- 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.

Eko presents himself to you as the main Healer of the party right from the get-go, and his Base Job even comes with Support/Passive abilities to really make that identity clear. Due to his thematic identity, most people will find it attractive to have him in their party. Eko's combination of Jobs/Classes helps to form one entire character that would be familiar to a majority of other JRPG's - He comes packed with what you would expect and already want in a supportive character.

He has the extra benefit of being the game's strongest Light Elemental attacker when built correctly and can cause some really big damage with just that. This requires a bit of sacrificing of certain class combinations however and might make you more inclined to focus on his thematic identity. One issue is that a fully supportive Eko overlaps with a supportive Ulan, as they both come with the game's best support job; Harnesser. You only need one and make it too much of a redundant combination, while possibly regretting your choice.


A comment on the Main Jobs, as I will present them in their most optimal use:

• Harnesser makes for a better Healer and Support in most regards, due to a large amount of survivability, and having a medium amount of MAG which is all you need to heal well. MP may be an issue when going from monster to monster if you need to heal or buff a lot, but shouldn't be a concern at all during a boss fight.
  
  
• White Mage can hit extremely hard with its Light Magic and should be used, otherwise, you will end up as a copy of the Harnesser in playstyle with fewer defensive choices. This is fine if you like the White Mage theme and aesthetic, as the build will be the same with minor adjustments. Can end up with infinite MP under the right circumstances.
  
  
• Wushu can potentially hit even harder with Light Magic when set up correctly, but White Mage comes with a high amount of MAG that Wushu doesn't have in their weapons. Its abilities however are more subtle, as they can be used to rush higher leveled monsters/minibosses to weaken them, as well as being able to dip into Physical damage if wished-for (STR scales better than MAG on no-weaknesses). Has little to no MP concerns.

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.
[Crystal Break] is largely considered its signature ability and is a massive boost to any party.

Combined with some terrific defensive choices in both its own and Wushu, Eko can expect to be very survivable and able to weather many attacks and support the team.


Pros :

• Fits into many party compositions.
  
• Fantastic survivability and defensive values.
  
• Great choices and combinations of Support/Passive abilities.
  
• Stat distribution can be balanced between MAG/DEF/MDEF.

Cons :

• Low Speed/Agility.
  
• Equal STR/MAG on weapons.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- For comfortable MP management, but shouldn't be cause for concern. Can go lower if confident with the right Support abilities.
  
• MAG, DEF, MDEF --- A bit of MAG to ensure that you heal enough with Curus. DEF and MDEF can be balanced but should be more towards MDEF, and at Post-Game you should put all of DEF into MDEF.
  
• AGI or EVA --- AGI high enough to buff your main damage dealer, 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 - (With Berserk) Removes all negative status effects on a single target and applies them to the user.
  
• Curus + Omni Curus - (White Mage) Restores a large amount of HP to single/all targets.
  
• Clearor - (White Mage) Removes all status effects from a single target.
  
• Raisus - (White Mage) Raises a single target with a large amount of HP.
  
• Curima - (White Mage) Restores all HP to a single target.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• 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.
  
• Overpass - (Wushu, Post-Game preferably) 20% chance to absorb damage even if the user is weak against the element, or can nullify or resist it.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Berserk - Increases STR, MAG, DEF, MDEF, and AGI by 20% when afflicted by a negative status effect.
  
• 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.
  
• MP Saver - (Scholar) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Blossom - (Scholar) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.
  
• Conversion - (Scholar) Restore 5% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Reach - (Scholar) Increases healing magic efficiency by 20%.
  
• Meditation - (Wushu) Increases MAG stat by 20%.
  
• Benefactor - (Wushu, based on MAG) 40% chance to heal an ally automatically at the beginning of the global turn.

There are many wonderful choices to pick from when it comes to Support abilities. Berserk is the one with the most potential value, as you might be sitting on debuffs quite frequently in general and will be better than Meditation. You can mix and match any of them as you wish, just be sure to read the bottom section about a few of them.

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. Do not forget that Crystal Break will reduce your healing done, but can be mitigated with the right Support abilities.

[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.
  
• 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 - White Mage
  Has the necessary healing spells you might want to use, we won't be making use out of the Light damage spells, but nothing is stopping you from stacking all of the Support abilities together that increase MAG.
  
  
  • Picking Wushu as your Sub Job nets you a bunch of attacks that you really can't make use of to their full potential; except for Drain and Mind Break. You lose out on Wushu's Support abilities which are all good and hard to pass up.
  
  
• Support Job - Wushu
  Comes packed with a lot of good freebies which all have their use, and there are almost no negatives with having Wushu in this slot.
  
  
  • Picking White Mage as your Support Job relegates your healing towards using Items instead, or no healing at all and only supplying buffs with Utility abilities like Rescuer and Vaccine.

Berserk is used to increase your survivability and healing, it will trigger off any negative status effect, but not the few ones available that have 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.

Meditation is better than Reach, but can be stacked if wanted as this will offset your lowered MAG when using Crystal Break.

Overpass might seem confusing to read, but essentially works on all types of damage you take. You don't even have to be weak to it, you will outright absorb any hit done regardless.

Blossom per round is much better than Conversion, but Conversion will only win out if you've been attacked several times throughout many rounds.

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.

Benefactor can be helpful to have around, but scales with MAG so your mileage and preference may vary.

Wushu at a glance is not a straightforward class. Its weapon selection has a perfectly balanced split between STR and MAG, a lot of abilities have percentage-based attributes to them, and some with supportive additions. [Erior Hit] splits its attributes between STR and MAG in the same way Kress' Blade abilities work, and so working with two attributes can be a bit difficult. What the class excels at is shutting down Hunts/Minibosses and allowing you to fight many of them earlier than might have been intended. [Demote Hit] shuts down their support abilities, while [Drain] immediately sucks up a good chunk of their health bar, and [Mind Break] removes a lot of their attributes.

Go to town and surprise yourself, Eko is most definitely fed up with all the teasing at this point and decided to take it all into his own hands, literally. For being such a formidable choice, the little guy will scale well into Post-Game content but will need the help of his allies like any damage dealer.


Pros :

• 50% increased STR through Support/Passive abilities.
  
• 70% increased MAG through Support/Passive abilities.
  
• Great survivability.
  
• Good skill tree design allows for early stat upgrades while picking up important abilities.
  
• Great for Hunts/Minibosses, some abilities shut them down completely.

Cons :

• Odd mix of percentage-based abilities.
  
• Lower End-Game STR/MAG weapon scaling.
  
• Assault scales slightly less than similar abilities like Triple Slash.
  
• Needs support from other members to trigger Berserk.
  
• Demote Hit is currently bugged and only seems to shut down specific abilities.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~800 --- For comfortable MP management.
  
• STR or MAG --- I suggest going for STR since STR abilities scale better than MAG. We do lose out on an extra 20% MAG, however. We can do a hybrid build if you want to do many other things but focus on STR or MAG fully at Post-Game.
  
• ACC, AGI, or EVA --- ACC if you are going fully into STR. AGI if you intend on going MAG, then switch all of AGI to EVA in Post-Game.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Assault - Strong physical damage to a single target and 2 random targets.
  
• Drain - Absorbs 20% of the target's HP. (works on bosses)
  
• Mind Break - Deals physical damage to a single target with a 30% chance to negate what they resist, nullify, and absorb for the rest of the battle.
  
• Demote Hit - Deals physical damage to a single target with a 75% chance to inflict Demote for 3 turns. (Turns off support abilities, but seems to be bugged and shuts down specific abilities)
  
• Omni Eriorus - (White Mage) Deals a large amount of light-elemental damage to all targets.
  
• Eriorima - (White Mage) Deals a huge amount of light-elemental damage to a single target.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• 8th Gate - Increases STR and MAG by 30% but decreases the user's HP by 20% each turn (only while the user's HP is above 25%).
  
• Berserk - Increases STR, MAG, DEF, MDEF, and AGI by 20% when afflicted by a negative status effect.
  
• Overpass - 20% chance to absorb damage even if the user is weak against the element, or can nullify or resist it.
  
• Ignore - 35% chance to gain Nullify when hit by an attack.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Meditation - Increases MAG stat by 20%.
  
• MP Saver - (Scholar) Reduces MP costs by 30%.
  
• Blossom - (Scholar) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.
  
• Conversion - (Scholar) Restore 5% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Auto-Raise Ally - (Harnesser) Automatically revives a KO'd ally (once per battle).
  
• Benefactor - (based on MAG) 40% chance to heal an ally automatically at the beginning of the global turn.

Due to the many ways we can increase our stats through Wushu and Harnesser, we can experiment with a hybrid build with healing and the like (Lean more on STR due to high MAG%) or focus on one stat or the other. We can match and surpass Dagmar & Kress, and be right behind Ulan & Alek for the top spot in damage.

The easiest way for us to trigger Berserk is for a Dark Knight to cast [Doom] on us, or wait for an enemy to debuff a stat we don't particularly need.

Go rush down Hunts/Minibosses if you are confident, Wushu is the best at it and has the tools for the job. [Drain] will outright remove 20% of their health, [Mind Break] will open them up and eliminate certain factors from a fight, and [Demote Hit] seems to be bugged as it only shuts down specific abilities, but works wonders when it does work.

Hunters and Shamans are your best friends but don't forget to bring a Harnesser with you for [Crystal Break] and [Spirit/Courage].

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

• Sub Job - White Mage
  This can end up being a redundant slot for us depending on the use, but the thing we can make use of is [Omni Eriorus] and [Eriorima] if we lean on MAG. If you want to heal then that's up to you.
  
  
  • Picking Harnesser as your Sub Job makes you more of a Supportive and Utilitarian damage dealer, but in order to get your Buffs going properly, you will need to use FP or only focus on buffing.
  
  
• Support Job - Harnesser
  Gives us Berserk which will push all of our important stats further, and Ignore is relevant for keeping Eko going with 8th Gate and surviving bad moments.
  
  
  • Picking White Mage as your Support Job gives us better MP management, and some Utility that we don't have to think about. Not as defensive, not as brilliant, less damage all around.

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 Eko.

8th Gate might seem intimidating to keep in check, but in general, you will be sitting below 100% HP most of the time and most likely below 50% health anyway. Assuming you have a Tank on your team, the Tank should be taking most of the damage with Guard that Eko would have received otherwise, and you can always heal him back up as well.

Meditation is just a flat 20% MAG increase to your damage & healing and should be used if you are going for MAG.

Overpass might seem confusing to read, but essentially works on all types of damage you take. You don't even have to be weak to it, you will outright absorb any hit done regardless. It CAN cause situations where your Tank wouldn't be using Guard, but good use of abilities will help with this.

Benefactor can be helpful to have around, on rare situations where Eko is the only one who needs healing, this can help him keep 8th Gate running more easily.

White Mage presents itself as your classic JRPG staple with a familiar name but lacks a few of the margins that would otherwise make it stand out. For people who love the theme of a party member who recovers and supports their party, the White Mage will immediately stand out in its ability to only Heal, remove debuffs and deal Light damage. What the White Mage lacks in support can be made up with a good Sub Job, but we also risk potentially missing out on abilities that could have been better spent elsewhere.

Wushu however lets us push our damage through the roof with a 50% increase to our MAG, and that is not a small amount if a different party member (Ulan) can give us the benefits of [Crystal Break] without having Eko use it himself. Harnesser comes with all the buffs we could ever need, we already make up for the weaknesses the White Mage have but miss out on offensive and defensive Support/Passive abilities in the process in the form of Berserk and Ignore.

With a bit of adjustment and different Support Ability choices, you can make this build function the same way as the Harnesser build if you prefer the White Mage as the Main Job for RP/Thematical reasons.


Pros :

• High MAG weapons.
  
• Decent mix of Utility through Support/Passive abilities.
  
• Hits hard with Eriorima.
  
• Overheals consistently.

Cons :

• Less survivability than Harnesser Main Job.
  
• Overheals by a large amount.
  
• Crystal Break reduces our damage if used.

Stat investment:

• MP - 600~1000 --- For comfortable MP management, with the right Support abilities you can go lower if confident.
  
• MAG --- All of it here.
  
• AGI or EVA --- AGI if you want to go first and wipe out enemies on turn 1, switch fully to EVA in Post-Game once you start facing problems.

Important Abilities to pick up:

• Omni Eriorus - Deals a large amount of light-elemental damage to all targets.
  
• Eriorima - Deals a huge amount of light-elemental damage to a single target.
  
• Curus + Omni Curus - Restores a large amount of HP to single/all targets.
  
• Clearor - Removes all status effects from a single target.
  
• Raisus - Raises a single target with a large amount of HP.

Support Abilities in order of importance:

• MP Saver and/or Half-MP - (Scholar/White Mage) Reduces MP costs by 30/50%
  
• 8th Gate - (Wushu) Increases STR and MAG by 30% but decreases the user's HP by 20% each turn (only while the user's HP is above 25%).
  
• Meditation - (Wushu) Increases MAG stat by 20%.
  
• Overpass - (Wushu, Post-Game) 20% chance to absorb damage even if the user is weak against the element, or can nullify or resist it.

Free Support Ability choices.

• Blossom - (Scholar) Restores 5% of max MP each turn.
  
• Conversion - (Scholar) Restore 5% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• MP Generator - Restores 10% of max MP when taking physical or magical damage.
  
• Rescuer - 20% chance to automatically cast Raise on a single KO'd ally.
  
• Vaccine - 20% chance for any negative effect on the user to be negated at the beginning of the turn.
  
• Auto-Raise - Automatically revives the user when KO'd (once per battle).
  
• Benefactor - (Wushu, based on MAG) 40% chance to heal an ally automatically at the beginning of the global turn.

As noted above: With a bit of adjustment and different Support Ability choices, you can make this build function the same way as the Harnesser build if you prefer the White Mage as the Main Job for RP/Thematical reasons. Otherwise making full use out of the high MAG it has should be prioritized with Light magic, and it will hit hard. Even if enemies are resistant, you will still kill them on the first turn of combat.

You have a lot of choices in your support abilities, pick those you feel will help your party out the most while dealing large amounts of Light damage and occasionally healing. We don't want to use Crystal Break as it will lower our damage, but it is there if you want to.

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
  Identical to the Main Job variant, except for lacking the defensive side of it. We have all the buffs we could want, and so you can go semi-supportive with it or ignore this slot altogether and deal damage.
  
  
  • Picking Wushu as your Sub Job gives you a lot of different offensive abilities, but you wouldn't find much use for them and would spread your role out too much; when your Eriorima already deals the most damage and then some. You would also lack any increases to your MAG to even do the potential damage you might have been able to.
  
  
• Support Job - Wushu
  Is self-explanatory at a glance and gives us some fantastic Support abilities, 8th Gate and Meditation will increase our MAG by 50% and that is such a huge amount that can't be easily replicated or replaced. Overpass makes up for anything we might have missed from Harnesser.
  
  
  • Picking Harnesser as your Support Job makes you miss out on the supportive abilities it might have, but gives you more defensive options in return. Since Wushu's attacks don't do much for us, we end up wasting the fantastic Support abilities it has.

Meditation is just a flat 20% MAG increase to your damage and healing, you would be a fool to leave this out.

8th Gate might seem intimidating to keep in check, but in general, you will be sitting below 100% HP most of the time and most likely below 50% health anyway. Assuming you have a Tank on your team, the Tank should be taking most of the damage with Guard that Eko would have received otherwise, and you can always heal him back up as well.

Overpass might seem confusing to read, but essentially works on all types of damage you take. You don't even have to be weak to it, you will outright absorb any hit done regardless. It CAN cause situations where your Tank wouldn't be using Guard, but good use of abilities will help with this.

Benefactor can be helpful to have around, on rare situations where Eko is the only one who needs healing, this can help him keep 8th Gate running more easily.

Rescuer has a lot of value for just existing, free resurrections without spending a turn are quite valuable when triggered and has no limit. The user of this needs to be alive for it to work (So no 4-player wipe with a sudden revive).

Vaccine can be great, enemies consistently use status effects throughout the game, spending a turn not recovering can be valuable.

Auto-Raise has value, especially in Post-Game, where dying to bad RNG is very real so it's helpful at times.