The GWJ JRPG Club - Q2 2020 - Bravely Second: End Layer

Sundown, you're right -- the other Asterisks can be obtained later in the game. And if Bravely Second features a final class like Bravely Default, grinding up some of those abilities will be a cinch:

Spoiler:

Bravely Default's final class had an ability called Obliterate, which allowed you to automatically win fights against foes 20 or more levels below yours. By the time you got it, if you were doing well, this would be all random encounters. Obliterate also triggered BD's little bonus game, of beating enemies in one turn, all at once, and without taking damage. So your pg, XP, and JP would shoot through the roof in short order.

Sundown wrote:

And I’ve done the next sidequest, and went with getting the White Mage class. Not sure yet how it will differ from Bishop, but at least I know WM leans Holy, plus gets a really good ability in Group-Cast Master, which I definitely want Magnolia to learn down the road.

About the Bishop's spells, I've noticed that they all heal a fixed percentage of HP. None of them is based on your spellcasting stats, nor has any innate power value like your wizard spells, black magic, etc. I haven't messed with it a ton, but I think this means you could give Bishop skills to a tank and have that tank still be an effective healer.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

In any case, Wizard kicks butt with damage, but I feel like he's the only class doing good damage. The Charioteer is meh. I switched my Bishop to Red Mage, and that's a bit better, but still not strong. Fencer seems kind of punchless as well. So I'm finding that the random encounters are taking time and we're picking up damage. They feel harder than they should be. Level-wise, we're fine, but I feel like I should have more functional characters. The Wizard's damage is often many times that of everyone else.

GB, are you trying to win any of the random encounters in one round, for the experience boost? The Charioteer is much better with successive attacks, as it pumps up her weapon proficiency. When I use her in random encounters I just brave four times and launch 4 attacks, or 2 attacks and a couple of weapon throws. And the Fencer is better if you drop him into Wolf Stance for the attack boost, then alternate between Wolf Fang and Goring Aurochs.

LastSurprise wrote:

About the Bishop's spells, I've noticed that they all heal a fixed percentage of HP. None of them is based on your spellcasting stats, nor has any innate power value like your wizard spells, black magic, etc. I haven't messed with it a ton, but I think this means you could give Bishop skills to a tank and have that tank still be an effective healer.

I assume there will be a way/skill/item to make an individual character draw aggro, then? I think I've seen a few accessories mention something about not raising aggro, but I haven't seen anything so far that would raise it that I could give to a tank. I think one of the classes I passed on was supposed to be more defensive, but I took the Summoner instead.

And as for Charioteer and Fencer being underwhelming, that's why I keep harping on how impressed I was by the Thief, since up to that point the Wizards and Spellcraft were basically carrying the entire party. That said, since the Fencer gets Stances it seems well suited for boss battles since they can keep the stat boost for a longer time, whereas it's less useful when trying to kill a bunch of enemies in one round to keep a chain of fights going to get the experience multiplier. And Charioteer's Born Warrior skill is good, and I make sure to put it on both of my physical attackers for when it's time to Brave up and start hitting things.

And the Hawkeye class, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post, seems to be the current answer to all of my physical damage needs; it's really good, and I've already flipped both Edea and Tiz over to it.

Sundown wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

About the Bishop's spells, I've noticed that they all heal a fixed percentage of HP. None of them is based on your spellcasting stats, nor has any innate power value like your wizard spells, black magic, etc. I haven't messed with it a ton, but I think this means you could give Bishop skills to a tank and have that tank still be an effective healer.

I assume there will be a way/skill/item to make an individual character draw aggro, then? I think I've seen a few accessories mention something about not raising aggro, but I haven't seen anything so far that would raise it that I could give to a tank. I think one of the classes I passed on was supposed to be more defensive, but I took the Summoner instead.

Probably? I haven't come across anything yet, other than (I think) the Catch Me Conch, which is an item. I think it's one of the last things you get from the item shop on the moon.

I also remember in Bravely Default, the Ninja had a skill which would let you designate a specific character as the enemy's target for the turn. I'd use the guaranteed evasion move, then that aggro move, sometimes.

LastSurprise wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

In any case, Wizard kicks butt with damage, but I feel like he's the only class doing good damage. The Charioteer is meh. I switched my Bishop to Red Mage, and that's a bit better, but still not strong. Fencer seems kind of punchless as well. So I'm finding that the random encounters are taking time and we're picking up damage. They feel harder than they should be. Level-wise, we're fine, but I feel like I should have more functional characters. The Wizard's damage is often many times that of everyone else.

GB, are you trying to win any of the random encounters in one round, for the experience boost? The Charioteer is much better with successive attacks, as it pumps up her weapon proficiency. When I use her in random encounters I just brave four times and launch 4 attacks, or 2 attacks and a couple of weapon throws. And the Fencer is better if you drop him into Wolf Stance for the attack boost, then alternate between Wolf Fang and Goring Aurochs.

Yes, when I can. I'll try some of the alternate moves for the Charioteer and Fencer. I've been leaning more towards attacking early in the random encounters thinking that they should be easy. Thanks!

I need 2 more friends for Ablink... I got Sundown and Gt.... ayone else?

Darkhaund wrote:

I need 2 more friends for Ablink... I got Sundown and Gt.... ayone else?

All our numbers are in the first post. I think I still need to add you. I'll do that now.

Thanks... I added all of the people on such list.

I've been getting to bed super tired the past couple of days, but am still making 10-15 minutes progress before I nod off to sleep. Still in the first Ba'al crater, but I think I'm at the boss fight now because I just hit a save point. I'll probably grind a tad before jumping into the fight.

I have made progress myself. I defeated the 1st Ba'al and got the Summoner Asterisk. I am now on the dungeon looking for the compass. Loving the game. I will grind a bit to level my jobs...ohhh and I found a summon on the forest dungeon while looking for the compass.

Well, I've made a good bit of progress over the past few days. I'm now well into Chapter 2, I think right about where Sundown was when he posted two days ago. I've finished another sidequest, got the Merchant Asterisk (I want that money! And, I don't feel a lack of healing power), then just got the Hawkeye Asterisk this morning. A few thoughts:

The beginning of Chapter 2 felt like it was heavy with expository dialogue, and featured a little bit too much "run across the map to trigger the next scene, to run back across the map." Though I admit I could just be reaching the point where that new game glow has worn off. I'm still having fun but it seems like the dialogue to exploration / combat ratio could have been adjusted.

It's weird to think of Eisengard as the part of the world that's supposed to represent Japan, as Yunohana didn't exist in the first game. Eisengard always felt very much inspired by medieval Europe, expect that Commander Goodman bows a lot. And I always took that to be a decision based around the idea that bowing -- as opposed to some other greeting -- would resonate better with a Japanese audience.

From adding you all as friends, and from a handful of net friend invites, I have a whole bunch of Ba'als in my base right now. I haven't attempted any of them yet, but probably will soon. Ships are working on whittling down their levels now.

And some thoughts on Yoko, at the beginning of Chapter 2:

Spoiler:

The way that Yoko was introduced, and managed to become a companion, felt forced to me. I don't know if it seemed like the characters were too trusting -- and they are all big-hearted people -- or just that there wasn't enough done to establish her. I also wonder if the fact that Yoko is not a party member affected my point of view. After all, Magnolia was introduced and joined up very quickly. But, I knew that she was one of the game's main companions, so I may have been more willing to tolerate a quick introduction to establish that relationship. Then again, Magnolia was in more distress, given that she was found unconscious in a crashed spaceship, and Yoko was merely alone up in a shack.

Also, I understand there's a prime leveling spot coming up, ahead, at Grapp Keep:

Spoiler:

All the monsters inside are undead. So if you give everyone the the Freelancer backup ability, and have everyone use Halfsies / Phoenix Down 4x, you can pretty easily string together consecutive victories, then just press repeat!

LastSurprise wrote:

From adding you all as friends, and from a handful of net friend invites, I have a whole bunch of Ba'als in my base right now. I haven't attempted any of them yet, but probably will soon. Ships are working on whittling down their levels now.

So when I tried to fight Ba'als in my base I quickly found I had to whittle them all the way down to level 1 to even do any damage to them, and that the rewards for doing so were great. I can now handle level 2 and 3 Ba'als, but there some threshold where some are still too much for me, and I don't know exactly where it is yet.

Mr GT Chris' high level ship basically carried our whole little fleet and was wearing down the Ba'als down almost by himself. I've leveled my ship a bit, but I'm more focusing on getting the base fully built, since my 3DS is on but asleep most of the day now. As more people get to this part and start leveling their ships (and updating their data), I think it will be much easier to spread the damage around and wear multiple Ba'als down quickly.

I'm close to the end of Ch.2, so I'll probably do an update once I hit that point.

Oh, that reminds me. I have to figure out how to send my data.

Ijust got the CATMANCER ASTERISK.... everyone is level 22. going good.
Still need one more friend for ablink

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Oh, that reminds me. I have to figure out how to send my data.

It's right below the save option when you save the game in the field or with the adventurer. Plus, once a day when you update your data to the interwebs you get 5 extra workers for your base.

Sundown wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Oh, that reminds me. I have to figure out how to send my data.

It's right below the save option when you save the game in the field or with the adventurer. Plus, once a day when you update your data to the interwebs you get 5 extra workers for your base.

D'oh. I was thinking it was much harder than that. Thanks! And that's how you get the extra moon people? Sweet!

HOLY COW!!!!

I had a ton and ton of trouble with the Double-headed snake boss.. had to do the fight like 6 times, tried different jobs combinations and finally figured it out. What a difficutl fight. All my Chars were lvl 23ish but my jobs were sorrta low....

My setup to beat this fight was

Yew - Wizard
Edea - Fencer
Magnolia - Catmancer
Tiz - Freelancer

i GUESS i will spend some time grinding JOBS...

omg... tough fight

Late to the party here, but about people feeling physical fighters do little damage. I feel like the game does you a disservice by giving you Charioteer as your first physical damage class. It's a class built around dual wielding, but as the game attempts to tell you several different ways, dual wielding can actually REDUCE your damage. The stats you gain from each weapon are halved when you dual wield, so especially this early in the game, you do less damage by using multiple weapons. You also only hit 1-3 times this early on per weapon, so you are not adding a ton of extra damage. My Edea and Magnolia are far out damaging Yew as a wizard unless Yew is targeting a weakness.

Also keep in mind weapon and armor proficiencies. You are probably past this point, but Edea comes with a katana that is much stronger than other weapons available, but only the Freelancer has a decent skill with it at the time, so swapping her off of Freelancer will again reduce her damage. I kept Edea as a Freelancer for the katana proficiency (and also working to JP Boost and other useful skills) and swapped Magnolia to Charioteer since it still had good skill with spears.

That's a good point about dual wielding. For a while at the beginning, I think it may be more effective to give the Charioteer a weapon and shield than a two-handed weapon.

I also think the Charioteer does better as characters level and can hit more than once per attack. I have no idea the formula used for this, but the hits per attack thing seems very reminiscent of the old Final Fantasies.

I’m now done with Ch. 2, and now it feels like the game is in full swing. We start getting explanations of the plot, more motivations, more backstory, the chapter was longer, the sidequests are longer, there’s now a good mix of useful classes to play around with…...We’re now in this thing. And a lot of the dungeons were fairly tough, even if I was overleveled for them. The game really wants you to try to finish the fights quickly, since if not a lot of enemies will debuff you or dial up a really big hit that can kill off a squishy thief.

I’ve also now maxed out my base, with everything at level 10! I don’t think I could have done this if I wasn’t at home all day and could move people around periodically. I also seriously doubt that it was intended that someone could do it and get all the full power special attacks at this point either, but when they give us a ton of systems that can be bent and broken, I guess that just happens sometimes. I now have my full posse of workers upgrading my ship, so hopefully it will eventually be another powerhouse for grinding down the Ba’als.

I've also found that I can get most new classes up to job level 4 or so pretty quickly now so I can get them useful fairly quickly. On the flip side, levels 8 and above require so much JP that I feel like I'm going to have to specialize really hard to get there, even for jobs I've been using for the entire game. On the plus side, this means that with a bit of smart grinding it's fairly easy to try out interesting new classes and see how they work.

So here’s what I’m rolling with (everyone at level 43)
Yew – Wizard/Summoner (His #1 job is to hit elemental weaknesses with magic. I also spent a lot of time in Black Mage to get the MDEF Pierce ability which is hilarious, even if it costs 3 slots)

Magnolia – Wizard/Bishop (Normally my healer, but I’m trying to get her some high level spellcraft to use for her healing spells)

Edea – Hawkeye/Fencer (The Hawkeye class does a lot of damage with guns and a lot of flexibility in elemental damage and ignoring defense. Plus I put Triple Wield on her and she’s got an axe in her teeth for that extra bump of damage. Fencing is for getting some buffs from the stances during longer battles)

Tiz – Ninja/Thief (Triple Wielding Knives, and the Dual Wield ability means no penalty for holding multiple weapons. He hits hard and fast, and can dodge a lot too). Still trying to figure out who does more damage for me, Ninja or Hawkeye.

Toooo bad I missed on thief.... im suck with sucky red mage. I am in chapter 2 and very much enjoying the game. My guys are level 27ish.

I will do a little job grinding.

On a side note.... it has been fun and an enjoyable experience to share this game alongside you guys. It has made it more fun and has helped me alot to keep me busy and entertained in this hard times.

ps.. I STILL need one more friend for ABLINK lol

I think I added you? Anyway, please let me know if I've forgotten anyone.

I'm finished with witcher 3 from the CRPG club so I should get some more time for this now.

I've just finished the first Ba'al crater then had my first moon Ba'al fight which resulted in all my characters going up at least 2 levels. Speaking of the moon I'm am nearly finished rebuilding the base, I assume having friends means we are getting extra workers, because this went very, very quickly.

Do we have to redude all Ba`la to level 1?
For me anythig else that that destroys me.

Darkhaund wrote:

Do we have to redude all Ba`la to level 1?
For me anythig else that that destroys me.

I’ve beaten them up to level 3 using some defense piercing abilities I have now (especially using Hawkeye). When you first get access to them? Yeah, level 1 (and maybe 2) is the only point where their defenses are low enough that you can actually do damage. Anything above that seemed impossible.

Magnolia is a Ba'al Buster.

Lolz.

I finished the first Ba'al battle last night, finally. Things went well enough and I think everyone is Level 17 now, so I'm making slow but steady progress.

Now that Sundown's taught me how to update my status, I've got more people working on the moon base and things are progressing nicely.

My physical attacks are picking up power now. Still not quite the level of the Wizard attacks but doing more reasonable damage. Last Surprise's advice to use the wolf combos helped quite a bit with Tiz as a fencer.

I'm still regretting picking the Red Mage. She seems only a small step above useless. Damn my morals. I'll swap her out for something else as soon as it's available. I might even go back to Bishop for a bit.

I tooo regret chossing red mage...

Darkhaund wrote:

I tooo regret chossing red mage...

In a game that seems to have really gamified so many of its systems, this mission feels very odd. I felt like the right choice moral/character-wise is the red mage but the thief as promised been a fantastic class.

Speaking of the thief, I'm at around level 22 just off on the summoner side quest and my fencer and thief are starting to get their damage output up near my wizards. I have my fencer set-up with triple wield and a sword in one hand and on her head, get her in the wolf stance and she does probably my highest single target damage.

The thief I am just alternating between mug and mana steal, enjoying a steady stream on items along with some decent damage.

Well.. I agree conox... also i jsut got the Merchat job and the Hawkeye one. Really liking the story. I still have Tiz on freelancer as i am pusing to get the JP+ ability then I will switch. I have Yew on Summoner, and while it is nice damange, it is not convenient that it always hits all enemies...So I will most likely change it. I chose the Merchat job to get money. lets see how it goes.

Cronox wrote:
Darkhaund wrote:

I tooo regret chossing red mage...

In a game that seems to have really gamified so many of its systems, this mission feels very odd. I felt like the right choice moral/character-wise is the red mage but the thief as promised been a fantastic class.

I do feel morally superior than the lot of you who chose thief. I'm sleeping better too.

I just got the Patissier Asterisk, and some more reliable transportation, and so I *think* that means Chapter 2 is about to wrap up. It's interesting to see how the narrative in this game weaves together, as the individual pieces feel more disparate to me than they did in Bravely Default. There, the whole first part of the game was about the quest to awaken the crystals, and the devastation caused by Eternia's assault on other kingdoms in an effort to stop you. But here, you have the Kaiser, and you also have the Ba'als, and then in Chapter 2 the whole Sword of the Brave business. They don't all immediately feel like they fit together, but I think there will be themes that connect them up.

If I had to say, at this point, the thematic focus seems to be on the fallout of war: collateral damage and unintended consequences. We'll see soon enough! I'm also getting close to where I stalled out, the first time around; I had made it to the next major asterisk holder.

Bold prediction (spoilers for after Gaiser Grotto / Fire Temple):

Spoiler:

After a cut-scene with the Kaiser nursing what appears to be a robot hand, I suspect he's Tiz's half-brother, who Tiz's father disowned.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I'm still regretting picking the Red Mage. She seems only a small step above useless. Damn my morals. I'll swap her out for something else as soon as it's available. I might even go back to Bishop for a bit.

I remember the Red Mage was pretty worthless in the first game, at least on its own. Maybe try giving its magic command, as a backup, to a Wizard? All of the black magic spells that the Red Mage can use are stronger against a single target than the Wizard's spells, and you can use Spellcraft on other types of magic. I'm doing something similar right now: a Black Mage with Spellcraft, and it's working really well.

Otherwise, if the Red Mage still has the "BP up after evading," skill, just sit on Red Mage until you get a Ninja, then give that skill to the Ninja. You won't be sorry.

Cronox wrote:

Speaking of the thief, I'm at around level 22 just off on the summoner side quest and my fencer and thief are starting to get their damage output up near my wizards. I have my fencer set-up with triple wield and a sword in one hand and on her head, get her in the wolf stance and she does probably my highest single target damage.

I hadn't really thought to pair the Charioteer with the Fencer, but that's a great idea! I'm kind of excited for the Hawkeye / Thief combo I've been working on.

I might be alone here, but my Edea's been primarily a Charioteer throughout the whole game so far, and it's worked out fine. I've mostly had her use katanas in each hand for the boost to critical hit chance.

Cronox wrote:

In a game that seems to have really gamified so many of its systems, this mission feels very odd. I felt like the right choice moral/character-wise is the red mage but the thief as promised been a fantastic class.

This side mission in particular feels really poorly written, as the moral dilemma doesn't seem like a dilemma at all. At least in the other missions, so far, I've seen that each side has a point. But it's hard to see how you'd justify making that sacrifice on DeRosa's hunch.

Not to mention that, if you've played Bravely Default, Red Mage DeRosa is easily one of the two most heinous members of the Eternian military.

Spoiler:

Working with the Venus sisters, he corrupted the population of Florem, in part by drugging them. The process of confronting him involves noticing that he's walking around at night with a lot of hot women, so (IIRC) you infiltrate his layer by putting Edea in a sexy outfit and using her as bait. It's a dungeon under the city, where he brings women to test out his drugs. And it's strongly implied that this it's a sex dungeon, too. Gross.

I think the only one arguably worse is Qada the Salve-Maker, who committed mass murder with chemical weapons.

On the other hand, I don't think this DeRosa is the same one that you initially encounter in BD, as (I think) this game takes place in the fifth and final parallel world that you reach during the true ending. And the Eternian forces got progressively less terrible in each parallel dimension. It's like the game started off in the worst timeline.