FE6 HM LTC V1 - Completed in 133 Turns

[Irysa]

2 Turns.

Replacing the Warp use with a Rescue on Lalum was one of my ideas for Raven's run back a while ago, and is one of the few truly original strategies in this playthrough (that is, no collaborative effort or borrowed ideas in any manner). Also note that I think I've discovered that soft resetting before then end of your turn means no secondary RNG reinforcements from the inner circle of houses will trigger.

I was theorying a lot of the next bunch of maps since I can easily skip through them without optimising to check things, which is why this video took so long. Upon some re-evaulation it turns out the Brave Lance really wasn't worth picking up (it generally only improves reliability in a few circumstances compared to a Killer Lance by about 5 to 10%), so I discarded it and hacked myself an extra 5000G, which is the alternate chest Shanna could have grabbed back in C16. Really, the most use it could have gotten was probably this Chapter by allowing Tate + MIledy@BraveLance to kill a Nomadic Trooper instead of relying on a crit.

Lilina taking the bosskill isn't strictly neccessary, but it saves money due to the fact that Shanna would otherwise require the Body Ring in order to double the boss with a Killer Lance. It's also good for Lilina EXP gain, as she now should comfortably hit 29 Magic for the prospective Murdoch bosskill. 29 Magic will let her 4HKO instead of requiring a double crit.

There isn't too much to say surrounding everyone else's EXP distribution other than the fact I got everyone that matters a Promoted Enemy. Saul hit A Light so he'll be able to use Purge after I buy it from the Secret Shop in C21, which should be useful in some parts of the Endgame. I think it may be possible for Percival to reach S Swords in time for C24, which would certainly be handy.

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 2
Miledy Arrow L5U3 Cycle (URLDx37)
Percy Arrow D5L3 Cycle (LUDRx747)

Edited July 28, 2016 by Irysa

[Irysa]

2 Turns.

This one took a while because I was theorycrafting a lot regarding Percival's Sword Rank and EXP (suffice to say, I think I can get him to S Swords by Chapter 22, which likely means Miledy won't be getting Boots or being deployed in 24). I also originally wanted to give the bosskill to Sue, but decided against it because she doesn't really need any more EXP and Alan was the next most reliable candidate due to Killer Lance access.

I was considering Percival for the bosskill too but because the Light Brand doesn't give Sword WEXP when used at range, and because he'll likely be able to get to his Strength and Speed caps anyway, I decided to focus on getting him more Sword WEXP in the middle of the map. Percival's presence here also serves to bait the Sleep staff that would otherwise be aimed at Alan. Tate was deployed to chip a Nomad instead of Zealot because her presence affects the enemy Nomads in the middle for more reasons I don't understand.

If I've planned things out right then Zeiss can pay off his own Promotion by helping to get some more items from Chests in the next Map, and it may come in handy for things in Chapter 21 as well.

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 1
Shanna Arrow R6U4 Cycle (ULRDx28)

Turn 2
Shanna Arrow L6U4 Cycle (URLDx1150)

Edited August 17, 2016 by Irysa

[ruadath]

Nice clear! Just wondering, how easy would it be for you give an approximate figure for the total amount of EXP gained in the playthrough so far?

[Irysa]

[spoiler=EXP values]1750 Sue
1750 Alen
1740 Shanna
1580 Roy
2070 Lilina
2030 Saul
530 Miledy
300 Zeiss
300 Percival
760 Shin
500 Lance
350 Clarine
380 Marcus
120 Zealot
430 Lalum
230 Lugh
150 Astol
100 Chad
340 Dieck
130 Lott
80 Wade
150 Rutger
30 Echidna
30 Treck
40 Bors
50 Cecilia
110 Wolt
110 Elen

Rounded them to the nearest 10 and didn't bother to list people with up to 10 EXP so it probably cancels out. That adds up to about 16140 EXP. If you're asking for ranking purposes I'm pretty much certain to get an E.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Irysa

[Paused]

Looking good! This might come across as snarky, when my intention is the opposite; but impressed by the level of planning that is still going into clears at this point in the game. By now in a any% run I'd somewhat assumed you'd be able to get to the ending in a few days, with maps just becoming warp-skips and that's it. But the amount of effort you're putting into optimising every detail, achieving lots of side objectives in every single turn is a joy to behold.

Ha... I've noticed you're all but apologizing in the last few updates for taking awhile, but don't sweat it; they're well worth the wait.

[Irysa]

3 Turns.

A 2 turn is relatively trivial (the only difficulty being Percival's ability to connect 4 consecutive 51% Disp Hits on the Boss), but since Dayan shows up on Turn 3 I can delay a little and get some extra money from the Chests on the right. Zeiss's promotion enables him to help out with the Treasure (and in fact, the Guiding Ring + the Dracoshield pay off the Whip and Wings he's used), as otherwise Marcus and Zealot would be in pretty precarious positions in terms of survival in that area. Obviously Zeiss has uses in Chapters 21 and 22 but we'll get to those later.

My original plan was to have Astol open the Blue Gem Chest, but combined with surviability and positioning issues I was forced to abandon this idea. Instead I hacked myself another Chest Key and deducted 750G (assume it was bought in Chapter 15 with the Silver Card) for one of my units to use, as whilst I do have enough Chest Keys to grab everything right now, I need a 2 use remaining one so that I can do the Warp Staff convoy trick in Chapter 22. Using that 2 Use Chest Key now would forfeit my ability to perform that strategy.

That room has some other problems however, as the Warrior in it seems to move depending on the RNG to quite different locations. As such I deducted 5 EXP and restored a Heal Staff use on Lilina, the adjustment being that she wouldnt Heal Zeiss in Chapter 18, which has zero effect on anything but preventing her from leveling up on Enemy Phase. This means the RNs don't end up in such a way that the Warrior blocks my path (as well as netting her HP instead of just Mag/Luck but I probably would have taken it otherwise)

I avoided needing any crits to clear enemies, as Miledy is capable of ORKOing that Swordreaver Warrior near the start with a Silver Lance (she just reached A Lances last map), and Alan can just about double the Swordmaster in the way too. I conserved some Elfire uses with the double Bow Chip on the final Swordmaster Lilina killed because I'm likely selling both Aircalibur tomes anyway whilst keeping the Elfire. Lastly, nobody had to dodge any Boltings due to Shin and Cecilia serving as bait. Percival has a very small chance of death on Turn 1, but none on Turn 2. If he'd taken another Sage hit on Turn 2 EP Saul could have Physic'd again to keep him safe in his final kill of the map. Technically speaking Roy has to dodge the boss at 30% Disp Hit because he might get targeted by the Sages otherwise. They don't pose much of a threat to him if he's swapped back to an Iron Sword due to the Pillar Avo boost but the greater annoyance is it causes one of the enemies to get on the Throne, meaning Percival gets suboptimal EXP gain due to having to attack anything but the level 4 Sage and/or has to sacrifice a perfect levelup due to hitrate concerns.

[spoiler=EP Stats]
Turn 1
Percy 53 Hp
36 Hit 10 Dmg
31 Hit 7 Dmg
52 Hit 19 Dmg
56 Hit 13 Dmg
43 Hit 11 Dmg

Niime (Berserk)
32 Hit - There are ways around this but I didn't explore them since there was no need.

Turn 2
Zeiss 44 Hp
28 Hit 20 Dmg
57 Hit 35 Dmg 6 Crit

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 1
Percy Arrow D4R4 Cycle(DLRUx231)

Turn 3
Shanna Arrow U5L2U3 Cycle (LDURx692) L1D1x2

[Irysa]

This barely warrants an update but whatever.

1 Turn.

As far as I am aware, if you reset and start the chapter ASAP then the correct throne is always the rightmost one as it is already determined once you've started.

Cleared so quickly I don't even have the ability to optimise anything since nobody else can reach any promoted enemies or have anything important to do. I prioritise my dance on Percival to get him more Sword WExp. He is currently sitting at 44, so with another 2 doubling and ORKOs he'll hit S for Durandal. Unfortunately he can't double the Nomadic Trooper.

The moment of truth is up next...will Lilina be able to pull off the 3 turn? Will Irysa even be able to sell all the crap he's accumulated? Tune in next time (probably next year if my current progress is anything to go by...)

Edited October 29, 2016 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

All the time and effort put into this run ... only to have those precious turns lost to recruiting Dayan.

I could never do that.

[Irysa]

3 Turns.

Uncensored footage of Lilina saving a turn. Hot Bolting action! Massive props to Gradivus for a combination of various ideas and suggestions that lead to this clear.

After selling a lot of junk (although I was able to keep a few nice things like Silvers, Killers, Physics and such around), I ended up with 176621 Gold, not counting the Member Card which sells for another 2000. I bought 2 Boltings, 2 Purges and 43(!) pairs of boots at the secret shop. This is enough to get the entire Chapter 24 crew besides Fae to 15 mov, and still have some leftovers for Zeiss. Why Zeiss over Miledy? Well, you'll see.

One thing to note is that Saul is very safe on the Forest Tile he was dropped onto, most enemies have single digit or no hit at all on him. However, if I drop and move him into more precarious positions, he can get a huge amount of Light WExp. It's actually very easy to get to S Rank if I do this, but since I reckon it will not end up being relevant at all in 24, I opted not to do it as it is kinda gross for strategical reliability. If I really do have problems it's a relatively simple fix so I'm willing to come back later. Speaking of S Ranks, I miscounted Percival's Sword WExp. He hit S Swords early because I forgot to take into account a Mage kill in 16x.

Roy's Lancereaver helps to boost his survivability so his CoD isn't really that bad.

[spoiler=EP Stats]
Turn 1
Roy 34 Hp
44 Hit 9 Dmg 15 Crit
36 Hit 17 Dmg
24 Hit 5 Dmg
21 Hit 5 Dmg

Turn 2
Roy 34 Hp
37 Hit 8 Dmg 14 Crit
33 Hit 18 Dmg
15 Hit 4 Dmg

Miledy 48 Hp
52 Hit 8 Dmg 25 Crit
44 Hit 16 Dmg
28 Hit 4 Dmg
32 Hit 4 Dmg
29 Hit 4 Dmg

Edited November 1, 2016 by Irysa

[Irysa]

Two clears in one day because I really really really want to just finish this thing. I will probably crank out 23 and 24 tomorrow.

21x

2 Turns

This is even worse to watch than 20x...

Percival oneshots the boss with a KE crit to get to 25 Str/Spd, everyone else who can chugs Boots. I didn't bother to expose anyone to more enemies since EXP doesn't really matter at this point.

[spoiler=EP Stats]
Percival 55 Hp
64 Hit 8 Dmg x 2
46 Hit 20 Dmg
26 Hit 29 Dmg (If in KO Range)

[spoiler=Large RN Burns]
Turn 1
Shanna Arrow U7R5 Cycle(RDULx1396)

22

3 Turns.

Home stretch!

Due to Percival reaching Durandal, I opted for a more conservative 2 Warp 1 Rescue strategy as opposed to a 2 Warp Strat because it eliminates the need for any crits on Zephiel and is just flat out easier to plan for. For that matter, the only required crit on the map is Miledy against the Brave Sword Hero. Alas, not aiming to crit Zephiel means it was pointless to raise Lilina's support with Astol, but seeing as I was unable to find a place to use that spare Rescue to save a Turn I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Speaking of conservative strategies, much of the clear has a surprising amount of small tweaks to it to improve reliability. See if you can catch them all! The trick with the Brave Bow Sniper is my favourite by far.

[spoiler=EP Stats]
Turn 2
Percival 54 Hp
52 Hit 8 Dmg
10 Hit 16 Dmg 18 Crit
27 Hit 5 Dmg
33 Hit 26 Dmg
30 Hit 6 Dmg

Edited November 3, 2016 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

Speaking of conservative strategies, much of the clear has a surprising amount of small tweaks to it to improve reliability. See if you can catch them all!

Shanna using a Potion might be one of them? It didn't seem to serve any specific purpose so it may have something to do with enemy AI?

[Irysa]

Special delivery, we're done in 133 turns! The old 132 figure on the front page was a mistake by me because C12 was listed as 7 instead of 8 due to a typo. Whoops.

23

2 Turns.

Credit to Gradivus for the Staffless 2 Turn strategy. The saved staff uses here were put to good use elsewhere in the playthrough, so this is another example of Lilina saving turns, albeit indirectly.

The exact strategy in the video isn't the one that has to be used, Zeiss is there as a backup in case the enemy formation doesn't work out so he can Killer Lance double one of the Wyverns to help clear a path.

Roy basically can't die unless he gets crit by the Killer Lance Wyvern Lord, same goes for Shanna since try as I might, I could not get the last Ballista to not target Lalum.

Percival's EP can be significantly improved if he wields an axe instead of a Wyrmslayer but there are like a million low lying crit RNs and shit lying around on this map so I couldn't really be bothered to burn a lot of them just to showcase how the most reliable WOULD look like since this makes the RNs work out and the starting ones are unfair.

[spoiler=EP Stats]Lalum 19 Hp
54 Hit 27 Dmg

Roy 38 Hp
30 Hit 2 Dmg
60 Hit 10 Dmg 16 Crit
32 Hit 0 Dmg (lol)

Percival 56 Hp
29 Hit 11 Dmg
31 Hit 7 Dmg
47 Hit 17 Dmg
21 Hit 36 Dmg

Lilina 42 Hp
31 Hit 10 Dmg
11 Hit 10 Dmg
14 Hit 6 Dmg (Wyvern Lord would go after her if she gets hit too much)

Shanna 41 Hp
45 Hit 12 Dmg 16 Crit (Ballista might target her if she gets crit?)

24

7 Turns.

It's basically dondon's 7 turn but easier because more 15 mov, Bolting, and Purge. Compared to Raven's, having Durandal and 3 Siege Tome users along with a Sleep Staff makes it very safe.

I'm honestly glad the elusive 6 turn of this map turned out to be so unrealistic. The 7 turn is very leisurely, and I apologise for kind of rushing this recording, I really really wanted to just get this project out of the way. On turn 2 I have to burn some RNs because Shanna would have missed the boss, and yes, Jodel did have to burn RNs to hit a 92 hitrate sleep staff. I realised later that I should have just had Saul sleep that Manakete instead but whatever, it doesn't really matter.

Final + Epilogue

1 Turn.

Finished in 133 turns. Turncounts are at 12:17

And with that, I'm done! My only regret being I couldn't get Roy and Lilina to A support by the ending.

Some shoutouts;

• LordRaven (HeroRaven) for his collaborate effort in both our runs. This was a massive help for predicting turncounts and staff uses.
• dondon151 (DD151) for his excellent 0% FE6 run that helped to serve as a baseline for many strategies, along with some personal suggestions on a few maps.
• beamcrash for their sort of completed NM Death Glitch run. This really helped with Staff uses.
• Gradivus for helping a lot with optimising lategame and staff uses, along with midgame ideas that I'd practically written off that translated into turn shaves later.
• GeneralHorace for helping to optimise the earlygame

Everyone else on SF who helped contribute!

That's V1 completed. Maybe someday in the distant future I'll come back and optimise some parts of the run (there are things like how I retroactively realised I did have enough turns to get Miledy to use enough Boots for C23 if she uses Torch in 21x instead of Astol), or if I ever find some way to use the spare rescue staff.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Irysa

[Yojinbo]

This thing kept me entertained for a good 1.5 years. One of these I'll watch it in its entirety.

[Paused]

Phenomenal work Irysa. Loved following this.

[FionordeQuester]

So Irsya, how much of those perfect RN level ups were actually necessary in the end? Dondon said in one of his early posts that Str/Skl/Spd were the big three to aim for, and that the rest could be made up for with other RN burning. How accurate did that statement end up being?

[Irysa]

I think that's broadly correct, although a 3HKO'd Shanna in C24 is obviously very convenient and I'd originally not realised that Saint's Staff cures status, so I was expecting to have to dodge status more in 23. I don't regret it mostly, and it think it paid off for Saul (arena, C21), Shanna (Sacae, 23 Ballista/Wyverns) and Roy (like, everywhere) on various maps, less so for other characters (although status dodging in C14 for Alan was a pretty big plus). It's a tradeoff thing, and whilst survival rigging is obviously less intensive, its also much vaguer and harder to understand since the way enemies burn RNs on EP is very random. When you combine that with the fact some characters are going to have to levelup on Enemy Phase, and others need to survive, it in some way is easier since finding perfect levelups is a clear goal, whilst the whims of how enemies move around means you could end up burning RNs slowly for a long time crossing your fingers that things will work out.

I'd definitely not bother rigging res for most of the earlygame chumps again though.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Irysa

[Pretty Cool Guy]

Great work! I enjoyed following the playthrough. I have a question though. If you're going to go through the trouble of rigging great level ups for your units, why not just make all of them have 100% growths?

[Irysa]

Same answer as before; it makes sure what's happening is possible within the game. It's not always possible to get all the things you want at once, and it changes the way I end up planning things. Like, EP levelups are pretty hard to get right unless they're near the start of the phase or the enemies move in straight lines to get to their targets, and there have been occaisons where characters do need to dodge or crit and the like. If I had 100% growths I could pretty lazily just play things out and not care about when levelups occur because all I have to do is rig everything else, but if growths aren't hacked then I am forced to plan around that. As such, nearly all my levelups occur when it's easy to manipulate them, such as on player phase or at the start of enemy phase.

Note that I did give up on perfect levels a few times such as when Saul was arena grinding in Chapter 11; perfect levels + high gold + high exp gain is too difficult.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Irysa

[FionordeQuester]

I think that's broadly correct, although a 3HKO'd Shanna in C24 is obviously very convenient and I'd originally not realised that Saint's Staff cures status, so I was expecting to have to dodge status more in 23. I don't regret it mostly, and it think it paid off for Saul (arena, C21), Shanna (Sacae, 23 Ballista/Wyverns) and Roy (like, everywhere) on various maps, less so for other characters (although status dodging in C14 for Alan was a pretty big plus). It's a tradeoff thing, and whilst survival rigging is obviously less intensive, its also much vaguer and harder to understand since the way enemies burn RNs on EP is very random. When you combine that with the fact some characters are going to have to levelup on Enemy Phase, and others need to survive, it in some way is easier since finding perfect levelups is a clear goal, whilst the whims of how enemies move around means you could end up burning RNs slowly for a long time crossing your fingers that things will work out.

I'd definitely not bother rigging res for most of the earlygame chumps again though.

So let's suppose I don't want to be bothered to rig perfect level ups, but still feel like using your playthrough as a guide; would it be fair to say that I would want STR/SKL/SPD/DEF levels on Roy, Saul, and Shanna? And then STR/SKL/SPD levels would be fine for everyone else?

[Irysa]

I don't really know how to answer that because I can't really guarantee enemies will behave the same way when characters have different durability values. Assuming you're allowing for HP to be a given and Def/Res/Luck to occur at least to an average amount I figure you can probably match most of the run, but you'll probably have to come up with slightly different strats or something elsewhere. Raven's run was not as meticulous about rigging levelups and he still got 140 so as long as you're not expecting the match TCs per se I guess so?