Dragon Warrior IV/Characters

Dragon Warrior IV features a unique cast of sixteen characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Here this section will show you information on all sixteen characters.

The Hero/The Heroine
The Hero is a powerful character who should always be a part of your party. On the other hand, beginners should form a party without the Hero so that the other characters, controlled by artificial intelligence, can show effective strategies that can be applied to any role-playing video game.

The Hero has very well-rounded stat growth, but most of his/her stats begin to level off at around level 50. Keep the Hero in the front, dealing powerful damage with the best weapons you can afford. You should keep the hero outfitted with the best weapons and equipment you can find, but once you get towards the end of the game you will receive very strong equipment that only the Hero can wear so you won't need to find equipment upgrades.

The drawback of the hero is that he/she has no artificial intelligence, so not only you always have to spend time choosing which action he/she should perform, but also he/she will often end up attacking defeated enemies.

The Hero learns a wide variety of healing spells including Healall, but he learns these spells later than Cristo and Nara, who are much better healers. Keep the Hero's healing spells for outside of battle once you gain those characters, so they two can conserve MP for tough battles. But unlike Cristo and Nara, the Hero learns the best healing spell in the game: Healusall. This spell costs a massive amount MP, but fully heals everyone in the party. This will be very helpful for the final battle.

In terms of group damage, the Hero learns a variety of fire spells early on, but nothing hard-hitting. Towards the end of the game he or she will learn Zap and Lightning, some of the most powerful offensive spells in the game. Zap is only really helpful in situations where enemies have high defense ratings, but this does not happen so often that Zap does more damage than the Hero's normal attacks. Lightning, on the other hand, deals massive damage to all enemies, and with the spell only costing 15 MP, it's a spell worth learning.

The Hero's ultimate spells are Thordain and Chance. Thordain draws 15 MP from every character to deal massive damage to a single enemy. Although this sounds like a sweet deal, it requires that every character has MP, which means Alena, Ragnar, and Taloon can not be in the battle. This makes Thordain a double-edged sword. Sure, it does a lot of damage for only 15 MP per character, but if Ragnar or Alena were in the battle and the enemy was fully sapped and all melee-fighters had Bikill applied, you would do the same amount of damage anyway if everyone attacked on the same turn than if you wasted a turn to cast a single spell. Thordain is more of a novelty spell than a useful one. Speaking of novelty, Chance is just that. Chance is a gamble; the effect is random and you don't know what will happen. Try it during random encounters, but try to avoid using it otherwise.

Temporary Characters

 * Strom the Guardsman
 * Orin the Alchemist
 * Hector the Young Man
 * Doran the Baby Dragon

Temporary Characters

 * Healie the Kind Monster
 * Lucia the Zenithian

Temporary Characters

 * Laurent the Troubadour
 * Panon the Jester

Character Class Triangle
The diagram summarizes the characters according to their attributes:
 * Top: characters with no magic abilities;
 * Bottom: characters with great magic abilities;
 * Left: characters with healing spells (white);
 * Right: characters with offensive spells (black).



The characters can also be classified by chapter. Names in italics refer to temporary characters.

Suggested parties
In the first four chapters parties are fixed.

In the fifth chapter there are twelve characters, but only four can take part to battles at the same time; the other characters earn only half the experience points from battles, and temporary characters don't earn any experience.

An example of physical-oriented party is the following:
 * Solo/Sofia the Hero
 * Ragnar the Soldier
 * Alena the Princess
 * Cristo the Chancellor

The only action that Ragnar and Alena can perform is "Attack", and they simply deal a good bit of damage to a single enemy at a time; equip them with special-effect weapons when you start feeling they are monotonous. The Hero and Cristo can equip good weapons too, plus they can heal the party when needed. The Hero has no artificial intelligence, and will often end up attacking a defeated enemy.

An example of magic-oriented party is the following:
 * Cristo the Chancellor
 * Brey the Wizard
 * Mara the Dancer
 * Taloon the Merchant or any temporary character (Hector, Panon, Lucia, Doran)

Brey and Mara have a wide array of powerful attack and debuff spells with different effects. Cristo can wear good armor and backup the party with healing magic. Taloon can perform many different actions, despite the fact he has no magic abilities. The temporary characters can all use one or two spells and/or special abilites, and since they stay with the party only for a short time (except Doran the Baby Dragon), it's worth seeing them in action.

Finally, a healing-oriented party is the following:
 * Solo/Sofia the Hero
 * Cristo the Chancellor
 * Nara the Fortune Teller
 * Lucia the Zenithian or a character holding a "Leaf of the World Tree"

This party is best to explore the effects of Nara's Silver Tarot Cards, because one of them has a chance of instantly defeating every member of your party. If either the Hero or Cristo or Nara survives that card, he/she can resurrect the others and continue Nara's card drawing. In order to effectively see the Silver Tarot Cards effects, the tactic should be "try out", and Nara should not hold any item nor the Starry Bracelet. The ninth and last tarot card drawn instantly defeats every enemy, so even boss battles would last just nine turns (plus one or two to resurrect allies).