Arios is at least around for a big dungeon. On the other hand, he's obviously meant to be OP during that point so using that as a basis for a dueller is kind of sketchy. I'm perfectly okay with nulling him as a rank altogether (unless someone wants to do the legwork for the "legit" final fight). This means that Doggo is the only potential rank if we go that far; I'm okay with this.
Some other thoughts that came to mind, I was noting this down as I was going through character skills and abilities:
- Unlike in CS2, this game is really generous with evade. All PCs have access to a piece of gear that grants +20% Evade on armor and +10% evade on leg wear. This means most PCs have around 30-40% evade natural if they so choose. Since Defense stats in Trails game are rather junky, the raw evade trade is usually worth it. Flip side, Azure is also a game wear enemy accuracy is certainly factored in when calculating evasion. You can be at 40-50% evade and sometimes, it feels like you are getting hit way more often. From personal experience, this suggests evade is relative to accuracy (and enemies do have it) but perfect evade trumps any accuracy calculation. For the most part, this only matters for maybe one or two of the PCs, but worth pointing out. Random, if you got a different experience, let me know. Would also be good to know what your stance on standard armors should be.
- There are actually not that many quartz varieties in general. Therefore, giving full access to 2 elements feels like it will diminish some PC variety. On the other hand, keeping main element as all quartz from that family and sub element as just garden variety quartz enhances character variety a little without completely breaking the balance. It does lead to the odd case where everyone seems to have Tear, but since HP healing from that is pretty abysmal (unless your name is Tio), I'm not super concerned at the moment. Again, would appreciate other thoughts.
- Starting CP is always an issue in Trails. For Azure, 150 feels like a good number. A couple of reasons for this:
1) The final dungeon leaves the Airship relatively close to the main boss areas. In your airship, there is a rest spot that restores 200 CP, meaning you will certainly be relatively loaded before the last final series of fights
2) Normal rest spots increase CP by +100 versus setting CP to 100. It sounds like its just semantics, but in reality, you're much more likely to be higher than 100 CP as a result
3) CP Maintenance is in general easier. There are 5 accessories that you can equip to enhance CP gain. Keep in mind that a full party in game is 6 characters, so pretty much everyone can get one. Some PCs don't even want one cause they don't touch their crafts at all.
4) Related to the above, more food items that boost CP
5) 150 has the bonus as Dhyer noted that allow PCs to still use their crafts without fear of not being able to S-craft.
- Getting back to quartz options for a second...if we instead went the one element only route, I could see allowing the OPG rare gems associated with that element. How would people feel about that? The main draw here is hoping PCs can access tier 6 spells, but I haven't checked if this was 100% possible. Lloyd is of course SoL, but since he has no locks, you could just give him quartz of every element but all garden variety, so he will be a jack of all trades, master of none type.
I think once I figure out the quartz set ups definitively, I can start getting some numbers. Random, is there a damage formula or data sheet like there was with Cold Steel?
