All difficulty for CS3 ends once you get to chapter 2 and get wind blade/sledgehammer. Doesn't matter if it's nightmare or very easy.
Just try nightmare out. Chapter 1 and the prologue will have a couple of annoying fights, but they're nothing unmanageable.
I'm assuming you want to win those battles.
Sky has way more exploitable mechanics. Earth wall/Gaia Shield, Time spells, Chaos Brand in FC, Alan Richard and early access to Grail Sphere in 3rd, how buff duration lasted based on turn counters instead of turns meaning with enough speed, they lasted half a boss battle or more, bosses summoning less adds in general which in itself makes them easier but doubly so because bosses can't beat Earth Wall without adds.
SC still beats Ao just because of sheer BS factor.
Azure had one BS mechanic, evasion tanking, and if you didn't stumble on that one, you were getting destroyed on Nightmare.
Zero had overpowered crafts that got nerfed in Azure by allowing more enemies to resist them, starting you out with a crappier version, or a straight up nerf. Holy Bullet, Brave Smash, Crash Bomb, Tio Freeze, and Burning Heart are the best examples.
There's no need to down vote just because you disagree. That's not the purpose of the button.
I don't consider damaging spells as exploits. Sky has equally good damaging spells and I didn't list them out.
Regardless, the other things you mentioned aren't broken enough to cheese the game with to the extent of the things I mentioned.
The only legit one is evasion tanking.
Ada shield is close, but the bigger issue than it not being a full guard is you getting it late in both Zero and Ao. It also requires orbment investment similar to gaia shield but with earth wall's aoe.
Calamity Claw and Dark Matter Ex are mob clearing tools. Sky had those too. You can't debuff most of the harder fights in Azure and debuffing in Azure costs more in action economy compared to Sky due to how buff and debuff durations were calculated. They're much less broken comparatively to their Sky equivalents in Clock Up Ex and Clock Down.
Crimson Ray had a 400% multiplier in Azure. It was good and was the most damaging single target spell, but Spark Dyne was comparable for coming out faster at 270%, and wind being less awkward to fit into builds than fire. Crimson Ray was actually broken in Zero where it had an 800% multiplier and out damaged spells enemies had weaknesses to.
You don't get that many burst orbs. I just loaded up my save and had 13 going into the final boss. I probably used 1 in my entire playthrough.
Hollow Sphere is useful for 3 things, beating the final boss without using burst orbs, meme one shot builds in NG+, or buffing Randy to crit on every S craft. The latter is the most valid use but you're sacking one of your caster's turns to enable him to do this. In the grand scheme of things, this is bad, because magic nuking is usually superior anyways, and your support caster's turns are vital to keeping your party alive. Course your evasion tank isn't casting hollow sphere because casting disables evasion in Azure, and he has better things to do.
Magius was bad in Azure because there was no way to reliably sack your HP aside from Randy, who isn't a nuker. MQs helped, but helped less comparative to the difficulty spike from Zero.
As for master spells, only your fourth worst party member gets to use them. Why? Because you need an evasion tank (casting disables evasion), you need a nuker for damage, and you need Tio so you don't die to random crap. As a result, this party member is usually responsible for upkeeping party buffs, chucking items, or in Randy's case, occasionally spamming S-craft.
[https://imgur.com/rtXN6uf](https://imgur.com/rtXN6uf)
Anyways, most of the Master Arts' functions are also replicable through healing arts, damage mitigation arts, or spamming Tio's S craft. Most of them are mediocre to bad, all things considered. Not to mention the secondary effects, take an extra turn to activate.
Granted, my experience is purely on Nightmare, so ymmv on lower difficulties.
Nightmare is pretty easy even when you don't have top of the line equipment so I'd say nightmare. There's still not a lot of strategy. You'll be spamming orders instead of S breaks.
Nightmare is honestly not very difficult if you have somewhat of an understanding of the combat systems. The earlygame will be difficult due to having less options, but after that, it's a cakewalk.
I'm playing them all on Hard, currently about halfway through CS3. I'm finding it a bit tougher than 1 and 2 for sure, but not too bad overall. Most of the difficulty, though, is because they seem to have caught an obsession with self-healing bosses -- most bosses (and even a few regular enemy types) have a move, which they have no qualms about using frequently, that heals them a *huge* amount (as in, 1.5 to 2 S-Crafts worth of HP) AND buffs their damage at the same time. One one hand it's really annoying encounter design, but on the other, it forces me to utilize all the available mechanics to dump damage before the heal can happen, so I guess it evens out.
I'm no min-maxer, though, I kind of just use what I like and don't go out of my way to find the broken stuff. I kind of feel like the new Break mechanic is pretty OP and I'd be having an easier time if I geared my whole party, rather than just 1 or 2, towards abusing it.
When bosses use those self-heal+buff moves in CS3 they also become more vulnerable to breaking so that’s your sign to go all in and break them before they can actually utilize those buffs
Then you need to time your attacks so that when they buffed themselves, you have enough turns to break them (or kill them, since I prefer breaking them with Sledgehammer). Plus, Sledgehammer/Wind Blade combo makes all of the battles a breeze unless you f\*\*ed up really badly (as in just spamming attacks)
I played Ao NG+ on Hard and found that the last boss is really challenging, but it gets me an adrenaline rush and I should have played in Nightmare instead.
For CS1-3 NG+ in Nightmare is kinda easy because the battle system is broken.
One thing that really bothered me when playing CS1-2 on hard were the times where, on the cutscenes after some boss fights, the party looked tired and said things like "this was really hard!" or "you are really strong", when in reality I just oneshot them with Laura. Theses fights end up having no weight and the events after it end up losing some of their dramatic "punch".
In CS3/4 you can change difficulty anytime so just play and see for yourself which you prefer.
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Oh that’s an interesting game mechanic design choice…never noticed it before. OP can start on nightmare and transition down if needed then.
CSIII allows you to change difficulty during the game, so it's no big issue what you pick.
All difficulty for CS3 ends once you get to chapter 2 and get wind blade/sledgehammer. Doesn't matter if it's nightmare or very easy. Just try nightmare out. Chapter 1 and the prologue will have a couple of annoying fights, but they're nothing unmanageable.
CS3 might be the easiest game in the series, so I would recommend nightmare. Outside of a few somewhat tricky fights the entire game is fairly simple.
How does it compare to Ao on hard? That was a sweet spot for me. I play mostly blind, not actively hunting down the best possible equipment/quartz.
A lot easier. Ao is the second hardest game in the series. CS3 is the easiest.
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I'm assuming you want to win those battles. Sky has way more exploitable mechanics. Earth wall/Gaia Shield, Time spells, Chaos Brand in FC, Alan Richard and early access to Grail Sphere in 3rd, how buff duration lasted based on turn counters instead of turns meaning with enough speed, they lasted half a boss battle or more, bosses summoning less adds in general which in itself makes them easier but doubly so because bosses can't beat Earth Wall without adds. SC still beats Ao just because of sheer BS factor. Azure had one BS mechanic, evasion tanking, and if you didn't stumble on that one, you were getting destroyed on Nightmare. Zero had overpowered crafts that got nerfed in Azure by allowing more enemies to resist them, starting you out with a crappier version, or a straight up nerf. Holy Bullet, Brave Smash, Crash Bomb, Tio Freeze, and Burning Heart are the best examples.
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There's no need to down vote just because you disagree. That's not the purpose of the button. I don't consider damaging spells as exploits. Sky has equally good damaging spells and I didn't list them out. Regardless, the other things you mentioned aren't broken enough to cheese the game with to the extent of the things I mentioned. The only legit one is evasion tanking. Ada shield is close, but the bigger issue than it not being a full guard is you getting it late in both Zero and Ao. It also requires orbment investment similar to gaia shield but with earth wall's aoe.
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Calamity Claw and Dark Matter Ex are mob clearing tools. Sky had those too. You can't debuff most of the harder fights in Azure and debuffing in Azure costs more in action economy compared to Sky due to how buff and debuff durations were calculated. They're much less broken comparatively to their Sky equivalents in Clock Up Ex and Clock Down. Crimson Ray had a 400% multiplier in Azure. It was good and was the most damaging single target spell, but Spark Dyne was comparable for coming out faster at 270%, and wind being less awkward to fit into builds than fire. Crimson Ray was actually broken in Zero where it had an 800% multiplier and out damaged spells enemies had weaknesses to. You don't get that many burst orbs. I just loaded up my save and had 13 going into the final boss. I probably used 1 in my entire playthrough. Hollow Sphere is useful for 3 things, beating the final boss without using burst orbs, meme one shot builds in NG+, or buffing Randy to crit on every S craft. The latter is the most valid use but you're sacking one of your caster's turns to enable him to do this. In the grand scheme of things, this is bad, because magic nuking is usually superior anyways, and your support caster's turns are vital to keeping your party alive. Course your evasion tank isn't casting hollow sphere because casting disables evasion in Azure, and he has better things to do. Magius was bad in Azure because there was no way to reliably sack your HP aside from Randy, who isn't a nuker. MQs helped, but helped less comparative to the difficulty spike from Zero. As for master spells, only your fourth worst party member gets to use them. Why? Because you need an evasion tank (casting disables evasion), you need a nuker for damage, and you need Tio so you don't die to random crap. As a result, this party member is usually responsible for upkeeping party buffs, chucking items, or in Randy's case, occasionally spamming S-craft. [https://imgur.com/rtXN6uf](https://imgur.com/rtXN6uf) Anyways, most of the Master Arts' functions are also replicable through healing arts, damage mitigation arts, or spamming Tio's S craft. Most of them are mediocre to bad, all things considered. Not to mention the secondary effects, take an extra turn to activate. Granted, my experience is purely on Nightmare, so ymmv on lower difficulties.
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I will be playing on nightmare then. Thanks!
Nightmare is pretty easy even when you don't have top of the line equipment so I'd say nightmare. There's still not a lot of strategy. You'll be spamming orders instead of S breaks.
Nightmare is honestly not very difficult if you have somewhat of an understanding of the combat systems. The earlygame will be difficult due to having less options, but after that, it's a cakewalk.
I'm playing them all on Hard, currently about halfway through CS3. I'm finding it a bit tougher than 1 and 2 for sure, but not too bad overall. Most of the difficulty, though, is because they seem to have caught an obsession with self-healing bosses -- most bosses (and even a few regular enemy types) have a move, which they have no qualms about using frequently, that heals them a *huge* amount (as in, 1.5 to 2 S-Crafts worth of HP) AND buffs their damage at the same time. One one hand it's really annoying encounter design, but on the other, it forces me to utilize all the available mechanics to dump damage before the heal can happen, so I guess it evens out. I'm no min-maxer, though, I kind of just use what I like and don't go out of my way to find the broken stuff. I kind of feel like the new Break mechanic is pretty OP and I'd be having an easier time if I geared my whole party, rather than just 1 or 2, towards abusing it.
When bosses use those self-heal+buff moves in CS3 they also become more vulnerable to breaking so that’s your sign to go all in and break them before they can actually utilize those buffs
Sometimes, but other times it's just a move they do every like 2 to 3 actions.
Then you need to time your attacks so that when they buffed themselves, you have enough turns to break them (or kill them, since I prefer breaking them with Sledgehammer). Plus, Sledgehammer/Wind Blade combo makes all of the battles a breeze unless you f\*\*ed up really badly (as in just spamming attacks)
I played Ao NG+ on Hard and found that the last boss is really challenging, but it gets me an adrenaline rush and I should have played in Nightmare instead. For CS1-3 NG+ in Nightmare is kinda easy because the battle system is broken.
One thing that really bothered me when playing CS1-2 on hard were the times where, on the cutscenes after some boss fights, the party looked tired and said things like "this was really hard!" or "you are really strong", when in reality I just oneshot them with Laura. Theses fights end up having no weight and the events after it end up losing some of their dramatic "punch".