Toggle Background Color
Alchemist
Can equip: Staves, Clothing
The cool mcfuckers are back, Alchemists were pretty okay last game, due to being the only class that could really make use of elemental damage, especially in the early game. They fell off towards the end, but using a unit's TEC stat for once made them fun to use. Elemental damage is more accessible on some other, even unexpected, classes in this game, but Alchemists have some fun tools like Megido and Analysis, as well as the physical spells. Their main issue is their TP sinking skills, which makes them very costly on the same party as a Medic, as well as their mediocre damage output, not helped by their damage formula, so they need quite a few buffs to compensate. Oh yeah, and the Gunner is a better class in pretty much every way while also having other utility, since the Alchemist does one thing kinda well and that's about it. They're still a fine class to use, but they're also not very exciting and have difficulty keeping up late game due to various factors.
Alchemists were a pretty decent class in the first game, a hard hitting mage archetype that could dish out the pain easily, only dropping down to fairly average by the post-game. Of course because this was a class people actually used, Atlus saw fit to hammer them with the nerf bat. The nerfs are... weird, to say the least. The magic damage formula got a complete rework for the bizarre in this game. In all other Etrian Odyssey games, spells functioned like physical skills, with increasing damage multipliers for each level like you've seen in the previous class writeups. That is absolutely not how magic functions at all in EO2.
Instead, to put it crudely, spells are essentially "weapons" in this game, with leveling up the spell giving you a better "spell attack power" in place of weapon attack power on actual weapons as you've seen in the damage formula previously. This ends up creating an incredibly bizarre power curve for the Alchemist, as leveling up the spells enough essentially gave them a powerful weapon that greatly outpaced the current point of the game they were in, destroying pretty much everything in sight. Up to a certain point anyways.
How Atlus tried to disincentivize this is by making it so that the TP costs of their spells at high levels are ridiculously expensive! Using high level spells meant that while the Alchemist could hit really hard, they would heavily deplete their TP pool in the process so they could only be used a few times at most. This created what is essentially a clunky class to use. Leave their spells at a low level so you can use them more often, but due to the magic formula rework they'll stop doing damage past a certain point due to being far too weak. Or level up the spells so they can heavily contribute, but develop a horrific addiction to Amritas in the process to stave off their TP woes. If you intend on tackling the post-game though, this is a far different story. Alchemist becomes one of the worst classes in the game at that point due to various factors I'll elaborate on in a bit. Hopefully they were able to carry the other 4 party members and give them enough space for them to take control in the post-game.
This looks familiar, their stats haven't changed too much, even with the 70 cap. Their TP is slightly boosted, though it doesn't completely compensate their increased spell cost, their STR and VIT took a slight hit, as expected, but it shouldn't make them too fragile. Right? AGI and LUC are mostly the same, while TEC got a nice little boost. While it would be fun to nearly naturally hit 99 with level 99, there's plenty of TEC boosting equipment that it's not going to be an issue. Overall, what worked last game works here.
TEC is the Alchemist's version of the STR stat, so level up TEC to increase the Alchemist's damage output. Due to their aforementioned TP woes, leveling up their TP pool is an absolute must! Yes their base TP pool may look high, but trust me when I say it's not really enough to make up for their skills' costs. They're that expensive! STR is absolutely useless for them since they are not muscle wizards, but are needed to unlock certain skills. Which suck so they're not a great investment. AGI isn't that important for them, as AGI is not used in the accuracy formula for TEC-based attacks, as TEC also doubles as an accuracy stat there. Not to mention because they're forced to use Staves, their speed hits rock bottom anyways. LUC is also fairly irrelevant for them since they can't inflict anything, and it's already decently high. HP is basically take it or leave it, but Alchemists are squishy even with the HP increase.
However there is one thing we need to be upfront about: the new magic formula. It wasn't too crazy last game, where part of the formula could be ignored due to how little difference "Damage Boost" had, but this time, it's, well:
((SpellPower + 20) * (aTEC + 20) * (aTEC + (SpellPower / 2))) / ((dVIT or (Armour / 3) + 20) * ((((dTEC * 3 / 2) + (aVIT / 2)) / 2) + 20)) * 17 / 10 * Passive Boosts * Resistance / 2.
Yeah. It's a big of a bugger so it might not be completely correct, but it's simple enough once you plug the numbers in. I won't go over all of it, but there are a couple big things to note. Firstly, ignoring everything else, there is a literal /2 at the end. This is why magic doesn't scale too well past the early game. It would be ridiculous at the start of the game if it wasn't halved in damage due to how low enemy's TEC often is, but it also makes it pretty mediocre towards the end of the game when the enemies get stronger to compensate. It's not a dealbreaker, but it is a pain in the arse.
Second, there's of course a bug, there usually is, since one of the factors is YOUR OWN VIT!!! Why that should be a factor in a magic formula is beyond me and it's a pain due to how low the Alchemist's VIT will always be, as well as other classes that usually use elemental damage. Again, it's not a massive deal, it's one factor, but it's another reduction in damage that this class didn't really need. So you need to stack various passives and other buffs to make the damage even remotely competitive. Alchemists will be just fine, but man they could be so much better if they had a formula worth a damn.
Yeah so uh, magic in general in this game sucks all around. Not just Alchemists, enemy spells too suck thanks to this formula. Every bit of magic gets halved due to poor balancing foresight, allowing you to facetank several attacks that would have been complete party wipes in another Etrian Odyssey game. Yes, even that elemental trio of attacks in the post-game for you veterans. Also the VIT bug applies to enemies as well, meaning that their damage gets further reduced because the stronger the enemy is, the higher their VIT is. Meaning that they're mostly punching themselves in the face to damage you, and it's not very effective cause their skin is so thick. Yeah already you can see a huge mess and we're only just getting started.
The last kicker is that when Alchemists hit the post-game, their damage will drop down to Landsknecht and Survivalist tiers of awful thanks to this formula! And they end up being far worse since you won't be able to use their skills as often, while Landsknechts and Survivalists can at least go on for longer before they're forced to chug down an Amrita.
Common Passive Unlocks
TP Up: Lv5: Analysis
STR Up: Lv3: Phys Up
TEC Up: Lv5: Analysis; Lv 10: Megido
More standard stuff, and ones you'd probably invest in anyway, so it works out. Well, except for STR Up of course, you don't need to invest in Phys Up, uh, past level 1 due to how thoroughly awful mastery passives are in this game, and the physical spells are also not particularly exciting. You'll fully invest in TEC and TP anyway and Megido is a pretty good nuke that trades weaknesses for more damage. And Analysis is one of the best passives in the game. So, you know.
Fire/Ice/Volt Up
Fire Up Unlocks: Lv1: Fire; Lv5: Flame, Inferno
Ice Up Unlocks: Lv1: Ice; Lv5: Freeze, Cocytus
Volt Up Unlocks: Lv1: Volt; Lv5: Thunder, Thor
Increases Fire/Ice/Volt damage. Passive.
Well. Here it is. Alchemists are ruthlessly simple and this is one of the main reasons, their passives are pretty pathetic, but it also means you don't need to go past level 5, the increase in damage is negligible and you don't unlock anything else, so these are, yet again, trap skills. I don't think there's much preference on elements, Ice isn't used too much and Fire is pretty taken if you're also using a Ronin, but it's not a big deal, and there's plenty of SP to go around, so go directly to 5.
Unlike in the first game, these passives actually work like you think instead of literally only adding 3 points of damage at max level so they're safe to take this time. However like all other mastery skills, maxing them out unless you have nothing left isn't a good idea due to the miniscule gains.
As for which elements to take, veterans of the series may think you'd invest in all 3 at some point to give them good coverage. That's absolutely not the case in EO2, tribridding is simply not practical in this entry. Instead the elements you mainly want to focus on are Fire and Volt, as Ice is a terrible element past the earlygame. Maybe invest in the tier 1 Ice spell if you're not confident your team can get past the first two Stratum bosses easily, but past that point Ice should never see any use. Fire and Volt cover each other really easily in a lot of cases, and in the times they don't, there's another skill you can use in their place.
Phys Up
Prerequisites: STR Up Lv3
Unlocks: Lv1: Blades/Gravity/Piercing
Increases Blades/Gravity/Piercing damage. Passive.
...okay. The physical spells are a bit weird in this game, they just kinda exist since there's only the AOE spell and it doesn't do a great amount of damage due to the lack of physical weaknesses compared to elemental ones, but we'll get to that in a moment. For this skill, thankfully you only need to put one level into it because fuck me what is the point going further. It's also pretty weird since it boosts the physical spells, not the Alchemist's physical damage, not that it would change much. The STR Up investment prior to this seems completely superfluous and it's just annoying having to waste SP like this to get to something slightly different. Anyway, due to how boring the execution is, you wonder why they bothered.
Extremely questionable unless you're doing a challenge run with 5 Alchemists or a solo Alchemist or something. Chances are you took an Alchemist so you'd have elementals on your side, as several other classes already have the physical damage front covered.
Something interesting to note is that unlike in the first game, all of the Alchemist's spells benefit from attack buffs now. This is because in the first game, said buffs only increased the ATK stat which has no effect on spells, while in 2 they got changed to increase all outgoing damage period. This makes Troubadours and War Magi very good classes to pair up with the Alchemist. Defense buffs and debuffs on the other hand are a little different and I'll go into that in a bit.
Analysis
Prerequisites: TP Up Lv5, TEC Up Lv5
Unlocks: Megido: Lv5
Increases damage of spells when they hit a resistance of 110% or higher. Passive.
For passives, this is one of the best. Here's a bunch of free damage on top of the free damage you were doing anyway. There's a lot of elemental weaknesses and this is a way to keep somewhat on top of damage throughout the game, and you can use a Hexer to forcefully create weaknesses, bonus! This is why the physical spells aren't that great, among other things, as they don't take advantage of this as much as they'd like, but the elementals absolutely love this skill. Once you get your standard spells, beeline for this, it makes so much difference. Unlocking Megido at max level is a pretty great incentive, even if it doesn't make use of this skill at all, but oh no what a shame.
Analysis is a super good passive as it's a free massive damage boost. It turns 125% damage multipliers into 193.75% damage multipliers, 150% into 232.5% and 200% damage multipliers into 310% damage multipliers! Considering how expensive Alchemist spells can get, you'll want every single free damage boost you can get! Get this as soon as you can.
The best part is that you can actually end up creating weaknesses to exploit in this game. Defense buffs and debuffs got a huge change going into EO2. In the first game they manipulated the DEF stat (and had a ridiculously tiny effect due to DEF having a miniscule impact in the damage formula) but here those modifiers are applied directly to the target's damage multipliers making them far more effective. And you can use the Hexer's Frailty skill to create weaknesses for the Alchemist to exploit. Though keep in mind while defense debuffs can help trigger Analysis, attack buffs cannot.
Something kind of bizarre is that when you trigger Analysis, the game notifies you with "Critical Hit!" even though skills can't crit. That's an odd localization mistake, as the Japanese version properly displays that as "You struck the enemy's weakness!"
Fire/Ice/Volt
Prerequisites: Fire/Volt/Ice Up Lv1
Fire Unlocks: Lv5: Flame, Inferno
Ice Unlocks: Lv5: Freeze, Cocytus
Volt Unlocks: Lv5: Thunder, Thor
Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.
Here's the first tier. That is definitely first tier-y. Already the first level costs more TP than the skill did in its entirety last game and it then balloons into ridiculousness at max level, but of course you don't need to, since the next tier skills transition very nicely from a level 5 tier 1 skill. How considerate. Like the passives, going past level 5 in these skills aren't a great idea and these can still be perfectly fine single target damage on the cheap when you don't need to go all out to save TP. Otherwise, uh, yeah, that's it bye.
Your tier 1 spells. Pretty much useful for 2 things. Use them in the earlygame so your Alchemist isn't just smacking things with a stick. Or if you just can't use a tier 2 or 3 spell at the moment due to high TP costs. Invest in Fire or Volt, order doesn't really matter. Though more things in Stratum 1 are weak to Fire. Invest a bit in Ice I guess if you're that scared of the 1st or 2nd Stratum bosses. Still, going from a 6 TP cost at max level to 26 TP is just ouch.
Flame/Freeze/Thunder
Flame Prerequisites: Fire Up Lv5, Fire Lv5
Freeze Prerequisites: Ice Up Lv5, Ice Lv5
Thunder Prerequisites: Volt Up Lv5, Volt Lv5
Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.
Here's the second tier and- hey, wait a minute these are just slower tier 1 skills! Well, yes, the numbers are pretty much the same, which is why they're not fantastic skills, but a 1.5x multiplier is applied to the base damage, so that makes them pretty okay I guess. They get pretty expensive, but they scale pretty well, so you need to max them to squeeze as much damage from this class as you can. Feel free to run the numbers yourself to see what the final result will be, you have all the factors, this is as good as the elemental skills get. Though for pure damage... we could go bigger.
The Alchemist's main damage skills. Level up Flame or Thunder how you see fit, though mind the TP costs. Later in the game they're basically not worth using if you can't trigger Analysis at all, as you'll end up dealing no damage. It's not super vital to have Flame maxed out, though you might want to have Thunder maxed out by the end of the 3rd Stratum, as the boss there is an infamous brick wall.
Inferno/Cocytus/Thor
Inferno Prerequisites: Fire Up Lv5, Fire Lv5
Cocytus Prerequisites: Ice Up Lv5, Ice Lv5
Thor Prerequisites: Volt Up Lv5, Volt Lv5
Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to all enemies. Spell skill, uses the Head.
Once you got late enough in the first game, Thor was the skill to spam all the time, since most enemies didn't resist Volt and it was pretty cheap and easy damage to get you out of various pickles. Boy is that not the case in this game, 52 TP!!! What the fuck. It's a rough recommendation to max these skills, but they're not that great if you don't. They don't have the damage multiplier of the previous skill, even 1.2x would've been something, but nope, at their best, they're level 9 tier 1 skills that you need to use on 3 enemies at once to save on TP, which is pretty sad, let's be honest. They're still useful, especially as 4-5 enemy groups start showing up, but these are not skills you can spam without a crippling Amrita addiction. Say no to TP dependency, kids!
Your... encounter clearers, I guess. Boss fights are significantly shorter than a single exploration session, so you won't have to use as many Amritas to get through one of those. Meanwhile you can get into a ton of battles in a single exploration session, and too many usages of the level 5 spell will constantly have your Alchemist zero out their TP pool! Better bring a lot of Amritas, if you're willing to use these liberally!
Inferno is the skill you'll want to "spam" as a lot of enemies in the Labyrinth are extremely inflammable. Thor can be a good secondary if you run into a lot of fire-proof enemies. Assuming you're willing to front the expensive TP costs, cause boy your Alchemist will be run dry with these skills! And you can't leave them at a low level forever as they'll stop dealing any bit of meaningful damage whatsoever the later on in the game it is.
Blades/Gravity/Piercing
Prerequisites: Phys Up Lv1
Deals TEC based Cut/Bash/Stab damage to all enemies. Spell skill, uses the Head.
So everything I just said about the AOE elemental skills? Applies to these and then some. At least the elemental skills will usually hit a weakness and get more bang for your buck, something the physical elements will often struggle with. They're on similar damage output, since the passives behind them are barely any different so there's not really much reason to use these skills over the other elementals. If these had single target hitters then maybe they could see use on occasion, but when are you gonna face 3+ enemies with the same physical weakness that also isn't covered by another party member? In some cases, NEVER! Because we have all the data at our fingertips, we can see that there are TWO enemies weak to Bash and ZERO enemies weak to Cut. Christ what a waste of time, only Piercing will see any actual use and even then it's very niche. It's an interesting idea, but a poor execution. Also still a TP black hole, christ.
Absolutely not worth it. They're not even good as secondary AOE skills as Inferno already roasts a lot of enemies in the Labyrinth and the Alchemist has a much better alternative attacking option if their elements don't cut it.
Megido
Prerequisites: TEC Up Lv10, Analysis Lv5
Deals untyped damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.
Here's the big skill to use when there's no weaknesses to exploit and no Dampen allowed so the game has some semblance of difficulty. Megido is the most expensive skill in the game, as well as being much stronger than the strongest elemental spell, so it's great to use on enemies with no weakness. However, of course it's a ridiculous TP sink so you can't spam it, it's 20TP more than the tier 2 spells for god's sake. It also does less damage than the same spells with max Analysis, so there's no point using it then. Also Dampen is just so good and if you have no qualms about using it, then this skill is much harder to recommend. Still, when you wanna nuke, you gotta nuke.
Megido is basically their big damage skill to use if using a tier 2 spell is a bad idea. Unfortunately as it's Untyped, it bypasses the damage multiplier check entirely, which includes positive multipliers, meaning it can never exploit weaknesses. So the likes of Frailty does absolutely nothing for it. Fortunately attack buffs still boost this skill, so it's not all bad. And this skill basically covers all the remaining situations that roasting or zapping an enemy can't cover. However it's pretty expensive, so be prepared for your Alchemist to develop a severe sugar addiction if they max out this skill.
And now that we've seen this skill, here are the basics of how to Alchemist. Assuming all your tier 2 spells and Megido are at the same level anyways and you have Analysis on your Alchemist. Does the enemy take 150% or more damage from your chosen element? Use the tier 2 spell. Does the enemy take 125% or more damage and are under the effects of Frailty as well? Use the tier 2 spell. In all other cases, use Megido instead.
Return
Returns, heh, the party to the last used Geomagnetic Field. Does not work for Geomagnetic Poles or the labyrinth's entrance. Field Skill.
WARRRRRRRRP STOOOOOONE!!! That's about it, why the fuck is it 30TP??? This is useful if you forgot both your Warp Wire or your Warp Stone. ...why did you forget both? Even still, this has weird limits on it, even if you'll use Fields for a good portion of the game, but why doesn't it work on Poles anyway? You can put a point into it for emergencies, but this game makes you quickly realise having 2 Warp Wires is a pretty good idea.
The extra restrictions added into this game make it an even more questionable investment in this game compared to the first one, and it's literally useless in the first Stratum. And as the game teaches you, you should be packing multiple Warp Wires at once if you can. I'd probably avoid this altogether, as even in a vacuum, this is a very questionable safety net.
Eschaton
Deals untyped damage to all enemies. Force skill, uses the Head.
And we end with a big bang, kind of attack. Eschaton does a lot of damage and is quite a good emergency button, but also isn't very exciting, like the entire class. It's slightly stronger than Megido, but also has the damage multiplier despite being AOE, so it can be used generally if you happen to build up the requisite Force. That's about it.
It's Megido, but stronger, faster, and more accurate, on top of being AOE as well. Not much to say about it. Use it whenever it's up. Though you can grind up Force super early in the game to cheese a bunch of things that shouldn't be easily possible to take on at that point, such as FOEs. And for more cheese, the first Stratum boss can be one shot by this if the Alchemist's TEC stat is high enough, and they have a damage buff from the Troubadour and/or War Magus. A neat little trick to know if you're willing to Force grind. However due to how magic works in this game, don't expect this to hold up for the rest of the game.
Because yeah, Alchemists are so, so simple compared to the slight Poison utility they had last game, even if it didn't amount to much. They do one thing pretty well, but suffer from a few nerfs and endless TP issues. They're a little tricky to spam but when you want to sling spells... use a Gunner, but this is a fine second choice! Oh there's also the Ronin's elementals... a fine third choice! Out of three.
Alchemists ate a ton of nerfs going into EO2, turning them into a fairly clunky class to use. You basically have to watch their skill levels closely, which no other class really demands in this game. The other problem is their role as an elemental attacker is easily taken up by two other classes, the Ronin and the Gunner, both of whom have far more manageable downsides to deal with. While they can be a force to be reckoned with in the main game, being only held back by their expensive TP costs, in the post-game they pretty much turn into one of the worst classes in the game, so if you intend on tackling that, you may be better off dropping them for something else.