On Beasts and Gambits

[timon]

Does anyone else feel a bit overwhelmed? I just beat the first Dark Beast chapter, and there was this talk of using Gambits, stunning the beast, breaking the barrier... can someone that understood how all of this work explain it to me in a simple way? The UI doesn't make a great job tbh, the Beast's panel is a nightmare to navigate, and the Battallions' one is even worse.

I'm going to try and put down specific questions (there's a lot) but just try to explain how the stuff works please.

On Battallions:
- When you go to details, the screen that shows the squares, what is it? AoE of the Gambit? Effect of the Gambit? Formation of the Battallion?
- Do all Gambits stun the enemy (can't act/move next turn)?
- Is the level up RNG or fixed? Also when a Battallion that's fully leveled up, is that the cap for the whole game (so it's better to disband and buy better)?
- Subjective question: have you found any use for Gambits? Because tbh most of the time Combat Arts seem stronger (and they HIT, is it me or Gambits have atrociously low hit rate?)

On Beasts:
- If I understand correctly abilities unlock the more life it loses, but I attacked the Beast with Dorothea and it gave me a "seal speed" debuff. Checked the UI and it didn't have seal speed?
- The game was telling me to use Gambits because they're effective. Is it actually that they're effective (there's a bonus against monsters) or is it just "strong enemy so use strong stuff there"
- How can I tell if it's fully charged or not for its AoE attack next turn? The UI doesn't say anything.
- Can it move and then do the AoE, or once it's charging it's fixed in the spot? (basically, can I run, or will it follow me?)
- How the hell does the barrier work? When it's down, is it down just for that specific square or not? So does that become sort of a weak spot?
- How do I stun it? Do I have to bring down the whole barrier (all the squares) or just one?
 

Sorry, I realize it's a lot, but goddam is it confusing. For now I kind of avoided Gambits and bashed the Beast randomly until it worked, but I'll need to understand the mechanics when it gets harder.

[Errorik]

Red dots on beats are their hp bars. Gambits taunt beasts into attacking the user and are effective. UI shows the area the beast will hit. Fully break the barrier to stun.

[IzzyFresh]

You essentially spam gambits. Every Gambit's main target will break the barrier, and the aoe hits will crack the barrier.  A cracked barrier will break after any hit.

 

Once you get the hang of it beasts are pretty easy. I don't think I have ever had a beast unleash a strong move yet and I'm playing on hard.

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by IzzyFresh

[Ertrick36]

It's pretty much as Izzy said, you just spam gambits on them until you've broken the four sections of barrier, then swarm the beast with a flurry of attacks before it can react.

8 hours ago, timon said:

On Battallions:
- When you go to details, the screen that shows the squares, what is it? AoE of the Gambit? Effect of the Gambit? Formation of the Battallion?
- Do all Gambits stun the enemy (can't act/move next turn)?
- Is the level up RNG or fixed? Also when a Battallion that's fully leveled up, is that the cap for the whole game (so it's better to disband and buy better)?
- Subjective question: have you found any use for Gambits? Because tbh most of the time Combat Arts seem stronger (and they HIT, is it me or Gambits have atrociously low hit rate?)

- That is indeed AoE for gambits.  The "north" part of that screen is where your character is facing, the lit up squares being the AoE.  I say this because some battalions have gambits with AoEs that extend behind you (such as the one with the rally movement gambit).

- It seems that way, but it only works if you actually hit.  Note that a unit hit with a gambit can still attack, but they just can't move.

- Too early for me to tell on the latter front, but given you get better battalions at higher ranks of authority, I'd imagine so.

- Hostile gambits should be used if either you want to manipulate enemies in some way, attack multiple enemies at once, or you don't want the enemy to counterattack but you still want to deal damage to them (such as with a boss who will one-shot your units).

8 hours ago, timon said:

- If I understand correctly abilities unlock the more life it loses, but I attacked the Beast with Dorothea and it gave me a "seal speed" debuff. Checked the UI and it didn't have seal speed?
- The game was telling me to use Gambits because they're effective. Is it actually that they're effective (there's a bonus against monsters) or is it just "strong enemy so use strong stuff there"
- How can I tell if it's fully charged or not for its AoE attack next turn? The UI doesn't say anything.
- Can it move and then do the AoE, or once it's charging it's fixed in the spot? (basically, can I run, or will it follow me?)
- How the hell does the barrier work? When it's down, is it down just for that specific square or not? So does that become sort of a weak spot?
- How do I stun it? Do I have to bring down the whole barrier (all the squares) or just one?

- Beasts have buffs and debuffs depending on which "life" they're at.  I recall the information on that being on the right side of the UI, though I can't really recall where.

- Already explained this, but I'll go more in-depth.  For one thing, the beasts have especially powerful attacks, so you don't want them to counter.  Secondly, the AoE gambits can damage multiple barriers at once.  Thirdly, I believe gambits destroy the barrier tiles much quicker than other attacks do.  So in general, save your gambits for the beasts, if you see any around.

- Red tiles will appear in front of it in the turn before it'll unleash its devastating attack.  I don't believe it will move about, but one way to manipulate how it'll attack is by using gambits - it'll automatically target the last unit that used a gambit on it.  You'll see this because it'll turn to whoever last used a gambit on it.

- The barrier is split up in four individual sections - each occupying one of the tiles the beast occupies.  They are marked by yellow.  Generally speaking, I believe it takes multiple attacks to take down one part of the barrier, while gambits destroy them faster.  When you destroy barriers, I believe it becomes "confused" and can't move while also becoming weaker.  When you destroy every part of the barrier, it'll become completely stunned and will not even counterattack.

So really, the strategy is all about spamming gambits until it's totally stunned and then unleashing all you've got on the thing.

It helps if most of your units have battalions.  Honestly, for the most part, gambits are just another way of attacking enemies or aiding your allies, and the battalions give you those means.  Just load up on some battalions, read what their gambits are to better understand how you can tactically utilize them, look at the AoE map to understand how much they'll affect, and replenish them whenever you finish a battle via the Battalion Guild in the marketplace.

When you understand battalions, they'll become an invaluable asset.  You can't use them to cheese every enemy in the game (certain bosses have stuff that significantly lowers the damage they do and negate a lot of the status inflictions they typically do), but you can't deny the tactical versatility they can offer you in a pinch.  I will say this too, since you seem so confused about them; gambits have a very limited number of uses per map.  In most cases for me it's been two uses, but I believe some come with only one use and there may be others with more uses.

[timon]

Thank you people, especially @Ertrick36, very explicative 🙂

On Gambits' uses... yeah I knew they were limited, but I ended up not using them for a while because the tutorial made it sound like there was a universal limit per map, not per unit. And I have the "I'll wait until it's worth it" syndrome, I think I never used a master ball in pokemon games lol

[Moonlit Knight]

Some of the better gambits (Blaze and group magic in particular) are powerful enough to break all four barriers in one shot, making things much easier.