Part 23: Closing

Well that wraps up chapter 3. The assault on Paltina Castle is considered to be among the most difficult missions in the game. If you're well prepared they're quite manageable, so barring any bullshit critical hit rampages, you should be in good form. And until now my strategy was basically to hit them with Shield Barrier. Now I can change it to hit them with Gravity Chaos, and then Shield Barrier. Awesome.

Anyways, we're down one character, so let's inventory the troops.


Milanor: He's a beast. Between his naturally high stats and his ability to mass MVP bonuses, he's easily the strongest character for a long while. He's at the point now where he can fight weak sword users unaided. He's great against units like Gulcasa, where brute force is the answer. Relying on him too much at this point siphons precious MVPs and Exp away from other characters, though, and I don't want to neglect the rest of the party.


Durant: He's shaping up quite formidably – easily second to Milanor in strength. The Tec food we gave him early in the game, as well as some Tec MVPs have quickly brought his Tec up to 4, complimenting his 3 Atk and Gen nicely. His luck is at an even 2, thanks to the Luk+2 he gained earlier. Between now and level 20 he only gains 2 more small stars in the stat, so he'll never see 3 without our assistance. If we choose to use him, there's plenty of Luk food to go around. Road really helped us out in Paltina, allowing Durant to take out large groups solo.


Nietzsche: She's been gaining a nice reputation as a Crit dealer so far, thanks to her good luck. Outside of her Atk, though, her other stats are starting to look a little low. At level 10 she gains another star in Tec, though, bringing her average up. And as always, we'll have lots of food to help out those problem stats. Her Gen is pretty bad, though, but that's the least useful stat in my opinion. We don't see a lot of water for her, but when we do she'll still really shine.


Rosary: She really hasn't seen much action this game, and her Staff doesn't always compare well to Durant's superior stats, or Nietzsche in the water. It's the perfect time to start using Rosary if we chose, though. She's a great candidate for the Gold Dozeu (+1 all stats) and with a few Atk food items she becomes incredibly powerful. We'll be seeing a lot of Witches, and of course Gulcasa, as we play, and Rosary's Void Fire works wonders against the both of them. With some food and item support, Rosary is an easy match for the Emperor, as well as any Melee unit. And you never know, maybe Doll Craft might come in handy.


Mistel: The new kid on the team, she basically hasn't been brought out until last level, and that was only to burn a use on her Mowing Scythe. Look at those stats! Terrible. However, the same conditions apply with Rosary. A few food items is all she needs and she'll easily be the muscle on the team. And to be honest, her stats aren't terrible at max level. Gen and Atk both reach 4, with Tec just slightly behind. It's just that the low levels require so much growth to get anywhere. And Scythes are never bad to use, so if we were to use Mistel it's so easy to fit her into unions for Exp. Oblivious Dawn can also be a great asset.

For the next while we can bring 4 units per mission, but I'll generally focus on Milanor +2. It's not conductive to focus on too many people, especially since we're still missing 5 members we may want to use in the future. Food items and Exp+ items will be used to bring up whoever's stats and levels we need, and No Battle Penalty items can be used for MVP bonuses.

I'll assume Nietzsche's still got the bench, but I'm open for any party combination.