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"x is a required party member to complete the game"
I'd recommend changing that line. While any character that guards the upstairs or is required to continue (Cirno, Chen) is certainly not optional, it is not possible to continue onto the plus-disk without recruiting every character anyways. So while the phrase does give the correct impression, it's not really accurate as EVERY character is required to complete the game. -- Qazmlpok 13:12, December 11, 2009 (UTC)

Oh? I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for informing me, I'll sit down and change it later. Garlyle 16:24, December 11, 2009 (UTC)

Resummarization Attempts

What follows are attempts to re-summarize the characters to expand the amount of gametime it covers and generally be more 'fair' to the characters by finding reasons to use everyone. Hopefully these come off as neutral, but it's sometimes hard to be that way about certain characters. Please add in any comments you have to a new line -following- the proposed description, instead of just editing it flat out, and feel free to sign your comments, too.! --Garlyle 09:59, July 7, 2010 (UTC)


Chen

Easily one of the most fragile characters in the game, thanks to terrible HP, DEF, MND, affinities, and resistances. In an early, unpatched version of the game, her EVA would have allowed her some survivability, but as it's busted in current versions, you ultimately can't depend on her to survive anything. However, Chen just plain shouldn't be on the field when something dangerous comes her way. Chen's role is to make use of her incredible speed and moderate attack growth - made better by her ridiculously fast levelling - to deal out a huge total of damage and then retreat. Kimontoku followed by repeated Flight of Idaten allows Chen to get in a large number of attacks on a boss, especially if it's following a large-delay attack on a paralyzed or slowed foe; for much of the game Chen's SP will run out before the boss can act, so swap her back out at that point for someone else. When using her in random encounters, Chen can outspeed even the fastest enemies, but she might not be able to kill them in time, and her group attacks don't pack enough of a punch to be expected to just clear things out of your way for you.


Hong Meiling

One of the most reliable and steadfast tanks in the game, Meiling excels at her job by not excelling in any singular area, but rather by being above-average in all defensive traits, especially HP. Very few attacks will outright be able to run Meiling through, and you can depend on her to survive attacks that will tear apart the rest of your party in a pinch, especially if given defensive buffs. While she's sitting out on the front lines, she provides some essential support too - Colorful Rain allows her to take care of her own HP fairly well, and Healer is great for patching up low-HP characters, plus its status healing is the first move of its kind in the game. Unfortunately, while her damage falls short very fast and this limits her usefulness in regular encounters, Meiling will continue to be an extremely valuable and reliable tank for your party in boss fights, especially if given gear to aid her status resistances as the game progresses.


Cirno

Similar to Chen, Cirno is very fast, and very fragile too. Yet, she brings with her some very valuable capabilities. Because of her high speed, you can often count on her to strike before all but the fastest enemies, giving you the chance to take advantage of Cirno's main use - disabling them before they can counterattack. The Speed debuffs inflicted by Cirno's spells, especially Icicle Fall, are the strongest you'll ever have available, and they are great for quickly debilitating a boss and granting yourself more time for setting up buffs and beginning your assault. Obviously this doesn't work on everything, but Cirno's reliable PAR effect on Diamond Blizzard also shouldn't be ignored, especially in random battles, as there's a surprising number of enemies who don't resist it, thus neutering many dangerous enemies before battle even begins. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, Cirno's below-average damage capabilities don't make up for the fact that more and more enemies and bosses will start being immune to her debilitating effects; however, when that's not the case, you can count on Cirno to prove her strength.


Minoriko

A nearly-dedicated cleric, Minoriko is the first character you'll get with strong, single-target healing, and may very well be the best at it. Despite her fairly low stat growths, she levels fast to compensate for that to some degree. This won't fix the fact that she tends to be easily taken down should the enemy choose to use the wrong (right?) attack against her, but as she can buff up anyone's defenses - even her own - it is mitigated to a small degree, plus her MAG is generally sufficient enough that she can focus her bonuses more into her defenses. More importantly, thanks to her good MAG and SPD combined with the high multiplier, nearly-free cost, and low delay on Promise of the Wheat God, she's able to throw around effective healing spells with ease and really help your party out, even when she first joins. Just be aware that she might not be able to keep up with the damage output from faster, multi-targetting bosses, but bosses limited to one target will have a hard time outpacing Minoriko's healing. While her attack spells don't pack much of a punch despite their defense-piercing formulas, Minoriko's simple and quick healing and defensive buff are reliable, and so long as you can deal with her relative frailty, you'll find a great healer.

(Note: I believe at this point that Minoriko and Sanae function as two very different variants of the same character - Sanae is slower and costlier, but grants extra bonuses that Minoriko can't do, and that the choice should be based on which the individual player prefers. I'm NOT going to instigate that one is always going to be better than the other)


Youmu Konpaku

Youmu's a real physical powerhouse, the first of her kind, but never the same as any others you'll recruit later. Early in the game, Youmu can sweep aside enemy groups with ease; however, her SP restricts her from attacking much before she needs to be swapped into the back. Youmu's terrible SP growth also results in this being a problem that will never really go away, either - the farther you get, the more you'll need her strong attacks, and it will still be costly for you to use her. With that said, however, Youmu becomes more and more capable as the game goes on. Her damage output is excellent, and she has some good survivability so long as she's not hit by magic. This allows her to sit out on the field and use her speciality - focusing. Focus restores double the normal amount of SP for her. Due to the way it's calculated, this means that every +1 Recovery granted to her by equipment becomes +4 SP recovered on focusing. Later in the game, as equipment which boosts both ATK and Recovery becomes available, Youmu's values will really begin to kick in, and her SP issues will be far more bearable when she's become a powerful nuke.


Alice Margatroid

A mage who packs some unusual qualities for one, Alice is capable of a great many things. For starters, despite being a mage, she's got decent enough defense and HP to survive where other attacking mages would fall, on top of the usual MND. She's got decent speed, too, and even early SP won't be much of an issue for her. Her downside is the generally lower damage output she'll be doing than other dedicated magic attackers, but you won't mind, because Alice brings some tactical advantages to the table to make up for it. The first is that she's capable of attacking a target's DEF or MND, meaning that an enemy resistant to one of her attacks will usually have a vulneurability to another - as both of these still use her MAG stat, this puts her at a unique advantage. The second is the minor debuffs which her attacks inflict. These are a side effect, but in the early game she's your first access to many of these, and even later on they are a nice touch when they work. Essentially, Alice isn't a master of any particular thing she's good at, but her versatility and reliability will be a great boon.


Rumia

An odd case of working both better and worse than expected, Rumia is a character you'll need to try out yourself to really grasp if she'll work for you or not. Although her stats leave a great deal to be desired, she levels fast to offset those to a degree, although she'll never have great defenses in any one area. Instead, Rumia brings some cheap and unusual spells with her. Moonlight Ray is a cheap and startlingly powerful MYS elemental nuke, and while the damage dealt may not be that high, Dark Side of the Moon is your first spell that completely ignores enemy defenses, although it's still affected by the target's MYS affinity. Since Rumia's MAG is fairly low, Demarcation won't be healing for much, so for much of the game it tends to be more of a situational debuff remover than a healing spell. Still, investing level bonuses and skill points into Rumia's MAG can provide you with a surprisingly effective damage dealer or healer.


Wriggle Nightbug

The character whose strength is hardest to measure accurately, Wriggle relies on poisoning foes to get out the most of her damage. Since poison damage isn't visible, it can be very difficult to see just how much damage she's actually doing during a battle, but if you can handle that, her damage is not a small amount. Her poison effects are far stronger than that of any other character in the game, boosted by her fast levelling rate, and so even just a single Comet on Earth and then retreating her for a while will produce damage comparable to many strong nukes. Since this takes time, however, and her natural attack power is very low, she is far more capable against bosses than random encounters. Still, when she's out there, she's surprisingly durable and her incredible ailment resistances help her look even better, as does the fact that startlingly few bosses in the game have any PSN resistance at all - although the few that do will significantly reduce her damage.


Yuugi Hoshiguma

Big, slow, and packing overwhelming strength, Yuugi bears the distinction of having the second highest strength in the game, and puts it to extremely good use. While it takes her a bit to get moving, and her SP growth is slow enough that she can usually only get off a couple of attacks before needing a rest, Yuugi rarely needs more than a couple moves to lay out anything in her path. She can sweep aside many enemy groups with Storm on Mt. Ooe, unless they resist WND. She's even better, however, at dealing with single target foes - despite its incredible delay and her low speed, Knockout in Three Steps is a contender for one of the game's most powerful attacks, and her awesome ATK only makes that even better, utterly obliterating anything not resistant to fire. Even if it resists, Yuugi can still deal reliably high damage with Supernatural Phenomenon. Just be aware that, although she may be a walking cannon and is quite capable of taking a few blows, coming under magical assault will very quickly tear through Yuugi.


Aya Syameimaru

A speedster who really knows her job well, Aya is your other choice - outside of Sakuya - for when your party needs to get a move on. Her high speed and low-delay attacks allow her to deal with foes quickly. More specifically, Peerless Wind God bears the distinction of buffing herself while attacking, meaning her assault only grows in frequency. Once her own speed is buffed up, she can quickly use Sarutahiko's Guidance a couple of times to leave a buff on her allies, and then beat a hasty retreat before she gets sniped or runs out of SP. If she's in a situation where she's not in any direct danger, then once Aya gets going, she can get your whole party moving at high speeds and support them while dealing out some supporting - although not major - damage herself; just be aware that even with her good SP growth, optimum use of her abilities burns through it very fast, especially early on.


I was going to say more, but chrome ate my post so I'll summarize:

Chen: should mention that she's better against bosses vulnerable to paralysis/slow

Cirno: her other major problem is that Komachi can come along and do her job almost as well, and without worrying about being oneshotted by half the attacks in the game.

Rumia: "Despite that, time and investment into Rumia's MAG has been seen to pay off with some surprisingly effective results, so don't be afraid to use her even if she doesn't seem to be working out early." What does this mean, should say something more concrete.

Minoriko: should mention that her base MAG is usually sufficient for healing, so bonuses are better invested in durability/speed

  • Thanks for the feedback. Komachi's overall capability to maintain Cirno's strengths is indeed present, but Komachi is far slower and needs multiple uses of her skill to produce the same effects, even if it will generally be greater, and whether or not Cirno's damage is huge, the fact is that Narrow Confines is going to not be doing any damage, which is far less regardless. This is going to be covered in Komachi's description, since she runs this way in comparison to a few different characters (Such as Iku). Other than that, good points, all added in. Also, rewrote Wriggle's description in light of Parallaxal's discoveries. --Garlyle 18:06, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


Rumia: I can't help but feel she's being undersold somewhat. Against Rinnosuke's first form, Moonlight Ray only does a few thousand less damage than Youmu's Slash of Eternity for me. Demarcation as well shouldn't be underestimated, as it's healing for 1.5-2k in the same situation while Reimu's healing over 4k with her heal (both with MAG builds). It's also worth noting that even against high-def enemies such as Helbelmares, Dark Side of the Moon's damage output is so poor that it's pretty much guaranteed you'll be better off brute forcing it with a character like Youmu or Yuugi. Agreed as well on the above comment about her description being vague; I see her best used for single-target MYS nuking and debuff removal. --Esoterica 05:17, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

Adding my experiences with Rumia: If you have some way to easily boost Rumia's MAG (such as with Iku, as I'm doing), then Demarcation becomes a very powerful healing spell. She was main healing for me against Bloody Papa and part of the final boss fight, and Demarcation has much less delay and a lower SP cost than Exorcising Border. As for Dark Side of the Moon, I've found it good against Crystal Heads on 9F and Blackenmels on 15F, and that's about it. Everything else has enough HP to survive. --Parallaxal 10:02, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

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