Part 2: Ashley's Party

Ashley’s Party

Ashley:



Weapons: Maces and Staves
Armor: Leather
Skills: Ashley gets a mix of healing skills, Sacra magic, some special physicals, and buffs.
Role: Combat medic. Ashley is equally at home fighting on the front lines as supporting her allies. She’s our primary source of healing in this path as well as our best fighter. Her Sacra magic isn’t as good as a primary caster’s would be, but it’s plenty strong enough for most uses.
Notes: Ashley is the best character we have on this path and arguably the best main character (though Thage is close at high levels because she can kill most things in a single spell at that point). We’re going to use her a lot, which will ensure she gets a lot of experience and becomes as strong as possible.
Upgraded Classes:
Matriarch: This class trades some of her melee strength for improved magical power and focuses her skill improvement in that area. Personally, I dislike this path because Ashley’s never really going to have Sacra magic that’s as good as her physicals can be.
Prodigy: This class focuses more on Ashley’s melee strength and support abilities. It’s largely an extension of her original strengths, making her even more able to mash her way through Majin with trivial ease. I want to say as a Prodigy she can equip the next tier of armor but I’m not certain. I have a strong opinion that Prodigy is the better of the two classes by a wide margin.

Glynne:



Weapons: Spears
Armor: Leather
Skills: Glynne gets a mix of Earth spells and various combat buffs as well as some physical attacks.
Role: Combat support. Glynne can bring some great buffs to the table and at high levels can do some good damage with his attacks and magic, but it’s hell getting him that high. He’s just not that powerful compared to our real physical attackers like Ashley or some of the mercenaries we’ll get later.
Notes: Glynne is a pretty weak character at low levels. He just plain doesn’t hit that hard compared to Ashley. The worst part about this is that weak characters tend to not see much use, which in turn leads to him not gaining experience very fast.
Upgraded Classes:
Mystic: This class focuses on Glynne’s magical skills. I don’t have much of an opinion on either option here.
Slayer:This class focuses on Glynne’s melee skills.

Reyna:



Weapons: Longbows (potentially Shortbows)
Armor: Leather
Skills: Reyna gets mainly Fire magic as far as skills go.
Role: Full offense. Reyna’s all about doing damage. She’s got powerful bow attacks and powerful Pyro spells that can reach out and touch enemies from far away. Fire is a common Majin weakness, so it’s one of the more attractive elements to dabble in.
Notes: Reyna’s good if we can get her up to decent levels, her stat gains are decent and she can dish out some really serious damage eventually. She’s still not as good as Ashley, though, and there’s a real temptation to neglect her a bit because she can tend to be a bit slow in battle.
Upgraded Classes:
Warden: This class makes Reyna faster and allows her to equip Shortbows. This offers us a whole new option because Shortbows can accept healing magic, allowing Reyna to provide some support as well.
Flametongue:This class focuses Reyna on her fire magic. She’ll never match Thage or Olifen’s dedicated caster but without a real caster on our side right now there’s certainly an argument for this class.

Decision Time!

What classes should we upgrade Ashley’s party to when the time comes? We could be seeing a class change for Ashley quite soon indeed, while Glynne and Reyna will see them substantially later. Here are our choices again:

Ashley: Matriarch (magic) vs Prodigy (balanced)
Glynne: Mystic (magic) vs Slayer (melee)
Reyna: Warden (archery) vs Flametongue (fire magic)