Tactics Ogre Reborn - November 11 (PS4/PS5/Swtich/Steam)

Ah, OK. So there is a point to them then. Good.

Guests do gain experience in combat if you mAnage to keep them from leaving before it’s over

Yep, just noticed that in the last battle. I’ll keep that in mind and make sure they survive the battle to insure they’ve leveled properly.

Edit: Oh and my uninformed initial hot take on units is this: clerics are too squishy and are seemingly just easy targets for enemy archers which then forces them burn a fair amount of their heals on themselves and my archers are meh.

They can be. Enemies are good about getting behind your lines and getting after your squishy units. Keep those clerics as far back as you can so they are healing at the edge of their range. You may need to move some other units back there to help them out if the enemy gets any melee through. I struggle more with wizards and archers since they need to be forward enough to hit enemies.

While I think Archers are still useful for dealing with squishy enemy units (especially those just out of range of other units), Clerics I struggle to defend. Knights and Rune Knights heal as well as Clerics do (or any other unit with access to heal really), except Clerics can do major heal and heal multiple targets. But I’m not sure that’s worth the minimal damage output Clerics have. Plus, by the time you get major heal, ~100 points of healing is rarely all that useful, comparatively. From a min/max perspective, Clerics only seem good for exorcising undead. Looks like a design oversight, which admittedly unit balance is never this genre’s strong suit. A simple fix to make them more viable would be increasing the healing output of Clerics by default (there is a class skill they get that does this, but only when it pops), but that’s not present.

That said, I still use a Cleric sometimes, but only for variety.

I’ve been keeping Quickness on my clerics to give them something to do so they don’t feel completely useless. I’m not 100% sure how it works though; it seems fairly expensive and I’m not sure if it works out to an extra turn eventually for the target or not. Also, if meditate doesn’t fire in the first or second turn it might not get cast at all.

It does seem to speed the target’s turn somewhat, but I have no sense of how powerful it is since I can’t really keep track of how many turns the target would have gotten and I don’t even really know how long it lasts. I feel I’m getting something out of it, and that’s about all I can really say for it.

I too waver on clerics. Some things I consider:

  • They have access to Ease, which cures status effects. Extremely useful as enemies start to hit my units with effects. Less useful once status effects become so common that Ease might remove a lesser effect and leave the worst one.
  • They can use the item that improves their spells, which ups their healing.
  • They can use defensive items that discourage enemies focusing on them.
  • It is not entirely useless to have enemies shooting at them, given that they are always in range for healing themselves. But if I am having to draw back other units to protect them, the costs outweigh the benefits. More often the case against flying enemies and very open maps.
  • They can be replaced not only by other units with healing spells – I like rune fencers especially – but by items. And as time goes on the cost of those items comes to be trivial. But in a long slog, those items can run out.
  • Plus what is the opportunity cost? How much would I gain from one more fighting unit on that map?

So for me, it is a case by case thing. But I disagree that this is a design weakness. For one thing, if healing were too powerful (for both sides) a battle could go on for an unacceptable amount of time. Also, as I am seeing it, this game is all about adjusting as time goes along. And the changing valuation of each item in the toolbox, including cleric heals, is what keeps the game fresh.

I think if I were willing to optimize more I’d try not running clerics on maps that have a heavy contingent of wizardly enemies. Instead, I just keep one all the time and add a second for fights featuring undead.

It seems to me the best way to get value out of Clerics is the major heal hitting 3 people or more. Then you’ve clustered up and an enemy wizard with one spell takes all of that healing away plus a bit more unless the Mothers Blessing procced to double your healing.

The single biggest mistake in this game, is making both sides use the same spells/skills/values. Casters in general are hugely gimped due to this. Being outnumbered by the A.I. doesn’t take into account that they have to try and balance battles with the same values on both sides, which leads to the games plodding combat, and to me, really uninspired feeling damage and healing.

Give the user spells, skills, and abilities that are more powerful, but give the enemy more numbers. That’s how you make the user feel powerful, but still make things challenging. Fundamental design choice flaw for me that it’s the way it is.

On the cleric point…yah, they are really almost completely useless and the spot is much better filled with a valkerie or knight if you want healing/haste on someone. Healing in general, even with buffs, is kind of a joke, as pretty early on you can craft full heal pots and everyone can carry 3 of them. Money not being an issue in this game, and being able to craft unlimited full heal pots makes any of the casted healers pretty worthless.

Keep in mind, though, that in many battles you ARE much more powerful. Enemy units often lack skills or finishers or items that they would need to really be the opponent that they appear to be on the face of it. And for me, scouting out these specific strengths and weaknesses of the opposing army is one of the fun aspects of the game. Of course, that’s just my taste.

I disagree with this. Partly my own failing because I always feel like I’m watching wasting a turn when an offensive unit has to heal. But maybe more importantly is that those healing items have no range. So you have to rely on a unit that can reach your soon-to-be dead unit getting a turn. Clerics already have a pretty good RT stat and since they don’t need to move much, they get frequent turns. Yes, it sucks relying on Meditation and Mother’s Blessing to proc, but auto skill cards pop up everywhere.

I think it’s beast master or whatever it’s called that get’s a throw ability, which serves the ranged heal purpose for me. It’s also 100% heal instead of whatever fraction heal, which becomes a bigger deal when your units start having 1300 hps etc. I just find that cleric heals are woefully underpowered for the restrictions of mana usage, and general paper-baginess of clerics. I just got tired of my cleric healing someone for 170, and watching the NPCs dish out 700 hps a shot to me lol.

On a practical note, there hasn’t been a battle in the game I couldn’t win on auto-battle, with every unit equipped with 3 full heals, and one rez stone. /shrug.

Sounds like you’re still doing the main story missions. The post game content will put the auto-battle stuff on the backburner, from what I’ve dabbled in so far. If nothing else, be careful about cliffs and ledges into nothingness - it’s easy to walk away while your are letting the game battle it out by itself and come back and not realize you’re missing a character. That’s how I lost Vyce, I bet.

Scott, you’ve said that the real game begins at chapter 4 (or after chapter 4?). Are you able to say why without spoiling anything? I’m still inching along in chapter 2 - maybe 2 locations left (unless they add more)

It gets better at the end of ch2. I’m in ch 3 now

There is a lot of awesome post-game battles and content to dig into, quests that only trigger after the main story is completed, and dungeons like the Palace of the Dead to completely clear with incredibly awesome but difficult battles, new classes you can’t really get access to until the post-game, and etc.

Then you can take all that awesome stuff you’ve found and high level spells and equipment you’ve found/crafted and roll time back to play through the game in other story beats - doing so, at least in the PSP version, scaled the game to your party so even early game battles got crazy. I’m still in the end-game of Chapter 4 (though I did the optional Shrine quest and have some incredible gear and the powerful Shaman class at last, something I never did in my previous game sessions) but I’m close to wrapping things up. Some of the story missions in late-Chapter 4 have been nail biters.

At least now I know approximately where I’ll rage quit. ;)

100% sure I will do this, if I haven’t already lol.

Hey I finally started chapter 3. Like @Sharpe I am on the Chaos path from doing what I considered the better choice. I get the lawful / chaotic reasoning compared to the good / evil. I’m OK with my choice so far.

I made Denim a Dragoon, but I think I’m not happy with my choice. Too many battles don’t have beasts or dragons to contend with. His damage output is a bit low. I think I want to change to something else - but I need to stick with a 1 handed sword so I can make use of his progress. I guess that would mean I need to go to knight or warrior, because berserker and ninja don’t use 1 handed swords. Right now battles allow 10 units and I have 12 because I haven’t hired anyone because even with the automated training I haven’t wanted to bother with it, so I probably don’t have a lot of flexibility in who I field in a given battle.

You could spec Denam as a Terror Knight, that was my go-to. Also don’t be afraid to mix it up with classes on other characters, or even weapon skills - they level up really quick. Given Denem a Spear as a Dragoon, that’ll be fun! Or make him a Wizard! That early in the game almost all your stats come from the class which is whatever level your character is, so experimentation is easy.

And 12 characters is technically all you need given you can make any of them whatever class you need at the time. I am more a “these are my guys and this is their class unless something cool comes along” player, sounds like you are as well, but it’s an option here and there.