Etrian Odyssey

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Etrian Odyssey Nexus Solo Hero Part 19:  Great White Whale


Ketos the whale awaited on the last floor of Undersea Grotto.  On Turn 1, it cast Spout, an evasion buff.  Ordinarily, this would have been terrible because failed attacks don't spawn Afterimages, but Dark Image's 34% chance of making them last more than 1 full round made up for it.  That's why you should invest in passive Skills, kids!


Ketos sometimes used Grand Berry, a Paralyze attack, and did so on Turn 3.   On Turn 4, Soledad Force Boosted.  The Afterimages dealt over 500 damage with Mirage Sword, while Soledad only hit in the 220s because she was excluded from the buffing effect.  On Turn 9, I knew a major attack was coming because Ketos cast Ancient Roll, an accuracy debuff for the whale and an evasion debuff for my party.  Defending on Turn 10 was the right decision, because Ketos attacked multiple Afterimages with a normally low accuracy Ocean Rave.  This made the Afterimages explode in a Revenge Bomb for around 847 damage each!  Without Force Boost.     That's what happens when you hit an elemental weakness, I guess.  


Equipping the Ooze Earring must have paid off when Ketos failed to put Soledad to sleep with Great Melody.  Freeze Ripple hit the Afterimages with Ice damage on Turn 13.  On Turn 14, Ketos wasted a turn by hitting for 42 damage with its regular melee.  The second Force Boost came just in time for the end of the fight.  Ancient Roll followed by Ocean Rave resulted in more Revenge Bomb explosions, one of which killed the boss.


The Western Shrine was the next stop for Soledad.  Hopefully there won't be any pineapples there. . .


 Skill Points at level 66  (Hooray for using a Heavenly Gift experience boost during a boss!)


Novice


Afterimage:  10/10
Mirage Sword:  6/6
Wide Bravery:  1/8
Frigid Slash:  2/6
Clear Mind:  4/4
Encourage:  8/8
Heroic Bonds:  6/6
 

Veteran

Charge Image:  2/6
Graceful Image:  8/8
Spark Blade:  2/8
Heroic Steel:  1/6
Great Bravery:  3/8

 
 
Expert

Dark Image:  10/10
Force Gift:  3/6
Retain Force:  4/4


Ninja Subclass

Revenge Bomb:  3/3




Equipment
 
Dinoslicer
Cuirassair
Ooze Earring
Insect Sandals

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Etrian Odyssey Nexus Solo Hero Part 20:  Stall Tactics Aren't Just For Pokemon


Just like the Southern Shrine, the Western Shrine had 5 floors and required climbing vines to get to different areas.  Fortunately, this time there weren't any pineapple FOEs.  The Western Shrine's miniboss population was easy to kill once I learned the right tricks to deal with them.  Platinum Pillbugs tried to confuse the party and then give them a Volt elemental affinity "buff".  After that, they would later counterattack anyone who used a Volt attack.  The solution to this was to just Defend with my main character and let Afterimages attack instead, since the elemental "buff" didn't seem to affect them.


Dream Eater sheep FOEs from EO3 and EO4 returned, and they weren't too much trouble as long as Soledad equipped the Ooze Earring to block their Sleep-inducing moves.  Glaring Stinger scorpions were from EO5 if my memory isn't lying to me.  They seemed easier in the Western Shrine than in their original game.  The biggest threat they had was the chance of arm bind.


Soledad ran from most random encounters if she could.  Sleipnirs were the most dangerous of all, since they could kill her with one multi-hit physical attack.  Other enemies like Giant Shrooms and Cliff Goats tried to inflict Blindness or Panic.  Volt Cats were more conventional opponents that used Volt attacks.  Blue Wallabies liked to use counterattacks.


The boss for this long Labyrinth was Bugbeast, whose main tactics were based on drawing the fight until I ran out of resources.  Safeguard buffed its defenses so much that Mirage Swords were only dealing around 70 damage.  What was worse was that Bugbeast occasionally would enter a defensive stance and heal itself for 1250 HP per turn!     Doing enough damage would throw it "off-balance" and force Bugbeast to stop healing.  Force Boost powered Afterimages were vital to winning this fight, and chances are the Retain Force passive helped. 


Bugbeast's offense included an Ice move that debuffed Soledad's offense, the accuracy debuff attack Pierce, and a gas that inflicted status ailments like Petrify.  Even at level 77, it took 57 rounds to win.  This fight must be painful with an actual party without the solo experience bonus.


After defeating Bugbeast, the Golden Lair from EO4 was unlocked.  If it's anything like the original version, expect lots of sliding around on ice.


EDIT:  I should have mentioned that the level cap before the postgame is much higher in Nexus than in other Etrian Odyssey games.  Nexus is so long that a 70 cap would be too low relative to the amount of content.



Skill Points at level 77 (1 currently unspent)




Novice


Afterimage:  10/10
Mirage Sword:  6/6
Wide Bravery:  1/8
Frigid Slash:  2/6
Clear Mind:  4/4
Encourage:  8/8
Heroic Bonds:  6/6
 

Veteran

Charge Image:  2/6
Graceful Image:  8/8
Spark Blade:  2/8
Burst Blade:  2/8
Heroic Steel:  1/6
Great Bravery:  3/8

 
 
Expert

Dark Image:  10/10
Force Gift:  3/6
Retain Force:  4/4
Act Breaker:  4/8 (Attack with Stun chance)
Regiment Rave:  1/8 (Slow Fire melee attack)



Ninja Subclass

Revenge Bomb:  3/3
Proficiency:  2/2 (Raises physical and elemental damage)
Mystic Calm:  1/2 (Decreases TP cost for all moves, but never to 0)





Equipment
 
Shashqa +5
Fluted Armor
Mad Earring
Sheep Moccasins

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Etrian Odyssey Nexus Solo Hero Part 21:  A Long Hiatus


Now that my workweek which was longer than an actual calendar week was over, I could play some more Etrian Odyssey Nexus.  The Golden Lair was similar to its EO4 version.  It involved walking around pools of water and dodging the Plated Chaser turtle FOEs until I found an icy stake that could destroy a fiery scale and freeze the dungeon.


Random enemies included Venomshrooms whose poison could deal over 100 damage per round, Magma Spawns that were only weak to Frigid Slash, and Glacier Spawns that melted with Regiment Rave.  Soledad killed Plated Chaser FOEs with a combination of super effective Revenge Bombs and Mirage Sword, though she had to watch out for their multi-hit physical attacks.


The second floor was where the gameplay twist happened.  The Salamander from Untold 2 was a boss there, and had a similar gimmick of having to sneak around it to avoid being pushed back by its fire breath.


Soledad was able to beat the Salamander in 32 turns.  She began the fight with Force Boosted Frigid Slashes, which dealt over 900 damage with Afterimages.  The Salamander's main attack was the all-target Hellfire Breath, though it sometimes tried to paralyze party members with Avarice Claw.  By turn 4, Baby Salamanders started spawning, and they used either fire breath attacks or an elemental defense debuff.  To protect them, the Salamander used Selfless Love to increase its defense and take hits for the Baby Salamanders.  Revenge Bombs were useless on the Salamander as they only inflicted 1-3 damage, but they sometimes took out Baby Salamanders.  


By turn 15, there were 4 Baby Salamanders, and Soledad spent most of her time targeting them with Mirage Sword.  There was no guarantee that the Afterimages would keep them under control thanks to their random targeting.  On turn 24, Salamander used Healing Howl on its party.  But Mirage Sword outpaced any of Salamander's defensive tactics, and eventually Soledad sold its hide and got some Fire resistance boots from it.


Hints throughout the Golden Lair suggested that the Boiling Lizard from EO4 would be the next boss.  With Soledad's new equipment, she should manage.  



Skill Points at level 79


Novice


Afterimage:  10/10
Mirage Sword:  6/6
Wide Bravery:  1/8
Frigid Slash:  2/6
Clear Mind:  4/4
Encourage:  8/8
Heroic Bonds:  6/6
 

Veteran

Charge Image:  2/6
Graceful Image:  8/8
Spark Blade:  2/8
Burst Blade:  2/8
Heroic Steel:  1/6
Great Bravery:  3/8

 
 
Expert

Dark Image:  10/10
Force Gift:  3/6
Retain Force:  4/4
Act Breaker:  4/8
Regiment Rave:  1/8



Ninja Subclass

Revenge Bomb:  3/3
Proficiency:  2/2
Mystic Calm:  1/2
Reflexes:  2/2 (Restores TP after dodging attack)
Concealment:  1/5 (Evasion passive)




Equipment
 
Shashqa +5
Shell Armor
Mad Earring
Flaming Tall Boots

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

This won't be a formal Part 22, largely because I can't get past the next boss yet.


In the Golden Lair, the final boss is the Boiling Lizard, similar to the one from EO4.  Unlike EO4, you can't weaken it at all before the fight.  In EO4, you can destroy various scales around the arena to reduce the boss's power.


The Boiling Lizard comes prepared for a solo Hero.  It can breathe Fire elemental damage to the party, which is only partially mitigated by the Fire resistance boots you get earlier in the dungeon.  Its other attacks can cause Blind or Sleep, and you can only equip one status ailment protection accessory. 

Around Turn 4, scales start appearing that can hit the party with more Fire damage if you don't use Ice attacks on them at times.  Frigid Slash can hit them with splash damage, but the Boiling Lizard applies more pressure later in the fight by summoning two more scales to the back row.


In one attempt, the Boiling Lizard cast Fire Wall in the late 20s in the turn count.  Fire Wall counters some attacks with Fire damage.  It probably only applies to elemental damage, since some Mirage Sword Afterimages weren't affected when they attacked.  


If your solo Hero can survive all that, you're in for a nasty surprise when the Boiling Lizard is at critical HP.  It will use a regeneration buff to heal itself for over 800 HP per turn for multiple rounds.  This is probably meant to encourage use of binds, but the Hero class doesn't get those, and has a bad Luck stat and half the skill points if it wants to be cheeky with subclasses.  Chances are you'll lose around Turn 43.


Don't expect another post from me in this thread for a while.  I'll try to grind a few levels and see if that does the trick.  Even if this variant fails, it was at least a fun ride while it lasted.