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You should highly consider using Shin, Miledy, Klein, and Percival at the very least. Gonzales is also fairly good with his HM bonuses despite axes being meh in this game, he makes it work against lancers, I'd also suggest most of the prepromotes in FE6 in general, considering the majority of them have stuff to offer even if its simple utility (Such as Cecilia's Stave rank and the ability to use Aircalibur).

Using Wendy could prove to be painful on HM. Just warning you now, like its possible with a bit of bias but that start man... It's not fun.

Edited by Jedi
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No problem, like the team you have overall should work out, Saul is a very solid staver in particular.

Need more of a punch? And the ones I mentioned should be perfect for it, they are quite awesome, Zeiss also gets some sweet benefits from HM.

Edited by Jedi
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For HM only:

Extremely powerful characters: Rutger, Fir, Shin, Miredy, Zeiss, Gonzales-11A.

Other very useful characters: Allen, Marcus, Dieck, Lugh, Clarine, Percival.

Not recommended: all the promoted characters except the one mentioned above, fighters, knights and archers.

GL HF.

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Not recommended: all the promoted characters except the one mentioned above

Klein gets nice bonuses, Bartre/Echidna are pretty solid, Zealot is solid when Marcus falls off before Percival arrives, Igrene is also really solid, Cecilia isn't too much of a combat unit but has a good stave rank, Dayan can be good filler if you go to Sacae, Juno is kinda meh, but flies, Niime is amazing because of her bases and magic/staves ranks, literally her only issue is her HP, Garet can be good filler on maps that involve knights, generals, wyverns. Yodel is one of the only light magic users in the game with an actual rank and has good staves instantly, while you have people who you can fall back on at that point he still proves to be fairly good. Then Karel is ridiculous and can be a solid unit to use at end game, (I mean he's practically designed to just instantly be helpful).

The only prepromote I'd advise against using would be Douglas tbh.

Edited by Jedi
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Klein gets nice bonuses, Bartre/Echidna are pretty solid, Zealot is solid when Marcus falls off before Percival arrives, Igrene is also really solid, Cecilia isn't too much of a combat unit but has a good stave rank, Dayan can be good filler if you go to Sacae, Juno is kinda meh, but flies, Niime is amazing because of her bases and magic/staves ranks, literally her only issue is her HP, Garet can be good filler on maps that involve knights, generals, wyverns. Yodel is one of the only light magic users in the game with an actual rank and has good staves instantly, while you have people who you can fall back on at that point he still proves to be fairly good. Then Karel is ridiculous and can be a solid unit to use at end game, (I mean he's practically designed to just instantly be helpful).

The only prepromote I'd advise against using would be Douglas tbh.

Thanks for ur reply, Jedi. These promoted characters are solid indeed, but I have to say there are better choices which can make a HM run much more easier. So, generally, I would not recommend them to a HM beginner. Of course, there are many ways to go through HM, and promoted characters can also feature well in the game.

Marcus has poor growth rates and stats. The only reason I recommend him is that he is one of a few guys that can work effectively as both a tank and a major damage-dealer (thanks to the silver lance) before chapter 7 (others include Rutger and Dieck, but less powerful at the beginning). His main role is to weaken tough enemies, and let others finish off. Without him, early game can be quite difficult (e.x. chapter 4). After chapter 7, he can just retire.

Zealot works well in chapter 7 (one of the most difficult chapter in HM). But after that, he is quickly surpassed by other unpromoted characters with high growth. He is almost a copy of Marcus with slightly better stats, but quite late appearance. So I do not recommend him.

Klein and Igrene are very solid snipers in the game. Klein is prefered in HM due to bonus and good support. But the obvious best choice for the bow-wielder is Shin. His HM stats is Ridiculous. If a second archer/nomad is needed, I would use Sue pairing with Shin considering mobility and growth rates. Usually I focus on only one archer during early and mid chapters, in order to go Illia route (much more easier than Sacae counterpart).

Niime, Cecilia and Yodel are bench warmers who appear on the battle field only when the player is too lazy to raise Ray, Clarine and Ellen/Saul. They can support the team well due to good stave ranks, but they contribute little other than that. Promoted Ellen or Saul can take their place as supporters pretty easily (also E/S do better job fighting enemies). It is a little boring when the player has to use staves repeatedly to gain EXP for E/S. Clarine is the best valkyria in the game without saying. After promotion she becomes unbeatable both on the map and in the arena with the help of Dieck-Rutger-Clarine triangle supprt. And Ray is clearly more powerful than Niime. So no need to use N/C/Y unless we have insufficient stave users.

Karel has very good stats, but can hardly contribute due to his late enrollment. Also, Rutger and Fir is more preferable considering Spd and HP. These two guys can virtually butcher everything on the map after promotion, so there is no need for a third swordmaster.

For me, unpromoted characters in FE6 usually perform far better than their promoted alternatives (except Percival HM and Klein HM), mainly due to their higher stats (especially SPEED) and support. And many of the unpromoted are quite easy to train.

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Ok, I have a few issues with the above post.

In order:

Zealot: How is joining in Chapter 7 late? That's less than a quarter of the way through the game. Zealot's bases (and Marcus' bases to a lesser extent) are quite good and he can reliably last until around Chapter 13 before starting to fall off, but promoted Alance and Percival can easily take over by that point.

Niime: Ray doesn't reach Niime's base magic and speed until level 20/5 on average. His only real advantage over Niime at that point is 7 HP and 3 Def, which is nice, but neither of them are great at tanking physical attacks regardless, and Niime has an A Rank in Staves that Ray will never reach, so she is useful for more than just straight up combat. Niime also has the highest staff range of any unit in the game on average between her base magic and the Apocalypse tome. Saul for example, only reaches Niime's base magic at level 20/20 on average, and he's the best of the un-promoted staff users.

Cecilia: So the thing is, Clarine's magic growth sucks. Her magic base also sucks. So even though Cecilia's bases are generally terrible, Clarine actually has worse magic than Cecilia until level 20/2, where she ties base Cecilia. Cecilia also has A Anima instead of Clarine's E Anima, so Cecilia ends up doing comparable chip damage to Clarine against enemies anyway since Clarine's stuck using Fire. Base Cecilia also has more HP and defence than a 20/2 Clarine, although neither of them should really be facing much combat anyway. 20/2 Clarine does have 33 more avoid than base Cecilia to be fair, but there's pretty much no chance of having a level 20 Clarine by Chapter 14 unless you've been turtling really hard.

Yodel: Saul would need to be at level 20/16 to reach Yodel's base magic on average(I'm ignoring Ellen in this argument since she's just a worse version of Saul). Saul's a better combat unit than Yodel since Saul can double more enemies, yes, but again, what's wrong with more staff users? There's no reason you can't use both Saul and Yodel (and Niime). They're all useful.

I'll admit Karel is pretty much just filler.

I'll write something on Klein vs. Igrene later.

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Ok, I have a few issues with the above post.

In order:

Zealot: How is joining in Chapter 7 late? That's less than a quarter of the way through the game. Zealot's bases (and Marcus' bases to a lesser extent) are quite good and he can reliably last until around Chapter 13 before starting to fall off, but promoted Alance and Percival can easily take over by that point.

Niime: Ray doesn't reach Niime's base magic and speed until level 20/5 on average. His only real advantage over Niime at that point is 7 HP and 3 Def, which is nice, but neither of them are great at tanking physical attacks regardless, and Niime has an A Rank in Staves that Ray will never reach, so she is useful for more than just straight up combat. Niime also has the highest staff range of any unit in the game on average between her base magic and the Apocalypse tome. Saul for example, only reaches Niime's base magic at level 20/20 on average, and he's the best of the un-promoted staff users.

Cecilia: So the thing is, Clarine's magic growth sucks. Her magic base also sucks. So even though Cecilia's bases are generally terrible, Clarine actually has worse magic than Cecilia until level 20/2, where she ties base Cecilia. Cecilia also has A Anima instead of Clarine's E Anima, so Cecilia ends up doing comparable chip damage to Clarine against enemies anyway since Clarine's stuck using Fire. Base Cecilia also has more HP and defence than a 20/2 Clarine, although neither of them should really be facing much combat anyway. 20/2 Clarine does have 33 more avoid than base Cecilia to be fair, but there's pretty much no chance of having a level 20 Clarine by Chapter 14 unless you've been turtling really hard.

Yodel: Saul would need to be at level 20/16 to reach Yodel's base magic on average(I'm ignoring Ellen in this argument since she's just a worse version of Saul). Saul's a better combat unit than Yodel since Saul can double more enemies, yes, but again, what's wrong with more staff users? There's no reason you can't use both Saul and Yodel (and Niime). They're all useful.

I'll admit Karel is pretty much just filler.

I'll write something on Klein vs. Igrene later.

You are right. Zealot joins as early as chapter7, and can serve well before Percival appears. But for me, it is enough to call it a "late" joining, because in most cases in the following chapters, it is no longer necessary to use an upper class paladin to lead the team, as Rutger,Dieck,Allen and Lance leveled up (usually arround lv10, Allen and Lance support each other), and other strong characters will join shortly (such as Fir, Shin, Gonzales and Tate). Zealot is prefered only if someone finds it difficult to get into a good position in chapter 8 and 11A before enemy reinforcement arrives.

Regarding the mages, there are many ways of using them. Someone does not use any light or dark mages until late game, and choose multiple anima mage instead. Then Niime and Yodel works very well. I personally choose Ray, Clarine and one priest early, train them through the journey (to increase EXP rank), and they work perfectly as both stave supporter and damage dealer in late game. Ray can easily get to lv10 in late game with good support, while Niime has no such potential. But of cause, Ray is no stave user. Ellen/Saul and Clarine use B-C staves. The best advantage of Saul is high HP and SPD, which is very crucial in HM.

Clarine has poor HP and Magic which is trouble some in early game. In fact magic is not a big problem, as most non-mage enemies have very low resistance, and the damage of Clarine greatly increases by her support with Rutger and Dieck. She can just abuse E or D Tome on enemies. It is not hard to make her promoted after getting the second Ring from Chapter 14. The key is to abuse heal, torch and unlock staffs. And in late game, she becomes godlike.

Again, promoted characters are generally useful, but usually not as much as top tier unpromoted are.

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As a person who actually runs the tier list on Serenes Forest, I can tell you a lot of those statements are hilariously wrong from even a ranked perspective.

- Ray vs Niime is a huge joke in favor of Niime. Ray only dreams he can have a good staff rank like Niime does as it gives Niime access to status staves, Warp, and Rescue. It also gives leeway for Physic. It takes 150 Heals to reach Physic and 200 to reach Warp. That is absolutely pathetic - most FE6 HMs probably won't last for 200 turns unless you casually turtle.

Meanwhile Niime comes in needing no grinding aside from maybe Apocalypse, and Ray still needs to grind a lot of WEXP for it too. Considering how slow base Ray is doubling is very difficult until you spoonfeed a lot of kills onto him. Meanwhile all Niime wants is a Body Ring and maybe an Angelic Robe just to make Nosferatu tanking a bit more reliable.

- Zealot and Marcus easily crush the Western Isles because they have 8 Mov and (usually) enough AS to double the majority of Fighters. Having access to Silver Lances for Mercenaries is also worthwhile. Unlike useless scrubs like Fir, Marcus and Zealot actually have durability and Movement to trivialize Western Isles. Having a promoted Alan or Lance also helps too, and Noah is an option since Noah comes in needing little training to promote. Marcus and Zealot are even okay in later chapters just because they can ferry people around reliably. Even Zealot does okay in Ilia route

- Saul is good, yes, but as noted most units struggle to reach Yodel's Warp range aside from Niime. You honestly want to use Saul and Yodel anyway.

- Cecilia easily punks Clarine. Clarine is so low of level it is hard for her to catch up to other staff users. Saul, despite being unmounted, has a much better Staff rank, Magic stat, and potentially better combat. Cecilia's A rank tomes means Cecilia has Aircalibur utility on Wyvern Lords. Furthermore, her base Staff rank is quite acceptable to be of service.

There are other inconsistencies to point out, but the ones that I did will suffice for now. Most unpromoted schmucks that you mentioned are barely are Top Tier anyway. Miledy and Saul are probably the closest (Lalum / Elphin too). Rutger barely passes only because he is a slightly better bosskiller at times than other units.

Like, Ray and Fir suck lol. Really bad.

Edited by Colonel M
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As a person who actually runs the tier list on Serenes Forest, I can tell you a lot of those statements are hilariously wrong from even a ranked perspective.

- Ray vs Niime is a huge joke in favor of Niime. Ray only dreams he can have a good staff rank like Niime does as it gives Niime access to status staves, Warp, and Rescue. It also gives leeway for Physic. It takes 150 Heals to reach Physic and 200 to reach Warp. That is absolutely pathetic - most FE6 HMs probably won't last for 200 turns unless you casually turtle.

Meanwhile Niime comes in needing no grinding aside from maybe Apocalypse, and Ray still needs to grind a lot of WEXP for it too. Considering how slow base Ray is doubling is very difficult until you spoonfeed a lot of kills onto him. Meanwhile all Niime wants is a Body Ring and maybe an Angelic Robe just to make Nosferatu tanking a bit more reliable.

- Zealot and Marcus easily crush the Western Isles because they have 8 Mov and (usually) enough AS to double the majority of Fighters. Having access to Silver Lances for Mercenaries is also worthwhile. Unlike useless scrubs like Fir, Marcus and Zealot actually have durability and Movement to trivialize Western Isles. Having a promoted Alan or Lance also helps too, and Noah is an option since Noah comes in needing little training to promote. Marcus and Zealot are even okay in later chapters just because they can ferry people around reliably. Even Zealot does okay in Ilia route

- Saul is good, yes, but as noted most units struggle to reach Yodel's Warp range aside from Niime. You honestly want to use Saul and Yodel anyway.

- Cecilia easily punks Clarine. Clarine is so low of level it is hard for her to catch up to other staff users. Saul, despite being unmounted, has a much better Staff rank, Magic stat, and potentially better combat. Cecilia's A rank tomes means Cecilia has Aircalibur utility on Wyvern Lords. Furthermore, her base Staff rank is quite acceptable to be of service.

There are other inconsistencies to point out, but the ones that I did will suffice for now. Most unpromoted schmucks that you mentioned are barely are Top Tier anyway. Miledy and Saul are probably the closest (Lalum / Elphin too). Rutger barely passes only because he is a slightly better bosskiller at times than other units.

Like, Ray and Fir suck lol. Really bad.

I am glad that people here are actively sharing their ideas about the old game. I myself went through HM for nearly 20 times (several times on GBA, around 15 times on VBA). I tried almost every characters except Merlinus. It is not difficult for me to get hard mode SS rank within 16 hours playtime, so no turtling. Generally (without frequent S/L or TAS), a perfect HM run will take approx 400 turns or more to complete all the 31 chapters and to meet all requirements (rankings, enrollments, ending etc), so there is no problem if someone really want to increase stave rank for mage/druid, though I do not recommend so. If you did it within 200 turns, please show me how.

I think the major disagreement comes from several basic points of HM gameplay:

1. Choosing weapons: For me, it is simply unnecessary to use most of the "high-rank" weapons under most circumstances in FE6:

Stave: most mages just use heal through, two or three use restore and physic. No need to use others. If you really need to teleport, let one wield it, but it is certainly not a must-have (although an item in 20A require teleport to obtain, it is neglectable). Status stakes have very limited usage in the run, although it is good to sleep Douglas, or do something on fire dragons etc (no need in fact). After Niime joins, our team is strong enough that we do not really need to play any of such tricks on the enemy.

Dark Tome: nothing other than flux and nosferatu is needed. Nosferatu is the best by performance, but far too expensive. So mostly I use flux, and switch to Nosferatu only a few times.

Anima Tome: the only thing that really necessary is fire, and if you like - thunder. There is simply no need to use aircalibre to take down air units if I use Clarine, because wyvern lords in 21A just can not land any single hit on a full-speed high-luck full-support Clarine put in the front together with Rutger and Dieck. Then Clarine can counter any wyvern lords easily by using fire or thunder (i do not really want her to kill many WL, bc she just leveled up so quickly and attract lots of enemy fire, so I need her to share EXP with others, but she just lands critical hits too frequently). But for characters like Cecilia and Niime, I dont think anyone will let them fight face-to-face with WL-- their stats are so insufficient that can only snipe enemies from afar (who else cannot?).

2. Characters:

The following characters with bonus base stats plays a major role in my HM run:

Rutger, Fir, Shin, Gonzales, Miredy, Zeiss and Percival.

They are just overpowered in HM, and very easy to train. I dont think alternatives can really rival their abilities and take their roles (Allen generally matches Percival, but they take different roles in the run), unless someone want to make the game more challenging.

3. Stats:

It is true that high luck helps a lot on hit and dodge, but low luck can still be compenated by support level. The most vital stats that can not really be supplemented otherwise are move (largely depending on class) and attack speed. Attack speed means damage output, chance to hit (combat and EXP rank) and dodge (survivability). So, normally I put it a very high priority when valueing stats.

Again, there are many ways to go through the game. I wrote a few of them that I would prefer.

Edited by Brucknerian
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As a person who actually runs the tier list on Serenes Forest, I can tell you a lot of those statements are hilariously wrong from even a ranked perspective.

- Ray vs Niime is a huge joke in favor of Niime. Ray only dreams he can have a good staff rank like Niime does as it gives Niime access to status staves, Warp, and Rescue. It also gives leeway for Physic. It takes 150 Heals to reach Physic and 200 to reach Warp. That is absolutely pathetic - most FE6 HMs probably won't last for 200 turns unless you casually turtle.

Meanwhile Niime comes in needing no grinding aside from maybe Apocalypse, and Ray still needs to grind a lot of WEXP for it too. Considering how slow base Ray is doubling is very difficult until you spoonfeed a lot of kills onto him. Meanwhile all Niime wants is a Body Ring and maybe an Angelic Robe just to make Nosferatu tanking a bit more reliable.

- Zealot and Marcus easily crush the Western Isles because they have 8 Mov and (usually) enough AS to double the majority of Fighters. Having access to Silver Lances for Mercenaries is also worthwhile. Unlike useless scrubs like Fir, Marcus and Zealot actually have durability and Movement to trivialize Western Isles. Having a promoted Alan or Lance also helps too, and Noah is an option since Noah comes in needing little training to promote. Marcus and Zealot are even okay in later chapters just because they can ferry people around reliably. Even Zealot does okay in Ilia route

- Saul is good, yes, but as noted most units struggle to reach Yodel's Warp range aside from Niime. You honestly want to use Saul and Yodel anyway.

- Cecilia easily punks Clarine. Clarine is so low of level it is hard for her to catch up to other staff users. Saul, despite being unmounted, has a much better Staff rank, Magic stat, and potentially better combat. Cecilia's A rank tomes means Cecilia has Aircalibur utility on Wyvern Lords. Furthermore, her base Staff rank is quite acceptable to be of service.

There are other inconsistencies to point out, but the ones that I did will suffice for now. Most unpromoted schmucks that you mentioned are barely are Top Tier anyway. Miledy and Saul are probably the closest (Lalum / Elphin too). Rutger barely passes only because he is a slightly better bosskiller at times than other units.

Like, Ray and Fir suck lol. Really bad.

BTW, I just read through your tier list here http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19108, and I did not find any major conflict with the statements I made above. Here is your list:
-Top Tier-
Lance
Alan
Dieck
Rutger
Lalum
Elphin
Miledy
Percival
High Tier:
Clarine
Saul
Ellen
Echinda
Chad
Astohl
Gonzales (A)
-Upper Mid Tier-
Marcus
Fir
Shin
Lot
Tate
Lugh
Klein
-Lower Mid Tier-
Roy
Thany
Cecilia
Bartre
Zealot
Oujay
Noah
Treck
Gonzales
Geese
Fa
Ward
Ray
Lilina
Zeiss
Niime
Igrene
Garret
Douglas
Barth
-Low Tier-
Cath
Sue
Boris
Yodel
-Bottom Tier-
Hugh
Dorothy
Walt
Juno
Karel
Sophia
Wendy
---------------------------------------------------------------
As shown, unpromoted top tier characters nearly always better their promoted alternatives in terms of efficiency in a ranked HM run. That is exactly the point I want to make. Did I get your point correctly? What made you a big turn against your own points years ago?
I have not check other ranking list on the forum, but I believe the same general rule should apply more or less.
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In fact the list Irysan posted also had a subtle change.

(I just moved Garret into Lower Mid Tier).

Speaking of which I think I might shove Clarine down a bit too. I can't really say she's a hell of a lot better than Noah.

Edited by Colonel M
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