There’s one basic rule you must understand to go far in Langrisser:
Although heroes and soldiers fight in battle together, their damage is calculated separately.
You’ll often find that when a critical strike is displayed in the simple battle interface (when animation is turned off) the target troop’s HP will fall dramatically.
However, sometimes a critical strike occurs, but the damage dealt is not serious.
What is the reason for this?
Well, this is because both hero and soldier crits are displayed when animation is turned off and battles are shown in the simple battle interface.
There are three possible scenarios that could be taking place when you see a critical strike in the simple battle interface:
Hero and Soldiers Crit Hero Crits,
Soldiers Don’t Crit Hero Doesn’t Crit,
Soldiers Crit
So, although you achieve a critical strike in all of these scenarios, there's a huge difference in the damage dealt.
Is this how all battles work?
The answer is: No.
The following skills function without entering the battle interface:
All AoE Skills
Blizzard (Mage)
Wind Whisper (Flier)
Chain Hook (Aquatic)
Sleep (Bozel)
When using these skills, whether animation is turned on or not, you won’t be able to see the combat animation. These skills can be classified as Battle Skills.
From this, we can derive a new concept: Map Skills
[Battle Skills]
Most single-target skills can be defined as Battle Skills (in which it is possible to view the battle animation).
Wondering which heroes use these kinds of skills? Well, there’s a hero everyone has that we can use as an example: Matthew.
Bonds of Friendship
When entering battle, if there are allies within a range of 2 blocks, has a chance to increase ATK and DEF.
You may have already discovered that when Matthew uses Air Slash or when he attacks directly, he can trigger Bonds of Friendship, increasing attack and defense on the battle interface, and then attacking. How does the concept of Battle Skills and Map Skills affect Matthew and his talent? Well, the Map Skills Wind Whisper and Sword Dance are both unaffected by Matthew’s talent, Bonds of Friendship.
The above is mainly related to Matthew’s talent, but what else can be inferred from this?
Let’s take another look at what was said at the beginning of this guide:
Although heroes and soldiers fight in battle together, their damage is calculated separately. When you use a Map Skill, your soldiers will not attack, therefore AoE heroes should be equipped with defensive soldiers, as their soldiers will not be attacking most of the time.
This about sums up the concept of Battle Skills and Map Skills.
DEF to ATK Conversion Skills
Many Commanders choose to equip the hero Vargas with attack enchantments.
This is a mistake. Note that his skill Unbreakable Guardian’s description states that 1.6x DEF replaces your ATK.
After using this kind of DEF conversion skill with a DEF conversion hero, there’s really no sense in increasing his ATK. Adding DEF would be a better option, as it will be converted into ATK.
And there’s another type of skill worth mentioning – Parry: Adds 7% of ATK to DEF.
The Parry effect can be used by Marshals and Emperors, and is a bonus effect of Elwin’s Lv. 45 Lancer skill, Frontal Assault.
This skill’s description indicates that 20% of ATK is added to DEF. So for this type of hero, strengthening ATK and DEF are both effective, as the effect adds stats instead of replacing stats.
Bozel’s talent, Luna’s skill Wind Spiral, and Ledin’s Divine Guard are all replacement skills, so the key stat of these heroes is DEF. In fact, the cost of upgrading these heroes is much lower than that of other heroes, as adding DEF increases their ATK, meaning you can save your ATK gear for other heroes (however, their specific equipment may not be suitable for your other heroes to use, so focusing on upgrading these characters has its pros and cons, too).