Breath of Fire 3 Masters Guide & Review (BoF3)
If you’re playing Breath of Fire 3 (BoF3) you’re going to want to learn as much as you can about the masters system because it has such an enormous impact on how well your characters develop. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about all the Breath of Fire 3 masters in the game and give you a brief review of the usefulness of each master.
- Related Content:
Best Masters for Each Character in BoF3
Here are all the Breath of Fire 3 Masters:
Table of Contents
Mygas – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
AP +1 | Pwr -1 | Int +2
Skills:
- (1) Frost
- (4) Meditation
- (6) Magic Ball
- (8) Typhoon
If you’re going for Mage Ryu, keeping Ryu from gaining XP until Mygas is unlocked and then grinding a bit to learn Typhoon before leaving the region is essential.
Otherwise, Mygas is the go-to early game master for Nina. His stats aren’t particularly mindblowing. Int is essentially a useless stat, so it’s basically trading 1 Power for 1 AP. Not very worthwhile. Magic Ball and Typhoon are both useful skills early game.
This is not going to be a master you use through the end; use this master for mage characters until you unlock better options.
Bunyan – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP +2 | AP -2 | Pwr +2 | Def +1 | Int -3
Skills:
- (2) Risky Blow
- (5) Focus
- (8) Super Combo
- (10) Disembowel
Stat-wise, Bunyan is a fantastic master for anyone who wants to be a physical attacker and doesn’t need very much AP.
He’s ideal for Rei in particular, but he can also be used to great effect on Garr and Peco if you want to go that route, or even Ryu if you’re willing to give up some dragon form longevity in exchange for stronger attacks.
For the moves, Focus is useful, and Super Combo is quite good. The other two moves are forgettable. Despite being one of the first masters you unlock in Breath of Fire 3 (BoF3), he’s one of the best.
Yggdrasil – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP -1 | AP +1 | Pwr -2 | Def +1 | Int +2
Skills:
- (2) Sanctuary
- (5) Recall
- (8) Shield
Yggdrasil is the second magic focused master, doubling down on the stat growths and penalties of Mygas. Essentially Yggdrasil offers the same tradeoffs as Mygas, but has a more dramatic effect.
Luckily, Yggdrasil does boost defense, which is something Nina is in dire need of. Again, magic isn’t particularly useful and intelligence doesn’t impact how much damage magic abilities do much, so you’re really trading 1 HP and 2 power for 1 AP and 1 Defense, which isn’t a great trade.
However, unlike Mygas, whose skills are all outclassed by the middle of the game or so, Shield is a useful skill right up through the very end. If you plan on making Nina a support mage, which is a good idea, picking up Shield is something you’ll want to do.
D’Lonzo – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP -1 | AP -2 | Pwr +1 | Agi +1
Skills:
- (2) Monopolize
- (3) Intimidate
- (4) Steal
D’Lonzo is the first master to boost agility, which is an extremely useful stat. She also teaches Steal, which is essential to acquire on at least one character and it only takes a handful of levels to get it.
In terms of her stats, it’s hard to make an argument about who she’s good for. You could say Rei, since he doesn’t need AP and does need Power, but he gets enough Speed to EX almost everything in the game naturally, so he benefits more from Bunyan.
You could say Garr or Peco, but they’ll never have enough speed to outspeed anything even if you apprentices to D’Lonzo the whole game.
She’s best as a master for Momo, but she nukes Momo’s AP. You may get some value out of apprenticing Momo to her until Deis becomes available later on.
Fahl – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP +4 | Pwr +1 | Def +3 | Int -3 | Agi -3
Skills:
- (2) Charge
- (4) Counter
- (6) Resist
Fahl is one of the most specialized masters in the game. He boosts every physical attack stat at the cost of 3 agility. And 3 intelligence, but we’ve already discussed that intelligence is a worthless stat.
So, Fahl is basically the best master for any physical attacker who either doesn’t need agility, or is going to get a level where they don’t gain any agility. This makes him ideal for Peco and to a lesser extend Garr.
His skills are pretty mediocre. Resist is useful, but certainly not on any character apprenticed under Fahl. Resist, which makes you invulnerable for a turn at the cost of taking no action, is mostly useful for physically weak characters who are capable of getting EX turns (i.e. Nina).
Anyway, Fahl is great. Slap Peco on him at level 1 and never look back.
Durandal – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
None
Skills:
- (1) Unmotivated
- (2) Feign Swing
- (3) Backhand
Durandal offers no stat bonuses and all his skills are worthless, except for Backhand which unlocks another (worthless) master.
You can get away with skipping Durandal (and the master he unlocks) entirely unless your sense of completionism forces you to learn his skills. Definitely one of the worst masters in Breath of Fire 3 (BoF3).
Meryleep – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP -1 | Pwr -1 | Def -1 | Agi +2
Skills:
- (2) Charm
- (5) Shadowwalk
- (8) War Shout
Meryleep is an incredible master. First of all, every skill she teaches you is valuable, so you’ll want to make sure to apprentice under her as soon as she becomes available (right after recruiting Peco) and learn those skills as quickly as possible.
Charm increases item drop chances, which is important because much of the best equipment in the game comes in the form of rare item drops. Shadowwalk is a 100% accuracy guaranteed critical hit, which you’ll absolutely want on Momo. War Shout increases the whole party’s attack. All great skills.
As far as stats, she’s a great fit for Nina since she increases Nina’s speed to Rei-like levels without impacting Nina’s ability to cast spells.
If you’re building Nina as a support mage, which is kind of the only good thing to do with Nina, you can really increase her usefulness by making her fast enough to EX turn everything by apprenticing under Meryleep.
Giotto – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP +4 | AP +3 | Pwr -1 | Def -1 | Int -1 | Agi -1
Skills:
- (2) Trump
- (5) Berserk
- (8) Sudden Death
Most people consider Giotto to be the worst master in the game, but I maintain that he’s actually one of the better masters for Ryu due to his massive AP gain.
You definitely wouldn’t want to stay apprenticed to him for long, but Giotto/Deis gives Ryu tons of AP while still giving him significantly better base stats (except Defense) than he would otherwise have if he went with no master or the Mage Ryu build.
Deis evens out the power and agility loss from Giotto, and Giotto evens out the HP loss from Deis and both grant tons of AP.
As for the skills, every single one of them is 110% totally useless. Don’t bother.
Emitai – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
AP +4 | Pwr -2 | Def -2 | Int +4
Skills:
- (2) Barrier
- (4) Mind Sword
- (6) Enlighten
I’ve mentioned several times that intelligence is useless. Let me tell you why. It just adds it to spell damage. So if you have 100 intelligence and you cast a spell that does 900 damage, it’ll do 1000 damage. Big whoop.
Mind Sword, however, is the only magical skill that actually scales decently with intelligence, since it’s just a physical attack that uses intelligence instead of power in the equation. So, in short, if your intelligence is higher than your power, it’s better than a standard physical attack.
Mage Ryu does pretty well with apprenticing under Emitai. As for anyone else, I wouldn’t recommend it, except maybe to learn Mind Sword.
Most people use Nina as a skill doll, so putting her under Emitai for a while wouldn’t hurt her too much, although you’d be losing 12 Agility you would have gained from keeping her under Meryleep. Up to you.
Deis – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP -3 | AP +3 | Pwr +1 | Def -3 | Int +3 | Agi +1
Skills:
- (2) Inferno
- (5) Blizzard
- (8) Mjollnir
- (12) Sirocco
- (15) Celerity
Deis is one of the best masters in BoF3 for sure. If you’re using Nina or Momo, all of her spells are the best spells in the game, so you should definitely pick them up.
Mjollnir, in particular, is the highest damage spell in the game and while it doesn’t output anything close to what physical damage-dealers are capable via Shadowwalk, Triple Blow and Aura, it’s the only magical ability that can even remotely come close to keeping pace.
Stat-wise, she’s an ideal master for multiple characters, especially Ryu and Momo, both of whom are hybrid physical attackers who need AP. Generally, most players will put Ryu and/or Momo on Deis from the time she unlocks to the end of the game.
Hachio – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP +2 | AP -2 | Pwr +2 | Def +1 | Int -1 | Agi -1
Skills:
- (2) Mighty Chop
- (4) Demonsbane
Hachio is like Bunyan but worse because he damages agility growth and both of the skills he teaches are totally useless.
If he granted +3 power perhaps there could be a case to be made for using him on Garr, but for what he is now, he’s just inferior to Bunyan in every way.
Bais, Lang, Lee and Wynn – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
Pwr +1 (Bais), Def +1 (Lang), Int +1 (Lee), HP +1 (Wynn)
Skills:
- (3) Chain Formation (Bais)
- (3) Cupid’s Lyre (Lang)
- (3) Magic Formation (Lee)
- (3) Refuge Formation (Wynn)
Bais, Lang, Lee and Wynn all teach battle formations (except Lang who gives you a relatively weak accessory you can get other places).
Of those battle formations, only Chain Formation is very good, and it’s only good if you’re using Rei in your party.
You should probably pick up Chain Formation if only because there are some strategies you can use to make the Container Yard bosses a joke, but otherwise these masters don’t have too much to offer.
Ladon – Breath of Fire 3 Masters
Stats:
HP -6 | AP -6 | Pwr +2 | Def +2 | Int +2 | Agi +1
Skills:
- (3) Mind’s Eye
- (5) Holy Strike
- (7) Ward of Light
- (9) Aura
Ladon is a great master, especially after level 40 or so when most characters stop gaining HP and AP on level up anyway.
He’s a great fit for Rei who will have tons of extra HP after 30 levels or so on Bunyan. As for his skills, the first 3 you gain are not skills you’re going to get much mileage out of, but Aura is the best physical attack skill in the game, so you’ll want that one.
Ryu gets it automatically in her Myrmidon form, but if you’re building Ryu as Giotto/Deis or Mage Ryu, it augments True Kaiser very well. Otherwise, it performs well on Peco, Garr or Momo.
Breath of Fire 3 Masters Conclusion
Bunyan, Fahl, Meryleep, Deis and Ladon are, overall, the best Breath of Fire 3 masters. Characters you apprentice under any of those masters will become stronger.
The other Breath of Fire 3 masters are all either inferior versions of those Breath of Fire 3 masters or they actually actively make the character worse via their unbalanced tradeoffs.
That about covers it when it comes to all the Breath of Fire 3 Masters. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this, and click here for more game guides for Breath of Fire 3.
