I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Etrian Odyssey series so far. It is simultaneously punishing, tedious, difficult, broken, and when things work well, rewarding. When I started the first game of the series I had a very rough time in the beginning. Despite doing my fair share of research, I found myself getting trounced by the labyrinth's dangers over and over. I knew what was strong because I'd read about it but I wanted to try my best to try out my own strategies and play to my own tastes. In the end, I did decide to rely on the game-breakingly powerful Immunize skill wielded by the Medic class in an effort to make the game bearable! And after a fashion, it became a lot more fun. Each foray into the labyrinth was longer and there was less tension in exploring. Having to return to town over and over again, spending my hard earned funds on healing--and often running out of gold prematurely--it's disheartening! Etrian Odyssey punishes suboptimal strategies rather harshly.
When I started Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, I thought I knew better, thought I knew enough about the game's mechanics to make it on my own with only a minimal amount of research. Of course, these games aren't very forthcoming with ability descriptions, as it turns out, and trying out different builds for characters is a time consuming (and expensive) process. My initial party composition was hilariously unsuccessful. Each new floor to which I ascended was like hitting a brick wall. I wanted to try a party very much unlike the heavy damage party I used in the first game. I wanted something with a lot of utility and control, primarily geared toward taking down the game's many bosses. This is an okay idea in theory, but it completely disregards the bulk of the game--dungeon crawling.
Etrian Odyssey II's bosses can be tough, but in my book it's frequently more challenging just to traverse the maze floors leading up to them. Even some of the most common enemies can be quite troublesome to defeat. In one of the early floors, an odd ostrich-like enemy called a Moa can decimate unprepared parties singlehandedly. Occasionally, the Moa will be accompanied by allies that compound this problem. Of course, there are strategies that make dealing with enemies like this much easier, but these strategies may not necessarily be appropriate for bosses or for other enemies in the dungeon. For this reason it is important to have a party that is well balanced for a variety of purposes. Alternatively, you can run a flexible party with members that be switched out at will. This is more difficult to maintain and requires more commitment from the player, of course, but it is a game that rewards those who put forth that commitment.
The very first boss of Etrian Odyssey II is a chimera. It's very weak to ice so logically a Gunner with Iceshot/Riskice or an Alchemist with Ice/Freeze would assist tremendously with defeating it. Poisoning it is also a highly effective strategy, but unfortunately it's very resistant to poison. The kicker here is that if the player poisons this particular boss and defeats it while it is afflicted by that ailment, it will drop a specific item worth 30,000 EN at the shop. Each boss has a conditional drop like this. If the player is willing to put forth the commitment to training characters tailored specifically to employing these strategies, he'll be rewarded with far more money than could be easily obtained otherwise.
Of course, there's really only two viable ways to poison in Etrian Odyssey II. There's the Dark Hunter's Viper skill, which deals damage and has a 45% (or so) chance to poison before resistances. This isn't very likely to work considering the Chimera's resistance to the ailment, so the better option is to employ a Hexer with maxed out Poison, points in Luck, and gear with bonuses to Luck if you can lay your hands on it. Even then, it might take four or five turns to successfully land the ailment. Meanwhile, the Chimera is hitting hard every turn and his allies are encroaching on the party. Let's not forget that leveling a Hexer can be a challenging process early in the game because Poison is very unlikely to successfully land before maxed, their physical attacks are pitiful, and they are ridiculously frail.
Once you meet the requirements for a highly accurate Poison skill, it is possible to repeatedly defeat the boss with this method and get access to its conditional drop. Not only does it sell for 30,000 EN, but it also unlocks a very powerful (possibly the most powerful?) bow. It was for this reason that I decided to train a Survivalist (bow user) and run that boss several more times. I was eager to make the game go more smoothly for me. It's not clear to me if this is a "cheap" strategy or akin to breaking the game and I honestly don't care. What it has done is make the game a lot more fun to play. I've since defeated the boss of the second stratum and made my way through about half of the third with fewer problems than I might have otherwise had--and I haven't trivialized the difficulty, either. There are still plenty of fearsome FOEs roaming around capable of annihilating my party. But I no longer feel hopeless and frustrated.
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