The Lunatic Club [Fates]

[Inference]

Entrapping Hans is totally unnecessary, though. He doesn't move with the bulk of the force, (not sure, but I think his trigger is one of those two Warding Blow Generals guarding the door) so you can just walk up to him and OHKO with Ophelia or something when everyone else dies.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Inference

[Missile]

I managed to pass it and get the spy shuriken with Niles.

Now I am on endgame, I just have one question : can we entrap the final boss ?

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

No, he doesn't move, so you can't Entrap him. Many of the goons in the very middle of the map are very good candidates for any charges you've got left.

[Missile]

Ok that's sad

True real last question : I don't remember, does the Yato don't take in account the skill Dragon Skin ? I did some great damage to Garon so I wonder if that's because of that

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

All of Yato's final forms have a special property that the game doesn't mention that halves the damage penalty from Dragonskin. This allows your Yato to do 3/4 damage instead of 1/2.

[Missile]

Ok I see know, thanks !

Finished this endgame in 2 turns with a lucky dragon fang because not everything went according to the keikaku.

Imo I felt like most of the chapters in this mode were basically hard but a little bit worse and that's it and starting from chapter 23, it really becomes almost a different game. I even found it even harder than Reverse Lunatic FE12 and FE5. But it felt like also a little bit bullshit

[AresFe]

Ok how do I wreck these golems ?

You can use entrap to take out the stoneborns, gristly wound is good too so they take damage from the combat they initiate. Easier to clear sorc side and pick up spy shrunken and cap since your units should be maxed out anyway so no need for the extra exp.

[Cyas]

As long as you don't get overconfident, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. The game gives plenty of time to build a strong team for when things get real.

Yeah, it turned out to be very doable. Takumi died due to a beginner mistake and that's all.

Though, things never really got that hard in my opinion. The developers certainly tried to make the lategame more challenging but it fell flat:

C22 is only hard if you aren't aggressive enough during the first turn and it's actually pretty easy to clear out the southern enemies on turn 1.

C23 is trivialized if you throw a rallied+tonic'd Ryoma with a good pair-up in the middle of the map and let him take on the majority of the enemy squads early on.

C24 is a 1-turn.

C25 was hard, maybe you can trivialize it with enough Ryoma usage but I didn't want to risk it.

C26 is a 1-turn.

C27 is a Ryoma-solo. After having finished the playthrough, I decided to go and get the remainder of the children (Shiro, Kiragi and Shigure) and did it again without Ryoma. I'd say it's reasonably difficult without him.

Endgame is also a 1-turn.

Anyway, I'm playing Rev Lunatic no-grind now and am trying to unlock as many child paralogues as possible despite the wonky character balance. If the current pace keeps up, I might be forced to play the Invasions and the challenges that popped up just to let all pairings hit S. I'd rather not do that, though.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Cyas

[Inference]

It's sort of disappointing how few the viable options are for enemy phase in this game. Every time I try something new, there's usually a hole in the plan somewhere until I fall back to 'throw more Xander/Ophelia at it'. The one pleasant surprise in recent memory has got to be a souped up Anna in the Merchant class with Avatar pair-up completely tanking the final room of Ch. 26 with all of the Berserkers and Generals. Other options that have not been as reliable:

- Magic user with Horse Spirit - uh, let's see, the only viable Magic users in this game are either Elise or have Nosferatu. To add to that, magic in general faces an insane amount of WTD in this game with Lances being absolutely everywhere.

- Forged Hand Axe/Javelin: ideal for luring in some enemies for an EXP-starved party, but useless in high enemy density, as only a couple will be able to attack you, while the rest simply advance. It's usually better to take the few close-quarter kills while the ranged attackers get a free hit in. Plus, the doubling builds more Shield Guage.

- Shining Bow: outside of my extremely specific Anna build, we're lacking in Bow users with both defense and Magic. Still, it's probably worth investing in if your party allows because the Lance armada I spoke of earlier takes a sharp dip in damage output when they're facing WTD.

- Bolt Axe: Just tried this with Berserker Felicia (Arthur marriage). Unfortunately, Bolt Axe comes too close to the same time Xander does, so there's very little time to see it in action before the golden-haired god takes over. Even with Xander taking entire fronts by himself, Felicia and Avatar compliment each other well enough to allow for more EP combat than most, and they can pretty much handle the first half of the game by themselves with almost any build if you let them.

- Levin Sword: I think only the Avatar can do this viably. Have not tried any Levin Sword-focused builds.

Not a whole lot to work with there. I'm not sure if I want to say it's good game design for Xander and his Siegfried to show up when the game becomes 1-2 range heavy, or bad for having him be one of the only ways to clear out the enemy phase with so many bow/magical fuckers around. But then again, the nerf of ranged weapons was a conscious effort to do away with the Javelin/Hand Axe solo of older games, so maybe it isn't good or bad, but rather blatant.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Inference

[Avestus]

Well, I think it's actually good that you don't have too many options for God-Tier tanks since that's exactly why you're forced to play with careful counter-attack and attack stance preparations. That's why Conquest felt ways more tactical for me than, say, awakening.

If you don't get hero reclass for Xander he also stops being ultimate tanking machine starting from ch 25. And between that and his arrival time... well, he is God-tier, but I still stuck to Effie with javelin for many game situations. Even being fed with speedwings, Xander doesn't always double, his res doesn't really allow for rng-proof magic tanking in insane amounts and so on.

And in terms of how the aforementioned counter-attack vibe you can use a good variety of units for "humble" tanking, trying to utilize the positioning of different emenies groups to your advantage.

Overall, it doesn't feel right for me to completely kick ass on EP, even if it does require some strategic and tactical planning. I think making emphasis on player phase was right decision for Fates.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Avestus

[Horakthi]

Someone on Reddit beat Lunatic Conquest in 93 turns:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ8w77MvvLwoKwfVZOKKQme2fjiTLidtZ

The strategies in general are pretty amazing, but 19 and 26 just blow my mind.

[avengerfive]

Someone on Reddit beat Lunatic Conquest in 93 turns:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ8w77MvvLwoKwfVZOKKQme2fjiTLidtZ

The strategies in general are pretty amazing, but 19 and 26 just blow my mind.

Camilla Emblem: Camilla (featuring Corrin)

I watched most of the run it's really awesome.

[Ownagepuffs]

Someone on Reddit beat Lunatic Conquest in 93 turns:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ8w77MvvLwoKwfVZOKKQme2fjiTLidtZ

The strategies in general are pretty amazing, but 19 and 26 just blow my mind.

Aye, absolutely loved watching these, and the run kinda shed some lighe on just how ridiculous Camilla is.

[Inference]

Loved the abuse of Shelter-passing Azura and the Shove/Swap mooks. Movement is still king in this game.

[Cyas]

I went back to my old Conquest file and did the Endgame legitimately, for lack of a better term, without Rescue-skip-1-turn shenanigans.

The map reminds me a bit of Thracia not because it's difficult (it certainly is but that's besides the point) but because of the staff reliance. My strategy would have fallen apart without Rescue/Freeze: You can take out the first few Enfeeble/Freeze!Maids with, say, Niles and then rescue him out of range. Repeat until the early staff users are gone. Once the rescue uses ran out, you can switch to Freeze, immobilize a few enemies and then rush ahead and take out the remainder of the enemy staff users. The Freeze staff can also be crucial for the Paladin squads since you can freeze them and then just rush past them and kill Takumi during the next turn. Despite not trying to rush the map this time, the winning run was a 6-turn meaning that I never even got to face those self-destruct Faceless.

Surprisingly enough, even Bifröst turned out to be useful (Baiting out the Master Ninjas didn't go according to plan)

tldr: Save as many rescues uses as possible and have a few Freeze staff uses if you want to play the chapter without 1-turning it.

It's satisfying to actually play through and beat the chapter like this but I'll probably stick to the 1-turn from now on and I'd recommend that strategy to others as well. 5 Inevitable End+Staff Savant Enfeebles is quite a sadistic chapter design.

[joshcja]

Bit of a bump. Did a parents only run banning camilia and silias.

Gave Effie a shot again.. She was pretty ass, worse on join and throughout the entire early game than wyvern!Elise, looked at the forges and invest she would need to function on ch17 and just reclassed her into maid/general for the rest of the run as Elise's pairup bot.

The early exp loss would have been unrecoverable if Wyvern!Elise didn't decide to be the fucking hero of her time and max out hp/def/speed/res/mag as a magik knight with one robe and the ch10 draco to fly around with 40 fucking def fully buffed on ch 20, her hitrates were acceptable with heartseeker. She got to do some silly things like... soloing the kinshi+falco swarm after ORKOing Hayato, bows didn't stop the metal. By ch23 she had bowbreaker and got to EP oboro's room in attack stance with LoD Odin. Ch 24 Elise picked up Maid!Effie ate the boots and casually ohkoed Azama on turn 2 with a forged bolt axe then killed her way out of the bird shitstorm.

Used Selena, she makes a pretty solid kinshi/bow knight with an arms scroll+edrop even after getting 10 1-2 stat level ups early on. I'll probably run her again when I cant spare the early seal for mozu. She got to perv on Ninjaman Laslow for no useful partner sealing whatsoever, I just like the supports. He did lafast things and is always solid af.

Gave ninja MU another shot, it's still not named laslow/soliel but it worked better with +hp than +str for me. (My takumi killer on parents only is the brave axe, its so much easier than expecting corin to do her job).

Beruka is now my favorite Arthur pairing, both for the support and the gameplay. They did a lot of work all gamelong and Double swordbreakers+axebreaker sol beruka + passive stack luna arthur did sickening things to lategame. The percy looks super solid too.

Xander was xander. He mostly got used for sheltering and shit since Elise took his job but he saw a reasonable amount of combat and was nice for filling the gaping hole Effie left in the ranks after she fell on her neck.

Leo eventually caught up to Odin in everything but skill and def around ch22 and blew past him in magic,,acquired vantage as odin snagged LoD and str seal. The extra mag would have been a lot more useful if Elise wasn't running around. Still he took over nostanking when odin needed to do LoD things and built Elise a statue.

Odin was the second most valuable player, immortality is pretty useful. Niles married MU because I had nothing better to do with her, and I wanted to mary that beautiful man at least once. He was niles and did niles things.

Staffbots were staffbots dancer was dancer.

Edited July 28, 2016 by joshcja

[spralwers]

Had three snipers (Takumi, Mozu, and Setsuna) during my Luna BR playthrough. Also used Felicia and Jakob/Dwyer.

Enemy phase sucked, but player phase was godlike. Mages were very easy to take out.

[Avestus]

Bit of a bump. Did a parents only run banning camilia and silias.

It's quite funny that when I played without using children both Silas and Camilla (who is considered to be almost OP) were pretty meh thorughout the entire playthrough and ended up as mostly pair-up and ability bots. :( I

[joshcja]

It's quite funny that when I played without using children both Silas and Camilla (who is considered to be almost OP) were pretty meh thorughout the entire playthrough and ended up as mostly pair-up and ability bots. :( I

They're pretty foolproof if you actually use reclassing actively. Thier main thing is that thy are way too good early on due to raw stats/VoF abuse and that snowballs hard. Thie base classes are pretty shit in the lategame though.

Silias either wants to rob kinshi + darting blow from azura if he drops speed or the base tree wyven skills + lategame trample if he drops str or def. Cav to 20/1 dip to level 4, 1 level in GK for luna, BK if you dropped str/def as a cav (it's already fixed by now), kinshi if you dropped speed, end in bow knight.

Camilia gets savage blow then splashes zerker off beruka for rally+hpup (ez speedy), if her skill falls off she has inherent hearseeker off a 1 level dip in dark knight, Swap into draco at 20/6 or 7 and stay there until you need to dip for trample+axefaire+swordbreaker.

It sounds crazy but the main reclass stumbling block is heart seals and Silias/Camilia should be using only 1 total before 3rd shop which leaves lots and lots of wiggle room in builds.

Edited July 29, 2016 by joshcja

[Aircalipoor]

First try of chapter 10 was really unelegant. Silas died in the last turn and I never managed to visited the two houses. Niles also dodged like three attacks. Was glad that I took a reset, because the second try went really smooth. It's all about giving Camilla a mag potion to ORKO every Axe-Fighter. The enemies tended to ignore her if she had too much defense (like if her Pair-Up partner was Beruka), so I used Selena this time. As long as she never gets mali in defense (she can ORKO even Oboro if she has more speed), she should be fine.

I actually never got circled, I only backed down a bit in the end. All my units where in the middle of the map and I could beat like two of the Pegasus Knights after they moved once (later on Niles shot them down just when they were one square in front of the green spots).

Surprisingly easy chapter if you optimize Camilla. Potions, other axes, a good pair-up partner (but not one with defense), having Azura in her range as much as possible.

My biggest issue with this games difficulty is the AI. There is so much going on that I don't know when and how the enemy is moving, if he decides to gang up one unit or not. Sometimes the ninjas attack my tank for zero damage just so that his friends can beat him, sometimes they ignore him. Sometimes they all attack, sometimes they only position themselves to get in the attack stance.

But I'm not that impressed with Conquest gameplay in general. It requires too much micromanagement for a lack of better words. I can try to elaborate if someone cares.

[DoesntKnowHowToPlay]

Ch10 AI is kinda weird and unique; certain enemies beeline the goal while ignoring everyone, some of them just move in the direction of the goal, the mini-bosses patrol a specific area (until a specific turn at which point they charge), and in general they don't follow the same rules the rest of the game's AI does. I've never heard of giving Camilla a Mag tonic though, that's a very unique strategy (albeit probably worse than just throwing Odin or Nyx at the west front).

Please do explain what your deal is with "micro-management" though; I don't follow.

[Aircalipoor]

The magic tonic enabled Camilla to ORKO the Onis and she could counter the enemies with 2-range. This gave her more Guard Shields and I didn't always had the time to heal her. Isn't countering Hana with a physical weapon dangerous because of his skill as well?

Nyx and Odin did kill the first two waves of Oni on the left side, but later on there were too many enemies.

My issue with the gameplay in Fates is that it has too many factors you always have to consider at every moment. Next to strenght/magic, the weapons might and defense/resistence, you have to consider weapon rang bonus, skills (your own, your allies, you enemy, your enemies allies), stat reductions, terrain, double attacks. Since the enemies are usually in groups, you also have to know who moves first and how he behaves. Will the Ninja go for your tank? Will the unit attack or position themself for the attack stance? Will the unit attack and move, only move or retreat?

I know, this was always a thing in Fire Emblem, especially on the highest difficulty modes. But there were never that many factors to consider. I tend to spend minutes just calculating all the incoming attacks and I still get surprised in the enemy phase.

Without going into much detail, I have many other problems with Conquests gameplay (the exp gain is too strict; no creative side objections like recruitment or huge treasuries; getting gold and treasure chest is always the same and could have been skipped after all; no chapter specific shops, you can always buy everything at every time; too much reliance on the chapter specific gimmicks; My Castle allows support grinding; many children chapters are ridiculously easy and allow for grinding; E-and D weapon rangs make a large part of reclassing useless; children aren't a great improvement over the parents and lack supports; it isn't possible to capture and to support with Hoshido characters and plot relevant bosses; every weapon type is included in the weapon triangle with less room for weapon triangle neutrality.

Then there is the thing that the chapters and they objectives aren't really connected through plot, like you have no escape map at a critical point in the game, no big battle on the fields, followed with the conquest of the enemies castle. Instead each chapter is disconnected from the other. But this is not only a gameplay thing but also a plot thing. And I won't start talking about the plot, the setting and the characters.

[joshcja]

The magic tonic enabled Camilla to ORKO the Onis and she could counter the enemies with 2-range. This gave her more Guard Shields and I didn't always had the time to heal her. Isn't countering Hana with a physical weapon dangerous because of his skill as well?

Counters only trigger on player phase.

Nyx and Odin did kill the first two waves of Oni on the left side, but later on there were too many enemies.

Nosferatu and facedive, this is just free exp for Odin

My issue with the gameplay in Fates is that it has too many factors you always have to consider at every moment. Next to strenght/magic, the weapons might and defense/resistence, you have to consider weapon rang bonus, skills (your own, your allies, you enemy, your enemies allies), stat reductions, terrain, double attacks. Since the enemies are usually in groups, you also have to know who moves first and how he behaves. Will the Ninja go for your tank? Will the unit attack or position themself for the attack stance? Will the unit attack and move, only move or retreat?

It's like a strategy game or something.

Enemy AI is manipulable to an extent via def stacking, unit placement, and luck pulling, also you can R trigger through units to determine turn order to an extent. Once you play a bit you get to know what stat benchmarks matter where.

I know, this was always a thing in Fire Emblem, especially on the highest difficulty modes. But there were never that many factors to consider. I tend to spend minutes just calculating all the incoming attacks and I still get surprised in the enemy phase.

Without going into much detail, I have many other problems with Conquests gameplay (the exp gain is too strict; no creative side objections like recruitment or huge treasuries; getting gold and treasure chest is always the same and could have been skipped after all; no chapter specific shops, you can always buy everything at every time; too much reliance on the chapter specific gimmicks; My Castle allows support grinding; many children chapters are ridiculously easy and allow for grinding; E-and D weapon rangs make a large part of reclassing useless; children aren't a great improvement over the parents and lack supports; it isn't possible to capture and to support with Hoshido characters and plot relevant bosses; every weapon type is included in the weapon triangle with less room for weapon triangle neutrality.

Then there is the thing that the chapters and they objectives aren't really connected through plot, like you have no escape map at a critical point in the game, no big battle on the fields, followed with the conquest of the enemies castle. Instead each chapter is disconnected from the other. But this is not only a gameplay thing but also a plot thing. And I won't start talking about the plot, the setting and the characters.

Oh man you are in for an unpleasant surprise when you go for post ch18 paralouges. #Seigbert

The only time you should be reclassing into E ranks that matter are tomes/bows/daggers, and a +2 early Bow forge will be worth it's weight in gold. Daggers and tomes can make due with disrobing gale/raider knife if you're using rewards, otherwise light forges on those are still cheap and usable forever. Lances can stay D rank forever main lance users are awful in CQ, they only matter for the light javelin forge and general beastkiller use.

On the bright side ch19 and ch21 have total weapon neutrality, you should enjoy it.

Edited July 29, 2016 by joshcja

[Aircalipoor]

Nosferatu and facedive, this is just free exp for Odin

Neat. I never bother with Odin.

Enemy AI is manipulable to an extent via def stacking, unit placement, and luck pulling, also you can R trigger through units to determine turn order to an extent.

I still have trouble with they behaviour. In chapter 20 I got Camilla in range of the Bow Flyers and they didn't move. Sometimes the maid freezed Xander, sometimes she attacked.

Oh man you are in for an unpleasant surprise when you go for post ch18 paralouges. #Seigbert

The non-nohr children have easy chapters. Kana, Midori, Sophie. It was just some exp fest, the enemies had like one skill each and steel weapons. The chapters of the Nohr children gave me trouble even on Hard, though.

On the bright side ch19 and ch21 have total weapon neutrality, you should enjoy it.

Effie could tank all Kitsunes. Just flew around with Wyvern Lord Corrin + Silas a bit and finished chapter 21 quickly.

My issue is not total weapon control, but at least some of it. Magic in the older parts of the series was special, because it got it's own stats (magic, resistance), was not influenced by the weapon triangle and had 1-2 range. Bows were special for similar reasons. Mashing with the normal weapon triangle takes that away. Just make a separate triangle (Bows>Knives>Magic).

[Dualazi]

Apologies for the necro, but I am proud to say I have finally beaten Lunatic Conquest, which I jumped into ahead of the other 2 paths for Lunatic clears since it was both the first I purchased and my favorite path. Endgame sadly I was only able to do half-legit, my planning for people's builds and team composition was sufficient for the rest of the game, but the additional number of people you can bring in the last few levels was something I didn't adequately plan for. I might try and salvage a true no rescue run later, as in this attempt I had to break it out just past the line of 3 maids, around turn 5-6.

Special thanks to two people though, joshcja for highlighting odin's worthiness as a nostank, which I had initially not made use of in my original hard run. This proved to be probably the biggest contributor to me getting through the campaign, since having MU, Odin, and Ophelia all as nosferatu users was glorious. Second thanks goes to Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi, since I watched his youtube videos to help with strategy building for the endgame itself. Looking forward to revisiting it though after beating lunatic on the other 2 paths.