Just fought the first boss.
No way that just happened. OMG
Caught me off guard too. It's a great moment if you're not spoiled by reading about it first. That let me know that I was in for a hell of a ride in this game.
Sadly though, the story doesn't take a sharp turn like that "WOAH" until much later on in the game. This game does a good job of hooking you in the first ~2 hours and then the pace slows and it much more low/high for the remainder of the game.
Awesome, thanks for the advice.
I just leveled her up and got her Healing art. If I'm planning on having Shulk do most of the healing, would it be better to spend less points on her Healing and Aqua arts, and focus on her Flame and Lightning instead?
Melia is a freaking damage dealing beast. Here's what you do: pour all of your points into Bolt, Wind, and either Fire/Earth. Do what you can to craft a + Electricity Plus gem on her attack, that boost Electricity damage. Don't waste a single point into her "healing" summons, they suck ass. Other characters can take care of the job for you.
So Bolt gives you +20% Ether power, so stack up three of these summons and release them all for some pretty nice damage, especially once you're able to start getting some good Electricity Plus gems.
Wind gives you 10% Agility. It's nice to pretty much always have this summon "going" and never discharge it.
Fire gives you 20% Strength up, and it does nice damage and burn damage.
What I like to do is: Bolt > Copy Bolt > Fire > Spear Break > Starlight Kick (Topple combo) > Release Fire > Summon Bolt (Now you have three Bolts) and Release all three Bolts, rinse repeat.
Basically just level up Copy, Bolt, Fire, Spear Break, Starlight Kick as much as possible so that the cool down on these is fast. Once you get these all to a high enough level they will all be available one after another and you will barely have any "standing around" time waiting for shit to recharge. You can Summon three spells, do the Topple Combo, Release all your spells, then Summon them all over again, and go for the Topple Combo again... etc.
It gets real easy to actually just beat monsters by yourself while your other two party members are engaged in another fight at the same time! And once you get this "Reflect Spell" then you can have that going to deflect any damage if you start Aggroing a monster.
She's a really good character, consider keeping her in your party!
I'm completely new to this type of RPG, which is to say one with a MMO-esque battle system. I'm just getting around to understanding the roles that characters play in combat, and it's pretty cool. But I do have one concern. I'm very early in the game, Tephra Cave, and I'm not sure if I should be grinding or something. Something attacked my party that was level 9, which I am equal with. However, my team got pounded. Should I be a much higher level than I am now? It just seemed too early in the game (a couple hours) to be grinding, but maybe I'm not playing properly. Any advice would be great.
There's been two different Unique Monsters that I can vividly recall that I could not take down when I was one level below them, AT their level, and then when I was one level above them! I was super pissed. The most recent one: I'm Level 59 AND Lv 60 and I was getting pounded over and over and over by a Lv 58 Unique Enemy.
Honestly, I've learned that you just have to let it go and put them on your "hit list" to just move on, and then come back later on in the story and avenge your many deaths. But yeah I've been able to take down some monsters that were 3-4 levels above me, but sometimes - I dunno Monsters are better than their level appears and you gotta give it a rest, move on and come back and kick their ass later.
