Everything you need to know about combat in Disgaea 6.

Disgaea 6 is a tactical role playing game. One of the core pillars of the genre is combat, and the game delivers that in droves. You will be fighting hundreds of enemies, slaying countless gods, and murdering anyone and anything that gets in your way - regardless of dimension or universe. Nobody is safe.

Related: Beginner Tips For Disgaea 6

Disgaea has traditionally had a fairly complex combat system, however, the latest is very friendly to newcomers. In fact, with very little genre experience getting through Disgaea 6 won’t be that difficult. Of course, having some grasp on what to do will go a long way, and that is what we are here to deliver.

Being able to move your characters around the map quickly is not only helpful - but is essential for an easier combat experience. There are two ways to move in Disgaea 6, and that is running around on foot, and being yeeted across the map by a friend.

Movement is fairly self-explanatory. Each character can move a set distance, and that distance is based on Class. This value can be modified with various items, such as Slippers. Movement-increasing items can also be stacked, so if you have a mage who is somehow wearing three pairs of shoes, she will be off to the races in no time.

Movement can also be enhanced during Super Reincarnation by unlocking permanent movement increasing buffs in exchange for Karma.

Disgaea 6 allows characters to pick up other characters and throw them. The distance they can be thrown is determined by Class, and as with movement, that value can be modified - usually by Super Reincarnation.

This can drastically increase the distance a character can move in a single turn. Not only that, but you can stack your character into a tower, allowing the bottom member to throw the entire stack. You can repeat this over, and over again - launching the top character even further.

Don’t forget you can lift enemies too - so if you wanted an enemy to get smacked by your team, an option could be to throw that enemy towards the squad.

Geo Panels are one of the coolest aspects of Disgaea’s combat. These things can completely change how a battle plays out. It is always wise to check what effects are currently in play, and how to remove them when needed.

The thing is, you don’t need to clear these effects. A lot of the time, these effects are beneficial to you. They can make your team stronger, or restore their HP. Maybe they will grant bonus EXP or Mana. Keeping them around can make a mission much easier.

Related: Disgaea 6 - Best Places To Power Level

At the end of each Stage, you will be granted a rank on your performance. A lot of factors tie into this - speed not being one of them. As a general rule, you want to execute large, complex combos and deal a lot of hits to build up that rank. Clearing Geo Panels also does the trick.

The thing is, for the vast majority of your play time, these are just not worth it. So if you don’t get the best score ever, it doesn’t matter. You can go back in at a later date and nab them on a replay if you want to - but don’t wrack your brain trying to replay each mission over and over just to grab that shiny item at the top of the board.

Team Attacks have had a major chance in Disgaea 6. Whether this change is for the better is questionable, but it is undeniably something you want to take advantage of as often as possible.

Team Attacks allow allies to buff an attacking character's damage by a whopping five percent. This can stack up to four times, granting quite the substantial power bonus. To pull it off, all your need to do is have characters within 2 spaces of the character attacking. This will trigger a Team Attack, and your life will be much easier.

It is not a guaranteed thing, however. It is percentage-based, and sometimes it just won’t trigger at all. You can manipulate this in a few ways, but the biggest is an Evility that grants you a 100 percent chance to trigger them. Easy.

If you want to push your damage to the next level, you need to execute combos. Combos are incredibly simple to pull off - just attack with your characters. The more the enemy is attacked by your team, the better. The higher your combo, the more damage you do.

The best way to maximise this damage is by using all of your weak attacks first. For example, a Clergy with a bow is not a particularly powerful unit. Fire his bow first, and now every attack after that shot will deal more damage. Attack in order of strength (weakest to strongest) and then by the time your beatstick gets to attack, they will be striking for significantly more.

Skills are another system that has changed in Disgaea 6, and this one might confuse series veterans. In short, your weapons do not confer skills anymore. Instead, Skills are learned purely based on level, and Class. All warriors, regardless of their weapon, will learn skills like Boulder Crush (traditionally an Axe skill).

This translates to Unique Characters too, like Zed. These characters are almost completely locked to their Unique Skills, and won’t gain anything from their weapons. That being said, you can learn skills outside your Class by reading Skill Scrolls, which are often Quest Rewards.

Related: Disgaea 6 - How To Earn Karma Quickly

Super Reincarnation is great. You gain more base stats, and those stats are what determine your endgame stats. The higher they are at level one, the higher they will be at level 99,999,999 (no exaggeration). The trick to Super Reincarnation is knowing when to Super Reincarnate.

A rule of thumb would be to Super Reincarnate whenever you hit 5100 Mana and select the Genius option. Once the Karma gains from Super Reincarnation start to dip, then wait until you have gained large quantities of Karma from the D-Merit system.

The only exception to this rule is Zed, who gains more damage based on the number of Super Reincarnations he goes through. You want to Reincarnate him early and often.

Stats are important in Disgaea 6, but you need to know what stats are important for what character. In general, you want to increase your primary damage stat first. Damage is way more important than defence, and if you can skill something before it attacks, you are safe.

What weapon you use will determine what stat you want to pump. Here’s a cheat sheet:

Skills are a fantastic way to deal damage, apply buffs, and heal. The thing is, they scale terribly - as in they barely scale at all in the grand scheme. A level 1 Skill is useless once you start getting into the post-game.

This is where enhancing your skills comes into play. Most skills can be made more powerful. This is not an insignificant boost to damage either. You can turn a basic skill into a skill that deals 500% more damage with only a small amount of investment. The downside is that the cost to use that skill also increases. If you over-level a skill, you won’t be able to use it. Keep that in mind.

You can also enhance the range of skills, increasing their AOE, and making them much more useful in supporting your team. Finally, you can increase your proficiency with a specific skill, which makes it cheaper to use.

In general, increasing Range and Power is a must.

As you play through the game you will unlock new Evilities for your characters. You might even buy them at the shop, or learn them from a scroll. This is a great way to gain power, as most Evilities are pretty darn powerful.

They don’t do anything if they aren’t equipped, however. You should also go into your Character's Stats and equip your Evilities when you learn new ones. This can easily be forgotten.

It’s also worth remembering that each character can only equip a certain number of Evilities.

Disgaea 6 has the potential to be a complex game. However, for the most part, it can be played on auto-pilot. This is thanks to the wonderfully powerful Auto-Battle system. This is primarily used for power levelling and grinding, but it can also be used to get through missions quicker.

Abusing Auto-Battle will turn Disgaea into more of an idle game, where you spend more time crunching numbers back at the base than playing, so if you want to have a Tactical RPG experience, then consider not using it quite so frequently.

Next: Disgaea 6 - Super Reincarnation Guide

Forged in the rainy wilds of northern England, Adam carved a path of mediocrity through generations and genres. His play style is often described as: “optimistically awful”.