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Potential Guild Members
In General
Adventurers from around the world who've come to Maginia to explore Lemuria and the local Yggdrasil.- Male options voiced by: Yuuki Inoue (Honest, Cautious), Mutsumi Tamura (Energetic), Yuuki Kuwahara (Precocious), Ayumu Murase (Timid), Shun Horie (Determined, Generic 1), Soma Saito (Earnest, Aloof), Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Spirited, Cold), Hiro Shimono (Flippant, Mellow), Satoru Murakami (Formal, Generic 2), Kengo Kawanishi (Haughty, Robotic), Nobuhiko Okamoto (Cool, Savage), Shin'ya Takahashi (Loud, Generic 3, Serious), Hōchū Ōtsuka (Fierce), Masaki Terasoma (Disdainful) Kenta Miyake (Hearty, Generic 4), Akio Ōtsuka (Resolute), Mitsuru Ogata (Creaky, Experienced), Yoshihisa Kawahara (Announcer)Female options voiced by: Haruka Yoshimura (Playful, Polite), Chiwa Saitō (Genuine, Cool* ), Yuuki Kuwahara (Genki), Yui Ogura (Clumsy, Mild), Ayane Sakura (Decisive, Spunky), Kaori Maeda (Graceful, Generic 3), Saki Fujita (Gallant, Generic 1, Stoic), Miyu Tomita (Rough, Generic 2), Megumi Han (Bold* , Savage), Juri Nagatsuma (Strict, Gentle), Maaya Uchida (Quirky, Wild), Mutsumi Tamura (Stern), Sachiko Kojima (Ardent, Generic 4), Manami Numakura (Cool* ), Shizuka Ishigami (Rowdy, Sultry), Rika Fukami (Bold* , Militant)
- An Adventurer Is You: Moreso than any Etrian Odyssey before, allowing you to freely assign portraits to any class in addition to retaining the option for recoloring and voices from Beyond the Myth and the return of subclassing from The Drowned City and Legends of the Titan, which now allows you to rename the paired classes like the titles of Beyond the Myth. With DLC your options expand to the appearance of every single class throughout the entire series, though most of these lack the recoloring option unless their game provided it. If you ever wanted to be a Pugilist Ninja who just so happens to be a bear vampire known as the Stabdaddy, you can.
- Limit Break: Every class has a Force gauge, which when fully filled can be used for a three-turn Force Boost which gives specific advantages depending on the class. Besides that, you can also choose to perform a Force Break during their Boost, which is usually a very strong attack or support option. It also 'breaks' the Force gauge, making you unable to use it anymore until you return to town.
Etrian Odyssey I and Untold Classes
Protector
Protectors are knights who shield their allies from harm with their heavy armor and shields.- Balance Buff: After several games where they only boosted physical defense, Fortify and Taunt in Nexus now also raise the Protector's elemental defense.
- Boring, but Practical: The class as a whole. Besides some possible builds involving Shield Flare they'll often contribute little except mitigating incoming damage, but they're very good at it.
- Choice of Two Weapons: Protectors can wield swords or spears, though their combat performance is not heavily dependent on what they've chosen.
- Combat Medic: They're able to protect a full line of allies while also healing them with Recovery Guard and Heal Guard. With Healing Wall they're able to heal their line by defending.
- Composite Character: The Protectors of Nexus gained a few defensive skills from the Fortresses of Legends of the Titan and Shield Bearer Dragoons of Beyond the Myth.
- Counter-Attack: Shield Flare inflicts a ranged bash/fire attack every time the user is hit. Combined with Draw Aggro skills including their own Taunt skill and their high defense, a Protector can do significantly more damage than one would expect from a tank class.
- Draw Aggro: Taunt serves this function, and Preemptive Taunt lets that skill be used right at the start of a battle.
- Flaming Sword: Well, Flaming Shield. Their new Shield Flare ability causes anything attacking them the turn it's used and one after to take fire damage.
- Last Chance Hit Point: Aegis lets them occasionally endure a mortal blow with 1 HP remaining.
- Limit Break:
- Shield Protect increases the damage reduction from all guard skills for three turns.
- Painless prevents all damage for one turn, though your party can still get inflicted by ailments and binds.
- No-Sell: The Force Break is Painless, identical to that from Heroes of Lagaard, which turns the party completely invulnerable for the turn. Their elemental Walls return, which lets them negate attacks of particular elements for a turn.
- Shield Bash: They can also use their shields to attack when they don't need to guard the party.
- Stone Wall: They don't need to be fast in order to protect their allies or take heavy hits. Their Strength stat is a little below average, and usually is compensated for with great damage multipliers from their shield skills. Their speed is literally the lowest of the low, being outsped by everything else — only their defensive skills get Action Initiative to intercept incoming attacks.
- Taking the Bullet: If Taunt is not sufficient on its own, Ally Shield lets them take all hits for a party member with reduced damage. Line Shield does the same for a whole line.
Medic (Etrian Odyssey)
Medics are top-class healers, ready to take on any injury or ailment that befalls their allies.- After-Combat Recovery: Patch Up restores the party's HP after winning a battle.
- Balance Buff:
- Medics in Legends of the Titan were better off as a subclass than as a main class. In Nexus, the Medic skills now scale a lot better past the halfway point, giving use to Medic-main party members.
- The Revive skill no longer has any prerequisites, so you can easily access a backup plan when things go awry during the Early Game Hell.
- Combat Medic: With the right subclass, Medics can double as good attackers in situations where they're not healing the party. Staff Mastery has been reworked with this in mind. In older games this skill would increase their TP while opening up staff attacks that do not necessarily need to be invested in. In Nexus Staff Mastery instead requires investment in all of their attack skills.
- Composite Character: While they're using the original Medics' designs, the vast majority of their skills come from their Legends of the Titan skill tree. Their new Deja Vu skill allows them to temporarily replicate War Magi's repeating heal trait, while Group Therapy has been reworked to be more in line with Botanists' Shared Nostrum.
- Limit Break:
- Intensive Care speeds up their healing skills as well as increasing their effectiveness, while halving the TP cost.
- Healing Touch heals and revives dead party members and cures all binds and ailments.
- The Medic: It's right there in the name; the class revolves around healing party members.
- Shout-Out: Their Force Break, Healing Touch, is a definite reference to Trauma Center.
Ronin
Ronin are master of foreign blade arts that revolve around stances.- Armor-Piercing Attack: Their Helm Splitter attack ignores all resistances and hits pretty hard as well.
- Balance Buff: Not only do the Ronin retain their stance-assuming attacks from The Fafnir Knight, any investment in the stances causes them to automatically assume their highest-level stance at the start of battle. Clear Stance, which used to solely increase defense, the Ronin's Dump Stat, now offers both a defense boost and an ailment infliction rate bonus.
- Due to the new infliction formula in Nexus favoring Strength over Luck when applicable, they've now get much more use out of their bind- and ailment-inflicting skills. The reworked Clear Stance helps with this too.
- Composite Character: The Ronin in this game inherit some skills from their Masurao cousins from Beyond the Myth.
- Critical Hit Class: Their stance-based attacks can now be used in any stance instead of just the corresponding one. To compensate, their attack skills deal an automatic critical hit whenever they are used with their corresponding stance — e.g. Flame Grater crits during Upper Stance.
- Glass Cannon: Possesses the greatest Strength score among the cast, and reasonable Agility to boot. However, their defenses are pretty poor for a frontline class.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Though Ronin are capable of using Swords as well, all their attack skills specify needing Katanas equipped.
- Limit Break:
- Musou gives the effects of all three stances and makes your Ronin unable to lose their stance for three turns.
- Issen is an target-all melee attack with a high chance of inflicting instant death.
- Nerf: Their stronger attack skills now deduct stance duration on use. The strongest attack of each stance's branch not only cancels the stance, but also prevents them from using skills on their next turn.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Their Force Break, Issen, delivers a strong ranged cut attack to all enemies that has a high chance of instantly killing them.
- Stance System: Their signature stances return. This time, their Peerless Stance is adapted into their Force Boost, which also carries the perk of preserving the stance.
Survivalist
Survivalists use their experience with nature to better traverse the dangers of the labyrinth.- Action Initiative:
- Their Force Boost, Illusion Step, raises the entire party's action speed and evasion. Their Force Break, Mirage Arrow, is an inverse of this, doing damage to an enemy and applying a debuff to reduce its action speed and accuracy.
- Quick Step lets them force an ally to go first, letting slow party members get the jump on enemies.
- Always Accurate Attack: Hazy Arrow will always hit, and unlike most examples of this trope it actually does pretty solid damage. The catch is that it can only be used after successfully dodging an attack on the previous turn.
- Arrows on Fire: Flame Arrow lets them strike an enemy with fire damage, giving them an out against physically resistant targets.
- Coup de Grâce: Finishing Shot allows a Survivalist attacking an enemy at low HP to follow up with a normal attack in hopes of actually finishing it off.
- Death from Above: Sagittarius Shot fires an arrow into the sky that comes back down two turns later for a lot of damage, potentially stunning the target.
- Draw Aggro: Chain Dance temporarily increases the Survivalist's chance of being targeted on top of their evasion, which ties in nicely to Hazy Arrow, a powerful skill only available after dodging an attack. They can also use Scapegoat to apply this trope to any of their allies.
- Forest Ranger: They're known in Japan as Rangers.
- Fragile Speedster: Survivalists are lightning fast, but not very strong. They rely on their high dodge chance and placement in the back row to stay alive.
- Glass Cannon: They pack a surprising amount of punch for a Utility Party Member class, but can't take much damage, instead relying on their high evasion as a form of soft defense.
- Limit Break:
- Illusory Formation increases the speed and evasion of all party members.
- Mirage Arrow deals heavy stab damage to one enemy, lowers accuracy and forcing it to go last for three turns.
- Long-Range Fighter: They are designated as back-row classes due to their low defenses, but make up for it with bows that can attack either enemy row. One of their skills, Drop Shot, encourages this approach further, doing more damage to enemies in the back row.
- Status Effects: Blind Arrow has a (surprisingly high) chance of inflicting blindness, Disabling Shot allows their bow skills a chance to bind the targets' legs, and Sagittarius Shot has a chance to stun the target.
- Utility Party Member: They have a lot of skills dedicated to easing travel through the labyrinth, on top of skills that improve item yields from gather points.
Highlander
Highlanders are fierce warriors who sacrifice their own health to strike their foes down.- Balance Buff:
- Black Sabbath, their Life Drain skill, no longer transfers enemy binds and ailments to the user or their allies, making it much less situational.
- Gae Bolg no longer uses up the party's HP.
- Cast from Hit Points: Several of their skills rely on sacrificing HP, be it theirs or their allies'.
- Charged Attack: Delayed Charge builds up power over two to four turns before striking. Using Cross Charge allows you to trigger it sooner at the cost of reduced power.
- Combination Attack: Spear Assist, normally a weak attack, increases in power and copies the element of an ally's attack should the Highlander's turn come after theirs.
- Critical Status Buff: Their Spear Reversal skill does triple damage when their percentage of HP remaining is lower than the opponents.
- Exact Words: Like before, Bloodlust's proc chance activates when the user takes damage. Note that the skill description doesn't mention that the damage has to come from an enemy attack, meaning that Bloodlust can proc upon using a skill that costs HP or even from Vampire sunlight damage!
- Jack of All Trades: When they aren't busy delivering spear damage to the enemy ranks, they can support the party with situational buffs and healing. The tradeoff here is that these buffs are also Cast from Hit Points, and the healing is almost strictly Life Drain.
- Life Drain: Their Force Boost, Hero Battle, lets them heal the entire party when they damage enemies with Spear skills. Black Sabbath allows them to do so at any time, while Turning Tide will do so only on killing blows.
- Lightning Bruiser: They have above-average Vitality and Agility and can do a lot of damage. While many of their skills are Cast from Hit Points, they also have ways to gain the lost health back after a hit or a kill.
- Limit Break:
- Hero Battle increases the damage of spear skills and heals your party for a portion of the damage inflicted.
- Gae Bolg inflicts ranged stab damage to all enemies and restores TP to the user based on damage dealt.
- Nerf: They've lost their Limitless skill, so they have to equip the right weapons for weapon skills like everyone else now.
Etrian Odyssey II Classes
Gunner
Gunners are marksmen who strike enemies from a distance with their powerful firearms.- Action Initiative: Act Quick makes their next skill come out much faster (along with a TP discount on that skill).
- Boring, but Practical: Rapid Fire is a skill they can learn right off the bat that does three hits of modest damage, and more importantly has a very quick act speed. Against random encounters it is useful for picking off low-health enemies before they can try any funny business on your party.
- Charged Attack:
- Implied with their Charge Shot and elemental Charge attacks. They take time to charge a powerful attack, an act that forces them to move last in the turn, on top of dropping their defenses.
- Act Quick plays with this trope. Rather than amplifying damage, on the next turn the user gets an act speed boost and a TP cost discount. At max level, even their strongest skills use no more than 10 TP and they are near-guaranteed to go first.
- Combat Medic: Gunners have the skills to deal damage and heal their allies in a pinch.
- Death or Glory Attack: Their Charge Shots inflict massive damage, but heavily drop their act speed and defenses until activation, likely getting them killed. Fortunately, Act Quick can get around this problem.
- Double Tap: Emulated with Double Action and Multi-Shot. The former is their Force Boost that will get them guaranteed second shots, while the latter bestows a low passive chance of a skill activating extra times on its own.
- Glass Cannon: Sport a remarkable Strength growth, but their their low Agility reduces their accuracy and turn speed, making it likely for them to take a hit before moving. Their middling HP and defenses also reduces their survivability, only moderated by them usually operating on the back line.
- Healing Shiv: They can heal their allies by shooting them with special healing ammo. As a bonus, it will also remove status ailments.
- Jack of All Trades: They have access to the ability to bind enemies, heal allies in a pinch, strike multiple enemies in different formations and access elemental damage. The last of these is only available at the end of their skill tree, unlike in previous games.
- Limit Break:
- Double Action causes all gun skills to activate twice at no extra TP cost, but with reduced power.
- Riot Gun inflicts ranged stab damage to one enemy and has a high chance to stun (preventing it from acting for the rest of the turn).
War Magus
War Magi combine their magical knowledge with the might of the blade, able to heal, afflict, and attack.- Action Initiative: Their War Heal skills activate twice — at the start and end of the turn, letting them get some first aid in to maintain the party's health.
- Choice of Two Weapons: They can wield either a sword or a staff. Their War Edge Mastery passive allows them to use staves for sword-requiring skills (their War Edge attacks) as well as boosting their attack a bit. If you wield a sword instead you get an increased max TP pool. If you opt to wield one of each you get both bonuses.
- By subclassing into a War Magus you can invoke this on other sword-using classes like the Hero or Nightseeker, who can now wield staves and still use their skills. Notable in that the strongest staff in Nexus boost a significantly higher ATK stat than the strongest sword.
- Combat Medic: They possess a good deal of healing skills, albeit not as strong as the Medic's, with sufficient physical firepower for the front lines if ailments are being thrown around.
- Limit Break:
- War Edge Power allows their War Edge skills to trigger their additional effects, even when the enemy isn't suffering from a status ailment.
- Fairy Robe restores HP and removes all binds and ailments from party members. It also makes them immune to ailments, stun, binds and instant death for one turn.
- Mighty Glacier: Good offensive and defensive stats, impaired by low Agility. Their skills' Action Initiative work to mitigate that.
- Nerf: Their formerly powerful Barrier now can only activate up to 3 times, meaning it can no longer defend the entire party.
- No-Sell: Their Barrier skill has a chance of blocking ailments, binds, and debuffs to the party. Their Force Break, Fairy Robe, not only heals the party and lifts ailments and binds, but also has guaranteed prevention of any ailments, binds, and debuffs during the turn it's used.
- Status Effects: Can cause a random ailment with Random Disease, which enables the side effects of their War Edge skills.
Etrian Odyssey III Classes
Sovereign
Sovereigns are armored royals who inspire their allies by healing and strengthening them.- Balance Buff: Formerly, elemental imbue skills would only affect the user's weapon and sometimes only one user at a time; when the party is at a point where they'd prefer to attack with their own skills, the imbues don't factor into this. The elemental imbue buffs in Nexus now affect a party line and also amplify the strength of skills with the corresponding element, multiplying the damage done by elemental DPS. Several other skills are also weapon-based, making them compatible with elemental imbues.
- Battle Ballgown: The female portraits came to kick ass and look absolutely radiant while doing so.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Their fancy clothes are no hindrance to their combat capability.
- Limit Break:
- Victory Vow causes their Order buffs to target all party members while halving TP costs.
- Proof of Nobility doubles the effect of nearly all buffs while making them unable to be removed.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Certainly implied by the class name, though not strictly necessary.
- Status Buff: One of their primary focuses is buffing their allies. Their new Force Break, Nobility Proof, prevents buffs from being dispelled and amplifies their effects for the turn.
- Status-Buff Dispel: Some of their skills involve willingly dispelling buffs from the party for an effect, like a temporary attack boost or a burst of healing. Their usual offensive version of this, Ad Nihilo, has unfortunately been left out this time around, but their Elemental Bomb series lets them dispel imbue buffs to proactively attack.
- Stone Wall: Solid defensive stats, passive healing, and access to heavy armor makes them reasonably tanky, but they come with low Strength and Agility that impairs their damage output and turn speed. They do have a few attack skills but these come out rather infrequently as they involve dispelling certain buffs first.
Ninja
Ninjas are versatile fighters trained in the art of the ninja.- Action Bomb: Ninjas and their clones are capable of exploding upon death.
- Choice of Two Weapons: Can wield knives and katanas. Since a lot of their offensive skills require a knife you probably won't use the latter much unless you go dual-wielding.
- Doppelgänger Attack: Ninjas can create clones of themselves that act independently in battle. Like their home game, their clones will occupy vacant party slots, including the sixth.
- Draw Aggro: Several of their skills, including their Force Boost, raises the chance of them being targeted along with their evasion rate.
- Fragile Speedster: Very high Agility and evasion, on par with the Survivalists, but also very low HP and Vitality. The Ninja can't take a lot of hits, provided they actually get hit.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Some of them dress in pretty brightly-colored clothing, and all of them have long flaming scarves. Justified, as their niche is serving as an evasion tank for the group while also wanting their clones to get killed off for extra attacks.
- Limit Break:
- Diversion Gambit increases the Ninja's evasion and their chance to be targeted.
- Ninpo: Toxic Mist has an almost guaranteed chance to poison enemies, assuming they aren't immune to it.
- Nerf:
- Their Keburi no Sue class skill has been split into Proficiency and Mystic Calm. The feature that allows a Ninja to attack from the back row at no damage penalty is available only from a maxed-out Proficiency (as opposed to the very first point in the class skill), and the TP reduction is now in Mystic Calm that's available all the way at the end of the skill tree.
- The Ninja's cloning powers are much less plug-and-play compared to The Drowned City, especially for subclassing. Ninpo: Double now consumes a large percentage of the user's HP/TP before splitting it between the clones, and requires heavy skill point investment to alleviate this instead of being a one-point skill (even maxed, it still results in a noticeable HP/TP loss). The user also can't use their Force skills while doubled, which is a heavy tradeoff for almost every class in the game unless they've already consumed their Force Break. Lastly, while doubles no longer have to complete with Wildling animals or Yggdroid bots for the sixth party slot, they do have to compete with Hero afterimages, which causes some teambuilding consequences due to how versatile Heroes and Hero subclasses are.
- The Tagen Battou skill in The Drowned City allowed a Ninja to team up with their clone for a dual attack. If you had more than one clone active the damage would be doubled for each additional clone present, leading to some ridiculous situations where a relatively low-level Ninja could kill the game's Super Boss with just a few turns of set-up. When the skill returned in Nexus as Drawing Slice its base damage was lowered significantly to prevent similar strategies from being possible.
- Ninja: Naturally. They dress the part and fight with knives and katanas.
- Off with His Head!: Beheading lets their normal attacks deliver a One-Hit Kill.
- Scarf of Asskicking: They have long flaming scarves.
- Status Effects: Their knife skills deal damage and afflict all sorts of ailments.
- Shadow Pin: Can do this with the Shadow Bind skill, which can inflict a leg bind preventing enemies from dodging further attacks.
- Taken for Granite: Can inflict this upon enemies with their Izuna skill.
Zodiac
Zodiacs study the stars and use their mystical knowledge to utilize the elements.- Attack Its Weak Point: The Singularity passive amplifies the damage they deal when striking an enemy weakness.
- Charged Attack: Taking a lesson from Warlocks, Zodiacs can now take a turn to either focus their spells down to a stronger single target strike or a random target attack that strikes far more times than normal. Additionally Ether Cycle serves as a constant charge up, converting a portion of the previous turn's TP costs into additional damage.
- Composite Character: Most of their new abilities were taken directly from Runemasters and Warlocks.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The game's primary source of elemental damage. Their Force Break, Astrosign, is an attack that combines all three elements at once.
- Flaming Meteor: Their Meteor spell returns, dealing numerous bash attacks to random targets.
- Limit Break:
- Divination increases the damage of their attacks while refunding half the TP expended.
- Astrosign hits all enemies with a attack consisting of all three elemental types and reduces all allies' TP costs to zero.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted. Early on their damage is among the best in the game due to having access to most of their attacks right away, while their higher-end skills are more supportive compared to the sheer numbers that other physical beaters will be able to put out. Most of their damage potential stems from being able to exploit elemental weaknesses, but in the late-game where these weaknesses are few, Zodiacs can't keep up on neutral hits.
- Nerf: Dark Ether now provides a percentage TP cost reduction rather than grant allies free skills for the turn.
- No-Sell: Their Prophecy skills, like the Protector's Walls, can negate one enemy attack of the corresponding attribute for the turn. It gives them a temporary attack buff if an attack is prevented this way, but the skills aren't guaranteed to deploy at the start of the turn like the Walls.
- Squishy Wizard: Their powerful magic doesn't do much for their survivability and are better utilized in the back row.
Farmer
Farmers may not have much to contribute to battle, but they excel at gathering natural materials from the labyrinths they visit.- Balance Buff:
- Farmers in their source game were intentionally terrible in combat. Nexus reworks a few of their skills, like giving Lullaby a large speed bonus, and adds one new attack skill: Harvest Festival. Farmers now get to contribute to a fight by potentially instantly killing bound enemies, giving the player reason to use them in combat. On top of that, Farmers become very good at crowd control and Force regeneration, making them a valuable support class in boss fights.
- Play Possum can now be applied to anyone in the party, not just the user.
- Boring, but Practical: They can't do much damage in a fight; their strength is in providing healing or escape, in addition to gathering materials.
- Cast from Hit Points: Flee takes off a large fraction of the party's HP if it succeeds. It won't cause any damage if it fails, so you won't get your party necessarily trashed because of a failed escape attempt. Leveling the skill up decreases the HP cost, becoming a measly 5 HP at maximum level.
- Experience Booster: Their Earth's Bounty passive increases Experience yields from battle.
- Injured Vulnerability: Their Rotten Egg skill debuffs all enemies' offense, with the effect being greater on enemies suffering status ailments.
- Item Caddy: Their Force Boost allows them to use the effects of an in-battle consumable twice. They're also specialized in harvesting materials, and can even gather them while walking around.
- Lethal Joke Character:
- Incredible Luck growth makes it very easy for a Farmer to spread ailments to enemies, and when combined with their Force Boost they become very good at spreading ailments and binds with the "Gas" and "Binder" consumables. This works spectacularly in tandem with Harvest Festival, which gives them a chance to One-Hit Kill bound enemies.
- As a subclass they greatly help to offset the strain on TP some classes have, in addition to retaining much of their utility as a main class.
- Limit Break:
- Item Echo allows them to use any item twice for three turns without using up a second copy.
- Final Secret fully fills everyone's Force gauge and even has a chance to restore broken gauges.
- Magikarp Power: The Farmer's most valuable skills — Lullaby, Harvest Festival, and Double Crop — only become unlocked at level 40. Prior to that, they don't have much in the way of contributing to battle short of lobbing in-battle items.
- Nerf: In The Drowned City, they have the To Market skill, which effectively serves as an Ariadne Thread substitute that costs 13 TP. In Nexus, it's been changed to Flee, which not only has been weakened to only take the party back to the last stairs or geomagnetic pole used, but can only be used in battle, has a failure chance, and costs a fraction of the entire party's HP if it succeeds.
- One-Hit Kill: Harvest Festival has a chance to instantly kill bound enemies. With someone who can reliably bind the entire party at once and the Farmer in the front line (since it's classified as a melee attack), this can result in erasing an entire enemy party in a single turn.
- Playing Possum: Their Play Possum skill causes the targeted ally to do this, drawing aggro away from them.
- Utility Party Member: Outside of battle is where they're most effective.
Shogun
Shoguns are skilled tacticians and generals who are also highly capable fighters.- Authority Equals Asskicking: Their command skills alter the behaviour of the team, and they're no slouch in battle themselves.
- Ax-Crazy: Their Execution passive gives them a chance of instantly killing any combatant falling to low HP, be it friend or foe. Their Bloody Lance ability also boosts their attack whenever they score a kill, even if they just murdered their teammate, and the dialogue box for it reads "<name>'s eyes are turning red!".
- Balance Buff: Great Warrior (formerly known as Daifuhensha) now can be applied to any party member. As it gives the greatest attack buff in the game (a whopping 60%) it can build up to some powerful one-man DPS strategies.
- Coup de Grâce: Execution has a chance to instantly kill any other combatant falling to low HP, with its threshold as high as 15% HP at its max level. While it looks very risky on paper, its true value is that it works on most bosses, allowing you to end the fight early and skip phases where the boss Turns Red.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The great variety of Situational Sword skills in the Shogun's repertoire makes them an oddity. Knowing how to command and attack, though, can deliver great results.
- Disc-One Nuke: A lot of Shogun's Novice-tier skills are extremely powerful, and remain viable all the way till the endgame. Echoing Slash is a fairly powerful skill that can be imbued with Elements to hit weakness. Front Command allows you counterattack with your frontline for a massive 600% damage modifier, can be learned without any pre-requisites and is maxed with a mere 6 skill points investment. Great Warrior at its max level of 6 is a 60% ATK buff, making it the strongest ATK increasing buff in the game on its own. Finally Avidya Sight increases your attack at nighttime, giving a free 20% ATK buff when exploring at night. On top of this, the Shogun use Katana as their main weapon, which is the strongest weapon type in the game. Their more advanced skills, unlocked at higher levels, are offset by gimmicks or high costs that make them risky to invest, but this does mean that you get a lot of free skill points to focus into your subclass.
- Dual Wielding: Emphasizes this more than other classes. They get a passive skill that raises their defense while dual-wielding, and a few of their attack skills hit twice as many times while dual-wielding.
- Glass Cannon: Having two slots dedicated to weapons means less for armor. They're also restricted to the lightest armor class which doesn't do them any favors on the front line. They actually have passive skills that trigger when they die and get revived.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The self-damage from Warrior's Might can result in death.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Shogun can only equip katanas, as opposed to the Ronin and Ninja who can at least equip an alternative.
- Limit Break:
- Unified Effort increases the maximum HP and damage output of all party members.
- Decoy Party negates the first hostile action against all party members.
- Nerf: The famed Warrior's Might now carries a HP cost to it, and HP loss this way can kill the user.
- Sacrificial Revival Spell: They gain a skill that lets them kill themselves for a chance to revive all fallen party members.
Etrian Odyssey IV Classes
Note: The fourth and final class in this folder is a Late-Arrival Spoiler for Etrian Odyssey IV.
Landsknecht (Legends of the Titan)
Landsknechts are quick and experienced blade wielders.- Action Initiative: Their Vanguard skill returns, granting them a buff that is almost guaranteed to get them to go first in battle. Their Force Boost and Break will also give them a large action speed bonus. Both of these tie in nicely to their Proficiency passive, which raises damage inflicted by subsequent allies to whoever they hit.
- Balance Buff: Formerly, their Link skills would only follow up once without any setup, making the Landsknecht very buff-hungry, as you need two slots for Vanguard and Improved Link at almost all times. The Link skills in Nexus now follow up a maximum of four times without setup, meaning a Landsknecht can function even if only one of the above two buffs are active.
- Choice of Two Weapons: Landsknechts can use swords and rapiers, each with their exclusive portion of the skill tree, but also no longer have any compensatory skills for Dual Wielding.
- Combination Attack: Their Link skills form a significant portion of their skill set. After striking an enemy with the Link skill, any ally that attacks that same enemy triggers a follow-up hit. This time, their Link follow-ups can also land Critical Hits, and Link Finale serves as a finisher after a long chain of follow-ups.
- Lightning Bruiser: Their Vanguard skill raises their action speed and damage output, and while it leads to a defense debuff, the Landsknecht is resilient enough that the penalty is largely negligible, especially when they can kill enemies before they act.
- Limit Break:
- Trinity increases their damage output, action speed and accuracy.
- Full Charge makes the Landsknecht fully immune to all enemy actions, while increasing the speed and damage dealt of their skills the next turn.
- Shed Armor, Gain Speed: Vanguard essentially lets the Landsknecht gain a large attack and speed bonus in exchange for a defense reduction. Landsknechts seeking to get the first hit without relying on this buff will also have to forsake heavier equipment.
- Shield Bash: Their "Break" attack skills require them to be using a shield, and inflict debuffs on their targets.
Nightseeker
Nightseekers are shadowed assassins who use their knives to drain their opponents' strength before going in for the kill.- Cape Swish: Emulated with their Shadow Cloak skill. In Nexus, they now have more skills that synergize with or improve it.
- Choice of Two Weapons: Equally capable of using swords or knives — their attack skills don't discriminate.
- Dual Wielding: Blade Flurry allows the Nightseeker to equip two weapons and have their normal attacks hit with both.
- Fragile Speedster: The highest Agility stat in the cast, but this comes with mediocre defenses. They are also one of the few classes who can dual wield without a subclass, and that second weapon uses up a slot that can otherwise go towards armor or an accessory. This is fortunately mitigated by their ability to work in the back row and Shadow Cloak.
- Gathering Steam: Foul Mastery increases their attack power every time they inflict a status ailment. The buff lasts until battle ends or the user is killed.
- Injured Vulnerability: They have skills that improve their damage output on ailing enemies.
- Limit Break:
- Killing Intent increases damage dealt and the chance of landing ailments.
- Disaster deals melee cut damage while extending the duration of any ailment present.
- Nerf: Follow Trace only repeats the attack skill if the target has an ailment. Assassinate only inflicts instant death if Shadow Cloak is active for the Nightseeker.
- Single-Use Shield: Shadow Cloak will block a single physical attack. Having it activate as part of Auto-Cloak in particular helps, because Nightseekers have very frail defenses, which can be further worsened by equipping two weapons. That said, getting hit with Shadow Cloak can still be problematic, as many skills only work to their fullest with Shadow Cloak active.
- Status Effects: Their skill repertoire includes Throw skills that attempt to inflict ailments so that their stronger skills can do a number on affected enemies.
Arcanist
Arcanists are powerful magic users from a race of people dedicated to guarding the Yggdrasil tree in Tharsis. They set up magical fields to afflict their opponents and can use them to attack or heal.- Instant Runes: Their various Circle spells create a lingering magical circle over the battlefield to provide their effects.
- Limit Break:
- Circle Paradise increases the chance of landing ailments and binds, and causes Circles to persist even when using a Dismissal skill.
- Releasal Spell removes all buffs and accumulated resistances from all enemies - normally, they become more resistant to an ailment or bind after being inflicted with it which slowly resets as the battle drags on.
- Magical Eye: They possess the Charm and Atrophic Eye skills, lowering all enemies' attack and defense respectively.
- Nerf: Their Circle spells now no longer trigger directly when cast, but only at the end of a turn. Some of them had their base infliction chance lowered as well.
- Releasal Spell was an expensive but consistent way to reset the accumalated bind and ailment resistance of enemies in their debut game. It's been turned into their Force Break now, giving you only one use of it per battle.
- Non-Elemental: The magical attacks they can use from dismissing their Circles are untyped.
- Noodle People: Vessels are seriously skinny.
- Squishy Wizard: Their HP and Vitality growth barely surpass those of the Zodiacs.
- Status Effects: Arcanists revolve mostly around using their Circles to inflict status effects and binds on enemies.
- Support Party Member: The Arcanist devotes a lot of their skill points to abilities that don't directly cause damage.
- Token Non-Human: As Vessels, Arcanists are the only playable non-human characters in the roster by default. Other races from previous games are available as portrait DLC.
Imperial
Imperials are the royal guard of the Empire of Yggdrasil, wielding powerful mechanical swords that overheat with use.- BFS: Their Drive Blades are enormous, and using them prevents access to a sub-weapon.
- Boring, but Practical:
- The starter skill Natural Edge, it hits decently hard for an early-game skill, and can be imbued with elements to hit elemental weaknesses, all for a measly cost of 3 to 7 TP per use. Natural Edge is effective right from the start where it's the most effective skill to spam for Imperial when they aren't Driving, and it retains its effectiveness even later on as a cheap way to trigger elemental weakness. Using Natural Edge alone, Imperials are some of the best damage dealer early in the game when most other options did not have access to their better skills.
- On a similar note is Assault Drive, the most basic Drive attack with a 900% damage modifier at max level. It is stronger than the Elemental Drives which cap at 670%, and is more efficient for enemies lacking elemental weaknesses which aren't resistant to cut damage. The shorter cooldown also makes it easier to spam if your TP permits it, and it's easily a staple for boss fights until you access Accel Drive.
- Impulse Edge is a Combo skill that restores the user's TP with each hit, in a game where Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap. At maximum skill level, it restores 35 TP. And unlike most other attack skills in the game that increase in TP cost when they reach certain level thresholds, Impulse Edge costs a fixed 5 TP no matter what. Both of these factors make it important for managing the Imperial's low TP pool, especially when they use their TP-hungry Drive skills.
- Charged Attack: Charge Edge, a Final skill, allows their next attack to do increased damage.
- Combos: Outside of their Drive skills their attacks come in three varieties; Starter, Combo, and Final. Starter skills must always be used first, Combo can only follow a Starter, while Final can follow either.
- Cooldown Manipulation: Some of their skills can reduce the number of turns they have to wait to use their Drive skills after overheating.
- Death or Glory Attack: Normally Imperials are fairly durable. However, when charging their Drive attacks, they take double damage from enemy attacks until it's ready, which will almost certainly be at the end of the turn.
- Glass Cannon: Despite having high Vitality and being compatible with heavy armor, they are this in practice due to their slow-acting Drive skills reducing their defense dramatically until activation. Unless given a way to mitigate those penalties or the enemy is prevented from attacking, their Drive skills might as well be Press X to Die.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Their Drive Blades, which are motorized, relatively advanced-technology blades that ensure that whatever it hits with its full power turns into a fine paste.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: In Legends of the Titan, Imperials serve the Yggdrasil Empire, the existence of which is not revealed until the last act of the game and which serves as an enemy faction until circumstances lead to a collective Heel–Face Turn, allowing Imperials to be recruited into your guild. Here, they're available at the start of the game.
- Limit Break:
- Ignition has been reworked into their Force Boost, preventing Overheating for three turns.
- Conversion greatly restores their TP and allows them to surpass their normal TP limits.
- Liquid Assets: They have both the Life Drain and Mana Drain varieties. Blood Edge is the former while Impulse Edge and Force Edge are the latter.
- Magikarp Power: Imperials are extremely inefficient in the early game, where they have a laughably small TP pool relative to how much their skills cost, their Drive skills in particular, and will likely get killed if they try to use them. It's not until about level 50 or so that they start to realize their true power, as by then they have much better TP that they can recharge (through Impulse Drive), enough Skill Points to invest in ways to manage the long cooldowns and various weaknesses of their Drive skills (such as Sharp Edge and Cool Edge, Intercooler, and subclassing), and a variety of adequately powerful attack skills they can use while waiting for their Drive skills to become available again or when those Drives are simply not necessary (their non-cooldown Edge skills).
- In their debut game, Imperials also had similar issues, but because they were a class unlocked in the late game, you got a couple of key items to skip a fresh Imperial straight to level 40 and have enough TP, skill points, and a subclass to assemble a competent build. In Nexus, you don't have this luxury.
- Mighty Glacier: Imperials have the third highest HP and second highest Strength and Vitality in the entire game. To compensate, the have the worst Agility out of every class, tying with the Protector. They're able to make any character one as well, or even more so if they already were. Heavy Guard provides a massive 40% damage mitigation, but forces the character to act only at the end of turn.
- Magitek: Drive Blades combine advanced machinery with elemental magic.
- Non-Elemental: Accel Drive, an untyped Drive attack.
- Overheating: Their signature Drive Blades can overheat when unleashing attacks and require time to cool down. Heat Shield turns this into an advantage, giving them a considerable level of damage mitigation during the cooldown turns.
- Signature Move: Their Drive series of skills, which inflict extreme amounts of damage but take many turns to recharge.
- Splash Damage: Massive Edge hits adjacent targets for lesser damage, and is in fact the only way for an Imperial to damage multiple enemies without weapon or subclass skills.
Etrian Odyssey V Classes
Harbinger
Harbingers fight with wicked scythes, utilizing a magical miasma to defend or afflict.- Balance Buff:
- Rather than spend a turn (or extra skill points) setting up Miasma Armor, now any investment in Miasma Armor causes the Harbinger to begin the battle with it active. Furthermore, it is no longer Cast from Hit Points.
- Black Shroud now activates when using Miasma Armor and stays active as long as Miasma Armor is running, rather than only kicking in for one turn after inflicting status ailments.
- Atonement and Eroding Miasma previously were on the second page of the skill tree, and only if the user took the Deathguard Legendary Title. Both skills are now available on the first page, allowing them to be learned before level 20. The latter skill also has its TP cost reduced.
- Soul Transfer is now a more straightforward revival spell compared to its previous version in Beyond the Myth.
- Previously, "dismiss miasma" skills would do just that, cast a skill but remove Miasma Armor. A Master skill in this game, Enduring Armor, causes dismiss skills to only remove a set number of turns from Miasma Armor rather than clear it out entirely (as long as the remaining turns is greater than 0, of course).
- With the Endless Shroud passive they have a chance to increase the duration of their Miasma Armor whenever they inflict a debuff. With some investment you can build up a decent reserve of turns just debuffing enemies for those situations where you suddenly need a "dismiss miasma" skill.
- Combat Medic: In addition to inflicting damage, debuffs, and status ailments, they can also dispel their miasma to heal, remove ailments, and resurrect allies.
- Fog of Doom: Their various Miasma abilities qualify, being used to debuff enemies or enable their scythe attacks to inflict ailments.
- Limit Break:
- Endless Armor prevents their Miasma Armor duration from decreasing or being removed by their other skills.
- Miasma Tsunami greatly reduces all enemies' attack, defense, evasion, speed and resistance to ailments and binds.
- Nerf:
- Ephemeral Reap no longer dispels buffs, but its damage output was greatly reduced in the transition. Not helping matters is that Nexus Harbingers have an average Strength stat.
- Fatal Reap no longer gets buffed by an enemy's sleep status, and given that instant-kill attacks throughout the series (heck, throughout the RPG genre) are rather unreliable, this makes Fatal Reap all but useless.
- No-Sell: Miasma Wall lets them sacrifice their Miasma Armor to protect the party against ailments and binds. Spirit Barrier does the same, only defending against debuffs, stuns, and instakills.
- One-Hit Kill: Fatal Reap, which inflicts melee cut damage with a chance of an instant kill.
- Support Party Member: The skill set of Harbingers in Nexus is skewed towards their Deathguard prestige skills. Unless supplanted with a subclass the Harbinger would find themselves supporting their allies more than going on the offense.
- Status Effects: Their scythes can inflict status effects when used in tandem with miasma.
Pugilist
Pugilists prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, using their fists to fight.- Cast from Hit Points: Some Pugilist skills require sacrificing HP.
- Combos: Their entire binding skill tree has skills that interact with each other. One-Two Punch attempts to use all three binding skills to fully bind an enemy in one fell swoop, while Leading Blow launches a combo of attacks on a bound or ailing enemy.
- Glass Cannon: Despite having the highest natural HP stat among the classes, Pugilists get average armor at best, and their Vitality is subpar and their Wisdom is the lowest in the game. Thus they have some difficulty taking many blows from enemies that they haven't disabled.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Pugilists fight hand-to-hand, and are the only ones capable of wielding fist weapons.
- Limit Break:
- Bind Rush increases the chance of landing binds. It also causes them to chase all attacks against enemies who are inflicted with at least one bind.
- Final Blow deals bash damage and has a chance of inflicting all three binds.
- Nerf: Their fist weapons were significantly weakened in stats. In Beyond the Myth, the ultimate fist was among the strongest weapons in the game, just behind the ultimate katana. In Nexus it's the second weakest, barely surpassing the ultimate knife. A lot of Pugilist skills also had their damage output reduced in the transition to Nexus.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs:
- Their Million Lash passive lets their normal attacks hit 2 to 4 times if they're equipping two weapons.
- One-Two Punch launches a punch, which then may follow up with their binding punches on unbound body parts. If a bind lands, Following Strike can trigger, adding a Corkscrew to the mix. If everything unfolds perfectly, you can have a Pugilist attack seven times in one action.
- Resonance Blow is a Charged Attack, dealing an extra hit for each turn that passes without it being used. In a protracted battle it can deliver nine hits in a single move, which can build into an amazing follow-through with a 9-hit Lash Out.
- Status Effects: Their punches can inflict binds or paralysis on enemies.
New Classes
Hero
Heroes are a new class hailing from the floating city of Maginia. They can fill most any role, whether attacking, defending, or supporting.- Anti-Armor: Their Spark Blade skill is followed by a volt-elemental attack that does more damage the higher the enemy's cut resistance is.
- Doppelgänger Attack: Heroes can spawn afterimages when they attack. These afterimages take up an empty party slot and, the turn after being summoned, use the same attack that spawned them before disappearing at the turn's end.
- The Hero: It's right there in the name. They seem to be the "main character" class of the game, as with the Protector in the first two games, the Princess/Sovereign in the third, the Landsknecht in the fourth, or the Fencer in the fifth.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: To the extent that they cannot equip any other weapon, in contrast to every other sword-using class which can use an alternative.
- Jack of All Trades: Their skill tree allows them to ably attack, defend, or heal. Their one weakness is their subpar Luck stat.
- Kid Hero: Literally, if the player chooses their younger portraits for the character.
- Limit Break:
- Brave Heart drastically boosts the Hero's chance of spawning afterimages and the power of those afterimages for three turns.
- Miracle Edge unleashes a flurry of close-range cut attacks on all enemies and then heals all allies above their max HP.
- Shield Bash: Their Guard Rush, Physical Shield, and Elemental Shield skills have a slow wind up that protects the party before striking an enemy. Guard Rush in particular grows in power the more attacks it mitigates first, but also fails completely if no attacks come in before it.
Vampire
A subclass of sorts unlocked through a special in-game event, usable only by equipping a one-of-a-kind accessory.- Death or Glory Attack: Their Force Break, Ghastly March, does an extreme amount of untyped damage if used with a full party (or a full party + 1 if you have Charis with you in the Waterfall Wood) in which everyone else is dead. However, since this skill revives them with only one HP each, and as a Force Break it happens at the start of the turn, it is possible to get near-wiped a second time if any enemies are left.
- Disc-One Nuke: If unlocked early into the game (only possible by making full use of Socialization Bonus), the HP boost that the Scarlet Evil Eye accessory provides can make the wearer surprisingly tanky for a while. Want to buff your Squishy Wizard so that they can take more than two hits? Want a Protector who's even more of a Stone Wall than before? Want to remove the "Fragile" and "Glass" parts from a Fragile Speedster, Glass Cannon-type character? Here you go! The only real downside is that they need to be periodically healed up during the daytime.
- Gradual Regeneration: During the night, they regenerate 5% of their HP every turn.
- Guide Dang It!: The process of unlocking the hidden event for them requires meeting a variable number of conditions dependent on your choice of difficulty, Heroic allegedly needing the least number of conditions met. Known conditions to trigger the event include collecting 100 Guild Cards, getting a Guild Card with a Vampire on it, playing for 100 hours, having at least one of each true class in your guild, reaching the postgame, and generating a QR code for your own Guild Card.
- The English release seems to have eased up on the conditions while adding additional requirements. Recruiting at least one character from a Guild Card, then using said character in at least one successful fight. After this condition is met, along with a few of the original ones, saving and reloading the game will cause the event NPC to show up in town to start the sidequest.
- Last Chance Hit Point: During their Force Boost, they cannot be reduced to zero HP.
- Limit Break:
- Undying Soul allows the Vampire to endure any damage they receive with 1 HP remaining for three turns.
- Ghastly March revives all fallen allies and deals two ranged Almighty attacks plus one for each revived ally to a single enemy.
- Magical Accessory: The Scarlet Evil Eye necessary to become a Vampire. A small contact lens that devours the person eye first, rebuilding them on a cellular level as a Vampire. You can unequip it and pass it around despite this.
- Mass Resurrection: Their Force Break, Ghastly March, brings all fallen allies back to life, albeit at only 1 HP. Since Force Breaks happen at the start of the turn, this means their allies are liable to die again; however, if there's a(nother) healer around, they can make use of this to use their healing in the correct order (as opposed to the irritatingly common phenomenon of non-revive heal spells going out before revives).
- Mechanically Unusual Class: Vampires are the first incomplete class in the series, existing only as an effect of a special accessory that modifies the main class. Characters that become Vampires have their Force abilities replaced, gain passive skills to regenerate or lose health based on the time of day, and have their stats increased but otherwise remain the class they were before.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: They're vampires with your choice of primary class.
- Non-Elemental: Their Force Break—the only Vampire ability that does damage—deals Almighty damage.
- Our Vampires Are Different: There's no indication that these vampires are undead or that they drink blood, yet vampires they are, nonetheless.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Equipping the Scarlet Evil Eye changes your character's eyes to red.
- Secret Character: Not featured in any of the game's advertising, Vampires can only be unlocked through a special event in the first dungeon.
- Socialization Bonus: The fastest way to unlock them is to StreetPass someone with a Guild Card that has a Vampire as the focus character. Good luck doing that outside of Japan or a large-scale Fan Convention. If you don't, you'll have to collect 100 Guild Cards; thankfully there are Guild Card databases for each region out there. Failing that, you'll have to wait until the postgame.
- Weakened by the Light: During the day, they lose 5% of their HP every turn.
Non-Player Characters
Citizens of Maginia
Persephone (ペルセフォネ)
- Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto
- Damsel in Distress: Becomes this courtesy of Blót, who kidnaps and brainwashes her to undo the seal on Jormungandr.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Despite her earlier claims of not wanting to rely too heavily on information about the original Yggdrasil forests, she sends Shilleka off into the Primitive Jungle to serve as a guide to some soldiers due to her slight knowledge of the original area. She sends you in after her, realizing how utterly stupid that decision was. She quickly goes through the same problem for the Waterfall Woods, letting Charis try to take on the Wicked Silurus alone and calling for you to save her if necessary.
- Quest Giver: She'll hand down official missions on behalf of the city.
Mueller (ミュラー)
- Voiced by: Akio Otsuka
- Number Two: Whenever Persephone is unavailable at the HQ Mueller will be there in her stead, handling both mission assignments and information registration, while a random guard will be running the adventurers' guild.
- Quest Giver: As stated above, he handles mission assignments when Persephone can not.
Kvasir (クワシル)
- Voiced by: Hōchū Ōtsuka
- Casanova Wannabe: He makes numerous mentions of his romantic pursuits. Most of them just come across as plain creepy.
- Dirty Old Man: It becomes more apparant throughout the game that he is this. You get the option to act appropriately disgusted.
- Dub Name Change: Quasil to Kvasir.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Initially just kind of quirky, Kvasir just keeps escalating his behavior. Trying to find ways to get out of work, planning to take quest items for himself, public nudity, being generally creepy toward women, being especially creepy toward young girls, stalking women at night. You start getting the option to call him out on it for a while but by the end of the game his commentary includes reactions to you apparently threatening him over the behavior, with no choice to do so or not on your part. At one point you allegedly take glee in the thought of him possibly becoming a monster, since you could attack him then.
- Lazy Bum: Is not too fond of actually doing his job, stating multiple times he'd rather close up shop and lounge around all day.
- Naked People Are Funny: Assuming that his word can be taken at face value, he has a habit of going streaking and has been banned from every country he's visited as a result.
- Persona Non Grata: He's been banned from entering just about every known country due to having an old habit of indulging in public nudity. Assuming he's not just messing with you.
- Quest Giver: As is the norm for the series, you can pick up requests from townsfolk at his tavern.
Vivian (ヴィヴィアン)
- Voiced by: Juri Nagatsuma
- Breaking Old Trends: She's the first innkeeper NPC in the series who isn't a Perpetual Smiler, and the first one who isn't enthusiastic about their job.
- Crazy Cat Lady: She lets Merlin climb all over her as she works.
- Eyes Always Shut: As is tradition for the innkeepers.
- Head Pet: Mr. Merlin, the very cat who rests on top of her head in her portrait.
- Lazy Bum: If she had her way, Vivian would spend her days lying around and playing with Merlin.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: She certainly thinks hers is one.
Edie Napier (ネイピア)
- Voiced by: Ayane Sakura
- Cuteness Proximity: One quest had her hire the heroes to capture a tanuki under the guise of it being a thief, only to reveal she bonded with the cute little fluffball.
- Greed: Wouldn't be Napier if she didn't like money and anything valuable. Buy equipment from her, sell her materials to make new weapons and armor — may as well hand her your wallet and life savings. Of course, she's still a fair and humble merchant.
- Last-Name Basis: Edie is more commonly known simply by her last name Napier. Not needing to be distinguished from her otherwise nameless sister this time around helps.
- Suddenly Voiced: Her debut game, The Drowned City, didn't feature voice acting.
Other Adventurers
Wiglaf (ウィラフ)
- Voiced by: Rika Fukami
- Big Damn Heroes: Comes to the party's aid in the Lush Woodlands. First, she takes out a Berserker King to help escort the wounded adventurers to safety, after the party's worn out from fighting the first one. Later, when Cernunnos shows up after the proper Berserker King fight, she fully heals the party so they can fight it while fully refreshed.
- Suddenly Voiced: Her debut game, Legends of the Titan, didn't feature voice acting.
Shilleka (シリカ)
- Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō
- Action Survivor: She's assigned to help with the exploration of the Primitive Jungle thanks to her knowledge of the original, gained from her brief tour of the place courtesy of the guild members of the original Etrian Odyssey. By the time you find her, she and Leo are the Sole Survivors of their respective groups
- The Pollyanna: There's no getting this girl down. Trapped alone deep in the Primitive Jungle, abducted by a Wyvern, lost her Ariadne Threads, and stuck with an injured Leo? No problem! Somebody will save them, and there you are! Struggling to get out, need to set up camp surrounded by monster? No problem! You're making progress, tomorrow will go better!
Marco (マルコ)
- Voiced by: Kengo Kawanishi
- The Dividual: Of the Syndividual type. Unlike other explorers Marco and Oliver are almost never interacted with separately. Marco is the brains, Oliver is the brawn, and they attribute their perfectly complementary skill sets to their successes.
- The Worf Effect: Introduced as a veteran explorer he and Oliver help your guild out occasionally, until the Berserker King manages to incapacitate them leaving you to finish their fight.
Oliver (オリバー)
- Voiced by: Yoshihisa Kawahara
- The Dividual: Of the Syndividual type. Unlike other explorers Marco and Oliver are almost never interacted with separately. Marco is the brains, Oliver is the brawn, and they attribute their perfectly complementary skill sets to their successes.
- Hidden Depths: Is introduced as a boisterous explorer out for fame and glory. You team up with him and Marco later on in an optional labyrinth, where he reveals his sister is an ill girl and they became adventurers to either find a cure for her disease or earn enough money to pay for her treatment.
- The Worf Effect: Introduced as a veteran explorer he and Marco help your guild out occasionally, until the Berserker King manages to incapacitate them leaving you to finish their fight.
Rob (ロブ)
- Voiced by: Soma Saito
- Expy: Along with Charis, he's one for the Murotsumi Guild. Being the more dour of the two along with a fixation on keeping her out of harm's way, he's the Hypatia of the group. The events around them similarly have you being the middle man trying to communicate with each other.
- Poor Communication Kills: He's very protective of Charis, but does not express it well. While he doesn't want Charis to get hurt while exploring, she instead assumes he doesn't think much of her skills and considers her a burden.
Charis (カリス)
- Voiced by: Shizuka Ishigami
- Asset Actor: She comes from Armoroad and she's the token NPC companion for the Waterfall Wood (the first stratum of The Drowned City), and her armor design is based on that of the Hoplite class, but since Hoplites are not available in this game, she's classified as a Protector instead.
- Expy: Along with Rob, she's one for the Murotsumi Guild. Being the more energetic of the two, she's the Agata of the group. The events around them similarly have you being the middle man trying to communicate with each other, and like Agata she assists in dealing with Wicked Silurus though in a much more hands on manner than his advice. Her design is also similar to the Palette Swap of the first female Hoplite.
- Guest-Star Party Member: The first few forays into the Waterfall Woods have her accompany your party as an active member, she joins again if you ask her to for the boss fight.
- How Do I Shot Web?: As an inexperienced adventurer, she has literally no idea on what to do in a fight. The first day spent in the Waterfall Woods leaves her literally unable to do anything except Defend, but she gets better the next day.
- No Guy Wants an Amazon: Her reasoning for heading to the Blossom Bridge. She took Rob's comment about her becoming tough as a complaint, so she went in search of a "feminine" monster that had been seen in the area to see if she could figure out how to be beautiful. She leaves with him after the statement is clarified; He's thrilled that she's become strong and dependable.
- Whole Costume Reference: Despite being a Protector, Charis is wearing the Hoplite's signature spiked golden armor.
Leo (レオ)
- Voiced by: Ayumu Murase
- Ineffectual Loner: He warns the party to not get too close to him the first few times they approach him. Only later do we find out that this behaviour stems from his guilt.
- Red Baron: Goes by the name of "The Reaper" among other soldiers.
- Survivor Guilt: He was the lone survivor of several doomed parties in the past. He perceives this as being unable to protect anyone, and believes his very presence caused their demise.
Birgitta (ビルギッタ)
- Voiced by: Maaya Uchida
- Combat Exclusive Healing: She travels with the party in search for her missing pets. She provides healing at the end of each battle, but can't do much in quiet times.
- Dub Name Change: Brigitte to Birgitta
- Whole Costume Reference: Her schoolgirl-like attire is the style of garb commonly seen worn by the Medics of Tharsis in the fourth game, with the addition of a cream and tan button-up sweater.
Artelinde (アーテリンデ)
- Voiced by: Sachiko Kojima
- Friendly Enemy: The Seafarer Princess's allies are hostile toward Maginian citizens and explorers over an ancient grudge, a detail first brought up by Persephone that Artelinde confirms. She states that you're fortunate it was her you ran in to, and urges you not to continue on to avoid hostilities.
Wulfgar Jr. (クロガネJr., Kurogane Jr.)
- Dead Guy Junior: His namesake was killed in Etrian Odyssey II and the Classic mode of its remake.
- Dub Name Change: Kurogane Jr. in Japan.
- Generation Xerox: Like Wulfgar, Wulfgar Jr. is introduced by having him point out the labyrinth's gimmick. In his case it's the Petal Bridge's drifting platforms as opposed to the Ancient Forest's pit traps.
Blót (ブロート)
- Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
- Affably Evil: He's pleasant when you first meet him and offers you information every time you come across him. But whenever you hear his bells ringing, Persephone always falls ill, meaning he's purposely hindering your investigation. Once the princess goes missing and you meet him again, this time with Persephone - and following an attack on the forest folk - he drops all the friendly pretenses he's given you up to this point.
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: He's a staunch believer in this, so much that he intends to use Jormungandr to plunge the world into an age of strife and "bring about true peace".
- Climax Boss: The hunt for, and fight against him, occurs shortly after the reveal of what the Lemurian treasure actually is. The attempts to stop him fail, due to being unaware that he was in fact a pair of twins, and Jormungandr is revived leading into the final stretch of the game. As a boss the difficulty is comparable more to the usual postgame fights, requiring far more precise tactics or a lot of luck compared to any other story boss, and is far more of a challenge than even the main story version of the fight against Jormungandr itself.
- The Comically Serious: In what seems to be Call-Back to the first 2 games, Blót's eyes are drawn in a comical way in battle. This is now more apparent because of his 3D model, while in the first 2 games you had to check the artbook to get a good view of the human bosses' facial expressions (or playing the HD remasters). His model also heavily contrasts with Logre and Baldur's, which have more realistic proportions and serious-looking faces.
- Dark Is Evil: He's a Hexer in-game, and he can control monsters in the labyrinth, even those that have been guarding the temples that open the way to Yggdrasil. He's also the only Hexer in the franchise who can be considered outright evil; The playable Hexers are just explorers, while Tlachtga was following Visil's orders.
- Devil in Plain Sight: You keep hearing bells around him and he openly tells you he's playing both sides in the Maginian and Seafarer conflict when you bump into him in the labyrinths. Little surprise then that he's the cause of Persephone's illness, always preceded by the sound of bells.
- Expy: Mysterious individual who believes humanity can only thrive in times of conflict? Are we sure this isn't Twice H. Pierceman?
- Killed Offscreen: Jormungandr offes Hexer Blót, while leaving his brother barely alive.
- Mirror Boss: Despite having the proficiencies of a Hexer, Blót is faced as a Hero, capable of doing everything the player's own Heroes can do, and more. A player can fulfill this trope to its fullest by bringing only a Hero to the fight, which turns into a showdown between two one-person parties.
- Secret A.I. Moves: "Ominous Wave" and "Shadow Burst" are unavailable skills for playable Heroes.
- Single-Minded Twins: Both twins are working together to the same goal of Jormungandr's unsealing. However, in the postgame, the Hero Blót, found alive at the bottom of the Abyssal Shrine, explains that he was simply being supportive of his brother's ideals. The party and Enrica talk the living twin out of mindlessly supporting his late brother's vision and encourage him to believe in humanity.
- Trickster Twins: Blót is in fact a pair of twins. The Hero Blót faces off against your party, holding Persephone hostage, while the Hexer Blót has already moved on ahead with some of Persephone's blood to unseal Jormungandr. The act is revealed only after the Hero's defeat.
- The Unfought: The Hexer Blót.
- Walking Spoiler: Although it's pretty clear that he's not as friendly as his first impression gives, his ultimate role in the whole plot is very difficult to discuss without spoiling.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Having witnessed humanity squander their resources in times of peace and band together to face adversity, he concludes that true peace can only be obtained in the midst of conflict, and swears to use Jormungandr to usher in such a world.
Enrica (エンリーカ)
- Voiced by: Megumi Han
- Born Lucky: One of the reasons she's been put in charge of the Seafarer's exploration group is that she has exceptional luck, bordering on unnatural, in discovering treasures, new ruins, and surviving them. She accompanies your party during a few labyrinths, and while doing so she has a chance to find useful items seemingly out of nowhere.
- Cunning Linguist: She's said to be a master of at least ten languages by one of the sailors you eavesdrop on in the Ancient Forest. She proves it is true at least up to three, speaking the common language, the forest folk's language, and being able to read ancient Lemurian.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She quickly sets aside the feud between the Seafarers and Maginia thanks to your assistance in the Ancient Forest and the far more pressing matter of Jormungandr's resurrection.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Seafarer Princess is a well known explorer and goes out of her way to assist your guild for roughly the final quarter of the game. She helps with Persephone's rescue and joins your party as you explore the Yggdrasil Labyrinth and Abyssal Shrine.
Kincaid
Like Conrad from Beyond the Myth, Kincaid serves as a placeholder for certain Adventure episodes when the player lacks any other Guild Cards to use. Lemuria (Spoiler Alert)
Makiri (マキリ)
- Call-Back: He is very much an expy of Kupala from the original Etrian Odyssey, being aware of what lies at the heart of Yggdrasil and trying to keep adventurers away from it.
- Humans Are Bastards: Holds this attitude when you first meet him. He is aware of the true nature of the Lemurian treasure and chastises your party for pursuing it. He'll warm up to you later on once you rescue him in the Sandy Barrens and helps you to prevent Jormungandr's awakening.
Yggdrasil (世界樹の少女)
- Composite Character: Quite literally and intentionally. The Lemurians took note of the seven Yggdrasils set up and set out to make their own, to do so they created a composite clone of Etria, High Lagaard, Armoroad, and Tharsis's Yggdrasils. Like the one from Tharsis its labyrinths are scattered across the surrounding area, seemingly disconnected, rather than being all contained within the tree itself. Its more humanoid form secretly guiding you also makes it similar to Arken, though this was not intentional on the Lemurians' part.
- Plant Person: The Yggdrasil's avatar who speaks to you throughout the game finally reveals itself as a young girl, close in appearance to a dark-skinned blonde, as opposed to the titanic monstrosity that Tharsis's became.
Abyssal Princess (貴き深淵の令嬢)
A woman found at the bottom of the final labyrinth that seems to hold some connection to Jormungandr. She is actually Lemuria, the princess of the royal family that founded the nation. She holds the Yggdrasil Fruit needed to undo Jormungandr's immortality and defeat it for good.- Call-Back: Befitting her status as one of the final superbosses of the 3DS games, her attacks and A.I. incorporate many elements from those of previous entries. Of special note is that when you fight her night her A.I becomes almost completely random, giving you no clue what she'll do next or how to defend against it - The Ur-Child in Heroes of Lagaard and its remake had the exact same gimmick.
- Flunky Boss: She spawns Gothic Souls periodically throughout the fight. These are completely harmless on their own, but once enough of them are present she'll use an absurdly powerful attack that is guaranteed to wipe your party. As a side note, defeating the Abyssal Princess while at least one Gothic Soul is present causes her to revive herself, with more souls equaling more HP recovered.
- Heal Thyself: Can do so with Undead Regen, which activates at the start of the turn and heal her for ten times the damage she sustains that turn. At least when you fight her during the day she will telegraph when she's about to use it.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She used her own life to seal away Jormungandr. Yggdrasil informs you that its fruit has been used to keep her in a sort of undead state so that she can remain an active seal forever. And that Jormungandr is working to undo it..
- Superboss: One of the ultimate bosses in the game. She serves as the strongest opponent in the postgame dungeon Abyssal Shrine, and defeating her requires exceptional preparation and a fully-optimized party (preferably at the maximum level possible, 130).
- Total Party Kill: Her Condemnation skill inflicts incredible untyped damage to the party. This is an end-of-turn attack meaning you can't even use a Protector's Force Break to defend it. She'll only ever use it if there are four Gothic Souls present, making killing them a high priority.
Jormungandr (ヨルムンガンド)
The true treasure that sleeps at the base of Lemuria's Yggdrasil. Jormungandr is a Living Weapon developed by the Lemurians as a defense system against invaders.- Blood Knight: Originally created to defend Lemuria from invaders, it turned its sights on anyone of foreign origin when it ran out of targets.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: When fought at full strength it will start reading your input once its HP gets low enough. It will then avoid using his elemental attacks when he detects you using an anti-element skill on that turn.
- The Corruption: Incapable of harming those of the Lemurian bloodline, Jormungandr found itself forced to slowly corrupt and absorb the Princess who was sealing it away. Even without Blót's meddling, it was nearly done bringing her under its control to lift the seal from inside.
- Final Boss: Your final mission in the plot is to defeat it, while it's still weak from its unsealing.
- Resurrective Immortality: At the depths of the Abyssal Shrine, the Yggdrasil Girl tells the party that Jormungandr isn't truly dead, and has the ability to revive indefinitely. Only the Yggdrasil Fruit can stop this cycle.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The "treasure for eternal prosperity" proved far too destructive and had to be sealed away. Blót worked to unseal it from the outside, while it was working on a way to unseal itself from within. It was going to come out one way or the other.
- Tail Slap: Its Pentacle Strike attack is one of the hardest-hitting attacks in the game. It gets telegraphed by Jormungandr turning around and showing you its tail.
- True Final Boss: The second-last (and likely last to be filled) Codex entry is for Jormungandr at its strongest. You can only get that after defeating the Abyssal Princess in the postgame.
Labyrinth Guardians
Blossombeast (大いなる花獣)
A giant plant monster with a beautiful flower on its back. It is the guardian of the Eastern Shrine and the very first boss your party will face.- Combat Tentacles: Uses its vines to smack your party with.
- Early-Bird Boss: Very much so. It has a rather large HP pool and your attackers probably won't have the TP needed to use their offensive skills more than a couple times. It can inflict binds or poison your entire party as well and the items that can cure those statuses aren't available yet either.
- Foul Flower: It is part this, part monster.
Shellbeast (大いなる背甲獣)
A turtlelike symbol of the nethworld. It is the guardian of the Southern Shrine.- Death Glare: Its Deathly Glare can inflict instant death upon your entire party.
- Flunky Boss: Can summon Dark Skulls throughout the fight to assist him. Two of these together can perform a combination attack that prevents your party from recovering from binds and ailments.
- Proactive Boss: The Shellbeast is so big that it can easily move around a wide central area in B5F that is surrounded by low-level borders. The player is forced to climb those borders and walk across them in order to reach the entrance to the boss's area, but obviously the monster won't miss the chance to approach the party and perform an attack that makes them fall down due to Knockback. When that happens, a supporting character (Leo) suggests the party to lure the boss into the northeast corner of its area so they have enough time to cross the last side of the corners right before the boss reaches them, allowing them to unlock a Door to Before and finally have direct access to the wide central area to confront the boss in battle.
- Status Effects: Can inflict Curse, Blind, Poison and head binds on your party. These become more annoying when his flunkies perform their combination attack.
Bugbeast (大いなる蟲獣)
A large crustacean creature with a metallic carapace. It is the guardian of the Western Shrine.- An Ice Person: Eventually during the battle, it unleashes a powerful ice attacks which targets the whole party.
- Giant Enemy Crab: It's the King Mook of the Platinum Pillbugs that inhabit the Western Shrine, though it lacks a carapace due to its enormous size.
- Heal Thyself: Enters a Repair Mode several times during the fight, restoring a decent amount of HP for a couple turns. You can end this early by damaging it enough.
- Knockout Gas: When you first enter the lowest floor of the Western Shrine you'll find Mueller and Enrica having an argument about the Lemurian treasure. The situation seems to escalate untill the Bugbeast arrives and fills the room with poison gas, knocking most of those present unconscious and forcing your party to confront it. During battle it will use gas-based attacks as well that can inflict several status ailments.
- Shock and Awe: Its Thunderstorm attack inflict volt-elemental damage upon the entire party.
