Topic: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3

@C-Chakra
Appreciate the tips.

I do keep my gear current and upgraded via U-materials (although it’s a constant struggle to get enough Mira). I also have been selling ingredients off slowly, but they’ve been dwindling from the 30’s to the 20’s and now into the teens.

The problem with accessories is, I never know what I’ll need until it’s too late. Can’t change mid battle afaIk. I see the logic in splitting up to avoid broad attacks, but it also wastes like 3 moves getting 3 characters positioned, which is usually turns I need for healing. Could do it right away, but right away I’m not familiar with the moves being used yet 😁

On day 2 of Field study, you go there to get a monster hunting quest, @JaxonH ..... That's one boss with quite a few underlings but shouldn't really be too difficult 3rd day, you go there to investigate something & get into a somewhat hard boss fight. Then, you'll be supposed to hunt a monster in the North & last there'll be the Quarry, which is the double boss fight I mentioned before If you're finding your arts a bit underpowered, do look at whatever other ones you have? Obviously, a mixture of elements is good but for each there's quite a variety
But I think the arts have a bit too much delay in this, which seemed to get adjusted in 2 & then readjusted for 3, which makes them quite a bit better in the last one

@JaxonH yea, it is like that with the accessories but if you've saved the game just before the boss then it's worth reloading and going over your gear.

With movement though. Moving a character will take up much less of a turn than other actions, and is likely to have you use that character quicker than you think. The way the turn order works in these games is all determined by your individual character's and the individual enemies' SPD rating vs what actions are taken. (That's why Fie gets more turns than Laura for instance). Keep a sharp eye on the turn order on the left hand side of the screen. You will notice that for example if you have a character use a low level art like tear they may cast it straight away, whereas using tearal might push that character way down the turn order before the spell is cast.

S-Crafts particularly have a long recovery time, which is why in some fights if you go in guns blazing using all your S-Crafts at once, your characters might get completely wiped out before their next turn. Also keep note of when there are conditions on the turn order. For example, you might see that in a couple of turns an enemy will have a crit status on their turn, but if you use the right actions to change the turn order it might be placed on one of your characters instead. That's probably a good time to smash out an S-Craft.

-Edit- oh yea, in case you might have missed this. Pretty much all characters have a craft that causes 'impede'. Impede stops an enemy from using an art etc. that they are in the process of winding up. So whenever you see an enemy charging up a move, smash em with an impede craft.

Yeah, just moving a character hardly delays them at all .... I can't say I needed to do that very often, since I favour crafts & some of them move the character with the attack, so it's a way to do both at once but it's an option If you're doing it right, you shouldn't have much problem with CP & you can chuck out the odd art, along with simple attacks on suitably weak enemies. Always save when you know or suspect there's a boss fight coming up, obviously, so you can reload if needed but that's pretty standard for a lot of games, surely

@BruceCm yea, sounds like you have the same tactics as me. I usually just use crafts, especially ones with a wide range and just manage my CP to make sure i've got close to 200 for a hard fight. Same with BPs and linked attacks. I never bothered moving my characters around much, but sometimes it's necessary. Those bosses in the first two levels of Einhel Keep in CS3 (on nightmare) are pretty much impossible to beat unless you split the crew up. They went down easy after (with iron will).

When I played CS1 and 2 I played on normal and don't recall ever needing to position the characters. Even with the shadow boss guy. Though I think playing on nightmare there would be no way to cheese that boss, you'd have to split them up.

Yeah, I'm sure I did move some of them in certain battles, @C-Chakra .... Either because I wanted to spread them out or just to adjust turn order very slightly or they'd just got out of range, etc For bosses, generally, the 1st turn would be getting party buffs up & an S-break, with something to restore CP & general crafts, which often triggered the link attacks, at least
I don't intend to do a 'hard' playthrough, let alone nightmare mode, though!

@BruceCM heheh, I don't think nightmare is THAT much different, you just need to grind until you can take the enemies. At that point it kind of feels the same. I started playing on nightmare when I went back to Sky FC so it's the way I roll now. CS1, 2 and Zero no Kiseki are the only ones i'm yet to beat on nightmare, as they were my first entries. (I did play Sky FC and some of SC years ago, but wasn't into the series back then). lol, now i'm a completionist when it comes to these games, and won't have it any other way.... nightmare! heheheh

You carry on, I don't mind, @C-Chakra .... Just not doing it myself

I’ve used the Impede, especially in the 3rd game, but in the first game, being so early on, I didn’t have it for all my characters. A few of them had crafts with it but I only had a couple quartz with 30% chance at Impede. So it’s not a guarantee to work and they switch your party members up so who knows what I had on the party members at that time.

But ya it sounds like I’m basically doing everything mentioned. Except for moving though. Usually my first round is hitting the buffs and an S-craft for hard bosses also. Maybe it’s just a combination of the first game being harder than the more recent entries, me still adjusting to the game, and being slightly under leveled. I’ll also try the save and reload trick before a boss if needed. If I can figure out how to load a save game mid battle, anyways,

The 3rd game is getting really interesting. Just got attacked, and now I’m back with my old party members from the first game. Speaking of... how much time will I be spending with Laura, Elliot and Fie in TOCS3?

@JaxonH ah, I can't spoil that, but I would probably say it's better to invest in new class vii. At least that's what i'm doing.

@C-Chakra
Ya that’s basically what I was getting at. Whether I should dump all my sepith into opening slots for them or conserve for new class.

Mostly, new class VII & various characters you haven't met yet .... The old class pop in & all but I'd expect them to play a bigger part in the next game, where everything should come together

@BruceCM
How do I access this hidden quest. Talking to girl in cafeteria at Zander Gate, nothing seems to be happening.

For some reason, I think you have to talk to her a couple of times, @JaxonH .... I'm not sure if you have to talk to her before doing the main one or it might be after, I don't quite remember This is day '2' of the field trip, right? & the right girl?

@BruceCM
I figured it out.

I’m level 30 and just escorted the photographer back. I’m trying to go buy a general rule of “chapter x10 = targeted level by end of said chapter”

So being chapter 3, I just got all my guys to level 30. Hopefully that will be enough.

That should be rather over-levelled, @JaxonH.... See how it goes, for the bosses in the next parts, I suppose

That stone golem, I could barely damage it and it would heal, fought it for 10 min and finally just fled the battle.

Did some research and decided to swap Gaius and Millium in for Rean and Jusis. And I killed it fairly easily the second try. I couldn’t believe how much better I did. But Gaius has 18% evasion, plus I’d hit him and Millium with Shining for Insight with +50% Evasion. On top of STR +25% and DEF +50% buffs.

Oh, yeah, it can make quite a difference who you're using, @JaxonH ..... Millium is good to use, most of the time! Glad you sorted it out without me

Whew! Just beat G and the spider.

It really, really does make a difference who you use. And that Shining art. Dear goodness that’s a lifesaver. Just keep applying Insight to everyone as often as I can, while staging healed.

Cool, sounds like it's going well now, @JaxonH .... Keep us posted