my etrian odyssey 3 party + subclasses

i finally bit the bullet... i started looking at guides online so i could finally assign subclasses.

etrian odyssey is a pretty difficult game and it tends to attract min/max types who believe in a "right" way to play a game. it's true the game does punish you for not playing as efficiently as possible, but i tend to avoid looking up stuff about the game because i personally am very attracted to the customization of the games... i don't really want to know the "best" way until i've had lots and lots of time to fuddle around playing with things that look interesting, even if i have to grit my teeth and lose progress later because i walked up a path that seemed totally attractive only to dead end in a ditch somewhere.

for that reason... today, i sacrificed 5 of my hard earned levels on each of my characters so i could subclass "the right way" ...

you can reset your skill point investment by "resting" your characters, but it eats 5 of your levels. i would say that, when doing dedicated mid-game grinding, it takes at least an hour to build a level on a character, so "resting" basically means losing 5 hours of progress. Q_Q

but "rest" can be the only way to save yourself from softlocking! it's not like you can just grind levels high in order to get fresh skill points forever. first of all, the increased exp you need for each new level is noticable. secondly, there's a level cap at 70, and you could maybe fill 1/3 of your skill point slots with those 70 points. if you invest in the wrong skills, you will really suffer! you will never be able to finish the rest of your skill tree! investing points in the wrong skills is permanent and it WILL keep you from getting skills you want!

the only one of my party who survived the "rest"-event was my gladiator, and she was already a victim of classing because. um. originally i started the game with a very bad party. a party so bad even i knew it was bad.

look. etrian odyssey 3 has a lot of really attractive support classes! they're really cute, and they have such unique skills, and i like the designs, and... i had a party that was one tank, one glass cannon, and 3 support units. i somehow managed to get to level 17 like this... i really don't know how...

i know etrian odyssey is a pretty niche game so i'm trying to nail down an example that would describe what i did. it's kind of like trying to beat a pokemon game entirely with unevolved baby fairy pokemon? and you could never buy or use items? yeah, pretty much like that actually.

i had exactly one party member who could deal damage, and she took 3 turns to wind up and died if an enemy looked at her. everyone else just sat around casting the same buffs and debuffs constantly in the hope that my glass cannon would survive and get a hit off. if she was powerful enough to one-hit k.o. or something, that would be a different story, but instead it meant endless battles where i slowly whittled down bosses' hp and every setback was a disaster.

basically i was hoping against hope that my struggle was just because i was low level. it was not. i needed damage dealers. in fact, i should have replaced all but one of my support units with damage dealers. i did not do that. instead, i invested in exactly one (1) typical damage unit: my gladiator. so when i say she was a victim of "rest" already, i mean that i stuck her in my party at level 1 when everyone else was 17 or higher. it was almost like she was "super"rested...

i've become really attached to her! ...you'll notice that she has no subclass listed. that's right... i still haven't decided... but it's okay :'x i swear it's okay :'x barbarians are really flexible and do well with any subclass! :''''x

she's ... still my only physical damage dealer. this is really bad. but i'm squeaking by via grinding levels so i just overpower enemies with stats instead of skills.

next up... my hoplite, my tank.

i really like this particular hoplite art. it reminds me of saber from fate/sn and of yuragi and kathryn from evenicle.

i would have had no idea what to do with her subclass if i didn't look up guides...

i originally built her, um, kind of typical aggro tank style? like, i would use provoke, she would regain hp when defending, and she would randomly proc parries and take zero damage from enemies! it was pretty strong, as in, like, she was really hard to kill with direct attacks, and most of the rest of the party would be protected from single direct attacks too. the bad part is that every single turn of hers was taken up regening hp, so she couldn't attack, and she couldn't use skills like line guard that would defend the rest of the party. the thing that ended up killing me, and killing me FAST, was multihit attacks and absolutely anything with a status effect. since this is etrian odyssey, that was, like, 3/4 of turns.

i also could tell something was wrong because she always had full tp. she never ran low. in etrian odyssey, that is, like, impossible... the game is balanced around you running out of tp and needing to go rest at camp or in town very often, as in, like, you will not be able to afford the fees for how much you want to rest. you are always VERY low on resources. random battles on the way to a boss genuinely put you in danger of not having enough tp to make it through the big battle! having full tp after a boss battle is a huge red flag for your build.

i never would have thought of subclassing her as a ninja. ninja tank?! but the strat outlined goes like this: you ONLY use line guard and elemental guard skills. ignore provoke and regen! with the ninja abilities, you create a shadow clone that sits in the back line, and both the original hoplite and the clone use line guard to protect the entire party instead of leaving the squishy back line defenseless! the clone is also useful because you can do fire guard and ice guard on the same turn, or maybe fire/volt or ice/volt, instead of only being able to guard against one type of magic! this makes so much more sense for the way the game plays out!

next, my monk :D

i really like this class! the stats are overall pretty good, and the idea of a healer who is also good with physical damage is appealing. someday i would like to play with a party where i actually lean into the fist skills that come with this class. however, that would be pretty specialized. instead, i invested all her points into healing, which is pretty much the "right way" to build a monk. i rested her and got her skill points back mostly for fine-tuning because i wanted her PERFECT for her subclass: princess.

prince/princess is SUCH A COOL CLASS ^_^ it's a buff/debuff class that heals with giving and taking away buffs! it's unique, functional, and, most of all, VERY CUTE.

i really wanted a princess... that's how i got greedy in my first party organizaiton... the party member i had to replace with siw the gladiator was a princess...

i think it would be interesting to one day do a princess who is the dedicated ONLY healer of the party. instead, i am using this as a subclass in order to increase healing from my monk and to increase the party's offense and defense. something i noticed with my current strategy is that, well... i kind of didn't have a single thing for my monk to do when everyone was healthy. i would just spam normal attack with no buffs or use defense. she also had the problem my hoplite encountered: infinite tp. how on earth was my healer ending up with full tp at the end of fights?! underutilization, that's how.

next, the star of my show: my zodiac!

she has been carrying the party this entire time. etrian odyssey is really stingy about giving you elemental skills, but ALMOST EVERY ENEMY has elemental weaknesses. you NEED a zodiac, or else you're going to have to very carefully plan your party so you can cover each elemental type from early on in the game without running dry of tp. zodiac with etheric charge (concentrate one turn to deal 1.2x-2.0x more damage with elemental attacks) and singularity (more damage when hitting an elemental weakness) is textbook glass cannon. and it's awesome.

i just didn't know how to subclass her because i thought she was perfect as is, so i looked into it. that's how i found out that... zodiacs apparently fall off late game... apparently late game bosses stop having those exploitable elemental weaknesses! D: why would they do this to me?

people don't recommend you invest in the "prophecy" skills that counter elemental attacks either. i guess it's too much skill point waste? and the subclass people recommend really surprised me.

the best subclass for zodiac is apparently "buccaneer", pretty much purely for the defense down debuff skill. i guess that makes sense, because it really is just refining a class that's good on its own. i kind of wanted to go arbalist for the ability "multi-shot", which sometimes makes skills targetting a single enemy hit twice. however - the skill doesn't say this clearly - each extra hit costs additional tp! not only this, but multi-shot is at the end of a skill tree, so you have to invest a lot of points just to get it in the first place! it's like, you can get a free hotpot meal, but only if you fill out your 10-meal punchcard and pay for an annual membership fee on top of that!

(ah... i'm really tired of eating plain porridge while sick... i want to go get hot pot and pig out when i'm healthy again... T_T)

my last party member is my farmer :3

isn't she so cute?? i love this class!! i think they're really cute and really helpful. however. they are completely useless in combat. lol. that's right. she's my third support class...

i absolutely wanted to have a farmer, despite the drawbacks. farmers have skills that increase party exp, increase party recovery at camps, increase monster drops, increase field item harvesting, and they even can take you back to town instantly so you don't have to stock up on expensive ariande thread or face repeatedly game-overing trying to crawl back to the dungeon entrance.

my thought was, well, increasing party exp and item drops is most useful at the very beginning of the game, right? well, it turns out people giving advice out online actually say the opposite. they say you want a farmer at the end of the game: you can just power-level some up, exploit their skills getting materials, and then jump out of the dungeon as fast as possible to avoid dead weight clogging up your battle party.

i won't lie to you... i have regretted having my farmer since day one. but i just can't bear to let her go... i think she's so cute and so useful, so i don't mind her spamming "strange seeds" every turn with zero results and otherwise sucking up resources that could go to others. this is MY farmer and we support her. however...

i'm currently grinding to fight the deep ones in the molten caves. when i finish it, i will unlock one of the two final classes: shogun or yggdroid. my plan is... i will side with armoroad, unlock shogun, and finally replace my farmer. in her place, i will have a shogun, and then i will subclass the shogun and my gladiator. but i will not retire my farmer! she will wait at the guild hall for when i need her, and i will think of her and her instant transport ability every time i hit a bad random battle in a dead end somewhere.