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Because almost everything can be killed without them? I've never been fond of elemental attacks they give me. I do have the runes for defense, though, and admittedly,

I figure, I could get an Imperial with Accel Drive, since non-element works on everything, but it's a bit harder to fit into my party models.

Really, snow? I was using Accel Drive vs the Boiling Lizard, and of the four times it hit, with the same conditions, one of them did half the damage of the others. There wasn't a message though, I admit.

Also:

I am quite sure: My Accel Drive in (700% modifier) hit for 5k in the front row/2.5k in the back, my Squall Volley (50% modifier) hit for 900 crit in the back, so it is consistent with my assumption.
What drive were you using? Could the lizard be affected by rune?

Accel Drive, Fire Rune was active for defense. Is there any kind of anti-crit? Critical defend? Because I'm pretty sure the number went from 4k to 2k once.

No, I don't think there is a crit defend mechanism in the game. Just did some further testing: Both Fire Rune and Head bound won't affect Accel Drive damage, which is expected. Can the lizard switch to back row when it throw scale?

I... hadn't thought about that, but I don't think so? I don't remember anything like that. Could have had some kind of debuff I didn't keep track of, on one party or the other.

I'm prety sure the is in the same row regardless.

Also: I got my three-dancer squad out to the battle with the . Suddenly the difficulty spiked like crazy; Guard Tango does crap all against elemental attacks afterall and that's 3/4ths of what comes my way in this battle, and when almost an entire characters' HP in damage by itself they sure can't survive what the throws afterwards.

So I've acquiesed to taking along for this battle because I don't feel like going to level 40 or something silly like that in order to have a reasonable shot at this. At least in the next stratum I'll have subclasses and strategic options will open in every direction; as it is while dancersquad has been amazing this far they'd go through hell here.

Runemaster would fix some of those problems right up. So would a Sniper.

I think he is playing a 3-dancer party in a NG+.
But a guest for the party should still fit your story? Mine certainly do.
P.S. A little bit curious how your dancers are doing. Are they performing different roles? (e.g. one chase, one attack and one energy dance) Does they work well? How do you plan with their subclassing?

They're each performing different roles, yes -
#1 has focused on maxing Regen Waltz and the other healing abilities available and has picked up a bit in Fan Dance/Sword Dance to round it out/improve survivability. #2 has maxed Guard Tango as well as Attack/Energy Tango situationally and focuses as my main sword dance attacker. #3 finally has the Sambas as a focus and is the main reason my party has a hilarious attack count (On top of all three having at least a couple points in Counter Samba, I've seen 10+ attacks come out of these three in one turn).

One of them, likely #1, is going to max Runemaster for the purpose of having access to the elemental runes - like I said, elemental damage is such a major pain in the arse for this party that being able to cut it by 40% will be really important. I'm still debating options for the others. #3 subbing Bushi may turn out fantastic - all those extra attacks empowered by Blood Surge could become amazing, nevermind the fact that he'll be leading with regular attacks anyway to recharge HP (there's just the TP cost thing). I'm also debating a Landsknecht sub for someone - it'd be fairly easy to setup one of my members to get first action and run Improved Link -> Links like a minor Landsknecht, with the rest of the party chaining attacks off of that. That'd be #2 if I did it.

The main thing I really have to consider is the buff slots, which puts a damper on Bushi/Land subbing - I may be picking the non-runemaster subclasses more based on passives, because the competition for the buff slots on my party is going to be extremely heavy (runes already have the huge downside of taking one slot on EACH dancer, and the remaining two are most likely to be used for dances - Regen/Guard/Chase as standards plus one adaptive one each). Obviously Nightseeker comes with advantages (which I will use) especially when I high level Sword Dance and Mist Dance but that's another ~13 levels and half a stratum away.

Seriously though, this is the first time this party has actually felt super challenged; the first stratum was pretty easy, mostly because almost all the damage coming my way was physical and Guard Tango is a pretty sharp reduction in that (it takes multiple attacks on one character in order to threaten a KO or even beat Regen Waltz generally, and now I have Calm Breath + Burst Saver so it has to actually KO someone)

Once you get Dance Mastery, that will be terrifying. On a related note, Bushi don't use buff slots- Blood Surge is a different sort of effect, like Overheat and the Circles. Also, you might want a medic in there, just for the Revive ability. There's never a downside to having someone capable of revival.

Dance Mastery is indeed going to lessen quite a bit of the burden, especially if I get more points in Burst Saver too. Amusingly enough, Beat Dance is still going to be useless.

And thank you for the info about Bushi - despite knowing in a theoretical sense how good it is, I never found a place for it on my original team so I never actually used it to know this! I'm debating about Medic; Revive would be nice and, after looking up the numbers, Line Heal 5 > Healing Step 10 (only about a 1% heal difference, which is ignorable, but only 40% of the TP Cost and it's not like I have a back row that needs healing). So there's definitely an argument to be made for this...

Oh, Bushi also lends you Roar. Roar is amazingly for certain fights, because it nullifies enemy buffs and deals resistance-ignoring damage. It's hella hilarious on bosses that try to do some kind of last-minute powerup.

[EDIT]
Can someone explain exactly what the speed boost/fan dance bug is?