. In Stranger of Sword City for example, they get this right, as the Academic is called CLERIC and the attribute is Piety, but the SPI in this game makes no sense for the archetipe..

Another issue they solved in Stranger of Sword City for making magic useful, was using multiclass and skills block maps, that forced you to use magic. Also in the second game, they allowed magic caster to have a secondary class that could be Scholar, that has the ability to regen magic uses.

[Syrel]

And nah, the Squad Handbook doesn't explain everything, but it explains a lot that you seemed to have missed, sorry for being mean there, just getting frustrated as I read further and further with things being silly(how the hell did you get Spirit = Intelligence?)

[Syrel]

You can reread the Squad Book even in battle, which is handy for re-acquainting the Weakness Cycle, enemy elements take some guessing though, generally they're neutral unless its obvious(X Elementals, X Slimes, X Drills, Golden ROCK) which just means dump your spell of choice on em, my biggest issue is that Spells seem to scale up kinda badly on Wisdom, which is really sucky because even Boost Cast gets shitty damage, and thats supposed to be decent the first couple times you use it a given fight(it gets weaker each successive use in a fight)
But sadly thats a common issue with DRPGs, its hard to get a good magic formula without tiering spells like FF does, or making the controlling stat REALLY powerful, Etrian Odyssey 1 and 2 had similar issues with their Mage Archetype falls off like a rock when the magic stopped murdering
So yeah, you're not wrong that Mage seems to suck, but they're very much a quintessential DRPG Mage at least, what with the support aspects