Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

What do you consider to be the best spell in the series? It can be a technique, skill, or just straight up magic. There are a lot of different kinds - healing, stat boosting, attacking - but which one is the very top?

PSIV's Gra/GiGra/NiGra

i just love electrocuting enemies

The Gra-family actually crushes enemies with gravity fields. Tandle is for making things go bzappp.

PS1: Myau's Cure spell. It doesn't become obselete after leaving Palma for the first time (unlike Alis' heal which hardly cures a nose bleed after you get up a few levels), you can use it in battle (unlike Noah's variation of the spell), it's available early and it's the most powerful and effective way to heal in battle.

PS2: Deban. (both Amy's spell and the Snow Crown's effect) It makes you live slightly longer through PS2's onslaught of insanely hard-hitting monsters.

PS3: Gires. Same cost as Res, but heals everyone. With every boss but Sari having a multihitting tech and tons of monsters having Gra, Zan and Tsu, you'll be using this often and it's a lifesaver in boss battles.

PS4: So many...

Saner: This allows the party to keep the upper hand in boss battles by going before the boss rather than the boss taking a random spot in the queue. It's not flashy, it doesn't make things go boom, but try fighting a later boss without it without crazy overlevelling. Pretty difficult, no?

Barrier: Even better than Deban since a lot of magical attacks also tend to hit the whole party and without Barrier, your party will be too busy picking KO-ed companions off the floor and healing to actually make a dent in a boss' defense.

Crosscut/Doubleslash: You get them early, you get a ton of them, they get stronger as you get new weapons, Shift increases their damage even more and with a light-elemental weapon equipped, they're the most potent attacks in the game. Useful from the beginning until the end, these two skills just scream "reliability". (then there's Grand Cross)

Medice: Kyra's best skill. Comes with an insane amount of charges from the get-go and only gets better. Heals a lot of damage and doesn't discriminate between androids and humanoids. Useful for keeping your party in shape during a long dungeon trek or keeping Wren functional so the latter can concentrate on shooting explosive stuff at bosses instead of having to go recover-recover-recover all the time.

Efess: Rune gets a surprisingly high stock of it. (higher than Tandle even though he learns that one sooner) One of the strongest magical attacks in the game on its own, even more murderous when amplified with Crosscut.

Erpy wrote:The Gra-family actually crushes enemies with gravity fields. Tandle is for making things go bzappp.

well whatever, looks like theyre gettin zapped

Deban is very useful in PS2 and PS4, its stackable too

I don't know about PS2, but I know that in PS4, Deban is not stackable. In fact, if you cast it after using Blessing or Warla, you'll actually lower your in-battle defense.

Erpy wrote:I know that in PS4, Deban is not stackable. In fact, if you cast it after using Blessing or Warla, you'll actually lower your in-battle defense.

source?

ive always been under the impression that all shield techs are stackable.
putting up 1 shield doesnt help much, 2 or 3 helps a lot.

What defensive buffs do is change the the in-battle defense or magic defense stat of all characters affected to base value + mental/strength of caster. (depending on whether the spell/skill uses mental or strength as its power modifier) The base value doesn't change, so casting the spell again just changes your defense to the sum of the same two values as before. (the technical guide on Gamefaqs gives this formula)

This is good too, because otherwise, 2 to 3 subsequent castings of Deban and Barrier would change the damage output of any boss' attack to straight 1's.

Try it. Find some infantworms, stretch the fight and cast Deban like 10 times and then let the last one call big daddy. The strength of his attacks will be the same as when you cast Deban only once.

Erpy wrote:...casting the spell again just changes your defense to the sum of the same two values as before. (the technical guide on Gamefaqs gives this formula)

i think looking at that formula chart just ruined the game for me

I always liked Demi's Medical Power. Main reason being that it's the only thing that I know of in PSIV that is a mass revive skill or tech. It saved my behind more than once against Zio,

Erpy wrote: The strength of his attacks will be the same as when you cast Deban only once.

I've noticed that repeated castings of Deban conform to the law of diminishing returns, so learning that the algorithm is not additive was no great shock. However, I've always wondered whether different physical defence enhancers (Blessing, Warla) are additive, and have never really come to a conclusion during the few times I've played PSIV.

If they're not additive, then which one is the best bet? Presumably Blessing > Warla > Deban, but that's just speculation; someone somewhere must have tested it.

As for the best spells: Efess, Legeon, and Tandle rule in the offence category; Chaz's Nathu also rocks, but I seldom use it, preferring to let him loose with skills like Rayblade and shifted Crosscuts. In the defence/ healing category, Saner and Shift have already been mentioned; Miracle also lives up to its name, while Ataraxia , Raja's unique TP-restorative, almost makes the game too easy.