Dragon Quest XI (No Spoilers Or The Demon Lord Will Get You)

[ArlEammon]

So, I bought Dragon Quest XI. I want to know, does Dragon Quest XI have a Temple of Dharma or All Trade's Abbey?

[tonberrian]

No.

10chars

[Zevox]

Nope, no class system. The characters get individual skill trees, with everybody having at least two weapon types and one non-weapon skill tree to choose from, but their "class" style role is set based on who the character is. And the game is all the better for it.

[ArlEammon]

Nope, no class system. The characters get individual skill trees, with everybody having at least two weapon types and one non-weapon skill tree to choose from, but their "class" style role is set based on who the character is. And the game is all the better for it.

I see. I just barely started the game, and I must say that I like the story so far.

[Togath]

Can you reroll invested skillpoints? Or are they set once spent?

[tonberrian]

Can you reroll invested skillpoints? Or are they set once spent?

At any save point (statue or church) one of the options is to revoke skill points. You can only revoke an entire group at once, though, so like all of Erik's boomerangs, and cost is 10 gp per skill point revoked.

[Zevox]

At any save point (statue or church) one of the options is to revoke skill points. You can only revoke an entire group at once, though, so like all of Erik's boomerangs, and cost is 10 gp per skill point revoked.
Which is very cheap ultimately. I respecced several characters at several times during the game for various reasons, and never felt like the cost was any more than a drop in the bucket. So feel free to experiment.

[TaRix]

Well, I'm playing clean-up right now before I expect Bad Things to happen. So, I'm looking for the rest of the quests and doing some casino in the background.
Can anyone sum up all that slot machine jargon, especially with that impenetrable Slime Quest stuff?

[tonberrian]

Slime Quest is impenetrable, I've found. You do have the advantage of controlling when each reel stops, but even then it gets finicky when it wants you to win/lose. Which is fine, because it seems regular slots pay out more anyways.

Regular Slots I've played a bunch. Machines of different colors have different minimum bets - Green is 1 credit, blue 10, and red (unlocked in Part 2) are 100. Gameplay is simple - pull lever, wait for the reels to stop - there's no way to manipulate it. You can bet up to three multiples of the minimum bet on each of the three rows available, but you have to bet on all three rows before you can double up. Prizes are in multiples of your bet, and for the most part listed across the top. The ones not listed are Treasure Chests (which give a random, but large, number of tokens), Liquid Metal Slimes (3 or more in a row activates Metal Mode, which doubles the payout of prizes and SEEMS to increase the chance of winning as well, 10 spins for 3, 20 for 4, and 30 for 5), and Treasure Bag Free Spins (you don't pay for the next 10/20/30 spins, for 3/4/5 in a row). If you have free spins while you have Metal Mode all the free spins will be metal, and the metal spin counter won't go down until you've used up all your free spins. My general strategy is to play at a given machine until I've lost about 200 times the minimum bet of the machine from any given high, then switch to the next machine. I can make like 200k tokens on the 100 slots before getting bored after a half hour or so.

The other thing to be wary of is the Jackpot. One of the bunny girls will talk about it, standing next to a giant column filled with tokens. And it's important to talk to her if you want it, because while the jackpot is randomly given out, it is ONLY given out when the Bunny Girl tells you she's feeling like someone might win. For regular slots, that's getting five 7s in a row while in Metal Mode. For Roulette (at the second casino only) it requires you to not only bet on the exact number the roulette wheel stops on, but that winning number must line up on the little crown on the top of the screen. One of the quests in the second part of the game is to win said jackpot on said roulette table. Sleeping can change whether or not the Jackpot girl is feeling like it'll be won, then the trick is to put a bet on every individual number on the roulette table - you'll lose the table's minimum bet on each individual game, but eventually you'll cash out the jackpot and be far, far ahead. Jackpot runs up to a million tokens, but if you're not there to win the jackpot someone else will, and then it'll reset down.

[Togath]

Was reading about lag in a few areas, and came across this (https://steamcommunity.com/app/742120/discussions/0/1728711392744710555/?tscn=1539087803).
Might be a potential partial fix... still not sure WHAT the settings I turned off did(I'm Friend Cat from the thread), but they seemed to work.

[theMycon]

About re-rolling skills- the "locked" panels stay unlocked if you reset nearby skills not in the tree and you've already picked it.

For example, most weapon trees have one skill that takes a little from another to unlock it. You can throw the points in to unlock, select the skill, and reset the other tree to keep (for example) dual wielding.

Not that dual weilding is particularly useful. Two handed weapons are an incredible amount more powerful, and for multi-hit skills (aka crit-fishing, the real reason to use 1H weapons), you only get one more attack total, at half strength, regardless of how many attacks the skill gets.

[Olinser]

As per usual in a Dragon Quest game, the thing that gets me the most is the hilarious pun names of most of the enemies and bosses.

Dora In Grey killed me laughing :smallamused:

As far as the class system goes, I've always been of 2 thoughts on that. If you're going to do it, you have to basically have only the amount of characters that are active at one time - because if anybody can do anything, then there is generally very little incentive to swap out party members, so having more than you can use at once is often pointless.

But at the same time, when you have characters with set skill grids, then it is almost inevitable that some of the characters are just worse than others, which really sucks because if the character you like the most is the least useful than you handicap yourself by using them in the party.

Like in this game. Rab just plain isn't as good a damage mage as Veronica (especially as he lacks any AOE other than ice), isn't as good a healer or buffer as Serena (especially if you dual wield wands for the magic bonuses, and he never gets Omniheal), and just sucks at physical attacking compared to all of the others. By the time you get him in the party he just plain isn't very good, and only gets worse compared to the others as you get further into the game.

[tonberrian]

I mean in general that's true, but each character has their niche. Rab is the only one who gets Benediction as a spell - which is I GUESS useful in The Other Side, as that's the only place I remember getting cursed with any frequency. He also has Zing Stick, which for a while is the only 100% accurate rez, though as an ability it can't be used out of battle. All pep powers are unique, and Rab and MC's Dirge of Dundrasil is incredibly OP - it can even put Metal Slimes to sleep at 75% accuracy, and anyone else that's at all vulnerable to sleep WILL be put to sleep.

Erik does, like, the most damage out of the entire party, with Divide. Jade has all sorts of useful skills for physical damage. MC does a bit of everything and is needed for the best Pep Powers. Sylvando is useful for Hustle Dance ALONE. Veronica does the most damage with her spells, and Serena is the best healer (and can also crit fish in a pinch with Thunder Thrust). And the Eighth Character is a beastly tank.

[Olinser]

I mean in general that's true, but each character has their niche. Rab is the only one who gets Benediction as a spell - which is I GUESS useful in The Other Side, as that's the only place I remember getting cursed with any frequency. He also has Zing Stick, which for a while is the only 100% accurate rez, though as an ability it can't be used out of battle. All pep powers are unique, and Rab and MC's Dirge of Dundrasil is incredibly OP - it can even put Metal Slimes to sleep at 75% accuracy, and anyone else that's at all vulnerable to sleep WILL be put to sleep.

Erik does, like, the most damage out of the entire party, with Divide. Jade has all sorts of useful skills for physical damage. MC does a bit of everything and is needed for the best Pep Powers. Sylvando is useful for Hustle Dance ALONE. Veronica does the most damage with her spells, and Serena is the best healer (and can also crit fish in a pinch with Thunder Thrust). And the Eighth Character is a beastly tank.

Not Divide.

Divide + Critical Claim.

[Zevox]

About re-rolling skills- the "locked" panels stay unlocked if you reset nearby skills not in the tree and you've already picked it.

For example, most weapon trees have one skill that takes a little from another to unlock it. You can throw the points in to unlock, select the skill, and reset the other tree to keep (for example) dual wielding.

Not that dual weilding is particularly useful. Two handed weapons are an incredible amount more powerful, and for multi-hit skills (aka crit-fishing, the real reason to use 1H weapons), you only get one more attack total, at half strength, regardless of how many attacks the skill gets.
That is not true at all - locked panels from adjacent trees are also refunded and will re-lock if respeccing causes too many of the adjacent panels needed to unlock them to be turned off.

Also, dual-wielding is amazing for Erik, since he gets a skill that lets his second weapon do full damage. And Divide just makes anything that gives him extra hits nuts. And Sylvando also gets it but doesn't get greatswords, so for him its just a question of whether you'd rather have more damage or more defense from his shield. And for the Hero...
All three versions of the Sword of Light are one-handed swords, so dual wielding is the way to go if you want to use those. Granted, I personally went Greatswords except for respeccing once to help beat the final round of the Wheel of Harma (because one-handed swords get way better "Giga" skills than Greatswords, sadly), but still, that was just me preferring to go with the weapon option that hasn't been in past games.

Don't recall if Hendrick gets it, but I'd grant that I wouldn't even consider it for him under any circumstances if he does.


Like in this game. Rab just plain isn't as good a damage mage as Veronica (especially as he lacks any AOE other than ice), isn't as good a healer or buffer as Serena (especially if you dual wield wands for the magic bonuses, and he never gets Omniheal), and just sucks at physical attacking compared to all of the others. By the time you get him in the party he just plain isn't very good, and only gets worse compared to the others as you get further into the game.
Personally, I found Rab extremely useful specifically because he's like that. He's an all-around spellcaster, with both offensive and healing power, rather than a specialist like Serena and Veronica. I generally found Serena useless for random encounters for much of the game due to everything she has being low damage, so he was my healer of choice while just wandering most places, and I often preferred Rab even for boss battles simply because he could do real damage on turns where he wasn't healing (though granted those became fewer and further between the later you go into the game). And of course I wasn't going to go without at least one of them to heal. (Also, he does have a non-Ice AoE: Pearly Gates. It's quite good.)
Of course, Rab is just plain completely outclassed in part 2 of the game, since Serena becomes the ultimate spellcaster after Veronica's death, but still, in the other 2/3 of the game and before Serena rejoins you there, I found him to be great.
A better case can be made for Sylvando I think. He gets a nice array of support powers that make me see why you might want him in a boss battle, but all of the other non-casters outclass him for damage, Veronica gets his best offensive buff (Oomphle), and Rab and Serena heal and do other support functions better. He spent most of the game on the bench for me just because I could never come up with a reason to use him.

For most of the game, my party of choice was the Hero, Jade, Rab, and one spot that changed based on who I felt like having at the time. Which was more often Erik or Veronica than any of the others.

[Togath]

A few early-ish questions... gonna put in spoilers since they're a little ways in.
So I got to the encounter with 10-years-in-the-past Cobblestone, and kinda sped through it a bit, and now I'm at the part with Cobblestone in ruins. Was there anything of note that I might have missed? I think I got all of the chests, but I'm not sure how important stuff like blue sparkle items are or what might have been in the pots. I THINK I got all the pots the first run through(before ever leaving), and know I grabbed the original blue sparkles, but the sparkles were back when I reached past-Cobblestone, so now I'm unsure if I missed stuff.

[Zevox]

A few early-ish questions... gonna put in spoilers since they're a little ways in.
So I got to the encounter with 10-years-in-the-past Cobblestone, and kinda sped through it a bit, and now I'm at the part with Cobblestone in ruins. Was there anything of note that I might have missed? I think I got all of the chests, but I'm not sure how important stuff like blue sparkle items are or what might have been in the pots. I THINK I got all the pots the first run through(before ever leaving), and know I grabbed the original blue sparkles, but the sparkles were back when I reached past-Cobblestone, so now I'm unsure if I missed stuff.
No need to mention the spoilery bit on my end, so I'll just say this openly. The blue sparkles are all ingredients for the Fun-Size Forge, consumable items like medicinal herbs, or mini-medals. Worth picking up when you see them, but not a huge deal if you miss. Pots and barrels will only contain either small amounts of gold, consumable items, or mini-medals - again, not a huge deal if you miss them. Though you would prefer not to miss the mini-medals, since those get you nice rewards as you collect them once you reach the place where you can turn them in, but I don't think you find your first one until a bit later than you are anyway (either that or I missed the earliest ones I could have found in my play-through too).

The biggest thing that you might miss from chests (or bookshelves, which you didn't mention) is recipes for the Fun-Size Forge, though honestly missing some of the early ones won't really be a big deal in the long run, you'll be consistently picking up new ones as the game goes on that will steadily replace the old anyway, and you can always just buy new equipment the next time you reach a new town with new weapon and armor shops.

[Togath]

I think I got my first mini medal back in Heliodor. Are they limited in number like back in 8 and 9?
But... yeah. Really not sure if that version of Cobblestone had different items.
I mean, I can't find a way back, and past DQ games usually haven't locked much behind one-way events, so I'd assume I didn't miss anything? But I wanted to check just in case.

[tonberrian]

On Mini Medals - there are prizes up to 110 medals, and some are missable (due to Part 2 and Part 3 shenanigans), but there's more than enough placed even accounting for those to get all the prizes. Furthermore, in the post game, there are enemies which drop mini medals you can farm. After you turn in the 110 medals, you can turn in further medals for a sort of medal shop, and get repeating prizes - high end consumables and super rare ingredients.

[Calemyr]

The game is pretty darn awesome, I have to say.

Eric can very easily become your most powerful character if he's set up right, at least after his skill sheet upgrade (everyone gets one at some point or another). If you have dual wielding, improved dual wielding (don't remember the skill name, but it lets your off-hand do full damage), divide, and the boomerang skill "Double Down", he can deal ungodly damage in the second round. Divide + Oomphle (Sylvando) + Sap (Veronica) + Double Down results in a massive amount of damage to everyone while leaving them all vulnerable to status effects. If you can get the Hunters Moon recipe (on the top floor of the Luminary trial), it's even better as the Hunters Moon does full damage to all targets rather than reducing in power with every target hit. I'll put it this way: I fought the final boss of the game once without using this trick and lost fifty minutes into the fight as my resources were ground to nothing. When I built a pair of Hunters Moons and used this combo I won in maybe ten rounds. I was level 99 across the board for both fights, it was just the change in Eric's gear and tactics that turned the tide.

And, yeah, the game is exceptionally well written. It keeps this silly, goofy tone for the most part (even in the darkest hour, you will still face a headless man who talks through a face on his shield), yet the actual writing can hit like a hammer even through this tone. That takes serious skill to pull off.

The varied dialects tied to various regions is kinda hit and miss. One city only talks in haiku, another in rhyming couplets, and most other cities have comically overblown representations of various accents, such as Spanish or French. They're amusing at first, but I found 'em getting very old over time.

One thing I do have to say is that this game is long. Really long, as only a JRPG can do. The first part alone is enough to qualify as "long" by modern standards, but then there are two more chapters after that, one of which is a post-game continuation. They basically gave us an entire trilogy in one go and all three are well done. All told, I put about 110 hours into the game before I one it, and that was because I decided to go for the end boss rather than cleaning up my list of side quests. And very little of it felt like empty padding - you do do some adventures a second time in the third chapter, but the context of them changes enough to make it less like retreading the same ground.

So... yeah. Good game. I liked it. I'll stop rambling now.

[Zevox]

I think I got my first mini medal back in Heliodor. Are they limited in number like back in 8 and 9?
But... yeah. Really not sure if that version of Cobblestone had different items.
I mean, I can't find a way back, and past DQ games usually haven't locked much behind one-way events, so I'd assume I didn't miss anything? But I wanted to check just in case.
There should be very little if anything in the game that's missable, due to its structure. There was a point where I was worried I had lost the chance to complete a couple of side-quests, but they came back around later.


Eric can very easily become your most powerful character if he's set up right, at least after his skill sheet upgrade (everyone gets one at some point or another). If you have dual wielding, improved dual wielding (don't remember the skill name, but it lets your off-hand do full damage), divide, and the boomerang skill "Double Down", he can deal ungodly damage in the second round. Divide + Oomphle (Sylvando) + Sap (Veronica) + Double Down results in a massive amount of damage to everyone while leaving them all vulnerable to status effects. If you can get the Hunters Moon recipe (on the top floor of the Luminary trial), it's even better as the Hunters Moon does full damage to all targets rather than reducing in power with every target hit. I'll put it this way: I fought the final boss of the game once without using this trick and lost fifty minutes into the fight as my resources were ground to nothing. When I built a pair of Hunters Moons and used this combo I won in maybe ten rounds. I was level 99 across the board for both fights, it was just the change in Eric's gear and tactics that turned the tide.
Boomerangs are actually viable in this one? I just ignored them since I've always heard they sucked in past games.

Though yeah, Erik with Divide, Oomphle, and Sap on his target is pretty much beastly damage in the end-game period no matter what. I was just going for standard attacks with dual-wielded swords (one of which being the Uber Falcon Blade) and getting substantially higher damage than my hero with greatswords doing Unbridled Blade.

Side note, were you playing on hard for that maybe? Because on normal I beat the ultimate final boss at level 75-79 myself (varied from character to character), and while it wasn't a pushover (my first party did go down and my backup had to come in at one point, though I eventually revived everyone), it wasn't so hard that I'd expect I could lose even if I were 20+ levels higher.


The varied dialects tied to various regions is kinda hit and miss. One city only talks in haiku, another in rhyming couplets, and most other cities have comically overblown representations of various accents, such as Spanish or French. They're amusing at first, but I found 'em getting very old over time.
I quite liked them, especially the... well, just to be overly-cautious about even minor spoilers, the rhyming ones.
I mean of course the Mermaids. Who actually don't just speak in rhyming couplets, but actual meter - iambic heptameter, I believe (definitely heptameter, but I'm not sure if it's iambic or another form of meter, I'm bad at figuring that out). It gives their dialogue a pleasant, sing-song quality to it, since everything they say is literally poetry, which is very fitting for their mythology of having voices that could lure men out to sea and all. Great touch.

[Olinser]

There should be very little if anything in the game that's missable, due to its structure. There was a point where I was worried I had lost the chance to complete a couple of side-quests, but they came back around later.


Boomerangs are actually viable in this one? I just ignored them since I've always heard they sucked in past games.

Though yeah, Erik with Divide, Oomphle, and Sap on his target is pretty much beastly damage in the end-game period no matter what. I was just going for standard attacks with dual-wielded swords (one of which being the Uber Falcon Blade) and getting substantially higher damage than my hero with greatswords doing Unbridled Blade.

Side note, were you playing on hard for that maybe? Because on normal I beat the ultimate final boss at level 75-79 myself (varied from character to character), and while it wasn't a pushover (my first party did go down and my backup had to come in at one point, though I eventually revived everyone), it wasn't so hard that I'd expect I could lose even if I were 20+ levels higher.


I quite liked them, especially the... well, just to be overly-cautious about even minor spoilers, the rhyming ones.
I mean of course the Mermaids. Who actually don't just speak in rhyming couplets, but actual meter - iambic heptameter, I believe (definitely heptameter, but I'm not sure if it's iambic or another form of meter, I'm bad at figuring that out). It gives their dialogue a pleasant, sing-song quality to it, since everything they say is literally poetry, which is very fitting for their mythology of having voices that could lure men out to sea and all. Great touch.

Boomerangs useable but not great. They're crap when you first get them, but they start to take off in the mid and late game, there are some decent Boomerang skills you get later on. They're useable but inferior to knives in the early game and significantly worse than his dual wielding swords late game since Erik has a late-game skill that eliminates the damage penalty to the offhand, and they are prone to pretty significant damage swings as they have less base accuracy than any other weapon so you can miss a LOT of damage with bad RNG.

Boomerang has a decent single-target damage skill in Double Down, their single target damage is pretty significantly less than dual-wielding swords. You use boomerangs if for some reason you need more AOE damage.

In the mid and end game they're better than knives and worse than swords.

[Olinser]

No need to mention the spoilery bit on my end, so I'll just say this openly. The blue sparkles are all ingredients for the Fun-Size Forge, consumable items like medicinal herbs, or mini-medals. Worth picking up when you see them, but not a huge deal if you miss. Pots and barrels will only contain either small amounts of gold, consumable items, or mini-medals - again, not a huge deal if you miss them. Though you would prefer not to miss the mini-medals, since those get you nice rewards as you collect them once you reach the place where you can turn them in, but I don't think you find your first one until a bit later than you are anyway (either that or I missed the earliest ones I could have found in my play-through too).

The biggest thing that you might miss from chests (or bookshelves, which you didn't mention) is recipes for the Fun-Size Forge, though honestly missing some of the early ones won't really be a big deal in the long run, you'll be consistently picking up new ones as the game goes on that will steadily replace the old anyway, and you can always just buy new equipment the next time you reach a new town with new weapon and armor shops.

Well - some pots do contain Seeds, which can be pretty impactful in the early game, but still not that big a deal if you miss a couple.

Recipes are much more impactful because gathering them increases your Forge abilities, if you miss enough its completely possible to not be able to forge the top-level equipment without going back and hunting for low-level recipes.

[tonberrian]

Wait, Forge abilities are dependent on recipes? I thought it was dependent on level.

Even more reason for me to go out and hunt the last of the recipe books down. Did the wheel of harma, working on grinding out Mini Medals before I do the trials.

Also, in case anyone is interested, there does exist a guide to... pretty much every item in DQ 11 - all the recipes, materials, equipment, consumables, quests, locked doors, seeds and xp grinding, trophies, accolades, and postgame scenes (spoilers, obviously). Separately, there exists a resistance chart for (almost) every enemy in the game. And finally, a thread on gamefaqs has pretty much all the information on the skills everyone gets, including **SPOILERS**, but those are behind spoilers in the thread. I can post these if anyone's interested.

[Olinser]

Wait, Forge abilities are dependent on recipes? I thought it was dependent on level.

Even more reason for me to go out and hunt the last of the recipe books down. Did the wheel of harma, working on grinding out Mini Medals before I do the trials.

I'm pretty sure its recipe based, I leveled up at the forge without leveling up the character after finding a couple recipes in a new town. But as long as you're reasonably good at using the skills and hitting the points its not particularly tough to forge high level equipment on mid-game level focus.

[Calemyr]

Boomerangs are actually viable in this one? I just ignored them since I've always heard they sucked in past games.

Boomerangs with Power Throw is pretty solid, but with Hunters Moon (whose specialty is do full damage to everybody) it becomes pretty godly.


I quite liked them, especially the... well, just to be overly-cautious about even minor spoilers, the rhyming ones.
I mean of course the Mermaids. Who actually don't just speak in rhyming couplets, but actual meter - iambic heptameter, I believe (definitely heptameter, but I'm not sure if it's iambic or another form of meter, I'm bad at figuring that out). It gives their dialogue a pleasant, sing-song quality to it, since everything they say is literally poetry, which is very fitting for their mythology of having voices that could lure men out to sea and all. Great touch.

Agreed.
Besides which, there was a good stretch of the game I actually wished to hear it again due to Nautica getting wiped out.


Wait, Forge abilities are dependent on recipes? I thought it was dependent on level.

Even more reason for me to go out and hunt the last of the recipe books down. Did the wheel of harma, working on grinding out Mini Medals before I do the trials.

Also, in case anyone is interested, there does exist a guide to... pretty much every item in DQ 11 - all the recipes, materials, equipment, consumables, quests, locked doors, seeds and xp grinding, trophies, accolades, and postgame scenes (spoilers, obviously). Separately, there exists a resistance chart for (almost) every enemy in the game. And finally, a thread on gamefaqs has pretty much all the information on the skills everyone gets, including **SPOILERS**, but those are behind spoilers in the thread. I can post these if anyone's interested.

No, Forge abilities are indeed level based. Only the items you can make are based on recipes.

As for the final boss, I think it scales with level. Either that or I was just really unlucky. Thing was doing about 400 points of damage to the whole party every round, taking a third the damage even the Trial bosses did, dishing out ailments upon ailments to everyone per round, healing, regenerating limbs extremely fast, and isolating and butchering my healers to force the Hero to spend his turns healing. Before I lost the fight, I was using up my items (Ygdrasil leaves and dew as well as MP recovering items). It was like nothing I'd ever seen in the game and the second time I lost a fight (first was training to learn Quadstrike, where I mistook it for a scripted fight rather than a real one). Came back with the Hunters Moon combo and it just folded like a cheap suit.

[Olinser]

Boomerangs with Power Throw is pretty solid, but with Hunters Moon (whose specialty is do full damage to everybody) it becomes pretty godly.



Agreed.
Besides which, there was a good stretch of the game I actually wished to hear it again due to Nautica getting wiped out.



No, Forge abilities are indeed level based. Only the items you can make are based on recipes.

As for the final boss, I think it scales with level. Either that or I was just really unlucky. Thing was doing about 400 points of damage to the whole party every round, taking a third the damage even the Trial bosses did, dishing out ailments upon ailments to everyone per round, healing, regenerating limbs extremely fast, and isolating and butchering my healers to force the Hero to spend his turns healing. Before I lost the fight, I was using up my items (Ygdrasil leaves and dew as well as MP recovering items). It was like nothing I'd ever seen in the game and the second time I lost a fight (first was training to learn Quadstrike, where I mistook it for a scripted fight rather than a real one). Came back with the Hunters Moon combo and it just folded like a cheap suit.

Uh..... it sounds like maybe you unintentionally did the fight on 'hard mode' then.

The final boss starts with an extremely powerful buff. You're supposed to use the Sword of Light as an item in round 1, which removes the buff. And then you fight him.

And OK, I guess that makes sense with the forge. I had kind of assumed they were recipe based because I didn't notice it leveling up when the Hero leveled up, but obviously I was wrong. Yeah 90% of the recipes are pointless then, since when you get them you can almost always just buy the same stuff in town anyway, and as soon as you can buy Pearls from the Academy then forging any lesser item is just a pointless hassle.

[Calemyr]

Uh..... it sounds like maybe you unintentionally did the fight on 'hard mode' then.

The final boss starts with an extremely powerful buff. You're supposed to use the Sword of Light as an item in round 1, which removes the buff. And then you fight him.

And OK, I guess that makes sense with the forge. I had kind of assumed they were recipe based because I didn't notice it leveling up when the Hero leveled up, but obviously I was wrong. Yeah 90% of the recipes are pointless then, since when you get them you can almost always just buy the same stuff in town anyway, and as soon as you can buy Pearls from the Academy then forging any lesser item is just a pointless hassle.

You were... supposed to... use the Sword of Light... as an item...

Please. Excuse me for a second. (*Walks out of the room and unleashes a torrent of nonsense that either sounds like swearing in a foreign language or a political speech. Either way, it's clearly profane.*)

Nope. Those are dots left utterly unconnected in my run. I saw no indication of that, and did not do so either time. I also did not mess with the difficulty settings. The only difference in my tactics was Eric's gear and attack chain. Both fights I was dual-wielding the Super Sword of Light and the Supreme Sword of Light on the hero.

[Olinser]

You were... supposed to... use the Sword of Light... as an item...

Please. Excuse me for a second. (*Walks out of the room and unleashes a torrent of nonsense that either sounds like swearing in a foreign language or a political speech. Either way, it's clearly profane.*)

Nope. Those are dots left utterly unconnected in my run. I saw no indication of that, and did not do so either time. I also did not mess with the difficulty settings. The only difference in my tactics was Eric's gear and attack chain. Both fights I was dual-wielding the Super Sword of Light and the Supreme Sword of Light on the hero.

Yeah it's not really super obvious at the time, but one of the Watchers does tell you about the buff and that the Sword of Light will remove it.

There's actually quite a number of equipment that are actually MORE useful when used as an item rather than actually equipped for a fight.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Some of my personal opinions on characters and their skills. Spoilering because some skills have plot-related unlocks, and to keep things more organized.

Your Hero, this game's equivalent to the Descendant of Some Shmuck. For... reasons... I suggest you build him physically rather than trying to go into his Luminary tree, until after Plot Happens. This means your first choice is going to be between Swords or Greatswords. They both have advantages.

He does get a selection of spells innately, including fire and lightning based single-target blasting and a single-target heal, but he's not really a caster by any means. Snooze applies a nasty debuff if it hits... but tends to miss a lot. Kasnooze is better, but also later game. But he can try to use Snooze to set up Erik's 6x damage combo, at least.

Swords is more defensive, since he can use a shield with them. And considering Erik is a physical glass canon, and the sisters aren't so good at taking hits either, it's going to be a while before anyone else can fill the role of Meat Shield, so I tend to stick him here by default. Also, his final weapon is a one-handed sword, and I feel that his Swords giga skill is better than his Greatsword one. Flame Slash is going to be your bread and butter damaging maneuver. Of special note is Metal Slash, and this goes for all the Metal type skills with all the other characters... while it only deals 1-2 damage to metal enemies, making it actually not all that useful at killing them, it is a guaranteed hit which makes it useful on very agile enemies who like to dodge or parry or as a finishing move to make sure you don't miss and delay end of combat another round. Miracle Slash is okay sustain if your healer is occupied doing other things, and at least it deals damage in addition to healing yourself, instead of using a heal on yourself.

Of note, he's probably the only character capable of using Dual Wield that I don't suggest actually getting it, because it buys you the worst of both worlds. You still won't end up doing as much damage as the Greatsword line, and you sacrifice your defensive shield to do it. At least, not until the final character joins your party, and you have someone who is (finally) an actually competent tank. Once that happens, you can switch to Dual Wield mode.

Greatsword is all out offensive mode, for those who feel that the best defense is a good offense. Because who cares about shields if you simply kill your enemies before they can respond, right? As far as damage goes, it is strictly superior for most of the game to the Swords skillset, although late game you're still probably going to want to switch over to Swords. It will mean you won't have anyone in your party who can take a hit very well, but it will also mean higher damage output. Helichopper is a group-based damaging move, which doesn't take reduced damage on doing a group attack, which pairs well with Erik's knives which are strictly single-target.

From either of these two initial skillsets, you can lead into his Swordmastery tree. From Swords side, you get Falcon Slash, which is a two-hit maneuver and will be his new staple damage maneuver for one handed attacks, and Gigaslash, which hits all enemies for substantial lightning damage. From the Greatsword side is Counter When Blocking/Parrying and Gigasmash. Either way, you also meet up in the middle to get Sword Dance and the stupidly powerful and stupidly expensive Blade of Ultimate Power.

Once plot progresses beyond a certain point, it becomes worthwhile to invest in the Luminary tree, which is basically split up into two sides: healing and blasting. On the healing side, you get the stupidly powerful (and expensive) Omniheal, which heals the whole party to full. At the end of that side, you also get Big Banga, which is a fire-based group nuke, but since it keys off of his Strength stat instead of Magical Damage stat, it tends to do more damage than KaSizz. On the other side is the Zap line, one of the few ways of dealing Lightning based damage that mechanical monsters are weak against, and Pep Up for a guaranteed Pep state so you can combo with other characters who activate.

In short: early game, you have to decide on sword-and-board tank or greatsword, more defense or more damage. As sword and board, he won't be doing as much damage, but will be much more defensive. As Greatsword, he can clear trash and put the hurt on bosses better, but be more vulnerable to getting focused down.

What's to say? You've basically got two options with Erik: Knives for single-target combo domination with status effect 6x damage multipliers that get paired with Divide to absolutely wrek just about anything, or boomerangs for mook-sweeping.

First off, you're going to want Dual Wield with Erik, full stop, because he doesn't have access to any two-handed weapons or any shields, so there's literally no reason not to, even if you plan on making use of Boomerangs. Well, especially if you use boomerangs, really. Later on, he gets a passive which lets his second attack go off at full damage, which is going to be mandatory for him.

Early game, stick to knives. The early boomerangs just don't have the oomph to do much. You're going to want to unlock Cobra Strike/Victimisser or Sleeper Hit/Persicutter combo for an amazing 6x damage multiplier combo. This will help crush bosses in short order. But once you get Dual Wield and the improved version thereof online, Twinrang/Double Down is a great way to sweep mooks. Just keep in mind that using Boomerangs means he's going to have a lower single-target damage output, so won't be suitable for most boss battles.

But his most amazing ability is in his Guile tree, and its name is Divide. The next ability you use is basically going to be in uber mode, and this is where he can really start to shine. Assuming the opponent doesn't use something that takes away his next action like Beguile or Paralyze or Sleep. This can set up one of the most vicious combos in the entire game with the status effect multiplier skills, especially if you have someone like Sylvando in the party to apply said status effect for him to save a turn of setup. But really, it doesn't matter what you want to equip Erik with, Divide is something you simply need to have in your life. Trust me.

Erik's sword skills are roughly the same as the Main Character's, although he does get Fatal Slash which deals 2.5x damage and a 40% chance to straight-up kill the target. Combo with Divide and Dual Wield for maximum effect. But personally, I feel that he should stick to knives or boomerangs.

He also gets the ability to steal items from mobs, and some items can only be obtained in this fashion. Granted, you'll probably need a guide to figure out what items come from what mobs, but if you're wanting to put your forge to best effect, this is extremely handy.

She's the first healer you get, and the best healer in the game. She has a vestigial Spear tree, however it's largely a trap. You want to go down wands because of the bonuses to magic healing, and because she can use shields with them to increase her otherwise lackluster defenses, because having your only healer die on you really really sucks.

She gets a number of status-removal and buff spells, as can be expected from a healer archetype, and obviously gets heals as well. She also gets the Whoosh line for group damage, but it tends to perform rather lackluster since she focuses on magical healing instead of magical damage. Kabuff and Accelerattle are great ways to start off a boss fight, since they hit the whole party.

The hymns from the Harpistry tree are a great way to mitigate elemental damage, and there's a good amount of Magical Healing and MP recovery in her Harpistry tree as well if you want to dive for it.

There's a Significant Plot Event which unlocks other things, but I'm not going to really mention that here.

The archetypical Glass Canon blaster caster. In addition to bringing the boom, she also has some very nasty debuffs, like Sap/Kasap, Decelerate/Decelerattle, and the Fuddle line for applying confusion (which might combo with Erik or Sylvando if they are using knives). She also gets the useful Magic Barrier spell, which is extremely useful on boss fights where the boss is magic based.

You really don't want Veronica using whips. In theory, they can be used to apply status effects, but it's only like a one in four shot of the status effect landing, assuming the ability hits, so she has much better things she could be doing with her action. If you are trying to spot a combo, use something like Fuddle which has a much higher chance of landing.

Her other two skill trees, Heavy Wands and Vim, are there primarily for passives to help you be a better blaster. I mean, Heavy Wands does get Zing Stick which is a guaranteed resurrect, so there is that. Vim does get Spooky Aura which is a debuff to set up her own high-damaging combos, especially if her sister pairs it with Doleful Dirge (the effects DO stack!), and her level 4 nukes are found at the end here. In addition, she gets passive elemental resistances, which are crucial since she cannot equip shields, and so has no other way to source resists. She's already a glass canon as it is, at least give her a chance of surviving. Sage's Breath can be cheesed by dropping a group down to one last weenie and keeping it locked down while she passively regenerates.

Other than that, she goes boom in several different flavors. Single target, multitarget, if you want to blow things up using excessive magical force, she's your gal.

The Great Sylvando is simply faaabulous. First off, he gets some serious buffing ability with Oomph/Oomphle, Accelerate/Acceleratle, and the Re-Heal line can help sustain surprisingly well. He also gets group cures for sleep and paralyze, two absolutely nasty status effects you don't want hanging around. So he definitely has a place in the party as a support character, even if it wasn't for his other skills. The Woosh line is group-based damage in case Sylvando went knives instead of whips.

Like Erik, he also gets the status combo abilities, although he doesn't have Divide to absolutely wreck things with it, still gives him his best damage output set. He can also get Nastier Knives before *Plot Happens*, making it easier for him to get the combo off.

His whips skills are not too shabby either. Most of them revolve around 'hit a group and have a chance to apply a nasty status effect'. While it doesn't get a whole lot of love with +ATK passives, it does key off of his STR stat which is nothing to sneeze at, for the first section of the game at least. But of course, his crowning achievements are in an early debuff-removal skill Sobering Slap, which cures some of the worst effects to have applied to characters, and the amazing Hustle Dance, which is a group heal that keys off of his Charisma stat, which is naturally the highest in the game. And can be obtained before Serena gets Multiheal, if you focus for it.

In short, The Great Sylvando is... well, he's great to have around. He will buff allies, debuff enemies, can be set up to do some serious damage with either knife status effect combos or group-based damage plus chance of status effect, and has a group heal. In the post-game, he can also become a surprisingly nasty defensive powerhouse.

Rab is a pinch-hitter, in my book. He does both healing and blasting, and does an okay job at both, at least when you first get him. Obviously, when *Plot Happens*, he gets outdated, but up until Significant Plot Event, he's actually not bad, especially for boss battles. He can actually take a hit, more than Veronica can at least, and has most of the same debuffs. So bring him in to the opening of the fight (I like to start with MC/Erik/Rab/Serena, but sometimes swap out for MC/Erik/Sylvando/Serena) for a debuff or two while Erik is winding up for his big hit, then either back up heals if someone is getting focused by the boss, nuke, or swap out for someone else. Also, he gets Insulattle, which is extremely effective once it seems like every dang boss has a breath weapon.

In short, he's a pinch hitter. In Final Fantasy terms, he's like Red Mage. He can do a little of this, a little of that, and always has something to do in combat, no matter what is happening, but is never going to top the charts on any one thing he does.

Jade is a physical powerhouse. I prefer using her Spears over her Claws, because either can pair with her Fisticuffs and her Allure trees, and it provides value-added that the claws just don't.

Thunder/Lightning Spear gives a 50%/66% chance of hitting, flat, and auto-crits if it hits. This makes it clutch for farming metal slimes as soon as you get her for massive xp grinding fairly early on. Even later on, there will be times where this will come in quite handy. Lightning Storm is a great group damaging ability from her Spear tree which also has a good chance of making enemies vulnerable to the Zap line so your Luminary or Veronica can take advantage of that for some brutal damage.

Fisticuffs focuses mostly on passive stat boosting to make whatever you are doing just plain better, but has a few very useful moves. Vacuum Smash is a very mana efficient group damage spell, especially if you are using Spears (it keys off of your base damage), and Harvest Moon is exceptional against any flying enemies, of which there are many.

Claws instead focus on her being more tanky with life steal for sustain, and more but weaker hits in general. Hawkeye Claw is useful for guaranteed hits. Claws innately hit twice, with the second swing being slightly weaker (basically automatic dual-wield), but most of the abilities from the Claws tree are single-hits.

Her Allure tree keys off of her Charisma, and has plenty of passive boosts to it to keep the damage competitive. Most of the maneuvers are damage plus a pretty good chance of Beguile. However, these are her most expensive moves, MP wise, so you can't just spam them.