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Ronin



Can equip: Katanas, Swords, Light Armor, Clothing

With their folded blade of hanzo steel and other such surface level references, Ronin return with a real bang. In the last game, they were an unlockable class and had a few issues, only really useful against one enemy at a time, had to spend every 4th turn reapplying their stance, and being pretty inferior to the Landy. In this game most of these issues are basically gone, their stances are passives now, but that's what kept them mostly in check. Ronins are one of the most busted classes in this game, able to use their powerful attacks without setting up, have new skills that let them cleave through groups of enemies with little issues, and due to the Landy being hot garbage, they have practically no competition, so using them is super easy. They were fun last game, but they're freaking busted this game, and I cannot wait to use one!

Ronin got some super hefty buffs going into this game. Enough to skyrocket them into overpowered territory to be honest. One of the main weaknesses holding them back was their stance system. Instead of opting to rebalance it, Atlus just scrapped it entirely. The Ronin can now use every skill in their arsenal without any restrictions whatsoever, making them able to use their overwhelming offenses from the get-go. So what makes the Landsknecht and Ronin stand out from each other? Not much. In fact the Ronin in this game is straight up a better version of the Landsknecht. Almost everything the Landsknecht can do, the Ronin can do better. It's really sad on the Landsknecht's end, but the Ronin is pretty much one of the most reliable front line fighters to put into your party.

Incidentally, this class is by far the glitchiest class in the game in the Japanese version. Fortunately most of these bugs were fixed by the time the game was localized, but not all of them.



Ronin have very similar stats to the first game, though took a hit in some in the level 70 comparison. The main one, STR, remains the same, which is the important part, and they even got a very slight buff to TP. It's TEC and LUC that took the biggest hits, but oh no what a shame. Their HP and VIT are comparable, so they're still pretty fragile, but their other various buffs more than make up for it.

Common Passive Unlocks

STR Up: Lv1: Dead Law; Lv5: Clarity
AGI Up: Lv8: Shiraha
LUC Up: Lv8: Shiraha

A few more passives compared to the pretty linear Troubadour, but similarly a Ronin will have a fair few SP since, like usual, only Overhead is the path worth a damn. It's definitely worth getting both Clarity and Shiraha since it'll make your Ronin waaaaaaaaaay more survivable, and a focus into STR Up doesn't hurt. Shiraha unfortunately takes a bit of time, but since your skills are pretty strong, it can be worth heading to it midgame, it's just nice to have. Dead Law is a great damage boost, but also unnecessary if you're running a Troubadour or War Magus. Nothing wrong with stacking Atk buffs though.

STR Up is pretty much the biggest must have since they're a damage dealing class. Their defenses may seem rather frail, but don't worry too much about it. The Ronin is a lot more sturdy than it seems. In fact if you build them right, they're not even remotely a glass cannon at all, so don't worry too much about buffing up their VIT or TEC. Their TP pool is really tiny, so they'll appreciate TP Up once you get all of their important skills. Which there aren't that many of, admittedly.

Shiraha
Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv8, LUC Up Lv8
Chance to nullify a single enemy attack. Unaffected by evasion and other stats. Passive.


Alright, first skill up is a real doozy. Shiraha can be pretty amazing... when it works. And work it probably will, 30% is a pretty good chance to completely ignore a specific attack and will definitely be noticeable when it does work. It'll take quite a bit to actually get to, those aren't cheap prerequisites, but as enemies get stronger, this will be invaluable in making sure your Ronin won't get pasted. Uh, if it works. Still, because this is a completely separate check to evasion, this gives the Ronin two chances at dodging an attack, very worthwhile. Later.

Hoo boy! Shiraha is one of the reasons I said the Ronin was not as fragile as it looked. A 30% chance to nullify any damaging attack is huge for the Ronin. It's the kind of thing you'd expect to see on a tank class instead of an attacker. (In the later games, it's the tank class that gets access to this kind of passive.) And on an attacker, it really increases their lifespan so much more. Not only that, it works with evasion, so the Ronin essentially gets 2 chances to dodge an attack entirely, which is just completely nuts. Definitely a must have pickup after they've picked up their most important skills first.

A max level Shiraha is pretty much a 43%~ increase to their base HP, which is just nuts. I did say that Ronin were a lot more sturdy than they seemed. Another benefit about Shiraha is that evasion boosts doesn't really work on attacks that have extremely high accuracy. Shiraha does, so it's a more reliable form of defense for the Ronin. Still, due to the steep prerequisites, I'd recommend picking this up after you pick up Clarity.

Overhead/Seigan/Iai
Overhead Unlocks: Lv1: Zamba; Lv5: Orochi; Lv7: Kienzan; Lv10: Midareba
Seigan Unlocks: Lv1: Koteuchi; Lv3: Getsuei; Lv5: Raizuki; Lv7: Minakata
Iai Unlocks: Lv1: Kubuichi; Lv3: Nukeuchi; Lv5: Hyosetsu; Lv7: Hosoyuki
Increases damage done by Overhead/Seigan/Iai skills. Passive.


We're back to the main reason to use Ronin, this time around the stances are completely passive, instead boosting their unlocked skills by an alright amount. Like before, we'll go into the positives and negatives of each stance and see- oh Overhead is the best. Again. Now each stance has an equal boost this time, as well as equal strength in their elemental attacks, so we have to see which of the regular skills in a stance tree is the best and, as per usual, it's Midareba. Notice this time that you need to invest more into Overhead to get all its skills and that Seigan and Iai don't have an equivalent L10 skill. That's their main issue, Midareba completely crushes the next best skills in Getsuei and Nukechi, so there's never any reason to use them. And the passive buff helps Midareba even more because it gets boosted for each of its three hits!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, you could go the other stances, but the only reason to do so is because of their elemental attacks. Now, if you wanted, you could invest in all 3 trees to get all 3 elemental slashes, but then you wouldn't have enough SP for anything else. It's nice that the three stances were all balanced in some way, but because they're now so similar, Overhead only needs a slight advantage to make the other two completely pointless, more so than last game! It's a funny world, but even the other skills in the Seigan and Iai trees just aren't that useful compared to the raw damage Midareba dishes out, you have other party members for being weird, so there's really no contest. Regardless of having to max out Overhead, because you need to get to level 7 for the multi target elementals, having to max out Overhead is a moot point anyway, you're close enough in all three stances that you could just finish it off!

In the first game, the stances were active buffs you had to set up to use a certain set of skills. Here, they've been converted to masteries, which pretty much unshackled the demon known as Ronin, and let them go on a rampage in the Yggdrasil Labyrinth completely unimpeded. In fact, with the stance system gone, you could theoretically mix and match stance skills, something that's almost impossible or just a hassle in most EO games featuring the Ronin. However, this isn't as good as it sounds, as Overhead is the only branch that has worthwhile skills. The other 2 stances don't really have any must haves, and spreading out your class too thin just makes a unit that can do anything, but isn't good at any of it. Which is not what you want in a post-EO1 title.

Katana Mastery
Applies the highest level stance to regular katana attacks, Sayageki and Issen. Hidden Passive.
BUGGED: Checks for Healer and War Lore instead of the stance skills so does nothing.


Oh EO2, how I love you... this is the first, and only, hidden passive in the game, level up your stances, and your regular attacks, along with a couple others, would also get that boost. Would've been neat, but it doesn't work in any version, so you'd never know you were missing out. It's not a big deal, since you hit hard enough with regular attacks anyway, Sayageki is a bad skill you should never use, and Issen has plenty of damage already. More would've been nice, but such is life, we can't choose what is and isn't bugged in this stupid good game.

And here's one of the bugs that the localization missed. Whoops. And since the Ronin doesn't have access to those skills, those 3 skills miss out on the 11% damage boost. What a shame.

Clarity
Prerequisites: STR Up Lv5
Increases the user's evasion depending on user's HP. Passive.


Well STR Up is pretty nice, so why not? Combine this with Shiraha and you'll have a Ronin that can become very good at dodging hits. Of course you won't be able to make use of both until much later, but you have SP to spare, so this lets your Ronin do their job with not much issue. Though, since they take a lot of damage when they do get hit, you might skip a few steps, or just die, so those low HP numbers probably won't see much use, especially if you want to keep them as healthy as possible. Even at max health, a 24% boost is still damn good, so it's definitely an option when you've got your standard attacks set up.

After you've picked up the Ronin's attacking skills, consider taking this amazing passive defensive. At max level it starts you off with 24% evasion at full HP, which is already nuts. That provides 31.6% more effective HP. If you combine that with a max level Shiraha, they'll essentially have 88%~ more effective HP, which is nuts. Clarity should probably be what you pick up first before Shiraha, as it's just an easier skill to build into. And this skill is more likely to save your Ronin the more they're in danger too, which is just a great benefit, and makes the Ronin really hard to take down. The only downside is that some enemy attacks have high enough accuracy to the point where they can bypass any form of evasion, but thankfully there aren't too many of those.

Because this skill is an evasion boost, avoid taking this in the Japanese version, as it makes your Ronin's accuracy considerably worse as their HP drops.

Sayageki
A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Bash damage, uses the Arms.


Our first offensive skill is... boring as fuck. This is meant to be a skill to use before you have anything else, I guess? The Bash damage is basically meaningless since there's 2 enemies in the whole game weak to it and while it's slightly faster than most katana skills, that doesn't really cut it! Pun not intended. And you can very easily dive straight for a useful skill with this class by getting Orochi by level 4. You might not even finish the first floor before then, this skill is completely useless, so completely ignore it.

Sayageki is a basic attacking skill. Except you really don't need it because it's so weak, and a bit of patience will net you better attacking skills for your Ronin to use. Hard pass.

There was an equivalent skill in the previous game which allowed the Ronin to attack from the get-go without setting up a stance. Except the stance system isn't even in this game, making this game's counterpart to that skill completely and utterly useless.

Zamba
Prerequisites: Overhead Lv1
A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.


Oh I suppose this skill exists, even if I haven't mentioned it. I guess you could put one point into this so all your attacks early on aren't Fire based, but it's also similarly pointless when you can go straight for Orochi. This does do more damage than Orochi initially, but you'll be maxing that skill out instead of this one, depends if you want to save the single SP or not. I'll do that just for the heck of it, but this isn't the worst skill? Moving on...

It's another basic attacking skill. But I'd avoid making use of this for now, as the only benefit it has over their best attacking skill is that it can be picked up a lot earlier.

Midareba
Prerequisites: Overhead Lv10, Dead Law Lv5
A single target Katana attack that hits 2-3 times. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.


Guess who's back. Back again. Midareba's back, slice a friend. This skill takes a while to get to, but it's what you were going to get anyway, and Orochi and Kienzan will do you just fine until then. When you do get this skill, you'll then cleave everything in your path because of how STUPID GOOD this skill is. The exponential curve of EO2 blesses this skill with a crazy power up towards the end, going from 232% damage at level 8 to 264% damage to 420% what the fuck were they thinking. This is why Overhead blows the other two stances completely out of the water. Again. Remember the three hits each get boosted by Overhead's passive, to 33%, and since you just got Dead Law to max level for this skill, add another 30% on top of that. It's so STUPID GOOD and that's why this game is so STUPID GOOD. And you wonder why we were so harsh on the Landy...

Pretty much the best damage option for a Ronin period. The only reason not to use this is because the enemy you're fighting is resistant to Cut attacks, or you're just doing some sort of challenge run. Or you're out of TP. No other damage option the Ronin has really compares, and this just lets them tear through everything in the Labyrinth with ease! Easily one of the strongest non-conditional damage skills in the entire game, and this alone just makes the Ronin a broken class.

Also in the last game, multihit skills were slightly weaker than single hit skills due to how the damage formula worked. No longer the case in this game due to a reworked damage formula, so it's just straight up 420% damage with little drawbacks. The only drawback being is that there's more accuracy checks, though that shouldn't matter too much with the Ronin.

Koteuchi
Prerequisites: Seigan Lv3
Unlocks: Lv5: Getsuei
A single target Katana attack that has a chance to inflict Arm Bind. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.


And now we come crashing back down to ground level. Because Seigan doesn't have the boosted DEF or Iai doesn't have boosted... AGI, it's a struggle to recommend them over Overhead when they're now so similar, and skills like these don't help. With Ronin's piss poor LUC, what are you trying to do with this skill? Like, I get it, every skill can't be all damage all the time, but the Ronin REALLY can't do anything else and trying to do otherwise is pretty rough. There are like 5 other classes that can land binds, for the love of god use them instead.

You know what's better than a disabled enemy? A dead enemy. Koteuchi is really hard to even recommend, cause binds are a lot harder to land in this game, and there's a sizeable prerequisite in place. Also you can't even settle for a low level version due to the game's exponential scaling in skill design. Not to mention that the Ronin's LUC stat isn't great, tanking the usefulness of this skill further. Most of the defensive parts of the Seigan stance shifted over to Shiraha and Clarity instead, so use those if you want your Ronin to be more sturdy.

In the Japanese version of the game, this skill wasn't worth taking at all because it was bugged to not be able to inflict arm binds at all.

Getsuei
Prerequisites: Seigan Lv3; Koteuchi Lv5
A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.


Oh yeah, these last two skills deal Stab damage instead of Cut damage, that doesn't matter, there's a dedicated Stab skill in the Iai tree that does more damage and even that doesn't matter, we'll get to that later. In any case, what does this skill do? Well it's fast. And that's it. Ronin are kinda slow with their speed modifiers, but it's not really that much of an issue, honestly, so a fast skill that does mediocre damage does nothing for them. You can use this to snipe Stab weak enemies, and there are a lot of them, but not only do you need to invest in the godawful Koteuchi to learn this one, but they're completely outclassed by Nukechi, as well as, you guessed it, Midareba.

Well uhhh, it's a fast attacking skill. That's about all there is to it. While Ronin aren't exactly fast, they aren't slow either, so the usefulness of this skill isn't too great, unless you desperately need to snipe something, which shouldn't come up too often. Also the steep prerequisites make it a very unattractive option to pick up on the side for even that purpose unless you plan on making Seigan your main stance.

Now in Sekaiju no Meikyuu II, this skill was broken. And was pretty much the main selling point of the Seigan Stance. The reason Koteuchi couldn't inflict arm bind was that they accidentally set the "can inflict arm bind" flag on this skill instead! This game also has a failsafe where any value set to 0 is automatically set to 100. And since this skill doesn't have an infliction rate baked in, it was set to 0, which got corrected to 100, giving this skill a base 100% chance to inflict arm bind. As a result, it was the most reliable source of arm bind in the game, and super fast too, binding enemies before they can even act. Since the infliction rate is set to 100% at all levels, you can spam this skill from level 1 to disable FOEs and bosses almost instantly wthin a few tries, locking them out of arm skills, and also considerably lowering the damage output of their physical attacks.

Sometimes there is a lot to mention with the much buggier Japanese version, but it's something I'll leave to Arax since, well, I don't remember too much otherwise, and also it'll never come up in the LP, so whatever. It's very entertaining to hear how wonky the Ronin was in that version, but it's just some neat trivia as far as I can mention it in any way.

Kubuichi
Prerequisites: Iai Lv1
Unlocks: Lv5: Nukechi
A single target Katana attack that attempts to inflict Instant Death. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.


Hello old friend, this was the only real reason to go into the Iai tree last game if you didn't fancy with Climax shenanigans, and it was pretty cheap so it was whatever, you only needed it once. It's much the same in this game, except it's quite a bit worse. Again, Ronin's LUC is shiiiiiiiit and also Climax is FUCKING INSANE, so unless you're not running the best FOE deleter in the series, this skill is completely and utterly worthless. Also just use Issen, but also don't use Issen because it's also not that effective, so I dunno man. But hey, at least you'll max it out to unlock the next skill. Great...

In the previous game, it had a rather niche use of being one of the few forms of crowd control the Ronin had since they lacked AOE attacks. That's no longer the case in this game, so that use poofed out the window. As a form of instant death, it's not too great and is weaker than Climax. Granted if you lack a Dark Hunter, I suppose this might be your only way to get certain conditional drops though do be aware it will take a lot of tries on average for this to proc against those enemies, even at max level and a lot of LUC.

Nukechi
Prerequisites: Iai Lv3, Kubuichi Lv5
A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.


Here it is, the big important Stab skill that does a lot of damage. Now, granted, there are quite a few enemies in the game with a 150% Stab weakness. So at max level this skill does 405% damage, which is... that's right, less damage than max level Midareba! Not a single other regular skill outdamages it, no matter the circumstances, unless there's a Cut resistant Stab weak enemy I don't know about. It's likely, but it's still so whatever. So do the other stance trees have anything, ANYTHING AT ALL over Overhead?

Well it's the strongest skill in the Iai tree, but even at its best it doesn't outdamage Midareba. Only reason to take this is if you decide to make Iai your main stance for whatever reason. Also not that many enemies are weak to stab, so you're going to be smacking for 270% or less damage most of the time. There's only one FOE in the entire game where this can possibly outdamage Midareba, but the damage difference isn't that much.

Orochi/Raizuki/Hyosetsu
Prerequisites: Overhead/Seigan/Iai Lv5
Unlocks: Lv5: Kienzan/Minakata/Hosoyuki
A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Fire+Cut/Volt+Stab/Ice+Cut damage, uses the Arms.


No, the other stances do not have anything over Overhead, because Fire is the best overall element to use. Now the single target versions are pretty okay, you'll max these out to get to the group wide attacks, but for single target weakness, they're pretty damn good. Of course, since you're getting Midareba, you might as well get Orochi along the way and it just so happens that more enemies are weak to Fire than they are any other element AND they are resisted the least out of the three, though Volt is a very close second. I don't think it was intentional, but there's no reason to take another element aside from Fire, it'll do you the best out of them and it's the one you were investing in anyway, bonus! Now since the elements and the associated stances are otherwise equal, there's no reason you can't take them, they will work just as well, the Volt ones also deal Stab damage for... some reason, but the whole reason you're doing this is for Midareba and for crowd control with Kienzan, so might as well.

Now Midareba won't work on everything since some things are really resistant or immune to Cut damage. That's what these skills are for. They provide additional coverage for the Ronin just so they aren't stuck twiddling their thumbs when using Midareba just isn't an option. As for which skill to go with, Orochi is the easiest option as if you have Midareba, Orochi costs the least amount of SP to pick up. Picking up the other elemental skills would be nice, but Fire already has a ton of places it can strike a weakness, and all of the other stances require a rather steep SP cost, which is the only reason we're not clamouring for you to pick up all of these skills. If you're not making use of Overhead, I'd say to pick up the respective elemental in your chosen stance mastery.

Kienzan/Minakata/Hosoyuki
Prerequisites: Overhead/Seigan/Iai Lv7, Orochi/Raizuki/Hyosetsu Lv5
A multi target Katana attack. Katana skill with Fire+Cut/Volt+Stab/Ice+Cut damage, uses the Arms.


Now for something much needed, Ronin had zero crowd control last game, so this is a way for them to become ridiculously overpowered, since these skills start weak, but then quickly ramp up into pretty powerful mob killers. It seems Atlus looked at every weakness Ronins had and decided to fix pretty much all of them and oh whoops now they're busted, who could've seen that coming. It takes a bit of investment but these skills are well worth it and all three are pretty effective, though of course we've been focusing on Overhead and thus Kienzan. Just add it to the pile of great skills you should max out, and the fact they're only 5SP is even better. Right, onto the next great skill.

And even though stances are no longer holding them back for random encounters, Atlus decided to go ahead and patch up another weakness they had while they were at it. These skills can easily clear out most random encounters in the game easily, pretty much making them a non-issue when you pick one of these up. With the Overhead stance, Kienzan is pretty much the skill of choice here since these skills have very steep prerequisites, and it's easier to build into, and Fire is just a really good element in general. Otherwise, just go with the AOE tied to your chosen stance. It's really not feasible to pick all of these up, nor is it even necessary. Just letting your Ronin have AOE in the first place is already a huge boost to their contributions to Labyrinth explorations.

Dead Law
Prerequisites: STR Up Lv1
Unlocks: Lv5: Midareba
Increases the user's ATK and decreases the user's DEF for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.


So on your way to Midareba, hey might as well pick this up. It's a nice damage boost even if it makes the Ronin way more fragile, not exactly what you want. But with proper defensive team support, this turns the Ronin into even more of a monster. Of course, because there are other, less suicidal ATK boosting methods in this game, it might be best to ignore it, but since you'll max it out for the best skill in the kit, you can use it every now and then. Shouldn't hurt, right?

Dead Law isn't a great skill, as it only slightly increases their damage at the cost of making them more fragile. The overall damage boost comes out to -12%/-10.4%/-7.2%/-2.4%/4%. Yeah that's right, the first 4 levels are an overall damage loss, and the last level is a very marginal increase. At best it's a TP saver, and whether the decreased defenses are worth saving that much TP is up to you.

Issen
A single target Katana attack that attempts to inflict Instant Death. Force skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.


To top this dumb as hell class off, it's a skill stronger than Midareba! That's about its only real use, as its ID chance is pretty mediocre, it's less than a max level Kubuichi even! So you'll be using this skill to throw out a big hit on Bosses who won't really care about the side effect, might as well, and maybe if you're feeling spicy and happen to have it, you'll use it to try and kill something. Again, it's nice but it's pretty boring and you should just use Climax anyway.

It's stronger than the rest of their damage options and that's about it. Throw it out whenever it's up. The instant death component is kind of a non-factor in big fights and if you're trying to go for instant death conditionals on bosses... there are far better options, such as the Dark Hunter's Climax. Or even Kubuichi because this being a Force skill makes it impossible to spam.

And that's how not to balance a class, Ronin are so STUPID GOOD and I love them. Overhead is yet again the unanimous choice to go for, Midareba is a dumb skill and everything else just kinda falls into place. Ronin are super busted in this game, their single target damage is undisputed and their crowd control and general skillset is top notch. Sure most of their skills are completely pointless, but I guess that's how Ronin work. They do have some use I guess, but Midareba is just so ridiculously oppressive that it doesn't matter. They can be squishy and they're useless after an Arm Bind, but Ronin are by far one of the best classes in the game. But there's a class that's even dumber, even more busted, and they rose from the ashes of the previous game to shit all over this stupid good game.

This is pretty much a textbook example of overbuffing a class by getting rid of every single aspect that made it bad in the last game. The result is that a mediocre class became an incredibly overpowered demon, as the Ronin is the most powerful and reliable straightforward damage class in the entire game. Of course if we're talking conditional damage classes, there are even more busted classes, such as the Dark Hunter, and one other class that's easily one of the most broken classes in the entire series!