- You should join the Official Astria Ascending Discord for any questions you might have about the game: https://discord.gg/G4sM4MnjBM

- You can complete the game with any type of class and combination, even if post-game content might present a greater challenge.

• Use any build you like and any build you make up for yourself. Enjoyment is the first thing you should always aim for.
  
• You don't have to follow this guide to the letter, these guides are for optimizing, and so you may forfeit or ignore certain aspects of the builds for the sake of comfort.
  
• Some of these builds are aimed at long-term investment. A little knowledge or general JRPG knowledge might be required for some encounters. Should you have issues with certain fights in some capacity, switch your tactics around.
  
• With regards to the point above, most of these builds are aimed at the inevitability of post-game. I have done it with odd and sub-optimal class builds just for fun as well and knowledge goes a long way.

The way the game explains how jobs work can be confusing, even more so because the Journal has information about everything relating to the game, misinforms the players on about the classes. It should explain how it all works right away to make an informed decision and not regret it later. Only a small amount of information is wrong regarding this and is explained below.

- There is no way to 'respec' your character's classes in any way. Make a save point before changing and have that as your backup if you intend to do multiple playthroughs.

• Main Job - This is effectively the class your character becomes for the rest of the game. This choice allows you unrestricted access to Abilities, Support/Passive Abilities, Stat-Up nodes and is the starting point for all your builds.
  
  • What you may equip such as Weapons and Armors change to suit the Main Job, effectively replacing your equipment choices from your Base Job.
  
  
• Sub Job - This choice allows you access to a Jobs Abilities only. You won't have access to any Support/Passive Abilities or the features the Main Job would otherwise give you.
  
  
• Support Job - This choice allows you access to a Jobs Support/Passive Abilities only. Some Classes have some worthwhile Support/Passive Abilities that can make another job shine or make it even stronger than it was before.
  
  • It might be misleading to read the journal as it states otherwise.

In the menu, navigate to Journal > Jobs to see every class available and their abilities. You will notice that some Abilities are under the tag of Ophiuchus. In the class trees, there are Silver-star nodes, and all of these are related to Ophiuchus. You are only granted 1 choice for one single character. This comes in extremely late into the game.

• These abilities will not be considered for optimization, as you should have enough knowledge of the game at this point to know what you want to use should you ever want to use one of them.

Ulan sits comfortably in her spot as the Main Character of the game. It wouldn't be fair for the Leader of the 333rd Demi-Gods if she wasn't, and there is a good reason for this that just fits her position as a Leader and the group in its entirety.

Ulan might not have a permanent slot in anyone's party due to her AGI/Speed and lacking any early hard-hitting ability for her to wield (At a low Skillpoint cost). She can occasionally take a hit for anyone in your party with Duty (Guard an ally under 20% health) and supply some healing spells when items are scarce. You will most likely want to use other party members to make up for the lack of damage and speed.

This changes quickly, however, where she will almost always have a permanent position that fits into all party composition once Job Change comes into play. Losing out on the first 5% of the game, but being able to do everything your party might need for the rest of the 95% is an understatement; Ulan is easily one of the best characters in the entire game because of this.

• As a Black Mage
  Get the Support/Passive ability [One for One] if you intend to make her into a damage dealer. This makes her the strongest and most consistent elemental damage dealer in the game due to how the difference between ATK/MAG and enemy MDEF/DEF scales, and no one will have the ability to surpass her save for Alek in the Post-Game.
  
  
  • [One for One] - Decreases Strength by 30% but increases Magic by 30%.
  
  
• As a Tank
  Putting her into a supportive role solidifies her place in your party forever, she will hand out massive buffs and take hits for the entire party. She will take a backseat in the damage department and if you intend for her to do any damage, this is not the role to pick for obvious reasons.

This should help you figure out what each build is supposed to be doing a majority of the time, and most of you are probably familiar with concepts like these.

• Tank - Provides damage mitigation for your team and takes on the big hits that would otherwise kill someone else.
  
• Support - Provides buffs for the party or debuffs upon the enemy.
  
• Healer - Restores the party more efficiently than everyone else, keeps your heroes up to speed.
  
• Damage Dealer - Destroys the enemy quickly, but needs the other roles on the team just as much as they need the Damage Dealer.
  
• Utility - Niche abilities or support/passive abilities that apply to specific situations and combinations, can overlap with certain roles.

This can help if you need to spot what you specifically want to look for.

Harnesser is easily the game's best Support class by a large margin. It will supply your team with every possible stat-up buff imaginable since its main purpose is to make your entire team that much stronger. On top of this, the class itself has some fantastic defense values to help supplement its survival and can remove some positive effects from the enemy as well. Berserk helps offset any debuff you might have on your primary attributes and Ignore will make you survive a storm of attacks thrown at you. [Crystal Break] is largely considered its signature ability and is a massive boost to any party.

Combined with its incredible tankiness and the Guardian Support/Passive abilities, it'll make Ulan one incredible support who can keep on buffing and will consistently take damage meant for the team on top of this.


Pros :

• Fits into ALL party compositions.
  
• Balanced Defensive stats.
  
• Extended duration on buffs.
  
• Great equipment choices.
  
• Fantastic synergy with Guardian Support Job.

Cons :

• Low Speed/Agility.
  
• Won't be dealing damage often or at all.
  
• True tanking happens a little later into the game.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- for comfortable MP management, then rest into HP.
  
• Def & MDef --- Balanced, or everything into MDef and get an armor that absorbs physical. When you reach Post-Game, lean most of it towards MDef.
  
• AGI and/or EVA --- AGI high enough to buff your main damage dealer first, then rest into EVA.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Crystal Break - Sacrifice own STR and MAG stats to increase all allies STR and MAG by 30%.
  
• Spirit / Courage - Increases MAG / STR by 20% on a single target.
  
• Omni Cast - All single target Abilities become Multitargets for 1 turn.
  
• Dispel / Omni Dispel - Removes all positive status effects from targets.
  
• Substitute - Removes all negative status effects on a single target and applies them to the user.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Guard - (Guardian) If an ally with less than 50% HP is targeted by an enemy attack, the user will take the hit instead
  
• Patience - Increases the duration of all positive status effects on allies by 1 turn.
  
• Ignore - 35% chance to gain Nullify when hit by an attack.
  
• Berserk - Increases STR, MAG, DEF, MDEF, and AGI by 20% when afflicted by a negative status effect.

Free Support Ability choices.

• MP Saver - (Captain) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Auto-Raise Ally - Automatically revives a KO'd ally (once per battle).
  
• Crystal Wall - Decreases damage taken by all allies by 15% while the user is defending.
  
• Determination - (Guardian) Reduces all physical and magical damage taken by 10%
  
• Resilience - (Guardian) 30% chance to heal the user for 30% of damage received when attacked.

This is the best possible long-term tanking choice for Ulan and the most efficient use for both a Tank and Support. You will not gain the immediate benefits of Tanking for your team due to lacking Guardian's Guard ability at the start, or your own need for Provoke / Omni Provoke, which doesn't work on bosses. But your buffs, utility, and survivability will more than make up for it until you reach that point. Use [Crystal Break] and stack it with either [Spirit / Courage]. You have a plethora of abilities at your disposal, feel free to use them all (such as Omni Wall / Shell). Use [Substitute] to trigger Berserk.

[Omni Cast] is fantastic and works for a lot of abilities, here are some abilities of note to use it with :

• [Reboot] (Chronomancer) will put your entire party in a state of total recovery, debuffs removed, and refunds its own cost. Despite needing 2 characters to pull off, this is an immensely powerful combination.
  
• Use on Arpajo with [Steal] if you need to steal a bunch of rare items.
  
• As an example, Dark Knight (Kress/Arpajo) and Warrior (Kress/Alek) presents situations where you can use Consume, Defense Break and Forcerima. Warrior can enjoy Omni Triple Slash without needing Ophiuchus.

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Black Mage
  Pick this last in your party due to the cost it takes to train its abilities, as well as how little use you will find for it. If you have the points and time to use a spell on occasion, use it to generate Focus Points upon hitting enemy weaknesses.
  
  
  • Picking Guardian as your Sub Job has its negatives due to [Provoke] not working on bosses, and [Rampart] being the best ability to use with this class but requires knowledge and good use, we would miss out on Guard if it wasn't picked as a Support class.
  
  
• Support Job - Guardian
  Has some very solid and strong picks for Support abilities, all 4 have their uses. Guard is the whole reason you want a Guardian/Tank in your party to begin with, providing you with a huge safety net that will last you all throughout the game.
  
  
  • Picking Black Mage as your Support Job gives you better mana management and no real way to use [Double Cast]. You lose out on Guard, which can't be replaced easily.

Guard is a powerful Support Ability to have in any party, and most of the time your party won't be able to sit at max HP no matter how hard you try, due to how enemies will gradually throw out more Omni/Multi cast abilities. This can turn a disaster into a save, and being able to take a hit for someone else is very powerful.

Berserk is used to increase your tankiness and will trigger off any negative status effect, but not the few ones available that have their own similar effects. If an enemy debuffs your DEF, all of your stats will be raised and DEF will stay the same, due to Berserk offsetting it. Casting Crystal Break won't trigger Berserk on yourself since the debuff you place on yourself is not a normal Mingle/Coward effect (Reduced MAG/STR). It does however work on a regular Mingle/Coward effect that is cast upon you.

Auto-Raise Ally has a lot of value, especially in Post-Game, where someone might die once in battle due to bad RNG. This is quite helpful to have around.

Crystal Wall has its use when you have nothing else to do, and will greatly help in situations where the enemy might cast Omni abilities. This can happen a lot at Post-game, but you need good judgment on when to use Defend.

Duty from Captain isn't used due to how inconsistent it becomes, enemies will either hit you hard or just enough above 21% to kill off a target, and 20% is a very dangerous threshold to be in at this point of the game.

Block from Captain isn't bad at all, it's just that having access to both Harnesser and Guardian support abilities presents to you a lot of competitive choices that more than makes up for it for yourself or the party.

Black Mage is the game's best elemental damage dealer. For a large part of the journey, there isn't much that can stand against the sheer power it carries, and it covers most of the elemental types excluding, Light, Dark, and Neutral. [Double Cast] is what truly brings this class to bare and is part of the reason why no enemy will be able to properly stand against you for a large portion of the game. And no matter what, the Black Mage will cover all of what you need from a damage dealer.

Ulan as a Black Mage combined with [One for One], is by far the strongest attacker for a large majority of your playthrough. You will hit hard and keep scaling further as you go, and on enemies without weaknesses, you won't be behind or lacking in damage.


Pros :

• With [One for One], will scale amazingly well throughout all stages of the game.
  
• Varied attacks; covers a majority of enemies elemental weaknesses.
  
• Enemy resistances are a non-issue until post-game.
  
• Synergizes with a Dark Knight class to trigger [Berserk].

Cons :

• Low Health and DEF.
  
• Overpowers the competition until post-game.
  
• May cause you to think the game is too easy/boring.

Stat investment:

• MP - 800~1000 --- for comfortable MP management, then rest into HP.
  
• MAG --- Everything here.
  
• AGI & EVA --- AGI to go first and wipe everything out on turn-1, switch fully to EVA in Post-Game if you start facing problems.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• One Omni ability to wipe out trash mobs.
  
• Any element for a boss' weakness.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• One for One - (Captain) Decreases Strength by 30% but increases Magic by 30%.
  
• MP Saver and/or Half-MP - (Captain/Black Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.
  
• Double Cast - Casts a single magical attack twice for 1.5x the cost.
  
• Berserk - (Harnesser) Increases STR, MAG, DEF, MDEF, and AGI by 20% when afflicted by a negative status effect.

Free Support Ability choices.

• MP Generator - Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Ignore - (Harnesser) 35% chance to gain Nullify when hit by an attack.
  
• Auto-Raise Ally - (Harnesser) Automatically revives a KO'd ally (once per battle).

Buying [One-for-One] from Ulan's base class turns the Black mage up to 11 and makes it into something spectacular. Hitting enemy weaknesses will hurt them ten-fold, and resistant enemies will still crumble to dust from the massive power that Ulan carries with her. Now we get to the part where we throw in [Double Cast], an additional 50% mana reduction from [Half-MP] which stacks with the 30% [MP Saver] provided by her Base Job, and you got a recipe for disaster to rain upon your enemies.

The game's other Black Mage, Dagmar, will consistently get outpaced by Ulan due to how stats work, and the difference between attacker STR/MAG and enemy DEF/MDEF. [One for One] just can't be beaten. Use a Dark Knight's [Doom] ability on Ulan to trigger Berserk for even more damage if no debuff is present (that isn't too terrible for her).

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Guardian
  Should be picked last in your party in this slot due to not having any real use out of its abilities. Curor is the only thing of real value here, Rampart has its uses but the whole purpose for it is to save your attackers, and Black Mage is one of them and kills the Black Mage immediately afterward. You will want to attack as a Black Mage, and so using any other ability is a waste of turns.
  
  
  • Picking Harnesser as your Sub Job gives you more supportive abilities, but their duration will be 3 turns long without using FP, and if you spend 2 turns casting Omni Buffs you will lose out on turns where the boss/enemy could have died much quicker; causing you to use fewer resources and take less damage in the long-term.
  
  
• Support Job - Harnesser
  Has some very solid and strong picks for Support abilities that will help in Post-Game, Berserk is the main one we want to pick up here to gain even more damage if you can utilize it correctly.
  
  
  • Picking Guardian as your Support Job gives you Immunity (Reduces the chance for negative status effects to afflict the user by 50%.), a decent way of resisting damage, but it will block you from getting Berserk; while Ignore from Harnesser is much stronger if defensive Support abilities are what you are after.

Berserk will trigger off every negative status effect the enemy can throw at you (save for a handful that counts outside of these effects). Even better, you can trigger it yourself if you have Kress or Arpajo as a Dark Knight to cast [Doom] on Ulan. You can remove this in Post-Game if you want to use both Ignore and Auto-Raise Ally.

Ignore has fantastic value in the Post-Game, as enemies at odd intervals might outright one-shot party members or cast a powerful spell such as Force. During enemy Omni attacks, this can make or break certain rounds and truly save you.

Auto-Raise Ally has a lot of value, especially in Post-Game, where someone might die once in battle due to bad RNG. This is quite helpful to have around.

MP Generator is a good choice when Multi-target attacks become more frequent, value depends on you.

Guardian is a great class to have for any playthrough but has less value on lower difficulties. Being able to take a hit and gaining high defensive stats is going to be a fantastic addition for anyone who needs a Tank. [Rampart] when applied correctly can make you fight much higher leveled monsters with ease, granted you have someone to revive the Guardian.

Due to optimizing the class for the party, its playstyle is very much the same as the Harnesser. Ultimate Shield has a lot of value when applied correctly, but becomes increasingly difficult to use due to enemies leaning heavily towards elemental attacks rather than physical, giving us little in the way of generating Cosmic Break points.


Pros :

• Fits into ALL party compositions.
  
• High HP/Defense Stat.
  
• Great MP management; Doesn't run out of MP.
  
• Great utility for the party all the way to the final boss.
  
• Good synergy with Harnesser Sub Job.

Cons :

• Low Speed/Agility.
  
• Provoke doesn't work on bosses.
  
• Won't attack much, if at all.
  
• Shorter buffs without spending FP, leaving little room for much else.
  
• Despite high STR weapon, lacks inherent STR/damage scaling.

Stat investment:

• MP - 500~800 --- for comfortable MP management, then rest into HP.
  
• DEF & MDEF --- Balanced, or everything into MDef and get an armor that absorbs physical. When you reach Post-Game, lean more towards MDef.
  
• AGI and/or EVA --- AGI high enough to buff everyone in your team first if possible, or to cast Omni Provoke on trash mobs. Or full EVA all throughout the game.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Rampart - All attacks on all allies will be blocked for 1 turn. After 1 turn the user will die.
  
• Omni Provoke - All enemies will almost always target the user for 3 turns. (Does not work on bosses)
  
• Ultimate Shield - (Guardian Quest, Cosmo Break) Nullify next attack on all allies.
  
• Crystal Break - (Harnesser) Sacrifice own STR and MAG stats to increase all allies STR and MAG by 30%.
  
• Spirit / Courage - (Harnesser) Increases MAG / STR by 20% on a single target.
  
• Omni Cast - (Harnesser) All single target Abilities become Multitargets for 1 turn.
  
• Dispel / Omni Dispel - (Harnesser) Removes all positive status effects from targets.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Guard - If an ally with less than 50% HP is targeted by an enemy attack, the user will take the hit instead
  
• Immunity - Reduces the chance for negative status effects to afflict the user by 50%.
  
• MP Generator - (Black Mage) Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Determination - Reduces all physical and magical damage taken by 10%

Free Support Ability choices.

• Resilience - (Guardian) 30% chance to heal the user for 30% of damage received when attacked.
  
• Invoker - (Captain) Increases the Cosmo Break bar's fill rate by 25%.
  
• Block - (Captain) 10% chance to reduce damage taken to 0.
  
• MP Saver or Half MP - (Captain/Black Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%.

Guardian provides you with immediate tanking benefits to your party and will remain consistently good throughout the game. Even if Provoke / Omni Provoke doesn't work on bosses, having a Guardian is a benefit you can't replace anyway in regards to [Guard]. The benefit of never running out of MP will be quite obvious when you get MP Generator and is a very comfortable ability to have. There is overlap in playstyles here, you will be doing the same things as you were with Harnesser and vice versa.

[Omni Cast] is fantastic and works for a lot of abilities, here are some abilities of note to use it with :

• [Reboot] (Chronomancer) will put your entire party in a state of total recovery, debuffs removed, and refunds its own cost. Despite needing 2 characters to pull off, this is an immensely powerful combination.
  
• Use on Arpajo with [Steal] if you need to steal a bunch of rare items.
  
• As an example, Dark Knight (Kress/Arpajo) and Warrior (Kress/Alek) presents situations where you can use Consume, Defense Break and Forcerima. Warrior can enjoy Triple Slash without needing Ophiuchus.

Do not ever forget to remove Demote (Turns off Support Abilities) from yourself or your party if anyone is afflicted by it.

• Sub Job - Harnesser
  Should always be picked here no matter what, you provide your allies with irreplaceable buffs that will last you throughout the entire game and it's the only time you have to use any real abilities for your party.
  
  
  • Picking Black Mage as your Sub Job doesn't give you any benefits at all, it might generate you some extra FP if you had the correct element to cast on a boss, but the damage would be extremely pitiful no matter what.
  
  
• Support Job - Black Mage
  Nets you MP Generator, at this point, you will never have to worry about MP on your Guardian ever as it will feel extremely comfortable to have around.
  
  
  • Picking Harnesser as your Support Job will net you more damage reduction than what you can do with, but only for Ulan. You miss out on every supportive and buffing ability that you can provide to your party in order for them to do their jobs better and is not worth wasting away in the Support Job slot.

MP Generator is going to net you value at all times, you will never run out of MP when hit as Guard will keep this going.

Invoker isn't a bad choice due to Ultimate Shield, and when you use Ultimate Shield correctly you will be grateful that you had it ready. In Post-Game it will be slightly harder to generate points for your Cosmic Bar as your Cosmic Bar generates on Physical damage taken.

Block is great, and you have the room to use it. 10% might seem low but you have to remember that you will be taking hits for your party members quite often and it procs more often than one would expect.

MP Saver / Half MP is available to you should you somehow find yourself in a situation where you keep running low on MP, which shouldn't happen often at all.