Shining Soul - Class Guides
In Shining Soul there are four different classes that you can play, Warrior, Wizard, Archer and Dragonute. The Warrior and Dragonute classes are melee and the Archer/Wizard are both ranged. Each class will have access to their own set of weapons and skills that the other classes don't get access to.
As you can probably imagine already, Archers will use physical weapons to deal damage whereas the Wizards will damage will various spells. In my opinion the Wizard is probably the most unique class in this game because it deals elemental damage which some mobs can be more resistant to depending on the type of mob they are. Wizards also use spell books instead of weapons and some of their spell books are support based (like Heal and Slow).
This is all opinion but I think the Wizard and Archer are the best classes in the game since they can deal ranged damage. If you want to play a melee class it seems like most people prefer the Dragonute over the Warrior, I personally don't have a bias that goes either way for melee.
Combat in this game is pretty straight forward, you will attack by pressing the A button and you can charge up attacks by holding A and then letting go when it reaches the desired level. Normally it is good practice to pick a weapon/spell that you like using and max it out as soon as possible. The charged up attacks you can use in this game are the bedrock of combat.
For some classes you will want to put a few points into a secondary attack spell/weapon too. Like with Wizards, some monsters are highly resistant to fire or ice and for them you'll want a secondary magic to deal with them. Aside from this you'll want to put all of your extra skill points into defensive skills.
There are two different approaches you can take when you do this. You can figure out what your best defensive skill is and max that out or you can spread the points out somewhat evenly across all of the defensive skills to make yourself more well rounded. If you'd like to learn more about the best approach to take for each class check out the sections I have below for more information.
My Wizard's Stats & Skills after beating the game
My Dragonute's Skills & Stats after beating the game
Stat Distribution:
Warrior: Honestly, I try to keep STR, VIT and DEX all about the same on this character. If you wanted, you could do 2/1/1 with STR getting the most love and VIT/DEX getting an even amount of points. Ultimately it comes down to how much you tolerate missing. You can't get a 0% miss rate but you can drastically reduce the miss chance by putting points into DEX each level up.
Wizard: 0 points into DEX, we don't need that stat. You'll want to bring STR up to 15, only raise it higher if you find a piece of gear that needs higher STR. Every other point you'll want to dump into VIT and INT. Normally I do 2 points into INT and one point into VIT; this will keep my INT higher than the VIT but it make sure that VIT doesn't lag too far behind.
Archer: You will play the Archer the same way you do a Warrior or Dragonute. STR still works for damage and DEX isn't any more important for you than it is for a Warrior/Dragonute. Since the Archer is ranged I would recommend playing them more as a glass cannon than a tanky melee. This means putting more points into STR for damage and a moderate amount into DEX too while letting VIT suffer and get the least.
Dragonute: Warriors and Dragonutes work about the same. You will want to balance STR, VIT and DEX to keep your character powerful. Like I said for the Warrior, if you'd like you could put more into STR than everything else and keep VIT/DEX balanced, that would work too.
Skill Distribution:
Warrior: Pick a weapon, either Axe, Sword or Spear and level it up to max as your first max skill. After that I would recommend getting the first rank of all your passives, once that's done you'll want to max out Mental Power first. I'd give equal value to Def Build/Up and Efficacy; the resistance skills I would put below them.
Wizard: Pick a type of magic you like and max it out. You'll want to pick a secondary magic too and raise that to about half for mobs that are resistant to our primary magic. I did Blaze and Blast but I wasn't too big a fan of Blast. You'll also want to raise Heal at least once so you can use it out of combat to heal yourself. If you plan to use Heal during boss fights and stuff you'll want to raise it twice -- or maybe three times. Other than that I recommend you dump all other points into Res since that will make some of the toughest fights in the game easier.
Archer: As with the others you'll want to pick a weapon skill and max it out. Once that's done you'll want to level up Range, Critical and Healing each one time. Then I normally put a lot of points into Critical and Range. I keep Critical higher than Range but I like to level Range once or twice too.
Dragonute: Choose Axe of Flail as your weapon skill and max it out, then you'll want to max out Break Armor. I don't find the charge up attacks to be that great for Flail so I would recommend not going crazy into that one initially. Once you've got a weapon skill maxed and Break Armor I would recommend buying one rank of Breath, Fire Res, Thunder Res and Def Build-Up. After you've got one rank of each I prefer to max out Def Build-Up and Thunder Res first. Defense works against all physical attacks and Thunder is the most annoying magical attack since you can't avoid it which is why I picked those. Breath has too low of a proc rate for me to recommend it.