Yeah you're probably right. That's what I was thinking too actually. Black Mage probably isn't the most optimal way to do AA. But it's been a long time since I started running BD and i never finished it so I'm gonna focus on getting an Any% run I'm happy with, then I'll move on to AA routing/running

IIRC (haven't looked at my notes in ages), I've routed up to the beginning of chapter 3 for AA. The only difficult fights so far are Khamer/Khint and DeRosa. The extra exp from the bosses really decreases the amount of grinding needed. At least, early game it does. I feel we may need to do more grinding later on to beat the late game asterisk holders/other bosses. I should probably mention I was doing this routing based on the Black Mage strat which may not be the most optimal way to do it.

I've been thinking of using a Pirate / Feelancer team based around Amped Strike and Mimic. Here's my full team setup:

1× Kaiser / Pirate

• Natural Talent
• Knuckle Lore
• P.Attack 20% Up
• Speed 20% Up Nothing equipped

3× Pirate / Freelancer

• Natural Talent
• Knuckle Lore
• P.Attack 20% Up
• Barrage (unnecessary but I couldn't think of anything else to put here) Nothing equipped

There are a few reasons I have 1 person as a Kaiser instead of all 4 having the same setup:

1. Kaiser has the 2nd highest STR, tied with Charioteer, Monk, and Dark Knight. Only beaten by Pirate.
2. Kaiser is faster than Pirate, and with Speed 20% Up, will always outspeed everyone else (at least, with my testing).
3. The innate ability that comes with being a Kaiser, Cerberus, means all MP used will be restored at the end of each battle. This means there won't have to be any stops to heal.

The basic plan is simple. With the Kaiser you use Amped Strike ×4, while with everyone else you use Mimic ×4. This means 16 Amped Strikes without using any MP

Thoughts on this setup?

Also what difficulty should we plan on? I was just playing on Normal previously but Casual would be a bit simpler

Oh yeah I completely forgot about the fact that i was routing All Asterisks... oops I'll get back onto that when I get time to. Uni's getting pretty busy at the moment :/