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The Lunatic Club [Fates]


Jedi
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YEEEEES...finally, after a long journey of on-and-off play spanning 4 months, I've managed to conquer Lunatic Conquest, using no DLC/online play/path bonuses. Admittedly I played on Casual mode (which I treated as Classic-with-battle-saves because I wanted to solve the puzzle of clearing every chapter without casualties, but without suffering the massive time waste of replaying the same first 10 turns due to a mistake on Turn 11). It still wasn't easy due to my relative newbishness to the FE franchise (this is my first FE game, and my only experience prior to finishing Lunatic Conquest consisted of Normal Birthright and Normal Conquest).

Endgame was challenging. I had 3 Rescue uses left which would be enough to skip most of it, except that my avatar (a +Spd/-Lck Great Knight named Sho) wasn't optimized to one-round Takumi. (Dragon Fang procs weren't enough, and Sho had a 0% crit chance with the Shadow Yato.) So I had to half-skip it and half-fight my way through. I fought down to just outside the Great Masters' staff range, using a combination of baiting, Freeze, and Entrap to deal with the Generals and Master Ninjas, and then on Turn 5 used one Rescue to get Sho down to Takumi and the other to get Leo (Sorcerer w/Bowbreaker) there for the kill.

Some chapters that people seem to find hard I found quite easy, and some of the ones I had the worst time with are ones that I rarely see others complain about! If anyone's interested, I can write up a mini-review for each chapter explaining my strategies and which ones I found the most fun and the most difficult.

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Endgame was challenging. I had 3 Rescue uses left which would be enough to skip most of it, except that my avatar (a +Spd/-Lck Great Knight named Sho) wasn't optimized to one-round Takumi. (Dragon Fang procs weren't enough, and Sho had a 0% crit chance with the Shadow Yato.) So I had to half-skip it and half-fight my way through. I fought down to just outside the Great Masters' staff range, using a combination of baiting, Freeze, and Entrap to deal with the Generals and Master Ninjas, and then on Turn 5 used one Rescue to get Sho down to Takumi and the other to get Leo (Sorcerer w/Bowbreaker) there for the kill.

Just wanted to drop a thank you for that tip about the staves. I went into the run blind and my team (bar a few characters) were not super-well equipped to handle the chapter. The reminder about the existence of Entrap & Freeze really made the difference.

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Does anyone know if silence staffers target units without staves or magic in their inventory?

EDIT:confirmed it. Took away all staves from jakob and he is ignored now.

Edited by PKL
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  • 2 weeks later...
Here's the chapter-by-chapter review of Lunatic Conquest I mentioned a while ago. My strategies are probably not optimal, but I'm interested in seeing how they compare to others'...and how my opinions on the most fun/difficult chapters compare to others' as well.



Note: Fun and difficulty are rated on a scale of 1 to 10 where higher means more fun/more difficult, respectively. A difficulty rating above 10 means I don't think I could have beaten it with my current team/level of ability.


Chapter 7

Difficulty: 4/10

Fun: 5/10

This map was basically "lrn2chokepoint" and "lrn2Demoiselle/Lily'sPoise" for me. Grisly Wound on every enemy was the game's way of saying from the get go that it's not messing around. But once I learned to choke the northern and southern Faceless groups, it was quite simple.


Mozu's Paralogue

Difficulty: 1/10

Fun: 3/10

Easy peasy, though I wasn't smart enough to use it as a training opportunity for Mozu so she only got up to Level 4 here as opposed to 6 like in my Revelation LP. That, combined with the generally demanding nature of the early game, made it too hard for me to train her, so I benched her after Chapter 9.


Chapter 8

Difficulty: 7/10 (visiting 3 villages)

Fun: 6/10

This took quite a while to successfully finish. I could not fight my way to the northern village in time (the Dark Mages were really dangerous) so I had to visit the two western ones. This meant making a mad dash across the ice and having Elise freeze the western Lancer twice while the rest of my army caught up and took him out.


Chapter 9

Difficulty: 6/10 (12/10 until I figured out what triggered the reinforcements)

Fun: 4/10

The enemies here are strong, and Seal Defense sucks to deal with! Silas was my MVP this chapter due to a Defense surge. When I initially played Conquest, I decided to try it on Lunatic difficulty and stay for as long as possible before dropping down to Normal. This was the chapter that convinced me to drop--specifically, when I triggered 9 reinforcements in a single turn. When I went back to it on Lunatic, I was only able to beat it because I read online what triggers the reinforcements (standing in a specific 4-square area), so I only triggered them after routing the rest of the map besides the boss. Figuring out how to save Azura also took some tries.


I did capture Haitaka, who helped out a lot in Chapters 10-13 with Rally Defense, but I had to bench him after that point because he'd been doing too much Rallying and not enough EXP-gaining.


Chapter 10

Difficulty: 10/10

Fun: 7/10 initially, 2/10 as time wore on

I really went all in on Tonics for this chapter, and even so, could barely clear it. I failed at least a dozen times. But 90% of my failures were due to a clear mistake on my part, whereas 10% were due to missing must-hit 93% attacks and the like. Basically, Nyx made her one contribution to the playthrough by single-handedly taking out the initial Onis on the left (one shot from the Fire Orb followed by her running over and attacking them managed to kill them just before they broke through the wall) whereas Sho and Silas took out the Spear Fighter/Archer squad on the right. The rest of the team, including Camilla, held down the middle while Niles stayed back with Azura to shoot down fliers. The most dangerous turns were Turns 4-6 due to the massive enemy clump in the middle. Camilla, paired with Selena, could hold her own there...unless she got Defense Seal'd, in which case she'd go down very quickly, so I had to watch out for that. The post-Dragon Vein turns were a bit hectic, but the enemies were more spread out so it wasn't as dangerous for my units as might be expected. I did have to burn a Freeze charge there, though, to keep Oboro from reaching the exit. Definitely a chapter I don't look forward to replaying if I ever play Lunatic CQ again.


Chapter 11

Difficulty: 3/10

Fun: 5/10

A much, much needed relaxing chapter after the frantic 10. Some enemies, like the Onis and Archers, were easy to bait into attacking only a few at a time, whereas others, like the Lunge Ninjas and the Life and Death Samurai, were weak enough for Camilla to handle on her own. I said no way to trying to go through the Hexing Rod room head-on, instead funneling my entire army through the left and attacking that room from behind. Boss was no problem.


Chapter 12

Difficulty: 2/10

Fun: 7/10

Another breather because the +4 DEF medicine pot at the start is OP and the time limit is fairly generous. Because of that pot and Haitaka's Rally Defense, my army was essentially invincible for the bottom half of the map, including fighting Saizo and Kagero. However, after seeing the massive horde of Spendthrift/Lunge Apothecaries in the top half, I said no way to the Dragon Vein, made a left turn, and went up the side, staying out of their range entirely. Thus, the left chest was easy to snag. The right was a bit tricky; the only way Niles could pick the lock and survive was for me to end the chapter the turn he did so, and the only reliable way to do that was to escape. No Secret Book for me.


Chapter 13

Difficulty: 8/10 (all villages visited)

Fun: 7/10 initially, decaying to 4/10 after Scarlet got a 14% crit on Benny

The game turns the intensity back up, though it's still not as tough as Chapter 10. Surviving the initial onslaught of paratrooping Knights required careful use of formations (to reduce how many times each character could be attacked) that took a few tries to figure out. Fighting through Orochi's group and taking out the Ruffian in time to save the villages took a few more tries. I ended up sending Niles in to shoot the Ruffian down and Rescuing him back out of Reina's range--this was my only Rescue use outside of Endgame. Reina and Takumi's enemy groups were fairly simple to take out (as I took Takumi down from behind); just don't be like me and accidentally back into the aggro range of Scarlet's group while you're still dealing with Reina's. Scarlet's group was tricky due to the reinforcements that appear from both the south and west when she's aggroed, and on one of my attempts that was going really well, she just had to ruin it with the aforementioned 14% crit on Benny, after which it took another hour or so to clear the chapter. Another attempt failed because I tried to use Arthur to "block" the south reinforcements from spawning, and instead they spawned in a semicircle that completely surrounded him.


Chapter 14

Difficulty: 6/10

Fun: 0/10--MOST ANNOYING CHAPTER IN THE GAME

What makes this annoying? Narrow walkways forcing most of the army to proceed through the map in a single-file line. Freeze and Enfeeble staff users forcing you to wait for their charges to run out. A Hexing Rod. Oh, and the worst part--flying reinforcements that (1) show up when most of your army is probably deep on the narrow walkways, (2) approach you over the water so you can't hit them until they hit you, and (3) can't be blocked off from reaching your fragile units due to the narrow walkways. The only way I could beat this casualty-free was to figure out what triggered the reinforcements, and then on the next attempt put most of my army in a defensive formation on the stage in the north, have Leo trigger the reinforcements, and turtle while the fliers came in. Result: 43-turn clear.


I captured Kumagera but found he just didn't have enough Speed to be useful, even with Darting Blow, so he got the bench.


Chapter 15

Difficulty: 1/10

Fun: 6/10

Incredibly easy, and a much-appreciated break after the last chapter. In fact, this is the ONLY chapter specific to the Conquest campaign that I managed to clear first try. Each turn basically went "Is this character's health low? If so use a Vulnerary, if not attack." I did manage to nab all of the stat boosters and take out the boss. Sho started the chapter at Level 15 and hit MAX EXP (time for promotion) by killing the boss. How convenient!


Chapter 16

Difficulty: 6/10

Fun: 9/10

I think this was one of the best-designed chapters. It's filled with strong enemies that demand some care in approaching them, but the gold timer encourages you to win quickly. Thus, you kind of determine how risky you will make the chapter for yourself, and proportionally, how great your reward will be, based on how aggressively you fight. I ended up taking care of the left side first, then the right, routing the map in 17 turns for 4900 gold. A bunch of my units hit promotion this chapter.


Chapter 17

Difficulty: 4/10

Fun: 1/10

Very annoying. The enemies could barely scratch Xander or Benny, so it wasn't hard...just TEDIOUS. I tried to make an effort to save Saizo, healing him up whenever possible, but failed when a group of 5 reinforcements spawned in the northwest right in front of Saizo...and he charged in at them on Ally Phase before I had a chance to react. The boss was annoying with his through-the-roof Avo, but some Heartseeker units helped mitigate that a bit.


I did capture a Master Ninja named Yamato who had Movement +1 in addition to the Poison Strike/Grisly Wound combo, and he helped out a lot severely weakening enemies over the course of Chapters 18-25.


Chapter 18

Difficulty: 7/10

Fun: 9/10

This is kind of like a late Birthright chapter in that it's filled with powerful enemies but nothing especially gimmicky aside from the odd staff here and there. The 20-turn time limit was so generous it might as well have not existed. The map was a bit tricky at the beginning. I started off with my army separated like the game "wants", but after a few failures concluded that the right side was an utter deathtrap (Freeze staves and effective weapons, yuck) and paired everyone up on the left instead. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. I didn't go immediately into the room east of the start; instead I baited just a couple Heroes from there, fought my way to the south, and approached that room from below. The General pair was surprisingly strong; Zola was surprisingly weak.


Chapter 19

Difficulty: 4/10

Fun: 3/10

Not the most exciting chapter, that's for sure. To deal with the Pass kitsunes, I just grouped everyone into a solid hexagon-shaped formation so they didn't have any space to slip in and attack my fragile characters. The Life and Death formation looked scary but it became hilariously easy once I realized I could bait one fox and the whole group would charge, leaving them ripe for the slaughter on Player Phase.


Chapter 20

Difficulty: 5/10

Fun: 5/10

The wind was a blessing and a curse. It threatened to scatter my army if I wasn't careful, but it also let me purposely get a bunch of my units blown into an enemy formation, letting me take them out on Player Phase without facing attacks from them on Enemy Phase. A problem with the wind was that sometimes I did not know exactly what it would do...if 5 spaces would drop a unit in the abyss, it would usually push the unit to the next farther spot of solid ground, but sometimes the unit stopped on the closer spot instead, and in some cases the wind pushed units farther than 5 spaces even if 5 spaces was solid ground! Anyway, my general approach was to take out the southwest enemies first, then head east and ride the winds up the eastern side of the map to Fuga. The fliers weren't a big problem, but I did have some close calls with other reinforcements.


Kana's Paralogue

Difficulty: 4/10

Fun: 1/10

Sho married Elise...I didn't do it to use the kid as a unit, but because I needed the EXP from this paralogue and didn't want to interfere with other pairings. Anyway, this map is pretty simple except for one thing...Kana has zero sense of self-preservation and will charge at any enemy she can reach no matter how much HP she has left. Yeah...nearly all of my retries were thanks to her getting herself killed. In fact, when Lloyd and Llewelyn showed up at the end of an Enemy Phase, Kana ran right at them on the very next Ally Phase and got knocked down from full health to 1HP by their counterattacks. That's horrible map design! If I'd done this paralogue 1 chapter later, she probably would have died there...from enemies I couldn't even see before that happened. The rest of the map consisted of playing Whac-A-Mole with the reinforcements that kept popping up in the corners, my army going over to whack them before Kana killed herself on them. Pretty irritating. The good thing that came out of this chapter was that I got to train some of my units in alternate classes to pick up skills. (Leo A+'d Odin to become a Swordmaster, learning Duelist's Blow, Vantage, and Astra; Keaton became a Hero to pick up HP +5 and Sol; Sho A'd Silas to became a Great Knight with the intention of just picking up Elbow Room and Luna but he did so well in the class that I left him in it for the rest of the game!)


Chapter 21

Difficulty: 2/10 (probably 7/10 if I weren't so fortunately prepared for it)

Fun: 10/10

Some people may hate Faceless chapters...I, for one, loved the frantic pursuit nature of this chapter, with it being all about carving an efficient path through the monsters and taking maximum advantage of the Dragon Veins. I think I happened to be incredibly well-prepared for this chapter, as it took me only one retry and overall went smoother than it did in my NORMAL MODE run! Case in point...on Normal I didn't even dare to fight the boss Faceless, but on this mode it ran over and suicided itself on Sho, giving me a free Arms Scroll.


When I say "well-prepared" I mainly mean two things...

1) Leo picked up Vantage last map, then I reclassed him to Sorcerer. This let him Nosferatank the two Stoneborn just above the start (being flown there by Beruka; her last contribution to this run) while they were frozen by the Dragon Vein, taking a lot of pressure off my army. He got to do the same thing to a Stoneborn and a few Faceless on the right side later on.

2) Sho, as a Great Knight with a Speed boon, had enough Speed and exactly enough Strength to double and one-round any of the non-boss Faceless without proccing any skills, meaning their Savage Blow almost never went off.


Sophie's Paralogue (Mother: Effie)

Difficulty: 2/10 (didn't care about the villagers)

Fun: 4/10

Not much to say...just, the enemies were so strong that I thought it would be more trouble than it's worth to try to save the villagers AND Sophie. So, I just recruied Sophie ASAP and pretty easily moved along the top of the map to Nichol.


When I reached Sophie, I promoted her to a Paladin. She inherited Luna from Silas, so she wasn't missing out on it. She ended up being less strong and defensive than Silas, but much faster, and still with high Skill.


Ophelia's Paralogue (Mother: Camilla)

Difficulty: 10/10 (all villages saved)

Fun: 3/10

THIS CHAPTER. This one took the longest amount of real time for me to clear out of ANY map in the game. At 16 hours and 2 team reconfigurations, it took more than twice as long as Endgame would. The problem is the absurd enemy density and weapon diversity (in terms of both physical/magical and red/green/blue) combined with the tight time limits to reach the villages before the Adventurers do. The one bit of good news was that Leo could Vantage-Nosferatank the entire southwest with just a pair up, so that village was no issue. As for the rest, I had my army head for the southeast village and fight the enemies there while Camilla flew Xander up towards the northeast village. He only survived the ensuing enemy phase because he'd been tonic'd up and the enemies attacked in a dumb order (some magic users attacking when the Guard Gauge was full).


Opheila became a Sorcerer. Compared to Leo, she was frailer in both Defense and Resistance, but incredibly fast and a crit monster thanks to her personal skill and Missiletainn tome.


Chapter 22

Difficulty: 5/10

Fun: 6/10

This was like the reverse of Chapter 18...trying to pair my army up all on one side led only to slow progress and frustration, whereas splitting them up and actually using the Dragon Veins to flatten the levees worked superbly! This latter approach let me get to the incredibly fast and dangerous Hana before she got to me. Other than her, the only dangerous parts of the map were reinforcements. Some flyers with Beast Killers and Bolt Naginatas spawned in forts on top of a hill on the right side, where I couldn't reach them before they could reach me, for example. And once my left side units got to Yukimura (with my right side group still only halfway there), about 14 or so reinforcements popped up all over the map, meaning I had one turn to KO Yukimura and seize, or my right side group was toast. Luckily, I did, just barely. (Funny coincidence: Yukimura got a crit on Benny...for 12 damage...his crit quote was "What was your exit strategy?")


Chapter 23

Difficulty: 9/10

Fun: 4/10

I. HATE. LUNGE. SO. MUCH. I believe it's the most irritating skill in the game, even moreso than the despicable duo of Staff Savant and Inevitable End, because unlike those two, Lunge shows up a lot. And if the developers really wanted, they could make a Lunge chain arbitrarily long, at which point there'd be just about nothing you could do to survive it.


That aside, the beginning of this chapter wasn't so bad. I actually flew Camilla and Xander over the cliff at the start to take out some of the enemies there and bait Rallyman where Niles could capture him. (Rallyman's name was Ren on my playthrough.) I probably should have just flown the rest of my team over as well, but I didn't feel like skipping Hinata, so I fought him. I did use a couple of Freeze charges on the Spear Master with Seal Defense to prevent him from ruining my day.


Anyway, the south and Hinata were tricky, but nothing compared to the top of the wall. With the right-side stairs blocked, there was only one place where I could set a unit on the left side of the wall without them getting lunged into Oboro's range. That place was left of the ballista. I put Benny there, supported by Sho, and he was immediately surrounded by about 7 units. Thanks to the Great Knight's pair up bonuses and Sho's Supportive skill, he was able to tank the magical attacks decently and the physical attacks exceptionally well. This lured the Basaras off of the right-side stairs, letting the rest of my army sneak up to help from behind. Takumi was easy to beat; Leo, who now had Bowbreaker, one-rounded him with Lightning thanks to a boost from Camilla's personal.


Importantly, Niles got Shurikenbreaker in this chapter, which was absolutely essential for 25. I reclassed him to Adventurer immediately afterwards, and he picked up Lucky Seven and Pass as well.


Chapter 24

Difficulty: 8/10

Fun: 6/10

First attempt: My army moved to the west hoping to reach the Dragon Vein there. Hinoka used her Dragon Vein on Turn 1, speeding up the fliers and stranding my army out of position and unable to get into a defensive formation before the fliers arrived next turn. Whoops!

Next attempt: I turtled the initial aggressive fliers, then cleared out as many enemies as I could reach without going into Hexing Rod range, ending up in the southwest. Benny got surrounded by about 7 enemies and managed to fight his way out (sound familiar?) after which I had Azura activate a Dragon Vein while most of my army made a mad dash through Hexing Rod range. Fortunately, only one unit got hexed and we were able to take out Azama, then Hinoka soon after without incident. (Who thought putting Counter and Miracle on the same enemy was a good idea?? Good thing it didn't trigger or my 3DS and the wall might have had a very sudden meeting.) When I seized, most of my army was gathered in the north...except that Azura was in a corner midway down the left side trying desperately to avoid getting caught and run over by fliers, and the pair of Silas & Sophie was 10 tiles away from all my other units trying to pick off reinforcements before they reached my main army.


Chapter 25

Difficulty (dueling Ryoma, with proper preparations): 0/10

(right side, with Shurikenbreaker): 6/10

(left side, with Shurikenbreaker): 14/10 unless Freeze staves are used

Fun: 5/10

Inevitable End has got to be one of the most hated skills in the game...personally, I think it's a necessary evil to ensure that this chapter can't be trivialized by a high-DEF unit like 17 can. But I do think the developers went overboard with so many enemies getting it in this chapter, and it's pretty cruel of them to not have it show up earlier in small numbers (meaning here it totally blindsides anyone playing Lunatic for the first time). Thankfully, I'd been spoiled about it and knew to get Shurikenbreaker on Niles.


First, though, I checked to see if Sho could beat Ryoma alone and skip the whole thing. The answer was yes, with tonics, a +3 Bronze Lance, and some Concoctions, Sho could win in about 25 turns. But I also wanted the treasure (10000G and a Silence staff) and wanted to try to solve the "puzzle" of clearing this chapter "properly"....


With Shurikenbreaker and Lucky Seven active, Niles could double, one-round, and guaranteed-dodge any Master Ninja on the map. This meant the only really tricky parts were the "hallway of death" on the right side and the "Lunge chamber of death" on the left side. The right side wasn't so bad, though; I could send a couple of units to lure the Spy's Shuriken ninjas into attacking downward from the corners of their rooms nearest the hallway, after which Niles could take both out in one turn.


The left was way worse because of those Automata with Spy's Yumis, Seal Defense, Inevitable End, and LUNGE. Yes, LUNGE is what pushes the left side's difficulty over the top. If the Automata were feeling nasty, they could Lunge a unit all the way into Saizo's room, dropping their Defense by at least 24 and guaranteeing a quick death. So I had to Freeze the second-from-the-bottom Automaton and offer Benny as bait to the first one (he survived the turn with a -14 Defense drop), after which the rest of my army busted down the west wall of that room and took out the enemies there. I couldn't get any closer to Saizo without another Freeze or Entrap use, though, so after looting the chest in that room, we went back to the center of the map. In this case, I hadn't prepared Sho as well for fighting Ryoma, so I ended up baiting Ryoma into attacking Benny through the south screen instead, who was able to deal more damage to Ryoma with much better accuracy.


Percy's Paralogue (Mother: Felicia)

Difficulty: 10/10

Fun: 2/10

Massive numbers of enemies. Lunge everywhere. Effective weapons everywhere. Fliers coming over mountains so they hit you before you can hit them. This paralogue was BRUTAL! I only managed to win because I got super lucky on a key enemy phase with Swordmaster Odin dodging a bunch of attacks and going Vantage-Astra-fill-the-guard-gauge on one.


I did try using the Dragon Veins when I could, but the enemy groups were so massive that even they barely made a dent. How did all of you deal with this map?


Percy, who inherited Axefaire from his dad, became a Malig Knight so he could use the Bolt Axe I won in a lottery. This would be a big help against the Berserkers and Generals in the next chapter....


Chapter 26

Difficulty: 7/10

Fun: 5/10

This was just...fighting really buff enemies. Oh, and some Staff Savant users, but they were more of an annoyance than a threat. Iago's impact on the battle was basically forcing me to check the turn count all the time. Multiple of 4 coming up? OK, everyone get out of his staff range so you don't get hexed.


For the room full of Heroes, I just had Benny bust down the door while everyone else stayed out of Hexing Rod range. Sure, Benny got hexed, but the Heroes dealt 0 damage to him so it made no difference. (He wouldn't have been useful for the rest of the chapter anyway.) He took out as many as he could while the rest of the army carefully baited and took out the ones that got past him. No real problem.


As for the Sorcerers, Leo could Nosferatank them all day. No problem there either. The Sorcerer + Freeze-Staff-Maid reinforcements caught me by surprise, but once I learned to anticipate and be prepared to kill them, they were not a big deal.


The bottom room was trickier. I ended up Entrapping Hans from the Hero room and taking him out in one turn, causing some reinforcements to spawn in the bottom room. They were aggressive, but not aggressive enough to bust down the door, so I let them fight Camilla and Percy through the door and took them all out before busting the door down myself and facing the rest of the Berserkers and Generals. (I had to fight them with Camilla and Percy because their effective weapons (Hammers and Beast Killers) would crush any of my other physical tanks.) Anyway, Camilla and Percy were frozen by the Staff Savant Maids for a couple of turns, but then the Maids prioritized healing their allies over freezing my units, so they were able to get away and lure the enemies to the rest of my army, which tore them apart quickly. Niles captured one of the Maids so I'd have an S-rank Staff user available for Endgame (though I ended up beating Endgame before I could persuade her to join us).


I avoided the Faceless+Stoneborn rooms completely. Poison Strike, Savage Blow, Seal Defense, and enough Attack power that even Benny can't nullify it...that's just asking for trouble.


Leo took down Iago with--ironically enough--Iago's Tome.


Nina's Paralogue (Mother: Azura)

Difficulty: 3/10

Fun: 5/10

Not too bad as long as you don't overextend. (I did and got wrecked by Sorcerers with Pass--which I did not think to look for--on my first attempt.) I didn't end up getting any of the treasures other than the Goddess Icon that Nina steals, but came pretty close to nabbing the 3000G. Still, none of them were that essential, especially since I had just gotten 20000G and could afford to simply buy Nina a Shining Bow.


Nina inherited Shurikenbreaker from Niles. I promoted her into an Adventurer; she capped Strength and Skill and attained a Mag of 25 (much better than Niles), Res of 34 (also better than Niles) and Speed of 37 (only 1 worse than Niles) at the cost of having very low Defense (14!) She became a crucial magical attacker and Staff user for the Endgame.


Shigure's Paralogue (Father: Niles)

Difficulty: 1/10

Fun: 4/10

The calm before the storm. This was really simple, I just kept everyone on the middle boat and baited the enemies. The exception is that I let Silas onto the north ship since the Adventurers couldn't even dent his armor. This was just a nice easy last chance to get some EXP to my units before the final battles began....


Shigure promoted into a Falcon Knight with insane Speed (36) but somewhat lacking Strength (26). He served as another important Staff user for Endgame.


Chapter 27

Difficulty: Entrap RNG/10 (2/10 in most cases)

Fun: 6/10

I tried deploying units on the slots in the top chambers. Don't. It's a deathtrap. It took my units way, way too long to kill the enemies there, by which time the Spendthrift Squad came knocking and they were beset by too much pressure.


On the winning runs, I ignored the top chambers completely. I paired up everybody at the bottom of the map and sent them up. Four pairs randomly got entrapped into the lower four chambers. Sometimes the matchups were unwinnable (especially if the wrong unit got pulled into the room with the Master Ninja, who is probably the most threatening generic enemy on the map). But most of the time, my units were able to take out the enemies they'd been forced to face. (It's really nice of the game that the enemies don't attack your units as soon as they're Entrapped, instead waiting one turn.) Once the stairs were opened, I sent as many units through them as possible, skipping the Spendthrift Squad entirely as they'd moved south in pursuit of my team. After that it was a race to kill Gooron before the Spendthrift Squad caught back up to my units. Not too difficult.


Endgame

Difficulty: 9/10 (with Rescues, probably 13/10 without)

Fun: 8/10

Whoo! This battle took everything I had, plus a bit of luck...a worthy final test. I did, of course, Tonic everyone up before starting the fight.


I had 3 Rescue uses left, but since Sho could not one-round Takumi, I had to half do this the "honest" way and fight through a significant chunk of the enemy forces. This ended up taking about 10-12 total tries, with me needing to reconfigure my team at one point (adding an additional Staff user--Shigure--and another Freeze staff--those things are lifesavers here).


The winning team was:

Sho-Great Knight--With Dragon Fang and Luna, a skill-proccing machine. Capped Speed. One of the Takumi killers

Azura-Songstress--Absolutely essential for the first and last turns, and helpful everywhere else.

Shigure-Falcon Knight--Mainly a staff user. Got 1 kill on a weakened enemy this map, which was his only kill of the entire game.

Felicia-Maid--In charge of Silencing the Freeze Maid. I gave her an Arms Scroll so she could use Bifrost, but she never ended up needing it.

Odin-Swordmaster--Dodge-tank and occasional Astra-to-fill-the-guard-gauge tank with an insane crit rate (thanks to forged Killing Edge) but piddly damage output (only 23 Strength, is that normal for him?) His HP was pretty good for a Swordmaster, though.

Ophelia-Sorcerer--A crit monster. Frail physically, but an OK Magic tank.

Silas-Great Knight--It seemed like he somehow got his Luna upgraded to Luna+ for the final battle. Seriously, Luna triggered every single time it was relevant! While he's slow, a Brave Lance made him into a killing machine.

Sophie-Paladin--Another Luna machine with Peri's Lance. Much faster than her father, she could actually double enemies without need of a Brave weapon. Frailer and less hard-hitting, though.

Ren (Rallyman)-Master of Arms--Fragile, but invaluable for the massive stat boosts he provided. I made sure to affect as many units as possible with his Rallies.

Keaton-Wolfssegner--Incredible HP, Strength, Defense, and Speed, but locked to 1 range and a Beast. Therefore, he was more on clean-up duty than front-line duty this battle.

Elise-Strategist--Staff user and a fearsome magical attacker.

Niles-Adventurer--Yet another staff user. Not quite as good a Shining Bow user as Nina, but more durable. Had Pass, which I ended up not needing.

Nina-Adventurer--Staff user and Shining Bow user. Also had Pass, which I ended up not needing.

Xander-Paladin--Physical tank, but slow and weak to magic. Other than Sheltering Azura and forming some physical tank walls, didn't do much this map.

Benny-General--Basically invincible against anything not using magic, armor-effective weapons, or Inevitable End. Probably my most valuable unit for most of the game. However, in this chapter, he didn't do much other than help form physical tank walls.

Leo-Sorcerer--Capped Mag at 38 points, and it wasn't even close. A bit frail and slow, but sturdier defensively than Ophelia, meaning he had a decent chance to Nosferatank anything other than a Ninja. Due to his Bowbreaker and massive Mag stat, he was the other Takumi killer.


On Turn 1, I noticed that with a song from Azura, Nina could juuuuust reach the closest Maid and one-round her, then be Rescued back while Xander Sheltered Azura. I sent Leo into the range of the Onis to bait and Nosferatank them, keeping the rest of my army back a bit. I had Felicia Silence the Freeze maid since I figured a random unit getting Frozen would wreck my plans more than a random unit getting Enfeebled. (Really, Inevitable End barely mattered during this chapter, as the Enfeeble users kept targeting different units...in fact, one of the few times they targeted the same unit, they picked Azura, who didn't fight a single battle. Ha!) I also made sure to have Elise hit the Dragon Vein so I wouldn't have to do it next turn. The Heroes and Onmyoji who started in the Dark Water moved towards my army...


Turn 2, I hit whichever of the Heroes and Onmyoji I could reach without stepping into the extreme left or right of the corridor, since those columns aren't protected from Takumi's wave attack. I then built a vertical wall of physical tanks between two rocks on the left and magical tanks between two rocks on the right, putting the rest of my army in the middle. Come enemy phase, most of the enemies died when they attacked, but some were left alive.


Turn 3, I had Keaton and some others clean up the remaining Heroes and Onmyoji, then got aggressive and sent the pair of Niles + Nina down to kill the leftmost Maid in the row of three. I also had Elise Entrap one of the Master Ninjas and several of my fighters took it out. (With 37 Speed, Silver Shurikens, and Poison Strike, the Master Ninjas are VERY dangerous foes; Inevitable End is just the icing on the cake for them.) I got just enough dodges and guards on the Master Ninjas' and Generals' attacks against Nina for her to live the turn with 1HP.


Turn 4, I moved the rest of my army down a bit, taking out one General, walling off another, freezing a third and a Master Ninja, and killing a Master Ninja. Come enemy phase, Silas ate a Hammer attack from the "walled off" General, but lived. Also, the paired up Paladins started to charge out of their Dark Water chambers and Faceless with Self-Destruct started appearing in the upper Dark Water chambers, so I looked for a way to end things quickly...and found it.


Turn 5. Sho happened to be paired up with Shigure who had a Rescue, so I sent Shigure down the left side, had him Rescue Azura, and with her song, Shigure was able to move Sho into position to attack Takumi. Sho dealt 26x2 damage in the combat forecast, but triggered Luna on the first attack (30 damage) and Dragon Fang on the second (36 damage). Not quite enough, but I realized I could do the following: Have someone transfer away Azura's pair-up partner, have Silas Shelter her, and have the Niles + Nina pair (with Nina holding the last Rescue staff) go next to Silas and transfer Nina in exchange for Azura, switch, have Azura sing to Silas, and have Silas move southeast so Nina could Rescue Leo. This brought Leo exactly close enough for him to reach and attack Takumi, dealing 17 damage to finish him off.


Oh, one tactic I learned, which came in handy for this final turn: If you need to Shelter, but your Shelter-user is already paired up, just find someone--anyone--who isn't paired up and have them transfer the supporter away from the unit with Shelter. Can't believe it took me this long to figure that out.


Anyway, here're the movements of the final turn, in images.


Start of Turn 5:

IzN4Xkb.jpg


Shigure rescuing Azura:

hg0QeoB.jpg

pjoZl4z.jpg

(Shigure then flew to Takumi and switched to Sho to deal the first 66 damage.)


Silas sheltering Azura:

ckam7nF.jpg


Niles transferring Nina and Azura, right before switching to Azura and having her sing for the Silas+Nina pair:

wznyuzk.jpg


Nina Rescuing Leo:

TkI03kw.jpg

OZvjYFl.jpg


Leo moving in for the final blow:

mGDVqRA.jpg


===================


This path on Lunatic was fun to conquer, but a bit too difficult for me to want to play it again on this difficulty...at least for a while.


Awards:


Game MVP: BENNY. No question. At times I had to send a unit into a crowd of 7+ enemies, and he was the only one I could trust to not only survive, but lose only about 30% of his health per turn in those cases. There were some obvious situations where this wouldn't work, but he seriously carried my team through Chapter 23, the middle of 24, and the beginning of 26. I've heard some people say he's too difficult to train because he gets doubled by everything up until Wary Fighter, but his Defense was so outstanding that a double attack on him was like a single attack on anyone else. And he's one of the few units who can tank mixed attackers (like Basaras and Oni Chieftains, which tend to only have magical attack power in the 20s) well.


Most Disappointing Fall-Off Character: Effie. I know a lot of people say good things about her, and she's supposed to be fast, but she just was not gaining Speed for me. She was getting doubled by a lot of enemies and was taking too much damage even from physical attacks. As such, I benched her after she married Silas (post Chapter 21). At least Sophie inherited her good Speed.


Best Child Unit: Sophie. She was the only child unit I recruited this run who could really be good on either phase. Ophelia and Nina were glass cannons, and Shigure didn't have enough offense to be useful (though admittedly he only saw play in the final chapter).


Most Surprisingly Useful Skill: SHELTER! I never appreciated this skill in Birthright, but here I realized its power. It's very strong to be able to make an attack with a frail unit and then have a way to keep them safe if you don't manage to kill all the enemies that can reach them. Also, sometimes Azura really needs to sing to someone in a place that will leave her wide open, so Shelter her afterward. (This happened several times in Chapter 25.) I left Shelter off of Sho for other skills and repeatedly found myself missing it, even though I also had it on Xander, Silas, and Sophie!


Most Surprisingly Useless Skill: Vengeance. I don't think it ever once contributed to a kill. I didn't even bother equipping it on Leo since he was using Nosferatu a lot of the time. Ophelia triggered it a bunch, but at full HP--given how frail she is, I didn't really let her take hits very many times.


Most Annoying Skill on Enemies: LUNGELUNGELUNGELUNGELUNGE. Not even close. Shows up far too often, and there's nothing fair about it. The developers could make a 100-unit-long Lunge chain and there'd be no way to deal with it except to have a unit either strong enough to KO each of them in one round on enemy phase, or tanky/evasive enough to take 0 damage from all of them. So often, getting Lunged into a dense enemy group is a death sentence and the only way to deal with it is either through luck (Percy's paralogue), avoiding it (Chapter 25), or finding the one spot where the parts of the "chain" don't connect (Chapter 23). It's also super easy to forget about when positioning your units and suddenly someone's getting hit 5 times instead of the once I anticipated.


Most Awesome Random Weapon Pickup: Peri's Lance. I think I got about 3 of them, and getting a free Javelin that can Luna and crit (with +10 crit!) is big game. Frying Pan gets an honorable mention for reducing Berserker Arthur's chance of taking crits from a worrying 11% in many cases to 1%.


Most Annoying Chapter: 14, as explained in its review.


Most Fun Chapter: 21, with 16 and 18 close seconds.


Most Surprisingly Easy Chapter: 21, for reasons mentioned before.


Most Unsurprisingly Easy Chapter: 15. Simple-as-can-be on both Normal and Lunatic.


Most Terrifying Generic Enemy: Level 20 Master Ninjas in Chapter 27 and Endgame. Insane damage output, 37 Speed, and sky-high Avoid make them almost impossible for anyone without Shurikenbreaker to take on.


Most Surprisingly Weak Generic Enemy: That Master of Arms with Death Blow and the Great Club in Chapter 25's right side. I was incredibly worried about letting him attack...until I realized that because of the Great Club's low Might, he was doing a base 2 damage to Keaton and zilch to Benny.


Best Lottery Prize: Never got a gold ball, but I did get a Bolt Axe from a silver ball, which Percy used. A nice save of 3300G.


Most Unfitting Chapter Song: 25. Thorn in You is way too calm and subdued for a chapter consisting of deathtrap after deathtrap of cruelly-placed enemies wielding one of the most dangerous skills in the game, and a duel against the most broken playable unit in the game.


Best Chapter Song (Aside from End of All): 27. Glory/Ruin nails two themes and nails them well: "otherworldly" and "utter insanity". The beginning hits the first theme, and the high-tempo all-over-the-place piano melody that starts up around 1:45 in backed by a rising-pitch crescendo hits the second theme. Both these themes fit the chapter's story perfectly.


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Still not seeing why people elect to waste time playing Ch. 25 instead of killing Ryoma and going straight to 26. None of the resources garnered from 25 help in 26, and the last two chapters are early boss kills.

Silence staff is handy for C26 and maybe endgame if you're masochistic enough to play it legit.

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  • 1 month later...

FINALLY beat Birthright Lunatic today. Definitely wasn't as hard as Awakening Lunatic, but goddamn if it didn't give it a run for its money

--High-manning

--No spotpass (or whatever it's called) or DLC

--leveling up all units as evenly as possible

Characters:

MU H. Noble Lvl. 16

Felicia Maid lvl 30

Kaden Nine-tails lvl 16

Hinoka Falcon knight lvl 15

Oboro Spear master lvl 15

Orochi Onmyoji lvl 16

Saizo Mechanist lvl 18

Rinka Blacksmith lvl 15

Hana Swordmaster lvl 15

Setsuna Sniper lvl 15

Ryoma Swordmaster lvl 20

Takumi ...Archer lvl 15 (lol)

Azura Dancer lvl 36

Sakura Priestess lvl 8 (after getting to lvl 15 as some other class)

Everyone max lvld in their orignal class. The pairs of people had the highest support rank possible between them.

PS My Azura dies in the endgame and then in a cutscene...if she doesn't die in the endgame does she still die in the cutscene?

On to conquest!

Edited by dimbenes1
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I used rescued Charlotte to OHKO the final boss of conquest. This is on a lunatic classic run without DLC's and only Corrin being married. I had Benny with replica team up with her and Corrin the map before, to gain enough experience to use a single eternal seal on Charlotte. Then in the endgame I just reclassed enough people to pull off the rescue trick. I think I used strategist Leo for one of them. I think the only grinding I did outside the main chapters was for supports at castles, obviously I had no children levels to grind in.

It felt way too cheesy, I kind of want to go back and try to beat the level without any rescues.

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It felt way too cheesy, I kind of want to go back and try to beat the level without any rescues.

Unlike chapter 26 the Endgame throws so much staff users at you that it is difficult to beat the map without using staves as well. It is basically cheese vs cheese. Maybe one can build a team that doesn't depend on staves, but that requires too much planning in my book. If I got through a whole Fire Emblem game without staves then I expect to beat the final chapter without staves just fine.

In the end, I think they failed at the final map in Conquest. I get that they want to give us a challenge, but they overdid it and made it a frustrating experience for those who managed to go through the rest of the game, only to be forced to use they staves. I found chapter 26 much more interesting and challenging. To be honest, I don't think the final chapters should even be the hardest one in the game.

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Conquest Lunatic for me was done with the Rescue-Pass method, with a +MAG/-LCK Nohr Noble, capped in STR courtesy of Energy Drops, boosted by rallies, Gunther, tonics, etc. Becaues +MAG/-LCK isn't the most STR-heavy build, I needed to compensate with more damage boosters [Elbow Room, STR+2, and Trample], gained from Friendship with Silas and marriage to Camilla. And of course, needed to rely on a random Dragon Fang.

Gave boots to Corrin to help cheese the prior chapter easily to get to Ch. 28 quickly, where victory depended on Dragon Fang procs.

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Unlike chapter 26 the Endgame throws so much staff users at you that it is difficult to beat the map without using staves as well. It is basically cheese vs cheese. Maybe one can build a team that doesn't depend on staves, but that requires too much planning in my book. If I got through a whole Fire Emblem game without staves then I expect to beat the final chapter without staves just fine.

In the end, I think they failed at the final map in Conquest. I get that they want to give us a challenge, but they overdid it and made it a frustrating experience for those who managed to go through the rest of the game, only to be forced to use they staves. I found chapter 26 much more interesting and challenging. To be honest, I don't think the final chapters should even be the hardest one in the game.

I don't see the problem here. Having suitable characters for one-turning the endgame of conquest requires some strategic planning as well (like saving rescues, taking pegasus knight tiwh pass as prisoner and so on), and it's quite all right, when the player is rewarded for it. So, the chapter is completely doable. If you want to do it without rescue - well, you make some additional challenge yourself and the chapter is still doable, although it requires a lot more tactical planning. I see nothing wrong with it and no failure in design. You can beat it either by strategy or tactics. The latter is harder, but it's your own whim to limit your choices. I don't see why devs should go easy on players seeking additional challenge.

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I'll definitely be lurking here, I've completed all 3 routes on Lunatic/Classic, though I only really use my Revelations save. To be entirely honest, one could say I didn't legitimately beat them as for Revelations and Birthright I did use a save editor in place of actually grinding, from the second you get access to DLC, but I really can't care less now. I've been pretty much been dicking around now trying to do ridiculous shit against Lunatic Anankos, such as one rounds knock outs.

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I've been going though Lunatic Conquest after finishing Birthright. The end of my Birthright playthrough was hilarious because I just said screw it for the last few chapters (starting on that nightmare of a Camilla-boss chapter) and practically solo'd the game with paired up Corrin+Ryoma. Stole the Blight Dragon's throne and murdered him from there, it was awesome.

I finally beat the Mokushu chapter in Conquest; that was BRUTAL. It is such a relief to finally have Xander, though.

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You can deploy 16 units in the final chapters. Since you deploy less in the mid game and the final chapters are good moments to recruit and use staff bots, I say at least 10 units and some of their kids. If you unlock many children chapters, you have more opportunities to get EXP and can have more units on a hig level. This is especially the case with the chapters of Kana, Dwyer, Shigure, Sophie and Midori.

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If you use characters exclusively as Pair Up bots you don't even need to train 10 lead units.

Since fates is way more player-phase oriented than awakening, you'd better not use more than 3-4 characters solely as pair up bots. Carefully planned offense solves a LOT of problems in this game. And for that you preferably need everyone to output some damage on their own.

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You can also solve a lot of problems by having paired up units with better durability+offense than unpaired units. Also means you don't have to worry about Dual Attacks and Dual Guard adds another layer of durability.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just passed chapter 10 on conquest and I figured it was about time I started actually planning my pairings. So far I was thinking of doing either option A:

+str -luck wyvern MU x Jakob

Leo x Felicia

Xander x Charlotte

Effie x Arthur

Silas x Selena

Camilla x Niles

Percy x Sophie

and Elise and Azura would be unpaired

Or option B:

MU x Jakob

Leo x Felicia

Xander x Charlotte

Effie x Arthur

Silas x Selena

Camilla x Keaton

Niles x Beruka

Which would you say is the more optimal set? I was also going to throw out a pair or so in favor of staff bots for the later chapters, but i'll have to see who gets rng screwed first

Edited by shed
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Judging from your team, you know what you are doing. Maybe the following is just stating the obvious, but here it goes.

Seems pretty solid. Great Knight Jakob gives Corrin later on insane defensive boosts. Dragonstone+ - Corrin will be your tank of choice who lures the enemies, though Xander is there as well. Sadly, their kids suck, but their recruitment chapters give free exp.

If Arthur and Niles get RNG-screwed, I would drop them or use them just as a pair-up-bot. Berserker-Arthur giving Selena strenght and speed can be important, as she has trouble ORKOing stuff. Nina doesn't have Niles speed, but higher strength (and very likely Savage Blow).

A late recruited Forrest can be a good staff bot and deals with the mage room in chapter 26 if your other units lack the resistance.

Flora and Izana can be recruited late to have the necessary staff bots. Not using staves in the final chapter can make it impossible if your team isn't prepared properly. Since you only have 12 units and can use 16 in the final chapters, I recommend it.

You have room for Azura and another male unit like Kaze. Azura is a good mother to Midori, as she can be a Kinshi-Knight. You also get another two easy chapters for exp. Shigure is a decent filler with access to Rally Speed.

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