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Hmm...I think I will have to make an vanguard party and a gathering party.

First party I think would work as
vangaurd: My main party for exploring and killing bosses
prince (with aggressive healing style), warrior
Shinobi, beast king, zodiac

Gather: For well, gathering duh.
Prince (Passive healing), farmer, phalanx
farmer, undecided class.

Yep, can't argue with that. Very versatile vanguard party there. Prince gets to use both high level commands well and can springboard Warrior with Emit Weapon, Shinobi can give binds to Warrior and maybe use Hawk Wings, BK has a front slot for a powerful critter and can gain power from the Zodiac, etc.

The only thing that might be an issue is that the Warlord Prince is poor at healing to begin with. He might want to make an initial detour to either get Exchange or invest in some passive healing if he's the sole medic.

For Gather, you could go all the way and have the 3x Farmers. Though if you've only got two parties, it might give overkill cash for you. In which case, the obvious choice is pull the Phalanx to the back row (they can abuse Long Stride from there) and stick a Pirate in the front (using Rapier). Most of the party can use Piercing attacks at least some of the time so you can chase the heck out of it. (if you really want, you can replace a further farmer with a Ballista for even more pierce compatibility).

What exactly makes a Beast King worth it?
Because, I might use Chops' first party with a Monk replacing the BK,
since Monks can heal very well and are pretty powerful.

Also, what about the Ballista? I've heard next to nothing about them being useful, which has led me to think they aren't.

Just to clarify/add on, the BK boost to status chances is applied after resistances, not before. For example, a base 60% chance with the skill maxed out (+15%) would result in a minimum of 15% chance to land regardless of the target's resistances (well, barring immunity). Pretty much means that if the target isn't immune to the status effect, the BK has about a 1 in 7 chance to inflict the status effect.

[spoiler]That said, a lot of enemies in the game don't have the ridiculous levels of resistances from EO1 and EO2 (~30% on many of the bosses instead of ~1-5% from EO1/EO2) so this loses some value since a Farmer/HighLUC character can be used for appropriate status effects (i.e., Binds) instead.[/spoiler]

As for your party, do keep in mind that the Shinobi and BK both want a 6th slot in the group (Clones and Summons) so they kind of conflict with each other.

Healing wise, the Prince/Princess doesn't have Cure/Salve type Healing; a lot of Regen effects (start of turn gain health, end of turn gain health, gain health every step, etc.) and converts buffs into healing (strip buff from target, heal [TEC * X%] HP). The Monk has a basic single-target Heal (as well as a full-heal single-target), a row-target Heal, and a Party Heal.

Forgot about the sixth slot ^-^

So, if I'd replace the Beast King with a Shinobi, would that be better?

Also, what about the farmer? In earlier posts, you said that they weren't that awesome, but here you state that they're quite useful for status effects.

Also, is it possible that the Princess would eliminate the need for a Monk,
if I'd be careful?

And what about the Warrior?

Sorry for asking so many questions! >->

How do you stat out a farmer?

I don't like the Farmer class but they are the best base class for status effects due to their high base LUC. That said, you can replicate that LUC through equipment for the few fights you need it anyway so it's not a huge deal. The Farmer skillset itself is pretty goddamn terrible to me as a primary group asset (barring Lullaby, I suppose, though BK has a better Sleep via a Summon).

The thing with the BK's +15% is that since most bosses stop at around 30% modifier (so you can land one and then repeat affliction takes it to 0% after) and the base chance for most status effects is 60%, having a high enough LUC+TEC means you have a 36% chance to land. The bonus from LUC+TEC is greater than the flat +15% from the BK. That said, they do stack so a BK's summons have a 51% chance to land on a 30% target assuming a high enough LUC+TEC.

All I was going for was that the BK's +15% isn't completely necessary since a high LUC character can still get a decent chance to land with normal status effects. Remember, the BK needs to use a summon to get that +15% tacked on so it's not "FUCKINGAWESOME."

[spoiler]Lethal Resistances, however, are applied last. They are a ~50% to ~90% chance to flat out resist the status effect _after_ it passes a successful chance. Currently, I have no idea what bosses have this mechanic I just know that it exists in the game.

I also need to double check that the BK's +15% is really only added onto summons and not just regular status effects >>[/spoiler]

To be honest, the only "really awesome" build of a Farmer is a Farmer/Shinobi and you're picking up more of the sub-class abilities than the main-class ones (Decapitate, Stone Curse, Shadow Stitch). You have a good enough LUC as is so you can just STR dump them otherwise so they can deal good enough damage. Due to the STR formula (and damage formula in general), a Farmer isn't that incompetent in combat if their sub-class gives them a worthwhile damage skillset. But, you're only really using the Farmer main for the high LUC and you can just use, say, a Shinobi primary and just slot some LUC instead of STR and pretty much have the same effect as a Farmer. There's nothing unique to the Farmer that makes the status effects awesome--just a good baseline LUC.

Warriors ... I know nothing about. I'm planning on taking mine the Sword route for Blade Rave but I also plan to run a heavy Cut-damage party with a Pirate to chase. *shrugs* I don't know much about subbing these either so ... yeah. eharper and Kaname know more about EO3 than me so hopefully they can answer this.

Edit: Hammer wise, all I can say is Nine Smash is pretty awesome I guess. Depending on the percentage breakdown, though, it may not outaverage Blade Rave.

Hmmm...So, no Farmer & no Beast King?

What about Ballista's? Mine is pretty useless, so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks for your help!

@Kaname: Again, the formula doesn't care how much more LUC you have. If you hit the +22 point, everything after that is a non-issue. If you NEED a Farmer to be able to hit that point, however, then that's a different issue entirely. But otherwise, there is nothing innate to the Farmer that is doing anything. +22 and +294 (99 LUC, 99 TEC vs 1 LUC, 1 TEC) still net a 2.0 multiplier.

Give me your stats and I guarantee you the difference will be the Farmer has the +22 or more and the Shinobis don't. That's all.

Edit: The Farmer is definitely the _easiest_ route to having a character land status effects. It, however, is not _unique_ to the Farmer. That's the distinction I'm trying to make here. The Farmer itself has an overall (personally) weak skillset which makes using them for every fight in the game a bit weak. They have their uses due to the high LUC but, as far as I can tell, they're not the only class that can hit the LUC/TEC needed to get the 2.0 multiplier for every fight in the game.

I'd also like to note that a level 70 Farmer vs a level 70 Shinobi isn't that big of a difference. The Farmer has a +173 while the Shinobi has a +156 (numbers are just 2*LUC + TEC). Sure, their difference is pretty much the +22 needed (+17) but it's not something that can't be fixed with +LUC equipment.

Incidentally, the best class at landing Status Effects is a Beast King (+186 at 70) since it has the best combined LUC and TEC. Farmer has an abysmal TEC score (up to _50_ less than some of the end-game bosses) which balances their high LUC.

To compare, the boss in question has a combined 2*LUC+TEC of +192. You need +6 as a BK, +19 as a Farmer, and +36 as a Shinobi. In just LUC, that's +3, +10, +18.

@Self: Those are slightly incorrect. What I meant was the chance of hitting twice, three times, four time, etc. I know the percentages and the amount of hits but those aren't everything--if Nine Smash doesn't have a high chance of 6-9 hits (where it outdamages Blade Rave) then it doesn't really matter. For example, Ricochet from EO2 is 125% damage per shot and hits 3, 4, or 5 times. If you just average the hits, you get 500% damage (or 4 hits on average) but you have to factor that you have a 70%/20%/10% chance for 3/4/5 hits which changes the numbers to 425% Ricohcet average damage (or 3.4 hits on average).

Ignore this if Nine Smash is an even 12.5% chance per hit as the numbers come out if you just average them normally.

Wow. Damn Scy your good.

Um anyway though, I was wondering more so what skills are good for multiple farmers on a harvesting party. Lets say I used three farmers, a phalanx, and a prince(or monk). Phalanx uses the rank jump skill to go from back to front for damage, shield skills to protect the farmers; prince or monk does healing, and farmers well, farm. Early on I shouldn't really need them, but I was thinking putting a point or two into their "party gains extra exp" skill to help them level and gain more skill points faster, with three of them, lets say I put two points in each by level ten they have what, a net +60%? (Could be wrong haven't looked at the skill in a while), then a point into their second harvest thing (Which, does that stack with multiple farmers?), then a point or two into any skill that reduces encounter rate. Then just other points into the various harvest skills. Sound like a good plan?

You can make 2 or 3 more farmers that won't have an immediate use. If you have them learn the 4th common skill (the one that has characters not in the party gain EXP), they might eventually gain more levels than the farmers you'll be using at first.

The farmers don't actually need to be alive for you to use their chop/mine/take points, so you can just let them die and revive them when you want them to use their chop/mine/take recovery skill. Reviving is also pretty simple if your monk has the Resurrect skill. Two level 19 farmers with +TP accessories and TP Boost level 1 should have enough TP to be able to gather 40 items per type of gathering point per run (actual party should be around level 44 by then).