LTC FE13 Lunatic LTC, finished in 80 turns

[SSJDennis]

Also, how effective do you think your strats will be on Lunatic+? IIRC, only "skills" are different, while stats remain the same, or "just" a bit higher?

Tried myself, unfortunately not going to work. I actually forgot how "easy" Lunatic is, compared to Lunatic+.

Chapter1:

Chapter 1 is "easily" beaten in 3 turns. Only "luck" you need is a +1 SPD level up on Frederick(also either +1 STR, or a DS from Chrom to kill the boss) and dodge the 60% Hammer hit.

PP1: Pair up Frederick and Chrom. Move to fort right next to you. Let Frederick do the fighting. Move Robin one right next to starting position of Chrom, DON'T pair up with Lissa(important!!).

EP1: Enemies attack Frederick. You DO want to kill that mercenary. MOST IMPORTANT, lowest mercenary moves NE. If not, he can't attack them next enemy phase and the strategy will fail.

PP2: Move OFF the fort. To the Wood tile. This is needed because the lower mercenary MUST attack you. Pair up Virion with Robin. Move Robin to the furthest reach of the archer. Let Virion!! be the lead(he does more damage).

EP2: Everyone but the boss and archer die.

PP3: Attack the boss. With Frederick +1STR/+1SPD will do EXACTLY 42HP. If he didn't get +1STR, Chrom needs to DS once. Archer can be killed with the combo of Sully/Virion/Robin.

Chapter23:

I didn't do the math, do you make sure you gain 1 ATK and 1 SPD every level up, right? Chapter with Validar seems tricky. Does GF work, when you kill Validar on that turn, but go to the "scene"? If so, two Falcons should fly toward where Validar will emerge after the scene (it is still kill the leader after this, right?). One paired up with Olivia (for obvious reasons?) and one with your other strongest fighter I think (which also has GF).

But, maybe they are in range already... Plan is, to move close as possible to Validar. Then use Rescue staff to get Robin close enough. Then attack Validar. Use Olivia again if needed. This will make the chapter doable in three turns? If it is "Route the enemy", then it might be a bigger problem...

Looking forward to what you come up to. In the meanwhile, I will "rush" through Lunatic, with your strats. Trying if I might be able to improve something. So it might help you out somewhere. Also, exactly WHEN did you break the Silver Lance? I try to "save" it, whenever I can. In chapter one you can (for example) save 3 SL hits. But you need Chrom to finish of the first babarian.

Keep up the good work!

Edited April 10, 2016 by SSJDennis

[ruadath]

Oh whoa, didn't realize there had been some progress on this thread. I never check the email account that I actually subscribe to this with, lol.

Chapter1:

Chapter 1 is "easily" beaten in 3 turns. Only "luck" you need is a +1 SPD level up on Frederick(also either +1 STR, or a DS from Chrom to kill the boss) and dodge the 60% Hammer hit.

PP1: Pair up Frederick and Chrom. Move to fort right next to you. Let Frederick do the fighting. Move Robin one right next to starting position of Chrom, DON'T pair up with Lissa(important!!).

EP1: Enemies attack Frederick. You DO want to kill that mercenary. MOST IMPORTANT, lowest mercenary moves NE. If not, he can't attack them next enemy phase and the strategy will fail.

PP2: Move OFF the fort. To the Wood tile. This is needed because the lower mercenary MUST attack you. Pair up Virion with Robin. Move Robin to the furthest reach of the archer. Let Virion!! be the lead(he does more damage).

EP2: Everyone but the boss and archer die.

PP3: Attack the boss. With Frederick +1STR/+1SPD will do EXACTLY 42HP. If he didn't get +1STR, Chrom needs to DS once. Archer can be killed with the combo of Sully/Virion/Robin.

Does this mean you found room to improve the run? That's awesome! Let me know if (either of) you want help with some RNG abuse stuff. With Citra running at a reasonable pace now, I might be able to assist with that via some scripting (I've yet to try, no promises, but using CheatEngine to scan the memory seems plausible). Good luck!

Edited April 13, 2016 by ruadath

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

In theory, the same strats could work for Lunatic+, but the odds are extremely bad. That is, it would just come down to resetting a lot until enemy skills lined up in exactly the right way that they don't interfere with the strat, in which case you might as well just do that LTC on vanilla Lunatic and save yourself the headache. Lunatic+'s mercurial nature is great for casual replayability, but not conducive to LTC in the slightest.

[Gradivus.]

@SSJDennis Yes, C23 is rout the enemy. It would be really time-costly for you to replicate all my strats so you don't have to unless you really want. You don't need to burn yourself out with the idea of taking any effort off of me, I like to figure out the strategies on my own, although I appreciate people giving me general ideas.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Gradivus.

[SSJDennis]

@SSJDennis Yes, C23 is rout the enemy. It would be really time-costly for you to replicate all my strats so you don't have to unless you really want. You don't need to burn yourself out with the idea of taking any effort off of me, I like to figure out the strategies on my own, although I appreciate people giving me general ideas.

Lol. Yeah, I figured that out already XD Have been trying P again and again, just for that single good level up of Robin... But now I think a good level up on Frederick in P would pay off more in C1, because I can then save the Silver Lance. Yeah... C2 seems "easy", but still isn't... Bad part is that Frederick should be at two places at the same time and he just can't...

[ruadath]

Yeah... C2 seems "easy", but still isn't... Bad part is that Frederick should be at two places at the same time and he just can't...

FWIW, I think I remember Gradivus saying something about having a strat that saved a turn for C2 but which involved significant RNG abuse.

[Gradivus.]

It was just an estimate, but I think with a lot of RNG abuse for extra Fred dodges I can see a more bumrush-heavy strat being possible because you can expose him to more enemies. Getting MU enough exp would be hard though (it doesn't help that she doesn't get C1's bosskill in SSJDennis' strat, I can't exactly tell how big the loss is), in my strats she just barely got to 10.xx for second seal by C6, which is crucial for many objectives throughout the run (javelins by C8, promotion by C9, galeforce by C13, etc., they all depend on each other).

I'm not very interested in doing an RNG abused playthrough anytime soon though (it would be interesting to watch, but still), and I don't want this to be turned into a discussion topic for it.

Edited April 21, 2016 by Gradivus.

[SSJDennis]

FWIW, I think I remember Gradivus saying something about having a strat that saved a turn for C2 but which involved significant RNG abuse.

Lol, with EXTREME RNG abuse, you might even beat the Prologue in three turns (only YOU can do that XD )

I will give C2 a go, when I get satisfying level up stats on Chrom and Frederick.

It was just an estimate, but I think with a lot of RNG abuse for extra Fred dodges I can see a more bumrush-heavy strat being possible because you can expose him to more enemies. Getting MU enough exp would be hard though (it doesn't help that she doesn't get C1's bosskill in SSJDennis' strat, I can't exactly tell how big the loss is), in my strats she just barely got to 10.xx for second seal by C6, which is crucial for many objectives throughout the run (javelins by C8, promotion by C9, galeforce by C13, etc.).

I'm not very interested in doing an RNG abused playthrough anytime soon though (it would be interesting to watch, but still), and I don't want this to be turned into a discussion topic for it.

Really? I could try with Avatar in the back for both P and C1. Robin could potentially reach level 3 by doing that, maybe 4. You were level 4 after beating Lucina, right? Any major kills you made?

Edited April 13, 2016 by SSJDennis

[ruadath]

Alright then, I'll refrain from mentioning it any further. One last question though: what is the status of your run right now? I was just a little bit confused after the post regarding Chapter 23. Are you planning to do one of the paralogues? Or are you looking for a more reliable strat? Or are you restarting the playthrough from scratch? I'm just curious.

[Gradivus.]

Really? I could try with Avatar in the back for both P and C1. Robin could potentially reach level 3 by doing that, maybe 4. You were level 4 after beating Lucina, right? Any major kills you made?

Level 7 after chapter 4. Bosskills in C1 and C2 and priority training against mooks.

Alright then, I'll refrain from mentioning it any further. One last question though: what is the status of your run right now? I was just a little bit confused after the post regarding Chapter 23. Are you planning to do one of the paralogues? Or are you looking for a more reliable strat? Or are you restarting the playthrough from scratch? I'm just curious.

I plan on going on once RL allows for it. I think I'm going to visit Cynthia's paralogue for the money, it probably evens out turncount-wise because C23 takes longer without the exp (for second seal) on Robin.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Gradivus.

[SSJDennis]

Level 7 after chapter 4. Bosskills in C1 and C2 and priority training against mooks.

I plan on going on once RL allows for it. I think I'm going to visit Cynthia's paralogue for the money, it probably evens out turncount-wise because C23 takes longer without the exp (for second seal) on Robin.

To bad he doesn't have enough base strength to kill the boss of P... Redid P, got bit lucky. Robin is 2,60. Chrom and Frederick kinda the same. Will try to gain more EXP on C1.

Edit: She can reach lv4 with ease by just killing first two enemies and the last archer. You COULD take even more risk and aim for the boss kill. But then you need Frederick to assist you TWICE in a row... And you also need to dodge one of the two boss hits... Not sure if that is worth it.

Resetting a chapter isn't that bad... Wish we could turn off ALL the dialogue we need to skip before we can actually "fight".

What path did you go with Avatar/Robin? Lv10 > Pegasus Knight > L10 Darkflier? Would going to Sorceror after be valid? Changing/hoping Lucina can get Darkflier in time? Your thoughts? Why did you pick Valkyrie?

Also its to bad this game doesn't have save tiles, like FESD :( Would save MANY hours...

Edited April 16, 2016 by SSJDennis

[SSJDennis]

Finally got a perfect level-up for both Frederick and Robin. Now up to Chapter 2. Already managed to 5 turn it. Now need to do it again, with better level ups...

Robin grows (at least) to lv5 and gets the boss kill. My ended with 5.93 EXP (I think she could potentially reach level 6). Frederick went to level 4. Chrom "only" level 2.

Exactly how useful is Chrom in the long run? Should I feed him more? Also, your Lissa's level seems rather high. Mine hasn't used her Heal staff at the start of Chapter 2... She probably need a higher staff rank, but before what level? Would "only" Maribelle be acceptable at some point? Problem with Lissa is, that is out of range most of the time, or needs to ferry people around, to get in more attacks.

Your Chapter 3 strategy is absolutely brilliant! Took me two tries to understand what you mean, but after that, incredible.

For now I will redo Chapter 2 some more, need better stat gains for Robin, Frederick (with +2 speed he can OHKO all enemies in Ch3) and Chrom.

EDIT: I could beat Chapter 2 in 4 turns... But then Frederick gets like 99% of the EXP in the chapter. Robin does miss the boss EXP and a mercenary kill. Which would result in at least one level.

So will try again, might even do a double save. One with the 4 turn clear (which is somewhat luck based) and a 5 turn clear with a higher Robin.

Chapter2: 5turn strat

PP1: Robin gets the Bronze Sword from Stahl. Vaike pairs up with Robin. Robin lures the right mercenary. Virion trades Elixer to Chrom. Chrom pairs with Frederick. Frederick kills the left mercenary.
EP1: Bit tricky. Frederick MUST dodge one attack. Upper right soldier MUST move to Frederick. No enemy can block the bridge.

PP2: Frederick moves on the bridges. use a Vulnerary or Elixer. Other party members weaken the mercenary. Robin gets the kill.

EP2: Everyone attacks Frederick. Most enemies will die. IF you are lucky, a solider moves down to the right of your team. No clue WHY or WHEN this will happen, but it might.

PP3: Get in the right spot, so the upper left enemy barbarian and upper right enemy soldier can attack him. This NEEDS to be done, in order to be able to get a 5 (or 4) turn clear.

EP3: Everyone attacks Frederick. Hope he survives and there isn't an enemy blocking his way down.

PP4: Your only option for a 4turn clear is a critical hit from Chrom. Still Frederick need to attack the boss (or Chrom dies). For 5turn clear; lure everyone down, I believe one down the sparkling spot.

EP4: Most enemies die.

PP5: Weaken the boss with Frederick, using his Silver Lance. Or get lucky and use Iron Sword + DS. Robin charges in with his Thunder for the kill.

Edited April 23, 2016 by SSJDennis

[Gradivus.]

Updated with Paralogue 9. If my motivation cooperates, I might actually complete C23 soon.

Edited May 5, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Great to see you back at this. I like how all the figures in that P9 clear were really reliable too. It's too bad the durability improvements don't look like they'll make too much of a difference.

[SSJDennis]

Updated with Paralogue 9. If my motivation cooperates, I might actually complete C23 soon.

Hope it does :) Been great thus far.

[Gradivus.]

I'm currently debating reclasses for Chrom and Morgan. A major obstacle is 1-turning Grima, of course, which Robin and Morgan need a lot of help for. Massive wall of theorycrafting / numbercrunching / PLANNING incoming.

Chrom: must give +1 move -> Bow Knight vs. Great Knight

Bonuses to Robin:

GK!Chrom: +7 Str, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +2 Lck, +7 Def

BK!Chrom: +2 Str, +7 Skl, +7 Spd, +2 Lck, +1 Def

Sorcerer!Robin's hitrate against Grima with capped stats (and 30 Lck total because capped is unrealistic), +15 hit Waste and GK!Chrom: 60 (Waste forge) + 5 (A Tomes) + 66 (40+4 Skl) + 15 (30 Lck) + 5 (Charm) + 15 (S support) - 110 (Avoid) = 56 Hit (61.72% chance)

With Bow Knight!Chrom, it becomes 63 Hit (72.99% chance), which is noticeably better. Bow Knight!Chrom also gives her 6 more Spd, which guarantees doubling against Grima, unlike GK, which only boosts her Spd to 49, forcing me to rely on Chrom proccing Spd once (20 Spd = pair-up bonus becomes +2) with poor exp gain as a pair-up bot. The downside to Bow Knight, of course, is that the Def bonus is much worse. This gets her 2HKOed by Generals and pretty probably 3HKOed by Assassins. Nosferatu can compensate for this, though, and the chance for Vengeance procs is 10% higher with Bow Knight!Chrom once she hits level 5.

Chrom's accuracy is also influenced by the reclass. Hitrate vs. Grima with Exalted Falchion (current stats): 80 + 40 (25+2 Skl) + 11 (23 Lck) - 110 = 21 Hit (9.03% chance). As a Great Knight, his hitrate is 15 (4.65% chance). It's pretty bad either way, and a backup chance at best (31.5% chance to connect one out of 4 DSes with Bow Knight!Chrom).

His damage with Exalted Falchion is [21 (Str) + 2 (Tonic) + 4 (Rally) + 45 (Mt) + 3 (A Swd) - 53 (Def)] / 2 (Grima effect) = 11 Dmg. 13 as a Great Knight.

I'm more inclined towards Bow Knight, since the notable reliability improvements to the Grima kill are better than the +2 damage to Chrom's DSes (against Grima, +5 otherwise), and it overall seems to be more important than the Def considering Robin will use Nosferatu against generics most of the time.

Morgan: Berserker vs. Warrior vs. Great Knight

First off, let's compare stat caps (with Str +2):

Berserker: 53 Str / 39 Skl / 50 Spd / 46 Lck / 34 Def

Warrior: 51 Str / 46 Skl / 46 Spd / 46 Lck / 40 Def

Great Knight: 51 Str / 38 Skl / 43 Spd / 46 Lck / 48 Def

Current stats, with an Energy Drop, a Speedwing and Naga's Tear:

Berserker: 71 HP / 41 Str / 31 Skl / 42 Spd / 25 Lck / 28 Def / 20 Res

Warrior: 69 HP / 40 Str / 34 Skl / 38 Spd / 25 Lck / 30 Def / 22 Res

Great Knight: 67 HP / 39 Str / 32 Skl / 36 Spd / 25 Lck / 37 Def / 20 Res

Based on this, he's unlikely to cap out Str and Skl, with roughly 60% growth in both stats. He needs 40 Spd to double Grima with Spd Tonic and a Lucina pair up; if he gets 10 levels, his chance to hit this benchmark as a Great Knight is around 95%, and pretty much guaranteed otherwise. Still assuming he gets 10 levels, he has a good chance to proc Skl 5 times, so I'll take current Skl + 5 for the following calculations. 5 Str procs are also very realistic, and I can try to rig depending on how reliable my strategies are. Again, I'll take 5 for the calculations. Atk vs. Grima:

GK: 44 (Str) + 1 (A Axes) + 4 (Rally) + 2 (Tonic) + 2 (pair up) + 12 (Brave Axe) + x (forge, class base difference and extra procs) = 65 + x

That's 6 damage (3 against Pavise) minimum. 7 (or 3) minimum for Berserker. The next hurdle would be hitrates with Brave Axe. Bow Knight!Lucina can give +8 Skl to Morgan.

Berserker: 75 (+15 Hit forge) + 10 (A Axes) + 15 (Support) + 5 (Charm) + 69 (36+10 Skl) + 15 (30 Lck) - 110 (Avoid) = 79 Hit

Great Knight pulls 80 Hit, Warrior 83. On the whole, Warrior has a pretty minor advantage if caps (and bows) are irrelevant, and given its level 5 skill is the least useful, I can pretty safely say I won't choose it.

Another factor are skills, assuming it is possible to hit level 5 in time (I think it is by reclassing in C24 on turn 2). Warrior!Morgan's Rally Str is irrelevant. Great Knight has Luna, which reduces Grima's Def to 26. With the 65 Atk estimate, Great Knight!Morgan can deal 20 damage on a non-Pavise Luna with a small forge or blessing. 10 on a Pavise. The activation chance is in the high 40s, so the chance to proc it at least twice in 4 attacks is in the low 60s, which is pretty solid. 53% chance to proc 4 times in 8 attacks.

Berserker offers Wrath. The obvious disadvantage is it can only be used very limitedly. It only boosts Crit on the second attack of the first round and potentially the first attack of the second round. The crit chance with Wrath in the equation is 30 (Killer Axe) + 10 (Solidarity) + 20 (Wrath) + 10 (Support) + 10 (if Olivia is close while paired with Henry for Anathema) + 23 (36+10 Skl) - 45 (Lck) = 58. 48 if an Anathema user isn't nearby and 28 before Wrath, so it's very unreliable overall. That's ignoring that a killer axe crit + hit merely replicates 4 brave hits, with a worse chance to dodge Pavise. A Killer Axe forge costs 3/4 as much as a Brave forge, so there isn't that much money getting saved.

Thus, Luna + Brave easily has the Wrath + Killer build beat, given the much higher reliability and damage output. Great Knight!Morgan also has a good shot at surviving an Ignis + non-Ignis from Grima, if not two Ignises, which is useful since Ignis has a 64% chance to double proc.

TL;DR Bow Knight!Chrom and Great Knight!Morgan seem to be optimal.

Other Grima calcs

Bow Knight!Lucina's DS damage, with current stats: [25 (Str) + 2 (Tonic) + 4 (Rally) + 3 (A Swd) + 36 (Mt) - 53 (Def)] / 2 (Grima) = 8 Dmg.

Bow Knight!Lucina's hitrate: 80 (Parallel Falchion) + 54 (34+2 Skl) + 10 (20 Lck) - 110 Avoid = 34 Hit (23.46% chance).

Sorcerer!Robin's damage pre-Vengeance: [43 (Mag) + 2 (Tonic) + 2 (A Tomes) + 13 (+3 Mt Waste)] / 2 (Grima) = 5 Dmg.

Grima can probably do damage in the high 50s with Ignis. I'll keep Robin's Def to a minimum for Endgame to maximize the Vengeance boost (it's actually just not using a Tonic, so it's a minimal difference). If Grima does 58 damage, the Vengeance bonus is 29, so one hit deals 5 + 14 = 19 damage.

Also, having counted tiles on the japanese mapsite, I've confirmed that my team can rescue Olivia ahead to Grima so Morgan can attack twice. That's quite a relief.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Gradivus.]

I DID IT, Chapter 23 done in 5 turns, definitely couldn't have gone faster while being reliable. That was one huge hellhole, it took literally 7 months to complete. The playlog will be updated in like half an hour because the results are so inconsistent that it's hard to describe the strat. Final turncount is pegged at 80 now, if my C24 2-turn plan works out (involves reclassing Morgan on turn 1) and Final gets 1-turned successfully (sadly Morgan didn't proc Str in 5 levels, which will hurt reliability).

Edited May 27, 2016 by Gradivus.

[ruadath]

Congratulations! Looking forward to seeing how things worked out. Does the fact that you took 5 turns means that you didn't need to do Paralogue 9, or were the levels from that still essential to the reliability of your strat?

[Gradivus.]

Finished the update.

Purely from guessing, I think I maybe could've done it in 6 turns without visiting P9, but reliability would've been worse because Robin wouldn't be able to use Nosferatu to improve her odds of surviving the ambush spawns to the east. What is more important is money. I need some cash to make endgame acceptably reliable; I'll probably just have Robin use Valflame and invest my funds into a brave axe forge since it'll ultimately net better hitrates with similar damage output. With 1 magic proc from now on (ignoring Vengeance), Robin does 5x2 damage against Grima with Valflame and only 1x4 with a +3 Waste forge, and Valflame has +35 hit on Waste before counting an expensive hitforge. I think the projected endgame clear would probably be unfeasible without the exp/money from P9 so it evens out in terms of turncounts. It's worth mentioning that there's a Bullion (L) in chapter 15 that I missed out on. I haven't looked at C23 without doing P9 before enough to know what that means.

Also fun fact, the first capped stat in this playthrough is Robin's Str, lol.

EDIT: gdi the post is too long, should've reserved the first reply to the topic. I'll edit the rest of the progress into the first reply I made.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Gradivus.]

Updated the playlog with C24 and C25, done in 2 + 1 turns. Morgan managed to get Luna, but Robin sadly couldn't reach Vengeance, even if I fed her the Aversa bosskill. Also, the money you get from selling forged weapons is actually multiplied aswell, I got 1.5k from selling 7 KE forge uses. Didn't notice that before.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Great job on the super fast clears. That's unfortunate about Vengeance, though. Your stats are generally lower too, although, I guess Pally!Lucina mostly offsets that. Doing some quick calcs, you're looking at Robin doing 2x5 with Valflame or 4x1 with Waste and Morgan dealing 4x5 with a +5 Mt Brave Axe (each hit becomes 9 if Pavise fails, 11, if Luna procs and 23, if Pavise fails and Luna procs). At 57% Luna proc rate, you can expect 4 Lunas, with a decent chnace of 5. Assuming everything hits and Morgan gets the Dance and 5 Lunas, you're looking at 10 + 15 + 55 = 80 damage. Not too shabby, although that 19 is gonna be a bit tough to make up. Your best bet appears to be Lucina landing a couple 37s (27.75% true) for 11 damage, seeing as how she should be landing about 1 in every 4 DSs. Granted, it looks like she's only got a 69% chance to help per swing, but it's more likely than additional Lunas (which only add 6 damage too, barring Pavise failure) and Pavise failure. If Pavise does fail on a Luna, though, it'll add more damage (12) than she. Seeing as how Chrom's gonna have a pitiful chance to hit (the same as what you previously computed) and only chances to land it, I think we can mostly count him out (even if that tiny chance can do 11).

[Gradivus.]

Updated with Endgame.

@KTT Thanks! Also, Olivia is paired with Henry for Anathema, which makes Chrom's DSes viable (31.5% chance to connect one) and Lucina's more reliable in the second round. I think there's a good chance Lucina gets 2 DSes, and 3 are probably not unlikely either. Robin also has a 22.5% chance to land a crit in 2 attacks, adding 10 damage.

(I tried making a video but the quality was horrible, I had to play with 1 hand and holding the camera for the whole Epilogue made my arms hurt. I'll still try to make one of the turncount roll only.)

Edited May 30, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Gradivus.]

Managed to make a somewhat passable video of Endgame and the turncount roll, it's in the OP now. Also, wrote a short program to calculate the chance to kill Grima - it turns out to be 34.38%, makes it hard to imagine a 1-turn without using skills in an LTC run.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Redwall]

Very good work.

[eclipse]

Congratulations~!

I hate Chapter 23 with a passion, too.