Golden Sun Class Tier List

[Suichimo]

I think it's too bad Life seems to have forgotten this. I wonder if he's finished GS yet and started GS TLA. It would be interesting to see where he would stick the Tamer series of classes. Whiplash is far too inexpensive for its power and early appearance. And those 3 PP EPAs with the same power as the 5 to 14 PP EPAs you get are also funny (though I rarely used those since they aren't as good as the other Tamer series options for boss battles and random battles I mostly stick to Djinn Releases, but Life likes cheap consistent damage so I figure that would be a point in their favour). Throw in Impact and Cure Poison + Restore, then when you have 6 Djinn include revive and a 170 HP wish-like spell... Oh, and Gryphon has an add mod of 85 and sometimes doubles. And still only costs 10 PP, about 5 to 12 less PP than the other upgraded EPA, only they don't randomly double for you and aside from Odyssey and Diamond Berg you need at least 7 djinn to get any of the others (no Garet so Liquifier doesn't count). And you don't need to be at crazy high levels for this stuff (think Samurai Quick Strike at level 40).

Trainer and Dark Mage are both good classes. Pierrot blows like hell though.

As for those "crazy high levels", you will probably be at least 50 by the time you fight the Doom Dragon. 56 is the most common level I see recommended for fighting Dullahan. You will have all possible psynergy available to you at end game, last psynergy gained in game is the last of the Gaia line at either 54 or 56. As for your specific example of Quick Strike, you'll probably be getting access to that sometime between Jupiter Lighthouse and Prox.

Trainer was my best damage-dealer against Serpent, and I had two characters packing Astral Blow who still lost to Sheba pulling out Whiplash. And not by insignificant amounts, either. Go Glower Staff! Just imagine if I'd gone to Aqua Rock and Tundaria Tower first and had enough djinn to make a Beastkeeper with Gryphon (Harpy was beating whiplash by like 10, but since it was 10 PP vs 6 PP it wasn't worth it. Gryphon would win by 15, but more importantly would randomly double damage). Consider Gryphon has an add mod of 85, randomly doubles (seems to be around half the time, so anywhere between 40% and 60% seems reasonable, though max of 50% seems more likely), and costs 10 PP. In comparison, Death Plunge (Ninja) has an add mod of 40, costs 14 PP, and obviously no double damage (random stunning, though). And you can make Sheba (better Air power) one much earlier (need 9 djinn on her just to get Ninja, need only 6 for Beastkeeper). And to upgrade to Death Leap you need 8 djinn. Now it costs 22 and has an add mod of 110 but probably still loses on average (though Disciple's better attack power might make a tie-game and Disciple has much better PP). Obviously, though, Ninja completely blows Beastkeeper away for multitarget damage, but Beastkeeper still has healing (multi-target and single-target) and Impact. And Revive. And aside from battles with 4+ enemies, multitarget ability is rarely important.

You're using a very physically weak character thanks to her horrible choice of weapons, maces suck like all hell for attacking with. At least in Ivan's case, if you decided to make him a Ninja for whatever reason, he could use Light Blades which means he could eventually use an Excalibur. Isaac/Felix/Garet/Jenna, the four who can legitimately use the Ninja series, get Long Swords and/or Light Blades, Jenna being the only one restricted to Light Blades. This gives them a ton more power in addition to the extra 20% attack they have over the Beast Lord. Also, Ninjas get Annihilation which, while being stronger than Whiplash, has the nice extra bonus of being able to instantly kill an enemy.

This isn't as important in the late game though. By then you're getting tons of items that up things like Unleash Rate. You can literally have an item build for Isaac or Felix that gives them a 99% unleash rate with the Sol Blade, and others can get the same for other weapons.

Ninjas don't needs to be able to heal or buff when they have a Samurai and Sage friend. You should rarely need the actual Psynergy Revive because by then you'll have plenty of Waters of Life and quite a few Djinni that will revive a downed ally as well.

[Life]

I think it's too bad Life seems to have forgotten this. I wonder if he's finished GS yet and started GS TLA. It would be interesting to see where he would stick the Tamer series of classes. Whiplash is far too inexpensive for its power and early appearance. And those 3 PP EPAs with the same power as the 5 to 14 PP EPAs you get are also funny (though I rarely used those since they aren't as good as the other Tamer series options for boss battles and random battles I mostly stick to Djinn Releases, but Life likes cheap consistent damage so I figure that would be a point in their favour). Throw in Impact and Cure Poison + Restore, then when you have 6 Djinn include revive and a 170 HP wish-like spell... Oh, and Gryphon has an add mod of 85 and sometimes doubles. And still only costs 10 PP, about 5 to 12 less PP than the other upgraded EPA, only they don't randomly double for you and aside from Odyssey and Diamond Berg you need at least 7 djinn to get any of the others (no Garet so Liquifier doesn't count). And you don't need to be at crazy high levels for this stuff (think Samurai Quick Strike at level 40).

I love my consistant power moves.

Also, I haven't forgotten about it. My ADD keeps kicking in every time I try playing Golden Sun (beat the Hydros Statue and then accidentally hit my savestate button, sending me back to the end of Mogall Forest since I was just using it as a quick way to restart the game). I'm still trying to figure out where the more advanced classes deserve to be but I'm pretty adamant on stuff like Apprentice/Page and Hermit and other double element classes for the moment.

[Narga_Rocks]

As for those "crazy high levels", you will probably be at least 50 by the time you fight the Doom Dragon. 56 is the most common level I see recommended for fighting Dullahan. You will have all possible psynergy available to you at end game, last psynergy gained in game is the last of the Gaia line at either 54 or 56. As for your specific example of Quick Strike, you'll probably be getting access to that sometime between Jupiter Lighthouse and Prox.

Really? Why? Are you grinding? I have trouble with grinding after playing too much FE. I finished the first game at around level 28. What level did you finish? My first playthrough of TLA I finished everything at level 41. Well, after beating Dullahan I never bothered going back up the Mars Lighthouse so I suppose if I actually go and do that and don't use Avoid or run a lot I'd reach level 43 or so before beating the final boss, but level 50 and 56???? How much grinding are you doing? Well, I'll see what level I get to this time around (HM). I'm killing most things with the proper djinn unleashes (except big bosses since it is a pain to keep track of hp. Mimics and djinn and those plant things on the other hand...). Maybe that will increase my final level? I'm already at 29 as I walk around Lemuria and the first part of Treasure Isle.

But Dullahan is just a pain to fight without summons. Seriously, Djinn Storm and Break just make me say "screw it". On NM you can deal ~14000 out of 16000 in two rounds with team 1. And there isn't a single thing Dullahan can even do about it thanks to Lull.

Charon + Catastrophe + Mud/Vine + Lull, boosted Charon + Catastrophe. Lull is there to a: prevent Break from wiping away the power boost after the first two summons and b: prevent things that might kill the summoners or otherwise prevent summoning. And now he has around 2000 HP remaining for team 2 to summon away with lesser summons. Simple.

Since summon damage is partially based off total hp, I'd assume HM isn't actually much different. Probably take off around 21000 out of 24000.

You don't really need a super-high level. All you need is enough +agi items that your squad #1 is faster than him (241, go with 250+ if possible to be safe and ensure a 5+ agi gap between the attackers and the Lull guy. 10 for safety). Squad #2 is taken care of since Dullahan gets made slower by squad #1. They only need to beat like 121 speed. No problem. It's pretty easy to wipe out 2000 or so hp in one round even with Mercury based summons despite his 190 Mercury res. All he needs to do is kill off squad 1 quickly enough that squad 2 arrives while Mud/Vine is still slowing him down. Actually, since 2 Charons + 2 Catastrophes use 16 Earth + 14 Jupiter + 6 Mars, if Dullahan is nice enough to leave your 200 Wind Power character alive after round 2 you could even sub in a character with 3 Jupiter and 2 Mercury so that your 200 power Wind guy/girl can summon Eclipse. Eclipse alone should come pretty close to finishing him off if you have 200 power behind it. Squad 2 can still have 3 Meteors or something (Ulysses or Boreas) prepared in the other 3 units in case they need it. You even have 12 Mars remaining.

Trainer and Dark Mage are both good classes. Pierrot blows like hell though.

Pierrot is kinda sucky, yes. I did use it on an earth-weak boss, though, since Sabre Dance is 150% for 7 PP. And I used it in Air's Rock for the purpose of Avoid . And the Briggs battle to make, I think it was Felix? faster than the sea fighters. Also it is the only way to get Sheba into a 100% atk class that early on. Well, 2 Venus will also do it, but that almost seems like a waste since you could make Jenna a Ruffian with them. Right now (Ankohl Ruins and Treasure Isle) the main use I'm giving it is making Sheba a Punchinello while Piers is a Trainer (yep, only the second, not the third like Sheba) so that they both have more reasonable attack powers for my unleashing fun (also with +agi items on Piers that set-up typically has all my characters acting before the enemies. Except with particularly fast ones, but I just have Jenna kill them first. Fast enemies tend to have fewer hp so she can pretty much OHKO them with Waft or something. Though can't go double ninja with that set up since he takes one of the 6 jupiters. That set up only works if I'm going for balanced attack powers in the party. Double Ninja basically forces Piers into 4 Mercury with 2 standby djinn (one fire, one earth) if I want Sheba to have two of each non-jupiter djinn for Punchinello or Beastkeeper. I even tried Ninja + Samurai + Beastkeeper + Commander for a bit. It's not a bad set up since everyone can get over 300 attack which makes combining to 2HKO stuff a lot easier (Lemuria, 25 djinn total). Commander has the same 120% attack as Trainer anyway. It even manages to be faster. Only downside is that he can't be one of my my Mars/Earth/Jupiter unleashers if I need him to be the one to kill it due to turn order. Oh well. Dead is dead, even if I get less exp for it.

But Dark Mage? Its attack is terrible until Necrolyte. Particularly since you can't even "Call Demon" until then. Granted Call Zombie is the strongest Water EPA for a long time, but since Crypt Lord only has 100% attack it's kinda bad. At least it is fast? If you got Poison Flow earlier, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Raging Heat and Fiery Abyss are kinda sucky. No point making Jenna that when you can give her the good staves that tend to appear before similarly powered Long Swords and Axes in the midgame and make her a high attack class and have her outdamage Felix. And early game Light Swords tend to arrive before Long Swords. If there were at least +Fire Power items at that point then maybe someone else could be Crypt Lord and use those fire attacks.

You're using a very physically weak character thanks to her horrible choice of weapons, maces suck like all hell for attacking with. At least in Ivan's case, if you decided to make him a Ninja for whatever reason, he could use Light Blades which means he could eventually use an Excalibur. Isaac/Felix/Garet/Jenna, the four who can legitimately use the Ninja series, get Long Swords and/or Light Blades, Jenna being the only one restricted to Light Blades. This gives them a ton more power in addition to the extra 20% attack they have over the Beast Lord. Also, Ninjas get Annihilation which, while being stronger than Whiplash, has the nice extra bonus of being able to instantly kill an enemy.

Um, at the point you go to Gaia Rock (if you go before Tundaria Tower) your most powerful weapon is the Glower Staff. Period. It has 126 attack power at a time when Felix is wielding things like the Hagbone Mace or the Dragon Axe (108 and 100 attack respectively). That's a win of 18 over Felix. And considering I managed to burn through her entire PP and needed to use Ether on her once while using a 6 PP attack move, I would think that using anything that costs more would be bad business. Besides, at that point you have 5 venus, 5 mercury, 4 jupiter and 4 mars djinn. Making Sheba a trainer allows me to stick 4 Venus on Piers for Wish. 4 Mercury on Jenna for Wish. 4 Jupiter on Felix for Astral Blow. 1 Mars, Mercury, Venus on Sheba for Trainer. Leaving 3 Mars for unleashing, though I only really cared about Kindle. And she did more damage than Felix. Considerably more. At least 40 more, every attack. 50 more with Harpy but I decided that was a waste of PP since 290 isn't much more than 280. Granted I gave her the war gloves, but she would have done more than Felix without them anyway. Good luck finding a better 18 djinn set up for that battle. (oh, and making Pure Circlet and Clear Bracelet for Jenna gives her a rather powerful Wish. Better than Piers is capable of since he can't get Wish in his Mercury only classes and he can't equip those nice toys for 140+ Mercury power.) If anyone but Sheba is the Trainer, you can't make an Enchanter wielding Astral Blow. Gotta go with something weaker since it only has 3 Jupiter available. It is basically the most powerful set up that has 2 air elemental EPAs at that point in the game. It helps that Glower Staff is your best weapon.

Heck, I used two Dragoons + Piers the Beastkeeper against Avimander and despite the dragoons having Cutting Edge, Piers was doing around the same damage when Gryphon didn't double. And when it did? Well, there is a reason that I used Jenna and Felix for healing with Wish/Wish Well rather than Piers using Elder Wood. Well, Clear Bracelet and Pure Circlet kinda helped me make that decision, too. Poor Sheba stuck in a 4 Jupiter class, though. Wind Seer -> Mage is kinda bad. At least it has Impact and Resist. Love me some Impact. Resist is cool fun too.

Later on, Disciple takes 8 djinn, Beastkeeper takes 6. Better to compare it to Ninja alone. Beastkeeper loses attack by 10%, but Gryphon blows away anything that Ninja has available. Annihilation's OHKO ability is irrelevant unless you love burning through tons of PP in random battles rather than killing with Djinn unleashes. And if you are going to attack something with Annihilation and you don't want to risk another round of combat you have to also have someone slower target the same enemy. If Annihilation OHKOs, you get an extra character defending. If it doesn't OHKO the other character kills it. Not all that different from if it didn't even have the OHKO ability. Additionally you get more exp for killing with Djinn unleashes. Annihilation's OHKO ability is basically merely flashy.

Also, you can make two Ninjas at the same time Sheba is a Beastkeeper if you really want. I've done it. If you have 4 party members that all have reasonable attack (though Felix and Jenna will certainly normally beat Sheba and Piers) then you can just unleash every battle. Most enemies on HM are 2HKOd and you rarely face more than 2 enemies. When you face 3, you can use healing unleashes in round 2 to make back the hp you lost in round 1 while you use 2 of your 4 members to KO what is left. Only when you face 4 enemies is there ever any point of using PP. At least, if you have strong enough people to actually KO stuff. Which requires having all 4 in reasonable attack% classes. That said, it means boss battles are what is more important. Annihilation will never OHKO a boss and Gryphon will do a lot more damage than Annihilation, even on Earth weak enemies (who tend to be Jupiter resistant, even). Well, it probably is pretty close against Earth weak enemies, actually, but Gryphon is still much cheaper. And when it deals double it's hilarious.

Oh, and comparing 6 PP Whiplash to 18 PP Annihilation is an odd thing to do since Gryphon exists by that point. Against bosses, Whiplash can win even doing only half the damage. Unless you like worrying about PP. But since Beastkeeper vs. Ninja compares a 140% attack class to a 150% attack class and a 140% attack move to a 150% attack move, chances are it is going to come a lot closer in damage dealt than only doing half. More importantly, though, one is Earth and one is Air. With moves that close in damage Elemental resistances will basically tend to decide the winner. And one costs a third of the other. It's not really until you get 8 or 9 djinn and Disciple/Master gets a 20% win over Beastkeeper/Beast Lord that things might go the other way. But remember, Gryphon will annihilate Annihilate in damage against anything that isn't weak to Earth and strong against Air. And Gryphon is still cheaper so why compare Annihilation to Whiplash?

Now, after joining up the parties the 150 attack Meditation Rod is definitely inferior to...wait...what are you carrying when you leave Jupiter Lighthouse? Oh, right, Phaeton's blade at 151. And you get the Rod much earlier in the tower.

Now, after exploring with Isaac's help for a bit you can start getting things like the 176 attack Fire Brand and 161 attack Masamune and you can grab a Golem's Core and make a 163 attack Axe and the best Staves are doing is is a 156 attack weapon from Salamander's Tail. So yeah, at that point if I want to keep using the power of Gryphon I might be better off using a unit that can wield those weapons. Sheba definitely ends up weakening at around this point. Meditation Rod (in my game) will go to Jenna, probably, since she'll be a Ninja or Disciple or something similarly powerful (possibly Berserker. Heck, even Templar). Which means that Sheba probably gets dumped for Isaac or Garet in order to have as much damage as possible being dealt with unleashes.

This isn't as important in the late game though. By then you're getting tons of items that up things like Unleash Rate. You can literally have an item build for Isaac or Felix that gives them a 99% unleash rate with the Sol Blade, and others can get the same for other weapons.

So for the last 5 to 10% of the game, Sheba is not nearly as good a physical attacker. And? At that point if I'm still using her it's a question of whether djinn unleashes still 2HKO or not. If they do, going for 99% unleash with Sol Blade just means I get less experience so keeping the djinn party going isn't so bad. If they don't? Well, then I guess Sheba would either have to go Ninja or I'd have to use her as a White/Pure Mage.

Ninjas don't needs to be able to heal or buff when they have a Samurai and Sage friend. You should rarely need the actual Psynergy Revive because by then you'll have plenty of Waters of Life and quite a few Djinni that will revive a downed ally as well.

Djinni don't tend to recover to full hp (except Tinder) and they can fail. Waters of Life take up precious inventory space. That stuff is good for having +elemental power of various types and +agi for when you need it. Or something like that. It is useful to have Revive available. Of course, if you go Berserker/Chaos Lord you'll have Revive available, and White Mage/Pure Mage has it, too, so Beastkeeper and Beast Lord having Lich is less important. Also I tend to get my impacts from Sage/Wizard/Forge/Kindle anyway so them having Impact also no longer matters.

Of course, if you want to talk crazy high levels I'd also like to direct you to Ghost Soldier and it's 170 add mod and ability to pierce 50% defence. And at reasonable levels there's the fact that Manticore is available at 38 while Pure Wish doesn't show up until level 46. Just in time for Ghost Soldier, actually.

Then finally at level 47 there is a reason to switch to Necromage. Well, Call Demon is probably useful on Jupiter Djinn enemies, I guess.

@Life: Yeah, Hermit has Impact which I love, and you'll get Wish eventually.

Edited October 2, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Suichimo]

Really? Why? Are you grinding? I have trouble with grinding after playing too much FE. I finished the first game at around level 28. What level did you finish? My first playthrough of TLA I finished everything at level 41. Well, after beating Dullahan I never bothered going back up the Mars Lighthouse so I suppose if I actually go and do that and don't use Avoid or run a lot I'd reach level 43 or so before beating the final boss, but level 50 and 56???? How much grinding are you doing? Well, I'll see what level I get to this time around (HM). I'm killing most things with the proper djinn unleashes (except big bosses since it is a pain to keep track of hp. Mimics and djinn and those plant things on the other hand...). Maybe that will increase my final level? I'm already at 29 as I walk around Lemuria and the first part of Treasure Isle.

As noted before, I don't use Avoid at all and the only time I run is if I risk a wipe. Otherwise, I just power through the enemy. I'm usually mid 30s around the end of Jupiter Lighthouse and then we get all the fun side tasks, along with opening up the single best leveling spot ever, after going up Mars Lighthouse and getting the Sol Blade of course. Mid 50s seems to be a perfectly reasonable estimate for end game level.

But Dullahan is just a pain to fight without summons. Seriously, Djinn Storm and Break just make me say "screw it". On NM you can deal ~14000 out of 16000 in two rounds with team 1. And there isn't a single thing Dullahan can even do about it thanks to Lull.

Charon + Catastrophe + Mud/Vine + Lull, boosted Charon + Catastrophe. Lull is there to a: prevent Break from wiping away the power boost after the first two summons and b: prevent things that might kill the summoners or otherwise prevent summoning. And now he has around 2000 HP remaining for team 2 to summon away with lesser summons. Simple.

Since summon damage is partially based off total hp, I'd assume HM isn't actually much different. Probably take off around 21000 out of 24000.

You don't really need a super-high level. All you need is enough +agi items that your squad #1 is faster than him (241, go with 250+ if possible to be safe and ensure a 5+ agi gap between the attackers and the Lull guy. 10 for safety). Squad #2 is taken care of since Dullahan gets made slower by squad #1. They only need to beat like 121 speed. No problem. It's pretty easy to wipe out 2000 or so hp in one round even with Mercury based summons despite his 190 Mercury res. All he needs to do is kill off squad 1 quickly enough that squad 2 arrives while Mud/Vine is still slowing him down. Actually, since 2 Charons + 2 Catastrophes use 16 Earth + 14 Jupiter + 6 Mars, if Dullahan is nice enough to leave your 200 Wind Power character alive after round 2 you could even sub in a character with 3 Jupiter and 2 Mercury so that your 200 power Wind guy/girl can summon Eclipse. Eclipse alone should come pretty close to finishing him off if you have 200 power behind it. Squad 2 can still have 3 Meteors or something (Ulysses or Boreas) prepared in the other 3 units in case they need it. You even have 12 Mars remaining.

I didn't summon rush Dullahan, my first time fighting him. Yeah, its easy enough to win with it thanks to not taking your stats into account, you can beat Dullahan at minimum level by summon rushing.

Hard Mode Dullahan is actually easier than other Hard Mode bosses due to the HP cap, though he still gets the full stat bonuses.

But Dark Mage? Its attack is terrible until Necrolyte. Particularly since you can't even "Call Demon" until then. Granted Call Zombie is the strongest Water EPA for a long time, but since Crypt Lord only has 100% attack it's kinda bad. At least it is fast? If you got Poison Flow earlier, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Raging Heat and Fiery Abyss are kinda sucky. No point making Jenna that when you can give her the good staves that tend to appear before similarly powered Long Swords and Axes in the midgame and make her a high attack class and have her outdamage Felix. And early game Light Swords tend to arrive before Long Swords. If there were at least +Fire Power items at that point then maybe someone else could be Crypt Lord and use those fire attacks.

Early game? You get default Revive. So you can unleash Djinni, summon, and still have the ability to revive characters. Late game, there is the glaringly obvious Call Dullahan which hits for a massive 300% attack, something that, IIRC, is only duplicated by Megiddo.

Didn't say it was great, just good. The crappy way you have to distribute Djinni drops all the item classes down for me.

Um, at the point you go to Gaia Rock (if you go before Tundaria Tower) your most powerful weapon is the Glower Staff. Period. It has 126 attack power at a time when Felix is wielding things like the Hagbone Mace or the Dragon Axe (108 and 100 attack respectively). That's a win of 18 over Felix. And considering I managed to burn through her entire PP and needed to use Ether on her once while using a 6 PP attack move, I would think that using anything that costs more would be bad business. Besides, at that point you have 5 venus, 5 mercury, 4 jupiter and 4 mars djinn. Making Sheba a trainer allows me to stick 4 Venus on Piers for Wish. 4 Mercury on Jenna for Wish. 4 Jupiter on Felix for Astral Blow. 1 Mars, Mercury, Venus on Sheba for Trainer. Leaving 3 Mars for unleashing, though I only really cared about Kindle. And she did more damage than Felix. Considerably more. At least 40 more, every attack. 50 more with Harpy but I decided that was a waste of PP since 290 isn't much more than 280. Granted I gave her the war gloves, but she would have done more than Felix without them anyway. Good luck finding a better 18 djinn set up for that battle. (oh, and making Pure Circlet and Clear Bracelet for Jenna gives her a rather powerful Wish. Better than Piers is capable of since he can't get Wish in his Mercury only classes and he can't equip those nice toys for 140+ Mercury power.) If anyone but Sheba is the Trainer, you can't make an Enchanter wielding Astral Blow. Gotta go with something weaker since it only has 3 Jupiter available. It is basically the most powerful set up that has 2 air elemental EPAs at that point in the game. It helps that Glower Staff is your best weapon.

And if you hit up Gaia Rock last, like I did IIRC, you'll have better options along with some stronger weaponry for the group such as the Lightning Sword(+134). You could also have the Tartarus Axe(+127), if you bothered trying to get one.

Also, what other craftables do you have at this point? Because they make some very powerful equipment.

Later on, Disciple takes 8 djinn, Beastkeeper takes 6. Better to compare it to Ninja alone. Beastkeeper loses attack by 10%, but Gryphon blows away anything that Ninja has available. Annihilation's OHKO ability is irrelevant unless you love burning through tons of PP in random battles rather than killing with Djinn unleashes. And if you are going to attack something with Annihilation and you don't want to risk another round of combat you have to also have someone slower target the same enemy. If Annihilation OHKOs, you get an extra character defending. If it doesn't OHKO the other character kills it. Not all that different from if it didn't even have the OHKO ability. Additionally you get more exp for killing with Djinn unleashes. Annihilation's OHKO ability is basically merely flashy.

Only said that the OHKO was a nice extra benefit. It'll rarely happen in the first place. Also, if you're that worried, just use a group psynergy with one of your other characters.

Also, you can make two Ninjas at the same time Sheba is a Beastkeeper if you really want. I've done it. If you have 4 party members that all have reasonable attack (though Felix and Jenna will certainly normally beat Sheba and Piers) then you can just unleash every battle. Most enemies on HM are 2HKOd and you rarely face more than 2 enemies. When you face 3, you can use healing unleashes in round 2 to make back the hp you lost in round 1 while you use 2 of your 4 members to KO what is left. Only when you face 4 enemies is there ever any point of using PP. At least, if you have strong enough people to actually KO stuff. Which requires having all 4 in reasonable attack% classes. That said, it means boss battles are what is more important. Annihilation will never OHKO a boss and Gryphon will do a lot more damage than Annihilation, even on Earth weak enemies (who tend to be Jupiter resistant, even). Well, it probably is pretty close against Earth weak enemies, actually, but Gryphon is still much cheaper. And when it deals double it's hilarious.

Oh, and comparing 6 PP Whiplash to 18 PP Annihilation is an odd thing to do since Gryphon exists by that point. Against bosses, Whiplash can win even doing only half the damage. Unless you like worrying about PP. But since Beastkeeper vs. Ninja compares a 140% attack class to a 150% attack class and a 140% attack move to a 150% attack move, chances are it is going to come a lot closer in damage dealt than only doing half. More importantly, though, one is Earth and one is Air. With moves that close in damage Elemental resistances will basically tend to decide the winner. And one costs a third of the other. It's not really until you get 8 or 9 djinn and Disciple/Master gets a 20% win over Beastkeeper/Beast Lord that things might go the other way. But remember, Gryphon will annihilate Annihilate in damage against anything that isn't weak to Earth and strong against Air. And Gryphon is still cheaper so why compare Annihilation to Whiplash?

They are easily compared due to them both using multipliers rather than just flat attack bonuses.

Why would Gryphon be winning though? Annihilation starts outpacing Gryphon in damage values as soon as a person hits 171(2) attack, thanks to it being a multiplier, which should be far behind you by 31. If you need to attack Jupiter weak creatures, you have Death Plunge/Leap to fall back on.

Now, after exploring with Isaac's help for a bit you can start getting things like the 176 attack Fire Brand and 161 attack Masamune and you can grab a Golem's Core and make a 163 attack Axe and the best Staves are doing is is a 156 attack weapon from Salamander's Tail. So yeah, at that point if I want to keep using the power of Gryphon I might be better off using a unit that can wield those weapons. Sheba definitely ends up weakening at around this point. Meditation Rod (in my game) will go to Jenna, probably, since she'll be a Ninja or Disciple or something similarly powerful (possibly Berserker. Heck, even Templar). Which means that Sheba probably gets dumped for Isaac or Garet in order to have as much damage as possible being dealt with unleashes.

I tend to put Jenna in the Samurai line. Isaac and Mia jump to the front row for me, Jenna and Felix stay on the front row.

So for the last 5 to 10% of the game, Sheba is not nearly as good a physical attacker. And? At that point if I'm still using her it's a question of whether djinn unleashes still 2HKO or not. If they do, going for 99% unleash with Sol Blade just means I get less experience so keeping the djinn party going isn't so bad. If they don't? Well, then I guess Sheba would either have to go Ninja or I'd have to use her as a White/Pure Mage.

Sol Blade is the most obvious example. You can do it far earlier, I believe. You can get a set of Hyper Boots, boost your critical and unleash rates by 12% each, as early as Tolbi in the first Golden Sun. Riot gloves boost that by another 12%. So yeah, it may be that last 5 or 10% of the game, but once you get there you will see your psynergy usage drop a ton for anything other than healing.

Also, Sheba and Ivan should never go Ninja. For them it is a horrible class due to them never being able to make it any further and it using up all 9 of their Djinni slots.

Djinni don't tend to recover to full hp (except Tinder) and they can fail. Waters of Life take up precious inventory space. That stuff is good for having +elemental power of various types and +agi for when you need it. Or something like that. It is useful to have Revive available. Of course, if you go Berserker/Chaos Lord you'll have Revive available, and White Mage/Pure Mage has it, too, so Beastkeeper and Beast Lord having Lich is less important. Also I tend to get my impacts from Sage/Wizard/Forge/Kindle anyway so them having Impact also no longer matters.

If you can't give up a slot or two for Waters of Life, then you have way too much useless crap.

P.S. Earlier I said that Ivan and Jenna can wield Excalibur, I was wrong as it is a Long Sword. They have to settle with the awesome Tisiphone Edge instead, which is two points weaker.

[Narga_Rocks]

As noted before, I don't use Avoid at all and the only time I run is if I risk a wipe. Otherwise, I just power through the enemy. I'm usually mid 30s around the end of Jupiter Lighthouse and then we get all the fun side tasks, along with opening up the single best leveling spot ever, after going up Mars Lighthouse and getting the Sol Blade of course. Mid 50s seems to be a perfectly reasonable estimate for end game level.

I only used Avoid in Air's Rock. And from the sounds of it, you don't make much use of Djinn killing weaknesses for 1.3x exp. Chances are, I'll more than make up for any of those battles. Oh, I suppose I use avoid for sailing, though, sometimes. When battles in Ankohl ruins and stuff are giving 600+ exp and the sea battles give 80 or 90, I say what's the point. I know that might cost some, but again the extra exp from djinn killing should make up for it.

I can't imagine reaching level 50 by the time I hit Dullahan. I guess I'll see, though. I'm pretty sure I'm doing more Djinn killing than last time.

Um, "leveling spot"? Sounds like grinding to me.

I didn't summon rush Dullahan, my first time fighting him. Yeah, its easy enough to win with it thanks to not taking your stats into account, you can beat Dullahan at minimum level by summon rushing.

Hard Mode Dullahan is actually easier than other Hard Mode bosses due to the HP cap, though he still gets the full stat bonuses.

What? 16000 -> 24000. That's 1.5x, just like everyone else, isn't it?

Early game? You get default Revive. So you can unleash Djinni, summon, and still have the ability to revive characters. Late game, there is the glaringly obvious Call Dullahan which hits for a massive 300% attack, something that, IIRC, is only duplicated by Megiddo.

Revive is still level 19. Shouldn't you have 4 djinn by then? Granted you can unleash, summon, and still revive, but I tend not to bother with summons too much at this point. Plus Revive is like all you have until much higher levels.

And last time I beat the game I never got to level 42, let alone 47. Chances are, at best this time I may get that just in time for Dullahan. Woot? At least it is air elemental. Of course, the second he djinn storms it is gone.

If you bother to force the drops to get to 99% (demon circlet is cursed, by the way, so only matters for one character with the cleric ring) then Excalibur or Tisiphone Edge probably have similar power on average to Dullahan. It is comparing a 130% class to a 170% class (Master, Chaos Lord) so the difference in attack power could perhaps make up for the difference in multipliers. Apparently Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge average a little over double damage, so say 350% compared to 390%. It's not such a terrible difference. And the more defence the enemy has, the better Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge do relative to Dullahan. 340 attack compared to 260 attack against, say, 100 def? 120 damage compared to 80. 240 = 240, so double the Master's damage = triple the Necromage's damage. Of course, you are dealing with attack powers in the 600s by this point, but defence goes up a lot, too. 680 and 520 attack power compared to 200 defence results in the same tie.

Didn't say it was great, just good. The crappy way you have to distribute Djinni drops all the item classes down for me.

They can work at times. Particularly considering the uneven nature of Djinn growth.

When you have 5 mercuries, 3 venuses, and 4 of everything else, Trainer actually works beautifully on Sheba. Well, if you are like me, anyway. The lack of getting 4 fires on one adept might annoy some people, but since only Felix really wants 4 fires and I like having Felix able to unleash more than one element, I don't care.

And when you have 5 mercuries, 5 venuses, and 4 of the rest, Trainer works even better. You can get 4 jupiters on one person, 4 mercury on another, 4 venus on another, and you can unleash Kindle whenever you want. Good for, say, killing Serpent. And if you go to Aqua Rock then Gaia Rock you also get Steam that you can play with.

And even when things are somewhat even, it isn't too big a deal since you can still get 3 characters in really good classes (6 djinn ones) and the 4th character can still be in a 4 djinn class.

And if you hit up Gaia Rock last, like I did IIRC, you'll have better options along with some stronger weaponry for the group such as the Lightning Sword(+134). You could also have the Tartarus Axe(+127), if you bothered trying to get one.

I already mentioned Tendaria Tower for the Lightning sword. I didn't mention the sword by name because, well, what else is there? Getting the axe is a pain and it is only 1 stronger than the Glower Staff so who cares?

Also, if you go to Gaia last you have 21 djinn and can use Gryphon on the dumb thing. Way way stronger than Death Plunge. Even with the attack power difference of the classes, Gryphon should still tie without doubling because of +85 rather than +40. 45 point difference. Unless you think Ninja will win by 90 attack (it won't). And then half the time Gryphon doubles. Or around half. So it basically wins by 50% damage.

Granted, I've figured out a good set-up that uses Ninja and Trainer and still has djinn left over for Jenna and Piers to get Wish and also leave Kindle, Steam, Breath, and Ether available for unleashing. And Kindle + Ether/Breath lets you summon Mageara for damage + high impact at the same time, so that's cool too. I haven't figured out a good set up that gives Beastkeeper and Enchanter. If you go Beastkeeper I think it is only possible to get one (Jenna) person with Wish. However, you can probably just say "oh well" about that and go with Piers playing with various good djinn while Jenna does the healing.

Also, what other craftables do you have at this point? Because they make some very powerful equipment.

Not much worth mentioning. If you don't go to Gaia Rock first, you can get ONE Sylph Feather and an extra Tear Stone. The sylph feather could be made into a Sylph Rapier if you really really want. Granted it can x2 sometimes, but first it has to Unleash at 35% and then it has to actually double up. You'll be doing more damage with PP EPAs and it only has 124 atk anyway. Again, Glower Staff is only really beaten by Lightning Sword, and why wouldn't you do Gaia and Aqua back to back? Less traveling. Also it's not like it's actually hard to beat Serpent.

Only said that the OHKO was a nice extra benefit. It'll rarely happen in the first place. Also, if you're that worried, just use a group psynergy with one of your other characters.

Unnecessary use of PP. A lot of the time in HM it's easier to 2HKO with unleashes than with psynergy + unleash. Even if you have 3 enemies, it is generally better to just kill 2 of them outright than to attempt to kill all 3. And you get more exp that way! And if I'm burning that PP anyway, what's the point of the ability to OHKO? It dies either way. Like I said, "flashy". It's not really a nice extra benefit since it rarely has any impact whatsoever.

They are easily compared due to them both using multipliers rather than just flat attack bonuses.

Okay, except Gryphon exists so even if Whiplash loses, I have to ask "do I care?"

Why would Gryphon be winning though? Annihilation starts outpacing Gryphon in damage values as soon as a person hits 171(2) attack, thanks to it being a multiplier, which should be far behind you by 31. If you need to attack Jupiter weak creatures, you have Death Plunge/Leap to fall back on.

The multiplier is after damage, not before. 170 does not become 255 attack. And even if it did, base damage = (attack - defence)/2 anyway. The add mod comes after that so it is straight up damage. If it gave its 1.5x before your attack, you'd still need 340 attack just to get a 170 boost just to get 85 extra damage. But with a 50 def enemy, you actually need 390 attack just to tie game with Gryphon.

And OH YEAH, Gryphon doubles damage half the time. Let's take 170 damage as your base. Annihilation gives you a consistent 255 damage. Gryphon also gives you at least 255 damage. And then, wait for it, Gryphon randomly pulls out 510 damage! Annihilation gets, well, annihilated. End of story. And Gryphon is way cheaper.

And are you joking about Death Plunge? How does an add mod of 40 with the ability to stun compete with an add mod of 85 willing to double your damage? Going back to 170 damage base, lets take into account the difference in attack power. 390 attack power against that 50 def creature. Let's take that as your Ninja's power. 150%. 364 attack power with Beastkeeper. Ignoring differences in character's attack and small differences in djinn power. So 170 base damage compared to 157. Add 40 to get 210, add 85 to get 242. Gryphon is winning by 32. Even with Lightning Blade and Sheba having less total attack power, Sheba should still at least tie game. And then Gryphon goes and does over 400 damage sometimes.

Another thing to consider is that you can get Aerial Gloves and Clarity Circlet considerably earlier than you can get any +earth power items for anybody. Gryphon with Sheba compared to Annihilation with Felix means he's only got 104 earth power while she is sitting on a potential 139 air power, meaning if we assume that enemies have the same venus resist as jupiter resist on average then Sheba has a significant advantage in the power multiplier as well. 1 + relative power/400. So with an extra 35 elemental power, that's an extra 8.75% damage she's pulling. If we take the first example against an enemy with 104 resist for both venus and jupiter, 255 damage becomes 277 damage for Sheba. And then go and apply an extra 170 * 1.0875 damage when Gryphon "doubles".

(oh, I should probably say that the site says damage = base damage * multiplier + add mod, so that probably means that when gryphon "doubles" it actually only does 255 + 170 in the first example, and with the second example it would do 242 + 157 instead of 242 + 242. It still wins by a ton when it "doubles", just not as much as I'd like. Of course, I haven't thoroughly tested the multiplier thing yet, but it seems to be right about the rest of it since I tested Felix's regular attack damage and his Orc EPA (non-elemental) damage and it works with their formulas)

I tend to put Jenna in the Samurai line. Isaac and Mia jump to the front row for me, Jenna and Felix stay on the front row.

Jenna, Felix, Isaac, Mia? What do you make Isaac?

Sol Blade is the most obvious example. You can do it far earlier, I believe. You can get a set of Hyper Boots, boost your critical and unleash rates by 12% each, as early as Tolbi in the first Golden Sun. Riot gloves boost that by another 12%. So yeah, it may be that last 5 or 10% of the game, but once you get there you will see your psynergy usage drop a ton for anything other than healing.

Okay? That doesn't make Trainer bad. Or even not as good as Ninja. For a good portion of the game, even in which Ninja exists, Beastkeeper is beating it. This isn't FE where you can't switch along the way unless you pick up a new character. It's not like you are training Marcus and then when can't do anything anymore you might have trouble because you kept using him in the midgame when you shouldn't have or something. Using Trainer for the middle 60% of the game doesn't stop you from using Disciple/Master in the last 20%.

Also, Sheba and Ivan should never go Ninja. For them it is a horrible class due to them never being able to make it any further and it using up all 9 of their Djinni slots.

I'm more concerned about the 6 earths or fires I'm losing. I could be doing something else with those. If I really really want them to have an EPA and good speed for whatever crazy reason I may have, it's not like that's going to kill me. But yeah, it is a bad idea. You could also go 7 earth/fire, 1 wind if you want to go Conjurer and that at least gets you an upgraded EPA even if it is only 140% instead of 150% attack. Gives more HP, PP, Def, lck, though.

Mostly I'd only go Ninja with Sheba or Ivan for fun. Just to be silly, basically.

If you can't give up a slot or two for Waters of Life, then you have way too much useless crap.

I don't really mind having waters of life on one guy, but on multiples? And I wouldn't call it useless. Some of it raises one set of resistances, other raise a different set. Some raise one elemental power, others raise a different one. Some give agi. It happens. And this game in particular has a ton of psynergy giving items that are really annoying. Once you have one weapon, helmet, armor, gloves, boots, and ~3 psynergy items, you don't have much space left for vials or mist potions or potions or whatever. And you pretty much have to toss away all your elixirs and antidotes and rely on psynergy for that.

Oh, and I kinda hate Lemuria springs. I mean, seriously. Tolbi had shops you could go to sell stuff you no longer need when you got it in Lemuria. I think I created about 8 to 10 spots free so I may not have to worry about that. There's not all that many spectacular items. Just complaining.

Edited October 2, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Suichimo]

I only used Avoid in Air's Rock. And from the sounds of it, you don't make much use of Djinn killing weaknesses for 1.3x exp. Chances are, I'll more than make up for any of those battles. Oh, I suppose I use avoid for sailing, though, sometimes. When battles in Ankohl ruins and stuff are giving 600+ exp and the sea battles give 80 or 90, I say what's the point. I know that might cost some, but again the extra exp from djinn killing should make up for it.

I can't imagine reaching level 50 by the time I hit Dullahan. I guess I'll see, though. I'm pretty sure I'm doing more Djinn killing than last time.

Um, "leveling spot"? Sounds like grinding to me.

You don't even have to grind to take advantage of Wonder Birds. Its not uncommon to run into a group of them while walking through the hallway up to Sentinel. One of those groups is practically a guaranteed level, if not multiple levels depending on your luck.

What? 16000 -> 24000. That's 1.5x, just like everyone else, isn't it?

There is an HP cap in the game in the mid 16000s. So Dullahan's HP gets blocked by it. He's the only one this happens to as well.

Revive is still level 19. Shouldn't you have 4 djinn by then? Granted you can unleash, summon, and still revive, but I tend not to bother with summons too much at this point. Plus Revive is like all you have until much higher levels.

And last time I beat the game I never got to level 42, let alone 47. Chances are, at best this time I may get that just in time for Dullahan. Woot? At least it is air elemental. Of course, the second he djinn storms it is gone.

Thats why I mentioned that it wasn't that great early game.

If you bother to force the drops to get to 99% (demon circlet is cursed, by the way, so only matters for one character with the cleric ring) then Excalibur or Tisiphone Edge probably have similar power on average to Dullahan. It is comparing a 130% class to a 170% class (Master, Chaos Lord) so the difference in attack power could perhaps make up for the difference in multipliers. Apparently Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge average a little over double damage, so say 350% compared to 390%. It's not such a terrible difference. And the more defence the enemy has, the better Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge do relative to Dullahan. 340 attack compared to 260 attack against, say, 100 def? 120 damage compared to 80. 240 = 240, so double the Master's damage = triple the Necromage's damage. Of course, you are dealing with attack powers in the 600s by this point, but defence goes up a lot, too. 680 and 520 attack power compared to 200 defence results in the same tie.

Demon Circlet doesn't boost unleash rate, just critical. I don't use any cursed gear in the first place as it can be a real pain.

They can work at times. Particularly considering the uneven nature of Djinn growth.

When you have 5 mercuries, 3 venuses, and 4 of everything else, Trainer actually works beautifully on Sheba. Well, if you are like me, anyway. The lack of getting 4 fires on one adept might annoy some people, but since only Felix really wants 4 fires and I like having Felix able to unleash more than one element, I don't care.

And when you have 5 mercuries, 5 venuses, and 4 of the rest, Trainer works even better. You can get 4 jupiters on one person, 4 mercury on another, 4 venus on another, and you can unleash Kindle whenever you want. Good for, say, killing Serpent. And if you go to Aqua Rock then Gaia Rock you also get Steam that you can play with.

And even when things are somewhat even, it isn't too big a deal since you can still get 3 characters in really good classes (6 djinn ones) and the 4th character can still be in a 4 djinn class.

Would've passed over this part if not for the bolded section. Felix isn't the only one who wants those 4 Mars Djinni. Jenna's Flame User series, her base class, is actually very good with AoE heal, once she hits Hex, and an absolutely massive attack with the Fume series. And since psynergy only relies on elemental power, she gets even more benefit from using the Djinni she is aligned with. Can she do better, certainly, but this is a great class for her.

Not much worth mentioning. If you don't go to Gaia Rock first, you can get ONE Sylph Feather and an extra Tear Stone. The sylph feather could be made into a Sylph Rapier if you really really want. Granted it can x2 sometimes, but first it has to Unleash at 35% and then it has to actually double up. You'll be doing more damage with PP EPAs and it only has 124 atk anyway. Again, Glower Staff is only really beaten by Lightning Sword, and why wouldn't you do Gaia and Aqua back to back? Less traveling. Also it's not like it's actually hard to beat Serpent.

You'd go to Tundaria because A)At that point in the game you're told "Find this shit" and thats it and B)If you know what you're doing, and not confused on where to go, you basically get a free weapon, and two Djinni.

Unnecessary use of PP. A lot of the time in HM it's easier to 2HKO with unleashes than with psynergy + unleash. Even if you have 3 enemies, it is generally better to just kill 2 of them outright than to attempt to kill all 3. And you get more exp that way! And if I'm burning that PP anyway, what's the point of the ability to OHKO? It dies either way. Like I said, "flashy". It's not really a nice extra benefit since it rarely has any impact whatsoever.

By the time you have Annihilation, you're probably not caring much how much it costs.

Okay, except Gryphon exists so even if Whiplash loses, I have to ask "do I care?"

The multiplier is after damage, not before. 170 does not become 255 attack. And even if it did, base damage = (attack - defence)/2 anyway. The add mod comes after that so it is straight up damage. If it gave its 1.5x before your attack, you'd still need 340 attack just to get a 170 boost just to get 85 extra damage. But with a 50 def enemy, you actually need 390 attack just to tie game with Gryphon.

And once you hit that point, which shouldn't take that long honestly, it wins against neutral enemies and just keeps getting better.

And are you joking about Death Plunge? How does an add mod of 40 with the ability to stun compete with an add mod of 85 willing to double your damage? Going back to 170 damage base, lets take into account the difference in attack power. 390 attack power against that 50 def creature. Let's take that as your Ninja's power. 150%. 364 attack power with Beastkeeper. Ignoring differences in character's attack and small differences in djinn power. So 170 base damage compared to 157. Add 40 to get 210, add 85 to get 242. Gryphon is winning by 32. Even with Lightning Blade and Sheba having less total attack power, Sheba should still at least tie game. And then Gryphon goes and does over 400 damage sometimes.

Another thing to consider is that you can get Aerial Gloves and Clarity Circlet considerably earlier than you can get any +earth power items for anybody. Gryphon with Sheba compared to Annihilation with Felix means he's only got 104 earth power while she is sitting on a potential 139 air power, meaning if we assume that enemies have the same venus resist as jupiter resist on average then Sheba has a significant advantage in the power multiplier as well. 1 + relative power/400. So with an extra 35 elemental power, that's an extra 8.75% damage she's pulling. If we take the first example against an enemy with 104 resist for both venus and jupiter, 255 damage becomes 277 damage for Sheba. And then go and apply an extra 170 * 1.0875 damage when Gryphon "doubles".

(oh, I should probably say that the site says damage = base damage * multiplier + add mod, so that probably means that when gryphon "doubles" it actually only does 255 + 170 in the first example, and with the second example it would do 242 + 157 instead of 242 + 242. It still wins by a ton when it "doubles", just not as much as I'd like. Of course, I haven't thoroughly tested the multiplier thing yet, but it seems to be right about the rest of it since I tested Felix's regular attack damage and his Orc EPA (non-elemental) damage and it works with their formulas)

Never said they were competing. I said that they have Death Plunge, which will upgrade to Death Leap while you're still a Beastkeeper, to attack the Jupiter weak enemies rather than using Annihilation against them.

Jenna, Felix, Isaac, Mia? What do you make Isaac?

Jenna goes the Samurai line, Felix goes Brute, Isaac goes Ninja, and Mia goes Sage.

Okay? That doesn't make Trainer bad. Or even not as good as Ninja. For a good portion of the game, even in which Ninja exists, Beastkeeper is beating it. This isn't FE where you can't switch along the way unless you pick up a new character. It's not like you are training Marcus and then when can't do anything anymore you might have trouble because you kept using him in the midgame when you shouldn't have or something. Using Trainer for the middle 60% of the game doesn't stop you from using Disciple/Master in the last 20%.

Didn't say that it was. This entire time I've been saying that Trainer is good. That specific statement is referring to the end game. Psynergy falls to the wayside as most everything, beyond healing, comes down to your unleash with the possibility of some characters having a huge unleash percentage.

I don't really mind having waters of life on one guy, but on multiples? And I wouldn't call it useless. Some of it raises one set of resistances, other raise a different set. Some raise one elemental power, others raise a different one. Some give agi. It happens. And this game in particular has a ton of psynergy giving items that are really annoying. Once you have one weapon, helmet, armor, gloves, boots, and ~3 psynergy items, you don't have much space left for vials or mist potions or potions or whatever. And you pretty much have to toss away all your elixirs and antidotes and rely on psynergy for that.

You've got 8 characters from Jupiter Lighthouse onward. You have the space. Hell, I'd say you even have the space with just Felix's group. I've never had, or needed to have, more than one set of equipment on a character. At most you have seven out of your fifteen item slots used up with Weapon, Armor, Hands, Head, and extra(Shirts/Boots/Rings). One of the characters in the back of the group becomes the psynergy mule, we've all played Pokemon and have plenty of experience doing this with HMs. You've got plenty of space.

Who carries around stuff like Elixirs and Antidotes anyway?

[Narga_Rocks]

There is an HP cap in the game in the mid 16000s. So Dullahan's HP gets blocked by it. He's the only one this happens to as well.

That's weird. You sure? It's possible the faq is just multiplying all the hp values by 1.5 even if they shouldn't be. Oh well.

Thats why I mentioned that it wasn't that great early game.

Ok. But the problem is that mid game is basically "I have Revive!" for that class. Finally when you reach Lemuria you can at least get Call Demon.

I'll grant that I used it briefly to take out a mars djinn (Call Zombie), though Gryphon decided to double that thing so was responsible for like 40% of the damage. 5 attacks and it did 40% in one. The rest did around 15%. Of course, that's not quite as insane as the Venus djinn where in 5 attacks Gryphon decided to do more than half in one hit.

Demon Circlet doesn't boost unleash rate, just critical. I don't use any cursed gear in the first place as it can be a real pain.

That's kind of odd. But if that's the case, you can't actually reach 99% with anyone that can't use helmets/heavy armor.

Valkyrie mail: 20%, Mythril Helm: 12%, Riot Gloves: 20%, Hyper boots: 12%.

35 + 64 = 99, like you said. The best that Jenna/Ivan are going to do, though, is 90% since they have to use Mythril Clothes and Lucky Cap.

Would've passed over this part if not for the bolded section. Felix isn't the only one who wants those 4 Mars Djinni. Jenna's Flame User series, her base class, is actually very good with AoE heal, once she hits Hex, and an absolutely massive attack with the Fume series. And since psynergy only relies on elemental power, she gets even more benefit from using the Djinni she is aligned with. Can she do better, certainly, but this is a great class for her.

Okay, Flame User is kinda fun, but Aura isn't that great. There aren't any +fire items this early so you are looking at her topping out at 124 fire power. And Aura is weaker than wish/wish well. 50 * 1.24 and 100 * 1.24. You can get water up to 142 for her. 80 * 1.42 and 160 * 1.42. It is also in your best interest to get Mercury as far away from Piers as possible. His class is slow and lacks wish so there is no point. I suppose you could if you wanted to stick the Mercury on either Sheba or Felix, but it works just as well on Jenna. You generally won't need 3 people with AoE healing. Barely need 2 most of the time. The main advantage for me with 2 wish users is that they can split duty and thus their PP lasts longer. Now, Fume is fun, granted, but if she's mostly using Wish it doesn't matter all that much and if she isn't then you likely do more damage with EPAs.

Yes, Flame User is an okay class and on this list would perhaps end up in Batman, but it isn't exactly missed if you make Sheba a Trainer for the Serpent battle. In fact, if Jenna were to go Flame User then and you didn't have a Trainer then you are looking at only one person with EPAs against Serpent. Well, Piers could go Mariner (Commander) but that's crazy.

You'd go to Tundaria because A)At that point in the game you're told "Find this shit" and thats it and B)If you know what you're doing, and not confused on where to go, you basically get a free weapon, and two Djinni.

So? I get Cloud Brand for fun in Tundaria and Aqua Rock. You get Thunder Blade for fun in Gaia Rock. You get more Djinn for Gaia Rock, I get more for the other places. It's not all that big of a difference. And going to Tundaria and your 2 extra Djinn (3 if you include the one in Aqua Rock) also opens up the possibility of Gryphon on the Serpent.

By the time you have Annihilation, you're probably not caring much how much it costs.

Why not? At 180 PP, Annihilation only works 10 times. Now, once you go through Lemuria and get some crown of glorys you are looking at only 10 cost per turn, so you get 18 out of it and that may be fine for boss battles. Of course, Whiplash now becomes infinite (you even gain 2 PP a turn for stuff like Elder Wood) and Gryphon is nearly so.

Okay, except Gryphon exists so even if Whiplash loses, I have to ask "do I care?"

Was this quoting without the quotes or saying it back at me somehow?

And once you hit that point, which shouldn't take that long honestly, it wins against neutral enemies and just keeps getting better.

You are still well on your way to Jupiter Lighthouse by this point. Take 450 attack. At level 31 or so, you need like Disciple's 160% to get there. All it takes is 110 defence for Gryphon to tie game when it doesn't double. Even the random encounters are ranging between 100 def and 125 def at this point.

And you still seem to be forgetting the whole double damage thing. Though that's only relevant on bosses. On randoms it obviously has the same problem as Annihilation. You can't count on it. Also, there aren't many Earth Power+ items.

I count like 5.

Gaia Blade (+20) (only after Jupiter Lighthouse)

Warrior's Helm (+10) (ditto)

Spirit Armlet (+10) (Loho, reachable after getting Grind)

Planet Armor (First Star Dust is in Taopa Swamp)

So basically +10 at the most before Lemuria, and it prevents you from getting a Luna Shield to resist damage from Serpent if you care. And Spirit Armlet can't even go onto the same characters as Planet Armor.

Wind, on the other hand, has

Clarity Circlet (available really early) for +15

Aerial Gloves (+20 and +30 Agi, available after Tundaria since that's the first sylph feather)

Leda's Bracelet (+30)

That's already +45 (Leda's + Clarity) compared to +10 before Jupiter Lighthouse.

You can actually get up to +75 Wind Power with various equips. Earth tops out at +40. Of course, Swift Sword is kinda weak so that +75 is only useful if you are summoning or spellcasting. +65 otherwise. Still, Gaia Blade eventually loses its flavour, too, so it's more like +65 vs. 230.

Point of this is that if you take a 30 power advantage then you've got an extra 7 or 8 % that you need to make up for in attack. Gryphon, in general, should still come pretty close. Now, it is an advantage of Ninja that it has two elements for its EPAs, and Beastkeeper doesn't get that (at reasonable levels, anyway, since I'm not counting Roc -> etc, and I'm ignoring the Dinox -> Troll 3PP one because it is just going to lose to Annihilation anyway). However, beastkeeper gets 3 different elements of Djinn which means 3 different elements that way, and since djinn unleashing is a perfectly adequate way of fighting random battles (2 hitting is common, 1 hitting is less common, 3 hitting is rare) I say that isn't a problem. Ninja only gets two elements, though when you can hold onto 7 djinn I suppose Ninja could grab a third. I do things like that sometimes when there is an extra spot that won't otherwise help.

Never said they were competing. I said that they have Death Plunge, which will upgrade to Death Leap while you're still a Beastkeeper, to attack the Jupiter weak enemies rather than using Annihilation against them.

Except it is relevant that, while Death Plunge might help with Jupiter weak enemies, Gryphon still wins even more here. Death Leap in fact only actually wins on randoms due to Gryphon's minimum damage being the thing that matters. On bosses the whole "I sometimes double" thing should make it even out.

Consider 300 min damage versus 400 damage. Gryphon would still win in that case since it averages in the mid 400s and bosses tend to not get stunned. Granted against randoms Death Leap would win simply because having consistent damage you can count on is more important than averaging more damage when you are dealing with things that die in 1 to 3 hits. But basically, on wind, fire, and water weak bosses Gryphon is superior to what Ninja can do, and on earth weak bosses Gryphon probably still manages to pull off at least a tie over time due to doubling.

Plus, seeing the damage it causes when it doubles up is just so much fun for me. Seeing a consistent 450 compared to seeing either 300 or 600? I've got to say, even though they would be tying against bosses on that case Gryphon wins anyway. Seeing 600 is just too funny.

Jenna goes the Samurai line, Felix goes Brute, Isaac goes Ninja, and Mia goes Sage.

Fun. Sage is great, isn't it? Plasma and Prism. Of course, they take forever to get their final stage, but they are still fun looking when the enemies cast them on me.

Didn't say that it was. This entire time I've been saying that Trainer is good.

The question, though, is how good do you think it is? I think it has a valid argument for > Ninja based on

a: being around since the end of Yampi Desert

b: helping out your class choices when the game throws new djinn at you in a seemingly random order

c: actually being better against bosses right up until you start getting 8 djinn, and arguably even then

d: giving you something useful to stick Sheba in when staves are approximately tied with swords for most powerful equipment and her other class options have 120% instead of 140%

But then, it seems you like PP attacks a lot more than I do, which probably means you actually find some value in having a character set up to cast spells on the enemies. If you play that way, you probably don't so much need all 4 characters to have good enough attack power to combine to KO things.

That specific statement is referring to the end game. Psynergy falls to the wayside as most everything, beyond healing, comes down to your unleash with the possibility of some characters having a huge unleash percentage.

Yeah, and endgame is definitely a part where Tamer suffers. It's still a while before everyone can use 8 djinn classes.

Who carries around stuff like Elixirs and Antidotes anyway?

I do until I have to sell them to make room. Then I don't. They can potentially be useful early on before it is so easy to get multiple characters with the appropriate spells.

Oh, and for Shaman's village, at least, you have 8, 8, 8, 6 (jupiter), so it's not like you are making 2 Disciples before nearly finishing Jupiter Lighthouse or anything. You can't even go Disciple + Samurai until after Shaman's Village.

I made:

Felix - Templar 4WF

Jenna - Disciple 4AE

Sheba - Beastkeeper 2FWE (w/ one water djinn extra)

Piers - Punchinello 2FAE (w/ one water djinn extra)

I had

Felix - Templar 4WF

Jenna - Berserker 6E1F (w/ one water or fire djinn extra though it could be given to Piers)

Sheba - Beastkeeper 2FWE (w/ one fire or water djinn extra)

Piers - Sage 6A1W

but I decided I wanted a Disciple after all and I saw that if I gave Piers one of those items he could still get into a class with more attack than Sage and decent enough agility. And I was annoyed that all my Jupiter were in one spot since that meant only one guy could get bonus experience for killing what was basically half the enemies I was facing (the sea and land areas in the western sea seem to be weak to either Jupiter or Mars and nothing else). Now I've at least got 2, though I may have to play with agi items a lot if I want Jenna to be slower than any of my other guys so she can finish enemies off. Maybe even buy back my safety boots. For attack, Felix is in the low-mid 400s, Jenna is around 450, Sheba and Piers are in the high 300s. I like that more than some of the other options that result in low 300s or worse for Sheba and Piers.

Of course, I tend to "readjust" every time a djinn appears in order to target weaknesses. Or bosses. I like doing that for mimics and mad plants, too, though usually I'm not paying attention to when they are about to appear. If I was, it would be Brute + Brute + Hermit + Hermit series, basically. I love fire weak enemies. Almost as much fun as wind weak enemies. I hate earth weak enemies, by the way. Or rather, in the first game since I'm never a high enough level for Annihilation. In the second there are more options. Sabre Dance. Call Demon. Actually getting high enough for annihilation. More options than just Ragnarok. Water would be second most annoying. At least I can make both Isaac/Felix and Garet/Jenna into the Swordsman series at once. And Double Dragoons when the 6 element classes are available. Downside is that it costs one wish user since all the Mercuries are used up.

Oh, and when I face the djinn Whorl in Jupiter Lighthouse I think I'll just end up comparing my 440+ attack Jenna with Annihilation to my 380 attack (or around that) Sheba with Gryphon. See what low end and high end are for Gryphon and see which one is winning against 25 venus resist, 193 jupiter resist, and 105 defence. I suppose loading Sheba up with the circlet and the gloves while not using Felix for the innate +25 earth power is a little crooked, though. And I'm not planning on getting the Spirit Armlet for the +10 earth power for Jenna. Maybe I should make Felix a Disciple just for that one battle. He's already got the Planet Armor. It would be interesting to see who wins that one. I think Felix will probably eek it out. He should, anyway. Of course, Sheba is sooo getting the Meditation Rod for that competition while he's stuck with the Hestia Blade (attempting to get the Rising Mace from a Blue Dragon would be a pain and besides, Sheba can use that one, too). 145 is close enough to 150. Even with 140% classes, that's like a 7 damage difference. A little more since Annihilation uses a multiplier and Gryphon kinda does, too.

[Kriemhild]

Enemy HP cap is 16383 or something like that. Well, Dullahan only gets a ~300 boost in Hard Mode. He's not the only one who reaches that cap though. Valukar hits it but eh, he was nowhere near that cap in Normal Mode so it's actually a very significant bonus for him, unlike Dullahan's. I think Doom Dragon actually goes beyond that cap, because each head has its own HP meter, with the total being almost 20000. In fact, I'd say that HM Doom Dragon is tougher than HM Dullahan.

Also, even if you'd prefer to minimize the traveling, you most likely WILL end up visiting either Apoji Islands or Izumo twice, since the other Rock is required for getting Haze and Ulysses.

The tamer class is probably the only class in the game that keeps getting new EPAs throughout the entire game. The Attack stat is also quite nice, so those EPAs are worth abusing. The only real problem with the Tamer series, is that it severely lacks multi-target Psynergy. You'll be stuck with a base 45-55 area Psynergy until you hit Level 32 (I'm assuming you hit 32 before you get 9 Djinn). Furthermore, every single one of these multi-target Psynergy are actually monster-based Breaths/Blessings, which do LESS damage to non-focussed targets that you'd expect. So, really, Tamer is ONLY good with single targets but unfortunately, aside from Serpent (which gets owned by it), there aren't really any other bosses that really fear the Tamer class series. None that I can think of, anyway.

Necromages have the highest PP in the game and this is the only class series that can inflict poison. But eh, I can't really judge it because I didn't like it for some reason and decided not to use it much.

Also, Sheba makes very good use of the Mysterious Card at the beginning since it has the same Agility as Wind Seer but has superior stats in everything but PP. Plus, it gives her some nice Mars Psynergy (to burn Chestbeaters) without eating the Mars Djinn that Felix wanted. And even afterwards, the Pierrot series gives Felix, Sheba, or Piers access to powerful Mars Psynergy while requiring the minimum number of Mars Djinn to reach the class. And after Level 46, I'm pretty sure it is the ONLY class in the entire game that has attacks from all four elements. These qualities aren't enough to redeem it though, and Tamer is probably a better choice if you wanna use an item-dependant class.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Proto

[Narga_Rocks]

Enemy HP cap is 16383 or something like that. Well, Dullahan only gets a ~300 boost in Hard Mode. He's not the only one who reaches that cap though. Valukar hits it but eh, he was nowhere near that cap in Normal Mode so it's actually a very significant bonus for him, unlike Dullahan's. I think Doom Dragon actually goes beyond that cap, because each head has its own HP meter, with the total being almost 20000. In fact, I'd say that HM Doom Dragon is tougher than HM Dullahan.

Also, even if you'd prefer to minimize the traveling, you most likely WILL end up visiting either Apoji Islands or Izumo twice, since the other Rock is required for getting Haze and Ulysses.

The tamer class is probably the only class in the game that keeps getting new EPAs throughout the entire game. The Attack stat is also quite nice, so those EPAs are worth abusing. The only real problem with the Tamer series, is that it severely lacks multi-target Psynergy. You'll be stuck with a base 45-55 area Psynergy until you hit Level 32 (I'm assuming you hit 32 before you get 9 Djinn). Furthermore, every single one of these multi-target Psynergy are actually monster-based Breaths/Blessings, which do LESS damage to non-focussed targets that you'd expect. So, really Tamer is ONLY good with single targets but unfortunately, aside from Serpent (which gets owned by it), there aren't really any other bosses that really fear the Tamer class series. None that I can think of, anyway.

Necromages the highest PP in the game and this is the only class series that can inflict poison. But eh, I can't really judge it because I didn't like it for some reason and decided not to use it.

Also, Sheba makes very good use of the Mysterious Card at the beginning since it has the same Agility as Wind Seer but has superior stats in everything but PP. Plus, it gives her some nice Mars Psynergy (to burn Chestbeaters) without eating the Mars Djinn that Felix wanted. And even afterwards, the Pierrot series gives Felix, Sheba, or Piers access to powerful Mars Psynergy while requiring the minimum number of Mars Djinn to reach the class. And after Level 46, I'm pretty sure it is the ONLY class in the entire game that has attacks from all four elements. These qualities aren't enough to redeem it though, but whatever.

It's true, Serpent is the only boss that is weak to wind from that point until Dullahan. And with Djinn Storm Dullahan may as well not even be vulnerable to it. Plus you lose Gryphon in the final class. I suppose you could use the extra 3 spots for summoning or something. And if you are a high enough level you have Ghost Soldier.

At least it obliterates Venus Djinn? (and how)

And yeah, Mysterious Card has quite a few good uses early on, and I'm even using it now on Piers just to get a variety of djinn onto each character for that nice 1.3x exp and coins. I hate grinding but I don't mind getting more exp and coins out of the battles I'm pushed into anyway. Plus it helped to balance everyone's attack power. And I suppose level 37 for a 150 attack spell is actually pretty cool. Supernova is level 40 for the same power.

Oh, and 2¹⁴ = 16384, so the cap is probably 16383 if there is one. Like you said, actually. These types of things are usually 2^something - 1, for whatever reason.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Kriemhild]

It's true, Serpent is the only boss that is weak to wind from that point until Dullahan. And with Djinn Storm Dullahan may as well not even be vulnerable to it. Plus you lose Gryphon in the final class. I suppose you could use the extra 3 spots for summoning or something. And if you are a high enough level you have Ghost Soldier.

Well, one advantage that Item-dependant classes have over other classes is that they stick to their class series no matter what happens to the Djinn. But yeah, I doubt the class itself can save your life. Still though, it might be a good idea to just stick a Trainer's Whip on someone there, since with no Djinn set, Tamer's base stats can still be preferred over other base classes. Only the healers care about PP in that battle.

At least it obliterates Venus Djinn? (and how)

Not sure what you're referring to over here. Are you talking about how the useless Venus Djinn are being used to power up an Item-dependant class that's focused on Fire or Wind?

And yeah, Mysterious Card has quite a few good uses early on, and I'm even using it now on Piers just to get a variety of djinn onto each character for that nice 1.3x exp and coins. I hate grinding but I don't mind getting more exp and coins out of the battles I'm pushed into anyway. Plus it helped to balance everyone's attack power. And I suppose level 37 for a 150 attack spell is actually pretty cool. Supernova is level 40 for the same power.

Yup. There are more examples where Pierrot Psynergy seems to be better options at certain level ranges. Level 13 Pierrot gets a 60 base power Flame Card that hits three targets, when most other classes would have to wait several levels later to get a nice multi-target Mars Psynergy. Thunder Card requires 1 less PP than Shine Plasma at the cost of lowering it's area. Bramble Card gives you some nice Venus damage 4 levels before Nettle is learned.

Oh, and 2¹⁴ = 16384, so the cap is probably 16383 if there is one. Like you said, actually. These types of things are usually 2^something - 1, for whatever reason.

It's pretty obvious why. They work with binaries and (2^x-1)_d is the largest binary x-digit number. In this case, the enemy HP meter seems to be limited to 14 digits, so the enemy HP cap is 11111111111111, which is 16383 in decimal.

[Shadow Mir]

There is an HP cap in the game in the mid 16000s. So Dullahan's HP gets blocked by it. He's the only one this happens to as well.

I know that I was beaten to it, but it also happens to Valukar.

[Narga_Rocks]

Well, one advantage that Item-dependant classes have over other classes is that they stick to their class series no matter what happens to the Djinn. But yeah, I doubt the class itself can save your life. Still though, it might be a good idea to just stick a Trainer's Whip on someone there, since with no Djinn set, Tamer's base stats can still be preferred over other base classes. Only the healers care about PP in that battle.

Actually, I sometimes use the mysterious card or the other one, since both have good boosts to agi. That can be quite useful. Though you can just slow the guy down.

Not sure what you're referring to over here. Are you talking about how the useless Venus Djinn are being used to power up an Item-dependant class that's focused on Fire or Wind?

Nah. Just those enemy djinn that get half their hp taken by Gryphon. It's not a big deal, of course, since you can KO them usually in about 5 hits on HM. Probably 3 or 4 on NM.

It's pretty obvious why. They work with binaries and (2^x-1)_d is the largest binary x-digit number. In this case, the enemy HP meter seems to be limited to 14 digits, so the enemy HP cap is 11111111111111, which is 16383 in decimal.

i know

But the exponent of 14 is actually kinda odd.

[Kriemhild]

Actually, I sometimes use the mysterious card or the other one, since both have good boosts to agi. That can be quite useful. Though you can just slow the guy down.

Sheba with Mysterious Card. Same Agility but lower PP (which she'll never use on Dullahan anyway).

Nah. Just those enemy djinn that get half their hp taken by Gryphon. It's not a big deal, of course, since you can KO them usually in about 5 hits on HM. Probably 3 or 4 on NM.

Oh, right. Yeah, I suppose Djinn can count as semi-bosses there so that's another situation where Tamer shines

But the exponent of 14 is actually kinda odd.

Probably because they based the HP off of Normal mode. They wanted Dully to have 16000 HP so there was no need to put more than 14 digits.

[Suichimo]

Ok. But the problem is that mid game is basically "I have Revive!" for that class. Finally when you reach Lemuria you can at least get Call Demon.

I'll grant that I used it briefly to take out a mars djinn (Call Zombie), though Gryphon decided to double that thing so was responsible for like 40% of the damage. 5 attacks and it did 40% in one. The rest did around 15%. Of course, that's not quite as insane as the Venus djinn where in 5 attacks Gryphon decided to do more than half in one hit.

The Raging Heat series is pretty much on par with the other hard hitting Mars group psynergies. So, it does have that.

That's kind of odd. But if that's the case, you can't actually reach 99% with anyone that can't use helmets/heavy armor.

Valkyrie mail: 20%, Mythril Helm: 12%, Riot Gloves: 20%, Hyper boots: 12%.

35 + 64 = 99, like you said. The best that Jenna/Ivan are going to do, though, is 90% since they have to use Mythril Clothes and Lucky Cap.

90%, to me, is still enough to basically say that they will be unleashing just about every turn.

So? I get Cloud Brand for fun in Tundaria and Aqua Rock. You get Thunder Blade for fun in Gaia Rock. You get more Djinn for Gaia Rock, I get more for the other places. It's not all that big of a difference. And going to Tundaria and your 2 extra Djinn (3 if you include the one in Aqua Rock) also opens up the possibility of Gryphon on the Serpent.

And I see no reason not to. There are no boss fights in the Tundaria Tower and it only takes a short amount of time to get there.

Why not? At 180 PP, Annihilation only works 10 times. Now, once you go through Lemuria and get some crown of glorys you are looking at only 10 cost per turn, so you get 18 out of it and that may be fine for boss battles. Of course, Whiplash now becomes infinite (you even gain 2 PP a turn for stuff like Elder Wood) and Gryphon is nearly so.

Because, while it is a good chunk, you shouldn't really risk running out, between purchasable Psy Crystals and natural PP regen.

Was this quoting without the quotes or saying it back at me somehow?

Part that I forgot to delete. :P

Plus, seeing the damage it causes when it doubles up is just so much fun for me. Seeing a consistent 450 compared to seeing either 300 or 600? I've got to say, even though they would be tying against bosses on that case Gryphon wins anyway. Seeing 600 is just too funny.

I'd go for consistency, personally.

Fun. Sage is great, isn't it? Plasma and Prism. Of course, they take forever to get their final stage, but they are still fun looking when the enemies cast them on me.

Yes it is, and when Mia can keep her awesome Mercury power that she'd have as an Angel and actually get good attacks, its even better.

The question, though, is how good do you think it is? I think it has a valid argument for > Ninja based on

a: being around since the end of Yampi Desert

b: helping out your class choices when the game throws new djinn at you in a seemingly random order

c: actually being better against bosses right up until you start getting 8 djinn, and arguably even then

d: giving you something useful to stick Sheba in when staves are approximately tied with swords for most powerful equipment and her other class options have 120% instead of 140%

But then, it seems you like PP attacks a lot more than I do, which probably means you actually find some value in having a character set up to cast spells on the enemies. If you play that way, you probably don't so much need all 4 characters to have good enough attack power to combine to KO things.

You'd be correct. I usually have two physical attackers, a character who can do group attacks and a healer.

but I decided I wanted a Disciple after all and I saw that if I gave Piers one of those items he could still get into a class with more attack than Sage and decent enough agility. And I was annoyed that all my Jupiter were in one spot since that meant only one guy could get bonus experience for killing what was basically half the enemies I was facing (the sea and land areas in the western sea seem to be weak to either Jupiter or Mars and nothing else). Now I've at least got 2, though I may have to play with agi items a lot if I want Jenna to be slower than any of my other guys so she can finish enemies off. Maybe even buy back my safety boots. For attack, Felix is in the low-mid 400s, Jenna is around 450, Sheba and Piers are in the high 300s. I like that more than some of the other options that result in low 300s or worse for Sheba and Piers.

You're wrong with the bolded. If you kill using that method, everyone gets boosted experience. All of the experience is added up and then 100% of it is given to the front row and ~50% is given to the back row.

Of course, I tend to "readjust" every time a djinn appears in order to target weaknesses. Or bosses. I like doing that for mimics and mad plants, too, though usually I'm not paying attention to when they are about to appear. If I was, it would be Brute + Brute + Hermit + Hermit series, basically. I love fire weak enemies. Almost as much fun as wind weak enemies. I hate earth weak enemies, by the way. Or rather, in the first game since I'm never a high enough level for Annihilation. In the second there are more options. Sabre Dance. Call Demon. Actually getting high enough for annihilation. More options than just Ragnarok. Water would be second most annoying. At least I can make both Isaac/Felix and Garet/Jenna into the Swordsman series at once. And Double Dragoons when the 6 element classes are available. Downside is that it costs one wish user since all the Mercuries are used up.

I usually just stick to one class.

[Narga_Rocks]

Because, while it is a good chunk, you shouldn't really risk running out, between purchasable Psy Crystals and natural PP regen.

Maybe lategame you can buy more psy crystals (not sure). But up until Lemuria you get like 3. Or was that the waters of life? Maybe it's like 6 or 7 psy crystals.

I'd go for consistency, personally.

Against randoms, yeah. But against bosses it is practically the same thing anyway.

You're wrong with the bolded. If you kill using that method, everyone gets boosted experience. All of the experience is added up and then 100% of it is given to the front row and ~50% is given to the back row.

No. Timing issue. If you have 3 enemies that are all weak to wind and you want bexp from all of them, you'd need to spend three rounds just to do it. If I at least have two units with Jupiter then that's only 2 rounds.

And when I'm facing just two enemies weak to wind, I can one round the battle and still get nice bexp.

I usually just stick to one class.

meh. I like having EPAs to suit the boss. Or djinn enemies. Don't really bother with mimics and mad plants, though. I always forget they are about to attack. I still try to time it so that I can burn them with a djinn.

[Life]

Narga and Suichimo, you guys should just start on the GS2 list without me and I'll comment on stuff when I get to it in the game. Post it in a spoiler and I'll edit it into the first post.

[Kriemhild]

So we'll leave it to Narga and Suichimo? Alright then...

[Life]

So we'll leave it to Narga and Suichimo? Alright then...

You can help them too, I only named them since they're actively arguing GS2.

[Narga_Rocks]

Yeah, Proto can definitely be in on that, too.

I think Dragoon could use a boost for GS2 as well. Templar/Paladin can be great against things like Karst/Agatio, Anger Balls, Fire Dragon. What I like is how they can Wish, they can Pure Ply for 1000 HP (basically full heal), probably around the time you finish Jupiter Lighthouse. Or a little after. And they have pretty good attack (160 is the second highest you can get and is only beaten by Berserker and Master) and Plume Edge is >>> Call Zombie and Diamond Berg sucks due to the class it is in. It's basically the thing for water weak enemies.

It's one of the best classes for Jenna, actually, since she can equip Clear Bracelet and Pure Circlet and go to work. And when you don't need healing? Pow. Plus, Feathered Robe is cool for +agi and to resist wind a bit. Fun. It almost makes a devoted healer unnecessary. Mainly I had Sheba in the Star Magician battle for Impact. And to let Jenna Plume Edge more often.

Gotta hand it to Shuriken, though. Fully Impacted? That thing is nasty. The poor balls didn't even know what hit them. On NM it would even OHKO Thunder Ball and maybe even Refresh Ball. Had a tough time deciding on my Disciple for that battle, actually. Featherred Robe + Clarity Circlet + Leda's Bracelet or Aerial Gloves? That would probably hurt a fair amount. Don't know about that or Thorn Crown + War Gloves + Asura Armor/Erinyes Tunic. Sadly Jenna is starting to hurt from lack of Long Swords. Now that Masamune is 161 and Darksword 210 and Excalibur 180. Gotta go for some drops or she's gonna suffer. Jenna, Isaac, and Felix traded between Berserker/Chaos Lord, Templar/Paladin, and Disciple/Master before I made up my mind. (I only had 65 djinn, so only one 9 djinn unit, since I went to Treasure Isle before going to Magma Rock.) didn't know who would be what or what my 9 djinn class would be. Decided I wanted the speed and Templar is slowest of all three 8 djinn classes. Jenna Paladin, Felix Berserker, Isaac Disciple. Maybe should have switched Felix and Isaac in order to get Annihilation for the Thunder Balls (Isaac only level 30), but they are wimps anyway. Isaac had to drop from Disciple to Samurai a couple of times, actually, to unleash Ether or Aroma. And Jenna dropped to Templar once to summon Moloch since I didn't want to waste time resetting Steam on Sheba. Used Spring. Had a spare Fire on Felix (Berserker needs only 11 djinn, so had Kindle as an extra) and a spare on Sheba (which was generally Steam, and she was Sage which also only needs 11).

Edited October 7, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Kriemhild]

Dragoon IS a really good class in TLA. Basically a Swordsman with both Blast and Thorn (instead of only one) and with superior stats in everything. With the highest Def and second highest HP, it's the most durable class in the entire game imo (since I'd rather have a 10% Defense lead over a 10% HP lead, pushing Ronin to #2 in defensive stats in my book). Nobody wants their healers dead so the durability really helps there. And the second highest Attack turns them into very effective tanks. Only problem is that they're slow...

btw when facing the Star Magician in Hard Mode, the balls start with boosted HP, Atk, and Def. However, the ones that come from Mystic Call retain their NM stats, so the calculations are the same. And Leda's Bracelet provides a greater Wind Power boost than Aerial Gloves and I doubt Ninjas would care about Aerial Gloves' Agility boost.

Also, Berserker and Sages require 7 Djinn, not 11 (6 of symbiotic element, and 1 of their own element). Shuriken is one of the reasons why the Ninja series is so awesome in TLA.

[Suichimo]

Yeah, Proto can definitely be in on that, too.

I think Dragoon could use a boost for GS2 as well. Templar/Paladin can be great against things like Karst/Agatio, Anger Balls, Fire Dragon. What I like is how they can Wish, they can Pure Ply for 1000 HP (basically full heal), probably around the time you finish Jupiter Lighthouse. Or a little after. And they have pretty good attack (160 is the second highest you can get and is only beaten by Berserker and Master) and Plume Edge is >>> Call Zombie and Diamond Berg sucks due to the class it is in. It's basically the thing for water weak enemies.

It's one of the best classes for Jenna, actually, since she can equip Clear Bracelet and Pure Circlet and go to work. And when you don't need healing? Pow. Plus, Feathered Robe is cool for +agi and to resist wind a bit. Fun. It almost makes a devoted healer unnecessary. Mainly I had Sheba in the Star Magician battle for Impact. And to let Jenna Plume Edge more often.

Gotta hand it to Shuriken, though. Fully Impacted? That thing is nasty. The poor balls didn't even know what hit them. On NM it would even OHKO Thunder Ball and maybe even Refresh Ball. Had a tough time deciding on my Disciple for that battle, actually. Featherred Robe + Clarity Circlet + Leda's Bracelet or Aerial Gloves? That would probably hurt a fair amount. Don't know about that or Thorn Crown + War Gloves + Asura Armor/Erinyes Tunic. Sadly Jenna is starting to hurt from lack of Long Swords. Now that Masamune is 161 and Darksword 210 and Excalibur 180. Gotta go for some drops or she's gonna suffer. Jenna, Isaac, and Felix traded between Berserker/Chaos Lord, Templar/Paladin, and Disciple/Master before I made up my mind. (I only had 65 djinn, so only one 9 djinn unit, since I went to Treasure Isle before going to Magma Rock.) didn't know who would be what or what my 9 djinn class would be. Decided I wanted the speed and Templar is slowest of all three 8 djinn classes. Jenna Paladin, Felix Berserker, Isaac Disciple. Maybe should have switched Felix and Isaac in order to get Annihilation for the Thunder Balls (Isaac only level 30), but they are wimps anyway. Isaac had to drop from Disciple to Samurai a couple of times, actually, to unleash Ether or Aroma. And Jenna dropped to Templar once to summon Moloch since I didn't want to waste time resetting Steam on Sheba. Used Spring. Had a spare Fire on Felix (Berserker needs only 11 djinn, so had Kindle as an extra) and a spare on Sheba (which was generally Steam, and she was Sage which also only needs 11).

Er... you actually want to keep the Thunder Balls alive. If the Star Magician has 4 Thunderballs up, he can't summon anymore which means no extra Guardian or Refresh Balls.

Just keep waiting until you can RNG a couple of Tisiphone Edges.

[Narga_Rocks]

Dragoon IS a really good class in TLA. Basically a Swordsman with both Blast and Thorn (instead of only one) and with superior stats in everything. With the highest Def and second highest HP, it's the most durable class in the entire game imo (since I'd rather have a 10% Defense lead over a 10% HP lead, pushing Ronin to #2 in defensive stats in my book). Nobody wants their healers dead so the durability really helps there. And the second highest Attack turns them into very effective tanks. Only problem is that they're slow...

btw when facing the Star Magician in Hard Mode, the balls start with boosted HP, Atk, and Def. However, the ones that come from Mystic Call retain their NM stats, so the calculations are the same. And Leda's Bracelet provides a greater Wind Power boost than Aerial Gloves and I doubt Ninjas would care about Aerial Gloves' Agility boost.

Oh. that's why those things died so easily. I was thinking that the Anger Balls should not have been getting OHKOd by Jenna. And Death Leap should not have OHKOd Guardian Balls, but it did, too.

As for Aerial Gloves, I was trying to make myself faster than Guardian Balls and was only level 34 (and Isaac was level 30). However, getting faster than Guardian Balls is pointless because whether they defend or Guard Aura, it doesn't make a difference when their turn should come up. It acts like they do it at the beginning. In fact, Guard Aura even animates first.

If I'd known, though, Isaac probably would have had War Gloves instead of Aerial Gloves, considering he could have been faster than Star Magician's 268 without them, I think. Then again, when he dropped down to Samurai to help people recover PP it wasn't so bad to have him in Aerial Gloves.

Jenna had Clear Bracelet, though, so the Aerial Glove or Leda's Bracelet question isn't relevant to her. I think despite being in the slow Paladin class, all she needed was Running Shirt and Feathered Robe to be faster than everything. Maybe Quick Boots, actually. I think Isaac and Sheba had my Dragon Boots. Felix I know had the Golden Boots. Berserker is quick, but not that quick.

Also, Berserker and Sages require 7 Djinn, not 11 (6 of symbiotic element, and 1 of their own element). Shuriken is one of the reasons why the Ninja series is so awesome in TLA.

well, yeah, you cap out at 9 djinn. I should have said 12, though. 6 + 1 + 5 (starting power). Oops. Point was, Felix and Sheba had an extra djinn left over for unleashing without losing their class. I really should have chosen Breeze instead of Steam, though, for my +res Djinn. I could have summoned Megaera after every Kindle + Breeze instead of needing to unleash more Jupiter and Mercury to get Moloch or Megaera, or summon pointless Mercury, or spend a turn resetting. Megaera may be weak, but it would have made it a lot easier to keep +80 res up (and obviously easier to keep at full impact) without wasting turns. I even lost it (+res) once along the way. Maybe twice. Plus if I was going to summon Megaera every 5 turns I wouldn't have needed Sheba to go Sage (Impact) and she could have gone White Mage (Resist + Revive). Well, I probably still would have gone Sage for the extra 20% speed. Not like I ever needed Felix's Revive (Berserker) of the Waters of Life I spread out among the other 3 I used.

Er... you actually want to keep the Thunder Balls alive. If the Star Magician has 4 Thunderballs up, he can't summon anymore which means no extra Guardian or Refresh Balls.

That's no fun. :( Just kill everything. :D Much less healing needed. Consider that Star Magician can go double Mine Ball (takes off 170 to 210 each) and you can face 4 Shine Plasmas if you are particularly unlucky. And there were multiple turns where I faced double Mine Balls as it was. Already needed to go double Wish Well when that happened. I wouldn't want to tag on the damage from multiple Thunder Balls even if they don't Shine Plasma. Plus if he has 4 balls out then he's just going to attack repeatedly. I'd really like to keep that to a minimum.

There were turns I didn't even need to heal (particularly when he summoned twice or lame physical attack + summon). Only downside is that on occasion he summons Guardian Ball and their speed is apparently irrelevant for Guard Aura. Even though I can easily kill them before their turn should come up, they still get it off. Still, I'd rather face that every once in a while than 6 attack turns from the enemy (plus sometimes Guardian Balls just defend). Maybe my way takes a few more turns but it is so much easier. I'm not even sure it takes longer at all since the extra attacks against the various balls are probably canceled by how much less healing I need to do.

Refresh Balls die before they can Ply him for ~1150 hp. Don't know why they say Earnest Ply when it is basically Pure Ply. You can OHKO those things with Planetary. 500+ damage while fully impacted even at level 34. Even Jenna's Plume Edge came really close (or I think actually worked, despite water resist). It didn't even need to, though, since Shurikens mean you barely need to do damage in order to KO. After 300+ damage from Shuriken, even 60 would have done the trick. And Disciple's Death Leap nukes them, too.

Only reason they ever even got to heal the guy against me (literally only twice the entire battle after offing the first 4 balls) was because of running out of PP on Felix despite a crown of glory just when they showed up and not being able to Planetary. And needing Isaac to unleash stuff to give back PP. I still think destroying balls as they appear is less painful of a process, even if it takes a little longer.

Plus, killing like 8+ of each type of ball along the way gets a hilarious amount of exp.

Besides, if 4 Thunder Balls somehow is easier and I wanted to go cheesy in the first place, might as well set up the other party as 4 mega Summoners and wait for them to die and then have my main squad appear. I only used 4 characters, period, for that fight since I didn't want to rely on cheese. I don't like doing that for anything but Dullahan.

Just keep waiting until you can RNG a couple of Tisiphone Edges.

Seems like such a pain. Is there any spot in which you can turn the game off and on and guarantee you will encounter a Cruel Dragon? I hate running around battling only, but I don't particularly mind if it is just one fight and I can guarantee a drop. That's not so bad. You still want me to get two, though (Ivan?), but I guess twice isn't too bad either.

Edited October 7, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Suichimo]

That's no fun. :( Just kill everything. :D Much less healing needed. Consider that Star Magician can go double Mine Ball (takes off 170 to 210 each) and you can face 4 Shine Plasmas if you are particularly unlucky. And there were multiple turns where I faced double Mine Balls as it was. Already needed to go double Wish Well when that happened. I wouldn't want to tag on the damage from multiple Thunder Balls even if they don't Shine Plasma. Plus if he has 4 balls out then he's just going to attack repeatedly. I'd really like to keep that to a minimum.

There were turns I didn't even need to heal (particularly when he summoned twice or lame physical attack + summon). Only downside is that on occasion he summons Guardian Ball and their speed is apparently irrelevant for Guard Aura. Even though I can easily kill them before their turn should come up, they still get it off. Still, I'd rather face that every once in a while than 6 attack turns from the enemy (plus sometimes Guardian Balls just defend). Maybe my way takes a few more turns but it is so much easier. I'm not even sure it takes longer at all since the extra attacks against the various balls are probably canceled by how much less healing I need to do.

Refresh Balls die before they can Ply him for ~1150 hp. Don't know why they say Earnest Ply when it is basically Pure Ply. You can OHKO those things with Planetary. 500+ damage while fully impacted even at level 34. Even Jenna's Plume Edge came really close (or I think actually worked, despite water resist). It didn't even need to, though, since Shurikens mean you barely need to do damage in order to KO. After 300+ damage from Shuriken, even 60 would have done the trick. And Disciple's Death Leap nukes them, too.

Only reason they ever even got to heal the guy against me (literally only twice the entire battle after offing the first 4 balls) was because of running out of PP on Felix despite a crown of glory just when they showed up and not being able to Planetary. And needing Isaac to unleash stuff to give back PP. I still think destroying balls as they appear is less painful of a process, even if it takes a little longer.

Plus, killing like 8+ of each type of ball along the way gets a hilarious amount of exp.

Besides, if 4 Thunder Balls somehow is easier and I wanted to go cheesy in the first place, might as well set up the other party as 4 mega Summoners and wait for them to die and then have my main squad appear. I only used 4 characters, period, for that fight since I didn't want to rely on cheese. I don't like doing that for anything but Dullahan.

I believe you'll need much more healing if you don't get all of the balls to Thunder Balls. Guardian Balls are a pain in the ass, you don't want to miss the kill on any of the Refresh Balls because that sets you back a good bit, and Anger Balls just hurt and open up their slot to a replacement ball. All Thunder Balls can do is attack.

Also, Guard Aura does go first. The same way the damage reduction Djinni do.

I wouldn't call it cheesy either.

Seems like such a pain. Is there any spot in which you can turn the game off and on and guarantee you will encounter a Cruel Dragon? I hate running around battling only, but I don't particularly mind if it is just one fight and I can guarantee a drop. That's not so bad. You still want me to get two, though (Ivan?), but I guess twice isn't too bad either.

They are with Wonder Birds before the Sentinel has Cruel Dragons at a fairly good rate. Really easy to abuse the RNG as well.

Edited October 8, 2010 by Suichimo

[Narga_Rocks]

I believe you'll need much more healing if you don't get all of the balls to Thunder Balls. Guardian Balls are a pain in the ass, you don't want to miss the kill on any of the Refresh Balls because that sets you back a good bit, and Anger Balls just hurt and open up their slot to a replacement ball. All Thunder Balls can do is attack.

Also, Guard Aura does go first. The same way the damage reduction Djinni do.

I wouldn't call it cheesy either.

Figured that out with Guard Aura. Was really hoping it wouldn't be, but in battle it was obvious.

You've actually seen the Guardian Balls use Guard Aura on a Refresh Ball rather than the boss? I saw maybe 4 or 5 Guard Auras the entire battle and they were all on the boss. Guardian Balls defend more than they should, actually. Stupid things. They should prioritize the Refresh Balls with their Guard Auras.

And no, you don't need more healing if you kill all the balls as they appear. Why would you? Star Magician wastes turns summoning balls that rarely get to do anything rather than attacking you himself. Anger Balls get OHKOd by Jenna (who is way faster than them). Thunder Balls get OHKOd by nearly anyone (who are all faster). They don't actually get to attack me ever. Guardian Balls don't attack and Refresh Balls have atrocious attack thanks to no HM bonus. Seriously, they were doing single digits. Pathetic. And also they get OHKOd easily. It's weird, though, the few times I wasn't able to KO them first for whatever reason, they don't always Earnest Ply. Like I said, the boss only got that twice. Two other times they attacked me. Plus, you do enough damage in two attacks to counteract an Earnest Ply so who cares?

So, I had a fair number of turns where I didn't need to heal at all, and rarely needed more than one unit using Wish Well even when I had to. Only when the boss would double Mine Ball would I actually need to have both Jenna and Sheba use Wish Well. Otherwise? Not so much. Thus it was rather easy to take a few turns Impacting or Steaming or whatever to get boosts going and none of the enemy units have Break (thank goodness).

Edited October 8, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Kriemhild]

Facing off four Thunder Balls makes it easy. Just use Resist a couple of times and they'll never ever be able to scratch you. In any case, I had Jenna spam Daedalus in Hard Mode and the giant missile destroyed every single ball. And the small missiles alone did over 1000 damage to Star Magician himself (gotta love the HP boost in Hard Mode).

I never saw Earnest Ply or Guard Aura being used on a ball. In fact, when I once asked what the difference between Pure Ply and Earnest Ply was, someone answered that Earnest Ply is programmed to ALWAYS target the Star Magician no matter what.