God Eater 3 Character Guide: Know your NPC allies and their Personal Abilities

God Eater has been considered by some as an anime Monster Hunter, but what mainly distinguishes this series from Monster Hunter is that it's much more single-player friendly as it offers NPC characters that can accompany the player during missions.

These NPC allies are strong enough that they can even fend off some of the Aragami monsters on their own, and players can even give commands to them, so even those who mostly play in single-player can enjoy multiplayer-like sessions with them. The NPCs can even be strengthened further to the player's liking.

As the newest installment in the series, God Eater 3 of course still retains these features. In this page, you can read an overview of the NPCs' strong points as well as tips to make them even stronger and more useful.

Get to know your NPC allies

God Eater 3 has a number of unique NPCs that you can bring along into missions. Each of them has different ability set and God Arc weapon composition. You can read an overview of each NPC right below.

• Hugo Pennywort
  Being the actual leader of your team in the story, Hugo will make sure the rest of the team performs well in combat. He has a tendency to prioritize Link Bursts and will try to have the player stay in Burst mode. Hugo is also much more generous when reviving others as his abilities let him donate more HP to the revived ally. He also has a maximum HP gauge to ensure that he doesn't get knocked out soon after reviving.
  
  Performing Engage with Hugo will raise melee attack power by 3% and reduce Engage decay rate by 15%, allowing you to stay Engaged with him a bit longer. If his Acceleration Trigger B>>Paladin is active, melee attacks will recover HP by 1 point for each hit.
   
• Zeke Pennywort
  Zeke is the heaviest hitter in the team. His ability set improves his melee attacks, maxes out his stamina gauge, and reduces charging durations; all of these have a synergy with his weapon of choice, the Boost Hammer.
  
  Engaging with Zeke will reduce Stamina consumption and raise Burst Arts damage by 8% for both. His Acceleration Trigger G>>Survivor allows him to survive fatal damage when his HP is above 51, but only while it's active.
   
• Claire Victorious
  Claire is most useful as a healer in your team. As a regular God Eater, she doesn't have a Burst Art in her moveset, which means she may be a bit lacking in firepower. But she makes it up with a full arsenal of healing tools to support the team, from shooting recovery bullets to even setting up recovery pillars.
  
  While you are Engaged with Claire, your Shield's defense power will rise by 6% and your Burst decay rate will be reduced by 12%. Her Acceleration Trigger H>>Valkyrie will regenerate Oracle by 3 points per second.
   
• Lulu Baran
  This female AGE has geared herself for stealthy and swift attacks imbued with venom. Her stealth ability makes her targeted less frequently by enemies. And her melee weapon of choice, Biting Edge, is able to land a lot of hits which goes well with her ability set to inflict venom to enemies.
  
  Getting Engaged with Lulu will prolong the active period of Acceleration Trigger by 12% while also raising your movement speed by 20%. When her Acceleration Trigger A>>Prototype is active, the melee attack speed is increased by 10%.
   
• Phym
  This little girl is certainly an oddball. Don't let her small looks fool you; she is literally a female version of Zeke as both of them have similar ability sets that greatly improve melee attacks. Not to also mention that her melee weapon Heavy Moon is also known as a heavy hitter.
  
  While you are Engaged with Phym, your HP can gradually recover by 2 points per second and your Shield is also strengthened, giving you better defense.
   
• Ricardo Sforza
  The second regular God Eater in the party is also a dedicated shooter. But while Claire acts more like a healer, Ricardo's ability set is completely geared towards offensive shooting. With the new Ray Gun as his ranged weapon of choice, he is further supported by default abilities that max out his Oracle gauge as well as reducing consumption usage. This allows him to shoot the laser continuously for a long time.
  
  By initiating Engage with Ricardo, you can temporarily reduce all Oracle and Stamina consumption by 10%. His Acceleration Trigger increases ranged attack power by 15%.
   
• Ein
  The mysterious Ein will join your party after you have reached the ending of the main story. Those who have played previous God Eater games will notice that he bears a striking resemblance to Soma Schicksal in the past games. Despite lacking a ranged weapon, he still can stand on his own with his Buster Blade as he can also unleash a boosted Charge Crush Blood Art - the latter term should sound familiar to those who played God Eater 2.
  
  Ein has a unique ability in Charisma, which improves the battle performance of all team members. He also has good survivability with a maximum HP gauge, increased effectiveness of healing items, and even having a recovery pillar that will be deployed in dire situations.
  
  Initiating Engage with Ein will let you perform another action right after Devouring. If you use melee weapons with charging attacks, it also reduces charging time by 12%. His Acceleration Trigger E>>Explorer will increase his Blood Art damage - and Burst Arts in your case - by 25%.

Later in this Spring, God Eater 3 will also receive a new free update patch that adds two new NPC allies into the roster: Zeke's younger brothers Keith Pennywort and Neil Pennywort.

If you want to have a smooth ride in the story missions, we recommend bringing along Claire and Hugo; the former as the team's healer and the latter for the Link Burst supports. You can then pick one from the remaining attackers for the fourth slot.

The most efficient way to learn Personal Abilities

As mentioned previously, you can further enhance these NPC allies to suit your needs. Each character has up to four extra Personal Ability slots which can be filled by pretty much every other ability they haven't learned by default.

NPC allies who accompanied you during missions will gain their own share of AP (Ability Points) at the results screen. These APs are then used to learn new personal abilities for that specific character. The more often you bring a character into battle, the more AP will be available to be allocated to him/her.

Here are some tips on how to optimize the acquisition of APs as well as personal abilities.

Start with AP-increasing abilities

As there are so many personal abilities to be learned in the list, you will want to earn as many AP as possible in a short time. Luckily, there are a couple of abilities that do exactly this. So no matter what you do, make sure the following ones are the very first to be learned and equipped by all party members.

• Focus - Increases AP gained (personally)
• Pep Talk - Increases AP gained by the whole team

Continue with survivability abilities

After the above two, you should then focus on abilities that improve survivability. Although NPCs are already strong enough to fend off most Aragamis, their biggest problem is that they will have a hard time facing Ash Aragami, as they can also get devoured and receive a massive defense penalty, leaving them more prone to OHKOs. Having the following abilities will ensure that your allies can stay alive longer when fighting against these menacing Ashborns.

• Health - Increases HP
• Recovery - Regenerates HP over time
• Persistent - Increases endurance (times the character can get knocked out before they’re out of action)
• Firm Stand - Survive fatal damage if health is high

Dedicate everything to your true waifu/husbando

One of the trophies/achievements that can be obtained in God Eater 3 is called An Irreplaceable Friend, where you are required to "Beat a mission with an ally who has learned all their Personal Abilities." If you have followed our earlier recommendation by starting with the AP-raising abilities, you should have enough AP to learn most of the available ones for a character.

However, as you reach higher levels, you'll notice that they will start requiring a separate point called GAP (Global Ability Points). Although GAP is collected by the player and can be shared to all allies, these points are more difficult to collect than ordinary AP. While most of them are rewarded only when you clear a new mission for the first time, you can also get more GAP by clearing the multi-phased Expedition missions. The latter can still be done even if you have previously finished the Expeditions.

But as it will take quite some time until you can gather enough GAP for even two characters, it is highly advised that you find your one true waifu/husbando within the NPC ally roster and dedicate most of your first-earned GAPs to unlock all of her/his personal abilities.