Reading up on how the two difficulty settings in EO5 work makes me want a "custom" difficulty mode where you can manually slide around the things that Basic mode adjusts. I like the bonus XP of Basic mode, but the bonuses to everything else result in a multiplicative difficulty reduction: because enemies aren't as tough, so you win more often and faster, you get XP faster... which causes you to level up and progress EVEN faster because in addition to winning the fight faster in the first place, you also get 20% more XP from the fight you won! And now that you've leveled up faster than before, the fights become yet faster still, and so on.
It sounds like I'm whining all the time, but I'm enjoying it plenty but always finding little things leaving me going "I wish this LITTLE THING was just a LITTLE DIFFERENT"... I think the mindset of optimizing a ton of little things the game puts me in promotes that kind of thinking haha
Yeah, I haven't gotten much playing time in the last week, but the basic mode seems to be way too much of a cakewalk by even the second stratum. I went to floor 8(I think?) for the first time, and I essentially cleared the whole floor without having to go back to town. I think I'm gonna try changing the difficulty to advanced, and see how things go.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
Just finished the third stratum. That stratum took significantly longer than the previous two mainly because of the day/night cycle and plowing through so many FoEs which really drained my TP. Boss was interesting, though a bit weak compared to my team composition.
I bit the bullet and redid my shaman + rover. Shaman flipped over to the healing/support spec while the rover got a race change to Earthlain for more Luck as she's my designated binder. My current party is now:
Shield Dragoon. Currently working on improving bunkers because of auto bunker + dragon roar to make trash clearing easier. Fairly simple really. Counter Guards add a lot of damage but in general the dragoon's damage output is understandably, but depressingly low.
Sword Master Masurao. Sweeping legs, splitting heads all day every day. Critting for over 1k is nice. Additionally, I grabbed early access to Mirror Moon and got it to level 5 for the initial 100% counter chance and with appropriate elemental damage via a shaman dance, that thing can negate predictable AoE hits and counter for stupid amounts of damage.
Falcon Rover. Picked up hound for Aid Command, which is my main source of ailment removal and Hunting Arrow which is Arm+Leg bind. Also took the head bind and now working towards Million Arrows to be able to do more damage
Elemancer Warlock. I'm still debating how I'm going to finish the Warlock. I'm going to pick up fast chanting which will become the lynchpin of my warlock's style. My options are to focus on the basic spells, get them to level 10 and ~level 4-5 for the master AoE spells. With level 10 Focus Chant, a level 10 Fireball is only marginally less damage than a level 10 Explosion but costs 22TP less. If I use the chant to reduce TP costs, I get a 10TP ~190% potency Fireball or alternatively a 25TP ~240% potency Explosion. If I were to go the max basic spells then get level 5 of the master AoE spells, I can TP reduce the AoE spells for ~166% potency at a 15TP cost. Basically the trade off I'm going to have is: Really strong TP sustainability and being able to contribute to any fight without needing to hold back, or much stronger burst damage and not being able to freely cast away.
Divine Herald Shaman. Probably one of the most important party members because of the flexibility I can get out of her. At the moment I'm really skill point constrained but eventually she's going to provide a lot of passive HP regen during the rounds, the ability to emergency heal or speed up a party member and synergises very well with both the Masurao and Warlock. +Accuracy for the Masurao for helm cracking, and a nasty Oracle Dance + Common Magic combo that can significantly magnify the damage the warlock pushes out.
I'd say the Fencer is doing the tanking. There's little support for chain damage unless the Warlock goes omnimancer and uses the chant that increases hit count.
Or, you can have two tanks and just rely on the Masurao and Warlock to do alllllll the damage and have the Botanist go smoke spec.
The fifth stratum reveal is almost as good as the EO1 fifth stratum reveal. And the stratum itself is a lot of fun, even if I am just murdering FOEs instead of doing their puzzles towards the end. It does have some sweet music, but I still prefer the third stratum one. That had amazing music.
And the cover team would probably be best served with dodge fencer and cannon dragoon. The dragoon can still mitigate magic damage, and deal decent damage while the fencer handles physicals.
On the topic of team setups, is anyone running without a bind focused pugilist? I can't imagine playing without one at this point, binds are simply too important even in random encounters.
I'm running a heavy luck stacked Falcon rover.
Hunter Shot deals with Arm/Leg binds while Aerial Talons can take care of head binds. And the hawk's/hound's auto-attack is capable of random binds as well. For ailments I have my rover toss the appropriate item, and I could do the same for binds if I can organise my pack better to carry all the stuff I'm in the habit of carrying "just in case". Against big big targets, I just Unison Chain Blast after spending the first 2-3 rounds preparing for the hammer dropping and just wailing non-stop while the binds have a lock down.
I actually just flipped my rover back to Therian after a stint as an Earthlain. At level 52, I'm losing 20 luck down from around 130, but I gain a lot more TP and attack power and solo unison AoE attack which I think will help me a bit better than a marginal increase in bind effectiveness
Split Spirits is hilarious with my party. Level 1 so it's a 25% damage done = self-heal but when my Masurao is in the habit of clocking FOEs for 1.6k a round once warmed up and the Warlock is hitting for about the same every 2nd round, they basically fully heal twice over on the Split Spirits round and the Dragoon isn't doing too bad with a hefty Gunmount
I just got the demo yesterday (because SO MANY GOOD GAMES RIGHT NOW, gosh).
I'm trying to figure out how to build a decent party?
Currently working with Masurao / Fencer / Pugilist and Warlock / Botanist.
Is that okay, or functional at least?
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I just got the demo yesterday (because SO MANY GOOD GAMES RIGHT NOW, gosh).
I'm trying to figure out how to build a decent party?
Currently working with Masurao / Fencer / Pugilist and Warlock / Botanist.
Is that okay, or functional at least?
That was my first party and it works out pretty well.
I'm running a heavy luck stacked Falcon rover.
Hunter Shot deals with Arm/Leg binds while Aerial Talons can take care of head binds. And the hawk's/hound's auto-attack is capable of random binds as well. For ailments I have my rover toss the appropriate item, and I could do the same for binds if I can organise my pack better to carry all the stuff I'm in the habit of carrying "just in case". Against big big targets, I just Unison Chain Blast after spending the first 2-3 rounds preparing for the hammer dropping and just wailing non-stop while the binds have a lock down.
I actually just flipped my rover back to Therian after a stint as an Earthlain. At level 52, I'm losing 20 luck down from around 130, but I gain a lot more TP and attack power and solo unison AoE attack which I think will help me a bit better than a marginal increase in bind effectivenesst
Just so you know, the Rover's luck doesn't affect the hawk's infliction chances. The stats for hawks and hounds are based on level and skill points, they inherit nothing from the Rover.
Think that Foot Pierce and some weapon-skills use the Rover's Luck, though.
Huh, interesting. The Warlock's bind/stun-skills and Chain Blast replace a third of the attacker's Luck-calculation with Int. So those skills try to equalise the earthrun-advantage a bit.
I'd say the Fencer is doing the tanking. There's little support for chain damage unless the Warlock goes omnimancer and uses the chant that increases hit count.
Or, you can have two tanks and just rely on the Masurao and Warlock to do alllllll the damage and have the Botanist go smoke spec.
An offensive Dragoon will still end up tanking by virtue of being existent as a big blob of armour on the frontline. It's a decent complement for lesser tank-classes.
And there's no other summoner in that party, so there's no reason to not throw a bunch of turrets at things.
The Clear Breath attack adds 2x damage per buff it strips. For a group that is built around buffing and debuffing, that meant the bloody thing nigh one-shot the party stripping three buffs per person
The Clear Breath attack adds 2x damage per buff it strips. For a group that is built around buffing and debuffing, that meant the bloody thing nigh one-shot the party stripping three buffs per person
Yup, it got me a few times.
Luckily my party basically only uses overexertion at this point, so I just stopped using that and it wasn't too bad. Was definately the trickiest boss so far.
My party is designed to be running three buffs at all times. In full offence mode, High Ground + Ruinous Prayer + Focus Prayer on the frontline, Amplify + Ruinous Prayer + Focus Prayer on the back line
Not having buffs felt 100% miserable. I was tempted to flip the Shaman to the Divine Punisher spec so I could strip my own buffs as soon as the dragon swapped to Magic stance while still maintaining buffs during the physical stance since my Masurao penetrates slashing resistance and the Warlock would be doing increased damage.
That single ability completely destroyed the fundamentals of my party. I had drastically reduced defenses/offensive punch, I couldn't heal properly and I had no answer to the ailments/binds the thing was tossing out. Actually, I should raise a botanist for next time...
On the plus side, being able to hunker down with Mana Guard + Magic Shield was pretty awesome as those aren't buffs...
Humans are well-rounded best tanks, Elves are good magic-users, Hobbits are also good magic-users, and Viera are good fighters?
Humans/Viera for physical classes, basically interchangeable.
Elves/Hobbits for magic classes, basically interchangeable?
edit: Also all-brouni fun run viability: Bad? Very Bad? So Bad It's Good?
edit: Also Race Skills are probably a big factor, huh...
Lucedes on
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Humans are not really well-rounded. They work for any non-magic class. They're best for tanking, but are also okay substitutes for the physical damage stuff.
Elves are good for intellect based magic, which is damage. Brounis have higher Wisdom (healing) and are more durable as far as vitality goes compared to elves.
The animal people are excellent for physical classes, but they're kinda like glass canons. Plus, less luck than humans, so debuffs won't land as easily.
As far as an all-brouni team goes I have totally thought of trying it and I bet it could work. I dunno about the post-game, but the main game? Hell yeah.
And race skills are very important to dungeon exploration. There's also some passive stat related buffs via race skills.
Nah, they're well-rounded. They're in the bottom two for TP, Int and Wis, but therians are the bottom for Int and Wis.
TP is an issue for almost any class, so even the main weakness is rounded.
They're in the top two for everything else.
I'd still rather have a therian Shaman than an earthrun one.
Five brownies would always have a pocket Guard Order or Hygieia. I imagine Common Magic and Dance would be the obvious way to get damage.
A dog would take care of binds and panic. No head-bind from dog, though. And bow-damage would be so-so. Smoke could probably help a lot.
PLA on
0
Options
Orphanerivers of redthat run to seaRegistered Userregular
So far the only union skill that i've used outside the base ones they give you is Chain Blast
I can see uses for other unions especially given they always activate at the start of a turn but you would probably tailor picking them up to the boss encounter you're aiming for
I am lost entirely in theorycrafting purgatory, please send help.
I think all-therian Masurao / Masurao / Pugilist // Dragoon / Rover might be what I want to do.
I might swap the pugilist for a fencer in order to chain off of all the attacks. Probably this is madness.
edit: it actually seems to be working pretty well so far (just hit 4F).
i wouldn't recommend it, but with rover specialized as main healer, it's working out okay.
DPS is reasonably high, but god help me when i end up needing non-physical damage.
I am lost entirely in theorycrafting purgatory, please send help.
I think all-therian Masurao / Masurao / Pugilist // Dragoon / Rover might be what I want to do.
I might swap the pugilist for a fencer in order to chain off of all the attacks. Probably this is madness.
edit: it actually seems to be working pretty well so far (just hit 4F).
i wouldn't recommend it, but with rover specialized as main healer, it's working out okay.
DPS is reasonably high, but god help me when i end up needing non-physical damage.
Oils are your friend. Also, Pugilist has volt damage. I think there may be ice in there somewhere too.
Etrian makes no distinction between physical and magical damage, just elements.
Rover has access to ice damage with the Falcon spec. Masurao has access to Volt via the Sword Master spec. Sword Master also has access to Helm Splitter which bypasses Cut resistances. Woe to the FOE/Boss that gets leg bound when there's a Masurao pumping out 600% damage hits every round while they can't dodge cut resistance be damned.
Gun-Dragoon has access to really good Fire.
A therian shaman actually works pretty well, though, since they have a lot of stat-agnostic effects and good weapons.
So far the only union skill that i've used outside the base ones they give you is Chain Blast
I can see uses for other unions especially given they always activate at the start of a turn but you would probably tailor picking them up to the boss encounter you're aiming for
The main one people talk about is Black Mist. It's pretty good.
And damn I see we're back to Etrian 2 levels of murder. I got one of my guys KO'd in the very first fight in the tutorial - three Acorns focused down my Fencer. I was hoping to be able to go without a primary healer at least at first but it looks like it's going to be necessary.
Do Union abilities always go first? I'm wondering if I can use the multi-hitting Unions to activate Chasers, but that's a no-go if the Unions always fire before the Fencer has a chance to activate their Chaser ability.
That said, being able to use the "100% party heal + rez a dead guy at full HP" as a seemingly guaranteed first action since it's a Union ability has saved me once.
Do Union abilities always go first? I'm wondering if I can use the multi-hitting Unions to activate Chasers, but that's a no-go if the Unions always fire before the Fencer has a chance to activate their Chaser ability.
That said, being able to use the "100% party heal + rez a dead guy at full HP" as a seemingly guaranteed first action since it's a Union ability has saved me once.
The boss of the first stratum is going to give me trouble. My damage reduction strategy has basically hinged on using bunkers and Dragon's roar to centralize damage so my rover can heal and using binds to keep special moves manageable, but these golems seem to completely ignore aggro draw and the explosion into multiple thingers makes me rather worry that binds will be ineffective. And I don't have large partywide heals.
I guess this is what I get for trying to play without the Medic-equivalent.
The boss of the first stratum is going to give me trouble. My damage reduction strategy has basically hinged on using bunkers and Dragon's roar to centralize damage so my rover can heal and using binds to keep special moves manageable, but these golems seem to completely ignore aggro draw and the explosion into multiple thingers makes me rather worry that binds will be ineffective. And I don't have large partywide heals.
I guess this is what I get for trying to play without the Medic-equivalent.
Check the burst skills available to each race, I think earthlains have a party heal at end of turn one that may help.
The boss of the first stratum is going to give me trouble. My damage reduction strategy has basically hinged on using bunkers and Dragon's roar to centralize damage so my rover can heal and using binds to keep special moves manageable, but these golems seem to completely ignore aggro draw and the explosion into multiple thingers makes me rather worry that binds will be ineffective. And I don't have large partywide heals.
I guess this is what I get for trying to play without the Medic-equivalent.
Damage reduction and aoe damage was the key for me. Binds are also reliable once, but more than that might be iffy.
Debuffs on the small dudes follow when they merge, which makes ailments pretty good.
Bring along those somas you've picked up in quest rewards/chests and pack some medicas as well. Be prepared to use them whenever you think it's necessary and medicas especially to support your rover. Two somas in a single round can be extremely effective in resetting your team's HP.
If you have a brownie, their racial skill that boosts HP recovery from items can be very handy.
TBH, when I was running a botanist, 90% of their turns were either 'pissy attack' or 'throw out a herb and pray it sticks'. After I picked up a bow with the Aegis Prayer skill on it, the botanist would be using that every so often as well. I never had a situation where the botanist ran out of TP healing before I ran out of TP on my damage dealers. You can totally subsist on item healing if you're willing to put up with the inventory management and farming to buy more healing items, and medicas are just as good as a botanist heal early on plus you have a party member that's doing something most of the time rather than twiddling their thumbs.
As for botanists, they are hardly required. Mine spends more time using smoke skills for ailments and damage rather than healing. Soma and somaprime are better healing in crisis situations.
Posts
It sounds like I'm whining all the time, but I'm enjoying it plenty but always finding little things leaving me going "I wish this LITTLE THING was just a LITTLE DIFFERENT"... I think the mindset of optimizing a ton of little things the game puts me in promotes that kind of thinking haha
I bit the bullet and redid my shaman + rover. Shaman flipped over to the healing/support spec while the rover got a race change to Earthlain for more Luck as she's my designated binder. My current party is now:
Shield Dragoon. Currently working on improving bunkers because of auto bunker + dragon roar to make trash clearing easier. Fairly simple really. Counter Guards add a lot of damage but in general the dragoon's damage output is understandably, but depressingly low.
Sword Master Masurao. Sweeping legs, splitting heads all day every day. Critting for over 1k is nice. Additionally, I grabbed early access to Mirror Moon and got it to level 5 for the initial 100% counter chance and with appropriate elemental damage via a shaman dance, that thing can negate predictable AoE hits and counter for stupid amounts of damage.
Falcon Rover. Picked up hound for Aid Command, which is my main source of ailment removal and Hunting Arrow which is Arm+Leg bind. Also took the head bind and now working towards Million Arrows to be able to do more damage
Elemancer Warlock. I'm still debating how I'm going to finish the Warlock. I'm going to pick up fast chanting which will become the lynchpin of my warlock's style. My options are to focus on the basic spells, get them to level 10 and ~level 4-5 for the master AoE spells. With level 10 Focus Chant, a level 10 Fireball is only marginally less damage than a level 10 Explosion but costs 22TP less. If I use the chant to reduce TP costs, I get a 10TP ~190% potency Fireball or alternatively a 25TP ~240% potency Explosion. If I were to go the max basic spells then get level 5 of the master AoE spells, I can TP reduce the AoE spells for ~166% potency at a 15TP cost. Basically the trade off I'm going to have is: Really strong TP sustainability and being able to contribute to any fight without needing to hold back, or much stronger burst damage and not being able to freely cast away.
Divine Herald Shaman. Probably one of the most important party members because of the flexibility I can get out of her. At the moment I'm really skill point constrained but eventually she's going to provide a lot of passive HP regen during the rounds, the ability to emergency heal or speed up a party member and synergises very well with both the Masurao and Warlock. +Accuracy for the Masurao for helm cracking, and a nasty Oracle Dance + Common Magic combo that can significantly magnify the damage the warlock pushes out.
I love all the details in that and want a full artbook now.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Or, you can have two tanks and just rely on the Masurao and Warlock to do alllllll the damage and have the Botanist go smoke spec.
And the cover team would probably be best served with dodge fencer and cannon dragoon. The dragoon can still mitigate magic damage, and deal decent damage while the fencer handles physicals.
On the topic of team setups, is anyone running without a bind focused pugilist? I can't imagine playing without one at this point, binds are simply too important even in random encounters.
Hunter Shot deals with Arm/Leg binds while Aerial Talons can take care of head binds. And the hawk's/hound's auto-attack is capable of random binds as well. For ailments I have my rover toss the appropriate item, and I could do the same for binds if I can organise my pack better to carry all the stuff I'm in the habit of carrying "just in case". Against big big targets, I just Unison Chain Blast after spending the first 2-3 rounds preparing for the hammer dropping and just wailing non-stop while the binds have a lock down.
I actually just flipped my rover back to Therian after a stint as an Earthlain. At level 52, I'm losing 20 luck down from around 130, but I gain a lot more TP and attack power and solo unison AoE attack which I think will help me a bit better than a marginal increase in bind effectiveness
Split Spirits is hilarious with my party. Level 1 so it's a 25% damage done = self-heal but when my Masurao is in the habit of clocking FOEs for 1.6k a round once warmed up and the Warlock is hitting for about the same every 2nd round, they basically fully heal twice over on the Split Spirits round and the Dragoon isn't doing too bad with a hefty Gunmount
I'm trying to figure out how to build a decent party?
Currently working with Masurao / Fencer / Pugilist and Warlock / Botanist.
Is that okay, or functional at least?
Just so you know, the Rover's luck doesn't affect the hawk's infliction chances. The stats for hawks and hounds are based on level and skill points, they inherit nothing from the Rover.
Huh, interesting. The Warlock's bind/stun-skills and Chain Blast replace a third of the attacker's Luck-calculation with Int. So those skills try to equalise the earthrun-advantage a bit.
An offensive Dragoon will still end up tanking by virtue of being existent as a big blob of armour on the frontline. It's a decent complement for lesser tank-classes.
And there's no other summoner in that party, so there's no reason to not throw a bunch of turrets at things.
Yup, it got me a few times.
Not having buffs felt 100% miserable. I was tempted to flip the Shaman to the Divine Punisher spec so I could strip my own buffs as soon as the dragon swapped to Magic stance while still maintaining buffs during the physical stance since my Masurao penetrates slashing resistance and the Warlock would be doing increased damage.
That single ability completely destroyed the fundamentals of my party. I had drastically reduced defenses/offensive punch, I couldn't heal properly and I had no answer to the ailments/binds the thing was tossing out. Actually, I should raise a botanist for next time...
On the plus side, being able to hunker down with Mana Guard + Magic Shield was pretty awesome as those aren't buffs...
Humans are well-rounded best tanks, Elves are good magic-users, Hobbits are also good magic-users, and Viera are good fighters?
Humans/Viera for physical classes, basically interchangeable.
Elves/Hobbits for magic classes, basically interchangeable?
edit: Also all-brouni fun run viability: Bad? Very Bad? So Bad It's Good?
edit: Also Race Skills are probably a big factor, huh...
Elves are good for intellect based magic, which is damage. Brounis have higher Wisdom (healing) and are more durable as far as vitality goes compared to elves.
The animal people are excellent for physical classes, but they're kinda like glass canons. Plus, less luck than humans, so debuffs won't land as easily.
As far as an all-brouni team goes I have totally thought of trying it and I bet it could work. I dunno about the post-game, but the main game? Hell yeah.
And race skills are very important to dungeon exploration. There's also some passive stat related buffs via race skills.
TP is an issue for almost any class, so even the main weakness is rounded.
They're in the top two for everything else.
I'd still rather have a therian Shaman than an earthrun one.
Five brownies would always have a pocket Guard Order or Hygieia. I imagine Common Magic and Dance would be the obvious way to get damage.
A dog would take care of binds and panic. No head-bind from dog, though. And bow-damage would be so-so. Smoke could probably help a lot.
I can see uses for other unions especially given they always activate at the start of a turn but you would probably tailor picking them up to the boss encounter you're aiming for
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I think all-therian Masurao / Masurao / Pugilist // Dragoon / Rover might be what I want to do.
I might swap the pugilist for a fencer in order to chain off of all the attacks. Probably this is madness.
edit: it actually seems to be working pretty well so far (just hit 4F).
i wouldn't recommend it, but with rover specialized as main healer, it's working out okay.
DPS is reasonably high, but god help me when i end up needing non-physical damage.
Oils are your friend. Also, Pugilist has volt damage. I think there may be ice in there somewhere too.
Etrian makes no distinction between physical and magical damage, just elements.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Gun-Dragoon has access to really good Fire.
A therian shaman actually works pretty well, though, since they have a lot of stat-agnostic effects and good weapons.
The main one people talk about is Black Mist. It's pretty good.
And damn I see we're back to Etrian 2 levels of murder. I got one of my guys KO'd in the very first fight in the tutorial - three Acorns focused down my Fencer. I was hoping to be able to go without a primary healer at least at first but it looks like it's going to be necessary.
And the first few forays are almost eo1 levels of brutal.
That said, being able to use the "100% party heal + rez a dead guy at full HP" as a seemingly guaranteed first action since it's a Union ability has saved me once.
Unions do seem to always go first, yeah.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I guess this is what I get for trying to play without the Medic-equivalent.
Check the burst skills available to each race, I think earthlains have a party heal at end of turn one that may help.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Damage reduction and aoe damage was the key for me. Binds are also reliable once, but more than that might be iffy.
Debuffs on the small dudes follow when they merge, which makes ailments pretty good.
If you have a brownie, their racial skill that boosts HP recovery from items can be very handy.
TBH, when I was running a botanist, 90% of their turns were either 'pissy attack' or 'throw out a herb and pray it sticks'. After I picked up a bow with the Aegis Prayer skill on it, the botanist would be using that every so often as well. I never had a situation where the botanist ran out of TP healing before I ran out of TP on my damage dealers. You can totally subsist on item healing if you're willing to put up with the inventory management and farming to buy more healing items, and medicas are just as good as a botanist heal early on plus you have a party member that's doing something most of the time rather than twiddling their thumbs.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius