Abbreviation: RON

As an unlockable class in the very first Etrian Odyssey, Ronin saw very little usage due to the difficulty of grinding up new teammates, but it was technically a strong, if unwieldy class. 2's incarnation got rid of their only downside; they no longer needed to set up stances to use skills, letting them fire off Midareba and Kienzan all the time to slaughter single targets or whole encounters. In Untold, this downside was restored and they were made available from the beginning, and so they were once more powerful, until Untold 2 where the class hit a low point due to TP problems, low attack power and SP hunger. In general, Ronin only ever used the Upper Stance, as it contained the highest-damage skills in their entire tree and they had no capability for anything other than damage.

Nexus' incarnation is not just powerful, but also versatile, which is something that used to be mutually exclusive with Ronin. They're still a very damaging class in general, but through their revamped stances they can increase their survivability significantly, gain incredible crowd clearing abilities, and even inflict ailments reliably. Nexus' new infliction formula, which prioritizes the attacking stat in damaging skills that inflict something, give Ronin a great infliction score thanks to their STR being the highest in the game. This allows them to inflict some of the most valuable status effects in the game, while dealing a considerable amount of damage! They also don't need to be in a specific stance to use a skill; rather, being in the correct stance makes the skill an automatic critical hit. Ronin has never been a more exciting class to use.


Stats

(Full)

Best in the Game: STR
Strong Points: AGI
Average Points: TP, WIS
Weak Points: LUC
Very Weak Points: HP, INT, VIT

Equippable Weapons: Sword, Katana
Equippable Armor: Light Armor, Cloth Armor


Skills: Force

Boost: Musou
For 3 turns, stance durations cannot be decreased, and stances cannot be ended. The user also gains the effect of the level 1 versions of Upper Stance, Clear Stance, and Swift Stance. These effects stack with the effect of the user's current stance.
Way better than Immovable, Ronin's Force Boost back in EO2U. Mostly because it replaces the unnecessary TP cost halving with the very useful effect of applying level 1 of each Stance, and because it negates the negative effects of the main Veteran attacks. It doesn't cancel out the "disables all skills" parts of the Master skills, but oh well. You can't win 'em all.
This will also allow you to get crits on skills from any stances. So if you're an Upper or Clear main but you NEED to pump out a critical Horizontal Slash in a random encounter, you can turn Musou on and do that. And if your stance is off but you need a crit on a skill in a hurry, same thing.

Break: Issen


Deals ranged STR-based cut damage to all enemies. Cannot miss. Attempts to instantly kill hit targets. If the target is below an unknown percentage of their max HP, the instant death chance is increased.
It's an encounter clearer! It also works as a weird version of Climax on enemies with low HP, kinda.
It also doesn't count as a skill, so you can use it right after using a Master skill. Using a Master skill on the second turn of Force Boost can completely offset its downside once per battle (maybe more than once is a farmer is involved).

Skills: Novice

Upper Stance


Increases the user's attack when the Upper Stance state is active. The level of Upper Stance determines the duration of the Upper Stance state. Enables Upper Stance to be automatically activated at the start of battle, if it is the highest-level Stance, and if the user has a katana equipped. If the automatic activation occurs, Upper Stance's duration is increased by 1 turn.

If two or more of the Stances fulfill the condition for automatic activation, one of them is randomly selected to be used at the start of battle.

The automatic Stance activation will not occur if the party is blindsided.
Formerly the queen of the Stances, now unfortunately a bit underappreciated. I want to make a case for it, though, because I am all about choices in how to use characters.
It's the most straight forward stance where you just take it and do boatloads of damage. If you're putting a Ronin in your party as an attacker, you'll want this. Petrify and Sleep requires your party to be built to be able take advantage of them, but there is no party that doesn't appreciate big damage. The boost is multiplicative, and will be effective no matter how many buffs or debuffs you pile on.

Also I'm going to take this opportunity to say something about using Ronin as a subclass solely for this stance. By doing so you can get a pretty decent attack boost... for the first five turns. As soon as it wears off, it stops being worth it because the bonus does not offset the turn loss from having to use Upward Slash. So you'll then basically have lost a piece of armor for physical ATK up and Duel. If your party can't defeat (or at least mostly defeat) enemies in five turns, don't do this.

Clear Stance


Increases the user's defense, and disable infliction chance of Ronin skills when the Clear Stance state is active. The level of Clear Stance determines the duration of the Clear Stance state. Enables Clear Stance to be automatically activated at the start of battle, if it is the highest-level Stance, and if the user has a katana equipped. If the automatic activation occurs, Clear Stance's duration is increased by 1 turn.

If two or more of the Stances fulfill the condition for automatic activation, one of them is randomly selected to be used at the start of battle.

The automatic Stance activation will not occur if the party is blindsided.
Broadly considered to be the best of the Stances, and I find it hard to disagree. Clear Stance combines a hefty defense bonus with a bonkers infliction chance increase, which, when combined with Ronin's already naturally-high attack infliction score, equals Ronin being one of the best ways to inflict sleep and petrification.

If you'd told me that back in the days of, say, EO2U, I would've been flabbergasted.
This stance is more about being a team player. Ronin has access to the game's best infliction of petrify in this tree, which can be very valuable provided that your party can get around its physical vulnerability reducing aspect, and you also gain the ability to reliably inflict sleep and arm bind, but said petrify skill is not spammable so your party in turn also needs to offer their share of support by increasing infliction rate as much as possible. It's nowhere near as plug and play as Upper Stance, but in the right parties Clear Stance can be quite valuable.

It also bears repeating that Clear Stance's infliction bonus applies only to Ronin skills. It will not help any other class's skills, or katana weapon skils for that matter. Clear Stance is nearly worthless to take as a subclass skill as a result.

Swift Stance


Increases the user's accuracy, evasion, and action speed when the Swift Stance state is active. The level of Swift Stance determines the duration of the Swift Stance state. Enables Swift Stance to be automatically activated at the start of battle, if it is the highest-level Stance, and if the user has a katana equipped. If the automatic activation occurs, Swift Stance's duration is increased by 1 turn.

If two or more of the Stances fulfill the condition for automatic activation, one of them is randomly selected to be used at the start of battle.

The automatic Stance activation will not occur if the party is blindsided.
Ah, Swift Stance (formerly Drawing Stance), ever the least-appreciated of the Ronin stances. Recognizing that Clear Stance needed a good reason to exist, Atlus decided to focus the Swift Stance tree on encounter-clearing skills--a good decision, in my opinion. You'd do well to keep it and its skills at okay levels to make your Ronin useful in random encounters.
The stance that drew the short stick this round. Ronin isn't exactly streamlined to take advantage of the speed, accuracy and evasion bonus (Swift Stance Helm Splitter is not worth it because it does less damage than Upward Stance Air Blade), and the multi-target attacks don't have any outstanding aspects and can be rather weak. It does do its job of clearing out randoms decently well, but becomes rather toothless against bosses without adds. You will probably want to either invest in another stance, or use a subclass (likely gunner) to make up for this shortcoming. Or just ignore it altogether (outside of prereqs to get Petal Scatter) because it's not like Ronin struggles that badly against randoms.

Upward Slash / Charging Thrust / Sheath Strike


Upward Slash: Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Upper Stance state. Activates the Upper Stance state after use.

Charging Thrust: Deals melee STR-based stab damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Clear Stance state. Activates the Clear Stance state after use.

Sheath Strike: Deals melee STR-based bash damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Swift Stance state. Activates the Swift Stance state after use.
These are how you actually enter Stances after battles have begun. Max these out, whichever ones you use. That extra turn of Stance duration can be invaluable. Also, don't wait until your Stance has run out--get that extra damage! It's...small, but it's there!
If you can clear out battles within five turns or so consistently, you can leave these alone until later. Otherwise, you'll want to max them before you hit level 20, because being able to use Veteran skills twice in a row after a stance activator is extremely important.

If these skills are repeated via Multi-shot or Follow Trace, then the duration will apply twice. Which could be a nice bonus, I guess.

Air Blade


Deals ranged STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in any Stance state.
Air Blade is basically an early damage skill, and that's it. Its damage isn't fantastic, it's slow, and it's got an accuracy penalty. The only things it has going for it after you get out of Novice is that it's ranged, it's relatively cheap, and it gets crits off any Stance.
Air Blade is borderline broken when you can first get it, with a decent multiplier working off a gigantic base damage and the abiltiy to go ranged, as well as a lack of downside. Backline Upper Stance Ronin that does nothing but spam this (and refresh stance) is actually a build that people use, and even if you don't care for that, it's low cost, relatively high damage and ranged-ness means that it's going to be the skill you're spamming the most in randoms.
Arm Strike


Deals melee STR-based stab damage to one enemy. Attempts to bind the arms of the target. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in any Stance state.
Decent when used under Clear Strike, not that fantastic otherwise.
Amongst the disables Ronin have access to, Arm Bind is the easiest one to use, lacking any sort of downside whatsoever, so it's got some unique value to offer for Clear Stance Ronins. Outside of Clear Stance... it does do more damage than Air Blade when the enemy has higher stab vulnerability than cut vulnerability, so that can be worth something maybe.

Breath


Restores the HP of the user and any party members adjacent to them.
I... I'm sorry, but I cannot ever think of a situation where you'd want your Ronin to heal. The heal isn't even that great.
If you have no other characters with out-of-battle healing, put a point in this. It's restoration to TP ratio is actually quite decent; it's just not worth losing a turn to use in combat ever.
If you land Sleep with Haze Slash, but you want someone else to do the sleep-bombing, you could do worse than making the Ronin heal for a turn. It's just that you could also use some Medicas or Somas. Up to you if it's worth it.

Skills: Veteran

Helm Splitter


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Ignores the enemy's cut vulnerability. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Upper Stance state. Reduces the current stance's duration by 2 turns after use.
Helm Splitter, on its own, is finnicky. It kind of sucks that your main source of damage for the damage-above-all-else stance requires a lot of setup to make work.

With Target Goggles, though, the -50% accuracy modifier becomes +10%, so, uh, ayy lmao I guess. Even Aim Goggles bring it down to a much more manageable -30%, which you can combine with a Third-Eye Band to bring down even further to -10%; and you can do that by the end of the 4th Labyrinth.
This is basically Upward Stance tree's main damage skill against big enemies. The accuracy penalty sucks, but its power is undeniable, and being able to ignore cut resistance entirely makes it very reliable on a different front as well. Fixing its accuracy isn't even hard, anyways, considering that Ronin has good AGI and access to Speed Up, so even a buff or debuff from a gunner can pretty much make it not miss any more, never mind equipment boosts or ailment/leg bind support.

If this skill (or any of its counterparts in the other stances) is repeated through Multi-shot or Follow Trace, the duration reduction will be applied twice. It's largely inconsequential since it's still a boost in turn economy, but it's something to keep in mind.

Haze Slash


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Attempts to inflict sleep on the target. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Clear Stance state. Reduces the current stance's duration by 2 turns after use.
If used while in Clear Stance, this thing has a really good shot of making its target fall asleep. It even deals decent damage on its own, too.
Its 20% speed mulitplier should clue you in that this is a skill for sleep bombing, not sleep stunning. You'll want some other character with the ability to do one big, chunky hit to take full advantage of this (as well as speed support to ensure said big, chunky hit goes before any other party member's attacks, if necessary).
And if you don't have someone else to bomb that sleep, Stone Thrust will do just fine. Hell, Petrification is higher on the ailment hierarchy than Sleep, so you might end up chaining Sleep into Petrification.

Horizontal Slash


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals melee STR-based cut damage to one row of enemies. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Swift Stance state. Reduces the current stance's duration by 2 turns after use.
Line-target damage. Expensive, but it gives Ronin some encounter-clearing utility.
Man, the damage really sucks on this one. It gets outcompeted by several Katana weapon skills unless it has autocrit, even, so the whole "get a point in it and use it under Upward Stance" strategy doesn't work out so well either. With Swift Stance's autocrit it can be decent enough, but outside of it, it's not worth investing heavily in.
Rage Fangs, Foot Sweep, Boulder Toss... Katanas get some fantastic crowd control weaponskills. When you don't have those, Horizontal Slash will do fine. The animation is dope, too (and Foot Sweep shares it).

Flame Grater / Lightning Stab / Frigid Slash


Flame Grater: Deals melee STR-based cut + fire damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Upper Stance state.

Lightning Stab: Deals melee STR-based stab + volt damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Clear Stance state.

Frigid Slash: Deals melee STR-based cut + ice damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Swift Stance state.
These things suck. They serve an important purpose (letting your Ronin continue to deal damage even to targets that are resistant to cut damage without having to turn to Helm Splitter), but gods they're underwhelming even then.
Can be used for getting conditionals, but the prereqs really hurt for that purpose. If you just want them to get around cut resistant enemies, just get the one under your main stance, because auto-crit makes up for the lack of elemental weakness.
175 * 1.5 * 1.5 = 393.75. Plus a Sovereign's Arms, 511.875%. If you want to do a weird elemental Ronin thing, you won't do that badly, but a monostance build will likely blow it out of the water.

Duel


Increases the damage the user deals to enemies they attacked on the last turn.
Worth grabbing. Duel'll be active half the time in boss fights (the way it worked in EO5 was that, essentially, hitting the same target over and over would make it active every other turn), and it gives a really great damage increase for only 6 SP.

Skills: Master

Swallow Strike


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals multiple instances of melee STR-based cut damage to one enemy. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Upper Stance state. Ends the user's current Stance after use. On the next turn, all of the user's skills will be disabled.
Big damage, but shuts down your skills and forces you to reapply your Stance once your skills are back up. If you're utilizing accuracy boosting for Helm Splitter, Swallow Strike isn't really that attractive.
Spamming Helm Splitter does more damage than trying to cycle around with this, so unless you're unwilling to support that, this is something you'll only use once per battle (remember, Musou offsets the stance ending effect, while Issen can be used even during its "cooldown"). Ronin do have a lot of free SP to throw around, so you'll probably have the points to grab this later.
In randoms you can use this to fucking delete something. And it combines well with big burst strats, I suppose.

Stone Thrust


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals melee STR-based stab damage to one enemy. Attempts to inflict petrification on the target. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Clear Stance state. Ends the user's current Stance after use. On the next turn, all of the user's skills will be disabled.
A high-level Clear Stance means that you will have a really good chance of inflicting petrification with Stone Thrust, even if the enemy resists it. It's much easier to advocate for Stone Thrust as a skill-disabling Stance closer compared to Swallow Strike.
Under full Clear Stance bonus, this skill has a 90% base chance to inflict Petrify. That being said, most bosses are resistant to it and you can only use it once every three turns (two if Musou is involved), so you'll still want to support it as much as possible - Wilting Miasma, Blood Fortune, Meditation, Chaos Scream; whatever you have, pile them all on.
This and Haze Slash, and Arm Strike to a certain extent, combine well with an allied Imperial.

Petal Scatter


Only usable when the user is in a Stance state. Deals melee STR-based cut damage to all enemies. Becomes a critical hit if used when the user is in the Swift Stance state. For each enemy in the battle, Petal Scatter's damage is reduced by 10%. Ends the user's current Stance after use. On the next turn, all of the user's skills will be disabled.
Petal Scatter is a godly encounter clearer. It's really expensive, and its damage gets cut when fighting large groups, but fuck, even then, it's still got high damage for an encounter clearer.
Unlikely Horizontal Slice, there is no weapon skill to outcompete Petal Scatter, and while the damage is still a bit weak for my liking, the crowd clearing ability is important enough that pretty much any Ronin should get 1 (or several) points in it.
babby issen

Full Proficiency


Increases the effect of all three Stances.
Get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this get this.
The SP efficiency on this skill leaves a lot to be desired, but the effect does not, and Ronin is not a class that's hurt for SP to begin with. Clear Stance Ronin especially want this really, really badly because of how all-or-nothing their skills can be; the other two stances can hold it off a bit if they really want, though I wouldn't recommend holding it off for too long.

Rouse Spirits


If the user is in a Stance state at the end of a turn, restores TP to them.
Also get this.
If you use Swift Stance attacks in randoms a lot, this skill can really offset their rather heavy TP costs. Outside of that... well it's nice to have, but Ronin skills tend to be cheap, so they don't usually have a lot of TP problem. Take it if you want.

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