Levelling Up Low Level Characters

[SuperJolt]

I was having Roger fight Grape Binds at L6 the other day, but found them to be very difficult to defeat smoothly (which is necessary to keep the Triple EXP bonus, darn those frequent critical hits!).

Is there any way to dodge 10-Hit Combo if Roger's Fury can't get high enough to Guard in time?

How to deal with their regular minor attack where they whip their branches all over the place? Roger needs time to set up his Short O, and that thing constantly disrupts it.

[MaidenofWar]

SuperJolt posting!

Thanks for the input.

Well for Roger I don't think the suggestion was to fight solo. If I were doing it I'd probably follow a hit and run strategy - AAA - short O - then run away Though I don't recommend it - that's what the suggested skills for Cliff, Nel and Fayt are there for!

[SuperJolt]

Oh, okay. Hammer of Might and Blazing Sword would have made short work of them. Guess Roger shouldn't have attempted soloing until Charge was learned

Seriously, it took longer to get him from L6 to L12 than from L12 to L18 (Berserk). Porcupines with Charge were far easier to keep Triple EXP going than soloing with the trees before Charge.

That was somewhat due to having poor timing on sidestepping Grape Bind majors. I was off nearly half the time

Sheesh, I wonder how much longer till Moonbase? I'm anxious to trash some robots and monsters with decent EXP!

[MaidenofWar]

Character - Sophia (starting level L1)

Sophia’s starting skills -

Long O - Deals HP and MP damage from afar. The HP damage isn‘t really worthy of note but the MP damage is good thus Sophia can use her long O physical attack to kill enemies with low MP with relative ease. If you‘re going to try killing things with her on L1 though I recommend getting her a weapon with good ATK power first though so she doesn‘t do pitiful damage and also knowing how to deal with enemy attacks to keep a low level character from taking damage. For ATK power in the first area it’s possible for Sophia to fight in I recommend the Laser Weapon which can be found in a chest in Moonbase. Sophia will have a harder time against Moonbase enemies than Peppita will though due to not having the invincibility of counter attacks and the ability to hit enemy elemental weakness.

Sophia’s long X is the same as her long O only it comes out a little bit faster but does less damage. Your choice.

Short O - Sophia’s short O physical is one of the strongest in the game. It can hit multiple times and has great damage modifiers for HP. Sophia can really turn into a force to be reckoned with a proper short O strategy but … L1 at Moonbase isn’t really the best for making the most of this physical attack. If you really want to use it with a L1 Sophia equip her with the Laser Weapon and AAA Stun an enemy before trying. Be quick. Oh and save, always save.

Sophia’s starting equipment -

Weapon - Crescent Rod
Armour - Robe

Recommended equipment for Sophia -

Weapons -

* Magician’s Staff - Okay so there isn’t really anything special about this weapon but it’s the first new one you can get for Sophia and it’s better than the Crescent Rod at least. Use this if you’re going to be using Sophia for a mage.

The Magician’s Staff can be bought from the weapons shop on Moonbase.


* Laser Weapon - The highest ATK power weapon that can be found at Moonbase. Only really important if you’re planning to use Sophia’s physical attacks though.

You can get a Laser Weapon from a chest in Moonbase, from one in the Sphere Company or buy them from the weapon's shop in Gemity. They are also a rare drop by the spider tank robots on Styx.

* Adept’s Staff - Okay so it’s not possible to get this until quite some time after Sophia has joined but I think it’s important to mention it anyway. It is Sophia best weapon for INT maxing purposes after all. Great weapon, eight free slots for factors of your choosing and a decent boost to Sophia’s base INT. You really should get this if Sophia’s your mage.

The Adept’s Staff can be obtained from Ruddel and Rumina’s shop in Aquios late disc two (after main game Sphere) or the Retail Rabbit if you didn’t make him leave Peterny.

Armour - Runic Cloak

Accessories -

Regeneration Symbol + Regeneration Symbol (if using convert damage to MP)

Suggested extras

*Tattered Tome - if you want bring a Tattered Tome from Elicoor to use on Sophia at Moonbase. Being one of the frailer characters HP + DEF wise Sophia is one of the characters where durability can be improved by working with the stats they grow well in like MP. If you set Sophia up w/th Convert Damage Preserve HP ON in the Tactical Skills menu you can give her MP regens so she can keep her MP topped up herself and also later on you can also add +20% Max MP factors to increase her MP health bar even further.

Suggested levelling up areas

1) Moonbase -

Good skills to use against the enemies -

Ice Blade + Increase HP damage (Fayt)
Ice Daggers (Nel)
Power Up (Maria/Sophia)
Spike Shoes + counter attacks (Peppita)
Laser Weapon + Power Dance + Frozen Daggers (Peppita)
Spike Shoes + Power Dance + any offensive battle skill (Peppita)
Ice Needles/Deep Freeze (Sophia)

Moonbase is the first choice of levelling spots that you will have for Sophia. Unlike with Peppita this wasn’t a stage made for her. Sure Sophia will soon gain the ability to hit enemy weakness with Ice Needles but symbology damage will be rather poor in comparison to Peppita’s with physical attacks and battle skills. A L1 Sophia will also be at a higher risk on getting attacked/killed that a L1 Peppita both because Sophia is slower at getting out of the way of enemy attacks and because she doesn’t have any abilities to grant her invincibility like Peppita’s counterattacks.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to win fights solo on Moonbase with Sophia just that it’s more of a pain. Sophia can fight the Proclaimer boss solo and gain lots of EXP. So if you really want to you can practice using Sophia’s physical attacks on Moonbase and/or attempt to master her long X and long O to defeat the Proclaimer with in order to level her up a lot of levels at once.

Alternatively you can just forget about soloing with Sophia and level her up in a party. This is the best method of levelling Sophia up I think and the one that I usually use. Stock up on as much healing, mana restoring and analeptic items as possible and let your other characters defeat the enemy whilst you keep Sophia at the back of the field using items to heal/revive enemies as needed. Once Sophia gains some better abilities through levelling her up you can consider letting her play a more active role in fights.




2) Styx -

This is a better place than Moonbase for Sophia to level up in - well against the Enforcers at least. They have low MP so you can try to stay at range and snipe away at them with Sophia’s long X or long O. I’d recommend having allies with Sophia for fighting Proclaimers though.

Good skills to use against the enemies -

*Enforcers

Ice Blade + Increase HP damage or Increase MP damage (Fayt)
Ice Daggers (Nel)
Power Up (Maria/Sophia)
Spike Shoes + counter attacks (Peppita)
Laser Weapon + Power Dance + Frozen Daggers (Peppita)
Spike Shoes + Power Dance + any offensive battle skill (Peppita)
Ice Needles/Deep Freeze (Sophia)
Long X or Long O - Sophia

* Proclaimers

Lightning Blade + Increase HP damage (Fayt)
Whirlwind + Increase HP damage/Stun (Nel)
Power Up (Maria/Sophia)
Laser Weapon + counters + Power Dance + Kaboom/Increase HP damage/Faerie Friend (Peppita)
Thunder Flare (Sophia)
Air Slash (Albel)

3) Gemity Battle Arena

Some players like to wait until they have reached Gemity Battle arena before they start training for levels on disc two. Personally I’ve usually trained any of the characters I’m using before then but a new player might want to wait until the battle arena before trying to level Sophia up. There are enemies that are easier to deal with than the ones on Moonbase and Styx available to fight there.

[MaidenofWar]

Levels to aim for -

*L3 - Sophia learns Healing at L3.

Healing - Restores the hit points of a character.

Yes there are better healers than Sophia but considering that she doesn’t get one of her best skills for quite a while you might as well work with what you get and that includes Healing.

*L10 - Sophia learns Ice Needles at L10.

Ice Needles - Does basic water/ice elemental damage to enemies. Can be set as a battle skill. The only reason I mention this spell is because the enemies in the areas where Sophia can first be levelled up are mostly susceptible to the water/ice element. Even so considering it’s sym-bo-logy it probably won’t be doing much damage to the enemies unless you use item creation to boost Sophia’s INT. However at least it’s still something to use and it does have the extra effect of having the chance to freeze an enemy. If you manage to free an enemy with Ice Needles you can them shatter kill it with physical attacks. If that happens you might end up with some quick victories even if your Ice Needles isn’t doing much damage.


*L12 - Sophia learns Acid Rain

Acid Rain - Area of effect defence lowering spell on enemies. Well if Sophia can’t do much damage on her own yet then she might as well use something to help her team mates do even more damage with ATK based abilities right? Well the thing is … though this spell looks good in theory does it even actually work? Has anyone even ever noticed any difference whilst using it? Try it and let us know if so J

*L17 - Sophia learns Protection

Protection - Raises the DEF of a target by 50% for a limited amount of time. At last a very useful ability that Sophia has as she is only one of three characters that can learn this spell. Protection is great to have and to use if you’re using characters like Fayt, Cliff, Mirage and Roger as tanks. It’ll bulk their natural DEF even more and enable them to receive even less damage from enemies. Indeed this spell can even help with setting up some characters to take zero damage from physical attacks later on in the game.

* L22 - Sophia learns Restoration

Restoration - Revives a dead target. As a restorative spell Restoration is a lot more unique to Sophia than Healing is as she is only one of two characters that can learn Restoration. So she gets more credit for this than she does for Healing. Handy spell to have if you’re near the end of a dungeon and find you’ve ran or nearly run out of reviving items.

Note that with Restoration there is a slight pause between when the spell has been cast and the angel that Restoration summons revives a target. Sometimes the AI will predict when an ally is going to die, begin casting the spell, in the midst of the slight pause the enemy kills the ally and then the angel brings the character back to life.

L25 - Sophia learns Power Up

Power Up - Boosts the ATK power of an ally by 50% for a limited time. Another useful spell yes! Not as useful as Peppita’s multi target Power Dance which also grants a higher boost to ATK power but any extra ATK/damage boosting abilities can be useful and Power Up with Sophia definitely is such if you’re not using Peppita, Adray or Maria (who also have Power Up but are faster spell casters than Sophia) Or maybe you are using Maria but want her to focus mainly on damage dealing.

L30 - Sophia learns Thunder Flare.

Thunder Flare - Finally Sophia learns one of her best offensive sym-bol-ogy spells! Thunder Flare is a lightning/wind damaging elemental spells but what kind of damage is does and how much isn’t really important in the grand scheme of things. What is important is that this skill causes stun locking. Stunlocking is the term given to abilities than can sometimes hold an enemy in place, preventing them from moving them around the battle field and sometimes preventing them from being able to pull their attacks off. Rendering an enemy basically incapable of attacking is a very useful ability to have. Since Thunder Flare can effect multiple targets it can sometimes even get a whole group of enemies immobile.

**

I'll tidy these posts up a little bit later =D Also bear in mind that some of Peppita and Sophia's stuff is a bit similar because ... well they join at round about the same time

[SuperJolt]

Ah, good, you're continuing this with more characters.

I have no clue about Acid Rain, although it did actually allow me to hurt the Urssa Lava Cave monsters back in my first playthrough. Certainly didn't take away all of their DEF, I remember attacks not being able to reach 1000+ damage like they usually could (Aerial Assault).

All the robots on Moonbase are immune to Freezing/Poison/Paralysis, as pure metal creatures should be. Don't know how Ice Needles fares there without that bonus effect =(

[Yoherz]

Wows.....*Rep +*
I would give double rep if I could. o_o

[MaidenofWar]

Awww thanks for the information + rep guys

Yeah I don't think Ice Needles will be much use at Moonbase ... but perhaps for other places a player might want to level a Sophia up in

Mirage next!

[SuperJolt]

Mirage, Mirage, Mirage. I'm actually pretty curious as to what enemies she's best at dispatching for some good solo EXP.

[Yoherz]

Gondor has used her a good bit in one of his files, so he might be able to tell you.
Though, from what I understood from him, she's just a weaker version of Cliff. Perhaps put in there for the, "why isn't there any masculine females?" feminists?