Thoughts on basic combat strategies in Infinite Dunamis

[Victar]

After playing through Infinite Dunamis on Normal difficulty, then replaying it for the True End, I thought I'd list some very basic combat strategies. I say "very basic" because I didn't play the game on Hard, or attempt its optional superboss/arena challenges, and I only grinded up to level 99.

There are about 2 lines of text buried in the game's "help" menu/digital instruction manual that teach the player about Cluster Heal, a "special magic" mass-healing ability. What the manual doesn't say is that nearly all of the top-tier buffing and healing spells are "special magic", obtained only by learning the lower ranks of multiple elemental schools of magic.

Spells that buff the entire party's speed/attack; the party's def/int; or spells that debuff all enemies' speed/attack or enemies' def/int are all "special magic", as is the strongest mass-healing spell.

When bosses raise a magic reflection shield, they will also reflect spells that debuff their stats. Erase sheets will not remove a magic reflection shield, but I believe they will still remove the boss' stat buffs.

Mastering high ranks of two or more elemental schools of magic teaches the party extra-powerful attack spells of "special magic". These attack spells, while useful for random encounters, aren't as important as the buff/debuff spells for boss encounters.

There is ONE broken overpowered elemental magic spell, and it's Gel Barrier, a high-level water magic spell that shields an entire row. Gel Barrier blocks all(?) damage while it's active, and is crucial to surviving certain "boss goes berserk" attacks. "Boss goes berserk" attacks typically trigger when a boss that consists of 2 or more enemies gets knocked down to 1 enemy on the screen.

Like nearly all Exe-Create games, more speed = more turns. Anything that boosts speed is potentially overpowered (including the Excite Ring, even though its wearer cannot deal damage and can only use "special magic"), and anything that penalizes speed is worthless. Estelle's speed should be prioritized no matter what else her customized build is.

Bad status effects are obnoxious and ubiquitous, thanks to those annoying Gaia icons. I recommend keeping the Floral Dress store-bought armor on both female characters for the entire second half of the game, because it makes them immune to bad status. They'll suffer a defense penalty in the endgame, but Estelle can make up for that with some customization in Defense.

Metal slime enemies on the metal slime island are fast, prone to heal or run away, and difficult to kill. It seems as though all attacks do 1 damage and have a high miss rate, so attacks that hit many times are most likely to wear them down. Excite Rings can help. I found it worthwhile to take the difficulty down to Easy just to kill metal slimes more effectively. Once the party outleveled the metal slimes on Easy and could auto-win battles with the battle shortcut, it became MUCH easier to grind experience on them.