So, I want to make a clear and concise guide for any players who recently picked up Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age and Have finally entered the Post Game or for people who have already played the game and just want to make sure they have the best gear. If I make any mistakes, please let me know!
First, lets start with the Accessories for each character: The best accessory in the game Hands Down is the Catholicon Ring. 2 For each character ensures you will not have to deal with ill effects such as sleep or confusion. This means you will need 16 gold bars, 160 perfect panacea, 32 royal rubies, and 48 Red Wood … Goodluck! You can craft this ring through the book Kings of the Rings, found in a chest in the Disciple's Trial - Cruel Crypt
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Some Key books you will need for forging (a lot of weapons require these; I usually refer to these when I say forging):
Hero's Book of Basic Weapons, is found in the Tower of Lost Time.
A Hero's Book of Better Weapons , found in the Disciple's Trial - Eerie Valley
A Hero's Book of Brilliant Weapons, found by getting all wishes from Drustan.
Big Hitters of the Battlefield, found in the Luminary's Trial - Citadel Of Spite
Making Things with Metal Kings, obtainable after turning in 110 mini medals
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Note: u/n00bavenger brought up a great point about armor. For a lot of characters, Exotoga and Seraph's Robe can be better than some of the armor I have listed. Its your choice but some of these can be better or worse than the armor listed below.
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These will help you get a majority of the best gear. If a item is listed with no item location, presume you can get it from the above books.
First, lets start with the Hero.
Hero
Weapons: I cant really recommend anything as all are great, but dual wielding is good for damage and shield is good for defense. Your choice.

• For Swords, the best swords are the Supreme Sword of Light and the Hypernova Sword. These dual wielding will net you the most damage. You can get these item through: The story for the Supreme Sword of Light, if choosing "give me a powerful weapon" from Drustan and through the forge for the Hypernova Sword. You will need the sword you obtain from the fortress of fear or First Forest Whale Way Station if missed.
• For Sword and Shield, the best sword is the Supreme Sword of Light and the best shield is Erdwin's Shield, exclusive to the Hero. You can get Erdwin's shield from: 100 minimedals turned in.
• For Greatswords, the best Greatsword is the Brilliant Blade. You can get this item by: Completing the Wheel of Harma: Final Trial.

Gear:

• For Headgear, the best gear is Erdwin's Coronet. You can get this item by: Chests in the Luminary's Trial: Citadel of Spite.
• For Armor, the best gear is Erdwin's Tunic. You can get this item through Chests in the Luminary's Trial: Citadel of Spite.

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Erik
Weapons: I would recommend daggers for their status effects, but its your choice.

• For Daggers, the best daggers are the Dynamo Dagger and the Timeshear. These items are obtainable through: the forge for the Dynamo Dagger. You will need the Dagger you obtain from turning in 65 Mini medals at L'Académie de Notre Maitre des Médailles, Upgrade through aforementioned books. The Timeshear is obtainable through The forge, with a aforementioned book.
• Swords: The best swords are the Metal King Sword and the Hell Sabre. The Metal King Sword is found through: the aforementioned books. The Hell Sabre is found through a 1/128 drop chance from a Barbatos found at Mount Huji or Champs Sauvage Whale Way Station.
• Boomerangs: The best Boomerangs are the Galaxarang and Hunter's Moon (has lower attack than the Metal King Goomerang but the Hunter's Moon does full damage). You can get the Galaxarang through: the forge, obtaining the Meteorang through the Manglegrove Whale Way station. You can get the Hunter's Moon through: forging. You can get the Metal King Goomerang from the aforementioned books at the top.

Gear:

• For Headgear, the best headgear is the Pirate King's Cap, obtainable from Lonalulu post game quest; saving Kai at the strand.
• For Armor, the best armor is the Pirate King's Coat, obtainable from Cobblestone's shop after repairing it.

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Veronica
Weapons: I would recommend Heavy Wands

• Heavy wands: Aurora Staff (or God Bird Sceptre, but I personally would recommend this on Rab due to the unnecessary use for Veronica , given her high magical might already (999 with best equipment), plus the special effect is good on her and this Staff gives her more Mending.) You can get this weapon through wheel of harma 3rd trial and then upgrading the weapon through aforementioned books.
• Whips: Hellbeast's Leash (or Über Gringham Whip but I give that to Sylvando since I think Sylvando has more uses for it compared to Veronicas heavily favored magic side). This can be found through Forging in the aforementioned books

Gear:

• For Headgear, The best headgear is the Crown of Eternity, obtainable from Forging, from a recipe book in the Sage’s Trial – Hoarder’s Keep
• For Armor, the best armor is the Gown of Eternity, obtainable from same as Crown; Forging.

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Serena
Weapons: I would recommend Wand + shield

• For Wand and Shield, The best wand is the Faerie King's Cane and the Metal King Shield. These are obtainable through Wheel of Harma Final Trial for The Faerie King's Cane and the Shield through Aforementioned books.
• For Dual wielding, the best wands are the Faerie King's Cane and the Sceptre of Time. The Sceptre of Time is available through the book If I Could Turn Back Time found in Luminary's Trial: Citadel of Spite.
• For Spears, the best spear for her would be the Metal King Spear, found in aforementioned books

Gear:

• Headgear: The best headgear is Serenica's Circlet Found in the Sage's Trial - Fierce Forest
• Armor: The best armor is Serenica's Surplice found in the Luminary's Trial - Citadel Of Spite

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Sylvando
Weapons (based on charm): Primarily whatever gives you the most charm as those are the abilities you will use most

• Whips: The best whip is the Über Gringham Whip, obtainable through aforementioned books, with the base weapon available at the Octagonia Casino for 750,000 Tokens
• Swords: The best Swords are two Shamshir of Light. The Shamshir of Light is obtainable through Aforementioned books (can craft multiple)
• Knives: The best knives are two El Stupendo. El Stupendo can be found through aforementioned books (can craft multiple)
• Shield: Sylvando can have a shield with all his weapons besides the whip, so if you do not want to dual wield, use either the Shamshir of Light or El Stupendo with the Metal King Shield, Obtained through aforementioned books or if you are going for a pure charm build (although I would recommend some defense) then the Silver Shield is your best bet, obtainable at the trial island shop (33000)

Gear

• Headgear: The best headgear is the Tiara Tremendísima, Found in the Recipe Book: Glam Gear for Go-Getters, from turning in 90 minimedals
• Armor: The best armor is the Gladder Rags, found in the same book as the headgear

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Rab
Weapons: Wands are highly recommended

• Heavy Wands: Best wand is the Godbird Sceptre, but this can be swapped with Veronicas aforementioned Heavy Wand. The Godbird Sceptre can be found in Tickington, after Clearing the Hall of Remembrance - Level 3
• Claws: Best Claws are the Xenlon Claws, found through Upgrading the weapon received from the Wheel of Harma: Third Trial and using the aforementioned books.

Gear:

• Headgear: Apollo's Crown is the best headgear, obtained through the Recipe Book: A Guide to Godly Get-Up, rewarded for completing the Wheel of Harma's Final Trial
• Armor: Potentate’s Pallium is the best armor, obtained through the recently mentioned book

Jade
Weapons: Spears are preferred

• Spears: Split-Pot Poker found through upgrading the weapon you receive through a chest in either the Fortress of Fear or the First Forest Whale Way Station
• Claws: Personally, claws are useless, but I would recommend the Deicimators (the Xenlon claws are better but the Deicimators are exclusive to Jade. You can swap them with Rab but in my opinion they are useless). You can get the Deicimators through the aforementioned books

Gear: (In the switch version, there is a gear that makes you literally invincible, so I will list the best gear and the kinda cheaty gear.)

• Headgear: The Xenlon Hair Ring found through the recipe book Shine On, Xenlon, obtained in the Wheel of Harma - Fourth Trial
• Armor: The best cheaty invincible armor is the Hare-Raising Suit, obtained from defeated the incredibly difficult Superboss The Timewyrm, after beating Calasmos and Tickington (End of Time)
• Armor: The best non-cheaty armor would be the Xenlon Gown, obtained from the aforementioned book

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Eight (Hendrik)
Weapons: Anything works, but I prefer Axe and shield

• Axes: The best axes are the Galaxy Axe and the Kairos Cleaver. The Galaxy Axe's base weapon can be obtained from a chest in The Battleground and upgraded through aforementioned books The Kairos Cleaver can be obtained through aforementioned books
• Greatswords: The second best Greatsword is the Metal King Gooreatsword (the Brilliant Blade is the best but I prefer that on Hero but you can swap the two). This can be obtained through Aforementioned books
• Swords: The best Swords are Drustan's Sword and the Metal King Sword. You can get Drustan's Sword in the Luminary's Trial - Citadel Of Spite and the Metal King Sword through aforementioned books
• Shield: You can dual wield everything but Greatswords, so the best Shield for when you're not dual wielding is Drustan's Shield, obtainable from the Sage's Trial - Hoarder's Keep. This is best paired with the Galaxy Axe or Drustan's Sword

Gear:

• Headgear: Drustan's Helm, found in The Disciple's Trial - The Eerie Valley
• Armor: Drustan's Armour, found in The Luminary's Trial - Citadel Of Spite

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Finally, For item farming, the best characters with accessories and gear are:
Erik: Accessories are Pirate King's Pendant and Bunny tail. The best armor for him is the Vest for Success
Jade: Two bunny tails and Uniforme Chic de l'Académie
Veronica: Two bunny tails and Uniforme Chic de l'Académie
Serena: Two bunny tails and Uniforme Chic de l'Académie
The Bunny Tails can be stolen/dropped by Bunicorns
The Uniforme Chic de l'Académie can be bought at the Quester's Rest in the Alter of the Starry Skies book in Tickington
The Pirate King's Pendant can be obtained through post game story events
The Vest for Success can be found through the quest Richie's Rock-Hard Roulette Challenge (Octagonia)
I really hope this guide goes appreciated. If I missed anything or I got something wrong let me know. If the spoiler text is too much, let me know and I will remove it.

Feel Free To Use This or Share This Without Credit as I Just Want to Be Helpful!

I Hope You Enjoyed This Guide!

So I’m about 40 hours in on my play through of DQXI on PS4 and reached the Casino in Octagonia and I have to fight Jinxed Jade!
All characters are about Level 40. I have played this fight about 20 times and tried the method where you attempt to Sap and Decelerate. But having no luck, I have no items to protect against the puff-puff and no items to stop me from being put to sleep.
Is there any items I can back track and buy to make this battle easier?

Hello! Trying to make this a short question; currently at the part where the casino in Octagonia is filled with monsters and you are supposed to get Jade back. Beat the Boss, got Jade and the Green Orb thingy. Something went awry and the save had to be reloaded. VIP area is accessible but there is ..nothing! Absolutely nothing. No Boss in the Room, Jade is gone from the Party and the items are gone.
Did not find anything on this on google ..is the savegame ruined now?

There were a few things I noticed in my DQXIS playthrough that I didn't see mentioned anywhere else, so I'm making a list of minor changes here. These are mostly only relevant to Act 3.
Post-game spoilers ahead.
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- Noah's Archive is not available in DQXIS, but was in DQXI. Noah simply offers filler dialogue when speaking to him in the repaired Cobblestone in Act 3. Makes finding specific sparkly spots and chests harder if you're not already familiar with the loot layout, especially in places like Eerie Eyrie.
- Baumren's Bell is an item available for purchase in the Octagonia Casino, and summons a sabrecat mount for you to ride in the overworld. The sabrecat is incredibly fast, and I believe runs at the same speed as (or maybe even faster than) the horse while dashing. However, it offers better control over your movement and a Roar mechanic, which calls all nearby hostile mobs to aggro towards you. Weird that it doesn't make them run AWAY from you, but whatever. I believe the bell costs 120k tokens. I'm not sure if it was available in Act 2 or not, but I purchased it during Act 3.
- Most people have noticed that you can now "be companions with" any of your party members after wishing for it in Drustan's Trials. However, I noticed that you can wish to essentially divorce your current partner and "take up residence with" another one of your party members (or Gemma, if you're vanilla like that). This can be wished for at any time, even after you have made all 5 unique wishes. Complete any of the 3 Trials and refight your choice of the 5 Trial bosses to make this wish again.
- There is no Artisinal Trodain's Set in DQXIS, since the new Outfit tab allows you to wear any outfit at any time, and the original point of this set was to make the Trodain's Set viable in endgame activities.
- This might be the Internet having a brain fart, but the guides I found for the quest "Mister Vista" weren't correct. The quest actually starts at the summit of Mount Pang Lai (where skinny Rab was) and has you travel to the Cobblestone Tor to complete it. Not sure if this was the same in PS4/PC version or not.
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I'll update this list if I find any more obscure differences! Figured I'd try and help out some Switch players who might be confused like I was.
Edit: Thanks for the great comments guys! Lots of useful stuff here to help myself and other DQXIS players out. Appreciate ya!

Let me start off by saying I love this game to bits. I’ve platinumed it on PlayStation and I’m genuinely considering getting it again on switch for the extra content. I thought to myself “why not do a full draconian quest run, it will be a fun challenge...” Oh what a fool I was.
The beginning of the game is possibly the worst part. Where every fight with a monster nine times out of ten ends with you dead. You have to pick and choose your fights very carefully and always make sure you’re healed up, because if you go into a fight you’re not 100% ready for you will die and lose your progress. Grinding is a slow process especially when it is just the hero and Erik running away from Heliodor. Every level counts and you have to grind to the absolute peak of which the game will let you in order to even attempt the boss fights needed for progression.
Although nearly every encounter is a death trap the introduction of Serena and Veronica are a literal god send for grinding up levels and materials. Don’t get me wrong the boss fights are still hard as nails (the Sand Scorpion fight was won with pure luck for me) but the game wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be during the middle part of the game.
Most of the bosses weren’t total pushovers, but due to the fact that your level was no longer hard capped by the area you were in (now that the world is open to you) you could grind to obscene levels then take on certain bosses as you saw fit. Only a few bosses from the first “gather orbs” part of the game really gave me trouble (Elysium Bird surprisingly and the Jorgo... I can’t type that out the beast thing in Sniffleheim) and up until the beginning of act 2 the game was fairly easy.
Act 2 was a horrible awakening for me though. Now that your party is in shatters you have to rebuild them once again with no one but you and Eight to take on the world. This was... difficult to say the least. The skeleton fight in the Heliodor castle must have taken me 70+ tries to beat. Getting Rab was a process, but with a healer I was able to get Slyv and a version of Erik I can’t bring myself to call useless for a reason later in this run.
With this team I went on to challenge Jade and her captor which was another especially horrible fight. Not only do you have to fight Jade and the Captor back to back, this fight has all kinds of status ailments and magic stealing attacks that it can be quite frustrating on top of having three turns. After you beat it though you get access to Jade and the pep power Electro Light which cuts down on grinding immensely, but in order to progress through the game and get back my boy Erik you have to get past the Big Boi Fish Daddy.
Now let me tell you about Big Boi Fish Daddy, he is a bastard. I tried him so many times and I could not get past. He’d constantly kill my squad since I didn’t have an actual healer and in the end it would be poor useless Erik against the boss. On one of my close battles with BBFD he wiped my party and Erik was all that was left. I lost hope instantly and just spammed attack for no reason... only to be met with a clutch critical hit which won the battle for us making useless Erik a champion of the people.
I won that battle by pure luck, and the next boss I had to beat was even worse then BBFD. Erik’s sister is a good character but in act 2 she’s a c*nt of a boss. She resists physical attacks and without a dedicated magic attacker like Veronica your only real way to damage her is with Quadraslash or Sap + Unbridled Blade. It was a hard fight but after a lot of attempts I was able to squeak by again before beating her. Surprisingly the next boss the Boreal Serpent was a total pushover I beat him my first try without any level grinding post Erik’s sister.
After this fight you get access to the best and most useful character in all of Dragon Quest. This lovely lady is none other but Serenica as I usually called her. Let me tell you how much of a god send this character was to have back in my party. She could do literally everything and anything any magic user could do and it genuinely made me sad to get Veronica back at the cost of Serenica the Giga Chad of a wizard. After doing all of the fairly simple plot stuff in the game leading up to the end battle with Mordegen it was finally time to take on the bastard and his legions of darkness.
And it was actually pretty easy. I was worried about the boss you face when you first land but he was easy mode and I was able to beat him first try. Jasper was honestly not what I thought he would be. The combination of Sap+attack buffed Erik+ a triple victimizer is an absolute god send which I didn’t use often enough in my first play through of the game. The only downside to it is that it takes a while to set up and you can’t rely on it as your only source of dps because of later game bosses being able to disrupt your buffs.
After beating Jasper we faced off against Mordegen the biggest baddest bad guy of them all (until the other guy).... He was another fight that went very well in my favor and I beat him first try. To be fair I did a ton of prep before this battle though, and after the Jasper battle I went back out into the world and loaded up on any and every magic restoring consumable I could find knowing this two phase battle was going to be a haul. (Side note... thank god the casino shop doesn’t count as technically shopping or else I probably wouldn’t have made it through the run due to the huge boost in gear it gives you early in the game). The fight went well and all was good in the land with the evil wizard defeated.
Now comes the worst part of the run... Act 3. I knew it would be hard, but god damn I did not realize how much I relied on the multi tool giga chad that was Serenica. Going back in time really messed with me when it came to bosses as I had to restructure my team around the fact that I can’t have Serena hand out buffs and debuffs like a crack head handing out pamphlets in Times Square with Rab as a secondary heal bitch.
My party was around level 65 when we finished Mordegen and I thought I’d be more than okay to take on Act 3 right out of the gate. We got stomped. The world is very open once you finish all of the story related stuff with going back in time so I was able to pick and choose what I wanted to take on first. What I found was that no matter where I went I was getting destroyed by every boss I tried to encounter with no hope for a special strategy or luck to win me the fight.
After realizing this I came to the realization that I’m going to have to power level A LOT. What I would do is find a weak ish enemy to fight (I started with the red puppets in the portrait world because the old man is the easiest post game boss to beat.) and defend until I was able to use the pep power Hallelujah and then use Electro Light to attract metal slimes (keep in mind pep pips and pep pop are limited as I can’t just throw millions of gold at Dirk in Cobblestone so I can get all of that. Sure I can get them at the casino in octagonia, but gambling takes a while and is too mindless even for me to grind). What this method would do is give me way more exp for metal slimes making me jump in level very very quickly thanks to the fact they can barely hurt me and Erik and Jade can sweep them easily. I grinded to about level 75 then started to slowly progress my way through the bosses. Whenever I got stuck I went right back to leveling up with the same method as before. I got through a fair amount of the bosses but with my party around low level 80s and still getting one shot by some of the bosses I knew I had to grind to max level if I wanted to beat the rest of the game.
The grind was real, but out of it I was able to plan my fights so I could get some rare items as the Hallelujah Pep power also effects the monsters you fight before the slimes come in so you can get some of the rarer drops from monsters while grinding. One thing to consider when doing this method on full Draconian Quest Mode is that the metal slimes you fight to get exp are technically a lower monster than you according to the game and thus won’t give you exp if you just kill them and the weaker monster you let hit you while you peped up. You have to do a lot of trial and error with what you fight to make sure you get the most exp out of each combo pep power as it takes a long time to set up.
Eventually I made it to level 99 on each of my characters and now I was ready to take on the world once again. I thought it would be a walk in the park by now, but I was right but also wrong. Normal world side bosses were easy barely giving me any trouble with most of them going down in a few attempts. Once I decided to take on the post game challenges like the Harma Wheel and Durstans Trials things changed. The Wheel of Harma wasn’t hard necessarily, but on the final trial it takes a lot of pre planning with pep ups and certain abilities but it’s certainly possible. Durstan is a different story and here’s where the run gets... complicated. All of the bosses save for the last one were easy enough at my level, but the last boss is... well impossible.
The Pride boss is the second to last boss fight in the game and arguably harder the Calasmos (I didn’t spell that right I know). He does a lot of area damage, can one shot any party member, can do away with your buffs, and to top it all off he gets to summon minions that know Thwack and can literally wipe your entire party. At this point in the game I have the best weapons and every skill for every character (no armor thanks to the Draconian Quests) and there is literally nothing I can do to brute force this boss. I even unlocked the extra skill trees for Hendriks and Sylv which I completely missed my first play through the game.
I am truly stuck on this boss and what I am likely going to be reduced to is having to pep up my entire party then attempt to kill the boss in a few turns before he disruptive waves me. I’ll likely have to grind for pep pips and pops as well so that way I’ll be able to have multiple waves of pep power damage (double ultimate magic burst?)
The worst part is that this boss is also the one thing holding me back from going after Calasmos because in order to get the best weapons in the game you have to beat Pride.
This was originally going to be a post about asking for any suggestions on how to beat this unbeatable boss and it still is (I am open to any and every suggestion if you guys have any). But I also wanted to share my experience with people who may be thinking about going with this challenge. Also there is no “real guide” that I’ve found with full draconian quests active so I’m hoping that this can serve as a miniature guide on what to expect and how to win it over. If you read this far thanks for reading and hopefully I can post an update saying I’ve beaten the game officially with the modifiers on. Thanks!

Hello, apologies if posting/asking this is a no-no, I'm a newbie to this reddit but I just got the Octagonia casino open in the story of Act 2 and I was curious:
1)what strategies/tactics I should use to make the most bang for my buck in said casino?
2) I'm sitting at a rough 20k tokens so I dunno if I'd need to buy more for a starting pool of tokens or not If
2a)If I do need more starting pool of tokens, whats a good means to get more money to buy more?
3) As I'm still in Act 2, what's worth buying at the casino if anything, or should I just win a jackpot or 2 for the quest I picked up and to save for Act 3 items?
EDIT(adding a 4th Q): 4) If I were to use one method which is bet 200 on every number how many tokens would I need for that? I ask as I don't have the game on atm and the method just came back in my head after remembering other threads on this subject.

do I miss anything if I go back in time? like side quests, items, secret bosses, ect. I don't want to miss something useful by going back. is it like all of the stuff in the future are still that way in the past. like octagonia still being a casino, eirk's sister not being stuck as gold, chest that I didn't open at that point but somehow are open?

Hi
Like the title mentions: massive Spoilers ahead.
I just finished the main story and went back in time. Now I wonder if they will reopen the casino in Octagonia?
There are still some items and the recipe which I didn't got. So it would be nice to know.
And if someone more experienced with the game reads this: are there any missables, that you won't obtain anymore after the time skip? Because I saw that all treasurechests are closed and refilled, which I opened after the the first visit in arboria. Including mini medals.

Are any missable? Also is the octagonia casino open in act 3? Missed an item from it and dont want to go back to earlier save if I can avoid it.