dragonlordsd

@virtu333 Did you leave out the dancer battalions on purpose? Because those are pretty ridiculous. Also the "guaranteed survive one hit" battalions. I'd like to see how those compare in terms of usage.

Two things: One, they actually need to hold a house session. Two, they're probably making absolutely sure they don't screw this up.

There's a question that's been bugging me for a while: Are the other Legend of Heroes games any good? I loved the trails series so much, but it's practically impossible to find the other five games that led up to it. As far as I know, all of them except the second were released solely for the PSP in English, and none of them are available for the Vita, which is extremely frustrating. They're super expensive online too. Has anyone played them? Were they any good?

I'm surprised that there are so many people who only recently got into Atlus and SMT, they've been great for a long, long time. In fact, as far as I know, there has never been an SMT game that was actually "bad", just ones that are "better" and "worse". The game that first got me into SMT, weirdly enough, was Devil Survivor for the DS. Still the best SMT game in terms of gameplay, in my opinion, but then I discovered Nocturne, Strange Journey, and the rest of the main series, loved those, and then played the Persona games, which were also great. YS: The Oath in Felghana was my first YS game, on the pc. I absolutely loved it, and have been a huge Falcom fan ever since, though I really feel like the trails series has been in decline with Cold Steel. Hopefully that'll turn around.

I think someone already pointed this out, but the history of the sword can really be used to explain this more than anything. First off, there's little merit to comparing one weapon to another. All weapons that saw serious usage in history were useful in their time, otherwise they wouldn't have been, you know, used. Swords in almost every culture have been exclusively the weapons of either nobility or trained fighters. The peasants of any era would have owned axes, hammers, pikes, harpoons, bows, etc., which served their every day needs. And though machetes were used in some places, in general, a sword isn't a tool, it's a weapon first and foremost. You won't chop down a tree, catch a fish, or harvest grain with a sword. Therefore, owning a sword means owning a weapon. You'd buy an axe or bow for everyday use, but you'd buy a sword specifically to fight someone.

I 100% believe this is true. I think that if the GOP could swap trump for pence without damaging the party, they'd do it in a heartbeat. It would be a lot safer and more comfortable for them.

Well, counter point, (not trying to argue, just a thought), characterization is presentation in games. I think the complaints about the 3ds ones are less about the characters and more the plot, but who knows? That said, I think systemically, the idea of class progression this game introduces is superior to conquest's flat reclassing. It gives a bit more control and flavor to progression to train in skills to unlock classes. That said, in practice, this doesn't work due to A) The classes not being balanced to compensate for the new system and B) The game not being difficult enough to justify it. Thus, @Glennstavos It's not that the optimizations are uninteresting, just that there's no... point to them. I think the calendar complaints aren't really justified, as the same progression restriction in past games (Conquest as opposed to Birthright) is what made them work.

Three houses represents a huge step in the right direction for the series, but it's not without its flaws. The biggest improvements were on writing and world building, which took a massive leap forward after a long downward spiral they had been on. Though the characterization is still trope-y in concept, they took the time to flesh out and add depth to the vast majority of the cast, which was sorely lacking in previous games. The gambit system is functionally brilliant, and though it does unbalance a little at times, it is a well executed addition that I think should remain going forward. That said, it's not without its flaws. The biggest flaw is map variety and design, which is sorely lacking. I also think the functional removal of level caps and stat caps (ie, placing them so high it's absurd) seriously damages not only the game's balance, but the ability for the developers too balance it. The reclassing system is also the best I think it has been, but the classes themselves have not been well balanced to accomodate how this system works in practice. Still, I think both of these flaws can be fixed, and I think this represents a great trajectory for the series as a whole.

It's early, but here's my prediction for how this goes down: 1. House Impeaches Trump 2. Senate surprises everyone by holding trial. 3. Trump is acquitted, but barely. Basically, just a rehash of Johnson or Clinton. That said, looking at both of those two examples, the acquittal doesn't mean much, and likely won't in this case. Here are the factors I think will come into play: 1. There are enough votes in the house to impeach him, so that will happen as long as the democrats want it to. 2. This is shady enough that the more central-leaning senators will agree to a trial. (Or rather, it's too risky to not hold a trial) Now we get to point 3. Basically, the two thirds threshold is a high one to cross. Without a new bombshell, it's unlikely to go through. There is the late-night-party-mentality argument (ie, some people are tired and want to go home, but are afraid to be the first to leave, but once enough people crack, it starts becoming risky to stay), but we'll see if that actually has any effect.

SRPG studio is amazing, and it functionally is a Fire Emblem maker. I've been really impressed by its tool set.

Alright, here's a suggestion that I think people are going to object to, but here me out. What if armored units had a permanent pavise up? In other words, all incoming phys damage is halved. Cap the movement at 4, or even 3, but make them super tanky. With good design, I think it'd work. The reason I'm saying this is that I think we should separate them out mechanically from the cavalry. In other words, some function that makes it so that a cavalry can't function identically as an armor, in the same way an armor can't function identically as a cavalry.

There are some really good ideas here. One idea I've always wanted to see played out in greater depth is the Suikoden 2 idea of having your main characters be deserters from the empire. Following the character arc of going from loyal soldier -> questioning the morality of your choices -> making a stand -> becoming an outcast -> becoming a leader -> becoming a hero has always really interested me. The big parts of the plot I'd want to explore in detail are the idea of the hero finally breaking and refusing to do something they know is wrong, even though they've done other bad things. This I felt was lacking in Suikoden, in which the hero never got the chance to choose for themselves, they were forced to flee. I also loved the tactics ogre idea of leading the player to make bad choices and then showing them the consequences. Since it's a game, I think the punches hit harder if you let the player choose them. Additionally, the whole segment of the game where the hero is essentially a nameless refugee also fascinated me. I'd like to explore that as well. There's a large part where you're not even trying to fight back against the empire, you're just trying to not die, and that also I found really interesting. Taking inspiration from Thracia, I'd really love to push the mechanics of the game to demonstrate these themes. SRPG studio is a fantastic tool for prototyping, I'm really loving it so far.

Yeah, this is still weird to me. It would save them a lot of time and effort to implement Rhea or Geralt, who already have full rigs/animations/stats/etc, rather than create entirely new characters from scratch. Idk, we'll see. Edit: I spelled Jeralt with a "G", lol.

Yeah, I'm cool with this. Like a lot of people said, Jeritza really should have been in from the beginning, so it's good that he's a free update. I know some people are whining about how "stuff should have been in the game from the start", but most of the paid stuff is just extras anyway. That said, this isn't nearly on par with Xenoblade 2, which set the freaking gold standard for season passes, but then and again, nothing has really been that good, so it's probably not fair to say that. And who knows? The dlc may be more expansive than it sounds on the surface. The biggest question mark from this leak is, are we getting new maps, and if so, how many?

At least, according to Twitter. https://mobile.twitter.com/shameless_SMT/status/1169692834045341696?s=19 This poster compared the artwork, and apparently at least some of the previous censorship has been removed.

Depends on your playstyle. There are a bunch of units that function similarly, but are much easier to use than him, Sylvain, Raphael, Leonie, etc. can all perform much the same role, albeit not as specialized. Dedue can go a few different directions, and your success with him will depend on level ups. For purely min/maxing purposes, his absolute best usage is to grab quick riposte off of war master. This not only guarantees him follow up attacks, but prevents any follow up attack against him. Given his absurdly high Hp, it's easy to maintain the threshold required. Gauntlets are a solid choice to make use of his strength and low speed, but are outclassed by brave axes in the late game. Aegis is also really important for him, but getting into paladin can be a bit of a pain.

No testing on my part, just things I read on forums, which is why I really encourage people to look up the stuff for yourselves. As you said, it is changing a lot. The 4,000 number I think has been disproven, as I'm re-reading threads from like a week ago. I think that came from an earlier post. But yeah, double checking, the most recent stuff (the info I'm looking at now comes from about a week ago) says that it caps at 1,001 no matter what.

That's amazing. I mean, I don't quite know why I would use that, but it's still really interesting. @Altrosa Actually, some of the budding talents are really good, regardless of whether you'll ever use the stat. Bernadetta grabs pass, which is the ONLY it can be acquired in the entire game (not even assassins and thieves have it), which lets her have some fun shenanigans. Ferdinand and a bunch of others also get the seal abilites, which are up and down depending on your playstyle.

The upper limit to hearts you can acquire is much, much higher than the number you need to get to S rank. For more details look into some of the data mining that has been done, but the gist of it is this: You start at 0 support points and unlock C at 100. Each successive 100 point margin reaches a new support rank, though may not unlock a new conversation. You stop accumulating support points after you reach the amount needed for a support conversation, and for good measure, the game internally resets your points back to the level of that conversation after you do it. After the conversation, support increases normally again. It takes 1000 support points to unlock S-rank, which is the highest rank you can get, though for students, it's actually A. However, the maximum number of points is actually over 4000, and the supports will increase even after you've maxed them out. This is used to calculate paired endings. Now we get to the important part. The highest ranking supports for each pairing, be they B, A, or S, do NOT cap support points. Points will continue to increase even if you have unlocked the conversation, but haven't viewed it yet. This is likely an oversight. Activating these conversations will restore points to normal. So, basically, you unlocked S support ages ago, and now you're just grinding to keep any of the units you're grinding on from ever getting a paired ending with anyone.

Hard Truths. Yeah, it seems the knights are significantly better the earlier you recruit them. That said, Catherine gets a bump above being just a good unit purely off of how ridiculous Thunderbrand is. Due to how the game is balanced, at present brave weapons are pretty broken, and Thunderbrand is an even more broken brave sword, to the point it's a little silly. It has a weight of 7, making it the fourth lightest sword and fifth lightest weapon in the game. It also has a might of 13, only two less than Byleth's creator sword.

Depends on the battalion, but some have fairly ridiculous effects. The caveat, of course, is that this game is currently easy enough that it doesn't really matter, but there are some battalions that are incredibly powerful. The Aegir Astral Knights, which I was asking about, give you something like +7 attack and +20 avoid at level 5, which is crazy. Similarly, the elite troops you get in each route (which you retain between playthroughs) give equally insane stat boosts. Edel's Supreme Armor Co. gives +7 attack, +6 magic, -10 avoid, +6 defense, and +4 resistance. Or something along those lines. I can look up exact numbers. The big ones are the unique battalions that you only get one of. Petra's Brigid Hunters (NOT Brigid Mercenaries) gives the highest avoid bonus, at +30. The Vestra Sorcery Engineers are also really good.

Axebreaker is almost overkill. Sword prowess 5 gives the highest avoid bonus from skill level in the game (+20), but if you're running into a lot of axes, do as you like. For full min/maxing on her, I'd go with swordmaster to get the following: Class abilities: Swordfaire Sword Crit +10 Equipped abilities: Deathblow Sword Prowess 5 Darting Blow/Armored Blow (depending on how she builds speed/def wise) Aegis Vantage/Desperation I'd love to swap one of those for Sword Avoid +20, but she can't be a dancer... Obviously, you can swap a few of these in and out depending on other skills. Weight -3/Weight -5, Movement +1, and Alert Stance could each replace darting or armored blow. Aegis is mostly to keep her from getting sniped.

I think she'll do one more. The artists so far have usually done pairs or triplets. As a side note, I'm expecting the artist who did echoes to do one more as well.

@timon Cool, thanks. There's a ton of stuff locked out of Black Eagles, which I both like and don't like. On the one hand, if you play BE first, that means you have a ton of new content on your next playthroughs, way more than on any other route. On the other hand, I find it super weird that Black Eagles was the only route that IntSys had intended to make, and the it was Koei that added the others. The others feel so much more developed, I would've assumed the opposite.

Catherine is an awesome unit, but like a lot of people said, there's almost nothing you can actually do with her. To start with, like Shamir, Catherine is an extremely strong unit, starting with fairly busted stats and good growths. Catherine doubles down on this by having the hands down best sword in the entire game, Thunderbrand. Seriously, it's so good, it's almost not worth having her use anything but swords. Funtionally, it's a brave sword, but has both more might and less weight, and 10% base crit. Jesus. It's only flaw is 10 less hit, which... it's a sword, so, whatever. Shamir starts as a sniper, which means she's a shoo-in for bow knight. Reclassing her to cavalier or paladin is a good idea, then, since she can grab desperation or aegis, or you can reclass her to a wyvern if you're not sick of those yet. Catherine is a TERRIBLE mortal savant, with her weakness in reason and garbage spell list, so that's rather pointless. You can't make her a dancer, which sucks, because you could definitely make some broken builds through that. Her only real master class option then is Falcon Knight, but that only gives lancefaire, not swordfaire. Mortal Savant is out, and none of the other classes give her much. She can't even take advantage of her brawling as a war master. For advanced classes, sure assassin is fine, but she loses sword crit +10, which given her existing bonuses is really a pain. With the crit ring, she's got a base crit of 25, which if she quads (and she WILL quad. Thunderbrand's weight is 7, for heaven's sake. She'll never not quad) means she'll be criting a lot. So... really, all you can do is just leave her where she is. Maybe go back and grab deathblow off of warrior to make her even more busted, maybe grab vantage, wrath, or desperation if you want to have fun. She's a really good unit, it's just that there's not a ton to actually play around with her.