Guide to Battle Strategy


I started to think about this since someone tried to give me a max stat pet and then Lost Grove equipment after I rejected the pet. My basic answer was to give it to someone who really needs it. At the time I am starting to write this, my two main battle teams are level 65+, they only have like two or three pieces of Lost Grove gear, they only have rank 1 abilities, and they are still made up of my starter and some of the initial pets that I caught when I first joined Sylestia. And they have the ability to thrive in battle against the Named in the Winter Fest Zone without me having to give them much potions (which are now piling up in my inventory), and I managed to rank on a couple of leaderboards with them (7th place for Draeyl, 11th for Luffox, and 9th for Sylvorpa). It got me thinking about why I don't really need a max stat pet.

Battle strategy may be the reason. Most RPG's have at least some kind of basic battle strategy system to them, and if you understand how they work and how to use them, it can help a lot with actual battling. Some battles will still be difficult, but it helps with getting through them.

(I ended up starting to write this during the Winter Fest, abandoned it, and then started to write it again after people started to press about max stat pets again. So this is kinda turning into a "how to conquer without max stat pets" kind of thing.)



Glossary
Basic Terms

I. Get to Know Your Pet's Stats, Equipment, and Abilities
1. Stats
2. Stat Ratios
3. Non-Element Abilities
4. Element Abilities
5. Things to Keep in Mind When Building Pets and Teams


II. General Battle Advice / The Basics
1. Be Flexible. The Same Strategy Doesn't Always Work.
2. Pay Attention to Buffs / Debuffs and the Battle Text Box When Something Out of the Ordinary is Going On
3. Just Because You Can Use an Ability Doesn't Mean You Always Should Use It
4. Which Enemy to Go After First
5. Know Your Pets' Attack Type Strengths and Weaknesses
6. Mind Your Pets' and Enemies' Levels
7. Use Mend / Potions When You Have to But Don't Over-rely on Them
8. When to Give Up the Battle as a Loss
9. Keep Two Main Battle Parties
10. Do Not Use Your Mission Pets for Battle
11. You Can Always Change Your Mind Before You Hit the "End Turn" Button
12. The Further You Get, The More Complex Strategies Get
13. The Timing of Buffs / Debuffs and Other Things


III. More Advanced Strategy
1. Manage Your Party Smarter Than Your Pets (Avoid Idle Pets and Wasted Mana)
2. Make Use of and Watch Out for Buffs / Debuffs
3. Chaining Attacks


IV. Special Area / Situation Strategies
1. Catching Wilds
2. Festival Zones
3. Arena
4. Maintance Time
5. Raid Events
6. Dungeons


V. Enemy Glossary




Basic Terms

If you are not familiar with RPGs at all.

HP - Usually stands for hit points or health points. On here, it is simply called health.

MP - Usually stands for mana points. On here, it is simply called mana.

Skills - Same thing as abilities.

Stats - Common name for a character's battle attributes. Short for statistics, I think. Health, mana, dexterity, agility, intelligence, and strength are used on here.

Buff - A positive status affect to the user / the one who has the status affect. This could be something like an increase in stats or HP going up over time.

Debuff - A negative status affect to the user / the one who has the status affect. This could be something like a decrease in stats or HP going down over time.

Classes - Categories based on abilities, stats, and other things. On here, they are the pets' elements.

Attacker - A pet that is meant to do a lot of damage. There are bunch of other terms for this that denote specific types of attackers (like a black mage or warrior), but attacker seems to fit the most with the game.

Mage - A class that focuses on magic. Here, any element / enemy that does magic attacks.

Warrior - A class that focuses on physical attacks. Here, any element / enemy that does physical attacks.

Healer - A pet that is meant to restore HP to the pets in the party.

Tank - A pet that is meant to absorb a lot of damage and withstand enemy attacks. Meat shield is another term for this, and the name basically describes the function of a tank. A fleshy, living shield that protects the others in the party.

Gear - What you put on your pet to raise its stats. Equipment is also another term for it.

I. Get to Know Your Pet's Stats, Equipment, and Abilities

I'm not going to tell you how to make a team. There are already other guides for that, and a lot of it depends on personal preferences, too. There are several different kinds of workable teams to boot, too.

But getting to know your pet's stats, how to gear them, and what abilities do beyond attack, defense, and healing helps with strategy. This may seem a bit lengthy, but it does have to do with what I'll get into later.



1. Stats

Stats and what they do are a little bit different on Sylestia than in most RPG's out there (such as there is no seperate defense stat, instead defense is composed of strength / intelligence and agility stats). Also, while there is no stat cap for the basic stats, there is a stat cap for the stats that are derived from the basic stats. (You can increase your pet's agility and intelligence as much as you want, but magical mitigation, the actual defense against magic attacks, is capped at 70% so it ignores anything over 70% and defaults to that number.)

Health - Basically a bit of gauge of how long a pet will survive in battle. The more HP it has, the more damage it can survive. HP will recover over time while the pet does nothing for awhile (for the Lost Grove, I think you need to exit the map or go to the barracks for HP to recover over time). There's really not much more to say about this, other than it can be a good idea to have a tank with high HP.

Mana - Mana is needed to use most abilities. The only abilities that generate mana are the initial abilities for each element and quick attack. You have to use those abilities to gain mana, but it doesn't matter if the attack actually does anything or even if it is executed (Even if the enemy dies before your pet has a chance to attack it, your pet still generates mana). The other abilities use mana. The mana that a pet has in reserves goes down over time so hoarding mana has its limits.

Strength - Strength increases physical mitigation (basically defense against physical attacks), which can be an important point to note in battles. If a pet has very high strength and very low intelligence, they will take less damage in battle from physical attacks only and more damage from magical attacks. Thus, your earth elemental tank could be quite weak against mages and other beings that use magic (such as the Named in the Winter Fest Zone). You can see which type of attack your enemies use by looking at the battle text box below the battle scene. The more obvious use of strength is to determine damage done by pets that have elements which use physical attacks.

Intelligence - Intelligence increases magical mitigation (basically defense against magical attacks), which can be an important point to note in battles. If a pet has very high intelligence and very low strength, they will take less damage in battle from magical attacks only and more damage from physical attacks. Thus, your shadow tank could be quite weak against warriors and other beings that use physical attacks. You can see which type of attack your enemies use by looking at the battle text box below the battle scene. The more obvious use of intelligence is to determine damage done by pets that have elements which use magical attacks.

Dexterity - This has several uses, but none of it is for defensive purposes. Dex increases your pet's accurancy, which makes them more likely to actually hit the enemy in battle, and it increases the chances of your pet landing a critical hit, which does much more damage than the regular version of the attack. It also adds to the quickness rating (basically speed), which determines when your pet attacks in battle after you hit the "end turn" button.

Agility - This has several uses, and it is mainly for defensive purposes. Agility increases both physical and magical mitigation so higher agility raises defense in general. It adds more mitigation than intelligence and strength alone. It also makes your pet more likely to dodge attacks and take no damage at all from an attack. It adds to the quickness rating (basically speed), which determines when your pet attacks in battle after you hit the "end turn" button.



Offensive Stats - Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity (Dex affects damage more indirectly.)

Defensive Stats - Strength, Intelligence, Agility (Agility seems to affect defense more than strength / intelligence.)

Speed Stats - Dexterity, Agility (Agility seems to affect speed more than dex.)



Health Proficiences - These simply add a ton of HP to your pet.

Strength / Intelligence Proficiences - These add a lot of points to strength or intelligence (which one is based on your pet's element). Your pet does more damage, obviously, but it also adds damage mitigation to either physical or magical attacks. By choosing this proficiency, it can make your pet stronger against one type of attack.

Dexterity Proficiences - These add a lot of points to dex. Basically, it makes your pet a more efficient attacker, and it can increase speed in battle.

Agility Proficiences - These add a lot of points to agility. Basically, it makes your pet a more efficient defender, and it can increase speed in battle.





2. Stat Ratios

A large chunk of your pet's stats comes from proficiences and gear. If you wanted to, you can adjust a pet to just about any element regardless of their base stats by giving them gear and proficiences for the element you want. Thus, base stats really don't determine what a pet should be. Unless there is a great difference in individual stats (like 80 in agility and 40 in the rest), ignore base stats in determining element and pick what you actually want to use.


Shadow Tank - more towards defense

Level: 68
Health: 15,819 (220 base, 1180 level, 12195 proficiencies, 2224 gear)
Strength: 219 (24 base, 68 level, 127 gear)
Intelligence: 314 (22 base, 68 level, 224 gear)
Dexterity: 194 (20 base, 68 level, 106 gear)
Agility: 632 (20 base, 68 level, 271 proficiency, 273 gear)

For health, about 1% comes from the base stats, about 7% comes from level, about 14% comes from gear, and about 77% comes from proficiences.
For strength, about 11% comes from base stats, about 31% comes from level, and about 58% comes from gear.
For intelligence, about 7% comes from base stats, about 31% comes from level, and about 71% comes from gear.
For dexterity, about 10% comes from base stats, about 35% comes from level, and about 55% comes from gear.
For agility, about 3% comes from base stats, about 11% comes from level, about 43% comes from gear, and about 43% comes from proficiencies.


I found this light element randomly on the search:

Level: 66
Health: 11,114 (1372 base, 2202 level, 4940 proficiencies, 2600 gear)
Strength: 284 (100 base, 66 level, 118 gear)
Intelligence: 958 (100 base, 66 level, 556 proficiencies, 236 gear)
Dexterity: 225 (100 base, 66 level, 59 gear)
Agility: 462 (100 base, 66 level, 296 gear)

For health, about 12% comes from the base stats, about 20% from level, about 44% from proficiences, and about 23% from gear.
For strength, about 35% comes from base stats, about 23% from level, and about 42% from gear.
For intelligence, about 10% comes from base stats, about 6% from level, about 58% from proficiencies, and about 25% from gear.
For dexterity, about 44% comes from base stats, about 30% from level, about 26% from gear.
For agility, about 22% comes from base stats, about 14% from level, and about 64% from gear.

Even with higher stats, 44% - 58% of the stats coming from proficiences and 23% - 25% of the stats coming from gear when there are proficiencies or 26% - 64% of stats coming from gear without proficiences is still quite a large chunk of a pet's stats. So mind your proficiences and gear.

3. Non-Element Abilities

These are abilities that all pets share regardless of element.

Quick Attack - Deals damage (equal to or less than the pet's basic attack), generates mana, and increases speed. I haven't found any particular use for this so far, to be honest.

Finishing Blow - Deals a ton of damage based on how much mana your pet has, but it consumes all the mana your pet has. It is better to use it when your pet is at or near full mana to deal max damage. It is also good for simply draining all your pet's mana when you need it to be 0 in certain battle situations. You'll rely on this a lot early on to do a lot of damage, but I've found that I don't use it as much now that my pets have a greater variety of skills. Through Somneli (triple light team), I've heard that it is still good for dealing a lot of damage when your pets don't have much in the way of skills that do damage.

Mend - That magically useful ability which restores 25% of your pet's HP, regardless of max HP. You can only use it once every 25 turns, though.

Block - A useful defensive ability. It increases defense by 20%, and your pet is immune to critical hits so all enemy attacks will do normal damage even when enemies have a critical hit buff on them. Your pets will also avoid certain attacks, but it isn't that specific about which attacks. Thanks to the Ents, I've noticed that pets who block don't get stunned when Ents have their critical hit buff on, but it seems to be particular to the Ents. (Ariella in Astryl's Tranquility will always stun a pet even if it is blocking.)

Skip - Your pet intentionally does nothing. This may seem useless at a glance, but it is useful for certain situations, like trying to catch wild pets or to avoid being damaged by the enemy's thorncoat if your pet has no mana for blocking.



4. Element Abilities

Unlike non-element abilities, these are specific to certain elements, and they can be ranked up to make them stronger, more efficient, etc. Abilities will start to earn expertise and rank up through fighting any enemy in the Lost Grove. However, as they gain ranks, the effects of ranked skills are universal in all areas. Something like a rank 2 ability will act the same in the Lost Grove, Tranquility, the Orchard, Umbra Forest, etc. Rank 2 fireball does the same damage as rank 1 explosive fireball in Faerina's Shrine when I checked this. (Rank 2 fireball damage = rank 1 explosive fireball damage if you don't count the debuffs.) This could have some future use for the arena, though ranking abilities on a level 25 pet is something I'd have to figure out how to do first.


Earth Abilities

Earth pets are pretty much only useful as tanks since a lot of their abilities focus on defense and the taunt debuff.

Leeching Strike - A basic attack that has a chance to put the leeching vines debuff on an enemy. Leeching vines decreases enemy speed, avoidance, and accuracy, making the enemy easier to hit and easier to dodge their attacks. It also does some damage and heals your pet for the damage done. Unfortunately, the amount healed is based on strength, and the more tank-like your pet is, the less effective the self-healing part is. It will also put taunted on the enemy for a turn, making the enemy focus their attack on your earth pet. The chance of putting the leeching vines debuff on the enemy increases on rank 2, the amount of turns leeching vines lasts increases on rank 3, leeching vines deals more damage (and in turn, heals your pet more) on rank 4, and leeching vines will always be put on an enemy on rank 5.

Thorncoat - On its own, thorncoat doesn't do any damage; it gives your pet the thorncoat buff. Except for the damage that it does to an enemy who directly attacks your pet, the higher mana cost, and the longer number of turns it lasts, this is pretty much the same as block. Honestly, block is a more flexible skill since it requires much less mana, and the damage that thorncoat does probably won't be spectacular since it is dependent on strength. The more tank-like an earth pet is, the less damage it does. I only really use this when I don't need block in particular. The thorncoat buff deals more damage on rank 2 and 3, defense increases on rank 4, and the amount of turns thorncoat lasts increases on rank 5.

Mocking Blow - An attack that puts taunted on the enemy. Unlike a shadow pet's hated strike, it only attacks one enemy but has a shorter amount of turns to wait until you can use it again, which in turn translates into a tighter shield for your other pets when facing a lower amount of enemies. The amount of damage done increases on rank 2, the amount of mana needed decreases on rank 3, the amount of turns taunted lasts increases on rank 4, and taunted decreases enemy attack damage on rank 5.

Sneering Howl - This is similar to mocking blow, but it hits all enemies, has a much longer amount of turns to wait until you can use it, and grants the valor buff to your earth pet. Valor will cut down the damage that your pet takes, but it is dependent on the strength stat so who knows how well it will go over with a very tank-like earth pet (I don't have this skill yet). Valor will defend against more damage on rank 2, the amount of turns you have to wait until you can use the ability decreases on rank 3, the amount of turns valor and taunted last increases on rank 4, and valor will defend against more damage and taunted decreases enemy attack damage on rank 5.

Faerina's Bulwark - This can't be obtained right now.



Fire Abilities

Fire pets are pretty much only useful for attacking. They don't have any defensive abilities, and their only buff affects only themselves.

Fireball - A basic attack that hits two enemies. (It will definitely hit the enemy that you choose as a target, and the other enemy hit is randomly choosen when there are more than two enemies.) If your pet lands a critical hit on the enemy, they have a chance to put the burning debuff on that enemy, which will damage the enemy each turn for a couple of turns. The amount of damage the attack does increases on the second rank, the amount of mana it generates increases on the third rank, burning will always be applied with critical hits on the fourth rank, and the mana generated increases again on the fifth rank.

Explosive Fireball - An attack that hits all enemies and adds combustion to all of them. Combusion does increasing damage each turn until it does massive damage on the last turn it is active. The best results from this attack generally comes from being patient enough to see the buff through. Damage from the attack increases on the second rank, the mana required to use the attack decreases on the third rank, damage from the attack increases again on the fourth rank, and the damage combustion does increases on the fifth rank.

Flamethrower - Unlike all of the other fire attacks, this one only hits one enemy. However, it puts the engulfed buff on your fire pet, and engulfed increases the damage your pet does. The fact that it only targets one enemy could possibly be useful for catching pets since it will not hit the pet that you want to catch if you are fighting a group of pets. The damage done increases on the second rank, the engulfed buff gets a boost on the third rank, the burning debuff (same debuff on fireball) is added on the fourth rank, and the amount of turns the buff and debuff last increases on the fifth rank.

Conflagerate - An attack that hits all enemies and adds the inferno debuff to all enemies. It's basically a duplicate of explosive fireball, except it does more damage, costs more mana, and inferno deals more consistant damage than combustion. Inferno deals the same amount of damage each turn, though it looks like the damage dealt to each individual enemy will vary by the number of enemies still standing. The amount of turns inferno lasts increases on the second rank, the damage inferno does increases on the third rank, the turns you have to wait until you can use it again decreases on the fourth rank, and the damage inferno does increases again on the fifth rank.

Wrath of Malgorus - This can't be obtained right now.



Light Abilities

Light pets are healers.

Beam - This is a basic attack, but it has a 50% chance at healing your party for some health. The amount of health restored is dependent on the intelligence stat (more specifically, the amount of damage done). The amount of damage goes up (and the amount healed along with it) on rank 2, health is always restored on rank 3, mana generation increases on rank 4, and the percentage of health restored increases on rank 5.

Fairy Light - This is just like beam, but it does more damage, restores more health (and health restoration will always happen), and costs more mana. The amount of mana required decreases on rank 2, the amount of targets increases on rank 3 and 4 (basically making it a multi-target attack), and the amount of damage (and the amount healed along with it) increases on rank 5.

Restoration - This does no damage at all, but it heals one of your pets (and it doesn't have to be the light pet itself since it can be used on any pet). The amount of health restored is dependent on the intelligence stat (more specifically, the amount of damage that would have been done if it as an attack ability). The amount of health restored increases on rank 2, the amount of mana required to use the skill decreases on rank 3, gains an HP restoration buff on rank 4, and the amount restoration heals increases on rank 5. The HP restoration buff is also dependent on intelligence.

Divine Balance - This puts the divine balance buff on all your pets. Divine balance redistributes party health when it is triggered so that the health they have is more even, and it restores health based on the intelligence stat when it is triggered. The buff is set off by a pet dieing in battle, bu it is also set off when the buff is over. The amount of mana required decreases on rank 2, the amount of health restored increases on rank 3, how many turns you have to wait before using the ability again decreases on rank 4, and the amount of health restored increases again on rank 5.

Vaeluna's Grace - This can't be obtained right now.



Shadow Abilities

I've nicknamed my initial shadow pet (Skull) a vampire since he ended up with the shadow element and shadow abilities match that of a vampire. They can be used for tanks or for attack.

Force - This is a basic attack, but it can also add the debuff siphon to the attacked enemy. Siphon does some damage to the enemy each turn, and it will heal your pet for half of the damage done by the debuff. However, it will only heal the pet who put the siphon debuff onto the enemy. The amount of damage per turn and HP healed depends on the pet's intelligence stat. The more strictly a tank your shadow is, the less effective your pet is at self-healing. The damage the attack does increases on the second rank, mana generated increases on the third rank, the chance for siphon to be inflicted on the enemy increases on the fourth rank, and the damage that siphon inflicts increases on the fifth rank.

Vampiric Strike - This is another attack, but it also heals the pet who attacks the enemy for the amount of damage done. (It doesn't heal any other pet in the party.) HP healed depends on the pet's intelligence stat. The more strictly a tank your shadow is, the less effective it is at self-healing. The amount of damage done increases on the second rank, the amount of mana required to use the attack decreases on the third rank, and the percentage of health restored increases on both the fourth and fifth ranks.

Hated Strike - This is more of a tank ability. The attack can damage two enemies at once (The first target is the one you choose, and the second target is randomly chosen if there are three enemies.), and it causes the debuff taunt on both enemies, which can be good or bad for your pet. If your shadow is a tank, it can refocus enemy attacks from your other pets and onto your shadow so they don't attack your other pets. If your shadow isn't a tank, it may be a death sentence. While the attack hits multiple targets, you have to wait more turns than an earth pet to use it again, potentially creating holes in your defense. The damage done increases on the second rank, the amount of mana required to use the attack decreases on the third rank, the number of targets goes from two to three on the fourth rank, and the amount of turns taunt lasts increases on the fifth rank.

Siphon - It has its uses as a debuffer. The drain debuff makes the enemy slower, more likely to be hit, and less likely to deal critical hits to your pet. It also adds the augmented buff to the pet who used the attack, and augumented makes the self-healing element from the siphon debuff caused by the Force ability and Vampiric Strike (and eventually Saphryn's Vengence) more effective at healing your shadow pet. The drain debuff will also cause damage and heal the pet who used siphon on the second rank, the mana required to use the attack decreases on the third rank, augmented becomes more effective on the fourth rank, and the amount of turns the buff and debuff will last increases on the fifth rank. For the healing part, it depends on the intelligence stat. The more strictly a tank your shadow is, the less effective your pet is at self-healing. As a shadow tank, you may not use this as much. I hardly have my shadow store up enough mana to use this attack since I used hated strike so much.

Saphryn's Vengence - This can't be obtained right now.



Water Abilities

Water pets are flexible, either focusing on defensive abilities or buffs that will increase damage.

Bolt - A basic attack that has a chance to put the frost buff on your pet. Frost will defend against physical damage, and it is dependent on the strength stat. It does more damage on rank 2, forst blocks more damage on rank 3, generates more mana on rank 4, and forst will always be put on your pet on rank 5.

Ice Barrier - A handy shield that also doubles as a healing spell, and it can be used on any pet in the party. The buff negates damage based on the strength stat, heals the pet based on the damage negated, and is similiar to block in preventing critical hits and avoiding certain attacks. The healing aspect only works if your pet is attacked by an enemy or has an HP draining debuff on them. Your pet's health will only increase if the damage the enemies do remains below a certain number; otherwise, it only reduces the amount of health taken away by the enemies. The amount of mana needed to use the ability decreases on rank 2, the amount of turns it lasts increase on rank 3, negates more damage on rank 4, and heals a greater amount on rank 5.

Tidal Surge - A multi-target attack that also puts the surge buff on all your pets. Surge increases damage and speed. It is not as powerful as some attacks in other elements, but the surge buff can be useful. Damage done by the attack increases on rank 2, the amount of speed granted by surge increases on rank 3, the amount of the damage stat increase goes up on rank 4, and the amount of turns surge lasts increases on rank 5.

Ice Sphere - Another shield that is almost a duplicate of ice barrier. The main differences are that ice sphere affects all pets and the amount of damage negated is shared among all pets, costs twice the amount of mana to use, and negates a greater amount of damage. Since both my tanks have taunt and ice barrier is more flexible with costing much less mana, I haven't really used it. The amount of turns ice sphere lasts increases on rank 2, the amount of damage negated increases on rank 3, the amount of turns it lasts increases again on rank 4, and the health restored increases on rank 5.

Wruen's Blessing - This can't be obtained right now.




Wind Abilities

Wind pets are basically more or less only useful for dealing damage.

Slash - A basic attack that can put the bleeding debuff on an enemy when the attack does a critical hit. Bleeding does some damage to an enemy over a couple of turns. The amount of damage done increases on rank 2, the amount of mana generated increases on rank 3, the amount of turns that bleeding lasts increases on rank 4, and the amount of mana generated increases again on rank 5.

Razor Wind - This is like slash, but it does more damage, costs more MP, and will always put the bleeding debuff on the enemy for a longer amount of turns. The amount of damage done increases on rank 2, the amount of mana required decreases on rank 3, the amount of turns bleeding lasts increases on rank 4, and the amount of targets increases on rank 5 (turning it into a multi-target attack).

Torrential Blow - This does some damage, but based on damage alone, the other abilities do more in general. What is good about this ability is the buff and debuff that comes with it. The dazed debuff makes the bleeding debuff on the other abilities do more damage. The frenzy buff makes your wind pet faster and increases the chance to land a critical hit by 20%. The amount of damage done increases on rank 2, frenzy has an increase in speed and critical hit chances on rank 3, dazed has an increase in damage on rank 4, and the amount of turns frenzy and daze last increases on rank 5.

Decimate - An oddball attack that can do massive damage under certain circumstances and that only really seems useful against bosses and really tough enemies. You need to figure out and balance when to use the attack to get the max damage without waiting so long that it goes into overkill and becomes a waste of mana. The attack does some basic damage, but it honestly isn't that impressive if you use it at the beginning of a battle when the enemy has full or near full health. The ability will do the basic damage + an amount of damage based on the damage already done to the target in the previous turns of the battle (unless the target has been healed, as that will decrease the amount of damage decimate does). It is better to wait until your target is at least around half-health before using the ability. The amount of damage that decimate does based on the damage already done to the target increases on rank 2 and 3, the base damage decimate does increases on rank 4, and the amount of turns until you can use it again decreases on rank 5.

Raith's Fury - This can't be obtained right now.

5. Things to Keep in Mind When Building Pets and Teams

You want to have stats and abilities go in a functional direction and in the direction that you want it to go in. For example, if you want a defensive pet, the dex proficiency and elements that gear towards dealing max damage should be low on your list of what you want for that pet.

Here are some general things to keep in mind when choosing stats, elements, gear, and proficiences for your pets:

-What stats do on here are different in some areas than most common RPG's. For example, boosting up intelligence makes the pet more sturdy against magical attacks. See the section above about stats for more details.
-There is no right or wrong answer. There are several different combinations that can work. Putting one point in health proficiency for a fire / wind attacker pet can make it a bit more sturdy than one without that point in health, but its efficiency as a fighter goes down. It depends on what you like for a battle party.
-I don't pay attention to the stat suggestions for the elements. I only look at them to check if the pet will be a warrior or a mage with that element. It turned out to be functional enough.
-Some of the pet classes (elements) are different from the classes in most common RPG's. Healers in most RPG's are pretty useless except for healing, but the healer class on here (the light element) can also double as an attacker and deal out decent damage to the enemy. See the section above on elemental attacks.
-Unlike a lot of RPG's, there is no traditional elemental strengths and weaknesses system. A fire pet does the same damage to another fire pet and to an earth pet. Ignore the elements and treat them as classes.
-Understand the strengths and weaknesses in your choices. If you gear up a pet to be a mage, it will leave the pet vulnerable to physical attacks. If you gear up a pet to be a warrior, it will the leave the pet vulnerable to magical attacks. Some classes have some abilities that do absolutely no damage. Some classes have nothing but damage-dealing abilities.

I use two basic builds: attack (intelligence / strength + dex) and defense (health + agility). Once they get into higher levels and I've seen how they do in battle for a bit, I modify it from there.


You want to have team stats and abilities go in a functional direction and in the direction that you want it to go in.

Here are some general things to keep in mind on building a team:

-Choose elements with abilities that can compliment each other. I'll get more into that on chaining attacks later.
-Understand team weaknesses and strengths. If you have all mages, you'll have a rougher time keeping them alive against warriors, but they deal more damage out to warriors. They will do less damage against mages, but they will not take as much damage.
-Mix and match to see what works, and if something doesn't work together very well, try switching out a pet's element, proficiencies, and / or gear. My light pet was originally with my shadow pet, but I ended up putting my light pet into my other team and moving my buffer water pet into the team with my shadow pet.
-Check the levels of your pets. Unless you are attempting to power-level some pets, they should all be around the same level, especially in festival zones. (In festival zones, the enemy level = the highest pet level in your team.)
-Mind where you put your pets in your party. Position 1 (the middle pet on the battle scene) will generally be targeted the most so it is great for tanks. Position 3 (the bottom pet) will generally be targeted the least so it is great for pets with no defensive / self-healing capabilities (such as fire and wind). Position 2 (the top pet) will be in the middle so it's good for pets with some defensive / self-healing abilities (such as water and shadow), but it doesn't require a tank.

II. General Battle Advice / The Basics


1. Be Flexible. The Same Strategy Doesn't Always Work.

Part of Krinadon's job is to make the RPG interesting, and throwing a few wrenches into the system can do that. What works for one battle situation may not work as well for another. I had tended to like to go after the weakest enemies first in most battles to cut down on the sources of damage to my pets more quickly. But I find that it doesn't work as well in mass army battles where a fallen enemy is replaced with a new enemy until you go through what feels like hundreds of enemies before the battle actually ends. Leaving the small fries alone and going after the strongest enemy works much better in that situation, because if you take out the small fries first, you'll eventually end up with three strong enemies going after your pets and you don't know what's coming next. It is easier to have it be one strong enemy and two weak enemies. If something isn't working, try a new strategy and experiment if you have to in order to find something that does work.



2. Pay Attention to Buffs / Debuffs and the Battle Text Box When Something Out of the Ordinary is Going On

I'll be honest. Most of the time, I don't bother to read the battle text box that describes what is going on in battle. I just look at HP that is lost or gained each turn and take note of buff / debuff icons.

But don't completely neglect it when something out of the ordinary happens. It can give you plenty of useful information in that case and so can those buff / debuff icons. When I started to fight Vopar the Primal Water Elemental, I noticed that something strange was going on when his HP was going up instead of down even when my pets were attacking him. I took a look at the buff on him and the battle box, and I learned how to take him out on my first try.



3. Just Because You Can Use an Ability Doesn't Mean You Always Should Use It

Don't simply use abilities just because your pet has the mana for it. Use abilities when they make sense in battle. For example, your water element pet gets 20 mana and can use tidal surge, but your tank is struggling to keep alive. It can be a much better strategy to save your water pet's mana and get enough to use ice barrier on your tank to help it survive. Picking and choosing when to use abilities is also important for chaining attacks, which I'll get into later.



4. Which Enemy to Go After First

When faced with multiple enemies at one time, sometimes the enemies give you little choice for who to go after first. Some enemies (such as the brigands in the Lost Grove) will use taunt, and your pets are forced to only attack that enemy if they make an attack. Enemies that need special conditions to be defeated, such as Vopar, may not give you as much choice on who you should be targeting. In certain situations, such as the seemingly never-ending enemy replacement in army battles, it makes more sense to target certain enemies over others. Army battles are much more difficult if you let the strongest enemies build up in the enemy's team until you are facing three tough enemies instead of one tough enemy and two easy enemies. It makes more sense to focus on the enemies with the most stars first to prevent that from happening.

Other than that, it is probably more personal preference and strategy. I tended to like going after the weaker enemies who likely have low HP first to more quickly cut down on the number of enemies attacking my party.



5. Know Your Pets' Attack Type Strengths and Weaknesses

The pets' elements don't act as traditional strength and weakness types, but the attack types do. In general, mages tend to be weak against physical attacks and strong against magical attacks, and warriors tend to be weak against magical attacks and strong against physical attacks. Enemies also work in this way. The sure way to know what kind of enemy you are dealing with is to let it attack and then read what kind of damage it does in the battle text box. Mages tend to do magical damage while knights and other warriors tend to do physical damage. If you know what type you are facing ahead of time (such as fighting the Named in the festival zone over and over again), you can arrange your party according to that.



6. Mind Your Pets' and Enemies' Levels

Level is a good indicator of how strong a pet and enemy is. Your pets need to be certain levels to use better gear so there is a kind of stat cap in there. In most areas, enemies are at a certain level, and it is a good idea to be at a similiar level as your enemies. It makes it easier than being way too below the enemies' level.

There is also another matter unrelated to battle for going after enemies that are near your pets' levels - inventory space. If you carry around a lot of gear that your pet can't equip because of level, you'll need more and more inventory space, which costs gold. If you keep the amount of gear for future use under control, you don't need to buy as much inventory space. I've been through this issue with my mission pets in particular since they didn't keep up in level with my main teams.



7. Use Mend / Potions When You Have to But Don't Over-rely on Them

If you really need them, go ahead and use them. But there are some good points for not over-relying on them.

Mend can do decent healing, but it also takes forever before you can use it again. 25 turns is a long time in battle. In general, don't use mend if your pet's HP is above 75% or some of its healing potential is wasted.

Potions can't be used one after another in battle. For most areas, you have to wait one turn before you can use a potion again, but in the Lost Grove, you have to wait around five turns before you can use a healing potion again (and it is increased to ten turns for revival potions). Wait until your potions will do max healing when you can before you actually use them, and make sure you use potions that heal at least a sufficient enough amount of HP for the pet involved. A potion that recovers 100 HP will barely do anything for a pet with 10,000 HP, after all, and you wasted your potion-using turn with that. There are also financial consequences. Potions can cost money, and if you are constantly buying them and using them, it is a drain on the amount of gold you have. If you sell potions that you don't need (like that 100 HP potion that really doesn't do much for a 10,000 HP pet) or some of the potions that you have a lot of extras of (I don't need 100 revival potions), it can be a bit of a source of income. You don't want to sell off too many, though, and you do want to keep a stock on hand for things like boss battles.

There are ways that you can minimize the dependence on potions and mends. One of the biggest ways is to include elements that have some healing abilities. You don't necessarily need a light element in your party (one of my main teams has no official healer element), but some of the elements, like shadow and water, have skills that can potentially heal pets. A party that is self-healing has less need for potions and mends. This is probably not the only method.



8. When to Give Up the Battle as a Loss

Of course, nobody likes to lose. But from a financial standpoint, it sometimes makes sense to simply cut your losses and run or let your party be KO'ed instead of keeping at a losing battle. Remember that your potions will need to be replaced.

Some indications that it may simply be time to cut your losses:

-You are using revives every other turn in a desperate struggle to just keep your party alive, and your pets barely have any chance to attack.
-The enemy's HP is not extremely low, your whole party is almost dead, and it seems like it is impossible to win.
-The battle is so evenly matched that you aren't really making much headway in general after 90 or so turns.

There has been at least one time where I simply stopped struggling against a boss and let it KO my party. Damage-wise, I wasn't really getting much of anywhere with making any significant dent into its HP, and I was going through so many potions that it just wasn't worth it. I saved my potions and decided to simply come back another day when my party was stronger.



9. Keep Two Main Battle Parties

Yeah, it can be more work to raise two sets of pets instead of one to get through the main storyline and to keep on using them for a lot of other things. However, there are benefits to it. It can save money and time. If one party gets low on HP or is KO'ed, you can simply switch out parties instead of going to the healer, using potions, or reviving your pets from your stables, all of which can take money to accomplish. Pets will self-revive and regenerate HP over time, and having two main parties takes advantage of that. If all your main party pets are different elements, it also makes mixing and matching elements, strengths, weaknesses, and abilities easier. If you go through with changing a pet's element, you are also likely going to have to re-do the proficiencies and re-gear your pet towards that element. It is much easier and faster to simply just change the pets in your party.



10. Do Not Use Your Mission Pets for Battle

I was trying to catch my mission pets' levels up to my main pets' levels so I would not have as much gear in my inventory laying around waiting for them to catch up in level. That was a mistake. Usually, mission pets' stats are skewed towards an extreme that they are more difficult to keep alive and effectively use in battle, and you may not have the right mix of elements to form a cohesive party with mission pets disappearing and reappearing from missions. It is usually better to keep them reserved for missions, and they will eventually go up in level since missions give out exp.



11. You Can Always Change Your Mind Before You Hit the "End Turn" Button

You can always change your mind before you hit the "end turn" button, and you can go back and change your pets' battle commands and / or targets. There has been many times when I have re-arranged targets or changed skills from seeing how things fit together better as I go along or from simply going way too fast on the keyboard and choosing the wrong thing.

On the old system, if you don't have an ability choosen and no target for your current pet (an ability needs a target before you can pick pets), simply click on the pet whose target / ability you want to change. It will switch to that pet. If it is merely re-assigning targets, you can click on a new target. If not, you have to select the highlighted skill so it isn't highlighted, choose a different skill, and choose a target. You can only end a turn when all your pets have abilities and targets (multi-target attack abilities that hit all enemies and abilities that only target the pet who uses it are on auto-target) so keep that in mind if you find yourself unable to end the turn.

On the newer system, you have to see the normal battle scene without any of the abilities or any other menus on the screen. This can be accomplished by clicking on the attack button (or any other button that corresponds to what you are seeing on your screen) at the bottom. If that doesn't work, you may need to finish what you are doing with your curren pet. Once the abilities are off the screen, click on the pet whose target / ability you want to change. If it is merely re-assigning targets, you can click on a new target. If not, choose a new ability and a target. You can only end a turn when all your pets have abilities and targets (multi-target attack abilities that hit all enemies anad abilities that only target the pet who uses it are on auto-target) so keep that in mind if you find yourself unable to end the turn.



12. The Further You Get, The More Complex Strategies Get

In the beginning, simply pounding away at enemies with no real rhyme or reason works. Your pets don't have that many abilities, after all. Even common enemies, like commoner wild pets, commoner vorkids, commoner myncoids, etc, don't have much in the way of special attack patterns, and the same strategy of no real strategy also works well enough. But strategies start to branch out into more complexity as you get deeper into the game, such as Vierna's Shade, Vopar, and other boss enemies having specific attacks and buffs on them that require more specific strategies to win. In the Lost Grove, it branches further outward with wild pets who have the same element abilities as your pets, humans who use similiar skills as your pets (taunt, thorncoat-like lightning shield, etc), and other creatures with more difficult buffs and strategies to deal with. That is part of what makes the Lost Grove more difficult in general than the previous areas.



13. The Timing of Buffs / Debuffs and Other Things

In rough order: potions, mends, and blocks come at the beginning of the turn. HP draining debuffs and HP recovery buffs also take affect at the beginning of the turn. Then, enemies and pets use abilities based on their speed stats. Most buffs and debuffs seem to take affect when they are used or on the next turn.

III. More Advanced Strategy


1. Manage Your Party Smarter Than Your Pets (Avoid Idle Pets and Wasted Mana)

Your character / avatar is there for a reason. While some of your pets may have very high intelligence stats, they are not necessarily intelligent with battle strategy, and they will do stupid things if left to their own devices. You are the commander, and you have to be smarter than your pets in battle. Buffs / debuffs, understanding how to use them, avoiding wasteing mana, and keeping pets from being idle (except for when you are trying to catch that wild pet you want) can help you make smarter battle decisions.

If you pay attention, you may notice that your pets will idle about and do nothing in battle sometimes. Let's say your pets are facing two enemies, and one of the enemies is down to 5% health. You have all your pets use attack abilities on the enemy that is down to 5% health. The first pet to attack it kills it off. Instead of focusing their attacks on the second enemy, the other two pets who were commanded to attack simply stand around idle doing nothing when they could be doing damage to the second enemy. Even worse, if you used mana for the attack, the mana is subtracted for no reason at all if the pet doesn't even use the attack. (The mana is used up for abilities regardless of whether the pet actually uses them or not if you command it to use an attack that requires mana.) So the first thing to do about managing your pets in battle is to intelligently assign targets to their damage abilities. The first pet could be assigned to the enemy with 5% health, and the other two could be assigned to the second enemy. Though be warned, it may take some trial and error to figure it out and if your pet has enough strength / intelligence to finish off / almost finish off an enemy on its own. Sometimes, you need all three pets going after a low health enemy to do it in, because enemies can have healing magic of their own that they use to heal themselves or they simply have a ton of health / defense (such as bosses).

Another thing to note is that this is also true of the end of battle turn. If you use mana-using abilities at the last turn when you only need one pet's regular attack ability, you just used mana for no reason at all. It is usually better to skip mana-using abilities on your last turn and save that mana for the next battle, unless you are facing something pretty difficult like a boss or one of the Named in the festival zones. You can start off the next battle with enough mana to use your pets' more powerful abilities on the first turn. However, on the last turn, some abilities you can use and still get the benefits of, even if the enemy is killed off before your pet's turn. Non-damage abilities such a mend and thorncoat will always be used, even if the enemy is killed off by the other pets. The buffs on your pets will carry over into the next battle (so they are not wasted if you use an ability that gives your pets buffs on the last turn) while any debuffs on your pets will end with the current battle. Just keep in mind that if you are going to be away from Sylestia / battling for awhile, your pets' mana will go down over time, even though the buffs don't seem to disappear with time.

2. Make Use of and Watch Out for Buffs / Debuffs

Buffs and debuffs are easy to ignore in the game since they are often rolled into damage-dealing abilities. However, good strategies can be derived from buffs and debuffs and the above information.

There are many different buffs and debuffs, but the major categories seem to be HP draining debuffs, healing buffs, and stat-changing buffs / debuffs. Of course, some of them are made up of several of those categories, such as siphon (which drains the enemy's HP while healing the pet who inflicted siphon on the enemy), and there are some that don't fit those categories. With the amount of different buffs / debuffs, it is likely that I have missed some in here.

Of all the buffs / debuffs, taunt is the most like a double-edged sword, and it can either be a saving grace or a nightmare after your pet inflicts taunted on an enemy or enemies. The purpose of taunted is to simply redirect enemy attention away from pets with lower HP and defense to a pet with higher HP and defense, and taunted is only useful when used by a tank. The main cavet about using this status affect is that your pet has to be able to handle all that extra attention from the enemy, and if it can't, you may end up with a dead or very injuried pet. You need to pay attention to your pet's HP, and if it falls too low, you may want to skip on taunting the enemy until your pet is healed. I don't recommend using abilities with the taunt status affect for a non-tank shadow pet. Also, be aware of multi-target attacks with taunted. The enemy's multi-target attacks may interact with taunted, and if it does, your pet will get hit several times by the same attack in one turn. However, it can be also used to an advantage in some situations (such as Vierna's Shade's mana transfusion in the Dungeon of the Forsaken - While the Shade is taunted, mana transfusion will only drain MP from the pet who used taunted on it, leaving your other pets free to build up MP for attacks without being affected by her ability).

As far as dealing with enemies who use taunt, it's quite easy. Re-direct all your attacks to that enemy, even when your pets aren't inflicted with taunt, to simply take out that enemy. Also, your pets don't have to use attack skills while it is taunted so you can still use things like mend and thorncoat. It is also useful to know that if a pet uses multi-attacks that have debuffs, the enemy who used taunted can get several debuffs at once. Instead of several enemies getting a debuff, all the debuffs goes towards the enemy who used taunted. This works well with combusting in a fire pet's Explosive Fireball since it drains HP much, much faster with a single enemy having two or three of the debuffs on them at the same time. Multi-target attack damage may also only damage the enemy who used taunted in the same way.

HP regenerating buffs are useful to have on your pets since your pets recover some HP every turn without potions and mend. In the very least, it slows down the overall amount of damage that your pet recieves from the enemy each turn if it doesn't outright heal your pets each turn. Unfortunately, getting the buff on your pet is fickle with most abilities, and you simply can't rely on it being there when you need it. It is best to think of it as a bonus and not as a strategic necessity.

More often, enemies will have HP regenerating buffs. In this case, extra force is needed to take out the enemy. If the enemy HP is low, don't skimp on the number of pets you have attacking that enemy since it is harder to kill. HP draining debuffs on the enemy or buffs that increase your pets' strength / intelligence can help neutralize the enemy buff, too.

HP draining debuffs like poison generally tend to be both non-threatening and non-effective overall in a lot of RPGs. This is not the case for Sylestia, especially when it is paired with debuffs that make HP draining debuffs do extra damage. One way to use this is to get the enemy's HP down to where it would die from HP drains alone and move onto the next enemy while it bleeds out and dies from the HP drain debuff. It can also help an enemy die faster if you keep on attacking the enemy with the HP drain debuff. I prefer the first strategy since it seems like a more effective team management strategy. When the enemy is low on HP, take the debuff into account so you don't overdo it and end up with an idle pet who has no enemy to attack from its target being KO'ed by the debuff or debuff + another one of your pet's attacks. It can take some trial and error to get the amount of pets to use right.

Enemies can put HP drains on your pets. The most obvious way of dealing with this is to use mend, potions, and healing abilities when your pet's HP is drained low enough, but it is not the only effective way. Buffs and debuffs will interact with each other, and if you have a defensive buff that blocks damage on your pet with the HP drain debuff, the buff will block some or all of the damage that the HP drain debuff would have done on that turn. It also seems like abilities such as block lessens the damage recieved from HP drain debuffs. There is at least one way to turn an HP drain debuff into an HP regenerating buff under certain circumstances. A water pet's ice barrier carries a buff that restores health to the pet with that buff, and it is equal to 50% of the damage absorbed by the ice barrier. As the debuff tries to drain HP from your pet, the ice barrier will absorb the damage and generate HP for your pet. If the damage done by the debuff (and any enemy attacks done on that turn) is less than what the ice barrier can absorb, your pet's HP will go up instead of down each turn. Also, watch out for "permanent" HP draining debuffs that are introduced in the Lost Grove. The debuff will not go away until the battle ends, and it is stackable - meaning that your pet will lose more and more HP per turn as the enemy puts more and more debuffs on your pet. You have to really keep on eye on your pets' HP amounts with those. An effective method for dealing with this is to take the enemy out as quickly as possible before the HP drain becomes too high. I have noticed that blocking can also negate the debuff (at least with Nightfall Captains), but that only works when the enemy tries to put it on your pet. It doesn't work for permanent debuffs that are already on your pets.

Stun is a debuff that your enemies can use on your pets, but it isn't available for your pets to use. You have to simply work around it. A stunned pet can't do anything at all on their turn until the stun debuff is over. The main thing to watch out for is the damage your pet takes. A stunned pet can't block or use any of their own defensive and self-healing abilities (though non-stunned pets can use defensive / healing abilities on a stunned pet). If their HP gets too low while stunned, use potions.

Buffs that give damage to the attacker is particular to the earth element. Even if your pet isn't actively attacking, the attacker will still take damage from thorncoat if they attack your pet who has the buff. As a damage-producing buff, it pairs well with taunt.

Later on, some enemies like Nightfall Battlemages and earth-aligned wild pets can make use of a lightning shield buff similiar to thorncoat or thorncoat itself. If you attack them when they have the shield on, your pets take damage from the shield. If it is a loner enemy, use block / skip when the shield is active. If it is an enemy in a group, attack the enemy with that ability first, switch to another target while the lightning shield is active, and then finish off that enemy when the shield is gone. If you really feel like you must attack the enemy while the shield is active, use abilities that have self-healing / healing abilities like fairy lights or vampiric strike to help negate the damage from the shield or put ice barrier on the attacking pet so that some of the damage doesn't reach the pet. Another alternative is to hit the enemy with an HP draining debuff before the shield is active so that the enemy receives damage while your pets are unaffected by the shield if they block / skip turn while the buff is active. Also, be careful of performing multi-target attacks while the shield is active. Even if you don't target the enemy with the shield, the pet can still take damage if the system assigns the enemy with the shield as the secondary target.

Invincibility buffs (which aren't available to your pets) either makes the enemy completely immune to damage or increases the enemy's dodging so much that it is hard to damage them, almost making them completely immune to damage. For some enemies, you have to do certain things to deactivate the buff. For others, it is a waiting game for the buff to end where you either block, skip turn, or just attempt to attack the enemy in case the pet damages the enemy on some random off-chance. Also see the agility buff below if it is a buff that actually messes with enemy stats for more options.


Stat changing buffs and debuffs are either suppose to help or hinder your pets by raising their stats or lowering their stats or weaken or strengthen the enemy by lowering or raising their stats.

If you get buffs on your pets:

-Buffs that increase attack can affect timing and the number of pets needed to take out an enemy. You may not need as many pets to take out an enemy. Also, buffs that increase critical hit chances do not always translate into getting a critical hit each time. It is better to just assign pets as normal if the buff only increases critical hit chances and adjust as the battle takes its course.
-Buffs that increases defense is a good thing. Your pets will take less damage (or avoid more attacks, depending on the buff), and you will likely have less need for mend / potions / block, though this, too, depends on the situation in battle.
-Buffs that increase speed changes the order of pet and enemy turns. Your pets may use their abilities before your enemies and have a greater chance of KO'ing an enemy before the enemy can attack, cutting down on overall damage, but it is not a sure thing. Your pets also have a greater chance of attacking an enemy before they put a buff on themselves or a debuff on your pets.

If you get debuffs on your pets:

-A simple solution to help the situation would be to use an ability that gives your pet a buff that counteracts the debuff (such a buff that increases attack while they have a debuff that decreases attack). But your pets may not always have an ability with a buff that you need.
-Debuffs that decrease attack can affect the timing and number of pets needed to take out an enemy. You may have to assign more pets to attack an enemy to take it out. Debuffs that decrease critical hit chances aren't as big of a deal strategically since critical hits are random, anyways. These can be ignored.
-Debuffs that decrease defense can increase the damage that your pets take from enemy attacks. You may have to use potions more often and use block more frequently.
-Debuffs that decrease speed changes the order of pet and enemy turns. Your pets may use their abilities after your enemies and have a lesser chance of KO'ing an enemy before the enemy can attack, increasing overall damage. Your pets also have a less of a chance of attacking an enemy before they put a buff on themselves or a debuff on your pets.
-Watch out for certain debuffs that are "permanent" in that they last through the whole battle instead of going away in a couple of turns. Debuffs like these are introduced in the Lost Grove, and they are stackable. That means that an enemy can keep on putting the same permanent buff over and over again on your pets during the battle - meaning that it will affect your pet more and more the longer the battle drags on. The effective method for dealing with this is to take the enemy out as quickly as possible before the debuff becomes too high and unmanageable. (Thankfully, permanent debuffs do go away at the end of the battle.)

If your enemy puts a buff on themself:

-A simple solution to help the situation would be to use an ability that gives your pet a buff that counteracts the enemy buff (such a buff that increases attack while the enemy has a buff that increases defense). But your pets may not always have an ability with a buff that you need.
-Enemies will do more damage to your pets if they have a buff that increases attack. You may have to use potions more often and use block more frequently. Critical hit buffs on enemies are different than the ones on pets. Enemies will pretty much almost always land a critical hit on your pet, especially in the Lost Grove, so you have to watch out for them. Block will do just fine in preventing the critical hit, and taunt works well with critical hit buffs that last several turns. If you time it right, the enemy will have taunt on them for all or most of the turns that the critical hit buff is active, and you only need to hoard loads of mana for blocking on your tank while the other two pets are freer to use mana to attack. Thorncoat and ice barrier / ice sphere is also another option to negate critical hits, but they are less flexible than block from requiring more mana to use.
-Enemies will take less damage or avoid attacks more frequently if they have defensive buffs on them. You may have to assign more pets to attack an enemy to take it out if it is mainly a buff that makes the enemy take less damage. If it is a buff that increases dodging so much that your pets will almost always miss the enemy, there are a couple of options. Wait it out while blocking or just attempting to attack the enemy in case your pet damages the enemy on some random off-chance is one thing you can do. But also keep in mind buffs that damage enemies from enemies attacking your pets (such as the thorncoat buff's ability) and HP draining debuffs aren't affected by the enemy's ability to dodge. HP draining debuffs will only work if you hit the enemy with it before they put on the agility buff on themselves. If you can't hit your enemy, the enemy can't be given the debuff. Thorncoat doesn't have this restriction, but it works better if you hit the enemy with taunt before the enemy uses their agility buff.
-Enemies will likely attack sooner if they have a buff that increases their speed. Your pets may use their abilities after your enemies and have a lesser chance of KO'ing an enemy before the enemy can attack, increasing overall damage. Your pets also have a less of a chance of attacking an enemy before they put a buff on themselves or a debuff on your pets.
-Watch out for certain buffs that are "permanent" in that they last through the whole battle instead of going away in a couple of turns. Buffs like these are introduced in the Lost Grove, and they are stackable. That means that an enemy can keep on putting the same permanent buff over and over again on themselves during the battle - which in turn means that the stat will keep on going up and up over the course of the battle. The effective method for dealing with this is to take the enemy out as quickly as possible before the stat becomes so high that your team can't manage against it.

If your enemy gets a debuff:

-Enemies that have decreased attack will deal less damage. Your pets will take less damage, and you will likely have less need for mend / potions / block, though this, too, depends on the situation in battle.
-Enemies that have decreased defense will take more damage. You may not need as many pets to take out an enemy.
-Enemies will likely attack later if they have a debuff that decreases their speed. Your pets may use their abilities before your enemies and have a greater chance of KO'ing an enemy before the enemy can attack, cutting down on overall damage, but it is not a sure thing. Your pets also have a greater chance of attacking an enemy before they put a buff on themselves or a debuff on your pets.

3. Chaining Attacks

There is no official attack chaining system. What I mean by chaining attacks is putting together attack sequences and timing that benefits your pets and makes sense. This is why the Named in the winter festival zone suddenly got easier once my pets hit level 65. More abilities means there are more potential combinations and a greater ability to make more effective and powerful combinations. It also means paying attention to buffs / debuffs on abilities and really understanding your pets' abilities.

Combinations can be made within one pet's ability set or combinations can made within the whole party.

A simple combination within one pet's ability set is to use a wind element's torrential blow on the first turn and then follow up with that pet's razor wind on the same enemy in the second turn. The reason they go together so well is that torrential blow causes the daze debuff and razor wind causes the bleeding debuff on the enemy. Bleeding does 200% damage each turn, and daze makes bleeding do even more damage than that 200% base damage each turn. Add to that torrential blow's frenzy buff on your pet (which increase the chances for your pet to land a critical hit), razor wind can do quite some damage if your pet manages a critical hit.

When you add in abilities from other pets, it can become more effective.

A water element has the attack tidal surge, and its buff on your pets increases damage by 10%. So use torrential blow and tidal surge on the first turn and follow up with razor wind on the second turn. Not only does bleeding do more damage thanks to daze and a potential little boost from surge, your razor wind has a chance to do more damage with a combination of the surge and frenzy buffs.

There are definitely a lot more chaining combinations than this, and it may take some time and experimentation to find what works for you and what doesn't. It took me awhile to figure out how to use my shadow-wind-water team in a better way once they got level 65 abilities. Sometimes in battle, you may need to break with your attack chain because of things like stun or needing to heal. Just do what needs to be done and try to get back on track when you can. Also, keep in mind the points about mana and buffs at the end of battle turn. If you only have 1 enemy with really low HP, it may not be a good time to start an attack chain.

Setting up for attack chaining in battle is quite simple. Like I said above in the general section, don't simply use abilities just because you have the mana for them. Get to know how much mana everything needs and save up the mana when you can for the attacks. When everything is in place, simply go at it.

My wind pet needs 70 mana, and my water pet needs 20 mana. And they need to be in sync with their mana. I don't start the attack combination until my wind has at least 70 mana and my water has at least 20 mana at the same time. There really isn't much reason most of the time to start them out of sync. Of course, sometimes the fact that mana goes down over time can throw things off when it goes down in battle at random. You just need to adjust for it.

IV. Special Area / Situation Strategies


1. Catching Wilds

If the wild Sylestia you want is not alone, take out the other enemies first, but don't attack the one you want yet. Avoid using powerful multi-target attacks, and if you have a fire element on your team, skip your fire's turn if the pet you want gets close to fainting or builds up fire element debuffs. If you take out the other enemies first, you don't have to deal with their attacks while you are trying to catch your pet.

When attacking the pet that you want to catch (the lower the HP, the easier it seems to be to catch), avoid using powerful abilities and stick with basic abilities. Use the skip button to help control the amount of damage your team does, and use your tank to widdle down HP when the wild pet's HP gets lower. If you don't have a tank, pick the pet with the lowest strength / intelligence stat and that has the same attack type as the wild pet and use that pet conservatively. Once the wild pet's HP is as low as you dare to make it go, completely skip all your team's turns as you use traps. And a last piece of advice, either avoid using pets whose attacks have HP draining debuffs or manage your team around those debuffs, such as skipping turns earlier as the debuffs do damage when the wild pet's HP is low. In the earlier zones, wild pets may run away if you fail to catch them. In the Lost Grove, their strength increases for the rest of the battle if you fail to catch them. If you use too many traps, the wild pet may become too strong and take out your team so use some caution.



2. Festival Zones

In festival zones, the enemy levels are the highest level pet in your party (except for parties with pets all under level 10) so choose pets around the same level before going into a festival zone. The recommended level for the festival zone is 10, and you can squeeze through the festival zone somewhat as a newbie, but it is much easier to have a three pet party. I had joined near the end of a festival, and it was hard to do without three pets. The enemies at a similiar level to your pets makes leveling much faster, especially when you are near max level.

Defeating the Named characters in the festival zones is a big part of it if you are filling out your festival task list, looking for avatar items that they drop, tokens, and other festival supplies. Before approaching the Named, make sure your team is ready for a boss battle since the Named are basically bosses. If you have a lot of trouble with non-named humanoid enemies (which are harder in general than the wild pets) in the festival zone, it would be a good idea to avoid a fight with the Named and improve your team's gear / level up for abilities / proficiences first. Since you fight the same 14 (or so) Named in the festival zones, check out the Nameds' attack types the first time you battle them. Build / pick a team according to the Named's attack type to make it easier. Also watch their attack patterns so you can build a strategy around that for future fights.

Leaderboards are based on points that you accumulate by using certain species of pets in your party in the festival zone for battling (unless you go for nurturing instead of battling). Speed is good so the advice for raid events can also apply. You may also want to consider skipping the Named since those tend to be long battles (but they are too much of a draw for me to skip right now personally...). Teams that consist of one species only are also more efficient for racking up points for a particular species. That also requires some preparation in advance to get together teams consisting of the same species all around the same level so you need to work on that before the fest begins.



3. Arena

Be well-prepared in advance. Save level 25 and 50 legendary and mythical gear when you get it. You can't use items in arena battles so you don't have to hoard items for it. When you do start the arena, get your pets up to level 25 or 50 (depending on the tier you are on) and use a potion of unlearning from the scale shop on each pet so they can't go over the level limit. While in battle, you have to pay a lot of attention to buffs / debuffs anad the battle text box and get to really know the enemy's attack patterns. The battle can go downhill pretty fast if you don't.



4. Maintance Time

Pretty much everything gets frozen at maintance time - the amount of health your pets and enemies have, the MP your pets and enemies have, who you are fighting, etc. If you find yourself staring at the maintance screen in the middle of a battle, you don't have to worry about losing anything. It'll pick right back up when you access the map area again. I've forgotten about maintance time enough times to know.



5. Raid Events

These are the events that go off every three hours or so and has a banner on the top of the page when it is going on. You can rest your pets and heal them between battles, but speed is the key to getting a high score (or being online when few people are online). You don't want to rest your pets between battles or even stop for potions unless you absolutely have to. Always hit the skip button at the end of battle, and don't check your inventory or whatever you got from the battle until after the event is over. It is a time-waster. Also, don't stop to catch wild pets unless it is something you absolutely can't go without. Catching wild pets is another time-waster. Using the keyboard to give your pets battle commands is also much quicker than using only a mouse. (I don't use my phone for this game since the game doesn't seem to be phone friendly.)

Also be aware that the levels work in a similar way to the levels in the festival zones, with the enemy level being dependent on your pets' levels, until a max level of about 52 - 60. You are also competing with other people who happen to be online and notice the event going on so that is where the higher speed = more points come in. You are not guarenteed to get the event boss at the end so if you see the banner change to the event boss being around, click on the battle button as quickly as possible to try to get that in. If you don't end up getting the event boss, you'll still get something in your trades if you have a high enough score compared to other people. You just have to be persistant to try to get the event boss in.



6. Dungeons

Except for the Named and dungeon-exclusive enemies (like the dark elves), all enemies in the dungeons are pretty much the enemies you would find anywhere else in the same area that the dungeon is in. They seem to have a boost in stats to make them harder, though. The Named are the ones you should watch out for, though, and they often hide behind doors locked with riddles, puzzles, and other things. Once you get to the end of the dungeon, you have a harder Named boss to deal with. Bring potions / revives if your pets' levels are low.

V. Enemy Glossary

Obviously not done.