Chained Echoes: Victor, The Bard Guide

Chained Echoes Victor, The Bard Guide: Stats & Build Suggestions. Also check; Chained Echoes Character Guide.

Chained Echoes: Victor, The Bard

Victor is the first support you get, and I dare to say he is all you need. His kit is loaded with unmatched utility. He can buff, he can heal, he can debuff, he can deal magic damage, he can lower resistances. He’s possibly the most important character in battle and you’ll never want to fight without him.

He’s mostly valuable for his Valor Minuet and Healing Hymn, which grant TP and HP regen, respectively, and should be the very first buffs you should use at the start of any battle. Additionally, he can pretty much top any character with Healing Hymn, if equipped with the Holy Symbol accessory (all healing increased by 50%).

His Ultra Move, Cosmos Orchestra, is incredibly useful as it restores a lot of TP for the whole party, on top of granting TP and HP regen.

Strengths

• Fits the typical bard archetype: lots and lots utility.
• Has some of the most useful buffs and debuffs in the game.
• The definitive support, fitting in any team composition.
• Third highest MND.
• Fourth highest TP.
• Very useful Ultra Move.

Weaknesses

• All his other stats except for MND and TP are mediocre to low.
• Lowest AGI in the game, tied with Magnolia.

Baseline

• Valor Minuet: one of Victor most important buffs. TP Regen is a must for long fights, and your most potent fighters (Glenn, Lenne, Sienna) will often burn down their TP fast.
• Healing Hymn: incredibly useful to keep everyone in mint condition through the whole battle. If Victor stacks a lot of MND and has the Holy Symbol equipped, a single tick can pretty much fully heal any character.
• Heroic Ode: this is his best buff, and will completely replace his Poetic March and Requiem later in the game.
• Shield Mazurka: great emergency shield for incoming hard-hitting moves.
• Efreet’s Song / A Sylph’s Tale: as aforementioned, Victor has a really powerful combo with Lenne by using either of these abilities and having her use the corresponding Coat ability, to allow the entire party to hit for weakness damage.

Class Abilities

• Heal All: from Cleric. Victor has no innate area-of-effect healing spell, so this is great.
• Awaken Spirit: from Cleric. Resurrection spells are always useful in clutch moments.
• Drunken Master: from Monk. Works fine equipped on any character, and since Victor has a pretty low AGI already, this works wonders on him; ideally, this should be equipped on a faster character so Victor can drop his other, more important buffs.
• Firestorm / Earthstream Spirit: from Shaman. Allows Victor to put some offensive pressure while he’s busy handling buffs and healing the party. This ability can be equipped on pretty much any character as it has no set duration and adds extra damage on every turn.

Crystals

• MND Up: the most important stat for healers as it affects the potency of healing spells, so stack that on him!
• AGI Up: helps remedy Victor’s low AGI.
• CRIT Up: if you plan on equipping Victor with the Healing Belt, this is a must.

Early Game

Victor starts strong with Valor Minuet and Poetic March, which will carry you through most of the early game content. Focus on improving his HP, MND and DEF.

The Cleric is the very first Class Emblem you’ll unlock. Equip it on Victor and never look back. It’s the best one for him, by far.

Mid Game

On tier 2, get Healing Hymn, Shield Mazurka and Requiem. Tier 3 is pretty underwhelming in the active ability category (Bee Sting is interesting though), but it has the very valuable TP Cost Down passive. Use the spare points on his stats afterwards.

End Game

Once you reach the final tier, get Heroic Ode right off the bat, and you can forgo Poetic March and Requiem. Then get either Efreet’s Song or A Sylph’s Tale and improve the rest of his stats.

For accessories, as aforementioned, Holy Symbol is great on him, increasing healing effects by 50%. Alternatively, Healing Belt (heals can crit) is really good, though I personally prefer to keep that on Amalia.

General Tips

Setups are everything

Combat in this game, especially in the late-game, is all about setups. Your characters will unlock plenty of buffs and debuffs and it is key to lay those down to empower your team while simultaneously cripple the enemy.

For instance, Sienna alone has four really important buffs she should have active nearly all the time, while Glenn should always make sure the enemy has Break debuffs on, With certain setups you can see some really big numbers (I’ve been able to crit +18k with Lenne during the final boss) so it’s important to have your team cover everything.

Don’t bother with Crystals (until later)

The Crystal system at the blacksmith anvil is a potentially powerful, yet a bit obnoxious system (because of RNG and how the combining functions), way to make your characters REALLY powerful, allowing you stack passives to reinforce their strengths or to circumvent a weakness. For instance, stacking Crit Damage Up crystals on Sienna can make her dish out some really insane damage, while adding debuff crystals (i.e. Poison, Blind) on characters with multi-hit moves can make inflicting those easier.

However, I strongly recommend waiting to tamper with this system until the endgame. It’s not really worth hunting down crystals or farming, and the game is already relatively easy enough that you can clear the vast majority of the content without worrying about crystals.

If you want more details on the Crystal crafting, check Xenocite’s excellent Crystal Guide.

Agility is everything

Agility (AGI) is the single most important attribute in the game, hence why Sienna is so busted since she has the highest in the game. Improving your AGI in any way (passive skills, buffs, crystals) is key to get as many turns as possible before the enemy.

Drunken Master (a skill from the Monk Class Emblem) is an ability you should have learned with one or more characters and equipped at all times, and use it as soon the fight starts. It’s party-wide.

Additionally, crippling your enemy’s AGI with Robb’s Leg Shot (and also Kylian’s Leg Aim) is key in any boss fight to further enable more turns for you and less for the enemy.