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Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City |OT| -- Fight & Heal Sail the Open Seas!

question for those who have beat the entire game including the post game stuff. how do i beat
Abyssal God
, like what combo of attacks does enough damage. I have built up quite a bit of characters so if who i have now doesnt work i can easily switch someone out.
 

sphinx

the piano man
goldenticket said:
question for those who have beat the entire game including the post game stuff. how do i beat
Abyssal God
, like what combo of attacks does enough damage. I have built up quite a bit of characters so if who i have now doesnt work i can easily switch someone out.

That boss requires a very specific and a bit complicated party setup to stand a chance but once you have it, it is very easy.

Preparations

Suggested party level: above lvl. 90

Skills needed (all full)

1.- Gladiator/Zodiac
Club Mastery
Freezing Blow
Ice Mastery
Berseker Vow
Etheric Charge
Singularity
Wolf Howl

Hoplite/Ninja
Antifire
Anticold
Antivolt
Bodyguard
Senpuku
Sarutobi

Arbalist/Shogun
Bolt Mastery
Giant Kill
Kaishaku
Daifuhensha
Bloody Lance
Warrior Might

Bucaneer/Ninja
Gun Mastery
Eagle Eye
Swashbuckling
Otori
Bunshin

Prince/Wildling
Attack Order
Protect Order
Reinforce
Knighthood
Beast Roar

Limit Skills

.- Gladiator: whatever
.- Hoplite: Indomitable
.- Arbalist: Aegis Defense
.- Bucaneer: Aeigs Defense
.- Prince: Lucky Hammer

Items

4 Bravants
4 Nectars
Some Medicas (Just In case)

Weapons:

Those with elemental attritubes are better than any other.

Strategy for the first phase (after all tentacles are dead)

.- Make the Gladiator use Berseker vow in the first turn and the Hoplite Antifire. The fire attack should trigger Kaishaku from the Arbalist on the gladiator. If it doesn't trigger, try next turn after Anticold. After that end the first phase and go to the next one. Make sure you deal enough damage as to kill the beast as soon as one kaishaku was activated.

Second Phase

Turn 1
.- Revive the Gladiator with nectar, Use bunshin on the bucaneer.

Turn 2
.- Cast Protect Order on first row.

Turn 3
.- The all-party attack should leave the gladiator with little life so as to make the arbalist's Kaishaku trigger again.

Turn 4
.- One Bucaneer uses Otori on the Hoplite. Revive Gladiator with a nectar

Turn 5
.- Arbalist casts Daifuhensha and the Prince Attack Order on upper row

Turn 6
Gladiator: Berseker Vow
Hoplite: Bodyguard on Arbalist
Arbalist: Daifuhensha again
Bucaneer 1: Bravant on Gladiator
Prince: Attack on Upper row again
Bucaneer 2: Bravant on Arbalist

Turn 7
Use the limit Skill Aegis Defense from Bucaneer 1, Bucaneer 2 and Arbalist now
Gladiator: Etheric Charge
Hoplite: defend
Arbalist: defend
Bucaneer 1: Eagle Eye
Prince: Primal Drums
Bucaneer 2: Defend

Turn 8 (Unleash Time!)
Gladiator: Freezing Blow
Hoplite: Indomitable Limit skills and Normal Attack (The AG will deliver one strong attack on the hoplite, given that he has the lowest HP after the attacks on turn 6. It still can happen that the kaishaku from the arbalist activates after using indomitable from the blow but it isn't that bad if that happens.)
Arbalist: Warrior might
Bucaneer 1: Normal Attack (hoping for swashbuckling)
Prince: Use Lucky hammer for an extra warrior might activation and normal Attack.
Bucaneer 2: Normal Attack (hoping for swashbuckling)

That should take care of the mother fucker but iF you had bad luck and the AG survived the massacre then....

Turn 9:
Gladiator: Freezing blow
Prince: Knighthood on Gladiator

IF you had the worst luck ever and the thing isn't dead, reset your DS and try again.
 

Moobabe

Member
Mine has finally arrived!!!!!! I'm about to fire this bad boy up but, before I do, any tips for someone new to the game?
 

Cornbread78

Member
Sorry for the older thread bump, but I'm still in the hunt for a new DS game to replace Disgaea DS, which I finally finished.

Does this game allow you to Save often, or are there set save points? Is this game worth the $17.99? Is is fun to play?
 
Cornbread78 said:
Does this game allow you to Save often, or are there set save points?

Set save points every four floors, you can use a Warp Wire at any time to return to town and save, and there's also a quicksave feature that lets you save anywhere (but which is deleted when you load it up.)

Is this game worth the $17.99? Is is fun to play?

Yes and hell yes.
 

Cornbread78

Member
charlequin said:
Set save points every four floors, you can use a Warp Wire at any time to return to town and save, and there's also a quicksave feature that lets you save anywhere (but which is deleted when you load it up.)

Yes and hell yes.


Well that's a pretty strong recommendation, lol. Sounds liek it's a game I could play for 15-30 mins at a time and be good.

Thank you.
 
Cornbread78 said:
Well that's a pretty strong recommendation, lol. Sounds liek it's a game I could play for 15-30 mins at a time and be good.

Thank you.

Yeah, this series is EXTREMELY good in small doses, especially considering how hard it can be, if you pick quick tasks to polish off in those bursts.
 

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
Bought a used copy of it for $16, after fearing I wouldn't be able to find it at all for a while. Made one of every character, but sticking with Princess / Monk / Hoplite in the front and Zodiac / Arbalist in the back. Usually I'll switch one of the back characters out for a Farmer when needed. The Prince/ss class seems to really make things simple. Already blew through the second floor (not yet started the third), and took down most of the Greedy Lizard FOEs.

Lots of fun. I hope I figure out how to expand my ship's range soon. I don't have any better food options right now.
 

scy

Member
The Prince/ss class seems to really make things simple.

Greatest understatement ever :x Monarch's March is so ridiculously amazing all game, even at low values, and Protect Order is arguably the best healing spell in the game due to the ridiculous scaling it has. Prince(ss) is the de facto healing staple of the game.

I hope I figure out how to expand my ship's range soon. I don't have any better food options right now.

The sailing part is essentially a puzzle. How do you get to X location in Y moves kind of thing. At the start, you're rather limited in range so try to visit some locations nearby to get better rations.

If you just want to know where to go for the start:
Dried Peas is at C5 for 8 movement; Sheep Cheese is at B4, though you need to get something at D4 first
.
 

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
Down to the third floor in the Second Sanctum. Let me just say that the Sea Wander(s) are terrifying compared to how easily I've been rolling over the previous few FOEs.

I've been power leveling a few classes to check them out, like Wildings and Bucs. Both seem interesting, but I'm mostly sticking with my Monk / Hoplite / Gladiator - Princess / Arbalist. I do swap in a Zodiac in place of the Arbalist once in a while, especially when I have to focus on a weakness. And of course, I have my Farmer team, with one pretty high level farmer at 25 now.

Hoplite using Line Guard, and the Princess using Guard Order (and with all her Passive healing) have really made a few of the FOEs pretty easy. However the next couple of floors look a lot more challenging FOE wise, so I might have to grind a bit.

Having a great time. Easy to pick up, and explore a bit throughout the day when I have a few minutes.
 

vareon

Member
Recently played this again, on B16f now.

I suck at multiclassing, though :/ are there any good build for Gladiator? Right now doesn't have any usefull skills (his TP is too low) and my main damager is the Arbalist.
 

Aselith

Member
Started playing this recently. Should I be holding some of the drops or just sell em all? I noticed some quests you need them. Are those mostly for basic items or can you get really nice stuff by trading?
 

scy

Member
Recently played this again, on B16f now.

I suck at multiclassing, though :/ are there any good build for Gladiator? Right now doesn't have any usefull skills (his TP is too low) and my main damager is the Arbalist.

Gladiator/Arbalist gets more accuracy out of Nine Smash, Gladiator/Zodiac (or Zodiac/Gladiator) has the best dual-element attack in Freezing Blow, Gladiator/Buccaneer has the best Pincushion damage output (and the best of the non-WM damage options), and then the obligatory Gladiator/Shogun Warrior's Might setup, though that's an entire group re-design.

Yggdroid/Gladiator also makes for the best Blade Rave / Nine Smashes user. Not that it's really all that great of a setup (or worth the cost of dealing with Overheat).

No matter what you do, though, they'll have TP problems :/

Started playing this recently. Should I be holding some of the drops or just sell em all? I noticed some quests you need them. Are those mostly for basic items or can you get really nice stuff by trading?

I can't think of any instance where you'd really want to just hold onto items; no quests require any drops that are absurdly rare.
 
Going through again in NewGame+. Pretty much using an identical party until I unlock the Shogun, when I'll totally clean house and start anew.

Hoplite/Monk
Princess/Monk
Ninja/Buccaneer
Arbalist/Gladiator
Wildling/Hoplite

The damage can get pretty wild with my Ninja using Chase Thrust (spear, rapier, crossbow, spear, Wild Cow horn).
 

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
Finally picked up this again. Down to the 10th floor, so not 'that far'.

So far by party is..

Monk / Prince
Hoplite / Ninja
Gladiator / Buccaneer
Arbalist / Gladiator
Zodiac / Wildling

There was definitely a difficulty spike in the third Sanctum, but I've managed to progress alright. Zodiac is the MVP is the primary damage dealer, although Arbalist does plenty. Gladiator is 'okay', but really doesn't do too much for the party at the moment. I'm hoping one it has more TP for Pincushion and some investment in Swashbuckling it'll start to impress.

Really trying to blast through this before EO4. I'll buy it anyway, but it would be nice to have 3 finished.
 

Boney

Banned
Hmm I was doing alright without a Zodiac but then the difficulty spikes in the 3rd sanctum and school made me give up.

I'm just waiting for 4 atm
 

vareon

Member
After two goddamn years, I finally managed to see the ending credits roll. Took the Armoroad route.
Automaton King and Olympia
is brutal, but doable. Took me four times.

I know there's a shitload of post-game content (including the true ending), but...I'm not sure if I can do that. Especially since EOIV is right ahead.
 
Congrats, vareon.

I want to finish it since EO4 is soon. I like some of the mechanics but the difficulty of EO3 is brutal so I hope 4 is easier.

Anyway I am on the Kirin boss at the end of the 4th stratum.

What party did you use? I heard about the warrior might party with two shoguns so I might try that, since Kirin boss is tough mainly because it has so much health.
 

MikeDip

God bless all my old friends/And god bless me too, why pretend?
Man I'm replaying the series and it's REALLY hard to go back to EO1. The lack of sidestepping is killing me. I never finished the post game stuff in any of these games so I'm trying to get that done before 4 comes out.

I heard EO3's post game is the easiest of the three, is this true?
 
Hi, if anybody who has beat the game is watching this thread, do you have any advice on team and skills?

I got up to the 4th stratum boss, but I rested a team member and the xp from FOEs isn't very much... So there's also that issue. Then there's equipment, and limits.

Anyway I preordered EO4... But EO3 is still a cool game, just the hardest IMO. I beat the first two games.
 
Yeah, I tried fighting the Kirin. Sided with Armoroad (or whichever gives you Shogun). It wasn't that hard, so I think I could beat it if I am properly prepared.

I might make a new team. I was thinking Shogun, Monk, Gladiator, Buccaneer, Hoplite.
 

redcrayon

Member
I found that its not so much about your initial team, but how you multi-class. Having three or more characters with one of their classes as Royalty with the skill that gives HP back each turn if they are unwounded made EOIII a breeze for me.

I think my final team was

Class- multiclass
Front rank-
Hoplite- Prince
Gladiator- hoplite (maxed attack and defence)
Monk- farmer

Back rank-
Princess- Arbalist
Arbalist- Prince

Although I did experiment with a mage/2 buccaneers with chaser skills combo too, it inflicted far more damage but was far more fragile- my main team was just permanently on max health, and also didn't need to worry about MP or healing apart from the Monk reviving anyone who died.
 
That's a really interesting idea. So if anybody who has that skill is at full health, everyone else gets healed...

I played some this morning. I just wish that you got more exp for battles. I might try a Farmer with that exp boost skill. Otherwise, I am mostly just waiting for EO IV at this point.

Although I will keep leveling up my Warrior Might (well, Swashbuckling) Shoguns so that they don't die so easily. I really don't even understand how Defense and Stats work in this game.

Also thinking about getting Unchained Blades.
 

scy

Member
That's a really interesting idea. So if anybody who has that skill is at full health, everyone else gets healed...

It doesn't really pan out for end-game encounters where there's damage to all-targets. Though, EO3 also has the easiest post-game so eh. There's better ways to do things but do what you want, I suppose.

I played some this morning. I just wish that you got more exp for battles. I might try a Farmer with that exp boost skill. Otherwise, I am mostly just waiting for EO IV at this point.

Your best bet is the pasaran grinding trick. Basically, you get a Shogun* that has an Ice and Fire weapon; not having Swashbuckling is highly recommended though not a requirement. This character attacks a Blue Pasaran every turn which causes a new Blue (from the Ice damage) and Red (from the Fire damage) Pasaran to spawn. Every turn after the first turn, one Blue Pasaran will most likely self-destruct and one Red Pasaran should be dying; continue this for 17 kills for the EXP cap.

As far as killing them, HP Cannon is probably the easiest since it's typeless; other than that, just fully buff some massive one-shot character who ideally has Bloody Lance. You don't want to have multiple characters beating on the Red Pasaran in fear of it dying prematurely and the extra hits killing a Blue Pasaran that you need. The damage you take from the self-destruct is Bash-based so you can equip to stop that.

*Not a requirement either it's just nice to have only one character to do the attacking as opposed to two separate ones.

Alternatively, you could just RNG abuse Scylla, though this is only one character at a time, or just grinding post-game bosses since most of them are really easy.

Though, now that I say all this, I just notice you may still be in or around the end of the 4th Stratum/start of the 5th Stratum so this isn't all practical. Oops ;_; Something to keep in mind for later, I guess?

Although I will keep leveling up my Warrior Might (well, Swashbuckling) Shoguns so that they don't die so easily. I really don't even understand how Defense and Stats work in this game.

Well, depends on what you want to know from the stats but here's the damage formulas:

STR Damage Formula:
(wATK - dDEF) * sqrt(aSTR/dVIT) = Base Damage

TEC Damage Formula:
(4*TEC - dDEF) * sqrt(aTEC/dTEC) = Base Damage

Edit: With:

wATK = Weapon ATK = The listed ATK stat of the weapon in use.
dDEF = Defender DEF = The listed Vitality stat of the enemy.
aStat / dStat = "Attacker Stat" and "Defender Stat" = The listed stat.

The formulas are the same for monsters attacking the player but with some changes. Not sure if relevant here (and it convolutes things anyway!) so I left it out.
 
Thanks, scy.

I actually fought my first Pasaran this morning, but it self destructed on me. I don't know how encountering those FOEs actually works though.

Also, those damage formulas seem to indicate the reason a character would stay alive better as it levels up, is mainly because of either Vitality or Tec increases, provided the Def from equipment stays the same.

Yeah, I got up to the 4th stratum boss. I have a Warrior Might team in the works, but it seems like a one-trick pony and I'm not sure I'll be able to stay alive against the Kirin if I try again. First of all, the Shoguns are like level 18, and status binds seems like it could wreck my party pretty easily.
 

scy

Member
Thanks, scy.

I actually fought my first Pasaran this morning, but it self destructed on me. I don't know how encountering those FOEs actually works though.

They just actively try to avoid you. I did a bunch of work on their spawn mechanics but never could really piece something together.

Also, those damage formulas seem to indicate the reason a character would stay alive better as it levels up, is mainly because of either Vitality or Tec increases, provided the Def from equipment stays the same.

Essentially. Character Level itself is irrelevant.

Yeah, I got up to the 4th stratum boss. I have a Warrior Might team in the works, but it seems like a one-trick pony and I'm not sure I'll be able to stay alive against the Kirin if I try again. First of all, the Shoguns are like level 18, and status binds seems like it could wreck my party pretty easily.

The WM team set-up is basically the easy mode of the game. It takes a bit to take-off and it's fairly gimmicky but the output of it is hard to deny.

Kirin is fairly easy though when you figure out his pattern(s). He's an improved version of the 2nd Stratum boss (does his Conditional Damage setup better, hits two types). Retribution is easy to work around since it's both A) Predictable (every 5 turns) and B) Low damage by design* so you have ways to deal with it entirely. Likewise, Divine Wrath is also low damage** with a conditional of Binds so you can just be prepared to remove binds to deal with the Divine Wrath damage.

If I remember the easy mode route of the fight, Antifire every turn that Retribution will happen + 2x Storm Amulets on everyone should mean you never take damage from his two big attacks. It's been awhile since I've played, though, so I don't remember his regular attack typing. That said, I don't think he had anything special outside of Retribution and his Divine Wrath setup.

*It's a Fire-based 2% Damage attack that has a multiplier afterwards for every Health% Kirin is missing (0x - 100x). Since this base damage is so low, however, you can get enough TEC and DEF to nullify the damage entirely; 0 * 100 is still 0, for instance. 40 TEC with 130 DEF will make Retribution hit for nothing regardless of his health, though those are rather unreasonable 4th Stratum values if I recall.

**It's a Volt-based 40% Damage attack with a 1.0x Damage Multiplier. However, it gets a +2.0x Multiplier per Bind on the target so a fully bound target takes 7 times the normal damage.

Edit: This logic, for the record, applies to basically every boss in the game. There's some trick to prevent all their damage somehow or they have a predictable set pattern of some kind.
 
Well I finally farmed a Yagrush club. I just needed a few more Farmers. Then I rested my Hoplite for /W and Primal Drums. It took two tries, but the WM set up definitely does a ton of damage, so I was able to beat the Kirin.

I guess I'll post again when I hopefully beat the fifth stratum boss, hopefully soonish. Thanks again.
 
I beat the game today. It took some grinding and forging some elements. Took quite a few tries before I got it just right and somehow did one to two thousand damage with Warriors Might. The fifth stratum was pretty cool.

Anyway if the post game is as easy as you say I may try to play this some more.
Although I will be playing EO 4 in a few days of course.
 

dokish

Banned
Hello guys.

Because of the lunch of EO4 I decided to give the series a chance. I only own a DSi XL at the moment and have never played any title.

My party is getting its ass kicked, and I have to ask:

1- Do you have useless classes (REALLY useless) or every class can become good if you upgrade well? Because in some RPGs you keep wondering why some classes exist, because they really DON'T DEVELOP at all and you always have someone to do a better job.

2- The game lacks a little bit of tutorial. What are the bonuses or penalties for front row/back row? I do less damage in the back row? I get less damage in the back row? Does it matter how I arrange classes? Because the ONLY character that really suits the front row is the hiplite (or something) and the gladiator. All other characters are kinda weak.
 

vareon

Member
Hello guys.

Because of the lunch of EO4 I decided to give the series a chance. I only own a DSi XL at the moment and have never played any title.

My party is getting its ass kicked, and I have to ask:

1- Do you have useless classes (REALLY useless) or every class can become good if you upgrade well? Because in some RPGs you keep wondering why some classes exist, because they really DON'T DEVELOP at all and you always have someone to do a better job.

None that I know of unless you really, really messed up the build. I did once, and I can still progress--although a bit slow--or you can reset the skill points at the cost of 5 levels. Even a bad build can be complemented by another character/class or by subclassing.

2- The game lacks a little bit of tutorial. What are the bonuses or penalties for front row/back row? I do less damage in the back row? I get less damage in the back row?

Front row: do more damage, get more damage when hit
back row: do less damage (unless it's a ranged attack like Arbalist/Zodiac), get less damage when hit.

Does it matter how I arrange classes? Because the ONLY character that really suits the front row is the hiplite (or something) and the gladiator. All other characters are kinda weak.
Yes, if you're playing safe like me. But I've seen other people using the other classes in front (Swashbuckler, for instance) and have the Hoplite protect him/her.
 
I want to keep playing EOIII to finish up my NG+ and do some of the post game and the rest of the sea quests. I think it will be hard to go back after EOIV. At least I don't have to target enemy weaknesses since WM hurts everything!
 

spiritfox

Member
EOIII was too easy to break. But it made up for it with the most annoying 5th strata ever. Fuck no radar tiles and I'm happy it didn't return in 4.
 

Anteo

Member
I want to keep playing EOIII to finish up my NG+ and do some of the post game and the rest of the sea quests. I think it will be hard to go back after EOIV. At least I don't have to target enemy weaknesses since WM hurts everything!

Be sure to get all the endings first!
 

scy

Member
Well, if you do all the post-game stuff now then you'll have to do it again on the next playthrough if you want access to it again.
 
Just some little quests to unlock dragons or something? Not really sure about this. Plus, what do you get from the true ending? I heard that boss was one of the hardest.

My characters are only around level 50 still, it seems kind of low. I saw videos where people had tons of HP.
 

spiritfox

Member
Just some little quests to unlock dragons or something? Not really sure about this. Plus, what do you get from the true ending? I heard that boss was one of the hardest.

My characters are only around level 50 still, it seems kind of low. I saw videos where people had tons of HP.

Well you unlock a small section of the labyrinth not accessible in the other routes, and get the boss drop which unlocks a decent Tec/TP book. But it's mostly for completion.
 
Well you unlock a small section of the labyrinth not accessible in the other routes, and get the boss drop which unlocks a decent Tec/TP book. But it's mostly for completion.

Ah...I will try to do some of the post game first. Then I will be high enough level for the true ending.

I missed many conditionals. Like all of them. It's a lot easier in EOIV because you can see the analysis data in battle.
 

scy

Member
Ah...I will try to do some of the post game first. Then I will be high enough level for the true ending.

I missed many conditionals. Like all of them. It's a lot easier in EOIV because you can see the analysis data in battle.

The True Ending boss is easier than the post-game content bosses.

...well, sort of, I guess. Many of them can be dealt with through equipment. The True Ending boss is just kind of an annoyance. It's definitely meant to be done before the post-game, however, in terms of the levels of the enemies involved.


GameFAQs isn't that bad.

Sometimes.

I dunno, I like doing most of my mechanics related work there.
 
My WM party is really lame in random battles. If I want to level up some new characters, what's the best way to do it? I heard something about pasarans becoming easy to grind on the 20-something floor.
 
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