HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
This video is a massive spoiler, it's a fight against the final boss of the entire game (the extra content included, I mean like 6th stratum type stuff). The party features 3 front line Imperials sub-classed with Zodiac, a Protector sub-classed with Highlander, and a Sovereign sub-classed with Ninja. They're all at the 130 level cap and I assume they've been retired at that level as well. The video is only just-shy of 7 minutes long. Yeah.
Edit - The short of it is, Imperials are fucking stupidly strong. Is there a "dummy thicc" version to describe strength? Because that. I mean seriously.
It's more that there's apparently an endgame shield that does stupid damage when used for the various shield scaling attacks, drastically more than any other. And it's too strong.
But cheese strats have been the rule for most 6th stratum bosses iirc.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I don't think that's true in previous games for 6th stratum bosses. Like yeah, you often have to have some very specific setups, but they aren't always cheese.
Yeah, I'd warn not to conflate needing to have a complete mastery of the game's systems to complete the final post-game boss with thinking that you need to have that same level of mastery to just go through the standard story content. I do agree that you need to have a high level of proficiency over what your party can do and how it matches up to go against post-game bosses, with sometimes needing specific key parts. EO4 and EO5 were supposed to be better about having higher flexibility in party compositions. It just might be the case that EO Nexus is tuned towards having more burst damage, that sustain strategies alone aren't enough to overcome all obstacles.
Although now that I think of it, aren't there a bunch of final post-game bosses in the EO series with a 50-turn limit before they start spamming some kind of armageddon move? So you need to not just be able to take damage but also deal out damage in a timely manner in order to take on those final challenges. On a related thought, wasn't the consensus that the final post-game bosses in EO4 and 5 were supposed to be a lot more flexible in how you could organize your party, compared to EO 1-3? This is especially true for EO 4, where the game seems to expect that you complete a puzzle to get the weakened form. Of course, even the EO4 and 5 bosses still expect a fully releveled and retired party, so it's still cut off for pretty much all but the very hardcore players (or those who have the leveling DLC). I'm not on that kind of level, but at least EO4 and 5 were such that I was able to see everything up to that point. Time will still tell whether or not the same can be said about Nexus for me.
This video is a massive spoiler, it's a fight against the final boss of the entire game (the extra content included, I mean like 6th stratum type stuff). The party features 3 front line Imperials sub-classed with Zodiac, a Protector sub-classed with Highlander, and a Sovereign sub-classed with Ninja. They're all at the 130 level cap and I assume they've been retired at that level as well. The video is only just-shy of 7 minutes long. Yeah.
Edit - The short of it is, Imperials are fucking stupidly strong. Is there a "dummy thicc" version to describe strength? Because that. I mean seriously.
Seen six turns for Shield Flare.
Think Abyssal God is the only boss in the series that might take more than ten turns even if you know the tricks. It absolutely hasn't been a balanced series, so far.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
Huh, so I just beat Etrian Odyssey 1 Untold finally. It really expedites the entire process doesn't it? Like practically hand holding you from one boss to the next and all. Don't even get to explore the 6th stratum, fucking RIP. Just when I was coming around to the Highlander as a class finally. The ending itself is pretty abrupt too.
So uh yeah, I think Untold 2 is my favorite in the entire series now that I've beaten it all. I mean, aside from Nexus, but I got close enough there.
Edit - Oh okay, loaded the file after the credit roll and it's letting me do the 6th stratum afterall. Also, fucking lol at this typo; rank 10 of Refresh says it "targets all enemies." UMM.
Huh, so I just beat Etrian Odyssey 1 Untold finally. It really expedites the entire process doesn't it? Like practically hand holding you from one boss to the next and all. Don't even get to explore the 6th stratum, fucking RIP. Just when I was coming around to the Highlander as a class finally. The ending itself is pretty abrupt too.
So uh yeah, I think Untold 2 is my favorite in the entire series now that I've beaten it all. I mean, aside from Nexus, but I got close enough there.
Edit - Oh okay, loaded the file after the credit roll and it's letting me do the 6th stratum afterall. Also, fucking lol at this typo; rank 10 of Refresh says it "targets all enemies." UMM.
Still working my way through Etrian Odyssey Nexus, and as of Lapin 8, the Adamant Guild is ready to go into the final story Labyrinth. Just in time for me to go on vacation! For those still following my party (previous post through 9th Labyrinth), I've been taking notes on my progress.
It seems like my predictions of the final few labyrinths based on the map were right on the money. Although now that I think about it, I don't really have any ideas for what the post-game labyrinths will be. I've still got plenty of time before I actually get there, though.
10th Labyrinth (Golden Lair)
I think that the fact that this was a four-floor labyrinth instead of the expected three counts as an initial twist. I suppose that with the ice mechanics, more space was needed to fit in a sufficient amount of puzzles, especially with how large Salamander's lair was. I didn't have too much trouble with it at party level 64, taking 19 turns to fell the beast. There were a few times where the Salamander's protection skill caused it to take tons of Binary Ice or Charged Ice damage from my Zodiac and Gunner, respectively, which helped quite a bit.
I had to take two attempts against the Boiling Lizard, however. That's because, despite knowing how the dungeon gimmick would interact with the boss from EO4, I forgot to take care if it before barging into the boss room the first time. I did get half of its health down before getting overrun, though. So as you might expect, the second attempt went a lot smoother. I think this was the first boss battle where I was a little bit annoyed by how long it took, at 22 turns, but part of that might have been because I simply had to pretty much just redo all the steps that I had just done in the first encounter. (Party level was 68.)
Incidentally, at this point in the game, the 6th Maze (Buried Castle) boss was still destroying me with its massive strength. I definitely had the strength to kill the Hippogryph, but I just needed to survive its strikes in order to get that far.
11th Labyrinth (Sandy Barrens)
I just wanna say first that it was kind of cute that the Forest Folks' Village music was the same as the 5th Stratum's from EO1.
I went into the Basilisk fight a little bit under-prepared, carrying only my basic adventuring amount of consumables rather than going back to town to fill the pack with more items. I also only had one additional party level (Lv. 69) due to the low encounter rate on the floor. So the battle was a bit of a slog overall, at 26 turns, which included a few turns of recovery panic.
I reached party level 74 after completing all of the quests in the labyrinth, and decided to rest and respec my party. I took skill points out of my War Magus's advanced War Edge skills in order to focus more on healing and the basic Strength and Guard Slashes. For my Pugilist, I took points completely out of Lash Out and Leading Blow since I wasn't getting good damage consistency; the ability to focus more heavily on the single-hit skills combined with Double Punch and Following Strike has worked out much better for me. I also changed my Gunner's subclass from Arcanist to Farmer, solely for the Earth's Bounty EXP boost; it only took three in-game days and three hours of play to get back the rested levels and more from beating up on FOEs with my revived composition. In the process, I discovered that the Hero can dish out a fair amount of damage with the Landsknecht's half-ranked Full Break, especially with Afterimage procs.
This respeccing might lead you to believe that I had an easy time against Iwaoropenelep, but it still took me two tries. I almost had it down in my first attempt, with some well-timed status ailments and binds, but towards the end of the fight, I neglected to keep its attack buff off and was ultimately felled. The second time around, I was less lucky with binds, but I was better prepared with debuffs and item usages, achieving victory in 24 turns.
I also finally completed the Buried Castle and mapped out the Seditious Colony. The mazes are starting to outpace the labyrinths from which they are unlocked more and more. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to come back and defeat the Queen Ant until I complete the main story first, considering how long I had to put off the Hippogryph. (I actually forgot to save after my Iwaoropenelep battle and had to defeat it again; after mapping out the Seditious Colony and gaining one more party level (to Lv 75), I completed the refight in 17 turns. It's unclear how much of that turn reduction was due to experience (as in battle knowledge), or how much was due to party level.)
12th Labytrinth (Northern Shrine)
Not the biggest fan of having the same environmental graphics as the other shrines, and the added gimmick of moving platforms didn't feel like it added much to me, especially with Petal Bridge and Blossom Bridge already present. This is also aggravated by having a good amount of each floor dedicated to pure mapping and navigation obstacles, which I had enough of from the Western Shrine. I understand the importance of having regular navigation segments for pacing between FOE puzzles, but it was just slightly annoying in this case.
It was around this time that I also put in points to Survival Wisdom on my Gunner's Farmer subclass. I was actually pretty surprised that even that small bit of TP infusion helped my exploration sustain. I also exploited using Artelinde's additional aid from the Seditious Colony to push my party multiple days without needing to rest at the inn.
I went into the boss battle at party level 84 thinking that it wouldn't be too bad, but Blót definitely showed me otherwise. I didn't reign in his afterimages well at the start since I thought they might act like the player Hero's, and I just got ground down. By the time I was felled about 15 turns in, I hadn't even taken out half of Blót's health. The second attempt went much smoother until he went into his Force Boost phase, at which point I once again got overrun by his afterimages due to mistiming my AoE attacks.
And so, to blow off steam, I went back to the Sandy Barrens to blow up FOEs and gain another party level. This was probably unnecessary, since the real thing that helped me was my Pugilist getting much luckier with binds, and my War Magus even getting a lucky blind ailment hit from a Displace use. With Blót's arms bound (especially going into the rage phase), there were fewer afterimages to take care of, and more time for my Gunner and Zodiac to deal damage to the main target. This was especially a boon for the Gunner, since I didn't need to use as many Act Quick turns to mitigate the chances of getting pasted. All in all, third time was a charm with a breezy 16-turn victory. Right now, I'm feeling a little bit overleveled due to Earth's Bounty, so I might end up right at the level cap at the end of the story. It could mean some wasted experience in the post-game, but eh, no big deal.
I realize that the thread's fallen off of the first few pages, but just for completeness' sake, I can report Adamant's victory over the final story boss on Lapin 20. (It turns out that I was able to get a lot of game play on the plane rides, but not so much while out and about.) As usual, a summarized account of the final story Labyrinth follows.
Actually, there's not that much to say. If you read through my previous post, you already know that I slapped a Farmer subclass on my Gunner halfway through the 11th Labyrinth, and this caused a bit of an overleveling cascade. So I didn't have too much trouble getting through the labyrinth's five floors swiftly. I got to the final boss after completing almost everything available (except for taking down the third World Map FOE, I just remembered I need to do that) at a hefty party level of 94.
Between my level and having some fine equipment available - I got the conditional drop off of the Croaker Slug to give a very nice gun to my Gunner, and I had earlier obtained two sets of Exorcist Gloves through my releveling spree in the 11th Labyrinth - I didn't have too much trouble with the final boss and beat it on my first try. Its tail slap did kill one of my backliners the first time it struck, spurring a couple of rounds of recovery, but after that, it was smooth sailing. I landed a leg bind before his second tail strike, which gave me a few turns of free damage dealing, and in the last few rounds of battle, my Pugilist with Ninja subclass landed Ninpo: Panic to ensure the deed was completed. Although my party only needed to use about half of their TP, the battle still took 18 turns to clear. As an additional note, my clear file has a time of just over 106 hours on it.
Overall game thoughts:
Overall, I've quite enjoyed Etrian Odyssey Nexus as a solid entry. Definitely wouldn't put it down as my favorite - that'd probably be EO4 or EO 5 - but heck, I wouldn't have put over 100 hours into the game if I didn't enjoy it. This enjoyment was mostly on the backs of the very strong dungeon and class designs. The pacing of level gains were slower than I would have liked, but given the amount of content stuffed into the game, it's kind of understandable. I was less pleased with the massive reuse of the shrine environment and its dual-elevation gimmick, even with the small twists from labyrinth to labyrinth. I also thought that the quests were fairly weak overall, most of them being simple material fetch quests, and the dungeon events were pretty weak after the early game. However, the foundations of labyrinth exploration, FOE dodging, and putting together good combat synergies were still so rock solid that the game was still fundamentally engaging to go through.
Onwards, into the post-story part of the game!
EDIT: Made a few more notes in the game thoughts section.
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Oh hey, I finally got this game. I guess the window for free DLC is out the window, tho. So I'll be buying some of it. Then it's time to build a team I guess. Do I need to choose between Ninja and Hero, since they both take up the extra slot?
Oh hey, I finally got this game. I guess the window for free DLC is out the window, tho. So I'll be buying some of it. Then it's time to build a team I guess. Do I need to choose between Ninja and Hero, since they both take up the extra slot?
Depends if you plan to build both to use it. Hero has plenty of options without Afterimage... but Afterimage has no prerequisite and is really strong... I don't know why you would. Ninja has more room to go without, but it's still really strong, so... yeah, probably pick one.
And in my own progress... Serpent 13, L9 clear. Boss killed on first try, had a skill point unspent on imperial that would have made it a lot less dicey though (Taking Assault Drive 10 for that big shiny damage spike).
The fight was not pleasant - I didnt pay enough attention to work out when to throw up Miasma Wall mainly, and the TP endurance of my gunner and survivalist is lacking. Especially the gunner. I still havent taken rank 10 on the binds, and I think I need to now for the success rate.
Being level 70 going into the fifth stratum in EO5 means I'm not having a very hard time.
Maxing out your level for / during the 5th stratum in most games pretty much has this effect. As the series went on they were sure to add an enemy or two that made sure you were paying some amount of attention and not just face rolling the content.
That boss was hard. I rested back to level 68, rearranged where my skill points went, and this is the first time all game that I used union skills (I had to google how to use them!) I just used Aegis Shield, it kept my party alive after he sucked in the miasma.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I put Nexus back in my 3DS last night and am going to give it another chance, this time just on normal difficulty though. Hopefully the problem I perceived with enemy and boss health goes away on this difficulty.
I didn't actually start though because I had decision paralysis RE: what party to roll with. I passed out in bed before deciding. <_<
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I still maintain it's the most rushed Etrian Odyssey project to date. Doesn't mean it's super bad or anything but it shows.
I was hoping to hear something at E3 this year, just a peek even, of what the next game (supposedly on the Switch) is going to be like. Part of me is thinking they might convert it to a Persona style game, which I mean, cool, but I want my dungeon exploration.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Force Boost and Break did not factor into my decision at all. In fact, nothing did. I was just like "hey wouldn't it be funny if I had an ailment-heavy party."
Looking at it very loosely (I haven't even started playing, busy with other shit), the Nightseeker has increased damage during ailments, my War Magus can bind during ailments and has ailing slash, and my Harbinger uh... I dunno. Has a thing to slow ailment & bind recovery?
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I stopped messing around and made my actual party the EO2U party (except instead of the Fafnir I have a Hero).
Even on normal difficulty, Nexus is just... such a time bloat with enemy HP. I'm thinking less kindly about this game than I was at its launch and that makes me so goddamn sad.
Isn't the consensus that the EOU2 story party pretty lopsided on its damage:support role ratio? A lot of the damage for that party was on the Fafnir Knight, and while the Hero is really good, I don't think they're quite as damagey as Fafnir. I'll still mostly agree with my earlier assessment that regular battles are fine with taking a few turns to clear, but that FOEs and Bosses may have a touch too much HP. I only went halfway through the post-game in EON, mostly due to getting my quests mixed up and getting frustrated on not being able to unlock the second level cap quest.
I saw that @l_g posted a final post-game boss report in the general gridders thread, maybe they can throw in some opinions about general game feel? But in any case, if you're not enjoying the game, then why not replay a different one?
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
This run of EO2U (not my first) is probably the most expertise I've had in any of the games. Beat the 2nd stratum boss at level 25 without really working for that level. The story party is pretty resilient and strong. I'm embracing using Flavio as an ailment source so that Chloe can dish out Ailing Slash right away (I used to level Random Disease and have her apply her own while Flavio went into generic damage abilities). I'm keeping my builds with the Fafnir and Arianna the same. With Bertrand I'm kinda handling him the same only I'm making use of Heal Guard. Actually a super good ability.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
So I learned a thing today. The Gunner skill Point Blank works on the Fafnir Knight's elemental attacks when transformed. As does the Alchemist's Compression skill (and that also works on the Force Break ability).
So, y'know. Destroying bosses in a couple of turns.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2019
Triple post but this one is pretty substantial and it's been a while.
I never did the 6th stratum / post content for Etrian Odyssey 2 (original nor Untold), but I am doing so now. I ended up staying awake 'til 4am playing, gaining entry to the 6th stratum via the small quest chain and also getting the quest for the first dragon kill. I'm not terribly far into it, but I've gotta say, it's actually, um, really easy. Which is disappointing in a sense. I can say for sure that as far as 6th stratums go, EO2U has the easiest by a pretty huge margin. Ginunngagap's 5th floor is actually harder in some respects.
For certain I'd put EO4 as having the hardest 6th stratum. It's not hard to navigate, but what makes it so hard is the difficulty spike of when you first arrive. Not just that things hit pretty hard, but specifically the flower enemies there. They cast a party-wide stone effect and always show up in groups. It's a guaranteed party wipe.
After that, 1, 3, and 5 have pretty comparable 6th stratums as far as overall difficulty goes. 1 is more brutal in the status ailment department, 3 I remember being a general difficulty increase for combat, and 5 made the actual navigation the challenging aspect (which is why it's my favorite).
Edit - Goddamn it the ice dragon is really starting to piss me off, 24 hours later.
I am both happy and sad I played through 4 EO games last year (Etrian Odyssey III, Etrian Odyssey V, Etrian Odyssey Nexus and Etrian Odyssey Untold 2). Now the only dungeon crawling I have left is Persona Q2.
EDIT: Beat
Abyssal Princess
. Was hard but it just came down to
not attacking on the turn the throne reared up to avoid triggering the healing.
Now I have to try beating
Jormungandr.
My party is level 124, hero/imperial, highlander/pugalist, shogun/ronin, sovereign/medic, and zodiac/landsknecht.
Posts
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Edit - The short of it is, Imperials are fucking stupidly strong. Is there a "dummy thicc" version to describe strength? Because that. I mean seriously.
And that's not the cheese strat. The cheese strat is Landsknecht/Hero x5 or something and just shield bashing for eleventy billion damage.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
So now I have to ask, did Atlus just say "fuck it" and make cheese strats the intended strats to play the game on? Because that's disappointing.
But cheese strats have been the rule for most 6th stratum bosses iirc.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Of course, lots of postgame stuff has "bring this or lose".
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Although now that I think of it, aren't there a bunch of final post-game bosses in the EO series with a 50-turn limit before they start spamming some kind of armageddon move? So you need to not just be able to take damage but also deal out damage in a timely manner in order to take on those final challenges. On a related thought, wasn't the consensus that the final post-game bosses in EO4 and 5 were supposed to be a lot more flexible in how you could organize your party, compared to EO 1-3? This is especially true for EO 4, where the game seems to expect that you complete a puzzle to get the weakened form. Of course, even the EO4 and 5 bosses still expect a fully releveled and retired party, so it's still cut off for pretty much all but the very hardcore players (or those who have the leveling DLC). I'm not on that kind of level, but at least EO4 and 5 were such that I was able to see everything up to that point. Time will still tell whether or not the same can be said about Nexus for me.
Seen six turns for Shield Flare.
Think Abyssal God is the only boss in the series that might take more than ten turns even if you know the tricks. It absolutely hasn't been a balanced series, so far.
So uh yeah, I think Untold 2 is my favorite in the entire series now that I've beaten it all. I mean, aside from Nexus, but I got close enough there.
Edit - Oh okay, loaded the file after the credit roll and it's letting me do the 6th stratum afterall. Also, fucking lol at this typo; rank 10 of Refresh says it "targets all enemies." UMM.
Side-effects of levelling up your benevolence.
10th Labyrinth (Golden Lair)
I had to take two attempts against the Boiling Lizard, however. That's because, despite knowing how the dungeon gimmick would interact with the boss from EO4, I forgot to take care if it before barging into the boss room the first time. I did get half of its health down before getting overrun, though. So as you might expect, the second attempt went a lot smoother. I think this was the first boss battle where I was a little bit annoyed by how long it took, at 22 turns, but part of that might have been because I simply had to pretty much just redo all the steps that I had just done in the first encounter. (Party level was 68.)
Incidentally, at this point in the game, the 6th Maze (Buried Castle) boss was still destroying me with its massive strength. I definitely had the strength to kill the Hippogryph, but I just needed to survive its strikes in order to get that far.
11th Labyrinth (Sandy Barrens)
I went into the Basilisk fight a little bit under-prepared, carrying only my basic adventuring amount of consumables rather than going back to town to fill the pack with more items. I also only had one additional party level (Lv. 69) due to the low encounter rate on the floor. So the battle was a bit of a slog overall, at 26 turns, which included a few turns of recovery panic.
I reached party level 74 after completing all of the quests in the labyrinth, and decided to rest and respec my party. I took skill points out of my War Magus's advanced War Edge skills in order to focus more on healing and the basic Strength and Guard Slashes. For my Pugilist, I took points completely out of Lash Out and Leading Blow since I wasn't getting good damage consistency; the ability to focus more heavily on the single-hit skills combined with Double Punch and Following Strike has worked out much better for me. I also changed my Gunner's subclass from Arcanist to Farmer, solely for the Earth's Bounty EXP boost; it only took three in-game days and three hours of play to get back the rested levels and more from beating up on FOEs with my revived composition. In the process, I discovered that the Hero can dish out a fair amount of damage with the Landsknecht's half-ranked Full Break, especially with Afterimage procs.
This respeccing might lead you to believe that I had an easy time against Iwaoropenelep, but it still took me two tries. I almost had it down in my first attempt, with some well-timed status ailments and binds, but towards the end of the fight, I neglected to keep its attack buff off and was ultimately felled. The second time around, I was less lucky with binds, but I was better prepared with debuffs and item usages, achieving victory in 24 turns.
I also finally completed the Buried Castle and mapped out the Seditious Colony. The mazes are starting to outpace the labyrinths from which they are unlocked more and more. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to come back and defeat the Queen Ant until I complete the main story first, considering how long I had to put off the Hippogryph. (I actually forgot to save after my Iwaoropenelep battle and had to defeat it again; after mapping out the Seditious Colony and gaining one more party level (to Lv 75), I completed the refight in 17 turns. It's unclear how much of that turn reduction was due to experience (as in battle knowledge), or how much was due to party level.)
12th Labytrinth (Northern Shrine)
It was around this time that I also put in points to Survival Wisdom on my Gunner's Farmer subclass. I was actually pretty surprised that even that small bit of TP infusion helped my exploration sustain. I also exploited using Artelinde's additional aid from the Seditious Colony to push my party multiple days without needing to rest at the inn.
I went into the boss battle at party level 84 thinking that it wouldn't be too bad, but Blót definitely showed me otherwise. I didn't reign in his afterimages well at the start since I thought they might act like the player Hero's, and I just got ground down. By the time I was felled about 15 turns in, I hadn't even taken out half of Blót's health. The second attempt went much smoother until he went into his Force Boost phase, at which point I once again got overrun by his afterimages due to mistiming my AoE attacks.
And so, to blow off steam, I went back to the Sandy Barrens to blow up FOEs and gain another party level. This was probably unnecessary, since the real thing that helped me was my Pugilist getting much luckier with binds, and my War Magus even getting a lucky blind ailment hit from a Displace use. With Blót's arms bound (especially going into the rage phase), there were fewer afterimages to take care of, and more time for my Gunner and Zodiac to deal damage to the main target. This was especially a boon for the Gunner, since I didn't need to use as many Act Quick turns to mitigate the chances of getting pasted. All in all, third time was a charm with a breezy 16-turn victory. Right now, I'm feeling a little bit overleveled due to Earth's Bounty, so I might end up right at the level cap at the end of the story. It could mean some wasted experience in the post-game, but eh, no big deal.
Between my level and having some fine equipment available - I got the conditional drop off of the Croaker Slug to give a very nice gun to my Gunner, and I had earlier obtained two sets of Exorcist Gloves through my releveling spree in the 11th Labyrinth - I didn't have too much trouble with the final boss and beat it on my first try. Its tail slap did kill one of my backliners the first time it struck, spurring a couple of rounds of recovery, but after that, it was smooth sailing. I landed a leg bind before his second tail strike, which gave me a few turns of free damage dealing, and in the last few rounds of battle, my Pugilist with Ninja subclass landed Ninpo: Panic to ensure the deed was completed. Although my party only needed to use about half of their TP, the battle still took 18 turns to clear. As an additional note, my clear file has a time of just over 106 hours on it.
Overall game thoughts:
Onwards, into the post-story part of the game!
EDIT: Made a few more notes in the game thoughts section.
Depends if you plan to build both to use it. Hero has plenty of options without Afterimage... but Afterimage has no prerequisite and is really strong... I don't know why you would. Ninja has more room to go without, but it's still really strong, so... yeah, probably pick one.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
A high level Hero can kind of fill any number of party-slots alone with a bit of luck, though.
The fight was not pleasant - I didnt pay enough attention to work out when to throw up Miasma Wall mainly, and the TP endurance of my gunner and survivalist is lacking. Especially the gunner. I still havent taken rank 10 on the binds, and I think I need to now for the success rate.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Just get ready for that 6th stratum whiplash.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I didn't actually start though because I had decision paralysis RE: what party to roll with. I passed out in bed before deciding. <_<
It got to be a bit of a slog and I set it down since it was just slow boss kills with little actual difficulty thanks to ridiculous sustain and binds.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I was hoping to hear something at E3 this year, just a peek even, of what the next game (supposedly on the Switch) is going to be like. Part of me is thinking they might convert it to a Persona style game, which I mean, cool, but I want my dungeon exploration.
How many floors deep into this am I without doing that now...
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Nightseeker, Harbinger, War Magus
Zodiac, Medic
I was considering a Ninja in place of the Zodiac to really put the status ailment thing into overdrive.
Might still be a bit light on "hurt you now" buttons. What's your plan for your Miasma Tsunami turn?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Looking at it very loosely (I haven't even started playing, busy with other shit), the Nightseeker has increased damage during ailments, my War Magus can bind during ailments and has ailing slash, and my Harbinger uh... I dunno. Has a thing to slow ailment & bind recovery?
Even on normal difficulty, Nexus is just... such a time bloat with enemy HP. I'm thinking less kindly about this game than I was at its launch and that makes me so goddamn sad.
I saw that @l_g posted a final post-game boss report in the general gridders thread, maybe they can throw in some opinions about general game feel? But in any case, if you're not enjoying the game, then why not replay a different one?
So, y'know. Destroying bosses in a couple of turns.
I never did the 6th stratum / post content for Etrian Odyssey 2 (original nor Untold), but I am doing so now. I ended up staying awake 'til 4am playing, gaining entry to the 6th stratum via the small quest chain and also getting the quest for the first dragon kill. I'm not terribly far into it, but I've gotta say, it's actually, um, really easy. Which is disappointing in a sense. I can say for sure that as far as 6th stratums go, EO2U has the easiest by a pretty huge margin. Ginunngagap's 5th floor is actually harder in some respects.
For certain I'd put EO4 as having the hardest 6th stratum. It's not hard to navigate, but what makes it so hard is the difficulty spike of when you first arrive. Not just that things hit pretty hard, but specifically the flower enemies there. They cast a party-wide stone effect and always show up in groups. It's a guaranteed party wipe.
After that, 1, 3, and 5 have pretty comparable 6th stratums as far as overall difficulty goes. 1 is more brutal in the status ailment department, 3 I remember being a general difficulty increase for combat, and 5 made the actual navigation the challenging aspect (which is why it's my favorite).
Edit - Goddamn it the ice dragon is really starting to piss me off, 24 hours later.
I am both happy and sad I played through 4 EO games last year (Etrian Odyssey III, Etrian Odyssey V, Etrian Odyssey Nexus and Etrian Odyssey Untold 2). Now the only dungeon crawling I have left is Persona Q2.
EDIT: Beat