abstract
| - Stratum Boss is a very powerful kind of monster in the series. As the name suggests, it is often the most powerful monster fought on its home stratum. They are depicted the same way as the FOEs, but instead of a orange/red ball, their color is black. Also, each game has different music for the boss battles. Etrian Odyssey IV and the Untold games instead mark the boss with a purple ring, and occasionally they may come surrounded with a 3x3 purple grid which causes battle to be initiated if the player even enters those tiles. These monsters, although not always, are most of the time fought on the last floor of said stratum, and will be the last trial the player will face before going further into the labyrinth. They will remain stationary, and the first battle the player will face against said enemy is a mandatory, unnavoidable fight. Its power is often far bigger than any monster or FOE you faced this far, and often poses a great challenge to the party, often requiring better strategies or bigger preparations by the player. Another thing that sets these monsters apart from others is their respawn time. While normal FOEs usually take 3 or 7 days, these bosses take 12–15 days to return to life.
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