New player with a few questions

[BigHead]

Hi all. I'm new to EO and portable RPGs in general as I "requisitioned" my sons 3ds as he has gotten somewhat bored with it and took over my iPad anyway I really am enjoying EO:4 and am a just now getting into the second labyrinth and I had a few questions about some things so here we go...

1) I am now at about level 23 and I'm starting to level much slower what are some ways to grind more effectively. I have seen something in another thread about a "sheep trick". I assume this has to do with killing the dream sheep in the second overworld map, but is that all there is to it?

2) I may have made some mistakes with my skill allocation. In particular I think that auto-taunt is pretty terrible. I see that there is a rest option at the guild, but I will lose 2 levels, is it a bad deal to get my characters off of each others levels?

3) my current build is fortress - dancer - lands(whatever, swordsman) / runemaster - medic (bog standard I know). And my general strategy is chase samba and to use improved link , then use basic attacks with the dancer and my freeze link with the landsword and use bolt smash with the fortress and just nuke with the runemaster and heals and cleanse with the medic...it works on casual, but it has real tp management problems on normal along with getting pretty much throttled by a lot of things, are there any alterations to my strategy that i should be trying or should I just reroll and learn to play.

4) is there a forum post or an article with an explanation of the various stats and what they all affect. In particular luck, agility, and vitality also what does piercing (as in rapiers) do?

Well that's about it, apologies for the wall of text (and for how bad its formatted/written, I've been at work all night and I'm kinda tired) and thanks in advance for any help you can give

[Wolkenritter]

1) The general idea is to cook up some EXP boosting foods (Like Golden Geese), and then feed the sheep in the 2nd land Gold Stinkhorns, which will make them become Rare Breeds. To improve the amount of XP you get, bring along 4 members from other guilds and use the Holy Gift burst skill. The reason sheep are the most effective, is because they respawn in only 1 day.

2) Its only two levels which can be easily gotten back with the above method. Though it might be more prudent to wait until subclassing is unlocked. Since you'll probably want to respec then.

3) Fortresses have poor offensive presance compared to other classes (Bolt Strike is silly). If you don't need their protection skills, you don't need a Fortress. Snipers are the most ideal replacement for your party since Squall Volley synergies perfectly with the Lands' link skills.

As for encounters... eh, depends on where you're up to. From your level I'm guessing the 2nd land?

4) STR affects the damage of physical attacks. VIT affects your defense against physical attacks. TEC affects both the damage you deal and the damage you take from elemental attacks and also plays a small part of how likely your debuffs will work. AGI affects how quickly your character can act, as well as how likely you can evade attacks. LUC plays a huge part in determining how likely your debuffs will work as your critical hit rate. Probably missed a few things, but that's the main idea behind them.

As for Rapiers, they have a higher speed mod than all weapons barring daggers (Which have an even higher mod). Which means a character equipped with one will more likely act quicker each round. They also deal piercing damage which some enemies are weak to (as well as resistant).

[BigHead]

Thanks for the replies guys. I now have another couple of questions and if they are redundant or answered elsewhere I apologize, but I can't seem to find them here (but my search-fu may be lacking)

1) I have seen in another post about properly set up link damage parties or some such... Is that really a function of some sort of speed control, like I have the dancer and I have a lands, my dancer is using a sword and my lands is using a rapier and still the lands goes after the dancer which seems to not be what I want, is there a way to manage who goes first and also can someone post a good build for the link damage as far as skills and strategy goes

I guess that's actually a few questions there so thanks again for the help

[Wolkenritter]

[Tumalu]

I'd prefer D/R L/R N/R, A/M F/D

Although, really, you could exchange members between the two teams pretty easily. This is mostly geared to be more defensive; with a dancer on both rows you can easily set up immunity to ailments/binds on the enemies that carry them, and the fortress is useful for the few bosses that can actually do something scary to a Linkersneckt party. Also the A/M can actually heal people, and you get a defense-lowering curse instead of L-boosted Star Drop.

A/M can either sling binds or try to enable the Nightseeker's boosted damage on ailments when not debuffing/healing/tinking for a link just in case, and between the Dancer using a multi-hit spell after buffing (for no damage, but I tried d/n first and it seemed pretty meh) and Nightseeker's surged follow trace'd Swift Edge you can reliably activate most/all of the links. Swift Edge does pretty great damage even without an ailment, and auto-spread Venom Throw DEMOLISHES RANDOM BATTLES FOREVER

Pretty easy to 2-round (or 3-round) some FOEs once you've got all your skillpoints out. I don't even bother using Runic Gleam with the L/R because you lose out in damage by spending another turn buffing and the rest of the team is ready to go on that turn.

Also for silliness you can have the F/D use Quick Step on the A/M for Star Drop.

The only complaint I had running through with this party (which I designed by accident, somehow >_> I picked classes that sounded fun and welp) is how insanely trivial the game is upon hitting lv40. And linkersneckts are pretty ridiculous as soon as you get improved link in general.

getting into ideal parties is probably a bit past the actual context of the thread come to think of it, but it's so fun to discuss D;

Also, what do you mean no benefit from Attack Tango? That only uses a slot on the Dancer and effects everyone on their row.

[Wolkenritter]