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Etrian Odyssey: The Advice Thread

Wallach said:
So I just started this tonight (the first game that is), and holy cow! This is slick as hell, and I've been itching for a good dungeon crawler lately.

That said... ouch! The first floor pulls no punches, does it? I didn't expect to be running for my life that fast (dragging my dead Protector the whole way)... :lol

Anyway, I settled on the following party for the Slavers' Guild first labyrinth outing:

F1 - Landsnksnecht (Metzger)
F2 - Protector (Marcus)
B1 - Alchemist (Tandi)
B2 - Survivalist (Tycho)
B3 - Medic (Phyllis)

I'm still looking over the skills so I haven't invested in much; I think I've only bought ATK and Swords for the L, DEF and Shields for the P, Fire UP/Volt UP and Fire/Volt for the A, AGI, Bows and Quicken for the S, and Healer/Cure for the M.

One thing I was curious about - is there any advantage to manually mapping the dungeon over turning on the Automap setting?


With the alchemist I spent points on TP to max it out; some on tp regen; and regarding attacks most of it only on one element, Volt (specially Thor is very effective later on).

I would say in the first 2 stratums, there are some enemies weaker to fire but you´ll do fine just with Volt. Later on, you´ll need Fire attacks to deal with some specific FOEs.

For the survivalist, i would say go for Trickery specially as is gonna help you out minimize enemy damage to the party.

Regarding Medic, the ones you said and TP also as you´ll often be running out of it.

As for the Landsnksnecht, at least in my experience, axes will be the most powerfull weapons you´ll gonna get for some time so you may spent some points there to take advantage of them.

Swords will be less powerfull but you have better and more skills. Also take into account that if you do try to maximize swords from the beginning but primarily you need to spend points on atttack etc.. you´ll end up with low TP on your Landsnksnecht and very few chances to use the better sword skills.

Thats why i spent some on axes skills, used them for some time as primary weapon, and also spent some points on 2-hit, which doenst spend TP and can boost normal attacks.

Orodreth said:
I´m missing some secret paths entrances from the 2 first stratums, specially in B8F i think. When/how are they unlocked?

Also, is there anyway to restock some items at Shilekas? i need blaze oil but it´s been out of stock for sometime already.

Can anyone help with this?
 
Orodreth said:
Can anyone help with this?

Soooo..... unless you can be more specific, I think what you might be looking for is a passage up from a lower floor than B8 that will take you into a secret passage through the wall back to the heart of the floor, and another that you need to
unlock crystal doors
to enter. But it's been a while since I was there, having recently finished the entire labyrinth as you can imagine, feels just like the beginning of the journey.

And in order to restock items one must highlight the item to see what ingredient is needed, then figure out whatever monster it comes from in the compendium. If it's not showing up there at all, you may have forgotten to save and gotten a game over. Good luck man.

(err i doubt its the game over thing, but that's happened to me before anyway! and i accidentally sold a rare toxic gage earlier today, whoops)
 
Orodreth said:
Can anyone help with this?

I forgot the item you need to get...but once you do, sell it to Shilleka. If it's the correct item, she will restock automatically. You might have to get it from a "Chop" or "Take" point.
 
How do Blazer etc.. skills work?

I just got that one and i think i read it already in this thread but it doesn´t seem to be working.

Do you have to use the skill and later make the alchemist cast a related spell for the landsknecth to follow automatically with the flame sword attack?
 
Orodreth said:
Do you have to use the skill and later make the alchemist cast a related spell for the landsknecth to follow automatically with the flame sword attack?

Yes, use Blazer or one of the other elemental sword attacks, then during the same turn use another elemental attack -- the "chaser" attack will hit each monster that the elemental attack hits.
 
charlequin said:
Yes, use Blazer or one of the other elemental sword attacks, then during the same turn use another elemental attack -- the "chaser" attack will hit each monster that the elemental attack hits.

I did try that but i don´t think the attack was the same as the ones were i had used Blaze oil for example.

I must have had been doing something wrong. I´ll try it again.
 
Thank god i've managed to defeat the three dragons which open the doors on 30 towards the final boss, fighting the dragons again is a breeze as thier just the same but dwarfed down. The final boos is just too difficult even with a maxed level party of 5, can anyone post thier stratergy on how to kill this monster, can't move onto EOII unless i kill this bastard.
 
Finally reached 4th stratum, which looks beautiful.

Have some questions regarding some bosses. My party is: L | P ; A | M | S

I have had some problems with an optional boss, the golem, and the 3th stratum one. With the golem it was the
regeneration it casted
and with the 3th stratum boss was
elemental defenses and lowering party stats

So the problems are how with my current party can you dispell the enemy buffs and/or get rid of the negative ones they cast on you . In other words, any workaround for the troubadour´s erasure/recovery skills that i can´t use?
 
Now that i reached 4th stratum I´m thinking about putting to rest my entire party and redistributing all their skills so it would help getting an answer for my previous question.
 
Orodreth said:
Now that i reached 4th stratum I´m thinking about putting to rest my entire party and redistributing all their skills so it would help getting an answer for my previous question.

Well the medic has refresh which gets rid of all ailments (an ailment is added each skill level increase, after level 8 it stops just about everything) for the whole party, and unbind which stops binds (one character at a time). I don't think you have anything to un-buff enemies though, and you don't have anything to stop stat decreases.

For me the medic's refresh and salve2 were the most important skills, immunize is also pretty good. If you make a well rounded alchemist, you might also invest in the Landsknecht's elemental attacks. I only put 1 point in each, but on elemental enemies you get insane damage on all enemies when coupled with the alchemist's group attack. I don't know much about the survivalist though (I made a dark hunter instead).
 
Orodreth said:
Finally reached 4th stratum, which looks beautiful.

Have some questions regarding some bosses. My party is: L | P ; A | M | S

I have had some problems with an optional boss, the golem, and the 3th stratum one. With the golem it was the
regeneration it casted
and with the 3th stratum boss was
elemental defenses and lowering party stats

So the problems are how with my current party can you dispell the enemy buffs and/or get rid of the negative ones they cast on you . In other words, any workaround for the troubadour´s erasure/recovery skills that i can´t use?

Troubador is the only class that can do debuffs. It's only really important on two of the optional bosses, and I'm not including the one you mentioned.

For that one
You'll want to kill him with a Instant Death move like the Ronin has if you want the second best Axe in the game.
 
Man God said:
Troubador is the only class that can do debuffs. It's only really important on two of the optional bosses, and I'm not including the one you mentioned.

For that one
You'll want to kill him with a Instant Death move like the Ronin has if you want the second best Axe in the game.

Galactic Fork said:
Well the medic has refresh which gets rid of all ailments (an ailment is added each skill level increase, after level 8 it stops just about everything) for the whole party, and unbind which stops binds (one character at a time). I don't think you have anything to un-buff enemies though, and you don't have anything to stop stat decreases.

Ok, i was afraid i would need some debuff strategy to defeat future FOEs. I do have a Troubadour+Dark Hunter but they´re still in the 20s level so I´ll stick with my current party then.

Galactic Fork said:
For me the medic's refresh and salve2 were the most important skills, immunize is also pretty good. If you make a well rounded alchemist, you might also invest in the Landsknecht's elemental attacks. I only put 1 point in each, but on elemental enemies you get insane damage on all enemies when coupled with the alchemist's group attack. I don't know much about the survivalist though (I made a dark hunter instead).

Yeah, i´ve been using the Landsknecht´s elemental attacks combined with the alchemist spells. They´re great against lots of enemies too.

Some of the survivalist skills are insane. Not only Apollon (which paired with Boost has dealed the biggest attack, about 700 damage) but Disable was also very effective against the 3rd stratum boss, not sure why.
 
OK, help me GAF...I finally made it to
Primevil
and I have a few questions. Not sure if I need to go super spoiler tag crazy because some others have discussed this openly, but I'm going to do it at least on the outset here. Basically I'm teetering on the brink of just giving up and finally going to EO2 which I've had sealed since the day it came out, and I need to know a few things to make that decision.

Questions / Points of Discussion
1) What the hell is up with this guy? I had fun figuring out how to beat all the Dragons, but I feel like the design of this guy sucks. Are you supposed to either die over and over until you figure out his elemental pattern or resort to a FAQ? I'm disappointed because I feel like the whole rest of the game managed to be pretty fair for the most part even when it cranked up the challenge, but this seems ridiculous. I've loved almost this whole game, a little less so in the postgame, but my patience for it is starting to wear a bit thin, especially since I saw that the password to EO2 only carries over Town Crown or Town Medal...and Medal seems like quite a bit of work for not much reward.

2) Since I just tried him for the first time and failed, I feel like I must ask...if you beat all the mini-dragons and then bitch out using a secret door and go save, will they be there when you come back? Not that they're hard at all, but the pain in the ass of having to do them over every time might push me over the edge and make me just give up on this.

3) My party for the entire postgame has been Swordsnecht (sp?) and Protector front row, semi-combat Medic, Tri-element Alchemist and Troubadour in the back. It's not an optimal party in a lot of ways, but I'm proud of the fact that I never grinded any of these guys, save for the Troubadour which I raised from practically nothing after beating Lvl 25. Should I train up my Survivalist that I left behind at like level 30-40 and replace the Troubadour with him? I suppose this partly depends on whether the "bitch out" thing works--I could buy a bunch of TP regain items, but it's been nice being able to Relaxing all over the place and never have to leave the Labyrinth if I don't want to. I could probably beat Primevil with this party if I just follow the pattern, but it seems like it's going to take me an awful lot of turns, as I'm doing ~400-500 with the Alchemist with Freeze + ~850-900 with the L with Freezer, and then ~1000 per Smite when I don't have to do an Anti, and occasionally ~350 from Caduceus from the back. I'd love to be able to smack this jackass boss down in 13 turns like the youtube I saw of the JP version, but it looked like he was using a rockin' Survivalist for his big damage.

Thanks for any help and/or discussion on this.
 
gururoji said:
OK, help me GAF...I finally made it to
Primevil
and I have a few questions. Not sure if I need to go super spoiler tag crazy because some others have discussed this openly, but I'm going to do it at least on the outset here. Basically I'm teetering on the brink of just giving up and finally going to EO2 which I've had sealed since the day it came out, and I need to know a few things to make that decision.

Questions / Points of Discussion
1) What the hell is up with this guy? I had fun figuring out how to beat all the Dragons, but I feel like the design of this guy sucks. Are you supposed to either die over and over until you figure out his elemental pattern or resort to a FAQ? I'm disappointed because I feel like the whole rest of the game managed to be pretty fair for the most part even when it cranked up the challenge, but this seems ridiculous. I've loved almost this whole game, a little less so in the postgame, but my patience for it is starting to wear a bit thin, especially since I saw that the password to EO2 only carries over Town Crown or Town Medal...and Medal seems like quite a bit of work for not much reward.

There are three ways to do this. Here goes:

First, like you said, learn his pattern, and plan accordingly. Note that it is a pattern and not just random elemental attacks.

Second, get two people to continuously throw buffs over your party. Constantly. This will force Primevil to deviate from his pattern and to keep debuffing your guys.

Third, Medic with Boosted Immunize. Laugh in his tentacled face. Remember to pack the Axcela IIIs.

2) Since I just tried him for the first time and failed, I feel like I must ask...if you beat all the mini-dragons and then bitch out using a secret door and go save, will they be there when you come back? Not that they're hard at all, but the pain in the ass of having to do them over every time might push me over the edge and make me just give up on this.

They behave like FOEs. They'll respawn after a set period of time.

3) My party for the entire postgame has been Swordsnecht (sp?) and Protector front row, semi-combat Medic, Tri-element Alchemist and Troubadour in the back. It's not an optimal party in a lot of ways, but I'm proud of the fact that I never grinded any of these guys, save for the Troubadour which I raised from practically nothing after beating Lvl 25. Should I train up my Survivalist that I left behind at like level 30-40 and replace the Troubadour with him? I suppose this partly depends on whether the "bitch out" thing works--I could buy a bunch of TP regain items, but it's been nice being able to Relaxing all over the place and never have to leave the Labyrinth if I don't want to. I could probably beat Primevil with this party if I just follow the pattern, but it seems like it's going to take me an awful lot of turns, as I'm doing ~400-500 with the Alchemist with Freeze + ~850-900 with the L with Freezer, and then ~1000 per Smite when I don't have to do an Anti, and occasionally ~350 from Caduceus from the back. I'd love to be able to smack this jackass boss down in 13 turns like the youtube I saw of the JP version, but it looked like he was using a rockin' Survivalist for his big damage.

Survivalists are the best DPS class in the game, bar none, and no, it's unlikely you'll beat Primevil very quickly without one.

That said, your party is perfectly viable for beating Primevil, depending on what skills your Medic, Troub, and Protector have. As long as you have some decent damage output, the specifics shouldn't matter too much.
 
Pureauthor said:
First, like you said, learn his pattern, and plan accordingly. Note that it is a pattern and not just random elemental attacks.

Second, get two people to continuously throw buffs over your party. Constantly. This will force Primevil to deviate from his pattern and to keep debuffing your guys.

Thanks for all the info...one more question though--I've heard that if you have too many buffs it causes him to deviate from the elemental attack pattern too. Is that true? Do I need to have exactly two buffs for all members? I was using Immunize and Bravery and he wasn't changing his elemental attack pattern the one time I fought him, but one of my Immunizes wasn't Boosted and it cost me the game.

Maybe I'll change my mind, but I do sort of feel like the fact that you have to figure out the pattern either by repeated deaths or by asking someone/FAQing it is kind of lame. No other boss killed me more than twice before I figured out what was up, except maybe Golem, but I went to him real early on. I guess I should shut up and just enjoy the punishment though--I guess if I wasn't impatient to get to EO2 this might be just as fun as all the other beatdowns I recieved through the game. Which were really fun actually.
 
I'm glad the thread got bumped.

It's tricky since you have to know he'll randomize his attacks if you have more than one buff on your party like you've likely been using throughout the game. I know I had been. So stick to one buff otherwise, it's more of a hope-he-doesn't-randomly-nuke-your-ass-into-oblivion fight.

Yes! A survivalist IS a great asset to your party.

What I did was use immunize, boosted as often as I could, and then wrote out the pattern as far as I got each time, I think up to like 20+ turns.

It's a tedious boss fight and when I inevitably replay EO I'll likely only go to the main boss of the game.

However, hope this helps.
 
Yes, definitely helpful, thanks everyone. I guess I'm going to build up a Surv, my damage output isn't super great and my 2nd and 3rd attempts at Primevil got the smackdown around turn 23 or so.
 
So yeah,just got back into this one,intent on finishing the game finally but it looks like I still have some grinding to do...level 35 on my 5 guys,just learned revive finally but that Wyvern still kills my guys in one hit,even with shell buffs and all :lol
 
Is this EO1 or 2? If it's EO2, 35 is honestly a bit low unless you're packing a team specifically designed for boss-killing.

If it's 1... slap on a Defender/Immunize and go to town.
 
Pureauthor said:
Is this EO1 or 2? If it's EO2, 35 is honestly a bit low unless you're packing a team specifically designed for boss-killing.

If it's 1... slap on a Defender/Immunize and go to town.


It`s EO1,one reason I want to finish it is because I also got EO2 and want to play it as well...I don`t have a Defender,I have a Troubadour for my defensive,offensive buffs.(Landsketch,Dark Hunter,Survivalist and Medic).
 
Ricker said:
It`s EO1,one reason I want to finish it is because I also got EO2 and want to play it as well...I don`t have a Defender,I have a Troubadour for my defensive,offensive buffs.(Landsketch,Dark Hunter,Survivalist and Medic).

Ah, okay, that's.... sort of the problem.

You see, a Troubadour's defensive abilities will never be able to stack up against the Protector's (let alone the Medic), because while all three skills are percentage-based, the Troubadour's Shelter takes your defense and multiplies it, while Defender and Immunize take the enemy's damage and divides it.

So, since you don't have a Protector, pump points into your Medic if you want to be able to handle the Wyvern. Just realize that Immunize will break all of the main game and most of the post game into tiny pieces.
 
Pureauthor said:
Ah, okay, that's.... sort of the problem.

You see, a Troubadour's defensive abilities will never be able to stack up against the Protector's (let alone the Medic), because while all three skills are percentage-based, the Troubadour's Shelter takes your defense and multiplies it, while Defender and Immunize take the enemy's damage and divides it.
Either way, both pale in comparison to just Immunize alone since it does insane defense against both physical attacks and elemental attacks. Adding either Shelter or Defender on top of Immunize is like putting up a new single vehicle car hold to your awesome medieval castle; nice but wholly unnecessary since it's already awesome. You're better off using that extra slot for Relaxing or another necessary buff.



So, since you don't have a Protector, pump points into your Medic if you want to be able to handle the Wyvern. Just realize that Immunize will break all of the main game and most of the post game into tiny pieces.
Add in a Troubadour with max Relaxing, and max Bravery for good measure to round things off nicely. The two with three random battlers was more than enough for even a nonretired party beat the final boss and most of the post game (whose difficulty lies in tedious warping than an actual boss). I had no use for a Protector other than for the final post game boss and the dragons and even then, a level 10 or 15 protector is all you need. :p
 
I managed to beat the game (well, Entrant anyway, haven't managed to finish the 6th stratum, but that's postgame content) without either a Protector or Immunize (I have a Medic of course, but no Immunize... and heck, only level 7 Refresh, so that won't even heal all the status ailments...), so it IS possible. I've kept the same party I've had for a long time, a Medic, Darkhunter, Landsknecht, Hexer, and Alchemist.

I keep meaning to go back and finish the rest of the postgame content, there are still a bunch of sidequests left, but while I have gotten to the bottom floor, I need to beat the three special bosses to proceed, and the Dragon, Wyrm, and Drake are extremely difficult. I haven't managed to beat any of those yet, not even close I think... :( I do have the Drake and Wyvern quests though, and just need to finish getting all the Ankh parts before I can fight the Dragon, not that I'm especially looking forward to it given how the other hard quests have gone...
 
A Black Falcon said:
I keep meaning to go back and finish the rest of the postgame content, there are still a bunch of sidequests left, but while I have gotten to the bottom floor, I need to beat the three special bosses to proceed, and the Dragon, Wyrm, and Drake are extremely difficult. I haven't managed to beat any of those yet, not even close I think...

I could have written this exact post, myself. I stopped playing EO1 probably around a year ago, though, and I still haven't even booted up EO2 yet. Even thinking about it now I still feel kinda burned out on EO...
 
As someone new to the series and looking to buy the better of the two games, would you recommend the original to me, or the sequel? How do the stories and game mechanics compare?
 
They're more or less the same mechanics. EO2 is, in my opinion, the superior one with everything just being smoothed out. You don't have to play EO1 to get anything in OE2 or anything like that, luckily.

Stories... heh, not really anything to compare, since there's not a ton there.

So, yeah, I'd say go for EO2.
 
Well, there is something like that in EO2, its just not as surprising because well, its the same world as EO1. :lol

EO2 has better class balance, better controls, and overall a bit more polish.

EO1 has better music.
 
Would it be possible for someone to scan the cover art front, back, and spine from the first game? I'm pretty sure this is allowed, it's magazine scans that aren't but if this isn't either just let me know.

Help from you guys would be very appreciated.
 
Sorry to resurrect a year old thread, but this was the best place for it. Just now got round to really starting the first EO game, and f-ck this game is BRUTAL. You cannot take more than a few steps on the FIRST FLOOR because you will DIE! :lol

I grinded and grinded and grinded and my characters are all at lvl 5 now and I am still SO cautious about going further than a few steps into unchartered territory. And money is so short, I grinded for an hour and made enough loot to sell for just 150 coins or something.

Loving it though, but it might be just too grindy and hardcore for me. My team is LLP/AM - is this OK for a starter team? I felt like I needed two Landsknechts because I previously had a team with one and a Survivalist, but I was dying and restarted a couple of times, only when I switched Survivalist out for a second Landsknecht did I feel a little more comfortable.

HARD-fucking-CORE, but fun.... and two sequels still to catch up on. :D
 
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