Game Breaker / Trails Series

Ah Trails, we always find ways to break your games to itty bitty pieces.

Series-wide

• The Tomato Sandwich. This unassuming little recipe consistently remains one of the most useful items across the series. Depending on the game, it restores 20-50 CP in and out of battle. Buying these in bulk can have your party at a full 200 CP S-Break, letting you attack before the battle even starts. It is noted to be overshadowed by other recipes that outclass it in every way later in-game.
• Time Quartz have always been one of the best Orbment slots in the series, since Speed is one of the most practical methods to manipulate the turn order. What's more, with the exception of The 3rd and a few areas afterwards, Time Art damage sits outside the usual Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, making them almost always a steady damage-dealer in any situation. In the Sky and Zero/Azure games, AOE (area of effect) Arts can be unlocked early on. Said Arts have a chance to apply a number of benefits such as Hell Gate (a 30% chance at stunning multiple targets) or Shadow Spear (15% chance to instantly kill non-boss enemies). If all that weren't enough, the various Clock Up/Down arts speeds up or slows down allies and enemies, further exacerbating the turn gap.
• AT Delay. While the Erebonia Arc heavily stacks this mechanic in the player's favor, the previous games aren't anything to scoff at. As the name suggests, Delay will knock down any enemy on the turn order bar, and will continue to fall further down the more times it's used before they can get a turn. Since Crafts will always hit without any Delay, they'll always hit first, and at least 2 characters in an arc have this ability. The result is a strong case of Unstable Equilibrium on the party's side. Enemy casting an Art while the current character can't impede? Delay them until they can. Boss coming up to a Critical Bonus? Delay them and take it yourself.
• The "infinite mira" recipes. In some games, a particular low level recipe can erase any financial problems with enough grinding because the finished product is worth more than the ingredients used to make them. Do it for an hour or two and you have yourself a neat little nest egg that can last until the end of the game even when optimizing at least ten to sixteen character loadouts. This has been nerfed starting in Cold Steel IV.

The Liberl Arc

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

• Agate in SC, Richard in 3rd.
  • 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, he can use his hard-hitting crafts to finish enemies.
  • For 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 weaknesses are that his Crafts aren't good for AOE attacks and how quickly he burns through his CP, but he can partially make up for both 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. His Kienzan is also not only fast but also has the power that rivals an Extra Skill.
• Olivier isn't a slouch either in that territory: his damage output may not be anything special but the area he truly excels at are magic and his crafts: Quick Draw can shoot many enemies at the same time along with a quite decent range, while Happy Trigger replenishes a rather sizable portion of the party's HP, both costing mere 20 CP. Along with an excellent orbment setup, Olivier manages to be one of the most useful party members in FC, especially in the final chapter.
• Among specific Arts, Earth Wall counts. It's a magic spell that creates a barrier around anyone within its area of effect (which can be all four characters in the party if they're close enough together) that will nullify the next attack that would hit that person. One would think that such a spell would be hard to come by, but nope, all it requires is 4 earth element units to get it and 30 EP to cast it (70 in SC).
  • On a similar note, Kevin's S-Craft, Grail Sphere. While it requires at least 100CP to use, it has far greater range than Earth Wall and more importantly, can be used instantly by S-Breaking if you really need to block an incoming attack and can't get Earth Wall up in time. Best of all, at 200CP, Grail Sphere blocks two hits. Per character.
• 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%.
• Kloe's Kampfer/Impose Craft, a cheap (20 CP), infinite range attack that drops the target's Strength and Defense by 50%. This is usually enough to reduce all their attacks to Scratch Damage, and this applies to Arts too due to the way Strength debuffs work in this game. And with -50% defense, it's easy to demolish them with a barrage of S-Crafts. This move is near-mandatory if you're trying to win the second Lorence fight. The one thing holding it back is that the Final Boss is immune to Stat Down. Everything else, on the other hand... Sadly, it suffered a major nerf in SC, it only drops Strength by 15% and Defense by 10%, and no longer does damage.
• 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 (and often refunds its CP cost), 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.
• The 3rd also turns Anelace and Tita into these. For Anelace, if you manage to defeat 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.) As for Tita, completing both parts of her Moon Door allows her to use the Orbal Gear, turning her from a gimmicky Glass Cannon into a nigh-unstoppable force of destruction thanks to her Charge craft making it easy to knock enemies across the battlefield. The only two 'downsides' to the Orbal Gear are that while using it, Tita can't use arts or S-Crafts.
• Ries' Holy Blessing in The 3rd heals 50% of the target's max HP and restores 50 CP, for only 45 of her own CP. Better still, it has unlimited range and also acts as a revival spell. Give Ries a gradual CP regeneration accessory (one of which you obtain very early on) and she can keep everyone else topped up on CP almost constantly, allowing for easy Grail Sphere or S-Craft spam.
• 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 middling health when compared to the other members.
• 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 Drops, as well as +15 SPD boosting shows in Balstar Channel.
• 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.
• Thunder God Kick in the PC version of SC, due to a glitch that causes each enemy caught in it to be hit a number of times equal to how many are caught in it without affecting damage output. For only 35CP. While causing a CP profit in the right circumstances. Needless to say, this can trivialize monster extermination requests and taking out boss flunkies.
• 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.

The Crossbell Arc

Zero

• Lloyd's Burning Heart. For the cheap price of 40 CP, he becomes a juggernaut with a 50% boost to his STR,DEF and SPD. It also costs no delay, allowing turn bonus manipulation. Due to it's cheap cost and easy access to CP refills like Elie's Holy Bullet, it's possible to keep this up indefinitely as he can just renew the turn counter whenever it is going to run out. Azure had to nerf this thrice by making last shorter by two turns, not boost defense and have it cost 55 CP. And then the first two limits are removed when it levels up to Burning Heart II in late-game.
• Elie's Holy Bullet. For being such a low-level craft, this thing is insanely useful. For the low price of 40 CP, Elie can cast an AoE buff that heals everyone in range and gives them each 20 CP, including herself (meaning the craft effectively costs 20 CP, so long as Elie is within its area of effect). With the addition of a CP-generating accessory, Elie can fire this off pretty much every turn and act as a combination healer and CP battery, allowing the other party members to fire off crafts to their heart's content while their HP is continually topped up. This craft was so broken that Azure had to nerf it twice, first by increasing its CP cost up to 60 and secondly by making it so that it doesn't affect Elie herself.
• Randy's Power Smash. For the low price of 20 CP, Randy gets a powerful attack that delays anyone it hits. Many enemies, including bosses all the way up to the final dungeon, are vulnerable to delay to the point where Randy can easily pin them in place and never let them have a turn for the entire fight.
• Randy's Crash Bomb. It has a large AoE, a cheap cost of 30 CP and blinds with a rate of 100% that lasts for 9 enemy turns. If the enemy isn't immune to Blind, have Randy throw a bomb and watch them miss all of their melee attacks. Azure had to nerf it by lowering the rate and number of turns to 3, which for some reason even when upgraded back to 100% in late-game it still doesn't trigger against susceptible enemies.
• While somewhat counting as Last Disc Magic due to the high level he learns it, Randy's Deadly Storm is yet another ridiculous Craft. For only 30 CP, you get a wide line AoE that you can position, then Randy charges all the way to the end point (meaning it grants him near infinite mobility in addition to the damage) inflicting high damage and a 60% chance of instant death on everything in his path. This trivializes any random encounter that isn't immune to Deathblow.
• The Crimson Ray Art's power is heavily over-specced, to the point where Randy 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.

Azure

• The "Bell" quartz let the user act again immediately after casting Arts of their respective element, making Arts spam even more ridiculous. In particular, the Jupiter (wind) Bell is right on the way to the end boss of Chapter 3 in a monster chest reasonably beatable at that point, and with Spark Dyne being very efficient boss damage for its EP cost and cast time... you do the math. It's telling that Cold Steel nerfed them to simply reduce the delay after casting arts of their element. (And they're still very good there!)
• 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. 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). Considering he's a Dominion, this is fitting.
• The Master Arts. Obtained by levelling a Master Quartz to 5, they can cast instantly with no delay. There are two effects, one that triggers when initially cast and the other is a Field Power Effect that can be maintained indefinitely with enough EP and as long as nothing interrupts the caster. Effects vary from complete physical and arts immunity to 50% overall boost to physical or magic damage.

The Erebonia Arc

In General

• 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 Broken Base 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.
• Hades and Domination quartzes. They double the damage of your first art or craft each fight respectively. These stack with all sorts of other multipliers and make normal enemy encounters rather trivial, especially when they're equipped in conjunction with a sustaining Master Quartz like Force, Aries, Katze or Tauros (the last one however only starts being powerful in Cold Steel II and beyond).
• 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. 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.
• Arts and crafts with the "Suction" effect can force lightweight enemies to bunch together, which can make smaller AOE skills more effective. This can help with the aforementioned Hades and Domination quartzes, since suction moves can ensure the boosted art or craft hits more enemies.
• 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, 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.

Cold Steel I^note Everything that applies in Cold Steel I applies in Cold Steel II

• Starting in Chapter 4, load up Machias with Blades and Fangs, Impede 2 and STR-boosting Quartz (replace with S-Rare equivalents as they become available). Now use Petrification Shell. Behold, an attack that can hit most/all enemies for decent damage, has a 50% chance of causing Petrify and a 10-15% chance (per each effect) to inflict up to ten other status ailments and stat-downs and cancel charging Arts/Crafts and inflict a small measure of AT Delay... and if you hit enough enemies, you'll actually earn CP each time you do it.
• 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".
• Mira-grinding wise, Elliot and his Simple Omelet recipe can be a great source of income. Make the recipe with Elliot when the source of the ingredients are available and you'll hit max Mira cap fast.
• 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 it's as fast as normal attacks and when combined with Rean's naturally high speed, allows you to render most enemies and bosses helpless.
• 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). 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 Fragile Speedster into a dodge-tank.
• Sara. She's only playable for a short time (namely 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 the right equipment, you'll officially turn out cutie Meganekko into badass Fireball spammer burning everything in sight.
• The Juggler Master Quartz gives all the holder's attacks a flat chance of causing a random status ailment. This includes instant death and petrification. In the sequel, it comes on Sharon, whose Crafts are already Purposely Overpowered to begin with.
• The Megalith Master Quartz is easily one of the best Master Quartz for Shining Pom farming on the PS4 port. At Level 3 or higher, it allows the equipped character to auto-regen CP outside of battle, whether they move around or not (it says "Recover CP while walking on the field" but standing still works just as well). This means that by switching who holds it at any given point, it is possible to enter almost every single battle in the game with 200CP on everyone, once it is obtained, making it easy to cheese many boss fights in the game. Its XP+50% bonus is nowhere near as broken.

Cold Steel II

• Lost Arts in the sequel are extremely powerful. They use up all EP (and can only be used at max EP), but that's not a big deal for a character you normally only use Crafts or attacks with anyway. For example, Artemis's Tears is a full heal and doubles everyone's max HP. The only drawback is their long casting time, but this can be evaded by using them while in Overdrive. And if you have a chance to use one with a Zero Arts bonus, then you definitely, definitely should.
• 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.
• Some of the Master Quartz in here have ridiculously powerful abilities when at their top levels, such as 100% chance of Confuse on attacks, a 90% chance to gain a Triple Advantage on any battle in which it would normally be possible (and even some in which it normally wouldn't) and greatly increased chances of critical or greatly increased damage, as well as often access to a wide selection of powerful Arts without having to equip individual Quartz for them.
• 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. The only thing that mitigates it is you can only use Lloyd in the brief Divertissement chapter and as a bonus character in the final dungeon.
• All the final dungeon-only bonus characters in the sequel are powerful, but 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.
• The Master Quartz Tauros got a major buff in here by virtue of removing the damage cap from the first game. Combining it with a lot of strength increasing quartz, the Domination quartz which is available halfway through the game if players have been doing all the quests including hidden ones, and strength buffs and it's entire possible to blow away the opposition even on Nightmare difficulty. It makes That One Boss fights a complete joke.
• 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).
• For Valimar mech battles, Gaius' ability to charge CP by 120 for a mere 20% HP and 0 EP makes every battle an auto-win by spamming the Morning Moon counter ability and using the EP to heal/charge CP. In the harder mech battles, where the enemy gets 3-4 turns in a roll and can 2 turn kill you spamming their special attacks, this is easily the best strategy to use. Not only does it do decent damage countering 3-4 times but it also charge a chunk of your CP back.

Cold Steel III

• 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. Even some of his Brave Orders are powerful like "Kagura/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.
• You can stack Faint in this game. Yes, Faint, the strongest ailment in the game, which makes every attack against the target critical and, unlike Sleep and Nightmare, does not expire if they are hit. Equipping a character with a Faint craft with all three Faint quartzes gives you a fantastic chance to inflict this completely crippling effect. Normally this would be balanced by Faint quartzes costing 300 Space Sepith to make, meaning a full Faint stack would cost 3900, but this is all mitigated by the Stray Sheep in Chapter 2 dropping these Faint quartzes as a Rare Drop.
• 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. 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.
• The Master Quartzes Titania and Pandora. You can really go for either combination here, even set up two characters with them. The Titania leeches a bit of your arts damage as EP, meaning if you do enough damage with arts, you fill all the EP you needed for casting back up. The Pandora increases arts cost by 50% in exchange for around 100% more damage. Those two combine to let you cast any art for basically free while dealing oodles of damage with them. Their second and third abilities are also terrific. The Titania lets you start every battle with ATS and ADF buffed so your arts get even stronger and halves delay after Mirage arts, letting you set up Crescent Mirror really quickly and letting you spam Albion Wolf, the best offensive art in the game. The Pandora meanwhile gives your arts a very high crit chance for a 50% damage boost and increases area of effect, which is particularly good when casting the strongest Fire art which usually suffers from its "Area (S)".
• The new "Brave Order" system ends up being this trope in Cold Steel III as characters have the ability to make orders to gain certain buffs to all party members and it doesn't even cost a turn to do so. This is supposed to be balanced by making link attacks the only way to replenish this. If enemies are on break state, then critical attacks are 100% guaranteed, which then ends up activating link attacks, which then refill the brave point gauge. Combined with the brave orders below and players could easily not even let the bosses take even one turn unless they move first.
  • 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.
  • Sara's Brave Order works just like Machias' Burst Drive, only that it applies to all party members and reduces delay by 60%, the latter ensuring that you have enough turns to easily refund the BP cost. While it is expensive at 4 BP, considering that all players need to do is to have one enemy to be in break state and keep using area of effect attacks to refill the Brave Point gauge and it's easy to have infinite turns till the enemies are dead as the other enemies will be broken while wailing on that one enemy. Claire's a bit more powerful in that it costs cheaper but Claire isn't available as much as Sara. Just like Juna's and Kurt's, it got nerfed in Cold Steel IV where it costs 5 BP though there are ways to get around that.
• Kurt's starting Master Quartz, Sirius, ends up being the best MQ for players who want to build an evasion tank as Sirius' abilities are built for counterattacking enemies. It's not surprising to see characters pulling out 5 digits worth of damage even in early game. As a bonus, the evasion stat rises as the master quartz is leveled up. Combined with the "Wrath"/"Rage" quartz that guarantees all counterattacks deal critical damage, and players can just sit back and relax as long as the enemies aren't using arts, S-Crafts or an Always Accurate Attack. Especially if you pair it with a secondary MQ that either makes Kurt the preferred target (which means more counters) or increases the damage of critical hits.
• Remember how powerful Sara was in Cold Steel I as a guest character? Yeah, Aurelia manages to top her in that department. Her field attacks already stun enemies as is, she has powerful AoE attacks, an exclusive master quartz that players will never get that increases evasion, physical attack, and recover HP anytime she hits an enemy in break state, and a 4S rating on her S-Craft. She's also only available for one dungeon and one optional boss fight in chapter 4. Really, her only weakness is her expensive 5 BP Brave Order and even then there are situations where players can still use it as 80 CP recovery to all characters is still too good to pass up plus saving items for later plus it also increases critical rate by 50% so it's a coin toss to charge the Brave Points back up to where the player wants it to be.
• The Chevalier Master Quartz allows players to do some hijinks where the lower the HP, the higher the damage output. Combine it with a second Master Quartz like the Keeper where the lower the HP, the higher the defense boost, and it's possible to have an invincible character who can dish out 5 digits of damage. Coupled with some CP recovery accessories and it's possible to deal 5 digits of damage per attack.
• Magius is the arts equivalent of the Chevalier MQ. Unlike Chevalier where players have to play a lot of Vantage Masters to obtain the MQ, players can easily obtain the MQ in a treasure chest underneath Heimdallr Museum where the Sanctuary of the Dark Dragon shows up. Players can just back out of the dungeon and grab the chest. Combine it with the Titania MQ above and players can spam arts as long as the caster's HP is low enough. Magius' third ability will revive the character equipping the MQ with one hit point, dealing a lot of damage.
• Tired of relying on Random Number God 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 Combination Attack 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.
• New Game Plus 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. Y
• Gaius' new S-Craft, Howling Heavens. The game knows how broken it is so he only gets to use it in the final chapter for one fight, the first layer of the final dungeon and one boss fight. Not only does it have a 4S power rating (about the same as Ogre Rean's) but it also inflicts something called "Absolute Delay", which works exactly like normal Delay but cannot be resisted. That's right, guaranteed Delay on anything. Now, as his S-Craft only becomes available so late, this doesn't really count as a Game-Breaker, except that New Game Plus also allows you to transfer Crafts and Orders, thus letting Gaius use Howling Heavens for his entire runtime. If you thought the fight against Arianrhod and the Stahlritter was still too hard despite Aurelia, let Gaius knock them down.
• For the Vantage Masters card game, ranged attackers. They can attack from the front or back row, and, more importantly, don't take counterattacks if attacking from the back row. A barrage of ranged attacks can easily take out enemy Masters with no risk. Making it better, you get 3 of these, Blyx, in your starting deck, and since Blyx are fire-element they get an even bigger attack boost from the Blaze card. (Also in your starting deck)
• On his playable debut, Lechter's craft "Spell Card" has its effects work randomly, with one of them being dealing 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.
• Tier II Bell stacking. Normally, a bell is only capable of decreasing the art casting time of one particular element. However, due to a Good Bad Bug, it turns out that it applies to all elements. Stacking four of these allows the character to have 6 turns of 0 delay after applying Rean's "Divine Song" Brave Order (itself already one of the most powerful Brave Orders in the game). It got patched by Cold Steel IV and beyond as the discovery of this bug was late in its life in Japan due to the infamous Sledgehammer-Wind Blade combo.

Cold Steel IV

• Compared to his performance in Cold Steel III where Gaius couldn't use his Wild Rage + S-Craft combos due to him not having any access to said S-Craft and by the time he does, he only had two boss fights and then leaves the party permanently, Gaius has been buffed in Cold Steel IV as the boss killer of the game. As soon as he joins, the third Elin dungeon has a chest that contains a Chrono Burst R, long before players are supposed to obtain the Chrono Burst quartz. It also houses Musse's and Ash's treasure chest trial that buffs Musse's Brave Order which increases the turn limit for her Brave Order^note For 12 turns, all EP costs are reduced by 80%.. Give Gaius two Master Quartz that boost his physical craft damage + Chrono Burst R + all the strength increasing quartz and equipment and partner him with a character that can restore his EP via ARCUS links and Gaius will just S-Craft the boss to death. Wild Rage also gives him strength buffs which gives him even more damage and Gaius has one of the highest S-Craft ratings in the game at 4S with an added bonus that gives heavy delay (for those who get bored of using his S-Craft over and over again). With a good amount of restoration HP, EP, and BP items, he could S-Craft bosses to death.
• 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 patch 1.03 where it got a delay of 1.
  • The final bonding events in this game (not the fireworks scene) gives players an exclusive accessory for Rean to use. Emma and Elliot's accessories reduce art casting time in half and both stack. Cue Rean instantly casting the most powerful but long wait spells instantly without Rean having to use his Kagura Brave Order. Give him Titania to recover EP every art attack for his primary MQ and Magius for his secondary MQ that boosts its art damage if the character's HP is lower, the Mirage Bell to reduce his casting time even further and as many art reducing quartz and speed quartz available. There's also a cooking recipe that has a decent chance of reducing the character's HP to One. Cue Rean being a really powerful and fast casting Glass Cannon One-Hit-Point Wonder whose final S-Craft also nullifies any craft or art reflect guard or reflect buff and any other positive status buffs.
• Players can set all characters with the same secondary Master Quartz. This means that all but Emma and Elliot^note Mainly because their S-Craft is for support than dealing damage. can share the same Gorz/Tauros MQ and have all of the characters use S-Crafts on the boss to deal a lot of damage. The only downside is that MQs set as a secondary cannot use all of the effects compared to a primary MQ but considering most of the effects players need are on the first line anyway, the difference is negligible.
• Lost Arts Quartz are back again in the game and unlike in Cold Steel II where cryptids are a Beef Gate and require players to progress through the game just before taking on the first cryptid, the cryptids in IV are a lot easier to deal with. See Gaius' entry above for the details.
  • The secondary Lost Arts Quartz, Riannon's Kiss, restores 100 CP to all party members and gives all party members full buffs for a few turns. And this can be obtained early on in Act 2 when Crow and Duvalie join the party.
• A patch to the Japanese release, and by default in the English release, adds Crow's Azure Destiny craft, which is just as ridiculous as it is in Reverie below. Six turns of strength, arts, and speed buffs and three turns of the Insight buff turns him into the best caster in the game despite his only above average ATS, and being paired up with someone with Arts Support turns him into a terror. And players don't even have to play him as an art caster as he can just fulfill any role whether as an evasion tank with his guns or a pure melee character due to the six turns of buffs he gets. Vorpal Slayer, his second S-Craft, also has a 4S+ rating.
• For a Guest-Star Party Member, Tita in her Orbal Gear III is very absurd during the time she's available to the players in Cold Steel IV. While Tita's equipment is locked, her accessory slots aren't which means players can put in any accessories on her. Her first Master Quartz slot is also locked but because her default MQ is Moebius EX, that means she can distribute items to other characters rather easily and as a bonus, players can still plug whatever quartz they have on her, making her very absurdly powerful. Her Brave Order, "Blast Force", buffs up the party's attack power by 40%, gives out two levels of strength buffs right away, and lasts for eight turns. Finally, she has the highest HP out of all the cast which mean she can easily be made as the party's tank that it would be a shame for life if she even manages to get knocked out (barring instant death attacks). She's so absurd when she's available with Class VII that when she goes to her team's final dungeon and leaves the party until the True Final Boss fight, she noticeably has a downgrade when she no longer has an absurd damage due to all of her MQ slots, equipment, and quartz being locked by the game.

Reverie

Reverie

• The three protagonists can be considered as this and seeing as they're always available, it stands to no reason that they're used the most among the cast.
  • Just like in Cold Steel IV, Lloyd's Burning Heart no longer gives him the "Faint" status debuff after the turns are up. However, he can now be fully customized according to player preferences, eliminating his one weakness from that game. And at the beginning of chapter 3 on his route, it gets upgraded even further by giving him a HP regen by 15%. With the proper equipment, Lloyd is the most efficient Brave Point generator in addition to having level 3 buffs lasting a long time.
  • 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 and he will be a total beast in battle.
  • C's Brave Order, Dark Requiem, allows players to spam arts like no tomorrow. While it's not as instant as Rean's Divine Song Formation, it's casting delay and recovery is no slouch as it's essentially the arts version of a speed brave order. Coupled with some quartz that can speed up the casting time even further, some equipment, and the proper Master Quartz level, and C's party can cast arts like no one's business. And C himself is no slouch either, having the highest S-Craft rating in his route. Just like Rean, he also cannot be taken to the Final Boss fight in the main game.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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), 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.
• When McBurn finally becomes playable in Reverie, he is definitely this compared to the other characters in the game thanks to a 5S+ attack rating on his S-Craft that can be upgraded up to 6S rating when he uses his Super Mode (5S and 5S+ pre-trial door), the only such rating in the game other than the most powerful Lost Art in the game. He is ranked S in all four unbalance types, making him able to reliably unbalance any enemy. He also has a Brave Order that costs a whopping 8 Brave Points that increases critical hit rate by a 100% and restores 100 CP. His orbment setup surprisingly is only one line with two fire and one space element slot restrictions, meaning he can also be a decent art caster. His equipment is already maxed out so players don't even have to invest anything to him other than farming materials to make his exclusive accessory. And finally, said Super Mode costs a whopping 200 CP but gives him back 100 CP, increases his stats by a certain amount and his overall HP by at least 30,000 while fully healing him, upgrades his craft and S-Craft rating, and has immunity to everything just like Rean's Spirit Unification. The only downside is that outside of a single craft, all of his attacks are magical, making him (a bit) less useful against enemies with Arts or Perfect Reflect. He's only unfortunately available at the higher levels of the True Reverie Corridor and after the October 1st patch. Said dungeon also has implemented the Abyss difficulty along with the +100 enemy levels option during the October 1st patch, so his ridiculous stats and arsenal is justified.
• Pre-patch 1.10, there was a way to gain ridiculous amounts of mira just before going to the final dungeon of the game where players can net a profit of over 600,000 per trip. Sadly the cost of the item has been nerfed but the armor itself is still one of the better armors in the game as it flat out gives a 30% to evasion, allowing evade tanks to free up their accessories or quartz for other things.
• 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). Watch as he decimates bosses even on Abyss with the enemy level +100 modifier at the True Reverie Corridor (and we're talking about millions of hit points).
• 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 solo bosses on his own even on Abyss with the +100 level modifier to enemies.
• 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 meaning it's possible to turn the entire party into low-end dodge-tanks without even worrying about accessories and quartz.

The Calvard Arc

Daybreak

• 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 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 Final Boss.
• 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 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 Disk One Nuke.

Kuro II

• 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 Flunky Boss, 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 Final Boss will just crumble.