Balancing Link based team building and support (early game)

[Cross The Rubicon]

Hey folks, figured ITL would be the best place to ask stuff like this like always.

I've been working on trying to decide a good team composition to make sure I can link frequently and often without the need of the unlockable classes. So far I thought about dedicated 3/5ths of my team to link attacking, using a rune master and sniper for link spam, While having a medic for healing and extra hammer time. (making a melee medic build to add some more raw damage with debuffs)

my question boils down to what other class could compliment my link spam party by beefing up the resulting damage or adding more links without sucking in the damage department from being in the back row? I thought about night seeker using throwing skills, or a bow dancer or another rune master, but I'm not so sure. I don't plan on using fortress due to the fact that Lands are pretty beefy as it is at endgame and my combat medic will most likely wear good defensive gear as well at the front line to maximize mace damage.

[Justanothernerd]

Honestly, a Dancer sounds like it would fit your needs perfectly.
Put her on the front line, between your Linksknecht and Medic. Her waltzes should keep them in pretty good shape, so the Medic can focus more on keeping the back line together and dealing some damage. Once you hit LV20, you get access to Sword Dance which allows her to hit up to 4 times in a turn (and activate four links from a single normal attack) plus she'll have a chance to stun those enemies later on. The Dancers aren't very bulky, but they have good Evasion with Fan Dance and Speed Boost. Attack Tango can improve the damage of your link attacks, and the Sambas... well, I don't use the sambas much so I don't know how their mechanics work. They should be able to trigger links though.
If you go the Dancer route, by subbing Nightseeker later on you can get up to 8 (I've heard that it may actually be 16, but don't quote me on that...) attacks off of a single normal attack. Just don't use the Nightseeker's Speed Boost, since it will counteract your Dancer's Speed Boost. (There's a bug where the two abilities interfere with each other and give negative bonuses instead of positive ones)

Also, I don't see Runemaster as being a good complement to link skills. Their Runes are fantastic for the elemental debuff, but they can only consistently trigger multiple links when there are 1 or 2 enemies out (via the skills that target Random enemies).

[Cross The Rubicon]

[Justanothernerd]

[Cross The Rubicon]

[ProfAllister]

[Snowdome]

Another fellow link user I see.
I have tried D/N thinking that 8 successive hits with stun looks cool, but the damage (and chance of actually hitting 8 times) itself wasn't satisfying enough and I gave up that idea pretty quickly.

As for samba, personally I prefer chase with rush more than trick.
I tried trick, but either I was doing something wrong or it simply doesn't fit my style. (I suppose you need to combo it with sword dance? But again since I put a fortress in the last slot in the front row and she doesn't give fancy damage from trick samba. Also, I think I could not see trick samba's add attack to trigger link attack but I can be wrong about this)

With chase samba activated, every idle turn I simply order my dancer to use rush dance, and the result is like this: Rush Dance (which has action priority) -> Link (got priority with vanguard) -> Rush add attack -> Link add attack -> Chase add attack -> Link add attack -> Other member attack with link and chase (if applicable) and link and rush and so on...
This worked pretty well until I still use it as normal setup.
However, since I got my sniper enough TP to spam squall shot, my RNG setup for FOEs now become leg shot/nerve circle -> once it can't miss then I spam squall shot with links
P.S. Squall shot hits up to 16 times but usually I got 4 link attack only; it will still receive one add attack from rush dance which will trigger one more link attack.

Personally I don't like counter dance, since it doesn't trigger from line/party attack and you will want your dancer to have other buffs, making it seldom useful for FOE fights.

[Katt]

When i was running early Linking + Runemaster, against FOE's and other single foes, the second level ice attack (the random, multiple time one), triggered off of improved link each time.

Also, when i added Wufan in in my runemaster's place, and sniper's bind chase triggered, linking occured as well. So more space for extra hits within those, but honestly, multi-attacking is the best way to abuse Linking.

Dancer/Nightseeker with the two weapons + Multi attack really bring out the best while only being a 2 man combo, leaving the rest of the team to tackle larger groups. Runemaster (if you're not going to use the unlockables) does the best job of this outside of what you'd already be doing- Dancer! With her burst increase while dancing, toss in a burst weapon (or two), and you're racking them up really fast, with even a chance of not using the whole amount.

If you're absolutely dedicated to getting every last possible hit, I'd say Land/Sniper and opening yourself up to an arcanist/runemaster. Those extra bind links may even trigger your own links, and once the circles are cast, other spells can be flung willy-nilly. With Land/snipe, dancer/nightseeker, and Arcanist/runemaster, you're also covering a ton of status, bind, and elemental weaknesses.

additionally, splash weapons will also let you focus on other enemies while triggering the links, i believe.

With that in mind, think about multiple linkers to wipe out out multiple enemies in a line ^^ though that's a bit much for basic battles, I'm wondering if double linking makes them each activate on a single foe..... imagine the chaos!

[Snowdome]

[ehrik]

[ProfAllister]

[ehrik]

hmmm im pretty sure the link is getting triggered by the chase samba. Its usually

Linkshark > blaze/whatever link > chase samba > link follow up, unless the link itself triggers it?

[Snowdome]

[ProfAllister]

[Snowdome]