Guild and Class selection

[FomeRubr555]

[spoiler]Okay I take it back, the Shogun 1 picture was the one that made me find interest in Shogun. Wolkenritter's image only reinforced it.

Anyway, I'm assuming the JP description is probably correct, since I have seen no change in damage on successive hits whatsoever. I was going by Zaraf's skill simulator description, however, which says it's just a 90% damage bonus. Perhaps it's just an error with wording, but the fact that my level 27 Yggdroid has more ATK than my 42 Buccaneer leads me to wonder if it might be correct. On the other hand, it'd be silly to have a 90% damage bonus skill with no downside on the same class that has a 50% damage bonus skill with a health drain...

Though, if the JP description is correct, I think the 30% adds to the normal crit multiplier, not replaces it. Otherwise at rank 1 in Data Mining you would actually lower your crit damage by 20%! Which means that at rank 10 you should be doing 240% damage...but does that add up? Seems a little high...[/spoiler]

[Kinokokao]

Having played around with Gladiator/Arbalist in my actual party I'm pretty dang pleased with the result. Berserker Vow isn't that big of a deal since I'm running a Prince and a Monk/Princess so he's pretty much back up to full health immediately after using it, assuming no one attacks him between the Vow activation and the end of the turn. Using Heavy Shot at the moment since he's in the backrow, but he's getting less squishy and I'll move him up front as soon as I figure out what to do with my Prince.

I like the Arbalist suggestion, Scy, as that enables back-row attack and utility skills that my offensive-oriented Glad/Arbalist won't be getting. Basically I need a back-row using subclass and I think Arbalist would be a greater offensive boost than Gun-Pirate or Hoplite, and I don't want a very TP-heavy subclass since the Prince burns through TP already using Prevent/Protect Order -- although the Monk will pick up Protect Order ASAP to help spread the love, because between Protect Order and Passive healing I rarely have to heal any of my characters.

Once my Farmers get to level 30 I'm retiring them all and creating a X/Farmer gathering party. I'm thinking:

Gun-Pirate/Farmer - Princess/Farmer - Monk/Farmer
Zodiac/Farmer - Arbalist/Farmer

With a element chasing offensive and stay-alive defense focus for any ambushes.

[Tiramisu]

[SirthOsiris]

Have a general idea of what I got for the second stratum boss.

Prince (28 )
[spoiler]Went an odd route and have maxed Monarch March. Got me past the first boss, but I question the second. Next level will get him Protect Order, but that's only a single point. Considering resting him quick to get it at a proper level, though I wonder how much would be useful for this boss.[/spoiler]

Buccaneer (19)
[spoiler]Hearing something about how head binds are useful, I started leveling this one and getting hanging. Currently sitting at 5 for it, and has the points to max it and the mastery, unless they're better spent elsewhere (class skill?). Obviously will level more.[/spoiler]

Monk (25)
[spoiler]Currently a fist monk with some healing. Has Line Heal and a point in Refresh. Has 4 in Breakfire, which should be useful against the boss.[/spoiler]

Arbalist (25)
[spoiler]Maxed Bolt, has 5 in Heavy Shot, random point in Armor Piercer, and one in each barrage. 5 in Giant Kill. Wondering if I should continue into Giant Kill for the boss, or get Strafe. Still considering Front Mortar, but her armor is crap.[/spoiler]

Zodiac (16)
[spoiler]Rested again, this time has max Singularity and Ether Charge. Wondering if I should max Fire Star, or bring it up to a certain level and leave it for something else. Will be using Hellfire in the fight. Obviously will level more.[/spoiler]

[scy]

Just as an in-general kind of thing, Weapon Masteries (sans Fist) are all useless after you get it to whatever level you want for your skills. Well, they're useful for Swashbuckling characters, I suppose. Masteries only give +Damage% to regular attacks, not skills. Raising them is not worth the points.

As for your group:
Prince(ss):
[spoiler]How's that untypical? Beelining March is basically how people build a Prince(ss). Maxing it so early is a bit odd, I suppose, but ... nothing overly strange.[/spoiler]

Pirate
[spoiler]As noted, stop raising Weapon Mastery unless you're aiming for Pincushion or Swashbuckling. You definitely want Trickster maxed.[/spoiler[

Monk
[spoiler]You'll probably want, at minimum, Refresh and Unbind at a high enough level to heal an entire row. Not much else to say ... it's a Monk.[/spoiler]

Arbalist
[spoiler]Giant Kill as Strafe sucks. I'm not too familiar with building a back-row Arbalist so not much else to say.[/spoiler]

Presumably, Zodiac
[spoiler]I've never used a Zodiac and took them above 1/10 on any of their stars if that's worth anything to you >> But I've always built them for Meteor so that probably skews things a bit.

Really, there's not much else to pump if you have maxed Ether Mastery, Etheric Charge, and Singularity.[/spoiler]

[FomeRubr555]

Hmm...so I had a crazy idea for a build that I might try out post-game.

[spoiler]So... Yggdroid has awesome TP recovery, of course. I thought about using this on a class that requires a lot of TP, like Zodiac for example. With Rocket Punch + Rocket Jump, it'd bind its arms and legs, activating Sleep Mode recovery. At rank 10 I could get up to 20 TP restored per turn, which is way more than my current zodiac normally spends on a given turn. Only problem is, the stats. My current Yggdroid's TEC leaves a lot to be desired, so the damage would suffer. I was wondering if stat growth is based entirely on the main class, and if so, is there anyway to offset it aside from a ton of stat boosting books?[/spoiler]

[scy]

@FomeRubr555
[spoiler]Stat growth is purely main class. There's nothing you can do short of using books constantly to max it. You'd also be lacking a global multiplier on them and the spell mechanic now has hitting a weakness not be considered a critical (which is how they worked in EO2) so it doesn't even trigger Data Mining.

Edit: I guess you could technically forge a lot of TEC slots and wear +TEC accessories ... but that's not really a permanent fix.[/spoiler]

[SirthOsiris]

Beat the second stratum boss.

[spoiler]Hellfire hit in upwards of 500 damage. Sleep Charms weren't needed, but Ice Charms were. No one died; hell, I barely healed.[/spoiler]

So now I'm in the third stratum. Turns out maxing Monarch March was very useful. But now I have subclasses open and new bosses to contend with. So, praytell, any suggestions for classes and subclasses? I heard the Hoplite will become very useful soon.

[Wolkenritter]

[FomeRubr555]

[Wolkenritter]

[FomeRubr555]

[Self]

[scy]

[Wolkenritter]