FE6 HM - No HM bonus chars

[dondon151]

you won't need a speedwings on roy to KO idoun in one turn. you do want 24 spd on at least one of your paladins to double chapter 22 heroes and brunya (if you're doing chapter 23 quickly, she won't have bolting equipped). you may need some energy rings for saul or yodel if you're doing the 2 rescue, 1 warp 2-turn for chapter 23, though this can be remedied by lance having used extra boots.

finally, lance needs something like maxed str if he wants to ORKO brunya with a killer lance, and niime needs another robe in order to survive manaketes and silver lance wyvern lords (though she may never need to fight a manakete on EP and she can just try to dodge wyvern lords).

EDIT: if you want a unit to survive most combinations of 2 manaketes on EP in chapter 24, he needs around 85 total HP + 2*def. also look to rig one point of str for sue before chapter 24.

Edited June 14, 2014 by dondon151

[Irysa]

Hmm, all good points as always, thanks! I thought the final boss had 18 speed for some reason, but yeah you're right, Roy doesn't need anything as it is. Dieck with Durandal can ORKO Brunya so Lance doesn't need to do that. Niime can probably just eat the spare robe I got from ch20 instead of having to buy one.

I was actually going to blow my remaining 2 rescue staff uses on this chapter to try to get through it quickly. Usually the amount of fliers means you can probably ship your whole relevant army over in a few turns, but I only get 2 here so I think I need at least 1 rescue use, if not 2 to pull everyone over fast enough without triggering reinforcements. If I take 21 really slowly and just camp the start and massacre everything as it comes then head for the boss I could save those uses though, or just blow a lot of Divine Weapon use to prevent getting clogged up.

21x is another simple 2 turn warpskip.

22 is usually me warping a unit with a rescued partner to the western switch to deal with that, then warping some others to the front of zephiel's door, whilst I rush the eastern switch and door with my main group. What you did with using the chests to transfer the warp back to Merlinus then pulling it out with Yodel again is pretty interesting though, I might have a go at incorporating that, but OTOH its the same general approach, and it works pretty reliably. I will probably just rig the shit out of Zephiel, even with your 3 best units ganging up on him it takes like 3 or 4 turns to kill him assuming you hit every single time, and matters aren't helped by the reinforcements running in from behind from start positions. Those are also going to kill whoever I left to warp unless I keep a rescue staff there to get them to safety (which I usually have asdf...)

23 theres no rush. I've also never actually tried to do a quick clear of 23, I usually just blow my Berserk on some enemies at the top of the map, mop them up and finish. I'll at least try to see if I can do a faster clear this time though.

24 is just keep moving forward the map, and I should be able to just one round every manakete, then block the way behind with some tanky unit and a recover staff user.

(Not being restricted by LTC sure is convenient! Maybe once I finish this then go finish FE12 on H3 I'll actually try to LTC a game or something)

Edited June 14, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

in that case, deke wants 24 spd for brunya and chapter 22 heroes. lance might want 24 spd as well.

the reinforcements from behind in chapter 22 aren't threatening because you can simply outrun them if you have a head start. the benefit to doing the warp transfer is that you start with more units on the right side than you do on the left side, and given enough boots, some units can also just walk from the right side to the throne room.

the 2-manakete benchmark for chapter 24 is out of reach for most of your units. deke can reach it with only a robe. it may be a good investment, in addition to maxing out his mov.

[Irysa]

Took it fairly slowly, but as usual Niime on a mountain beasts most of the otherwise very tough enemies. Didn't use any rescue after all! I bought 2 speedwings, one for Lance and one for Dieck, and 23 pairs of boots. I have not really decided how to distribute them but Cecilia and Lalum already ate 2 each, Sue ate 1 and so did Lance. Roy gets at least 4, and so does Dieck, that leaves 9 boots leftover for everyone else (Niime, Saul, Thany, Sue and Lance)

PS, remember that stupid wall tile in 20x?

WHY IS THIS NOT A WALL TILE?

A lot of archers had to be cleared out to get Yuno safely through this map. Perhaps if I had promoted Zeiss' bulk I could have cleared faster. I could have also saved a turn by getting Yuno to visit the secret shop AFTER the reinforcements appeared, but whatever. Also I think I forgot to mention that with all the mountain nosferatanking Niime does she hit S dark.

[spoiler=chapter 21]

An incredibly intimidating chapter if you don't know how it works. There are a ton of enemies, and if you enter specific zones on the map you trigger massive amounts of enemy reinforcements. On NM, its somewhat possible to bruteforce your way through the map, but on HM good fucking luck. I avoid hitting any reinforcement zones until the very end of the map.

First off, Niime warps Dieck over here

Then Lance rescues Niime, gets danced by Lalum, and is warped by Saul after trading.

+5 over his average, this is the most mag blessed Saul I've ever had. Other stats are reasonably close to average though. I Hammerne Warp w/Cecilia since it's back down to 1, now we're at 9 Warp 1 Hammerne left.

I kill this archer and dump Niime on the mountain.

Meanwhile Yodel pulls Berserk out of the convoy and Berserks this Sage. He has Aircalibur, and there are some aggressive moving Wyvern Knights to the south. Given you move far enough east fast enough with your central army, that Sage can kill 3 to 4 enemy wyvern riders by himself, and get rid of a knight on turn 1. This is my favourite thing to do on this map.

As for these guys, I pulled them with Igrene, who's just out of range. Then Yuno picks up Roy and Thany grabs Saul and flies over.

*copies dondon's mass sell strat*

Yes even down to the Marcus and Zealot grabbing shit out of Merlinus and selling it too. Although I sell less than don does because I actually might fight more enemies, I still sell a lot of junk. Actually the best part of that was how to transfer boots to the units that stick behind to save some time later.

Nobody else up here really does anything.

Tanky Lance.

Not much to say about this EP in general because as anyone who's familiar with this chapter and Niime knows everyone loves to attack her, and she can annihilate everything with Nosferatu or Flux whilst on a mountain and staying at sub 20 hitrates. Honestly, I would never ever want to do a run of this game on HM without Niime, forget all the other chars I banned this run. She's irreplacable unless you somehow manage to grind the shit out of your magic users.

This Sage is already doing work. These Wyverns are the one you gotta watch out for but since they don't attack allies that Sage doesn't need to give a fuck. What's better is that since they move up before he attacks (since berserked enemies always attack last), he can manage to keep up!

Time to kill some of these guys. A Bows for Igrene, not that it really matters.

Anyway down here I get Niime to finish off one Wyvern Lord, Lance critkills a Bishop, then Dieck handaxes the other Wyvern Lord down. Dieck also hit A axes, which once again, doesn't really matter.

Saul gets dropped off, I visit with Yuno.

Saul's higher than average mag with his good speed (which is only like 2 above average) turned out to be pretty useful this map. He can ORKO a bunch of enemies with Divine.

Can't really ask for more from her at this point in the game.

More units suicide on Niime who gets priortised over absoloutely everybody else it feels like...

Enemy Sage more useful than Lugh this map lol

Turn 3 layout. Obviously there are Wyverns to the west but I'm still not worried about them yet.

Yodel tops up Lance cause he's a trooper.

Enemy HP levels have gotten kinda big lately. I haven't noticed since I've been skipping maps but now is the time to bust out all your Silvers to secure those ORKOs!

Can't ask for more from Dieck once again.

Still selling junk....

I wish he'd blicked the Wyvern Lord instead. :\

End of turn 4 is me moving everyone away but Niime who is sitting on the mountain again.

Thats about all the money I could put together.

Oh yeah, I've been pulling some more Wyverns from the North East with Percival and picking them off with Sue and Igrene.

Nerf Niime.

I could have warped Dieck to Murdock but since it spawns Reinforcements I give Yuno a turn to just visit the secret shop whilst I wait around. Like I said before, 2 speedwings and 23 boots.

I also want to silence this guy anyway in case Dieck takes too much damage from Murdock + his Knights.

BOOOOOOOOTS

Berserked Sage regained his sanity only to die at the hands of Thany. RIP.

Okay now Yuno is actually not in range of reinforcements, time to kill Murdock.

Murdock is actually a lot easier compared to a lot of other bosses just beause he's using an axe, which means armorslayer is actually pretty accurate. There are horseslayer knights to the left and right but Dieck ain't afraid of those.

Murdock dies on EP.

Lance has some spare time to eat some boots too.

Roy is warped to the throne but I kill this guy just because I can. Turn 7 seize.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Irysa

[Irysa]

Well, I kind of anticipated this happening so...I reloaded a savestate I made at the secretshop and ended the map same way but sold an extra elixir Elixir to afford 1 extra pair of boots. I'm unlikely to miss it, although I probably kept a surplus of too many weapons around, shrug. I also decided to give Cecilia just 1 pair instead of 2 and boots will be aimed to be distributed as such instead.

4 roy - 14 mov

4 dieck - 14 mov

2 thany (3 total) - 14 mov

3 lance - 14 mov

3 sue - 14 mov

1 cecilia - 10 mov

2 niime - 10 mov

2 saul - 10 mov

3 lalum - 11 mov

21x sees Roy eat 2 pairs of boots (has to in order to 2 turn), Dieck 2, Lance 1 and a speedwing, Saul 2, Niime none (rip), Thany 2, Sue 2, and Lalum 1. Roy still has to finish eating 2, Dieck has to eat 2 and a speedwing, Lance needs to eat 1 more and Niime needs to eat 2, aside from that I'm set. I kind of wish I had gotten Cecilia to S Anima this run instead of wasting my time trying to get to B staves, but alas.

21X is easy to warpskip and the only thing that changes anything is that I had to get Cecilia to barrier Lance so he could survive being hit by the boss since he doesn't have Percival's base res. Also I had to do some trading of staves to get the Druid to use Silence on Saul instead of Cecilia or Niime (they only silence mag users with usable staves in inventory remember?), as I needed to Hammerne my Warp one last time on the second turn and Cecilia has eaten enough boots whilst Saul hasn't!

Oh yeah I cut the cutscenes out but kept Roy's promotion. Just because.

And yeah this is pretty much copied off what dondon's 0% run does (unsurprisingly) except Lance instead of Percival. I used to use Brave Lance Barrier'd Percival in previous runs of this game instead before I even knew about fixed RNs. However, since that RN string is there and all its pretty hard to just forget its there once you know. Sorry (it also looks so clean!)

Edited June 18, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

you might have been able to get sue some enemy phase action there

[Irysa]

Somehow moving units around too much at the start seems to affect the RNG even if they don't engage in any battles (and no I didn't burn any RN's accidentally). I don't know why, but for example, moving Saul up next to Astol makes Lance crit the hero and get the exact same level up instead of on the boss. Then he promptly dies to the boss (lol). I was able to replicate that happening without doing any RN burning at all 100%. Sue moving right too much? Same deal.

Maybe this is some glitch in the old patch? I could try loading this in my raw FE6 jp file and trying it out I guess.

EDIT: Also the light brand merc (who I assume you're talking about) takes his turn before the boss which kinda messes with everything unfortunately.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

if enemy units have more than one way to move to their desired location, the game uses RNs to determine how they get there. some enemy units move before the hero and boss attack, and they may use a different number of RNs if they move to a different location, which in turn is influenced by player unit locations.

you could alternatively just try to 4HKO the boss, since lance doesn't need to use that many stat boosters. sue can definitely counterkill a shaman on either side of the map, plus counter snipers, and maybe counter a merc.

Edited June 18, 2014 by dondon151

[Irysa]

This chapter is a lot easier than I remember it being. <_<

Also, I can't count.

[spoiler=Chapter 22]

There are some powerful enemies here but most are easy to pull group by group, which makes this a little less hectic.

I run Dieck up, he eats boots. Lalum trades, dances, then Dieck critkills a Druid. He's out of range of the Knight but will fight the Berserker on EP with his Killing Edge.

Failcap, I warped Percival rescuing Saul up in range of the General near the top of the map.

Oh yeah uh, everyone else moved up. Before EP, Thany Javelin chipped the Merc, Lance finished it off. Roy chips a Knight on EP with his rapier. Lance ticks over to his next level despite not KOing the Lancereaver Merc.

Dieck crits the Berserker, the enemy General is so slow even a Percival carrying Saul doesn't get doubled, and Fae is a status lightningrod.

Sue finishes off that Lancereaver Merc, Dieck critkills this General with his Killer Axe. I probably could have just used the Hammer instead and still ORKO'd.

Lalum dances Roy and he critkills the other Berserker, although this was kinda uneccessary since Lance could have come in to finish him off anyway.

See? Thany killed the sniper, Igrene killed the knight. Only 2 turns in and most of the east side is already dead! I healed Lance before he ran up to bait some Druids.

These Druids can hit hard but they're not very durable. Support bonuses helped (I think) but Lance can ORKO them at 2 range with a Javelin, which is nice.

"Yes, I will attack the enemy who can counter me at range, I have worse hitrate against, and does 4 times as much damage to me rather than the one who cannot counter" - FE6 AI

Light Brand's fixed damage at range is weirdly convenient a lot of the time in this game.

Oh snap, Fa actually got berserked.

Saul finished off the General and Percival's going to just sit and hope for a crit in front of this guy for as long as it takes.

Luckily I kept Yodel a restore stave.

Eehhhhhh...

Lance and Roy kill this Sniper, Roy is safe from the Heroes whilst Lance can fight them safely. Dieck critkills the first hero.

Eeehhhhhh....

Lalum trades, dances, and he runs down to join everyone else.

Alan and Igrene share some keys to loot this side of the map. Alan will be standing on the switch.

It's a start I guess.

No crits this EP :(

I figure I have a better chance of killing this guy faster if I just let Percival try to fish for crits, so I healed I healed him with Saul. In retrospect, I should have just brought an elixir for him to use on PP whilst Saul chips instead of having to heal, but oh well!

I also did not realise this Druid has a physic, so I hope he doesn't heal him on EP if the Hero gets low :\

Everyone has had their intake of statboosters by now, and Dieck's locked and loaded.

These guys are way too durable, jeez. Without crits or high powered magic they're pretty tough to get down.

Niime + Lance is enough for this guy at least.

EHHHHHH.....

Dammit Sue.

Well at least Roy can be useful again. Roy gave Lance his Killing Edge because Lance is standing in range of a Berserker to the south, then finished this hero off.

Eh, why not? Just stay away from the Druid.

I think I have critkilled every Berserker on the map so far. There is something slightly ironic about that.

Still no crits up here :\

East is now camped.

Niime's 27 mag + Apocalypse really helps with these guys.

The most accurate you will EVER see a Hammer in all of FE6 I bet.

And with that we're at the throneroom. Too bad I'm still waiting on Percival to kill that Hero <_<

Eh whatever, he dies in two lightning's anyway, so I'll just get Saul to try to kill him whilst Percy loots chests.

Well, that saves some time.

I give Saul the chest keys instead and Percy parks his horse on the switch.

I can't count, Lalum needs 1 more tile for me to be able to get to dance Roy after he opens the door. God dammit. I guess I'll open it next turn, since I'm planning on killing Zephiel in one turn.

I only planned to get this sleep staff but I guess I can grab the Nosferatu too. The White Gem is basically useless at this point in the game.

These Berserkers are seriously pathetic (just wanted to show the rates)

Okay NOW Lalum is far up enough to dance Roy...

Lance stabs him in the face a bit, Thany rescues, Dieck runs up to cleanly exactly finish him off with Durandal! Nice.

Damn, that crit was totally uneccessary but it made this cooler. Man and I thought Zephiel was going to be annoying. I forgot how stupidly powerful Durandal is in this game.

Roy gets danced by Lalum and can seize the throne easily on turn 7. Later throne room guards!

Edited June 19, 2014 by Irysa

[Irysa]

Booya, 2 turns. 3 warp 1 rescue. Lance singlehandly aggros half the map so I don't have to kill the Druid and the Manakete blocking the boss. His chances of survival aren't bad either; the Manakete has about 80 true hit and the boss has about 30, whilst the multitude of other Wyvern Riders have between 0 to 10. Thats roughly in the 75% success rate area. Funnily enough the sniper who could actually attack him at pretty good accuracy simply moves over in range and chooses not to attack, haha.

I could have gotten Thany some exp but tbh, it really doesn't matter at this point in the game.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Irysa

[Irysa]

Well it's done. The final two chapters aren't all that interesting obviously. The Angelic Robe on Dieck came in handy to tank 2 Manaketes on EP (thanks don, another thing I've not really thought about before), and he was even capable of ORKOing a multitude of Manaketes without a Divine Weapon in 24 (nerf the Wyrmslayer!). I cleared in 12 turns, taking my time as usual with Saul Physicing and Cecilia spamming Recover, and Niime sleeping reinforcement Manaketes that got too close. Idenn goes down in 1 turn with Roy attacking, then getting warp danced by Lalum and finishing off Idenn (using up my last Warp).

So here are some observations on this run.

I have learnt a LOT more about the general sort of parameters needed in this game to make it a lot easier. Its somewhat hard to put into specifics but it just feels like I understand neccessary breakpoints better. It has been rather a long time since I last played FE6 HM so this was a somewhat refreshing experience, and I had some fun trying some new things instead of just always turtling/routing maps. I will also never buy a steel lance ever again. <_<

The earlygame portion of the run was more complicated without Rutger, but by the time Dieck promoted he maintained a solid presence and capability that made him a worthy replacement on the whole. The lack of Miledy and fliers did not hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. Admittedly Thany turned out well but she was still nowhere near as brutally powerful or durable as Miledy can be, yet still did everything I could want a flier to do. Getting her Sword Rank up helped more than I expected in a few scenarios. In part, it can be attributed to the fact that by the time promoted enemies become more frequent, warpskips start to become more common, and tougher units such as Lance and Dieck were enough to pull the rest of the team along.

Finally, Percival was adequetly replaced by a good Lance. Whilst he turned out good, he was not massively above average on the whole, ending only at about 2 points above average in strength and a point or two everywhere else. Lance fell off in the midgame but came back very strong in the late portion of this run.

[spoiler=Unit breakdowns]

Wasn't great, wasn't bad. This is the kind of Roy I usually get. Not much to say overall, he never really did anything super important besides give Lance some support bonuses and rapier a few units near the start of the game.

As outlined before, managed to replace Rutger quite well, but the earlygame was frustrating. His average stats evened out as the run went on but earlygame procs of speed and str were very useful. Endgame Durandal power was excellent. Primary bosskiller for the whole run and had a cool niche in many chapters with relatively accurate handaxe use vs enemy 1-2 due to high skill. 4x Brave Axe use never really came in handy though. Despite those niches, Rutger is definitely a lot more useful overall and I would rather not have to do earlygame FE6 without Rutger ever again.

Killed enemies in awkward positions and ferried my bosskiller around; two primary jobs of a flier (aside from being the bosskiller I guess :V). As stated before, whilst she never had the raw power of Miledy, but she had enough to deal with weaker enemies using stronger weapons or effective weaponry. Str was about 4 or so points above average, which helped a lot in various situations, but not too much else was notably amazing. Whilst Miledy is definitely essential in LTC, I think what Thany did in this run proves that in casual play the other fliers really aren't all that outclassed and that Miledy herself isn't as important as I thought she was before.

I wouldn't say he walloped, but early str procs meant he hit benchmarks to ORKO a lot of otherwise beefy enemies throughout early to midgame. The Roy and Alan supports were pretty useful to boost his power here and there. All things considered, it could be either Alan or Lance here, in order for either of them to really match up to a HM Percival in lategame they need to proc some extra speed or extra str. Still, very dependable and great overall.

The best Saul I've ever had. This didn't mean as much as I thought it would however, but he was particularly useful in chapter 16x to allow an easy warpskip, 20x to Berserk that Swordmaster with his above average mag increasing his staff reach and onerouding/significantly chipping enemies in ch21 and 22 with Divine. Even when turning out great didn't really do anything you can't use Yodel for instead though.

Her chip only becomes significant once she makes it to Killers but having a good bow user later in the game with great mov is a massive boon given it's much easier to level her up than mages like Lugh. Shin definitely outclasses her but she makes a decent replacement . Str was a little above average, luck MASSIVELY above average but altogether nothing extraordinary.

As usual, validates warpskipping to the extreme in lategame and greatly simplifies some otherwise annoying and/or complicated chapters. Completely wrecks some otherwise incredibly tough enemies in chapter 21 via being an attractive as hell target to enemies, although I could have given her another Robe to get her to survive consistently against all enemies on that map. Then again, given the tendancies of the AI, that might have actually stopped them from attacking her, so who knows?

I really wish I'd goten her to S Anima for the final chapter but I guess it didn't really matter that much. She used staves when needed to and killed a few annoying enemies. As usual, just being the unit that can use Hammerne, Barrier and Restore freely is useful and she can carry people around too. Attempting to get to B staves without arena abuse is really hard unless you grind out the game though.

Other units

Alan

Wasn't really worth the amount of exp and statboosters put into him. He was more like a walking support for Lance than a particularly useful combat unit, aside from chapter 16 where you want as many able units as you can get. If I could turn back time I'd have just put more exp into other units and definitely not bothered giving him a speedwing.

Percival

Could have easily replaced Alan even with his NM stats. Obviously not all that intimidating without his HM bonuses but anything I ever needed Alan for Percival would have honestly sufficed aside from chapter 16 once again. Nobody else really wants skill books so him taking them wasn't a big deal. I undercredited his stats and weaponranks because of his lack of bonuses (I've only beaten NM once and this was back when I never used prepromos), he's still good without them.

Lugh

Very useful chip earlygame, was very useful in the desert but provided almost nothing after that. Had a couple of instances of nice Aircalibur use but to be honest instapromoted Hugh could have easily done those too. I guess he doesn't cost any money though. Getting to S anima was pointless and staff rank really hurts sages in this game. I'd still train him for the Desert though on a casual run. although Miledy can practically solo the map with a wings I suppose.

Igrene

Had the extra OOMPH Sue was missing to cover her strength deficit in the midgame. Didn't do anything else terribly important but was useful nonetheless.

Astol

stole stuff

Marcus

Maximum bro earlygame, tapers off as you'd expect. Although honestly if I ever do this again, I'm totally not bothering investing a lot of exp in Alan and may just keep using Marcus and Zealot as long as possible instead.

Zealot

Didn't see much use beacuse I was trying to raise Alan.

Echidna

Actually was pretty useful in the Desert because of Wyrmslayer access and being fast and fairly strong but did nothing important besides that.

Lalum

Dancer. Completely essential. Don't really need to say anything.

Fa

Dealt with annoying status staves and siege tomes. I level her because I like doing it but her combat is mostly pointless and filler.

And now I can finally get back to FE12, yay.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Irysa

[Xator Nova]

I can't believe nobody posted after you finished the playthrough.

Congratulations! You certainly did a good job with this!

I'm interested in doing such a playthrough but adding the condition of resetting everyone's stats to their averages. Do you think it'd be possible?

[Irysa]

Possible for sure. Killer Weapons and Effective Weaponry can get you through most things midgame, though Thany is going to really need crits and much more liberal Silver Lance use to get rid of important targets. Niime wallops or skips the endgame if you give her some boosters, but the earlygame would be really annoying. If you ban HM chars that means no Rutger, and if you only want average stats I can envision a bunch of bosses and Mercs/Heroes giving you a headache, requiring more chip damage.

Lance can hit speed benchmarks but probably can't hit hard enough because his base str is meh, Alan can hit hard enough but he probably won't double anything not weighed down a lot. Dieck's still good because he doubles most things and hits hard with great bases and promo gain, but won't be doubling most bosses or promoted enemies anymore. Maybe give him a speedwing? (raising Alan for the wing might work better) Dieck also probably won't ORKO Javelin cavs @ handaxe, which was awesome in my run. Sue and Thany have a big pit to dig themselves out of in base str as well. Those two aren't as important pre chapter 14 though in terms of damage output and you get access to a Killer Weapon vendor right before then so they can probably do fine in the long run. Still, earlygame...

Saul can obviously still use warp in all the important places before Niime shows up even at 0% growths so that's not a concern. Lugh chips early and can promote to use aircalibur effectively in the desert + 1 or 2 maps to help with the lack of Miledy, then not do anything else the whole run. NM Percival can pick up some slack in the midgame on things Dieck + your Paladin might struggle with.

You'll have to buy some more statboosters at the end of the game over boots but considering you're a much better player than I am you'll probably spend your money a lot more wisely so that won't be a problem I imagine.

Basically if you can get through chapter 7 to 14 then I think that not too much changes. Igrene might want wings to double the bolting sage in 16x w/Longbow, but you could probably get Saul to Silence him instead. Oh and you'll need an extra few angelic robes for Lalum Niime and Roy too I imagine.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

i actually don't think it's optimal to give niime more than 1 robe, and in fact she may not need any. she can survive wyvern knights as long as she's on a forest tile because they only have 30 atk. 1 robe lets her survive when not on a forest tile, but it doesn't let her survive wyvern lords or manaketes. she doesn't technically need to survive manaketes because if you use the AI exploit that i discovered, the manaketes in chapter 24 probably won't attack her.

2 robes let her survive wyvern lords, but it doesn't let her survive 2 hits from any physical enemy type.

if xator nova has an LTC in mind, he really needs to focus early EXP into roy, shanna, deke, and cavalier as much as possible.