Part 8: Class Discussions - Landsknecht

Class Discussion - Landsknecht



The rest of the portraits
The EO1 class portraits.

Why are you using this class?

Why aren't you using a Ronin?

Anyways, known as Swordman in Japan, yes without the s, Landsknechts are front line fighters that are kind of a jack of all trades class in what they are capable of. Balanced offenses and defenses, and have some supporting abilities. They can be skilled in two ways, learning how to use swords for quick strikes and multi target damage. Or they can learn how to use axes to inflict status ailments and deal a great amount of damage to a single target. Some of their skills need the Landsknecht to know hot to use both swords and axes.

A popular way to build them in EO1 was to make them learn how to use both swords and axes, using swords for multi target damage, and axes for single targets, and changing the equipped weapon depending on the situation. They were pretty much the damage dealer of choice along with the Survivalist, and could clear out random encounters with ease.

Unfortunately, they didn't handle the transition to EO2 that well. Landsknechts got nerfed in this game, and they were one of the classes hit hardest along with the Survivalist. The TP costs on their skills got increased, and their damage output was lowered a bit. Not to mention they have to compete with the Ronin, who can do almost everything a Landsknecht can, but better. The only things Landsknechts have over Ronin are that they have stronger defenses, and they have access to the Chaser skills. Those can do some decent damage if a party is built around those, but actually setting up for those is a pretty questionable strategy.

Stats

Level 1
HP - 45
TP - 20
STR - 6
TEC - 5
VIT - 6
AGI - 5
LUC - 5

Level 70
HP - 515
TP - 117
STR - 58
TEC - 32
VIT - 58
AGI - 51
LUC - 35

For the record, I'm only including the stats below for completion’s sake. Reaching level 99 on any class is not an easy thing to do for reasons I'll cover later. It's probably best to ignore this, and when talking stat wise, I'll be referring to their level 70 stats.

Level 99
HP - 746
TP - 251
STR - 75
TEC - 49
VIT - 76
AGI - 70
LUC - 53

Landsknechts have all around balanced stats. If you decide to level up their stats, strength is one choice for increasing their physical damage. Their skills cost a lot of TP and they have pretty small TP pools, so increasing their TP may also be something you want to consider. Agility is also a good investment if you want them to move faster, or if you want to make use of their status effect skills.

Swords/Axes

Max lvl: 10

Both of these are prerequisite skills that just exist to unlock other skills. At level 1 they give a 2% boost to sword and axe skills, respectively. And at level 10 they give a 11% boost to damage. It should be noted that using a sword as a weapon gives a boost in speed, while using an axe will slow down its wielder. Because of that and other reasons, the sword skills are better than the axe skills.

Counter

Needs lvl. 8 Swords and Axes
Max lvl: 5

This skill is a passive that lets the Landsknecht counter physical attacks from enemies. At level 1 it has a 15% chance to counter and hits the enemy with 50% of the damage taken. At level 5 it has a 35% chance to counter and hits back with 100% of the damage they took.

Not a skill I would probably invest in unless there's nowhere else to make use of their skill points. It's more of a nice thing to have, rather than anything vital.

An interesting thing to note about this skill, is that even if the Protector's Force Skill, or any other skill that can block any damage a Landsknecht takes is used, this skill can still proc and counter the enemy with the damage they would have taken otherwise.

2-Hit

Needs lvl. 5 Swords and Axes
Max lvl: 5

This is a passive skill that gives normal attacks have a chance of hitting twice. This does not apply to skills. At level 1 it gives a 5% chance of hitting twice. At level 5 it gives a 13% chance, and at level 10 it gives a 35% chance of hitting twice.

Again, not a skill I would take unless there's nothing else to level up. It is kind of nice to have and can save the Landsknecht some TP in regular encounters.

Cleaver

Needs lvl. 1 Swords
Max lvl: 10

This is a pretty basic damage skill. At level 1 it costs 3 TP and increases by 1 per level, and costs 12 TP at level 10 and has a 220% damage modifier, and a 190% speed modifier.

Tornado

Needs lvl. 3 Swords
Max lvl: 10

Another damaging skill, but it deals slightly less than Cleaver at level 10 with a 210% modifier instead of 220%. But it has a splashing effect, and hits enemies adjacent to the main target for 100% instead of 210%. It only costs 13 TP at 10, so this skill is probably the better investment. It does have a 140% speed modifier instead, so that's something to consider if you want to take this skill over Cleaver.

Allslash

Needs lvl. 5 Swords
Max lvl: 10

This used to be the skill to rush towards in EO1 since it could shred random encounters and was pretty much guaranteed to shred 3 monster mobs at level 10. Unfortunately, this skill got several nerfs, making it pretty much useless. The TP cost starts at 8 and increases by 1 per level. At level 10 this skill has a 150% damage modifier and costs 17 TP, and can strike 2 to 4 enemies in a battle. For comparison, in the first game, this skill had a 190% damage modifier and could strike 3-4 enemies in battle at level 10. Ouch. Yeah, just ignore this skill. The low damage isn't really worth it, and it'll eat up a huge chunk of your TP pool for a majority of the game. Tornado is probably the better skill to go with for clearing out random encounters. Though something that did change from EO1 is that it has a chance of striking the same enemy again, so that's something to consider if you insist on taking this skill.

Hypercut

Needs lvl. 5 Swords + lvl. 1 AGI Up
Max lvl: 5

Another damaging skill, but it has a really high speed modifier. If you took any of the other sword skills, there's pretty much little point in taking this one. It deals 200% damage at max level, costs 12 TP, and has a speed modifier of 290%. If you already have another sword skill maxed all this does is ensure that you attack before the enemy. If speed really is an issue, go ahead and level up this skill if you want, but this skill is kind of redundant in my opinion.

Riskcut

Needs lvl. 7 Swords
Max lvl: 5

This is a damage skill that gets stronger as the Landsknecht loses HP. It costs 4 TP at level 1, and 12 TP at level 5. It deals 150% damage if the Landsknecht is above 50% health, and 180% damage if the Landsknecht is below that.

Considering that the Landsknecht has a bunch of other sword skills that deal a decent amount of damage, more than this skill even, I don't really see the point of taking this skill at all. Again, ignore.

Deathaxe

Needs lvl. 1 Axes
Max lvl: 10

A really basic axe attack. At level 1 it costs 3 TP. Each level increases the TP cost by 1, and at level 10 it costs 12 TP, and does 230% damage, just slightly more than a sword skill. You might want to skip out on this skill since a couple of the later axe skills make this one redundant.

Silencer

Needs lvl. 3 Axes
Max lvl: 10

This skill has a chance to bind an enemy's head. It deals the same amount of damage as Deathaxe at level 10, but costs 13 TP at that level. It has a 60% chance to bind at level 10. This skill could be nice if you wanted a way to bind enemy heads, but the thing to be aware of is that Landsknechts have low luck, which doesn't help with inflicting ailments like these.

Brawn

Needs lvl. 5 Axes + lvl. 1 STR Up
Max lvl: 5

At max level this skill deals 258% damage, but it will always go last. It does more damage than all the other axe skills, but it's pretty risky to use. Know the risks of taking this skill.

Lifeaxe

Needs lvl. 5 Axes
Max lvl: 5

The opposite skill of Riskcut. It deals more damage the higher your HP is. It can deal a maximum of 210% damage. Which is less than most of the other axe skills and only gets worse as the Landsknecht takes damage. Another useless skill.

Stunner

Needs lvl. 7 Axes
Max lvl: 10

This skill has a chance to stun the enemy it strikes. It starts off costing 9 TP and has a 5% chance to stun the target, and the chance increases to 95% at level 10, and deals 230% damage. This skill may sound good on paper, but it's pretty useless in practice. Stuns don't carry over to the next turn, so this skill has to go first to get the most out of it, and using axes slow down the Landsknecht a lot. Not to mention their luck is a bit low. So this skill needs a lot of investment to even be a bit worthwhile, maxing out AGI and LUC is pretty much necessary for this. The thing that makes this skill even worse is that bosses are heavily resistant to status ailments, to the point where they reduce the chances of a status ailment landing down to 10-30% of the normal value. Honestly I would probably ignore this skill too.

Blazer/Freezer/Shocker

Needs lvl. 5 Swords and Axes
Max lvl: 5

These skills are unique to Landsknechts, and probably the main reason to use them if you insist on using one over a Ronin. These skills let Landsknechts deal elemental damage to any enemy on the screen, but only if the enemies get hit with the right elemental attacks. In EO1 these were exclusive to sword Landsknechts, but now in EO2 axe Landsknechts can use them too. Blazer will only activate if an enemy got hit with a Fire attack, and so on and so forth. These skills are purely elemental, so it's not like Freezer is Ice/Slashing (crushing if using an axe) damage.

The way these skills work is that a Landsknecht will prepare to use the chaser of your choice at the start of a turn. Once an enemy is hit with the corresponding element of your chaser, the Landsknecht will strike the enemy. This can activate multiple times, and can activate up to 7 times at level 5 if you're lucky. At level 1 it costs 6 TP, but the chaser will only proc once. Each time a chaser skill activates, the chance of it happening again goes down. The chance reduction is 100% at level 1, meaning that the skill can only proc once, and each level reduces the chance of a chaser not activating by 21% and increases the TP cost by 2. Meaning at level 5, chaser skills have a 16% chance to not activate per chase. The skills also cost 14 TP each at that level.

War Cry

Needs lvl. 1 STR Up
Max lvl: 5

War Cry provides an attack buff to the Landsknecht at the cost of them taking more damage. It costs 5 TP at level 1 and decreases to 1 at level 5. At level 1 it increases attack by 10% and no extra damage is taken, while at level 5 it increases damage by 70% and causes the Landsknecht to take an extra 50% damage while the buff is active. Pretty risky to use, but if you're gonna take this skill, it's just best to max it out since the damage boost is pretty big at level 5.

Unbound

Max lvl: 5

This was known in EO1 as a really terrible skill called Arm Heal. All it did was unbind the Landsknecht's arms, and only 3 of the 10 levels did anything, and that was reduce the TP cost. Here it actually got changed into something useful. It removes up to 3 bindings on any party member. At level 1 and 2 it removes one binding and costs 3 TP. 3 and 4 reduces the TP cost to 2 and removes 2 bindings, and level 5 reduces the TP cost to 1 and removes 3 bindings. I wouldn't level this up all the way to 5. Level 3 Unbound is going to be enough for most of the game, and the situations where a party member gets completely bound are rare. And generally in those situations you'll want to use a Therica AX instead of a single target unbinding skill.

Gathering Skill: Mine

Force Skill: All-Out

Slashes all enemies on the screen for a huge amount of damage. Unlike Issen, it doesn't have any additional effects.

One of the main problems with Landsknechts is that their damage output is really low, and it doesn't help that their axe skills are pretty much useless. A skill that has a damage modifier of around 200% would be pretty powerful in EO1. But in EO2, most of the offensive classes have skills that have damage modifiers that can deal around 400%. Landsknechts don't really have any big damage skills aside from Brawn. Which means that other offensive classes such as Ronin, Dark Hunters, and Gunners overshadow them. The only way Landsknechts can really dish out a lot of damage is if they make good use of their chaser skills, which pretty much requires you to build a party specifically to make use of that. Overall this is a class that's not really worth using, and is dead weight in the post game.