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Etrian Odyssey V: The End of the Long Myth |Imp. OT| 5th Adventures of Fight & Heal

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Food poisoning mostly gone but my LE of EOV still has not arrived. D:

At least I can play DB Fusions in the mean time lol

Nice OT, my copy should arrive next week.

Great work~

Now to avoid this thread while I wait for it to come to Europe. Eventually. Maybe.

Thanks!

----

One thing I do like about the classes this time around is they went a bit further away from what I considered to be a bit too overly orthodox in EOIV. So am quite glad about that. Though for me personally its still going to be hard to beat EOIII just due to the amount of stupid you could do with the sub class system and hilariously broken characters you could make lol
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
So, my current party is:
Front: Dragoon, Masurao, Reaper
Back: Warlock, Herbalist.

Am I doomed or does this sound reasonable?
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
So, my current party is:
Front: Dragoon, Masurao, Reaper
Back: Warlock, Herbalist.

Am I doomed or does this sound reasonable?

It will depend on how you spec them out really. Have not use the Reaper or Warlock much so cant comment on those though.
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
Still on the first floor, with characters around level 3. At first I had one death per fight OHKOs, but after grabbing some defense accessories and leveling up to 2, this is no longer a problem. Herbalist is a great healer and I'm glad someone here mentioned his low cost, because I wouldn't go with the potato race otherwise.
 
Can't touch my copy until tomorrow so I'm still grinding the demo. The new bag of food is a big change IMO. Now I can crawl farther into the dungeon, caring less about TP consumption.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Man the LE is no joke massive.

Still wandering around collecting materials so I can make a better set of armor for the 2nd Dragoon.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
This is in jepenese right?

Read the OP product info section.

First time building a gathering team. How are you going to level up this team when there's barely any battle skills?

Ive focused on making 2 different team types. One on pushing into a zone so made more defensive and an offensive team for when I want to get rid of FOEs.

Since I have some left over skill points use those for gathering then put together a team specifically made to gather food items / materials.

Whats great is being able to save party configs allowing for quick swapping when back in town.
 

Rutger

Banned
First time building a gathering team. How are you going to level up this team when there's barely any battle skills?

Whenever I've built a gathering team, I didn't level them up much. Their job isn't to fight. Have one member learn whatever the Stalker equivalent skill is so they don't run into random battles. I usually wait until I'm further into the game to max out their gather skills so I can take them deeper into the labyrinth with one of my main party members and quickly wipe out stronger enemies.


Speaking of, how does gathering work in this game? Is it still like EOIV or the Untolds where anyone can gather from a spot and the skills just make things more convenient?
 
Found out there's a ring from 3rd floor, obtainable in the demo, that main team can share exp with members in town. just equip it on my Herba List.
 

Hyoukokun

Member
Someone's been uploading the combat themes - thought you all might appreciate:

End of the Raging Waves
Second combat theme
F.O.E. theme

Yes, End of the Raging Waves has been remixed for the nth time, with added violin and choral bits now. I think it might be actually be slightly too over the top now? Still fun, but I wish they'd give more love to Hoist the Sword, which was my favorite combat theme from EO3. Guess we'll have to wait for Untold 3 to get that.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Progressing slowly, but managed to make it to the fifth floor of the first dungeon. The food system is interesting and same with learning stuff from the NPCs you meet or back in town with new recipes. Though do wish at the same time upon returning to the Inn you would be able to prepare food even if it costed money. Vs. being free out in the dungeon.

Apart from that its a pretty useful system to save TP with healing and such. Or recover small amounts of TP while pressing further.

Though might consider setting the difficulty back down to the normal setting as otherwise the game will take way too long. Though the battles are amusing as usual and have missed the good class synergy with the genre.

Do need to work on my other classes esp the caster due to needing the elemental attacks to finish off certain enemies in order to get their rare material drop. My current party is unable to do that.

The main party is 2 Dragoons, Fencer, Herbalist, Hound

1 Dragoon is set up to tank the other is for support with the defensive bunker / attack down all enemy attack. Though I wished that I had not wasted 1 talent point into the taunt ability.

Most of the members have gathering skills unlocked also so for the most part we do not need to swap out members to hit up the points in the dungeon.

Overall am quite happy with the game. Should be a good time for the fans when it hits the West.

Really do like the system of the little events awarding exp now. Since it beats the previous games where it was either some horrible misfortune would befall your character(s) or you would get some sort of small bonus / item.

Honestly more games need to give exp rewards for finishing quests and whatnots, since most of the times items given in return are generally garbage or other things that you wind up not using that often.

Its too bad I do not have more spare cash as would have liked to have obtained one of those modded 3DSes that has an HDMI output so I could actually record stuff.
 
Game seems chattier than other games in the beginning at least, but could just be me. Liking the mapping improvements. Not as pretty as persona q but comparable utility if not better. As long as the events are kept about the same frequency as in other games, I don't think I'll mind them too much. It is nice to get exp.

Running shaman, dragoon, masurao, reaper, and warlock.
 

KarmaCow

Member
So, no remake for EO3?

EO3 had more of a narrative than first two and IIRC, the Untold games did as well as the original games (which can't be selling all that amazing in the first place).

The wait is going to be unbearable

SMTIVF and DQ7 both come out in a little over a month and within a week of each other but I'm still hoping this gets a surprise November release somehow. I'm tempted to back and finish up EOU2 but I want to be as fresh for EOV as well.
 
Really just got started today. First floor is littered with those events. It's actually annoying as fuck. Maybe three fights so far, poisoned, a few good results but nothing spectacular. To be fair, I sometimes don't read the text because the effort generally far exceeds the reward so far as they are kind of boring and all over the place interrupting what I expected to be peaceful mapmaking lol. Might just start ignoring them, at least until i can start buying items to exit the dungeon when they go wrong. Just trying to map the floor and running into an event around every corner is dangerous. No wipes yet at least, playing on the hardest difficulty.
 
I played the demo for a bit this weekend. The interface feels like the most polished yet, really like the pull out icon drawer and the way even the tiniest text looks great.

What's the deal with the 3D visuals though? Pop in seems like a definite step back to the DS games, and texture filtering has been removed entirely from labyrinths, making plants and flowers look pixelated up close. I'm playing on a N3DS too.

I read that the labyrinths themselves are more organic this time around rather than being made up of large modular chunks, could this be why?
 

1upsuper

Member
Man, I shouldn't have checked out this OT. EO is one of my favorite game franchises, and I was already so close to importing it now with the intent of double dipping. Just abstaining from listening to any of the OST is almost too much.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Really just got started today. First floor is littered with those events. It's actually annoying as fuck. Maybe three fights so far, poisoned, a few good results but nothing spectacular. To be fair, I sometimes don't read the text because the effort generally far exceeds the reward so far as they are kind of boring and all over the place interrupting what I expected to be peaceful mapmaking lol. Might just start ignoring them, at least until i can start buying items to exit the dungeon when they go wrong. Just trying to map the floor and running into an event around every corner is dangerous. No wipes yet at least, playing on the hardest difficulty.

That honestly sounds more like your own issue rather than a game design.

Since honestly it gives a bit more life to the dungeons and the adventure themselves than anything which makes wandering around to every piece of the map have a bit more meaning than just filling in the squares. Not to mention the fact that the events give exp now gives reason to actually bother with them unlike. That goes to show that they wanted to improve on the system. Though took em damned long enough to figure it out.
 
That honestly sounds more like your own issue rather than a game design.

Since honestly it gives a bit more life to the dungeons and the adventure themselves than anything which makes wandering around to every piece of the map have a bit more meaning than just filling in the squares. Not to mention the fact that the events give exp now gives reason to actually bother with them unlike. That goes to show that they wanted to improve on the system. Though took em damned long enough to figure it out.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, when I decide not to read them the results are likely my fault. But IIRC, there would generally maybe be 2-3 events per floor in previous games. Seems like I've done something around six or seven with probably four to five more to go at the rate they're coming. They've still been mostly "you see something. Do you want to touch/eat it?" dilemmas so far and i don't think a good map really needs twelve of those.

You're further in than me, is this about the number it's been holding up at?
 

spiritfox

Member
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/893659-sekaiju-no-meikyuu-v-nagaki-shinwa-no-hate/74138393

With the game out, here are the initial sales numbers.

01./00. [3DS] Etrian Odyssey V: The End of the Long Myth # <RPG> (Atlus) {2016.08.04} (¥6.480) - 92.518 / NEW

Comparison to other games.

[NDS] Etrian Odyssey <RPG> (Atlus) {2007.01.18} (¥4.980) - 32.511 <85,00%>

[NDS] Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard <RPG> (Atlus) {2008.02.21} (¥4.980) - 68.913 <59,57%>

[NDS] Etrian Odyssey III: The Downed City <RPG> (Atlus) {2010.04.01} (¥5.980) - 87.765 <74,75%>

[3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan <RPG> (Atlus) {2012.07.05} (¥5.980) - 95.506 <75,68%>

[3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl <RPG> (Atlus) {2013.06.27} (¥5.980) - 88.278 <67,15%>

[3DS] Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight <RPG> (Atlus) {2014.11.27} (¥5.980) - 59.531 <67,64%>

Comparable to EOIV much better than the Untold games. I was hoping it'll be better than 4 but oh well.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/893659-sekaiju-no-meikyuu-v-nagaki-shinwa-no-hate/74138393

Comparable to EOIV much better than the Untold games. I was hoping it'll be better than 4 but oh well.

Thats still not too bad though considering how poorly untold 2 did. Guess we will have to see how its long term legs are now that the game has been out for a while so word of mouth will be carrying it from there.

By far though mechanics wise and without the gimmicks like the boat or airship (which both were cool in their own aspect) the main part of the game itself has had the most changes in the series with the whole different races with preset classes and how the skill system works now.

Have not had a chance to make much progress but am still running around on the 5th floor. Most def need to go and collect food items again as need those TP recovery ones with how things are going. Can kill most of the FOEs although use up a ton of TP doing it just due to how drawn out the fights are. But for the most part we usually do not take much damage. Too bad after the fights we are usually so drained its only good for 1 more FOE fight or we have to return to town. Still did not try to attack the 3rd type yet as there is no real reason too unless you want whatever item they drop.

I don't know. I mean, yeah, when I decide not to read them the results are likely my fault. But IIRC, there would generally maybe be 2-3 events per floor in previous games. Seems like I've done something around six or seven with probably four to five more to go at the rate they're coming. They've still been mostly "you see something. Do you want to touch/eat it?" dilemmas so far and i don't think a good map really needs twelve of those.

You're further in than me, is this about the number it's been holding up at?

The thing is those events you are talking about are optional so you really have no one to blame but yourself if you are constantly checking to see what they are lol. The actual events which will play automatically when you pass a certain area are no different than the other titles. But those optional events are on each floor. Some of them also tie into certain skills for your characters, which gives actual meaning to those skills that seem to have no other real purpose besides assisting with the events. Also unlike the other games as stated, there still is the positive effect of the paid out EXP for partaking in the event. Those events are a hell of a lot better than pointless dead ends and corners. As stated its a good way to actually give players an incentive to go wandering all over the place. Which is a positive reinforcement to the exploration part of the game.
 

Link1110

Member
Is the end of the SERIES? I'm not sure judging from that name.

Got to the stratum boss and got killed. How do I
reduce the amount of damage fire attacks do?
 

Dorarnae

Member
Have not had a chance to make much progress but am still running around on the 5th floor. Most def need to go and collect food items again as need those TP recovery ones with how things are going. Can kill most of the FOEs although use up a ton of TP doing it just due to how drawn out the fights are. But for the most part we usually do not take much damage. Too bad after the fights we are usually so drained its only good for 1 more FOE fight or we have to return to town. Still did not try to attack the 3rd type yet as there is no real reason too unless you want whatever item they drop.

I could kill the FOE in the demo but yeah it took a lot of resource... but I thought I would be fine on floor 4-5, some monster are so annoying(I am playing on expert), that monkey... . I'll have to upgrade my gear.
 
Beat the game today at lv61(Cestus Dragoon Masurao / Shaman Hound), going on to postgame now. I liked it a decent amount, but I think I might've gone in with my expectations too high. Even the music felt kind of lacklustre compared to EO4, imo. I also had some minor complaints about the new skill system, like not being able to see what your character's class is fully capable of until the end of stratum 2. Instead they're hidden until you choose a second title, which is kind of annoying when you're trying to decide on a party or which skills to put points into early game. I would've much preferred it if the options were visible from the start.

With that out of the way, I really appreciated all the improvements that have been made here and there, like map events giving out exp, the new character customization options, and some of the less important skills only requiring 1 point(though this is kind of a double edged sword, since this change has also reduced gathering yields even with a full gathering party afaik).
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Just beat the first boss was an interesting fight thats for sure. Thought it was fairly creative. Though the boss music was totally underwhelming to me. :/ Really did not seem like the usual stuff in the series.

The music in III still is the best for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14U64jWO85s

Still remember that boss theme in particular as that was some awesome stuff. The music in V for the first boss battle just felt out of place not sure why.

Do like the music of the 2nd dungeon on the 6th floor though. Seems to match the enviro.

Another good one from III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEsgRhIhHf8
 

kanamechan

Member
I really like the exploration events, personally. They give XP, and a lot of the race skills tie into them, netting you additional items, some of which can be pretty useful.

To me, they make the dungeon feel more "alive", kinda.

Music is a bit of a letdown, but the gameplay I like a lot more than EOU1+2. Not sure if it beats my favorite (EOIII), but it's good.
 
I'm not minding the events as much. I think i was just aggravated wanting to jump into the dungeon and getting constantly bogged down in reading between the events and the beginning story stuff.

Gotta say I'm having a difficult time though. I have to be missing something, but my party can't defense for crap. Like I'm feeling genuinely helpless as the bunker doesn't seem to draw for as often as i would like, the dragoon taunt is slow, and basically anyone on the front line is in danger of being ohko'd at all times.

Amy advice for this? I'm probably not even past the demo, just on floor three, but even the floor one dogs can send me running home right now at level 7 and that seems wrong. Maybe there's a dragoon skill I'm not understanding properly that i should be using?
 
I'm not minding the events as much. I think i was just aggravated wanting to jump into the dungeon and getting constantly bogged down in reading between the events and the beginning story stuff.

Gotta say I'm having a difficult time though. I have to be missing something, but my party can't defense for crap. Like I'm feeling genuinely helpless as the bunker doesn't seem to draw for as often as i would like, the dragoon taunt is slow, and basically anyone on the front line is in danger of being ohko'd at all times.

Amy advice for this? I'm probably not even past the demo, just on floor three, but even the floor one dogs can send me running home right now at level 7 and that seems wrong. Maybe there's a dragoon skill I'm not understanding properly that i should be using?

Haven't played EOV yet but this is a general EO thing.

Early game tends to be harder in some ways than later(at least before postgame). Part of it is due to the lack of key skills on some of your chars, but a larger part is due to the scaling of normal attacks damage and hp. Early game, even normal attacks will do severe damage to your chars so a few consecutive attacks on the same char result in death. Meanwhile later, normal attacks often become trivial and you have to look for special attacks and special mob types that do annoying stuff, but these are less common and you have way more options to deal with them.

A good way to "fix" this issue tends to grind for a little bit. The good thing about the grind in EO is it's generally fairly shot and in some cases effortless. I often grind 10-15mins at a time, a few times as I play the game. I don't find that type of amount is a big deal(I generally hate grinding) and I find it keeps you much better on the difficulty scale. I'd recommend going back up to floor 1 or 2, depending on what you can handle easily, turn on gamespeed(or increase the skip speed), and grind for a bit there. Getting even 1 or 2 levels makes a large difference early game.

Or if you really don't like it, you can do afk grinding in EO. Set up an autopath route in a circle and leave something on your A button and just leave it one for an hour or whatever. It's however hard to do too early in the game since you'll generally want to rely on auto healing, which you might not have yet(I believe a hound with well, a hound, can do some really early in the game, shaman I think comes later, not sure if there's permanent food buffs healing either).

Another thing you can do, that I generally don't bother with, is to farm the collectible stuff like mining ores and what not, to get money to gear everyone with the best gear possible. This can help greatly, especially upgrading the chest pieces for all your frontlines(or just all their armor really).
 
I'm not minding the events as much. I think i was just aggravated wanting to jump into the dungeon and getting constantly bogged down in reading between the events and the beginning story stuff.

Gotta say I'm having a difficult time though. I have to be missing something, but my party can't defense for crap. Like I'm feeling genuinely helpless as the bunker doesn't seem to draw for as often as i would like, the dragoon taunt is slow, and basically anyone on the front line is in danger of being ohko'd at all times.

Amy advice for this? I'm probably not even past the demo, just on floor three, but even the floor one dogs can send me running home right now at level 7 and that seems wrong. Maybe there's a dragoon skill I'm not understanding properly that i should be using?

I personally think that Dragoons should almost never waste a turn on something that isn't Line or Material guard(in early game). Summoning a bunker just wastes a turn that could've been spent on guaranteed damage mitigation, rather than hoping for good rng later. Same with using taunt, most random fights don't last long enough to make it worth using, and it makes the rest of your front line vulnerable to full damage. Also, IIRC enemies tend to target party members with high HP and/or the front row anyway, so protecting the front line is almost always a good choice.
 

kanamechan

Member
Amy advice for this? I'm probably not even past the demo, just on floor three, but even the floor one dogs can send me running home right now at level 7 and that seems wrong. Maybe there's a dragoon skill I'm not understanding properly that i should be using?

You should be able to deal with them much more easily at level seven with floor 3 equipment. Bunker can help against them if you are taking a while to fight them, but usually a line guard should be enough.

I think you're looking in the wrong place. What's the rest of your team doing that lets the dogs take you apart? What's your setup? It may be that you simply lack damage. You could also look into binds or status effects. A hound or cestus can do pretty cheap damage that also does binds, and enemies like the dogs are really good targets for that.

I'd strongly suggest not to grind. Grinding tends to remove the challenge in EO games, and they are best when you defeat them fair and square :)

I personally think that Dragoons should almost never waste a turn on something that isn't Line or Material guard(in early game). Summoning a bunker just wastes a turn that could've been spent on guaranteed damage mitigation, rather than hoping for good rng later. Same with using taunt, most random fights don't last long enough to make it worth using, and it makes the rest of your front line vulnerable to full damage. Also, IIRC enemies tend to target party members with high HP and/or the front row anyway, so protecting the front line is almost always a good choice.

Bunker 10 is the optimal strategy for any enemy that does single target damage - a line of three bunkers completely and utterly shuts them down, which is a huge asset when dealing with certain FOEs. They pretty much become helpless kittens.

For enemies with multi-hit attacks that are NOT line based, this is different, of course, and you want to use line/material guard instead. But I didn't find bunker useless at all - it was very powerful, and I frequently used it even in random battles, because it did more than line guard.
 
Bunker 10 is the optimal strategy for any enemy that does single target damage - a line of three bunkers completely and utterly shuts them down, which is a huge asset when dealing with certain FOEs. They pretty much become helpless kittens.

For enemies with multi-hit attacks that are NOT line based, this is different, of course, and you want to use line/material guard instead. But I didn't find bunker useless at all - it was very powerful, and I frequently used it even in random battles, because it did more than line guard.

I never upgraded Bunker all the way to 10, so it's nice to hear that it's actually really strong. One of the reasons I didn't like using it was that it usually went last and I was using a 3 sword Masurao with no herbalist, so my only res options were nectars and the union skill. In mobs with more than one enemy it was pretty likely they would die without a line guard or some sort of cover, so I usually went for focusing down enemies instead. I also seem to remember bunkers not pulling enemy aggro 100%, but I might be crazy or it's a perk of bunker lv10?

Anyway, I have a tendency to focus on "guarantees", and bunkers seemed like the kind of thing where they're really strong if they work, but disastrous otherwise so I didn't want to invest many points into them. Now that I know they're good though, maybe I'll try them out on a third run since I'm two stratums into my second right now.
 

kanamechan

Member
They're basically great in Stratum 1-3 (some FOEs never managed to hit my party once due to bunkers), and peter out after that, I suppose. I still used them and they still took plenty of hits, probably would have died to the first postgame boss without em.

Edit: In fact, they are actually really good in some situations that one might not think of, since they catch status effects. Stratum 6 has a few... Etrianisms, so to say, and bunkers counter that surprisingly well right now. Sure have an easier time with em, now that I sped up my Dragoon a bit :)
 
They're basically great in Stratum 1-3 (some FOEs never managed to hit my party once due to bunkers), and peter out after that, I suppose. I still used them and they still took plenty of hits, probably would have died to the first postgame boss without em.

Edit: In fact, they are actually really good in some situations that one might not think of, since they catch status effects. Stratum 6 has a few... Etrianisms, so to say, and bunkers counter that surprisingly well right now. Sure have an easier time with em, now that I sped up my Dragoon a bit :)

If you mean the
obnoxious instant kill stardust enemies
, then yeah I can definitely see how bunkers might help, lol. I had to resort to accessories and the union skill to nullify party ailments for them until they stopped spawning as frequently later in stratum 6.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Pretty interesting to read up about the bunkers. Since I run 2 dragoons one of them all I have been using the bunker for is to prep for the defense up skill. As one dragoon is set up for taunting / guarding and the other for the attack down debuff and bunker & defense up buff.

Due to having a hound also dont think I can deploy 3 bunkers as have the dog and falcon out so have not put much points into bunker itself and focused more on that all enemy attack down debuff and the defense up skill.
 
The weapon upgrade system makes me addict to FOE grinding. Thanks to good equipment and good level(41), I beat stratum III's boss first try in advanced. lol
 

redcrayon

Member
The bunkers sound interesting- are they effectively decoys that absorb enemy attacks?
What is the difference between that and the usual line guard etc skills?

Can't wait to play this, I hope it gets an EU release next year.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
The bunkers sound interesting- are they effectively decoys that absorb enemy attacks?
What is the difference between that and the usual line guard etc skills?

Can't wait to play this, I hope it gets an EU release next year.

The low lv ones just act as an extra target for the enemy. Someone else will have to explain what maxed out ones do. As mine is not maxed.

The line guard skills still work the same as in other games. Physical def, magic def and damage turned into hp so useful when taunting first then using after. There is another skill the dragoon has which is uses the same defense skill as the previous action but will also perform an attack along with it. It requires a defense skill to be used at least once first though.
 

Dorarnae

Member
The weapon upgrade system makes me addict to FOE grinding. Thanks to good equipment and good level(41), I beat stratum III's boss first try in advanced. lol

yeah I am liking the weapon upgrade, I rarely forged stuff in previous game but now it's a lot more interesting.
I managed to get the rare drop of the second stratum boss, but it's 410k $ :S, I still need 100k and then I'll go kill that 4th stratum boss.


So far I am liking the dungeon, all classes seems quite fun too, currently playing masurao,fencer, warlock,shaman and herbalist but I can see myself coming back to the game and try something else...or the same class but different second name like the herbalist with his smoke skill.
I think the biggest disappointment is the music.
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
yeah I am liking the weapon upgrade, I rarely forged stuff in previous game but now it's a lot more interesting.
I managed to get the rare drop of the second stratum boss, but it's 410k $ :S, I still need 100k and then I'll go kill that 4th stratum boss.


So far I am liking the dungeon, all classes seems quite fun too, currently playing masurao,fencer, warlock,shaman and herbalist but I can see myself coming back to the game and try something else...or the same class but different second name like the herbalist with his smoke skill.
I think the biggest disappointment is the music.

Hows the warlock? I have 2 but didnt field them yet.
 

Dorarnae

Member
Hows the warlock? I have 2 but didnt field them yet.

they were kinda meh in the beginning, so so dmg and high tp cost. but now being able to cast 2-6 the same spell or charge and cast on the same turn is not bad, works well with fencer link and masurao follow up. but bit disappointed they don't link/follow on each hit(it will if it hits different target thought).
My shaman is probably doing more damage when I dispell her element buff but I can still allocate a lot more point into my skill with warlock to increase dmg.(the amplify buff from warlock probably boost my shaman damage too).

also the warlock seems to have other spell(physical) that can inflict some status, so with the passive that keep the previous element type, that could be nice I guess but I haven't spent points on those yet.
 

kanamechan

Member
The bunkers sound interesting- are they effectively decoys that absorb enemy attacks?
What is the difference between that and the usual line guard etc skills?

Essentially, bunkers (as well as animals and spirits) give you a *third* line, in front of your party. So if you are usually something like...

Tank/Dps/Dps
Mage/Healer

Then you're now something like...

Bunker/Spirit/Doge
Tank/Dps/Dps
Mage/healer

This has a few consequences:
-bunkers are useless against pierce attacks, which pierce all three lines. They are also useless against "target all" attacks.
-bunkers, if they catch aggro (which 10 usually will), will absorb row attacks without anyone of your team getting hurt.
-3 bunkers can eat multihit attacks like nothing, because they usually survive the hits just fine.
-unlike line defense, which still gets your party hurt and affected by status effects, attacks that the bunkers catch do NOT damage your party, and thus no status effect gets applied.

Late game, I found the last two points the most important. Enemies throwing confuse on your frontline most of the time? Preemptive bunker shuts that down immediately, as does a quickly placed one.

Hows the warlock? I have 2 but didnt field them yet.

They aren't damage beasts like reapers or masurao, but do really well, especially since you can charge+cast on the same turn. The six elements specialization is REALLY good, I find - you can cycle through elements for the damage bonus, and apply stuns, binds or magic attack down. Especially the magic attack down debuff is excellent, both because it reduces damage and because it's food for my reaper. First Etrian where I'm happy with a caster.
 

redcrayon

Member
Thanks everyone for the replies re. Bunkers etc. Sounds like a really interesting trade off in terms of choosing between your defensive strategies.
 
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