Skills in Phantom Brave have some new mechanics and requirements. I will explain the details of each skill parameter. Here are a couple for reference.



This is my own ranking of the skill's usefulness, based on SP cost, damage, range, whether the item is dropped, elemental attribute and overall convenience. It ranges from C as the lowest and S as the highest. Any skill I ranked D or lower was not included in the guide.

This is self-explanatory however the skill will be underlined if it is able to hit more than one enemy.

Another unique factor to this game is that there are several different types of SP (skill/magic points) for using skills. This includes:

1. Physical
   
2. Energy
   
3. Elemental
   
4. Earth
   
5. Space/Time
   
6. Alteration
   
7. Healing

Each character has a proficiency for using and accumulating these SPs. You will need low cost skills in order to earn more SP. Even when you do not have any enemy to kill, it is a good idea to constantly train skills by attacking nearby items and fallen enemies.

The letter is a damage rank provided by the DoubleJump Phantom Brave guide. No additional calculations have been done to confirm these values. It ranges from F as the lowest and S as the highest.The number value is the amount of SP (skill/magic points) required to use the skill.

Virtually every RPG will have skills which compare Attack vs Defense, and Intelligence vs Resistance. Phantom Brave takes this new a level with HP, Defense, Resistance based skills. These skills use defensive stats in order to determine damage.

Skills can have additional Fire, Ice or Wind damage. This is unrelated to Elemental SP. Elemental damage is very useful early for doing heavy damage early in the game. For fighting tough enemies it is great to have single target skills with elemental damage. However on AoE skills elemental damage can become inconvenient as groups of enemies rarely have the same weaknesses. Your individual character's elemental resistance/weakness also count as proficiency towards elemental damage. When you create your characters, you will want to make sure their elements suite their skills.

This is one very important skill parameter that the game neglects to share with you. Some skills cannot be used unless they are on the item, and some skills must be on the character. Another subtly different parameter which I will not be providing is that some skills can only be used while the character is equipped and some can only be used while they are unequipped.

Some skills drop the item after the skill is used. The larger the skill range, the more of a disadvantage this is as you are throwing away your weapon. In some skills, if the enemy is unequip and survives your attack, you will essentially surrender your weapon to them. Eventually I will aim to indicated these using the word Risk.

Like any other RPG, skills may have various status effects:

• [»] Knockback - pushes target backwards
  
• [ϟ] Paralyzed - cannot move
  
• [¤.] Poison - loses health per turn
  
• [?] Confused\Amnesia - Cannot use skills
  
• [zZ] Sleep - do not get a turn
  
• [@] Dazed - cannot earn Exp
  
• [Ꞌ´] Gamble - boosts critical hit rate but normal attacks miss
  
• [͞Ῑ] Absorb - heal self for damage done
  
• Heal - heal target
  
• Cure - remove status effects
  
• Revive - replenish from 0 HP

Some skills are able to boost the mana, exp and/or money rewarded from killing an enemy or destroying an item. This bonus is awarded to the character that kills the enemy or destroys the enemy rather than the character that uses the skill. These bonuses stack with each use of the skill.

This is the skill's range of attack based on in-game units. As mentioned above, this distance is only optional on spherical skills. For reference character health bars are exactly 5 units across.

This is AoE size for the skill based on in-gaming units. For reference character health bars are exactly 5 units across. For single target skills, no area width is given.

Possibly the most impressive aspect of this game is the varying range of skills. There are 3 types of skill shapes: Cylinder, Wedge and Sphere. Most skills are cylindrical which means that it has a set attack distance and width. Wedge skills spread out from the character and are the most useful for hitting as many enemies as possible. For sphere skills the distance is optional for more precise targeting. Even single enemy skills can be spherical. There is also a fourth shape I've added myself called "Tall". These are cylindrical skills with a very large height component. I've labelled these shapes with C, W, S and T.

Some skills apply stat buffs or debuffs onto the target. This is quite common on Alteration skills.

This lists the item or character the skill can be obtained from. Some will also contain a (P). This indicates that this is the item's primary skill. Each item will start with a base 0 cost skill which cannot be transferred and a primary skill. Other item skills normally require mana to unlock.

Some skills are learned when a specific class equips a specific item. This is indicated with a plus sign. Weapons and staves can vary a lot in which skills they will learn. In these scenarios I've tried to indicate the lowest rank weapon the skill can be found on. For weapons that cannot be purchased, I've provided the rank (eg. R15) for reference.

Some skills can also be obtained through a title. If possible the title name is provided in brackets. Putting a title on an item will can give it skills, but the skill must be trained to at least level 1 or it will disappear when the title is removed. If you want a faster method, you can put the title on a temporary item/character then fuse that item into the desired item/character.

It could be argued that the most complicated and challenging aspect of this game is managing your skills. Skills are transferred between items and characters through fusion. Fusion costs mana which is accumulated by defeating enemies, destroying objects or sitting around Phantom Isle. These costs force you to carefully consider which skills to transfer. It is very easy to waste time and mana obtaining skillls which you never use or will delete later.

Here are some considerations for building your skill sets.

Each character or item has a maximum of 32 skills. This includes a few skills such as Body Swing which cannot be deleted. In the beginning this is a lot, but eventually you will reach this limit. The key purpose of this is to help you decide which skills are not worth the effort. Skills are organized and deleted by talking to the Witch. Undeletable skills will be greyed out.

You will need to manage skills across the character and item. It is very convenient to have the skills on the character because equips are often dropped, stolen or destroyed in battle. It is however often more ideal to put the skills on the item because fusing items can dramatically raise its stats. When both the character and item have the same skill, the item skill overrides the player's while the exp is split. Be sure to check the skill requirements before making a choice. It sucks to pay mana to move a skill only to realize later that you can't use it.

Each item will start with a base 0 cost skill which cannot be transferred and a primary skill. Other item skills normally require mana to unlock. Once further into the game, items can often be found with randomly leveled skills. However you will however never find an item with a pre-leveled primary skill. For this reason Primary skills are often the best candidates to put on your characters early in the game. This can be a bad idea if you intend for that character to continue using that item. For example, it is a good idea to give Marona the skill Blinding Light. It is a bad idea to equip her with staff that also has Blinding Light as its primary skill because it cannot be deleted from the Staff.

Many RPGs will have the concept of hand-me-downs, equipment which you pass off to other characters. In Phantom Brave it is quite feasible to share and swap items in the same battle. However this can be complicated due to the various types of SP required for skills. This is a common issue for attack builds as you try to find a balance between physical, energy and earth type skills.

Later in the game it will become very easy to find an item with multiple pre-leveled skills that you want. If you've already placed one of these skills on the character this will become very inconvenient. You will be inclined to put all of that item's skills on their character or the item. For example, if you decide to give Marona the skill Fragrance (a great skill for her!) you might as well plan to give her all of the vase skills. Don't do this until you are sure you won't give her a vase as an equip again. If you split these skills between her and the item, you may become conflicted when you find an item with both skills at a high level. Because primary skills cannot be found pre-leveled, they can be put on either as long as the skill allows it.

In some sections I have indicated supplemental skills. These skills go against the common SP types for a stat. Even if your character does not have proficiency in an SP type, it is helpful to give them enough mana to use a few skills in case their other SPs run out. SP for these skills can be acquired by fusing them from another character. The majority of supplemental skills come from skulls and bones.

Accumulating SP on your character requires you to use as many skills as possible. In the beginning you will need lots of low cost skills in order to train. Each item or character has a base 0 cost skill, but it may not be suited for your character or the SP you are trying to train. Here is a list in order to pick out items best suited for gathering SP on new characters. None of these are transferrable.






















The few 0 cost skills that can be transferred are very expensive early in the game. They will be noted in later sections. If needed you can take advantage of a weird game mechanic. Lifting another character allows you to borrow their skills!

Rather than begin with attack, I will introduce resistance builds. If you expected this game to be like any other, it's easy to miss the fact that healers have immense destructive potential. Even your basic healer can help a lot in the beginning. This is the most suitable build for your most important and squishy characters: Marona and Bottlemails. The dominant SP types for resistance are Earth, Alteration and Healing. Here are the essential skills for starting this build.


Resistance is also used for healing skills. Here are some starting healing skills:


Note: I do not like the skill Chakra because leveling it does not increase its effectiveness.

Especially in the early game, attack builds involve a struggle between Physical, Energy and Earth SP. It can be very helpful to gather useful Physical and Energy skills onto one weapon which can be passed around to train these SPs. There are a lot of skills to choose from:











These are especially useful for Ash as he has some proficiency in Space/Time SP.

I found intelligence especially difficult to get started with considering the squishiness of the characters. This build will be important for leveling your fusionist.

Speed is the most interesting and potent of the build options. With enough you can get several turns in before an enemy can move. With skills spread across several SP types, many different characters are can be speed build. It will become very important for Bottlemails and DungeonMonks later in the game. Unfortunately, the most useful skills require a lot of SP for the beginning of the game. It is most accessible to those proficient in Earth SP. Unless your build has a secondary stat, you will need to use a Starfish, Trolley or Weed as you weapon of choice.

As you acquire more mana, you will become able to transfer the following passive skills. All skills must be on the character, not their item. The number in brackets is the starting level of the skill on that character. Transferring Return to Marona or Ash will be tremendously useful as you enter more difficult dungeons.

If this is your first time playing the game, the following could be considered spoilers. Depending on your play style, it may be best that you do not proceed any further.

My rankings are based on my own preferences. Don't let them dissuade you from trying skills out.
I try to provide a few options for players that may have different priorities.

You may or may not prefer skills with elemental damage.
You may hate, or not mind dropping your equipment.
You may like a skill simply because it looks cool. :)

You could make a complete all around character capable of using anyone's weapon or an item that can be used by any build!

A key part of the fun in this game is messing around and trying to find something that works for you.

If you are concerned about wasting too much time and mana testing things out, my references are intended to make things easier. There are definitely a lot of skills which are a waste of mana because another skill is better in every way.

Please feel free to let me know if there is a skill you prefer that I have not mentioned. You should be able to find the skill I considered better by comparing skills by mana cost.

There are a lot of really high SP cost skills that I have not even tried yet. I'm curious to hear about everyone's favourite end game wedge skills.

This build can become your most potent at the beginning of the game. Some early chapters even hint at the importance of Crystal and Vase skills. With a decent amount of SP you gain access to a some very large AoE attacks. Refraction is likely my most frequently used skill in the game. I would highly recommend giving Marona every Crystal skill, while putting Log and Vase skills on her equipment.











Note that some of these healing spells also provide great stat buffs.

You will want as many multi-target skills as you can get. Attack builds have a lot of skills to choose from.

When you start encountering bosses or just fighting challenging dungeons, power single hit skills can eliminate enemies fast. Elemental damage is especially important on these skills. It can be very hard to choose your favourites.










This is another skill you should consider training Ash to use as a backup.

This section of the guide may be the most useful as there are a ridiculous number of these skills. Unfortunately, the squishiness of these characters can prevent you from gathering enough mana to try out each skill. It can be very easy to waste mana trying to improve these characters.

The skull is a source of some great intelligence skills with the absorption effect. However because these skills are very expensive to move, it may be easier to use the skull as a weapon. Using these skills, you can make some very unusual intelligence builds. This even provides the option to make Ash into an intelligence build if that appeals to you.

Get ready to kick the dungeon's ass.

I call this an alternative build, because it is the least convenient to use. This is because the best defense items reduce your speed a lot. It requires a ton of mana to reduce that effect. If your plan is to use this build as some sort of tank, you will have to take into account this game's weird ai. I struggled to put this build to use, unfortunately there are not many skills and most of them unequip the item. Still there's something satisfying about creating one of these characters once you have enough mana to fool around.

This build is considered advanced for a few reasons. The main reason is HP gained from an equip only affects the character's maximum health. You will have to replenish this health in order to use it towards damage. And man can this build do damage! Secondly, throwing an item will cause your character to lose any supplemental health they gained from the item. This sucks because some of their best skills drop the equip.

You will need the passive skills Healing Birth and Healing Step in order to make full use of this build. You will also find Absorbtion skills like Bone Train and Chomp quite helpful.

The final reason this build is advanced is that is makes use of nearly every SP type! For this reason I find this build very fun for Laharl and Mid-Boss. It can also be suitable for Marona.

Undoubtedly, the best items are found in deep dungeons in the hands of the dungeon boss. But until you acquire these items, what should you use with each build?

If you are in a hurry to get through the game, you may prefer to level your merchant as much as possible in order to gain access to the best weapons, books and staves. This is definitely a good option, although kind of boring.

If you want to try something else here are my recommendations.


At the start of the game Vases are an excellent choice. The game makes them available for several stages in a row in order for you to get the hint. Antique is one of the best zero cost skills.

Later in the game, my choice for Marona was the SacredTree. It boosts HP and Resistance quite a lot allowing you to make Marona a dual build. I think the level these become available is another in-game hint at their importance.

My choice for Bottlemails is Misc Weed. This item provides a lot of Resistance and Speed allowing for another helpful dual build. With Bottlemails, the more speed the better.


While training SP, basic daggers and swords are essential. However, once you have a bunch to use, my favourite items are Crates or Bricks. Pumpkins and Fish are also great choices if your character uses Earth SP.


This one is difficult. Off the start merchant bought is the best option. One other choice is a Sign as its Defense helps with mage squishiness. Skulls and Phonographs require a decent amount of mana to use. Despite the struggle in the beginning, dungeon bosses provide a lot of different Intelligence items later in the game.


Starfish has a great 0 cost skill and its confine stats are really easy to improve. This allows them to do their work and when they leave you confine someone new with an incredible stat boost. You will need to find one at a high level to get started. Collecting increasingly high level Starfish is one way to jump to higher level dungeons.


This seems obvious right? Rocks do the trick...but cost far too much to reduce the speed penalty. The best option for this is actually a Sign or Crate. They have great defense while also boosting speed. Simply fuse rocks into them to make them tougher.


Pillars have incredible potential is this area, but you will need a lot of mana to reduce the speed penalty. Something about Laharl swinging a pillar is very satisfying. Other great options are Stumps and GiantTrees.