Mandokarla

It just irritates me. In what case have I outright lied? I've mistyped once that I can think of recently, when I was talking about Levant and Joshcja -- I was harsher than necessary, I will admit. Your fixation on me is flattering though, I appreciate it -- such a drive to get a response from a random internet stranger is admirable.

He could kill the flyers, I should have stressed the "and". Mine couldn't kill the ninjas without Effie on his back -- fuck that noise. Niles has failed me every single time, I have no faith. Besides, I don't really use the capture mechanic that much, and I have Ophelia with Calamity Gate -- all is well. I did take the time to get a Wyvern Lord Midori with Golembane because of the fucking Golem staircase. I hate that map with a burning passion, it's the first map in Conquest that made me legitimately ragequit, and still does so. This time, I'm prepared.

I had a really bad spat where I spent WAY too much on the fucking game, it was a gambling addiction. I should have known better, such behaviors run in my dads side of the family. After one particularly expensive (and unrewarded) binge trying to get Sonya on release, I was so mad at myself I uninstalled the game. I reinstalled it a few months ago, and I have been very conscious about it all, and I've been able to not fall back into that bad habit. I only buy orbs with like, throwaway gift cards I got for my birthday. Never money I earned. Working on building up a Saizo has actually been fun, I get more value out of building high merged common units. Tl;Dr he can recover. He just needs time away.

I recently started my second CQ!Lunatic run, and I decided to match F!Corrin and Odin this time through to capitalize on the sweet, sweet loot from Ophelia's chapter as early as possible. I got her before chapter 12. I completed chapter 18 after two attempts last night, and that was the first map that wasn't borderline easy. Odin is starting to fall slightly behind, so I need to give him more exp before he falls off completely, but I have murderphelia with vantage and dragon fang inherited. I'll HS her into Master at Arms when she hits level 33 (witch) to get LaD, because I'm not wasting money and seals on trying to make a dual rallybot Velouria. I'm not even using Keaton this time around, which I might regret. Niles once again failed to level strength at all before level 12. I had to early promote him at chapter 10 just so he would have enough strength to actually kill the pegasus knights and ninjas. It was that bad. He has always failed me. I resorted to using Shura and Mechanist!Kaze in chapter 17, and Calamity Gate Ophelia as well, which worked just fine. That took the most time and attempts so far, at around 2 hours or so (I am so used to hard that I kept forgetting every master ninja in the cave had (EDIT) Grisly Wound which got me killed). I did capture two of the ch11 lunge ninjas to abuse later (maybe in Ryoma's chapter? I'm not sure where to use them just yet). Laslow has been getting incredible level ups, he's a level 5 hero now -- about to S rank Harlot so I can pick up Soleil -- I'll be making her another master ninja, I saved an arms scroll for that purpose.

What I'm seeing here is someone making a post, to apparently facilitate discussion and the transference of ideas, about Shadows of Valentia. That post is followed up by someone responding with their opinion, and then the OP pretty much just saying "no", repeating several times over -- with respect being all but absent. What I'm seeing is a waste of time, a conversation in which neither side is actually listening to the other and considering their ideas. Nothing is being accomplished here. This thread should be locked. It's clear that OP made this post from the firm standpoint that SoV was a sub-par game at best, and has not acknowledged the fact that they view those who disagree as objectively wrong. It's clear in the phrasing of the arguments and the manner in which this discussion has been handled. We see the people defending the game actually absorb some of OP's points, for example regarding Conrad robbing Celica of some agency and character strength (which I do agree with), and acknowledging them without stating a flat denial. This is a one sided debate.

I am of the opinion that Revelations shouldn't exist. At all. The maps are almost wholly irredeemable, gameplay becomes royals-emblem, which I find is just boring and wasteful. The story hinges on some of the most bullshit, asinine, lame mechanics I've ever seen. It completely invalidates any tenuous story validity the other two games had -- which is the core of my hatred. If you make a game whose advertising was centered around the player choosing a side, don't make a game that invalidates that original choice. If the dev time to Revelations had been slashed entirely and given to the dev teams for CQ and BR, then those two games would be significantly better. Improve BR's gameplay and CQ's writing. Don't give me a bunch of unneccesary cross-nation supports (as fun as some of them are -- TakumiXCamilla is entertaining), give me a set of coherent, respectable supports for each of the main two games. That said, I will say that Birthright has the better writing and story of the two three. Corrin is actually not a more naive and weak lord than Eirika, which was shocking to me (I played Conquest first). Conquest has some of the best gameplay/map design in the franchise (aside from a few lategame maps I find gimmicky and tedious -- Fuga's Wild Ride namely). Ch.10 Conquest is my favorite map in FE.

You're right, that's a typo, my bad

They both tend to spew their opinions like political rhetoric whenever they appear in the same thread. They are both rather arrogant and brickheaded about said opinions, but both of them do offer some good game advice on differing things. I was able to beat Conquest Lunatic based on some of Joshcja's advice, for example. Of the two, I find Levant to be somewhat more dogmatic, namely regarding axe units in general, but when the two get together they're equally unbearable. Frankly, seeing the constant fights becomes extremely tiresome -- and I do feel like it's a good example of the mindsets that infect these forums: "my strats are better for X reason, even if it means risking resets for speed (Levant) / sacrificing enjoyment and time to create blender unit (Joshcja)". For example, I find early HSing Felicia to strategist is fun and makes my life easier for a few chapters, but others would tear into me about that being a wasted early heart seal. Same goes for making Swordmaster!Odin. To comment on the OP: Camilla is (IMO) the single best default unit in the game. Before seal abuse is considered, Camilla offers upon promotion damage, mobility, 1-2 range options with hand axes (and magic, but its kinda low, so...). On Normal, her use trivializes the game. On Hard, she makes it much easier. On Lunatic, I'd argue that she is a must-deploy. And she's pretty damn hot, so there's that. If only she had more of an actual character -- another victim of Fates writing.

Play nice children. As for the Ballistician -- Free chip damage, which is fun. I can't speak for how useful it is long term, but if you don't mind a class with the movement of an armor knight, have fun. Growths aren't everything, its the class utility that matters.

Reclassing as a mechanic has appeared on and off throughout the franchise, most notably in Awakening and Fates, so should reclassing return to FE Switch as a mechanic? Me personally, I'd say no. Awakening reclassing made literally everybody (even Maribelle, somehow) viable because it reset your level and let you get a LOT of easy exp to pad stats. Fates reclassing was more balanced, because it didn't reset your level, and you had more limited options per-seal...but Partner/Friendship seals ruined that attempt at a rebalance, letting anyone be almost anyone else. The big problem with this is that reclassing kills unit identity. In GBA Fire Emblem (my favorite era of FE), each unit had a more defined, memorable identity because they were stuck in one role. For example, in Sacred Stones, Neimi is memorable because she's a hot garbage unit -- she even admits as such with her quote in the Fomortiss fight. Lute is memorable because she has a pretty high magic growth for GBA. Ephraim is memorable because he's the only infantry lance lord at base in the franchise -- Hector has the same class novelty. Robin and Corrin both can be kinda whatever, and in Awakening and Fates units like Lon'qu or Gaius are completely irrelevant because what they bring to the table can be brought by reclassing half of the cast into a Myrm/Thief respectively. I have no reason to field Gaius or Lon'qu because I can reclass one of them into the other's base class to get the requisite skills and have the same promotion path. Whereas in Sacred Stones I have to chose between fielding Colm or Joshua for my sword unit (if I can afford to use one). Fun Fact: Colm has a higher strength growth than Marisa, and his base Str is only 3 lower, making him a better unit than her across the board :D ) If reclassing had to return, perhaps limit it to only Heart Seals, because Heart Seals alone would actually sharpen character/unit identity. It can reflect their character and allow for them to use that part of themselves (See: Samurai!Odin, Cleric!Cherche, Barbarian!Vaike, etc -- where the reclassing options reference the character's story).

So, it's no secret that Sacred Stones is the easiest Fire Emblem game in existence (not counting Casual / Pheonix modes in FE 3DS, because I don't consider those modes legitimate Fire Emblem). While it is my favorite game in the franchise, it is also by far the least challenging, regardless of route or difficulty. I've always held that Sacred Stones on Hard without Valni / Map Encounter abuse is on par with FE7 Eliwood Hard, Awakening Hard (IMO), and the normal difficulties of the other games -- but if you have to place limits on your playing of a game to artificially raise it's difficulty up to standard, then the game is poorly balanced. So if given the opportunity to rebalance the gameplay of Sacred Stones, how would you do it? How would you change certain classes, or enemy scaling? How would you change character bases / growths? How would you change certain maps (not total re-makes, just tweaks) -- reinforcements, enemy placements, small terrain modifications? Would you change promotion item locations? I want to hear what you all have to say. ----- I'd increase enemy growths by a significant amount. The Sacred Stones Master Version hack did an excellent job in scaling up the enemy stats into a place that felt appropriate for that point in the game, and so I would copy that change. Sacred Stones' largest gameplay criticism is that you can viably use Iron weapons all the way up to endgame easily -- you only need the Sacred weapons to kill Fomortiss and maybe Final Lyon. I'd like that to change, and making enemy units actually threatening for once will do so (really, the only threatening non-boss enemy units in SS are the draco-zombies in the final chapter). To accommodate those changes, make shops actually sell weapons appropriate for the difficulty curve. I'm torn on removing the Tower of Valni entirely. On one hand, training the Trainee units in SS is a lot of fun for many people, and I want to keep that function. On the other hand, it's existence trivializes the game even more if it's used. This one is up in the air, but I think a compromise would be to lock access to the tower behind a later chapter -- maybe like halfway through the game. I'd make bosses a little more threatening, because for the most part they just...aren't. Give them stronger weapons (earlier Spears / Short Spears, for example). I'd give enemy units more effective weaponry, more armorslayers (I guess, but I personally think Gilliam, and armor knights in general, are just bad, so idk if this matters), more horseslayers / zanbatos / swordslayers etc. These kinds of weapons punish the rash and inobservant player, and I like seeing them around. After chapter 4 or 5, maybe add one or two of these types of charaters per map to start. I'd place more enemy status staves in the first half of the game, and make them droppable. This gives the player both another obstacle and another opportunity to get a sleep / berserk staff. I'd also place more non-dropped fortify staffbots in the later game chapters, because it marks a priority target that the player can choose to eliminate. I personally would, for the most part, leave all of the maps completely alone. I enjoy the majority of the maps in SS (aside from the Gorgon Egg map, but it's just tedious). I would rebalance a few characters for purposes of viability: Marisa: The worst offender of the SS weird recruitments. She comes several chapters after Joshua, with objectively worse bases, and without any exceptional growths to even try and make up for it. She reeks of being a replacement unit, and while there's nothing specifically wrong with that, she has a pretty bad flaw in her low Constitution -- which forces her to be weighed down by any sword that isn't a shamshir. I would increase her con slightly, to alleviate that problem. On top of that, I'd increase her base strength by 2. Other than that, I'd leave her as is. Seth: Nerf him. More specifically, nerf his growths into the dirt. I don't want any of his growths higher than 25 or 30%. His bases are ridiculous as-is, and that is part of his identity so it can stay (small nerfs to his str and speed bases are also probably justified). Neimi: I don't know if she's redeemable, she's so bad. She needs a significant overhaul, or we need to accept that she's a meme unit at best. I hate archers outside of Fates, so someone else will have to work on her. Amelia: Raise her bases by two across the board. Give her a chance to be more than speedwings fodder. Ewan: Raise his bases by three across the board. Same reason as Amelia. Knoll: Raise his defensive growths by 5%, and his defensive bases by 2 def and 3 res. His combat is otherwise fine. You make him a summoner or you're a fool. While on the topic of the dark mage: Make Gleipnir deal effective damage against monsters. Every other Sacred Twin does, let it line up with the rest. Also give Luna 10 more hit. Myrrh: She's fine with her bases, growths, recruitment time, all of it. Give a second dragonstone at some point, or make her Dragonstone unbreakable. Her biggest issue is that she not only has poor availability (late recruitment), but also currently has a limited/capped usability, because there is only one main-game dragonstone, with only 50 uses. She is a powerhouse lategame, this unlocks her to be used as such if the player wishes to use a deployment slot for her. Let's see more of the best dragon-transformation sprite in all of Fire Emblem. L'Arachel: For the love of god increase her bases. Make her level 10 on recruitment, with growths applied appropriately. She's the goddamn Rausten Princess, and she's unusable. This way she will still be horridly underleveled, but at least she's in a position to immediately benefit from promo bonuses and be worth deploying. Perhaps increase her starting staff rank too. Class Changes: Knight: Give it +1 move. Make it fucking usable. Rogue: Give it +1 move or innate Pass. Also put a second Ocean Seal in the game somewhere, in case the player wants to both promote Colm and Pirate!Ross. The second Ocean Seal isn't a priority though, exclusive choices aren't a bad thing. I'd like Rogues to be more attractive to both have and field. Wyvern Rider: fix the Pierce bug, and change it's activation from Level% to 10 + Level%. That's what I have so far, I want to know what you guys think.

Sacred Stones is my favorite FE game for a lot of reasons, but I will never say it isn't easy. If you want to play SS and have an experience similar to Blazing Sword Eliwood Hard Mode, I would suggest not using the Tower of Valni or map encounters AT ALL. No grinding. None. Zip. Nada. That makes the game's difficulty a LOT more on par with the rest of the franchise. I disagree with Levant regarding story, I think SS writing is pretty good. The plot is simplistic and there are some flaws, but the strength of SS writing is in the characters and the supports. Those are some of the best in the franchise IMO. I find that Ross is the only trainee that might be worth it, but honestly you don't need them. You get Seth and Franz (God and his Son) in the first couple chapters.

So I just have an excess of healers now. Brady is now a Grandmaster, Morgan went to lvl 15 War Cleric and is now a Trickster, just because I like that class a lot, and Maribelle is a Valkyrie. A Useless Valkyrie that will be the first one on the bench, but hey, idk.

I hate you for this, but I'll do it.

I've been thoroughly enjoying Awakening, significantly more so than Fates actually, and after beating it a few times in the last two months, I thought a PMU would be a lot of fun. So here are my rules: - Limited grinding will be allowed: I will only be allowed to fight two risen encounters between each chapter/paralogue. This rule makes the run much easier, but does not make the game as piss easy as usual (while I'm on this topic of difficulty, my biggest criticism of Awakening is that it is horribly unbalanced on Lunatic, unfairly so. If Lunatic was balanced more like how Fates Lunatic was balanced, then I'd be doing this on lunatic). - Unused Units Cannot be Used AT ALL -- No meat shields, no pairup/support fodder. - Child Units' usability is tied to their parent's -- This means Morgan is guaranteed to be used (which breaks the game, but idgaf). Other children can only exist if both of their parents are usable. Child units DO NOT take up their own slot. This means that if Panne is picked for me, then Yarne comes with her (provided someone can support with her). - No DLC maps/classes -- I don't own them anyway - Renown Boosts/bonus items will be usable -- But I cannot access the bonus teams/maps at all. They are more for fun or flavor anyway. But I feel like having Forseti or Tyrfing sit in my inventory for roughly 10 chapters before anyone MIGHT have A tomes/swords isn't that big of a problem. - Second Seals are usable -- It's the best part of the class system of this game, and it will let me patch up some problems (namely, what if no flyer? What if no Gaius? I need a thief). Now for the Unit Limitations: - Chrom, Robin, Virion (He's my fave Awakening character, so he stays. Love that asshole) + 7 gen 1's. - You decide my Robin Bane/Boon/Sex -- I am going to self-restrict myself in terms of classes: I cannot become a Sorcerer or a Dark Flier, and neither can Morgan. Being able to easily set up Vantage + Vengance + Nosferatu is overpowered in every sense of the word, and is a level of cheese I really don't want to use. I'll be updating this thread as I go, and as you guys line my roster. Don't decide classes for the selected units, as I've already banned the OP shit from me and Morgan, and second seals are limited on Gen 1s anyway. UPDATE: Chrom || Virion || M!Robin (+HP. -SKL) || Maribelle (My Wife) + Crybaby || Cherche + Batman || Frederick || Cordelia + Potential Thief Severa (depends on who is left) || Kellam || Stahl || Lissa + Owain THE PICKS ARE IN, LET THE PMU BEGIN. I'll be updating it every few chapters I play or so, don't expect a chapter by chapter. Might post a picture of each character's stats going into act 2. UPDATE: As I am entering into Chapter 11 / End of Act 1, here are my characters' status:

MN!Laslow

Can someone explain to me why the hyper early HS Paladin Jakob is so good? Aside from the obvious mobility and access to actually good WT weapons. His stats are good, but does it carry him into the mid->lategame? Is it really worth losing the early healer (I know you get Elise/Sakura in Conq/Rev early, but two healers are really nice)?

First of all, Necro, plz don't. Secondly, I finished like 4 runs. No missed content, but normal is piss easy, and Hard isn't difficult until Endgame IMO. Lunatic seems to be an unbalanced mess. I don't have any DLCs.

I changed my sig after posting that, like two minutes after XD

Yuri from Doki Doki Literature Club checks all the boxes for me. Her real personality (act one of the game, if you haven't played it, its free on Steam, and VERY good) is simultaneously adorable and triggers every protective instinct in me to an insane degree. She is one of the best depictions of depression/social anxiety I've ever seen in ANY medium, beaten out only by another character from the same game. I'm waiting for a mod to the game to "finish it" in the way I want it to be (those that have played it will know what I mean).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JINGLE JANGLE

Alright, I took a break for awhile (school and other reasons) and came back. Beat the furry genocide by using literally only Cornflake paired up with Effie + Beast Slayer. Effie gained 5 levels, and now is the highest leveled member in my army by an average of three levels. Will I regret that exp dump? Probably. Do I care? Nah. Besides, Fuga's Wild Ride gives a LOT of exp, so I can probably catch up decently there. I just need to be patient with the map, I really do despise it.

I see where you're coming from, and you aren't at all wrong, but I am a Story-First kind of gamer most of the time, so if the story pulls me in without completely sacrificing gameplay, I'm happy. Considering Sacred Stones is my favorite FE game, and it is easy as piss in every way except for Ephraim!Hard No Grind Ironman (which still isn't super hard, but it's a lot of fun), you can see where I stand on things. That said, I am in the midst of Conquest Lunatic, and I feel like Conquest Hard is the most balanced and most well made gameplay entry in the entire franchise. I play CQ to be challenged, anything else to relax and have fun. CQ lunatic is starting to give me problems (i'm at the Furry Genocide), but it is a very well made game.

I agree that Alm being the tipping point is a little...much, but the way I see it he had a lot of things destroying his faith in Zofia before that point, and Alm just represented the final death knell of the nation he loved.

Have you viewed the Memory Prisms? They VERY much made me appreciate Fernand more. I sympathize with him. But yeah, Deen is boring, meh. I kinda agree with the sidequests, but I felt like they were mostly there to give you more coins for forging, which I did enjoy playing around with. I feel like Barons are bad for the same reason Generals are bad (in my opinion) in pretty much every FE i've played -- they are slow, their defense isn't high enough to make up for it (especially considering in SoV Saber wound up having only a few points lower def than Forsythe) and they just don't feel good to use. If you gave Barons immunity to terrain movement penalty modifiers (for some reason) then, in SoV specifically, it would be a bit better.