The Etrian Odyssey Thread

I have a strong suspicion that Untold was only balanced with Standard difficulty in mind; these bosses should not be remotely as hard as they are. There is the fact that the leap from Standard to Expert is just absurd in terms of balance--you do about 33% less damage overall, and everything does what, 50% more damage to you?

This difficulty leap suddenly makes what seems to be a nightmare of a boss a complete walk in the park on par with yellow-aura FOEs I have previously fought. I am sure EOIV is more or less the same case between Normal and Casual, but seriously what the fuck.

 

Fenrir? Took about 22 turns without causalities, but I had to take about 15 Flash Bombs with me to drop almost every turn, because really. Even on Expert his main attack did absolutely nothing Simon could not heal the turn after, and Shadowluck bound his head twice, and made everyone evade Horrific Roar. Twice, too.

The Coeurl, though, is a completely different story...

 

Based on extensive research and exhaustive experimentation (not really) on my part, here are some useful Skill Point allocation protips. Do note that my focus, aside from @Flimzy's requests for his party, was Story Mode's classes--that is, the Highlander, the Gunner, Protector, Medic and Alchemist.

Without further ado, here we go:

• All "[Stat] Up" Skill Trees (including standalones) are exactly identical in terms of level progression, regardless of class. ATK Up and DEF Up both start at a +2% Physical Damage boost and reduction, respectively, ultimately capping at +20% at Max Rank. Meanwhile, HP Up and TEC Up both start at a +5% Maximum HP/TP modifier, which caps at +25% at Max Rank.
  
• On a similar vein, the Protector's Cure and Party Cure, and the Medic's Cure and Salve, are exactly identical skills. You should note that the recovery is entirely dependent on TEC, however, so be careful in your Skill Point investment regarding the Protector's version of the set.
  
• There is no sadly no data in any of the three gathering passives (Taking, Chopping, Mining), but since there is absolutely no bonus material yield without learning them, at the very least one Skill Point should be allotted to them. This is solely speaking from experience, but starting from Rank 4, the benefits from these passives become very noticeable.
  
• Mastery Skills work quite similarly to the Stat Ups, except they are, apparently, Weapon-specific in cases like the Highlander's Spear Mastery and the Gunner's Gun Mastery. These two Masteries only have a +15% Physical Damage boost at Max Rank, but this is also applied alongside the ATK Up passives both of these classes have. The same progression is used for Shield Mastery, except as a Physical Damage reduction.
  
• Heal Mastery ends up increasing Healing Output by 25% at Max Rank, while Formula Mastery does the same for Elemental Damage, at 20%.

Moving onto the classes themselves;

Spoiler: Highlander

• Long Thrust is interesting. It starts at 136% Damage Output, and ends at 156% at Rank 4, before it has a spike of about 35% D.Out at Rank 5, along with +3 TP. It has 312% Damage Output at Max Rank, at 10 TP.
  
• Head Pierce is actually weaker than Long Thrust, starting at 121% Damage, and it only boosts Head Bind and Instant Death chances at Rank 5, for 153% Damage.
  
• Spear Assist is frighteningly powerful--even at Rank 1, there is a /huge/ damage spike after it grabs an element: from a measly 85% to 170%.

Spoiler: Gunner

• Gunner's High Caliber is worth every Rank you invest in it. Even at Rank 1, it makes Critical Hits do 80% more damage as opposed to just 50%, and this rises to 120% at merely Rank 5.
  
• Recharge's only available data is that, at Max Rank, it is a 30% chance. This is important to remember if you want to invest for Frederica's TP conservation as opposed to more damage options.
  
• Head/Arm/Leg Snipe require plenty of Skill Points to function the way you want to. They only increase damage for the next 3 Ranks, before finally improving the bind success rate--at Rank 5.
  
• Even at Rank 1, her Fire/Ice/Volt Rounds have respectable Damage Output, at 140%.
  
• The Damage Output boost for Ricochet's Ranks is extremely minimal. I can deduce that it merely increases it by 1%, starting from a base 100% Damage Output. At Rank 5 it settles on 105%, at 25 TP, but with the added probability of a fourth hit. It only adds the fifth hit--and caps at 115% D.Out--at Max Rank.

Spoiler: Protector

• In comparison to EOIV, the Protector's Defender makes Strike Guard pale in comparison to effectiveness, even though it takes 4 more Skill Points to Master. The Physical Damage reduction starts at 20%, and reaches 33% at Max Rank. Additionally, the duration increases by 1 Turn at Rank 5, and finally another at Max Rank.
  
• Fire/Ice/Volt Walls are incredibly, surprisingly effective. There is a 25% Damage reduction at merely Rank 1 (becoming 50%, 75% and 85% in the next three Ranks), which then becomes complete elemental immunity at Rank 5, but not without a sudden cost spike--at 16 TP.

Spoiler: Medic

• Cure starts merely at 100% Healing Output, but its leap from 3 to 5 TP at Rank 5 is absolutely worth it, as there is a 55% Healing Output boost between Rank 4 and 5, from 115% to 170%.
  
• Heal starts at 220%, and Salve starts at 115%, with both receiving notable effectiveness (and TP Cost) boosts of 95% and and 70% at Rank 5. Each of these (along with Cure) follow the pattern of increasing Healing Output by 5% every Rank until Rank 5, followed by 10%, before settling with another massive boost at Max Rank.
  
• Immunize is, basically, an Elemental Damage version of Defender, which I detailed on the previous spoiler.
  
• I almost choked when I saw Delayed Heal. It is a 1:1 equivalent of Heal in terms of effectiveness and Ranks--for a party-wide skill, even with its restrictions.
  
• Revive requires a lot of Skill Points to be safely used in combat. It begins as a 1 HP Revive, and it only becomes 80 HP at Rank 5, for 18 TP. It pales in comparison to EOIV's Revive, as even Rank 7 or 8 is most likely only going to resurrect someone at half their Max HP--at 127 and 143 HP, exactly. Leaving it at Rank 1 is the safest option here, unless you plan on getting CPR. Which, speaking of...
  
• Even at Max Rank, CPR is not a 100% chance. There is no information on the exact probabilities, but this is a certain fact. There are (undefined) success rate boosts at every Rank, with duration/cost boosts at Ranks 5 and Max.
  
• Toxin Injection's Poison damage is TEC-dependent[citation needed]. It has a very high success rate when compared to enemy skills, and is highly effective even on Bosses. It is capable of doing over 200 damage at Max Rank, though I have yet to personally confirm this.

Spoiler: Alchemist

• The Alchemist's Fire/Ice/Volt Formulae receive a 45% Damage Output boost at Rank 5, putting them at 160%. This makes them exactly 30% more damagingly effective (as single-target techniques, of course) than the Inferno/Cocytus/Thor Formulae at Rank 1. Due to the necessary spread of the Alchemist's skills, it might be best to leave these at Rank 1, while focusing on the Tier 1 Formulae as primary damage sources.
  
• Despite their increased range, the Tier 2 Formulae, or Flame/Freeze/Shock Formulae have at least 20% more Damage Output than their Tier 1 counterparts, when compared at Rank 5, at 23 TP. Their Damage Output scales down due to their differing ranges, with the most effective being Flame Formula at 200%, followed by Freeze Formula at 190%, and finally Shock Formula at 180%. Considering they begin at 120%/115%/110%, it is advisable to never Rank them higher than 4.
  
• Analysis is good enough at Rank 1--at 30% extra weakness damage inflicted, for 3 turns--and should never really be touched afterwards. Further Ranks only minutely increase this at a rate of 2%/3% per upgrade (capping at 50% at Max Rank), with a duration boost at Ranks 5 and Max

 

They are absolutely amazing, I have been using them since Level... 35? However, just looking at the numbers now:

Delay Charge starts at 250% Damage Output at merely Rank 1, for 2 turns of activation, and will always consume 15% Max HP. I don't have any specific data in the exact progression, but this abruptly spikes to 450% damage at Rank 5, with an added turn of delay and 4 more TP. At Rank 9, it reaches 520% Damage Output, and Max Rank gives it a fourth turn of delay for an absolutely massive 750% Damage Output, plus 4 more TP. In case you are wondering, Max Boosted Delay Charge will yield you 1150% damage.

Cross Charge is the weaker of the two, at 10% Max HP consumption (which increases by 5% at Ranks 5 and Max), but still has impressive damage overall. Without Delay Charge, Rank 1 only has 120% Damage Output, but this is boosted to 250% if used to trigger it. There is a spike of 100% Damage Output (when triggering Delay Charge) at Rank 5, and it ends up having a 525% Damage Output at Max Rank. Boosted Max will yield you 700% Damage Output (triggering Delay Charge).

No information on Black Sabbath, sadly.

Also, I discovered that Toxin Injection's Poison is, in fact, not dependent on TEC at all for damage. I must have misinterpreted the source. Looking back at it, it makes much more sense if Toxin Injection's /success rate/ is dependent on TEC, rather, because then it explains how ridiculously often Simon can inflict it on FOEs or Bosses. However, this is just speculation.