Random Skills  - Tales of Berseria Walkthrough & Guide (2024)

Equipment Maximization

Random Skills

Every piece of gear can (eventually) have up to three Random Skills. These skills are almost all identical to Master Skills, meaning most are useful, though a few are forgettable. But unlike Master Skills, Random Skills have 4 ranks instead of 3 - eventually it becomes possible for Random Skill bonuses to surpass those of Master Skills. The potential to find equipment with Random skills of specific ranks are unlocked automatically over the course of the game, though Rank 4 skills can only be acquired after completing a sidequest.

Random Skills are set the moment you see/acquire the weapon, so making specific builds is astronomically difficult. But, the game is kind enough to stratify which Random Skills appear based on what difficulty you're playing on and which Glacites you possess. These skills, what they do, and their requisite Glacites are as follows (with amended descriptions where necessary):

Simple stat boosts; nothing special. They synergize exceptionally well with stat multiplying equipment (e.g. Total Attack +1.07x)

The Absorb HP effect for artes is pretty powerful for Eleanor and Velvet since they both have a lot of artes with that property, though kind of forgettable for the others since they don't. HP recovery on defeating foes is nice, though not a serious priority since it's an inherently unreliable method of healing. *sidenote: I'm fairly certain that these stack additively, not multiplicatively.*

This skill essentially translates to "more BG." More BG = more Mystic Artes and more accessible Switch Blasts. It's very good.

Not terrible. Items are the most effective form of healing, so this skill can be useful if you incorporate many into your playstyle. Bear in mind that this ability only affects the wearer - if someone else in the party uses an item, they will trigger the normal delay.

The "Effect" skills reduce the chance of being inflicted with the status ailment as well as the potency of its effects. Meanwhile, the ailment capability skills increase the chance that artes which already have a chance of inflicting the ailment succeed, while also increasing damage dealt against afflicted enemies. They are all nice, though should not be made a priority unless you're gouging one specific status ailment. Ailment protection sounds nice, especially in this game, but because you rarely (if ever) stumble into an area where the enemies only use one status ailment, they're too unreliable to make the crux of a build. Similarly, the capability skills, though powerful, are hard to reliably utilize as most characters don't have much access to the full assortment of status ailments. Appreciate them when they appear, but don't break yourself seeking them out.

"Capability vs." skills increase the damage dealt against enemies of a particular type and reduces the damage taken from those types. They are very powerful skills and are worth stacking. Unfortunately, they are similarly limited like the ailment skills, though as you may come to experience, there are a few "problem" enemies in the game (I'm looking at you Scarlet Needler) that make these skills a little more appealing. Always great to have. *sideanote: I have no idea whether 100% capability would equate to no damage taken from a particular enemy type.*

Once again, we have an extremely simple set of skills. They're generally all great since they only make your characters stronger, but the boosts are small with the exception of their Rank 4 variants that you probably won't see until post-game/new game+. If you get these skills, be mindful of what elemental artes you typically use with the character, as some characters (most notably Magilou and Eizen) almost exclusively attack with only two elements.

Unmatched in value while playing through the main game, totally worthless during Post-game if you carry your mastered skills over. There's really nothing more to say about this.

Largely unnecessary. The bonuses are extremely small, so they require a lot of stacks to create any observable advantage. And even then, they still aren't that useful since you can't realistically prep them against every sort of attack. Generally speaking, they're a dead skill slot.

These are nicer than they look due to the way they stack - each iteration raises the threshold for the stat boost rather than the boost itself. With enough stacks they become a fairly reliable 30% stat boost (assuming that you're playing on a difficulty where the enemies can actually kill you). The downside is that, like elemental resistances and damage boosts, it's hard to stack skills of one particular category. Pay attention to them, but if you don't have a stack of one type, they are basically dead skills.

Damage reduction is calculated after all other factors, making this skill a lot more powerful than it looks. With a high enough Defense stat (read: Velvet & Rokurou) and just a few stacks, you can actually reduce damage down to zero by guarding, creating synergy with the various nullification dependent skills. It's great, though a little difficult to come by. No downsides.

This sounds good, but you can easily live without it. It takes numerous stacks to wring consistency out of this skill, and simply having a good amount of Focus can hasten your Soul generation enough to make it unnecessary. Appreciate it when you have it, but there are better skills to go farming for.

Now THIS is insanely powerful. It still takes a few stacks to become somewhat consistent, but even when it's unreliable, randomly performing free Break Souls can create huge momentum swings during battle and make it worth keeping regardless. Top priority.

It has serious value, though not what you might expect. To use this skill, you can either use a Break Soul or Switch just before an enemy attacks, take a hit during the "Invulnerable at the start of battle" period, or take a hit that would otherwise do 0 damage (e.g. during Defiant Conviction's startup). In short, this is likely the most difficult skill in the game to benefit from. What's more, no mater how many stacks you put into this skill or how committed you are to reflecting hits, reflected damage will always be pitiful due to the disparity between player and enemy damage dealt. But, as you may notice from using the skill, you don't actually want it for the damage. Reflected hits will also Stagger most enemies opening them up to combos. So really, you don't need any stacks of this ability, just one copy of it (which characters learn permanently anyway from gear) and a way to trigger it more consistently. Just ignore this skill when it comes up.

Enemies take double damage while stunned, which is further increased by enhancing weapons. Increasing the Stun duration is every bit as insane as it sounds. You'll only gain access to this random skill just before end-game, by my word is it powerful.

"Increases the charge speed of Guardbreaker's Ventite and Sniper's Ventite" is what this skill should read. It's very good especially on the higher difficulties where enemies guard pretty much all the time, and generally makes the gameplay that much smoother. Strongly recommended.

There's little to be said about this ability. It's nearly gamebreaking with numerous stacks (2 solid minutes of invulnerability) and still awesome without them. Prioritize it.

Not as gamebreaking as you'd think (which is perhaps why it appears on Normal+ difficulty instead of Chaos). It heals you back to full health when you die, but the revival chance is halved after each successful resurrection (it resets at the end of the battle, of course). It's still good, just not "god-mode" like appears.