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Medic
Can equip: Staves, Clothing
Okay obviously this class has fallen, these guys were RIDICULOUS in the first game, with one of the best skills in the series that reduced all damage by up to 85%, as well as being damage dealers on the front lines and healing a crazy amount on downtime. Of course they got hit with the nerf bat and completely lost Immunize, got their STR reduced to pathetic levels, but they can heal with much greater potency, maybe even too much. Not bringing a Medic last game was a miserable, and expensive, time, but now there's a few more options making them not as necessary, though they absolutely have their uses. They'll never reach their previous heights, but it's fine they don't. Also they have Scavenge which gives them bonus points.
Medics were absolutely asking to be nerfed since they were a master of all in the previous game. Ridiculously good DPS, even outclassing the Landsknecht at DPSing, and causing several enemies to lose their turns in the process! Along with making your party invincible on top of being a great healer. Pretty much the most broken class in the entire game, and the nerfs it got were pretty much deserved. Unlike Survivalist, they got off a lot easier, though now they're no longer a must have in the party. And their overall usefulness in this game is debated by some since their nerfs really do hurt. Still, not a bad class to bring along if you want some defensive support, but they're competing against the War Magus in regards to the healing department, and that class is generally considered to be a better healer since they're much faster due to the way this game handles speed.
OOF, that's a big hit in STR, down from 53 last game, as well as the loss of ATK Up to make that even beefier. At least it's better than a Troubadour? Pretty bad VIT as well, as well as lower AGI and HP. Second best TEC and TP which helps healing a lot since the former impacts the healing formula, but most stats don't really matter since Medics will never really attack, they just hide in the back row and keep everyone else alive. Higher LUC gives them better stun rates with uhhhhhhh Caduceus? Never mind then.
Yeah, the Medic's STR got utterly gutted. And as insult to injury, they no longer have access to ATK Up, which tripled their STR in the last game! Yes, really. It made them an absurd DPS class. STR Up is pretty much the replacement for ATK Up in this game and uh, +10 STR really doesn't compared to 3x STR. If you really want to experience the glory days of offensive Medic again, I suppose you could take it, but don't expect STR to be an effective investment for them. Their defenses are even more poor than they were in the last game, so putting them on the front lines isn't a good idea unless you want to see them get pasted, and investing in VIT doesn't really offset the damage they'll take that much. But if you really want to have a front line fighter, you'll have to invest in that along with HP to give them way more survivability. Unfortunately neither AGI nor LUC are great investments as well. You'd think a fast healer would be a good idea, but staves essentially set the Medic's speed to the near absolute minimum, so AGI doesn't have much of an effect. And LUC just doesn't do all that much.
As for stats that are good investments, TEC increases the potency of their healing by quite a bit. They'll also really appreciate any boosts to TP they can get, as some of their strongest heals can get very expensive. And HP boosts on a backliner will always be appreciated, though pick that one up after getting all of their important skills.
Common Passive Unlocks
TP Up: Lv10: TP Regen
STR Up: Lv10: Caduceus
TEC Up: Lv 10: TP Regen
VIT Up: Lv5: Caduceus
OOF, those are some heavy investments for some TRASH skills, TP Regen requires half the investment but still recovers the same, absolutely pathetic. Caduceus can hit hard with a 300% ATK Up and pretty okay STR and EO2 Medic has neither of those, and both STR and VIT are low enough that putting lots of points into them is a massive waste for an SP hungry class as this. Now granted you can max out TP Up and maybe even TEC Up, but even then TP Regen is nowhere near worth it. Ah crap now I don't have anything to talk about when I get to those skills.
Healer
Unlocks: Lv1: Patch Up, Cure; Lv3: Cure 2, Salve, Unbind, Refresh; Lv5: Cure 3, Revive; Lv6: Salve 2; Lv10: Salve 3, Phoenix
Increases healing from non-fixed sources. Passive.
Ah, the classic, Healer is a great skill that you want to max out asap, not only does it have most of your good skills, especially Salve and Revive, it's as if you're levelling those skills at the same time. Due to the exponential growth this skill is pretty bad to begin with, but you want to beeline to Revive, so it quickly gets good fast. Since this is applied at the end of the formula, it boosts your healing skills by a lot but can also make them overkill territory. I guess that's fine, since you can save SP by not investing in other skills but it definitely adds to the Medic's reputation.
Without this skill, each point of TEC adds on 0.625% to the healing multiplier. This caps out at a 61.875% boost to healing at 99 TEC. With a max level Healer, each point of TEC adds on 0.96875% instead, capping out at a 95.90625% boost at 99 TEC! Pretty hefty, though if you're going to be using the best healing skills, you won't be seeing Healer come into play much at all. Still, a very good skill to invest in as your Medic's main job is... healing. What else are they gonna do in this game, DPS? You'll want to max this one out earlier than their healing skills, as you don't want to invest too much in their weaker healing skills if you can help it.
Patch Up
Prerequisites: Healer Lv1
Restores a certain amount of HP to the entire party at the end of each battle. Unaffected by Healer. Passive.
Hm, no. This was a bad skill before and it's still bad, since it just doesn't heal enough to sink points into. Like wow, 12%? Just use Cure outside of battle, it'll be not a lot of TP for way more healing, you want to be properly ready for the next fight and this skill won't cut it. Pass the fuck over.
A fairly unchanged skill. Could be good for sustain, but it's ultimately not a huge priority to grab. If you really want it, wait to grab the Medic's important skills before doing so.
TP Regen
Prerequisites: TP Up Lv10, TEC Up Lv10
Restores a certain amount of the user's TP at the end of each turn. Passive.
What the fuck is this garbage??? Not only do you need to heavily invest to unlock this skill, it's identical to the last game's also terrible skill??? Did they think this was a great reward at the end of the game? 5 TP is NOTHING, especially with skills that are pretty costly. What a waste, though getting TP and TEC to 10 might not be a bad idea.
This skill is even worse than it was in EO1. Sure, it only needs 5 SP to max out this time, and the prerequisites are something you'll want to pick up, but the TP costs for the Medic's skills are way higher than in the previous game, making -5 TP per skill essentially not a great return cost when skills can cost around 30 TP. And TP Up mostly deals with any TP issues anyways.
Scavenge
Additively increases drop rates. Stacks with itself. Passive.
Now we're playing with power. Last game had some terrible drop rates that could be increased... at a cost, since the game checked drops in reverse, so if you increased rates too much, the first drop would never, well, drop. No longer the case, thankfully, this skill is insane and 2 users will make even the craziest drops actually obtainable without a million resets or a few cheats here and there. Will definitely recommend, though of course you need to have them on your team against the most dangerous enemies for this to work as well, which can make for... interesting team comps. Still, in the regular game, this just boosts your cash flow by a crazy amount and will also annoy you with constant item discard. Always get.
Holy moly, what a buff! In the first game it was not that great, being only a 30% boost, oh and it was multiplicative. So it didn't do that much for low drop rates. The lowest drop rates get in this game is 10%, meaning that 1 max level Scavenge boosts drop rates to 51% at the minimum! And up to 92% if you have 2 Scavenge users, which is absolute overkill. This skill basically destroys the concept of random drops, and it's great. The closest thing to a downside this skill even has is that it causes your inventory to get filled up very fast during explorations, so you're gonna have to toss a lot of junk out depending on how much supplies you brought along for that trip.
Oh, and if you really like the idea of having this skill around, but don't want to cart around a Medic, don't worry. There's an even better class that has access to this, with even more reason to take this skill, heh heh heh.
Cure
Prerequisites: Healer Lv1
Unlocks: Lv3: Salve
Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Here's the basic bitch skill for your basic bitch needs. Cure is, well, exactly what you expect, the worst healing skill, but that lies its usefulness. Of course you're gonna use it a fair amount at the start of the game, but it still has its uses later on for out of battle healing and it'll scale pretty well with Healer so it stays effective longer. You only need to get it to level 3 to unlock Salve later on, but it works perfectly fine.
And since there's not much to talk about we can go over the healing formula, previously only Healer affected the base heal, so at max level you were always going to get the same results. Now it's [Base Healing * (160 + UserTEC) / 160] * Mastery Bonus, so there's a bit more variety, the central part can vary between 1-1.62 depending on the user's TEC, 1-99. So even level 1 Cure goes from a 54 heal with 1 TEC and level 10 Healer to an 88 heal with 99 TEC. Obviously it gets more impressive with later skills, but it can make a big difference, another reason why levelling up healing skills isn't that useful, since the numbers balloon into overkill pretty quickly. This can save on SP, but if you don't fancy working it all out, just max Salve II and you'll have no issues.
Your basic healing skill. Take it and you'll save a lot of money from splurging on Medicas. You'll be using this quite a bit throughout the earlygame, but past that point you'll want to move onto the higher tiered healing skills. The main reason to even use the weaker healing skills past that point is so that they're faster and more likely to heal your party members before something bad happens. Unfortunately, that's not how this works in practice in this game. Because the Medic is a very slow class due to being forced to use staves, the speed modifiers of their skills don't really do all that much for them since the Medic will be at near minimal speed no matter what you do. The earlygame is pretty much the only time they matter, but after that point, they're pretty much always going to move last, so you'll have to be preemptive with your Medic's heals, which will be more effective with stronger heals.
By the way, when starting out, I highly suggest spending your Medic's starting 3 SP like this: 2 on Healer, and 1 in Cure. The reason for that is simple. A level 1 Medic with a level 1 Cure heals for 40 HP with their current stats. With their starting TP pool, they can use it up to 10 times, so that's a total of 400 HP they can heal the party with before running out of juice. However if that TP cost of 3 increases to 4, that reduces the number of times they can use Cure to 7, which only heals for 43 HP each at level 2. Reducing that total potential heal from 400 to 301 HP. Not a great deal, and at the start of the game, 40 HP heals already cover a whole lot. And that extra SP in Healer won't affect healing any bit, but it gives the Medic a bigger head start to unlock their better healing skills. Granted you should probably level Cure up to 3 at some point to get access to Salve.
Cure II
Prerequisites: Healer Lv3
Unlocks: Lv4: Salve II
Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Healing... 2! For a bit more TP you can have quite a bit more healing for a little less speed. Cure 2 probably won't see much use in battle since Salve will definitely be more effective by that point, but it'll be a great topper out of battle. It'll heal between 200 and 326 at Healer 10, TEC depending and you can see why I didn't list all these values, we'd be here all day. It's a big improvement right out of the gate and also shows how long you can wait to actually use this. You need to invest a little more into it to get Salve II, but that's a skill you'll be using for the rest of the game so I think it's worth it. Of course, you can max these skills out if you want fast and mad heals, but for single target it's not really worth it, their main use is their out of battle utility.
Your midgame healing skill. If you play your cards right, you can gain access to this skill as early as level 3 while still having access to Cure. Granted, it's complete overkill at that point, and really hefty on the TP pool. But having access to this can help with the later parts of the 1st Stratum and its boss. By midgame you'll see this used occasionally, but you'll likely be breaking out Salve 2 more since multitarget attacks start getting more common there. So level this up enough to unlock Salve 2, and feel free to ignore this skill afterwards. The next one is what you really want for your single target healing needs!
Cure III
Prerequisites: Healer Lv5
Unlocks: Lv5: Salve III
Restores all HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Healing... 3! This one is a little tricky to recommend since it starts off pretty bad, but since you should probably max this out for Salve III, for the few times you'll need that OH SHIT button, it makes Cure III a much more interesting prospect. Until you max it out, it's still worth using Cure II outside of battle to heal someone, it'll be slightly cheaper, but a full heal can be very useful on your tankier party members. This requires a bit of timing to use correctly, which I'm dumb as shit about, but can be pretty alright. You'll still want Salve III anyway.
Pretty much the best single target heal in the entire game. There's pretty much no reason not to take this and make use of it in the late and post-games. At max level, it's only 4 more TP than a max level Cure 2, but will always fully heal the target. This makes it an incredible value heal, as while Cure 2 can get up to high healing values, the Medic would need to be at like 99 TEC or so to do so. Meanwhile you can grab this skill way before then, and if you invest in HP Up for your classes, their max HP pools will get very high, which will never outpace the healing from this skill. With that being said, while you'll want to max out this skill, that's mainly to unlock a much better skill for them, which will see far more use. Still, Cure 3 is a pretty good skill to have in the Medic's back pocket.
Also something you've likely noticed is that the prerequisites for the higher tiered healing skills don't even require the lower tiered ones at all. Resting a character also got changed form being usable only at level 30 and beyond and subtracting 10 levels, to being usable at anytime and only subtracting 5 levels from the user for a full SP refund. This means that Resting a Medic is extremely optimal, as they'll have plenty of SP to spare in other skills, as there's basically no reason to ever use Cure or Cure 2 once you can make use of the best healing skills. It's a really weird aspect of the first two DS games where certain skills basically exist just to be obsoleted, but hey that's just how things play out here.
Salve
Prerequisites: Healer Lv3, Cure Lv3
Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Ahh, these skills were amazing last game, relatively cheap and spammable, great way to keep your party alive, because enemies did a lot of damage and were very scary. This is somewhat the case here, but to counter their spamminess, Salves now have pretty extortionate TP costs, which is a bit rough, but because of their still great utility, it's still worth using them. If you crunch the numbers, healing everyone with Cure is 3TP cheaper overall when both skills are level 1, but you're paying the extra TP for the utility of doing so in battle. And Cure would be level 3 but whatever you know what I mean. Because there's only 5 levels, it's pretty easy to max these skills out if you have all the Amritas in the world, since having a moderate Salve will be more TP efficient so you're not using a maxed Salve II for the smallest of booboos. If you have the resources you can max them out if you don't want to really think about it, there's no kill like overkill!
In the first game, you could get away with only making use of Salve instead of Salve II, as Immunize lowered damage heavily to the point where big heals were complete overkill. Immunize is gone now, so that's no longer an option. This is now strictly an earlygame heal. While very good at that point as AOE healing is always welcome, past the earlygame you'll want to use the higher tier Salve skills instead. In fact when you see the skill data for the next skill, you'll understand why there's absolutely no reason to use this over Salve 2 and 3, and why you may want to consider resting your Medic to put those spent SP elsewhere.
Salve II
Prerequisites: Healer Lv6, Cure II Lv4
Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Now we're talking, if you want a healing skill to last you all game, then get this sucker to level 5 and watch the TP disappear... just like that! At, let's say 50 TEC and Healer 10, this skill heals 463 HP to the ENTIRE PARTY which is a little nuts and will be mostly what you need for a wide chunk of the game. Salve III can pick up the slack, but it depends if the extortionate TP costs are worth it. That's the main issue with these skills, 48TP is not a massive deal in later games, but if you need to chug an Amrita every time you want to use this skill, then it might be just a weeeeeeeeeee bit expensive. Still, the utility is pretty much unmatched, but if you don't need all this healing why are you paying so much for it? Considering Medics don't really do much else and are pretty helpless when Head Bound, sometimes it might seem they're more trouble then they're worth, but it depends how much healing you need. Maybe don't get hit?
And say hello to your midgame healing skill! Heals twice as much as Salve, for only 60% more TP at max level! Also, take a look at the speed modifiers. Yeah, for whatever reason, the Salve skills all have the exact same speed modifiers at every level, meaning that the higher tier Salves are basically just straight upgrades, and you have very little reason to use the earlier versions other than cheaping out big time on TP costs. Which aren't remotely an issue once TP Up is maxed out. So take as much as you need, then ditch it all for the hotness that is Salve 3 when the time is right.
Salve III
Prerequisites: Healer Lv10, Cure III Lv5
Restores all HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.
The last healing skill is also an interesting one. SEVENTY FOUR TP??? You'll be using this after you max it since it's an upgrade from Salve II, but it's a hard sell before then. This skill has its uses in the very OH SHIT postgame and your Force Skill is basically this skill for free, as well as another skill. Hopefully you'll need all this healing and you can find the happy medium between using this skill and Salve II, but I suppose TP isn't a crazy hard resource in the postgame. This is the main draw to using a Medic, so you'd better find it useful.
Salve 3 is pretty much the best healing skill the Medic gets access to, and pretty much their best selling point, as War Magi do not get access to this skill. And at max level, it only costs 2 more TP than a max level Salve 2. It's a fantastic deal and there's basically no reason to use anything else unless you're an ultra cheapskate with TP. Max both this and TP Up to be able to use this a whopping 7 times before they need to refill. More if you opt for TP increasing accessories.
So, how do you get the most out of your Medic with this? Their speed is so low that they'll almost always move last. Well, you just spam this skill, even if your party is at full HP. Because Medics are so slow, they can't really react to much. How players got around that was just proactively using their healing skills, and undoing the damage the enemy does in the same turn. Other skills only get used if they absolutely have to be. Yeah it's an incredibly one-dimensional playstyle, but it's really the most effective one they can really do. While Medics did deserve to get nerfed, the way Atlus handled that nerf ended up making them have way less options than they did in the first game, and I'm not really a fan of it. They're still fairly usable, just don't expect this class to be a particularly exciting one to use.
Revive
Prerequisites: Healer Lv5
Unlocks: Lv10: CPR
Revives a single target to a certain HP amount. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Oh sweet salvation. Revive is such a wonderful skill to get early and will save you so much Nectar money. Later on it becomes less effective when Nectar IIs become all the rage and it never heals by a fantastic amount, so it's not a great skill to max out. This is one of the skills a Medic has over a War Magus, along with Salve III, and considering there are plenty of successful teams with a War Magus and not a Medic shows how relatively unnecessary this skill can be. It's still super useful when you have it and one big use is reviving a Hexer to 1HP to continue where they left off. Will I be abusing that? OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO, but really this skill is a way to save on Nectars outside of battle and something to use if you have TP to spare in battle, so it's still incredible utility, but mainly for the early game, let's be honest.
One of the other big selling points of the Medic, as War Magi completely lack the capability to revive people without using Nectars. Unlike in EO1, you can pick this up far earlier, making it much more usable and allows it to compete with the lower tiers of Nectars. It's great to pick up early on as it saves a decent bit of money from being used on Nectars, and you'll want to max this out for a fantastic skill. Granted at max level it doesn't do a whole lot, though unlike later games, the heal can be boosted to an okay amount. A level 1 Revive can be used for Revenge strategies if you have a Hexer in the party. But even then, if you want to abuse that skill, you can just use Nectars instead for a low HP revive, so it's not too much of an issue.
Unbind
Prerequisites: Healer Lv3
Unlocks: Lv5: Freedom
Removes binds from a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Well this skill hasn't changed much, I'm surprised it's not 10TP more expensive like everything else. If you're not using Theriaca As then this works fine, though you will need to get this to level 5 for Freedom, even if removing 3 binds at once isn't very useful due to how rarely it happens. And if it does happen your Medic has been tagged as well, remember, they can't free themselves from a Head Bind... without a Theriaca A. Also make no mistake, this is completely unrelated to the Dark Hunter's Unbind or the Landy's Unbound. Can't see why you would get confused.
Bizarrely enough levels 2 and 4 provide absolutely no benefits and just serve to make the skill slightly worse. So uh, save enough SP to skip past those levels before investing in this skill, I guess? Like with the other unbinding skills, level 3 is the sweet spot, as getting hit with multiple binds isn't too common in this entry of the Etrian Odyssey series.
Freedom
Prerequisites: Unbind Lv5
Removes binds from the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Well this is nice, but has very niche uses. Firstly, Theriaca AXs are way easier to throw around and don't require a slight SP sink, and like before you shouldn't go past level 3, since if your ENTIRE PARTY is fully bound... uh how's your Medic doing? Fully bound too? Well colour me surprised. Also you're about to die anyway so I really don't find this skill useful, when the game fully binds you, you know you're about to get fucked up. Now Theriaca AXs only heal one bind, and in the case of multiple binds, prioritises Head, then Arm, then Legs, which isn't that amazing, so this skill has some use in comparison, but it's admittedly not much.
While one person being tagged with multiple binds at once isn't particularly common, multiple party members being tagged with a bind is something you'll see more often. So investing a bit into this skill can be a great boon. That being said, you won't see them all the time, so I would say level 3 is the sweet spot here if you invest in it at all. And like with Unbind, levels 2 and 4 just make the skill worse, so if you want to go for levels 3 or 5, just save enough SP to skip past to those thresholds.
Refresh
Prerequisites: Healer Lv3
Unlocks: Lv5: Purify
Removes ailments from a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Here's something funky, very similar to last game though the ailments got shuffled slightly, with Panic being at 7 instead of 3, in any case a Theriaca B is a level 8 Refresh so it's probably better just using that instead, but if you get tagged with multiple ailments, you're gonna need Purify, since Theriaca BXs are a little late. Of course this skill is great for Petrify, there's only 2 ways to cure it after all, but if you want to save just a little SP and use Theriaca Bs for the last 3 ailments, you can just move on to Purify. A pretty big nerf from before, but it's up to you if you want this or the item.
Disables are very debilitating to be hit by, so being able to clear those quickly is a must. This is the only ailment dispel skill in the entire game that can purge Petrification, so you'll likely want to get it up to at least level 8. Whether you get it up to 9 or 10 to decrease the cost is up to you, but the Medic isn't exactly starving for TP, so I don't really recommend it. Or you can stuff your pack with Therica Bs instead. Up to you.
Purify
Prerequisites: Refresh Lv5
Removes ailments from the entire party. Cannot heal Petrification. Healing skill, uses the Head.
Alright now we're getting back to a regular skill again, Purify can be very useful since there will be a fair few times you'll get tagged with multiple ailments, but it's not a necessity, depends what ailment you get hit by after all, and your Medic won't be very useful if they get tagged and can't do anything either. Theriaca BXs are very late items but can also cure Petrify, so this skill becomes pretty redundant by that point, but you can get a lot of mileage before then. It's pretty expensive, especially if you're curing less than 3 party members, but such is the price you pay for convenience.
Oof, a bit on the pricey side, but getting this up to level 4 is a very handy tool for the Medic since Theriaca Bs got nerfed to be single target in this game. Whether you get it up to 5 is up to you, but disables are way more debilitating than binds, so you'll want to get those off ASAP. Like with Refresh, whether you get it up to max level or not to save on TP is up to you, but I'd advise against it unless you really have some SP to spare, or you're running less than a 5 man party at which point saving all the TP you can is a must.
Caduceus
Prerequisites: STR Up Lv10, VIT Up Lv5
A single target Staff attack that attempts to inflict Stun. Staff skill with Bash damage, uses the Arms.
Look at how they've massacred my boy. Last game, when your Medic wasn't doing a million other things, they could stay at the front and whack the monsters as much as they wanted, but since their STR took a big nerf AND they no longer get a 300% ATK Up, investing similarly will not give the same results, not even close. Adding 10 STR will give them 42 at level 70, which is still PATHETIC, and the numbers from this skill compared to last game are pretty similar, aside from the speed modifier, so it doesn't in any way compensate. Now with that increased speed modifier, you could actually see the Stun effect in a lifetime, but it's expensive, doesn't do enough to justify the investment and needs a lot of SP to actually become even slightly passable. Gonna skip the fuck over this skill and make my Medic completely beholden to head binds. Sigh...
Holy shit how the mighty have fallen. In the last game it was a fantastic way for a Medic to spend their non-healing turns, which they got a lot of thanks to Immunize making the party almost invincible. But this skill barely does any damage in this game thanks to the Medic's laughable STR stat, and level 10 STR Up barely helps with this skill's damage output. Do not be fooled by the high damage modifier. STR is one of the biggest factors of damage, and the Medic barely has any to make this skill deal a noticeable dent in enemies. Oh and thanks to the new speed mechanics, you're not likely to see the Stun come out either. Ignore this skill entirely, it's nothing but a shadow of its former self.
CPR
Prerequisites: Revive Lv10
Gives the entire party a chance of living one lethal attack at 1HP for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.
Ah, this skill again, CPR is a pretty amazing skill... when it works. That's always been its issue, there are some times when this skill will shine like a beacon, but if it doesn't work, that's a lot of TP and SP you just wasted and you'll look like a real idiot. It can create some real good cheese strats and let you pull of some dumb stuff... if it works. Still, even having some of your party survive a deadly attack instead of none of them can be pretty amazing. Or you'll just die next turn anyway. It's a harder sell since Revive isn't a great skill to max out and dying in a boss fight is usually not a big deal due to better checkpoints in this game, so if this delicious coinflip cheese sounds like fun, well I can't really stop you.
Another big selling point of the Medic. CPR is an amazing safety net in case something goes horribly wrong, which is likely to happen in a game like EO2. It can't protect against the likes of Petrify or Instant Death, but having a chance to save a party member from a stray lethal attack can be a huge momentum saver. And believe me, you'll be seeing a lot of that later in the game, so anything to mitigate that can be a huge help.
A few things to be aware of when using this skill. This is not an endure! This is an on the spot revival, so any party members saved by this skill will lose any buffs or debuffs they had at the time of dying. Make sure to refresh any buffs they had afterwards.
Phoenix
Prerequisites: Healer Lv10
Sacrifices the user to fully heal and revive the entire party and removes one random bind. Healing skill, uses the Head.
From the outset this skill seems a bit questionable, it doesn't mention what it fully does, if it just fully healed your party like Salve III, then it would be bad. But it's, in effect, a spammable Force skill, which is pretty nuts, minus the full ailment heal. Sacrificing your Medic might seem strange, but it can be worth it if they won't be immediately useful after fully healing everyone. Since the level only increases the base heal, there's no point investing in it much, the speed modifier is barely a factor and you hopefully shouldn't use this skill much so the TP cost doesn't really matter. It's a weird, but good skill.
This skill may look very questionable, but it's a fantastic panic button. While it shouldn't be used if none of your party members are dead, it's a massive undo button for when things get really bad. Being able to revive multiple people at once is a huge boon, helping your party get back on their feet more easily. Sure you'll lose your Medic in the process, but in a situation where multiple party members are dead, Salve 3 spamming wouldn't have done much to save them, and really, what else can your Medic do in this game? And think about it this way. Nectalls are fantastic items. Reviving a Medic is essentally converting a Nectar into a Nectall, which is a fantastic deal. It's an incredibly cheesy panic button if the time comes for it, salvaging situations that shouldn't be salvageable otherwise.
With that said, you may want to leave this skill at level 1, as it doesn't scale too well, and the chances of using this multiple times per battle is slim. And if you have to use it a ton... you may want to rethink your strategy. Do be warned, the one bind it decides to clear is random per party member. And it can end up selecting a bind that said party member doesn't even have. Like attempting to dispel an Arm Bind when they have nothing but a Head Bind. So don't rely on that aspect too much.
Patrol
Decreases damage tile, uh, damage for a certain number of steps. Field skill.
Same as the Survivalist's skill, can be useful but since you have a Medic on the party, just heal everyone before battle and use Guard Soles if you really want to save TP. Or go all the way and not need to Salve before battle, due to how expensive those skills can be, it can be worth it. This might be the only time I can recommend these skills.
This can be a nice way to cut down on how often your Medic has to heal the party whenever damage tiles get involved, though it's not strictly a necessary skill to have. Can make certain floors much less annoying, and the Medic can have a large amount of SP to spare if they've rested their lower tier heals away.
H. Touch
Fully heals and revives the entire party and dispels all status ailments. Does not remove binds or Stun. Force skill, uses the Head.
And finally, a great Force skill. Don't panic seeing that skill name, H. Touch is actually amazing in this game and is absolutely fantastic as an OH SHIT button, it can combo pretty well with CPR as well if you fancy, but you have to be mindful of how slow it is. Not removing binds can be a slight pain, but usually they're not a big deal and this can be a way of just not using Salve II if you're low on TP and near the end of the floor, it's brilliant and will be a great crutch later on.
Hey, so what if Phoenix had absolutely no downside at all? You get this skill. Phoenix was already a strong panic button, and this one is even better. Mostly. It doesn't remove binds, but Phoenix's bind removal was unreliable anyways, so meh. A great way to salvage a bad situation, assuming the Medic has their Force ready. Which admittedly won't be too often due to how the Force mechanics work, unfortunately. Unless you opt to use Axcelas.
Medic doesn't have any fancy tricks this time around, unfortunately, Immunize was wiped from existence and Caduceus can let the Medic do something not involving the head, but was indirectly nerfed in so many ways it's not worth it. War Magus does a good chunk of the Medic's skillset while having other utility, while also not having Healer, Revive and Salve III, which can be a dealbreaker. You don't have to use a Medic, which is wonderful to say after last game and they're not the most busted class in the game, but they still have incredible utility and sometimes you just need a fuckton of healing to make your life easier.
While the Medic was completely overpowered in the first game and deserved to be nerfed, the way they got nerfed made them a little too one-dimensional to play, though they're still a fairly effective class to bring along. Not all parties need one this time around, especially with the War Magus competing for the healer slot on a team, but the nerfs thankfully did not utterly kill them like the Landsknecht or Survivalist. So bringing one along isn't a huge setback, and they can contribute a lot to a party despite the changes they went through.