FE6 HM 0% growths v2-3

[dondon151]

this topic is to avoid derailing the bases > growths thread in the general forum.

review of v2 turncounts:

01 5 turns 07 8 turns 12 8 turns 16 9 turns 20xI 3 turns F 1 turn
02 6 turns 08 15 turns 12x 6 turns 16x 4 turns 21 8 turns T 187 turns
03 7 turns 08x 8 turns 13 6 turns 17I 5 turns 21x 2 turns
04 7 turns 09 7 turns 14 7 turns 18I 4 turns 22 6 turns
05 4 turns 10L 7 turns 14x 2 turns 19I 6 turns 23 3 turns
06 7 turns 11L 9 turns 15 5 turns 20I 3 turns 24 9 turns

revised v3 (or v4) turncounts:

01 5 turns 07 7 turns 12 5 turns 16 11 turns 20xI 3 turns F 1 turn
02 5 turns 08 13 turns 12x 5 turns 16x 3 turns 21 4 turns T 157 turns
03 6 turns 08x 6 turns 13 5 turns 17I 4 turns 21x 2 turns
04 7 turns 09 6 turns 14 4 turns 18I 4 turns 22 4 turns
05 3 turns 10L 7 turns 14x 2 turns 19I 4 turns 23 2 turns
06 7 turns 11L 9 turns 15 4 turns 20I 2 turns 24 7 turns

total as of current chapter: 157 turns (-30)

so we know that chapters 1-4 can't reasonably be done any faster. chapter 1 is impossible to 4-turn without a silver lance crit on the boss and chapter 4 can't be done any faster without skipping rutger. many other maps can be improved to varying extents. it's been hypothesized that chapter 5 can be 3-turned, chapter 7 can be 6-turned (7-turn is ambitions for 0%, probably), etc. some of these maps i admittedly performed in a subpar manner; chapter 8 can be 12-turned (probably 13-turned with 2 of the treasures in the distal room), for example, and chapter 14 can be 4- or 5-turned in 0% growths with application of the desert item trick.

some of the turncounts in later chapters are limited by recruitment requirements. this is mostly a self-imposed restraint, and i stand by it with really no rational explanation other than an aspiration to perfect recruitment. chapters 6, 8, and 12 cannot be done any faster (13 turns in the case of chapter 8) without skipping cass's recruitment. chapters 10L and 11L are limited by gonzales and echidna, respectively. chapter 15 is limited to 4 turns by garret. i might have missed some.

there are 3 critical long-term decisions to consider:

1. usage of the warp staff.

i'd have to go through all of the videos and figure out where i used what, but evidently there are a couple of instances where a usage of the warp staff saved only 1 turn (chapter 14x is a good example). some other warp strategies could use possible overhauls as well.

2. usage of the chapter 14 boots.

in v2, i used the boots on roy. this was actually really helpful in numerous circumstances because the boots allowed roy to dodge enemies on the turn before he seized a gate or a throne. i think chapter 18I is the best example of this where roy can't start his turn outside of the boss's range and seize on that same turn unless he has more than 5 mov. it should be pointed out that boots on miledy (the obvious other best option) allows for a 2-turn of chapter 14x with only 1 warp staff use.

3. whether to get the chapter 16 rescue staff.

not only is the rescue staff a veritable pain in the butt to get, but its utility is questionable when warp exists. the possible necessity of the rescue staff is evident in chapter 22, however, because roy needs to wait in front of zephiel's door in order to open it, and there are just so many ways for him to get absolutely destroyed without rescuing him out. aside from this, the rescue staff is mostly useless, though it might help shave a turn per use here and there - chapter 21 comes to mind.

so i don't know who wants to help out, but the offer is out there. i suppose that the best starting point would be to nail down the pre-warp chapters that cannot be improved at all.

Edited April 26, 2014 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

In response to your post from the bases/growths thread:

What about looking at the RN string outside of TAS context? To say nothing of burning RNs via movement.

Are you saying Cath returns the turns she costs, or that you're loyal to the 100% recruitment idea (question no longer relevant after reading this thread)? I understand that 0% growths makes the absolute quickest completion of certain chapters impossible even with rigging (e.g. 16x because Saul's staff range isn't long enough) but it would seem that even Cath's durability advantage over Chad doesn't warrant spending so much time on her.

In my chapter 7 video I see Marcus having 1% displayed crit on Devias. Don't remember if he got any skill prior to that, but maybe you can get a Hammer crit in? I get the vibe of you wanting to play semi-reliably though, but if you have the means to get the crit might as well do it (I have no means of doing things like that on my runs, unless I'm lucky and they're given to me for free and randomly discovered).

What's the 24/24 requirement for? I assume I'm either not far enough to have found out or Rutger's strength blessing made me ignore these magic numbers.

Re: the points in this thread

I think the earlygame chapters can be "unreasonably" cleared in less turns (pretty sure 0% growths v1 had plenty of RN burning for bosskilling). I'm also questioning whether you can in fact 5-turn chapter 2 (I didn't do any square-counting when I did it; just improvised some goofy Thany rescuechains).

To prevent Shin from doubling Roy, can you put a unit he OHKOs in range, like Thany? When Roy is ORKO'd but somebody else is OHKO'd, the AI is dumb enough to go for the latter even though it doesn't lead to the player's sure game over. It doesn't have to be Thany even, but just about anybody moribound after fighting in the cjhapter.

What sounds more ambitious to me is the mention of the desert 4-turn, especially without Rutger on steroids. Unless of course you're skipping the Silver Card (the Wyverns are genuinely hard to take on and you can't just send a scrub like Ellen or Lugh there because they are outranged and get smashed) and some other treasures, or Echidna procs a hell lot of Killing Edge crits on the Mercs and Heroes in that area.

A possible use for the Rescue staff would be carrying Niime to the boss, then using it on Roy so that he avoids the unpleasant encounter with the enemies around, particularly long-range magic users. If one use of Warp is to save at least one turn, this seems like an appropriate use for it because it has the potential to save more (that is, the cumulative 3 uses).

[dondon151]

thanks for your responses!

Are you saying Cath returns the turns she costs, or that you're loyal to the 100% recruitment idea (question no longer relevant after reading this thread)? I understand that 0% growths makes the absolute quickest completion of certain chapters impossible even with rigging (e.g. 16x because Saul's staff range isn't long enough) but it would seem that even Cath's durability advantage over Chad doesn't warrant spending so much time on her.

this question has already been answered for you, but there's a few of reasons why i prefer 100% recruitment: 1) it looks cleaner, 2) it usually provides a different sort of challenge in itself (none of that narcus crap in TRS where you can spend like 10 turns doing nothing but moving runan), 3) it saves me the trouble of having to figure out whether a given unit is worth recruiting, and 4) it emulates the SSS rank requirements in FE5. none of these are really good objective reasons, but this entire thing is subjective anyway.

In my chapter 7 video I see Marcus having 1% displayed crit on Devias. Don't remember if he got any skill prior to that, but maybe you can get a Hammer crit in? I get the vibe of you wanting to play semi-reliably though, but if you have the means to get the crit might as well do it (I have no means of doing things like that on my runs, unless I'm lucky and they're given to me for free and randomly discovered).

if i wanted to aim for a 1% crit, i'd just use the armorslayer instead. i would greatly prefer to limit (at least overt) RNG manipulation to boss fights because there's no other way around it in this game. however, i don't want to manipulate critical hits without the aid of a killer weapon or double-hits at <30 displayed hit because that just seems cheap to me. same thing with rigging misses against enemies that would kill a unit otherwise.

What's the 24/24 requirement for? I assume I'm either not far enough to have found out or Rutger's strength blessing made me ignore these magic numbers.

percival needs 24 spd to double brunya and 24 str to ORKO her with either KE hit + crit or durandal hit x2. durandal is the best option and percival only has 50 displayed hit. percival also needs 22 str to 2RKO murdoch and zephiel without throne healing.

I think the earlygame chapters can be "unreasonably" cleared in less turns (pretty sure 0% growths v1 had plenty of RN burning for bosskilling). I'm also questioning whether you can in fact 5-turn chapter 2 (I didn't do any square-counting when I did it; just improvised some goofy Thany rescuechains).

a 5-turn of chapter 2 would require marcus @ hammer instead of armorslayer, but the hit rate isn't that terrible (58), so i think i'll look into it.

EDIT: wait, marcus can't double rude with the hammer. this means that for a 5-turn, we need to throw in deke or one of the fighters, rescue him out, and then finish with marcus.

To prevent Shin from doubling Roy, can you put a unit he OHKOs in range, like Thany? When Roy is ORKO'd but somebody else is OHKO'd, the AI is dumb enough to go for the latter even though it doesn't lead to the player's sure game over. It doesn't have to be Thany even, but just about anybody moribound after fighting in the cjhapter.

i addressed this already, but toying with death unnecessarily is not really something that i want to do.

What sounds more ambitious to me is the mention of the desert 4-turn, especially without Rutger on steroids. Unless of course you're skipping the Silver Card (the Wyverns are genuinely hard to take on and you can't just send a scrub like Ellen or Lugh there because they are outranged and get smashed) and some other treasures, or Echidna procs a hell lot of Killing Edge crits on the Mercs and Heroes in that area.

you can sneak in the silver card rather easily using any unpromoted magic user. there's one corner of the silver card event area that isn't covered by the wyvern riders to the northwest, and those enemies don't move aggressively. there are other problems with a 4-turn in concept (i didn't think this one through very hard), such as the sleep bishop and trying to sneak past all of the mercs and the wyvern group from the southeast, but i think it can be done.

A possible use for the Rescue staff would be carrying Niime to the boss, then using it on Roy so that he avoids the unpleasant encounter with the enemies around, particularly long-range magic users. If one use of Warp is to save at least one turn, this seems like an appropriate use for it because it has the potential to save more (that is, the cumulative 3 uses).

this isn't really an option for when i most want to use it. niime doesn't show up until chapter 19I. the specific example in question (with martel) is chapter 18I. rescue is probably going to be one of those turn 1 tricks that can gain enough extra distance to save a turn.

i was reviewing some of the videos to find evidence of boots roy being the better way to go. a lot of the time (actually all of the time) i do have to warp roy separately of percival, because roy simply cannot survive an enemy phase near the throne. and because roy needs to be warped separately, he can't reach the throne without boots. here's where this comes into play:

chapter 16x - if saul warps roy from the nearest possible tile that is also somewhat close to the starting point, roy can't reach the throne on the same turn without boots. percival can't drop roy nearby on the previous turn because the bolting mages and aircalibur sage will destroy him.

chapter 17I - roy might need the extra distance to avoid getting ganged up by the knights and/or the bishop.

chapter 18I - roy will get destroyed by martel's purge.

chapter 19I - same thing as chapter 17I with the knights.

chapter 20xI - after breaking the two nearest walls, roy still needs the boots to walk to the throne after a warp. percival can't drop roy nearby on the previous turn because the KE SM has 100 hit on roy.

chapter 21 - i go about this map by first silencing the aircalibur sage near the throne, and then dropping roy in a place where neither of the knights can reach him. he needs 7 mov to walk to the throne afterwards.

chapter 21x - roy needs 9 mov to walk to the throne after a warp. if he doesn't have a boots beforehand, lalum needs to dance roy, which means that either she or someone else will have 1 less turn to use a boots.

some of these are probably negligible, especially if roy has an angelic robe (the ones involving the knights in particular). chapters 16x and 20xI can be worked around, probably, at the cost of 1 turn apiece. the boots on roy also make chapter 20I a lot easier. i'm not sure how much boots miledy can do in comparison, especially since this game often ends up being a team effort instead of a flier solo. it does enable a 2-turn of chapter 14x, so we can chalk up 1 confirmed turn shaved in favor of boots miledy. chapter 18I i don't think is possible to complete in less than 4 turns. chapters 14, 15, and 17I are all potential places where a turn is likely to be saved, but there's no way to tell right now.

Edited September 15, 2013 by dondon151

[Refa]

EDIT: wait, marcus can't double rude with the hammer. this means that for a 5-turn, we need to throw in deke or one of the fighters, rescue him out, and then finish with marcus.

Surely Marcus can just use a Hand Axe/Javelin to finish off, considering that Dieck leaves the boss with like 1HP left?

[dondon151]

i forgot about that. he needs to use the hand axe because javelin does 0 damage. getting deke up to the boss will be a challenge, though. he needs to use just about his full movement every turn to reach the guy.

Edited September 15, 2013 by dondon151

[dondon151]

sweet, i figured out a 5-turn of chapter 2. there's one rocky enemy phase where deke needs to survive against 5 enemies, taking only 2 hits at most, but the strategy is pretty solid otherwise. i spent a lot of effort scooting ellen across the map for insurance reasons.

[Jedi]

sweet, i figured out a 5-turn of chapter 2. there's one rocky enemy phase where deke needs to survive against 5 enemies, taking only 2 hits at most, but the strategy is pretty solid otherwise. i spent a lot of effort scooting ellen across the map for insurance reasons.

Insurance is never bad to have ^^. Wow I didn't think you could do chapter 2 better though

[dondon151]

quite surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), i shaved a turn off chapter 3 as well! a slight improvement to the canonical 7-turn strategy allowed marcus to get in front of the boss on turn 5, preventing those pesky cavalier reinforcements from occupying that tile. still got the mend staff and, obviously, lugh too.

at this rate, shaving off 7 turns will be easy. maybe i should be going for 17 turns!

Edited September 17, 2013 by dondon151

[Refa]

at this rate, shaving off 7 turns will be easy. maybe i should be going for 17 turns!

haha, with smart (read: meticulously planned) warp/rescue usage, the options are endless!

[dondon151]

here are a couple of quick videos for your perusal...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfrtT71pu2I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yagvAtuOA

chapter 4 should be more or less the exact same as when i had it in v2, but i can probably make it cleaner. i'd rather not rely on roy getting a turn 1 EP crit, but i might not have a choice.

[Espinosa]

Great new videos. I saw YouTube showing that you have new activity when I logged in and wondered what it was. Are you recording the rest of this run?

I see you're feeding Thany kill experience so I guess that means you're struggling to avoid a vacation in Sacae again (like in v2). I saw beamcrash getting ridiculously low turn counts in the Sacae chapters though, but it's impossible to replicate on a run without TASing (i.e. I can't afford to drop Bishop Saul in places and have him dodge everything while getting low% crit on enemies for extra magic level-ups), maybe even without hacking (he didn't hack the enemy phases in FE8 for example). The strategies involving suicidal infrastructure units are brilliant though, and minor gimmicks like Lugh taking the Body Ring are very clever.

Toothache mentioned wanting to get the chests (mainly the Halberd I suppose, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a vividly accurate plan how to spend money on Boots and conserve weapon uses so that they're broken at the right times) in the south while low-turning in 0% growths; do you think that's even doable?

And man I wish the Cavaliers in the chapters to come were as toothless as the reinforcements in C3.

[dondon151]

Are you recording the rest of this run?

yes, but i'm only going to upload improvements or significant changes for the time being. that's going to be a lot of the maps, though. i think the dual purpose of uploading the videos is to either show how a low turn strategy can be done (in the case of chapters 2 and 3, neither you nor i thought shaving a turn was really possible) or ask you folks for suggestions on improvement.

I see you're feeding Thany kill experience so I guess that means you're struggling to avoid a vacation in Sacae again (like in v2). I saw beamcrash getting ridiculously low turn counts in the Sacae chapters though, but it's impossible to replicate on a run without TASing (i.e. I can't afford to drop Bishop Saul in places and have him dodge everything while getting low% crit on enemies for extra magic level-ups), maybe even without hacking (he didn't hack the enemy phases in FE8 for example). The strategies involving suicidal infrastructure units are brilliant though, and minor gimmicks like Lugh taking the Body Ring are very clever.

the two elements that you need for a profitable sacae run are good luck and a strong roy. most of beamcrash's strategies involve (aside from suicides) warp, and sadly to say that i don't have very many free warp uses because every map that involves a warpskip requires at least 2 uses, since it's impossible to warp roy together with the bosskiller (except for 14x).

just by looking at the map distances, sacae is shorter by around 2 turns - chapters 18 and 20x are shorter by a turn each. the difference is that the chapters 18I and 19I bosses are both chumps, whereas their sacaean counterparts aren't. chapter 19S also requires a warp if you want to complete it quickly, since it's impossible to fly over the outer walls. and chapter 19S in itself is just about impossible for a piddly roy to deal with. you have to somehow clear out that boss area that contains 10 generic enemies that all ORKO roy. that's just not happening. chapter 18S also has the really dangerous situation of random NT reinforcements near the boss area. these are probably manipulable like the desert items, only i'm not sure how much they can actually be influenced.

in any case, feeding EXP to thany keeps options open. sue and shin can gain EXP more easily than thany and tate. in v2, i actually had the sums exactly equal to each other after chapter 16x!

i feel that while a few sacae maps do have the merit of potentially saving a turn, it's mostly just chapter 19S that's the showstopper. it really doesn't help that i'm stuck with an 8-warp-range saul for that map. going to sacae also complicates other things; for example, getting niime to S dark is pretty easy in ilia because she has an extra map where she can nosferatank and murder a bunch of pegasus knights, but she can't do that in sacae. my chapter 23 strategy required her to have a boosted 18 warp range. depending on what chapter 22 strategy i do, niime may also need 18 warp/rescue range there. finally, juno might be helpful or necessary for my chapter 21 and 23 strategies.

Toothache mentioned wanting to get the chests (mainly the Halberd I suppose, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a vividly accurate plan how to spend money on Boots and conserve weapon uses so that they're broken at the right times) in the south while low-turning in 0% growths; do you think that's even doable?

not a chance. not only are the chests farther away from the starting point than the throne, but keep in mind that you don't even have a chest key. you have to drag chad and someone who can kill armor knights to the farthest reach on the map. if marcus used his full movement on every turn, he would just barely make it to the halberd chest on turn 6.

[dondon151]

i finished chapter 4 and got an insane rutger:

his HP, str, def, res, and luk bonuses all round up from his average, but more importantly, he has 16 spd! this is super important because it lets rutger double the chapters 8x and 9 bosses. it also has auxiliary benefits like doubling the chapter 12 warrior and a bunch of other enemies while using a steel sword. the only blemish on this otherwise perfect specimen is that he lost 1 point of skl, but i'll gladly take the extra 1 point of spd.

i had to RN burn a little to get the bonuses, but frankly i don't feel guilty about it at all.

Edited September 18, 2013 by dondon151

[MacLovin]

would a 10 str rutger make any difference?

[dondon151]

10 str rutger would be amazing too; however, i don't know if 10 str is even a feasible benchmark. i don't remember all of the details about HM bonuses and i can't be bothered to dig for nitrodon's documentation.

[MacLovin]

i remember the 10 str one being "read all the text" or something like that

[dondon151]

the HM bonuses are generated using the primary RNG, so reading all of the text should have little direct bearing on rutger having 10 str. you do use a different number of RNs based on whether you skip some cutscenes or not, but everything else that you do over the course of the chapter also has an effect. i don't doubt that a 10 str rutger is possible, but it is much less likely than a 16 spd rutger, plus i would much rather have 16 spd than 10 str.

[dondon151]

have a 3-turn of chapter 5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1jPqxtlQaU

[Espinosa]

Haha, that was elegant. I knew one could 3-turn this map.

[dondon151]

i should thank you for the idea to drop wolt near the gate without triggering it to open. you did it with lugh, but i wasn't comfortable with dropping someone who was OHKO'd (and wolt, surprisingly, was durable enough!). turns out that it's not really important who is dropped there because the chip damage on the brigand is totally inconsequential. the reason why the drop is necessary is because the mage otherwise doesn't move on turn 1.

EDIT: and i suppose, amusingly enough, that wolt is ORKO'd by the mage, but because the AI in this game isn't as smart as FE12's, it doesn't know that the mage can ORKO wolt until it's the mage's turn to move.

EDIT 2: finished chapter 6 with a bit of a more elegant strategy this time; but it;s still the usual 7 turns because of cass. the faster pace meant that rutger had the opportunity to liquidate the knights in the throne room for the EXP - he's at L8.54 going into chapter 7. unfortunately i think it'll take way too much work to try to get him to promote in the middle of chapter 7, but i'll be very satisfied if he can promote on turn 1 in chapter 8. i just noticed that 17 spd lets him double leygance with an armorslayer.

Edited September 19, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

Yeah, I remember not needing to counter that Bandit at all since he ended up not blocking anyone's way.

The AI IS manipulable, and that can be used to your advantage. Not wanting to toy with death might limit some of it, but the hit rates are so low that sometimes you might as well. Getting a good offence, high avo% unit into critical HP is often a valid strategy for baiting enemies who threaten chumps like Roy otherwise. I remember this helped me a lot in Miledy's join map.

How much strength does Rutger need to 4HKO Leygance? You could go for a one-round KO there, or take an extra turn (or two? 13-14 over 12) to obtain the whip. Promoting Miledy and Zeiss is a must, but a promoted Tate could be helpful in 0% growths, especially if achieved before the desert.

[dondon151]

i'm going to try to get the whip and one other item. my tile-counting indicates that it's possible to exactly make it to the whip on turn 13 if i encounter no other impediments on the way there. i think that 13 turns is the minimum anyway with roy talking to cass because he can't talk to her until turn 11 at the earliest if i didn't look at the reinforcement data incorrectly.

rutger 4HKOs leygance with the armorslayer.

[dondon151]

i just had a crazy idea of trying to get a long range bolting bot lilina

unfortunately that involves 1) getting lilina 50 WEXP, 2) getting lilina 9 levels, and 3) getting bolting from chapter 16. it's almost certainly not feasible or worth it.

in other news, i was contemplating ways to do chapter 16x and 20xI without the boots on roy and came up with potential 3-turn strategies for both of them (require 2 warps each), though the chapter 16x strat requires a total of 3 robes on roy.

Edited September 20, 2013 by dondon151

[PKL]

I imagine you must be careful about how you spend your money in this. You want as many boots as you can buy, but also statboosters. Have you calculate how much you will need?

EDIT: Also, Chapter 3 vid rescues were amazing.

Edited September 20, 2013 by PKL

[X-Naut]

i just had a crazy idea of trying to get a long range bolting bot lilina

unfortunately that involves 1) getting lilina 50 WEXP, 2) getting lilina 9 levels, and 3) getting bolting from chapter 16. it's almost certainly not feasible or worth it.

Never mind that Cecilia can do the same thing but better with no investment at the expense of only 1 crit.