Thrall

Useful Tips

This page is dedicated to answering many of the questions you may have surrounding the mechanics of Thrall, as well as providing insight to different ways of optimizing play.

Getting Started

First, here are some tips to help you get started. None of these points are hard and fast rules to follow, but rather are points that may help you have the most enjoyable time, especially if you're new to games within this genre.

1. Don't focus too heavily on weapon proficiencies
You may notice that characters have skills that give bonus DMG or additional buffs if they use a specific weapon type. While these skills are useful, they are not intended to lock you into using just that one type. Anyone can use any type of weapon. If you have a weapon that is stronger than what you currently have, even with the bonus skills, it's worth it to switch out.

Having said that, those skills are useful. The intent behind them is, "I have this Axe. It's one of my top three weapons. Someone should use it. Who will use it better than anyone else? The guy with the Axe buffs."

2. Don't hoard your items
If you lose a battle in a dungeon, your consumable items are lost. Don't hesitate to use them to get out of a tough situation! It's either that, or lose them anyway. There is no benefit to stockpiling items that you never use.

3. There is no benefit to level grinding
While it may be tempting to grind levels to get stronger, this will not help you. In fact, it may make the game more difficult. Higher levels do not give you higher stats, other than max HP. The only thing that levels give is HP, Skill Points, and the ability to equip higher level gear. Stats come from your equipment, but if you are fighting enemies that are below your level, you aren't likely to get better gear from them. In addition, enemies in the next dungeon will scale to your increased level, but you likely will have under-leveled gear when facing them. Auto-kill will allow you to skip under-leveled encounters so that you don't end up over-leveled.

4. Patience is key
Have patience, in all things. Maybe you don't want to trigger your Action Skills right away, if you have other skills that benefit them under certain conditions (such as when used at low health). Maybe you don't want to use an action as soon as your ATB gauge is full. Waiting to see how queued actions play out may give you more time to consider your turn economy, and could help you to not get overwhelmed. And maybe you don't want to spend that skill point right away. Saving your points for more expensive skills may have a bigger impact on your survivability early on. Eventually you'll be able to respec, but you need a certain keep member before that can happen.

At any rate, hopefully these tips help. The rest of this guide is dedicated to explaining some of the mechanics more in-depth.

Health Bars

You may notice that different enemies have different colored health bars. These colors actually have meaning, and denote which element that enemy is resistant to. Enemies that have a health bar color other than red will take 50% less damage from the corresponding element:

Orange: Resistant to Fire and Burn
Blue: Resistant to Ice and Freeze
Purple: Resistant to Shock and Seize
Green: Resistant to Weak status

In addition, when targeting an enemy the cursor may change shape. These cursors indicate which element that enemy is weak to. Enemies will take 50% more damage from elements they are weak to. The altered cursors are as follows:

Fireball: Weakness to Fire and Burn. Usually resist Ice and immune to Freeze
Glacier: Weakness to Ice and Freeze. Usually resist Fire and immune to Burn
Lightning: Weakness to Shock and Seize. Usually immune to Weak
Skull: Weakness to Weak. Usually resist Shock and immune to Seize

It's worth noting that Weak is only a status type, not an element. As a result, enemies with Skull cursors will not take additional damage from Weak, but are 20% more likely to be inflicted with Weak on hit.

Statuses

There are three elements in the game, and four status ailments. Three of the status ailments are linked to an element. An elemental weapon will deal increased damage against enemies weak to that element, and will have a chance to apply the associated status ailment on hit. This section is dedicated to describing the four status ailments and their effects. The statuses are as follows:

Burn: Inflicts damage every turn. Enemies will take damage based on their level, and allies will take damage equal to 2% of their max HP. Reduces ACC by 30%. Lasts for 10 turns.

Freeze: Immobilizes the afflicted, prevents ATB gauge from filling and cancels all queued actions. Reduced RES by 30%. Lasts for 5 turns.

Seize: Prevents skill use. This includes Action Skills, Overdrive techniques, and enemy skills. Reduces DEX by 30%. Lasts for 10 turns.

Weak: Increases all subsequent damage taken by 50%. Lasts for 10 turns.

Shops

Shops will randomly generate equipment based on the type of the shop and the average level of your party members. In any shop, the first two items are guaranteed to be "Rare" quality or better. The next four items will always be "Uncommon" or better, and the remainder of the items will be "Common" or better. In addition, the first item will always generate one level above the average level of your party, unless you are at max level.

Shops will change their inventory under a number of different circumstances. Inventory will change upon losing a battle in a dungeon and getting transported back to the Keep. They will also change upon completing a dungeon. And finally, shops will change inventory upon using a Warp Nut to escape a dungeon. Shop inventory will not change simply by saving and quitting, either at the Keep or in a dungeon.

Wandering traders can appear in dungeons in rare circumstances. When interacting with these traders, the first three items in the shop will change, but the trader will only have three items available while in the dungeon. However, if their inventory changes while in a dungeon, saving and quitting will reset their inventory at the keep as well.

Rarities

Weapons, Armors and Items all generate with a pre-determined rarity. For weapons and armor, the text color of the equipment name determines its rarity. The rarity tiers for equipment is as follows:

White: Common
Green: Uncommon
Blue: Rare
Purple: Epic
Orange: Legendary
Cyan: Mythic

Each rarity has 1/10 the chance of spawning over the previous rarity, based on the drop chance of the monster defeated or the chest opened. Every time loot is generated, a random number is rolled between 0 and 1,000,000. The better the possible drop chance, the lower the max number, with each rarity increase dividing the max number by 10. Mythic equipment will only generate if the number rolled is equal to 0, and only at level 30 or above. Legendary equipment will generate at any number below 90, Epic equipment will generate at any number below 900, etc. Regardless, any loot source has a chance of dropping any type of weapon or armor.

Equipment will also generate with better stats and modifiers based on rarity. For a full breakdown of equipment generation, see the "Equipment" section of this guide.

Items also have rarities, but the text color does not change based on the rarity of the item. All items are consumable, and are lost upon death in a dungeon, unless the items are stored in the chest at the Keep. All items generate with a red colored item name. Items also generate with a built in level, but this does not affect the item function aside from sell value with the exception of Hearty Tomato's. In that case, the parameter gain is determined by the item level at the time of acquisition.

Equipment

Equipment is randomly generated, and all equipment stats are determined at the time of generation. When new loot is generated, there are three steps to determine the type and quality of loot.

First is the loot type. Loot will be randomly generated as either an Item, Weapon, or Armor.

Once the loot type is generated, the rarity will be determined next. See the "Rarity" section in this guide for more details about drop chances and requirements.

Finally, once the rarity and type have been selected, the equipment stats, type, and components are determined. Stats are randomly generated based on thresholds at the level of the equipment being generated, altered by a certain percentage based on the type of equipment. For example, Axes will generate with 20% more DMG than other weapon types, but will suffer a 10% ACC penalty. For armors, similar modifiers are considered. For example, a Robe may generate with high RES, but low DEF, whereas a Chestplate may generate with high DEF and low RES.

The components of a weapon or armor are a final modifier that determines the equipment name prefix, additional stat modifiers, elements, and accessories. Different rarities can have different numbers of components, as described below:

Common: No components, no prefixes
Uncommon: One component
Rare: Two components
Epic, Legendary, Mythic: Three components

Components can be broken down into three categories. First is the Material component. Materials affect the stats of equipment. Any weapon can generate with multiple materials, and is possible to generate with multiple of the same material, stacking the effect. Armors can only generate with one Material, however. Materials are broken down as follows:

Weapon Materials
DMG +15%
DEX +15%
ACC +10%
CRIT +5%

Armor Materials
DEF +20%
RES +20%
EVA +5%

The next component is the Element component. Elements on weapons will change the damage type of the weapon to the associated element, potentially causing more damage against enemies weak to that element. In addition, the weapon will have a chance to cause the associated status ailment on hit. For armors, elements will reduce the amount of damage taken by that particular element by 20%, stacking for each piece of elemental armor up to a maximum of 80%. In addition, the chance of being inflicted with the associated status ailment will be reduced by 20%, stacking with each piece of elemental armor. Every weapon and armor can only generate with one element, with the exception of certain Legendary equipment.

The final component is the Accessory component, and differs wildly between weapons and armors. Accessories do not affect the stats of an item, but offer different effects that change various aspects of gameplay. Weapons and Armors can only ever generate with one Accessory. Accessory components are described as follows:

Weapon Accessories
KNOCKBACK: Reduces enemy ATB gauge on hit if the gauge is not already full.
FAST: Gains first turn priority at the start of a battle.
CRITDMG: Increases the amount of damage dealt by critical hits by 1 modifier. For example, instead of 3x damage, the weapon will deal 4x damage.
MULTI: Normal attacks will hit twice per round. DMG is reduced by 40%.

Armor Accessories
BONUS HP: Gives the equipped character +15% max HP for each piece of BONUS HP armor.
BONUS EXP: Gives the equipped character +15% experience after battles for each piece of BONUS EXP armor.
COOLDOWN: Reduces Action Skill cooldown by 3 turns at the time of activation for each piece of COOLDOWN armor.
LESSCRIT: Reduces critical hit damage received by 15%, cumulative for each piece of LESSCRIT armor. (15%, 30%, 45%, etc.) When using four LESSCRIT armors, critical hits will deal less damage than normal attacks.
REGEN: Grants the equipped character +0.5% HP regen every turn for each piece of REGEN armor.
THORNS: Upon taking physical damage, the attacker will take 10% of the damage dealt to this character for each piece of THORNS armor.

The last point to consider about equipment is the level requirement. If a character's level is below that of the equipment level, they will not be able to equip the item.