Sea of Stars is a fitting homage to the JRPGs of yesteryear. It features beautiful pixelated landscapes, dynamic combat, and deep character progression. However, the game does modernize the archaic tedium of the old games, one of which is the level-up mechanic.
This guide will break down how leveling works, what stats to prioritize, and how to maximize your party’s potential so you can focus on the bigger picture.
How Leveling Up Works in Sea of Stars
In Sea of Stars, leveling is pretty straightforward. When you gain enough experience points (XP) from defeating enemies, your characters level up, gaining stat boosts across the board. Each subsequent level will require more and more XP to achieve.
Unlike older JRPGs, where you have to individually level up each character by taking them on an adventure in your party, in Sea of Stars, all of your characters level up simultaneously, regardless of whether they were on the bench or part of your active party.
Other than the general stat boost, every character will get the choice of picking a bonus stat to enhance further. This is where strategy and party members’ purpose come into play. At every level up, each character will get the choice of four bonus stats to pick from, giving you certain autonomy to customize their build.
The choice of stats is from these six stats in Sea of Stars:
- HP (Health Points): Increases your character’s health pool, keeping them alive longer. If this reaches 0, that specific character will be knocked out (KO).
- MP (Mana Points): Boosts your mana, giving you more Mana meter to use Skills.
- ATK (Physical Attack): Makes your physical attacks hit harder. These include sword and blunt damage types.
- DEF (Physical Defense): Lowers the amount of damage you receive from enemies’ physical-based attacks.
- M. ATK (Magic Attack): Improves the damage output of magic-based attacks. This stat benefits the Sun, Moon, Poison, and Arcane damage types.
- M. DEF (Magic Defense): Lowers the damage you take from magical attacks.
The game has a level cap of 30 only. Given this limitation and the fact that every character has strengths and weaknesses, allocating points to stats that synergize with their playstyle will yield better outcomes.
Best Stats For Every Character in Sea of Stars
In Sea of Stars, you can honestly put points into almost any stat and be fine, but if you want to optimize your characters, here’s my breakdown of the best stats to focus on for each character.
Warning: The section below will reveal the later characters in the game. Every character is tied to the narrative, so it will be a bummer to ruin your experience. So, if you haven’t unlocked them yet, we suggest you carefully navigate the next section.
Valere
Valere hits like a truck but has low defenses. Since her Crescent Arc scales with physical attack, prioritize boosting her ATK to maximize damage output. When you have the chance, invest in some MP to utilize her Lunar Shield skill and still have some mana left over for other skills.
Her Moonerang skill hits all the enemies in the room if you get the timing right. If you are confident in your timed hits capabilities, then go for some M. ATK as well.
You might be tempted to put some points in defense, but all those levels won’t amount to anything worthwhile. It’s better to equip the best armor you can get to make up for her squishy defenses.
Zale
Zale is versatile, able to deal solid physical or magical damage. While he has decent defenses, there’s no need to focus there.
His Sunball attack is very useful but costly in terms of mana, so I recommend boosting MP and M. ATK early on to get the most out of this powerful spell and use it multiple times during a battle.
As your party grows later, feel free to adjust later based on your playstyle, but I’d stick to MP and M. ATK to maximize his damage potential. Of course, you can add a drizzle of ATK to boost those sweet physical attacks of his.
Garl
Garl has solid stats, but focus on ATK and MP to make the most of him. His physical attack is critical for dealing exceptional damage with combos, and his healing skill, Nourish, benefits from extra MP to keep your party’s HP topped up at all times.
Pumping DEF or M. DEF can be practical, too, since he can act as the party’s tank and soak up incoming damage.
Serai
You can build Serai as either a DPS or a Delay Supporter. I prefer going for a delay-support build by boosting MP for the Disorient skill. This fantastic spell can turn the tide of battle by delaying enemy actions from 1 turn to 3 turns while also dealing some physical damage. This skill is crucial in tough fights but costs 7 MP, so maximizing mana is the only way to exploit this power.
If MP isn’t available or you want to take the DPS route, you can boost M. ATK to power up her Venom Flurry. Similar to Valere’s Moonerang, Serai throws a bunch of poisonous darts at the all enemies in the arena, which deals tick damage over time.
She is a bit of a glass canon hence a few points in HP won’t go to waste.
Resh’an
Resh’an is a full-on mage, so prioritize MP and M. ATK over every other stat, out of these MP is preferred to use his unique skills more often. His Ebb skill, which costs 8 MP, is handy as it removes enemy locks, and when timed perfectly, it removes another lock, so having a big mana pool is necessary.
To boost his survivability so that he could live long enough to deal his more devastating attacks, you could dump some stats in DEF and M. DEF. With this and his enormous HP pool, he can continue to help the team with his unconventional attacks.
B’st
This pink golem has hybrid prowess over both physical damage and magic. For this reason, I recommend boosting ATK first and M.ATK later. Forget MP since he already comes with a significant amount of mana; you’ll be wasting those stats for the most part.
His only skill that eats a big chunk of Mana is Power Smash, so you can dump a few points in MP for that. However, you can always cook food to revive knocked-out party members instead of relying on his Warble ability.
When Should You Focus on Specific Stats?
Leveling up and pumping stats is not just character-focused; it also depends on which part of the game you are in currently. The character optimization comes down the road when you are at much higher levels; however, when starting out, you are more likely to prefer other stats.
Early Game
In the early game, you’re going to want to keep things balanced. You’re still building your party, and most enemies won’t hit too hard. Focus on HP and ATK for your primary offensive party members like Valere and Zale, and make sure your tank is beefy enough to take a few hits. Don’t worry too much about magic or defense just yet; the enemies are easier to manage early on.
Mid Game
As you hit the mid-game, you’ll start encountering more formidable enemies and more complex combat scenarios. This is the time to really begin fine-tuning each character’s role. ‘
By this point, your tank, i.e., Garl, should be able to absorb a decent amount of damage, and your damage dealers should be hitting harder. Start thinking more strategically about which fights require more magic power or resistance.
- Focus on DEF and M. DEF for harder boss battles.
- Make sure your healers have enough MP to sustain their skills usage in longer encounters.
Late Game
By the late game, you should be laser-focused on min-maxing each character. For instance, your mage Resh’an should have high M. ATK and MP, while your tank should have maxed out DEF and M. DEF, including some HP.
At this point, you’ll want to adapt and tune your team based on the challenges you’re facing. For Boss fights, focus on M. ATK and M. DEF for bosses with strong magic attacks. While your party must have maximized HP and DEF to survive extended battles against swarms of enemies in the latter final dungeons.
Getting a Secret Relic to Boost XP
There’s a way to grab a permanent 20% experience boost in Sea of Stars, and you can get it quite early in the game. Trust me, you won’t want to miss out on this. While the game is packed with hidden treasures and secrets, this bonus is just too good to pass up.
The 20% experience boost comes from Tome of Knowledge, a Relic you can equip, which is available at a secret shop in the Port Town of Brisk during the first few hours of the game.
You never know what might happen in this game or whether you’ll be able to get it, so it is wise to snatch it ASAP. Not to mention, all your XP yields will be heightened, so this has no downside.
How to get Tome of Knowledge?
Getting this relic isn’t as simple as walking into the shop. First, you’ll need to grab a key item found in a treasure chest a bit earlier in the game, inside the Wind Tunnel Mines near Stonemasons Village.
To explore the dungeon fully, you’ll need to unlock your wind magic. Also, you’ll find a Mines Key in a chest on the lower levels of the mine, just after your first encounter with Rockie (it’s hard to miss).
Once you have the key, think back to the locked door on the first level of the mine, right before you destroyed the rock elemental blocking the wind tunnels. The key you got will unlock that door.
After a fun puzzle with the jade statues in the next chamber, you’ll be able to climb to a chest on top of a platform in the room below you. Inside, you’ll find the Trader’s Signet, which is needed to access the secret shop with the relic in Brisk.
If you already have this item and weren’t sure where to use it, now you know!
Secret Shop Location
One of my tips for any classic JRPG is to always talk to every NPC and villager you come across. They usually drop hints and secrets, which is highly useful when you don’t have modern marker-filled maps.
After chatting with an elderly villager in Brisk, I learned that someone had been seen swimming under the docks. This clued me into a hidden area. All you need to do is jump into the water from the nearby beach, swim to the bottom left corner, and head towards under the docks where an old sailor is standing.
You’ll find a hidden zone with a black market merchant who’ll ask for your Trader’s Signet.
Once you hand it over, you’ll get access to a selection of items, including a nifty relic Eye of Yomara that reveals enemy weaknesses and HP bars of non-boss enemies. There are three other unique relics, and among them is the Tome of Knowledge with a price tag of 150G, which, when active, grants the 20% experience boost you can enable for the rest of the game.
Farming XP in Sea of Stars
There are two spots that are very lucrative for farming XP in Sea of Stars. We’ll go over both of them in the section below. Make sure to enable the Tome of Knowledge for the best possible returns.
First Farming Spot
The first fruitful farming spot I found worth sticking around to grind is once you unlock the world map and reach Docarri Village, around the time you start the Oracle of Tides trial. About halfway through the dungeon, you’ll come across a safe room to rest. This is the place to be if you want to level up fast.
Head north out of the resting zone, and you’ll run into a group of three enemies: a Shrimp Knight and two Googoon monsters.
They’re incredibly easy to take down, giving you 2,090 experience points per battle, which is an incredible amount at this stage in the game. This amounts to 94,000 XP per hour of farming.
In fact, this spot remains one of the best for farming experience until about 20 hours later when you reach a second, more advanced spot.
To farm efficiently, defeat the enemies, head back into the safe room, save the game, quit to the title screen, and then reload your save. The enemies will respawn, and for some reason, your health and mana will also be fully restored.
Some players say you don’t need to save and reload, as just transitioning between zones should respawn the enemies, but that didn’t work for me. It’s worth trying to see if it works for you.
What makes this spot so great is that it’s right next to a save and rest point, and the enemies are easy and fast to defeat. Plus, it’s rare to find any group of enemies that gives this much experience until much later in the game. Definitely take advantage of this spot while you can.
Second Farming Spot
The second farming spot is much later in the game, so I’ll avoid spoilers except to say that the zone is called Sacrosanct Spires. Once you reach this area, you’ll naturally come across a place called Hunting Fields, where a group of three Birdmen roam underneath the bridge from where you enter the location. This is the group you’ll want to focus on for farming.
Defeating them rewards you with 5,700 experience points, nearly three times as much as the first farming spot. This means you can amass 342,000 XP per hour of farming here. You can easily gain three to four levels in about an hour here.
After beating the group, simply climb up to the upper level, leave the zone, and re-enter. Unlike the first spot, you don’t need to save or quit; the enemies will respawn just by re-entering the area. This makes it much more efficient and convenient than the earlier farming spot.
If you need to restore health or mana, you can always set up camp on the world map outside the area. Alternatively, you can equip the easy-mode relic, Amulet of Storytelling, which restores health after each battle, making grinding even smoother.
A quick tip: focus on defeating the Crossbow Birdman during the fights first. Their skill animation takes forever, and if you want to farm efficiently, you’ll want to avoid wasting time on those long attacks.
Bonus Tips for Leveling Up Faster
- Fight Stronger Enemies: It sounds obvious, but the harder the enemy, the more XP you’ll get. Don’t shy away from tougher fights if you’re ready for them.
- Rest Wisely: Resting at inns or campsites replenishes your health and mana, so plan your fights around those. Don’t get caught in a tough battle when your party’s at half-strength.
- Grind Efficiently: If you’re under-leveled, find a good spot with enemies that give solid XP without wiping your team. Stay close to a healing point, like an inn, for fast recovery between battles.
- Use Abilities Effectively: Don’t forget to use your characters’ unique skills and combos during battles. Combining abilities strategically can end fights quicker, saving you time and earning more XP.
- Party Composition: Keep your team balanced! You don’t want all attackers or all tanks. Having a good mix means you’re prepared for anything the game throws at you.
Leveling up in Sea of Stars is all about strategy and understanding your party’s strengths and weaknesses.
With a little planning, you’ll breeze through tough fights, and your characters will feel unstoppable. Remember to adapt your build to the challenges you’re facing, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different stat combinations!