eriyg

You're right, my spreadsheet was wonky. Tactics is actually 201/206, but a good Jerme and Night of Farewells should still get me there. I plan on triggering reinforcement zones in Cog and feeding Nino kills using Filla's Might, so exp is still feeling good.

Update: I beat Linus in 18 turns (4 under 5*), took all four hero crest users to Crazed Beast, and am now in prep for Jerme. Rank screen shows 5* for everything with this breakdown: Tactics: 162 / 179 which is 17 under. I lose ~20 to the rest of the Hector only chapters, but I'm anticipating at least a 10 turn surplus from Night of Farewells. Exp: 23,481 / 19,550 with only 21,150 left to go. If any of my promoted units gets to 20, exp will be done. Or I could get Nino to 20... Funds: 477,039 / 424,000 I stand to gain 597,800 more gold and have to gain 418,000, so I can spend 232,839 gold in items and weapon uses. I really can't say how much I spend per chapter, but I feel pretty secure with this buffer. Raven and Heath promoted at 18 and 17 respectively, Fiora is 19:98, and Priscilla has given me a bad omen (4 is unlucky, also a fun 666) and I used Afa's drops on her. I didn't recruit Farina. Geitz is beast. He 1-rounds wyverns and can tank hits all day. Promoted Raven (and soon Harken) is my only other unit(s) who can handle wyverns that well. Hawkeye can tank, but doesn't double. Pent one rounds, but can't tank hits. I'm not sure about Hector. I've kept him out of most combats since he's lv 20 and I didn't want to waste exp. I think the only reason to ever take on Lloyd is if you're speedrunning. Training Lynn/Eliwood isn't that bad and the Linus map is significantly easier compared to not a 3-turn Lloyd kill. We'll see how Jerme vs Kenneth turns out. Thanks again to everyone for their advice! There's only 10 chapters left and they're all fun ones. After looking at how much work is left to maintain 5*, I think I'll actually be able to play the game instead of constantly worrying about turns/exp/gold. The ominous Priscilla stats:

Light magic doubles earlier, but once your anima users start doubling reliably, light gets outclassed. Similarly, dark is also better than anima until anima doubles, but it has the utility of nosferatu and luna (and summoners in SS) to keep it relevant. I mostly play FE7 HHM, so I don't know how it goes in other games/modes, but red magic users and bosses in there have weirdly high res, so the magic triangle doesn't really matter because your magic users generally can't ever kill enemy magic users.

I generally agree with everything that's been said. It's worth noting the problem with Bartre/Dorcas is that they never double. Even if they do with the +2 speed from Hero (not guaranteed), they still rarely double before lv 10. It might give them enough avoid to not die as surprisingly fast as they currently do, but I don't have much faith. Losing hand axes on paladins really sucks 😞 I think the major buff is that Erk/Nino/Serra get a horse and Canas gets summoner. Otherwise, the game is pretty similar. Is there a rom hack for this change?

You have Wallace and Geitz? You can only get one of them, so I think you're really at 9. If you need one more, I'll say Isadora. She's underused, but not severely outclassed like archers and fighters. Is this Hector normal or hard mode?

Thanks for all the help! I ran exact numbers, if anyone is interested: Tactics is 151 / 148 (I've done all paralogues including 19xx) Exp is 16,854 / 15,500 (can I take 80% of this number? think no) Funds is 371,441 / 326,000 (80% of the 5* requirement) For Lloyd/Linus, I'll definitely go to Linus. Turns should be better, and Linus only needs 250 more exp, which is extremely easy to get compared to a 3 turn Lloyd kill. For Kenneth/Jerme, I looked at the tables/wiki and it looks like you get about 15,000 extra gold from Jerme, but Jerme only requires 6,500 more gold than Kenneth. I'm not sure about Tactics, but I think Jerme is better. Harken/Karel shows up at turn 10 and I think Kenneth is beatable at or before then, for -8 Tactics. To get -8 at Jerme would be 17 turns, which I think is manageable. However, I have only played the map once, so I could be dreadfully wrong. Since it's so close, I'll promote Raven, deploy him a lot, and send Guy to the south at Crazed Beast. If I get enough exp, great. If not, Kenneth is fine. I don't want to use Dorcas/Bartre. I've tried to force them in other runs and it's always so disappointing, especially when you compare them to Raven. tl;dr, I think Jerme is slightly better, but not worth using Dorcas/Bartre in the mid game (after Dragon's Gate). For promotions, 5 promotes with a 90k surplus and 6 (including Lyn) + some stat boosters with a 50k surplus really surprised me. The fact that the promote cost + surplus is similar in both cases is encouraging. Given that I'm using weapons/staves liberally, getting all treasures, and not recruiting Farina: 7 promotes + Boots seems more than safe (theoretically I can do 12?!). I'm now thinking Heath, Fiora, Sain, Raven, Oswin (Boots), and 2 Guiding Ring users. Priscilla, Erk, and Lucius are looking good right now. Canas and Serra have had disappointing level ups and I'm probably going to bench them. I only really need Luna for the dragon anyway. I actually didn't know about this. Final is pretty quick and easy compared to Cog and VoD, so resetting is fine. I will definitely use this if I ever do an Ironman run though. More questions: What levels are best to promote at during a ranked run? I've gotten out of the pitfall of forcing 20/20 and generally promote before lv 15 but is promoting early bad for exp compared promoting late? Is it bad enough to be concerned and get a few extra levels? How do you guys deal with the Valkyries in Cog? In the past, I've used a 20/x Rebecca, but I spent a lot of turns setting up kills for her to get to that point, which is not viable now. Are Hawkeye/Louise/Fiora the only options?

Funds ranking is, and all other rankings are, cumulative. Not sure about the memory location, but I would think it's an ongoing total. The result, at the very least, is cumulative. Ex, if the game was 2 chapters long, I took 15 turns on ch 1, 5 turns on ch2, and each chapter had a max turn count of 10, I'd still get a 5* tactics ranking.

I'm in prep for 23x: Genesis in an HHM ranked run right now and I need to start making some big decisions. I don't have exact stats, but I have 5* in everything, except 4* tactics. First, my lord lvs are exactly 49, do I want to play Lloyd or Linus in the next chapter? I know I can use Hawkeye to kill Lloyd in like 3 turns, but can I get a better tactics improvement if I play Linus really well? Also I'd strongly prefer to have Geitz over Wallace. I did LHM before this and didn't promote Wallace. Ultimately, Geitz won't make a huge difference, but he'd be nice to have. Similarly, is it better to play Kenneth or Jerme? Also, does Canas' levels count for this? If not, I could get Jerme, otherwise I'm stuck with Kenneth. In any case, what map is generally recommended? Last, how many promotes can I do and expect to keep a 5* funds rank? I'm trying to not be too reckless with expensive weapons, but I have broken the Wolf Beil, am burning through Physic staves, and have used Silver weapons a bit. I S ranked ENM and HNM a while ago and I think I used around 4. My current plan is to promote Heath, Fiora, and Canas and use Boots on Hector instead of a 4th promote. What units generally get promoted in ranked HHM runs and when? Are Boots or any other stat boosters used? I can almost see Body Ring on Athos to double the dragon, but that isn't really necessary.

An easy way to go is buy only javelins/hand axes for the entire game and forsake all your sword users for the superiority of 1-2 range. More realistically, just do anything and save state before hand (or save in 2 slots on cartridge). If you're having issues due to lack of weapons later, just reset. It's very time consuming, but experience is a better teacher than forums.

I send two groups down either side. The right side has a thief with a torch and higher move units to kill Ursula. The left side needs someone to deal with Maxime. I used a 20/10 Guy just yesterday. The enemy thieves will steal from the left chests, but I block them in the room and kill them for the loot when things settle down. Unfortunately, Jaffar or Zephiel will just die ~30% of the time even if you play perfectly. Just grit your teeth and reset. Fortunately, I've never seen Nino die randomly and she's the only unit in the entire series that actually matters kappa.