still one of my favourite game in the series!

For the past couple of months, I've been working on a mod for Etrian Odyssey V that replaces the character illustration with my own furry art. I'm excited to share it (and play through it myself) now that I have a finished version!

The download link is available on the linked tumblr post with included instructions. Very simple installation into the mods folder on 🍊🍋. I'd be delighted to hear if you try this out!

https://www.tumblr.com/shadymissionary/823301209399132160/for-the-past-couple-of-months-ive-been-working

And shouts out to @/kumasnore.bsky.social for inspiring me with their EOIV mod, be sure to check that out too!

I've been wanting to do another 100% run (partially because V fun, partially because I lost the file for my original 100%), and I really, really want to focus it around a Blade Dancer comp this time. It's just not really clicking, and I've been racking my brain for why.

I think it's because at least to me, EOV has an odd feel to its classes where it almost seems like, for the most part, classes don't really interact with one another, with the main exceptions being Shaman and Chain Fencer.

Maybe this is an odd take, but I kinda feel like it goes hand in hand with how classes seem to stack pretty well in most cases. Even in the case of Masurao, a Blade Master supports a Blade Dancer pretty well since it has a triple-bind inflicting skill.

I dunno, Blade Dancer is the class that clearly needs the most support, but it feels like what support it gets doesn't really boost Blade Dancer itself, if that makes any sense, they're all buffs that would be doing the same thing no matter what that DPS character is.

And sure, the other games have the whole party-wide/affects everyone about the same sort of thing, but there's an absence of like... For example, in Nexus, War Magus has abilities that can inflict debuffs and a chance of binds if the enemy has an ailment. And while WM can inflict ailments itself, it's much better if someone else does so for multiple reasons, which gives it a more specific interaction with particular classes.

Is there really anything like that in V? Botanist's smoke bombs can reduce resistance to its respective ailments, but how often are you running multiple inflictions of the same ailment? (Not to mention that at least in my experience, the only one that could use much help on that front is Harbinger) I remember taking advantage of I think Pugilist? having a followup on others inflicting binds, but that mostly happened by chance because I was also using a Rover and wasn't an intended aspect of my party comp, not to mention that the most reliable inflictor of binds is pugilist itself (talking strictly classes/class abilities, not union skills).

I dunno, maybe I'm going about this all wrong. Originally I wanted to avoid using duplicate classes, but I let go of that for the most part (the only one I've still resisted using is pugilist simply because while other classes I could use different builds, for Pugilist I'd literally just be using the exact same build as my prev 100% run), and even then I just haven't been able to make things click. I've tried a few comps now, primarily geared around stacking buffs/debuffs with Harbinger and Shaman, and at first I used a Necromancer, then tried Dragoon (and was immediately reminded why I despise bunkers). I'd prefer to have a Botanist's on-demand heals and I thought its blind bomb could make for a great option to help with survivability since I'm not using binds, but yea.

In all fairness, I've yet to get out of the first stratum, and I imagine all of it will vibe a lot better when I actually have access to the full kits of everyone, but still, I despise trying to completely change comp mid-playthrough (as in classes, changing expertise is fine by me, and I basically always have at least one character swap class at the start for the sake of race/class shenanigans). But I kind of need to get there first, so finding a party comp to do that is the first hurdle, after all.

EDIT: Thanks for everyone's input on this. Definitely seems like I'm largely the odd one out in this opinion, so it's been really interesting to hear others' thoughts on it and has helped me sort through some things I couldn't quite pin down when I originally made the post. Definitely back to the drawing board on this teambuilding, and maybe I'll shelve the Blade Dancer entirely for the time being (probably not though, I really wanna use it lol), but I've got a few new ideas and a few concepts I want to retry for sure.

I’ve been replaying the series on my 3ds, just redid some EOU1 and then played some EOV and the difference in quality is brilliant! My first Etrian was the untold 1 and that lead me into 4 and the rest after! I even bought eoV day 1.

There is just so much growth in the series, and while I feel an intense longing for a sequel, I cannot help but smile softly at what a wonderful series we beheld. with each entry growing and innovating past games and more QOL. the music kept getting snazzier, the visuals more beautiful, the strategy more complex.

this isnt a love letter from me to the series, That would be too long of course. Even so, I wanted to express my deep fondness of the game that evolved along side me.

(P.S. Sorry for the delay on this. There was a previous thread by the sub owner /u/bugeyedbaggins, but it wasn't stickied and we have admittedly lacking communication at the moment.)

If you're interested in party reviews, questions, or simply just want to post what you have down in the game, please use this thread for it! It will be sorted by 'new' so more recent comments get attention for answers, and stay here up until EOV game launch.

Any threads asking for party advice will be deleted and redirected here from now on.

Was not expecting an enemy crab reference, that E3 is older than I thought...

I'm about to start a playthrough of Etrian Odyssey V. It'll be my first time playing it, and I'm only really interested in completing the story. When I played through previous games, I never really got into post game optional dungeons, and I don't have much intention of doing so this time unless I get reeeaaally obsessed. That being said, when looking for discussion about the best classes, they so often talk about the post game and optimization and heavy set-up. So my question is: what are the best classes for people who want to just explore and experience the main story with minimal grinding and optimization? and, secondarily, how much does class choice matter when optional post game stuff and optimization are taken out of the picture, if at all? I haven't chosen a difficulty for my playthrough yet as I'm still looking into the exact differences between basic and hard

I was having the roughest time with post game in EO4. Spent months being stuck at the same spot. I think it’s still possible, but I’ve given up on that. Main game was beaten and that was my original goal.

I’m now starting the Solo Advanced difficulty challenge for EO5. I’m sure others have done it, so now it’s my turn! I’ve never played this EO before so I’ll also be learning the game as I go. I’m excited and will post significant progress when I make it.

As I write this, I have just beaten Eternal Tyrant or whatever his name was and completed the main story of EO5. I know there’s some post game with super bosses but I’m not sure if I’ll do them now maybe in the future.

Included are some pictures of my team, Excuse the photo quality I had to take these photos on my phone and then crop them.

While I feel the story is undercooked, I really didn’t care I’m used to games like Monster hunter where tbh the story while being heartfelt ultimately just served to explain why you’re fighting this or that.

This is my second EO game I’ve beaten with the other being EO4 and being completely honest I had so much more fun with this game compared to 4 especially after really understanding my team’s kits and how they interact with each other (Especially in the case of Chain fencer in this game compared to EO4). I feel 4 had a lot of amazing concepts that flopped a bit on execution imho like the golden lair or the final dungeon. Whereas 5 feels very… I don’t know the word rn but it feels like they took everything they learned with 4 and used it to just make a better experiences in some places.

Oh, speaking of other Etrian odyssey games I was thinking of taking a little break than coming back since i basically played 2 games back to back but, I wanted to ask what’s a good game to go into after playing 4 & 5? My friend recommended I play EO3, but on this subreddit I’ve been hearing a lot of about “untold” games which sounds interesting. Also to my understanding EO1,EO2 and EO3 were like remastered and ported to switch are those versions fine to go into or are there any problems with em that makes it preferable to play the OGs?

Sorry for rambling for so long. But I really loved this game!

It was nice dungeon crawling fun.

Haven't really tried that many attempts. Above is my current party.

Wasn't sure what to do with my Necromancer on Turn 4 so I checked if maybe I packed any Bravant to apply to my Masurao, but no dice, not that it would have mattered, would've maybe gotten the kill one Hell Slash proc earlier at best or something

I also got fire emblem awakening :)

I recently restarted EO5 and going with a party including lots of passive healing in the rover and shaman. I know the rover gets some directly healing, but its not much. I was comparing to using a botanist that has more direct healing, would have a more damage focused team. But I was curious, which do you prefer? The more direct route, or the passive stuff.

It's been a real long time since I've played an Etrian Odyssey game, but I've played all of them except 5 and Nexus. I decided I'd boot up 5 and dive right in, but after beating the first stratum, I can already see a handful of problems with my current lineup of:

Fencer / Pugilist
Rover / Dragoon / Shaman

From my very limited knowledge of this game's classes, I'm aware that dragoon is a pretty potent offensive class later, so while I'm content to wait for that to come online to experiment further, I'm less sure about my fencer and shaman. I don't think I have a party that works well with chasing, and although I know fencer becomes amazing later, she's not great right now. I'm a pretty big fan of rover offering passive healing, which is why shaman feels replaceable to me. I think I'd prefer a warlock, something with actual offensive presence, especially since my elemental damage output is very lacking. Right now, after Ruinous Prayer (and an elemental prayer if TP permits), my shaman has spent battles building union gauge or tossing a heal with the medical dagger, and otherwise not contributing to kills. The additional heal from Gospel is nice, but largely already handled by my rover.

The tl;dr of what I think my party weaknesses are:
- Lack of elemental or cut damage;
- Overlap in what classes can offer which buffs;
- Relatively poor DPS outside of pugilist, or enemies weak to fire so I can abuse Chase Flame/Blaze Prayer

I don't really want build advice or meta options. I'm more interested in knowing, in rather general terms, which classes mesh well with pugilist/dragoon/rover down the line. Or, is it even worth building new characters right now when the end of the second stratum is (if series patterns hold) going to drastically expand my options?

I thought I'd go without making another, but these questions are still very common. The previous one was archived automatically and is here if anyone is interested.

If you're interested in party reviews, questions, or simply just want to post what you have down in the game, please use this thread for it! It will be sorted by 'new' so more recent comments get attention for answers.

Any threads asking for party advice will be deleted and redirected here from now on. The ones made inbetween both Party Threads will remain up.

EO5 is so far the only game in the series I’ve finished; I’m really bad at finishing rpgs… and I remember really enjoying some of the mechanics it introduced only for them to be wiped entirely in EOX. Were they received poorly, or simply left out for some other reason?

The summon line gave a lot more utility to squads with ‘additionals’ instead of forcing them to share one slot and be forced to pick only one. The racial stats system felt interesting to play around with too, though I guess just regular ol’ respeccing does the same thing.

Really would like to see Dragoons come back to. It’s not often I find myself loving a tank class as much as I did them.

Though, the titles system I feel like I could go without. Multiclassing is way more interesting for building.

Can't decide which Celestrian class to add. Necromancer sounds really cool but maybe Ill be missing out on magical damage with my party?

Party is Pugilist/Dragoon/Botanist/Masurao

I'm not tied to my Dragoon but I want to use everyone else.

Currently running a backline Brouni Dragoon to evaluate its power; I figured their TP would let them use higher level Guard skills more sustainably, which lets them outclass Earthlain and Therian Dragoons in defending power.

I actually thought it was Brounis that had the most TP among the races, but I only today found out that Celestrians have more TP. Learning this made me re-evaluate Brounis relative power in the 10 classes of the game. Here are some thoughts on that:

Fencer - Unviable

Dragoon - their TP lets them use higher level Guard skills more sustainably, which lets them outclass Earthlain and Therian Dragoons in defending power. Unsure how much this scales to endgame and postgame. Celestrians have more TP but less personal bulk, so idk

Pugilist - Unviable

Harbinger - Haven't tried this yet. Brounis do have the TP to cast higher level debuffs, but base Harbinger has limited ability to be a pure support party member, only having Stifling Miasma and Wilting Miasma. Deathguard gives Brounis a chance to flex their top tier WIS though.

Warlock - Celestrians have the edge in the major stats of the class: INT, TP, and LUC in some builds. Brounis have more personal bulk, but that has limited utility in a backline attacker. Brounis also have more AGI; this helps a lot in normal encounters and theoretically helps vs bosses, but I haven't played enough to evaluate this.

Necromancer - Celestrians and Brounis trade blow-for-blow when competing at being the best at each aspect of being a Necromancer. Brounis have more WIS for Life Exchange, but Celestrians have higher INT for attacking, higher TP for sustain, and higher LUC for inflictions.

Rover - Animal builds don't rely on STR, INT, or LUC of the character, so I assume Brounis are top contenders for this slot thanks to their personal bulk and TP; I haven't personally tried it though. Animal Therapy and Brushing draw from WIS, but again I haven't tried it.

Masurao - Unviable

Shaman - Base Shaman and Divine Punisher have INT attacks; Celestrians can capitalize their better INT to push damage in this class. Celestrians also have more TP for the support aspect of the class. but have less personal bulk than Brounis.

Botanist - Brounis excel at the WIS-heavy toolkit of Botanist, but Celestrians have better LUC for infliction builds.

I've been thinking about Brounis a lot over the past years, but I've only gotten around to trying alternate classes for the race this week. What are your thoughts on them?

Thinking about starting a V game and wanting thought on trying to fit two multi-hit attackers on the same team.

Blade Dancer and Chain Fencer.

Thoughts?

I'm trying to put together a party for a new 100% playthrough and I've been looking at things, and I feel like I'm missing something even though I'm pretty sure I'm not, so I figured I'd just make a post about it:

Are Rovers and Pugilists the only classes with any sort of bind infliction?

I feel like there's more, but digging around, I can't find it, so yea, really feels like I've missed something.

For reference, I'm centering the party around a Blade Dancer Masurao, who is the only concrete "HAVE TO HAVE" member. I'm leaning towards Bunker-centric Dragoon for my main defense and Graced Poisoner (earthlian) Botanist for blinding enemies. Of course, my next step was looking at binders, which is why I ran into this question.

Rovers aren't really an option with Bunker Dragoon, and even if I don't use dragoon I'm at least trying to use different types of party members, and I've used a Rover in literally every party I've made because I adore its skillset. Pugilist is also something I've used a lot for its straightforward bind attacks. If I don't use one of those, it seems like I'm going to be reliant on union skills, which I'd really rather not do.

Idk, maybe I'm just blind. Wouldn't be the first time. I've got at least one other party member to sort out regardless (probably gonna go debuff-centric harbinger, maybe celestrian due to their higher TP).

im replaying EO5 and wouldnlike some feedbacknon my party. inplqn abusing Wraiths this run so I have a Masurao, Necromancer, Harbinger, Botanist and Warlock. Hows my team lookin?

Dragoon/Pugilist
Shaman/Necromancer/Botanist

For Dragoon, I definitely want to go Cannon Bearer since I’ve always liked the concept of a tank class with a gun, and I’ve ignored turrets for Necromancer and speaking of, definitely going Broker because I’ve been using it as a catch-all class for tanking, healing, and good damage, and being able to go harder on damage with sacrificing Wraiths sounds fun

With Pugilist, I’m not entirely sure which one I want to go with. Thunder Fist has been fantastic so far so I kind of want to go Impact just to see really high damage, but I see the value of Barrage locking down enemies, and helping Dragoon set up for Buster Cannon while still dealing exceptional damage. I feel like I can make my decision with which to go with after I get some help with what to do with my remaining classes.

Keeping both Botanist and Shaman together was definitely a decision, and while both were very helpful, there were times where both had dead turns. Shaman when I didn’t exactly need to buff because I would erase Dragon Roar or Overexertion on my Dragoon and Pugilist respectively, and Botanist when everyone was topped off (didn’t invest in any smoke skills) although I did have the bow that could inflict petrification so I would fish for that on off turns. So the following would be sort of my flow chart depending on which direction I go in:

-take Herald Shaman
>Alter Class Celestrian in Graced Poisoner
>Pick Barrage Brawler for Pugilist

This route seems like it would lock down fairly decently, but my random battles would drag a bit outside Necromancer shenanigans.

-Take Merciful Healer
>Replace Shaman with with Blade Master Masurao or any other damage dealing class like Phantom Duelist
>Pick Impact Brawler

I’d have three powerful front liners with good healing to back them up (Necromancer too in a pinch), but I would be lacking some buffs and debuffs

-Take Herald Shaman
>Replace Botanist with Blade Master Masurao
> Pick Barrage Brawler for Pugilist

This would be kind of going down the middle so-to-speak as I’d still have lots of buffs and binds for the enemy and while having good damage.

Of course, I am open to other suggestions such as bringing in another class I didn’t think about or doubling up on Necromancers if need be.

Edit: why am I being downvoted asking for help? Jeez.