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Troubadour
Can equip: Swords, Bows, Light Armor, Clothing
May I compare thee to a summer's day? Hey that's how I started the EO1 Troubadour overview, oh wait, that's because they're basically the same. Before, they were relatively passive buffers that lasted all battle and were only really useful for Bravery and Relaxing. In this game... well they're nearly the same, they got hit with the nerf bat like most of the pretty alright classes, such as no longer having Relaxing and Healing. The last one wasn't a big deal, I couldn't really recommend it since it took too much investment, but losing Relaxing kinda stings. Now I didn't use it because I was rotating the party pretty often and when you run out of TP that's usually a good time to head to town, but for standard playthroughs, man it's such a good skill. Otherwise they still have Bravery, so that's what we really care about, still the only skill that actually matters, as well as having some out of battle utility. They're exactly as interesting as last game, though they now have some competition in what they can do and that means they're not as amazing as they were before.
Troubadours got some hefty changes between games, but overall mostly play out the same way they did in EO1. They're not really a must-have class anymore, but they're a pretty strong support unit to bring along. A few things bring them down, but they're one of the top tier classes from the previous games to not get utterly nerfed into the ground, thank goodness!
Like most classes, Troubs have lower stats overall from the previous game at level 70, such as STR, which they didn't use, and TEC, which they didn't use, as well as slightly reduced AGI. That last one does matter since they don't get as big a boost to song speed as the previous game, which will come into play on occasion. And by that I mean maybe 1 or 2 allies might attack before you get Bravery up, and that's about it. They got slight buffs to HP and TP, but they should be in the back not taking hits and they will rarely run out of TP, so whatever.
Troubadours are far from a stat hungry class. In fact, due to the way they operate, there's only one stat they remotely care about, and that's AGI. Which is already pretty sky high. Their skills don't really depend on stats, but getting them to move faster is pretty important since they're strong support skills. Their STR took a noticeable hit, so they're not really that great at dealing incidental chip damage anymore, though I guess if you really want that you could invest in STR. Though really a better investment might be their defensive stats since they're not really an attacking unit. They'll definitely want a TP boost, though due to the way songs function it's not a huge priority. And HP increases are always appreciated as well.
Common Passive Unlocks
LUC Up: Lv10: Divinity
Troubadours are a ruthlessly simple class, Songs does all the heavy lifting, so there's only one other passive that makes a difference. Due to how much spare SP this class has, I guess you can max out fucking LUC Up for more exp. This game isn't very difficult and the only class unlock is very early on so you don't need to grind much, but hey, what else are you gonna do? Due to being a support role with SP to spare, you can give them some much needed VIT or boost their AGI a bit, but 10 points can only do so much.
Songs
Unlocks: Lv1: Bravery, Shelter, Mercury; Lv3: Stamina, Recovery; Lv5: Erasure, Nihilo; Lv7: Blaze, Frost, Shock; Lv10: Ifrit, Ymir, Taranis
BUGGED: Description incorrectly states skill does nothing.
Increases song speed. Passive.
Hey look it's this skill, the skill that they need. This is one you should max out, even if the game wrongly says it does nothing, since even if it's not as good as last game, every bit helps when it comes to song speed. Technically a Troubadour only needs 1 point in this for Bravery, making this class SP optional past level fucking nine, but I guess you could go all the way to the elemental resistance skills, even if Dampen makes them pretty pointless. If nothing else, you should get this to level 5 for Erasure and Nihilo, but like I'm gonna say multiple times, this class has never had SP issues, feel free to get whatever the hell you want.
It's a pretty minimal effect mastery, but Troubadours don't really have a lot of skills they want, so they have SP to spare. So take it up to the various points you need to unlock the songs you want, or max it out. Up to you. Probably should be maxed out last if you opt to do so, as the speed increase is rather minimal.
Divinity
Prerequisites: LUC Up Lv10
Increases experience gain. Stacks with itself. Passive.
This is a skill that can go either way, while LUC is better in this game than previous, Troubs don't really need 10 extra points into this and the game isn't particularly challenging due to all the busted classes and Force skills, so extra exp isn't that important. Since it stacks, you can use it to get to level 99, but we'll hopefully do an intervention before that can really get going. It's always best to get this early and if you want to make the game even easier, by all means, but I don't believe it's necessary, especially since bosses give you so much exp to compensate for none from FOEs.
Hey, it's the grinding skill. In the last game it could see some use since you were pretty starved for experience points overall there. This game? Not so much. Grinding in this game is far easier, and bosses are experience point feasts in this game. So rather than spend points into this, you can just kill bosses a few times. Though you could theoretically use this to level up to 99, but for the love of god please never attempt such a thing! You don't need to grind that much, 70 is enough, and there's no reward for getting all the way up there!
Bravery
Prerequisites: Songs Lv1
Increases the base damage of the entire party. Affects untyped damage. Song skill, uses the Head.
Ahhhhhhh~ god I love this skill. It's something you should go for immediately, and you'll max it out very quickly, since it's such a great ATK buff that can make this easy game even easier! One turn to lay a buff down for the entire battle is still so stupid, especially since your Troub will kinda twiddle their thumbs for most of the battle after this, but it's great to lay down as soon as you can. Last game, this class had alright STR so could contribute with imbues and buffs, but since all that has been nerfed, they'll be an item monkey forevermore. A bit of a shame, but this is why you're using this class, it's good, so they're good, everything else is honestly just a bonus. Now, in fairness, not only do level 11-15 skills no longer exist, which does hurt, but this is weaker than last game. It's still really good, so I'm fine with it.
The Troubadour's bread and butter skill. Pretty much should be the first thing you should max out without question. Lay it down and pretty much the Troubadour's main job is done. Especially since they lost Relaxing, so they don't really have a must have secondary buff to put up (though still plenty of good candidates in this game). And like Cross mentioned, their STR went down the gutter, so they don't really contribute good incidental chip damage anymore. So they're pretty much stuck thumb twiddling unless an emergency happens.
Something to note is that this game changed Bravery from a direct increase to ATK to being a general damage boost. Which affects everything by the way, even Untyped damage (though not Revenge due to its mechanics.) This means that even the Alchemist can get in on the action from being buffed by this, and a boosted Megido or even Eschaton can deal a ton of damage, as well as their other big hitter spells.
Shelter
Prerequisites: Songs Lv1
Reduces damage taken by the entire party. Song skill, uses the Head.
It's back, and it's a bit different to before. Last game it boosted your final DEF value, which didn't really help since ATK and DEF had such a wild disparity, especially when it came to lategame enemies. But now it's been changed, for the better, to be a general damage reduction. This is actually important to the balancing of stats to make things a bit more consistent, enemies can hit pretty hard, but it's also important because this is the only defensive buff the Troub gets access to, since their Force skill is... bugged. Still, killing enemies is better than surviving them, so Bravery is still preferable, but this ain't a bad skill to drop down.
The changes to the buff mechanics in this game make Shelter a much stronger defensive than in EO1. Whether you take this or not is up to you, but due to the changes to defense buffs, you'll definitely one at least 1 point in this to clear defense debuffs, as they're far more threatening now that they actually increase the enemies' damage by a noticeable amount instead of a few points. Though at level 10 it's effectively a 25% decrease to most damage taken. It doesn't work against Untyped damage because this is effectively a multiplier applied to the party's damage resistances. So that's something to keep in mind.
Mercury
Prerequisites: Songs Lv1
Increases AGI for the entire party. Song skill, uses the Head.
Another song that's a bit better in this game due to a couple factors. AGI was miserable to boost before due to it getting the nasty habit of /5, which made it tough to actually get enough to make a difference. This game doesn't have that issue, though some weapons like staves completely tank a class's speed modifier. But again if you use this skill and you're still not faster, you look like an idiot, and there's not many cases when going first will make much difference. I've never used this skill, and I don't fancy starting now!
Probably the worst of the main 3 buffing skills. While speed is a more notable mechanic this time around, the kind of buffs this skill has to compete with make it much less appealing, especially when its competition got buffed. Granted, this is an increase to AGI, so you do get more accuracy and evasion out of this, so that is something that can benefit certain parties. Especially since accuracy is actually a concept that exists in this game now instead of something that makes you wonder why they bothered implementing it. Of course the weapon speed mechanic in this game can make this buff nearly meaningless, so uh, probably not a good idea at all if your party is full of slow people.
Stamina
Prerequisites: Songs Lv3
Increases max HP of the entire party. Does not recover the health gained. Song skill, uses the Head.
A bit of a weird skill that is harder to recommend due to the loss of Healing, but can work out, maybe. You've gotta have a heal on standby, but due to speed modifiers, you'll have this skill start the turn and then the heal end the turn, not too great. It gets much more utility lategame when you can really boost up the numbers and hit the 999 cap, but it's also not necessary either, so it's hard to say when a skill like this could be useful. Overall some tanky classes would love this, but you also need to toss them a heal in short notice to really help them tank stuff, especially Beasts, christ.
It gives more effective HP than Shelter, but you'll have to maintain it through active healing, which drags it down a bit. If your party is lacking in that for some reason, stick with Shelter. Another thing that makes this skill not particularly appealing is the 999 HP cap, and nothing can break that cap in this game. Which is especially a big factor when the HP Up passive gives so much more HP when maxed out that this buff ends up not typically having much effect and eating a buff slot for something better. Up to you whether you take it but it's personally a slight pass for me.
That being said, if you have a Revenge Hexer, this is a very easy way to give them a big damage boost. The increase from the old max to the new max HP isn't healed up, so that's a good chunk of empty HP the Hexer can use to fire off even more powerful Revenges. If you actually intend on using that strategy, this skill turns into a very good pickup because it's such a huge DPT boost to Revenge.
Blaze/Frost/Shock
Prerequisites: Songs Lv7
Unlocks: Lv3: Ifrit/Ymir/Taranis
Imbues an ally's regular attack with Fire/Ice/Volt damage. Song skill, uses the Head.
Imbues were pretty great last game since composite attacks were as if you were attacking twice and helped Troubadours contribute in battle when they didn't have much else to do. Ah, that's no longer the case, your normal attack is just replaced with an element, so can be useful on certain enemies, but usually you'll just unload a bunch of elemental skills on them and leave the normal attacks to those who do a pitiful amount anyway. It can be useful if you're out of TP, just to squeeze more damage out, and you can create weaknesses with Dampen, but when you want to use a lot of elemental attacks, you're fully rested and taking on a big boy with lots of HP. It's also not worth investing in them, since there's not much to gain from it, especially since the last thing you really worry about is whether it has a good enough speed modifier.
Oh boy. A rework to how composites worked basically nerfed imbues as a whole to oblivion to a huge part of the series. In 1, using imbues gave a damage boost, as an imbued party member attacked with both their STR and TEC at the same time when using a regular attack. Not so much in 2. And the rest of the series. All it does is add the respective element to your regular attack with no damage boost. Yeah, and skills start getting way more powerful than regular attacks, so it's not a good idea to use these. At best these can help snag conditional drops more easily if you're not using Dampen, but for the most part, these are not worth using.
That being said, there is one possible use case for these skills. Creating fodder for the Landsknecht's chaser attacks, especially if you don't have a lot of elemental attackers otherwise. Though you could probably use items for that instead.
Ifrit/Ymir/Taranis
Prerequisites: Songs Lv10, Blaze/Frost/Shock Lv3
Increases elemental resistance for the entire party for the entire battle, and reduces enemy's elemental resistance for 5 turns. Song skill, uses the Head.
Oh boy these skills are a little lame. Last game they could actually be used in some circumstances over the Protector's antis, but they're too mediocre this time to really do that, which is a shame. They can help in creating weaknesses, since there's more elemental damage to make use of in this game, but Dampen does the same thing, though not to the same degree. These skills are a little pointless, especially for how much you need to invest into them to get any kind of use out of them, but since they're a double effect skill, they still have some utility.
Hoo boy, these skills got mega nerfed. They were fantastic defensively against elemental attacks, and a fairly alright elemental damage boost. Now, the defensive portion is rather crappy, going down from a 70% reduction to a 30% reduction. Ouch. That being said, magic in this game sucks, but chances are you're better off throwing down an elemental mist instead to deal with those defensively.
The offensive portion on the other hand, got buffed from EO1, as the 50% damage boost can be applied naturally without using Boost. Very handy if you're using an Alchemist, as these do stack with defense debuffs and can heavily increase their damage output.
Erasure
Prerequisites: Songs Lv5
Dispels buffs from a single target. Song skill, uses the Head.
Guess who's back, Erasure has very niche uses, but it's a very good niche in slapping down whatever the boss wants to do. It only needs 2 levels in it, there might be one time you would need to remove 3 buffs from an enemy, but you really shouldn't have let it, but there will be some cases when 2 buffs are annoying. Overall, yeah it's alright I guess in that it does one specific thing.
You'll definitely want to take at least 2 points in it, as more big enemies are prone to buffing themselves compared to the opposition in EO1. Though no more than that should be necessary. 3 buffs on an enemy isn't happening unless you let it happen, and that's really just sloppy playing at that point if you really need to erase 3 buffs at once.
Nihilo
Prerequisites: Songs Lv5
Dispels buffs from all enemies. Song skill, uses the Head.
And it's the same thing again, but less useful. Regular enemies will very, VERY rarely ever have 2 buffs, let alone 3, so you can put one point for a few edge cases, but that's about it. At least these are both cheap, easy skills to use, so definitely pick them up and hopefully you won't have to worry about enemy buffs ever again.
A one point wonder at best. You shouldn't see too many group enemy buffs, and you're very not likely to see 2 or more. Maybe get 2 if you're really scared of buffs, but level 3 and beyond really shouldn't needed, ever.
Health
Reduces the base chance of status ailment infliction on the entire party. Affects Instant Death, but not Binds or Stun. Song skill, uses the Head.
This is what replaced Healing and it's different, and also pretty damn good. It's a straight subtraction from the base chance, which is always 100% before LUC is factored into the formula, making it a 20% base chance of infliction at max level. That's pretty damn incredible and not only does it not need any kind of investment, not that you really need it earlygame, but it also lasts all battle! What a fantastic counter to some enemy's tricks and definitely something to pick up to save of Theriaca Bs. Its scaling is pretty wonky, so you might not need to invest all the way, but even from level 1 you'll notice the effects of this buff.
Health is a fantastic defensive, preventing ailments and instant death from landing on the party so much in the first place! If you're worried about your party being disabled, putting this up can heavily decrease the chances of that happening, making a number of encounters far less dangerous. Also bizarrely one of the few skills in the game to have reverse exponential scaling for some reason.
Recovery
Prerequisites: Songs Lv3
Increases the rate of status effect recovery for the entire party. Does not affect binds. Song skill, uses the Head.
So after a skill that has a really good chance of blocking status effects, here's a skill that reduces the time you have them...? Okay, sure, this wasn't a great skill last game and while it's better this time, since this is added onto the final recover chance, making you instantly recover from ailments at max level, it's still not as good as preventing them entirely. Also you'll still have, at least, 1 turn with an ailment, which is still a pain. It's cheap and you can see the effects pretty quickly, but it's hard to recommend over Health.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that applies big time here. Health is way better since it has a huge chance of just stopping the ailment from landing in the first place. And no matter how fast this makes you recover, you'll still be stuck with the ailment on the turn it was inflicted and the turn after that. Which is basically the same time it takes to toss a Therica B to someone and doesn't eat up a buff slot. Just use Health instead if you're worried about ailments.
Danger
Increases danger value of tiles. Field skill.
Danger. High voltage. I feel like there's enough encounters in a regular game that we don't really need more. It's good for grinding or hunting for a specific enemy, but if you want more exp, just beat a boss. Also it gets annoying having a fight every 3 steps, but that's just me.
Encounter reduction skills aren't too great outside of gathering parties, so surely encounter increasing skills would be great, right? Not really. It would honestly make things more annoying for yourself if anything. The game's encounter rates are already well balanced to keep you on the curve, and there are far far better ways to grind for levels in this game if you need to do so. At best you'd use this to hunt certain encounters, but it's not really a skill that should really see much use.
Luring
Lures non-red FOEs in a certain radius to tile used and stuns them for a set duration. Field skill.
Oh hey it's Dark Hunter's Racket. Like I said then, you can use items, or you can use this, though Troubs have the SP to spare. It's pretty whatever though.
There is one section of the game where it can be handy for Troubadours to have this. Otherwise, take it or leave it, and nothing is stopping you from using items instead there.
Slumber
Stuns non-red FOEs in a certain radius for a set duration. Field skill.
Oh hey it's Racket without the lure. Again, items, but these two skills give Troubadours some nice field utility, since they can be useful here and there to avoid FOE fights. And you'll want to avoid FOEs in this game for sure. It's pretty whatever though.
Once again, take it or leave it. It technically wastes less "FOE turns" compared to Luring, though it's easier to use as it stuns FOEs on the spot, and you won't have to worry about dodging them as they come towards you. But again, there are items to deal with that.
Crusade
BUGGED: DEF buff doesn't define what it works against, so does nothing.
Increases ATK, DEF and maximum HP of the entire party, in that order. Force skill, uses the Head.
Goddamn morons... Crusade is a pretty good skill, but the bug holds it back for a few reasons. It would be a great way of casting a greatly boosted Bravery and not have to think about using Shelter or Stamina, but because of the dead DEF buff, it's probably easier just using Bravery instead. Because of how the buffs are cast, any further buff you use will remove the ATK buff, so you can't stack this skill with Bravery, annoyingly, and it means the dead DEF buff that, again, does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, is in the middle and needs 2 other buffs to remove it, right pain. And of course this fills up the buff slots of the entire party, which can annoy some classes, while also making some bosses really not like your buffed face and thus punch it really hard. This skill is great for the ATK buff alone, but it has quite a few issues that hold it back.
Crusade seems powerful on paper, but there's quite a bit that makes it not as good as it seems. The bug makes 1/3rd of the skill a huge annoyance, as it basically does nothing other than shield you from defense debuffs. And the ATK buff is strong, but that's about all you're getting damage wise. Can't be stacked with other ATK buffs or even different buffs if you want something else. And the amount of buffs it gives causes certain bosses to go ballistic and smacking you down hard because you have too many buffs. Just be mindful about using this, because it'll also clear out any existing buffs on your party as well, especially if you had important defensives up like mists.
And that's the end of the album, Troubadours have their uses, mainly Bravery, and while they're not as good as last game, they can still contribute in many ways. Like Medics and Alchemists, they're very dependant on their Head and really don't do much outside of buffing, but they have some great utility and have a lot of freedom in SP as well as turns in battle. Since they weren't changed all that much, they're still pretty good, thank heavens.
The loss of Relaxing, their TP regeneration song, hurts, but overall Troubadours didn't get too many direct nerfs. They did get some indirect nerfs due to changes to enemy behaviours and other mechanics, but overall they're not really a bad class to stick into your party.