Hawk King

We may get along. Seems like an extremely in-depth rating system for units to quantify their value. And then they would be sorted onto this “mathematical tier list”? I’m down for tier lists and unit comparisons. Have you actually applied this to any games or is it still theoretical?

2 Speed in 10 levels is average. If you get him any more than that, his performance will be that much better. Great thing about Garcia is that even if he fails to double, his Strength will be high enough to kill weaker enemies with one hit. Hey, debates like this are fun, and something I think Serenes Forest needs more of. They used to be a common occurrence, and I, for one, miss them. I personally feel the GBA era was the best along with Path of Radiance. I know a lot of people love it, but Radiant Dawn was a step backwards in my opinion. I like the remake games a lot for staying pretty true to the originals, but all of the new games starting with Awakening have been missing something for me. Sacred Stones is my favorite because it is so short and easy. The challenges come from figuring out how to meets the pretty strict requirements for LTC. Plus, there really isn’t a single character in the game I dislike. Every single character can be useful.

Level 10 promotions are unrealistic for someone’s casual play of the game. It is a very conservative estimate. And using Gerik’s experience gain on a 0% growths Ephraim route LTC for reference to how much experience units can get on a casual play of Eirika’s route is a bit silly. As someone who has played many drafts of this game, getting to those levels in LTC settings is quite easy. Not to mention, Garcia doesn’t even have the option to promote until Chapter 11 so he will be quite a bit higher than level 10 when he does promote. Ross can promote after Chapter 9 since a mid chapter promotion doesn’t really do much for him. As long as you get him to Trainee LV10 on Chapter 5, he can get a ton of experience on Chapter 6. He can walk over the river, kill some archers, and get the boss kill on Chapter 7. On Chapter 8, he can kill a bunch of soldiers, armors and other enemies (about 10 total) on his way to killing the boss here. And then on Chapter 9, he can walk across the water killing all the pirates on his way to the south part of the map where the enemy density is quite high. Let’s not forget that the person who is doing this play though has already said he plans to take advantage of the arena for extra money. Which will give him more experience on Garcia and Ross. Especially if he can get Ross to LV10 on Chapter 4 which is entirely possible when you aren’t concerned about turn counts. Paladin is obviously better than GK, but GK is also obviously better than General.

Problem is that you don’t get a second Hero crest until Chapter 14 I think. So I personally wouldn’t use both Garcia and Gerik. Garcia needs the +2 speed from Hero and Gerik can get more levels until the second Hero Crest so it wouldn’t be a huge problem. Also Garcia almost absolutely needs Speedwing and for his speed growth to cooperate. However a speed blessed Garcia would be an absolute monster. If you rigged him to get speed every now and then you wouldn’t have to worry at all.

@sinfonic18 For the arena, you soft reset on the screen where it shows the enemy’s class, level, and weapon. Don’t abuse it to the point of making the game brain dead easy (unless you want to), but getting everyone two or three levels might go a long way for you. Gerik joins automatically after Chapter 10, or you can recruit him mid chapter by talking to him with Innes after you talk to Innes with either Eirika or Tana. I believe there are only one or two enemies in the entire game who have a Horseslayer so the extra weakness for GKs really isn’t a problem. After taking a closer look at base stats, growths, and enemy data per chapter; I actually like Dozla even more than I did before. With a speedwing, and average speed growth, he actually doubles 75% of remaining enemies, and the only enemies that double him, which is like 5% of the enemies, only do 2-5 damage per hit. I would rank the axe infantry as Hero!Gerik > Zerker!Ross > Hero!Garcia=Dozla. You need to actually look at enemy stats. The axe boys double 50-90% of enemies in every map for the cost of just one speedwing. They can potentially one shot quite a few enemies they don’t double, and the very few enemies they get doubled by will deal single digit damage per hit. Mouthe Doogs are moot as well since they have at most 24Hp and 4Def so Garcia and Ross will one shot them before they get their 2nd attack.

All that Ross, Garcia, or Dozla need is one speedwing and they will double pretty much anything that isn’t a swordmaster or a dog monster. They have huge HP stats and just as much defense as most other units. Dozla has some fantastic growth rates so he isn’t bad for a backup if Garcia or Ross get stat screwed. Let’s not forget that Garm is probably the best weapon in the game. The three axe infantry are all better than Joshua, Marissa, Colm, or Rennac.

@sinfonic18 Ephraim has great bases, amazing growths, an amazing prf weapon and horse on promotion which all factor into him being one of the best Lords ever. He can get plenty of exp on 5x and since you are going Eirika route he will get auto-leveled 6 levels but only un to LV15 max. You won’t need to really put any effort into training him. As long as Ross get average to above average luck on his levels he will be good to great. I’ve seen him hit the skill cap as a pirate, and I’ve seen him gain just 1 point of speed in 18 levels. 99% of the time he will fall somewhere in between. For chapter 6, Franz should be starting to become mini Seth if you are focusing as much combat and kills into him as you can as Franz should definitely be one of you main core units. There is a trick/exploit to the arena. The game only “locks in” random numbers after combat is initiated or a unit ends their turn. So you can go to an area and check to see what enemy shows up. If you have weapon triangle advantage or you know it is a class you will double and beat easily you can accept the fight. If it is a bad matchup, you can soft reset and go to Resume Chapter and the unit you checked with will still be able to move since you haven’t locked in their action. Then you can burn RNs and check again for a more favorable matchup. No emulator or savestates required. This trick can be performed on a cartridge. Personally, I would advise against using Garcia long term and suggest Gerik instead. He is another axe infantry unit since he promotes into a Hero. Has a much better speed base and growth with amazing bases and growths all around. And can potentially insta-promote as soon as you get him if you need the immediate boost. Obviously, the more you train him before promotion the better he will be. Garcia’s 20% spd growth can be infuriating. Axe infantry are actually consistently better than Sword locked units in this game. SM’s dislike of them is a bit puzzling to me. Hero!Gerik is considered a high/top tier character. Enemies just don’t have extremely high speed stats. 15 speed is enough to double 75% of enemies. Generally, I would say don’t train both Artur and Lute especially since you plan to use so many of the early joining units. You might actually need to take advantage of the Chapter 5 arena to help train some of the up. If either Lute or Artur gets stat screwed you can drop one of them for Saleh who is the mage equivalent of Seth. Long term, Natasha is a little better than Moulder. For LTC Moulder is always better because of his higher base level. The main case against Colm getting the Ocean seal is that he already has 6 movement as a Thief and his 15 uses of lockpick are more than enough to get everything you need. Both Generals and Great Knights can use all three weapon types. General has slightly better stat caps than GK. GK is widely considered the better class because of the mount.

@sinfonic18 So to answer some questions and give you the best chance of doing well and completing the game without giving up or starting over, I will give you a few tips. Every unit is good in this game for casual play, and all but a few can be made useful in LTC settings. Focus on a small number of “core” units. Like 3 or 4 to feed 75% of combat and kills into. Then have another 7 or 8 units for support roles. The core units will be nearly invincible, and the support units will have plenty of exp left over to stay as strong or stronger than the enemies. Good candidates for the core units are mounted and flying units. Their high mobility will allow them more freedom to protect any other vulnerable units and complete objectives faster and easier. Eirika is good, Ephraim is a candidate for best Lord in the series. Don’t go out of your way to force feed Eirika, she will be fine with one or two kills per map. Ross is the best of the trainees followed by Amelia then Ewan simply due to their availability. Berserker!Ross imo is the best combat unit in the game. Water and mountain walking is nice but very niche. He excels because of the high Str and 15% crit bonus of the Berserker class. Most enemies are pretty slow, so with average Spd growth he will double most enemies. Also note that Pirate and Berserker promotion bonuses both give +1 spd whereas Fighter and Warrior give 0. Dozla is usable, but he will be inferior to any other axe user you train up until you get Dozla. For Chapter 6, it is too hard to rescue the villagers. The easiest way is to just kill the boss before the spider gets to them. Don’t be afraid to have Seth or Franz charge in and kill half of the enemies on the map by themselves. There are plenty more left over to give all of your other units two or three kills. Make sure to get Torch staves so your healers can light up the map when they don’t need to heal.

Seven years later and I just happen to check in here. I don’t know what’s crazier, the fact that you finished this or that I remember this thread as well as I do. Good job on the clear.

They are only apart for 7 chapters and then you would have both armies joining again so you wouldn’t want to/need to add too many new characters. If the chapter 15 Reunion was just used as a way that manage characters and inventories and then the still continued on after that separate from eachother that would be pretty cool. In that case you would still only need to add 2-3 characters per route or like 4-5 total. Obvious inclusions could be an Armor in 5x with Ephraim and his gang. Another unit in Gerik’s crew. Another retainer to L’arachel. A trainee to join with Franz and Gilliam. And another archer to join whenever. Maybe make Selena recruitable.

The old-school elitist in me wants to just ask “why are you wasting so many weapon uses” and leave. If not having access to the shops is really that limiting to the point where you could run out of weapon uses and not be able to finish the game, wouldn’t you want to use as few weapon uses as possible? In this run you certainly don’t care about turn counts so you should only be using Seth, Eirika, and 1 or 2 units of each weapon type. Also, spreading out and killing every enemy on the map when the objective is kill boss or seize is a waste of your limited weapon uses. With that hat being said, I’m curious if not having access to the shop would actually matter in terms of just finishing the game. I’m thinking it wouldn’t matter.

@Kebe Congrats on the run so far. I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. It is always great to see other good LTC players. I was especially impressed by your 6 turn clear of 5x. I was (to my knowledge) the first person to discover that the map was able to be done in 6 turns, but your strategy is a little bit different where you rescue drop Orsin on turn 2 instead of turn 1. Edit: lol, I forgot my own strat the rescue drops are the same. Are you familiar with the topic I made on here about it? If so, did you adjust it just because of the reliance on crits? Or was it to feed Forde a little bit more Exp? Either way, I’m happy to see an alternate 6 turn clear.

Ahh the Tellius games. FE9 is tied for my favorite with FE8. FE10 is my least favorite for reasons I won’t get into here. While it may be wordy, I always thought the story was pretty good in FE9. I like the way it all played out. Plus after my first play though I always skipped the story. For me the map designs were great, and never felt boring or lazy. Bexp needs to be handled properly to get the most out of the game. As a draft/LTC player it makes Bexp use much more fun. Basically, if a unit is a good class (mount/flyer) you should pump it into them early on. Bexp is great for making sure that you can use whoever you want whenever you want.

This topic is kinda old but I’m going to respond anyway because it is on the first page. Playing on Normal difficulty, it is absolutely possible to get every single unit who is capable of transferring stats to 20/20. I did it myself and only left out Laguz who can’t possibly cap any stats anyways. Technically I didn’t finish the run, but I was only two or so chapters away with ~25 characters finished at 20/20 with multiple stats capped. It would have/ will finish someday with over 30 characters with transfers. It takes a lot of planning and odd tactics but if anyone is interested I could explain what I did in more detail.

I like story related promotions, but preferably with obtaining an item so you can do it when you want to. Sacred Stones promotion items are obtained well past the halfway point. Without grinding in random battles, it requires a lot of effort to get them past like 20/10.