History Mode Missions

[Emblem Blade]

Hello I am back yet again, after who-knows-how-long I was gone since I can't seem to remember when I was last here on Forums commenting/responding.  With the Awakening DLC batch released not too long ago we get a few new challenges along with the Level Cap of 150. While I'm willing to make another topic about describing characters and what skill crests (Boost) as well as weapon attributes work for them but that's for later.  However there is one new type of mission in History Mode that really got me really annoyed, bordering on rage after some time.  Escort the Villagers.  Yep, it's not that hard...until you have to do Caravan Dancer's mission for the Falchion's Opus and said mission has a Difficulty Setting of 117.  Now, at first this might not seem like a big deal as you'll most likely have some pretty strong units who can chop through hoards.  However, there are at least three waves before you can relax and all three aren't too kind if you didn't think first before hitting the 'Start Mission' option.  It's basic at first, then you get three Summoners who will continuously spawn Shadows of some familiar characters until all of them are defeated, while you already have Shadow Freddy Bears coming after one of your villagers.  Shortly after the Summoners appear, you have three Onmyojis that show up and spam long range lightning that start to heavily damage your other deployed character and all three villagers at the same time forcing you to work fast to defeat them as well or suffer a nearly unavoidable game over.  Then you get three Priests who will attempt to heal any enemy units that they can get to, meaning that if those above mentioned Summoners, Shaows and Onmyojis are still present, you have a a storm of enemies coming at you.  If you can get past them, you have more fliers, Ryujins/Manaketes, alongside some more Shadows for the remaining two enemy waves so you get little relaxation.  Then you get Camilla and Co. showing up at the end.  The mission to get the Falchion Opus will put you at your limit or make you work above it if you can't keep up.  Honestly to me, this one mission is harder than the Story Mode itself and almost all of the other History Mode quests as you only have two units at your disposal against a lot of enemies not long after the mission begins.

It took me a lot of work after five consecutive failures, the last one as a result of losing a villager just a few seconds before the mission would have been a success.  I ended up resorting to using...

Level 106 Blade Lord Lyn w/Divine Favor Sol Katti (Rainstorm/Amped/Wingslayer/Strong VI); Skills: Luna/Awakening/Astra/Armored Blow/Lethality/Galeforce

Level 107 Priestess Sakura w/Divine Favor Spellbane Yumi (Rainstorm/Amped/Dracoslayer/Strong VI/Topsy-Turvy); Skills: Luna/Awakening/Astra/Live-to-Serve/Galeforce/Lethality

I unlocked all the Offensive and Boost Crests and a majority of the Defensive Skill Crests unlocked and still found it hard.  I nearly lost Lyn on three seperate occasions and almost lost Sakura during a heated up Dragon rush when I was using Lyn to remove all the Shadow Fliers assaulting two of the other villagers.  Had I lost Sakura, I would have lost seven times in a row.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Emblem Blade

[CmdrQuartz]

I thought it was hard until I realized it barely mattered how many enemies were clustered around a villager, even when enemies had hero weapons. I would greatly recommend using Tiki over any other attacker because she can get her awakening gauge back via spending warrior gauge. Even with galeforce I imagine it can be difficult to perfectly maintain awakening throughout the whole battle and I think you need it. Your designated healer never really needs to do anything other than heal, though I would suggest a healer with high Str as they can potentially take out a lightning mage while you deal with the other two, something a Mag healer would not necessarily be able to do. Also critical focus is AMAZING. With permanent awakening comes permanent WTA and the yellow gauges break like glass when you have critical focus. All I had to do was spam Y with Tiki and she'd reveal and break the gauge before finishing the combo which ends up meaning everyone caught in the critical smash ends up dead. I told a detailed story in the DLC discussion thread, should be on the second to last page. That was my second attempt when I realized I needed a sturdy healer and should pick someone effective against everything.

Your weapon attributes could probably be switched around. Basic attacks do a fair bit less than half the total damage of a combo so rainstorm could be gotten rid of and easily replaced with Critical Focus. Critical Focus, I think, more than doubles the "damage" you do the stun gauge. This means yellow gauges break like glass and lethality can happen more frequently. If you are going for constant awakening triangle+ might be a good idea but critical+ or pair up+(for all other missions) are the best selections there. Also specifically for these missions Lone Wolf from Navvare would be better than awakening since lone wolf is a 50% increase. You also don't need armored blow since you are stagger proof in awakening and could be replaced by luck +20 which gets you better luna damage and lethality chance. I'd also pick Armorslayer for Lyn as with awakening granted WTA pegasi shouldn't be an issue, only those with high Def. I also would have mountslayer instead of dracoslayer on Sakura since she hits with Mag against Res she should fear no dragon types.

Seems you already beat it but I suppose others might glean some value from this hopefully. Really wish I had a capture card so I could show how I do things to help others out, but alas I lack such a thing.

Edited April 16, 2018 by CmdrQuartz

[Emblem Blade]

4 hours ago, CmdrQuartz said:

I thought it was hard until I realized it barely mattered how many enemies were clustered around a villager, even when enemies had hero weapons. I would greatly recommend using Tiki over any other attacker because she can get her awakening gauge back via spending warrior gauge. Even with galeforce I imagine it can be difficult to perfectly maintain awakening throughout the whole battle and I think you need it. Your designated healer never really needs to do anything other than heal, though I would suggest a healer with high Str as they can potentially take out a lightning mage while you deal with the other two, something a Mag healer would not necessarily be able to do. Also critical focus is AMAZING. With permanent awakening comes permanent WTA and the yellow gauges break like glass when you have critical focus. All I had to do was spam Y with Tiki and she'd reveal and break the gauge before finishing the combo which ends up meaning everyone caught in the critical smash ends up dead. I told a detailed story in the DLC discussion thread, should be on the second to last page. That was my second attempt when I realized I needed a sturdy healer and should pick someone effective against everything.

Your weapon attributes could probably be switched around. Basic attacks do a fair bit less than half the total damage of a combo so rainstorm could be gotten rid of and easily replaced with Critical Focus. Critical Focus, I think, more than doubles the "damage" you do the stun gauge. This means yellow gauges break like glass and lethality can happen more frequently. If you are going for constant awakening triangle+ might be a good idea but critical+ or pair up+(for all other missions) are the best selections there. Also specifically for these missions Lone Wolf from Navvare would be better than awakening since lone wolf is a 50% increase. You also don't need armored blow since you are stagger proof in awakening and could be replaced by luck +20 which gets you better luna damage and lethality chance. I'd also pick Armorslayer for Lyn as with awakening granted WTA pegasi shouldn't be an issue, only those with high Def. I also would have mountslayer instead of dracoslayer on Sakura since she hits with Mag against Res she should fear no dragon types.

Seems you already beat it but I suppose others might glean some value from this hopefully. Really wish I had a capture card so I could show how I do things to help others out, but alas I lack such a thing.

Sakura's Strength is pretty much abysmal to begin with and her Magic stat with the Amp Attribute at Lvl 107 comes off near 144 while her Luck is around 130+, which still punches very good holes into Tome users even without Lethality kicking in if Topsy-Turvy is attributed.  Additionally, just healing isn't enough as the Great Festival has a max of 5-7 uses and Recover has at most 10-12 uses and if you don't switch to your healer to take out the Strong enemies around them, you'll use up all the charges your Rod/Staff has leaving you in a rather unwanted condition.  I didn't unlock the Critical Focus attribute yet for some odd reason.  I also don't really rely on Tiki for rather tedious missions as her damage outside of Awakening is rather bad and even with Galeforce, there will be a few times where you'll exit out of Awakening Mode and it becomes annoying when you need to move only for the delay of Awakening ending and there's nothing you can do so cancel out the ending sequence animation (in general).

I naturally prefer Awakening as even while the damage boost isn't as much as Lone Wolf, I tend to keep it up unless I feel it just slows me down (I normally rely on Warrior Specials for most scenarios).  It does work wonders on Tiki where the two make her stronger than most other units who only rely on one of the two skills.  I had Armored Blow since the enemy Manaketes tend to have more super armor than usual and being knocked aside from a distance while closing the distance gap isn't fun and the Shadow enemies never flinch meaning that with Armored Blow, you're not going to get knocked out of a combo before you can land your Strong Attacks unless you're almost always in Awakening Mode.  The only Armored enemies are the Shadow Fredericks from Wave 2, otherwise you get a lot of Fliers and a lot of Dragons.  Sakura had Dracoslayer so I could keep the villager at the top section of the map safe (as it gets swarmed with Manaketes all the time and by Wave 2, 3-4 Shadow Tikis show up) while I used Lyn to keep the other two villagers safe.  Mountslayer on Sakura isn't really needed either for this particular mission as the only enemies that are affected are once again, the Shadow Fredericks but they all have crappy Res meaning that she punches huge holes in them from the get-go.  I normally give Lyn the Draco/Plateslayer duo attribute for any mission but this one mission had me alter her attributes slightly for a one-time use.

Well, insight on how to improve one's capabilities in any game is helpful, so I thank you for offering your time and advice.