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7/24/2024

Etrian Odyssey HD Part 1

A fine callback to '80s dungeon crawlers with a few QoL upgrades from the original DS release.


Our team is

Azule the Protector - As their name implies, Protectors are geared toward defending your party, reducing the damage they take while being quite sturdy themselves.  Fittingly, they have a bunch of defense-boosting buffers and skills that draw aggro from other party members.  They're passable physical fighters with one powerful unique skill to their name (Smite), but given that you have to spend eighteen points just to unlock it, you probably won't get to use it until pretty late in the game.  Their anti-elemental blockers are also pretty much mandatory for the postgame quests, so make sure you drop 5 points into each of those too.

Fredward the Landsknecht - Your main front-line damage dealer, able to wield both axes and swords.  In fact, a common landsknecht build for the first game is to have them use both - Swords for Allslash to clean up mooks, and Axes to lay down the damage on bosses and FOEs with Crush.  I will be using this build too, incidentally.

Fran the Medic - Every RPG needs a healer class, because of course it's extremely tough (if not impossible) to survive without at least one.  Medics are straight-up broken in the first game owing to one skill in particular - Immunize, which takes a big chunk out of all damage inflicted to the party before any armor reduction is applied; at max level enemies will almost never do more than low double digits in damage.  Even Atlus seems to know it's a busted skill, as it only resists fire/ice/volt damage in Untold (and not nearly as much) and all the later games remove it entirely.  Medics are also surprisingly good fighters, getting a whopping 300% damage boost with a 10 in Staves proficiency and a very powerful attack skill in Caduceus, so they can help lay on damage anytime you've got a free turn.  Also of note is the skill Healing Touch, which was largely useless in the original version but is given a big boost in HD - a full-party heal outside of battle for a pittance of TP?  Yes please.

Autis the Survivalist - A very overpowered class that got nerfed like crazy in the sequels, Survivalists are speedy ranged attackers that can lay on quite a bit of damage with Multihit and Apollon, and get several useful field support abilities to boot - they're the only class that has all three item-gathering skills, and they can also boost your chance of getting preemptive attacks and avoiding ambushes.  Their high speed also proves quite handy for sneaking in a healing item before the enemy can move, as Medics are on the slow side.  If you really do need a proper heal spell, though, their 1st Turn ability will let any other character get the first move in that round regardless of their speed.  Just a fantastic class all-around; even if you don't have one in your main party you'll want a secondary team of them for item gathering purposes.

Spongylus the Troubadour - As in many RPGs, the bard equivalent isn't too great on their own, but they prove to be an invaluable supporter to a well-built party.  Etrian Odyssey is no different there - Troubadours get a great damage buffer in Bravery, a TP-regeneration skill, and some elemental-themed damage buffs and resistors as the highlights of their moveset.  They're not particularly sturdy and don't have any weapon skills at all so they'll never do great damage, but you can keep them relatively safe in the back row armed and have them fire off a bow when you're done setting up buffs.

The other classes

Dark Hunter - Yep, the dominatrix class.  Wielding whips or swords, they rely on debilitating enemies with status effects, absorbing their health and counterattacking.  They get a devastatingly powerful attacking skill (Ecstasy) but as it requires the enemy's head, arms and legs to be bound before it's usable, it's very rare that you'll get the opportunity to use it.  Park them front-and-center and use a sword to get the most mileage out of them with Drain (damages the enemy, heals the Hunter) and Bait - a very handy skill that will counter any attacks directed not just at the Hunter, but at characters adjacent to them too.

Alchemist - Fitting another archetype, the Alchemist is your elemental attacker, using fire, ice, lightning and poison attacks and... that's about it, honestly; they're a very specialized class.  Their physical stats are very low and they're almost entirely dependent on TP-consuming skills to be much use.  Poison is devastating early on, but once you hit the third stratum you'd best know what enemies are vulnerable to fire, ice and volt if you want to keep them relevant.  They're also just not very useful  in the postgame; most players swap them out for a Troubadour by then, assuming they use them at all.

Ronin - A glass cannon fighter.  Only able to wear light armor and wield Katanas, they're fast and do hefty damage, but can't take too many hits themselves.  Given that they also don't unlock until you reach the 11th floor of the dungeon, it's also a pretty tough sell to roll an entirely new character and grind 35 or so levels to get them caught up.  Most of their skills aren't too great either, to say nothing of the fact you have to spend a turn setting up a Stance before you can use any given subset of them.  The best of the bunch is probably Overhead, which grants access to Midareba (a multi-hitting ability) and Orochi (fire-element attack).  Honestly, though, there's just not much reason to use them when you already have two great damage-dealers that you've already invested so much time in...

Hexer - There's no kind way to say it - Hexers suck.  Oh man do they suck.  They're based around inflicting negative statuses to enemies, which can be useful in random encounters, particularly with debilitating effects like Torpor (sleep), Betrayal (enemies attack one another) or Suicide (enemies attack themselves), but in boss battles and in the later stratums with increasingly status-resistant enemies they're almost complete dead weight.  They also don't unlock until you're sixteen floors down, at which point your party is probably going to be around level 45-50, so it simply isn't worth the effort to train them up.

Note that Etrian Odyssey 2 would drastically overcompensate for these imbalances; Dark Hunters, Ronins and Hexers became devastatingly powerful while most of the other returning classes would be nerfed big time...