Useful Battle Strategies

Monster Girl Quest! Paradox RPG offers way more possibilities than its predecessor when it comes to fighting enemies, thanks to the large amount of skills and abilities available from Jobs and Races. Coupled with the possibility to have up to four party members simultaneously in a fight (in addition to many others in the backline), strategies to take down random encounters can be more diverse and open.

With so much variety available, it should come as no surprise that several sets of strategies can prove more effective than others, and sometimes even game-breaking. These strategies allow the player to complete most fights on Normal difficulty like a breeze, as well as have an easier time on higher difficulties without being completely overleveled or having to outright cheat.

The strategies presented here are basic ones that will help you through the game and do not require hours upon hours of grinding to simply access. If you really focus specifically on the Labyrinth of Chaos, check this guide instead.

Note that these strategies can more often than not be combined, allowing one to take on the Paradox Difficulty safely.

Basic advices
-You can have eight party members at first, and filling all the slots will be extremely easy. Since the party in the back earns XP at the same rate, they will still be usable in a pinch even if you don't upgrade them too often. As SP always start mid-point in fight while MP follow the classic mana pattern, you're unlikely to run out of ressources if you use your SP-oriented characters for exploration and MP oriented characters for boss fights.

-Have varied jobs and races in your party. It might look obvious, and you'll certainly always have at least one character weak against whoever you're facing, but you NEED to have a variety of skills to do good, and ideally your active party should always have: One class with physical high accuracy (hunter, gunner, engineer...), a class with magical attacks (mage, alchemist, ninja...), and a support (white mage, dancer, singer...). Support spells in particular are extremely powerful, and a staple of most strategies written down below.

-Also, most dungeons drop up to level items of varied categories. Abusing the same class will increase your spendings to keep their equipment up to par, while variety will allow you to mostly gear them with found equipment, cutting farming time.

- As a rule of thumb, the best way to build a character is to take a look at their trait, and the specificities of their race. Races will decide what armors they can equip while jobs will dictate their weapons. Both races and jobs add modifiers to stats as well as passives effects. Because a character can learn any job, what will set and limit each character will be the races they have access to and their traits.

For example, Luka can always use Heroism skills and equip Swords. As such, you can level him as a Hero, but you can also level any job line that focuses on Attack like Swordsman or even Power Fighter, as his heroism skills will still benefit from the bonus of the Sword equipped and you will always be able to rely on the attack bonus provided by the job line for his always-available heroism skills, even if it is not his intended career.

Essentially, for offensive characters, you will want to push their strengths further and for support characters, you will want to instead negate their weaknesses.

- Several Job lines suffer from having a bad left hand item option or no option at all, and the result is an ugly hole in your character's equipment sheet. Though a Job's bonuses often partly compensate for this weakness, it is however extremely easy to offset. The Guard (Lv8) job gives you access to the defensive Equip:Shield ability, which, for 5 points in said ability branch, allows you to equip a heavy shield that has passable defensive stats bonus, but will give your character +30%Eva/Mag Eva, ridiculously increasing their survivability with minimal effort.

Further into the game, you can get dual-wield by leveling the Thief/Ninja/Master Shinobi job line (Lv5), which, combined with mastery abilities, allow you to send a character's stats through the roof. It also allows you to equip two different weapons, and as weapon skills always take into account the best modifier, you will increase your options by a great deal.

- Unless mentioned, defensive strategies all stack with each other (You can run Evasion AND Deflectors for instance). It is however optimal to stick with one offensive strategy for each offensive character and build your skills, abilities and gears around it.

- If Luka's on the front line alive and well, several monsters are likely to spend their turn using pleasure attacks on him instead of their more dangerous skills. This expands to the all the heroes since the arrival of the Collaboration Scenario.

Pre-Battle Strategies
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Prior: Turn-Zero Cooking Buffs

 * First Availability:
 * Early Game (Any companion with the Cook Job)
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Low/Mid
 * Farming required:
 * Minimal/Medium
 * Effectiveness:
 * Low/Mid
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/High (Applicable before any Encounter, but requires ressource management)
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 * Low/Mid
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/High (Applicable before any Encounter, but requires ressource management)
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Basic Explanation
Several skill lines such as White Magic, Time Magic, and Mercantile possess several skills that may be used outside of combat, but of these skills only those belonging to The Cooking Skill Line can be used to give buffs to a character outside of a battle. These "Turn Zero" buffs then will then remain active on a character up until 4-6 turns into your next combat encounter or after an indeterminate number steps are taken after which the buffs will then wear off.

There are several limitations to using cooking outside of battle that prevent it from being useful all the time, but in general, the Turn Zero Cooking Buffs can be used as a supplementary strategy to free up actions and/or hasten the opening moves of some other strategy.
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What's the cost?
The biggest limitation to using cooking skills in general are the Material Costs needed to activate the skills, which in the early game means you will be constrained by what ingredients you can purchase, and by the quality dishes you can make.

For example making one Hot Dog (a basic job skill) will require the use of 1 Tomato, 1 Sausage, and 1 Bread for a total cost of 115 G. (You're left with a 210G Hot Dog which you could then re-sell but nevermind.) This is to be contrasted with a single use of White Magic's of Enhance Attack which costs one action and 3 mp. In order to give your entire party a Turn-Zero +50% Enhance Attack Buff, you would then need to make 8 Hot Dogs before battle, which can be done, but hopefully you can start see the logistical challenges of utilizing this strategy often.

Latter on in the game you get access to skills that can buff the entire party. The equivalent example being the Curry Bun, which costs 1 Curry Powder and 1 Bread for a total cost of 100 G. This is to be compared with White Magic's of Mass Enhance Attack spell which costs one action, 8 mp, and only targets your active party. More on this later. Most items required can (and should) be bought at merchants, so you should stack up on items that you need to cook your buffs in advance.

The second limitation of a Turn Zero Cooking Buff is that the magnitude of the buffs will almost always be outclassed by the strength granted by other bonuses from other skill lines.

Finally the third major limitation of this strategy is that the buffs are only applied once per battle and only when you have a chance to use them before battle. In certain situations where you're faced with multiple battles back to back, these buffs will only be there to help you during the first battle, and you must then resort to other tactics in the following battles. A good example being the battles against Black Alice.


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What's the benefit?
The first major benefit of Turn Zero Cooking Buffs is during that first turn of a battle, when you have not yet had a chance to apply any other buffs to your characters. This benefit is always relevant, and a first turn increase to agility or an auto-revival buff already active could make all the difference in the world.

The second major benefit of Turn Zero Cooking Buffs is that they can affect your entire party. Not just your active party, but the entire party can receive these buffs prior to entering battle. This gives added benefit to over using conventional spells like Epic Tale during the first turn, because any characters you switch in from your reserve will also then enter into battle with an additional layer of buffs already attached.

The final major benefit is more of a trade off of sorts. There are Cooking skills for things like auto revival, SP charge bonuses, and regen, whose equivalent abilities or skills all require substantial time grinding to acquire, or an investment in the form of ability points to run. In comparison it only takes One Flavor Emperor and the right cooking ingredients to grant these abilities out to any companion you desire, which can then be time or ability points spent elsewhere.
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Offensive Strategies
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Offense: One Shot Kill.

 * First Availability:
 * Mid-Game/Late-Game
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Very Low/High
 * Farming required:
 * Medium/Very High
 * Effectiveness:
 * Very High/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium (useless for most common encounters)
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 * Very High/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium (useless for most common encounters)
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Basic Explanation


The most basic gist of this build is having one character in the party be the main damage dealer and charge up their super attack while the other three support and de-buff the enemy over four turns. For the most part, it's extremely simple to set up the damage dealer: they just need Warrior/Swordsman/Swordmaster (which grant Power Charge/Focused Spirit/Full Power/, increasing Atk by 100%/200%/300% for one turn), Martial Artist/Magus Fist (which grant Focused Mind/Inner Focused Mind, giving a 25/50% Atk/Agi and a 50/100% Critical Chance boost for 4 turns), Hero of Justice/Magical Girl (which grant Transform/Magical Charge for a 50% boost to all stats for 4 turns) and Endure from Power Fighter (to avoid dying in one hit and to trigger critical boosts).

Now, the other three should have between them the White Magic, Dancing, Singing, Cooking, and Taoism skill lines. With White Magic/Dancing/Cooking/Singing, your focus is on the skills that give unique buffs to the damage dealer. Taoism is just for adding an elemental weakness to the enemy if your damage dealer's attacks have an elemental type.
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Usage in battles
The damage dealer should use Transform and Inner Focused Mind for their first two actions, then use Full Power (The 300% Atk Booster), then unleash their strongest Atk-based skill to most likely vaporize the enemy.

The other three should attempt to boost the damage dealer's stats with buffs or attempt to inflict a status ailment that prevents the enemy from dispelling or killing the damage dealer.
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Pushing further
You can obtain abilities that raise or lower the chances of a character being targeted, which helps a lot in protecting the damage dealer from hard-hitting single target bosses.

2.40 Saw the addition of Sophisticate (+350% Dex for one turn) that is obtained through the Fencer Job Line and the roid line race. While the bonus is only acquireable post-game, it allows to use this strategy for Dexterity characters. {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
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Offense: Last Stand

 * First Availability:
 * At the beginning of the game
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Very Low
 * Farming required:
 * Medium
 * Effectiveness:
 * Medium
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/High (limited by usable characters)
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 * Medium
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/High (limited by usable characters)
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Basic Explanation
Several characters possess a "Vengeance" trait that makes them inflict more damage (as a whole or with a select set of skills) in accordance to how low their HP is, up to dealing twice the damage when they're almost dead. Several others (like Luka) instead have a "Crisis" trait that triggers when their HP falls below a certain threshold (often 20%). Alternatively, the Pledge Cup amplifies damage from basic attacks.

Simultaneously, the Endure ability comes with the rank 8 of the Power Fighter job (intermediate, available right from the bat after completing Warrior), and the Courage Headband accessory: both make it so that a character with this ability or accessory that would take fatal damage when they have more than a certain threshold (30% or more) of HP will instead end up with 1 HP. This allows a character to attack with the full strength of their "vengeance" trait.
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Usage in battles
Using this setup in battles is extremely simple: you just have to keep attacking with your character, and enjoy those precious turns when they'll deal twice the usual damage.

This build becomes a necessity on higher difficulties where monsters can kill characters in one attack. You will need to take note of whether your character will attack before or after the opponent to time your SP consumption correctly and strike them with your strongest attack at the right moment.

Avoid using HP recovering skills/Abilities to make it fully effective.
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Pushing further
Once you roughly know if the opponent will attack before or after that character, you can use a one turn power-up buff (most jobs have a skill that buffs their relevant stat). The "vengeance" trait is a final damage multiplier, which further amplifies buffs placed on it. Other characters can easily be used to buff/weaken the enemies.

You can also get Goddess Protection from Apprentice Hero to get a free revive at 20%. However, it will be useless if you don't attack before the opponent.

Spirit's Legacy (an extremely rare accessory) and several races allow characters to get several actions in the same turn in given conditions. You can multiply attacks during that sweet spot.

Using barriers can allow your character to keep exploiting their "vengeance" trait for several turns with only minimal risks. Just remember that with only 1 HP, skills requiring HP use are impossible to activate unless you spend a turn using the smallest heal available (Herb).

In the Labyrinth of Chaos, Diamrem is a teacher who can give an ability that makes characters start battles at 20% HP for an additional buff, but prevents all form of healing except revival. The Stubborn headband can complement this ability nicely.

Lastly, there are also accessories such as Burning Soul/Blazing Soul (50/100% increased stats when below 20% health) and Danger Rosary/Crisis Rosary (50/100% critical chance when below 20% health) which can further this strategy.

This strategy can combine very well with the Basic attacks with the Pledge Cup accessory, or the Vengeance Strike ability available through the Godfather Job Line and Legion Mother insect race. {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
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Offense: Stat Stacking with Normal Attacks

 * First Availability:
 * At the beginning of the game
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Very Low/High
 * Farming required:
 * Low/High
 * Effectiveness:
 * Medium/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/Low (for the most powerful ones)
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 * Medium/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium/Low (for the most powerful ones)
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Basic Explanation
You wouldn't expect basic attacks to remain useful in the lategame as anything else than an occasion to recover SP. However, there are so many ways to boost them that they can become viable, like the Supreme Attack Scroll received from Hild or Yamata No Orochi, or the Proof of Final Initiation given by Nuruko. The latter synergizes very well with the abilities that gives a chance to proc status effects like Nuruko's inherent Slime Strike, and several jobs like the prostitute line also give a chance to proc several possible effects on attacks. Those procs can also be acquired with abilities.

You can also combine both options and amplify them further, like giving the Supreme Attack Scroll to a character who already has several attacks thanks to their race like a scylla, then give her a job with a 1-turn charge up option like Swordmaster's full power.
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Usage in battles
Like "One Shot Kill", you charge as many buffs as you can on your companion, particularly if you can give them several actions per turn so that their charge benefits several attacks. Do not forget to also boost accuracy in case you face an enemy with a high evasion (likely anyone with wings such as Fairies or Harpies).

The single biggest issue with this attack is damage element management. The game always takes the type that will deal the most damage, unless the enemy reflects or absorbs it, in which case they will not be affected or healed for their full life.

Even if these are an issue only in the late game, you have to remain particularly careful of the enemy's resistance. You can use elements if you're sure they'll deal additional damage, but if you have a doubt, try to keep your attacks physical as they deal standard damage against most enemies in the base game.
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Pushing further
This strategy can combine very well with Last Stand thanks to the endure ability, as well as with the Vengeance Strike ability (Combat Ability, Normal attack deals +50% damage for each incapacitated ally on the battlefield) available through the Godfather Job Line and Legion Mother insect race.

Mitsuko is the single best character for this build, in no small part thanks to her race combinations that allow for multiple actions per turn. Here is the full rundown of what is currently the single, most powerful setup in Paradox:

Gears: Supreme Attack Scroll (+400% base normal attack damage), 1 or 2 Great sword (2,5x ATK per normal attack)

Ability: Attack +30%, Sword Booster +30%, Normal Attack Booster,

First turn: Use Divine Destiny with Mitsuko (+2 actions)

Second turn: Use Division, Maid Boost, Dullahan Rondo (+3 actions)

Third turn: Initial Resolve (+400% base normal attack), Ex Tentacle up (+8 normal attacks), Full Power (400% ATK), Focused Spirit (300% ATK), Power Charge (200% ATK), It's Always my Turn (+4 actions can only do Oracle and normal attacks).

Fourth turn: Normal attack for all 10 actions.

Meanwhile, at any point during those turns, supports should cast: Hero's song (50% all stats), One slayer skill (+50% damage).

Damage calculation of a single normal attack:

(100+400+400)x2)x2.5)x1,3)x1,15)x4)x3)x2= 161 460% ATK

Removing the debuffs caused by the action skills:

(161 460)x 0,8)x0,8)x0,75= 77 500% ATK

Now adding the support skills:

(77 500)x1,5)x1,5= 174 375 % ATK for a single attack

Mitsuko will deal 9 normal attack per action:

174 375x9 = 1 569 375% ATK per action

Mitsuko has 10 actions per turn:

1 569 375 x 10 = 15 693 750 % ATK

You can increase this damage even further with Transform, Spirit buffs, Elemental boosts and debuffs, Condition bonus, LoC gears, etc.

(Calculus by Magakix1) {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
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Offense: Gravity Pleasure

 * First Availability:
 * Endgame/End of collab
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Low
 * Farming required:
 * Low
 * Effectiveness:
 * Very High
 * Range of application:
 * High
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 * Very High
 * Range of application:
 * High
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Basic Explanation
Upon finishing the Collab, the player can go back to the place where they fought Est to find something on the floor. Interacting with that light give to the Seven Heroes the ability 'Hero of the Seven Worlds'.

This ability, once equipped, converts all damage dealt into pleasure damage.

The only characters that can use it are Luka, Lest, Novissa, Lars, Hakunen, Lauratt and Kazuya
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Usage in battles
Aside from the fact that Pleasure is one of the strongest element (Few monsters resist it and only some superbosses are immune to it), the ability Hero of the Seven Worlds will also convert chaos damage into pleasure damage. Including Time Magic skills that deal damage based on current HP. Mass Gravity is the most used one as it deals 75% of the target's current HP as untyped damage. LoC monsters get increasing resistance to untyped damage as you delve deeper into the LoC and bosses are straight up immune to it.

Converting untyped damage into pleasure damage allow you to bypass that. Also, because you're dealing pleasure damage, it's possible to increase its damage even further. Using Mermaid Handjob (50% pleasure weakness) and/or Slayer skills (+50% damage from all sources) will allow you to deal more than 100% current HP resulting in a oneshot no matter how much health the foe has.
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Pushing further
Gravity Pleasure and builds using it scale very well in the LoC. Stacking Pleasure Booster effects will allow the player to go for one shots without bothering to use supports to increase the damage. Time Magic Booster also boost it. It's recommended to have a Perfect Hits roll on one of the character's gears or a Perfect Hits gem to ignore magical evasion. It is however not possible to bypass magic reflectors.

This strategy gets boosted even further by Testament (Rare legendary gear) that allow you to gain haste on Black Magic/Time Magic/Summoning skills. This gear makes builds centered around Gravity Pleasure the most reliable cleaners (sweepers)

Due to the fact that you need a small amount of Pleasure/Time Magic booster effects to one shot, optimal Gravity Pleasure builds are also very tanky and thus reliable supports.

With the addition of Sorcery in 2.40, this strategy can be used with Death Claw as well. {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
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Offense/Defense: Action Multiplication

 * First availability:
 * Lime
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Low/Medium
 * Farming required:
 * Low/High
 * Effectiveness:
 * High/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium
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 * High/META
 * Range of application:
 * Medium
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Basic Explanation
At the beginning, each character can take one, and only one action per turn. There are, however, several ways to change that:

Several classes and races have access to skills that either allow them to take several actions per turn (Division for the Mega Slime race, followed by Divine Destiny for the Giga Slime/Ixion for Centaur). As their infoboxes indicate, these skills give an additional action per turn with a drawback (a stat decrease for Division/Lock to Spear skills for Ixion). Double Action can also be provided by Spirit's Legacy, a rare powerful accessory that triggers when a character falls under 20% HP.

In case of Division and several other skills belonging to the support class, the loss of stats isn't a major drawback as you can still use those characters to cast multiple support spells. The only issue is resource consumption (MP/SP), which can easily be managed with abilities from the Sage (MP Cost Reduction and Regen), Hero (SP Regeneration and Addition) and/or Pirate (SP Cost reduction) job lines.

Alternatively, the first action can be used to cast a single turn buff ability which will in that case benefit the user for the next three moves!

Other characters possess skills that make ordered actions trigger several times. (Tentacle up and its upgraded version for the Scylla race that increase both the basic attack count and the number of tentacle moves...). While it is less versatile than the alternative, it still allows for a good damage output as each 1-turn stat boosts can benefit to 3 attacks, increasing the return alarmingly well.
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Usage in Battle
Simply use the relevant action ability at the first turn, then the remaining ones at the second turn. Afterward, you are free to use as many support skills as your SP and MP allow, or you can put one of the offensive strategy into action to deal with enemies.
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Pushing Further
A few characters like Mitsuko have race combinations (Slime and Scylla in this case) that allow them to have both types of buff active at the same time.

More importantly, those buffs stack with each other. Once Promestein's requests are completed, you can transform a slime in a beast then in an Elf who themselves have a different skill (Dullahan Rondo from the Dullahan Lord race) that gives an additional action per turn. By stacking all the buffs, you can easily get 5 actions per turn.

Those bonus can also randomly appear as an effect on higher level Labyrinth of Chaos items.

Currently, the single most powerful character in that regard is Daji. Her sword can randomly give her +2 actions, making her able to use 5-7 actions per turn before further multipliers. A second sword can be farmed in Labyrinth of Chaos, and a few rare effects that can further add actions can also appear on her. The maximum number of action one particularly lucky or persistent player can take with this character totals for 11.

Use a gem to reduce SP/MP cost.
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Defensive Strategies
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Defense: Strategic Defense

 * First Availability:
 * San Ilia's library (basic/patched game)/ Four queens (advanced)
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Medium
 * Farming required:
 * Medium/Very High
 * Effectiveness:
 * Medium/Very High
 * Range of application:
 * Low/Medium
 * colspan="2" |
 * Medium/Very High
 * Range of application:
 * Low/Medium
 * colspan="2" |
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Basic Explanation
With a careful set up, it is possible to cancel most attacks from any enemies you encounter as soon as your team manages to survive two turns. It trivializes most superbosses fights, and is a requirement in the Labyrinth of Chaos.

Wing Harpy's Sky Dance (+50% Evade/Mag Evade; available through the Wing Harpy job at lvl 4) is theoretically available as early as the beginning of the game (although you need to reach Harpy Tower, recruit and level one of them once there), and will grant your team a very high dodge chance which, coupled with a team geared defensively (shields equipped thanks to the Guard's abilities), will allow your team to reliably dodge both physical and magical assaults.

Once you're further into the game, you have access to the White Snake Kagura race (only accessible to the lamia races), which possesses Waning Moon and Evening Moon dances that can respectively Nullify Physical and Magic damage altogether. Their only weakness is their high SP consumption, which can be mitigated with a mix of SP cost reduction (Magatama accessories/Pirate job line) and SP regen (Hero job line/Dark rings). If both conditions are fulfilled, your party member can cast each dance indefinitely without having them expire.

With that set-up, the only remaining dangers are auto-hit attacks, which meet their own weaknesses in the form of deflectors. Deflectors are shields that are consumed each time your party members take damage. They're not consumed if an attack is evaded, but are consumed if the attack's damage would otherwise be nullified.

There are several ways to get deflectors. The fastest one is Vicarious Clara, a summoning skill that is acquired with a level 8 Necromancer. Since Necromancer requires Spiritualist who has an ability to allow you to use summoning, the only issue with that skill is its HP cost.

Another universally accessible one is the Electromagnetic Armor available to level 8 Machinists. However, the ability to always use makina skills is only available to a level 5 Makina Master, which requires quite a lot of farming if you don't want your character stuck in this job line.

Kitsune Geisha's Anti Death Song can entirely prevent instant death (Death/Climax/Ascension) effects from passing through your deflectors. The other status effects can only be managed on a case by case basis by farming the required job and using the related ability, or equipping one of the infamously rare ribbons.

With this setup, the only remaining issues are status effects and multi-hit auto-hit attacks.
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Usage in battles
On the first turn, set up party wide buffs, and on the second, use deflectors. Keeping track of the number of deflectors still available and the number of turns on the buffs is the more delicate part. Also, an increasing number of bosses have access to a party-wide dispel as you progress into the game.
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Pushing further
Evening Moon Dance can be replaced by Carbuncle from the Summoner job line to move a part of the strain on SP toward mana and reflect damage.

The Collab Scenario saw the addition of Nightmares: Monsters that can only take damage from pleasure attacks, and only deal pleasure damage. However, their resistance to pleasure in itself cannot be lowered. Using the succubus Pleasure Eater skill and its weaker versions simply won't work. The only ways to prevent damage is to increase Eva/Mag Eva and deflectors, and the latters get consumed even if the skill shouldn't have done any damage in the first place, making them almost irrelevant. {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
 * }

Defense: Deflectors

 * First Availability:
 * Chrome
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Medium
 * Farming required:
 * Medium/Very High
 * Effectiveness:
 * Medium/META
 * Range of application:
 * Very High
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 * Medium/META
 * Range of application:
 * Very High
 * colspan="2" |
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Basic Explanation
Deflectors are barriers that will cancel the damage of any hit and last for a fixed amount (usually 2). They do not stack and will just refresh the duration if they are applied again.

The first skill the player will acquire that will allow them to use deflectors is Vicarious Clara (Necromancer job at lvl 8) that cost a percentage of your HP and a fixed amount of MP to cast. Later on, the player can get the skills Electromagnetic Armour (Machinist job at lvl 8) and Aqua Pentagon (Queen Mermaid so only concerns Laura). Aqua Pentagon is noteworthy for being the only way to apply Deflectors to another character.

Another way to get deflectors is through battle start effects. Minamo and Kockyoin offer Vicarious Shikigami (Accessory that give 2-hit deflector at battle start) once their affinity is high enough. Insects have access to the ability Group Shield (Legion Mother at lvl 4) who does the same thing.

Deflectors specifically nullify damage which means that you still get hit, so status ailments will still affect you.
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Usage in battles
Deflectors are considered to be the most efficient defensive strategy as it allows you to ignore whatever damage output the foe you're facing possess. This make it not that useful in the early and mid game as Evasion is easier to access and auto-hit skills are rare. It is however very strong in late game and vital once you go beyond floor 600 in LoC.

Unlike Evasion, they can't be bypassed by auto-hit skills but they do however possess a few weaknesses:

-Deflectors last for a set amount of hit meaning that multi-hit skills counter them hard. However, multi-hit skills are very rare, even in deep LoC, and mostly concerns a few superbosses.

-Nullifying damage still means that you get hit. That means that status ailments can still be inflicted including instant death effects. Because of that, it is necessary to have some form of status immunity (Generally through ability or Medecine skills)

-Deflectors get removed by Dispel (like all buffs). Dispel is rarely used and when it is, it's just one spell allowing you to set up deflectors again on the next turn.

One superboss however is noteworthy for possessing a skill dealing a lot of damage while inflicting Dispel (Worldbreaker)
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Pushing further
Usage of deflectors increase tremendously in LoC. Auto 2-hit deflector can appear as a roll on LoC gears. It can also be found as a gem and socketed. Both work like the Group Shield ability from Legion Mother and thus will allow you to not die on the first turn (if the foe has more AGI than you do and will act first).

Additionnally, Skill Haste are somewhat rare rolls on LoC gears that allow specific category of skills to always act first. Summoning, Makina and White Magic haste will allow the wearer to always cast their deflector before the boss can act, making them very durable.

The player can run into Laura in a Special Floor that will teach Aqua Pentagon to one character. This is the only way to apply deflectors to another character while other skills only apply it to the user. Coupled with White Magic Haste, this allows a support character to protect an offensive character and make them cast self-buffs/attacks instead of reapplying deflectors. If the player does not have White Magic haste, Nemea is the only character who has that effect as part of her trait and thus makes her the optimal pick to learn Aqua Pentagon.

Later on, the player can get the legendary LoC gears High Deflector (Battle start 2 hit deflector and 50% chance to get a deflector at the end of your turn), Omega Adeptas (White Magic haste) and Testament (Summoning haste) to pair deflectors with even more powerful effects. {| class="article-table mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" ! colspan="2" |
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Defense: Evasion/Magical Evasion

 * First availability:
 * Early on
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Low
 * Farming required:
 * Low
 * Effectiveness:
 * Medium/High
 * Range of application:
 * Medium
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 * Medium/High
 * Range of application:
 * Medium
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Basic Explanation
Evasion is a hidden stat that dictates the chances to dodge an attack. It can be acquired through racial passives, gears and/or buffs. The first time the player will make use of it will be through shields as they often have 30% Eva/Mag Eva. Other pieces of gears can also have additionnal Evasion or Magical Evasion though it's uncommon.

A bit later on, the player can recruit Harpies who can learn Harpy Dance (boosts the user's evasion) and eventually Sky Dance (50% Eva/Mag Evasion for all allies, Wing Harpy at lvl 4).

Harpies and Fairies are notorious for their high Evasion in their racial passives both as allies and as foes.


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Usage in Battle
Stacking Evasion is one of the most powerful strategy in the early game as both mobs and bosses don't have a lot of way to get around it. Evading an attack means that you don't get hit so status ailments can't be applied to you. Its efficiency decrease as the player progresses further because auto-hit skills become far more common.

Auto-hit skills will ignore evasion and always hit and most bosses have at least one auto-hit skills if not more. Something important to keep in mind however is that Magical Auto-hit skills are fairly rare while physical ones are common. So Magical Evasion is still very relevant in the endgame against bosses who rely a lot on spells.
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Pushing Further
There is a third stat called Perfect Dodge which can be obtained in 3 ways:

-Illusion Heaven Dance (Seraph lvl 4. 50% AGI/100% Mag Eva/100% Hitrate/33% Perfect Dodge). Only concerns Eden and Micaela-chan

-Fallen Angel Dance (Fallen Angel lvl 4. 50% AGI/100% Mag Eva/100% Hitrate/33% Perfect Dodge). Only concerns Lucifina-chan

-Very rare roll on LoC gears.

Perfect Dodge is the only way to evade auto-hit moves and can't be bypassed. Unfortunately, the sources of it are so rare that it's basically impossible to reach high perfect dodge, making it unreliable.
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Defense: Endure + Auto-Revive

 * First availability:
 * Early
 * Set up difficulty:
 * Very Low
 * Farming required:
 * Low
 * Effectiveness:
 * META
 * Range of application:
 * Always usable
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 * META
 * Range of application:
 * Always usable
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Basic Explanation
There are 2 defensive abilities available from jobs that allow a character to be damaged and still survive one shot:

-Goddess' Protection (Apprentice Hero level 8, costs 10 AP)

-Endure (Power Fighter level 5, costs 10 AP)

Goddess' Protection will revive your character to 20% max HP if they die. This ability can only happen once per battle.

Endure will make it so that if you get dealt a lethal blow when your health is above 30% of your max HP, you will have 1 HP left and survive.


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Usage in Battle
Both abilities synergize well together. Endure will ensure that if you get dealt a lethal blow, you will survive with 1 hp. And then, if you die, you will revive with 20% health left at the end of the turn. They however each have distinct weaknesses.

Endure will allow you to survive only one blow. This is quite important to keep in mind because it means that multi-hit skills will still kill you if you get hit more than once. Superbosses with double actions are also troublesome. Also, Endure effects do not stack and it will only use the strongest one.

Goddess' protection will trigger at the end of the turn. This means that multi-hit skills and double actions superbosses aren't an issue. However, reviving means that you lose all your buffs. Also, stacking multiple auto-revives will make them trigger all at once, wasting them.

Both abilities work great on every builds except Last Stand builds (which requires you to be at 20% max HP or lower) that can't make use of Endure. They have to instead use either Super Endure (Giga Fighter level 6) or Ultra Endure (LoC gears and gems only). Speaking of Last Stand, Goddess' Protection will allow them to retain their buffs as they will revive with 20% HP.

20 AP in defense abilities is a very cheap price for all the advantages they bring.
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Pushing Further
Super Endure (Giga Fighter level 6, 15 AP) or Ultra Endure (LoC gears and gems only) can be used for Last Stand builds as mentionned above. Endure only works if your current health is higher than 30%. Super Endure and Ultra Endure will trigger if your health is above 20% and 10% respectively. Super Endure is generally the one used while Ultra Endure will mostly be for builds using HP as a cost (Unarmed builds for instance).

Miracle of the Goddess (Hero level 6, auto-revive at 50% HP, 15 AP) and Auto-Revive 100% (LoC gears only) are the "upgrades" to Goddess' Protection. Unfortunately, there just isn't any reason to use them over Goddess' Protection.

Unlike Endure, it is possible to renew auto-revival through the skill Second Coming (Pope level 4).
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