Etrian Odyssey Untold : Diary 4

 This time is about Gladsheim Aea 3 and Floors 16-20.

Gladsheim Area 3. Compared to the previous area, it is not as eventful.
The area's setting is that because of time and decay, paths have been blocked and you need to find the right way, but to be honest, it generally feels the same as most floors inside the world tree floors.

The FOE of this area, the Feasting King.

A different coloring of the Alligator(?) FOE. In general, fighting this guy is similar to fighting the similar purple version. However, this one's skill seems to hit the entire party?

Movement: He stays in one spot until you get near him and then he notices you. Upon notice, he chances you until you get far enough away. 

Once he stops after moving, he becomes visually tired and will cease to move for several turns.

I believe you can use this opening to slip past, but I generally just defeated them as I went.

The boss of Area 3, Gud An Na.

He kind of looks like the pure brute force type of boss, but unfortunately, he is not. Of course, he does have plenty of powerful physical attacks, but those attacks also cause binding or paralysis.
On top of that, he has a skill that lowers your defenses and curses you as well as an attack that increases his attack. Obviously, if you leave that alone, even his more basic attacks will kill.
The key is to avoid his Electric skill, which does heavy damage to your entire party. He uses it on the first turn and every 4 turns afterwards. The problem is that sometimes, he will use it one turn earlier, making him a bit unpredictable. Level 5+ Shock Guard works wonders in Story.
His physical attacks can generally be avoided with Parry. If it does target the back row, it shouldn't have enough power to kill in one hit.

 After clearing Area 3, you will be able to get the item to move on to Floor 17.
Floors 16-20 yet again changes the atmosphere of the labyrinth. From the watery forest of F15 comes the desert(?) of F16.
These floors are slightly annoying to navigate, because the designs are far from straight-forward.
In F16, you ride the current of sand across the floor to reach the middle. Dead trees and FOE (Medusa Tree) are scattered around. Setting-wise, Medusa Tree is disguising itself as a dead tree to sneak up on people, but unlike the Rock Hog/Pig enemy, the dead trees all look like FOEs to me, not the other way around.

 Floor 17 is the floor full of 1-way paths. Once you go through, you cannot go back the same way.
There are also plenty of Medusa Trees. If you don't navigate correctly, you are forced to enter battle with the Tree (and then escape or defeat it) to get pass.

A humongous plain with nothing there. There is another World Tree Bud-type enemy in this flat plains area. However, unlike the previous version, this one is a FOE and you can see its position. If moves 1 step per step and rests 1 step after each step. When you get close to it, it will teleport to a different part of the map. If you defeat it, you not only get decent experience, but you also get the material that gives you an accessory. Similarly, the accessory is expensive but powerful.

Starting with this floor, the Moribito start appearing. There are male and (cute?) female ones, two types of each. The FOEs also become Moribito-related.

The floor of teleportation, F19. Unlike IV, this floor's teleportation requires you to talk/check the wall and upon pressing yes, teleports you to a corresponding area. Most teleportation spots are two ways, but there are ones that are one way.

 Similar to F15, this area is fully dedicated to the boss. However, it is difficult to get to the boss because the 4 types of Moribito FOEs appear along with the boss. They all have very weak vision, but when they notice you, all of the similar FOE also notice you and the boss notices you.
Also, if the boss notices you, so do the surrounding FOE. There is plenty of space and no random encounter, so you can take your time finding the best position to enter battle.

I personally found the middle right the best position. The boss will be turning 90 degrees each step and with vision reaching across the room, it is impossible to fight him without him noticing=surrounding FOEs noticing you.
The middle-right area is the Forest Ogre area and they are the slowest FOEs in the room. If you carefully follow the Ogres and avoid a premature detection from the boss, you should be able to fight the Boss (which moves towards you after noticing you and a fast pace + 9 square area that starts the battle) far away enough to give you time to defeat the boss. I had about 12 to 16 turns.

 The FOEs

Medusa Tree

As far as story mode goes, if Frederica has her Drug Bullet and Simon has Refresh, you should be fine against the single-targeting petrification attack.

However, even then, you have to beware of the Tree's slash skill, which not only hits a line, but is surprisingly powerful and can cause head bind.

Defeating the Tree with Poison damage gives you the drop for the item that creates a Grimoire Chance, but there is a bug in this game that......

Movement: None. Notices you when you move next to it. Will attack the next time you move next to it (after it awakens).

Forest Demon

The magician of the duo (with Forest Ogre).
It uses the two types of magic skills also used by the female Moribito enemies, the piercing electric skill and the party-targeting fire skill.
His third skill is instant death on one target, so be sure there is some way to revive the target.
Movement: 1 step per step, 1 rest after each step. Upon noticing you, moves 2 step per step with no rest.

Forest Ogre

The physical one of the duo.
In general, he is easier to work around compared to Demon because of his simplicity. Just lots of heavy physical attacks.
Movement: 1 step per step, 1 rest per step. Unlike Demon, this doesn't change even after it notices you.

The Cruel Lady

and

Diva of Disturbance

The descriptions of these two FOEs talk about spirits inhabiting trees and stuff like that, but why does that result in these err "fun" designs?
Anyways, these two FOEs are actually weaker than duo on the above floors.
Both of them have two skills, a powerful single-targeting physical attack and a skill that deals a certain status ailment on the entire party.
If you get the status ailment prevention enchantment from the detective beforehand, you only have to parry to avoid the reset of what this FOE can do.

However, if one detects you, all of these FOEs nearby will notice you as well, meaning you will end up fighting more than one at a time if you are not careful.
Movement: Stands still. Upon noticing you when you enter their line of sight (front), they will move 1 step per step towards you.

The Diva's skills cause Head Binding and full Curse.
The Lady's skills cause Arm Binding and full Confusion.
Confusion can be devastating if it lasts too long and hits your healer, but Curse is not that much of a problem on its own. If your characters are faster, you will also avoid killing yourself right away from the Curse.
As always(?), they drop some mysterious wet string if you bind their entire body before defeating them.

The boss, Iwaopeln

Considering the situation (the FOEs around him), you have a limited amount of time to defeat him.
Unfortunately, the fact there are FOE around him does not make him any weaker.
On the first turn, he always uses his party-targeting electric attack. If you use a Lv5+ Shock Guard, that should give you a free turn to set-up. I don't think there is a set turn he uses that electric skill afterwards, but generally 3-5 turns afterwards?
One of his combos is Wind Breath -> Feather Spear. Feather Spear hits a whopping 7 times! But has quite the low accuracy. Wind Breath, which lowers your evasion, sets up for Feather Spear. If you are fast enough, you can use an item to remove Wind Breath's effect to greatly lower the total damage from Feather Spear. Wind Breath does little damage itself, but it has a chance of causing stun.
He can also cast petrification, paralysis, and confusion, so you will need a bit of luck and definitely some way to heal those ailments.

My money and level upon victory.

A minor sub-character spoiler below:














Unlike the original story, there is a tad bit of hope in the whole Moribito massacring thing.
In Story, you will carry the Moribito girl that you met several times, named Shirara, back with you after defeating the boss, after she faints from exhaustion.
Shortly afterwords, she will join your group of guild keepers, being the third and last? one.
Her standing artwork and "looking-away" expression are newly drawn, I believe.

Her preparation items all call on a certain monster to use a certain move at the end of the very first turn. To be honest, it isn't that strong, though it might help finish off weak enemies. However, there are better items against bosses and FOE.
But hey, hoping that one day she might dere, I continue to buy her items and raise her affection.