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Trials of Mana
- Thread starter Vega
- Start date
I couldn't tell you about unique elements, but I could recommend builds!
Ladies: I think the best play here is to build for as straightforward a team as possible. Riesz as Dragon Master for physical brawling, Charlotte as High Cleric for big heals, and Angela as Magus for raw magic damage. There's a few ways you could spice that up (such as Rune Seer and Necromancer instead for status effect hell) but that's where I'd start.
Dudes: This team is a little more flexible, partly because Duran and Kevin have such similar roles. I think the main pivot here is whether you play Duran as Light or Dark. On Dark, he can use sabers to access elemental effects, leaving Hawkeye and Kevin to both explore their light classes (likely resulting in a team of Edelfrei, Nomad, and Warrior Monk). On Light, he'll likely be doing healing duty as Liege, with Hawkeye covering magic offense as Ninja Master and Kevin doing physical offense as Fatal Fist.
Ladies: I think the best play here is to build for as straightforward a team as possible. Riesz as Dragon Master for physical brawling, Charlotte as High Cleric for big heals, and Angela as Magus for raw magic damage. There's a few ways you could spice that up (such as Rune Seer and Necromancer instead for status effect hell) but that's where I'd start.
Dudes: This team is a little more flexible, partly because Duran and Kevin have such similar roles. I think the main pivot here is whether you play Duran as Light or Dark. On Dark, he can use sabers to access elemental effects, leaving Hawkeye and Kevin to both explore their light classes (likely resulting in a team of Edelfrei, Nomad, and Warrior Monk). On Light, he'll likely be doing healing duty as Liege, with Hawkeye covering magic offense as Ninja Master and Kevin doing physical offense as Fatal Fist.
I think the Ladies team would be a bit stronger leaning harder on magic damage. Star Lancer Riesz for both the passive and active magic buffs, Evil Shaman Charlotte for passive and active magic debuffs plus some decent spell damage, and whatever with Angela (But probably not Rune Seer).
star lancer is also the best riesz outfit
I didn't really expect this to get any post-launch support, but a patch just came out today that added two new difficulties and some QoL stuff. I'mma do a quick NG+ run to prepare for NO FUTURE then see how that turns out.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Oh dang! Definitely wasn't expecting that, very cool. *Looks at patch notes* Pffft, I love the rabite slipper reward for beating No Future.
I had been thinking of replaying this soon, so new difficulties are welcome. Guess I'll try Expert for my second playthrough and save No Future for a third. The changes in No Future sound pretty extreme, but might be cool. Sounds kind of Ys-ish, where you don't have to worry too much about your allies, but it's dodge or die for the character you control.
A level 1 rabite just hit me for 1800 damage.
This was at 0 defense because of Attacker II though. At 7 defense (Angela's starting armor) it was a mere ~250 damage, 3x her starting HP. I haven't taken a hit with the armor I carried over, but it's pretty clear the game is being serious when it says you should be transferring gear and abilities into this difficulty.
EDIT: ~75 damage with the best base class armor. Almost but not quite a one-shot at level 1.
This was at 0 defense because of Attacker II though. At 7 defense (Angela's starting armor) it was a mere ~250 damage, 3x her starting HP. I haven't taken a hit with the armor I carried over, but it's pretty clear the game is being serious when it says you should be transferring gear and abilities into this difficulty.
EDIT: ~75 damage with the best base class armor. Almost but not quite a one-shot at level 1.
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Started on Expert tonight with Charlotte, Kevin and Hawkeye. On Hard, using the longest combo possible ending with a heavy attack was pretty much always the best approach, but now enemies can survive several such combos and will hit you really hard while you're doing them, so it's better to use a light-heavy combo to knock them down. Kevin often can't do this without getting hit because his heavy attack doesn't knock down until the second hit, so... Charlotte is a better melee character than Kevin because hitting twice makes him worse. Hilarious!
Fullmetal Hugger took a while because even Kevin with Attacker II was taking off single pixels of health at a time, but its attacks weren't any harder to dodge. Bosses with faster attacks will probably get fairly intense.
Fullmetal Hugger took a while because even Kevin with Attacker II was taking off single pixels of health at a time, but its attacks weren't any harder to dodge. Bosses with faster attacks will probably get fairly intense.
The AI has actually been pretty solid on No Future. It feels like they're a lot more aggressive, but it's mostly the fact that the unique No Future ability just straight-up makes them immortal. Turns out the AI is a lot more helpful when it doesn't spend all its time dying! They take a lot of heat off you, and I think some boss fights ended up easier than usual because you don't have to babysit them so much. 3x Golems was the big one.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
The ability carryover is pretty cool!
A rabite killed me immediately. I'm not able to do a replay of the game right now but am so pleased they did this update.
A rabite killed me immediately. I'm not able to do a replay of the game right now but am so pleased they did this update.
Finished on Expert tonight. Since I was playing the characters I didn't use before, I had no equipment for them to carry over besides accessories. I used all the overpowered late game chain abilities, though, except for the +200% CS in every battle. Thanks to the one that gives +300% XP, and carrying over some ??? seeds, I was able to hit third tier classes well before the Benevodon dungeons, and got to the final boss at level 89.
Ended up going with Sage Charlotte, Fatal Fist Kevin and Nightblade Hawkeye. Hawkeye definitely felt like a weak link with this party, dealing pretty low damage with both physical attacks and magic. The debuffs from jutsus are nice, but they don't trigger if the target is immune to damage from that element, so it seems like dark Riesz is just better than dark Hawkeye? Maybe his light classes are better. Kevin was a powerhouse once he got going, and more importantly, once Charlotte's healing got going so that I could afford to use the longer, more damaging combos and take a few hits in return. I controlled Kevin most of the time because his AI doesn't attack as much as I'd like.
It was quite a bit tougher than my first playthrough, but never overwhelmingly difficult. Some bosses took a few tries, particularly the final boss, who felt super cheap on the first few attempts and really made me learn the fight. A very satisfying experience altogether. I liked the game already, but the new game + seemed kinda lame before; it's really good now. Not sure whether I want to move right along to No Future, but I'll definitely be giving it a shot at some point. I foolishly sold all my base class equipment for Angela, Duran and Riesz, though, so I guess I'd have to either do another quick run with them or just use this same party again, or accept that everything will kill me in one hit for a while.
I kinda want to take a crack at the postgame boss on Expert, too, but that dungeon is... very long. Maybe. Maybe.
Ended up going with Sage Charlotte, Fatal Fist Kevin and Nightblade Hawkeye. Hawkeye definitely felt like a weak link with this party, dealing pretty low damage with both physical attacks and magic. The debuffs from jutsus are nice, but they don't trigger if the target is immune to damage from that element, so it seems like dark Riesz is just better than dark Hawkeye? Maybe his light classes are better. Kevin was a powerhouse once he got going, and more importantly, once Charlotte's healing got going so that I could afford to use the longer, more damaging combos and take a few hits in return. I controlled Kevin most of the time because his AI doesn't attack as much as I'd like.
It was quite a bit tougher than my first playthrough, but never overwhelmingly difficult. Some bosses took a few tries, particularly the final boss, who felt super cheap on the first few attempts and really made me learn the fight. A very satisfying experience altogether. I liked the game already, but the new game + seemed kinda lame before; it's really good now. Not sure whether I want to move right along to No Future, but I'll definitely be giving it a shot at some point. I foolishly sold all my base class equipment for Angela, Duran and Riesz, though, so I guess I'd have to either do another quick run with them or just use this same party again, or accept that everything will kill me in one hit for a while.
I kinda want to take a crack at the postgame boss on Expert, too, but that dungeon is... very long. Maybe. Maybe.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
picked this up, gonna start it this weekend, someone pick a party for me (no charlotte)
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Do you have a general preference on using magic or weapons, or do you like a mix?
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
i don't have a preference on account of having only played the demo, where you only get to use magic for like, 2 minutes.
Duran, Hawkeye, Riesz seems like it would be fun on a first playthrough. You won't kill things too quickly, but you can have total coverage of buffs, debuffs and elemental damage, or play all of them as fighters if you prefer that.
If you want to end fights in a matter of seconds and kill bosses before their music even gets to loop, by all means use Angela and Kevin.
If you want to end fights in a matter of seconds and kill bosses before their music even gets to loop, by all means use Angela and Kevin.
The biggest problem with playing as Kevin is that he spends more than half the game as a boring old human.
If you give me a playable Werewolf then, dangit, I expect to be a dogman
If you give me a playable Werewolf then, dangit, I expect to be a dogman
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I have always liked Hawk, Riesz, Kevin. Not a lot of attack magic but tons of weird buffing/debuffing/status spells. And those summons are so fun.
Angela, not main, so you can talk to her in town.
If you are using English voice tracks, Kevin's VA was given a very difficult task and I feel sorry for the voice actor. (Charlotte's performance was better than the material) But: you speak Japanese.
If you are using English voice tracks, Kevin's VA was given a very difficult task and I feel sorry for the voice actor. (Charlotte's performance was better than the material) But: you speak Japanese.
pick charlotte anyway because she's good
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
i ended up going reisz, duran, and kevin, because that was the team i used when i first beat the snes game after a disastrous first attempt using charlotte/angela/hawkeye
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Went Light for all my class changes, based entirely* on how the descriptions and abilities presented to me on the class change screen. Reisz's class abilities being "Boost your CS gauge every time you hit an enemy" versus "Reduce status effect duration or whatever" was particularly lolworthy.
*Well, partially on that, and partially based on my memories of this party in the SFC version, where I know I went Light with both Reisz and Duran
*Well, partially on that, and partially based on my memories of this party in the SFC version, where I know I went Light with both Reisz and Duran
The entire game is pretty easy, but Starlancer on Riesz (Light > Dark) is hilariously overpowered.
Starlancer is not only very good, it's absolutely the recommended choice if you're rolling light Kevin and Duran alongside. (I will happily vouch for Vanadis as a class, just not with this comp.)
You should have either a Liege or a Warrior Monk if you want someone with area healing, but I wouldn't recommend doubling down. Personally, I'd say have Duran go Liege and Kevin go Divine Fist, especially if you want to do CS gauge nonsense. That's like Divine Fist's entire gimmick.
You should have either a Liege or a Warrior Monk if you want someone with area healing, but I wouldn't recommend doubling down. Personally, I'd say have Duran go Liege and Kevin go Divine Fist, especially if you want to do CS gauge nonsense. That's like Divine Fist's entire gimmick.
I decided to start a new game with Duran, Charlotte and Angela.
Duran is... not saddled with the most compelling reason for a globe trotting adventure, is he?
Duran is... not saddled with the most compelling reason for a globe trotting adventure, is he?