Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Finally committed to playing this, after lots of trepidation over completionism - got over it, couple hours in and... yeah it's lovely, this is gonna be my main game for the next several months I assume. :P
I was apparently doing combos the exact opposite of how I'm supposed to. I thought I was supposed to use a different color every time.
The other thing Chain Attacks are good for is getting a topple on a difficult enemy, especially if they're higher level than you, just thanks to chain attacks never missing. You usually want to be going for high damage, but sometimes it's worth breaking a combo so you can topple/stun lock a boss who's giving you trouble.
Finally committed to playing this, after lots of trepidation over completionism - got over it, couple hours in and... yeah it's lovely, this is gonna be my main game for the next several months I assume. :P
Would you say you're really feeling it?
Thankfully regarding completionism, the DE has so many QoL changes that make doing the questing a lot easier (item tracking, mob tracking, locations on the map, etc. etc.) I started out planning on doing almost nothing but since it was so easy to do them I ended up doing at least 90% if not more.
Finally committed to playing this, after lots of trepidation over completionism - got over it, couple hours in and... yeah it's lovely, this is gonna be my main game for the next several months I assume. :P
What time is it?
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
There was an interview with Monolith after the XB1 remake was announced, and they essentially said it's a huge mess technically and is much less likely to get ported. Maybe if the XB1 remake sales are stronger than expected....?
I waited to do the final sequence, wanting to complete the collectopaedia and last few quests I had first. Which... are really meant for higher levels... and one thing in the collectopaedia required me to repeatedly kill a super boss...
So I went into the ending at level 99. But I had fun!
Will also be starting Future Connected tonight or tomorrow.
I apologize, I have no idea why I didn't get a notification for this.
It probably isn't even helpful at this point, but it'd be easier to link these videos since I haven't played in sometime and wouldn't remember the correct names of abilities and stuff.
And this one isn't about Reyn specifically, but he uses Reyn to farm noponstones in a way that shows how crazy strong Reyn can get (and more or less how I used him to carry me through pretty much everything post level 50ish when I'd have him one shot everything, well well above my level, and zoomed to 99 with him just insta-gibbing everything, even most uniques. You'll probably have to pause when he goes over it because it is super quick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPY4NSXvaKs&t
I hope none of those have any spoilers in them, and sorry if they do. The guy making them is usually good about marking spoilers or warning if they're unavoidable; but what he spoils is typically not much story stuff (Unless the video is on story stuff) and more just the 7th character and maybe some end game areas and unique bosses.
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
There's so much loot in this game, and no auto-equip option that I'm seeing. Getting Mass Effect 1 flashbacks. Haven't hit an inventory limit yet, but should I be selling all this junk?
Nopon are a delight.
Just got to Satorl Marsh and mmmf, this game is so goddamned pretty.
There's so much loot in this game, and no auto-equip option that I'm seeing. Getting Mass Effect 1 flashbacks. Haven't hit an inventory limit yet, but should I be selling all this junk?
Nopon are a delight.
Just got to Satorl Marsh and mmmf, this game is so goddamned pretty.
yeah, you can sell a lot. I wouldn't sweat gear too much until you get towards the end of the game and even then everything's farmable afaik. I mostly just equiped monster drops for most of the game and only occasionally bought more armor from vendors
There is a limit. It's something like 400 items per equipment slot. So ridiculously generous, but you will have to start selling stuff sooner or later. What I did was sort everything by physical defence, kept the best ~6-10 pieces, then just held the sell button down and got rid of the rest.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
You can totally sell gear/gems/canisters you don't need anymore. With the appearance option there's no real reason to keep any gear that is lower quality than what you're currently using. I personally keep the straight up visual gear from the nopon thing in the DE, but I did more so to more easily tell what I had and what I still needed to buy.
I think the new version actually removed the cap on collectibles and monster parts (the ones for money, not the ones to turn into gems)? I know in the original I hit the cap on those, but never got a notification in DE and I kept everything. But gear has a 400 or 450 cap, for each item slot, which is still nuts and unlikely you'll reach normally.
Finally got around to picking up and starting XC2. Only about 3 hours in, so far it's pretty fun. Only thing is that based on the voice acting it sounds more like Snatch or Lock Stock and 2 smoking barrels more than a jrpg. Not just the accents, but rex especially sounds like a grizzled old criminal rather than a tiny jrpg manboy.
Picked this up to play during my Laura rideout last week.
I played deep into the original on Wii, got to I dunno, the part after you get 7? I was never happy with the graphics though, and the collection quests drove me mad.
So I was glad to see this fixed both. I'm up to Satorl Marsh, which looks real good now. It's such a vast improvement, although I bet it would look even better on a PS4 Pro. But I'll take not-Wii level graphics.
I hear a lot about the Shulk/Reyn/Dunban party. Is there something that makes it work healingwise? Is Shulk enough or does it really click after some later skill or art unlocks? I kinda want to rush forward and get Riki and Melia, I remember having the most fun playing them. Shulk is fine, but the fact that your left thumb controls both movement and skill changing means he's kind of fiddly. Come to think of it, can you customize controls? Putting target changing on the D-pad and skill changing on L/R would be way better.
Picked this up to play during my Laura rideout last week.
I played deep into the original on Wii, got to I dunno, the part after you get 7? I was never happy with the graphics though, and the collection quests drove me mad.
So I was glad to see this fixed both. I'm up to Satorl Marsh, which looks real good now. It's such a vast improvement, although I bet it would look even better on a PS4 Pro. But I'll take not-Wii level graphics.
I hear a lot about the Shulk/Reyn/Dunban party. Is there something that makes it work healingwise? Is Shulk enough or does it really click after some later skill or art unlocks? I kinda want to rush forward and get Riki and Melia, I remember having the most fun playing them. Shulk is fine, but the fact that your left thumb controls both movement and skill changing means he's kind of fiddly. Come to think of it, can you customize controls? Putting target changing on the D-pad and skill changing on L/R would be way better.
The reason Shulk/Reyn/Dunban is so strong is they all deal out serious physical damage (and therefore have very strong synergy in chain attacks), Reyn and Dunban can bounce aggro off each other and by the time they may get close to dying anything that lives should already be dead to the party. Shulk can perform minor spot healing, and you can also run aura healing gems since the group should always have an aura up. It only get stronger over time once you get Monado Armor and the like.
Picked this up to play during my Laura rideout last week.
I played deep into the original on Wii, got to I dunno, the part after you get 7? I was never happy with the graphics though, and the collection quests drove me mad.
So I was glad to see this fixed both. I'm up to Satorl Marsh, which looks real good now. It's such a vast improvement, although I bet it would look even better on a PS4 Pro. But I'll take not-Wii level graphics.
I hear a lot about the Shulk/Reyn/Dunban party. Is there something that makes it work healingwise? Is Shulk enough or does it really click after some later skill or art unlocks? I kinda want to rush forward and get Riki and Melia, I remember having the most fun playing them. Shulk is fine, but the fact that your left thumb controls both movement and skill changing means he's kind of fiddly. Come to think of it, can you customize controls? Putting target changing on the D-pad and skill changing on L/R would be way better.
The reason Shulk/Reyn/Dunban is so strong is they all deal out serious physical damage (and therefore have very strong synergy in chain attacks), Reyn and Dunban can bounce aggro off each other and by the time they may get close to dying anything that lives should already be dead to the party. Shulk can perform minor spot healing, and you can also run aura healing gems since the group should always have an aura up. It only get stronger over time once you get Monado Armor and the like.
But realistically, it's a party for mowing down normal enemies faster than they can do any real damage, especially as that combination topples left and right.
Picked this up to play during my Laura rideout last week.
I played deep into the original on Wii, got to I dunno, the part after you get 7? I was never happy with the graphics though, and the collection quests drove me mad.
So I was glad to see this fixed both. I'm up to Satorl Marsh, which looks real good now. It's such a vast improvement, although I bet it would look even better on a PS4 Pro. But I'll take not-Wii level graphics.
I hear a lot about the Shulk/Reyn/Dunban party. Is there something that makes it work healingwise? Is Shulk enough or does it really click after some later skill or art unlocks? I kinda want to rush forward and get Riki and Melia, I remember having the most fun playing them. Shulk is fine, but the fact that your left thumb controls both movement and skill changing means he's kind of fiddly. Come to think of it, can you customize controls? Putting target changing on the D-pad and skill changing on L/R would be way better.
You can! I did exactly that too. There's an option in the Switch controller settings (not within the game itself) that lets you override controls at a system level. It definitely feels like that should be the default -- I used it on my original playthrough way back in the day, and was happy to see it's supported on Switch.
Something I said over in the SE++ thread: Shulk/Reyn/Dunban doesn't work right out of the gate (Satorl Marsh is too soon for it). You need a critical mass of the following elements for it to become the terror machine it's described as:
- High Affinity between party members. This party gets a lot of its damage from long Chain Attacks.
- Dunban really needs his "regain HP on crit" ability, whichever that is. It really takes the pressure off Shulk.
- Strong enough Gems that you can cap Agility on Dunban with room left over to pump his crit rate, because see above.
- Well-levelled topple and daze abilities. To keep enemies down, you need Dunban and Reyn to be throwing those out as often as possible.
- Topple Plus and Daze Plus gems for all involved. Same reasoning as above-- to put the "lock" in "topple lock", you need the disables you land to stick as long as possible.
But you don't have those tools at Satorl Marsh, Shulk, Dunban, and Reyn don't yet have enough damage mitigation to survive a protracted fight, nor enough damage to make their fights acceptably short.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
I'm able to make it work at Eryth sea with fairly minimal toppling and low crit on Dunban, maybe because I tend to stay 1 to 2 levels above. But at this point I still haven't seen barely any topple or daze gems.
I do think I probably struggled with this at Satorl though, my damage just wasn't good enough.
I'm able to make it work at Eryth sea with fairly minimal toppling and low crit on Dunban, maybe because I tend to stay 1 to 2 levels above. But at this point I still haven't seen barely any topple or daze gems.
I do think I probably struggled with this at Satorl though, my damage just wasn't good enough.
How do you know when Dunban is agility capped?
50 is the agility cap from gems. The gem bonus total will change color when it caps out.
I'm able to make it work at Eryth sea with fairly minimal toppling and low crit on Dunban, maybe because I tend to stay 1 to 2 levels above. But at this point I still haven't seen barely any topple or daze gems.
I do think I probably struggled with this at Satorl though, my damage just wasn't good enough.
How do you know when Dunban is agility capped?
50 is the agility cap from gems. The gem bonus total will change color when it caps out.
Keep in mind that there isn't a cap from agility via skills and linked skills, however; so stack the hell out of it, particularly on Dunban if you're using him for tanking. If you're using him for DPS, you can prioritize attack skills/gems, as long as you have the gem cap. EDIT: Unless you're fighting super bosses or enemies well well above your level, then still go all out on agility either way.
EDIT EDIT: Agility in XC1 is magical, in that it lets you hit more often on enemies higher level than you, and also get hit less often. It's a double whammy against higher level enemies as you can do functionally normal damage to them, but they can hardly touch you. I mean, you're not going to fight things 50 levels above you, without very specific setups, but you can very easily consistently do 5-10 above you with gems and earlier skills (Melia has a first tier +agi skill that only requires friendship, that is useful on everyone else, Sharla has one that requires more affinity in one of her trees, so it's worth working on her friendship with Dunban/Reyn/Shulk early, because it might seem small, but the way agility scales it makes a big difference if you're capping it with gems.
And even outside of damaging/dodging, the way aggro works in the game, taking damage reduces aggro by a lot; while this is intended to make it easier to drop aggro on DPS if you accidentally pull from the tank, it also means a Dunban with good agility is going to be a profoundly better tank than Reyn, even despite not having as many aggro increasing skills and abilities. The problem with Reyn is he's always taking damage, thus always losing damage, and it's easy to accidentally build him to not do a lot of damage, meaning he's relying entirely on buffs and mad taunt for aggro, and it just starts falling apart when you begin getting higher levels and more levels in abilities etc. Reyn can be built to match Dunban, but it takes a lot more resources that (IMO anyway) can be better put in turning him into DPS and using his mad taunt as a chain extender instead of an actual tanking taunt. A party of Reyn/Dunban/Shulk, particularly once you start getting more monado arts, is just silly and rolls the whole game. Who needs heals when you avoid or mitigate almost all the damage you take, and Dunban has a skill to heal on crits, which he does a lot, so :rotate:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, even in early game, agility agility agility agility.
YETANOTHEREDIT: if you're playing on casual, or aren't using the expert thing for leveling down, and are always above the levels of what you're fighting, you probably won't feel the benefits of agility nearly as much as you would otherwise, so I understand how some people would see comments like this and feel like (well, I maxed my agility, but it doesn't seem to do anything), if they're 10 levels above everything. No matter what mode you're playing, I highly recommend using expert mode and keeping your levels at least 5 below the average level of things you're fighting. You will maximize rewards by doing so, and while XP for leveling is trivial in the game, the difference between getting 1 AP/SP for each enemy and 50/20 (I don't remember the actual numbers, it's just dramatically more), just by changing your level, getting some more agility, and being under leveled (you want minimum yellow banners, you can do red if you have higher level gems/skills and know what you're doing). It makes completing your skill trees way faster, and leveling up your abilities a lot less tedious.
When you're overleveled you frequently aren't really killing things a ton faster than if you were a few levels below them, and getting a small fraction of the potential rewards.
Hmm, I can try notching down my levels, but I definitely haven't been rolling in agility gems, and I basically have ignored Sharla and her affinity and it seems pretty time consuming to build.
You can max everyone's affinity in like an hour or two once you are high level. (90s) Before then just stick to some team comp and they will naturally build affinity with help commands or chains. You can also look up NPCs to trade with for specific gem types.
I dont think low affinity between Dunban/Reyn/Shulk is the only reason people might not truly appreciate that team early on.
I think the real key is agility. Fighting equal level enemies with a decent agility gem, agility skill link, and a weight reduction skill linked vs without those things is night and day difference regarding taking damage. Tension and affinity matter as well!
Sharla can be saved for overlevel hunting with the ether team and a few select enemies that laugh at topple teams.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
How hard is it to raise affinity to max between every party member? Is it the kind of thing that occurs naturally with enough play, or do I have to work at it?
How hard is it to raise affinity to max between every party member? Is it the kind of thing that occurs naturally with enough play, or do I have to work at it?
If you play normally it is one of the last things you will max out.
But it is really easy to cheese it up later on. (Stormy abuse for example)
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Would you say you're really feeling it?
Thankfully regarding completionism, the DE has so many QoL changes that make doing the questing a lot easier (item tracking, mob tracking, locations on the map, etc. etc.) I started out planning on doing almost nothing but since it was so easy to do them I ended up doing at least 90% if not more.
What time is it?
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
I BEAT THIS GAME
AFTER SO MANY YEARS
what a wonderful experience. Xenoblade Chronicles is as great as the hype. Now, onward with Future Connected! I already love Kino and Nene, BTW.
They're adorable, they just have... party composition issues. Using Riki's kit instead of Sharla's would have been nice.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
There was an interview with Monolith after the XB1 remake was announced, and they essentially said it's a huge mess technically and is much less likely to get ported. Maybe if the XB1 remake sales are stronger than expected....?
i love this so much
I waited to do the final sequence, wanting to complete the collectopaedia and last few quests I had first. Which... are really meant for higher levels... and one thing in the collectopaedia required me to repeatedly kill a super boss...
So I went into the ending at level 99. But I had fun!
Will also be starting Future Connected tonight or tomorrow.
"We measure! Find treasure! Ponspectors 'til we die!"
They're so good. I'm not a fan of the mechanics of the chain attack replacement so much, but it's a treat to watch.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Oh my god, thank you. I could never make out what they were yelling in the first two phrases.
I'm sad it's over, tho. I really really love this game. Feels good to have seen it all, but i wish there was more, I love the characters that much
I apologize, I have no idea why I didn't get a notification for this.
It probably isn't even helpful at this point, but it'd be easier to link these videos since I haven't played in sometime and wouldn't remember the correct names of abilities and stuff.
Here's a general one for Reyn that gets you strong but not CRAZY strong, however sets you up to topple lock with Reyn alone:
And this one isn't about Reyn specifically, but he uses Reyn to farm noponstones in a way that shows how crazy strong Reyn can get (and more or less how I used him to carry me through pretty much everything post level 50ish when I'd have him one shot everything, well well above my level, and zoomed to 99 with him just insta-gibbing everything, even most uniques. You'll probably have to pause when he goes over it because it is super quick.
I hope none of those have any spoilers in them, and sorry if they do. The guy making them is usually good about marking spoilers or warning if they're unavoidable; but what he spoils is typically not much story stuff (Unless the video is on story stuff) and more just the 7th character and maybe some end game areas and unique bosses.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Nopon are a delight.
Just got to Satorl Marsh and mmmf, this game is so goddamned pretty.
yeah, you can sell a lot. I wouldn't sweat gear too much until you get towards the end of the game and even then everything's farmable afaik. I mostly just equiped monster drops for most of the game and only occasionally bought more armor from vendors
I think the new version actually removed the cap on collectibles and monster parts (the ones for money, not the ones to turn into gems)? I know in the original I hit the cap on those, but never got a notification in DE and I kept everything. But gear has a 400 or 450 cap, for each item slot, which is still nuts and unlikely you'll reach normally.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I played deep into the original on Wii, got to I dunno, the part after you get 7? I was never happy with the graphics though, and the collection quests drove me mad.
So I was glad to see this fixed both. I'm up to Satorl Marsh, which looks real good now. It's such a vast improvement, although I bet it would look even better on a PS4 Pro. But I'll take not-Wii level graphics.
I hear a lot about the Shulk/Reyn/Dunban party. Is there something that makes it work healingwise? Is Shulk enough or does it really click after some later skill or art unlocks? I kinda want to rush forward and get Riki and Melia, I remember having the most fun playing them. Shulk is fine, but the fact that your left thumb controls both movement and skill changing means he's kind of fiddly. Come to think of it, can you customize controls? Putting target changing on the D-pad and skill changing on L/R would be way better.
The reason Shulk/Reyn/Dunban is so strong is they all deal out serious physical damage (and therefore have very strong synergy in chain attacks), Reyn and Dunban can bounce aggro off each other and by the time they may get close to dying anything that lives should already be dead to the party. Shulk can perform minor spot healing, and you can also run aura healing gems since the group should always have an aura up. It only get stronger over time once you get Monado Armor and the like.
But realistically, it's a party for mowing down normal enemies faster than they can do any real damage, especially as that combination topples left and right.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
You can! I did exactly that too. There's an option in the Switch controller settings (not within the game itself) that lets you override controls at a system level. It definitely feels like that should be the default -- I used it on my original playthrough way back in the day, and was happy to see it's supported on Switch.
- High Affinity between party members. This party gets a lot of its damage from long Chain Attacks.
- Dunban really needs his "regain HP on crit" ability, whichever that is. It really takes the pressure off Shulk.
- Strong enough Gems that you can cap Agility on Dunban with room left over to pump his crit rate, because see above.
- Well-levelled topple and daze abilities. To keep enemies down, you need Dunban and Reyn to be throwing those out as often as possible.
- Topple Plus and Daze Plus gems for all involved. Same reasoning as above-- to put the "lock" in "topple lock", you need the disables you land to stick as long as possible.
But you don't have those tools at Satorl Marsh, Shulk, Dunban, and Reyn don't yet have enough damage mitigation to survive a protracted fight, nor enough damage to make their fights acceptably short.
I do think I probably struggled with this at Satorl though, my damage just wasn't good enough.
How do you know when Dunban is agility capped?
50 is the agility cap from gems. The gem bonus total will change color when it caps out.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I love Riki's two kids. They are amazing and adorable.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Keep in mind that there isn't a cap from agility via skills and linked skills, however; so stack the hell out of it, particularly on Dunban if you're using him for tanking. If you're using him for DPS, you can prioritize attack skills/gems, as long as you have the gem cap. EDIT: Unless you're fighting super bosses or enemies well well above your level, then still go all out on agility either way.
EDIT EDIT: Agility in XC1 is magical, in that it lets you hit more often on enemies higher level than you, and also get hit less often. It's a double whammy against higher level enemies as you can do functionally normal damage to them, but they can hardly touch you. I mean, you're not going to fight things 50 levels above you, without very specific setups, but you can very easily consistently do 5-10 above you with gems and earlier skills (Melia has a first tier +agi skill that only requires friendship, that is useful on everyone else, Sharla has one that requires more affinity in one of her trees, so it's worth working on her friendship with Dunban/Reyn/Shulk early, because it might seem small, but the way agility scales it makes a big difference if you're capping it with gems.
And even outside of damaging/dodging, the way aggro works in the game, taking damage reduces aggro by a lot; while this is intended to make it easier to drop aggro on DPS if you accidentally pull from the tank, it also means a Dunban with good agility is going to be a profoundly better tank than Reyn, even despite not having as many aggro increasing skills and abilities. The problem with Reyn is he's always taking damage, thus always losing damage, and it's easy to accidentally build him to not do a lot of damage, meaning he's relying entirely on buffs and mad taunt for aggro, and it just starts falling apart when you begin getting higher levels and more levels in abilities etc. Reyn can be built to match Dunban, but it takes a lot more resources that (IMO anyway) can be better put in turning him into DPS and using his mad taunt as a chain extender instead of an actual tanking taunt. A party of Reyn/Dunban/Shulk, particularly once you start getting more monado arts, is just silly and rolls the whole game. Who needs heals when you avoid or mitigate almost all the damage you take, and Dunban has a skill to heal on crits, which he does a lot, so :rotate:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, even in early game, agility agility agility agility.
YETANOTHEREDIT: if you're playing on casual, or aren't using the expert thing for leveling down, and are always above the levels of what you're fighting, you probably won't feel the benefits of agility nearly as much as you would otherwise, so I understand how some people would see comments like this and feel like (well, I maxed my agility, but it doesn't seem to do anything), if they're 10 levels above everything. No matter what mode you're playing, I highly recommend using expert mode and keeping your levels at least 5 below the average level of things you're fighting. You will maximize rewards by doing so, and while XP for leveling is trivial in the game, the difference between getting 1 AP/SP for each enemy and 50/20 (I don't remember the actual numbers, it's just dramatically more), just by changing your level, getting some more agility, and being under leveled (you want minimum yellow banners, you can do red if you have higher level gems/skills and know what you're doing). It makes completing your skill trees way faster, and leveling up your abilities a lot less tedious.
When you're overleveled you frequently aren't really killing things a ton faster than if you were a few levels below them, and getting a small fraction of the potential rewards.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
i also wanna add that playing Melia is super fun and Riki is a DOT monster.
Riki is the best heropon!
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
I think the real key is agility. Fighting equal level enemies with a decent agility gem, agility skill link, and a weight reduction skill linked vs without those things is night and day difference regarding taking damage. Tension and affinity matter as well!
Sharla can be saved for overlevel hunting with the ether team and a few select enemies that laugh at topple teams.
If you play normally it is one of the last things you will max out.
But it is really easy to cheese it up later on. (Stormy abuse for example)