Hoplite

Their golden armour gives them unequaled defense, while their spears provide a strong offense.

—In-Game Description, Etrian Odyssey III

The Hoplite is a defensive class from Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City. They are the party's defense specialists.

Like the Protector from previous games, the Hoplite (known as Phalanx in Japan) boasts a formidable defense and an array of skills to keep the party from taking too much damage. They can wear Heavy Armor and use Spears and Shields to great effect and possess skills to draw enemy focus or take damage for another party member.

Profile

With the highest VIT of any unit, Hoplites were made to take any damage that comes in their general direction. Unlike the Protector, the Hoplite has a wider attack pool, but no healing skills except for the self-sufficient Recuperate, which strengthens a Hoplite's Defend command, by recovering a set amount of HP. The previous Front Guard and Back Guard have been amalgamated into a single skill: Line Guard, which lessens damage taken of any selected row (but more effective when the Hoplite is in that row). They have lost the incredibly useful Antiall but retain Antifire, Antiice and Antivolt. They can sacrifice health for extra damage resistance with Selflessness. They can also use Switch Stab (which allows them to switch rows if there is space), Blitzritter (volt/pierce attack) and Long Stride (which hits all enemies). Naturally, they still have the Provoke skill of their "ancestors". which leads to both Parry and Magic Parry.

Stat Progression

Does not include any stat bonuses from skills, equipment, Books, or Retirement.

Main article: Hoplite/Stats

Level	HP	TP	STR	TEC	VIT	AGI	LUC
1	50	24	8	6	11	3	6
35	254	95	24	26	40	23	31
70	464	169	41	46	70	43	56
99	595	215	52	59	89	56	67

Skill Tree

Skill	Description	Type	Requires	Extra
Guardian	A hoplite skill that reduces physical damage taken.	Class	-----
Shield Mastery	Prerequisite for shield skills that raises defense when equipped.	Mastery	-----
Line Guard	Shield: Lower damage for one row, especially if you are in that row.	Shield	Shield Mastery Lv1
Bodyguard	Shield: Take damage in one ally's place for one turn.	Shield	Shield Mastery Lv3
Antifire	Shield: Reduces fire damage sustained by all allies.	Shield	Shield Mastery Lv5	Lv10 gives full immunity to the element.
Anticold	Shield: Reduces ice damage sustained by all allies.
Antivolt	Shield: Reduces volt damage sustained by all allies.
Overwatch	Shield: Attacks on an ally that exceed your HP are void for 1 turn.	Shield	Shield Mastery Lv8 Selflessness Lv3
Spear Mastery	Prerequisite for spear skills that raises spear damage dealt.	Mastery	-----
Switch Stab	Spear: Change rows to do a piercing attack on one enemy.	Spear	Spear Mastery Lv1	Will not swap rows if the other row has three members.
Blitzritter	Spear: A quick, volt-based pierce attack on one enemy.	Spear	Spear Mastery Lv4
Long Stride	Spear: A trust attack that pierces enemies. Best used from the back.	Spear	Spear Mastery Lv7 Switch Stab Lv3
Shrug Off	Cure status effects and binds from yourself.	Support	-----	Max Lv5
Recuperate	Recover HP while defending.	Passive	Shrug Off Lv3
Provoke	Shield the party by drawing all enemy attacks to you for 3 turns.	Support	-----
Parry	A skill that may nullify physical damage received.	Passive	Provoke Lv5	Max Lv5
Magic Parry	A skill that may nullify damage of an elemental affinity.
Selflessness	Sacrifice HP to lower physical damage received for three turns.	Support	-----
Vigilance	Heightened caution will lower the encounter rate for a short period.	Search	-----

Skill Breakdown

Hoplites are the game's main defensive class and their skill set is focused around damage mitigation, be it to themselves or their allies. Their Class Skill, Guardian, offers a sizeable physical damage reduction capping out at 40% at max level, letting them take a lot of hits when combined with their high HP and VIT.

The Shield skills are unlocked through Shield Mastery which enables one to equip shields of all variety but offers a miniscule physical defense reduction compared to Guardian. Line Shield is a defensive staple that combines a Protector's Front and Back Guards by reducing physical damage to a line, with greater efficiency if it's used on the Hoplite's own line. Bodyguard allows a Hoplite to take all damage that would hit an ally with some damage reduction; further investment increases the damage reduction bonus.

The Anti-Element skills return, but are weaker than the first two games; now they offer a moderate reduction to the corresponding element, only jumping to full negation once you reach maximum investment. Since it takes a significant skill point investment to max out all three anti-skills, the recommendation is focus your investment according to the stratum you're at: Fire for the Molten Caves, Ice for the Abyssal Shrine, Volt for the Porcelain Forest.

The last Shield skill is Overwatch, which targets an ally and then negates any damage done to them that exceeds the Hoplite's current HP. This is designed to synergize with Selflessness, which halves the Hoplite's current HP to give them a sizeable physical defense boost for 3 turns. Note that Overwatch only targets a single party member and cannot save the Hoplite themselves. It's a situational skill, but there are a few fights where it can shine.

Another defensive skill, but not tied to Shield Mastery, is Provoke which gives the Hoplite a temporary aggro bonus, and also affects random-target skills. This lets them draw attacks away from their more fragile allies. This ties into both Parry and Magic Parry, which are useful passives that, at max level, each give an 18% chance of blocking a physical or magic attack respectively.

The other part of the Hoplite skill set is their Spear skills, enabled with Spear Mastery, allowing a Hoplite to put in chip damage on turns when they don't need to defend the team. Switch Stab deals damage and then moves the Hoplite to the other row (if there is room), which ties into their Line Shield skill to come to the aid of the back row. Blitzritter lets a Hoplite do elemental damage when they need to. Long Stride is their best skill, dealing damage to the entire enemy formation but only from the back. This shows how spears in this game are actually ranged, and allows a Hoplite to get their chops in from either the front or back line.

Shrug Off allows a Hoplite to clear off any binds or ailments, letting them free themselves up to get to defending the party on the next turn. Recuperate gives fixed healing whenever they Defend — not the best of regenerative skills given that it restores a miniscule portion of their HP.

The skill set of the Hoplite offers a lot of defensive options, and proper use lets your party get out of many sticky situations.

Subclass Options

Subclass for Hoplite

• Ninja: Ever the premier option for support classes, Ninja gives you the ability to use two antielements in a turn, or an antielement plus a line guard, or to cover a low-HP member from all damage while still giving protection to everyone else, or or etc. etc. As a bonus, once you've maxed out your desired tanking skills and have clone shenanigans online, you can then proceed to invest in Senpuku to make your big armoured lug also be nigh-unhittable. Real strong choice for any party not already using their sixth slot.
• Monk: Waking Chakra is really helpful: For a lot of teams, an incapacitated Hoplite can be very problematic. You can probably ignore this if you have someone with Protect Order though.
• Shogun: Endure allows the Hoplite to endure lethal attacks, and Daifuhensha serves as a parallel to Provoke that also gives them an attack and defense buff. For turns where you don't need to defend the party, you can augment them with Fore Honor or force out extra damage with Blitz Command.
• Prince/ss: On turns when you're not looking to defend the party, aid them by applying buffs. The drawback to this combination is the heavy skill point cost needed to make this effective, and the Hoplite may not have the TP to keep this strategy afloat.
• Wildling: Provides easy debuffs through Beast Roar and Primal Drums on non-tanking turns. Alertness helps keep the party out of trouble.

Hoplite as Subclass

The main reason to use a Hoplite subclass is to enhance your party member's defenses with access to Shields. The Shield skills are not stat-dependent and can allow for a party member to serve as backup defense, but this can put a heavy strain on your limited SP.

• Ninja: The Ninja-Hoplite can serve the same roles as its inverse, trading physical defenses for increased evasion due to the Ninja's higher innate Agility. Again, Bunshin lets you field two tanks at once, guarding both lines effectively or throwing up two anti-element walls in one go. The Ninja class skill also reduces the amount of TP you'll be spending on defending the party.
• Farmer: Since the defensive skills are stat-independent, a Farmer-Hoplite can pull more weight in battle by defending the party with Guard or Anti- skills.
• Prince/ss: On turns where you don't need to maintain buffs, throw up defensive shield skills to keep the party alive. You'll also get to improve survivability with the aid of a shield.
• Wildling: Just one point in Shield Mastery gives them the ability to wield all kinds of shields to increase their durability.
• Yggdroid: When you pair the Hoplite skills with the Yggdroids' own unique perks and their high Vitality stat, you get a defender who is nearly impossible to shut down. Take a point in Spear Mastery as well so that the Yggdroid has a serviceable weapon.

Extra Links

• Game data reference

Gallery