TDN-Shumi Blog: Etrian Odyssey X: Diary 4

This time will be on
-5th Dungeon
-Mini-Dungeon (Untraversed Swamp) <- Yes, this is just a quick rough translation

So first, before I get started, I wanted to touch on the top image. As you can see, if you have been equipping the "Share EXP with all characters in your guild" since you get it, your characters should now be past Level 20 and can learn their second group of skills.
This is especially important for your Farmers, because now they can learn their "reduce encounter" skill. And when maxed out, this is very efficient. In most cases, you are able to get to the next shortcut without having to fight a single enemy. Alongside the "Sees all treasure chest, FOE, and shortcut" skill, you can go through a floor of the dungeon and unlock all shortcuts with your Farmer(s), and then come back in with your main team to fight and train afterwards. Especially in this dungeon, where making the wrong move can force you out of the dungeon (or fight a FOE) and it has confusing terrain, this can really make exploration stress-free.

So to the mini-dungeon...
This dungeon belongs to that Chameleon FOE and Boss from Etrian Odyssey 4. Yes, that one.
From that experience, I could tell that I was not in position to fight that guy, so I actually have not defeated any of the FOE or the boss. The gimmick of the dungeon is that you have to avoid the FOE, which are only visible every three steps. So if you don't know their path, you may accidentally enter battle with them. And there are muddy terrain too, which try to mess up your calculations.

Next is the main, 5th dungeon.
As you can... not really see but only kinda see in this picture (if you look carefully, you can see two shades of green), this dungeon uses a completely new (probably) gimmick, terrain height. Meaning there is a top level and a bottom level in each floor, and you use a ladder (tree root) to go between them.
On top of that, you actually have a whole 5 floors to this dungeon, unlike the 3 in the previous dungeons (because this is a new dungeon and not a reused gimmick?).
And to proceed in this dungeon, you have to lure FOEs using the height gimmick and sometimes even go in a circle.
In other words, it was relatively complex and I am glad I was able to explore with my Farmer party, since negating encounters allowed me to focus on solving the puzzles.

As for the FOE
The first FOE you meet is this doggy... Apparently, his name is in Kanji, but it is read as English. It is hard to explain what this type of naming in English... Just think of it as a fancy way of naming something. Like, Seigi being read as Judgement. They mean the same thing, but instead of using the Japanese pronunciation, you call the guy Judgement.
Anyways, he has a similar pattern on the map as the Snow Wolf, really. Except as part of the height gimmick, he gives up on you when you climb to a different height.

In battle, he uses a Fire attack that hits a lot of times randomly and can easily kill a character if they get hit enough. The only thing is that the accuracy is low, so you usually won't get hit enough times to die.
And as you may expect, he has an attack that binds your leg. For obvious reasons.

Next is the Pineapple FOE.
He moves in a set path until he sees you, in which he then proceeds to chase you a certain distance. The height gimmick comes in with him being able to go down to the lower height. He cannot climb back up, and he cannot drop down if you are right below him.
And you use this characteristic to lure him out of your way so that you can get by him.

In battle, he normally either uses a Spread-damage Volt attack. He occasionally uses this attack that causes Instant Death, but I'm not really sure what to do about it. It didn't really seem to have low accuracy, since it pretty much hit and killed every time.
However, he will eventually summon smaller Pineapple enemies. This is where it gets tricky, as if you leave the smaller enemies alone, he will try to do Volt + Paralysis to your entire party using a combo move. But if you kill the smaller enemy with a physical attack (which they are weak against), they will try to case Paralysis on your entire party upon death.

And lastly, you get the bird FOE. I've seen this guy before...
Anyways, his height gimmick is that he flies in a set path, ignoring all heights. He will fight you regardless of your height, and he ignores the walls as he moves on his path. Because he never goes into an attentive state, I actually sometimes ended up running into him or getting trapped while trying to avoid other FOEs...

In battle, he is really simple. He constantly casts a debuff that lowers your MAX HP in half. And then uses either a normal attack or a Pierce attack on your character. If you can survive his attack while your HP is halved, there is little to worry about.

And finally
The boss, this turtle monster thing. As with the gimmick, this is an original boss, so I went in without knowing what he would do. But I still ended up barely winning, though I had to use 2 Amritas...
Despite his appearance, he actually has low attack power. On the other hand, he is a master of status ailments and binds, causing Blind, Curse, Poison, Head Bind, and even Instead Death.
Also, he occasionally summons smaller enemies who will cast a debuff that prevents you from recovering from status ailments for several turns. If you can defeat one of the two, you can prevent that move though.
As you will see in the later images of my party, I had no TP by the end of the battle and was just chopping away at the last bits of his HP with normal attacks.