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Update 83: The Progenitor
Only one thing left to do before we're done with Etrian Odyssey III. So let's get straight to it!
I used a Ward Chime so I could avoid encounters and not have to spend resources in them, and because I really wanted to keep my Limit Gauges full. Smith has Second Wind equipped, while everyone else has Aegis Shield.
This is my party setup. I updated Charlotte's armor, and gave her the Armoroad Emblem to give her a little boost. In fact, she's probably gonna keep it on unless I need her to be wearing something else. Did the same thing with Smith and the Deep City Emblem, though he'll probably keep it on permanently, since the accessory actually makes him usable.
If we're done dawdling, shall we go in?
Yeah yeah, just making sure we're ready and all thaat.
Music stops.
On realizing that someone is seated further in, you waste no time in arming yourselves!
Is that really the fish prince?
Oh wow, I completely forgot it used to look like that before they locked him up.
The Deep One speaking is majestic and regal, in contrast to others of his kind you have encountered.
My Feelings for the Princess were at Odds with my Plan to rule over Armoroad... I wavered...
Its voice shakes the air; sounding almost like singing, but bringing a strange anxiety with it...
But you resolved that. And so, I am again the Almighty Father, Mother of the otherworldly Sea. We shall end this now. Rejoice! Your long Journey, filled with Hardships, is at its end!
Music stops.
Is that supposed to scare us? Heh, fine! You want a fight? Oh you'll get a fight!
Video: Progenitor
Here it is. Meet the Progenitor, the true final boss of Etrian Odyssey III!
Progenitor
Level: 61
HP: 18900
STR: 58
VIT: 55
AGI: 49
LUC: 46
TEC: 59
Attack Type: Pierce
Exp: 50140
Item Drops:
-Normal: Abyss Crystal – 100% Drop Rate. Unlocks the Almagest (Book. Must be restocked.)
--Polyhedral crystal whose black shine brings disaster.
-Gold: N/A
Description: The almighty Father and Mother of the Deep Ones, he is a minion of an otherworldly god.
Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 100%
Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 10% Confusion: 50% Plague: 10% Poison: 10% Blind: 10% Curse: 10% Paralysis: 10%
Bind Resistances: Head: 30% Arm: 30% Leg: 30%
Other Resistances: Death: LR – 12% Petrification: LR – 12% Stun: 20%
Skills:
Dark Breath: Uses the Arms. Deals 180% Strike damage to one target and deals splash damage. Splash damage deals 70% of the initial damage. Has an action speed of -3. Has an accuracy of 120.
Thorn Cutter: Uses the Arms. Deals 280% Pierce damage to one target. Has an action speed of +0. Has an accuracy of 150.
Vine Rush: Uses the Arms. Randomly hits the party 3 to 6 times, dealing 180% Slash damage per hit. Has an action speed of -3. Has an accuracy of 50.
Spine Blaze: Uses the Head. Deals 80% Fire damage to the entire party, and has a 10% chance to inflict head bind, arm bind, and leg bind. Has an action speed of -3. Has an accuracy of 90.
Frozen Eye: Uses the Head. Deals 80% Ice damage to the entire party, and reduces their physical attack by 50% for 4 turns. Has an action speed of -3. Has an accuracy of 90.
Death Thunder: Uses the Head. Deals 80% Volt damage to the entire party, and has a 8% chance to inflict Petrification, Sleep, Confusion, and Stun. Has an action speed of -3. Has an accuracy of 90.
Liberate: Does not use a body part. Dispels all debuffs on the Progenitor, and heals itself. The amount the Progenitor heals himself for depends on the number of debuffs dispelled. 1770 to 1775 for 1 debuff, 5310 to 5325 for 2, and 10620 to 10650 for 3. Has an action speed of -3.
Progenitor is generally agreed to be the toughest final boss in the game, and it's easy to see why. For one thing, he really doesn't have an attack pattern. All he really does is murder the everloving snot out of your party and maybe inflict a few ailments in the process.
My advice to you? Make sure you have a good defensive setup. Damage racing Progenitor really isn't feasible, because he will win that race unless you're using Warrior Might. Wear resistance accessories, and bring a few mists if you lack a Hoplite. Progenitor's elemental attacks are by far the most dangerous ones since they inflict additional effects on top of dealing damage. Though that doesn't mean his physical attacks are harmless.
My strategy for this fight? Use Aegis Shield on the 1st turn to give me a free turn, and then milk it for all it's worth.
Like using Bunshin. I personally think that Hoplites are the strongest tank class in the series, though mostly thanks to Bunshin. Allow me to show you exactly why that's the case.
Thanks to Aegis Shield, Charlotte has absolutely nothing to fear from using Berserker Vow.
Smith is really just gonna punch Progenitor throughout the entire fight.
Faye will set up Protect Order.
And Susan will set up Attack Order.
Get behind me, everyone!
I guarantee that this is going to hurt someone.
Ha! Denied!
Are you all ready? Then ATTAAAAAACK!
Don't go in without backup!
I see that I'm needed again.
One two! ...Not my best work.
Death Thunder is the one attack I do not want anyone to be hit by. The status effects that it can land can easily cause a game over. The added effects from Spine Blaze and Frozen Eye are annoying, but manageable to deal with so I'm not really gonna prioritize protecting against those.
Smith does have the Deep City Medal, so he doesn't need to rely on Sleep Mode nearly as often. Still, can't hurt to activate it.
Gonna debuff Progenitor. Having someone capable of inflicting debuffs can make the fight a whole lot easier.
Charlotte is using Berserker Vow again, so I'm gonna have this Cassandra Bodyguard her to guarantee her safety.
Blasting off agaaaaiiiin!
Oh, never mind. He just decided to use a physical attack.
Which didn't do too much.
Peek-a-boo!
And Protect Order ended up undoing all that damage.
I'll have this Cassandra use Anticold to block any Frozen Eyes, while the other one uses Antivolt. While binds suck to be hit by, I don't find them that annoying since they only have a small chance of happening, while Frozen Eye is guaranteed to kill any offensive presence Charlotte has.
Charlotte will Charge up for 5-Ring Sword.
Don't you dare!
Eh, better.
Prepare yourself.
I'll be switching up what guarding skills that the Cassandras use periodically since Progenitor likes to alternate his attacks.
That's enough setup, so it's time to deal some damage.
SLICE AND DICE AND SLICE AND DICE!
Oh boy, nothing like seeing Charlotte roll a high number on 5-Ring Sword. She rolled 9 hits, so she dealt a total of 6607 points of damage. Already, that's about a third of Progenitor's HP gone.
How predictable!
That looked more like a lucky guess to me.
So yeah, the main reason why Hoplites are really strong. With Bunshin, they can pretty much set up a massive safety net for the team. I can block 2 of his elemental attacks at once, or reduce the damage from all 3 of his physical attacks, and nullify 1 elemental attack at the same time. Not only that, Faye also makes a great partner to Cassandra thanks to her healing capabilities. Faye and Cassandra form such a strong defensive core that this team is practically unkillable. Cassandra can pretty much nullify or reduce the damage from all of Progenitor's attacks, and if he manages to slip a hit in, Protect Order is just going to undo it. While I can't really just use hyper offense to take him down, I can easily turtle through his attacks thanks to Faye and Cassandra.
Of course the thing to be aware of is that Hoplites don't exactly have a lot of TP. Which is why I brought a decent amount of Amrita IIs to help the Cassandras keep turtling.
Are you even trying?
Yeah, as it stands, Progenitor can't really do much against us. A strong offense is certainly nice to have, but the same can be said for a strong defense.
More damage.
What!? No no no no no!
Oh, and if Progenitor has any debuffs, he'll dispel them and heal himself. Though he doesn't bother using it for only 1 debuff until he drops below 76%. Just don't stack too many debuffs on it, because he'll heal more from doing so.
No, you don't get to do that!
RRRRGGGHH- ...Wait a minute.
Aegis Shield is ready, but I don't want to use it just yet.
I should hope he can't keep this up any longer...
I think it would be wise to take a more defensive formation.
Yeah, I don't like the look of that.
Mainly because I was waiting for that skill to come out first.
Accumulate: Does not use a body part. Doubles the damage output of Progenitor's next physical or elemental attack. Has an action speed of +0.
Progenitor will start using this skill once he drops below 51%. Depending on the skill he decides to do next, it could end in a party wipe. So it's better to set up some defenses when this happens. He will start spending his turns using Accumulate, and then following up with an attack. And for the record, he's not dumb enough to waste it on Liberate.
Time to put a stop to what Progenitor is going to do next.
I think you went overboard.
It would seem so.
Really? Thorn Cutter is the attack he uses up Accumulate on? Not that it mattered, but still.
...What in the world are you doing?
Shhh! You're going to ruin it.
Wait, ruin what?
Yes! YES! Cower before my gaze!
...Please tell me this isn't actually happening.
I'm afraid it is exactly as silly as it looks.
Wow! I wish we had her around when he first got locked up! That would've made things a lot easier. For those army jerks at least.
Oh, and since Progenitor is prone to using Liberate more aggressively as his health gets lower, you can use debuffs to generate free turns like I did here. It's very easy to deal more than 1770 points of damage at this point, so it's worth it to debuff him. Just make sure not to use more than 1 debuff, or he'll be healing for around 5000 to 10000, which isn't so easy to outpace.
MEGAQUEEN is basically forcing Progenitor to do almost nothing because he's that desperate to stop MEGAQUEEN from staring at him. The true final boss, ladies and gentlemen!
This should end you!
Wh-Whoa. We... We really did it!
We stopped his invasion-
Saved the Princess-
And the Abyssal King-
And reunited them after so many years. Ha ha! At last, we put an end to all that nonsense.
BOOYAH! High fives all around! WOO!
Indeed. WOOHOO!
...Please don't do that again. You're freaking me out here.
Hmm? Hold on, it seems that he has more to say to us.
Yeah, the only time Progenitor landed a hit on anyone was on turn 2. All the other attacks were blocked by the Cassandras and Aegis Shield. The rest of his turns were wasted because he was trying to dispel Susan's Eagle Eye debuff. Yeah, Hoplites are insanely strong in EO3 if you know how to use them right, perhaps to the point of even being broken.
Don't get me wrong, this fight is tough if you're unprepared. But hopefully you got a good idea on how to deal with him.
But with that, we've finally beaten Etrian Odyssey III! For real this time! There really is nothing left to cover in the main game.
Video: Ending and Credits
This is the last time this song plays in the game. I do recommend giving it a listen, as it's my favorite “serious” theme out all the Etrian Odyssey games' versions.
Like with the other paths, the credits themselves are the same, while the NPC dialogue changes, so I'll just show those off.
So that's Etrian Odyssey III's True Ending. I'll be honest, I thought it was implemented very poorly, and felt rushed. It feels like it was either put in for the sake of having a happy ending, or there was originally more planned, but it got scrapped for whatever reason. Because as it stands, the conflict got deus ex machina'd by some random character you barely knew.
It's one of the reasons I said why I wasn't a fan of the story. It certainly made for an interesting experience, but the game is pretty heavy with roadblocks. And the story itself isn't all that great. Which is really noticeable on a New Game Plus playthrough. Though to be honest, none have come close to EO1's story, which was by far the best implemented of the bunch.
Still, it's an Etrian Odyssey game. The story itself barely matters. The game itself is very fun, and still remains my favorite Etrian Odyssey game to this day, despite all of its flaws. I'm not quite sure why, because objectively the later games are a massive improvement. Oh well, I don't really question those kinds of things.
And this Let's Play was certainly fun to make. I had quite the blast doing this, gathering the data, and writing out and working with the characters that were provided to me. In spite of some rocky patches that occurred along the way.
At any rate, thanks for sticking around to the very end.
