Choosing the best Subclass for your Landsknecht is trickier than you might think. It’s a heavy physical damage focused class and the first thing most players will attempt to do is simply add more. Without doubt this is a good idea, but the class also features some excellent defensive options with it’s shield, and this is before we even consider the Linking portion of it’s skills. By the same token, the class is almost always paired with additional damage classes, to either take advantage of the linking possibilities or to diversify damage types, especially versus groups. This leaves us in a difficult, albeit quite a nice situation of deciding upon exactly which portion of the Landsknechts kit we should focus on improving?
Highlander
It should come as no surprise that everyone’s favourite spear wielding, health spending class appears here. It’s a powerhouse of physical damage paired with remarkable passives, all of which combine to make it one of the damage options in the game, and one of the premier classes in Nexus overall. It’s kit contains a diverse selection of skills that allow it to adapt to your current requirements, be it group or single target, and it does this whilst providing excellent sustain to the party in spite of their health costs. It’s also worth noting something very relevant to our article today: They have one of the best selections of physical passives in the entire game.
As you might imagine then, it’s the passives that we’ll start with here. HP Up, Phys DEF Up and Phys ATK Up are all of great benefit to the Landsknecht, helping them to occupy the front lines and deal more damage respectively. Further to this, whilst being on the front lines they can make use of Bloody Veil, which increases all factors of defence for the remainder of the round should they be attacked, meaning you’ll have a greater chance to survive when groups choose to focus your single unit. Turning Tide, which heals the party whenever your unit slays an opponent, is also a nice addition to your kit, and the combination of Bloody Offense and Bloodlust can lead to a good increase in damage, albeit at the cost of some health. Finally, Black Sabbath is a fantastic group attack to all enemies that scales based on STR, of which the Landsknecht has plenty, and it even heals the party based on the damage dealt!
Subclass Benefits
- Excellent passives from the Highlander, including HP Up, Phys DEF Up, Phys ATK Up and even Turning Tide, which heals the party whenever the main class slays a unit.
- Highlander buffs can improve physical damage whilst being protective of the party, like Bloody Offense and Bloodlust, which synergise well with the base class skills.
- Black Sabbath is an amazing group attack that scales with STR. Most Highlander skills require a lance, however this frankly epic skill does not and can be used regardless.
- This class combination essentially doubles down on the physical skills of the Landsknecht whilst adding group targeting, something that can be lacking depending on your build, and health restoration utility.
- Whilst it will improve it, this isn’t recommended for a ‘Link’ focused Landsknecht build. If you’re looking for something that helps there, check out our next option.
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Imperial
Yes we’re back with everyone’s favourite, the chunkiest of damage dealers and undoubtedly the most stylish of Etrian classes, the Imperial. At first glance you may be concerned that choosing a class such as this will dilute their benefits greatly, and whilst we would agree with you in the main, there are some tremendous benefits when pairing it with the Landsknecht specifically that cannot be ignored. This all assumes that you’ve somehow managed to resist taking on as a main class however… Though now that we think about it, having a Land/Imp and an Imp/Land would probably provide immense amounts of damage… Honestly, with 19 classes on offer it’s far too easy to get dragged into fantasy team building, and there are only so many hours in the day!
Anyway! The main benefit of this combination is the inclusion of the Elem ATK Up passive. This synergises perfectly with the Landsknechts Blazing, Freezing and Electric link to deal large amounts of elemental damage. Further passives are available in the form of HP Up and Status DEF Up, and should you manage to hit a particular weakness with the aforementioned elemental attacks, the Imperials Absorber skill can keep your TP healthy by restoring some every time that you do so. It’s even possible to make some use of Heat Shield, should you find yourself in a long enough battle, and the Landsknechts own Single Devotion will cause Drive attacks that have no element attached to deal even more damage.
Subclass Benefits
- The Imperials Elem ATK Up passive will boost the damage of the Landsknechts Link attacks.
- Status DEF Up and HP Up will bolster your defences.
- Absorber can be useful for retaining TP in longer battles.
- Heat Shield is a useful passive buff, should you use some Drive skills.
- Untyped or single damage Drive skills in particular will perform well with this combo thanks to Single Devotion.
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Gunner
It feels good to finally return to this class. It says much about the individual nature of it that we’ve chosen the Subclasses for over half of the base classes before reaching here, but thankfully it’s combination with the Landsknecht makes a great deal of sense. Where our first choice was all about adding power with diversification, our third and final choice is to really double down on the base class’s ability to damage one single target, a boon shared by both. It does feel strange we must admit, after all most of our combinations tend to chime with others that exist in the same row or with the same equipment, but give this pairing a chance and you’ll be surprised just how much damage can be done.
They might not be flashy, but this Subclass is all about the passives. We’ll get the boring ones out of the way first; Phys ATK Up is of course a great benefit to the main class, but you’ll probably be most pleased by the availability of TP Up, something Landsknechts really lack. Things start to get really interesting when you consider Penetrator, a skill which can cause single target attacks to also hit the target behind, but the absolute pinnacle of these skills must be Multi-Shot, which gives attack skills a chance to be used twice. Finally, Act Quick can synergise with the Landsknechts own Initiative skill to ensure that you deal big damage at the start of the next round.
Subclass Benefits
- Amazing passives like Penetrator and Multi-Shot, which provide flat damage increases by way of having a skill influence the target behind, and sometimes twice!
- Good stat passives in Phys ATK Up and TP Up, the latter of which is sorely needed.
- Act Quick works well with the base Initiative skill to improve damage further.
- This combination works best when trying to optimise single target damage on your Landsknecht.
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Categories: Etrian Odyssey Nexus