Update:

Romancing SaGa 3 - Wasted half my evening, and then sort of made up for it? I did a bunch of things and ended up switching around my team a bit, which proved to be a bad idea. I'm a little too late in the game to be trying to build an endgame team, especially since my one goal is to tackle the final boss in his true form because I guess I'm just a masochist like that. Anyway, I went after the Fire Sinistral and got destroyed for my efforts because he has that obnoxious perma self-immolation shield that does insane damage if I try to attack him with short range melee. Not helped that I forgot to restore my health before heading in, so I was low on TP/MP so I lost pretty good. The problem was that I hadn't saved in hours (which is why I hate save anywhere systems, because I will forget to save) so all of my endeavors for the evening were lost. But I took this in stride because I was seriously having second thoughts about a lot of the decisions I was making. Sadly, I learned far too late that I've locked myself out of Katarina's Golden Ending, because I apparently needed to have Mikhail in my final team, but he's only available for recruitment for a short time when Bunei attacks Loanne. Otherwise, you can't access his castle for some dumb reason. Despite all this, I cleared up a few side missions I forgot about and I'm starting to play around with building up my magic. I discovered I never finished this one optional dungeon, and I'm grateful for it because the boss of the place has the potential to be an Asura, which is one of the best enemies in the game to spark techs with. So I'm hoping I can fill out more of my weapon tech list since I'm missing a skill or three with each weapon type.

My two biggest gripes at the moment are these: 1) I really hate the fact the game forces an 11th hour ranger into your team at the end to get to the final dungeon. It makes party planning a bit tougher when you know you're going to have to keep one slot open for them. Even more annoying that a very good character can only be recruited by this 11th hour joiner and so unless you plan it carefully, you may not have easy access to means of leveling this character either. 2) Tomahawk is the bane of my existence in these games. This isn't something against RS3 in particular, it's against this skill in general because it's almost always required to spark axe weapon skills or high end axe techs in general. It's a crappy low level skill as well, so my main damage dealer always seems to be nerfing themselves because I have to stick to this one skill to spark the five to nine techs attached to it. Ugh...

If I could add a third complaint it's that tech mastering is a chore.

So here's the team setup at the moment:

Katarina - She's mainly trying to spark the final Greatsword tech I need and mastering Scattered Petals. Afterwards, I have to sacrifice her TP Crown so I can level up her Lunar Magic and make use of the Shadow Copy spell that is going to make her a serious powerhouse. Once she has enough MP, I'm going to try to get her TP Crown back and get her HP into the 800s. I could also try to master Disarm, but that skill is a pain in the ass.

Black - Is still trying to master one final Axe skill which is thankfully not attached to Tomahawk. Otherwise I need to level up his Lunar and Soryu magic a bit. More his Lunar really so he can also take advantage of the Shadow Copy spell since he's my other main damage dealer. Wind magic is honestly not that great in this game, so maybe I should drop it for access to another Revivar spell? I also want to get him a TP crown as well and get his HP up.

Charl - He has quite a few Spear techs to learn and master if we're being honest here, but spears are very good in this game so he's not that far behind in damage output. His Fire magic is really good, and I'll need to get him him Revivar once the Fire Sinistral is dead. I gave him Solar Magic as well, but I'm not too impressed with it at the moment. I may stick to beefing up his spear potential more while raising his HP.

Nora - My main debuffer. I have an awkward relationship with mace weapons and skills in this series. They're useful for their utility, but I wish they had more damage potential. I honestly don't think they come into their own until SSG. She has two more skills to spark and four to master. I need to level up her Earth magic as well since it's surprisingly the best magic of the four, though Hypergravity has the least utility of the ultimate spells. Part of me was thinking of dropping her so I could beef up the Workshop, but I've kind of grown attached to her and it's going to take too damn long to raise up another character.

Muse - Probably my most neglected characters, I don't do solid mages very well and she's not leveling up magic as fast as I would like. I have found her some great equipment though. She also has really high DEX and SPD, so she's actually competent with a bow and rapier so I have those equipped in case I need some extra attack power. I need to get her more Lunar Magic and give her more Water magic. She's basically going to be my dedicated buffer/healer but I need to get her some better armor and way more HP/MP to get that dream off the ground. She's going to take the longest to get where I need her to be. Partly because magic is less useful in this entry with many of the game breakers being relegated to Commander mode or heavily nerfed in this entry.

Leonid - He's quirky, with a lot of weird rules that makes him different from other characters. He has no LP and can't be perma killed, but he can't be healed or revived either. He starts with 666hp and as far as I can tell, he can't raise it either. He comes with the best armor in the game though and he has auto-regen. He is great for sparking epee skills and such, but has terrible stats for using it. He also has his own unique magic but the spells are interesting if highly impractical. A fun character to play around with, but he's going to be my sacrificial lamb when The Boy arrives. I've only kept him around because he managed to spark a good sword tech I didn't have and I needed him to master it for me quick. I am a little sad he's too quirky for his own good because I like my vampires.