Basic Tactics

Basic Stats

Stat Description
HP When HP reaches zero, the unit is KO’d. HP * Skill/100 determines end-of-turn spell damage or healing. Attack * sqrt(HP) determines physical damage
(A)ttack Attack * sqrt(HP) is the main source of damage.
(D)efense Your opponent’s damage is divided by the defense of a unit.
(S)peed Speed determines turn order (with a bit of randomness), critical hit chance, and critical hit defense.
(M)orale Morale creates force whenever the unit deals damage. Force can be spent to use special skills from your commanders
Land Wall Builder, Wall Breaker, Palaces, and Forts create a Wall value. sqrt(Land) is added to your defense
Wall Some skills create a “Barrier” around your units, confusingly called a Wall in the code and in some places. A Wall will absorb damage before it affects your unit’s HP.

Skills

While stats like Attack and Defense are important for damage calculations, the core strategy of this game is focused on skill composition. If a unit achieves the same skill from multiple sources ( such as innate + prefix title + equipment), the skills are all added together. However, skills are subject to secret, hidden, and undocumented caps. I’ll list the skill caps where I know of them.

Skills are roughly grouped as follows.

  1. Physical Damage – High attack, Helmet Split, Dimension Slash, Added Attack, Cross Attack, All attack, Critical Boost, Lethal Critical
  2. Physical Defense – High Defense, Defense Only, Defense Tactics, Forward Guard, Hardy Physique
  3. Spell Damage – X Blast, X Field
  4. Spell Defense – Spell Wall, Spell Reflect,
  5. Healing – Group Heal. Target Heal. Equitable Heal. Self Heal. Recovery.
  6. Boost and Sap
  7. Treasure Hunt

Skills for Physical Damage Builds

Skill Description
Helmet Split Reduces enemy defense by the Helmet Split value. Caps out at 75%. An enemy with 100 defense will have only 25 defense effectively with a Helmet Split:75 skill.
Dimension Slash Range Attack, Parry, and 75% defense cut. Stacks with Helmet Split. An enemy with 100 defense will only have 6 defense after Helmet Split:75 and Dimension Slash:25. The Dimension Slash:25 only applies to +25 Parry value
Added Attack Increases number of attacks. Doesn’t seem to have any cap
Nocturnal Increases all stats by Value% during the night, decreases all stats by Value% during the day. Nocturnal:50 for example will make a base 50 Attack unit have 75 Attack at night, but only 25 Attack during the day.
Sun Worship Similar to Nocturnal, but adds stats during the day, and subtracts them at night
Pierce Attack Attacks the 2nd unit in a row.
Wide Attack Attacks the 2nd and 3rd units in a column for 50% damage.
Cross Attack Pierce attack and Wide attack simultaneously.
All Attack Attacks all enemies for 50% damage
Critical Boost Increases the chance of critical hits by value. All attacks have a minimum of 5 Critical, subject to speed, enemy’s speed. Critical Boost:20 will add 20% chance to critical hits. Without Critical Boost, the speed-only critical rate caps at 50%. With Critical Boost, speed + Critical Boost can reach up to 75% chance. Critical Hits ignore “Parry”
Lethal Critical Critical Hits normally deal 150% total damage. Lethal Critical multiplies with that by a percent. For example, Lethal Critical:20 increases Critical Hit to 180% damage. Lethal Critical also drops the enemy’s defense by 25%. For example an enemy with 100 Defense will only have 75 Defense on a critical hit from Lethal Critical units
Range Attack Although not an offensive skill, Range Attack prevents counter-attacks. Since sqrt(HP) is multiplied with attack power, it is very important to keep attackers healthy in this game. Range Attack can go a long way in keeping your attackers healthy

Skills for Physical Defense Builds

Skill Description
Defense Only Your unit doesn’t attack, but only takes 50% damage
Defense Tactics Guards units below this unit’s order. For example, if a unit is placed in slot 2, the Defense Tactics unit will take hits for units from slot 3, 4, 5, and 6. Increases the stats of all units by value. For example, Defense Tactics:18 increases all party member’s defense by 18. The guard ability is negated by Flank attack and Range attack.
Forward Guard Despite Flank attack or Range attack, guard units one above the unit’s order. For example, if a unit is placed in slot 2, Forward Guard will take hits for the unit in slot 1. If placed in slot 1, the Forward Guard defends the unit in slot6.
Slayer Defense Ignore “Slays” damage from enemies. Each “Slay” is normally +100% damage, so this can grossly reduce the damage taken in corner cases
Hardy Physique Take up to 90% less damage, and 90% less healing
Evade % chance to negate Range Attacks. Very annoying on enemies, but only okay for the player
Parry % chance to negate any attack. Fully negated by critical hits. Partially negated by Dimension Slash
Recovery When this unit dies, it comes back to life at %HP. Recovery:50 comes back at 50% HP
Resist Ailments Prevent the effects of Poison, Curse, and other conditions. Note that the
 
type (ex: Seraph unit) automatically includes Resist Ailments
Dragon Scales If your opponent deals less than % of your counter damage, all damage is negated. For example, if you have Dragon Scales:50 and deal 300 counter-attack damage, your opponent must deal at least 150 damage before they have a chance to hurt your character. Dragon Scales is negated by Dimension Slash and Range Attack
Counter Amp Deal +100% damage per level in counter attack damage. For example, if you normally would deal 100 counter damage, Counter Amp:3 would allow the unit to deal 400 damage instead
Pierce Null Negates enemy Pierce attacks
Wide Null Negate enemy Wide attacks
Cross Null Provides both Pierce Null and Wide Null in one convenient package
All Null Negates enemy All attacks

You will want to stack Defense Only, Hardy Physique:90, Forward Guard, and Defense Tactics all on the same unit. Slayer Defense, Evade, and Parry are nice to have. Counter amp and Dragon Scales are extremely good on normal and low-difficulties, but enemies outgrow that strategy in Hard and higher difficulties.

Skills for Spell Damage and Spell Defense Builds

Fire Blast attacks one enemy at the end of turn, while Fire Field attacks all enemies at end of turn. However, enemies with the fire typing are immune to Fire Blast and Fire Field. No unit is immune to Light Blast, Light Field, Dark Blast, or Dark Field.

However, the skills Spell Barrier, Spell Wall, Spell Absorb, and Spell Reflect can negate spell damage builds.

Healing

  1. Demon Medic only heals Demon or Undead types.
  2. Group Heal heals all non-Undead allies.
  3. Equitable Heal heals all allies, regardless of typing.

Boost and Sap

Boost skills typical increase the stats of a type of ally. For example, all Beastmen   get 5 additional stats from Boost Beast:5. Boost Squad:10 will add stats to all allies, regardless of typing.

Sap is similar to boost, except it subtracts from enemies instead. Sap Beast: 5 reduces the stats of all beast-type enemies by 5. Sap Squad reduces stats regardless of typing.

All “Tactics” skills, such as Attack Tactics, Defense Tactics, Speed Tactics, will increase their respective stat by their value for all allies. For example, Speed Tactics:10 increases all allies speed by 10.

Treasure Hunt

You will run out of medallions in your first playthrough. It is important to have a fair number of “Treasure Hunt” units increasing your chance of good loot. Equipment can have very good skills associated with them, and Medallions are always welcome drops.

Treasure Hunt stacks will all units that are alive at the end of a battle. Bounty Hunter increases the chance of finding a specific level ore. Once you find 10 of any ore, you can sell them to gain one buy for an equipment of that level. For example, Gold Ore is the Level5 ore, associated with Bounty Hunter:5. After getting 10x Gold Ore, you gain the ability to buy a single Level5 equipment, such as the Ranged Weapon Ace Bow (Added Attack:1 and Speed Tactics:4).