Part 1: Game Mechanics - Common Skills

Game Mechanics - Common Skills

In the Etrian Odyssey games, when a class levels up, not only do they get stronger stat wise, but they get an extra skill point to make use of. These skill points can be used to make a class learn a new skill, or to make one of their skills even stronger. Skills in EO2 need 1, 5, or 10 points to max out. Classes tend to have some skills that can be decent in the earlygame, but as the game goes on, having those skills tends to be a huge waste of skill points. Most classes have a really big damage skill that can be pretty helpful to have, and they tend to have some utility skills to make dungeon crawling a bit easier, or to help support the party in battle. Unfortunately, one of the big problems in the series is when leveling up a skill, the game doesn't tell you how much that skill gets better. When leveling up a skill, it could say that the damage increases, but it could be a 1% increase or a 10% increase for all you know. Some skills are also useless and it's a waste of skill points to even level those up. The series didn't get better about that until EO4.

HP Up

Max lvl: 10

1 - 2% Increase
2 - 4%
3 - 7%
4 - 10%
5 - 14%
6 - 21%
7 - 26%
8 - 31%
9 - 37%
10 - 45%

You can see right here how scaling can work for some skills. A few levels might not do much, but maxing it out gives you a lot more benefits. HP Up is a pretty nice stat to max out, as it can make tankier classes even tankier, and squishy classes less squishy.

TP Up

Max lvl: 10

1 - 2% Increase
2 - 4%
3 - 8%
4 - 14%
5 - 22%
6 - 32%
7 - 44%
8 - 58%
9 - 74%
10 - 92%

TP Up can be a good investment on any class, especially when their TP pool practically gets doubled at level 10. However, both HP Up and TP Up are skills you want to take later, rather than sooner due to how they scale. Doubling a 30 TP pool to around 60 in the early game isn't really impressive when it could go from 100 TP to around 200 later on.

STR/TEC/VIT/AGI/LUC Up

Max lvl: 10

A level in any of these increases that stat by 1, up to 10 points. Some of these stats are used as prerequisites, but if you want a class to be better in a certain area, you can pump up their stats to make them hit harder, be more sturdy, make them faster, or make sure that ailments are more likely to hit.

ESC Up

Max lvl: 1

The formula for escaping from battles is as follows:

Escape Chance = [10 * (AGI + LUC + 5) / (Enemy's Average AGI + Enemy's Average LUC + 5)]%

The numbers are rounded down after calculations. On average, this means fighting enemies of equal strength will give your around a 10% chance to escape from battle. Putting a point in ESC Up will increase the chance by 30% only for the classes that have this skill. Each failed escape attempt increases the escape chance by 10%, maxing out at 90%. A party that has everyone invest in this skill will have a high chance of escaping on the first or second turn if everyone attempts to escape.

Gathering Skills

Max lvl: 5

Each class has access to some gathering skills, which can be used at certain spots in the Labyrinth to get items. Listed below are the different gathering skills, and which classes can get them.

Chop

Alchemist, Dark Hunter, and War Magus.

Take

Medic, Troubadour, Hexer, and Gunner.

Mine

Landsknecht, Protector, and Ronin.

Survivalsts and Beasts are exceptions to this. A Survivalist has access to all the gathering skills, while a Beast only has one skill that lets you gather from all 3 different gathering points.