Current Events > Expedition 33 question (act 2 spoilers)

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Should I even bother with Monaco? He seems like a blue mage type character I dont want to have to roam the world hunting every single enemy with him in the party. And if I dont use him at all hell end up with no skills and be useless

i think Ive sort of settled on Verso, Lune and Maelle as my main party but I dunno, I havent really given Sciel a fair shot yet since I dont think I like her mechanic

will I be punished later if I never use Monaco and Sciel? Like be forced into a fight without the 3 Im actually playing?

I didn't use him and made it through fine

You can get all the abilities from The Endless Tower

Monoco gets a lot of cool abilities and once I unlocked some of his AoE skills he was an auto lock for the rest of the game. His ability to clear trash waves on the first turn while also offering strong support / status options and doing decent damage in boss fights stayed valuable throughout my entire run.

That said, if you dont keep him in the party 100% of the time it leaves you feeling like you have to constantly swap and refight enemies whenever you find a new foot which probably makes you not even want to use him at that point. If you decide not to use him there is a late game area where you will refight almost every single enemy in the game during a gauntlet so you can stick him in the party for that to get any missing feet.

Use Monoco because he's an awesome character.

I found his skills to be pretty good, one of my biggest damage dealers.

eh, ill probably just ignore him. i do like his character but i dont like using blue mages usually.

i found some endgame location (i assume) called ice heart or something, the enemies there were really easy to sneak by and avoid and i was able to find a couple of lvl 21 pictos, seems like maybe i'll be OP for a while...

also fuck these gestral beaches. do any have good rewards? i climbed all the way to the top of this bullshit and only got a costume

Rika_Furude posted...

also fuck these gestral beaches. do any have good rewards? i climbed all the way to the top of this bullshit and only got a costume

Only cosmetics.

i usually hate blue mages because their skills are always limited to specific enemies you usually have to hunt down. since it's so late in the game however, by the time you get monoco it seems like every enemy you come across has a new skill for you which was awesome.

Ivynn posted...

Use Monoco because he's an awesome character.

This. Monoco is a great character and his abilities are legitimately great. Once I got him he was in my active party almost constantly and not just because I wanted all his abilities.

He's really good, and so is Sciel.

Really everyone is busted as fuck to some degree.

Great game.

since you've pretty much come across almost every enemy anyways, you can just look up which enemies you might want to use Monaco against for their legs.

I forgot the abilities, but I found some that were good for AoE and breaking enemies.

I didnt use Monoco either. I also ended up settling on Verso, Maelle, and Lune.

Verso = free aim marking shot build with the sword that hits twice
Maelle = I mean lol just everything she does hits hard
Lune = Support bot with Typhoon + pictos that give AP/buffs on healing = gg

This carried me through Act 2 and Act 3. Yes, everyone is busted to some degree as a previous poster said, but this was my favorite party combo.

Monoco felt weaker at first until I got a handful of useful enemy skills. I especially find the ones that Break or do extra Break Damage handy. Theres a couple that also do huge damage, even to the entire enemy party. Basically he can fill in any gaps your party has with ease.

He ended up being part of my endgame party. I found that you only really need 1 pure damage dealer at that point in the game (which for me, and Im sure many others, that was Maelle), so my other 2 party members were usually Sciel (who was mostly there to boost Maelles damage even further) and Monaco to provide debuffs (as it was easier to set him up to be able provide all 3 of the debuffs than either Verso or Lune).

His level 3 gradient attack is also probably the best one in the game. It doesnt do as much damage as Maelles is capable of it, but the bonus effect it does is easily the best among all the gradient attacks.

Sorry to hijack your topic, but can anyone tell me where I should go to level up once you get Soarrie stone? I'm going around the map looking for an opportunity to get stronger but most stuff wrecks my shit immediately. I am on Hard, but I think my teams are built reasonably well, it's really a matter of attacks doing me in with 1 or 2 swings so no room for error. But i have high level Pictos equipped and reasonable defense stat investment.

If you leave him in the party and do sidequests, you should gain most of his skills naturally. You don't have to use him though, unless you want the trophy/achievement.

Monoco best blue mage. I love him

Doe posted...

Sorry to hijack your topic, but can anyone tell me where I should go to level up once you get Soarrie stone? I'm going around the map looking for an opportunity to get stronger but most stuff wrecks my shit immediately. I am on Hard, but I think my teams are built reasonably well, it's really a matter of attacks doing me in with 1 or 2 swings so no room for error. But i have high level Pictos equipped and reasonable defense stat investment.

I used Frozen Hearts as a place to level up until strong enough for more difficult places.

It should be illegal to use any party configuration that is not MY party configuration, which includes Monoco, of course.

Rika_Furude posted...

will I be punished later if I never use Monaco and Sciel? Like be forced into a fight without the 3 Im actually playing?

Do you want to beat the superboss of the game without maximum cheese?

Doe posted...

Sorry to hijack your topic, but can anyone tell me where I should go to level up once you get Soarrie stone? I'm going around the map looking for an opportunity to get stronger but most stuff wrecks my shit immediately. I am on Hard, but I think my teams are built reasonably well, it's really a matter of attacks doing me in with 1 or 2 swings so no room for error. But i have high level Pictos equipped and reasonable defense stat investment.

Endless tower until you it becomes too hard/time consuming. Then you have frozen hearts and dark shore. However if you want even somewhat of a challenge for the final boss just go straight there.

I have my Monoco set up as a support character. One of his abilitys applies shell to the party. And I have Pictos that apply powerful upon its applications as well.

So thats 3-5 turns of both with picto extend their duration. It also applies shield if buffed by the green mask.

Which is important for xp farming as you gain a 20% exp boost for taking no damage. And if youre good at dodging/parrying the shield stacks also. So you can keep utilizing the above for more and more stacks. His lv2 gradient further helps with this to create a snowball.

How far am I through the game? I just got through old lumiere and beat Renoir at the mansion

it seems its gotten to a point where its pretty easy. Enemies dont tend to 1shot me too often anymore, instead Maelle is 1-shotting most things with her AoE attack

if you ignore sidecontent I'd say you're about... 12-15 hours from the end

He can actually be a good healer, and can heal the entire party and cast regen. With the right Pictos, you can set him ( and anyone) up to be very powerful.

Also hes funny.

I feel like Verso is the standout party member... moves like Phantom Stars and Steeled Strike, yeesh. Why set up and synergy when you can just output so much raw damage

I leaned heavily into synergizing my team to work together, and avoided any of the one-shot or OP builds. Those just aren't fun for me. Instead, just had it so everyone had their use in battle as a team.

Honestly I find Verso's style ranking boring to play with or I'm just not understanding it. A bunch have special effects at certain ranks, but the goal is to get to S rank as quickly as possible and you miss out on those effects. I know there's one or two abilities that reset his rank, but there doesn't seem to be a way to control it as good as should be needed, considering those moves take up one of your precious six move slots.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

Honestly I find Verso's style ranking boring to play with or I'm just not understanding it. A bunch have special effects at certain ranks, but the goal is to get to S rank as quickly as possible and you miss out on those effects. I know there's one or two abilities that reset his rank, but there doesn't seem to be a way to control it as good as should be needed, considering those moves take up one of your precious six move slots.

There are abilities that only work with lower ranks.

Honestly didn't even bother with using healing abilities with characters later in the game when enemies can one shot you regardless of your hp

Any pictos or weapons I should watch out for? I just found 5 gestral kids so I unlocked the ability to break those blue glowy rocks, i dunno if theres much good stuff behind them though and if its worth it to backtrack through every stage?

i traveled a lot of the world, i found some good pictos i think, im sure ive missed a ton though. the with no minimap it makes it hard to do a mental checklist of where ive been -_-

atm my build is basically:

1: maelle - DPS with madalum. i pretty much just use Fleuret Fury with her against single targets, or Fencer's Flurry against grunts. i dunno how else I should build her really. Sword Ballet does a ton of damage but takes her out of virtuoso stance so i dunno if thats worth it

2: Lune - support with Benisim - her typhoon seems really good, it gives my whole party shell and generates AP for Lune over time with Energizing heal, I'm sure there's gonna be more synergy later with this I just know it. but I dunno what to do with her between typhoons since she doesn't seem to do a ton of damage unless I use lightning dance, but I need the AP for typhoon

3: verso - honestly I dunno what to do with him, the other two seem to have dps/tank/heals on lock so verso is kinda just there? he doesnt seem to do much damage yet

That was my strategy with Maelle through pretty much 95% of the game.

Lunes endgame pretty much becomes trying to get to Elemental Genesis as quickly as possible.

Best weapons at that point in the game (act 2) imo
Maelle - Medalum
Lune - Trebuchim/Troubadim/Kralim
Verso - Dualiso

Monoco is broken because of the shield ability he gets. I was able to kill bosses you are not expected to kill extremely early because of it. The only boss this strategy doesn't work against is the final superboss of the game, but by that point you just blow them up in a couple of strikes anyway

Rika_Furude posted...

2: Lune - support with Benisim - her typhoon seems really good, it gives my whole party shell and generates AP for Lune over time with Energizing heal, I'm sure there's gonna be more synergy later with this I just know it. but I dunno what to do with her between typhoons since she doesn't seem to do a ton of damage unless I use lightning dance, but I need the AP for typhoon

Once you get some more AP generation for Lune you can loop between Typhoon / a healing ability and Elemental Genesis or any 9 AP damage move almost every turn. Typhoon can also be set up to give all 3 buffs + AP to your party.

be careful about using abilities that have high ap cost if you don't have good pictos/luminas to restore ap

Rika_Furude posted...

Any pictos or weapons I should watch out for?

If you can beat the big Nevron (Sprong) standing in the water on the west side of the map he drops one of the best.

Murphiroth posted...

If you can beat the big Nevron (Sprong) standing in the water on the west side of the map he drops one of the best.

I tried and I was learning his attacks but he has way too much HP itd take like an hour >.>

You can basically play the game with whatever 3 party members you want no problem. Having all party members high leveled is really only needed for the optional superboss.

Rika_Furude posted...

I tried and I was learning his attacks but he has way too much HP itd take like an hour >.>

I would hold off on beating Sprong until Act 3. Hell, maybe even until postgame, though I did beat him at the beginning of Act 3. The picto he drops trivializes the rest of the game to the point you're going to beat bosses before they finish their dialogue/cinematic moments.

Yes, Monoco is one of the more OP characters and you don't have to unlock all his abilities, but you want him to have some versatility.

And you may need him in a certain post game fight.

went exploring a bit more, was able to kite some enemies in another high level area and found "in media res", this picto seems broken and/or bugged? like its effect is really powerful with the shields, but it says that it reduces max HP but after the battle fights I can just heal back to my true full max HP? is that not a bug or did they write the wrong description
i wonder if I should even be using this, seems like its designed for act 3 maybe?

also found a picto that gives rush on heal so my typhoon build is all coming together. just need to give powerful as well

IIRC it only reduces your max HP in battle and the effect pops at the start and reverts after the battle. So I wouldn't waste healing items if you're using that because it'll just do it again at the next fight.

It's pretty good tbqh.

i mean like while using typhoon i just heal back up to my actual max HP, not my "halved max hp" like the pictos would suggest.

Like before the fight my max hp is 3000. battle starts, my hp is 1500. cast typhoon, im now at 2000+ hp and rising

Oh yeah actually I must've been thinking of something else, it's been a few months. Loaded up my save to test and yeah it just halves your HP and gives you the shields; it doesn't actually reduce your max HP. So you're free to lose the shields/gain the HP back as it's a temporary condition.

Just a bad description of the picto.

also fuck these ghosts
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3fab8b25.jpg

I've found the half max HP badge is inconsistent. Often I start the battle with max HP halved, but once I take enough damage, the upper half of the HP reappears. I think there is an error in how its programmed. At varying points the game checks what your max HP is 'supposed' to be and accidentally sets it back to that or something during the battle.

Yeah, sometimes in battle if you equip in medias res it sets your max health to half of your out of battle max health and other times it just reduces you to half health. It's quite weird and I have to assume it's just buggy.

Weird. I tried using that or The One for a peril Verso build but because they affect the max HP it doesnt help that skill. So I usually just give him Second Chance and try to avoid healing him. Not sure if theres a built in way to get him to 1 HP immediately.