- 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.

Kaydin is the game's most balanced character, can fit into most party compositions depending on your usage, and even outside of combat she supplies you with two useful abilities: Raider (Display unopened treasure chests on the Dungeon Map) and most importantly Monster Bait (Allows you to automatically launch a fight without colliding into an enemy by pressing UP on the D-Pad). If farming enemies felt like a chore because you have to find them, this ability will allow you to fight anyone, anywhere.

Alongside Arpajo and Eko (And Alassia to a degree), she is one of the fastest characters and is an extremely balanced character overall. As she is not weak enough to be left out, others can do different things equally as well (or better) as she can with what she has available. Depending on what you want her to do, she will sit comfortably in that spot until other characters build themselves up; and if/when you wish to switch her out, she will have done her job admirably to pave the way for others to shine.

MP Saver is not recommended if you plan on going Alchemist, as it is quite costly SP-wise, and Alchemist only has 1 ability it will make use of (As we require no MP to use items). Omni Force can help clear enemies quite quickly in the early stages when built right, it scales however with STR, and Alchemist gains the ability to throw out Force spells on class choice (up to level 3) but might take a little while until you get the Omni/Multi targetted version.

• As a side note: Monster Bait can be used to fight enemies in rooms where there are no enemies at all or where something special might have happened, use this at your own discretion to discover new enemy types to fight.

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.

Assassin is a very balanced class to have around, combine it with the most balanced character in the game and you got a very comfortable class to run around with. You gain access to all debuffs but one, Demote, and they are all on a 75% trigger chance, but it is more than enough to help the playstyle. Enemies weak to Dark tend to be quite sturdy, and access to all of the good Dark abilities can help with this and is a reliable alternative to damage. Early on, the class can be used to apply debuffs upon the enemy, or wipe out groups of them with [Omni Umbrus].

Leaning more on the supportive side for the party, you still do decent damage and you can use Spread+Weakness on entire groups of enemies for your party. This is the best friend to have for a Physical leaning attacker such as Alek/Kress, but using different elements is also a valid choice since it's at your disposal and highly encouraged.


Pros :

• Fits into any party compositions.
  
• Covers Dark element and can be used as a main attack.
  
• Unwall/Unshell + Mark combined are the most important debuffs for any boss fight.
  
• Spread will make good use of many abilities, such as Weakness.

Cons :

• 25% chance to not debuff with claw attacks.
  
• Supportive, so might feel weak compared to dedicated damage dealers due to cycling between Mark + Unwall/Unshell and a damage ability.
  
• Fructify currently doesn't work properly.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- for comfortable MP management, then rest into HP.
  
• STR or MAG --- MAG if fully focused in Dark abilities, STR for ClawAttacks+Gunner. Feel free to experiment with balanced stats, but focus on 1 when you reach Post-Game.
  
• MDEF --- For Post-Game if you are only using her for the utility, it's well worth it investing fully into MDEF instead.
  
• ACC and/or AGI --- ClawAttacks+Gunner requires ACC to hit, and missing is painful. Can spend a few points in AGI for a balanced mix. Post-Game move points from AGI to ACC.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Unwall/Unshell Claws - Deals physical damage to a single target with a 75% chance to inflict Unwall/Unshell for 3 turns. (-DEF/MDEF)
  
• Mark - (Hunter) The marked target will receive 25% additional damage for 3 turns.
  
• Omni Umbror / Umbrus - Deals a moderate/high amount of dark-elemental damage to all targets.
  
• Umbrorima - Deals a huge amount of dark-elemental damage to a single target.
  
• Coward/Mingle Claws - Deals physical damage to a single target with a 75% chance to inflict Coward/Mingle for 3 turns. (-STR/MAG)
  
• Mute Claws - Deals physical damage to a single target with a 75% chance to inflict Mute(Silence) for 3 turns.
  
• {Elemental} Weakness - (Hunter) Target becomes weak to XX attacks for 1 turn.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Affliction - Increases the duration of all negative status effects inflicted on enemies by 1 turn. (Doom will be decreased by 1 turn.)
  
• Spread - When inflicting a status effect on a single target, it will be inflicted on all targets.
  
• MP Saver - (Explorer) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Fructify - Increases damage dealt by 20% if the target is afflicted by a negative status effect.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Monster Bait - (Explorer) Allows you to automatically launch a fight without colliding into an enemy by pressing UP on the D-Pad.
  
• Precaution - Prevents Surprise Attacks from enemies.
  
• Duplication - (Alchemist) 20% chance to prevent items used in battle from being consumed.
  
• Transmutation - (Alchemist) Increases item potency by 30%
  
• Item Potency - (Alchemist) Increases item potency by 20%

A flexible and balanced support in most regards, keep renewing your debuffs on bosses regularly and when an opportunity presents itself you can sneak in an attack such as [Gunner] or [Umbrorima]. In fights that might take longer than usual, you will want to open up with Mark as it's a reliable and guaranteed debuff to land; followed by this you will want to use either Unwall/Unshell Claw depending on the damage your team focuses on, or both. You should obviously not be afraid to use recovery items when/if needed, and [Mute Claws] with Spread can shut down entire groups of enemies from using abilities

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

• Sub Job - Hunter
  Allows us to fit Kaydin into different compositions that most certainly can make use out of Weakness+Spread on monsters. While it doesn't work on bosses, you can still use it on Hunts/Minibosses. [Gunner] will be a good strong attack alternative despite the extreme RNG involved, and [Mark] lets us double up on even more debuffs for a boss fight.
  
  
  • Picking Alchemist as your Sub Job should never be picked up in this slot, ever. You might gain the ability to throw every elemental type up to level 3, but what makes them powerful and usable, to begin with, are the support abilities that Alchemist comes with. Not having the 50% increase to Item Potency will make your elemental attacks excessively lackluster.
  
  
• Support Job - Alchemist
  This should be picked up last in your party, with some deference; It can end up being useless depending on your usage. The increase in Item Potency can make you use lower-cost HP/MP recovery items quite well (50% becomes 75%, etc) and can even double as a functional healer. But when you've reached this point in the game, money and the strongest healing items shouldn't be too much of an issue.
  
  
  • Picking Hunter as your Support Job is the worst value for your buck since you miss out on Gunner, Mark, and Weakness spreading for your party. Most of the support abilities other than First Strike have questionable application overall.

Fructify gains immediate value, since you already supply debuffs you will always have a 20% increase in damage throughout the fight.

Affliction + Spread will help with managing your debuffs better, Mark and Weakness can be used to great effect with these on top of that.

Monster Bait was already explained in Kaydin's introduction, but the value of this one makes her a secret MVP when it comes to cutting down a lot of time in grinding. The sheer comfort of this one is too good to pass up on and will help a ton.

Fructify currently doesn't increase your damage by 20% but adds a singular hit that deals 20% of that damage done and can be resisted. Doesn't trigger off multiple hits, but will help Kaydin in her role.

Alchemist is probably the most overlooked class, despite being such a strong class choice when looked at closely. This class will ONLY function well when picked as a Main Job and never as a Sub Job for Kaydin. The other misconception might stem from people thinking you need to spend money, but Alchemist comes with an ability to help with this called [Distillate]. (It's misspelled as Distilate)

This is a powerful ability that only costs you 50 MP, and as it states will generate one Ore item (Single Target) and one Crystal item (Omni/Multi target) of EACH element, including Neutral in place of physical. This generates an item of each level up towards level 3 which scale with MAG (Neutral/Force scaling with STR), and there are 9 elements, and since Ore and Crystal are separate items you will have gained up to 54 new items in your inventory all at once for the cost of 50 MP. You can sell these items too.

All 9 elements are at your disposal with a 50% increase in item power to make up for not having access to level 4 elements. The increase in power also helps with recovery, as HP/MP items become stronger for a lower budget (50% is instead 75%, etc). Because of this, it can function as a fully acceptable Healer until the strongest recovery items are available.


Pros :

• Attacks with all elements available in the game.
  
• Single+Multi targetted spells without MP cost due to being items.
  
• Can stack Full MAG for the 8 elements.
  
• Good Force user with Full STR.
  
• Well-designed skill tree for easy choices.

Cons :

• Needs to invest in stats right away once you start using Ores/Crystals.
  
• Cannot use Focus Points to power up your items.
  
• Using Distillate can take a while until you reach enough item stacks to use your ores/crystals.
  
• Inventory in combat gets cluttered by Distillate (You can scroll down pages faster by tapping left/right instead of down/up)

Stat investment:

• MP - 300~400 --- To use Distillate comfortably you can increase this much further, and then switch it back to HP.
  
• MAG or STR --- MAG for all the elements, but if you want to use Force + Gunner go for STR, and STR can be the better option for Post-Game.
  
• AGI, ACC or EVA --- To make Kaydin do 1st turn kills if able, otherwise Gunner requires ACC. Switch to EVA at post-game.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Distillate - Generates one ore item and one crystal item of each element.
  
• {Elemental} Crafter + Omni Crafter - Enables the use of XX Ore/Crystal item in battle.
  
• Omni Force Crafter - Enables the use of Neutral Ore/Crystal item in battle. (Allows access to the rest of the elements)
  
• Mark - (Hunter) The marked target will receive 25% additional damage for 3 turns.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Transmutation - Increases item potency by 30%
  
• Item Potency - Increases item potency by 20%
  
• Duplication - 20% chance to prevent items used in battle from being consumed.
  
• Fructify - (Assassin) Increases damage dealt by 20% if the target is afflicted by a negative status effect.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Spread - (Assassin) When inflicting a status effect on a single target, it will be inflicted on all targets.
  
• Affliction - (Assassin) Increases the duration of all negative status effects inflicted on enemies by 1 turn. (Doom will be decreased by 1 turn.)
  
• MP Saver - (Explorer) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Monster Bait - (Explorer) Allows you to automatically launch a fight without colliding into an enemy by pressing UP on the D-Pad.

Try to get the Alchemist as one of your first Job picks in your party to get [Distillate] running right away and your inventory built up. Make sure you have Item Potency+Transmutation no matter what before you even start using Ores/Crystals, and you should be using Kaydin's flexibility to your advantage as she can even be your party healer. Pick any Element you wish as you will have all of them eventually, or go the Neutral/STR route entirely. Since you can't use Focus Points for your items when generated, your party can make use of them instead.

My Recommendation: After unlocking Distillate you gain access to the +20 stat increase node AND [Omni Aero Crafter] so bear this in mind. Grab ahold of Omni Aero so that you have a powerful Multi attack for cheap value ([Ice Crafter] can help at Blazing Sands and beyond) make sure you have Erio+Umbror online to cover Light/Dark. Get Stat increases to make use of the extra power, afterwards, you can start picking Single/Omni elements as you wish.

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

• Sub Job- Hunter
  Allows us to cast [Mark] on a single turn with little downsides, and while it is weaker than a Unwall/Unshell effect we don't have to worry about proc chances and can attack with our Ores/Crystals right away. The extra benefit to this is [Gunner] for Physical, and the Weakness line of spells which we will be able to Spread should we want to.
  
  
  • Picking Assassin as your Sub Job nets you most of the negative status effects but on a 75% chance. This can extend the turns we spend in combat by quite a bit if we want a specific effect should it fail, and for the most part, we want to cast Ores/Crystals while having overall usable utility. We also gain the use of Umbrorima (Level 4 Dark), but our Umbor Ores will be sufficiently powerful to emulate it.
  
  
• Support Job - Assassin
  Fructify helps to push our damage further, and since you will be using [Mark] this will help you out even more. Affliction can help Mark feel a bit more comfortable to use when it lasts for 1 turn longer, and Spread is a good choice for [Weakness] as well.
  
  
  • Picking Hunter as your Support Job nets you odd value in general. First Strike can be okay (But only for the first turn of combat), Kaydin with full AGI tends to be faster than most things already. Collector is okay but you shouldn't be too concerned about extra item drops unless it's Quest related (to be confirmed if Collector works on Quest items), and Pickpocket asks for the enemy to hit you to even work.

Transmutation + Item Potency + Fructify can't be stressed as to how important this is for the Alchemist to function. Not having access to level 4 spells puts you at a minor disadvantage, but these ensure you won't.

Monster Bait was already explained in Kaydin's introduction, but the value of this one makes her a secret MVP when it comes to cutting down a lot of time in grinding. The sheer comfort of this one is too good to pass up on and will help a ton.

MP Saver can be picked up at a steep cost at the start if you want Distillate to be used even more without having to recover MP too often.

Affliction + Spread can spread Mark and Weakness while lasting a turn longer to help with managing it better.

Hunter is one of the harder classes to build around as a main job, this is mostly in part because of its kit such as Weakness being quite lackluster without Spread, or a different class offers a better Support/Passive ability than the Hunter itself. Weakness allows us to change the element of one enemy, and it doesn't work on bosses either. Its Support abilities are niché, to say the least, and have little use for many parties.

You end up in a situation where being straightforward is the better way to go with Hunter-Kaydin, as she also comes with a better ACC growth than the other Hunter, Arpajo (His base class has high ACC, but not as a Hunter). To make the most use out of the Hunter, focusing on what exists, what it can do, and then strengthening it will be the correct way to go; Else you end up overlapping the playstyle with the Assassin, while at the same time being much weaker overall.


Pros :

• Mark + Gunner are really cheap to get early.
  
• Can use Weakness with Spread.
  
• Straight forward playstyle.
  
• First Strike is good for spreading Weakness.

Cons :

• Weak/Niche Support/Passive abilities.
  
• Needs support from others to help with Physical resistant enemies.
  
• Straightforward playstyle.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- for comfortable MP management, then rest into HP.
  
• STR --- All of it here.
  
• ACC --- All of it here.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Gunner - Deal between 1 to 10 hits to random enemies.
  
• Mark - The marked target will receive 25% additional damage for 3 turns.
  
• {Elemental} Weakness - Target becomes weak to XX attacks for 1 turn.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• Spread - (Assassin) When inflicting a status effect on a single target, it will be inflicted on all targets.
  
• MP Saver - (Explorer) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Affliction - (Assassin) Increases the duration of all negative status effects inflicted on enemies by 1 turn. (Doom will be decreased by 1 turn.)

Free Support Ability choices.

• First Strike - Allows the user to act first in the first turn of a battle.
  
• Monster Bait - (Explorer) Allows you to automatically launch a fight without colliding into an enemy by pressing UP on the D-Pad.
  
• Raider - (Explorer) Displays unopened treasure chests on the Dungeon Map.
  
• Cartographer - Display undiscovered rooms on the Dungeon Map.
  
• Collector - Increases the chance enemies will drop items at the end of the battle.
  
• Fructify - (Assassin) Increases damage dealt by 20% if the target is afflicted by a negative status effect.

Since the game has a lot of Physical-resistant enemies, support the Hunter in the same way as you would with Alek/Kress/Arpajo, you will need a Shaman (Dagmar/Arpajo) with Elemental Infusions to not cause too many issues with Physical resistance. (Causes Physical attacks to become an element of your choice). Use First Strike+Weakness+Spread for a more consistent enemy wipeout with another party member.

You will benefit a whole lot more if you have a party that can supply you with [Courage] (20% increased STR), a Harnesser comes with [Crystal Break] as well as the aforementioned ability (30% increased STR/MAG).

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

• Sub Job - Alchemist
  This should be the very last choice in your party as you will never use any of its abilities. You might gain the ability to throw every elemental type up to level 3, you aren't even focused in MAG, to begin with (But can use Force due to STR, sure); but what makes them usable are the support abilities that Alchemist comes with. Not having the 50% increase to Item Potency will make your attacks excessively lackluster while [Gunner] will out-damage them even on Resistant enemies.
  
  
  • Picking Assassin as your Sub Job was already mentioned as overlapping the gameplay style with a Main Job Assassin. Guns are primarily STR and so you can't make use of Umbor spells, do you want to debuff enemies on a 75% chance while they only last for 3 rounds, forcing you to only ever use these abilities per every round for them to even be useful? No matter what you do, this choice right here is much weaker on every level since you miss out on the Support abilities.
  
  
• Support Job - Assassin
  Will help push your damage further with Fructify and not be completely lackluster, and your Weakness spells can be used to support someone else in your party for wiping out entire groups of enemies. Increasing the duration on Mark is a valid choice to allow you to deal more damage before having to reapply it.
  
  
  • Picking Alchemist as your Support Job will let you recover more HP/MP on lower-budget items, but you are probably not too keen on doing that with a straightforward Damage Dealer since you lose out on damage by not having Assassin here.

Fructify if left out of your kit will make you incredibly lackluster comparatively. You might as well play the Assassin Main Job alternative and use Gunner on that since that would be much stronger right away.

First Strike + Spread with Weakness can allow for turn 1 kills when used correctly.

Raider + Cartographer are odd ones with dubious value since the major complaint from people is that the map is hard to navigate.

Collector can be a nice surprise if you love items, but there are no items that you can lose out on in the game so it has dubious value. For the item-loving people only.

Monster Bait was already explained in Kaydin's introduction, but the value of this one makes her a secret MVP when it comes to cutting down a lot of time in grinding. The sheer comfort of this one is too good to pass up on and will help a ton.

Fructify currently doesn't increase your damage by 20% but adds a singular hit that deals 20% of that damage done and can be resisted. Doesn't trigger off multiple hits, currently works better for Sniper.