Bravely Default Series

I've played the game before Wehrmacht, I know to shut down Victoria with Star Charms. She doesn't really know what to do when you're immune to poison - tries it once, then is pretty much dead in the water. Appreciate the advice though, very useful for others who don't know.

I didn't actually need a full poison immunity, knowing what was coming. Just gave it to Tiz, and had him use Darkmatter + Monster Fibre for when one target was poisoned, or Widen Area antidote for when more than one person got poisoned. In addition, I gave Ringabel BP Recovery, so if Tiz couldn't act, he could use Poisona on up to three people at once to undo her work.

I also gave Tiz Auto-Phoenix to counteract Victoria's Doom skill, and added Cure Doom to Ringabel's Rejuvenation.

...I just cured the poison.

But that's no fun. What's the point of having a hundred complicated ways of doing something if you're just going to solve it the simple way?

EDIT: Helps if I actually read the post...

edited 28th Jan '15 3:01:19 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

that wastes turns though.

also it's really satisfying when you see your party members guard against the status ailment and you're like "NO FUCK YOU". Or at least that was how I felt when I was rematching. De Rosa. That fight is SO much easier with rebuff lockets/performer's skillset to reset his bp and give you M Res buffs for his thundaga spam. Even with all the other asshole boss fights in this game, De Rosa was by far the most difficult, time-consuming and annoying for me to get through because you just don't have very good tools for dealing with him at that point in time.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:12:26 PM by wehrmacht

Funny thing about Revenge. Zero Sum from the Performer tree actually has a chance of triggering it, so what you were hoping would bring his BP down to zero may actually push it back up to 1 immediately.

I find that he doesn't understand how to handle Reflect at all. Putting it on the party and De Rosa himself means that when Revenge triggers, he'll hit himself with Thundara and/or heal a party. Use Lightning Bane and Scale Strip for the most fun.

For the first battle, Abate Lightning and M Def +10% are really easy to obtain (it requires just level 2 in Summoner and White Mage respectively).

As long as someone can heal, that basically eliminates him as a realistic threat. The healer defaults when not actually healing, everyone else attacks when they can, Robert's your father's brother!

Does the Holy One skill work on the healing from using a Blessed Shield?

So I made Tiz into a Ninja with Commerce.

You know what's an amusing, if likely inefficient, combo?

Full Leverage, Attack, Attack, Low Leverage.

It's got the bonus effect of re-applying Low Leverage for me.

Alright, my new current team just took the Central Command test and aced it.

Agnes: Salve-Maker/Time Mage
Group Cast All, Auto Phoenix

Tiz: Ninja/Merchant
Frenetic Fighting, Multitask, Prolong Support (might replace this with Sword Magic Amp)

Ringabel: Freelancer/Perforrmer
Dual Shields, Shield Lore, BP Recovery, BP Limit Up (might replace some of these with Conservation of Life)

Edea: Dark Knight/Spiritmaster
Dual Wield, Gloom, Sword Magic Amp, Drain Attack Up, BP Limit Up

Basic strategy is to give everyone Giant's Drafts, and have Tiz drop Low Leverage and Pay To Play (one each for my damage dealers) on the first turn. Edea spent her time dropping an Enigma, the better to slaughter everything with Dark Nebula.
Turn 2 strategy involves group-casted Regen and Reraise, as well as Dragon Vim on Tiz and Edea both. Meanwhile, Tiz and Edea turn on Blood Blade, and Edea starts using Dark Nebula. On the third turn, Tiz finally starts attacking, while Agnes boosts his hit count with Quick, and does Haste and Slow.

Menwhile, Ringabel coninually dances My Hero.

Obviously, against single foes, who don't have any pressing status or elemental worries for me to deal with, Edea will drop Spiritmaster in favor of Conjurer, and buff herself early on with Promythean Fire and Susano-o.

This is a team I like a lot.

Did the Low Leverage Rage work?

It worked so well. Crits were 9999, and non-crits were around 6500 or so, on average.

And so did Dark Nebula, but that's hardly surprising. Damage output on that is straight up ridonkulous.

Tiz fared less amazingly, only doing like 2400-3000 per arm, but that's still fairly good, and he had the Full Leverage combo if his damage was suffering particularly badly against any one opponent.

edited 28th Jan '15 8:34:10 PM by Enlong

I wonder if I should mess around a bit with Spiritmaster and Arcanist, or simply jump straight to the Brav Lee fight.

Decisions, decisions.

That's probably the maximum damage in one turn without using Sleep Points, then.

I believe so. 199980 damage, depending on enemy defense, at max. Second highest is a Ninja who gets Multitask on every hit and 9999 on each arm, for a total of 159984. Even then, Rage takes the cake for reiability and the effective defense bonus of Low Leverage.

Low Leverage is also fun because it makes my Performer/Mimic totally self-sustaining by dropping My Hero to 1 BP.

edited 28th Jan '15 8:53:00 PM by Enlong

...That's a lot of BP.

Do you really need that much BP?

Yeah, I'm probably envious that I'm too set in my ways to find a way to work Merchant into my build, but still. Do you really need it?

Well it certainly doesn't hurt.

And it's not too different from my non Low-Leverage strategy; Agnes just doesn't throw status ailments at Ringabel quite as often.

edit:

Oh holy crap. I didn't notice this before. Fairy Ward blocks all non-element-weakness status effects, including the Doom effect from Life Or Death. Taking Invocation off Edea forever now.

edited 28th Jan '15 9:39:04 PM by Enlong

Would it be worth it to replace my Dark Knight's Two Handed with Bow Lore?

On the one hand, it's effectively a drop in power, since the strongest bow (Artemis bow, 90 power) is weaker than a two-handed wielding of the strongest sword (Durandal, 50 power becoming 100 power).

On the other hand, if I apply Dark Weak to an enemy, using Rage would allow Edea to hit weaknesses enough times to use Bow special attacks literally every other turn.

Now, obviously, 9999 damage is something Edea could easily pull off with one Dark Bane anyway, so the biggest draw is ailment touch and the stat boosts during the song. How big is the crit bonus from using Maximum Draw?

300%. Seems worth it.

Wow, just had the perfect first battle against Praline!

My spear specials (three characters using them, Agnes a rod) had the Blind attribute. Ringabel moved first and his Meggido killed one of the flunkies and left the other alive but mostly dead and, crucially, blind. That meant he couldn't easily hit me, and Tiz and Agnes both took advantage since they had Turn Tables. We were all wearing Peace Lockets for confuse prevention, so all Praline could do was ineffectually buff her surviving ally, who seldom hit me, and never killed anyone.

The other characters just used level 2 specials for hit 1, but still did over 8k damage.

Match was over in a couple of minutes, and I couldn't have scripted it any better if I'd tried!

Here's to hoping D's Report gets an English translation made available :D

Remind me, what genomes should be picked up before finishing chapter four?

Progress is good! Qada, Kamiizumi and Konoe all fell on the first attempt, though I used a couple of high powered friend-summons on the former. Sadly Ringabel fell in both of the latter two, as did Edea in the second, but I wasn't prepared to do them again just so they could share the rewards. Long-term, a few thousand experience is meaningless.

The Kamiizumi fight was the first in which I really saw the true awesome power of the Salvemaker class actually. Those compounds are ridiculously broken. The ability to give elemental weaknesses cuts battle length down a lot, and being able to heal 6000 HP for the cost of just a potion and an ether is amazing!

And why would I ever bother using the Raise spell when a mere potion provides an additional 9600 health to a Phoenix Down's Raise?

Basically, the class seems to make the White Mage a buff-only class, since healing it does is irrelevant in the face of the Salvemaker.

edited 31st Jan '15 9:54:07 AM by CaissasDeathAngel