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Hexer



Here's the final class in the game. It's bad. Now there are some positives to using a Hexer, but the main issue is they unlock at the start of the FOURTH stratum, which is well past the point you would actually be considering putting in a new member and grinding them up to level 40-45 is a supremely unfun idea, all for a class that doesn't really contribute much damage in battle at a time when enemies are big and scary. Still, what skills they do have are nice and they're the best at inflicting binds or statuses due to Curses, which is the only way to boost the infliction chance. However, they're very resistance reliant, which can work for most regular enemies, but they become practically useless against FOEs and Bosses. And their stats suck too, which never helps. If you want to use one, they can be useful, but there is a mountain to climb before they get to that point.



Now these seem a bit... low. Indeed, Hexers have the lowest average stats by a good margin, since the Alchemist doesn't really care about some of their stats. It's 8th out of 9th for HP, STR, VIT and LUC and last in AGI. Sure, some classes have lower stats in some areas, but Hexer is the most consistently worse, it's actually impressive. They at least have good TP to use their various skills with (since they'll do nothing else) and have high TEC which... oh wait that does nothing for most classes since it's only used for elemental damage, so having high TEC is pointless! This means the only good stat the Hexer has compared to the other classes is TP. Are you starting to see the problems?

HP Up
Passive.


Alright, this is off to a... start, since you can actually get an alright amount of HP onto a Hexer, which is useful for Revenge, even though that skill is baaaaaaad, and just surviving in general. Though it having low HP and VIT still doesn't really help with this. And since the Hexer isn't hugely SP heavy if you only focus on their good skills, you'll be able to max this out.

TP Up
Passive.


While not the big TP boost that some classes get, it's always appreciated, though since the Hexer's skills aren't hugely TP hungry and you don't spam the high TP big damage skills since, uh, you don't have any, you don't need to max this out. Though it's always weird not to. Anyway, there's not much to say, since neither of these skills lead to anything, so put as many points into them as you fancy.

Curses
Unlocks: Sapping (LV1), Frailty (LV1), Leaden (LV1), Blinding (LV2), Relapse (LV3), Craial (LV5), Abdomen (LV5), Immobile (LV5), Torpor (LV6), Corrupt (LV7), Evil Eye (LV10)
Increases the infliction rate of binds and ailments. Passive.
BUG: Game incorrectly states this skill does nothing, it actually boosts the chance of ailments and binds landing.


Like Ronin, this class is pretty simple, but even moreso. Curses is the main reason to use a Hexer, since it gets them pretty much all of their skills and is the only way to boost inflictions, since for every other class the formula is just BaseChance * CurrentResistance. Curses is an additional multiplier that really makes them shine in this specific area of doing nothing in Boss battles. Its in-game text is wrong and dangerously misleading, max this skill out so you can actually use this class. This skill works exactly as intended and it's pretty great.

Stagger
Prerequisites: Torpor LV5, Corrupt LV5
Attempts to inflict Stun at the start of every battle. Passive.


This seems good on paper, but it has a few problems. Firstly, first turn Stun ain't that great, it's like you got a Preemptive, sure, but after that the skill does nothing for you and the biggest and baddest enemies aren't bothered by missing their first turn. Also no enemy is immune to Stun, so it more than likely has a less than 30% chance of working AFTER you've put 10 points into it AFTER you've put points into its prerequisites. Torpor is a good skill, since area wide Sleep is also good, but Corrupt is an awful skill, since Curse is shit on enemies and there are thankfully no Curse Conditional Drops in this game (small mercy). So this is definitely one to ignore, even if passing up on Stun is a shame in this game and it would help your Hexer get a free hit in.

Sapping/Frailty/Leaden
Prerequisites: Curses LV1
Reduces all enemies' ATK/DEF/AGI for 5 turns. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


Pretty standard first curses, but each play out pretty differently. Sapping is a good one, since it's like you cast a defense buff, but since damage reduction is better than defense boosting, it's more effective and when combined with Immunize and/or Defender, it can make your party incredibly durable. As a bonus, debuffs are good to cast to free up the buff slots for your party. Frailty is like another ATK buff, which can be helpful, but it depends on how much DEF the enemy has. They usually have much higher ATK, so you get more out of Sapping, but when you're combining lots of various attacks boosts, having one as a debuff can be very helpful.

AGI isn't a huge deal, since going first or not shouldn't be a real dealbreaker, though having less accuracy and evasion is also pretty nice. Still since AGI never gets very high, it means the debuff won't take off very much, so you might not even notice a difference. The three being all target skills that are a 40% decrease is really nice, so you should pick a couple up, if only at level 1 to easily dispel a buff the enemy has placed on themselves.

Blinding
Prerequisites: Curses LV2
Attempts to inflict Blind on all enemies. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


The Hexer learns plenty of ailment skills, so let's see if they're any good. Blind is interesting, since it cuts accuracy, though by exactly how much we don't know, giving you a bunch of free turns, in this case 3-5, with the infliction turn being 1. Since you need to know the important numbers when you fight certain enemies, such as those with a 5% resistance to them, if you have level 10 Curses and Blind, you'll have an 11% chance of landing something. Hey, that ain't great and that goes to a 2% chance for 1% resistances, but it's better than not having the Curses boost at all. However, since Blind is the lowest priority ailment, it can be very easily replaced, especially by something you don't want and cannot replace any ailment, limiting its usefulness sometimes. But it can be quite useful in getting a breather, just know what the chances are for if it's worth it.

Relapse
Prerequisites: Curses LV3
Reduces an enemy's recovery time from ailments for 5 turns. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


This skill sounds good in theory, but of course we've got to run the numbers to see if it's actually worth it. It's basically an inverse Recovery, which wasn't a great skill since it only lessened your time with an ailment, not prevented it all together. It's merely dividing how many turns are left with Relapse, so x0.5 at max level. At best for something like Sleep, you'll get a 7 turn roll, but by the time you can use Relapse, it'll be 6 turns, thus, giving you 9 turns total with an ailment that can last up to 7 turns, like Poison... or Fear... or Paralysis. Okay, so the shit ones, but it's something.

A Boosted Relapse could make the difference, but since you don't exactly know what the number is, since it's between a certain amount, you could be on turn 2 and give yourself one extra turn. Is that worth it? Ailments and Binds aren't amazing and your Hexer could do something else, so it just depends if you fancy being lucky with numbers. For Binds, it'll be an extra 2 turns at most and for the other ailments, it'll likely be one extra turn. You've also got to time it right, as if this skill wears off, but the ailment hasn't, it'll go back to where it should be at, or might wear off altogether. As a bonus, at least, this skill cancels any passive HP recovery skills an enemy is using. Still meh.

Cranial/Abdomen/Immobile
Prerequisites: Curses LV5
Attempts to inflict Head/Arm/Leg Bind on a single enemy. Curse Skill. Uses the Head.


Now this is the main reason to use a Hexer, as they have a very good chance of landing a bind on certain enemies, even those that resist it. Some enemies try to funnel you into binding specific parts to stop a dangerous skill, but this allows you to try for other binds as well to prevent enemies from doing other crazy things you would be unable to stop otherwise. At least for Binds, if you fail to land one, you decrease an enemy's base resistance of them by 25% of the original value, so you'll definitely land sooner rather than later, since they have a higher chance than a DH, 70% instead of 55% before factoring in Curses. However, these skills don't do any damage and of course since they're easier to land, you'll rack up Accumilative Resistance pretty quickly. But since they don't reduce your speed in any way, you can definitely bind something before it gets to move. You should get all three, but Head and Arm are more useful than Leg, so level them accordingly.

Torpor
Prerequisites: Curses LV6
Unlocks: Stagger (LV5)
Attempts to inflict Sleep on all enemies. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


Out of the ailments for a Hexer to use, this is the most spammable, as Sleep is a pretty nifty ailment that disables enemies for a fair few turns, but if they're hit by an attack, it'll do 50% more damage, regardless of type, and will clear the ailment. However, even if you wake them the same turn you put them to sleep, they'll still miss a turn and their evasion is disabled, letting you potentially pull off a big damage attack very easily. It only becomes tricky to work with when an enemy is defeated and a party member then randomly attacks a target, hitting the sleeping one you were saving for later. It lasts for 5-7 turns and pretty naff ailments are higher priority, so you can easily inflict it with Sleep if it's about to recover from Confuse or Blind, for instance. A bit tricky to make full use of, but as a way to open a battle, it's pretty nifty.

Corrupt
Prerequisites: Curses LV7
Unlocks: Stagger (LV5), Corrupt (LV10)
Attempts to inflict Curse on all enemies. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


Man, Curse sucks when you get hit by it, since you're usually about to pull off a really nice combo and then take loads of recoil. But using Curse against enemies isn't very useful, since damage mitigation is a real pillar of strategy in this game. Thankfully you can skip this skill since no Conditional Drops require it, but I suppose I should go over it. It deals 50% backlash damage and will do individual hits of a multihit attack. It has pretty high priority, so it's easy enough to replace, but there are much better ailments to use. Still, it can be a funny (or frustrating) way to kill off a Boss as they kill you with a massive attack. Even then, it might not even kill them, since they only take 50% damage, which can't be that much, since you have much less HP than them. That's all it's good for, honestly, such an awful ailment otherwise, but you might have to max it anyway if you want...

Revenge
Prerequisites: Corrupt LV10
A single target skill that deals more damage the lower the Hexer's HP. Curse skill with Bash damage. Uses the Head.


If you've heard stories of crazy Revenge strats that's, uh, next game. It's pretty meh in this game, mainly because it needs you to max out the CURSE skill, which is an awful ailment and just looking at the numbers should tell you it's not gonna be hugely impressive. The formula is (Max HP - Current HP) * Power. Since Almighty damage doesn't exist yet, it at least doesn't get reduced by Bash resistance, it only applies for conditionals and such. But what's the best you could really go for? Well, at max level with 1HP, HP Up 10 and Revenge 10 you can do... around 800 damage. To postgame enemies. That's cool, I guess, but your Hexer needs to be a 1HP, which is easy enough with damage tiles, but they'll probably be murdered right after, since they're such an easy target due to awful Provoke skills. For the SP to finally reach that point and the micromanaging you need to do for every battle (no Salve, no quick way to lower down to 1), it's just not worth it for the damage it finally dishes out. Meaning the Hexer has practically zero offensive presence.

Evil Eye
Prerequisites: Curses LV10
Unlocks: Lure (LV1), Paralyze (LV3), Betrayal (LV5), Suicide (LV10)
Attempts to inflict Fear on a single enemy. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


The final ailment is definitely a strange one, since it gets its own tree if you ever wanted to know the ins and outs of Fear. It has the highest priority of all ailments that isn't Instant Death or Petrify, so it's very easy to replace and stops the enemy from attacking 50% of the time. Cool coin flip, but it doesn't really do anything else unless you invest in the FEAR TREE. If anything, it just makes enemies harder to inflict with other ailments, but because of the FEAR TREE, it's probably best used with Relapse to maximize turns.

Paralyze
Prerequisites: Evil Eye LV3
Forces an enemy inflicted with Fear to skip their turn. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


This is a very skippable skill, since the other two skills in the FEAR TREE are this skill, but do something else on top of that. Putting levels into it only reduces the TP cost, so nah, definitely pass.

Betrayal
Prerequisites: Evil Eye LV5
Forces an enemy inflicted with Fear to attack another enemy with their regular attack. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


Now this is getting slightly more interesting. If you manage to inflict Fear on a strong enemy, then they can do some work for you. Since it's only their regular attack, it might not do much damage, but since you'll be trying this on the more dangerous enemies, it's good to keep them occupied for a turn while you do other things. There's no point putting more than 1 point in it, since they'll only ever do the one hit and all it does is decrease TP cost. The number of times a perfect situation for this skill comes up isn't very high, the best use is for Boss summons. If you can land Fear to begin with. But since it's just the one hit, it's hard to recommend over...

Suicide
Prerequisites: Evil Eye LV10
Forces an enemy inflicted with Fear to attack itself with their regular attack. Curse skill. Uses the Head.


For a slightly better flavour if your Fear target is all by itself. It sounds alright in theory, but enemies with high ATK usually have high DEF and HP as well, mitigating this skill's usefulness. Still, it's more damage than the Hexer would do in that turn if they don't have anything to really do, so it's still a way to keep an enemy from doing anything. Though be warned since they use their regular attack of a certain physical attribute, they can resist their own hits! Still, this tree gives the Fear ailment a lot more mileage and gives a Hexer more to do during down times, so it's probably worth a look, even if only this skill is actually worth anything. It's just nothing spectacular though. Describes this whole damn class.

Lure
Prerequisites: Evil Eye LV1
Increases the encounter rate for a certain number of steps. Curse skill.


Haha, very cute. Maybe 1 point in this might be worth it, since a 30% boost to the encounter rate is very nice. Yes, I'm actually recommending a field skill since it means you get into more battles, which is a GOOD THING. Stop trying to fight monsters, you've got a lot of murder to commit, get going!

Mine character writeups are done. I can finally start this darn LP!