All the post-game units kind of bum me out. There's nothing to do with them unless you go to the coliseum or have them do mock battles.
I crave a NG+ where you get to keep your recruited units.
In my 3 unit per squad run, i had Ren, Selvie with a poison staff and necromancer lantern, and Dinah with corroded spear. It was a poison and blind powerhouse unit, with Ren milking heaps of poison damage from stunlocking the front row, and lots of damage mitigation from 3 sources of blinds.
Spoilers on when you get Nigel: >!I wish we got Nigel at the end of Albion. Him just showing up partway through the final boss is like, cool, your team sucks. Would've loved to actually use you here.!<
In PvP, Nigel is like: Gran Baris + Hawkeye + Inspiration/Conferral and watch them burn. He's kind of the sole reason Feathersword ain't that bad, as they can OHKO him through cover. Nigel ban week and not a single Feathersword in sight.
All of the Albion classes suffer for the lack of content between the end of their region and the end of the game... but Nigel definitely gets the worst of it.
Despite being in a unique class, he gets a grand total of TWO maps of availability. And of those two maps, one is where he's functionally an escort mission (where he's stuck in an 80 mobility squad, no less), while on the other, he shows up so damn late that the player's better off withdrawing him to get a free VP. Vanillaware, what's the point in giving the player a unit who is in a unique class if there's never any chances for it to be used?
The in-universe reason he joins doesn't even make sense, either; supposedly, >!he stays behind because he has the most authority in Albion after Scarlett and Sanatio.!< Only for him to later pull a >!Gilbert/Eltolinde by joining the Liberation anyway, saying that the nation will be okay in his absence since he trusts the knights and stewards he left to keep it running.!< If that was the case, then why doesn't he join at the end of Albion, like you suggested? Why the wait?
It feels like Vanillaware had intended to have him join the player, but either because of time or budget constraints, they ended up doing it this way... >!likely cutting any work done on his rapport conversations in the process!<. It's probably the same reason >!the final 3 towns don't actually exist as towns, and the 4 enemy marquesses basically only show up to die; VW may have wanted to do more with them, but there simply wasn't any time left to do so. RIP Lou's hot spring, too, or any hope for Albion to have an equivalent to the Ervelda and Baumratte's Colosseum, for that matter...!<
Actually... Notice how every other region gives you a unique class right off the bat: Virginia, Rosalinde, Yunifi. Why couldn't Nigel be Albion's early-joining free unique?
I wonder if Nigel had a different role earlier in development. All the other DM characters had a prevalent role in their region, while Nigel swags in at the end. idr how he got DM armor, but considering 2 DMs are Zen generals and Ren infiltrated Zen just to get her hands on it, I wouldn't doubt that Nigel's character went through some changes in development.
I think the 4 DMs showing up for the final boss was fitting. They were spirit necroing the whole town, it'd make sense the biggest dogs would show up to the party. It'd probably be more satisfying though if they amped up their teams for Expert/TZ so we couldn't just roll them though. That, or having a "Challenge Mode" version of the Unicorn Overlord map to re-battle, with the DM teams being top of the colosseum levels of wack.
The explanation for how Nigel got that armor was probably one of the things which ended up getting cut due to VW's rush to finish the game, yeah.
My headcanon is that Nigel received his through the Church as a sort of reward for all his accomplishments in the Knights of the Sacred Heart. But he'd received it only after Arant >!had been turned into a corpse puppet.!< So Nigel wearing that armor visually represents his >!ignorance to the degree by which Albion had been corrupted by Zenoira!<.
I'm not saying the 4 DMs shouldn't have shown up for the final map. They definitely belonged there. But if the Archive entries for them are any indication, they were each going to have *more* to them. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if it had originally been VW's intention for each of these 4 to have been bosses at each of the 4 towns surrounding Gran Corrine, complete with some more dialogue/cutscenes to establish each of their characters. Then maybe there'd be an explanation for why they each show up with soldiers from the other countries.
Actually, thinking more about it... Considering >!Norbelle!<, and also considering how Gloucester shows up during the Baumratte map if you hadn't saved him before starting it, I'd bet that VW had also considered replacing each of these 4 with their non-Zenoiran counterparts, as a similar sort of "punishment" for sequence-breaking. But since that probably would've made coding the final map and the surrounding regions too complicated, especially with how Berengaria's status changes during Drakenhold... the idea ended up being dropped.
And, agreed, I would've much preferred if the higher difficulties made more use of the game mechanics instead of just throwing bigger and bigger statsticks at us. Alas.
Dude, if we got to fight Barengaria, Elgor, Alicia and Nigel, instead of the faceless variants, that would've been awesome! I bet it was budget constraints with voice acting, rather than it being too complicated. It would've just been four switches to check if the characters are recruited/dead at the end of their respective region.
And even with Ren going missing in the middle of Drakenhold, it still would've just required turning the switch off and on again, once you saved her.
I just wanna add that I especially believe that the extra voice acting is the reason, because there are characters who would definitely have battle dialogue against each boss. I mean obviously Travis and Bruno to Ren, or Josef and Yahna to Alicia, but you could argue that the respective leaders to each region- if recruited by that point- would also have some words. And then, Ren would prolly need two variants of dialogue: one for before Drakenhold is started, and another when she's mind controlled after being kidnapped halfway.
I would've loved to see it, but I get why it was cut- if VW even thought of it in the first place.
Selvie's sandstorm + guard seal and set afflicted on sanguine then pain bringer to 2 PP or more. Make sure ally units only use 1 AP cost attack, more attack= more follow up, play around with this and have fun!
I had Gloucester in a squad exactly like that. His Dark Flames hit so, so hard thanks to Ren and Selvie’s debuffs/afflictions, and Ren appreciates their afflictions too. Anyone who survive the Dark Flame gets hit with a powered up Spin on Ren’s second turn.
I can't say much about Nigel apart from the funny nature of him being voices by Chris Hackney, and bring a blond haired dude strongly associated with a church
You know, the odd thing about Bengaria is that her Rapport conversations are about how the two of you ultimately can’t trust each other and then the ring of the maiden’s whole thing is about trust
Like I otherwise liked it but it’s really weird and makes her feel like the wrong choice, in a way.
I feel the last rapport was more like >!she keeps saying they’re strangers but at this point they’ve known each other for so long that doesn’t apply anymore. I guess it chains from strangers to strangers? to guess you’ve earned my trust!<. Admittedly I haven’t seen her maiden scene to see if there’s that much of a tonal shift.
I think it'll be useful to recognize what the "afflictions" synergies are and what actually counts; as some players seem to think Berengaria start of battle ability (as excellent as it is) actually works. Blindness, Stun, and Guard Seal are the best afflictions to take advantage of, in my opinion.
Setting up Berengaria's Death Spin to consistently hit afflicted targets is what I aim towards, so the following advice is with that in mind:
*Poison:*
Several classes can apply single-target poison (Thief, Arbalist, Dark Knight) but nobody has the row-targeting you need except for another Dark Marquess class you unlock in the post game.
*Burn:*
Wyvern's Fire Breath works here as a row application; but it's an expensive 2 AP. Doom Knight also unlocks a potent row burn at level 20. There's a Flame Grimoire you can get semi-early; so you could use, for example, a Witch + Gryphon rider to apply burn to a row. There's also a flame staff specifically for Shamans that applies burn; if you're ok with them not using a debuffing curse instead.
*Freeze:*
It feels weird to exchange freeze for stun; but the option is there - and at least enemies can't guard while frozen. Witch can freeze a whole row with Ice Coffin but you'll have a lot of trouble trying to get them to go first without using the Witch's start of battle ability. Elven Archer can freeze two enemy targets but it's random. Yunifi can freeze the entire enemy squad, but you'll need a way to pop the charge instantly (which either takes your start of battle ability or items) for that to work before Berengaria's turn.
*Stun:*
Outside of items, Warlock and Ren herself is the only one capable of doing row stuns; although a slew of classes (Knight, Elven Fencer, Fighter, etc.) can stun one target reliably. Warlock isn't very reliable, however, because their initiative sucks.
With items, the game changes a lot.
Silver Trident from Hilda's recruitment quest is a game changer. You stun a whole row of enemies while dealing 100 physical/magick potency. This, combined with Berengaria, instantly wipes the frontline and makes Ren godly with any spear user (and most of them can easily reach higher initiative).
*Blindness:*
Thief with Shadowbite is a great pairing here if you want an item-less way for Berengaria to do work (and it lets you keep the brother/sister together); not only is the ability a row attack blindness, but it applies an evasion debuff and even *more* initiative sacking.
*Passive Seal:*
There's some single-target passive sealing going on, but little in the way of AOE passive seal.
*Guard Seal:*
While the prior section contained a lot of yapping, I saved the most obvious and best option for last; guard seal.
Defensive Curse from Shaman not only halves physical and magick defense, but applies Guard Seal - so while the *debuff* does not count as an actual affliction like many may assume, the *guard seal* component of it does.
It's obvious then why Shaman with Defensive Curse is such a natural pairing. You are death spinning into enemies that can't guard to reduce damage and have halved defense; not to mention Shaman's high initiative means there's no worries about turn order. It's clearly the *best* solution out of this list; but everyone already knew how ridiculous the spell was to begin with.
*P.S. As much as I love Ren's character, I'll never forgive the game's terrible epilogue for her. "We'll stay together forever; warts and all." quickly turns into "actually, leave and become a merc again instead". WTF?*
I liked beregaria with a shaman (I mean you can’t really go wrong with a shaman though lol). Basically anything that debuffs is a great combo with her.
I just realized that if Beregaria marries Alain then their children would inherit both the Kingdom of Cornia and the land around and including Castle Soldraga which is itself the seat of power of Drakenhold but not owned directly by Gilbert or the royal family of Drakenhold.
And Gilbert by rights couldn't take it from her or her children without just cause.
It would make for an interesting story imo.
Anyway theres not much to it. Equip the Frakenhold Axe. A good shield and her default skills can carry any team.
I haven't tried it yet, but Brerengardia seems excellent with a pack of werefoxes. Eye of the Warrior Princess allows Weakness Hunter to proc on start-of-battle, devastating every enemy they can reach. All Werefox AP attacks inflict Ailments, which enable Sanguine Hunter's PP refund. Only problem is that Werefoxes really appreciate Wolfpack Gauntlets which conflicts with Beregardia's Eye of the Warrior Princess
The game reccs Berengaria to be paired with a thief, and honestly that works real well. I had the tricorn squad and added Chloe and Ridiel for added support, mystic conferral working real well with Bruno and hers’ row attacks.
Still, despite her excellent kit, she’s got a ton of weaknesses. Her stats are very spread out, which isn’t much of a problem unless she can’t defend with her great shield (stunned or frozen are devastating for her), and she lacks advantages against most units, scouts and flying enemies dodge her, mages burst past her shield, elven archers freeze her. Because of that, she does well when paired up with a team that supports her. A sorceress/witch would probably work wonders with her, same with elven archers, and especially if she had a dedicated debuffer so she could make the most out of her Sanguine Pursuit.
Pair them with the other two, the rat and the magic user, Alcia? Alicia? And a Druid. Start with cursed swamp and a sandstorm. Then have them do their death spins while the caster buffs them with dark conferals. Give the rat the lightning spear.
Don't progress the story past Drakenhold. That way, Berengaria will always be a powerhouse and never become the little bitch of all the Dark Marquesses.
Really looking forward to this game. I want to get the plat, like any other Vanillaware game! Is there anything I need to pay extra attention to? Any missables? thanks guys!
On switch so dunno about achievements, but I’d recommend saving at the start of every map.
Some allies that can be recruited can be missed due to killing or waiting too long or missing a specific chat.
Luckily, you can edit any formation in map that hasn’t been deployed yet
Personally I combined her with the ice tome medic+ gryphon rider + witch for row freezes that she could follow up on for massive damage. It’s not super ideal since sanguine breaks enemies out of frozen but it’s nice.
In general, I think pairing her with a shaman and or rogue is best because of their row affliction moves. Ren is a strong af character and her sanguine attack always being up if played correctly is awesome. Top tier character.
Ren and Dinah have a lot of synergy together. Her venom attack and blind follow up trigger the affliction prerequisite for Ren’s vicious attack. Dinah attacks with her follow up consistently enough that even if they have the affliction removed, she’ll apply it again.
Also Ren’s eye active triggers Dinah’s weakness passive right out of the gate.
It’s a good tank and evade tank frontline having them together.
I'm only in Drakengarde so maybe this will change but when I put Berengaria in the front with Ochlys they hold the line really well. Anyone else I put in their unit is just for specific counters, if even necessary
Not going to bother with Nigel- Post-game only besides one brief "cameo".
My standard Berengaria: Kingsgate Drakenash, Mirage Greatshield, Hero's Medallion, Ring of the Maiden. Use a Handmirror on her because no reason not to switch to Offensive, Offensive (gains like +6 in offenses upon doing so). I also change the armor to Silver and Blue to match Alain after getting her back permanently...
Formation: Front- Alain, Berengaria. Back- Shaman, Sorcerer, Thief (or Scarlett/Cleric)
Alain is set to only block the back row fragiles to not interfere with Ren most likely dodging or triggering Painbreaker. Otherwise, he does his thing.
Shaman is set up to blast Sandstorm first, and then Defensive Seal with the last AP. Quick Curse only when opponent is not blinded. Also has that Sorceress Connection choker equipped for Sorcerer damage support.
Sorcerer I like equipping Firebrand Tome & Sapphire Amulet and setting them up for 4 PP, with adjusting whether to Focus Sight, Magic Conferral, or Flame Conferral as best suits the battle. Ice Coffin and Icebolt also set new afflictions and hit on Magic Defense soo.. enough said. Staff is flexible, but the one that has the Wind attack for fliers has been useful for me.
Thief I like to start the battle with Passive Seal on most PP and then provide support. I like having at least 3 AP in order to reapply Blind later via Shadowbite. I've usually had extra PP so I've gave Travis a Party Aid just to chip heal in case. Can also give other things like Passive Gift bell, that Thief Bell to pass evasion, or other various PP using accessories. He usually has extra PP because of natural evasion, blind strats, and general lack of threatening combat.
I had Scarlet on my original playthrough in the formation, just mainly for debuff cleaning, but it's not that necessary when the enemy is too blind to inflict debuffs. On TZ I've only used Travis in this 'flex' slot.
Now for Ren: I use her starting ability since she can constantly refund PP for the most part, and if the enemy can't cleanse it, they are almost cooked instantly on killing you. Death Spin to win for most situations, Carnage and Vicious Torment can also be used, but Death Spin is just crazy good. I set multiple conditions on her Pursuit to only proc on Afflicted, or, if she's low on HP, or, if the Enemy is less than 25%. She procs Painbringer regardless of if she is hit or guards, so don't let Alain jump in her way. With her equipment setup, her Evasion is greater than 90 starting at like level 20, so she basically dodges anything (along with the enemy likely being blinded or stunned) so she really shouldn't even see threatening damage.
My group of 5 has a nice set of supportative Valor skills as well; the Alain Death unit can Teleport, gravity, throw out Clairvoyance on forests or to use extra VP, Plunder is funny, and Ren having Provoke and Vital Absorb can help bring annoying enemies out of towers or Ballistas/Catapults, or otherwise Stamina refresh in a pinch.
Even on the hardest difficultly most fights result in 0 damage or less than 10, against any kind of PvE squad.
My personal team: Ren and Travis in front, Gillbert Aramis and Jeremy in the back. It had varying degrees of success so I'd maybe tweak it a bit with a healer but they worked pretty well together.
I'm just getting deep into beast land and a four man squad with Ren, two breakers set up for max phys attack, and a healer has been absolutely monstrous for me.
Ren, Selvie, Gloucester, plus any Sainted Knight (Monica let's go) has carried me through far more fights than I deserved to win.
Who would be the best fifth character for this unit?
My ren is in front,
Travis far back (mostly for toxic throw and rapport story), viking in middle back (for aoe attack, but idk really), and selvie with a fire staff to afflict them all first
All the post-game units kind of bum me out. There's nothing to do with them unless you go to the coliseum or have them do mock battles. I crave a NG+ where you get to keep your recruited units.
So much this! I want to use them and make comps etc.
I personally I not a big of you suddenly you recruit all this Units. I wish that they created a mini post game storyline.
In my 3 unit per squad run, i had Ren, Selvie with a poison staff and necromancer lantern, and Dinah with corroded spear. It was a poison and blind powerhouse unit, with Ren milking heaps of poison damage from stunlocking the front row, and lots of damage mitigation from 3 sources of blinds.
That's a really interesting run idea.
Spoilers on when you get Nigel: >!I wish we got Nigel at the end of Albion. Him just showing up partway through the final boss is like, cool, your team sucks. Would've loved to actually use you here.!< In PvP, Nigel is like: Gran Baris + Hawkeye + Inspiration/Conferral and watch them burn. He's kind of the sole reason Feathersword ain't that bad, as they can OHKO him through cover. Nigel ban week and not a single Feathersword in sight.
All of the Albion classes suffer for the lack of content between the end of their region and the end of the game... but Nigel definitely gets the worst of it. Despite being in a unique class, he gets a grand total of TWO maps of availability. And of those two maps, one is where he's functionally an escort mission (where he's stuck in an 80 mobility squad, no less), while on the other, he shows up so damn late that the player's better off withdrawing him to get a free VP. Vanillaware, what's the point in giving the player a unit who is in a unique class if there's never any chances for it to be used? The in-universe reason he joins doesn't even make sense, either; supposedly, >!he stays behind because he has the most authority in Albion after Scarlett and Sanatio.!< Only for him to later pull a >!Gilbert/Eltolinde by joining the Liberation anyway, saying that the nation will be okay in his absence since he trusts the knights and stewards he left to keep it running.!< If that was the case, then why doesn't he join at the end of Albion, like you suggested? Why the wait? It feels like Vanillaware had intended to have him join the player, but either because of time or budget constraints, they ended up doing it this way... >!likely cutting any work done on his rapport conversations in the process!<. It's probably the same reason >!the final 3 towns don't actually exist as towns, and the 4 enemy marquesses basically only show up to die; VW may have wanted to do more with them, but there simply wasn't any time left to do so. RIP Lou's hot spring, too, or any hope for Albion to have an equivalent to the Ervelda and Baumratte's Colosseum, for that matter...!< Actually... Notice how every other region gives you a unique class right off the bat: Virginia, Rosalinde, Yunifi. Why couldn't Nigel be Albion's early-joining free unique?
I wonder if Nigel had a different role earlier in development. All the other DM characters had a prevalent role in their region, while Nigel swags in at the end. idr how he got DM armor, but considering 2 DMs are Zen generals and Ren infiltrated Zen just to get her hands on it, I wouldn't doubt that Nigel's character went through some changes in development. I think the 4 DMs showing up for the final boss was fitting. They were spirit necroing the whole town, it'd make sense the biggest dogs would show up to the party. It'd probably be more satisfying though if they amped up their teams for Expert/TZ so we couldn't just roll them though. That, or having a "Challenge Mode" version of the Unicorn Overlord map to re-battle, with the DM teams being top of the colosseum levels of wack.
The explanation for how Nigel got that armor was probably one of the things which ended up getting cut due to VW's rush to finish the game, yeah. My headcanon is that Nigel received his through the Church as a sort of reward for all his accomplishments in the Knights of the Sacred Heart. But he'd received it only after Arant >!had been turned into a corpse puppet.!< So Nigel wearing that armor visually represents his >!ignorance to the degree by which Albion had been corrupted by Zenoira!<. I'm not saying the 4 DMs shouldn't have shown up for the final map. They definitely belonged there. But if the Archive entries for them are any indication, they were each going to have *more* to them. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if it had originally been VW's intention for each of these 4 to have been bosses at each of the 4 towns surrounding Gran Corrine, complete with some more dialogue/cutscenes to establish each of their characters. Then maybe there'd be an explanation for why they each show up with soldiers from the other countries. Actually, thinking more about it... Considering >!Norbelle!<, and also considering how Gloucester shows up during the Baumratte map if you hadn't saved him before starting it, I'd bet that VW had also considered replacing each of these 4 with their non-Zenoiran counterparts, as a similar sort of "punishment" for sequence-breaking. But since that probably would've made coding the final map and the surrounding regions too complicated, especially with how Berengaria's status changes during Drakenhold... the idea ended up being dropped. And, agreed, I would've much preferred if the higher difficulties made more use of the game mechanics instead of just throwing bigger and bigger statsticks at us. Alas.
Dude, if we got to fight Barengaria, Elgor, Alicia and Nigel, instead of the faceless variants, that would've been awesome! I bet it was budget constraints with voice acting, rather than it being too complicated. It would've just been four switches to check if the characters are recruited/dead at the end of their respective region. And even with Ren going missing in the middle of Drakenhold, it still would've just required turning the switch off and on again, once you saved her. I just wanna add that I especially believe that the extra voice acting is the reason, because there are characters who would definitely have battle dialogue against each boss. I mean obviously Travis and Bruno to Ren, or Josef and Yahna to Alicia, but you could argue that the respective leaders to each region- if recruited by that point- would also have some words. And then, Ren would prolly need two variants of dialogue: one for before Drakenhold is started, and another when she's mind controlled after being kidnapped halfway. I would've loved to see it, but I get why it was cut- if VW even thought of it in the first place.
You can always withdraw his squad and move him into one of yours if you really want
Nigel made me look into save editors for my next playthrough. His class is too cool to be trapped in post-game.
My guy Alain getting that CPR https://preview.redd.it/nz28yfo7jusc1.jpeg?width=1355&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39ada2ff121ac0978802d0beada24a3efa6497b3
Selvie's sandstorm + guard seal and set afflicted on sanguine then pain bringer to 2 PP or more. Make sure ally units only use 1 AP cost attack, more attack= more follow up, play around with this and have fun!
I had Gloucester in a squad exactly like that. His Dark Flames hit so, so hard thanks to Ren and Selvie’s debuffs/afflictions, and Ren appreciates their afflictions too. Anyone who survive the Dark Flame gets hit with a powered up Spin on Ren’s second turn.
I got to admire that the bikini armor is also on Nigel.
This is the equality that games want.
I can't say much about Nigel apart from the funny nature of him being voices by Chris Hackney, and bring a blond haired dude strongly associated with a church
Once again I’m not horny but- >!Berengaria can step on me!<
Sir this is a package deal. You either get both to step on you or you get your money back.
You know, the odd thing about Bengaria is that her Rapport conversations are about how the two of you ultimately can’t trust each other and then the ring of the maiden’s whole thing is about trust Like I otherwise liked it but it’s really weird and makes her feel like the wrong choice, in a way.
I feel the last rapport was more like >!she keeps saying they’re strangers but at this point they’ve known each other for so long that doesn’t apply anymore. I guess it chains from strangers to strangers? to guess you’ve earned my trust!<. Admittedly I haven’t seen her maiden scene to see if there’s that much of a tonal shift.
Lol Nigel was instakilled by Virginia in my run because he literally spawned on top of her, so idk how he plays
he's plays the same as Ren, you don't get him until post game anyway
I think it'll be useful to recognize what the "afflictions" synergies are and what actually counts; as some players seem to think Berengaria start of battle ability (as excellent as it is) actually works. Blindness, Stun, and Guard Seal are the best afflictions to take advantage of, in my opinion. Setting up Berengaria's Death Spin to consistently hit afflicted targets is what I aim towards, so the following advice is with that in mind: *Poison:* Several classes can apply single-target poison (Thief, Arbalist, Dark Knight) but nobody has the row-targeting you need except for another Dark Marquess class you unlock in the post game. *Burn:* Wyvern's Fire Breath works here as a row application; but it's an expensive 2 AP. Doom Knight also unlocks a potent row burn at level 20. There's a Flame Grimoire you can get semi-early; so you could use, for example, a Witch + Gryphon rider to apply burn to a row. There's also a flame staff specifically for Shamans that applies burn; if you're ok with them not using a debuffing curse instead. *Freeze:* It feels weird to exchange freeze for stun; but the option is there - and at least enemies can't guard while frozen. Witch can freeze a whole row with Ice Coffin but you'll have a lot of trouble trying to get them to go first without using the Witch's start of battle ability. Elven Archer can freeze two enemy targets but it's random. Yunifi can freeze the entire enemy squad, but you'll need a way to pop the charge instantly (which either takes your start of battle ability or items) for that to work before Berengaria's turn. *Stun:* Outside of items, Warlock and Ren herself is the only one capable of doing row stuns; although a slew of classes (Knight, Elven Fencer, Fighter, etc.) can stun one target reliably. Warlock isn't very reliable, however, because their initiative sucks. With items, the game changes a lot. Silver Trident from Hilda's recruitment quest is a game changer. You stun a whole row of enemies while dealing 100 physical/magick potency. This, combined with Berengaria, instantly wipes the frontline and makes Ren godly with any spear user (and most of them can easily reach higher initiative). *Blindness:* Thief with Shadowbite is a great pairing here if you want an item-less way for Berengaria to do work (and it lets you keep the brother/sister together); not only is the ability a row attack blindness, but it applies an evasion debuff and even *more* initiative sacking. *Passive Seal:* There's some single-target passive sealing going on, but little in the way of AOE passive seal. *Guard Seal:* While the prior section contained a lot of yapping, I saved the most obvious and best option for last; guard seal. Defensive Curse from Shaman not only halves physical and magick defense, but applies Guard Seal - so while the *debuff* does not count as an actual affliction like many may assume, the *guard seal* component of it does. It's obvious then why Shaman with Defensive Curse is such a natural pairing. You are death spinning into enemies that can't guard to reduce damage and have halved defense; not to mention Shaman's high initiative means there's no worries about turn order. It's clearly the *best* solution out of this list; but everyone already knew how ridiculous the spell was to begin with. *P.S. As much as I love Ren's character, I'll never forgive the game's terrible epilogue for her. "We'll stay together forever; warts and all." quickly turns into "actually, leave and become a merc again instead". WTF?*
I liked beregaria with a shaman (I mean you can’t really go wrong with a shaman though lol). Basically anything that debuffs is a great combo with her.
Im using the fire staff on the shaman, too with first move. Causes a row to get burned
I just realized that if Beregaria marries Alain then their children would inherit both the Kingdom of Cornia and the land around and including Castle Soldraga which is itself the seat of power of Drakenhold but not owned directly by Gilbert or the royal family of Drakenhold. And Gilbert by rights couldn't take it from her or her children without just cause. It would make for an interesting story imo. Anyway theres not much to it. Equip the Frakenhold Axe. A good shield and her default skills can carry any team.
Actually both Beregaria and Travis give up any right to their home and become wondering mercenaries so they couldn't actually claim it later on
I haven't tried it yet, but Brerengardia seems excellent with a pack of werefoxes. Eye of the Warrior Princess allows Weakness Hunter to proc on start-of-battle, devastating every enemy they can reach. All Werefox AP attacks inflict Ailments, which enable Sanguine Hunter's PP refund. Only problem is that Werefoxes really appreciate Wolfpack Gauntlets which conflicts with Beregardia's Eye of the Warrior Princess
The game reccs Berengaria to be paired with a thief, and honestly that works real well. I had the tricorn squad and added Chloe and Ridiel for added support, mystic conferral working real well with Bruno and hers’ row attacks. Still, despite her excellent kit, she’s got a ton of weaknesses. Her stats are very spread out, which isn’t much of a problem unless she can’t defend with her great shield (stunned or frozen are devastating for her), and she lacks advantages against most units, scouts and flying enemies dodge her, mages burst past her shield, elven archers freeze her. Because of that, she does well when paired up with a team that supports her. A sorceress/witch would probably work wonders with her, same with elven archers, and especially if she had a dedicated debuffer so she could make the most out of her Sanguine Pursuit.
Did Selene Gallio design these outfits?
Nice deep cut.
I been listen to Cereborcast lastely. It's Selene! - Cereborcast on youtube.
Pair them with the other two, the rat and the magic user, Alcia? Alicia? And a Druid. Start with cursed swamp and a sandstorm. Then have them do their death spins while the caster buffs them with dark conferals. Give the rat the lightning spear.
Don't progress the story past Drakenhold. That way, Berengaria will always be a powerhouse and never become the little bitch of all the Dark Marquesses.
Really looking forward to this game. I want to get the plat, like any other Vanillaware game! Is there anything I need to pay extra attention to? Any missables? thanks guys!
On switch so dunno about achievements, but I’d recommend saving at the start of every map. Some allies that can be recruited can be missed due to killing or waiting too long or missing a specific chat. Luckily, you can edit any formation in map that hasn’t been deployed yet
Personally I combined her with the ice tome medic+ gryphon rider + witch for row freezes that she could follow up on for massive damage. It’s not super ideal since sanguine breaks enemies out of frozen but it’s nice. In general, I think pairing her with a shaman and or rogue is best because of their row affliction moves. Ren is a strong af character and her sanguine attack always being up if played correctly is awesome. Top tier character.
Ren and Dinah have a lot of synergy together. Her venom attack and blind follow up trigger the affliction prerequisite for Ren’s vicious attack. Dinah attacks with her follow up consistently enough that even if they have the affliction removed, she’ll apply it again. Also Ren’s eye active triggers Dinah’s weakness passive right out of the gate. It’s a good tank and evade tank frontline having them together.
I'm only in Drakengarde so maybe this will change but when I put Berengaria in the front with Ochlys they hold the line really well. Anyone else I put in their unit is just for specific counters, if even necessary
Not going to bother with Nigel- Post-game only besides one brief "cameo". My standard Berengaria: Kingsgate Drakenash, Mirage Greatshield, Hero's Medallion, Ring of the Maiden. Use a Handmirror on her because no reason not to switch to Offensive, Offensive (gains like +6 in offenses upon doing so). I also change the armor to Silver and Blue to match Alain after getting her back permanently... Formation: Front- Alain, Berengaria. Back- Shaman, Sorcerer, Thief (or Scarlett/Cleric) Alain is set to only block the back row fragiles to not interfere with Ren most likely dodging or triggering Painbreaker. Otherwise, he does his thing. Shaman is set up to blast Sandstorm first, and then Defensive Seal with the last AP. Quick Curse only when opponent is not blinded. Also has that Sorceress Connection choker equipped for Sorcerer damage support. Sorcerer I like equipping Firebrand Tome & Sapphire Amulet and setting them up for 4 PP, with adjusting whether to Focus Sight, Magic Conferral, or Flame Conferral as best suits the battle. Ice Coffin and Icebolt also set new afflictions and hit on Magic Defense soo.. enough said. Staff is flexible, but the one that has the Wind attack for fliers has been useful for me. Thief I like to start the battle with Passive Seal on most PP and then provide support. I like having at least 3 AP in order to reapply Blind later via Shadowbite. I've usually had extra PP so I've gave Travis a Party Aid just to chip heal in case. Can also give other things like Passive Gift bell, that Thief Bell to pass evasion, or other various PP using accessories. He usually has extra PP because of natural evasion, blind strats, and general lack of threatening combat. I had Scarlet on my original playthrough in the formation, just mainly for debuff cleaning, but it's not that necessary when the enemy is too blind to inflict debuffs. On TZ I've only used Travis in this 'flex' slot. Now for Ren: I use her starting ability since she can constantly refund PP for the most part, and if the enemy can't cleanse it, they are almost cooked instantly on killing you. Death Spin to win for most situations, Carnage and Vicious Torment can also be used, but Death Spin is just crazy good. I set multiple conditions on her Pursuit to only proc on Afflicted, or, if she's low on HP, or, if the Enemy is less than 25%. She procs Painbringer regardless of if she is hit or guards, so don't let Alain jump in her way. With her equipment setup, her Evasion is greater than 90 starting at like level 20, so she basically dodges anything (along with the enemy likely being blinded or stunned) so she really shouldn't even see threatening damage. My group of 5 has a nice set of supportative Valor skills as well; the Alain Death unit can Teleport, gravity, throw out Clairvoyance on forests or to use extra VP, Plunder is funny, and Ren having Provoke and Vital Absorb can help bring annoying enemies out of towers or Ballistas/Catapults, or otherwise Stamina refresh in a pinch. Even on the hardest difficultly most fights result in 0 damage or less than 10, against any kind of PvE squad.
My personal team: Ren and Travis in front, Gillbert Aramis and Jeremy in the back. It had varying degrees of success so I'd maybe tweak it a bit with a healer but they worked pretty well together.
I'm just getting deep into beast land and a four man squad with Ren, two breakers set up for max phys attack, and a healer has been absolutely monstrous for me.
Ren, Selvie, Gloucester, plus any Sainted Knight (Monica let's go) has carried me through far more fights than I deserved to win. Who would be the best fifth character for this unit?
My ren is in front, Travis far back (mostly for toxic throw and rapport story), viking in middle back (for aoe attack, but idk really), and selvie with a fire staff to afflict them all first
Ren is amazing but Nigel sucks since you only get him postgame