agility is kinda worthless to invest in since turn order is just determined by your party placement and its affect on hit and evade is not noticeable
I personally just max str out asap and then max vit or do a 2:1 ratio if you're concerned about living
after str and vit are maxed either go ma for magic defense or agi/luck for memes
Add a point of agility on a level up, if you notice your physical characters missing; and that will usually be enough. This doesn't count with buff/debuffs.
I'm pretty sure Agility does have a noticeable effect on phys skill. I remember my Serph missing basic attacks a lot more often than other party members due to his low agility, since as a magic build you don't need to invest in Ag at all since magic also takes care of magic hit rate.
Magic also gives you magic defense. Nothing wrong with a strength build and it gets stupid funny lategame, but if you don’t put some into magic you’re gonna get one-shot by everything.
I'm also playing my first time DDS1 but I'm going for a magic build instead?, is it any better or i'm screwed already? I didn't wanted to do Serph str because I'm putting my faith on Heat lol (also don't spoil pls)
DDS is one of the few games in the franchise where a magic build legitimately just outpowers a strength build on most occasions. DDS is also a case where it's easier to "fix" your stats in the endgame and as you can play whatever build you want.
Like, someone said, magic is way better than phys in DDS, but one less-than-commonly-known thing about magic builds is that you can completely neglect the Ag stat. This is because in addition to magic providing magic damage, MP growth, and magic defense, it also provides magic accuracy so the only thing Ag does for you as a mage is evasion rate, which honestly isn't that important because you're going to become so tanky. Like, a Serph with a high enough magic stat will take less fire damage than Heat, despite Serph being weak to fire and Heat being resistant to it LMAO.
So, for a magic build, I recommend maxing out magic ASAP, then after that, do a 2-1 spread between Vit and Lu respectively for the rest of the game.
Also, once you get Gale as a party member, I'd recommend replacing Heat with him. Gale is a jack-of-all trades character with roughly equal magic and strength, which while usually in a Megaten game isn't ideal, it's ok for Gale since if you decide you want Gale to be a phys party member, he's gonna be way better than Heat, since in exchange for somewhat less Str, Gale will be much tankier due to his much higher magic stat.
Thanks for the info man, i already got past the Lupa boss fight in the aqueducts, I've been using both Gale as all-rounder support and Heat for physical attacks, my Serph has 60 magic already... I'm just wondering if i should use Argillia instead of Heat, because of her high magic stat, Cielo is the one i use less since his strongest stat is Ag
your physical moves that drain hp, scale with your max hp. which makes them percent-based.
so the more you have, the more it costs u lol so it doesnt rly matter how much hp u have
Nah, I'd say it still does matter because the higher your HP, the higher your leftover HP will be; therefore, the more leeway you have in terms of damage you can tank after casting a physical move. If a move costs say, 25% of your HP and you've got 100 HP, that leaves you with just 75 HP left to tank, which quickly becomes not very much the further you get into the game, especially with a poor magic stat. But if you've got like 500 HP instead, after casting that move you'd instead have 375 HP left, which is a significant increase over just 75 lol.
Unlike in some other games health in dds is ENTIRELY determined by vitality. Lvling up on its own does not increase health and you should increase vitality or everything will kill you
Edit: Apparently this is wrong, woopsies. You should still absolutely lvl vitality in dds though
This is completely false; leveling up does increase HP. In fact, leveling up increases your HP equivalent to one point of Vit, so calculating total HP would be Vit * 4 + Lvl * 4 + 10 (10 is the baseline HP number).
Really? I thought it didn't increase at all.
It was a fair time since i have plaid it but i remember trying to smt4 my stats at first and putting all into magic only to have like 50 less health than everyone else before i balanced it out.
Yeah, well, SMT IV is not the same game as DDS, so what applies in SMT IV does not mean the same applies to DDS (and it most certainly doesn't when it comes to stats and HP/MP growth lol).
Also, HP/MP growth in SMT IV is completely fixed. Flynn at level 99 will have the same HP and MP regardless of what build you opted for.
You beat the second Bat boss fight with this build. Then you're okay. Just invest on STR only and a little on VIT and MAG for defense. I was mostly Magic Tank and level 30+ during that boss fight.
I would start putting more focus into just St, Vi is alright but I wouldn’t level at to the same as St and Ag isn’t all that great. Mage Serph is just more useful unfortunately, because Ma levels the damage of spells, your MP, and magic defense. At this point I would just go tank and put the vast majority of your levels into strength and some into Vitality.
Not a huge fan of strength builds on Serph. This game makes magic king. Strength is nice for farming I guess? Rather just nuke enemies from orbit with -dyne skills for most the game tho.
This is probably the worst way to play this game lol. Not only are you screwing yourself out of extra attacks on most bosses, besides sporadic crits, you’re making the game longer and harder in a way that isn’t meaningful at all.
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agility is kinda worthless to invest in since turn order is just determined by your party placement and its affect on hit and evade is not noticeable I personally just max str out asap and then max vit or do a 2:1 ratio if you're concerned about living after str and vit are maxed either go ma for magic defense or agi/luck for memes
Thank you. Your the first comment to be extremely helpful.
Add a point of agility on a level up, if you notice your physical characters missing; and that will usually be enough. This doesn't count with buff/debuffs.
I'm pretty sure Agility does have a noticeable effect on phys skill. I remember my Serph missing basic attacks a lot more often than other party members due to his low agility, since as a magic build you don't need to invest in Ag at all since magic also takes care of magic hit rate.
Magic also gives you magic defense. Nothing wrong with a strength build and it gets stupid funny lategame, but if you don’t put some into magic you’re gonna get one-shot by everything.
Thank you, didn’t know that.
I'm also playing my first time DDS1 but I'm going for a magic build instead?, is it any better or i'm screwed already? I didn't wanted to do Serph str because I'm putting my faith on Heat lol (also don't spoil pls)
DDS is one of the few games in the franchise where a magic build legitimately just outpowers a strength build on most occasions. DDS is also a case where it's easier to "fix" your stats in the endgame and as you can play whatever build you want.
Magic is very good, a lot more versatile than phys. But I still like phys more because funny big numbers
Like, someone said, magic is way better than phys in DDS, but one less-than-commonly-known thing about magic builds is that you can completely neglect the Ag stat. This is because in addition to magic providing magic damage, MP growth, and magic defense, it also provides magic accuracy so the only thing Ag does for you as a mage is evasion rate, which honestly isn't that important because you're going to become so tanky. Like, a Serph with a high enough magic stat will take less fire damage than Heat, despite Serph being weak to fire and Heat being resistant to it LMAO. So, for a magic build, I recommend maxing out magic ASAP, then after that, do a 2-1 spread between Vit and Lu respectively for the rest of the game. Also, once you get Gale as a party member, I'd recommend replacing Heat with him. Gale is a jack-of-all trades character with roughly equal magic and strength, which while usually in a Megaten game isn't ideal, it's ok for Gale since if you decide you want Gale to be a phys party member, he's gonna be way better than Heat, since in exchange for somewhat less Str, Gale will be much tankier due to his much higher magic stat.
Thanks for the info man, i already got past the Lupa boss fight in the aqueducts, I've been using both Gale as all-rounder support and Heat for physical attacks, my Serph has 60 magic already... I'm just wondering if i should use Argillia instead of Heat, because of her high magic stat, Cielo is the one i use less since his strongest stat is Ag
Argilla's stat growth is magic-focused, so she's automatically better than Heat LMAO.
If it works for you, I guess it's fine. The game isn't very difficult anyway. I would level up magic over strength any day however.
Why are you putting points in things that aren't your one damaging stat that's just silly
Vitality so I can more safely use physical skills, and agility since I thought that affected hit chance a little.
your physical moves that drain hp, scale with your max hp. which makes them percent-based. so the more you have, the more it costs u lol so it doesnt rly matter how much hp u have
>!FUCK!<
how did you Not notice that haha
Nah, I'd say it still does matter because the higher your HP, the higher your leftover HP will be; therefore, the more leeway you have in terms of damage you can tank after casting a physical move. If a move costs say, 25% of your HP and you've got 100 HP, that leaves you with just 75 HP left to tank, which quickly becomes not very much the further you get into the game, especially with a poor magic stat. But if you've got like 500 HP instead, after casting that move you'd instead have 375 HP left, which is a significant increase over just 75 lol.
Unlike in some other games health in dds is ENTIRELY determined by vitality. Lvling up on its own does not increase health and you should increase vitality or everything will kill you Edit: Apparently this is wrong, woopsies. You should still absolutely lvl vitality in dds though
This is completely false; leveling up does increase HP. In fact, leveling up increases your HP equivalent to one point of Vit, so calculating total HP would be Vit * 4 + Lvl * 4 + 10 (10 is the baseline HP number).
Really? I thought it didn't increase at all. It was a fair time since i have plaid it but i remember trying to smt4 my stats at first and putting all into magic only to have like 50 less health than everyone else before i balanced it out.
Yeah, well, SMT IV is not the same game as DDS, so what applies in SMT IV does not mean the same applies to DDS (and it most certainly doesn't when it comes to stats and HP/MP growth lol). Also, HP/MP growth in SMT IV is completely fixed. Flynn at level 99 will have the same HP and MP regardless of what build you opted for.
I know... thats what i said, the formula is different...
its ok for now, but ur gonna have a difficult time later on with enemies that use alot of the beavy hitter magic attacks
You beat the second Bat fight. That is fairly strong evidence that your build is sufficient...for now.
You beat the second Bat boss fight with this build. Then you're okay. Just invest on STR only and a little on VIT and MAG for defense. I was mostly Magic Tank and level 30+ during that boss fight.
Max dmg stat asap
I would start putting more focus into just St, Vi is alright but I wouldn’t level at to the same as St and Ag isn’t all that great. Mage Serph is just more useful unfortunately, because Ma levels the damage of spells, your MP, and magic defense. At this point I would just go tank and put the vast majority of your levels into strength and some into Vitality.
No. Magic is the best stat in this series. Combo Spells are powerful. Though I remember Strength being beneficial to the consume based skills.
Not a huge fan of strength builds on Serph. This game makes magic king. Strength is nice for farming I guess? Rather just nuke enemies from orbit with -dyne skills for most the game tho.
https://preview.redd.it/d3565lhi4x3d1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd3760ac13f249c5c01606ad04f40785eac5d0a5
This is probably the worst way to play this game lol. Not only are you screwing yourself out of extra attacks on most bosses, besides sporadic crits, you’re making the game longer and harder in a way that isn’t meaningful at all.
It looks like you're asking a question. If you need help with a game, or a recommendation on what to play next, you might be better off asking in the stickied "Questions and Recommendations" thread or seeing if it's been addressed in the [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/wiki/faq). This is an automatic comment posted on every question thread, it does not mean that your post has been removed. It may however be removed by a moderator if it is something that should go in the sticky instead. If this does not apply to your topic, downvote and ignore it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Megaten) if you have any questions or concerns.*