Key to any RPG game, Dragon Quest included, is the formation of a functional party. This is even more true in the ninth entry in the series, because the party is made up of entirely player created members, whereby the player chooses their class and growth throughout. Those coming from Dragon Quest 8, in which party members were fully defined and fleshed out characters, will likely appreciate the increased creativity that is allowed by this system, but it does conjure up a bit of a question: How should you build your team? Is it worth grabbing a dedicated healer? Should you lean more towards physical or magical damage? There is no real right answer of course, because DQ9 is malleable enough to allow almost anything to work, but such things aren’t going to stop us from writing up a few of our favourites.
Balanced Party
- Paladin
- Priest
- Sage
- Gladiator
Given the name that we’ve given this particular party build, you’ll no doubt be able to tell that it’s quite a normal one, designed to be able to take on any situation and come out ahead. In all honesty, we’d actually consider it slightly more defensive in nature, thanks to the inclusion of three classes that have heals, but once you begin to approach the end game of DQ9, and indeed the post game, you’ll start to understand just how important damage reduction is.
In terms of skills, we’ve got almost everything covered here. The Paladin will contribute a great deal of defence with skills like Forbearance and Kabuff, the Priest will provide huge amounts of healing with a little damage and the Sage contributes a high amount of both alongside it. All of this is topped off by the Gladiator, which will take care of the truly high amounts of single target damage. You could argue that one Gladiator isn’t necessarily enough for some post game content, and we’d certainly agree to a certain extent, however for the majority of this game’s content, the Balanced Party will perform very well.
Build Highlights
- Great all round performance.
- Access to the best healing spells in the game, via the Priest.
- Usage of powerful attacking spells, foregoing only the very best of the Mage, which aren’t strictly necessary.
- Gladiator will provide huge physical damage.
- Lacks natural access to Oomph or Gritty Ditty, so it’s reliant on the Gladiator’s own Double Up to buff physical damage. Happily the Paladin can help to mitigate the higher incoming damage resulting from this.
- May lack in raw damage for some ultra difficult post game boss fights.
- Consider switching the Priest for a Mage if you’re looking for more group offence, or an Armamentalist to support the Gladiator further, through Oomph and Fource skills.
Advertisement
Offensive Party
- Priest
- Gladiator
- Gladiator
- Gladiator
Alright, we’ll admit that this build is going to look a little unusual, but stick with us here. Sometimes, particularly towards the end of Dragon Quest IX in particular, the situation calls for a massive amount of damage, and for such things we’d recommend this offensive party build. Somehow, we suspect that you might have a few questions at this point, so let’s dig into them.
Yes, we don’t bring any magic damage dealers, unless you count the tiny amount that a Priest will offer. Well, as the game progresses, you’ll start to understand that these aren’t actually that necessary outside of clearing random battles, a task that weapon skills can do just as well. You could of course bring a Mage or Sage if you prefer, but to do so would see you miss out on the huge single target damage another Gladiator can offer.
Secondly, you’re likely wondering how such a team will survive, especially given the relative weakness of the Gladiator in this area. This isn’t something that we can argue at all, however it’s worth noting that statistical upgrades present in each vocation’s skill list will be applied to your party member forever. Should you choose to level your members as a Warrior first, they’ll gain Strength, HP and Resilience during the process, and the same is true of the Paladin class. Levelling these prior to becoming a Gladiator will ensure that your team of boss killers can survive even the worst of situations.
Build Highlights
- Unlike our previous build, this one will not lack in damage at all. Not even the hardest of bosses can stand up to this onslaught.
- The Priest is required to do a great deal of heavy lifting in terms of healing, especially in the post game, where they’ll likely spam Omniheal every round.
- Highly recommended that the Gladiators level up as a Warrior or Paladin before building this team, to give them a great deal of health, strength and resilience, which will help them stand up to the incoming damage.
- It might sound like a meme team, but this is actually an optimal team for some post game battles.
Advertisement
Farming Build
- Armamentalist
- Thief
- Thief
- Thief
Well, what do you expect us to do when a game is so full of loot? There are, of course, all manner of different party builds that you can make in this game, but we wanted our final one to allow you to do something else: Complete all of those damned Alchemy recipes! This might sound a little trite from the outset, but once you get into a Dragon Quest title, that little repository of recipes will taunt you until you fill it’s pages with successful Alchemy!
Were it not obvious given our choice of classes, this whole build revolves around stealing as much loot as possible from every single battle. Three Thieves will already make this easier than ever, but we also like to bring along an Armementalist for one particular purpose: Putting the enemy to sleep. We’re not about to claim that a sleeping enemy will more readily drop it’s loot, but they’re certainly going to do no damage and are much less likely to run away.
Build Highlights
- Thieves are here to steal, of course, and you’ll want to improve their chances by stacking as much Deftness as possible. This continues to scale all the way to max, though the steal rate will never be higher than 50%.
- Rangers have a good deal of Deftness to offer, so levelling the thieves through this class first will help, along with any Deftness increasing equipment you might have.
- The Thief Revocation reward, Honour Among Thieves, doubles the chance to steal.
- Magical Might increases the chance of Kasnooze applying, at a value of 50 or above.
More Dragon Quest IX…
100% Completion Infographic | Dragon Quest 9
Having reached the end of our Dragon Quest 9 content, we’ve decided to put yet another title into our 100% Infographic formats. To be honest, we just like to summarise our feelings on some of our favourite games, and it satisfies a creative urge at the same time. There’s something ultimately therapeutic about putting out…
3 Strong Post Game Team Builds | Dragon Quest 9
Concluding the story portion of DQIX is just the beginning, it’s fair to say. In fact, we’d argue that there’s just as much, if not more content available to the player after the conclusion comes and goes. This is all thanks to the grotto system, which is essentially a system of random dungeons that the…
Preparing For Post Game Grottos | Dragon Quest 9
Reaching the post game, Grotto diving portion of Dragon Quest IX is to find yourself exposed to a whole new game. You see, despite its significant length, the story portion of this game is but a small distraction to its monstrous end game. Where DQ8 had its monster arena and ascending super bosses, here we…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Categories: Dragon Quest IX