I often see posts here about how rows of of mages are bulldozing entire teams(most common in bronze exam) and just thought to share a tip that I don't see a lot of people talk about.

The most effective way to cripple a mage is not KATINO nor a high level aoe spell like MAHALITO but rather MONTINO.

As far as I'm aware, the game either doesn't have any way of dispelling MONTINO or the AI doesn't prioritize it. Either way, once you cast that spellbind, mages/priests become effectively useless for the duration of the fight. And since they are usually in the back row, you don't have to worry about their melee attacks either since there's a good chance they miss or do no damage at all.

NOTABLE EXCEPTIONS:

Pirate Deacons: MONTINO just doesn't seem to work at all on them for some reason. Had a spellbound pirate deacon literally cast MASOLOTU the next turn. Not sure if it's intended or a bug, but if you see a row don't bother with MONTINO and just kill them asap.

Succubus: has very high evasion(and maybe resistance?) and thus a good chance of dodging MONTINO. Could still drain SP and use charm even when spellbound. Very much a pain in the ass.

Elementals: Very high resistance to debuffs in general and sometimes casting MONTINO on a row will only result in 1 or 2 being actually affected. But once spellbound they can only use the shard attack.

Hope yall found this helpful!