Visions of Mana is one of the most friendly RPGs you could ask for, but its class system can still feel overwhelming if you don’t specifically enjoy maximizing your damage numbers. With a total of five characters and eight unique class options (not counting each character’s default classes), you’ll have a total of 40 possible classes to use in your active party. That’s a lot of choices, especially since you can only use three of them at once!
Truthfully, it’s hard to say what the “best class” or the “best team” is in Visions of Mana. Each character can fulfill different party roles depending on their class, ranging from pure damage dealers to dedicated supporters. In the end, how you synergize your active team’s abilities and exploit your enemies’ weaknesses will matter more than the specific classes you choose. But if you’d like a little nudge to figure out how you should build your team into the awesome monster slayers you know they can be, consider using the classes we’ve picked here.
Note: Evaluations are based on how each class performs throughout the game, not just their endgame potential. For this reason, skills each class learns in the first two tiers of their Elemental Plot will be typically weighed much higher than tier three and tier four skills.
The best DPS class for Val: Rune Knight (Sylphid)
Key Stats
Strength, Stamina
Val: Rune Knight Details
Rune Knight is your best damage dealer in the early game of Visions of Mana. It’s the first character class you can unlock, and comes right out of the box with two elemental imbuement skills and a great 20 percent attack boost when Val uses said imbuements. Exploiting elemental weaknesses can skyrocket your outgoing damage, so this class will help you tear down even the bulkiest of foes. Val can learn more imbuement skills as he unlocks new classes too, which lets Rune Knight scale well into the mid and late game.
Once Morley can use his first Chalice to unlock the second tier of his Elemental Plot, Val may fall behind as a main damage dealer for reasons that will become apparent later. Still, Rune Knight Val performs incredibly well as a support DPS, and you’ll be happy to have him on your team.
The best Tank class for Val: Edelfrei (Dryad)
Key Stat
Stamina
Val: Edelfrei Details
f you’re playing on Hard mode, or you’re fighting monsters that are way higher level than you are, designating a party member to draw the enemy’s attention can seriously take the heat off your team. No other character is better equipped to fulfill the Tank role than Val, and Edelfrei lets Val fill multiple party roles at once. This class gives Val knockback resistance, a damage boost for hitting elemental weaknesses (which we’ve established Val is good at), and a built-in healing option thanks to Dryad’s Elemental Vessel. Equip Val with Ability Seeds that boost his defenses and you’ll have a reliable wall to send to your front lines.
The best class for Careena: Divine Fist (Salamando)
Key Stats
Strength, Luck
Careena: Divine Fist Details
Class Strikes are comically powerful in Visions of Mana. These attacks can defeat entire groups of enemies in a single hit, and Careena’s Divine Fist class is all about making your Class Strikes even better. Not only can Careena ignore a chunk of her foes’ defense stats thanks to the Fighting Spirit ability, she can also fill the Class Strike gauge faster and even give herself an attack buff after each Class Strike. You can also equip her with all those buff and debuff moves from her other class options, letting her fulfill a supporting role as well!
Careena as a Divine Fist will help you tear through common enemies and obliterate boss health bars alike. What’s more, since Class Strikes stop the clock in Elemental Aerie battles, she’ll help you clear battle arenas above your current level too. Careena might not look like a fighter, but her fists are not to be trifled with.
The best class for Morley: Nightblade (Luna)
Key Stats
Strength, Luck
Morley: Nightblade Details
Morley may look like a cat, but make no mistake, this boy is the G.O.A.T. Nightblade is one of Morley’s strongest classes from the minute you recruit him, but it’s not terribly impressive at first. However, once you access the second tier of skills in his Elemental Plot, everything changes. A 20 percent critical hit damage increase and an absurd 70 percent critical hit rate buff increases his damage potential to ludicrous heights. Augment his critical hit rate and damage further via Ability Seeds, and all of the sudden you have a lightning-fast attacker who can stack dozens of guaranteed critical hits in a handful of seconds.
I strongly recommend using Morley as your main damage dealer. The only downside is that, unless you’re playing on hard mode, a well-optimized Morley might make the game too easy. Even Luna’s Elemental Vessel ability works well with this class, since it can stop enemies in their tracks while Morley unleashes a flurry of powerful attacks. Between great damage and the ability to stunlock several enemies in the game, what more could you ask for?
The best class for Palamena: Grand Diviner (Undine)
Key Stat
Intellect
Palamena: Grand Diviner Details
Nobody uses magic like Palamena, and the Grand Diviner class lets her do what she does best. While Grand Diviner gives Palamena a healthy Intellect stat to work with, she can restore half her MP bar after every battle for free with the Fluid Flourish skill. This means you can set Palamena to “All-Out Attack” and “Go Wild” in her battle AI and she’ll almost never run out of magic throughout a dungeon. Make sure to learn spells from the other classes on her Elemental Plot to help her exploit enemy weaknesses whenever she can!
The other best class for Palamena: Magus (Gnome)
Key Stat
Intellect
Palamena: Magus Details
While Val had two best class options that fulfill different roles, Palamena’s Magus class is a different flavor of her magic casting niche. Magus has an even higher magic stat than Grand Diviner, and it sports valuable knockback immunity while Palamena is casting. Palamena does lose that handy MP regeneration after every battle, but by the time you unlock this class, you should have the cash to afford all the magic recovery items Palamena needs to sustain herself.
You may prefer Grand Diviner if you mostly use Palamena against random enemy mobs, but bosses and other big bads will melt faster if you use Magus instead.
The best class for Julei: High Cleric (Lumina)
Key Stats
Spirit, Stamina
Julei: High Cleric Details
As the last character to join your party, Julei fills a niche that your gang has likely struggled to fill until now: Healing. And of all the classes Julei can pick, High Cleric is the healer-est of them all. With a sky-high Spirit stat and a buff that doubles the healing potential of Julei’s moves, the little sproutling will become easily capable of topping off a party member’s HP with a single spell. But really, because High Cleric gives Julei his most foundational healing and status recovery spells, you’ll want to invest in this class no matter how you build Julei.
Once Julei does unlock his third tier of skills in his Elemental Plot, the Healing Light + spell massively elevates his usefulness. The ability to functionally heal the entire party’s HP in a single cast is borderline essential for the game’s hardest challenges, and the Strong Roots skill will help him survive one fatal blow per battle. I highly recommend giving Julei resistance to status ailments and strong defenses so he can always bring your party back from the brink.
The situationally best class for Julei: Necromancer (Shade)
Key Stats
Spirit, Stamina
Julei: Necromancer Details
Julei’s Necromancer is incredible on paper, but the game provides precious few opportunities for it to really excel. Its first two tiers of moves aren’t especially exciting (though a passive defense debuff to all enemies can be nice), but its signature Dark Curse spell in the third tier is the real selling point here. A spell that debuffs all of an enemy’s stats, alongside buffs that extends the spell’s duration and lets it target all enemies? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, there’s just one tiny problem here: Dark Curse is a Dark attack. Against enemies that resist darkness, which includes the final boss and the game’s strongest post-game bosses, Dark Curse doesn’t put in much work. Still, this class can be helpful depending on how early you unlock Julei’s third tier of his Elemental Plot, and the full suite of debuffs can help in Elemental Aeries too. Don’t rely on Julei to be your main debuffer, but in the right context, this class can really shine.
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