DQ3

You just trying to beat him at all or do it within the turn-limit?
Beating him at all didn't seem like a big deal so long as you've got both sage stones and healing spells.
Doing it in the turn-limit though, I made all three characters into the crit-happy martial artists to do damage fast enough, but only after giving them spells first; think I had most or all of them as sages at some point. So they can heal and cast attack-up.
I played the GBC version but this aspect should be the same I think. (I didn't use the double-attack dragon transformation trick that's unique to GBC.)

>>3733237
Just trying to beat him. Not worried about the turn limits really, just b/c he's the biggest guy in the game and it feels incomplete leaving him up there.

Late game I had both sage stones, but I got into a loop where I wasn't doing enough damage and wound up on defense. And I only just barely squeaked by Zoma, basically got a Hail Mary crit on the last possible round. Epic af but I feel like I would lose that matchup 9/10 times the way I set it up.

Hero, Soldier, Fighter, Pilgrim seems as though it would be good enough to win with, but three sages-turned-warriors is even better. That second scroll doesn't come until late, though. So you must have had a jester as well?

I think I really only want to class change once. Ugh, so many options tho...

>>3733283
>So you must have had a jester as well?
Yeah, I remember using the whistle spell to summon instant encounters when grinding monster medals (GBC thing) so I must have had a jester to get that.

I believe I had Hero, Mage turned to Warrior, Priest turned to Martial Artist and Martial Artist turned to Sage. Gave up after beating him twice since it was a chore and even the unlocked sugoroku was frustrating.
The only real tactic is keeping up Bikill and having high health.

>>3733283
I'm not that guy, but like any other multiclass game, there are tons of options, but not all of them are very good. Most people will try to tell you to sandwich sage between the two physical jobs for max stat growth on two characters, and turn to a physical job after learning all the spells from the two mage jobs (Pilgrim first because you need healing at all times.) While this is technically a great approach for stats and spell gains, it makes the game really boring when all your characters feel almost identical, and it really stops being fun when you grind 9 jobs to completion.

I've beat it a few times, and the way I've gone through the game with only one job change per character and had the easiest time has been to start with warrior/fighter/pilgrim, turn the warrior into a sage at 20, the pilgrim into a warrior after learning vivify, and turn the fighter into a sage much later when you can make a second one.

You start with 2 melee damage dealers (one better suited for tanking, one for direct damage,) and a healer. Then you turn one melee into a mage and let them spend the whole game gaining magic stats to become a great nuker. Next you turn your healer into a tank that can heal and let them spend the rest of the game gaining tanking stats, and much later when your fighter has crazy CRIT potential, you turn them into a sage and now have two sages, one great at casting, one more Jack of all trades, and a tank that can heal. And at no point, did the party consist of 3 jobs that all have similar stats and spells.

I've also made a run where I just kept a fighter the whole way through, and they get down right beastly near the end, like, made the rest of my team look worthless. But only near the end.

>>3733325
Wicked. This is what I was looking for. Much appreciated anon.

>>3733328
This is also great!

I'm with you, I'm not about grinding 9 jobs to completion. You and (>>3733325) also seem to have relatively similar teams in mind also, with some changes.

How important is gender and personality? Gender is relatively easy, I'll probably just make an all-female team. Were you guys managing personalities w/seeds and so on? Seems kind of annoying. The Garter Belt can give anybody the Sexy personality (gotta love those lewd DQ developers), but for the rest of them...pretty much just hope for the best?

>>3733352
I ran with a harem team though all female is probably better.
>Were you guys managing personalities w/seeds and so on?
I only used the books for sexy gal.

I made all three of my party members Sages and then just cast Merazoma every turn. It's cheap, but you can beat him in less than 15 turns that way.

I also did the same for Dark Dream in Dragon Quest VI with everyone being a Hero and casting Gigaslash every turn. It takes a while.

>>3733083
I think I had 2 Sages, Hero, and a Fighter.

Sages can buff you up and focus on making sure you are alive, Fighter and Hero attack. If possible, Sages go on offense with Kafrizzle/Blazemost and Hero does Omniheal/HealusAll in bad situations.

The tower with the Rubiss statue thing or whatever has a floor where Liquid Metals show up. Grind there.

>>3733352
Personality is ridiculously important for stat growth in the long term. The difference between getting 1 STR and 3 STR per level up is massive near endgame. It adds up. You'll basically need to glance at a personality guide to figure out which personalities are good for which jobs, and then figure out how to make characters with those personalities.

OR do what most people do and just roll with all females and make them Sexy because it's the largest overall net stat gain of any personality. This results in characters with very similar stats, though. Well rounded, but similar.

>>3733974
>Personality is ridiculously important for stat growth in the long term. The difference between getting 1 STR and 3 STR per level up is massive near endgame. It adds up

Yup. This is what happened to me and why I wouldn't have been able to beat the God Dragon, even with all the grinding I was doing. I know the personalities are important but checking a guide to manage who gets what when and keeping the numbers in line is exactly what I am escaping from when I play a Dragon Quest game. But, I know, that's a part of this game's charm, and to some degree you have to just take that as part of the experience, so it's silly of me to complain about it.

The Garter Belt makes it easy to make one of your team Sexy, and I might just leave the hero male, if only so that at least that's one person who doesn't need to get managed too closely...so that's two of them. There's another book you get, for beating the God Dragon itself, but obviously this is self-defeating...

But it's not really that difficult, I guess. If I know what job classes I'm going to be going for, as a couple of anons have suggested, then I can check the guide to see which personalities would be most appropriate for them now & later. I really just sort of winged it the first time around and it was mostly okay, but the developers were pretty cool to insert an Easter Egg bad guy that actually required you to do a little strategy. It's why I love this game so much. They don't make it too easy on you.

So I think I'm going to go with >>3733325's idea:

mage - soldier
priest - fighter
fighter - sage

I'll have to do some research into which personalities would be best for each type, I guess.

>>3734060
Just make them all sexy at the character creation and use the garter belt for your fighter (can't be created with a sexy personality.) Then you won't have to worry about personality at all.

Trust me when I say that it's more than good enough. The personalities all give bonuses to certain stats and negatives to others, but Sexy gives the most amount of bonuses and least amount of negatives. They all range from a net gain of -90℅ to +40℅ overall stat growth, except for Sexy, which has a stat growth of +70℅, making it nearly twice as good as the next best personality. It's also the only personality with no negative stat growth.

>>3734060
Mages are a bit of a mixed bag. They won't give you the steady damage output of a fighting character but their buffs and debuffs can speed up certain fights.

Another advantage of female characters are the bikinis. Magic and blessed bikini are among the best armors in the game.

Stats max at 255 anyway