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Dark Hunter
Dark Hunters are the more interesting front line damage dealers. While not able to output the same damage as a Landy, or Survivalist, they can go either the Bind Whip route, or the Ailment Sword route and participate that way. They're not particularly amazing, but with the right amount of luck, they can keep enemies completely helpless while your other members take them down. Though they have a harder time against FOEs and Bosses, they can become pretty strong pretty quickly due to their simple skill path.
They have some interesting stats, they're surprisingly speedy, with the highest AGI in the game along with Survivalists, as well as the second highest TEC, not that it helps them. At all. Since they have to be on the front lines to do any damage, their STR and VIT are pretty good, as well as their HP, so they won't be dying any time soon. They have pretty low TP, but aside from a couple skills, they don't use up much TP overall, so it's not a huge deal.
HP Up
Passive.
With a pretty high HP rank, this could be useful, but it's only a 30% boost and it doesn't lead to anything, so it's again better to invest in TP if you don't have any SP to spare.
TP Up
Unlocks: Cloak (LV3)
Passive.
Since Dark Hunters have meh TP, this can be worth it, but they won't really be running out either. Also Cloak is still bugged, so it's not worth getting anyway. Might as well fill this skill up late game.
ATK Up
Unlocks: Boost Up (LV3), Fury (LV5), Ecstasy (LV5), Bait (LV5)
Passive.
With strength on par with a Survivalist, the Dark Hunter appreciates this attack boost to put them on par with the other heavy hitters. While they won't reach the heights of the Landy or Ronin, it does make their status attacks sting more, but only get it to level 5 at most if you want those skills and then finish it later.
Whips/Swords
Whips Unlocks: Viper (LV1), Gag (LV2), Shackles (LV3), Cuffs (LV4), Ecstasy (LV5), Climax (LV10)
Swords Unlocks: Hypnos (LV1), Nerve (LV2), Mirage (LV3), Drain (LV4), Bait (LV5), Petrify (LV10)
Passive.
So how do you want to build your Dark Hunter? Whips for binds, poison and rare insane damage? Or swords for status, HP steal and baiting? You'll be using Whips in a standard game, but we'll go over both, so let's start with Whips. This stops you stepping on your Landy's toes and actually using all the whips you're unlocking, which you wouldn't otherwise. Binds are very, very useful if you land the right ones, though head binds and arm binds are the best ones. Climax can be pretty helpful against some tough FOEs and Bosses. Everything a Whip Dark Hunter does, a Hexer can do better, but if you're playing an average game of EO1 (like you do), you, uh, won't even use a Hexer, so this class becomes your most consistent and accessible source of them, which is incredibly helpful throughout the game. There's also Climax and Viper, though its poison damage is, uh, pathetic, at best.
Swords offer more variety, but you won't be outdamaging your Landy with the same sword. Hypnos is worse than the Hexer's Torpor (again, negligible since you won't use a Hexer), but Nerve, Mirage and Petrify are unique to the Dark Hunter, letting you play around with certain statuses. Not that it matters since only Instant Death matters for one Conditional Drop, but Confusion and Petrify are useful ailments, since every enemy has a general ailment resistance. Drain keeps your Dark Hunter in good shape, while Bait is very useful against physical attacks, if nothing particularly special. Overall, they have different utility, but Whips are more useful overall, since they stop certain attacks and net you a good chunk of the conditionals, whereas ailments are only really used by the enemy to annoy you. Since I will be using a Hexer from the start, something you can't do in a standard game, I'll use a Sword DH, since ailments will be something different, instead of just being a discount Hexer.
Boost Up
Prerequisites: ATK Up LV3
Passive.
This is a weird one. Boost isn't that great a mechanic and getting a max of 5 extra boost points per action can add up to the eventual 100 pretty quickly. If you want to get an alright boost to your various actions it can be nice, getting 12 Boost for using a skill ain't bad, but is it worth the SP? It's also not a typo, level 10 in this skill does nothing at all. Is it a bug? Was it intentional? Who knows man.
Cloak
Prerequisites: TP Up LV3
Decreases the chance of being targeted by the enemy. Buff skill, uses the Legs.
BUG: Has a very small chance, perhaps 0%, of working.
Let's get this one out of the way. Like the Survivalist's version, it's bugged to be useless and the Dark Hunter can take a hit, so it's not much of a loss. I suppose it could've been paired with Drain to make your Dark Hunter super hard to kill, but who's to say how effective this skill would've really been? Oh well.
Fury
Prerequisites: ATK Up LV5
Increases damage when under a certain HP threshold. Passive.
This is a tricky skill and you can probably see why. While Dark Hunters can take a few hits, staying at 30% health to get a 30% STR boost is pretty damn risky. It's also not too effective considering how often Medics like to spam Salve, so is it worth levelling it past 5 to make it safer, but also having less of a boost? Hmmmmmmm, it's definitely a tough one, but due to how deadly this game can be, I think having a more consistent attack boost is preferable and it pairs well with Bait and maybe Drain to heal you in an emergency. So it's definitely tricky.
Viper
Prerequisites: Whips LV1
A single target Whip strike that attempts to inflict Poison. Whip skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
Poison is pretty useful in this game at the start, with the exception of this skill. With no way to boost Poison damage like the Alchemist, Viper's output is pathetic and it becomes obsolete incredibly quickly. Don't bother with this skill and focus on the binds, since the window of opportunity for this skill is so small and then it's basically a basic attack with a chance to do slightly more damage.
Gag/Shackles/Cuffs
Prerequisites: Whips LV2/Whips LV3/Whips LV4
Single target Whip strike that attempts to inflict a Head/Leg/Arm Bind. Whip skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
This is the main reason to use a Whip Dark Hunter and it's very effective... if you're not using a Hexer (but you won't). Anyway, out of the three to go for, head binds are the best, since a lot of enemies use very dangerous elemental skills that use the head and that bind has the added effect of lowering the enemy's accuracy. Very nice. For physical enemies, arm binds are the best to stop them using their attacks, though it won't be as detrimental as the elementals. Lowering their STR with an arm bind is very useful, though it doesn't really matter if their strongest attacks are unusable anyway. Leg binds aren't that useful, as Leg skills are pretty uncommon, but they can be very useful when they come up. Lowering an enemy's AGI probably won't matter too much, but if you're only slightly slower than them, then it could make the difference. So get them all, but Head and Arm are definitely more useful.
Ecstasy
Prerequisites: Whips LV5, ATK Up LV5
A single target Whip strike that does much higher damage to fully bound enemies. Whip skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
Hot damn this skill looks super good, but it is really tough to get its conditions fulfilled just using the Dark Hunter. Using a Hexer and a Survivalist with Disable or a Protector with Smite makes it a lot easier to pull this skill off, otherwise it'll do a pathetic amount of damage. There are a couple of times when you'll need to fully bind a couple of enemies, so it'll be good to practise this skill cause when you can pull it off, it's amazing, but you have to go out of your way to do it. There's also no real reason to fully bind an enemy aside from Conditional Drops, since only some enemies have skills that use all limbs and good luck fully binding those guys (cause of course they're Bosses).
Climax
Prerequisites: Whips LV10
A single target Whip strike that instantly kills enemies under a certain HP threshold. Whip skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
This is a great skill able to just delete enemies and FOEs that are under 25% HP, or 30% if you Boost. While it can be a bit tricky to tell due to the small unhelpful HP bars, it mostly matches up with when they go red, so if you're not making much progress against an enemy, you can just delete it. Sure, it's not as bonkers as 55% like in 2, but 25% still ain't bad, though depending on the enemy, you could just get rid of that 25% on the next turn, so the trick is timing it so that the enemy goes under 25% as your Dark Hunter attacks. Obviously it doesn't work on most Bosses, or other enemies that don't care about Instant Death.
Hypnos
Prerequisites: Swords LV1
A single target Sword strike that attempts to inflict Sleep. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
As far as the various ailments go, Sleep is alright, but it's just a poor man's Torpor, which is the only time they step on each other's toes in regards to ailments. It has competition with the other ailments, but single target Sleep can be nice if your Dark Hunter is speedy enough so everyone else in the party takes advantage of the bonus damage. Dark Hunters are much, much faster than Hexers, so that works in Hypnos's favour, but for general encounters, Torpor is gonna be better, since Sleep wears off pretty quickly, so quickly reapplying it is the key.
Nerve
Prerequisites: Swords LV2
A single target Sword strike that attempts to inflict Paralysis. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
Paralysis is like Sleep, except they don't take extra damage. It's not a great ailment to use, but it doesn't wear off nearly immediately, like Sleep, and it makes them hopefully miss a turn. Still, Confusion is better overall and Sleep is better as an immediate shutdown ailment, leaving Paralysis in a weird inbetween. Since you don't need it for any Conditionals, you might as well use more effective ailments instead.
Mirage
Prerequisites: Swords LV3
A single target Sword strike that attempts to inflict Confusion. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
This is definitely one to invest in as Confusion is pretty great against enemies solely because it stops them using their skills. Against certain enemies this gives you a number of free turns as they use their mediocre melee attack instead of their more deadly attacks. Of course, the ones you'd want to not use their skills, the FOEs and Bosses, have a BIT of a resistance to ailments, but when it lands, it's very nice. Annoyingly it has a 5% less chance of landing compared to the other ailment attacks. It's like they knew how good Confusion was. After all, shutting down a dangerous enemy in a pack is always nice letting you focus it down, or go after its companions. Overall, good ailment, good skill, but it can be a bit frustrating landing it and single target skills like this make me miss Wildings.
Drain
Prerequisites: Swords LV4
A single target Sword strike that absorbs a percentage of damage as health. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
An excellent skill that lets your Dark Hunter become incredibly resilient if you get it to level 10. While it doesn't pair well with Fury, it does at least factor in the damage boost before you heal all your health back, so it at least gets you out of the emergency zone if you think your Dark Hunter is in danger. However, it's definitely not dependable if the enemy is resilient to Cut damage, so don't expect it to always save you. So yeah, get absorbing and get livin'.
Petrify
Prerequisites: Swords LV10
A single target Sword strike that attempts to inflict Petrification. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
Hey how would you like a Climax that doesn't require a HP% threshold? Petrification is nasty for the party, but the enemy doesn't like it either, so if you can land this, they're basically out of the battle, as they can't heal it. Sure the skill is slow and it doesn't have a huge chance to land, but if it does land, especially on an FOE, OH BABY. However one important thing about Petrify is it doesn't remove the enemy from the field and they can still be targetted by attacks. You're right, that's super dumb, so try it on the last enemy, or try not to use random target attacks. Thankfully they fixed that in later games. Still, if your Dark Hunter hasn't got anything better to do in a big fight, might as well toss one of these out, see what happens!
Bait
Prerequisites: Swords LV5, ATK Up LV5
A Sword counterattack that can counter attacks dealt to the user, as well as allies to the left and right at 50% less damage on average. Sword skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.
It's a good thing the Dark Hunter needs to be on the front to deal damage, as you can do a lot of counteraction with this. It pairs well with high HP physical classes that are targetted in most attacks to get 3 counterattacks off. This pairs really well with Fury and Boost to deal an insane amount of damage if you know what's coming next. This only works for physical attacks and it works best with your Dark Hunter in the centre, obviously. You also need to stay alive to actually counter, but for enemies that deal party wide physical attacks, Bait can be supremely effective against them, but isn't too amazing against a single attack.
Dark Hunters can also Take, but leave that to the gathering party.