Feel free to discuss RPG Battle Systems here.
Last edited by a moderator:
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
RPG Battle systems
- Thread starter spyhunter7
- Start date
My favorite RPG system without question was Final Fantasy Tactics. Charge Time was a great way to balance power vs. damage, and the fact you were more vulnerable during charging was excellent. Additionally, because you could target either the area OR the unit, if you had a unit with absorb gear you could target them with a massive spell of that element and then have that unit walk into a field of enemies well beyond your mage's reach and still hit them.
A more recent RPG, Bravely Default, is one I thought dealt most perfectly with the "mash Attack to win" problem some RPGs run into. Because of Brave and Default there is almost always a better action you can take than just attacking, even if that means hitting Brave 3 times first so you can get the one-turn victory bonus. Auto-Battle allowed you to input enemy sweeping commands so it removed what could have made that system arduous.
Finally, one system I liked that I thought would do great with a proper upgrade was the system in Secret of Mana for the Super NES. The bonuses against monster types for changing your weapon were a great idea that was hindered by the fact you lost those bonuses when you upgraded the weapon, and you needed to upgrade the weapon as early as you could because the generic power increase was much more valuable. What I also liked was the charged up attack levels, where your attacks could take on different characteristics and ranges when charged to different levels. An example being the Lv.1 Boomerang, which actually allowed you to hit a standard movable enemy twice - first with a slashing motion, and then with the projectile. The Lv. 3 Boomerang was a stronger version of this. Most of the Lv. 6 variants for melee weapons involved a very wide rotating spin attack. It was one of the better action-oriented RPG systems for physical attacks.
A more recent RPG, Bravely Default, is one I thought dealt most perfectly with the "mash Attack to win" problem some RPGs run into. Because of Brave and Default there is almost always a better action you can take than just attacking, even if that means hitting Brave 3 times first so you can get the one-turn victory bonus. Auto-Battle allowed you to input enemy sweeping commands so it removed what could have made that system arduous.
Finally, one system I liked that I thought would do great with a proper upgrade was the system in Secret of Mana for the Super NES. The bonuses against monster types for changing your weapon were a great idea that was hindered by the fact you lost those bonuses when you upgraded the weapon, and you needed to upgrade the weapon as early as you could because the generic power increase was much more valuable. What I also liked was the charged up attack levels, where your attacks could take on different characteristics and ranges when charged to different levels. An example being the Lv.1 Boomerang, which actually allowed you to hit a standard movable enemy twice - first with a slashing motion, and then with the projectile. The Lv. 3 Boomerang was a stronger version of this. Most of the Lv. 6 variants for melee weapons involved a very wide rotating spin attack. It was one of the better action-oriented RPG systems for physical attacks.
I do like the turn based style in Final Fantasy 10 and 13. I also like the battling style in Tales of Symphonia as well as the Star Ocean series. I just like having a party with the given amount of people fighting in the same match.
The 2nd one listed sounds like Chrono Trigger's, unless my reading comprehension is acting up, which had like no flaws so I'll be biased for that one.
I'm not a fan of the SMT system because of how ridiculously important luck is, the punishment for a miss/crit is huge and this is coming from someone that plays fuckin Pokemon. Elemental weaknesses already granted either side an extra move but :smirk: being granted for crits is just ridiculous. Everytime I start playing SMT4 again my motivation to finish is quickly shot.
Traditional turnbased is always pretty good.
I'm not a fan of the SMT system because of how ridiculously important luck is, the punishment for a miss/crit is huge and this is coming from someone that plays fuckin Pokemon. Elemental weaknesses already granted either side an extra move but :smirk: being granted for crits is just ridiculous. Everytime I start playing SMT4 again my motivation to finish is quickly shot.
Traditional turnbased is always pretty good.
FFT is indeed the best; I'm a big fan of the "Tactical / Strategy" RPG style systems. Standard turn based or that bs real time action system or whatever (which is really just turned based) is really boring for me. For me, however great the story is doesn't make up for a boring combat system. Also the Tales of battle systems (which are actually real time) would come close to second.
Not that I don't like strategy games, FFT is probably my second favorite game of all time and I am a big Fire Emblem fan (depsite not playing more than the one), but the appeal to me there is more the raw strategy aspect: Tinkering with the characters, the setups, the strategical outwitting and tactical outmaneuvering of your opponent. The battle system is just there to support it. It's like chess or pokemon or whatever you wanna compare to. "Here's the rules." Now how do I make them work for me?
Grandia is what comes to mind most for me, probably in part because Grandia II is one of those great games I missed out on owning (because my cousin sold his Dreamcast shit and gave it away instead of to me) when I could have. I think it strikes a great balance between traditional turn-based combat and more action-oriented combat such as in the above mentioned Tales, Star Ocean series. Pure turn-based is fine, as a generic RPG fan I've learned to love it, but there's not much room for innovation there. Pure real-time is largely button-mashing.
Grandia's turns come in real time but the action is stopped when a party member takes their turn, giving you time to think out your actions. Spells are charged and actions carried out in real time, so they are eminently interruptable by certain skills with good timing. Battlefield positioning matters for various reasons to bring strategy game aspects into the mix. Debuffs and status effects are actually useful throughout the entire game without being overpowered. It's got a little of everything I like, and I don't need to press buttons mid-attack ala Mario RPGs that requires my absolute 100% full attention throughout the entire battle where I can't casually take a drink or listen to somebody trying to talk to me.
Grandia is what comes to mind most for me, probably in part because Grandia II is one of those great games I missed out on owning (because my cousin sold his Dreamcast shit and gave it away instead of to me) when I could have. I think it strikes a great balance between traditional turn-based combat and more action-oriented combat such as in the above mentioned Tales, Star Ocean series. Pure turn-based is fine, as a generic RPG fan I've learned to love it, but there's not much room for innovation there. Pure real-time is largely button-mashing.
Grandia's turns come in real time but the action is stopped when a party member takes their turn, giving you time to think out your actions. Spells are charged and actions carried out in real time, so they are eminently interruptable by certain skills with good timing. Battlefield positioning matters for various reasons to bring strategy game aspects into the mix. Debuffs and status effects are actually useful throughout the entire game without being overpowered. It's got a little of everything I like, and I don't need to press buttons mid-attack ala Mario RPGs that requires my absolute 100% full attention throughout the entire battle where I can't casually take a drink or listen to somebody trying to talk to me.
The best battle system is the Tales live-movement battle system. It's done smoothly, there's not too much going on so you can follow what you're doing and what most of the enemies and teammates are doing, and it's like you're actually there fighting the enemy. It's like a 3D-plain Smash Bros fighting field that's free moving and super indepth with what your characters and enemies can do.
Turn-based is ok, and FFT definitely does it best, but nothing comes close to the Tales games.
Turn-based is ok, and FFT definitely does it best, but nothing comes close to the Tales games.
Time to gush more about the Tales games, because the 'Tales battle system' is good but there is always enough variety within each game I don't feel that they are ever outdated.
Symphonia: The 3D classic, you can get different moves based on the alignment of your skills (Tech or Strike), although most characters stick to one because it's so much better than the other, or you don't feel confident enough to test it out on your first run. Unison attacks in this game are just fun, although you quickly find one you like and then probably won't use much else.
Abyss: Adds in free running and is the only game with the elemental fields which sometimes upgrade your attacks. Gives you a lot of opportunity for experimentation, because getting those Altered Artes are just fantastic. Has a weird stat up system that doesn't exactly make itself clear. It's too bad guides are kind of necessary to unlock your full power. Crazy powerful Overlimit system.
Vesperia: Learn skills from weapons, get crazy powers, destroy everything. Makes you want to get all the weapons you can. Overall fanastic system, and makes an improvement on elemental Altered Artes from Abyss. Spellcasters begin to be much more fun to play with in this game, since you have some rather cool options with skills.
Graces f: The greatest that is or ever will be. Nothing can top this battle system (too bad the story sucks). A system with a metric ton of monster weaknesses, and then encourages you to do crazy stuff like make combos that use every weakness. You gain skills from titles, which you keep getting, where in some tales games each character may have 50 titles, and in some they do nothing, Graces has about 150+ titles that are all awesome. Using a move a lot: get a title, complete a sidequest: title get, collect items: titles and titles. You equip them to get better stats, new moves, improved moves. The greatest part is that while other games have TP that goes away too quickly and needs to be healed with items or basic attacks, Graces has CC which charges automatically. Getting skills to increase your CC charge or max CC is so satisfying because 1 point ups your power so much. With all the titles the game has a good tipping point where you see all the potential and you very quickly get a lot of options. Do I go for more moves or grind for more CC, or just get stat boosts? It's the most satisfying system out there, and even when you think you have a good title you can master to get an equip bonus something just as good comes along. This game also gives the sidestep, which when done correctly helps charge your CC as well as dodge, the amount of crazy movement combos you can do alone with sidestep is fantastic.
Graces also has a great variety of characters, and has spellcasters/healers that are fun to play. You have six characters + one guest who is only in a small portion of the main game and bonus section. Their A artes and B artes (think smash bros) both have very different styles of attacks with different purposes. While some are rather basic melee + spellcasting, you have knife throwing + healing, slashing + shooting, shooting + AoE spellcaster, and my favourite being sheathed sword + blade which heals you slightly when switching between based on your combo. Doing excellent melee combos also makes spellcasting faster which is great for mid-tier spells that can be unleashed automatically and chained to high level spells.
Xillia: Uses CC + TP for A/B attacks, which is actually quite balanced. It's too bad the linkup feature means 4 player co-op isn't as fun to do. The skill web is fun, although it always feels like I expand it one way only to find something I absolutely have to get on the opposite side. Not quite as fast paced as graces, but still
Aside from Tales the other top level RPG system is easily The World Ends With You for DS.
Unlike Tales where sometimes it takes some levels to get into the flow, TWEWY lets you dive in quite quickly.
Man do I adore this game, build combos on the bottom screen with the stylus while your 'partner' on the top screen must follow a chart path to build your special attack. You have to pay attention to both screens and when the flow gets right you can chain combos across both screens for bigger bonuses. The partner system is inspired, you can only equip certain clothes if your brave stat is high enough (female clothing OP), eating food give you better stats but you have to fight to digest. No random battles, encourages you to make the game easier or harder, although grinding in this game is incredibly fun. You can manipulate fashion trends to improve your attacks, your gear improves slowly even when not playing, everything about this game is fantastic.
Symphonia: The 3D classic, you can get different moves based on the alignment of your skills (Tech or Strike), although most characters stick to one because it's so much better than the other, or you don't feel confident enough to test it out on your first run. Unison attacks in this game are just fun, although you quickly find one you like and then probably won't use much else.
Abyss: Adds in free running and is the only game with the elemental fields which sometimes upgrade your attacks. Gives you a lot of opportunity for experimentation, because getting those Altered Artes are just fantastic. Has a weird stat up system that doesn't exactly make itself clear. It's too bad guides are kind of necessary to unlock your full power. Crazy powerful Overlimit system.
Vesperia: Learn skills from weapons, get crazy powers, destroy everything. Makes you want to get all the weapons you can. Overall fanastic system, and makes an improvement on elemental Altered Artes from Abyss. Spellcasters begin to be much more fun to play with in this game, since you have some rather cool options with skills.
Graces f: The greatest that is or ever will be. Nothing can top this battle system (too bad the story sucks). A system with a metric ton of monster weaknesses, and then encourages you to do crazy stuff like make combos that use every weakness. You gain skills from titles, which you keep getting, where in some tales games each character may have 50 titles, and in some they do nothing, Graces has about 150+ titles that are all awesome. Using a move a lot: get a title, complete a sidequest: title get, collect items: titles and titles. You equip them to get better stats, new moves, improved moves. The greatest part is that while other games have TP that goes away too quickly and needs to be healed with items or basic attacks, Graces has CC which charges automatically. Getting skills to increase your CC charge or max CC is so satisfying because 1 point ups your power so much. With all the titles the game has a good tipping point where you see all the potential and you very quickly get a lot of options. Do I go for more moves or grind for more CC, or just get stat boosts? It's the most satisfying system out there, and even when you think you have a good title you can master to get an equip bonus something just as good comes along. This game also gives the sidestep, which when done correctly helps charge your CC as well as dodge, the amount of crazy movement combos you can do alone with sidestep is fantastic.
Graces also has a great variety of characters, and has spellcasters/healers that are fun to play. You have six characters + one guest who is only in a small portion of the main game and bonus section. Their A artes and B artes (think smash bros) both have very different styles of attacks with different purposes. While some are rather basic melee + spellcasting, you have knife throwing + healing, slashing + shooting, shooting + AoE spellcaster, and my favourite being sheathed sword + blade which heals you slightly when switching between based on your combo. Doing excellent melee combos also makes spellcasting faster which is great for mid-tier spells that can be unleashed automatically and chained to high level spells.
Xillia: Uses CC + TP for A/B attacks, which is actually quite balanced. It's too bad the linkup feature means 4 player co-op isn't as fun to do. The skill web is fun, although it always feels like I expand it one way only to find something I absolutely have to get on the opposite side. Not quite as fast paced as graces, but still
Aside from Tales the other top level RPG system is easily The World Ends With You for DS.
Unlike Tales where sometimes it takes some levels to get into the flow, TWEWY lets you dive in quite quickly.
Man do I adore this game, build combos on the bottom screen with the stylus while your 'partner' on the top screen must follow a chart path to build your special attack. You have to pay attention to both screens and when the flow gets right you can chain combos across both screens for bigger bonuses. The partner system is inspired, you can only equip certain clothes if your brave stat is high enough (female clothing OP), eating food give you better stats but you have to fight to digest. No random battles, encourages you to make the game easier or harder, although grinding in this game is incredibly fun. You can manipulate fashion trends to improve your attacks, your gear improves slowly even when not playing, everything about this game is fantastic.
This this this, although I will also throw in sweeping praise for the equip 5 support abilities and multitude of classes and secondary abilities that enable you to mix and match your way past any obstacle. It almost makes strategizing before a boss fight feel like a puzzle.
Also special phrase for rpg games that manage to incorporate real time action into a traditional turn based environment. The most well known (and coincidentally best... ever) game that does this well is Paper Mario TTYD, though I also hold a special spot for the mechanics in Sonic Chronicles the Dark Brotherhood for the DS (think Paper Mario combinations with the stylus).
If I had to choose an Action RPG, it would be Kingdom Hearts II, but the first game was way too frustrating, due to the unskippable cutscenes and whatnot.
Turn-based RPGs make me think mostly of Pokemon, since I haven't played much else. Well, there'sPokemon Diamond and Jade Keitai Denjuu Telefang, which apparently allows a Denjuu with a higher Speed stat to act more frequently than those with a lower one.
Turn-based RPGs make me think mostly of Pokemon, since I haven't played much else. Well, there's
I just finished playing Kingdom Hearts 2 again, and my X button literally broke. I'll take Kingdom Hearts 1, a game that actually takes some skill to play, thank you.
Am I allowed to mention Mount&Blade?
In theory, its real-time battle system is quite simple. WASD to move, left mouse button to raise your sword, right mouse button to raise your shield. However, you can attack (and conversely, parry) in four different directions: right-to-left slash, left-to-right slash, overhead slash and stab. Each weapon fares better with some attack directions than others (stabbing with an axe, for instance, rarely works well. Same for slashing with pikes). And there is a speed bonus as well, meaning an axe swung at just the right moment as you ride past your enemy will deal a tremendous amount of damage. Likewise if a horseman rides into your spear and you jab just as he closes in on you, or if you run into an enemy as you stab him. In a pinch, you can also kick the enemies, though that is seldom useful (but oh, so satisfying when you manage to kick somebody off a wall).
The game also makes it clear that you're not immortal, no matter how high-levelled you are. Enemies ganging up on you will bring you down, especially when you fight on foot. You have to single them out to fight effectively. This can be difficult when there are hundreds of them attacking you at once, but luckily, you've got an army too. A bunch of autonomous characters you can order around, but they fight on their own. Pikemen stop cavalry when in a formation, but dies to everything else. Good archers or crossbowmen will pincushion enemies at a distance, but are helpless if forced to fight in close combat. Infantry excel at close combat, but move somewhat slowly. Light cavalry move quickly, but are vulnerable to arrows. This being a somewhat realistic first-person medieval battle simulator, heavy cavalry rules the battlefield. Fast, powerful and nigh unstoppable while charging, they plow through anything on open ground, and fight well enough on foot too. However, they require micromanagement to work well, because of the second sentence in this paragraph. A cavalryman whose horse has stopped in a group of enemies, is a dead cavalryman. If he can't fight his way out of the cluster, they will take him down. Consequently, you have to constantly order your heavy cavalry to charge, retreat, reform and charge again in order for them to be effective. If the enemy happens to field heavy cavalry too, the best you can do is either charge your own into theirs, form a solid spear wall (hard, since the game lacks high-tier spearmen, for some reason), or charge yoursef, trick them into following you, and take them on a merry ride back and forth in front of your archers. Or yet better, retreat to high ground where the terrain slows horses to a crawl, and archers can shoot downhill.
All in all, a mighty fun game, made even better by the "Game of Thrones" mod I found the other day. Running a lance through the default enemies of the game is fun, but running a lance through Theon Greyjoy? Priceless.
In theory, its real-time battle system is quite simple. WASD to move, left mouse button to raise your sword, right mouse button to raise your shield. However, you can attack (and conversely, parry) in four different directions: right-to-left slash, left-to-right slash, overhead slash and stab. Each weapon fares better with some attack directions than others (stabbing with an axe, for instance, rarely works well. Same for slashing with pikes). And there is a speed bonus as well, meaning an axe swung at just the right moment as you ride past your enemy will deal a tremendous amount of damage. Likewise if a horseman rides into your spear and you jab just as he closes in on you, or if you run into an enemy as you stab him. In a pinch, you can also kick the enemies, though that is seldom useful (but oh, so satisfying when you manage to kick somebody off a wall).
The game also makes it clear that you're not immortal, no matter how high-levelled you are. Enemies ganging up on you will bring you down, especially when you fight on foot. You have to single them out to fight effectively. This can be difficult when there are hundreds of them attacking you at once, but luckily, you've got an army too. A bunch of autonomous characters you can order around, but they fight on their own. Pikemen stop cavalry when in a formation, but dies to everything else. Good archers or crossbowmen will pincushion enemies at a distance, but are helpless if forced to fight in close combat. Infantry excel at close combat, but move somewhat slowly. Light cavalry move quickly, but are vulnerable to arrows. This being a somewhat realistic first-person medieval battle simulator, heavy cavalry rules the battlefield. Fast, powerful and nigh unstoppable while charging, they plow through anything on open ground, and fight well enough on foot too. However, they require micromanagement to work well, because of the second sentence in this paragraph. A cavalryman whose horse has stopped in a group of enemies, is a dead cavalryman. If he can't fight his way out of the cluster, they will take him down. Consequently, you have to constantly order your heavy cavalry to charge, retreat, reform and charge again in order for them to be effective. If the enemy happens to field heavy cavalry too, the best you can do is either charge your own into theirs, form a solid spear wall (hard, since the game lacks high-tier spearmen, for some reason), or charge yoursef, trick them into following you, and take them on a merry ride back and forth in front of your archers. Or yet better, retreat to high ground where the terrain slows horses to a crawl, and archers can shoot downhill.
All in all, a mighty fun game, made even better by the "Game of Thrones" mod I found the other day. Running a lance through the default enemies of the game is fun, but running a lance through Theon Greyjoy? Priceless.
I would say that if they remade FFTA:2 to include a PvP online battling system I would be one of the happiest gamers alive.
I love games with job systems, especially when your stat gains are dictated by your leveling class. FFT kind of did this at the margins, but by favorite thing about FFTA:2 is you could literally plan your levels in advance to adjust how your character grows, and ultimately how they perform. I actually made an Excel file calculator that literally allows you to do this. That always made the system feel more "real" to me, rather than in some games where your stats are dictated almost solely by the ending class. Which is to say, you can spend all your time leveling as a Monk and be just as powerful as any other Wizard once you switched over - and vice versa.
Incidentally, when FFIII was released for the 3DS there was an exploit where your HP went up based on your Vitality, which meant if you wanted to Max HP you just leveled as Master Monk, which had the highest Vit stat. FFV had a bit of a variation, where your "Bare" classes had the highest stat of whatever job you mastered. I always mastered Blue Mage first because it maxed VERY early (you can literally max it before even entering the canal by fighting Bandersnatch groups for 3AP) and meant when you switched to Bares for interim fights your MP didn't drop to hell, and you had decent magical power.
One RPG I didn't have such a good experience with was Battle for Wesnoth. The game was a little too complex and dragged on a bit too much for my liking. Sometimes you just get overloaded with too many different stats going on at once that it just becomes bothersome. I liked the original Exile more than the update to it Avernum. Six characters simply allowed much more freedom and strategy to me than four.
I also had a brief stint with Maple Story, going to just above L30 with a Warrior and restarting a few files just to test out the different classes. Now there's a game where if you aren't careful, you're going to hit a Difficulty FireWall. Sometimes it's just one enemy spawning in a room, like the Iron Pig on the Pig Beach. If you don't watch what you're doing, that thing will beat the snot out of you if you aren't prepared.
I love games with job systems, especially when your stat gains are dictated by your leveling class. FFT kind of did this at the margins, but by favorite thing about FFTA:2 is you could literally plan your levels in advance to adjust how your character grows, and ultimately how they perform. I actually made an Excel file calculator that literally allows you to do this. That always made the system feel more "real" to me, rather than in some games where your stats are dictated almost solely by the ending class. Which is to say, you can spend all your time leveling as a Monk and be just as powerful as any other Wizard once you switched over - and vice versa.
Incidentally, when FFIII was released for the 3DS there was an exploit where your HP went up based on your Vitality, which meant if you wanted to Max HP you just leveled as Master Monk, which had the highest Vit stat. FFV had a bit of a variation, where your "Bare" classes had the highest stat of whatever job you mastered. I always mastered Blue Mage first because it maxed VERY early (you can literally max it before even entering the canal by fighting Bandersnatch groups for 3AP) and meant when you switched to Bares for interim fights your MP didn't drop to hell, and you had decent magical power.
One RPG I didn't have such a good experience with was Battle for Wesnoth. The game was a little too complex and dragged on a bit too much for my liking. Sometimes you just get overloaded with too many different stats going on at once that it just becomes bothersome. I liked the original Exile more than the update to it Avernum. Six characters simply allowed much more freedom and strategy to me than four.
I also had a brief stint with Maple Story, going to just above L30 with a Warrior and restarting a few files just to test out the different classes. Now there's a game where if you aren't careful, you're going to hit a Difficulty FireWall. Sometimes it's just one enemy spawning in a room, like the Iron Pig on the Pig Beach. If you don't watch what you're doing, that thing will beat the snot out of you if you aren't prepared.
_Tonks_
Guest
I like a lot of the FFT appreciation here. However, I really like First Person RPG's, like Borderlands and Fallout. Borderlands 2 in particular had a battle system that on higher levels made it really tight for all 4 players to use abilities and weapons in unity, making for really interesting battles on some of the raid bosses. Fallout 3/NV with VATs allowed people to focus more on roleplaying and not so much on the FPS aspect. I feel like there's a good future in store for First Person RPGs, especially with Destiny coming out next fall.
I'd also like to mention Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. 2 VERY similar combat systems in open combat RPG's. The idea of having the battle carefully, time your dodges, and know when/when not to attack makes for some really interesting situations.
I'd also like to mention Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. 2 VERY similar combat systems in open combat RPG's. The idea of having the battle carefully, time your dodges, and know when/when not to attack makes for some really interesting situations.
Geodude6
Look at my shiny CT!
Valkyrie Job Command + Spear + Spear Lore + Hasten World (from Time Mage). Spam Super Jump to win.
Also Ninja's Utsusemi skill + Transience (sp?) ability + Comeback Kid ability + Turn Tables ability (from Red Mage) against non-magic enemies like the Templar or the Ranger.
Yeah BD has some really broken strategies but for the most part Square Enix did a really good job discouraging Attack mashing and adding a lot of strategic depth to the game. Both I and Chinchou111 are playing through it atm; I'm almost ready to fight
Sage Yulyana
Oh look, a reason to post instead of just lurking. That hasn't happened in a while.
If we're talking Bravely Default I have to chip in because I love this game's battle system.
I've beaten the game...three times now, at least, and I'm currently just fighting the post game superbosses. The strategies required to beat them are a lot different than your usual mid-late game ones. Here's my setup:
Dark Knight @ Vampirism
- Two-Handed
- Stand Ground
- Absorb Physical Damage
Freelancer @ Singing
- Hasten World
- Stand Ground
Vampire @ Medication
- Two-Handed
- Absorb Physical Damage
- Stand Ground
Spiritmaster @ White Magic (Plan to change this, haven't decided to what yet)
- Epic Group-Cast
- Holy One
To fight the post game superbosses, survivability is actually the most important thing, and this doesn't mean loading up on blood shields and Armor Lore. They tend to still one shot you without putting everything into statistical defense. The way to go is abilities that exploit damage and provide constant healing rather than stats. And here's the reasoning:
Dark Knight @ Vampirism:
The damage dealer and healer. Dark Nebula hits everything on the field for 4x that of a standard physical attack, but it's Dark elemental, so it can be absorbed. By buffing everyone with Adaptation before launching it, it will heal the team for 9999 and damage all enemies for 9999, at effectively no cost because the HP loss happens before the healing does, so you can use it as long as you start the turn with more than 20% health. Fairy Ward is also placed so I can use Life or Death first, getting the best buff in the game for no drawback because Fairy Ward prevents the Doom status. This is done more for the defense boost than the attack boost (which isn't necessary to cap damage except on the most defensive superbosses), despite what I said before about statistical defense. Stand Ground + Absorb Physical Damage covers physical attacks (75% to live any attack with 1 hp, then heal off of it to go above 1 HP and do it again), and the +50% M.Def boost makes the odd magic attack much less threatening.
Freelancer @ Singing:
I'd like to note a personal rule here: Since Freelancers are blatantly the best class in the game, I've limited myself to one instance of the Miscellany job command. Otherwise everyone would be Freelancers. With that out of the way, this combination is Mimic Hero. My Hero > Mimic > Mimic > Mimic. It lets your team constantly stay at 3 BP, especially since I use items carefully to make sure the Mimic Hero goes last. Because Mimic doesn't cost anything even if mimicking an expensive ability like My Hero, with all sources of BP considered, they're back to what they were at the next turn, meaning that after Defaulting once to reach 3 BP on turn 1, the freelancer is free to spend every turn keeping BP up.
Vampire @ Medication:
Really only used for three things: Giant's Draft, Rage Orb, and Absorb Stats. Giant's Draft doubles a character's HP, meaning they can live cap damage attacks. Rage Orb keeps the superboss targetting the vampire, who almost never dies with Stand Ground, Absorb Physical Damage, and, if I get the free turn, defense boosts from other compounds. And finally, Absorb Stats is another measure to cushion the boss's attacks, lowering their M.Atk so they don't bypass the virtual physical immunity with magic attacks.
Spiritmaster @ White Magic:
Stillness to give free turns to buff, Fairy Ward for Life and Death (and immunity to Turtle Dove's nasty Sweet Dreams side effect), and then Adaptation to heal off of Dark Nebula. After that, default until you have to set buffs again. Might do something else when I figure out a new sub-class.
If everything works correctly (and most bosses don't have anything to disrupt it), this set up can deal and heal 40K per turn with triple brave Dark Nebulae while sponging physical attacks with Stand Ground + Absorb and magical attacks with M.Def Boosts and Absorb Stats. The only thing that really gives it that much trouble is Turtle Dove's Triangle ability. The Love status isn't blocked by Fairy Ward, and if a party member can't do their job for that turn the strategy kind of goes to hell. Thankfully, due to Hasten World messing with Turtle Dove's AI pattern, it almost never deviates from the pattern of Seraph Blast > Sweet Dreams every turn.
So yeah, feel free to steal this setup if you're having trouble with superbosses, anyone.
Classic Fire Emblem (Blazing Sword - Sacred Stones [Path of the Radiant - Radiant Dawn are also heavily strategic but are more gimmicky than the others) would be the best turn based RPG for you IMO. It's not at all gimmicky, and all of them have an outstanding storyline. I consider it pure strategy with a story (which is good considering it gives the levels a purpose and meaning). You might also consider Advanced Wars. I've yet to play that one, but I hear it's superb. If you, for whatever odd reason, do want to try something kinda gimmicky and light hearten, I highly recommend the Mario & Luigi series.
Oh yeah, I definitely like all of those games as well, FE is great. I just wish they'd make more Advance Wars (the last one, Ruin or whatever, was kinda eh story wise and realistic/depressing compared to the more cartoony-fun main ones).
Geodude6
Look at my shiny CT!
Well met! Here's the setup I used to defeat
Ouroboros (sp?) and the adventurer
Salve-Maker @ White Magic
- Holy One
- HP 20% up
- Adversity
Healer and supporter. Holy One along with Healing Lore that comes for free from the Salve-Maker class makes Cura heal a very large amount of HP, and Curada will likely heal 9999 HP. If a party member happens to go down, they can be revived with Arise and Resurrect. If no healing will be needed, he can attack with Aeroga or Holy, or use Compounding to use attack items. Adversity is here mainly for the defense boost, although I may change it to Angelic Ward.
Dark Knight @ Sword Magic
- Absorb P. Damage
- Two-Handed
- Gloom
- HP 20% up
Heavy damage dealer. Her job is simple: cast Drain and then spam Rage, replenishing Drain when necessary. Not really a whole lot to say here; she can abuse the broken Adversity; broken as in, does not work the way (I assume) it is intended to. How I assume it is supposed to work: Get attacked for massive damage that takes off at least 25% of your max health, and get a PAtk and PDef boost. How I assume it works: every time you take damage, the amount of damage taken gets added to a secret counter; when that secret counter reaches 25% of your max HP you get the boosts. This includes self-inflicted damage healed off by Drain. After 1 Rage starting from full health, the Dark Knight has 120% PAtk and PDef. After 2 Rages, she has 150% of these stats, and will never decay since it is her job is to spam Rage.
Ninja @ Spiritism
- Frenetic Fighting
- Hawkeye
- Precision
Somewhere between supporter and damage dealer, we have this. Main use here is for fast Spiritism casts or priority strikes on flunkies. If the Salve-Maker happens to go down, this guy can Brave Phoenix Down -> Stillness so that the Salve-Maker can heal himself. Shippûjinrai is also neat as it can give you a priority strike on fast flunkies like
the Adventurer's Comrade
Freelancer @ Singing
- Absorb P. Damage
- Shield Lore
- Dual Shields
- Hasten World
Standard Mimic Hero, nothing special here.
Final Fantasy X has a solid battle system. But to be honest its pretty run of the mill,JRPG stuff,now if you want a battle system that's different you should try out any of the Kingdom Hearts iterations. Let's you customize but you're never bored,and definitely don't have that much time to think. Really keeps you on your toes any action RPG as opposed to traditional ones.