The Main Characters

Laharl/Lady Laharl

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

As per traditional rules for an RPG protagonist, Laharl is a well-balanced character with one significant weakness, and that’s his vulnerability to Ice magic. It isn’t much overall, but it’s enough that if Laharl dies in the field, it was probably due to an enemy spellcaster. You can compensate for this weakness by installing Cryophile Innocents in Laharl’s gear or by bringing a Magic Knight with the Spirit Protection Evility. A sneakier option in the long term is to give Laharl a Shark Dragon’s Water Dominance Evility, which causes all Ice- and Water-based attacks used on him to inflict no damage. Enemies will then waste a lot of actions trying to exploit a vulnerability that Laharl only appears to have. Another option for a second Evility is to give Laharl Porkmeister’s Loyalty Evility, which amounts to giving Laharl a constant 30% stat boost that cannot be overwritten or dispelled.

In the mid to late game, Overlord’s Wrath and Meteor Impact EX are two of the most powerful and effective area-of-effect moves at your disposal. That plus Laharl’s natural specialization with Swords lets him occupy a niche as your go-to character when you want to sweep an area clean of enemy life.

Overlord’s Dignity vs. Overlord’s Pride

During Episode 4, when Laharl is forcibly transformed into a girl, his/her Evility changes to Overlord’s Pride, which gives her a 25% boost to her stats if she lands the killing blow on a higher-level opponent. In the Post-Game, you can pass the I Wanna Be More Popular bill in the Dark Assembly to transform Laharl back into Lady Laharl, although the switch applies only during combat; Laharl will still be in boy mode for dialogue and cutscenes.

Mechanically, Dignity trumps Pride most of the time. Pride is very useful, however, in the period immediately following a Reincarnation, when virtually everything you’re fighting will be higher-level than Laharl.

It’s also worth mentioning that Overlord’s Dignity has a loophole in that it does not specify that you have to defeat enemy units. You can give Laharl a quick power boost at the start of a map by letting him kill a couple of level 1 throwaway characters, as long as you’re comfortable sacrificing spots on your roster.

Etna

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

It’s worth having someone along to wield a Spear, and that someone might as well be Etna. She’s equally good with a Gun or Axe, but a Spear has a lot of advantages in the early to mid-game, including range, combo potential, and its inherent DEF bonus. Etna is as well-rounded as Laharl is, but sacrifices a bit of damage for higher defensive potential. That’s often more useful.

Whatever you do, the Sadistic Evility makes her one of the best candidates for starting a Combo Attack. Sexy Beam has an eccentric area of effect that makes it difficult to use, but Prinny Raid gives Etna some ranged ability and Chaos Impact is surprisingly effective for clearing out a group of enemies. Etna is an excellent character for landing the first strike. Like Laharl, she has a significant elemental vulnerability that enemies will try to exploit, although hers is to Fire, and which you can compensate for in similar ways.

When you get to the Post-Game, one of your first moves should be to take Etna to the Dark Assembly and pass the Learn A New Skill proposal. This teaches Etna Dead End Chaos, a single-target Special Skill that can do an absurd amount of damage.

In the event that you apply a second Evility to Etna during the Post-Game, it overwrites The Last Majin. 
If you then delete the taken Evility using the appropriate bill in the Dark Assembly, The Last Majin will reappear.

Sicily

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

As with Flonne, Sicily really takes off if you take the time to give her a second Evility. With Sicily, that second Evility is a Priest’s Book of Magic, which gives her the same benefits to her spells while she has a Book equipped as are usually exclusive to the Staff. Sicily’s natural specialization with Books is simply too good to pass up, and Book of Magic makes it possible for her to use other spells with a high degree of proficiency.

It’s tempting to assign Sicily a role in your back row as a support magician, since you’ll probably first gain access to Shield and Magic Wall when she joins your crew, but don’t disregard Li’l Sis Aura. Between her baseline elemental resistances, Li’l Sis Aura, and her own Magic Wall spell, Sicily can shrug off most incoming magical damage, which makes her a potent unit to field against enemy spellcasters. Books don’t make bad melee weapons, strangely enough, but Sicily’s natural Aptitudes make her more suited toward learning attack spells. Teach her Resist Break by apprenticing her to a Ninja or Sorcerer. That way Sicily can wade through an enemy’s spells, break his or her RES, and then open up with Star or a Book Skill.

Flonne/Pure Flonne

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

One of the things that separates the novice Disgaea player from the veteran is their opinion of Flonne. Heart of Affection is one of the most potent personal enhancement Evilities in the game, as it conveys a 10% stat bonus for every unit Flonne successfully restores to 100% HP, including herself. The amount of health she had to restore does not matter when it comes to triggering the Evility; if Flonne heals someone for 1 HP or 100,000, she still gets her 10%. This bonus tops out at 200% of Flonne’s default stats. In conjunction with her surprisingly flexible unique Skills, Flonne can be built up to be a powerful damage dealer and the backbone of your roster’s support crew, as the longer the fight goes, the more powerful she gets. You can get it started early by removing Flonne’s gear, then equipping accessories that give her a boost to max HP. At the start of your next fight, Flonne will be “damaged” and can heal herself to jump-start her Evility.

It’s well worth grinding both Mana and Likability early in the game to give Flonne a Cleric’s Advanced Healing Evility, because it tags an extra 25% of a target’s maximum HP onto the user’s Heal spells. That almost guarantees that Flonne will bring her targets back to full health and thus get the benefit from Heart of Affection.

Pure Flonne, on the other hand, is a little trickier to work with. Dangerous Revival is a very potent Evility for a character that’s playing a “meat shield” role, such as an Armor Knight or Barbara, but Flonne herself isn’t particularly well-suited to the kind of front-line position that would get the most use out of it. It’s worth switching her to Pure mode to swipe her Evility for someone else, but for most of the situations in the Post-Game, Heart of Affection is simply too powerful to forego.

Lanzarote

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

Lanzarote’s a weird character. She has no unique Skills of her own. Instead, she learns most of the buff spells in the game, most of which are listed as “Monster Skills” at the Data Shop. It is possible that “Lanza” is a very cleverly disguised Sea Angel.

In a game where a Staff and its associated Weapon Mastery weren’t quite so important for spellcasting, or where buff spells lasted a little longer, Lanzarote would be an excellent member of your support crew. Without the range and area buffs from a Staff, however, Lanzarote’s buffs are mostly going to end up targeting herself, and by the time she has both Target Lock and Braveheart active, that leaves her with very little time in which to actually attack an opponent.

Vocal Mind Control doesn’t do much on paper, but it works on the entire field at once, it buffs your entire team, and it debuffs the entire enemy team. If you’re in a tight spot, Lanzarote’s presence on the field is a potential game-changer, particularly late in the game when a 4% stat buff can mean anywhere from a few dozen to several billion points one way or the other. You can deploy her right before your attacks go off to deduct a target’s DEF while you buff your own ATK, and then put her away immediately afterward.

Since most of her practical utility comes from that Evility, however, you’re better off giving it to a Sea Angel or Priest via Demon Connect and leaving Lanzarote back in the Castle to pursue her musical career. She just doesn’t bring enough to the table on her own merits to justify regular use.

Barbara

Base Stats

APTITUDES

Weapon Mastery

Evility

Skills

Barbara is the Armor Knight v. 2.0 and can be used for many of the same purposes, such as Protect Actions or blocking enemy units’ progress through a choke point. On her own merits, Barbara is capable of doing well with an Axe, Sword, or Spear, and she has the HP, DEF, and elemental resistance to shrug off almost any incoming attack. It takes a great deal to kill her, but she’s slow enough that it can be difficult to get her to the party in time to contribute.

If you’re going to use Barbara in the field, there’s no reason not to steal a trick from the story campaign and teach her the Armor Knight’s Defensive Stance Evility, at which point she turns into the spiked brick wall you may remember from Netherworld Maw. Since Defensive Stance makes her act as if she’s always Defending, she always gets the benefit from Passiveness and thus gains a nearly infinite number of Counterattacks. You can use Barbara as a bug zapper of sorts, running her into the middle of enemy territory and watching as they beat themselves to death against her. Thanks to how Combo Attacks work, Barbara will eventually start taking damage, but she’ll inflict a lot more in return.