Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City – Tips and Tricks for Getting Started

Before you play the Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City game, you will definitely want to know these simple but useful tips and tricks. If you have any tips feel free to share with us!

Things to Know Before Playing

• Don’t worry about defeating FOEs before you move to the next floor – they are intentionally hard.
• There’s no easy way to grind for experience, but the sea quest battles are a decent source as they can be repeated as many times as you like.
• Map well! Nothing is more frustrating than wandering around a dungeon wondering where to go because you accidentally drew a wall where there isn’t one.
• The decision you make at the end of the 3rd Stratum decides which ending path you end up in, and which bonus class you unlock. Taking the quest to kill the stratum boss nets you the Shogun while taking the quest to protect it nets you the Yggdroid (likely the worst class in the series).

Party Member Advice

• You unlock multiclassing upon entering the 3rd Stratum, allowing you to pick a second class to pick skills from. Some popular combinations include Monk/Prince, Zodiac/Ninja and Arbalist/Gladiator.
• Don’t bother wasting valuable skill points on Chop/Take/Mine. Instead make a group of 5 Farmers as they can collect all three with Harvestry.
• Give your non-primary party members the Combat Study skill, especially for your Farmer team. This allows them to earn a portion of all gained experience while not in active use.
• Zodiacs are immensely useful in the early-midgame, but their elemental spells start falling off towards the end. This can be offset by giving them Gladiator as a subclass as their physical boosts (most notably Charge) work with the powerful Meteor spell.
• The Hoplite’s Anti-element skills are boring and eat a lot of skill points, but at max rank they completely nullify all harmful effects of their respective elemental attacks which makes certain fights far more manageable.
• The Gladiator’s and Zodiac’s Charge abilities also boost the damage of physical and elemental Limits respectively, allowing them to do tremendous damage early on.