NOTE: Development on hold. Incomplete document, but should still be sufficient to get newbies into the main game.

OK, let's get something straight. I am not going to talk about stuff in other guides. Many of the guides explain the 'end game' very thoroughly, read one of those. I have read a ton of guides, and feel like alot of stuff was left out.

My methodology is very different from most players, and I want to explain the logic a little. Most players recommend 'playing' the game's story until to 5-3 and then powerleveling your characters at 5-3. This is not playing the game at all, but it is a 'Fast & Safe' way to level. It is also insanely boring.

I will be having you spend almost every minute in the Item World, because that IS the actual game. Screwing around in story mode is just a distraction. The true treasure is only found in the item world. Why is this important? Because the Item world is brutally difficult, and there are tons of things that can trip you up.

This is why most players recommend NOT starting in the item world, until you have more experience, but again, it is boring. My way will have you dying, reloading, and slamming your keyboard. However, it isn't that slow, and comes with lots of benefits.

I tried the 5-3 method, and it does work, but I would only recommend using levels like 5-3 to level reincarnated characters. Even then, the Item World has enough Invicibility Tiles in it, that you don't really NEED to use 5-3. I got a character to level 40, with 3 lvl 30 items, BEFORE the game required I have a level 10 item to continue. While my way is not nearly as fast, I find that it presents a more solid learning curve for newbies to Disgaea.

Item World grinding is better, because you can find Invicibility Tiles and combine them with Cloning Tiles. Cloning means that you don't have to reload the level over and over and over and over like on 5-3. I can't stand 5-3, you spend more time throwing enemies over to that stupid green tile than actually killing them.



In addition, my way will have you leveling up items (Nobility Items are the best. Imperial seals give +65 to every stat at Item Level 30, and they are fairly easy to aquire). So I hang around in the Item World until I find a cloning/invicibility setup that I can easily use, AND then I farm the crap out of it. Keep in mind at level 1, if you find this setup, you can easily reach level 20-30. You will only need to leave, because your weapons are too weak.

Let's get to the interesting stuff now!

First things first, let's start things off with a discussion about the party. The initial party is going to be 'disposable', with the focus on unlocking content as efficiently as possible. In this way, you can decide to use good-for-nothing characters; but only if you truly intend to dispose of them completely! Good-for-nothing greatly effects their leveling stats and reincarnation stats, but for the first play through that isn't as important.

Why isn't it important? We will be using items to make your characters powerful, not their stats. Eventually you will want to make a bunch of GENIUS characters, but you will have a ton of things that you will want done before that.

Think of it this way, characters are very disposable, if you are a newbie, you will make mistakes with your characters. Do you want the mistakes to happen on a chracter that costs 5 mana or 5000? Choose Good-for-nothing unless you want to spend time unlocking things one-at-a-time.

Now where should we start? I went ahead and used a cleric to create three skulls, so she could learn the three branches of offensive magic from them. This is called MENTOR'ing and it is where a unit that creates other classes can learn their abilities.

Clerics are one of the harder classes to level in the game, which is why I made her mentor the three mages. So I would recommend doing the same thing, a powerful healer can keep your fighting force alive in the worst of situations.

Plenair is going to be your principle for the tutorials, use her gun to end the bad guys existence quickly.

First make the cleric (if you make her Good-for-nothing, put the minus stats into attack (and maybe hit, don't know if hit effects magic)), now give her the imperial seal, a bow, an orb, and a muscle item.



Now send her to the tutorial, stay back and shoot the enemies with the bow. No other chracters, just heal and stay away from the enemies. If you don't get close you can pick them off one at a time, and get a nice couple of levels out of the tutorial.

This will get you the mana to create a skull. Do so, you will want to keep at least one skull, but for now don't bother equiping it with anything except +hp and +def. Switch your cleric from a bow to a staff, and go back to the tutorial.



Bring out the skull, and the cleric. Keep the cleric between the enemies and the skull, if the skull and cleric are touching, your cleric can cast the skulls magic. Use the cleric to cast the offensive magic until it is magic level 1. Once it is magic level 1, it is unlocked permanently.

Repeat this with two more skulls until the cleric can freely cast fire, ice, and wind without a mage companion. This could be done in four trips through the tutorial level, and give you a cleric with something like level 6-10. However, you will pobably lose the skulls fairly frequently. So you might have to go back through again to unlock the magic.

Now your cleric is actually pretty strong, create other classes and have them solo through the tutorial a couple of times each. This isn't something that should be difficult, bring out your healer to keep the characters hp up. You should have something like this now:

1 Level 6 Fem Cleric (can cast heal, fire, ice, and wind)
1-3 Level 3 Fem Skull => You can level all three if you want, but you will only actively use one of them. It is fairly easy to keep all three up to level, but requires more work.
1 Level 3 Male Warrior
1 Level 3 Fem Warrior
1 Level 3 Male Brawler

And we are done with party work for now. A couple of details, however.

• You will want an archer (to unlock stuff) this needs someone with bow skill 3. Consider leveling your cleric to bow 3 real fast and unlocking the archer.
  
• You will want to get someone to gun skill 30. Plenair is a very good gun user. Getting her to 30 is pretty straightforward, and she is a very mobile character. I like Plenair more than Laharl and Etna both.
  
• Definitely create a Male Thief when you get the chance.
  
• Consider creating a Male Scout, Male Ninja, and Female Knight (needs a warrior and mage lvl 10'sih), as they will lead to unlocking stronger classes. It isn't urgent, but keep it in mind.

Talk is cheap, why does this method work out? Let's find out! Ok, here's my achievements and time played. Not bad for having been a total novice before ever touching this game. Mind you, I have 100% achieved FF Tactics in the old days. So I am no stranger to the genre. And I have spent a fiar amount of time in-game for the guide and not playing, so that number is a little bloated.

In addition, I have also already unlocked the second best Spear in the game. It is pretty easy to do, IF you spend a lot of time actually playing instead of grinding. Again, I was not trying to unlock that spear, just did it on accident. A happy coincidence. I would guess a determined player could unlock it in as little as 20 hours of gameplay.



This is actually a good first objective, as Longinus' Item World creates the opportunity to unlock other high end weapons far earlier than a player is supposed to. Here is what you need.

A Ronin. And as many armsmasters as you can get.

If you follow this guide, you should naturally build up a nice stockpile of armsmaster residents (100-200). Given to the Ronin, you will get her spear level to 25 super fast. At 25, you can go and get Longinus. Just go to the Dark Assembly, leave and talk to him (he is the spear in your castle).

To get the Ronin, you need a Female Warrior/Brawler to a combined level of 20? At least thats what the internet says. I got only a level 34 warrior, and seemed to have unlocked it. I don't think I ever had a female brawler, but who knows.

Honestly, I am going to try and get Longinus before I even reach level 50, but we will see.

Ok, this is odd, but it is the best place to get some powerful, but low-cost items for your characters. The more you use the hospital, the more you 'prizes' you get.

A fast and dirty way to 'damage' your characters is equiping hp/sp boosting items. Then you go to the hospital and 'heal'. Remove the items, and requip them. Then repeat the process as you please. You should be able to get 4-5 Muscle items, 4-5 orbs, and 1-2 nobility items without any actual effort (well, you need money, but the tutorial should have given you enough to cover the bill).


Avoid using the store, I know many guides recommend using the store, but it is a terrible idea. The strore CAN be helpful, but you should be using it as a stop-gap method. Do not use the store as the primary source of equipment, as this requires tedious amounts of time grinding for JUST money.

Here, let's take a look at some examples.






Alright, so what we are looking at is a bit confusing, but I want to walk you through the logic of what you see. My level 30 Legendary Black Spear, required 1 level 90 character to obtain via the item world, but the best the store has to offer is currently weaker than my legendary.

Now part of the reason my weapon is powerful, are the specialists I have unlocked from being continuously in the item world. While I will recommend building specialists from the begininng, I didn't do that. I don't think I have thrown away unlocked item residents, but I might have. This weapon is pure natural power.

In order for the store to sell something straight up better, I need a character who can kill a group of level 120-150 enemies. This doesn't hold true all of the time, for example, now that I have longinus, I can probably use it to upgrade the store, but I would be able to purchase, maybe one weapon?

In contrast, my lvl 30 Legnedary Black Spear cost me nothing, got me 10 - 30 levels for my party, got me two other legendary weapons. A legendary Taser Sword and a Forgetfullness Staff (my second legendary forgetfullness staff). The worth of my spear, if I had to buy it, would be 2 million Hel? Why would I spend hours killing 1 enemy over and over, farming levels. Only to need to then farm for Hel for the weapon? I truly suspect that a side-by-side comparison will show greater returns on the short side, using the traditional grinding method. But my method has better returns on the long side.


The bread and butter of the game! I love the item world, and anyone who has over a hundred hours in disgaea feels the same way. This is where Disgaea truly shines, and this is where I have spent almost all of my time. This is where you will be developing your characters.

Ok, I have studied the game a lot more, as of right now. I have come to the conclusion that veterans have forgotten how the 'non-item-world' part of the game functions. Because almost all of the game takes place in the item world. So you have your party of level 6'ish character, but now what?

Pick one character for your party, I will stick with my cleric. Now, I want to take a moment, and make sure you actaully equipped your party? Yes? It should be pretty easy to pay for, between the store, tutorial, and hospital you should have the 'best' gear for all of your characters. Again that should be the group of about 5 good-for-nothings and plenair. Don't worry about Laharl and Etna, they don't unlock any special content that I am aware of. Well, that requires them to be functional members of the party at least.

Now buy the cheapest staff the store has to offer. Yes, the cheapest, this guide is for newbies, not veterans. A veteran should target weapons witha matching level to their party. So level 6 party average? Level 6+ residents on item.

Newbies should choose a weapon with level 1+ residents. Especially considering you won't have a Mr Gency. Now, save the game, and go into the item.

Now, this is where the nature of the guide becomes a little more difficult, because there is absolutely no way to predict what the world will look like. Your first attempts should focus on survival, nothing more. Get to Item Level 10 and into the Exit. If you think you can kill the general, good for you! However, the Mr. Gency is what you need.

Upon exiting, the item should now be significantly stronger than the best the item store has to offer. Equip it. Now you will want to repeat the process for your principal characters, the goal here is four-fold: Level up stronger weapon versions, build up a stockpile of Mr. Gency's, level up characters, and learn the item world mechanics.

Ok, the item world is fairly intimidating, but it is actually incredibly straight-forward, if you know what to expect. Here, I am going to go through a series of recommendations for you, the player, to help ease your experience in the item world.


Alright, first we get organized, let's take a look at the compositional structure of your typical fighting force. Realize, my method focuses on leveling items that are comparable to your own level average. Unlike the grinds-a-lot mehtod, you are facing enemies that can and will kill you. So my party size is fairly bloated, and one of the things I don't like about Disgaea it is not very efficient at organization. I would kill for being able to 'hide' characters, or organize them into folders, but it was built for a console, so....

While names, might be fun, they are not very helpful, especially as your party size continues to grow. Consider naming your members carefully, so as to ensure that you can keep track of who, what, when, and where.
EG [T1] [GFN] Cleric - Tier 1, Good for Nothing, Cleric

I would actually recommend that you consider using custom characters, whose sole function is to organize your party. IE a G-f-Nothing Prinny Named "Primary Squad". Not sure if it would work well, but it is something to consider.

Primary Squad
This is your powerhouse force, they will level the fastest, fight the most, and carry your top tier gear. They are always at the top of the list, and are always the first ones you pull out in a fight. 'Nough said.

Secondary Squad
Your tier 2 fighting force. Even if you are super careful, you WILL lose a primary squadie at some point, it is very nice to have someone who can replace them with ease. They will die fairly quickly, but I prefer something more expendable to die, not your elite fighting force.

A good example is a map, 20 tiles in size, and crawling with mobs at or slightly above your primary squads level. Your primaries need to focus on bringing down 2 to 4 enemies ASAP, but this will generally leave them completely unprotected against the rest of the map. Pull out the Secondaries to form a defensive net, and maybe bring down any wounded survivng enemies.

If you don't do this, chances are good the AI will swarm you, and do a good attempt at bringing down a Primary. Once a primary is down your fighting strength is depreciated significantly.

Noob Squad
These are your babies. You maybe want them to reach lvl 200 to unlock something (Mentoring or special classes), or maybe you want them to be a primary squad member, but just cannot keep them alive in real combat. There are two primary ways to level them, active and passive.

Active requires that you find, at least, invincibility tiles. Preferably cloning tiles, and this works well enough, but I wouldn't recommend spending too much time doing this. Maybe get 10-20 levels at the earlier stages, 30-60 levels when your higher level, etc.

Passive is super easy, and a great way to level. Some item worlds give Bonus Exp; and while it isn't significant at lower levels, in higher level Item Worlds it is a different story. When you get to one of the item worlds with a a lot of EXP boosts. Assuming the item is complimentary to your forces xp, it will probably level up anyone on the map.

Note: A character must be deployed to get the boost.
Note2: Item World Bonus's are linked to the Item's Relative Value. Not to the strength of the enemies. In other words, while the Dark Assemblies "Make Enemies Stronger" will improve the challenge of the item. It will only generate more xp from the enemies directly killed. This is the situation where I would recommend using the store to buy items. If you find the rewards do not match the strength of your force. Buy an item. Always play somewhere that matches your force composition.

Jump Squad
They don't really jump. They throw. You will use this one a LOT. Keep a special squad on stand by, just for this. You may think they are wasting space, but when you forgot to pack a Gency, there are a lot of islands, and plenty of fighting on those islands. You need to get your primary squad into the fight, and you REALLY will hate having to use your Legendary Geared warrior as a launch mechanism. For every island you jump, you HAVE to leave one member behind. Don't leave behind something that can kick butt.

Speed Squad
I am torn on which way is better, a seperate squad focused on speed increases your survivabily, but it reduces their versatility, as their level will not match the Primary Squad. This is where I would recommend using 'retired' Primary Squadies that are more fragile but fast. Give them whatever spare speed boosting items/specialists you have. In other words, try to strike a balance. Keep one or two fast character's in the Primary Squad, but focus the speed on this force.

Why a speed squad? Some of the maps are enourmous! And just not complimentary to jumping. It is not super common, but it happens. Again this is a lower priority squad, but if the item world is stretching your resources. It helps to have expendable runners to make a mad dash for the exit. This can keep you in the item world, just that 'little bit' further, saving you a Gency, reaching an Item King, or even running away from the Item god.

Ok, the item world is a mess. I can never write everything you will ever need to read in order to successfully navigate the world, but I will try my best.

The first thing you need to examine are the bonus's. There is no such thing as a useless bonus. In contrast, there are some absolutely amazing bonus's you can get at any point in the game. Early on, you want to gather and accumulate several things.

Orbs/Muscles
Any orb/muscle can be usefull. Muscles and ORbs tend to depreciate in value faster than anything else in the game. That probably doesn't make sense, so let's look at it.

The first ones only provide a minimal bonus, and due to the ease of getting these from the hospital, it just isn't worth upgrading them. However, that doesn't mean they have no value. A significant boost to HP/SP is still better than many alternatives.

Nobility Symbols
Imperial Seals, and there advanced forms are a must grab. Fully upgraded, they jump a LOT of tiers, and boost a lot of stats. I find these to be the best and most reliable place to farm in the early game. While they may not be 'rare' items, they are worth getting. I would never recommend that you sell them...probably...

It might also be my imagination, but I feel that these can hold a superior number of item specialists, I tend to put my unlocked specialists onto these symbols.

Weapons
A good weapon is always worth consideration.

These are items thats name blinks silver in game. They are your primary objective, as they are the ticket to unlocking legendaries. Rare items have Item Kings inside them, meaning a much more significant boost to the items stats. This is what I think most people fail to understand, a Rare Candy, still starts with level 1 enemies, and an item king in the 20 to 40 range. That isn't that high, and is a pretty easy achievement unlock.

In order to get a common anything, you can get it from the store or Item world of anything else that has a similar value.

In order to get a rare item, you must enter the item world, and obtain it. Either you must steal for it, or get it from the Bonus guage.

In order to get a legendary item, you must enter a rare item world.

Legendary items are the ones that blink gold in game. These are your long term objective. Getting these is where the serious powerleveling will result from. I am going to try to get a level 1 legendary. In theory, this will produce a Item God that is approximately Level 100. The bonus to the items stats are currently unknown to me, but should be interesting.

I have a quick rule of them that works for rare items, and seems to fit legendaries up to the Item God. Lets take a super simple example.

Legendary Stick
Att - 10

This is a crappy little piece of junk. Although, it's Item World is probably comically simple. If you kill the general you can expect it to look something like this.

Legendary Stick (10)
Att - 20 (22?)

Although, I am not a hundred perent certain. Each level seems to produce a rise of 10% in the items basic stats. Killing the general counts as a bonus level, but I have to do more calculations

Legendary Stick (20)
Att - 30 (33?)

Ok, at this stage, we have effectively doubled the previous steps, and therefore doubled its base value again.

Legendary Stick (30)
Att - 65

This is the number I am much more confident about. I have seen enough Imperial Seal to know this number, kill two generals and one king, this is the result.

Legendary Stick (60)
Att - 365 (425?)

As I have yet to find a legendary that I could get up this high, this number is uncertain. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is a bit low. Now, remember, this number is actually competitive with a 1.5 million hel item, and is superior to anything you could obtain at level 60 (I will be attempting to replicate this in my playthrough, but I can't guarantee anything)

Legendary Stick (90)
Att 1950 (2762?)

This is the point that settles the issue. Even if the number is low, it still beats Longinus (the second best spear in the game). This means that you can at least use this weapon until you unlock a superior version, and you may never throw it away.

Legendary Stick (100)
Att 3000 (6000?)

This number is completely speculative, but it still proves the point. In theory a legendary of the weakest weapon in the game, could surpass the strongest weapons base value. This is why I am gonig to try another play through, to see if I can find a legendary Basic Sword. ANY legendary should never be discarded, as it can always be scaled to match the difficulty of the level.

The other thing, is farming items from the Item God. Item Kings can have some pretty epic loot. I got a legendary weapon off of one, and it is much stronger than my stick. I really want to see what I can steal from an Item god of a Basic Sword...

This is the best, most reliable, way to acquire better items, and I have no idea what it's limitations are at this time. Let's start with some basic concepts. First, you need a stealing hand. Depending on how often you steal stuff vs acquire hands from the bonus guage, you will want to buy these from the store. This means that you will need to address the assembly to unlock the best hands that money can buy.


In the Item world, anything can apparently have anything. You 'may' find a legendary on some random enemy, but I have no clue. I have absolutely no desire to search every enemy on every level.

The best targets are the generals, kings, and Gods of the item. I supect, but haven't tested it, that standard enemies have a small percent chance, based on the Item Worlds Base Value, to carry rare or even legendary items.

I would again, surmise that item generals have a factored level higher than the standard enemies. In a final stage of conjecture, I can say Item Kings 'almost' always have something of value. The question is whether it is something you will want. Legendary Glasses anyone?


It's another entirely personal choice. My first playthrough, saw my thief created far too late to be able to stay up-to-date with the Primaries, and thieves are apparently one of the weaker classes in the game. I will be trying to keep my thief alive, by giving it +Def, +Hit, +HP specialists. These specialists will almost ALL find their way to my thief, eventually...

Note: What I mean by eventually is this. I will only move specialists from the item when the item in question is 'being' retired from active duty. If I have a pair of Rare 30 Shoes, going to my speed squad; because I have a legendary pair of shoes to replace them. Do they need +HP? Maybe, so I probably wouldn't touch that. +Hit? Don't think so, probably never touch another enemy. So +hit will be moved to my thief.

You don't have to use a thief, but a thief provides a similar buffer that my squad systems provide. I have, so far, used my archer to do my thieving (although a gun character would be a good choice). Anything with a high +hit value can do in a pinch, but it can only be reliably farmed in a secure setting. If you intend on stealing from an Item King of higher level than your team, do you want to spend 10 turns trying to steal the item? Or would you prefer a thief to strike in, taking the same item in just one or two turns?

I recommend using a thief. I am not saying that I would use the thief everytime, but it is better to have it and never need it...

Note2: Stealing Hands will not dissappear if they fail to steal, so you can have EVERY party member trying to steal at the same time. No big difference, but they wont be able to fight while they are stealing...

This is the last major point, so far.

The dark assembly is an incredibly important thing, but is marginally avoidable if you follow my method.

First, choose one character who will focus on 'passing' bills. If they reincarnate there is a possibility that it resets everything they have done in the Dark Assembly. I don't mean the bills that are being passed, but I mean all the bribes they have handed out.

Everything functions on a princple of bribery. So bring lots of expendable items to the Dark Assembly, we cover that in a second.

Rank
Rank does two things, that I can observe. First, it unlocks more content. A high rank will allow you to cast votes to unlock almost everything in the game. However, the second thing it seems to do is unlock higher level members of the Dark Assembly. This means that it becomes more difficult to 'force' the assembly to agree to your demands.

If you intend on using the characters mana to reincarnate/create genius characters, it is not prudent to raise their rank. If their rank is low, you will only have to fight level 1-70? senators. Wondering what I am talking about?

Alright, the MOMENT you enter the voting area, you spend the mana. It does not matter whether the vote pass's or fails. This means that for a genius character you are spending 5k, 10k, 20k, 50k mana to create your new character/reincarnate. Do you want to risk all that on some fickle senator's vote?

No, so go in for a fight. Fortunately, fighting will only effect the senators view of the person who called the assembly. This is why you do NOT reincarnate the character that gives out all of those bribes. If a character gives out bribes, they will NEVER try to force the vote, it is conter productive.

Items
You want to dispose of almost every item through the bribery system. Before you do so, check to see if there is any use you can get out of the item. Do you have a reason to enter the item's world? Any specialists? If you have specialists there, you definitely want to transfer the subdued ones before you dispose of the item. Odds are good, that something else has the same specialist, so you might as well go ahead and merge them.

Note: Specialists spawn in a preset order. So if an item has 3 specialists, the top one will be the first to spawn. You can just examine it in the battle to verify the specialist. Also specialists seem to spawn randomly. So if you have the spare Gency's and are in a hurry, leave and reenter. Make sure to save. Everytime you re-enter there is a chance to spawn a specialist.

The specific item doesn't seem to have any impact on what senators think about it.

Senators
Everytime you select a character to go before the assembly, regardless of the vote, you can see the influence of the senators that will attend. This number must be higher than the mana cost of the vote you want to try for.

Senators level seems to be equal to the number of votes they have. So a level 500 Senator's vote matters a lot more than a level 5 Senator. Focus your bribe's at the highest level senators.

Your best opinion is LOVE(heart), and this is what you always want. Just find items that a Senator MUST HAVE, and give it to them. Patience is the key to this method.

High Mana Votes are harder to earn the Love on, but the senators opinion about your character seems to be fixed. So if every Senator LOVES you on a 100 mana vote, they will have mixed feelings on a 500 mana vote. You just need to keep briding them.