Nintendo Eveything has created a guide for The DioField Chronicle, with some general tips for the game’s combat, as well as some useful things to keep in mind while playing the game.
Difficulty Settings
The DioField Chronicle has three difficulty settings: Casual, Normal, and Hard. The only difference between these is the amount of damage that you take. There are no bonuses to EXP or gold for winning battles, no secret endings or characters, and no in-game achievements tied to difficulty. So, long as it doesn’t contradict your personal choice of play, you can play the game on Casual with no penalties. You can adjust the difficulty at any time as well, making this ideal for grinding if necessary.
Combat Tips and Tricks
Delving more into tips for The DioField Chronicle, you should keep your characters together. The game will suggest at times that you divide your forces so that you can take on multiple foes at once, but this is generally not a good idea: this is not a game where you are significantly stronger than your enemies. Keep your four party members together and focus your efforts on one foe at a time, so you can take them down more quickly and rescue an ally if their health starts to drop too low.
Interrupt enemy attacks. When enemies are about to unleash a stronger attack on your characters, the area of effect of this will be shown on the ground for a few seconds before it happens. Rather than trying to move your characters out of the way, interrupt the attack by using a move like Izelair’s Shield Bash, or Iscarion’s Stun Shot. Waltaquin also has access to an AOE skill, Frostbind, which will freeze enemies in place.
Let enemies come to you. Groups of enemies will frequently spawn in the middle of battle and rush at you from multiple sides – rather than trying to meet one group head-on and risking ambush attacks from others, let them approach you so that you can better control how they will approach. You can use Waltaquin’s Frostbind skill early in the game to freeze one group of enemies in place whilst you deal with another to great effect. As enemies approach you they also have a tendency to draw closer together, making them ideal targets for your skills that target a wider area.
Make sure you position characters around the back of enemies for ambush attacks, which deal extra damage. To do this, either set a waypoint to just behind the enemy and then command the character to attack them, or move the targeted character past the enemy so that they will turn to face them, away from your other characters. Remember you can also use a skill that causes the Provoke status like Shield Wall to draw enemies to a particular unit so that they won’t change their target to a unit behind them.
Use your skills selectively. In the early stages of the game in particular, make sure that at least one of your characters isn’t in a cool-off period at all times and has access to a skill that can either stun or freeze an enemy. Similarly, it’s a good idea to have access to a healing ability or item at all times, just in case. The DioField Chronicle is not a difficult game as long as you are at or above the recommended level, but you will be facing waves of enemies, and Sharpshooter enemies in particular can wear you down thanks to ranged attacks.
General Gameplay Tips
Covering another one of our tips for The DioField Chronicle, when you get back to base from a mission, before you do anything else, check to see if there are any new quests. Characters with quests or new dialogue will show up on your map and it is always best to talk to them first, as they will provide you with additional gold, more sidequests, and will also ask you for gold to upgrade facilities. Upgrades to facilities should always be your top priority – this will get you access to better tiers of weapons and skills, as well as boosts to EXP and gold earned in battle as your various ranks increase.
Do all the side objectives in missions, and make sure you open the blue treasure chest on every map – Fredret is ideal for this in the early stages of the game, thanks to his faster movement speed. Doing this will reward you with SP – crucial for unlocking skills – as well as resources to develop new weapons and power up your summons.
When outfitting your characters and upgrading your equipment, remember that the skills on a weapon are more important than the bonuses to stats that weapon provides. For example, the Assassin’s Dagger, whilst it may come with +77 Attack and +21 Defense, does not come with the Assassination skill, meaning that the Dirk, which only has +63 Attack, would be the better choice of weapon for Andrias.
Don’t forget to set characters you are not using in battle as adjutants to ones that you are – this will allow you to access their skills, and later to swap between them if necessary. In the beginning, try and make sure that every character has access to at least one skill that can stun or freeze an enemy.
