Tales of Graces F

Just got Pascal. She is my new favorite character.

Alright, I beat the original storyline. Do I continue to the future arc, or is there stuff I should take care of first? I'm not sure if I'll miss anything by going on with the story.

Starting the Future Arc disables a lot of sidequests. When you complete the Future Arc, you get to make a save like after beating the boss and they'll be re-enabled again.
Bonus Dungeon comes after the Future Arc, based on the level of the content. The first floor's boss in the bonus dungeon is level 75 on Normal. You can get a feel for the difficulty of it by going to Lhant and seeing the cutscene and fighting the monster. All the equips you get from post-game events are better than the Future Arc ones too, for the most part.

 Last boss subevent spoilers

After obtaining Pascal's 3 mystic artes, and reaching Lambda, you can go to each Valkines Cryas and fight its guardian. They're level 75, 95, and 110 in the order of appearance, and drop the 2nd best Dagger, Bladerang, and Dualblade. They are required to be defeated to enter the 10th floor of the bonus dungeon. Should be done after Future Arc as well though, so the Future Arc weapons aren't obsolete, and the content isn't too easy. These fights can be difficult due to the sheer strength of each attack.

Just got Pascal. She is my new favorite character.

More tips!
Pascal's first mystic arte can be obtained to the west of Gralesyde from a sub-event by talking to some bandits and beating them. Everyone else gets theirs from main-story events so hers can be easy to miss.
To get Pascal's second mystic arte, you need to see the subevent at Sable Izolle research lab.
To get Pascal's third mystic arte, when you reach Zhavert, at the fork before Sneek Research Institute, go down and you'll get a cutscene.

When you get Shine Field, use it 30 times to unlocked Shine Field Adept, which has Pascal's strongest spell (i.e. highest damage) at the 3rd skill. Not necessarily her best spell, keep in mind, but one of them.

I take it then that there are no devil arms in this tales game? A minor disappointment, but they're rigged as pineapple anyway. Don't really need them.

Pascal. She is my new favorite character.

This.

I spent some time trying out all the characters shortly before getting to the Colosseum. Sophie seems to have nothing but Nova attacks and some useless B-artes, but she sure does move around quickly. I seem to miss with her a lot though -- her range is short. Pascal is pretty fun. I'm completely hopeless with Cheria (halp?). And Hubert/Malik have so few titles that they just get beaten around the field all day. Hubert seems like he might be really good, but I forgot to try Malik. He seems like a more traditional caster from what I saw though.

Real bitches go B-Arte OFFENCE Cheria. Bitches JUST DONT KNOW ABOUT TIME FREEZES.

Picked up Pascal's first Mystic Arte, also maxed out the title with some requests.
That arte you get from the fifth rank is just dear god wtp.

QUIET NON BELIEVER.

 The Goddamn Boar Boss

This guy. pineapple this guy. He calls 3 to 6 minions randomly (and they don't exactly fall over), he charges all day every day, and if you get him low enough that he does the digging thing, he'll never stop and you won't damage him until you lose. Seriously, can anyone dodge that dig thing? I don't see any indication of who he's going to attack with it (aside from the fact that he seems to immediately target a freshly life-bottled computer ally), and even when I try to second guess it I always get hit, and sometimes it breaks my guard too. It does absurd damage and I can't stagger him at all while he's doing this. Even while he's charging he takes a good amount of hits to stagger, and for some reason his whole body can hurt you while he's doing that, so don't bother attacking him during it.

After about 8 failures, I was considering turning it down to Moderate (from Hard), but I pressed on. On my kill I'm pretty sure I just got lucky. We got an Eleth Burst when he had about 1/3rd health left, and combo'd the hell out of him for the other 20k of his health. Two burst artes in that combo too. It worked out really well, and I was happy I didn't have to lower the difficulty, but goddamn he was crazy. Anyone else have difficulties?

 The Goddamn Boar Boss

This guy. pineapple this guy. He calls 3 to 6 minions randomly (and they don't exactly fall over), he charges all day every day, and if you get him low enough that he does the digging thing, he'll never stop and you won't damage him until you lose. Seriously, can anyone dodge that dig thing? I don't see any indication of who he's going to attack with it (aside from the fact that he seems to immediately target a freshly life-bottled computer ally), and even when I try to second guess it I always get hit, and sometimes it breaks my guard too. It does absurd damage and I can't stagger him at all while he's doing this. Even while he's charging he takes a good amount of hits to stagger, and for some reason his whole body can hurt you while he's doing that, so don't bother attacking him during it.

After about 8 failures, I was considering turning it down to Moderate (from Hard), but I pressed on. On my kill I'm pretty sure I just got lucky. We got an Eleth Burst when he had about 1/3rd health left, and combo'd the hell out of him for the other 20k of his health. Two burst artes in that combo too. It worked out really well, and I was happy I didn't have to lower the difficulty, but goddamn he was crazy. Anyone else have difficulties?

Some more X-Beast, Survivor, if you have any. More crowd control vs the minions, either having spell casters use AoE, or Asbel use Moonlight Circle. Gale Maw and Phantasm Flash are really good for dodging things as Asbel. Wolfwind Fang can pin it well, and it does Beast damage. What was your party? Also, the next boss is more annoying with its charging.

I was actually curious about this and tried to beat him on my second playthrough. Once he hits 0 Hp he automatically fills his eleth gauge fully and uses his mystic arte on you to kill you. >_> He can't be killed, period.

If you somehow have enough HP to survive, the battle ends anyways too.

Some more X-Beast, Survivor, if you have any. More crowd control vs the minions, either having spell casters use AoE, or Asbel use Moonlight Circle. Gale Maw and Phantasm Flash are really good for dodging things as Asbel. Wolfwind Fang can pin it well, and it does Beast damage. What was your party? Also, the next boss is more annoying with its charging.

 Spoiler

Survivor was +HP right? I've been getting those, but I've been avoiding the X-Monster skills because I felt they were weak. It seems it's time to reconsider. My party is Asbel (me), Sophie, Pascal, and Cheria. I didn't have problems surviving myself (aside from that stupid digging move), but whenever he would target Cheria, she would die almost immediately if I didn't grab his attention or stagger him. Pascal seems to like to get hit as well, since she has to be close for her spells. I put her on Balanced (instead of B-heavy) and she did better after that. The little jerks weren't that bad, they just chipped in with the already heavy damage the boss was doing and made me have to deal with them first, so I wasn't staggering mr Boar while that was happening. I seemed to be able to stagger him better with my B-artes, so I stuck with those once I figured it out (frostwolf slash and big pink blast thing were my go-to's). The... dragon thing (holding X after a 3CC A-arte) seemed to incapacitate him for a while too if I could get it off. Loved the left A-arte combo for this fight.

I find it incredibly hard to work in the other two characters since they're so low on titles, which is a bit of a catch 22 since that's how you get titles. I do like playing most of the characters, except that I seem to be god-awful as Cheria (in the arena anyway). The AI does a good job of healing (for once! pineapple you, Estelle!), so I leave that to it.

 Spoiler

Survivor was +HP right? I've been getting those, but I've been avoiding the X-Monster skills because I felt they were weak. It seems it's time to reconsider. My party is Asbel (me), Sophie, Pascal, and Cheria. I didn't have problems surviving myself (aside from that stupid digging move), but whenever he would target Cheria, she would die almost immediately if I didn't grab his attention or stagger him. Pascal seems to like to get hit as well, since she has to be close for her spells. I put her on Balanced (instead of B-heavy) and she did better after that. The little jerks weren't that bad, they just chipped in with the already heavy damage the boss was doing and made me have to deal with them first, so I wasn't staggering mr Boar while that was happening. I seemed to be able to stagger him better with my B-artes, so I stuck with those once I figured it out (frostwolf slash and big pink blast thing were my go-to's). The... dragon thing (holding X after a 3CC A-arte) seemed to incapacitate him for a while too if I could get it off. Loved the left A-arte combo for this fight.

I find it incredibly hard to work in the other two characters since they're so low on titles, which is a bit of a catch 22 since that's how you get titles. I do like playing most of the characters, except that I seem to be god-awful as Cheria (in the arena anyway). The AI does a good job of healing (for once! pineapple you, Estelle!), so I leave that to it.

Those resistances add up. And Survivor is Decrease Item Usage Wait Time (usually -4% or sometimes -8%)

Dualizing random drops together to get stuff that sells for gald is an easy way to make money. Some of those can be dualized again to make more profit. There's some recipes and manuscripts that increase droprates for materials. You could also dualize some weapons and shards to sell for profit if you know the right combination.

Pascal isn't too fantastic in boss fights until she has her 3rd Wind/Water/Fire spells, or Celestial Eight/Fangirl Dream. If she randomly charges in to cast a 1st or 2nd level spell, she's likely to die at higher difficulties due to the range since the AI doesn't use Assault artes to lower cast time or anything. Her Assault artes on their own are okay, but I would rather use Malik for the range support in that case, since her physical attack isn't too high. Check her scarves and make sure she's wearing one that provides her skill that gives her super armor while casting. It's pretty important for her later on, and she gets a few from titles, but stacking it with the scarves, instead of taking C. ATK+ or whatnot is a better idea. Play Pascal 100+ times and that's probably the easiest way to get one. There's another from a main story title, and one more at level 80.

If you need to train another character, should probably swap out Pascal and throw in Malik or Hubert, so your team can manage to stay alive with the healers' support. Though in regular battles, you probably don't need two healers.

Malik is one of the very few ways to get Freeze and Petrify damage out there, and his highest tier for each element are super good. Blazing Hearts requires a sub-event to get though, and is easily missed. If you have him on B-only, he'd probably provide more to a battle than Pascal until she gets her 3rd tier of magic, unless the monsters aren't knocking her down/she has a lot of Shield. He obviously does more damage than Cheria's magic, unless the monsters are weak to her.


Some more tips:
You can change Titles mid-battle from the equip menu if you didn't already know, so for a boss battle, you can wear something that gives you their damage type on all attacks, or increase P.Atk/C.Atk, defense, Step range, etc. Right before you use a Mystic Arte, you can swap the title to one that gives more Mystic Arte damage too. Just remember to swap it back to something you want to level up.

Characteristic Skills:
These are skills that can be found on the equipment specifically for that character (e.g. Anklet for Sophie, Ribbon for Cheria), and there are 3 that come from Titles.
Asbel - Steadfast - chance to prevent stagger when he has his sword drawn I think
Sophie - Charge (?) - makes her hold X artes charge up faster
Hubert - Trick (?) - Decreases the time spent twirling his blades, and I think it shortens the time switching from Assault to Burst as well
Cheria - Share (?) - heals 10% HP to herself whenever she heals someone, even herself
Malik - Release (?) - Makes his Bladerang return faster
Pascal - Shield (?) - gives her a chance to prevent stagger when she's casting a spell

Dualizing random drops together to get stuff that sells for gald is an easy way to make money. Some of those can be dualized again to make more profit. There's some recipes and manuscripts that increase droprates for materials. You could also dualize some weapons and shards to sell for profit if you know the right combination.

I've been doing that to some degree, it's just that constantly dualizing weapons and armor gets expensive very quickly.