FE6 HM 0% growths v2-3

[dondon151]

rutger actually has more hit with a steel blade than zealot does with a light brand (depending on what weapon henning has equipped).

the thing is that the light brand doesn't get WTA against axes at range. on zealot's second light brand attack, henning has the hand axe instead of the steel blade equipped, so he gained 4 avo (dropping zealot's hit from 31 to 27) instead of losing 6 avo. rutger had 33 hit, 30 crit with the steel blade vs. henning's hand axe.

i had a handful of other possible boss strategies lined up, but they ended up eliminating themselves because the requirements on rutger and zealot were too demanding in other parts of the map. i had an idea where i would drop rutger @ killing edge in front of henning on turn 5, but neither would have had any time to use a vulnerary before then.

at times like this i wish marcus had C swords at base instead of D swords, because he has more hit than zealot (although he is doubled by henning, so maybe i just wish that zealot had more skl and luck).

and yes, this is exhibit number 2 of the robe being critical.

Edited September 26, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

The new strategies wallop; 8x is p incredible.

[dondon151]

here's chapter 9:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqp3_lWxEzc

i also got a pretty impressive shin:

he's pretty much as good as i can hope for. HP and luk didn't get the higher value, but str and spd did (with str being less likely to proc than spd), and skl and res rounded up as a nice bonus.

i was debating over whether to feed shin the bosskill (i needed him for the boss anyway). i figured that i wanted him promoted by chapter 12 or 12x at the latest, and it's way easier to hit the brakes on his EXP gain than it is to speed it up. PKs currently have a 424 EXP surplus, and tate hasn't even joined yet.

Edited September 27, 2013 by dondon151

[Refa]

Yeah, plus in the later chapters the game seems to start to spam mercenaries which are harder to level off of (well, I'd assume so, for 0% growths LTC), so best to take your easy shots while you can. Also I always found it funny how Shin performs rather well in the opposite route (Sue too, if you're using her), while the same cannot be said for the Pegasus Knights.

[Espinosa]

Will Shin be slaying Narshen? That's what I did, and regretted him not being higher levelled to perform the task better.

[Refa]

Will Shin be slaying Narshen? That's what I did, and regretted him not being higher levelled to perform the task better.

I think with one Speedwings, Perceival ORKOes with Wyrmslayer (holy shit that weapon is OP as fuck).

Edited September 27, 2013 by Refa

[Espinosa]

iirc I OHKO'd Narshen with a Killer Bow crit. Shin wasn't very good at all (dondon's blessed HM bonuses are probably close enough to the number of growths that kicked in for me).

The specifics of that map is that you need a mobile enough unit to lure Hugh to the centre of the map (where his card can be stolen/Roy is warped to recruit him) and since Miledy is warped north to break the wall and hire Zeiss anyway (my Saul had way better warp range and I also didn't consider giving the Boots to Roy) she might as well carry a lure for Hugh to Narshen's room. Even without the Body Ring, there are few mounted units whom Miledy can lift up, and Shin makes the best choice (you could technically pick up any of the unpromoted cavs, but they're weak to Horseslayer the immediate AK will attack you with, and 7 move might not be enough to provoke Hugh to change his direction - however, having Javelin to counter the mages is really useful and if they happen to have unpromoted C swords somehow then might as well slay the boss). Percival is way too heavy sadly.

[Elieson]

Why didn't any fighters attack Clarine during turn (4?) on the center island? Between the two, I expected AI to prioritize a counter-free hit on her

[Espinosa]

I thought Dieck blocked the only path to her? Or maybe I'm thinking of the wrong turn.

[dondon151]

deke blocked the bottom path and treck blocked the top path.

don't worry, it was all part of my genius plan. there's a reason why clarine didn't use her full movement on that turn.

i think i'll be using igrene for narcian. the thing is that because i'm recruiting cass, i might just go for 11-turning chapter 16 without warps (and 5-turning chapter 12) because on my previous run, i 8-turned chapter 12 and 9-turned chapter 16 with a warp (but chapter 16 can be cut down to 8 turns). it's 3 turns either way, but chapter 16 has better treasure and i'll be saving a net warp use.

also espinosa, what was your sacae/ilia EXP situation like? i remember that you did not invest a whole lot of EXP into shanna.

Edited September 27, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

Cath's recruitment sure is convenient to cut warp uses and turn count; I like that.

I'm going to be redoing maps 16/16x (or maybe the whole run, but I don't know the specifics of the post-routesplit LTC very well so it's best to play it all out once beforehand) but here's what the relevant units enter chapter 17 Illia as:

Shin 10.27/2.67

Sue 1.79/0

Sacae Total: 7.73

Thany 7.07/0

Tate 11.14/0

Illia Total: 9.21

I actually fed Tate some unnecessary promoted enemies but the Illia experience was still noticeably better (since Sue wasn't used much at all).

On my future run, I think there might be no trouble with Illia experience because I'll try to seriously grow Thany and Roy into capable fighters and see what happens.

[dondon151]

i recorded chapter 10L, but i'm not uploading it because it's nothing special and i didn't cut any turns. i don't think i'll be uploading chapter 11L either when i'm through with that.

shin farmed a bunch of EXP (he's at L8.78) and he should easily make L10 before chapter 11L is over, and i'm going to try to get the orion's bolt to him before seizing the gate. shanna surprisingly got a couple more kills (she's at L7.74) and so the PKs still have a 232 EXP advantage. given that shin's EXP gain will tank after promotion and tate requires at least 2 free levels, i think i'm sitting pretty here. if i feed a couple of more kills to shanna, i think shin will be able to just about do whatever he wants.

as an aside, i was just looking at chapter 16x again, and i think this is the map that may force me to go boots on roy. there's just so much long range bullshit that dropping roy near the throne is pretty much instant death from one of six possible candidates. i may be able to devise a workaround if i incorporate a third warp use, though.

Edited September 28, 2013 by dondon151

[Balcerzak]

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.

Based on the formula Nitrodon gave me.

Rutger gains five levels of unpromoted myrmidon (str growth .35). That's a 1.75, it's then adjusted to an upper bound of 9/8 (lower bound is 7/8) of this amount 1.96. That grants him 1 free strength and a rn check for the second. Impossible to hit 10 str Rutger.

For shits and giggles, here's Rutger's speed distribution.

Edited September 28, 2013 by Balcerzak

[dondon151]

Rutger gains five levels of unpromoted myrmidon (str growth .35). That's a 1.75, it's then adjusted to an upper bound of 9/8 (lower bound is 7/8) of this amount 1.96. That grants him 1 free strength and a rn check for the second. Impossible to hit 10 str Rutger.

so if (9/8) * expected_bonus doesn't cross an integer threshold, there is no chance to have a higher stat?

i suppose that makes sense for rutger's skl and spd bonuses to cover a range of 3 points inclusive, since his expected bonuses in both of those stats is exactly an integer, so the upper bound is > 2 and the lower bound is < 2.

[Balcerzak]

so if (9/8) * expected_bonus doesn't cross an integer threshold, there is no chance to have a higher stat?

i suppose that makes sense for rutger's skl and spd bonuses to cover a range of 3 points inclusive, since his expected bonuses in both of those stats is exactly an integer, so the upper bound is > 2 and the lower bound is < 2.

To the best of my understanding, yes. As nitrodon explained it to me, the game basically calculates up the expected growth value of the levels from the HM boost, applies that 7/8-9/8 tweak, treats it as a single growth value, where analogous to how growths exceeding 100% give guaranteed 1 + a roll for the excess.

For HM boosts on PCs, it's just a simple straight forward once off. For enemies, I believe he mentioned it takes place in a few discrete chunks (level the enemy to its displayed level using this technique, then apply HM bonuses, then apply the second set of HM bonuses if it's Ch 5 or less).

When I was testing this by cooking up some ensembles and comparing to enemies seen at map start, things agreed very well with his formula, with the sole exception of Ch Final manaketes, if I recall correctly (I investigated this years ago at this point, though, so I might be shaky). I never actually got around to testing if enemies generated during reinforcements followed the same behaviour.

[dondon151]

i've been pretty busy but i finally finished chapter 11L (again, no upload).

solid klein; HP, str, skl, spd, luk all rounded up (which is common, but it's pretty likely that at least one of those doesn't proc), though klein can rarely get 34 HP. the res proc is a bonus.

this is a pretty amazing tate, i think. 10 str procs rarely and 9 def is even more uncommon. most of her HM bonuses tend to average closer to the lower integer except for HP, skl, and spd. she rarely procs 29 HP but usually gets 27 or 28. the 11 skl is a shame (12 is more common), but the str, def procs are way more valuable.

i was worried that 5-turning chapter 12 would render me unable to promote her before chapter 12x, but you can probably tell that i fed her the bosskill and another enemy kill. gaining another 43 EXP is pretty trivial.

(i am fully aware that there is a bit of irony involved in my RNG manipulation of stats in a no-growths run.)

Edited October 3, 2013 by dondon151

[Refa]

Weirdly enough when I was playing HM, my Tate also procced Str (she had 28HP/10Str/12Skl/14Spd/6Lck/8Def/9Res, so yours definitely has mine beat there) on the first go, but I could never get Rutger to 10Str when I intentionally tried to abuse for it. Just more proof that 10Str Rutger might not be possible, I suppose. Nice bases though; your Klein is exactly like mine with one more RES and one less LCK/DEF. Is Klein going to get any longterm use? I figure he'd be a better Miurgre user than anyone else, but I dunno. Dayan might have been superior, but you're going Ilia, so he doesn't exist.

Also new desert will be pretty interesting to see (I hate that map), assuming that you're uploading it of course (I figure you can shave some turns off of your old clear).

[dondon151]

back in v2 i had to use klein in chapter 24 to kill a couple of manaketes (because only murgleis, malte, and durandal could ORKO throne manaketes and i didn't have enough uses to go around). he's not going to get long term use in the strict sense of the word, and i actually think that i'm going to use him less this time around, so it's obviously very important to get him to S rank bows.

i would consider using shin instead, but shin might not hit S rank bows because of his terrible starting bow rank, and he doesn't have enough str to ORKO throne manaketes. murgleis doesn't have EP against manaketes so it's pretty pointless otherwise.

as balcerzak pointed out, it's algorithmically impossible for rutger to proc 10 str. klein actually has a very small probability of gaining an extra point in str, skl, spd, or luk (about 2-3% per stat), which explains your 14 luk klein.

[Espinosa]

Is Rutger a good unit to bring to chapter 24 in a run with growths, or is every unit without a mount / staff a liability for turn counts?

[dondon151]

i would say that rutger is pretty pointless in chapter 24 since you should really be working hard to having percival as a durandal user - he requires 1 fewer boots to hit 14 mov. however, if you have a 14 mov rutger, go for it...

i did bring karel in v2 because fa is stuck with 5 mov and she needs someone to defend her from the reinforcement manaketes.

EDIT: hmm, chapter 12 looks like it's going to be tricky if trying to recruit ray.

Edited October 3, 2013 by dondon151

[Espinosa]

Rutger would also improve the reliability of strategies with high skill and crit.

Did you say you were going to ignore Cath in C12 to talk to her in C16 instead? Yeah, it's a difficult chapter to rush and I basically went wild with Rutger's Light Brand iirc (also relied on my blessed Lance to ORKO things I think). I should look at my video again but I remember I lost one turn because the RNG was raping me in the ass (sleep staves but hit rates too, as usual) and couldn't do anything about it.

[dondon151]

i know that you cleared in 5 turns, but i'm not actually sure that a 4-turn is possible without employing beamcrash's strategy (which has lalum start on the RHS instead of the LHS). at the end of turn 3, lalum will still be somewhere in the archer/shaman gauntlet. she needs to be close enough to dance roy on turn 4 so that he can seize the throne.

[Espinosa]

Yeah, I saw that strat. Requires an 8 move unit capable of OHKOing the dragon boss (Silver Lance double crit for ol' beam; I believe I needed the boss to proc the lowest HP/def combo to 2HKO with Lance w/ Wyrmslayer). I couldn't even feed the bosskill to Lance in my 5-turn though. Still not something I'd attempt without heavy manipulation.

That group with the Warrior creates a huge chokepoint that's nearly impossible to break even with a blessed team with growths. I think factoring in Ray's recruitment 6 turns would be a big accomplishment on 0% growths but you've been beating lots of my old turn counts so I won't be surprised if you manage to 5-turn this one also.

[dondon151]

i think i might have theorycrafted it out, but i have a battery of exams tomorrow, so no more fire emblem for today.

EDIT: i lied. i'm terrible at studying. figured it out and will record it tomorrow.

Edited October 4, 2013 by dondon151

[Toothache]

http://www.mediafire.com/?y968ij3hua3056w

I did some work on 0% growths a while back, figured I could share what I did so far. This includes a 7-turn of Chapter 3 that does gain the Halberd. Not sure how useful this will be for you. I could throw together an encode if that's easier, or you can use VBA-rr v24