Etrian Odyssey

Yeah, they could probably take ambushes out. Those are dumb.

well, that and the handful of mobs that are going to be faster than your party are (at the expected level) and have moves that to a lot of damage to random party members

or the mobs that are going to be faster than your party and continuously dig underground so you can't ever hit them

like i've got two offensive therians and the fact that even they are outsped by some of the random mobs in this game, especially the ones with high-damaging AOE attacks, is absurd and actually has no counterplay since your defensive party members are going to be even slower.

Speed is never an absolute in these games. You can always deal with fast enemy groups by using priority moves like Line Guard or Union skills. And if worst comes to worst, you can always guard. If you're running into a problem with enemies simply being faster than you, I'd call that a tactical error.

Edit: To be fair, the game hides all the speed modifiers for skills.

Edited by Clarste on Sep 16th 2018 at 12:45:05 PM

i feel like my blade dancer isnt doing enough damage.

in fact, they feel pretty worthless. not enough dps, no utility, require constant protection, die in a single hit...

in a party with them, a barrage brawler, and an elemancer i feel like i have only 1 damage dealer, and thats the elemancer with clever strike. who also dies if i dont protect her because of those fucking archers, so the blade dancer is a guaranteed casualty if i want to survive any battle tbh

this is probably the most painful transition from stratum 2 to 3 ive experienced in these games

I had my back row characters literally just defending whenever there was an archer up. Those guys are painful. Luckily I had a dodge Fencer to tank everything else though.

unfortunately, if my mage isnt using clever strike, the archer is never going to die, with the blade dancers output being so below par.

clearly i chose wrong in building my party, but i was promised a bit more from blade dancer than ive gotten from them.

Blade Dancers are the weakest in Stratum 3. They start picking up steam in Stratum 4 when you max out Reblossom.

Does your Blade Dancer have 4 weapons equipped? Only having 3 literally halves your average damage potential.

Besides that, Reblossom + Sacred Tetrad is where all your damage is going to be coming from, since at max level Reblossom gurantees all skills activate twice, which means that Sacred Tetrad does 4 attacks twice. Layered Bloom is similar for an AOE move, but it's way less consistent.

yeah, i have 4 equipped and i do have a pretty high investment in reblossom

the number of times i hit isnt bad, its the damage each hit does which...is just disappointing

I was just asking... =/

The Bonus Boss doesn't always get a unique theme. I think it only has in odd numbered games.

Thanks. That means the formula isn't as uniform for the whole series as I thought (why didn't I know about the series' existence when I first had a DS? T_T).

And even then, said unique themes might not be unique anymore depending on later games. For example, "Calling that Detestable Name" used to be unique to the Abyssal God, but then the track got reused for at least two other bosses in future games.

Finally at the final boss!

I think that the 5th Stratum might actually have been one of the worst dungeons I ever experienced. That was just straight up horrible.

Anywho final boss is kicking my ass- I can never seem to get anything going before my party is totally cleared out, though I have no doubt that I've gotten kind of unlucky with a couple of my runs. Any advice?

25F is definitely devious and diabolic. But Untamed Garden is still my favorite stratum because of how clever and beautiful it is.

Eternal Tyrant's main strength lies in that many of its attacks have the additional effect of inflicting a bind or ailment, which severely hinders any strategy you're planning against him. If you have a Celestrian, try using Chain Blast to bind two or hopefully all three of its parts. You can also try bringing in a Divine Herald (Shaman) with you and give the party resistance against binds and ailments. Its weakness is ice.

After a number of turns, it will spread miasma onto the whole battlefield. Do NOT attack him during this phase. The total amount of damage you inflict it plus the one it inflicts you will be distributed between your party and the boss at the end of every turn. If you have hounds, hawks or wraiths summoned, they'll also absorb damage (which, on the other hand, will mitigate the damage from each party member). At one point the boss will absorb the miasma and you'll have one turn to use Aegis Shield to prevent the exceedingly high untyped damage it'll unleash in the next turn (which will also eliminate all of your buffs).

It will later use Ruinous Roar, which will increase your attack power but also its. You'll need to have an item or skill to remove the buff on your boss to prevent its attacks to become deadlier than they already are, while also keeping the buff for your party.

You can also have a Divine Punisher Shaman use Fire Prayer and Aureole Oracle to cancel the Miasma absorption attack. That's what I did and it made the miasma part of the fight into a much need breather section. It doesn't even need to be a high level version of Aureole Oracle. I just used the level one version of the move.

I don't have a shaman at all...

My team right now is:

Chain Fencer/Dancer Masurao/Cannon Dragoon

Omni Celestrian/Healer Botanist

I'm also ~level 65 for my team.

I'll try starting off with chain blast though, I never even thought of that!

edit: Beat on my first try after that! Wow. I took it down on it's first turn of using miasma the second time- I actually managed to stop it's first ultimate fire attack by putting it to sleep with my blade dancer I was like "Well she's gonna die anyway so might as well throw out a sleep jar."

Binding it is ridiculously helpful. I honestly think locking down bosses with status ailments can be too OP, though I do have a boss-killing team anyway.

Edited by EpicBleye on Sep 30th 2018 at 6:19:22 AM

Well done. At first I had a lot of trouble with the boss, but I have come to like it.

Good luck on the Bonus Dungeon. There's a whole library full of books recording horror stories from EO players about that place.

Congratulations on the win! And good luck with the postgame if you decide to go after that

I used to think so too, until I started running into things that can't be locked down. And incidentally, the first of the level cap bosses is pretty much impossible if you don't disable them - though fortunately, it's weak to every ailment and bind

FUCK this stratum looks so cool! Oh my god!

So, uh, what's up with the alien business? I remember reading that EO V takes place on Mars (or rather it was implied as such)? How does this relate to the other EO games- do those ones take place on Earth or are they also on Mars?

Also how do I increase my level cap- which bosses are the requirements for that? Is there a point where I need to start grinding out levels/end game equipment?

The other EO games still take place on Earth, and the localization kind of fudges things a bit, but it's all but outright stated that (postgame spoilers) the world Arken is bound for is indeed Earth, and more broadly that EO5 is a prequel to the series and that she's the one who created that world's Yggdrasils.

As for increasing the level cap, you fight the game's three Bonus Bosses - Dryad, Zombie Dragon, and Lamia. As you progress through the 6th Stratum, quests to go after those bosses will unlock (assuming you've been keeping up on your questing, anyways). You shouldn't need to grind until you're ready to go after the bonus bosses (and the True Final Boss, should you feel so inclined), though it's going to be tough going until you get more levels and better gear.

Edited by Reflextion on Sep 30th 2018 at 8:04:05 AM

Arken created the seven trees? Imagine that.

Oh, dear, the Superbosses are a doozy in EO V are a doozy. I have lost count on how many times Dryad wrecked me, but I do remember that time when she only had 10% HP left and then used the healing ability. I felt like I wanted to kill a cat.

Incidentally, the final boss is vulnerable to Sleep, and you can use that to interrupt his mega-move. That's how I handled it.

The penultimate superboss, or the story final boss at the end of the 5th stratum?

Because putting him to sleep his how I stopped the the eternal tyrant's super move too I didn't need to stop it the second time because I killed him real quickly.

The 5th stratum boss, yeah. That's the final boss. The credits roll and everything. After that is the postgame.