Character discussion: Shabon (and Sgt. Joe)

[KFCrispy]

Out of all characters, Shabon has the second highest "immediate" base damage potential in the game (as opposed to depending on multiple swings not missing and getting some critical hits, Battle Oath or a Waking Rune to increase damage) and she is flexible with a lot of rune slots. (Augustine has the highest immediate base damage when you include his Red Rose Rune)
Her magic affinities look promising, but her MAG is on par with pure fighters like Fred and Landis. You'd be wasting a lot of potential trying to make her into a magician or hybrid. However, it is possible to use a rune slot for Jongleur without too much sacrifice.

Besides Fury and Double-Strike, Shabon can use a Lion Rune (1.5x dmg each turn? awesome) and is very compatible with Warrior since her REP is very high (and a low ATK, making the gain from REP have more of an effect). Gale can be used early game to boost her speed to get her 6 hits working (assuming her Swing is maxed). Killer Rune is not bad because her base critical rate is pretty high (see the Melee setup).

Shabon's best setup depends on what you want to do. She can be a Lion Rune user, pure melee, or spam a powerful crowd-clearing, boss-killing unite.
-I generally use Lion Rune and keep her in the back, treating her like a non-elemental mage. This keeps her away from most physical attacks. The activation time looks slow but it will still activate before most enemies can attack. At level 61, with Warrior and Dbl-Strike, the Lion Rune will deal nearly 5000 dmg.. replace Warrior with Fury to get about 5400.
-Shabon is good for melee because has one of the highest base critical hit rates (SKL+LUK) in the game, so her total damage might beat out a Lion Rune setup. anything that boosts the critical hit rate has a significant effect. At level 61 she should have a base crit rate of over 10%, so a Killer Rune would bring it over 15%; a Chief's Hat would be useful because of the small boost in critical hit rate and also 6 small chances to stun the enemy.
-An even stronger setup can be achieve when paired with Sgt. Joe. Their unite is great against groups (activates faster than almost every enemy and if you have a rune sage as support, it is compatible with a same-turn Jongleur Rune activation) and still effective on bosses because it does 1.2x dmg to the boss and 0.6x dmg to the surrounding area. Joe will get unbalanced, but look at all the damage potential between the 2: Shabon with 6 attacks and 3 damage-boosting runes, Joe with 2 atks, 2 damage-boosting runes (or give him a Balance Rune to continuously use the unite). At level 61, the fully optimized version (Damage skills maxed, Shabon has Warrior+Fury+Dbl-Strike and Joe has Fury+Dbl-Strike) will output over 8000 dmg to the main target. Even if you replace Shabon's Warrior or Fury Rune with Lion so that she can switch to Lion Rune spamming at any time (maybe for the 2nd turn after Joe's unbalanced from the unite), the unite shells out over 6k dmg.

SKILLS: Shabon gets 5 free skill slots and 2 fixed skills dedicated to Jongleur. Swing (A) is a must, Accuracy (B+) is useful for both Lion Rune and melee, and her low Damage skill (C) still adds a lot of damage because her damage output is so high. She can get A in Repel, but with a Warrior Rune, it is pointless to try to get her to dodge anything.. Holy Dash (A) is useful if she sticks to melee. I'd include Magic Resistance, and if there is any room left, Armor Protect for a slight boost in PDF.

EQUIPMENT: a Blue Ribbon is highly recommended if she's going to melee, although if you preserve her high REP and train her A in Repel, she would likely dodge most normal attacks, causing enemies to 'waste' their turn. Chief's Hat is useful for melee but has no purpose for the Lion/unite setup.. a Flame Casque would be better (plus it offers high defense and lv2 fire resistance), and a Wind Hat can be worn when she's low level to score more swings. 3x Belt of Strength is great fun because each point of damage is multiplied greatly, but of course you can bet it reduces her chances of surviving a physical hit.

final boss: Go with the Lion Rune setup and use the unite with Joe. If Shabon survives the first round, she'll finish the battle with a Lion Rune attack.

[highwind44029]

Shabon's a great character. Her unite with Joe is freakin' BROKEN!

I've never given her a Lion Rune. Always stuck with Fury/Double-Strike/Warrior then spammed her unite with Joe.