Topic: Bravely Default: The Flying Fairy

Tiz should be Ranger. Make Edea the Summoner with Black Magic as a secondary.

I haven't really used Summon magic at all. The MP cost is so darn high that it's not efficient for grinding, and that you can't just target one enemy makes them inefficient for bosses too. I think Black Mage is a better choice all around. The support abilities for Summoner aren't even that useful.

And yes, Chapter 5 was... perplexing. My playing has slowed down recently, but still making my way through this. Traveling around the world in search of genome abilities now. They seem a little OP, especially the ones you get from bosses.

@devinias It may be worth your while to designate a tank. Your party seems pretty squishy. If you have a decent job level on Agnes's White Mage right now, consider switching to a Knight for a bit to make an armored healer. The Shield Lore ability could be useful in the long run, and you can always switch back to White Mage later.

Edea is normally my tank, but I have to level her magic jobs right now, she's mastered almost all the fighters already. I set her up with the correct weapons and support abilities and she does massive damage. I use Tiz as a wall, though I need to tweak his support abilities a bit more, some more knight abilities should help. Agnes is my healer, sage's staff and blessed shield are basically free healing, combined with the salve's healing ability I can keep the party at full HP most of any battle now.

The thing about this game is that mining EXP is really kind of fun.

In my party so far, Tiz is a White Mage/Spell Fencer, Agnes is a Thief/Ranger, Ringabel's a Knight/Pirate and Edea is a Valkyrie/Black Mage. Yeah, I know that my class combinations don't make sense

Actually, Theif+Ranger is a Good combo. As is Knight+Pirate (sort of, Knight's not a very strong class, but the debuffs can be useful). But why White Mage+Spell Fencer? You should've put that on the Valkyrie and do White Mage + Black Mage.

I think it's counterproductive to have one character with two class abilities with vastly different uses. Combining a physical attacker with a healer means that every turn, you have to either not attack or not heal, which can lead to disaster for bosses.* I think Spell Fencer is best combined with a heavy physical damage class like Valkyrie, Pirate, or Monk. Elemental attacks compliment the heavy damage skills of those classes. I have Ringabel on Pirate/Spell Fencer, with the Two-Handed and Multitask support abilities. It's pretty nasty.

*I don't consider Knight a physical attacker.

I didn't like Black Mage/White Mage because in nearly all bosses, the White Mage is healing every turn and you still need a Black Mage to sling spells. I should have clarified that I'm not using Valkyrie and Black Mage at the same time lol, I swap her roles between Black Mage/Time Mage and Ninja/Valkyrie. Same with Tiz, he's either a White Mage/Performer or a Spell Fencer/Performer. I have every character at level 10ish for three or four jobs though.

Also, knight is awesome! With full armour and buffed with Shield Bash they take one damage from just about anything.

Just completed the Summoner sidequest...

Very impressed with this game so far. This might just become my favorite 3DS title at this rate.

Just finished rebuilding the village!!! have all job types and beat the thing once so that's pretty much me done really, there's probably a few treasure chests I missed but I'm not much for 100% ing, roll on Bravely 2nd!!!

And what may i ask is your current favorite? VLR if i may?

Yeah it's quickly if not already my favorite. Old school meets new is just what the docter ordered!

Any suggestions for my team? I'm on Chapter 8, I've yet to awaken the crystals on that Chapter. My party is: Black Mage/Vampire (For the -aja spells) Spiritmaster/White Mage, Dark Knight/Monk, and Knight/Templar.

Man, I'm 45 hours in and only just started chapter 4. This is gonna be a long one. I'll probably take a break after this chapter, assuming I don't run out of steam before then...

Once you have Conjurer ..... you can level everyone up super easy. Working on mastering all the jobs now.

Probably. My top 3 at this point are VLR, SMT4, and FE:A. All such wonderful experiences.

I've heard complaints about later chapters in the game, so I'm going to reserve my judgment until I've finished it, but it is already on the shortlist for my top five. I do wish it had the option to start the game with certain unchangeable presets, though. I have to use powerful Streetpass attacks as soon as I get them lest I be tempted to use one during a tough battle. Some guy I streetpassed today has a character attack with a power of roughly 199,000. That's pretty much the definition of game-breaking. Also, I've succumbed once or twice to the temptation of the random encounter slider. And I really had to force myself to not use Abilink...

This game needs a hardcore mode, desperately, that takes out all of this game-breaking social stuff.

I've found I look forward to the Party Chats almost as much as the actual gameplay. The writing is delightful.

Yeah, I've tried as hard as I can to not use the social stuff. Even some of the Norende weapons are game breaking. It's a lot more fun taking on bosses with your own skills rather than relying on a summon which deals more damage than should be possible. At least it's all optional, I guess.

I don't actually feel bad about using Abilink though, unless the classes are maxed. If it's at a reasonable level which I could grind to, I just see it as a bit of a shortcut.

I've unlinked everyone a while back and as far as friend summons I've used them only once. It destroyed a nemesis in one shot and that was no fun. I also think rebuilding your town is too much of an advantage but the way this game gives you money it's not to game breaking. Another problem is as much as I like options in my rpgs (EO Untold and EO4 did them right) being allowed to turn the encounter rate up or down is also a problem. Too many games these days are made to appeal to the masses and movies as well see any of the new Transformers movies. They don't appeal to me the core fan they appeal to the masses to make more money and that's the bottom line. While I understand this concept I don't really care for it. Gone are the days of true challenge and core fan appeal.

I like the encounter slider. Unless you do a ton of grinding or waste all your money on ethers, you're gonna need it for some of the longer dungeons. Plus that Underflow dungeon is mad annoying unless you turn down the encounter rate, with all though hotspots...

My only complaint about the game system, I wish the max level was reached after mastering all the job classes. I had them all to level 99 when only half the jobs were mastered. But the great thing about having it all maxed now is the game becomes more strategic in the last chapters, no matter what you have, you will have lengthy battles and the bosses will pull out all the stops. The drawback is knowing what status effects you're going to face, too many chances to prepare for them.

The boss in the Red Mage subquest is a real pain. This is the third time I've been thoroughly pummeled by this guy...

I love how gloriously difficult this game can get at times on hard mode.

Yep, the Red Mage boss fight is killer. If you're constantly attacking he'll always have BP, so he'll be able to get off a Cura every turn. So either be able to deal 2000+ damage per turn while keeping your party alive, or somehow damage him while minimising his BP gain...

Also I tend to dislike games where the main party end up at around Level 99 by endgame. I think that the final boss should be fought at around 70-80% of the max level, so that it's much easier if you level to the cap. That way, players who want a harder experience can level to 99 and then do the bonus dungeons. I guess it doesn't matter as much in this game though, since players who want an easy time have tons of other ways to get it (encounter rates, SP drinks, friend summons).