EOX Rantage

[Dangerus]

[Wolkenritter]

Unlocked subclasses this what I've come up with. should be a good way to test if I messed up or not.

Hero/Imperial - She doesn't have the points for it yet but she'll eventually do Afterimage + Drive Blade shenanigans. Being able to equip Drive Blades boost her ATK by a bit as well, plus Imperial gets an elemental ATK passive to boost Regiment Rave.

Nightseeker/Ronin - Ronin seem to have some amazing passives. I'm a bit worried that auto-stances will override auto-spread though. If it does happen I'll probably swap over to a Lands sub instead.

Harbinger/Highlander - Mostly for Bloody Offense; the Harbinger's base kit is already too good.

Sovereign/Zodiac - For the Prophecies so my party no longer gets nuked by elemental damage. Elemental Shield can only go so far...

Gunner/Landsknecht - Act Quick guarantees she'll go first. Since I need to use it so the Charge Shots don't kill her seems like a natural fit. If I'm not happy with the Nightseeker's sub though I'll swap em' so she gets Ronin.

EDIT: Ok so auto-spread and auto-stance do work together. Its perfect.

[Dangerus]

So update. I made it to the Waterfall Woods without using REAPER-02. Yay!

Now in all seriousness, I like how we are introduced to a new NPC or two and a simple character arc for them as well as getting to meet the NPCs of previous games. Seeing now I am in Waterfall Woods, I am greeted by Charis and Rob. I have... Mixed feelings about these two? For some reason I am getting mad flashbacks in the sense I think one of these two new NPCs might die in the crossfires. We may become .

Even without the EXP Boost item, some FOE fights only just drain TP from my system. May be because I am in Basic Mode, but yikes. If only I knew how to masterfully plan my Boosts.

[Myssdii]

Still in the 12th Labyrinth, just reached over 70 hours played (in-game time, it's probably a bit higher thanks to some game overs and resets of bosses/FOEs).

After some thinking, I rested my team and changed my Highlander's and Ninja's builds, so here's a team update (they're back to level 75):

Asmee - War Magus/Hero - Still a big fan of this combination, Hero's passive healing and AOE skills are amazing to enhance the WM passive sustain during random encounters. No invest in afterimages because Ninja, but I'm looking a bit into shield skills since I just unlocked a really strong shield, but that's probably for later.

Reinhardt - Highlander/Pugilist - Nightseeker sub was also an option, but in the end I went for the extra utility and some bind shenanigans with Clinch. Fighting Spirit + Raging Billows looks more stable than Follow Trace on paper, since the Highlander can chain more turns in a row purely attacking. More efficient than Shogun since I lack a Sovereign to enhance Warrior Might with Arms buffs.

Frida - Imperial/Nightseeker - Still hurts a lot, and landing double Accel Drive for a whooping ~18k damage total gives me chills. I'm resisting the urge to buyout the ultimate Drive Blade that I unlocked through boss conditionals, but I'm afraid that it would ease the game too much, so I'm waiting for post game to use ultimate weapons/armors. And Frida will probably be the first one to get hers :3

Maxsee - Harbinger/Survivalist - Well, she's still a support Harbinger with some extra utility with turn priority and Scapegoat from the Surv tree. I'm starting to invest in Bow skills for extra damage. It works great for a back row Harbinger that does not use her Reap skills.

Yuki - Ninja/Ronin - Outside of obvious japanese culture combination, this actually works like a charm. I've maxed out Drawing Stance, and with all dodge passives, she's reaching base ~43% evasion bonus. She nows dual wields katana + dagger for more damage, and I invested one point in Bunshin for cloning against FOEs and bosses. Once I've invested a bit in passives and Bunshin level, I'll reach out to Upper Stance and Helm Splitter for extra damage when the enemy is fully locked down.

[SteelCrow]

[Wolkenritter]

[Sigma]

The 6th, 7th, and were definitely the low point of the game, so far, for me. I've been finding (half way explored) to be a better implementation of the 7th.

self heal was for like 1,200 HP. There's definitely a damage threshold that knocks him out of it though. The first attempt he never got to do it. However, on the second attempt he did manage to get it off due to paralysis being on both my Highlander and Medic (who was trying to use Refresh).

[Wolkenritter]

Finished the . seems to be the same as he was in . He wasn't too difficult, though he has a pretty good amount of HP. My Gunner died a lot in this fight so it did slow down my damage by quite a bit.

10th Labyrinth is a real treat. I actually loved so I was happy to see it make a comeback. The labyrinth's mechanics are somewhat dumbed down from the original; . On othe other hand they also added the ice block puzzles from EO2U... so we're finally seeing some changes to the reappearing labyrinths now.

was a bit of surprise here, was not expecting him to show up. He was pretty easy though, my Gunner grabbed Charged Ice and destroyed him with it.

is currently a roadblock for me at the moment though. Even in his weakened state he does a lot of damage and fire resistance does limit what my Hero is capable of doing. Probably doesn't help that the scale is on the other side of the map so weakening him is extremely tedious. Might have to respec and start putting points into Ice Drive.

also drops the ultimate Drive Blade as his conditional... so I could cheese him with that >_> <_< >_>

EDIT: Ok I beat him. Don't even joke to me about him being to weak poison. Even with Spread Throw and Wilting Miasma it did not even land once for 5 turns in a row. All my Nightseeker had to work with was blind at the start but he recovered from him right when I was working on removing Fire Shield. Ugh.

[Sigma]

Finished the 10th Labyrinth boss with no issues; came very close to getting their conditional too. After that, I kind of figured it's about time to go after the other boss conditionals. Had to use a Formaldehyde on because screw Curse conditionals. Unfortunately, now I'm looking directly at a 740k Ental Driveblade... Part of me wants to use my Farmer team, but I want to at least refrain from getting it until post-game.

Also, they kind of unintentionally nerfed . With how Petrify works now they are no longer the threat that they used to be. On top of that they seemed to have changed their aggro flag being cycled through on/off now.

Lastly, a rant... Vivian and Kvasir, I've grown tired of them and the game has me at a point to where I'm about to actually put voices on Mute. I mean this was supposed to be a celebration game and they decide to give us a lethargic girl who was given otaku-pandering moaning/groaning voice every time I reload the fucking save. Then there's Kvasir, an anime old man trope with a "Hungry Hungry Hippo" animation that has a laugh following it every time. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't do it during every fucking conversation, but no he has to.

[Wolkenritter]

Finished the 11th labyrinth. I could swear the were much more difficult to avoid in . Here they just stare at you and only attack if you walk next to them a 2nd time.

served as the mid-boss here. Definitely was not designed to be a late game boss for sure; he was completely destroyed. Didn't even need to worry about his eyes. Also the game really feels like it has a huge bias towards bosses in , that's nearly all of them now.

attacks are mostly the same from EO4 and EO1U but his pattern is entirely different, plus he throws a new trick where he buffs himself every 4th turn. He wasn't very hard overall though, since you can get a preemptive on him and he wastes the early parts of the battle showing how Pinion Spear works now.

Actually funnily enough I found the random encounters here more of a headache. Most of the heavy hitters there are resistant to blind and sleep, which makes Spread Throw much less effective at keeping my team alive.

[Sigma]

11th Labyrinth boss dead, they seemed much easier than they were in . I would wager they were similar in difficulty to version. Also kind of surprised that they took a weapon, , from another boss, , and gave it to as their conditional drop. Though they did change the skill on it from . Like that driveblade, I'm now looking at what might be semi-decent upgrade for my Sovereign now. Must. Resist. /sigh

On a side note, I've been very happy with my Highlander subbed as Nightseeker when it comes to these ailment boss conditionals (Blind, Paralyze, Poison).

[Sigma]

So having just read that Natural Edge is actually affected by the Elemental Arms skills... Decided to do a cursory test on 2 groups of unfortunate Grasseaters in Lush Woodlands:

Note 1: Natural Edge (2) on Farmer
Note 2: Level 73
Note 3: Farmer's STR comparison: Hero (72), Farmer (62), Highlander (90)
Note 4: Farmer's STR is being boosted by 8 and is using a severely outdated Driveblade.

546 - No Buffs
596 - Blaze Oil
752 - Fire Arms (7)
982 - Fire Arms, Attack Order (7)
1,328 - Fire Arms, Attack Order, Bloody Offense (7)
1,891 - Fire Arms, Attack Order, Bloody Offense, Proof of Nobility

10 Labyrinth boss test:
Attack Order, Bloody Offense, Freeze Arms, Star Drop, Medical Rod, & Eroding Miasma

Freeze Drive (1) - 1,353
Natural Edge - 644
Regular Attack - 399

Would have liked to test Harvest Festival (9) to go along with it, but wasn't as focused on using Trip Edge to cause a leg bind due to me going for the conditional drop. Though that 644 damage is within the range variable for that skill on other enemies so... I'll have to test it on a FOE at some point.

This also kind of changes my perspective on a future run that uses an Imperial. Kind of had something like this in mind: Imperial, ???, War Magus -- Gunner, Zodiac. Was contemplating that ??? to be a Protector as the main beneficiary to the Imperial and Gunner, but might change out the War Magus for Sovereign now.


Edit: test:
Shock Drive (1) - 1,578
Natural Edge - 732
Regular Attack - 473
Harvest Festival - 1,275*

*Now that I think about it, the middling damage around the 600s was on regular enemies that were not debuffed nor did the Farmer have Bloody Offense plastered on them.

After getting the conditional during that last test, I'm now looking at endgame weapon upgrades for the Hero (w/ Sword), Farmer (w/ Driveblade), Highlander, and Sovereign. Surprised that they actually made a lot of these accessible prior to the post-game.

[Wolkenritter]

12th labyrinth down. Its another retread of the usual , now with some of those platform puzzles from thrown into the mix.

was incredibly difficult. Went into the fight expecting debuff and ailment spam , but turns out he's actually a instead. He can swarm you and he hits very hard. Blind doesn't seem to do anything to him either. The most annoying thing in the fight though was Guard Rush EX. That move probably has a telegraph, but that was where most of wipes came from, and had no idea when he was planning to use it.

As for the ; those dumb Camo Dogs are back. Causing more unavoidable "damage" with their debuff that lowers max HP. Not a terribly difficult dungeon though the FOEs can be annoying since they can wipe you whenever they feel like it. Plus their gimmick makes them kinda hard to avoid.

seems to be exactly the same from . I found her a lot easier here than in EOV though. Probably due to Prevent Order as well as just being able to use the Hero's Force Break to kill her snakey friends.

[Myssdii]

My guild finally downed the final boss, ! Final level for the boss fight was late 87.

Spoilers below for 12th and 13th labyrinth, and credits scene:


Overall, before postgame, I enjoyed the game, even though some parts of it were a bit long and tiring. The narrative is really nice, I really loved exploring with other PNJs, discovering their character. The main scenario is just here to keep you going, with a last part that feels a bit over the top, mainly around , which I didn't trust from the first moment I met him.

The game started to become pretty easy after unlocking subclasses, which can lead to absurd and overpowered combinations. I don't think I was overleveled (each time, the FOEs had their yellow aura when I reached the end of each labyrinth), but my team was probably a bit too good. I can't wait to start the postgame, to see if they balanced things differently there.


Also a message for those playing an Imperial: don't buy the ultimate Drive Blade if you've unlocked it from conditional drop. I've just bought it to see what it looks like, and it tripled my Accel Drive damage XD
I went for conditional, and the hit while asleep did 52k damage (his total life is 54k...) x)
I'll probably put it down a bit, it's too overpowered XD

[Sigma]

So the 12th Labyrinth boss... This boss is kind of ridiculous when the RNG gets screwy. Being spammed with endless amounts of arm binds, stuns, and party-wide attacks isn't really fun when the healer keeps getting hit with stun on every turn. Beat them on my third attempt, but it was looking like the first real wall the game has thrown at this party.

The battle theme in the 13th Labyrinth makes me think of one of these: Mega Man X4 or X5. Could be both, but it's been a very long time since I've played them that they just kind of blend together in my head.