Etrian Odyssey

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

For those who don't know, Etrian Odyssey is an Atlus series of dungeon crawlers for the DS and 3DS based on old PC RPGs such as Wizardry.  You create a guild of characters, and can send 1-5 members into the labyrinth at a time.  Which classes you choose are up to you, unless you're playing the Story mode in the Untold remakes.

I started with EO4, and have also completed EO3, EO5, and EO Untold 2.

Here's a list of my challenge playthroughs for EO games so far in case you want to ask me about them or I decide to post about them later in this topic.  I'll talk about the Wildling in this post.

EO3

5 Princes/Princesses (Deep City route)
1 Hoplite (Armoroad route)
1 Wildling (EDIT:  Just finished!, Deep City route)


EO4

5 Dancers
5 Nightseekers
5 Runemasters

EO Untold 2

5 Landsknechts

EO5

5 Therians (3 Masuraos, 2 Rovers)


EO4 is probably the best game for newcomers.  EO3 is the most friendly for solo characters.  EO Untold 2 is for masochists who think having to get random drops to max out your skills and overpowered bosses intended for specific classes are good game mechanics.  

For EO3 and Untold 2, be sure to create a separate item gathering party.

If you want to preserve your sanity when playing Untold 2, use this mercy rule for any variant.  When you have beaten an FOE (what minibosses are called here) on Expert and have cleared the floor it's on, you're allowed to drop the difficulty to Picnic for the sake of level grinding on that type of FOE.  I had to level to 70 to beat the game with 5 Landsknechts on Expert.

The EO3 Wildliing playthrough is almost at the end.  The Elephant summon that confuses enemies will save you in random encounters, and the Lion is for boss fights and FOEs. To get around the Lion falling asleep every turn, my Wildling has a Monk subclass to use Refresh on it to wake it up.  When the Lion is awake, it hits all enemies with a physical attack that can stun (like Flinch from Pokemon) and sometimes paralyze.  Some players love the Tiger, but I can't stand that it only counterattacks after its instant kill roar on turn 1.  My other skill points are in the passives that improve summons and give a chance for them to take hits intended for the Wildling.

You'll die a lot on a solo run, even with the Indomitable limit that lets you survive fatal blows with 1 HP.  It's still nowhere near as bad as the turn 1 Exdeath Condemn that Sullla and T-Hawk have to deal with in FF5.  Enough perseverance and level grinding will do the trick in EO3.

When playing any of these games, be sure to look at online "skill simulators" to find out where you should put your skill points.  The in-game documentation for skills is awful because it doesn't tell you what the numbers are.  "Gun Mastery will increase my damage by. . .1 percent!"

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

My solo Wildling has cleared Etrian Odyssey 3's Deep City route!

Here's my character sheet if you want to see the skill point distribution:

Wildling/Monk, Level 68, 358 HP, 249 TP

Beast Soul 10/10
Wild Mastery 10/10
Nature Pact 4/10
Sacrifice 1 10/10
Sacrifice 2 10/10
Dismiss Beast 1/5
Call Insect 4/10
Call Elephant 10/10
Call Lion 10/10
Healing 2/10
Refresh 3/10

Equipment

Baselard (Dagger)
Aurora Veil (Clothing)
Morbarabakets (Boots)
Boldrons (Gloves)

If you're playing the Deep City route, you fight two bosses in a row during the final showdown. The dagger and boots were intended to give my character a higher chance to go first, but both Kujura and the Deep Princess are faster. Indomitable saved me several times here. The fact that you can only carry 60 items made me tense when I was running out of Medica 2s to heal!

The Deep Princess fight lasted 63 rounds. She has area of effect Ice and Lightning elemental attacks. Sacrifice 2 absorbed some of the blows that would have hit the Wildling. The Lion did most of the damage, but the Elephant got in a lucky Panic for a turn or two. One of the Deep Princess's skills can Panic you, which almost defeated me once. All those multitarget attacks make me wonder if the Tiger and its counterattacks would have been a better idea for the final fight. Oh well, the Lion worked out anyway.

Now to explain the skills. 

Beast Soul is exclusive to the Wildling, and cannot be used with a Wildling subclass.  It increases the HP, Attack, and Defense of all your summons.  This is why no other class should try to use Wildling summons except for maybe some combat Farmer gimmick.  Wild Mastery increases the status ailment success rate, and is a prerequisite for all summon skills.

Nature Pact is a passive skill that has a chance to revive you if you die.  You'll need at least 3 points if you want to summon a Lion or Tiger, and 5 points in one of the Sacrifice skills.  Sacrifice 1 gives a chance for beasts to take physical hits for you, and Sacrifice 2 is for elemental attacks.  If you use Dismiss Beast in battle, you get a TP refund for your summon.  In a solo run, you'll want to have a beast out at all times, so it's not that useful.

The main choice for Wildlings early in the game is between the Elephant and the Cow.  Cow may be good for 5 member parties because it can cause paralysis and hit the same target multiple times when first summoned.  For solos, go with Elephant.  Panic is a much more useful status ailment in random encounters because it disables everything but basic attacks.  Also, who doesn't love it when the enemies hit themselves?  The Elephant hits all enemies when first summoned too, and this will save you when the first boss Narmer dives into a random hole.

Call Venomfly is a prerequisite for Call Elephant.  Venomflies are fragile summons that can poison enemies.  It's useful early in the game, but weak later on.

Remember that summons take up a slot in your party, so it's not a good idea to have more than 1 Wildling in a 5 member party.  For a single class challenge that isn't a solo,  the most you can use is 3.

For the late game, you'll want to decide between Lions and Tigers.  I explained the reason for picking Lion in the first post.  If you can deal with the Tiger's reluctance to attack, it can be powerful.  *Looks at GameFAQs*  Looks like you should use a Ninja subclass so you can use its Otori skill to make enemies target the Tiger.  I learned something obvious today!  

[System Error]

Nice, grats. Not sure if I'd do variant gameplay of an EO game myself, unless you count EOU2 story mode. Can't imagine playing that after getting off a game with a main party that could nuke almost everything with Ecstasy, and had enough flexibility for when that wasn't an option.

I still need to get back on EO5 someday, only got by the first floor and have no idea what kind of party to go with - besides having set up to use all classes. Presently there's tons of other games at my fingertips on my N3DS (and my XL, besides being offline and with a weakening battery, I'm playing through Super Robot Wars UX), but easy to switch back over when I want to.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Nice, grats. Not sure if I'd do variant gameplay of an EO game myself, unless you count EOU2 story mode. Can't imagine playing that after getting off a game with a main party that could nuke almost everything with Ecstasy, and had enough flexibility for when that wasn't an option.

I still need to get back on EO5 someday, only got by the first floor and have no idea what kind of party to go with - besides having set up to use all classes. Presently there's tons of other games at my fingertips on my N3DS (and my XL, besides being offline and with a weakening battery, I'm playing through Super Robot Wars UX), but easy to switch back over when I want to.

5 Landsknechts in Untold 2 was the hardest variant I did in any EO game.  The EO3 solos were much easier.  Untold 2's flaws show themselves in their ugliest form when you try a single class challenge.  Don't try it!  

As for my character sheets:

3 Sword Landsknechts named Lenna, Krile, and Faris

Duergar Blade (Sword)
Jazeraint (Heavy Armor)
Spangenhelm (Helmet)
Safeguard (Shield)

Sword Mastery 10/10
Raging Edge 1/10
Tornado 5/10
Blinding Slash 10/10
Falcon Slash 10/10
Hurricane 10/10
HP Up 5/10
TP Up 5/10
Phys ATK Up 10/10
Fencer 10/10
Triple Charge 10/10


2 Axe Landsknechts named Bartz and Galuf

Nickel Axe (Axe)
Jazeraint (Heavy Armor)
Spangenhelm (Helmet)
Safeguard (Shield)

Axe Mastery 10/10
Boomerang Axe 10/10
Head Bash 10/10
Stunning Smash 1/10
Charge Smash 10/10
TP Up 5/10
Triple Charge 10/10
Phys Atk Up 10/10
Fencer 10/10


Blinding Slash is your best friend when you use 5 Landsknechts.  Their Luck may not be good, but having 3 of your characters use a maxed out Blinding Slash can make it work on Expert.  Harpuia is immune to Blind, so you'll need to try something else for that fight.  Falcon Slash beats random encounters and things like Scylla tentacles.  Blinding Slash and Falcon Slash are also good alternatives to Hurricane when you don't want to disable Triple Charge for the next turn.  Triple Charge is there to power up the Landsknecht's Force Break.    
 
Landsknechts aren't meant to be in the back row, but Boomerang Axe keeps them from being useless there.  It gets priority like Falcon Slash too.  You may not use the Switch menu option with regular parties, but it's a free action and gets your Axe Landsknechts to the front row when they're ready to use their Force Breaks.  Charge Smash is there for filler and a desperation move if the boss isn't dead after all the Force Breaks.  Then again, the developers balanced the bosses around the Story mode party and gave them way too much HP. . .

Bosses in Untold 2 have strict patterns, and if you don't know them, you'll die.  Flame Demon and its minions for example will use Fire elemental attacks at specific points in the fight that will kill the entire party several times over if you fail to take them out quickly enough.  You're supposed to use a Protector or Beast Force Break to survive.  (*Looks at Story mode Bertrand*)  It's a shame.  Untold 2 has some good ideas like cafe food bonuses, but the Grimoire lotto and bosses that spit on the concept of class diversity ruin it.  All of my characters were level 70 at the end of the game.  So much FOE grinding on Picnic was required.  My EO3 solos were in the high 60s at most!

[System Error]

Well I have seen someone do solo Beast. With autobattle only. On Picnic. Streamed. With a rolling banner that read "PLEASE DO NOT PLAY PICNIC MODE".

I used to think the devs balancing things around the Story mode party was a bad thing, particularly HP...but really, that's balancing in the game in general - there's tons of class setups that can dish out a ton of burst damage, and Story mode is actually one of the weaker ones - Fafnir really shines with better classes around it. It's slow for a while (critically Scylla) because of needing story progress too. Other issues can be worked around with Grimoires, which while painful at times are still infinitely less annoying than EOU1's. Plus the QR trade system helped a bunch with filling in blanks.

My casual party was Whip!DH/Beast/Medic/Gunner/Hexer and it worked really well. I kept other jobs trained up for the later game though, in particular breaking out a Troubadour at several points. Someone else who inspired me to pick it back up too was using another party without too much planning and doing fine as well, it's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be.

EO5 potentially aside since I don't know that game well, I'd argue its classes are the most balanced in the series in how there's no real stinkers, and the closest thing to a win button is locked behind story progress. Though because of it the sum of a party's parts is much more important than ever. "Not variant friendly" I guess.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Well I have seen someone do solo Beast. With autobattle only. On Picnic. Streamed. With a rolling banner that read "PLEASE DO NOT PLAY PICNIC MODE".

I used to think the devs balancing things around the Story mode party was a bad thing, particularly HP...but really, that's balancing in the game in general - there's tons of class setups that can dish out a ton of burst damage, and Story mode is actually one of the weaker ones - Fafnir really shines with better classes around it. It's slow for a while (critically Scylla) because of needing story progress too. Other issues can be worked around with Grimoires, which while painful at times are still infinitely less annoying than EOU1's. Plus the QR trade system helped a bunch with filling in blanks.

My casual party was Whip!DH/Beast/Medic/Gunner/Hexer and it worked really well. I kept other jobs trained up for the later game though, in particular breaking out a Troubadour at several points. Someone else who inspired me to pick it back up too was using another party without too much planning and doing fine as well, it's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be.

EO5 potentially aside since I don't know that game well, I'd argue its classes are the most balanced in the series in how there's no real stinkers, and the closest thing to a win button is locked behind story progress. Though because of it the sum of a party's parts is much more important than ever. "Not variant friendly" I guess.

The problem I have with the bosses in Untold 2 is more the way you're expected to defend against their attacks.  In the other EO games, you can survive powerful hits with the Defend command, a Mist item, buffs, etc.  With things like Guild Esbat's suicide attacks, it's clear that it's based around Bertrand's Force Break.  You're expected to use specific party members in the EO game with the largest number of classes.  Balanced teams always rub me the wrong way in this series.  Untold 2 is a love it or hate it game, I guess. 

Switching to Picnic with the Landsknechts was only for mindless grinding sessions, and even then it felt like leveling took too long.  You'll feel your brain cells dying if you play on Picnic for a while.  There's no Sea Quest exploit (EO3) or feeding sheep FOEs to make them shiny (EO4) in Untold 2.  EO5 had a decent leveling pace.


Here are a few EO5 pointers based on my Therian playthrough:

-Give your party attacks that can hit at least a line of enemies for the 1st stratum boss.
-Low offense parties will hate the 2nd stratum boss that can heal itself if not afflicted with ailments or binds. 
-Food in this game works like a healing item that you can only use outside of combat.
-Hoard your Amritas, because they're a conditional drop in this game too.
-Promote a Masurao to Blade Master instead of Blade Dancer most of the time.  Hound Rovers feel more like a weaker version of a healing or defensive class, so go with Hawk if you're only using one Rover and already have a healer.  Medicinal Lick sometimes fails to heal the right party members even when maxed, so my Hound Rover used healing items more often in the final battle.


I wanted to do the solo Wildling on a fresh save file instead of a New Game Plus.  Because of this, I don't have the Hoplite file anymore, but I recall enough about that playthrough to give a few tips.

-If you're out of cash on Floor 1, create some characters at the guild, strip them of all their equipment, and dismiss them.
-Spend all your skill points on Recuperate early on.  Gaining 60 HP while defending will carry you through the long battles in the 1st and 2nd strata.
-Parry and Magic Parry may not sound like strong skills, but you'll block more hits than you might think.
-Tagen Battou may be silly, but you'll need it for late game bosses that heal themselves if you're not using a Wildling or Yggdroid.
-Indomitable is the limit skill you want.  Surviving fatal blows with 1 HP will save you so many times.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Rough character sheets for the Therian EO5 team in case you want ideas about building them for the main story:

Bartz, Lenna, and Faris Level 60 Masurao (Blade Master)

High Ground 3/10:  Prerequisite
Spirit Sword 5/10:  Prerequisite
Triple Strike 10/10:  Causes random binds, which saved my team many times.
Petal Scatter 5/10:  Area of effect attack, used for random encounters
Bolt Slash 10/10:  Obligatory elemental attack
Sword God 10/10:  Most of a Blade Master's power comes from critical hits added to skills
TP Up 7/10:  Filler, and Therians don't have much TP.  At least 5 needed for Bolt Slash
Speed Up 6/10:  Everyone likes being able to go first. Some monsters outspeed even Therians

(The rest of the points are scattered among random passives because I didn't know what I was doing)



Galuf Level 58 Rover (Hunting Hound):  Yeah, he's 2 levels lower because of excessive Resting

Hound Whistle 10/10:  Duh
Aid Command  3/10:  Healing skill out of combat, plus a prerequisite for other healing skills
Hunter Shot 3/10:  This helped me for the first 10 floors or so, and it's a prerequisite for another binding skill
Status ATK Up 10/10:  3 Masuraos + 2 Rovers = Half-baked binding and ailment team
Healing Up 5/10:  Use some other class than Rover as a healer, please
TP Up 3/10:  Hunting Hound Therians chew through TP quickly
Guard Command 6/10:  Actually a useful skill.  It shields an ally and heals them
Foot Pierce 10/10:  This is both for a chance to foot bind and deal damage after their toes are tied
Medicinal Lick 10/10:  Worst area of effect heal ever.  Who thought random target healing was a good idea?


Krile Level 60 Rover (Flying Falcon):  The best member of the team.

Hawk Whistle  10/10:  Why wouldn't you max this?
Brushing 3/10:  I miss my EO3 Prince/Princess party passive healing
Hawk Arrow 3/10:  Prerequisite
Wing Thrash 3/10:  This will save you when fighting Amalgolem.  I think it knocked out Eternal Tyrant too.
Sky Patrol 1/10:  Hey, free ingredients! 
Aerial Talons 10/10:  Binds the enemy's head and deals reliable cut damage
Ice Peck 10/10:  Area of effect and much-needed elemental damage
Sky Dive 1/10:  Why not?  This is really more for "archer" Rovers, not pure animal builds like mine.
Phys AtK Up:  Animal stats work differently than you think.
Speed Up 6/10:  Of course.
Feather Storm 10/10:  Blinding is as useful as always.  It depends on the Hawk's Luck, not the Rover's.
Finishing Shot 2/10:  Good for picking off weakened enemies, but designed for archer builds


The rest of the skill points were in various racial skills.  Be sure to pick up Precaution if you're using Therians.  It stacks, so you get a much higher chance of a preemptive strike in random encounters. 


I'm playing with an Earthlain Dragoon only party.  It's much slower than the Therian team, but you can autobattle 1st stratum FOEs if you throw out 3 Decoy Bunkers.  Decoy Bunker benefits a lot from skill point investment and has turn order priority, so max it out!

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

No update on the 5 Dragoons today, but I'll post some advice for single class challenges in Etrian Odyssey IV.  It's been a while since I did these, so my memory may not be perfect.


5 Dancers

There are two basic builds for this class once you get subclasses.  The first involves stunning everything to death in autobattle.  To do this, give everyone a Nightseeker subclass and the Blade Flurry ability so the Dancers can dual wield daggers.  Then put your points into Sword Dance for more attacks per turn and Mist Dance for the stun chance.  The reason for using daggers is because they have the most forge slots from my experience.

Beat Dance is the other way for Dancers to kill bosses, though it makes random encounters inconvenient.  I used this tactic to beat Heavenbringer.  Beat Dance makes all your Dancers attack at once, but you need to have a tango, a waltz, and a samba active on each character.  Start the fight with Geo Impact to stun your foes and set up defensive dances on the first turn such as Refresh Waltz and Guard Tango.


5 Nightseekers

One Nightseeker Blind Throw may not be enough to blind the enemy, but 5 Blind Throws at once usually works.  You don't need good defenses if you're never hit.  Pick up Auto-Spread for random encounters.  Shadow Cloak lets you laugh as Logre and the Cursed Prince's Drive Blade attacks miss.  Venom Throw is great too because its poison can do up to 700 damage per turn.  That saved me in the Heavenbringer fight.  I used Swift Edge for the final fight, but Shadow Bite is viable too.  For subclasses, I went with Bushi for the front row to get Blood Surge and Endure.  The back row used Arcanist for Ailment Boost.


5 Runemasters

Expect to die often in the first 2 strata.  Equip them with anything you can to make them go first, which means using daggers instead of staves.  Bushi gives them Blood Surge and Endure.  When in doubt about choosing a subclass, go with Bushi.  For Heavenbringer, I switched one of them to an Arcanist subclass for its binding skills out of desperation, and it worked.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I forgot to include details about the Etrian Odyssey 3 Prince/Princess party in my previous posts.  Here's how it went.

The first 3 strata weren't too bad for them.  Royal Veil's passive healing at the end of each turn made the party surprisingly durable as long as at least one character had full health.  This worked until the late game when enemies used area of effect attacks more often, and even then, it still had some use.  Monarch March and Triumphal Cry were other passive skills that kept them healthy between random battles.  Prevent Order blocked status ailments.  A point in Ad Nihilo dispelled enemy buffs.

I only used Regal Radiance when Narmer dove into the mud to prevent its super attack.  Its damage was terrible for a move that required a turn of setup.  Princes and Princesses won battles in the early game by death of a thousand regular attacks, not any fancy skills.

The team was stuck at Shin for a long time because my offense was too weak to overpower her healing.  The trick was to give 3 characters the Arbalist subclass for Front Mortar and Double Action.  The back row used Dark Ether, which lets one row use skills for zero TP cost.  Princes and Princesses may not have the offense of true Arbalists, but Front Mortar was enough to beat the game.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Wow, Amalgolem is annoying with 5 level 15 Dragoons!

It took almost 60 rounds to beat the 1st stratum boss because Dragoons only have Barrage Wall for offense.  Even with that, Earthlains have low TP and could only watch helplessly as the golems recombined.

Always Defend whenever Amalgolem has all its parts because it will Explode that turn and do heavy physical damage to your whole party.  I learned the hard way that Bunkers only protect against single target and line attacks.  They're still very useful for blocking Amalgolem's elemental attacks.  The Tri-Shield Union Skill blocked a few hits from Explode whenever it was available.  

The fight consisted mostly of guzzling Medicas and using regular attacks.  I had almost 70 items in my inventory, and only about 25 after the battle. 

The game should get much easier when the Dragoons limp their way through the second stratum and get promotions.  One weakness of EO5 is that a lot of good skills are locked for 40% of the game.