'Ni No Kuni II' Tactic Tweaker Guide: Getting the Most Out of 'Revenant Kingdom's Combat Mixer

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom ramps up slowly, first introducing you to melee attacks then folding in ranged and skill attacks over the first hour or so. Nothing feels too complicated at first, and it's almost like you're dealing with a Zelda-like action RPG. But complexity mounts, especially when you've unlocked the Tactic Tweaker, which looks like a sound mixing board, covered in sliders and switches. The Tactic Tweaker allows for minute adjustments to how damage is dealt and taken, in addition to the rewards you get for winning battles.

Unlocking its various features allows you to fine-tune every combat encounter, such as swapping around damage boosts to match the category of monster standing in front of you. (Bear in mind, you can't make adjustments once combat has started). Each of the four sections on the Tactic Tweaker can be upgraded to Level 10 with Battle Points, which are earned every time your characters level up.

Some of the boons offered by the Tactic Tweaker will be obvious, but there are also surprising and subtle strengths available. Here's a guide to the choices you can make on the Tactic Tweaker, in order from our favorite section to the least useful.

Monster Affinities

When maxxed out, Monster Affinities can grant damage boosts against three categories of enemy, or a Level 5 damage boost against two categories. This should be an early Battle Points priority. There's nothing more useful than taking on a tainted enemy with a damage boost ready to go before combat.

At maximum, you can have ten damage boost levels active on the Monster Affinities sliders, but five is a good soft cap to place on yourself until you've upgraded other areas of the Tactics Tweaker. That will let you max out your damage boost against a handpicked enemy. Sure, it's less useful in a swarm of multiple types of foe, but Ni No Kuni II will often throw enemies from across the same spectrum at you anyway. Fight a group of goos and robots and, because they are both on the same slider, you'll only be able to set up a damage boost against one of them, no matter how high you've leveled Monster Affinities.

Arts of War

This is probably the Tactic Tweaker section with the most obvious appeal. Each new level lets you boost one of six combat perks:

• Durability - Reduces damage taken while blocking
• Untouchability - Increases invulnerability when evading
• Fleet-Footedness - Decreases battle escape time
• Dynamism - Improves MP restoration
• Eagle-Eyedness - Reduces charge time for ranged attacks
• Brutality - Increases heavy melee attack damage

Some of these perks are more useful than others. Unless you're already in the habit of blocking, ignore Durability. Combat is so dynamic that Untouchability will be more worthwhile. I never once felt the need to escape a battle, making Fleet-Footedness worthless. Dynamism, Eagle-Eyedness and Brutality are all useful, depending on your preferred combat style. One note: though Brutality seems like an obvious benefit, it can cause you to over-rely on the heavy melee attack, which is slower to regenerate MP than the light attack.

All of these perks can be adjusted at will, so you're not locked into any one configuration.

Spoils Settings

This one is more interesting than it first looks, so it's tempting to spend your Battle Points elsewhere. The Spoils Settings give you either-or selections for how loot is dropped or experience is acquired after you've won a fight. The first choice to unlock, "Finds Vs. Finery," doesn't seem all that exciting, lets you pick between increased odds of rare materials or rare equipment. But subsequent choices you unlock include EXP vs. gold, EXP vs. materials and gold vs. equipment. Early in the game, Evan and his party will want to hoover up whatever they can get their hands on, but you're likely to appreciate the refined approach later. Being to angle loot drops toward rare materials helps out when the focus turns more to crafting later in the game.

Elements and Ailments

This category is completely useless, from my experience. Similar to Monster Affinities, Elements and Ailments has sliding scales to guard against a host of combat status effects: Blaze, Befuddlement, Puddle, Poisoning, Bedazzlement, Blackness, Scirocco and Sleep. In nearly 40 hours of playtime, I encountered status effects and ailments only a handful of times. Guarding against the right one in advance of combat would have been completely hopeless, especially since the mix of enemies aren't obvious before going into most battles. Maybe worth investing a few points in, but only after you've lost to a tough boss with a very specific attack type.

Should you be dissatisfied with how you spent your Battle Points and unlocked Tactic Tweaker options, it's always possible to spend Kingsguilders to return your Battle Points to you for reallocation, though it's an expensive option.