Help save me from analysis paralysis! 1st floor for dummies?

[dungeoncrawler]

Ok, after reading the encouraging (and helpful!) words here (and then spending another WAY-too-many-hours carefully analyzing skills, pros/cons of various characters ), I finally decided on the following party:

Ronin / Medic / Landsknecht
Troubadour / Gunner

I spent all my initial money on better weapons -- the best defense is a good offense, right?

I also distributed my initial 3 skill points like this:

Ronin: 1 STR Up, 1 Overhead, 1 Zamba (working towards Midareba)
Medic: 1 TP Up, 1 Healer, 1 Cure (I chose medic over WM because I want Revive... I anticipate dying A LOT )
Landsknecht: 1 STR Up, 1 Axes, 1 Deathaxe (I've read that axes are more powerful than swords, and I want a couple of heavy hitters in the front line)
Troubadour: 1 Songs, 1 Bravery, 1 Shelter (nice to be able to have some extra support early on. I also gave her a bow so she can fight from the back.)
Gunner: 1 TEC Up, 1 Guns, 1 Medishot (I chose this class in place of a Hexer/Alchemist because it seems to have a good mix of elemental, status, etc. as well as attack. Later, I'll focus on volt to balance out the Ronin's fire.)

Does this all seem relatively sane?

Also, I realize I am blatantly ignoring the kind advice given above about the "best party" recommendation, but now that I know what it is and why, I feel more comfortable breaking the rules. My goal is to be heavy on offense, but with some good back up in supporting magic.

Btw, for other newbies like me, in addition to this wonderful site, I found the following other resources incredibly helpful:
- : Lots of the "for dummies" questions I was asking in my head.
- : Goes into great detail about each class and what skills they have, in addition to a bunch of statistics about what they do at each level.

[scy]

Incidentally, I'd like to point out that some of the numbers in The Real Dealer's FAQ are off. Notably, Alchemist spells are not a Damage% modifier.

[spoiler]I suppose I could just correct it but it does better display the damage difference or something I suppose. Plus I don't know the wATK value of the spells from rank 1 to 9 (113 at 10; Tier 2 is merely 150% of their damage).

I'd also like to note, for my e-peen/ego/whatever~ (it's 11 AM I forgot to sleep etc.), that the FAQ got a lot of the numbers (...okay, all) from Terence and me >>[/spoiler]

Anyway, the Gunner's Elemental Shots don't really need more than 1 point (going from Rank 1 to Rank 10 is only a 95% Damage Increase) if you need to free up points. The Gunner Binds and Stunshot are also not worth it, to be honest; the chance of Bind is too low and Gunner SPD is pretty bad so Stunshot won't go before enemies 100% of the time. That and Force Skill: Riot Gun is a guaranteed "goes first" Stun.

Medic > War Magus if you don't have a Hexer to supplement their cuts, to be honest. Well, maybe. WM also is a beefier Healer and has better turn-order (Medics use Staves and have a .1 SPD multiplier as opposed to WM Swords which are 2.0). Combat Medic, which I assume you're working towards, is pretty decent damage, though you'll need a lot of +STR equipment to make up for their low STR growth.

My only real suggestion would probably be a Dark Hunter over a Landsknecht; they actually have a better STR growth and Viper is a cheap (Skill point wise) damage attack, Climax is amazing for harder-than-normal normal encounters, any FoE, and two bosses, and Force Skill: Dominate (-> Ecstacy later) is pretty much broken.

[dungeoncrawler]

Margh! Dang it.

Ok, since I really can't make up my mind on what party members to go with, here's what I decided to do: Use all of the characters, in three parties, and level them up more-or-less simultaneously. No more paralysis!

Party 1, "SPF 200" (because everyone's so pale, get it? ;P):

R / DH / WM
H / G

I was skeptical about this party, mainly because WM seems so useless without a H, and none of H's spells really grabbed me. But I decided to go all out with the original recommendation and create this party.

WHAT a difference it's made having that much offensive power on the team. I finished my first floor map and made it to level 4 in about an hour. Fellow newbies, start with this party. You'll find the initial part of the game *much* less frustrating.

Party 2: "The Pillage People":

S / S / S
S / S

This is a scouting party whose sole purpose is to have lots of Take / Mine / Chop and find stuff I can sell for muchos dineros to buy the best weapons/armour. Hey, I never said I wasn't cheap.

Party 3: The "Chocobo Chicks":

L / P / T
M / A

A throw-back to my childhood days of yore playing Final Fantasy. There's a fighter, a paladin, a white mage, a black mage, and there's even a spoony bard! And it's an all female party because, frankly, we kick butt.

This is the party I really wanted to play through this game with originally, but ended up dying. Badly. A LOT. So now I'm going to try following up the war path cleared by SPF 200 and see if I can get some enjoyment out of these characters.

On a side note, I have to say, I can't remember the last time I felt this giddy about a game. I spent two weekends in a row doing nothing but reading forum topics, making spreadsheets, comparing pros/cons, etc. This hasn't happened in years and it's such a wonderful feeling.

Did this happen to anyone else, or am I just weird?

[Kinokokao]

[scy]

[Seniwac]

[dungeoncrawler]

Wow. So it turns out The Pillage People are not only great for getting gold quickly, but they make an awesome scouting/exploration/mapping party.

Once I got the items needed to make a Power Ring, I made 9 of them. Gave the back row of three Survivalists two each, gave the front row of two Survivalists one each, with a Guts Wrist in the other slot.

At about level 5 or 6, you start being able to kill everything in level 1 and most of 2 without losing any health: because their agility is so high, the entire team fights before the enemy gets a turn. The agility also seems to help with escaping from battles in the case of running into a FOE accidentally.

So I can send The Pillage People to a new level of the labyrinth, have them kill a few things so I get items to make stronger equipment, and then use the gold I've made from all the taking/mining/chopping to buy the equipment for the primary teams.

It's evil, but it works. Probably not for too many more floors, I'm betting, though.

[scy]

Stalker is amazing for trying to map out floors without pesky random encounters. As for Escaping, the formula is:

Escape Chance = [10 * (AGI + LUC + 5) / (Enemy's Average AGI + Enemy's Average LUC + 5)]

Escape Up adds +30% at max level (...which is one point) and each time you Escape, after the first, adds an additional +10% Chance to Escape, up to the maximum of 90% Total Chance to Escape.

[hotspot]

[scy]

Landsknecht is the weakest of the melee damage dealers (tying with War Magus for Swords route). Alchemist is probably around the same for backrow damage output; I'd argue that a Survivalist could possibly out damage them but that'd need some numbers and testing.

[spoiler]Which would make the order:

Revenge Hexer > Gunner > Survivalist > Alchemist > Troubadour (SHOCKER)

Late game with best equip, Gunner can outdamage a 999 HP Revenge Hexer but ... yeah.

...yeah, I just like to crush hopes and dreams If you want to use a Landsknecht or Alchemist, it's up to you. I just give the numbers and the analysis based off of that.[/spoiler]

People can hate it all they want but, really, RDW / GH is a damn efficient team >> Can drop the R (or DH if you don't want to be tempted to use Dominate) for a Protector to make the team less squishy but it really is an efficient team.

[spoiler]+1 e-peen[/spoiler]