History GameBreaker / TrailsSeries

* Equip Rean with the Gladiator Headband and the Gladiator Belt. Congratulations, you've just turned him into a trash mob's worst nightmare, as these two items allow you to spam the aforementioned Arc Slash as well as Gale with reckless abandon since he'll just keep filling up his CP gauge on every kill and with every turn that passes.

** For [[spoiler:Richard]], he has a combination of awesome stats, a surprisingly good Orbment setup, and super-low cooldown on his Crafts so he can get lots of turns. Additionally, his second S-craft, Sakura Morning Moon, is one of the most powerful moves in the game. His only weakness is that his Crafts aren't good for AOE attacks, but he can partially make up for that with Orbal Arts anyways.

* The EX Drive Shard Skill "Ark Feather" is the most powerful Shard Skill in the game due to the skill activating at a decent 40% chance to add an extra attack after casting an art ''and'' has a chance to delay. To explain, ''Kuro'' has an in-battle mechanic where the more hits the party inflicts towards the enemy, the higher the damage bonus is with a 2.5x damage bonus {{Cap}} if the party inflicts 100 hits towards the enemy. Ark Feather just happens to inflict seven additional hits if the skill activates. Coupled with arts that do multiple hits they and any Hollow Core that can increase art damage or get more speed from a S-Boost and it's possible to stun lock even ''the FinalBoss''.

* For a late-game one, the Kagemaru Coat grants a 30% evasion bonus. Given that it can be crafted from items that can be purchased from locations that can be revisited in the Final Chapter, this, plus the character-specific Reverie Corridor shoes that grant a 5-10% evasion bonus mean it's possible to turn the entire party into low-end dodge-tanks without even worrying about accessories and quartz.

* The EX Drive Shard Skill "Ark Feather" is the most powerful Shard Skill in the game due to the skill activating at a decent 40% chance to add an extra attack after casting an art ''and'' has a chance to delay. To explain, ''Kuro'' has an in-battle mechanic where the more hits the party inflicts towards the enemy, the higher the damage bonus is with a 2.5x damage bonus {{Cap}} if the party inflicts 100 hits towards the enemy. Ark Feather just happens to inflict seven additional hits if the skill activates. Coupled with arts that do multiple hits (Fire's Regulus Caliber, Water's Cataract Wave, Wind's Aerial Dust, etc.), arts actually having a chance to ''inflict delay'' if players equip the Impede quartz which is now Mirage for ''Kuro'', and any Hollow Core that can increase art damage or get more speed from a S-Boost and it's possible to stun lock even ''the FinalBoss''.
* The Carbuncle and Ratatoskr quartz allows players to become invincible against arts and physical attacks respectively. It's only supposed to have a low chance to activate (around 20%) but for [[GoodBadBug whatever reason]], it always procs. The only real drawback is obtaining Ratoskr as players only gain that quartz when all of the orbment slots for all characters are unlocked. Carbuncle however is a DiskOneNuke (just achieve a 4.0+ rating after a battle).

* [[spoiler:Renne]] almost obsoletes all other arts-users the moment she becomes playable in the 3rd. She has a single unbroken orbment line, giving her by far the best potential for learning powerful arts and has the highest EP ''and'' ATS in the trilogy, completely trivializing many of the game's more difficult encounters. The only thing preventing her from being a full monster in battles is that she has [[GlassCanon middling health]] when compared to the other members.

* The Crimson Ray Art's power is heavily over-specced, to the point where [[MagicallyIneptFighter Randy]] with no Mind Quartz can put out damage rivalling a fully optimized Tio or Elie with any other Art, which should give an idea of how much it does in ''their'' hands. This too got a heavy nerf in ''Azure''.

* Wazy Hemisphere is hands-down the most broken party member in either game. Has among the best speed of the party, good ATS and a decent Orbment setup for casting (these combined making him the best user of Bells, see above), has a wide area Arts Cancel Craft, and most of his weapons boost evasion so he's surprisingly tanky. And then in the Finale you get access to his second S-Craft Akashic Arm, which is extremely powerful and ''magical'', at a point where most bosses have far less arts defense than physical defense. All you need to watch is [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16124084 this]]. It doesn't help that there's a recipe which does two things: refills CP up to 100/200, or takes your HP down to 1. And both benefit Wazy, if he has the Magius Master Quartz (for the winning all POM!! games, multiplies magic damage by up to 2x when at low HP, which includes his S-Craft). [[spoiler: Considering he's a Dominion, [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration this is fitting.]]]]
* It's possible to make Burst last forever by using Burst Orbs during Burst. Burst Orbs are farm-able. Do the math. When in Burst, enemies won't attack your party. So it's possible to win any battle without them attacking you. And that's including the FinalBoss, if timed right.
* Elie has a craft that lets everyone else take a turn instantly. Having a level 5 time-elemental Master Quartz allows an art that lets everyone else take a turn instantly. Add in a third person feeding EP and CP restoratives (particularly if the person in question uses the ''Moebius'' Master Quartz which boosts item's ''range and effect while giving it an AreaOfEffect.'') and it's an easy source of infinite turns for the fourth person to do whatever.
* Lloyd, when powered up as an evade-tank, makes many of the game's most difficult bosses, like Sigmund or Arianrhod, a breeze due his weapons having the ability to boost evade rate. Load Lloyd up with enough evade-boosting equipment and he can dodge 80+% of all incoming physical attacks. Using his Raging Spin attack, he can draw bosses away to the far corner of the map, far away from the rest of your party, who are then free to lob arts from afar while Lloyd effortlessly dodges the bosses hits. About the only thing that Lloyd is vulnerable to in this state are arts (which can be covered by the ''Katze'' Master Quartz, as that allows the wielder to absorb incoming arts with a '''100%''' rate at Level 5) and auto-hit techniques, like S-crafts (which can be dealt with using Adamantine Guard or Zero Field).

* Randy's War Cry II. Remember Agate with his 150 CP for 70% HP? Now he has that as well. Do the math.
* It is not exactly an "infinite recipe" but catching the Gold Salmon can solve your mira problems as early as Chapter 2. The drops are either 50 Space or EP Cut 3, in which the latter is very potent until you get the Gems. Sell the sepith at the IBC. A more detailed guide [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/nlu63a/for_those_in_need_of_some_mira_in_azure/ here]].

* Chrono Burst is the king of this trope for this game as it allows players to have two turns at once, allowing players to have infinite amounts of turns for one character to do whatever they need as long as the players have sufficient EP recovery items lying around in their inventory. This art alone has caused a minor BrokenBase on its own as half of the players do not want to use it because the games no longer become challenging as soon as players have access to it, even on Nightmare mode. Combine this with a level 5 Moebius, park all the characters at the back forming a small triangle, and start spamming items to buff, and restore CP. While the "disadvantage" of Chrono Burst is that it's expensive to cast, players can easily load up EP reducing quartz and EP increasing accessories, items, and quartz, and have the other three do nothing but S-Craft on the boss, fully killing them without the boss doing anything since Chrono Burst costs ''no delay''.

* Insight. This new status buff is first introduced in ''I'' and you can immediately see why it is considered as such. This status buff gives a boost of 10% chance of unbalancing along with a 50% increase to both ''hit rate and evade'', making characters practically untouchable by any physical means outside of S-Crafts and arts. It wasn't considered that game-breaking at first as it can only be applied one at a time excluding Alisa's Heavenly Gift craft. Cue ''III'' buffing the Shining art with a ''M'' area of effect, effectively making you able to teach the entire party the art of dodging.

* Any party with at least ''two'' AT Advance characters, be it with crafts or Brave Order as of ''III''. With enough CP and BP refills on the side, especially in conjunction with the Moebius Master Quartz, you can play the enemy like a fiddle as you are effectively giving yourself infinite turns. There is a reason why the games only let you have one of these available most of the time.

* To a slightly lesser extent, Jusis' Noble Command. It buffs STR, ATS and SPD at the same time and has a wide enough area that it's almost guaranteed to hit your whole party. Stack this for a few turns and your party will run rings around everything. The moderate delay cost can easily be mitigated with AT Advance or Chrono Burst, allowing a fully buffed party before the enemy can get a single turn. Not surprisingly, this craft wasn't carried over to his arsenal from ''III'' onwards but instead becomes his Brave Order, renamed to its original name in Japanese, "Noble Rise". Arguably however, it makes Jusis even more powerful because it can be invoked at anytime as long as the player has enough Brave Points to use it and Brave Orders don't even cost a turn to do so.

* If players manage to get Angelica at the True Reverie Corridor, then the "Emblem" MQ can be obtained very easily, eliminating the need to recover HP, EP, and CP while on the go with the added bonus of the MQ giving additional items. As an added bonus, her Brave Order gives out a 60% increase in critical chance and a ''three turn'' Insight buff in a game where most status effect buffs from Brave Orders only last either one or two turns. Because she's only playable at the True Reverie Corridor, she cannot be taken to the main game. However, players can just put her in the Extra slot to reap the benefits of her Brave Order.
* Lechter is insanely powerful in this game as his self-buff gives him stat buffs in strength and arts for three turns ''and'' gives him 40 CP ''right off the bat''. That's right, for just 10 CP, Lechter can gain an extra ''30 CP''. And his Brave Order is absurd in that for six turns, allies gain an extra 40% attack damage ''and'' gives out two turns of the Insight status effect. He also has decent element restrictions where two of his slots are Fire and his third slot is Time. Finally, his default Master Quartz, Chevalier, allows players to pull off insane physical damage numbers when the user's HP is low. Pair this up with Ash's Scorpio where one of its effects is to increase the break damage the lower the HP on top of its main ability to deal extra damage on enemies in break state and enemies will easily crumble.
* Not to the insane levels of endgame Rean with an arts build with two exclusive accessories for him in ''Cold Steel IV'' and that he's only limited to the True Reverie Corridor sections of the game but if players manage to get Toval, then players get access to the best art caster of the game. Toval still has his exclusive accessory that makes him cast arts faster than anyone else. Load him up with a Master Quartz that reduces casting time by a half, a second MQ that refills his EP anytime he hits an enemy with his arts, some cast reduction quartz, speed quartz and equipment, two or three Tier II Bells (or if players have it, the Tier III Bells), coupled with a Brave Order that reduces delay and Toval becomes an arts minigun who can cast some arts with 0 delay. Unfortunately, this has been patched as of the 1.10 patch where not even Toval can instantly cast arts unless his Brave Order is invoked to instantly cast arts.

* Crow is considered to be the best art caster of the game and for a good reason as his "Azure Destiny" craft allows him to gain six turns of strength, arts, and speed buffs and three turns of the Insight status buff (7 turns and 4 turns after a few levels respectively). Equip him the Magius MQ as his primary MQ and Morgan as his secondary MQ, lower his HPToOne, the True Hades quartz that deals 150% damage to the first art, and as many ATS increasing quartz and speed casting quartz and equipment, the 6S Lost Arts quartz "Melville Ray" (or even better, the upgraded "Melville Ark"), partner him up with Vita with the two at least at link level 6 to unlock Vita's Art Support IV (grants the partner 2x damage for the art casted), use his Azure Destiny craft, cast the Lost Arts quartz, and invoke Vita's Brave Order. Watch as he decimates bosses even on [[HarderThanHard Abyss]] with the enemy level +100 modifier at the True Reverie Corridor (and we're talking about ''millions of hit points'').

* Lloyd's Burning Heart 2. It buffs Strength, Defense and Speed by 50% and makes him immune to status effects for 5 turns. It also has a delay of 0, meaning Lloyd can easily manipulate turn bonuses. It's supposed to be balanced out by [[HeroicRROD inflicting Faint when it wears off]], but you can easily get around this by re-casting it before it fades. Lloyd himself is equipped with both Force MQ and True Gladiator Belt to quickly recover the CP costs, making it fairly easy to reapply the buff. The only thing that mitigates it is you can only use Lloyd in the brief Divertissement chapter [[spoiler: and as a bonus character in the final dungeon]].
* All the final dungeon-only bonus characters in the sequel are powerful, but [[spoiler: Vita]] obliterates any semblance of difficulty left in the game. Not only is she the most powerful caster in the game, and has a massive 2000 EP, but she regenerates EP and HP for every spell she lands. She regenerates so much with each hit that she practically has unlimited EP. She also comes with ''two'' Lost Arts, ''and'' her Crafts are also extremely good. These characters were all paid DLC in the Japanese version, [[BribingYourWayToVictory which might explain the brokenness.]]

* Making Alisa cook the final recipe obtained in the game gives players 7777 HP and 77 CP. Use Rean's Spirit Unification then use Overdrive to refill his CP by 30 and use the food to refill it to full and let Rean unleash a full 200-CP [[LimitBreak Termination Slash - Dawn]] and it's possible for Rean to deliver so much damage in one move. Its only drawback is that it only becomes available at the last part of the game, [[spoiler: after liberating Trista but before the final bonding event]].
* Valimar's ''Heavenly Slash'' skill. It causes oodles of damage, is guaranteed to unbalance and it has a 100% Faint chance meaning the enemy you hit with it will inevitably miss their next turn since nothing you face in Divine Knight Battles has any resistance to Faint (in fact, no enemy in these fights even do any status effects or debuffs to Rean till ''III'' and ''IV''). This is especially great when the opponent is about to unleash one of their scarier charge moves on you. Plus, like all Knight skills, it has a 100% hit rate meaning a Kestrel can't dodge it.
* Many of the same game breaking things in the first game are still in the second game, such as Alisa's Heavenly Gift and Rean's Arc Slash. Although nerfed, a properly built Arc Slash is still the most broken thing in the game.

** For easier single enemy battles, Sara's STR/SPD Down EX Art is the most effective cuz not only does it do damage but since enemies are not as fast, Morning Moon won't counter as much while this allows Rean to completely shut down the opposition easily as the debuff stacks. It also makes her second ability completely worthless. In the hardest battles though, such as the Neidhart battle on Nightmare difficulty, the EP requirement and enemy speed makes it almost impossible to maintain the debuff, even with good RNG.

* In ''Cold Steel III'', Rean is generally this when it comes to utility and items. Need money? Rean has an infinite mira trick from the first recipe of the game and the items needed aren't expensive. Need an emergency CP refill? Players can obtain a recipe at Parm very early in the game and if Rean is the one to cook it, his recipe refills 40 CP instead of the standard 20 the game gives (and 40 CP is a lot early on, and even towards the end). Even some of his Brave Orders are powerful like "Kagura[=/=][[DubNameChange Divine Song]]" where it costs 2 BP but allows instant casting of arts, very much like the Overdrive mechanic in ''Cold Steel II'' except it applies to ''everyone''. And if players want an all arts using party, players can still issue orders as long as he's on the Support team and not on Reserve. Or he can just use his cheap 1 BP defense boost to reduce the damage of enemy attacks ''in half''. And considering he's almost always available throughout the entire game, his orders end up being the most used of the characters.
** Also in combination with the infinite mira trick is the ability to buy bait in the third game. Why is this important? Well there's a fishing spot in Leeves that you have access to on your first free day. On this day, there are only 4 things you can catch and one of them is a crab. This crab gives 3 U-materials if you catch it on a great, two on a good. Since U-materials are used to upgrade equipment and quartz, this means you can, with enough patience and mira to buy the basic accessories, make 4 of the strongest accessories in the game ''in the first chapter'' which provide such useful buffs as +100 STR, +100 ATS, +200 DEF/ADF, and 100% accuracy and 15% evasion while each also prevents 2-3 specific status ailments. Even more broken, if you get a miss on the first part of the fishing minigame (which determines the level of reward for a successful catch), you don't lose any of your bait. You can control what fish you get so it's not even up to random chance but just remembering what a crab's meter looks like since each fish has it's own unique reward meter.
** Back to Rean again, he has a proper setup around mid-late game where ''every boss fight'' can be in broken state with one craft and it's not even his S-Craft. Have Minotauros as his main MQ where its secondary effect increases break damage in addition to its primary function of dealing a lot of damage at the cost of a huge delay, Skuld as his secondary MQ that deals lots of break damage at high HP values, the Domination quartz, Break 3 and Break 2 quartz, a Hit 3 quartz so he can hit enemies, as many attack and speed quartz as possible, and two Passionate Rouge accessories to increase his attack power. Start the battle with him using his [[SuperMode Spirit Unification]], (optionally) invoke Juna's "Sledgehammer" Brave Order and use his Arcane Gale move (which, given its absurd cost of ''90'' cp, short of a S-Craft, is actually ''very'' worth it due to its S rating for physical damage, ''B+'' in break damage, and a delay +10). Watch as every single boss except for the FinalBoss gets broken right away due to Arcane Gale hitting twice even on the Nightmare difficulty, free for the other allies to hit them with whatever the player wants. It's why starting in ''Cold Steel IV'', his Arcane Gale got nerfed hard.

* Ash's "Unbound Rage" Craft. It costs a measly 10 CP to use and gives him two buffs. The first is a CP regen that lasts two turns and regenerates ''fifty'' CP each turn, yes, that's 10 payed for 100 gained, and the second is a huge STR buff that lasts three turns. This is meant to be offset by inflicting huge delay between applying the buff and the next turn where you can use the buff but 1) you can use link attacks to use Ash's now monstrous Strength stat without losing the buff and 2) there are many ways of getting around the delay, like anything that has "Accelerate" in its ability description. [[spoiler:The one big downside is that Ash is not in the party in the final chapter, alongside Altina and Millium (barring the final Divine Knight fight against the Nameless One though only as support). ''Cold Steel IV'' at least remedies that issue.]]
* Setting up any caster with any two of the following: ''Virgo'' Master Quartz, Water Bell, Ocean Bell. Any of these cut delay after water arts in half. Combining two cuts the delay down to 1. Now, why Water specifically? Because Water has all the powerful single-target heals. Usually those wouldn't be as useful as the area-healing spells, but with the delay carved down so far, you can heal your entire party before the enemy even gets another turn. And just because it's useful for healing doesn't mean it doesn't also work for damage. ''Blue Ascension'' and ''Diamond Nova'' can be cast with very little delay as well, making them exceptionally good at dealing damage. And did you know that Musse just so happens to come with two Water slots to take advantage of all this?

** Juna's "Sledgehammer" allows players to break the gauge of bosses 3 times faster than normal that even on Nightmare mode, bosses just end up helpless as players just wail on the enemy and kill them quickly. Her starting Master Quartz is about breaking the break gauge faster than anyone which players prioritize levelling up quickly. Combine it with a S-Craft and bosses will be broken right away.
*** Then you can follow up with Kurt's Brave Order which reduces delay on everything except casting arts down by 70% for the next 4 turns for only 2 BP. For an idea of how insane this combo is, EVERY boss Kurt and Juna are around for is made a complete joke as for 2 BP, you can get 4 more points back while also ensuring that the enemy eats literally 20 plus link attacks without being able to do anything. Equip the Scorpio Master Quartz which increases damage to enemies in break state and the game will just give up and let you win. It was so horribly powerful that the developers had to {{Nerf}} the cost and the effects of their Brave Orders in ''Cold Steel IV''.

* Tired of relying on RandomNumberGod to give you Brave Points on those Divine Knight fights? ''Cold Steel III'' introduces BP restorative items where all the RNG is eliminated, allowing players to instantly hit the five BP CombinationAttack and deal massive amounts of damage. It only restores three BP per use and it does cost U-Materials to make but it is ''very'' worth it to use two of these on the first turn and then use a craft that has a high chance to inflict a Link Attack, allowing players to instantly get the boss' HP to half. Do it one more time and the boss will break for good, allowing players to finish off the boss.
* NewGamePlus gives you the option to transfer a few things. Some of these are obviously broken, like keeping your end-game gear or keeping your levels. In the previous games, at least transferring your notebook data wasn't too terribly broken, just useful as it let you keep stuff like recipes. In this game, transferring notebook data is ridiculously broken, though. Have all fish caught? You will keep your caught fish, bait and rod upgrades except for the ones the fish merchant hands you, which he will do immediately if you talk to him. Collected all Vantage Master cards? You keep those. And trouncing weak players can give you lots of nice items, like expensive ingredients, U-Material or even Spirit Incense. Collected most of the book data? Tatiana will hand you a Black Zemurian Ore, allowing you to forge an ultimate weapon the moment you arrive in Sutherland. Collected most character data? Louise will hand you the ''Chrono Repeater'', an accessory that cuts casting time by 33% but, unlike a Cast 3 quartz, doesn't take up a quartz slot. Collected most of the battle data? Valerie will hand you the ''Emblem'' Master Quartz, whose first ability gives you an extremely fast out-of-combat regeneration to HP, EP and CP and whose third ability ''doubles item drops from enemies''. You know how bosses tend to drop really good quartzes? Yeah.

* On his playable debut, Lechter's craft "Spell Card" has its effects work randomly, with one of them being dealing [[OneHitKill Deathblow]] on a single random enemy. So logically you think it is useless against those who resist it and hope for a different effect, right? Nope. In one of the biggest violations of common sense, it '''actually works''' against bosses, killing it despite the game clearly stating that it has resisted that effect. As seen [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/m2aohd/thats_just_cheating/ here]].

** In addition to this, there is a cryptid that is just outside the Elin village that drops a Lost Arts Quartz that players can obtain long before they're supposed to challenge the boss.[[note]]For context, the average party that players would have will range from 72-78. The boss itself is at [[BeefGate level 100.]][[/note]] Kill it and players will have a Lost Arts Quartz [[DiskOneNuke just before players reach Crossbell for the first time.]]
* It's only available in the final chapters of the game but Rean has a setup, some of which are accessories exclusive only to him, where he can infinitely cast arts ''without any casting time and a delay of '''0''''' and kill the opposition without them doing anything. It got nerfed in [[ObviousRulePatch patch 1.03]] where it got a delay of 1 [[spoiler:unless players use a reducing delay Brave Order, then it's back to 0 delay again. [[BoringButPractical Or just use a Chrono Burst.]]]]

*** To add even more to how powerful Lloyd is, Chrono Burst is nerfed in ''Reverie'' where the user can only have two turns and the action has to end on the second turn as the player cannot recast Chrono Burst. However, Lloyd's 0 delay Burning Heart counts as an action. As long as Lloyd can generate enough CP for Burning Heart and some restorative items, Lloyd can essentially give the entire team infinite turns.
** Rean's Arcane Gale hits twice and can mop up enemies with ease. And he still has access to his Spirit Unification, allowing him to shred through enemies with the proper equipment. By late game, load him up with all the strength increasing quartz and equipment, the True Domination quartz which deals a whopping ''150%'' damage to enemies on the first physical attack or craft, a Hit 3 quartz to hit enemies, a Rakan Gem (or its UR quartz version) to increase the break damage (and gain more sepith), and a Master Quartz that can regenerate his CP on kills (this doesn't need to be his primary Master Quartz). Start the battle using Spirit Unification and use his Arcane Gale. Watch as he deals ''6 digits'' worth of damage ''per hit'' which can be improved further with a Brave Order (Vita's Brave Order comes to mind). And if the RandomNumberGod is on your side, actually delay enemies who survive those hits as his Arcane Gale by default delays enemies. His only downsides are that he loses Divine Song and that [[spoiler:he cannot be taken to the FinalBoss fight in the main game]].

* Stacking two Master Quartz that have the same effects allow players to get amusing results. For example, stacking both Morgan (Emma's default Fire Master Quartz) and Magius (Celine's default Water Master Quartz) Master Quartz where the lower the HP, the higher the arts damage allows some pretty interesting results. Use the arts version of Valiant Rage and watch as it melts through the enemy's HP rather easily. And you can have ''two'' of them with one having Morgan-Magius and the other character having Magius-Morgan! The only downside is that the one who has Magius as their primary MQ doesn't get any ATS buffs but that can easily be circumvented just by casting arts or using crafts that buff ATS.

* Gaius is considered to be the best character of the game thanks to his Absolute Delay S-Craft, "Howling Heavens". With some speed quartz and equipment and the Regulus MQ to reduce the delay of him using his S-Craft, he can actually ''[[SoloCharacterRun solo]]'' bosses on his own [[https://youtu.be/tOnWX6m_V7U?t=82 even on Abyss with the +100 level modifier to enemies.]]
** For added fun, set up a party at the True Reverie Corridor with Gaius, C, Roselia, and Wazy with Aurelia as support and have Aurelia invoke her Brave Order. Have the other three use their crafts that give CP back to the entire party while Gaius spams his S-Craft to delay the bosses to death. For even more hilarity, give the other three characters some Impede quartz or the speed accessory that also gives out impede to enemies for some added AT Delay shenanigans.

* The Carbuncle and Ratatoskr quartz allows players to become invincible against arts and physical attacks respectively. It's only supposed to have a low chance to activate (around 20%) but for [[GoodBadBug whatever reason]], it always procs. Combine it with Van's "[[PracticalTaunt Coin Bullet]]" and bosses have no chance to even ''damage'' Van. The only real drawback is obtaining Ratoskr as players only gain that quartz when all of the orbment slots for all characters are unlocked. Carbuncle however is a DiskOneNuke (just achieve a 4.0+ rating after a battle).

* Among the new "Dual Arts" that players can cast in the game, Cetus Phantasma (Mirage and Water) is considered to be the most powerful art of the game. This art alone has "All Cancel" properties but it also applies debuffs and hits all enemies. Coupled with the fact that arts still can delay enemies, the art itself doing at least ''12 hits per single enemy'' (and if it's a FlunkyBoss, it's very easy to get 100 hits to deal massive amounts of damage thanks to the 2.5x multiplier), and "Ark Feather" which still is just as powerful as it was in the previous game and even ''the FinalBoss'' will just crumble. While it is very expensive to cast, the "Cataract Gain" EX Shard Skill fixes this problem as it regenerates any EP loss (provided the art caster S-Boosted twice to consistently regain any EP plus whatever passive skills they have up and running).

* The Apple Ice Cream recipe in FC is essentially the Sky version of the infinite mira trick. You can obtain it early on in Bose region which is Chapter 1. Buy 99 of the needed ingredients, make the dishes and then sell them. You are spending around 8000 mira to gain ''12000'' mira, giving you around 4000 mira in profits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbiYZuS0M38 Demonstration]] here.

** In SC, Agate has a skill which is Wild Rage that trades HP for 150 CP, which means that when paired with a good healer, a pattern of 1: Agate takes massive damage for massive CP boost 2: Healer replenishes Agate's Health, 3: Agate uses S-Break to wreak havoc can make virtually any boss easy to defeat. The counterpart crafts in later arcs nerf the ability by dropping the most CP that can be gained per use to under 100.
** For [[spoiler:Richard]], he has a combination of awesome stats, a surprisingly good Orbment setup, and super-low cooldown on his Crafts so he can get lots of turns. Not to mention that his second S-craft, Sakura Morning Moon, is one of the most powerful moves in the game. His only weakness is that his Crafts aren't good for AOE attacks, but he can partially make up for that with Orbal Arts anyways.
* In Alternative Saga, Loewe. His Arc Drain has the ability to drain the enemies SP, if it hits 3 enemies it would refill the skill's AP cost and add an extra for it so the skill pays for it's own cost. Not to mention his Kienzan is not only fast but also has the power that rivals an Extra Skill.

* Another Art example is Chaos Brand. It Confuses one enemy, ensuring they'll have a solid chance at hitting their allies. You'd think this would be at least a low to mid success rate, but you'd be wrong. With the exception of a handful of mobs, it's a 100% success. It even works on most end-game bosses! The Crossbell games nerf this all the way down to 10%.

* The 3rd also turns Anelace and Tita into these. For Anelace, if you manage to defeat [[spoiler: Richard]] during her Star Door, you unlock her exclusive weapon, Jinu, which boosts almost all her stats up to ''endgame'' levels (keep in mind, this can be done as early as Chapter ''Four''.) Later on, if you beat the Nightmare Arena with Anelace in your party, you'll get Jinu's upgraded version, which is even stronger than her [[InfinityPlusOneSword Zemurian weapon!]] As for Tita, completing both parts of her Moon Door allows her to use the [[HumongousMecha Orbal Gear]], turning her from a gimmicky [[GlassCannon Glass Cannon]] into a nigh-unstoppable force of destruction that can potentially do as much as ''7,000 damage'' per hit, for as little as 10 CP! Her Charge craft also makes it easy to knock enemies across the battlefield, which is useful against the ones that rely on close range attacks. The only two 'downsides' to the Orbal Gear are that while using it, Tita can't use arts, which she is weak in anyway, or S-Crafts, which is rendered moot by the fact that she'll be doing just as much damage for ''far'' less CP.

* [[spoiler: Renne]] pretty much obsoletes all other arts-users the moment she becomes playable in the 3rd. She has a single unbroken orbment line - and unlike the other two party members with this attribute, said line has no elementally restricted slots - giving her by far the best potential for learning powerful arts. And with the highest EP ''and'' ATS in the trilogy, she can make full use of this potential, completely trivializing many of the game's more difficult encounters. Oh, and all of her physical attacks have a chance of inflicting instant death. With all that said, [[GlassCannon her HP and defenses are pitifully low,]] which serves as her only real weakness.
* In the 3rd, the Fool's Emblem accessory and the Kitty Suit armor both have high SPD boosts, to the point where equipping both allows a character to match most Nightmare mode bosses in SPD. There are also SPD boosting shoes that are {{Rare Random Drop}}s, as well as +15 SPD boosting shows in Balstar Channel. This is especially helpful for Earth Guard/Wall strategies, especially if someone has the Time Gem to boost casting speed.
* The Time Gem in itself, though only available late-game in both SC and The 3rd, cuts down casting time to ''one-tenth'' of normal. It's supposed to be balanced by coming with a hefty -20% STR/DEF and -15% ATS penalty, meaning the holder won't be doing much damage... but that doesn't matter if all they're using is support Arts. With this and the above-mentioned Speed setup, you can have Earth Wall up permanently.

* By herself, Scherazard is far from a game-breaker, but at the end of FC onwards, she has the amazing Heaven's Kiss craft, which instantly advances the turn order of any ally she hits in front of all others. With a full party, this means you get up to two extra turns (accounting for the one she uses up), which you can use for even more damage output or easier healing. This also makes Agate's aforementioned Wild Rage combo easier to pull off.

! In General
* Lloyd and Randy's Combo Craft, Burning Rage. Especially the powered-up Burning Rage II. Better yet, Burning Rage III.
* Tio's Zero Field, if activated when CP gauge is full, shields all party members from two attacks. There's a recipe that can refill 95 CP. You get the idea.

** Expanding on what was said earlier, outside of a few {{Always Accurate Attack}}s along with S-Crafts and arts (which can be mitigated with various guards or reflects), if you manage to get your characters' evasion stat to ''100% and above'', he or she goes from "practically untouchable" to "completely untouchable", becoming an evasion tank in where almost every attack will miss him or her. This concept, first introduced in ''Ao'', effectively makes your defense stats and AntiDebuff accessories redundant as well since every attack is going to miss anyway. Now throw in the Master Quartz that [[CriticalStatusBuff increases damage the lower your hp]] along with certain food that has a chance to reduce your HPToOne. Put these three variables together and ''you have a practically untouchable line-up of {{Glass Cannon}}s that constantly deal damage multiple times the usual amount''. If you want even more pain, you can also equip the quartz that makes counter attacks deal critical damage on them, with in turn gives a guaranteed unbalance. As a cherry on top, evasion builds usually don't require the more expensive gear in the shops, which in turn saves you a lot of mira when you consider the increasing number of playable characters over the next five games. This tactic has become more prominent from ''III'' onward due to the huge playable roster and the BreakMeter.

** This strategy works for any character with a large [=AoE=] craft (which many do). Rean's Gale is arguably better than Machias' Petrification Shell since its faster and hits harder. Rean is also faster, hits harder, has similar amount of Orbment line, and just about every boss (the only enemies that post any sort of threat) is immune to petrification.

* [[FictionalCurrency Mira]]-grinding wise, Elliot and his Simple Omelet recipe can be a great source of income. Basically, buy Coarse Rock Salt and Fresh Egg 99 each and have Elliot cook 99 simple omelet recipe at once. High chance that the results are Warm Egg Soup and Soft and Fluffy Omelet. Each of them will give you 20 and 10 mira profit respectively. Do this every time Elliot and source of the ingredients are available and you'll hit max Mira cap fast. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVxBrtvn5Lg This video]] can tell you how it's done.
* Rean's Arc Slash. Cheap, easy to use, and available very early. It is a line [=AoE=], making it easy to hit multiple enemies if positioned correctly and it inflicts a heavy AT Delay, which is more reliable than status effects and works to its full effect on bosses. Its real beauty, though, is that its as fast as normal attacks and when combined with Rean's naturally high speed, allows you to render most enemies and bosses helpless. Makes Nightmare difficulty a joke if used properly. Works well with Alisa's Blessed Arrow. Equipping Impede 1 and 2 and the Zeus Gem seems to not only increase the potency, but also the activation rate.
* Alisa's Heavenly Gift craft is incredibly useful and is arguably the best buff in the entire game. Any allies within its area of effect gain four turns of CP regeneration (20 per turn, allowing them to spam their own crafts to their hearts' content) and four turns of Insight (+10% chance of unbalancing, +50% to both hit rate and evade). The craft is notable in that it is the only way to group-cast Insight (which, if paired with a party that already has some gear boosting their evade percentage, can render them almost completely immune to everything except enemy arts). About its only drawback is that it cannot buff Alisa herself, but that's a small price to pay considering the game-breaking potential. It gets buffed in ''Cold Steel III'' and ''IV'' where it now also affects her so the one drawback the craft had is now gone.
* Fie is one of the more versatile characters in the game, but the real feather in her cap is that, with the right combination of equipment and quartz, she can get a 100% evade rate - this renders her completely immune to all attacks except for enemy arts, and turns her from a FragileSpeedster into a dodge-tank. Combine this with the Wrath quartz, which turns every counterattack into a critical hit, and every single time an enemy tries to attack Fie they'll get not just a counterattack but also a link attack thrown back their way.
* '''Sara'''. She's only playable for a short time (namely [[spoiler: the attack on Garrelia Fortress]]), but oh ''boy'' does she blow all difficulty out the window while she is. She's fully playable for a good portion of the game in the sequel and becomes even stronger due to learning Lightning Flash, one of the few suction crafts that don't push the enemy away from the center of the AOE.
* Fire Bell quartz and Lv 5 Criminal [=MQ=] combination for Emma. Fire bell halves delay after casting fire magic and Criminal reduces it even further by 30% along with increased arts critical rate by 90%. With speed around 125, Diabolos Gem and Cast 2 quartz (both have casting delay reduction effect), you'll officially turn out cutie {{Meganekko}} into badass Fireball spammer burning everything in sight. For mook-eliminating effectiveness, don't forget to equip Ingenuity quartz to increase her EP for every steps.

* Change Elliot into Emma and simple omelet into salty onigiri and you'll get another early source of income in [=CS2=]. While getting money late in the game is not a problem since enemies especially in the last dungeon drops abundant amount of sepith you can trade, not many people use this as much as the first game. Still, it's pretty handy on several occasions like your very short visit to Bareahard, right after Emma joins. The stores there have tons and tons of end-game gear but you aren't supposed to have the money to buy any of it yet. Enter Emma.

** If one sets up Emma with an Aries Master Quartz (the one Vita comes with), then she can be turned into something even more terrifying. The Aries quartz makes EP costs all but meaningless anyway[[note]]It returns a percentage of arts damage as EP, and a combination of a powerful caster and a strong art with a wide area of effect can do enough damage to return more EP than the casting cost, granting effectively infinite EP[[/note]], so she has more slots available for increasing her ATS stat or giving her Chrono Burst, which effectively cancels her casting time.

!![[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesKuroNoKiseki Kuro]]

* While he's pretty good in ''FC'', Joshua is a real monster in ''SC''. Dual Strike becomes one of the strongest damage tools in the game, his ATS is one of the higher ones in the game, and his primary stat/orbment focus is Speed/Black Quartz, making him one of the party members most likely to get extra turns. Drop Clock Up EX on him and Clock Down EX on a boss and watch as he gets two or even ''three'' extra turns. Further buff him with Estelle's Morale and watch him clean house.

* Wazy Hemisphere hands down, once he rejoins and you get access to his S-Craft Akashic Arm. Easily one shots any boss you come across, and if they're still standing, you need very little in the way of preparing another shot to knock them down hard. All you need to watch is [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16124084 this]]. It doesn't help that there's a recipe which does two things: refills CP up to 100/200, or take your HP down to 1. And both benefits Wazy, once you figure out the right setup (which takes little effort, except for the winning all POM!! games).
* It's possible to make Burst last forever by using Burst Orbs during Burst. Burst Orbs are farm-able. Do the math. [[spoiler:Explanation - When in Burst, enemies won't attack your party. So it's possible to win any battle without them attacking you. And that's including the FinalBoss, if you can execute Zero Field at the right time and not deal enough damage per attack which triggers his [[ThatOneAttack Subspace Flight]] attack that will take the wind out of your sails.]]

* Among the new "Dual Arts" that players can cast in the game, Cetus Phantasma (Mirage and Water) is considered to be the most powerful art of the game. This art alone has "All Cancel" properties but it also applies debuffs and hits all enemies. Coupled with the fact that arts still can delay enemies, the art itself doing at least ''20 hits per single enemy'' (and if it's a FlunkyBoss, it's very easy to get 100 hits to deal massive amounts of damage thanks to the 2.5x multiplier), and "Ark Feather" which still is just as powerful as it was in the previous game and even ''the FinalBoss'' will just crumble. While it is very expensive to cast, the "Cataract Gain" EX Shard Skill fixes this problem as it regenerates any EP loss (provided the art caster S-Boosted twice to consistently regain any EP plus whatever passive skills they have up and running).