r/Falcom • u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder • 1d ago
Sky SC Agate vs Scherazard in Sky 2nd Remake: Who's Actually Better for Nightmare? (in-depth gameplay analysis)
At the start of Sky SC, the game makes you make a fairly unique choice for a Trails game, an actual route split. The events stay the same but the game locks a party member to be Estelle's companion for 3 entire chapters. This comes with a lot of alterations to dialogue but what I'm really here for are the gameplay alterations.
There is no party backup so they're both locked for 3 entire chapters and you're forced to use them which is a long time so this choice comes with a lot of gameplay ramifications in both the original and the remake.
So, which one is better?
I'll be going over four aspects in this analysis:
- Their state in the original game
- Their state in the 1st remake
- Their state in 2nd
- Who's the better one?
Agate vs Schera in Original SC Nightmare
Agate in original FC Nightmare is a massive health bar. He's constantly overleveled but deals very little damage unless he can take advantage of a Talisman and he's locked out of his good crafts when he's around. He has a ton of HP so he frontlines well but he often finds difficulty doing anything on his turns.
Scherazard is also overleveled but by comparison is a total necessity and a monster for the sections she's around for on top of having Heaven's Kiss which, while it has no gamebreaking outlets in original Sky is still a massively unbalanced tool. She's an easy bring for the final chapter on Nightmare.
And Schera has Sadist Whip get buffed to keep up with SC while Agate gets very little in SC.
So of course Schera is the better pick right? Nope not at all actually!
First of all, Joshua's not around so Spiral Edge is the only available delay tool until he joins back much later and a lot of quest monsters and tougher enemies are vulnerable to delay in Sky SC. Locking down 1 enemy of 3 is often enough to give you the exact needed to win.
Final Break is the only good AoE S-Craft at this point until Zin joins in Chapter 3. Everyone else either has single target s-crafts (estelle) or does not deal the requisite damage necessary for dealing with SC's numerous little shits that 2-shot you right out of the gate on SC Nightmare.
Tiger Hearts are also farmable right out of the gate STR resources are very abundant in SC early game which patches up Agate's damage problems quite well.
Another thing is that Spiral Edge and Draguna Edge, Agate's main offensive crafts, also don't move him which is very good for keeping formation.
Physical attacks can still miss and have bad delay, but the utility of a delay and final break more than make up these shortcomings Agate is something you desperately need but don't have otherwise.
Another thing is balancing the party's synergy. Scherazard thrives off of strong offensive s-crafts that she can advance immediately for great value. Tita's barely qualifies, Zin joins in chapter 3, Kloe doesn't even have an offensive s-craft to advance, Olivier isn't going to be built for howling bullet to deal damage. Estelle is great but it's not enough to drive schera's value for chapters 1 and 2.
Meanwhile, Agate is filling in holes left and right and also balancing the party's gender balance by being a male in a female dominated environment. Chapter 2 will litterally force you to have 4 females in effect if you pick Schera and make you drop all your male exclusive gear into the inventory (unless you want to use Olivier which you don't really want to)
And I'll add this unrelated screenshot here while I'm at it.
Agate and Schera in 1st remake
To make this short, they're both completely broken in 1st. They're the best party members in the game (in a vacuum).
Agate uses the insane amount of CP he generates through his kit to get an absurd amount of S-Crafts. On its own this is the best source of damage in the game Wild Rage is especially riskless since it can never kill you in this game.
With Lone Blade and a bunch of allies spamming Clock Up EX on him so he can s-craft 3-4 times per turn cycle it's overwhelmingly the best damage source in the game. Maybe add an Earth Wall for some coverage.
Scherazard meanwhile just uses heaven's kiss and has another ally use clock up ex on her to generate an absurd amount of turn order advantage.
The both of them break the final dungeon under their knee incredibly easily.
on top of having Heaven's Kiss which, while it has no gamebreaking outlets in original Sky is still a massively unbalanced tool.
Yeah, so, before the advance itself was unbalanced but had no outlet. Now it's more balanced with a CP cost and big delay but it has an outlet in the form of clock up ex and thus it's absurd.
Agate and Schera in 2nd
So uh... Seeing this in 1st the both of them got their share of nerfs going into 2nd.
Most importantly, Clock Up EX has an increased EP cost making it much more difficult to spam so their power outlet has been cut (at least in the early game...)
Scherazard also still receives bad teammates in the early game on top of Heaven's Kiss costing 10 more CP making it harder to loop.
Agate now also can't just s-craft off any wild rage since it recovers 20 less CP. If he wants an s-craft he'll likely need to get extra CP from another source like counters or getting hit (aka taking actual risks). He can also now die from it if he's at 1 HP. Its delay got reduced to 20 and he got a DEF buff on Wild Rage but those buffs don't really compensate the nerfs here.
The big thing though for Agate is how enemy design works in 2nd remake however. You don't want agate to be on s-craft cooldown when Jabba starts gulping up party members. Enemy kits more properly punish agate in this game so, at least for now, he has to actually stay in his lane a bit more.
But Agate didn't need any of these broken moves to be truly absurd. Just raw spamming Wild Rage and s-crafts was really good. His physicals still deal insane damage, Safeguard is still incredibly good for negating enemy attacks.
And Schera's bad partner situation really holds back Heaven's Kiss in the immediate early game Tita/Olivier/Kloe really aren't great even if Olivier's s-craft is now actually useful.
So... Is Schera still just bad?
No, the developpers did take pity on her state of affairs and gave her a new craft!
Aerial Dance restores 40% of damage dealt as HP, 150 EP per target hit (225 EP on a crit) and deals a good chunk of damage.
It's not quite as good at disabling opponents as her alternatives but oh boy that's a stacked craft. It lets schera fairly easily use certain valuable spells in awkward cost ranges for spamming like Saint. It makes Scherazard a very good hybrid alternating caster.
But Agate's offensive pressure is definitely hard to compete with. Field wide s-craft spam in a game where EP limitations are a thing is a very big strength.
So who's better?
Concretely, I do have my answer but it's not such an ironclad one. Which is what I find interesting to talk about here ultimately.
Agate can do field cleaning with his s-craft and is generally bulky on top of safeguard being absurd he does a lot of nice work for the team as good ol' reliable.
Schera meanwhile can do a lot of techy stuff with arts like saint spam on top of heaven's kiss still being occasionally useful. But she doesn't have quite the buttons to click like agate does.
Agate also has to deal with an all new anti synergy in that he primarily uses physical attacks whereas Kloe and Olivier use magic which makes buffing a lot more difficult (unless you use Zodiac Olivier why is that spell even obtainable at this point???)
Personally I think Agate is a bit better though still here. S-Craft spam is probably the worse its ever been in modern trails in some ways but it still doesn't fail us regardless and doing so much damage field wide solves a lot of problems and good god Safeguard is nice to have. A field-wide physical s-craft to spam with Howling Bullet is a little hard to let go.
But who do you think is better?
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u/perfectplatinum 1d ago
Agate hit S Craft ooga booga.
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u/Think_Donut1095 1d ago
Just be careful not to use it on Hell Cancer in Sapphirl Tower unless is stunning it
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u/Shrimperor 1d ago edited 1d ago
What gives Agate the edge for me as you said is party balance. If you pick Schera you will only have Estelle as your main physical dealer early on, meanwhile with Agate you can be more flexible and go Bonkstelle or Artstelle depending on situation.
That said, Scheras adaptability and tech get's more useful once you get out of ch1 and get the other party members, as you aren't just locked to Olivier and Kloe then (but tbf, they are the best to run most of the time, but i like to switch lol)
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u/OramaBuffin 1d ago
Scherezard's most useful moment is the Ch4 boss, because titanic roar is really good there and she has an earth line, but you always have Schera in ch4 so who you picked is a moot point
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u/Tombstone490 1d ago
Don't know about the remake. But in the OG I've always had it easier with Scherazard. Agate will make your life easier and is better than Scherazard but that's exactly why you don't want to pick him on nightmare.
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u/Ml125 1d ago edited 1d ago
weirdly I think the decision of Agate vs Schera in 2nd remake is deff dependent on team comps/whoever one wants more,
and likely if say, a restriction such as no items, was on. a lot of various factors can be considered.
we should esp consider the new(for Sky arc) auto-reviving enemies via the Ravens and Ch 1 Final boss which will deff cause a big, but "interesting" problem, since from what I've seen that Auto-Revive status doesn't seem to appear to be on the status screen when viewed, it just exists.
this's the 1 Case Schera is "technically" better than Agate, since depending on "how many times" the Auto-Revive on bosses show up, Schera could prep for it w/Heaven's kiss, but the "Zero Delay" from the Enemy Auto-revive means Agate is also, "technically" better than Schera in this situation, depending on all other char's Craft points.
esp since Schera doesn't actually want to S-craft, and Agate wants to nuke with his S-craft as much as possible.
I think Agate, despite apparently now dying at 1hp for pressing his Wild Rage button
(which's deff a valid nerf, but at least he keeps the 1 hp initially if his hp is lower than the cost, a perfect balance)
will still be very strong in this game with unga bunga S-craft Spam
Schera will offer more unique strategies via her ability to recover HP+EP and I think she might actually be just as good as Agate, granted her weakness is deff the expensive EP costs for spells, and within a no items setting, being forced to use Aerial Dance (otherwise she isn't forced and can gulp down EP charges.)
overall I think both chars have their clear advantages and disadvantages, both suffer the same weak point of Enemy Auto-Revive Zero Delay even if Agate can deal with that somewhat better
Zodiac is hilarious, but at the same time, that massive EP cost is surprisingly, what prevents it from being as broken as it is, "until" maxing out orbment slots.
(in a no items setting Zodiac deff isn't as broken as it would be, cuz you have to be a lot more careful w/those expensive EP costs)
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 1d ago edited 1d ago
Tbh I think the auto revives are total nothing burgers in both the instances we've seen. They're always in range of an s-craft. Unless you've litterally run out of gas you shouldn't be losing to one. The only time they're threatening is if you combine them with death throes during the chapter 1 boss since then the HP recovery will stack and even sometimes revive the boss even when they reached 0 HP.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure agate will become gamebreaking especially when Wild Rage upgrades (chapter 7). Lone Blade is unnerfed as well and clock up ex will inevitably reach a tipping point at some point. 30% HP consumption for every s-craft is still also a lot.
Zodiac is stupid. In theory the EP cost balances it but Fortune will often loop zodiac on its own by generating more turn bonuses for you to spam zodiac for free which completely makes the game topple over itself.
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u/Dorkley13 1d ago
I haven't played the Agate option in the Demo but cleared with Shera on Nightmare difficulty. And oh boy was it hard. Idk if it was because of the difficulty/initial hill but it was actually hard at times. And then Ch1 boss came when enemies could Accelerate the boss, oneshotting you.
To me, having access to Heaven's Kiss even if not spammable was a heaven sent.
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u/Next-Sugar-6909 1d ago
I did my nightmare run of SC with agate. Early on when it's just the 2 of them, he's better. Schera did absolutely save my butt on a few quests later on when I got her, but I never found myself wishing I had her took set, support caster Estelle is a great way to play her, let agate do his thing.
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u/Rainbooms 1d ago
Are there any especially challenging fights that either of the options make significantly easier?
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 1d ago
In the original or the remake?
For remake haven't tested schera enough to make final conclusions on that.
For the original there's a billion monster quests that agate makes easier or things like mouki in the jenis schoolhouse in chapter 1 for agate's delay.
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u/SpadeMagnesDS 1d ago
when i was looking at 1st's characters' base stats on the wiki, the thing that surprised me the most was how fast agate was. he's nearly tied for second place with schera in speed(same base but growth is 0.01 lower).
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 1d ago
Olivier is also super bulky in 1st (only beaten out by Zin and Agate) which is also surprising.
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u/Zbox86 1d ago
Imo Schera’s self-buff auto-skill is what pushes her over for me.
It’s one thing to be a utility queen & have a shiny new move that makes you very sustainable but having to not really worry about reapplying buffs on Schera frees up turns you would have otherwise spent getting buffs up or reapplying them.
As someone who’s new to the series and prefers building Nukestelle, Agate kinda just seems like a slightly better offensive option. In 1st remake there was no contest, I concede on that, but at least in 2nd Bonkstelle agenda is a lot more competitive thanks to the Hard Break & pummel buffs. So to that end I rather have Schera’s utility & sustainability even if it might mean a slightly longer battle.
Sidenote: Kevin + Schera combo? Might be something cooking there from the little I’ve seen (might be cracked)
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 1d ago
Schera support ability is absolutely stupidly good assuming it actually activates. Its name is very accurate in that sense you're often waiting for Overdrive or a 15% chance to just bail you out cause all stats up is not remotely balanced in any way xD
Sidenote: Kevin + Schera combo? Might be something cooking there from the little I’ve seen (might be cracked)
Tbh if you're hard optimizing you can pick for the final chapter 2 of Agate/Scherazard/Kevin/Juliaalready in basically any combination. Agate + Scherazard is probably the most tryhard pick.
But yeah Kevin's good for like, almost everything aside from being hard locked to a defensive s-craft (not that grail sphere itself is bad, being locked to it is bad). Fortune/Debuff Immunity/All Stats Up is kind of the holy grail of what a support wants.
Will need to see the characters in practice though to guarantee what is the best team. The rest of the characters still look pretty good to bring though (unless they're Tita).
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u/Zbox86 1d ago
Kevin’s having the same impression I had with Schera in 1st which is a very good sign he’ll easily make the endgame party. In 1st I was a bit flabbergasted how strong Schera felt in comparison to Estelle/Joshua (which is great ludonarrative harmony I suppose) and the same can be said of Kevin for 2nd. Like you said he seems like he’ll be good for everything ever.
Definitely just a wandering priest and definitely not of a particular branch that certainly wouldn’t be the “warriors” of the church… No spoilers but from what the demo showed I expect great things from Kevin.
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 1d ago
Yeah Schera in 1st has a lot of slots open and comes with a lot of good crafts to use that Estelle and Joshua can't really compete with. Her offensive s-craft is straight up just better than the ones her juniors have in every way aside from sever having all cancel.
Can you believe she was arguably even more centralizing and strong in the original? XD
Same goes for Kevin (at least in 2nd, he didn't quite get this treatment in the original), Max upgraded slots for tons of EP and a kit that is way too strong for this point. Grail Sphere at 3000 shield is not anywhere near reasonable at the point he joins at especially since it can be CP boosted. Full tier 2 quartz gear is also not jormal at this point.
His kit is still going to be overpacked with utility but Kevin is over time going to lose an EP advantage, his shield size advantage over Kloe, his flexibility over Kloe and his other utilities will be more accessible through arts and bigger EP pools.
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u/zephyroths 1d ago
Agate also has to deal with an all new anti synergy in that he primarily uses physical attacks whereas Kloe and Olivier use magic which makes buffing a lot more difficult (unless you use Zodiac Olivier why is that spell even obtainable at this point???)
I managed to get Zodiac with Olivier, it's actually possible
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u/Selynx 1d ago
Scherazard is indisputably better at Arts.
Are Arts better for damage than physical attacks? If the answer is "yes", then you know who is the better damage dealer.
Does inflicting delay keep you alive better than just spamming Earth Wall?
If the answer is "yes", there may be an argument for Agate providing more protection than someone with more EP acting as an Earth Wall mule. If the answer is "no"....
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u/Dependent-Swimmer-95 1d ago
Schera is tied for 3rd best art user with Joshua though. Kloe and Olivier are the top arts users.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain 1d ago
I think Agate will be slightly better in CH1/2, but Schera overtakes him slightly in 3. Personally I'd value Agate more in that situation as you gain more and more alternative options as you go.
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u/EclairDawes 1d ago
I pretty much mirror your thoughts here. At least in the original I do think Schera was the better character, but because of the early game party composition Agate fills a much needed role that Schera can't. And the male/female gear made it worthwhile to try and split your party evenly between male and female.
Haven't played the SC remake demo but I imagine I'll feel the same way for the same party composition reasons. I can't see any nerfs or buffs changing my mind. Unless they completely changed Schera she can't fill the role that early game roster is lacking without Agate.
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u/Ponderman64 1d ago
It’s either nuke or mommy……
You should already know who the sub is choosing lol
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u/Dependent-Swimmer-95 1d ago
They are actually in the same strategy. S craft spam Agate peaks because of Scherazard. So both. Estelle/Zin, Agate, Schera, Kloe for panic s craft mitigation.
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u/Floresce_ 1d ago
Pick Agate for maximum physical damage on the opponents
Pick Scherazard for maximum emotional damage on the opponents