Hello! I recently started playing this again and wanted to go through with a specific team (never got too far in my previous run before I lost the game in a crash, but meh), but I wasn't really sure how to build the characters for it, as I noticed I'm kinda lacking in some aspects with it, namely buffs and healing, and wanted to ask for opinions before I got too far with it. I haven't decided whether to try using the team on a New Game+ or just do a normal playthrough and unlock everyone normally (though I might end up doing the latter, then the former, rather then one or the other), by the way.
Marisa
Remilia
Sakuya
Patchouli
Meiling
Youmu
Eirin
Rin
Flandre
Yuyuko
Rinnosuke
Utsuho
Now, I read through some of the previous threads to get a decent idea of what I should be aiming for, but the lack of buffs and healing makes me uncertain about what holds true for a team like this or not. As Eirin and Meiling are literally the only characters here that are capable of healing, I'm a little unsure about my ability to weather attacks, and Rinnosuke is the only character capable of buffing the team's defense (though Remilia can buff her own defenses, of course). I think Eirin can help mitigate this with her debuffs, but they're only -18%, have high delay, inefficient for damage, and prevent her from healing, too.
On the side of buffs, Sakuya can use Lunar Clock to buff everyone's speed and Rinnosuke has World-Shaking Military Rule, but the former, as I understand, lacks usefulness later in the game due to how speed is handled, and the latter is of course one-time use, and a one-time use spell is kinda unhelpful for defensive play. The severe lack of buffs is making me consider using Remilia as my primary tank and Meiling/Eirin to heal her, but I'm concerned I'm wasting Remilia's potential here.
Now, I'm a little concerned about damage due to the lack of offensive buffs, but I gave that side of things some thought, and I THINK it's not that bad. I don't know how much damage a tanky Remilia can dish out, but if she turns out bulky enough to survive well with an attack oriented build, then it should be fine. Rin can debuff defense, so I figure my physical side of things is covered, and World-Shaking Military Rule should be able to make a significant difference in my offense, I think.
Outside of that, I'm also lacking in status effects and I don't have much in the way of debuffs (and of useful ones, Rin is probably the only one in the group, though at least she can poison too, even if that isn't helpful postgame), though I'm not sure if it's worth worrying about. Certainly, if I play the whole game with this team, it might cause issues, but I'm not too worried about it.
So, with that, I do have a couple of questions. I have a strong feeling that, due to the lack of buffs available to this team, strategic usage of World-Shaking Military Rule is going to be very important to deciding fights, whether it be damage racing from the beginning or pushing forward in the last bit, where my damage might otherwise not be enough (I imagine a fully powered Master Spark paired with a 100% buff is going to be pretty), but I can't figure out an efficient way to use it defensively too. Are my concerns about defensive play overblown? I think this is a pretty offensive oriented team outside of the bulky attackers (and Meiling/maybe Eirin), but I don't know whether Remilia and Meiling will be enough, especially considering Meiling will likely not be buffed (I might have to use Colorful Rain a lot with her), or if Meiling will even be necessary in the first place. If an offensive Remilia is tanky enough, I was considering making a full blown offense team with Meiling as a backup tank, then adjusting each character accordingly. Eirin should be enough to heal Remilia occasionally, and she might even be able to dish out decent damage, if not impressive amounts.
In addition to those questions, I have some more character specific ones.
Is Marisa with an emphasis on SP recovery% gear a good way to build her? I was thinking she could be brought in more frequently to use Master Spark, which would probably deal less damage than a build that optimizes her Magic stat, but my hope is that the increased usage will make up for that, though I put Marisa at more risk doing this if I use it improperly.
How do I optimize Eirin's Hourai Elixir usage? I've read it's great for Komachi (but also read that it isn't enough by itself), but I've also read that focusing on Eirin's defense and mind is preferable to her HP, which gives off a conflicting message here (Komachi's huge amount of HP means a percentage based heal is pretty significant if other heals fail to heal that much, but boosting Eirin's defenses means that she takes less damage and the percentage becomes more lenient, since it can be outclassed by more potent, non-fixed healers). I imagine that I can't generalize all of the characters I would target it with, since everyone's defensive stats are rather balanced besides Sakuya's, who is the closest to Komachi stat-wise (lowest defenses of my team for a character that I would probably have a tank, given that buffing her with World-Shaking Military Rule would be kinda wasteful due to Killing Doll's formula in comparison to my other heavy hitters). In practice, I'm just not sure which way would be best to go.
Rinnosuke, outside of Remilia and Meiling, as far as I can tell, may be my most important character, due to World-Shaking Military Rule being my only significant team buff. While I know he's going to be important, I still can't decide on how to build him. I see him as a character that can be an effective offensive member and defensive member, but only one of the two, and they both have different uses. For early use in a fight, I imagine the latter will be more important, since Rinnosuke is going to be staying for a while and he might be more useful as a switcher, but if I'm damage racing a boss, I don't know if I want to waste Rinnosuke's buffs at the end of a fight with tank-oriented stats. I think it would be more efficient to use an offensive build, but I don't know if I actually need the extra offense, really. In the end, I don't know if defensive play is even viable with this team though, so I could just be overthinking things here.
Anyway...that certainly ended up being a lot more long-winded than I intended. Any feedback would be much appreciated~
