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Update 33: A Painful Career Change



Stella, are we really doing this? Wh-what about Ren?
As much as I would love to finish the job we left hanging back in the desert, should we really be leaving that girl alone in that state? From what you told us, it sounded dreadful...
I sent the other 3 to look after her. Dia should keep her steady for a while. I hope...
But uhh... The cheapskate? Really? Why help him out and not the people at Marlleaire?
Last I heard from them, Marlleaire should be holding out fine for a while longer, but I’m not sure if they can keep doing that. Unfortunately I haven’t been hearing the same from the southeastern region of this continent. Flame Eater’s probably making his move now!
Then we’ll help them out right after dealing with Flame Eater. And I’m kind of worried about the other people at that inn. Even if the owner himself is... rude.
I guess that’s that, then. We’ll just have to deal with these issues as fast as possible.



This was the party voted in for this mission. You may have noticed that Ark is on the front lines now. Oh there’s a good reason for that.

Hm? Something wrong, Ark?
I dunno... I guess I’m not really... I guess I dunno. Just not really feeling these bows anymore.
What do you mean by that?
I don’t feel like there’s much more I can really do with them, you know? No new tricks I can use or anything like that. And they’re kinda annoying to use! My arms get tired out every time I fire a shot from these things!
Mrm... Ah! If you’re feeling that way, why not try something new? Maybe all you need is some kind of change of pace. How about using a different weapon if bows aren’t working out for you?
You... ya really think that’s okay for me to do? I mean I’ve been using these bows for a long while now...
I don’t see why that can’t work out. I’d say it went over pretty well for me. I don’t regret tossing away those useless poisonous compounds. Oh!



I bought this as a little souvenir from that one village we went to. Maybe you can make use of it.
Hrm. It’s pretty sharp and pointy. I like. Heh heh! Sure, why not?



Let’s give this thing a whirl!

Oh yes, I’m swapping Ark off of Bows so she can be a Dagger Rogue. While both Sword Fighters and Axe Fighters have similar playstyles (so I won’t be swapping Stella to Swords in this LP), Dagger Rogues and Bow Rogues play completely differently!



Heh heh. I look pretty conniving with this baby!
I don’t think that’s something to be proud of...

Swordcraft is the mastery skill for this branch, providing an ATK boost to blade weapons, which are classified as both Swords and Daggers. You’ll really want to use Daggers on Rogues even though Swords work just fine with them.

Where Bow Rogues were essentially the equivalents of the Survivalist from Etrian Odyssey 1, and played as long ranged back row attackers, Dagger Rogues are more akin to the Dark Hunter class from EO1. They’re an attacking unit that can support the party by debilitating their opponent through the use of ailments.

Bow Rogues are a lot more straightforward and is the easier way to use the class. They just whip out a lot of damage without too many bells and whistles. Dagger Rogues on the other hand are capable of so much more if you use them right, but doing so requires a bit of setup. Not only that, they don’t have to deal with the accuracy penalties that come with using Bows, which is a nice thing to not have to worry about.

However, Swordcraft only follows the standard 130% multiplier scaling instead of scaling up to 154% like Bow Mastery does, so these weapons have a slight bit of an ATK disadvantage compared to Bows. At first glance anyways.



Let me take another stab at this.

Enter Skulldaggery, which you unlock at level 5 Swordcraft. What it does is provide an additional ATK boost if the Rogue is using a Dagger. This is why you want to use that weapon type, as it does not work with Swords at all. As for how powerful it is...



It’s very powerful! More than any other weapon mastery skill in the game! You’ll want to dump as much SP into this skill ASAP as it’s one of the few skills that has exponential scaling, so you really get a lot out of it at max level. This bonus is added onto Swordcraft’s multiplier, meaning that if both skills are at max level, Daggers get a 200% multiplier applied to their ATK stat! With Ark’s current weapon, that 85 ATK doubles to 170!

Swords and Daggers share the same icons, so it can be easy to get them mixed up, unfortunately. As for knowing which blade weapon is a Dagger, you can tell if a blade weapon is a Dagger if only the Rogue can equip it. If anyone else can equip it, it’s a Sword.



The night creeps in, and so do I.

Now let’s get into Ark’s new attacking skills. Tarantella is unlocked at Swordcraft level 1, and is a melee ATK-based skill that deals Thrust damage, and has a speed factor of 80. Its damage starts off at 120%, and caps out at 150%. All this applies to Scorpio and Vampire, though those are unlocked at Swordcraft level 3. Both Tarantella and Scorpio start out at an infliction rate of 30%, which eventually caps out at 75%. Vampire has a different effect, as it drains life depending on how much damage was dealt to the target, 15% to 50% of the damage dealt.

Tarantella inflicts Paralysis, which has a 30% chance to cancel the target’s turn, not 50% like it is in the EO series, while Scorpio inflicts Poison, which starts out dealing 13 damage, and caps out at 113.

As for which skill to go for, I prefer Tarantella if I’m not utilizing a Venom Boost strategy. Even if it’s a 30% chance, a 30% chance to deny an enemy their turn is still pretty big, while 113 Poison damage is rather pitiful without making use of Venom Boost. Not only that, but of the ailments in a Rogue’s toolkit, Paralysis is the least resisted of the bunch. All Dragons and bosses only have a 50% resistance to it, while bosses have a 25% resistance to Poison. And an ailment you can easily inflict very much matters for one of the Dagger Rogue’s skills.



Stay out of my way and maybe ya won’t get hurt, but I doubt it.

Painkiller is unlocked at reaching level 8 of Swordcraft and oh boy, this skill is a doozy. It’s a melee attack that deals Slash damage, and has a chance to inflict Masked Pain, and has a speed factor of 80. It deals 110% damage at level 1, and caps out at 135% damage at level 5. It starts off with an 80% infliction rate at level 1, and maximizes at 100% at level 5. And no enemy in the game aside from Bloom Seeds resist Masked Pain, so it’s always guaranteed to land at level 5, unless the enemy decides to guard on that turn, and even then there’s a 90% chance of inflicting it.

As for what Masked Pain is... I’ll get into that in a bit, as it’s a complex ailment that can’t really be explained within a few sentences. Oh and this ailment is exclusive to the Dagger Rogue. No other class or enemy in the game can inflict this.



What can I say? I’m a heartbreaker! Nyahahahahaaa!

Triple Kiss is a very powerful skill that relates to Masked Pain. You need Painkiller at level 3 to unlock it, and it has a speed factor of 70, making it one of the Rogue’s slowest skills. As for what it does, it heavily relates to Masked Pain, and I’ll start explaining that ailment now.





Yes, this will do nicely. I’ll set that Nutshell up as our testing dummy for this demonstration (as Rabis have a chance to run away.)



First off, Triple Kiss.





You can’t just use this skill straight away, as the attack will automatically miss if that’s the case.



Here’s where Painkiller comes in.



This won’t hurt. For a bit.





You’ll notice that the ailment icon is a 0 now. Masked Pain isn’t an ailment that does much on its own, as it doesn’t hinder the target in any way, and once it wears off...



What a dud!

It deals 0 damage.



However, inflicting an ailment while Masked Pain is in effect is where things get interesting.



A successful infliction won’t have the ailment apply its normal effects. Instead, it’ll increase the Pain Counter by 1.



Eugh. Could have done better.

When Masked Pain wears off in this case, it deals actual damage.

The damage is equal to [(Weapon ATK * (Swordcraft + Skulldaggery)) + POW] * Pain Counters.



You can also stack this up to 15 times.



BOOM! Aheeheeheeheeee!

The results are explosively bloody.

The damage isn’t randomized, and is completely untyped and is unaffected by damage multipliers. It also completely pierces the DEF stat, so it’s guaranteed to deal full damage there as well. Unfortunately, the damage from Masked Pain is completely unaffected by ATK buffs, as it just looks at the Rogue’s base stats and equipment. Act Natural won’t affect the damage here either. That being said, all this isn’t the only function of Masked Pain.





Going to use EX here to serve as a comparison point for a bit later.



When the Pain Counter is at 3 or above, it’ll allow for the Rogue to use Triple Kiss on that enemy. Which is a very hard hitting melee attack mind you. How hard does it hit?



Stab, stab, stab!





500% damage at max level! What the fuck!? Very few other skills even remotely compare to this one! The closest thing is a Knight using Knight’s Fury in a party with 3 unconscious Princesses. Which has a severe action economy problem. And several other potential high damage skills across the other classes also come with caveats that hold them back.

Not Triple Kiss though! The only downside to Triple Kiss is that it requires a bit of setup to use. Once the enemy has 3 Pain Counters on them, you can spam Triple Kiss until Masked Pain wears off. It won’t decrement the Pain Counter, nor will it cause Masked Pain to wear off sooner.

Oh but it gets better! Triple Kiss deals non-elemental damage, meaning that it cannot be resisted in any fashion! Not only that, as long as there are at least 3 Pain Counters on the enemy, the skill cannot miss! It skips the accuracy check entirely! If the enemy has at least 3 Pain Counters and hasn’t incapacitated the Rogue, there is no stopping that incoming pain train! Toss in EX for 1.5x more damage and have a monster on your hands! And since it’s an ATK-based attack, there’s no softcap holding this skill back like it would do the Mage! All this makes Dagger Rogues the best damage dealer in the game, without question. Nothing compares to how utterly nuts this class is!

And don’t forget, Rogues still have access to Act Natural. If a Samurai is in the party, that is an additional 140% multiplier applied to the damage output!

Ah, right. There is one more thing I’m forgetting.



Ecstasy Kiss. The EX skill with Falling Star you get from the dying soldier in Basho, or Jake on the Earthshaker mission.



The only requirement is that Painkiller is at level 5 to unlock this skill. This means that it costs a total of 18 SP to grab. Triple Kiss on the other hand, costs a whopping 26 SP to max out, so that is a pretty sizeable difference in SP cost there.



Ecstasy Kiss is pretty similar to Triple Kiss in several ways, having most of those benefits I listed in that spiel from a bit before. But one of the key differences is that you need 5 Pain Counters to use it instead of 3.





Let’s give it a whirl.



Wave goodbye ta yer spine, wanker!

And now we get to the sucky part.



The other difference is that Ecstasy Kiss only deals 400% damage instead of Triple Kiss’s 500%! And is harder to use to boot, since you need 2 extra Pain Counters to even use Ecstasy Kiss, making it more unreliable to set up.

There is the SP economical advantage I guess- oh wait. While Triple Kiss deals 500% damage at max level, it deals 400% damage at level 7. That means you only need 20 SP to get Triple Kiss to that point, resulting in Ecstasy Kiss only being more efficient than Triple Kiss by 2 SP instead of 8. And the only other benefit is that Ecstasy Kiss costs no MANA. But that’s not really enough to save Ecstasy Kiss from the garbage bin, as it’s pretty much agreed there’s no reason to use it when you can just use EX on Triple Kiss instead.

I’m really not even sure what’s the deal with Ecstasy Kiss either, as the 5 Pain Counter requirement is the big killer here, and not even dealing more damage makes it just about worse than Triple Kiss in almost every way. It has a speed factor of 100, so it’s faster than Triple Kiss, but that doesn’t matter when EX basically maximizes speed anyways. There are no other secondary effects either to give it an actual reason to be used, so I’m just about as confused as you are as to why this skill is so awful.



Oh and for comparison...





This is how much damage Nila does. With Concentrate and EX. So really, halve that down to 589 compared to Ark slamming an enemy for 1705 damage. (Which can be increased to 2387 damage if Act Natural was active.) And you know, there’s the ticking time bomb from the Masked Pain damage as well on top of that. Assuming the enemy lives for that long.

Heh. Just look at me now, gramps!
Ye gods...
Oh I’m pretty sure Ark’s one of them now. How they grow up so fast!

And some final things to cover about all this. Even if Masked Pain is currently in effect, the infliction rates from other ailments are still calculated normally. So you can’t just spam any random ailment from the party to easily increase the amount of Pain Counters. This is why Tarantella is really good to have, as it feeds into increasing the amount of Pain Counters a lot more.

Pseudo ailments such as Stun and the Wanted status don’t count for increasing the Pain Counters either, since they stack with the actual ailments.

If you’re worried about Masked Pain wearing off prematurely... don’t be. Masked Pain’s duration operates way differently from the other ailments. Where most ailments last for a random amount of turns, Masked Pain’s duration scales with the enemy’s level. The formula for this is Level / 10 + 2. The duration is capped to a minimum of 3 turns, and a maximum of 7 turns. This results in the duration of Masked Pain working like this:Masked Pain lasts longer the later in the game you are, meaning that you have plenty of time to rack up Pain Counters and go utterly ham with Triple Kiss. Sure you don’t get to utilize the actual damage from Masked Pain as often, but being able to use Triple Kiss more often and more reliably is a far better tradeoff.

Also, do not try to extend Masked Pain’s duration by casting Painkiller again! If the Pain Counter is at 0, then the game doesn’t even bother to try reinflicting the ailment. But if it’s at any other number, the duration will be set back to its maximum, but the Pain Counter will be reset back to 0 without even triggering the damage! Definitely not something you want to happen!

Granted Triple Kiss does have the weakness of not being entirely reliable. Even with 7 turns of setup, you could just get unlucky and not be able to inflict 3 Pain Counters in time to really spam Triple Kiss. It’s not like there’s a way to make things even more reliable on that front, right...? Eheheh. Anyways, on with the rest of the update.



Now that we’re properly powered up for this mission, let’s check out the encounters in the area around Doma Volcano.


Lost Soldier
Level: 52
LIFE: 340
ATK: 143
DEF: 81
INT: 55
SPD: 66
Attack Type: Blunt
Attributes: N/A
Exp: 971
Gold: 10
Item Drops:
-Normal: Stone Fragments - 30% Drop Rate.
--Tools of a Lost Soldier.
-Rare: N/A
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 100%

Skills:

Kiai: Applies an 115% multiplier to the user’s ATK for 5 turns. Has a speed factor of 80.
Rush Edge: Deals 130% melee ATK-based Blunt damage to one party member. Party members adjacent to the initial target take 60% damage instead. Has a speed factor of 90.

Not much to these guys. They’re hard hitters that like to power themselves up, then smack you with basic attacks or go in with Rush Edge.




Plant Rhino
Level: 52
LIFE: 440
ATK: 145
DEF: 85
INT: 50
SPD: 52
Attack Type: Blunt
Attributes: N/A
Exp: 1109
Gold: 52
Item Drops:
-Normal: Big Horn - 30% Drop Rate.
--Horn of a Plant Rhino.
-Rare: Pasture Meat - 15% Drop Rate. Don’t hit with Lightning damage at any point.
--Livestock meat. For carnivores. Increases status defense for the day.
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 50%

Skills:

Intimidate: 30% chance of inflicting Fear on the entire party. Has a speed factor of 80.
Headlong Charge: Deals 70% melee ATK-based Blunt damage to the entire party. Has a speed factor of 80.

A stronger version of the Rhino. It picked up Intimidate, but that shouldn’t be an issue since Fear only has a 30% chance to incapacitate party members. Also they have a conditional that requires you to... not smack them with a damage type they resist.





Hmm. So both of you want to die first, I see.

Nila doesn’t have the Skanda Cloak anymore as Edward needs it more, so she’s very fragile again.




Turquoise Fan
Level: 51
LIFE: 300
ATK: 136
DEF: 78
INT: 62
SPD: 54
Attack Type: Thrust
Attributes: N/A
Exp: 798
Gold: 80
Item Drops:
-Normal: Stiff Feather - 30% Drop Rate.
--Feather of a Turquoise Fan.
-Rare: Bird Meat - 15% Drop Rate. Don’t hit with Slash damage at any point.
--A bird's meat. For carnivores. Increases SPD & Max MANA for the day.
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Lightning: 100%

Skills:

Tempting Light: 30% chance of inflicting Charm on the entire party. Has a speed factor of 75.
Call for Help: Summons 1 Coldblood. Has a speed factor of 100.

Kill on sight! AOE Charm is especially deadly at this point in the game! Oh and they can also summon Coldbloods for some reason. No need to deal with reinforcements if you don’t have to, so that’s another reason to take them out first.




Stone Owl
Level: 51
LIFE: 250
ATK: 128
DEF: 76
INT: 76
SPD: 52
Attack Type: Thrust
Attributes: Small
Exp: 763
Gold: 51
Item Drops:
-Normal: Bird Feathers - 50% Drop Rate. 3 needed to unlock the Light Helm (+2 DEF, +2 SPD.) 100 needed for the quest Collect Bird Feathers!
--Soft down.
-Rare: Little Beak - 30% Drop Rate.
--Beak of a Stone Owl.
Damage Multipliers:
Slash: 100% Blunt: 100% Thrust: 100%
Fire: 50% Ice: 50% Lightning: 50%

Skills:

Subtle Curse: 30% chance of inflicting level 3 Curse (34% damage reflection) on the entire party. Has a speed factor of 75.
Forbidden Spell: Applies a 50% multiplier to everyone’s magical damage multipliers on the user’s side for 5 turns. Has a speed factor of 80.

Thankfully contrary to what their name might make you think, they don’t have ways to inflict Petrification. Instead they just opt to make make the enemies harder to kill.



Once you’re not underleveled, the encounters here aren’t really too bad to deal with. The only surprises are if you just come here as soon as possible, since they can wreck you through the power of sheer stats that way.



Now let’s get this mission started.





All that Bloom eliminated lowered the shop prices back to normal here. That doesn’t make some of these items less of a scam though.



Well, north in Doma Volcano, a new hole has appeared.

Er, that should be more along the lines of “I’ll open up the entrance.” since we were blocked off from going in there before.

Hurry and kill the Dragon!
Okay, but first. Do you happen to know of anything that could help us out in taking down the Imperial Dragon?
Information? I don't know! Ask around a little!
Um. Are you sure you don’t have anything else to help? Like how to navigate the volcano?



I'll sell you one for 4980 G. Not a penny less!



What- that’s as much as high quality equipment in some stores!
...I think we’ll be fine.
Then get out of here and get it done!
Those corners of the room look pretty flammable, don’t ya think?
Yes, but I think if we stuff those materials there, it should catch fire more easily. Oh and you should be able to throw that kunai at the vase from this angle...
Uh Stella? Considering how those two are behaving and from what we were told about this man before, I’m not sure why you thought it was a good idea to bring them along...
Mm~. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Edward. I just thought they were perfect for this job. And so far, nothing has changed my mind on that.



It can heal itself forever by absorbing the lava around it. It's reckless to fight against such a foe!
Hrm. Looks like he has the advantage here this time.
I wonder if there’s anything we can do about that.
I’m not sure if we can. I mean it sounds like we would have to completely shut down the volcano somehow-
Oh! You’re a genius, Edward!
Urk! Can you let go a bit? You’re crushing my shoulders. Oy. Why am I not surprised you’d try to kill a volcano after killing a mountain?
Ohoho! Well, advantage or not, most of us fought Flame Eater before, so there shouldn’t be too many more surprises. I think.

This is pretty much the only relevant piece of information. Let’s head on over to Doma Volcano now.



Oh yeah, if you’re using a Dagger Rogue (or your strategy is reliant on ailments in general), you’ll really want to make sure to clear as much of the Bloom around a dungeon as much as possible to increase the ailment multipliers of the dragons and bosses in there. A 130% multiplier increases odds quite a bit, and dealing with 65% ailment multipliers instead of 50% is a pretty big boon. More so if you have ways of increasing the chances of ailments landing, such as the Axe Fighter’s Status Down skill.







Jerk.
I’m sure we’ll be fine without any of Jen's help.



If you go straight ahead, you’ll run into a healing spring, so that should keep the party topped off while in this dungeon.











And if you keep going north, you’ll run right into Flame Eater.





Yeah, nothing is really stopping you from taking him on now. You can kill him here and clear out the Bloom instantly, and clear out the rest of Doma Volcano at your leisure. Or just hand in the mission report and be on your merry way.



He’s got the same tricks back at Devo Desert. However, there’s one wrinkle this version of the fight has.





What the!? Hey! Play fair, ya jerk!
I guess Stella was onto something after all about stopping the lava flow. Hmm...
Uh, don’t look at me! I can’t freeze all that! My spells aren’t that powerful.
There’s gotta be something we can do about that. Maybe we should have looked around the rest of the volcano first, eh heh. Um, TACTICAL RETREAT!

By the way, you can’t run from this fight. So once you’re in it, you’re forced to stick around until the end.

Flame Eater has 6000 LIFE in this version of the fight, so at the end of each turn, he’ll recover 5% of it. This is barely a setback for our party, and we could easily kill him now. And the same goes for most parties with a Mage. However, for parties that are made up of physical attackers or are mostly focused on defensive strategies, having 300 damage being undone per turn, along with Flame Veil pelting your party for additional damage can really slow the fight down. Especially if you have to heal up from all the damage your party will take during this fight constantly.

Fortunately the game provides an out if your party isn’t really capable of breaking through that regeneration. Which brings us to the main objective of this dungeon. Finding a way to stop the lava from healing Flame Eater. Do that, and Flame Eater won’t be able to regenerate from the lava anymore, allowing you to take him down at your leisure. Which we’ll do next time.