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Survivalist
Can equip: Bows, Light Armor, Clothing
How the mighty have fallen. Wait I said that last time. Well it's still true, Survivalists were amazing last game, being a mix of offense and support, they could be at the front and tank some hits, or deal hefty single target damage from the back. However, like the Landy, they got nerfed pretty hard, meaning they're just mostly support with a couple of attacking options, I guess. And of course they're still great to use for a gathering party, but compared to how amazing they were before, this is probably the biggest L in the series.
Thought Landsknecht had it rough? Just take a look at the Survivalist in this game, holy shit. They were by far the best class in EO1 and completely overpowered, so some nerfs were in order. Instead of a few small taps or even a smack, Atlus opted to bludgeon the poor class until there was nothing left. It's really hard to recommend the use of this class when the Gunner exists. Though the Survivalist at least has some selling points. Whether those are worth taking up what's essentially an empty party slot otherwise is up to you. Hell even their gathering capabilities got nerfed due to the overall gathering nerfs. My god Atlus, were you trying to nerf this class, or were you trying to delete it?
Compared to last game, the Survivalist has the worst drop in overall average stats, they were 2nd and now they're 7th. They exceed in AGI, no one else outmatches them, but aside from HP, their stats are all quite below average. They still have alright VIT at least, so they can take some hits and support that way, but their STR is outclassed by basically everyone you'd expect, like hey, they still have more STR than an Alchemist or Troubadour! That's not an accomplishment.
If you intend on actually using a Survivalist, maxing out STR Up is by far the best thing you can do for them. It won't completely offset their horrific damage output, but you might as well stave off the worst of it. Their defensive stats also took a big hit in the transition from EO1 to 2. The game says they can operate on either line in EO2, but while this was true in EO1 as they and the Dark Hunter had similar durability, that's really not the case in this game. They can technically go up there sure, but they'll be smacked around harder than all of the dedicated front liner classes, and there's really no benefit to putting them on the front lines other than to really fill out that 3/2 formation, but it's really not worth it.
Common Passive Unlocks
AGI Up: Lv1: Velocity; Lv3: Ambush, Baitstep; Lv5: Sagacity
TEC Up: Lv3: Sleeper, Number, Poisoner
Alright, bit more investment into these skills, but it can be worth it. You will want to get Velocity since it leads into 1st Turn, an amazing support skill. Ambush and Baitstep are useful support moves but Sagacity is pointless if you level up Ambush enough, and because Survivalists are so fast, putting points into AGI is a little pointless. For whatever stupid reason you need to level TEC Up to get to the LUC influenced ailment skills, so you then need to invest in LUC Up to make them at all useful. Since they do paltry damage, have bad infliction rates and Survivalists, of course, have bad LUC, you won't get any use out of these. Hard pass.
I suppose you may as well invest in HP Up and VIT Up if you really insist on having them up there. If you insist on using their disabling skills, may as well invest in LUC Up. AGI Up is redundant outside of prerequisites, as they are already very fast and Bows give them a huge speed boost. TP Up is always a good pickup though.
Bows
Unlocks: Lv1: Trueshot; Lv3: Sleeper, Number, Poisoner; Lv5: 2-Bolt; Lv10: Apollon
Passive
Another gutting, this was a 50% boost to Weapon ATK last game, now it's a paltry boost that makes using Bows so much worse. None of these skills are really all that great, the ones that were, Multihit and Apollon, were nerfed and just don't do as much damage as before. You could max this out for Apollon, but in those 3 turns it takes to go off, someone else on your team will have done way more damage than it overall, so maybe go as far as level 5.
An 11% damage boost is not going to salvage their damage either, but you might as well invest in it after finishing off their build. They have so many terrible skills that they'll have SP to spare to spend in whatever they want. And they're still not a good class when all that's done. At least Bows give a sizeable speed boost???
Ambush
Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv3
Unlocks: Lv5: 1st Hit
Increases chance of preemptive strikes. Does not work on guaranteed blindsides. Passive.
Ah, at least this skill is still here. Ambush is amazing lategame since it gives you a breather against terrifying enemies and because preemptives are checked before blindsides, this skill is as if you invested in both of them, very worthwhile. However, the game is a bit cheeky with these numbers since this is added onto the final preemptive chance, which is capped at 25%, making the last level completely pointless. You're likely to have a good preemptive chance anyway if you're using a Survivalist since the formula takes into account the highest AGI and the highest LUC in a party, so even putting 3 levels into this skill might be a bit much. 1st Hit is still bad, so don't feel like you need to max this out, but it's still a great lategame skill to grab.
Fun fact, you could stack these if you had multiple Survivalists in EO1 to get a guaranteed preemptive strike in nearly every single battle. And considering how strong they were in that game, that was far from a terrible idea. Sadly no longer possible since the chances are now capped at 25%. May as well pick it up when finishing off their skill build. Unfortunately the existence of guaranteed blindsides dampens the effectiveness of this skill a bit. At any rate, you have a 5% chance of getting a preemptive on average without this skill, so level 4 is as high as you should take this. Heck you might better off leaving it at level 3.
Sagacity
Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv3
Unlocks: Lv3: 1st Hit
Decreases chance of blindsides. Does not work on guaranteed blindsides. Passive.
Great, this is back. Due to how good Ambush usually is, Sagacity doesn't have much of a place, especially since you need to invest even more into AGI Up to get to it, which is pretty pointless for this class. The blindside formula is a little friendlier to Sagacity, since it's a reduction from the final chance, meaning level 5 is useful to drop a blindside all the way to 1%, the minimum. Also it being based on the enemy's AGI and LUC means it's less in your control, so this skill can help with a surprise screwing. However, because of how good Ambush is, even at a lower level, it's really not worth it.
If this actually worked on guaranteed blindsides, I'd heartily recommend this as a pickup. (Well, as heartily as I can considering this is the Survivalist we're talking about here.) Unfortunately it does not, and Ambush helps with dealing with normal blindsides anyway. Even then blindsides average out around a 7% chance on average, so a 1 or 2 points in this skill is enough to send those all the way to the minimum most of the time.
1st Hit
Prerequisites: Ambush Lv5, Sagacity Lv3
Chance of user acting first for a turn. Passive.
Back again, I see. Well considering Survivalists are still the fastest around... what is the point of this? What situation requires this weak support class to go before a fast enemy that doesn't already have their skills go first anyway? Considering how much you need to invest to unlock this, this is a super no.
I cannot think of a possible use case for this skill, when Survivalists are already fast, and none of their skills really need priority. The ones you'd want to have priority already have them anyways!
Trueshot
Prerequisites: Bows Lv1.
A single target ranged Bow attack. Bow skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.
Well isn't this looking familiar? Some mediocre damage from a mediocre class. This skill is, again, completely outclassed by Multihit, though it's a much closer race than before, especially if the targets for Multihit end up dying. Otherwise yeah there's no reason to use this, it was alright last game, but after nerfs to overall damage, even if this skill is stronger than it was before, it's still not worth using.
There is no reason to invest in this when the next skill... exists. That's a way to describe it I guess. Even as an earlygame nuke, it's not worth it as Survivalist damage is not good. Just keep investing into Bows to unlock the next skill if you insist on giving them damage dealing capabilities.
2-Bolt
Prerequisites: Bows Lv5.
A multi target Bow attack to 2 enemies, does not redirect if original target dies. Bow skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.
How the mighty have fallen. FUCK, I keep saying that, but it's so true! Multihit was one of the best skills in the game since it added a third hit at level 10, doing so much damage overall, 375%. This hits 250% along with coming from nerfed Bows and nerfed STR. It's so disappointing how much they murdered this skill, since it means Survivalists are forced to support because their attacking options are so bad. But it's also the best skill they have against bosses, BARELY outdamaging Trueshot. God I'm so fucking depressed.
So. This is their best spammable damage skill. If you can really call it that. They gutted Multihit's damage by 1/3rd and as a result, it's complete shit now. But Survivalists don't have any better options for dealing damage, so they're stuck with this. At least it's faster than it was in EO1? Really the thing that gets me about the Multihit nerf is that a few other classes in this game actually have better versions of the EO1 version of Multihit now! My god Atlus, stop! Stop! It's already dead!
Sleeper/Number
Prerequisites: Bows Lv3, TEC Up Lv3.
A single target ranged Bow attack that attempts to inflict Sleep/Paralysis. Bow skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.
So you've decided to go full support with your Survivalist, here's why it's a bad idea. These are level 5 skills that get cut off halfway, so everything about them is bad, Survivalists have middling LUC, really don't need 3 points in TEC (???) and while landing an ailment early in a turn is helpful, if you don't land it, your Survivalist just wasted their turn with PITIFUL damage and did nothing to support the team. Truly a puzzling skill when other classes do these ailments way better AND multi target, letting you roll multiple times at once. There is utility in Sleep or Paralysis, but it's really not from this class.
I guess if you lack a Hexer... no, it's not even worth it in that case. Just skip these skills.
Poisoner
Prerequisites: Bows Lv3, TEC Up Lv3.
A single target ranged Bow attack that attempts to inflict Poison. Bow skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.
Same as before, very not useful, but hey Poison is no longer bugged and capped at 255! Maybe this skill might've gone past that if it didn't get stopped halfway. Now admittedly this skill has some use BECAUSE it deals extra damage, so it becomes the strongest skill your have if it lasts a fair while. Hexer's Poison does 295 damage to every enemy buuuuuuuuut comparing any class to a Hexer is unfair. This is still a shit skill, but if you can land the Poison, congrats, your Survivalist is contributing with damage.
I guess if you lack a Hexer, it can be a way for Survivalists to chip in some damage. Of course if you do have a Hexer, don't bother with this skill at all. At any rate once your target is poisoned, just switch to spamming 2-Bolt.
Apollon
Prerequisites: Bows Lv10.
A single target ranged Bow attack that is fired on one turn and lands two turns later. If the user is incapacitated on the landing turn, it will not hit. Bow skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.
Okay, phew, at least Apollon is still good. It did get nerfed slightly, but is still very strong, even if it has a couple of issues, like everything else we've seen so far. Maxing bows was way more useful in the last game, so doing so again for little results is a real pain, since you then have to fully invest in this skill to make any use out of it, so it'll be a while before it pays dividends. Due to having 42 STR at level 70 instead of 68 in EO1 also hurts this skill a lot, so it's 3 turns for something that's not massively impressive. A fair numbers of classes will easily outdamage you in that time, even Poisoner will, though that has to land first turn. Also it no longer Stuns opponents, which is a problem since it always landed first on the turn, even if the infliction rate was never that high. Overall it's still fine, but a far cry from its previous iteration.
Might as well get this since it's the Survivalist's best damage skill. Only a 20% damage reduction (as well as the lack of level 15 skills, but every class lost those) but the removal of the stun hurts since that was a very nice insult to injury moment in big fights since you'd be spamming this skill often. Here, well might as well spam it since it's the only way to get something resembling damage out of the Survivalist.
1st Turn
Prerequisites: Slowstep Lv5.
BUGGED: Game does not check success rate, making it 100% at all levels.
Forces the targeted party member to act first. Buff skill, uses the Legs.
Okay, phew, at least 1st Turn is still good. Man, am I a parrot? An amazing skill that gives the Survivalist incredibly unique utility in most situations. The bug persists between games, somehow, and let you save 4SP then and 7SP now, along with 7TP, just incredible. Of course you need to invest in some super bad skills to reach this, especially because the bug also applies to Slowstep, wasting 4SP you would've saved otherwise, and Velocity is a pretty pointless buff. Also it has the fringe case of not helping you out of a dangerous situation if your legs are bound, but that's pretty rare. This skill is completely worth it.
Heh, the exact same bug from EO1. Anyways, 1st Turn is the main selling point of the Survivalist and probably the only reason to really take this class. With that said, it's a much harder sell in this game compared to EO1. For one, 1st Turn in EO1 wasn't attached to a glorified empty slot. It was a class that had a number of other things that it could be doing as well. Here, it's the only worthwhile thing a Survivalist can do. Not only that, speed mechanics were fucked in 1, being heavily inconsistent which 1st Turn dealt with. Here... they're still fucked, just in a different way. But speed is more consistent amongst classes now, and a bunch of skills are faster to cast, making this a bit redundant. There are still quite a few slow skills in the game this will work on, so it can be useful for bypassing speed penalties. But if you really don't need this skill, then you don't need the Survivalist.
Slowstep
Prerequisites: Velocity Lv3.
Unlocks: Lv5: 1st Turn
BUGGED: Game does not check success rate, making it 100% at all levels.
Forces the targeted party member to act last. Buff skill, uses the Legs.
Uh, what is the point of this skill? When would you ever want to use this? Like going before or after an enemy is usually not a massive deal in most cases, but going first is often preferable. If there's a use for this, I can't think of it, and frankly I don't want to know. It's such a shame that you need to waste so much SP into this skill to unlock 1st Turn, it doesn't deserve it. ESPECIALLY since you should only ever put one point into it for that weird fringe case you'd need it. But of course not, still you've seen a good chunk of a Survivalist's skills, so it's not like they're hurting for SP.
Acting last can have strategical uses. Like putting up a buff after an enemy wipes it, or instantly curing a disable after an enemy inflicts it. Though such situations are uncommon, so don't expect to get that much use out of this skill. You'll have to invest in it to unlock 1st Turn at any rate.
Baitstep
Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv3.
Increases the user's evasion and provoke rate for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Legs.
This is an interesting buff that can have its uses, but of course, it has to have some issues. Survivalists could tank pretty well last game and this is somewhat the case here, they have middling HP and VIT so they can take some hits, but if you use this against a big group of enemies, you're getting pasted. Considering how you will always get targeted past level 7, the evasion increase does not scale to compensate, 21% is not that much and the last level just increases the TP and speed modifier, for a class that is usually going first anyway! UGH, this could've been a great option, but dodgetanking has always been a suspect playstyle due to how scary enemies are and this is not the way to go about it.
Fun fact, in the Japanese release of this game, all evasion boosts were bugged. They were accidentally coded as accuracy decreases. So a max level Baitstep would make a Survivalist 21% less accurate while not providing any evasion at all. Whoops!
If you want to dodgetank, play a different game. That playstyle becomes more viable in the later EO games, but not this one due to how accuracy works. It also doesn't help against AOEs, which there are plenty of late-game. Skip this one entirely.
Velocity
Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv1.
Unlocks: Lv3: Slowstep
Increases the user's AGI for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Legs.
Another suspect skill, you're putting points into AGI Up for Ambush and then 3SP into this to lead into 1st Turn, how much more damn AGI do you need??? Your Survivalist will be going first in most cases and will definitely go first out of your party, so what possible reason could you need to boost yourself M O R E. The cap for stats is 99, remember.
Why. If it wasn't for the fact that this is needed to unlock 1st Turn, there would be absolutely no reason to even take this skill. More AGI does grant more accuracy and evasion, but it doesn't help that much.
Patrol
Reduces damage from damage tiles. Field Skill.
These skills have always been a little weird, if you have a healer, damage tiles have never been much of an issue, and using Revenge strats basically requires your Hexer to be at 1HP, so that doesn't help with it. A Guard Sole is a level 2 version of this skill, so if you need reduction that bad just use that and save your SP. Being able to ignore them entirely is nice, but I've never cared much, heal before you get into an encounter you fool!
Damage tiles still deal percentage based damage in this game, so this can be a nice way to cut down on that. You'll start seeing those by Stratum 2, so if you insist on picking up this skill, do it by then.
Stalker
Reduces danger value of tiles. Field Skill.
This is a very important skill for gathering parties and not much for anything else because of how ridiculous it is. This reduces the danger value of tiles by a certain amount and at max level, because the game rounds down, any tile with a value of 4 or less are now 0. Which is, uh, most of them. Max this skill out and you have free range of the entire floor, it's an amazing skill to reduce any escape RNG as you reset to a gathering spot from a gathering blindside. But for your main party, battle everything you can, no getting out of it!
Fantastic for a gathering party since this is basically a turn off encounters button due to how encounters work in this game. For your main party, this is a bit of a questionable investment since you're heavily cutting down on your exp intake this way.
Foesense
Reveals all FOEs on the floor. Does not reveal invisible FOEs. Field Skill.
The map skills last game either only worked in a radius, or only worked as long as you stood still. Thankfully they were rolled into 1 pretty alright skill if you refuse to use the excellent Gamefaqs maps, since knowing where FOEs is always handy. However, it doesn't work on invisible FOEs, ones that could really use a skill for, and becomes pretty pointless once you've mapped the floor. Save your SP and look online, it's not cheating I swear!
If this actually worked on invisible FOEs like such skills do in the later EO games, I would say this skill is worth a pickup. It does not, so you should skip it. FOE movement patterns in this game aren't particularly complicated.
Airwalk
Increases the entire party's evasion for 5 turns. Force Skill, uses the Legs.
...t-that's it? Just an evasion boost? Even its speed modifier is pretty rubbish compared to other Force Skills, what the fuck. Okay, an evasion boost is pretty nice, but enemies are usually pretty accurate so it's not a massive buff. It also doesn't affect enemies with 200% accuracy but that's a pretty rare occurrence. Like, yeah, you'll use it when you get it, but it really needed something else to be at all useful, and that describes this class in a nutshell. Surely the next class is good, right? RIGHT?!
Yeah this is the worst Force skill in the entire game, my god. It was even worse in the Japanese version thanks to the evasion bug. Halving your party's accuracy for 5 turns, hooray! Oh and despite not increasing speed at all, this is classified as a speed buff. So any speed debuffs will remove the effects of this skill. Yeah. You might think this is a good defensive buff despite that, but the problem is this Force skill is completely outdone by the Protector's Painless Force skill, since everything this skill affects, that skill affects as well. And that doesn't eat up 1/3rd of your buff slots to boot.
How the mighty have fallen indeed. It pains me to even say it after all the praises I sung for EO1 Survivalist, but it must be said. This class is completely awful and has very little redeeming value outside of 1st Turn. And if you don't need that skill, you don't need this class. Fortunately, this was the absolute worst of the nerfings, so we can only go up from here. The question is, how high can we go now?