Alternate Stone Gathering Party - Advice Needed

[Naya]

Okay, so I'm playing classic mode. Trying to level and get prepared before the first boss room. My main party is Ronin, Beast, War Magus in front, then Hexer and Sovereign in back. I'm looking to get useful grimoire stones for them.

So, just made a new alt party to level. I've got Landsknecht, and Protector in front for sure, Troubadour in back for sure since she's gonna be this party's healer(my main team has war magus and the staff book already gives medic stones so yeah). My only dilemma is Alchemist and Dark Hunter. I wanna have a front located Alchemist and try out these elemental palm skills. Might be useful to attach on my Ronin or maybe someone else. But the game suggests Dark Hunter go in front. If Dark Hunter is mainly being used for binds, can she go in back? Or should I just use a Survivalist instead?

Also, palm skills....should I leave a weapon equipped for that? I see no "more damage with no weapon" skill or note anywhere. I can use palm skills with a weapon equipped right? Perhaps I should just forget palm skills and use the regular formulas to throw stones on my Hexer?

Edit: Apparently Troubadour won't even work as healer without my Magus stones. Skills are really different this game lol

Edit 2: Ended up going with Landsknecht, Protector and Alchemist in front, with Gunner and Troubadour in back. Let me know if you think I should get Formula skills instead. I can throw Gunner in front instead of Alchemist.

[sponge7325]

Honestly, this early in the game I wouldn't worry too much about Grimoire Stones, most early-game ones are really not all that good, I would personally just stack most of your Grimoires onto skills that you already have/use a lot and not worry about getting any 'gimmicky' skills, unless you feel like they would really help.

I never dabbled much in Palm skills, so I don't know all that much about them, but I'd say with that alt party you should probably be fine if the whole Palm thing works out well for you. If it ends up not doing well, I'd say just bench the Alchemist altogether and put the Dark Hunter in there up front.

[Naya]

I ended up switching to formulas and putting my gunner in front. Gunner at least seems to be mostly unchanged skill wise. I kinda hate a lot of the changes they made. And I much preferred stacking loads of skills onto one stone over this new system. Once you realized how simple it was to plan and combine stones in Millennium girl, it was super easy and useful.

[Fluffernuff]

yeah. grimoires shouldnt be a main concern until at least late 2nd stratum/early 3rd stratum... and thats really for your basis. first stratum is going to limit the types of grioires you get and more or less cap you at level 1s anyway.

on the topic of palm skills... i wouldnt, its something i tried and the pal skills fall short. theyre main gimmick is doing splash palm and additional palm for landy chases it seems. but the damage itself is rather low. even with additional palm procs.
there are other options for your alchemist(such as the AoE skills, or that compression jar setup) that function the same purposes from the back row, too. which lets you slide DH to the front. they CAN still apply their binds in the back, sure, but being in the back cuts their melee damage in half, which is... not so good.

but thats just some food for thought. i'd personally recommend hexer over back row DH if youre adamant on palm alchemist, though, or even choosing a gunner for an elemental party

EDIT: forgot to answer one of your palm questions. yes. theyre their own skills, like formulas. usable regardless of gear. so theyre usable with or without a weapon equipped. it scales off TEC and any bonus you have (like elm atk up)
like i said i was disappointed with their incredibly low damage for their generally high risk front row gimmick, but if you find some sort of way to make them usable, be my guest.

[Wolkenritter]

The main reason you would use Palm skills is for the fact they change your next attack to the same element as the palm skill you just used. This allows Nuclear Formula to be elemental, which makes it a lot more attractive to grab. They're TP efficient too, so they're quite nice for random encounters, however they require the Alchemist in the front row to deal full damage, which can be very dangerous if your party doesn't have a Beast.

However what makes the Palm skills really great, is if you grimoire them to other classes. Ecstasy is a pretty great skill on its own, but what if you used Fire Palm to make it fire elemental on a boss weak to fire? Not enough? Throw in Fire Circle and Medical Rod and you're looking at some pretty crazy damage numbers.

EDIT:
As for party planning, if you want the classes in brief, a lot of them are very different from EOU1:

Landsknect - They have the best normal attack in the game. Their damage dealing abilities are basic, but effective. Chasers are still as good as ever.
Survivalist - Ailment inducer with a few good multi-hitting options. They also make excellent evasive tanks.
Protector - Mitigates damage to the party by lowering it, more or less the same.
Dark Hunter - Binder and ailment inducer, with some the highest damage output in the game,
Medic - The best class for straight healing.
Alchemist - Elemental damage dealer. Strong damage output overall but it scales fairly poorly during post-game (Not counting Compression + Attack items though).
Troubadour - Limited offensive options but their buffs are the most powerful in the game.
Ronin - Raw offensive class, and the main source of instant death attacks. Has the defenses of paper however.
Hexer - King of inflicting ailments.
Gunner - A more versatile elemental damage dealer. They also have binds, which work much more frequently than their useless EO1U or EO2 counterparts.
War Magus - Has the weakest healing of the healing classes but Ailing Slash deals stupid amounts of damage, making them the healer of choice for ailment or bind lockdown parties.
Beast - Mitigates damage to the party by eating it all up himself. If you use Bravery Heart in EO1U, then you will probably have a pretty good idea on how Beast's work.
Sovreign - If you wanted a buffer who can heal, then this is the class you want. They're very in-between Troubadour and Medic though, since their healing or buffs aren't as strong as the specialized classes. They do however get Link Order which deals decent damage, and more importantly the ever valuable elemental circles.
Highlander - The only class exactly the same as it was from EO1U. Unfortunately they're DLC only.

[Naya]

Would it be a stupid idea to throw a bow grimoire and weapon onto my Sovereign ? I have a staff/wand weapon equipped to her currently but when she's not buffing, really has nothing to do. I don't like taking off my debuffs to do damage.

[Fluffernuff]

I'm a firm believer that you should never take my party ideas because theyre weird and shouldnt ever work (i've gone through the game and post game with highlander/landsknecht/war magus hexer/soveriegn)

the only issue with the bow idea is that youre only going to be using a regular attack with it, and any skills that damage are based off one of sovereign's lowest stats, if not the actual lowest stat. the simplest thing to do for damage would be going for Formulas

but for your group early game... i might actually either suggest war edge lore if youre adamant on staff or switch to sword for the TP and go for guard slash. it wont be as good DAMAGE from the back, but with your hexer's ailments, you still get the defense debuff on the enemy, so damage wouldnt be the main priority. you could also try to fish off Artery or war response from war magus too. Artery+protect order is rather ridiculous group healing early on.

while im sure you dont have the level to yet, you can also consider going for link order once your ronin starts getting their elemental slashes. link orders hits pretty hard on it's own.

for the longest time, i had mine also using my hexer's debuff skills (like weak curse). later on in the game, your sovereign will actually have an issue of having too much to do, depending on how you go about with your group.
the first stratum with how many skills you can have is definitely a case of "welp. i have my whole 1 order up.. what now?" which is only compounded by the low max TP high TP cost orders. itll get better

[Naya]