Etrian Odyssey

The replicating FOEs in the 6th Stratum are also susceptible to instant death. They have more resistance to it than the Sonar Worms but they still make for easy grinding and EN farming.

Edited by MachThreeSlug on Mar 3rd 2019 at 8:28:54 PM

My Earthlain Pugilist at level 99 (but not retired) did 6800 damage with Death's Edge when my party was at 1 HP and without any other buffs...

So now I have a plan. Three Therian Impact Pugilists, Level 99 with max Retire buffs, best Cesti in the game in the front row. I'm gonna boost their damage with a Shaman's prayers in the back row. Finally, I'm gonna have a Necromancer get me 3 Wraiths with 9999 HP and blast those onto the Star Devourer.

Even assuming that my Pugilists are only doing 7000 damage each, that's 21000 damage on the first turn, and I know I can get two turns at least.

I'll let you all know how this goes in the end.

Excuse the double post but... I felled the Star Devourer! It only took 3 turns, too! Here's how I did it...

Now, here's how it went down:

With my whole team at 1 HP, two wraiths at 9799 HP, and one wraith at ~700HP, I go fight the Star Devourer.

To summarize: ~32,100 damage turn 1, ~43,399 turn 2, at minimum ~20,999 turn 3. It really came down to a few hundred damage here or there really making the difference on whether I won or not.

So in the end I felled the Star Devourer in just 3 turns. It didn't even take that many tries!

Now, into the Nexus!

I switched from Sov-Imp-Farm-Zod-Med to Sov-Night-Farm-Zod-Gun and my damage output is flat-out hilarious. Nightseeker makes it actually possible to get some of those status kills for conditionals, but I suspect I'd have to go Sov-Night-Imp-Zod-Gun to kill Golem for the conditional on the rematch.

(Sov-Imp-Zod is insane Drive Blade damage, lol. Attack Order + Element Arms + Etheric Gleam + Charge Blade = over 2000 damage in the 40s to some FOE.)

Also Meteor Zodiac is apparently hilariously good at stomping things. Still keeping some basic Stars and Binaries for clearing out trash mooks.

I have given a name to my pain. It is Dazing Pumpkin (Nexus).

Don't be afraid to burn some Force Breaks to kill uppity FOE encounters :V

finally mustered up the motivation to pick V back up and go back to the pre-mastery save to respecc my party for the 3rd stratum

decided ultimately the shelve the blade dancer in favor of a chain duelist and a more well-rounded barrage pug, hopefully not having to protect dead weight will speed progress up...

well, if i recall the problem was how damn fast and heavy hitting the enemies were. i think that chain duelist is gonna go down just as fast as the dancer when push comes to shove.

That postgame dungeon in Nexus with the Hexgourds is a pain in the neck, I definitely need to figure out a movement strategy so I don't get boxed in.

it worked! im finally managing to survive stratum 3 and making progress at last.

Blade Dancer is very unfriendly towards dungeon crawling, but absolutely brutal for boss fights. I was able to beat most of the stratum bosses really quickly thanks to blade dancer + chain fencer

I recently finished the Giant's Ruin in Nexus. I actually managed to get the conditional drop for the Golem, though I won't be able to afford that endgame armor until a bit later.

The Golem also happens to be the first boss I got a conditional drop from. I couldn't get the conditional drops from Cernunnos and the Wyvern when I first fought them, but I'll get them eventually. Meanwhile, I'm going through the level based on the first stratum of the third game, which is giving me a lot of nostalgic feels since The Drowned City was the first Etrian Odyssey game I really buckled down on and said "I'm going to finish this game."

Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 14th 2019 at 4:56:18 AM

So do any of the games in series have story or plot? Kinda figured out I could go for those ones since I kinda find it hard to get invested in dungeon crawlers where party members have no dialog or personality at all(like some of wizardry games at least give personality traits to pcs, but lot of wizardry clones don't)

Each of the games has a story going on. It usually isn't a very stand-out or deep story, but at the very least you learn more about the labyrinth and the general world at hand.

That being said, Etrian Odyssey Untold 1 and 2 both have fully fleshed out stories and characters in them, at the cost of limited customization to your team. The Untold games are remakes of the first two games. Untold 1's story isnt good. I've heard Untold 2's story is good, with some memorable characters to boot. YMMV on that, however.

On top of that, EO IV is noteworthy for having more story in it than most of the other Etrian Odyssey entries (besides the Untold games). While your team doesnt have much in the room of characterization, the reoccurring characters do and, for me at least, the nature of the plot itself was more than enough to keep me satisfied.

EO Nexus is another entry with a surprising amount of story, in a similar manner to IV. That said, I haven't finished that one so other people are better talking about that one.

Ultimately, however, the Etrian Odyssey games have never had a focus on story. They've always been about exploration, combat, and (most importantly) map drawing. If you're coming to the EO series looking for a complex story and deep characterization you'll be sorely disappointed.

untold 2 does have a good story, with good characters, and for once an interesting party dynamic.

the problem is, thats the dynamic you're stuck with for the entire game, and they've inflated boss hp values to utterly stupid degrees, while not giving you access to the OP formations that would make quick work of them. expect 30+ turn battles of attrition.

elsewhere, the story of the EO games is limited. theres an overarching premise, an arc covering roughly 2 to 3 stratums involving other adventurer parties in the setting, and a storyline that becomes more clear from stratum 3-4 onwards. EO 3 had multiple routes depending on which faction you'd side with once you fulfilled the original premise the game is built on, and i think that was a turning point for the series since untold1 and it's story mode came next.

theres also a bunch of ministories in the form of the barquests, wherein theres occasionally an arcing plotline in the form of a recurring request/requestee. III also had seafaring, which had its own share of lore and miniquests attached.

I would say that EO has about as much story as any other RPG with a silent protagonist. It's just that your silent protagonist happens to be a group this time, which makes surprisingly little difference. If story needs to happen in the dungeon, then NP Cs will be there to make story happen.

^That is the image in my head about dungeon crawlers, the story in them is like others jprgs where other characters talking to you as if you replied back, but you don't have any party members that are interesting or who would talk to npcs for you

Edited by SpookyMask on Jun 18th 2019 at 3:53:40 PM

I would hesitate to call EOU a fleshed out story.

I've started playing Nexus since a few days ago. I have just completed Primitive Jungle (I defeated the boss with only one Landsknecht left and zero TP; the rest of my party had died!), and really liked the part where you're stuck on the 3rd floor but can save in the camp. It gave a very fresh spin on the survival aspect of the EO formula.

I can imagine that this is a one-time thing, right? If so, it's a shame, because I liked this part of the game.

It is. The dungeons start feeling more generic after the next one.

Edited by Hobgoblin on Sep 14th 2019 at 6:43:27 AM

I see. Between this and the Lush Woodlands having the twist of two bosses being fought in a row, I imagined that each dungeon would have some unusual gimmick. Oh well, at least I hope the next dungeons are fun as-are.

As I progress, I intend to gradually rotate the party, as there are now 19 classes. I went on with Hero-Imperial-Landsknecht-Medic-Protector for the Eastern Shrine (in hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to have the Imperial so soon, because the skills' TP cost is very high for this point of the game), then Hero-Protector-Landsknecht-Farmer-Medic for Lush Woodlands, and then Hero-Landsknecht-Arcanist-Farmer-Medic for Primitive Jungle. Right now I have a newly-recruited Zodiac in the place of the Landsknecht for the next stratum (at first I considered replacing the Farmer, but his ability to restore the others' Force Gauge even after you Broke them is too good. Plus, the Playing Possum skill was very valuable in the fight against the Wyvern.

The game really feels rushed after Waterfall Woods, sadly. Everything goes back to being as it was in the normal game, barring the rare curveball here or there, though those are presented with much less fanfare than the first three dungeons.

Also, I hope you like Shrines.

Yeah, sadly, Nexus hits its peak early and just kind of coasts downhill from there. I almost wonder if the creative process stalled after they finished making the Waterfall Woods and just kind of plodded on through putting all those forests and shrines into the game and hoping SOMETHING would come to them before their deadline hit, and nothing ever did.

Feeling some buyer's remorse now.

Most people will only play the opening levels. Makes sense to put the most creative stuff up front and the more standard stuff past that.

https://twitter.com/yuzokoshiro/status/1189448497805742081?s=21

The soundtrack to every single Etrian Odyssey game is on the various music streaming services, and for purchase on the iTunes Store, although I can't tell or confirm about other music stores.

Note that although the albums include both EMD games, neither Persona Q title is included. On a related note, the soundtrack to 7th Dragon III is also on the iTunes Store, although I suspect that's been there for a while already.