Did anyone else have problems with the Arion bossfight?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

It's the mainboss of chapter 9 in FE4.

I found this fight almost unfair because of two things:

• continue - He's able to attack twice. The main problem is that his Gungnir kills everyone with two hits, some units will be oneshotted.
• prayer - That's even worse. If he's on low health, it's almost impossible to hit him. At least in my run no one could. His 5 authority stars make it even worse. Even balmung didn't have a good hitrate. The maximum was 76% with balmung only thanks to Nanna's charisma skill.

It took me like 100 attempts to kill him I had to finish him off before he reached prayer mode. Thanks to Gae Bolg it was possible.

Seriously it was the hardest and most annoying bossfight to me of all FE games I've played yet.

It's too luckbased for me mainly because of his continue.

[X-Naut]

Did you forget to pass down the Forseti tome? If you engage him on your phase with that he drops like a stone.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

^ forseti = holsety, I assume.

Yes, I have this tome.

But unfortunately this unit couldn't use it.

(Corple)

[Gradivus.]

I had Aless solo his wyverns first turn and then had him kite Arion with Mystletainn (~160 base hit ftw) for the next 2 turns which brought him down to like 30 I think

He, Hawk and Shannan did enough damage per hit to bypass Prayer completely (in fact I didn't even notice Prayer, and I didn't notice continue because it didn't happen to me)

I guess his 40%ish chance to instagib you sucks though.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Gradivus.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

My first idea was to bring Tinny to wrath zone by the dracos to oneshot him with a wrath-crit of tron.

But the dracos couldn't bring her down to wrath zone because she dodged too much.

And Arion would oneshot her so RIP to my original plan.

Edit: Wouldn't work anyway because of Arion's nihil skill.

Then I placed Shanan in a forest who pretty much soloed all the dracos with the slim lance in enemy phase.

The dracos with the sleep sword didn't attack him because of their 0% hitchance against him.

Arion attacked Shanan.

Continue was activated, but luckily Shanan dodged both attacks and could bring him down to about 40 HP.

In the next player phase Shanan could bring him down to 20 HP which wasn't wrath zone yet.

Thanks to Nanna's charisma Altenna could finish him off with a 58% hitchance.

I didn't count how often TInny and Faval missed.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Ayama Wirdo

[Gradivus.]

Just looked up, he doesn't have Prayer, his skill aside from Continue and Pursuit is Nihil

It also would've prevented you from wrath critting him.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Ansem]

savestates are a thing you know

[General Horace]

He has a prayer ring.

But yeah, the easiest way (even without Holsety) is just toss Sety/Hawk at him. You can also just ignore him completely and have Celice run by him and seize his castle. Magic swords help too.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

It also would've prevented you from wrath critting him.

I noticed after I had read the definition of nihil.

I thought the entire time that nihil = nullify from FE10. It prevents the unit by effective damage.

savestates are a thing you know

Do you really think the mentioned 100 attempts were done without savestates?

You can also just ignore him completely and have Celice run by him and seize his castle.

I was almost so desperate to think about that.

But that means I always would have to worry that he could kill someone in enemy phase.

PS: My Seliph wasn't promoted yet.

[sirmola]

PS: My Seliph wasn't promoted yet.

If you want to be really abusive, you cn always rescue glitch seliph to have infinate movement, (although you nead to have done specific pairings to have the rescue staff by this point.)

[Levin's Scarf]

Sety should still be able to do some damage to Arion because flying units are vulnerable to wind magic. After doing some damage, perhaps finish him off with Faval (assuming he has a fair chance of hitting- he rarely had problems when I used him) or Shanan.

[sirmola]

Sety should still be able to do some damage to Arion because flying units are vulnerable to wind magic. After doing some damage, perhaps finish him off with Faval (assuming he has a fair chance of hitting- he rarely had problems when I used him) or Shanan.

Not in this game, the're not. That mechanic was fist introduced in fe5. Plus airion has nihil, which protects from effective damage in this game.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Send me a save file where you're preparing to fight Arion if you still have it.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Sirius

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Sety should still be able to do some damage to Arion because flying units are vulnerable to wind magic. After doing some damage, perhaps finish him off with Faval (assuming he has a fair chance of hitting- he rarely had problems when I used him) or Shanan.

I don't have Sety in my run.

Corple has holsety who can't use it for being a priest.

I screwed up with my pairings in Gen. 1.

And Faval's accuracy of Ichival is absolute garbage against him.

Killer bow doesn't do even damage to him.

Shanan's balmung had the best accuracy of all weapons I have.

[Tetragrammaton]

try sleep staff on him

[Katie]

Start over with good pairings this time.

[Levin's Scarf]

Not in this game, the're not. That mechanic was fist introduced in fe5. Plus airion has nihil, which protects from effective damage in this game.

Ah. Perhaps it seemed that way because Levin and Sety are powerful units to begin with.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Start over with good pairings this time.

@Ayama Wirdo: Please ignore this guy as you don't require optimal pairings to play through the game and restarting a playthrough just to rely on them doesn't make you a better player.

try sleep staff on him

This is pretty much your best option. Your Sleep staff is broken but Hawk had the money to fix it and the Staff rank to use it.

Otherwise, you had a few ways of taking him down but your biggest concern was definitely avoiding that he was left with HP anywhere lower than 10 at any point because of his stupid Prayer ring.

Shanan with Balmung and the 2 Charisma siblings applied to him had 96% hit on Arion with only a 51% chance of getting hit, you could reduce this further by giving him the Speed ring. Furthermore, your Julia could kill him in 1 round with Lightning as Arion only has 16 Attack Speed so your promoted Julia could always double the guy and her hit rate was 82% with the charisma bots nearby.

Shanan and Julia are both units you have even in a playthrough full of Substitutes and Hawk himself is one so as you can see, even with no pairings whatsoever, it's not impossible (you'd lose 1 charisma bot but that's ultimately just a 10% hit reduction in the end).

I think the biggest issue you had going was positioning and the equipment your units had before fighting his squad as several of your units had items nearly broken so the Dragon Knights would go after them and they'd ultimately lose because of the -30 SPD reduction units get from using a broken weapon.

TLDR; prep your heavy hitters to land a killing blow/assault and never let 0 < Arion's HP < 10 before killing him. Or Sleep him and have Celice capture.

To make the rest of the game easier on yourself, you need Holsety in play. Slap the Elite ring on Corple with Patty if you can just have him warp/return hannibal at base until he can promote.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Sirius

[Moblin Major General]

I forget, do you have to defeat Areone in Ch.9? I heard he becomes a partner unit in Ch.11 if Altena talks to him there.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

I forget, do you have to defeat Areone in Ch.9? I heard he becomes a partner unit in Ch.11 if Altena talks to him there.

Chapter 9's outcome is irrelevant to that event.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

This is pretty much your best option. Your Sleep staff is broken but Hawk had the money to fix it and the Staff rank to use it.

Shanan with Balmung and the 2 Charisma siblings applied to him had 96% hit on Arion with only a 51% chance of getting hit, you could reduce this further by giving him the Speed ring. Furthermore, your Julia could kill him in 1 round with Lightning as Arion only has 16 Attack Speed so your promoted Julia could always double the guy and her hit rate was 82% with the charisma bots nearby.

Shanan and Julia are both units you have even in a playthrough full of Substitutes and Hawk himself is one so as you can see, even with no pairings whatsoever, it's not impossible (you'd lose 1 charisma bot but that's ultimately just a 10% hit reduction in the end).

I see.

Many thanks for taking time and giving me this detailed report!

I know I could have a bit easier time, if I gave skill and speed ring to Shanan.

My problem was to bring Julia close to Arion because of the other dracos. I was a bit too scared so I placed her behind.

I tried to kill most dracos with Shanan to focus on Arion.

Main question: How can Shanan have 96% hit?

With one charisma support (Nanna) he could get up to 66%; means 76% with two.

Can flying units benefit from terrain boost like forest too?

If yes, it'd be the answer.

[Darros]

If Celice has three leadership stars you should get an extra 20% hit from that when he's within three spaces ((10% if he has two))

[sirmola]

If Celice has three leadership stars you should get an extra 20% hit from that when he's within three spaces ((10% if he has two))

Remember to reset the game at some point in the second gen, which gives him a third leadership star (I'm pretty sure him not starting with three is a glitch)