Buccaneer

These descendants of pirates learned to fight in gangs, supporting each other rather than dueling.

—In-Game Description, Etrian Odyssey III

A lightweight combatant boasting superior speed, the Buccaneer is a quirky fighter in Etrian Odyssey III. They are the only class in the game that can use Guns by default, though they aren't like the Gunners from Etrian Odyssey II, but instead operate like a niche Landsknecht. Using Guns and Rapiers, they can fight well on either the front or back row with equal success while wearing Medium Armor. They deal incredible damage in their own right, but not exactly on their own power.

Profile[]

Buccaneers are flexible damage dealers that can work from either line. They can be specialized to be proficient in melee damage with Rapiers or in ranged damage with Guns. They can't equip both, though, so it's ideal to focus on one specialty. Full mastery of both weapons, however, unlocks access to their strongest skill and passive, making them a bit of a late bloomer. They have a well-rounded stat spread, only offset by their low Vitality and middling HP and TP.

Strengths: Good mixture of damage and support. Great endgame potential.
Weaknesses: Investment in Pincushion requires a massive skill point expenditure. Lack of variety of useful skills.

Stat Progression[]

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

Main article: Buccaneer/Stats

Level	HP	TP	STR	TEC	VIT	AGI	LUC
1	43	22	7	5	6	8	9
35	206	107	28	27	25	34	24
70	374	195	50	49	45	61	39
99	479	249	63	63	58	78	49

Skill Tree[]

Skill	Description	Type	Requirements	Extra
Trickster	A buccaneer skill that recovers TP when using attack skills.	Class	-----
Rapier Mastery	Prerequisite for rapier skills that raises rapier damage dealt.	Mastery	-----
Lights Out	Rapier: A pierce attack that may blind the enemy.	Rapier	Rapier Mastery Lv1
Chase Saber	Rapier: Perform a follow-up attack to an ally's slash attack.	Rapier	Rapier Mastery Lv3	Chases affected by weapon forges.
Chase Blow	Rapier: Perform a follow-up attack to an ally's strike attack.
Chase Thrust	Rapier: Perform a follow-up attack to an ally's pierce attack.
Hanging	Rapier: A pierce attack that may bind the enemy's head.	Rapier	Rapier Mastery Lv5
Gun Mastery	Prerequisite for gun skills that raises gun damage dealt.	Mastery	-----
Quick Draw	Gun: Random pierce damage done to all enemies at the start of a turn.	Gun	Gun Mastery Lv1	Lv3, 6, and 10 increase max hits.
Chase Flame	Gun: Follow-up an ally's fire-based attack with a gunshot.	Gun	Gun Mastery Lv3	Chases affected by weapon forges.
Chase Ice	Gun: Follow-up an ally's ice-based attack with a gunshot.
Chase Volt	Gun: Follow-up an ally's volt-based attack with a gunshot.
Rapid Fire	Gun: A piercing attack that fires 3 bullets at once at one enemy.	Gun	Gun Mastery Lv5
Swashbuckling	Normal attacks may strike multiple times.	Passive	Rapier Mastery Lv8 Gun Mastery Lv8	Lv8 and 10 increase max hits.
Pincushion	Rapier/Gun: Random pierce attacks boosted by the user's agility.	Gun/Rapier	Rapier Mastery Lv10 Gun Mastery Lv10	Lv4 increases max hits.
Lady Luck	Normal attacks have a higher probability of being critical.	Passive	-----
Eagle Eye	Lowers one enemy's physical defense for three turns.	Special	-----	Max Lv5
Limit Boost	The limit guage will increase faster.	Passive	Lady Luck Lv3 Eagle Eye Lv3	Max Lv5
Troublemaker	Raises the encounter rate briefly.	Search	-----	Max Lv5

Skill Breakdown[]

Buccaneers have somewhat shabby defense and sub-par HP, so they will need a moderate amount of protection or medical attention depending on the situation. Their best stat is Agility which makes them go first most of the time, only typically outsped by Ninjas. Their class skill Trickster refunds TP whenever they use attack skills, which can give them some lasting power in the early- to midgame but tapers off in usefulness in the late game when you have a good stock of TP-replenishing items.

A big gimmick to the Buccaneer is their Chase skills, similar to the Chasers of the Landsknechts in previous games. However, the chases have been split across their two weapons - Rapiers can chase cut/stab/bash, while Guns chase fire/ice/volt. A Buccaneer readies the Chase skill at the start of the turn, and any attack of that type from their teammate will be followed up by their own. Buccaneer chases are purely stab damage but can be affected by weapon forges like elemental or bind/ailment forges. Normal attack passives like Kubikiri and Stun Attack will apply to chases, and a Chase cannot trigger other Chases. Each Chase skill has a limit of how many times they can trigger in a turn, and applies an activation chance penalty for subsequent chases. The Chases cap at 7 total at max level, but focusing your Buccanneer for Chases can take a lot of skill points before it reaches fruition.

Do note that Chases do not play well with multi-hit attacks. Multi-hit attacks will attempt to trigger the Chase multiple times but you will only get one successful chase, depleting the maximum subsequent chases from other allies in a turn. This is what bogs down the strength of Chases, even though your Sea Quest allies are engineered to make it look good.

The more popular way to build a Buccaneer is to focus towards their non-Chase skills; the Rapier tree is more popular due to utility skills in Lights Out and Hanging, though the Buccaneer's low Luck will detract from the disable landing. The Gun tree instead just offers multi-hit damage, which is less powerful than their ultimate skill, Pincushion. That skill works off both Rapiers and Guns, and doles out multiple hits and scaling incredibly well with their high Agility, but it takes a lot of skill point investment to reach its full potential as you have to max out both Rapier Mastery and Gun Mastery to unlock it — that's ten skill points you're sinking into a passive you won't use no matter what! Swashbuckling also appears along this path and is a worthwhile passive that lets your normal attacks strike multiple times, letting you make the most of your weapon forges to get random ailments or squeezing extra damage on an enemy.

The last bit of Buccaneer's skill set is a small set of useful utility skills. Eagle Eye is a very strong but single-target defense debuff to augment your physical beaters' damage output. Lady Luck increases crit chance, meant to synergize with Swashbuckling to dole out high damage if things roll well, but it's used to unlock the final passive, Limit Boost. This skill passively increases the Limit increment for taking actions, increasing the frequency where you can fire off Limits, and multiple attacks from Swashbuckling also each get affected by Limit Boost's bonus.

Ultimately, no matter how you build them, the Buccaneer will take a long time before they can realize their full potential, and you may find that they're a one- or two-trick pony afterwards. But those few tricks they have are very good.

Subclass Options[]

Subclass for Buccaneer[]

Gladiator: Charge and Berserker Vow are every physical DPS' best friend. Make those Pincushions hurt! If you've fully unlocked Swashbuckling, you can even synergize it with Stun Attack to get random stuns on the enemy.
Ninja: Bunshin is good for basically everyone. If you've got an empty front row slot then having one copy (re)apply Eagle Eye while the other benefits from it can lead to some real decent numbers. Senpuku aids their evasion and Karuwaza gives them TP replenishment so that they can use their skills more often. The multi-strikes from Swashbuckling can also trigger Kubikiri more often.
Hoplite: Buccaneers are innately fragile, so access to shields helps keep them alive. Parry and Magic Parry can also randomly block attacks that the Buccaneer would take.
Zodiac: If you're building for Chasers with the help of a weapon with elemental forges, then Singularity increases the damage your chases do if you're exploiting a weakness.

Buccaneer as Subclass[]

Choosing a Buccaneer subclass is done for the Limit Boost passive that lets you fire off your Limits way more often. If you get all the way to Swashbuckling, then the multi-attacks with augmented Limit bonus let you crank out plenty of mid-battle Limits. Eagle Eye is also a potent debuff that is stat-independent.

Shogun: Their Second Sword class skill stacks with Swashbuckling. This means that you can roll up to eight hits in a single attack command and get a lot of Limit charge. The Shogun-Buccaneer combo is a crucial component of the infamous Warrior Might combo as a single Attack can proc many, many chases.
Sovereign: The Eagle Eye debuff doesn't cost a lot in either TP to cast or SP to invest, and they gain a few Rapier skills like Hanging for the odd shutdown opportunity. Limit Boost (and eventually, Swashbuckling) also tops off the Limit bar enough for your Sovereign to fire off defensive Limits regularly.
Ninja: They have the highest Agility of the cast, so a Ninja-Buccaneer can inflict some devastating Pincushions. Clone with Bunshin to double up on that! Ninjas also have the stats to make them better at ailment infliction so you can use Lights Out and Hanging better, and multi-attacks off Swashbuckling can proc Kubikiri more often.
Zodiac: For the midgame where you can make the most of elemental Limits, Zodiacs can take the Buccaneer subclass to get a lot of mileage from Limit Boost.
Yggdroid: For a build that focuses around normal attacks. Lady Luck works wonders with the Yggdroid's own Data Mining passive, and with Swashbuckling you can roll for many good strikes in a single attack, making the most of the forges from your weapon of choice. Since the Yggdroid's own Luck isn't that high, you can focus on Guns for pure damage through Rapid Fire or Quick Draw. You're not using your TP a lot so running dry is not an issue. Be careful with Overheat, because each strike off Swashbuckling inflicts self-damage.