Garlyle

The Ace of Spades. Why does it hurt when I think?

Well, we didn't have to wait too long for our next victim. Lute died. I was aware that she's in the archers range, but I didn't pay attention of the mage across the mountain. Both hit and was just enough to put her down. So, Chapter 7 is about to begin, but it's your turn again to put a setback on me. Ch.6: Gilliam died, samthedigital said: bench Seth permanently Ch.7: Lute died, waiting for sabotage

Only stat I considered too low for her is her defense in the long run, and skill is not a big issue for magic users: tomes are one of the more accurate weapons in the game. 8x is a wonderful source of experience for her to catch up with your current squad, so it's not that difficult to train her either. That huge mag stat will help her out to deal a lot of damage, or if you want her to be more flexible, use a simple heal staff to completely heal one of your allies. All that considered I don't see why people struggle using her later on when there are some really sick magic tomes out there for her - Aircalibur, Forblaze and Elfire. It's easier to work on her supports as well, and why not train her up when she becomes a unit who can recruit other units. Well people said that my Lilina is slow when I was showing it to them, but honestly that never felt to be a problem for me. I prefer her over Lugh, who might be faster, but can get screwed in Mag instead. What FE6 was not kind to is axe users instead - or anyone who got weighted down by their equipment and got no accuracy. For Dorothy I meant that nice Str and Spd growth paired with Skl growth as well, so she may become a glass cannon pretty much. Sue can be dodgy and fast and mounted, hope she doesn't get stuck with low Str - I'm just saying that she's not as bad as people think.

You know, I think Three Houses Golden Deer path has a pretty amusing endgame level. Not just straight go to the boss and kill him, but actually having objectives and things that change the layout of the level, probably to your advantage mostly. Luna is still very powerful, so it's not the most challenging one, but the battle was very entertaining. But regarding of challenges, I have to give the trophy to Thracia. In most games you just use your MVPs and profit, here you use your best unit and it can still throw stuff at you to keep you anxious - you want to be quick and efficient. The final boss is not the problem, it's the opening the path to the final boss that is screwing you over. Also your party is split into 6, and you need to deal with Thracia formations - I swear I had a 10 minute brain session just with that. But it brought all together: had to utilize weapons, staves and skills as well to my advantage. You know that feeling when you are given a challenge, and the victory is just so satisfying, that's what Thracia final map was.

Well, this is already a punishment for my mistake in fog of war, so I'll go with the idea of @samthedigital to bench Seth for good. Knowing the history of Seth, the reasoning is pretty good. I'll let you know if something bad happened again. Damnit Seth, you just reached Lv2.

I am actually skeptic about this. Because after a story chapter you start a new month, and another round for Mission Assistance. You need to re-recruit for mission assistance, but if you can't have it or any interaction like that with a unit, it's gone for good. Also you mentioned you can't gift him and anything, so he probably had enough of you.

I had a Petra on Chapter 5 Mission Assistance with me, and a sneaky archer put her down. She retreated, still alive in the monastery, and I had to face against her in the first mock battle. But just like your Ignatz, I can't interact with her anymore.

I haven't played Sacred Stones for a long time, because I believe the game is very easy - so I decided to change all that. I'm going to play it on hardest difficulty without abusing the tower, and also Whenever a unit dies, you can sabotage my run somehow. No idea how to do it? Make a reasonable call. Like a turn limit on a chapter, or deny me using certain items, or bench a unit for X chapters, or whatever crazy thing comes to my mind that is not over the top. What I would not agree on is sell certain items or bench a unit forever unless a very strong reason was given for it. With that being said, I lost Gilliam in Chapter 6 fog of war map - as an armor knight he took double hits, and didn't dodge anything. 2*8 and 2*4 or something was enough to do him in. I'm going for Chapter 7 now. If you have any questions, let me know. Now, how would you make future chapters more difficult for me?

My strategy takes the route with less wyverns. That is, take the path all the way to the south, and around the mountain. Don't rush it, only if you want to get killed. Got any bows and Aircaliburs ready, use them where you find a window. Fliers can also do a great job, except Juno. Obviously you can bait and then kill as many from their rush a you can, and then prepare for the next waves. Don't worry about the turn limit, 30 should be enough with a normal pace. If you have a strong axe unit, you can place him on a mountain tile in the middle to lure the lance wielding wyvern in the final stretch. There are no mages with status staves, but approach the one with the Bolting tome carefully. Let me know if you got stuck in another chapter. Also which units are your best at the moment?

When it comes to recruitment, this goes through my head: Lysithea(Lorenz) > Petra > Catherine > Ingrid > Mercedes > Sylvain > Marianne > Felix > Hilda > everyone else It's that simple.

Dedue is second best retainer of the series in my heart, he still can't take the crown from our best boy Finn.

First of all, Lilina is NOT a bad unit, she's amazing. I used her in all my Binding Blade runs, HM included. Ontopic, I think I used a number of bad units who turned into fun units. FE5 Tanya: not an archers game, yet she supports back and forth with Othin - levelling her up to get into that sweet 1/99 spot. She was faaast, I'd train her again. FE6 Wendy: wouldn't recommend her to anyone, yet I found myself training her up to Lv20 before promotion, and turning her into a wall afterwards. Keep a few good lances for her, haven't tried her on HM yet though. FE6 Dorothy: people call her a bad unit, but all I see is a deadly archer overshadowed by Nomads and prepromotes. Starting stats are bad, but her growths are amazing. FE6 Fir: what's better than a Swordmaster? 2 Swordmasters. Also sick Lv1 stats with HM bonuses. 3H Flayn: bad reputation, but comes with Rescue/Fortify and godly Res. Sign me up please. 3H Annette: something about her smashing anything with magic or Lightning Axe is charming. Yet she's made out of tinfoil paper. On a bottom line, where does FE6 Gonzales and 3H Ignatz belong nowadays? I like them too.

I'm going to mention only 1. Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 - Chapter 21: Liberation Wars Couple of reasons really: 11 ballistas, some of them can poison you 8 wyverns with the Prayer skill A mage with a Sleep staff A lot of reinforcements early in the map The boss also has a Blizzard tome which can also put you to sleep Took me 60 turns to beat it for the first time.

@Rezzy I'm currently taking a break from Heroes, could you exclude me from your list for a while?

FE5 would be only fair play if you pass the game after every 2nd chapter, otherwise the fatigue might just helps you to screw over the other player if you want to be sure to have a unit. I know S Drinks is a thing, but they are limited. Also the game is already difficult even if you play it alone. FE6 sounds interesting, large cast to play with, higher difficulty, but it's more forgiving than Thracia. You can get a good selection of interesting equipments, so it has fun potential. Maybe don't go on Hard Mode for a first try, just to keep things sane. FE7 you could try a rematch if you had fun at first time. First time on Eliwood route, then you can play the other's chapter on Hector's route. Of course, that requires 2 playthroughs. Don't go with FE4 - since the chapters are extremely long, I don't think this would be a good game to play like this. No idea about the other titles.

If Chad is not used for combat purposes, I understand, the list is pretty accurate for the early game. However Dorothy is great, much better than Wolt. Her starting stats are not outstanding, but in long run only her defense will be too low on her. Of course Sue and Shin are always better than any other archers, thanks to their horses. Later I'd add Cath, Cecilia, Sophia, Garret, Douglas and Dayan/Juno to this list. (although I'm not a fan of Hugh either, too expensive)

First run? Go for Ilia route. Nice to hear your Lilina is doing well. Sue, Shanna and Dieck are also good in most cases. Where on earth are Rutger and Clarine? Don't tell me they already hit the bench.

My first GD Hard/Classic run was almost like that. Out of all the other house recruits I only really used Petra, as Dorothea and Ingrid couldn't contribute enough after their joining time. While Petra was nice, Catherine could also fill the same role on your team. Lorenz was the weakest, Lys was obvious Thrysus nuke, Raphael was a freaking wall, Ignatz was the long range archer (pretty good one actually), Hilda went late Wyvern, Leonie going on the mounted route, while Marianne became a great dancer. I think Blue Lions can also do pretty well - Ingrid is the best flier, Felix is pretty fast and strong, Sylvain is excellent as a lance cav, Dedue and Dimitri can tank pretty well, and Mercedes is by far the best healer. Ashe and Annette are not great - while Annette can be a heavy hitter with magic and magic axes, she's incredibly frail; I don't know where to put Ashe honestly, but he could do some archer stuff. Black Eagles also has some potentials, but not the best in that regard. Edelgard is strong, Hubert is good, Petra is fast, Ferdinand has good potential with his personal skill, but Dorothea, Bernadetta, Caspar and Linhardt can be problematic. Or maybe someone knows better how to make them into an op team.

I guess in general we can say that defense maps are small, but challenging by nature. I mean you don't need to defend multiple points and march through the map to reach the key points to defend.

I think he was actually a better written from this archetype. I'd loved to have him join to my army, but I also found it understandable to keep him as an enemy. Neither Murdock or Gale was fond of the idea to fight Miledy or Zeiss, who were fighting along Bern before. Gale also had a journey to get the honorary position as a Dragon Lord of Bern, thanks to the scheming of Narshen before the events of Binding Blade.

So, I got curious again: which maps do you like better - small and simple, or big ones with more things to do, which sometimes you cannot complete perfectly. I know we had big maps which offered little in Fire Emblem history, but probably nobody is interested in those. Personally I like a good challenge, and big maps with side objectives ensures that I don't get bored with them. On the other hand, small maps with challenges still have their charm. So I'll make this poll and let you guys decide. I am not expecting any votes on Genealogy, but I just added that one there - just to make sure I don't mean big maps by Genealogy standards.

Well, you have enough experience to give Binding Blade a try, storywise I still think it's better if you tried Blazing Sword before - most people played it that way too. Still it's a fair warning to say that Binding Blade and Thracia are the hardest Fire Emblem games, although some titles are more difficult on the hardest settings. I too found 3H Hard/Classic to be easier than it should.

Here's the thing. Sacred Stones is very easy, it also has a tower where you can grind. Not sure what difficulty you played 3H on though. I'd personally recommend trying out Blazing Sword. The game comes with a pretty good tutorial and multiple lords to choose from. Also it has Hector. One of the better balanced Fire Emblem games. Don't start with Binding Blade. If you are interested, maybe give it a try after you finished Blazing Sword. FE6 is the hardest from the GBA titles, and it's not very well balanced. Still, it's a nice touch for the story of Blazing Sword if you enjoyed that one. (one of my favourites, but I like a fair challenge)

I think Church route is the one most similar to the GD route, so I'd recommend against it. Edelgard's route is a much more different story, and has a couple of cutscenes to unlock, so that one would be an ideal pick. Also it's short. Dimitri's route also has a lot of similarities too, but you can gather a lot more good equipment than in the other routes. Pick that as your 3rd run I'd say.

I voted it as pretty good, but it's not close to be the best Fire Emblem game. First playthrough was fun, story was mediocre, characters were interesting, I really liked the support conversations. Gameplay wise it helps you a lot to create different build, op ones, meme ones, and wacky ones. On the con side, different routes reuse too much from the others. Same goes for paralogue and aux maps, and the devs sometimes didn't even bother to change the clear condition or the starting location - a lot of missed potential right there. It hurts the replayability, but there are still a lot of things to play with. The difficulty: I don't know how much difference normal and hard has, but hard and maddening has a difficulty spike between them that feels like there should be another difficulty setting between them. It's easy to get more exp and money you want in a hard/classic run too, and with the divine pulse around, there's really not much you need to worry about. I'll judge it over again once I play through Maddening again.