So, since I'm 20 episodes in I thought I'd share some thoughts up until this point in the game since I feel it has been opening up more.
The Arcane Soldier is a beast. As you can see, I am now focusing on her Frost Strike more and it is very effective at freezing enemies in their tracks. Meanwhile, I'm also focusing on Xafira, the Herald of Talaet, for my Divine Summoner. Xafira is a bow user that has an innate freezing ability as well (her bow strikes are ice-based). Between these 2 characters I am able to better manipulate the battles and control the turn-order more by freezing enemies who are about to attack and further drop them down the turn order. I also use my Mage to occasionally hit with a Shocking Touch when necessary for a stun, but he focuses basically on either fire (Sparks spell) or physical damage (Stone Arrow spell).
What else? The Arcane Soldier also is fairly strong in melee for us. Gaulen is sort of a lackluster attack character thus far but handy on the support end as his turn is usually the best time to use a supplemental item or scroll. My Thief is mastering shurikens which are also very powerful. They have a great attack thus far and also cause considerable bleed damage. My Cleric has been a pleasant surprise (which seems to be a thing in RPGs where I use Clerics! My Cleric in Elminage Gothic surprises me time and time again…) in that she can hit for solid damage as well as a healthy stun. All in all this gives me quite a few options for manipulating turn order and making up for what we lack in raw damage output with status-altering effects.
In terms of non-combat skills, Gaulen is very interesting. I am giving him Mercantilism as the economy has been one of toughest foes thus far. I also have given him quite a few points in both Camouflage and Knowledge of Herbs. Herbs for the obvious reason of collecting more, but Camouflage is also very useful to help manage random encounters. I am going to keep giving him points in Energy so he can Camouflage many times without having to rest or use a potion, which is also a good luxury to have. Next, I have started focusing him on Knowledge of Terrains as well. Any movement bonus to help reduce food cost is very important right now and this goes hand in hand with Mercantilism to help save gold in the long run. More points in this skill will allow you to have a few more gold pieces for other essentials.
My Thief is mostly Perception, Trap Disarming and Lockpicking. Nothing too crazy there. I always try to get her at least a point of each in each level up as she is the best at spotting traps. A slightly underrated side effect of Perception is also the occasional random finds. She seems to find quite a few pouches full of gold and those are always most welcome.
In combat terms I also focus on her Evasion and Speed a bit as I hope to make her a 4th front-line character who can make up for her lack of raw Defense with a good Evasion.
Any questions for me regarding this stuff? I have played further but I really only want to talk about what I've done up to this, Episode 20, so I won't go into details about later in the game. But you might be able to see a definite strategy developing at this point.
