[Dark Schala]

Chapter 7 so far... It's the Sophie chapter, so I expect good things given how good Sophie has been so far in this version. Emeraude sounds like how I expected her to sound.

I haven't bought equipment in a while since I've been dualizing weapons/equipment together. I did the (cameo battle spoiler) Veigue battle at Warrior's Roost when it was first available, so I have the Laevatein, so Asbel doesn't need weapons for a while. Asbel also has 92 titles, and I just need to level up his B-artes somewhat to get more titles, and then we'll easily be on our way to 100. He has almost all of his A-Arte titles (outside of Void Sword Adept/Master, Icedragon Flurry Master, and Demon Fist Master).

Actually Cheria and Sophie are well on their way too. Sophie was the first person who got her 50 titles trophy, so I wouldn't be surprised if she got the 100 titles a little after Asbel did.

End of Chapter 7: Seriously missed 60s on both Lambda-Richard and Emeraude by a few seconds? :| Not that either one of them are actually 60s bosses but it's pretty sad to see "1:04:XX" or something.

Aaaaaaahhhh, I hate when that happens! Especially when I'm fighting on Chaos, feel good that the battle seemed so short, and then THAT is placed in front of me. All of that work for nothing!

With regards to dualizing, it's probably better to concentrate on the dualize value than the extract value. The best thing you could do for higher value in general is to dualize and extract repeatedly. The idea is basically to level up your armour so that a) you're not spending money you don't have, and b) to keep levelling it up so you can level up the stamp cards.

Study the quotes on the cards, I guess? I didn't really think playing more Tales games helped short of remembering name <-> picture ... which doesn't help at all for the game. Honestly, without pausing, knowing more Tales games hurt since I disconnected on the voices not matching who I thought said it.

Actually, in the English version, I felt Carta Card was more difficult and actually had to take a pic with my phone or Vita on Hard cuz I knew the English-translated Tales lines really well (outside of Vesperia and Eternia because I'd never played those games in English), but the Japanese-only Tales games' quotes threw me off a little outside of the Destiny ones.

I almost felt like it was easier in JP since I recognized the quotes better (outside of the Symphonia and Abyss ones). >.>

If anyone wants to know an easy way of getting into Floor 10 of Zhonecage, go to Gralesyde and buy a Rare Shotstaff (rank 8 stamp item) and use a High-grade Crystal on it. This makes a Dreamer's Flange. Dualize it with any shard that produces Perilous quality for a Dreamer's Flange +1. Temper this weapon and that alone is enough to get you into Floor 10.

Yep! That's what I did. Super-easy after that and it doesn't take much effort. You can get a Rare Staff from playing the Cube game for free!

Yeah, pretty disappointed by this game strategy options.

You guys'll feel better when you play Xillia. It has a ton of them.

[Sagitario]

[Beginning of chapter 4]

I had to change from Chaos to Evil in the Parasite Queen fight, and not because of the boss itself, but because of its underlings . I mean, there were like 8~10 of them and all casting spells every two seconds. On Evil it was a piece of cake, though.

Eleth mixer @ ~1100. How good is this? Should it be higher at this point?
I really want more capacity :P

When is the Zhonecage available?

[cpp_is_king]

[Beginning of chapter 4] I had to change from Chaos to Evil in the Parasite Queen fight, and not because of the boss itself, but because of its underlings . I mean, there were like 8~10 of them and all casting spells every two seconds. On Evil it was a piece of cake, though. Eleth mixer @ ~1100. How good is this? Should it be higher at this point? I really want more capacity :P When is the Zhonecage available?

After you beat Future Arc

[Dark Schala]

Eleth mixer @ ~1100. How good is this? Should it be higher at this point? I really want more capacity :P When is the Zhonecage available?

I think that's pretty good for a first-time player. What do you have in there in terms of books and food?

Zone Cage is this game's EX Dungeon, so right after you load up your clear save, or if you load up your clear save for F Arc... depends on what you want to do first. Edit: Beaten hard.

[-Pyromaniac-]

I just officially beat the game including future arc. Great stuff. Really enjoyed this game a ton. Best 62 hours spent in a while. Will go back and play more to do more stuff.

[chickdigger802]

Is hubert the only sane person around? I wouldn't trust myself unguarded from Pascal for sure.

I'll be sorely disappointed if there aren't any mother russia jokes in Fendel =/

[Sagitario]

After you beat Future Arc

Zone Cage is this game's EX Dungeon, so right after you load up your clear save, or if you load up your clear save for F Arc... depends on what you want to do first. Edit: Beaten hard.

Damn! :(

I think that's pretty good for a first-time player. What do you have in there in terms of books and food?.

IIRC:
- Gald book
- Two-recipes per fight book
- In battle recipe: 20+ hits
- In battle recipe: > 10 seconds
- Post battle recipe (crab something, I think)
- Apple gel (to sell them). 50% chance.
- 2% chance item
And maybe another book, I am not sure.

[Dark Schala]

IIRC: - Gald book - Two-recipes per fight book - In battle recipe: 20+ hits - In battle recipe: > 10 seconds - Post battle recipe (crab something, I think) - Apple gel (to sell them). 50% chance. - 2% chance item And maybe another book, I am not sure.

You're doing just fine, imo, at that point, especially with all of those slots open. The recipes that consume the most eleth are the ones you want to look out for. When you have a chance to make a rice omelette (omelette = Egg + Tomato; rice omelette = rice + omelette), do it as soon as possible because that'll increase your pot's eleth more.

I usually have the book that lets you run around faster equipped out of habit. I don't think it does much though. :lol

[Sagitario]

You're doing just fine, imo, at that point, especially with all of those slots open. The recipes that consume the most eleth are the ones you want to look out for. When you have a chance to make a rice omelette (omelette = Egg + Tomato; rice omelette = rice + omelette), do it as soon as possible because that'll increase your pot's eleth more. I usually have the book that lets you run around faster equipped out of habit. I don't think it does much though. :lol

Thanks. I will.
Books don't contribute to the mixer exp, right?

[cpp_is_king]

Thanks. I will. Books don't contribute to the mixer exp, right?

The JP wiki says they do, but it's provably wrong as far as I'm concerned. If nothing else in terms of how fast the books level up the mixer. The JP wiki says each book activation gives you 100 exp towards the number of slots in the mixer. It also says that going from 7 slots to 8 slots requires 2000 exp. If this were true at most 20 fights where at least 1 book activated would level you from 7 slots to 8 slots, but I did easily over 100.

[scy]

Gotta love the pre-Final Dungeon "run around the world and do EVERYTHING" period. Also it seems like all the voice direction and effort in voices went to this section of the game.

So in stupid person terms, best way to make money involves what specific sequence (including qualities) of initial item quality -> dualize -> extract gem -> dualize -> extract gem -> ... -> sell

Well, I still want to solve the Dualize Value so I can make it into an easy to see formula but you basically can just set your sights on the Resell Inheritance for all the steps in between and then end on a high Resell Multiplier with (almost) no regard to the Resell Inheritance. Once I figure (figure out more?) out how Dualize Value is calculated I'll get back to you. But until then:

Basically, ignore Starting Quality outside of what to Dualize onto it. If you're dualizing to sell instantly (e.g., not dualizing again, just selling at +1), you want to aim for the Quality that gives you the highest number from this:
(Resell Multiplier) * (1 + Resell Inheritance)

If you plan to dualize repeatedly (e.g., sell as anything above +1), you only care about the Resell Inheritance in these middle steps. This means things like Stuffy (x1.0 Resell Multiplier, +140% Resell Inheritance) are actually really, really good for raising value while being terrible for selling initially.

When you plan to sell your >+1 dualized item, you basically just want the highest Resell Multiplier. Resell Inheritance still matters but as you go farther and farther from +1, it matters less and less since it's a cumulative bonus.

Again, I feel dumb after reading this :D

It's just math so don't worry. I just wanted to put it down somewhere since I spent the time working on it. Essentially the big things to come from it:

Base Resell Value = Purchasing Price / 8
Extracted Value = Base Resell Value * (CurrentQualityResellMultiplier) * (1 + EveryQualityResellInheritance)
Dualize Value* = Extracted Value * (1 + .32 + ShardValue * .12)
Tempered Value = Dualize Value * 125%

The Dualize Value feels wrong but it checks out too well ([3] adds 68% of the Extracted Value, [4] adds 80% of the Extracted Value, [5] adds 92% of the Extract Value in the samples I have) but ... it feels awkward to have a flat out unexplained number in there. And, yes, Shard Value is just the bracketed term on the Shard; the actual type of Shard doesn't matter.

*I actually solved this while typing out this post, lol. And just to clarify, the "EveryQualityResellInheritance" does not use the Starting Quality (e.g., Mythril equipment starts as Barbed but it won't count towards the resell value). Basically, the game only keeps track of the Qualities you add to the item.

I haven't bought equipment in a while since I've been dualizing weapons/equipment together. I did the (cameo battle spoiler) Veigue battle at Warrior's Roost when it was first available, so I have the Laevatein, so Asbel doesn't need weapons for a while. Asbel also has 92 titles, and I just need to level up his B-artes somewhat to get more titles, and then we'll easily be on our way to 100. He has almost all of his A-Arte titles (outside of Void Sword Adept/Master, Icedragon Flurry Master, and Demon Fist Master).

I just did that fight in the "Final Dungeon? 8 hours of side quests time!" bit before beating the game (well, still need to beat the game...). I have no idea how to do that fight on Chaos for the Master Challenge but the fight was surprisingly "not bad" on Chaos. Even with the one-shot nature of his Mystic Arte.

Aaaaaaahhhh, I hate when that happens! Especially when I'm fighting on Chaos, feel good that the battle seemed so short, and then THAT is placed in front of me. All of that work for nothing!

I went back on Easy just to make sure there was no 60s title. Almost beat the first boss there in under 10s, lol :x

With regards to dualizing, it's probably better to concentrate on the dualize value than the extract value. The best thing you could do for higher value in general is to dualize and extract repeatedly. The idea is basically to level up your armour so that a) you're not spending money you don't have, and b) to keep levelling it up so you can level up the stamp cards.

Well, yes, the Dualize Value is far, far, far better than the Extract Value (as it should, it's a [ShardValue] * Modifier added on top of the Extract Value), it's just the Extract Value was easier to solve.

[Edgeward]

I dualized two gems and now they are gone from my inventory wtf? Where did they do? I thought they were supposed to give me a better gem but it went and disappeared completely

Can someone help explain what happened?

[Papercuts]

Can someone help explain what happened?

The gem is probably something you equip on the character, not something you find to dualize with a weapon.

[Edgeward]

Yea, but why is it completely gone. =( I understand it should be an accessory instead of a gem but why did it just go away?

[chickdigger802]

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal.


It's like...

AI dies*

Life bottle*

Boar charges, kills AI*

Repeat.

What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

[Papercuts]

Yea, but why is it completely gone. =( I understand it should be an accessory instead of a gem but why did it just go away?

Oh, no idea then. I thought I had stuff vanish but it was put in a different category, so I thought you might have missed it being equippable. Guess not.

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal. It's like... AI dies* Life bottle* Boar charges, kills AI* Repeat. What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

I have Asbel/Pascal/Sophie/Malik right now, I need more titles for Malik because he doesn't have enough to go on right now. If a boss rocks me I usually swap the last slot for Cheria for healing.

[nintendoman58]

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal. It's like... AI dies* Life bottle* Boar charges, kills AI* Repeat. What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

That cycle pretty much applies to almost every single boss in the game.

At least for me it did.

[cpp_is_king]

Yea, but why is it completely gone. =( I understand it should be an accessory instead of a gem but why did it just go away?

Check to make sure it wasn't already equipped on one of your characters. If so, it will remain equipped. I really don't think it just disappeared as that doesn't seem like the type of bug that would happen sometimes and not other types, and that nobody else has ever seen before. I mean I guess it's possible but more often than not it's there and you are just missing it somehow.

Before you would have 2 gems, afterwards you would have 1 gem that is the combination of both.

[cpp_is_king]

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal. It's like... AI dies* Life bottle* Boar charges, kills AI* Repeat. What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

For bosses like that that one-shot people if they get a hit in, change your strategies to Defend Always and Defensive.

[chickdigger802]

Ahahahah saucy Cheria. Your skirt is too short!

Japan.

[Paches-EJ-]

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal. It's like... AI dies* Life bottle* Boar charges, kills AI* Repeat. What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

Yeah, that fight has cool ideas, but the AI is so bad it makes the fight completely terrible.

[Edgeward]

Check to make sure it wasn't already equipped on one of your characters. If so, it will remain equipped. I really don't think it just disappeared as that doesn't seem like the type of bug that would happen sometimes and not other types, and that nobody else has ever seen before. I mean I guess it's possible but more often than not it's there and you are just missing it somehow. Before you would have 2 gems, afterwards you would have 1 gem that is the combination of both.

Nope, I only have charms on all my characters. I had 6, combine 4 to make 2 and am only left with the two low tiered uncombined gems. Meh, I wasted a bit of gald and lost out on gems but I'll just never do that again.

But now I just don't know what I should be doing once an weapon/armor is tempered.

[goldlion054]

Damnnn that boar boss at the snow mountain place was fucking hard! Could barely beat it after bring difficulty down to normal. It's like... AI dies* Life bottle* Boar charges, kills AI* Repeat. What are y'alls go to party setup, and strategies?

Hands down in the top 2 most difficult fights in the main game. Took me a while, but I did like most people in this thread and went into a defensive shell while I slowly chipped away at him and his cronies!

[chickdigger802]

Is it even possible to setup strategy 'sets' like in previous games?

[dakkumauji]

Finally gotten around to buying the school outfits, and wtf, that's such awesome BGM for battles.

So, I know the Tales cameo costumes have BGM with them too. If you have multiple characters in the costumes is the BGM randomly selected then?

[Sagitario]

[chapter 4]
Duramar done!
I am starting to hate the way Sophie talks: "Richard... [LONG PAUSE] is our... [LONG PAUSE]... friend" (besides she being dumb outside of skits or battle victory scenes, were she is kind of cute). I will blame this to the lip-syncing of the original voice work which did not transfer well to English in this particular case (maybe it sounds more natural in Japanese) :P... on a positive side, they nailed the lip-syncing in the skits, I was surprised by this. Good job, 8-4 :)

I am getting used to Chaos difficulty. 4~5 hits can kill you in seconds (Sophie and Cheria in 100% healing mode, though), but doing double damage because of enemies weakness makes you feel really powerful and awesome!
I can say the battle system has clicked me almost [ALMOST] completely.

Just a few questions:
Is it normal that the combo chain breaks when going from a 3CC [or 4CC] A-arte to a B one?
I think I need help during the A-arte -> B-arte (and vice versa) transition.
When Asbel draw his sword, the "hidden power" [game term, IIRC, it makes the enemy dizzy sometimes] breaks the combo and the delay between the drawing sword action and the B-arte execution feels long. Almost the same could be say about sheathing: the delay or pause feels big when sheathing and performing attacks.
Maybe I am doing something wrong with the timing. It's one of the two* things that don't feel 100% right but can't exactly be sure if that's the problem. Any tips or explanations or insights? It would be greatly appreciated it :D

*The second would be: side-stepping. How can you side-step in the middle of a combo without pressing the square button? The game says "slightly press the stick", but I can't get it right, I've done it a couple of times by accident and it's always in the opposite direction of the stick.

If I could fix/master these 2 issues, it would be wonderful! :)

___________________________________________________________________________

Eleth Mixer is at 1318 :D
What materials do you guys use to upgrade the number of spots available?
I don't know if the number is upgraded because of the Eleth used when creating an item or the number of times (or frequency) that items are created.

[kayos90]

Finally gotten around to buying the school outfits, and wtf, that's such awesome BGM for battles. So, I know the Tales cameo costumes have BGM with them too. If you have multiple characters in the costumes is the BGM randomly selected then?

No. It's the character you're controlling.

[dakkumauji]

No. It's the character you're controlling.

Boo. Would have been nice if that happen. Would make the grind more enjoyable than hearing the same battle theme over and over.

[Papercuts]

Is it even possible to setup strategy 'sets' like in previous games?

Nope.

[scy]

Is it normal that the combo chain breaks when going from a 3CC [or 4CC] A-arte to a B one?

Depends. Is it on a boss or some other bigger enemy? I've had combos drop between two hits in the same attack. Normally though, they should chain freely, there's just some enemies that seem to occasionally no flinch and your combo drops despite the hits connecting.

That or I also need to figure that shit out :x I drop a lot of combos occasionally that make no sense to me why it happens since I clearly have attacks landing. I usually just chalked it up to bosses being bosses since they'd be jokes otherwise.

I think I need help during the A-arte -> B-arte (and vice versa) transition. When Asbel draw his sword, the "hidden power" [game term, IIRC, it makes the enemy dizzy sometimes] breaks the combo and the delay between the drawing sword action and the B-arte execution feels long. Almost the same could be say about sheathing: the delay or pause feels big when sheathing and performing attacks. Maybe I am doing something wrong with the timing. It's one of the two* things that don't feel 100% right but can't exactly be sure if that's the problem. Any tips or explanations or insights? It would be greatly appreciated it :D

Well, Asbel should be attack-sheathing and not stopping to sheath as far as B-Arte -> A-Arte is concerned; just to note, this attack does have a dragged out animation but it should still combo fine. I have no problems chaining A-Artes to B-Artes since there's the swing right there to keep things going. What B-Arte are you trying to use? If it has a delay on the attack itself then that'll definitely cause problems.

Besides that, you can quick-step forward when attacking to increase hit stun I guess. The other major thing is longer combos in Chaos will mean waiting for opportunities to attack. Generally, I try to wait for my AI to burn some of their CC so they're recharging while I'm comboing.

Also, if you dizzy/stun an enemy, your combo remains even if you don't immediately attack. It should be there until they undizzy, actually.

*The second would be: side-stepping. How can you side-step in the middle of a combo without pressing the square button? The game says "slightly press the stick", but I can't get it right, I've done it a couple of times by accident and it's always in the opposite direction of the stick.

It's tilting the stick in the direction you want to go. It's also useless, personally. Just use Square+Direction. They work the exact same way and there is no benefit to just tilting.

Eleth Mixer is at 1318 :D What materials do you guys use to upgrade the number of spots available? I don't know if the number is upgraded because of the Eleth used when creating an item or the number of times (or frequency) that items are created.

The EXP earned is based on the Eleth used when creating items. Generally, I have three items:
1) Low probability (currently Darkened Ore); things at sub-10% chance.
2) Slightly higher probability. Typically high value/important materials like the Metals. Should be 10-20% chance.
3) Something stupidly common so I get a creation every cycle to at least get some EXP out of it.

Basically, I do (Eleth Cost * Chance of Creation) to figure out what I want. If I recall, Arcane and Drop Bottles have a pretty high cost for their creation chance (5% for 240 Energy, I believe?).

Edit: To example, my current setup is Darkened Ore ("Very low proability"), Lump of Clay (~20%), and then Poison Needle (51%). With the Book of Fortune (late game Book, doubles chance of item creation), this is basically 1-2% chance, ~40% chance, and 100% chance. The low-tier materials all have around a 44-60% chance of creation and cost ~20-ish to produce so they're pretty good for that kind of use.

[cpp_is_king]

Eleth Mixer is at 1318 :D What materials do you guys use to upgrade the number of spots available? I don't know if the number is upgraded because of the Eleth used when creating an item or the number of times (or frequency) that items are created.

It helps a lot once you get the Book of Fortune and Book of Duplication (I think those are the two). One doubles your chance of success from producing an item, and one produces 2 items each time instead of 1. Total this consumes 6x as much Eleth as it states on the item description, so make sure to choose your items according to that. Personally I try to fit the most expensive items I can such that I still have 6x the required Eleth as my total capacity, this way it just takes 1 proc to consume my entire Eleth and give me a ton of mixer exp

[goldlion054]

I beat the F chapter of the game today, thus ending my Tales of Graces playthrough. As much as I loved the main game, I really disliked the Lineages part. It all felt like a chore and there was nothing enjoyable about the last dungeon or the damn forest on Fodra . The only thing that kept me going was the skit potential and my refusal to not complete the game. And the last boss was the most broken thing I have ever fought against. The mystic artes she was using were blowing me the fuck up. dropping my entire parties HP down to single digits and then spamming her lightning moves was pretty dirty Namco. Then she gets and even better mystic arte when you have her down to the last 50,000 hp? and you can't combo her to save your life? SO DUMB

Overall, I really enjoyed the game and it ranks among my favorite in the series. Just got a little trying when every cut scene was Asbel wailing about friendship this and friendship that. Also, Hubert and Pascal forever. I melted when she called him "Hu" at the end of the lineage campaign.

[Nakiro]

All this talk about item creating makes the game sound slightly overwhelming.

[dakkumauji]

Chaos mode drives me crazy sometimes. Love it for making the battles last longer and allow me spam my artes more for those crazy titles, but god do I hate it when one battle where everything goes wrong and everyone dies and I get to load back up from my last who knows when save spot. :[

So for those food related titles, for some of them would it just be better to force feed them the food instead of hoping I waste 60 seconds in a battle or I find the one enemy that seals me?

[Papercuts]

I'm pretty much automatically just bumping down the difficulty every time I get to a boss. For one simple oversight it's a huge pain in the ass to keep changing strategies and it's heartbreaking to see the multiple retarded AI get hit by a mystic arte. I'm loving the game otherwise.

[DIrtyWeasel]

I'm pretty much automatically just bumping down the difficulty every time I get to a boss. For one simple oversight it's a huge pain in the ass to keep changing strategies and it's heartbreaking to see the multiple retarded AI get hit by a mystic arte. I'm loving the game otherwise.

Yeah, it's odd how much more difficult the boss battles are compared to the cakewalk regular battles.

[Neki]

I'm getting real good at Pascal. dat fearful storm + sylph spam spells. only thing that sucks is I need 10 CC to break Nova's. D: Hubert's Mystic Arte Level 3 is pretty funny to watch.

[Dark Schala]

Fucking (Chapter 7 dungeon spoiler) Bathus Citadel! I hated this place when I did it the first time in the JP version, and I hated it the second time I did it (ie: a few hours ago). I'd only done that dungeon once before, and that was waaaay back in 2010, and I didn't remember how to do things, so I ended up running back and forth between rooms until I'd realized that I'd made a mistake or didn't push something far enough. I was supposed to go there on my second JP playthrough and then the English version came out, and was a little relieved that I didn't have to go back to that dungeon right away and just started an English playthrough instead. :lol

I think I dislike that place more than I do Wallbridge (where my only annoyance with that place is that I constantly get lost there; like... the 2 times I had to explore there during all three of my playthroughs).

Asbel got the 100 titles trophy, which was nice. Cheria's 2 titles away from her 100. I just need to make everyone else catch up now (Hubert might be the next one to get his unless Pascal gets hers first). Cheria's are easy to get because her Artes don't take many uses to get the Adept and Master titles.

The reason for this is that Asbel and Cheria are generally my mainstays in my party. Cheria's almost essential on Chaos, and Asbel's a generally all-around good fighter and the character I'm the most used to next to Cheria and Hubert... so they get most of their titles before anyone else. I usually use Hubert and Pascal the most out of the remaining party members, so they're probably going to come next in terms of getting more titles (though this time I've decided to give Malik better opportunities to use artes and get more titles). Sophie is a character I mostly reserve for bosses for double the healing (and she's quicker at it, which makes her incredibly useful for bosses on Chaos Mode).

Cheria's probably the second character whom I'm used to using manually. She's quite the powerhouse.

Sidequestin' in Chapter 8 now since I just finished the dungeon before. This should be fun. I remember scouring wikis for help for all of the sidequests and inn requests since I didn't really know what to do at all. And unlocking Zone Cage? I must've tried for a few weeks to open up the last few floors until I realized that you had to dualize stuff to get there... and then I didn't know what to dualize at all since I hadn't been dualizing transformed weapons much (and just building up armour over and over). :lol

So for those food related titles, for some of them would it just be better to force feed them the food instead of hoping I waste 60 seconds in a battle or I find the one enemy that seals me?

If it has to do with foods that require a status being inflicted upon you, I'd probably eat it manually (though bear in mind that you need 10 of the food to count towards the title).

I don't really have an issue with the 60 seconds foods because I usually use those ones whenever I'm trying to force someone like Cheria to get a title for using support/healing magic (ie: I'm controlling her and using the spell over and over in conjunction with the book that makes your artes use count as 2 instead of 1).

I just did that fight in the "Final Dungeon? 8 hours of side quests time!" bit before beating the game (well, still need to beat the game...). I have no idea how to do that fight on Chaos for the Master Challenge but the fight was surprisingly "not bad" on Chaos. Even with the one-shot nature of his Mystic Arte.

Earlier on, it's much much harder because he's quicker than you and you don't have many artes. Because the cameo boss is Veigue, you know he's naturally weak against fire, so since I had Infernal Torrent already and included Malik in the party with a bunch of mid-tier fire spells, it was an interesting time. Since I wasn't far in the game and it isn't really recommended that you try it the first time you get to Warrior's Roost, I ended up wasting a bunch of Life Bottles (no, Schala, those are...) Syrup Bottles. But in the end, it's worth it for the sword since you don't have to buy weapons for Asbel for a long time.

[Neki]

where do I find the book to get 2x per artes

[Dark Schala]

where do I find the book to get 2x per artes

Complete Turtlez Stamp Card Level 9 for the Book of Striking (so make sure the stamp card says "10" before looking for it in the Turtlez's inventory)... which costs a lot of that dualization money.

Level 1 - spend 600
Level 2 - spend 1200
Level 3 - spend 2400
Level 4 - spend 4800
Level 5 - spend 9600
Level 6 - spend 19200
Level 7 - spend 38400
Level 8 - spend 76800
Level 9 - spend 153600
Level 10 - spend 614400 to complete
So you need a total of 9 210 000 gald to complete every level. Subtract 614 400 from the 9 million+ to get a better estimate (8 595 600) of what you need to get the book. So I usually fill the Arles Pot up at the Turtlez or buy things from them first and foremost because I want that book more than anything else.

The rest of the towns' stamp cards costs are in the Google Doc I had kayos link in the OP.

[Gattsu25]

I'm not even sure why I am interested in this game, I hated Tales of Symphonia.

Anyway, I might pick this one up next week.

[Papercuts]

Complete Turtlez Stamp Card Level 9 for the Book of Striking (so make sure the stamp card says "10" before looking for it in the Turtlez's inventory)... which costs a lot of that dualization money. Level 1 - spend 600 Level 2 - spend 1200 Level 3 - spend 2400 Level 4 - spend 4800 Level 5 - spend 9600 Level 6 - spend 19200 Level 7 - spend 38400 Level 8 - spend 76800 Level 9 - spend 153600 Level 10 - spend 614400 to complete So you need a total of 9 210 000 gald to complete every level. Subtract 614 400 from the 9 million+ to get a better estimate (8 595 600) of what you need to get the book. So I usually fill the Arles Pot up at the Turtlez or buy things from them first and foremost because I want that book more than anything else. The rest of the towns' stamp cards costs are in the Google Doc I had kayos link in the OP.

Jeez. I feel like I'm always poor here. Is it better to just keep dualizing old weapons instead of buying new ones? That's my main money drainer.

[Neki]

Complete Turtlez Stamp Card Level 9 for the Book of Striking (so make sure the stamp card says "10" before looking for it in the Turtlez's inventory)... which costs a lot of that dualization money. Level 1 - spend 600 Level 2 - spend 1200 Level 3 - spend 2400 Level 4 - spend 4800 Level 5 - spend 9600 Level 6 - spend 19200 Level 7 - spend 38400 Level 8 - spend 76800 Level 9 - spend 153600 Level 10 - spend 614400 to complete So you need a total of 9 210 000 gald to complete every level. Subtract 614 400 from the 9 million+ to get a better estimate (8 595 600) of what you need to get the book. So I usually fill the Arles Pot up at the Turtlez or buy things from them first and foremost because I want that book more than anything else. The rest of the towns' stamp cards costs are in the Google Doc I had kayos link in the OP.

bleh I spend all my money on the shuttle, damn. my turtles is only like 7. :(

[Dark Schala]

Jeez. I feel like I'm always poor here. Is it better to just keep dualizing old weapons instead of buying new ones? That's my main money drainer.

I usually dualize stuff to a high value and sell them off to vendors too. For example, when I'm trying to increase artes usage for certain characters, I go to locations where monsters are weaker and equip weaker armour/weapons to dualize them repeatedly to sell them; that way, it kind of feels like I'm killing a few birds with one stone (ie: trying to get titles, trying to level up the Eleth Pot with Rice Omelettes/Miso Oden/Crab Fried Rice, and synthesizing armour).

I usually dualize older weapons rather than buy new ones when I feel like pinching pennies, so it seems like the best possible solution when trying to conserve money. A lot of the time from what I can tell, the dualized weapons/armours are generally more powered-up than the weapons in the next town if you consistently dualize them.

[Negator]

sell a weapon worth 200000+ Gald

How do I do this

[Dedication Through Light]

I'm pretty much automatically just bumping down the difficulty every time I get to a boss. For one simple oversight it's a huge pain in the ass to keep changing strategies and it's heartbreaking to see the multiple retarded AI get hit by a mystic arte. I'm loving the game otherwise.

I try at least five to ten times to do bosses on hard before bumping down, think I will try evil, I think, but I guess perhaps I might try to do that through all the way on a second playthrough.

[scy]

...so I ended up running back and forth between rooms until I'd realized that I'd made a mistake or didn't push something far enough.

Haha ... this. This a lot. "I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE TO GO" for about 30 minutes until I realized I could push something in one more time.

Earlier on, it's much much harder because he's quicker than you and you don't have many artes. Because the cameo boss is Veigue, you know he's naturally weak against fire, so since I had Infernal Torrent already and included Malik in the party with a bunch of mid-tier fire spells, it was an interesting time. Since I wasn't far in the game and it isn't really recommended that you try it the first time you get to Warrior's Roost, I ended up wasting a bunch of Life Bottles. But in the end, it's worth it for the sword since you don't have to buy weapons for Asbel for a long time.

...

You can take items? Could've sworn the fight was with just the Grape Gels, Syrup Bottles, and Hourglass provided. This fight was frustrating since 500k HP on someone who just won't actually get combo'd. But, outside of the Mystic Arte, it was pretty much just a long fight.

Jeez. I feel like I'm always poor here. Is it better to just keep dualizing old weapons instead of buying new ones? That's my main money drainer.

How do I do this

Dualize stuff to sell, basically. I'm grinding the rest of the Stamps by buying 12 Rare Tunics -> Dualizing them to +3 or +4 -> Repeat. Each Tunic sells for around ~150k and it takes about 20 fights to dualize all 12 of them. I really should do weapons too.

Generally speaking, I do the following:
Wicked (Base Quality) + Rigid Shard -> Rigid Quality
Rigid + Rigid or Grand Shard -> Solemn Quality
Solemn + Barbed or Stuffy Shard -> Haughty Quality*
Haughty + Haughty Shard -> Poignant (OR + Sketchy Shard -> Perilous)

*If I don't have the next tier up, I'll use Wicked or Frosty Shards on the Solemn Quality to end up with Magical and I'll sell that since it has the best resell of the 7-letter Qualities. Magical + Gallant Shard -> Poignant works too I just never have the Gallant shards so I use Haughty typically.

For the demonstration, I'll use a [4] Shard since that's pretty common. As listed above, that gives you a +4 Weapon with a final value of:
= (Purchasing Price / 8) * (CurrentQualityResellMultiplier) * (1 + AllResellMultipliers) * (1.32 + ShardValue * .12)

Ending as Poignant:
= (27410 / 8) * (4.0) * (1 + .95 + 1.0 + 1.5 + 1.5) * (1.32 + 4 * .12)
= 3426.25 * 4.0 * (5.95) * (1.8)
= 146,781 Gald, * 125% for the Tempered Value so final resell is 183,476 Gald.

Ending as Perilous:
= (27410 / 8) * (3.0) * (1 + .95 + 1.0 + 1.5 + 2.0) * (1.32 + 4 * .12)
= 3426.25 * 3.0 * (6.45) * (1.8)
= 119,336 Gald, * 125% for the Tempered Value so final resell is 149,170 Gald.

Might be off by +/- 1 or 2 due to rounding.

Though, generally speaking, I don't follow it this strictly (since I don't have infinite counts on the shards involved) but I just remember the better valued Qualities to go through:
5-letter Qualities: Rigid (+95%) > Olden (+90%) > Sunny/Suave (+85%) > Noble (+70%) > Grand (+60%)
6-letter Qualities: Stuffy (+140%) > Solemn/Formal (+100%) > Barbed/Wicked/Frosty (+90%)
7-letter Qualities: Magical (+160%) > Haughty (+150%) > Untamed (+130%) > Gallant (+90%) > Sketchy (+30%) > Epochal (+10%)

And then I try to sell as an 8-letter Quality so the most important thing is the Resell Multiplier, not necessarily the Resell Inheritance. The Inheritance still matters, yes, but not that big of a deal so Dazzling wins out in the long run. Really, if I can't get Dazzling, Poignant, or Fabulous, I'll just stay as Magical or Haughty or something else:
8-letter Qualities: Dazzling (x5.0) > Poignant/Fabulous (x4.0) > Gracious (x3.5) > Perilous/Vigorous (x3.0).

[chickdigger802]

So much numbers and stuff o_O.

When did any of this stuff ever matter in tales games? Do you eventually reach a point in which stats give you a noticeable performance boost?

The only time you actually get noticeably stronger in symphonia team games is multiple playthrough devil arms... how about here?

[ActStriker]

I'm not even sure why I am interested in this game, I hated Tales of Symphonia. Anyway, I might pick this one up next week.

Why did you hate Symphonia?

Story and characters? well, its Tales...
Battle system? Graces f's battle system smokes Symphonia's

[scy]

So much numbers and stuff o_O. When did any of this stuff ever matter in tales games? Do you eventually reach a point in which stats give you a noticeable performance boost?

Well, that's for calculating item value for making money. Nothing to do with stats. But, you probably won't notice a big difference in your stats from just a few dualizations (barring Cheria's low stats on her weapons). They do make a difference in the long run, though. And getting better Tempering Bonuses is pretty noticeable; +2% instead of +10% Damage Dealt sort of things tend to make a difference. But realistically speaking, "playing better" accounts for like 99% of the combat system anyway.

And I only did the numbers because I was curious in figuring out the numbers.