Imma get that S rank! I hope...

[ping]

€²: This run is dead, Jim. Check out this one instead.

€dit: Here's a chapter list:
 

Spoiler

Lyn Mode and ch.11-15 in this very post
Chapter 16 - including character stats
chapters 17-19 (and another stat update)
chapter 19x
chapters 20 & 21, plus unit stats
chapter 22
chapter 23 &23x
chapter 24 (Lloyd), plus stat update, plus the first Funds calculation

I recently had to mention for the umpteenth time in another thread that I never tried my hand at S-ranking any mode in Blazing Sword outside of LHM and ENM a few aeons ago. So I will try to rectify that and fill that gaping hole in my FE CV.

And in case anyone is interested in my progress, I'll try and keep my status updated. And to be completely honest, I did not plan ahead as much as I probably should, so I'd also appreciate a warning if someone notices me running headfirst into an unwinnable scenario. I'm using @Florete's ancient report of her first ranked HHM run  as a guideline for which turncounts I should aim for and I'm aware that I will have to be careful to always stay on top of the XP requirements, but I'm less sure about how tight-fisted I exactly have to be with stuff like stat boosters and promotional items (well, at least I know that I won't promote Dart).

I did play LHM (unranked) beforehand to get those units a kickstart, so here's the results of that:

Spoiler

	Lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res	WRank		B/W
Lyn	9.55	21  8   10  17  8   2   2	A		46/27
Sain    7.36	25  11  5   10  7   7   3	S:D+.5 L:D+.5	36/21
Kent	7.19	25  8   9   9   3   7   1	S:C L:D		39/23
Florina 9.24	31  12  12  11  14  5   7	C+.8		42/28	Ring+Robe

Erk	8.97	22  8   8   8   7   4   6	C+.6		45/21
Serra	3.54    19  3   5   9   6   2   5	C		1/0
Rath	8.44	26  9   10  10  5   8   3	B+.2		17/11
Nils	3.71    16  0   0   13  12  7   6	-		1/0

Lucius	3.69	18  7   6   10  2   1   6	D+.2		3/3
Matthew 5.68	20  4   7   13  5   4   0	D+.8		16/7
Wil	3.23	21  6   6   5   6   6   1	D+.3		11/1
Dorcas	3.09	30  7   7   6   3   3   0	C		1/0

Wallace base

I hope those weapon ranks are clear - "D+.2" means that the character is about 20% on their way to C rank.

Most notably, Sain beats Kent in both Str and Spd. :D I actually stopped feeding him (in particular boss-)kills so that he can gain more unpromoted XP in HHM because he shouldn't have too much trouble finding kills with 11 Str / 10 Spd. Instead, I did silly things like this:

Certainly no S rank'ed Lyn mode.
Oh, and Lyn procced Spd in all of her 8 level-ups. And I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that the Short Bow gives double WExp - I completely forgot about that. Brave Bow in the desert shall be a thing

Anyway - I'm currently at the start of chapter 16 and probably about where one would expect in terms of turncounts and total XP: 15 turns behind and almost 23 levels above the XP requirement. I'm not sure how good or bad the latter is at this point, but the turncount is actually the same as Florete had in her run - I spent one more turn in chapter 12, but cleared ch.13 one turn faster than her. I do keep track of my XP/turncount status with excel, so here's an overview of what I've done so far:

Yellow just means "fielded in this chapter", because I'm curious to see how much I will be rotating.

You might also notice that I just now thought about how I would probably prefer to go to Kenneth's PFoD. And since I've been actively using all three Hero Crest users so far, I should probably keep an eye on those XP gains. Shout-out to @Interdimensional Observer who reminded me of those requirements in a mostly unrelated discussion. :)

A few notes to the chapters I've played so far:

• Chapter 11: How fast can you do this chapter while getting the gem without rigging? 9 seems like the "natural" turncount to me - any faster and you'd have to rely on some dodges because Hector needs to be at full health to survive two hits from the boss; any slower and you'll get overwhelmed by the enemies' numbers.
• Chapter 12: Lost a turn because I'm stupid and sent Marcus the wrong way so that Lowen, Eliwood, and Dorcas had to gang up on the boss. The bosskill was fairly safe though - Lowen had to dodge one out of two attacks but he stood on a forest tile, and of course Dorcas had to hit at a not-so-great hitrate. I didn't reset for the turn because this chapter get a lot harder if you're trying to keep Marcus' kill count low.
• Chapter 13: Pretty tricky, as well. I got the mine (although I don't think I'll use the glitch), but I'm pretty sure I had some enemy phases that weren't all that reliable. I sent Oswin and Hector to get the village (plus Bartre to pull a few peg knights so that they would preserve their HP) and the rest took the scenic route. (although half of them didn't even come close to the boss). Bosskill was Marcus@Silverlance with Hector taking the kill.
• Chapter 13x: Guy was the MVP here, killing the boss with a KE crit (on his 2nd try) and surviving the rest of the enemy phase with exactly one HP remaining. Technically still a reliable EP since iirc he didn't dodge a single hit. ;)
• Chapter 14, aka The One Chapter In Which Rebecca Was Good. To be fair, I sent her to get the Secret Book in 11 and she picked up more XP in the subsequent chapters, but this chapter's soldiers are honestly the only time where her chip damage was all that meaningful outside of the XP rank. Avoiding counters from the soldiers really helps the HP management. To absolutely noones surprise, the Bosskill went to Hector (without anyone else chipping in, too) during the rain - which was actually helping me not to get swarmed by all the horsies. All in all, I had less problems with this one than I anticipated.
• Chapter 15: Conversely, I had more trouble here - less with beating the chapter and more with getting ALL the treasure (which includes the thief's lockpick). ;) Erk and Dorcas were pulling their weight here by blocking the left (Erk) and right (Dorcas) breach, although Dorcas had to bank on a hit against the mercenary after Matthew weakened him (and then had to go off stealing). But 6 Spd is barely enough to avoid getting doubled by the nomads, so Dorcas was doing fairly well here. Meanwhile, Bartre is still sitting at 3 Spd at level 5. ;) Maybe I'll find an opportunity to dump some XP on him, but I sure as hell won't get Karla in this playthrough.

Speaking of not getting Karla - pretty sure I'll favour the 2-turn clear over Wallace's recruitment. I know that there's an arena on that map that could make it worthwhile to spend a few more turns on the map, but there are honestly other maps where arena abuse is less stressful. ;) I'll probably take my time in 17x and 21.

I'm still on the fence wrt Karel/Harken and Farina. I lean towards "no" for the former, but I wouldn't mind recruiting Farina just because I like her. ;) But maybe I should wait until I'm certain who I want to promote before making that decision.

Well, let's see what I can do. =)

Edited January 26, 2019 by ping

[Balcerzak]

If I recall correctly, her run was pretty excellent. If you need more points of reference, though, I also have an ancient ass logged run that might serve as another point of reference, since I know we focused on different things and have different styles. I'll look forward to watching this play out. Ranks were probably my favorite part of Fire Emblem, and I have struggled to have the same passion and drive for newer titles after their elimination. I'm actually kind of tickled to see I'm not the only one who enjoys tracking things with spreadsheet wizardry too.

[ping]

Oh wow, looks like I have a bunch of required reading to do ;) Thanks a bunch, I'm sure that'll be helpful (although I'll try not to copy strategies). In particular, it's good to have a reference for my XP count since the 5 stars in that category are completely meaningless at this point. Seems like I'm doing fine thus far. :)

I'm afraid I don't quite have your level of dedication when it comes to number management. ;) I don't think I'll keep track of every unit's stats, although I might give an overview from time to time. But having a spreadsheet of the run's goals ought to be helpful, especially if I fail and have to see where there's room for improvements. I'm still not quite certain how to account for mid-chapter promotions, though - guess I'll have to do some additional micromanagement if/when that happens.

[Just call me AL]

I wish you luck in this endeavor. I would contribute to S-Rank run references, myself. But I didn't really log mine too much. And I was also A Supporting Eliwood/Ninian and Hector/Lyn in the process. So...

[Florete]

2 hours ago, ping said:

 I'm using @Florete's ancient report of her first ranked HHM run  as a guideline for which turncounts I should aim fo

 

Ancient indeed. Well, if you beat those turn counts, you will certainly S rank.

2 hours ago, ping said:

  Reveal hidden contents

	Lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res	WRank		B/W
Lyn	9.55	21  8   10  17  8   2   2	A		46/27
Sain    7.36	25  11  5   10  7   7   3	S:D+.5 L:D+.5	36/21
Kent	7.19	25  8   9   9   3   7   1	S:C L:D		39/23
Florina 9.24	31  12  12  11  14  5   7	C+.8		42/28	Ring+Robe

Erk	8.97	22  8   8   8   7   4   6	C+.6		45/21
Serra	3.54    19  3   5   9   6   2   5	C		1/0
Rath	8.44	26  9   10  10  5   8   3	B+.2		17/11
Nils	3.71    16  0   0   13  12  7   6	-		1/0

Lucius	3.69	18  7   6   10  2   1   6	D+.2		3/3
Matthew 5.68	20  4   7   13  5   4   0	D+.8		16/7
Wil	3.23	21  6   6   5   6   6   1	D+.3		11/1
Dorcas	3.09	30  7   7   6   3   3   0	C		1/0

Wallace base

I hope those weapon ranks are clear - "D+.2" means that the character is about 20% on their way to C rank.

 

Going to use this as a reference in the future whenever people try to bs Lyn's post-LM level.

Good luck on the run!

[ping]

On 12.7.2018 at 7:17 PM, Just call me AL said:

And I was also A Supporting Eliwood/Ninian and Hector/Lyn in the process. So...

Oh, wow :D I might do the former (it's pretty fast after all and the boosts wouldn't hurt Eliwood's midgame, either), but Hector will probably live the bachelor life. Right now, I only got the Hector/Eliwood bromance at a C rank.

On 12.7.2018 at 7:29 PM, Florete said:

Going to use this as a reference in the future whenever people try to bs Lyn's post-LM level.

Haha, go ahead
For added reference, I don't think Lyn received an unduly amount of favouritism. Sure, it didn't hurt her XP gain when I stopped focussing on the cavs, but at the same time, I managed to get Erk to almost level 9, Florina to actual level 9, and Rath to B bows.

• Chapter 16 - 8/7 turns - 874/1100 XP

Spoiler

 

And while I'm at it - I just finished Chapter 16 in 8 turns (7 required), earning 874 XP (1100 required o.O ). I admittedly used Marcus more than in the previous chapters (15 B, 10 W in this chapter alone, mostly killing cavs and weakening swordfighters), but that XP requirement still doesn't seem reasonable. In total, I'm 16 turns behind and 2057 XP ahead right now.

Still I'm fairly satisfied with the outcome. Matthew stole the Lockpicks for a bit of additional funds and I managed to field Rebecca and Bartre and funnel 81 (R.) and 43 (B.) more XP into them. Not a huge amount, but still. ;)

First turn was fairly standard - Bartre and Wil each pulled and damaged two peg knights, Hector pulled and killed the remaining one. Unfortunately, I only got a red gem out of Lyn Mode, but I don't think that won't be too big a problem. I think I can get away with not using the dracoshield (but we'll see), so that would be 8000 gold extra. The gem got immediately transformed into a bunch of javelins and hand axes (and a steel sword - hindsight says that a steel axe for Marcus might have been a better choice)

Anyway, I had a few crucial 60-70% hitrates on the 2nd and 3rd turn which forced me to reset twice: First time, Lowen missed a Cav who then killed Bartre; second time Sain got whittled down by the two mercs, the myrm, and the other cav starting in the SW corner because he didn't finish off one of the mercs during PP.

After that, things went pretty smooth - Marcus killing all the cavaliers certainly helped a lot with that. =) Rebecca even managed to snatch a cavalier kill (literally dealing one point of damage to him), although she almost got one-rounded by a reinforcement merc directly afterwards because apparently I can't check movements ranges. The bosskill went to Marcus, unfortunately - crit on the EP, but he would have had to take the kill anyway because only Florina (and Hector) were in range and she would have had the choice between missing the 2HKO with the slim lance or not doubling with iron. ;)

 

--

And to give a little stat overview - I'll try to do this from time to time, but definitely not after every chapter:

Spoiler

 

		lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Hector		10.41	28  12  9   8   8   12  1
Marcus  	2.76	32  15  16  11  9   10  8	(no Str/Spd proc, unfortunately)
Lowen		8.68	27  8   6   11  8   10  3
Priscilla	4.49	16  6   7   8   8   3   6

Erk		11.08   25  9   9   11  7   4   6
Rebecca		4.32	20  4   7   7   5   3   2
Bartre		5.96	32  10  5   3   4   4   1	(dat Spd)
Matthew		12.32	26  5   9   19  9   5   2

Guy		6.87    27  8   15  14  6   6   1
Eliwood		8.14	24  9   9   10  9   7   4
Serra		6.99	22  4   6   10  8   3   7
Dorcas		6.90	31  8   8   6   3   4   0

Oswin		11.47   30  13  10  6   3   13  4
Lyn		10.04   21  8   11  17  9   2   2
Sain		8.45	26  12  6   10  7   7   3
Kent		7.47	25  8   9   9   3   7   1

Florina		10.12   31  12  13  11  15  5   8	(robe+ring)
Wil		4.45    21  6   7   5   6   6   2

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[ping]

I've been busy!

• Chapter 17 - 11/18 turns (71/62 in total) - 1062/1100 XP (7069/5050 in total)
  fielded units: Hector, Matthew, Marcus, Lowen, Oswin, Serra, Priscilla, Sain, Kent, Florina

Spoiler

 

Bring ALL THE HORSES!
Well, it saved me a turn by rescue-chaining Matthew from the western to the northern treasure room. :D It wasn't perfect (I think it took two turns? Maybe three, but I don't think so) and unfortunately, it spread myself too thin to deal with the archer reinforcements - Sain missed a 70-75%, which cost me the red gem from saving all the greenies. Well, since they killed two of them, I got another mine, so I'll be able to Mine Glitch even more! (I won't, though)

I didn't want to restart for that because I already had to reset 5 times - twice because I kinda relied on javelin hits to get through the the enemies in the central corridor fast enough, once because I mispositioned Marcus (I wanted to heal him with Serra but I still can't count tiles and he couldn't melee the thief in time because of it and the javelin isn't strong enough...), and TWICE (ARGH!) because Marcus crit Raven with the hand axe.

Oh well, I'm still satisfied with 11 turns and all the treasure (well, I completely forgot about the door keys on the archers, but eh), even though the XP count probably isn't that great. It would have been even worse if Oswin didn't farm the cav/nomad reinforcements - he gained 149 XP this chapter, almost exclusively through the reinforcements.

Oh, and the bosskill went to Hector - Wolfbeil crit on EP, which saved a use (which is good because I have been using it rather liberally). He would have missed the 2HKO otherwise and Sain would have been able to take the kill instead for a little bit of extra experience (he would've dealt 5 damage, which would've been enough, and double for reliability).

 

• Chapter 17x - 9/10 turns (80/72 in total) - 1082/700 XP (8151/5750 in total)
  fielded units: Hector, Lowen, Guy, Priscilla, Florina, Lucius, Canas (duh)

Spoiler

 

Guy was pretty much there to collect the XP from the northern pirates, although he helped clearing out the remains of the big crowd towards the end of the chapter, too. Raven would have been the better pick, obviously, but I want to get some XP into Guy while it's still relatively easy to do so. Lucius made life more difficult by being one-shot by everything physical on this map, but at least he went out of it with almost two full levels. The other picks shouldn't be too weird - Lowen is the tankiest non-Marcus swordie on the team, Florina flies, Priscilla heals.

Bosskill went to Hector again - Damien switched to the Steel Lance to attack Lowen, which I believe was necessary for Hector to double and therefore one-round him. The turncount isn't that impressive (i could have finished one turn earlier - I used Lowen to kill some remaining enemy when someone else could have done so, which made me choose between the Lancereaver or a turn) XP gain is quite nice, though, even without arena use. ;)

 

• Chapter 18 - 11/11 turns (91/83 in total) - 1287/1450 XP (9438/7200 in total)
  fielded units: Hector, Matthew, Lowen, Priscilla, Sain, Florina, Lucius, Canas

Spoiler

 

Oh boy. This was the third completed attempt - first time was total arse and I didn't get the bosskill to prevent the extra turn (also just 1225 XP gained), second time I got the bosskill, but gained even less XP in total, and now the XP gain is still not where I want it to be (I didn't manage to kill most of the reinforcements from the 2nd ship) and I just noticed that I forgot to stock up on Javelins this time. I still have sufficient numbers on the other basic weapons (and on hand axes), but my javelin count at the start of 19x really isn't where I like it to be. I really don't want to replay this map, but I guess I'll have to keep the save slot in case ch.20 doesn't work out this way.

Anyway, some of the extra XP in the third run might have come from using Lowen 1(10.91 at chapter start) instead of Oswin (12.96). Lowen himself didn't even gain as much as Oswin because he couldn't just tank the eastern frontline as easily as Oswin, but I suppose it still meant that more chipping and killing was done by lower-leveled characters. The first three turns were always really intense and reliant on RNG and the enemy not ganging up during EP, especially on Florina - she was always in range of one archer in EP1, but she actually never caused a reset.

What did cause a reset, nay, TWO resets, was Matthew double-critting the peg knight with the Elysian Whip. And no, he didn't have the Killing edge equipped, I just found the associated RNG string a second time. -.- And of course, I also lost one run that might have been decent otherwise because of fucking Luna.

Weak spots on the team were Canas and even moreso Lucius. Canas was still kinda good because he can deal big chip damage to mercenaries, but I had to be very careful with both of them - Lucius obviously because he's frail a wet paper, while Canas gets doubled by Mercs - so both of them would have to skip multiple turns because I couldn't make a safe spot for them to attack from. If I do have to replay this, I'll probably replace them with Erk and Raven (I really should have fielded Raven anyway, but I was greedy for XP on unpromoted units and he's going to be promoted at level 20, anyway).

 

• Chapter 19 - 9/10 turns (100/93 in total) - 1571/1100 XP (11009/8300 in total)
  fielded units: Hector, Matthew, Rebecca ( ), Lowen, Serra, Guy, Erk, Priscilla, Sain, Florina, Raven, Lucius, Fiora, Dart

Spoiler

 

Much less sodium in this one, even though Uhai did get a KE crit on Florina the first time. But that was actually the only reset - I didn't even lose any of those first-turn gambles. Specifically, I sent Florina to kill the thief with the torch staff on turn one with the silver lance and then prayed to RNGesus during the EP and she survived both times. :)

The rest of the map went better than expected, honestly. Dart and Erk mostly handled the eastern bridge, only assisted by Lowen and Guy at the very start. Lowen would then run towards the main group to the south, while Guy fed the pirate reinforcements to Rebecca No, really, she earned 151 XP this chapter. The new recruits both got some nice XP as well (Dart: 116 XP, Fiora 144 XP), Fiora had been very considerate and went south so that I could immediately recruit her, Matthew did a bit of dodgetanking (I got swarmed a bit because I didn't tackle the central island right away - not sure how dangerous the EP was exactly, though, because I play without animations - Matthew was standing in a forest, though)...

I already used half of the torch staff - I won't be going to 19xx and I would be surprised if New Resolve fails because I don't have a 6th charge (and I really hope I don't forget the secret shop in 22 :D ), so I saw no reason to be conservative with it and even warped it to Merlinus so that Prissy and Serra could use it turn one. Most of the time, they had someone to heal, though (and iirc, Serra missed one staff use because she couldn't reach either Priscilla to get the torch staff or someone wounded).

So yeah, I'm really happy with both the turn count and the XP gain this time. :) In total, I'm somewhere between Balcerzak and Florete in terms of turncounts and slightly ahead of Balcerzak in terms of XP (by ~500 points). I'm planning to have Lloyd!FFO as an opportunity to either gain XP in the arena or gain a bunch of turns by killing Lloyd early, letting Wallace wander around on his own (and skipping the Silence staff, unfortunately). The secret shop doesn't seem to be worth my time turns, either.

 

• And since these are quite a few chapters, I might as well give another stat overview of the units that have been used since ch.16:

Spoiler

	(used)
		lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res
Hector		15.82	32  15  11  11  10  14  2
Matthew		14.90	27  6   9   20  9   5   2
Marcus		 3.60   33  15  16  11  9   10  8	(maybe benched?)
Rebecca		 5.83   21  5   7   8   5   3   2	(pretty sure she's benched now)

Lowen		13.37   32  8   9   12  9   12  4	(1337 Spd, as well - Str sucks though)
Oswin		12.96   31  14  10  7   4   14  4	(not sure if benched)
Serra		8.57	23  6   6   11  9   3   7
Guy		9.68	30  9   15  17  8   7   1	(probably won't be fielded very often, either)

Erk		12.14	25  10  9   11  7   4   7
Priscilla	8.48	18  8   8   9   9   3   7
Sain		12.56   30  13  7   13  9   7   3
Kent		8.90    26  8   9   9   3   7   1	(the meh cav of this run)

Florina		16.05	35  14  15  15  19  5   11	(w/ LHM boosters. A bit Spd screwed, which sucks)
Raven		6.79    29  11  14  15  2   6   2
Lucius		8.55	20  10  8   15  2   2   8	(stop the presses, he procced Def!)
Canas		11.24	23  12  10  8   7   7   9

Fiora		8.44	22  9   11  14  6   6   8
Dart		9.16	35  13  8   9   3   6   1


	(not used, but will return)
Eliwood
Lyn

	(permabenched)
Bartre, Dorcas, Wil

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[Balcerzak]

An impressive number of additional chapters under your belt! Looking good.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Sounds like a lot of frustration. And I blame it all on the EXP rank. Without it, a handful of units with everything dedicated to them can get through HHM without too much difficulty. Having to care for the weak is the wrench in it all. On the one hand, it is a counter to lowmanning, on the other, why'd they have to also slash the unit slots? I don't think any other FE, other than maybe FE6, does this.

 

52 minutes ago, ping said:

Bring ALL THE HORSES!

Exactly what I do every time, Raven and the Caeloldiers force this on you. And it feels a bit strange when you consider this is an indoor map for the most part. Dismounting here would be very much a hinderance, and this isn't the first nor the last indoor map that oddly favors Cavs, Chapter 16 PoR comes to mind.

 

On 7/12/2018 at 10:58 AM, ping said:

Lost a turn because I'm stupid and sent Marcus the wrong way

I'm just curious, so can I ask what you meant by this? When I think of Marcus on Birds of a Feather, it's blitzing him to the one mountain choke tile so he can keep the baddies off it before Eliwood gets there, once Eli gets to it, I just plop him on it with an Iron Sword and he can safely get the boss for himself.

[ping]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Sounds like a lot of frustration. And I blame it all on the EXP rank. Without it, a handful of units with everything dedicated to them can get through HHM without too much difficulty. Having to care for the weak is the wrench in it all. On the one hand, it is a counter to lowmanning, on the other, why'd they have to also slash the unit slots? I don't think any other FE, other than maybe FE6, does this.

Yeah, I never liked the low unit counts throughout HHM, especially now during the ranked run because I would always love to put some scrub unit on the team to get some XP before they get permanently benched, but it's usually hard to justify taking an actually useful unit off the roster. You can imagine that i was very happy that Rebecca found a spot and even a couple easy kills in ch.19 :D

Binding Blade is honestly really generous with its deployment slots in comparison. iirc, there are hardly any chapters (if any at all after the first chapter) where you have less then 10 deployment slots.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm just curious, so can I ask what you meant by this? When I think of Marcus on Birds of a Feather, it's blitzing him to the one mountain choke tile so he can keep the baddies off it before Eliwood gets there, once Eli gets to it, I just plop him on it with an Iron Sword and he can safely get the boss for himself.

I don't remember every detail, but I think the problem was this:

Marcus should have been standing on Red Circle Mountain to counter the boss on EP 5, which would leave him at 9 HP (20+1 Atk vs. 37 HP/7 Def), which should be enough for someone else to get the kill on turn 6 (Rebecca + Dorcas should deal 3+8 damage in total).

But for whatever reason I was convinced that Zagan always moves west, so Marcus started turn 5 somewhere on the Black Circle Plains. I can't remember if anyone would have been able to get on the mountain on turn 5, but even if there was someone, there's no way I could have killed Zagan in one EP+PP through that chokepoint. Instead, I had Lowen get an EP hit in on turn 6 while standing in Yellow Forest (6 damage), another one on PP, have Dorcas attack (8 damage) and apparently I already misremembered things becaue Eliwood only deals 6 damage as well, (i.e. 26 in total). Good thing you asked :D

I suspect that Marcus was close enough to at least rescue someone out of the way so that Bartre (hand axe = 9 damage) and Matthew (2x3) could chip in, as well. That would make the whole thing a lot more dogpile-y and a lot less reliable than I remembered.
But unfortunately, I already played the first two or three chapters on monday and didn't think about making this thread at that time, so I didn't take any meaningful notes, either. I only hope that I didn't get completely confused and took 10 turns - wouldn't be a huge hindrance for reaching that S rank, but it would be a bit embarrassing

Now that I'm checking the stats - is it possible for Zagan to roll 6 Def? The numbers on the main site, the thread in this subforum, and fireemblemWOD are slightly different - one less HP on the SF main page, one less Res on FEWOD... He does have 6 Def in the other modes, but I have no idea how HHM bonuses work exactly and if they allow for him to get no bonuses in that particular stat. It seems to be possible for Res, but fighters presumably have a higher class growth in Def than in Res.

6 Def would mean that Bartre's contribution wouldn't have been necessary: 14 (Lowen) + 9 (Dorcas) + 8 (Matthew) + 7 (Eliwood) = 38 damage in total. And I do recall that my internal comment for that bosskill was "eh, still halfway reliable", and while Dorcas' 74 displayed hit still fits that judgement, Bartre's almost-coinflip (55 hit) certainly wouldn't.

Edited July 13, 2018 by ping

[ping]

• Chapter 19x - 12/10 turns (113/103 in total) - 1579/1000 XP (12588/9300 XP in total)
  fielded: Hector, Matthew, Dorcas, Guy, Priscilla, Kent, Raven, Fiora

Spoiler

 

Not exactly my A team that I've been fielding, but I remembered this chapter as one of the easier ones (excluding Kishuna, who I didn't have to bother with), so I wanted to see what I could get away with. That's three characters that I will bench before long (heck, yesterday I was convinced that Dorcas wouldn't see any action anymore) and that were able to gain a bunch of XP: Kent (186 XP), Guy (168 XP) and Dorcas (325 XP). Heck, Dorcas even procced Spd twice, so he's suddenly a pretty valid midgame pick. Guy murdered the pegasus squad and four reinforcement mages (Steel Sword 2HKO'ed all of them at decent hitrates despite their fort bonus) while blocking the second fort; Dorcas hammered a couple knights including the two from Kishuna's entourage (and occasionally baited a mage or two); Kent just went along with the main group and snatched a few kills.

Maybe I would have been able to finish in 11 or even 10 turns with a stronger team or even if I just had played a bit more goal-oriented, but the XP gain is well worth it. At this point, I'm pretty sure that the XP rank will be the bottleneck for this run, especially since I won't be going to 19xx and (more importantly) the XP goldmine that is 32x.

With that in mind, I made sure to kill all four of Kishuna's dudes, even though I had to bank on a Devil Axe attack by Dorcas and Fiora not missing a sniper with a javelin (@65-70%, i think). Bosskill was basically throwing coins unless I got enough heads - in the end, Raven got the kill. Otherwise, pretty straightforward map. Move forward, try not to give Hector too many kills (semi-successful - he still gained 95 XP)

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[Interdimensional Observer]

16 minutes ago, ping said:

Maybe I would have been able to finish in 11 or even 10 turns with a stronger team or even if I just had played a bit more goal-oriented, but the XP gain is well worth it. At this point, I'm pretty sure that the XP rank will be the bottleneck for this run, especially since I won't be going to 19xx and (more importantly) the XP goldmine that is 32x.

I can totally understand skipping A Glimpse in Time, but why call The Value of Life an "XP goldmine" like it's easy? Isn't that map, should my memory from my one HHM run not fail me, "Berserkers Berserkers Berserkers"? Even if they are promoted and a high level, I distinctly remember them being quite durable, with the frequent enough Swordslayers mixed in to stop someone from just plopping Raven or Lyn in there and dodgetanking the sun, the fight certainly wasn't a joke. Although to be fair, you probably mean it like Genesis- that fight is not a cakewalk either, but if someone is strong enough to fight there, the EXP reward is sweet.

 

24 minutes ago, ping said:

That's three characters that I will bench before long (heck, yesterday I was convinced that Dorcas wouldn't see any action anymore) and that were able to gain a bunch of XP: Kent (186 XP), Guy (168 XP) and Dorcas (325 XP). Heck, Dorcas even procced Spd twice, so he's suddenly a pretty valid midgame pick.

Gosh you're lucky. Dorcas, nice guy and all, is glacially slow. Only Wallace loses to him. And that amount of EXP for Dorcas plus Guy suggests to me that you are certainly moving towards Jerme if your healers don't put in, which I guess part of that Torch spam was intended to counterbalance. How much worse is Jerme's Pale Flower of Darkness for Ranked?

[MacLovin]

but dude, Rebecca is totally>Marcus for this run.

[ping]

No chapter 20 yet - I beat it, but lost more turns than I want. Not because of a lack of javelins, although it's still annoying because Fiora and Sain have to share the last remaining one, but because of lack of healing, which I did not expect to happen at all. Basically, I had to pull back from the starting area reinforcements when Serra broke her healing staff, so Merlinus got murdered and it took an extra 2 or 3 turns to get 1) a second unit to the secret shop and 2) empty their inventories so that I could at least buy at least 5 Killer weapons in addition to one chest key.

On the plus side, this gave me the time to rout the map, leaving me at 1978 XP in 17 turns. Which isn't completely terrible, but I'll still see if I can do better tomorrow. There's probably room for improvement for cutting through the chokepoint, or rather chokecorridor, too, although "faster" might also translate to "more Marcus kills", ergo "less XP". We'll see. :D

On 14.7.2018 at 7:04 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

I can totally understand skipping A Glimpse in Time, but why call The Value of Life an "XP goldmine" like it's easy? Isn't that map, should my memory from my one HHM run not fail me, "Berserkers Berserkers Berserkers"? Even if they are promoted and a high level, I distinctly remember them being quite durable, with the frequent enough Swordslayers mixed in to stop someone from just plopping Raven or Lyn in there and dodgetanking the sun, the fight certainly wasn't a joke. Although to be fair, you probably mean it like Genesis- that fight is not a cakewalk either, but if someone is strong enough to fight there, the EXP reward is sweet.

You answered it yourself ;) This might be Hybris speaking, but I assume that I can beat every chapter in a somewhat timely manner, even if it will take a bunch of resets.
Also, I'm not sure why I was convinced that I wouldn't go to Value of Life. Maybe I was blinded by that XP gain in 19x? In reality, I see similar to FFO - if the XP rank is hurting, I'll visit it, but if tactics is looking more grim, I'll two-turn ch.24 and/or skip 32x.

And it is an XP goldmine. Balcerzak scored more than 2000 XP in it, and since it's a zero-requirement chapter, all the XP are a net gain and all the turns are a net loss. The only problem would be if I'm slightly behind in both categories since it'll help in one and hinder the other objective.

On 14.7.2018 at 7:04 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Gosh you're lucky. Dorcas, nice guy and all, is glacially slow. Only Wallace loses to him. And that amount of EXP for Dorcas plus Guy suggests to me that you are certainly moving towards Jerme if your healers don't put in, which I guess part of that Torch spam was intended to counterbalance. How much worse is Jerme's Pale Flower of Darkness for Ranked?

To be fair, he's level 10 now and he was at base speed before. 8 Speed at this point is still above-average, but it's not out of this world. If my binomial coefficients aren't failing me, the chance of at least two Spd procs in seven levels is 42%.

Still, I didn't expect it to happen and Dorcas has been quite helpful in chapter 20. There are actually a couple of enemies that he can double. :D I'm also thinking about fielding him in Crazed Beast - those Steel Lance cavaliers should be quite palatable for him.

On 14.7.2018 at 7:07 PM, Mister Rogers said:

but dude, Rebecca is totally>Marcus for this run.

In total, she gained 200 XP more than Marcus until chapter 19x, so you might be on to something

This playthrough honestly feels a bit like a throwback in my "JAIGANS STEAL XP" mindset from way back when.

[ping]

• Use the 17 turns / 1978 XP clear from yesterday with both secret shops visited
• Seize on turn 11 with only 1552 XP without any killer weapons and only a stolen one-use chest key, but with the physics and the unlock bought (my current suspended savegame)
• Get Marcus to the second secret shop on turn 14, getting at most 69 healing XP in, as well as whatever XP four knights, one pegasus, four archers, and one fighter are worth (I'm also not completely sure if I can kill the archers safely)

Decisions, decisions. :/ I really need to be more efficient with my XP/turn.

[ping]

• Chapter 20 - 11/16 turns (124/119 in total) - 1552/2100 XP (14140/11400 XP in total)
  fielded: Hector, Matthew, Eliwood, Marcus, Serra, Dorcas, Priscilla, Lyn, Sain, Raven, Lucius, Fiora, Legault.

Spoiler

 

Good turncount with shitty XP and without Killer weapons it is! For now, anyway - I'll keep the save file in case the lack of offensive (on my peg knights in particular) will bite me in the ass at a later point.

I've been experimenting with this quite a bit - trying to get a Marcus-less setup to work (it didn't), or sending Dorcas (to Hand Axe into the chokepoint) and Raven (to kill the reinforcements) into that in the center of the map, but in the end, the standard approach of smashing through with effective weapons is the only thing that really worked.

As my opening, Fiora went her full movement ahead to counter an enemy cav with a horseslayer while getting attacked by the mage and the longbow (which put her at 4 HP without dodging any of those) - javelin+horseslayer didn't kill the cav and I found that 2HKO more valuable than the chip damage on archer and mage, who I could one-round with HA Hector and Devil Axe Dorcas (it's turn two, so I'm ready to bank on that succeeding ;) ) anyway.

Dorcas actually kept the Devil Axe - he was only in range of Cameron who doubled him, anyway, so I gambled on a 30 hit (and no recoil) and actually got lucky in the final run. If I remember correctly, that was enough for Raven to 2HKO him with the Killing Edge, although he missed the first and crit the second attack, anyway. 3rd and 4th round were when I pretty much broke through the chokepoint, as well. Marcus with a Pure Water boost eliminated the Shaman throne guards. I had kinda hoped that Lucius would be able to gain some XP here, but he was kinda busy helping with the reinforcements.

Speaking of - I opened the door to the central room just so that the merc would move off of the chairs to make room for more reinforcements. I managed to kill the shaman reinforcements throught the wall pretty easily and one merc every two turns was manageable, as well. The Tiny Room Mages broke down the wall because I needed my units elsewhere, but Fiora blocked their movement before  they could spill out of the room. The archers from the southern treasure room were a bit more awkward because of overlapping enemy ranges, so Sain had to help out with them even though I would have liked to have him at the front lines.

Legault got recruited on turn 7, which put him in an ideal position to steal the member card from a position that allowed him to visit the secret shop on turn 8. The timing didn't work out that well, otherwise, though - Matthew was only able to safely open the two northern chests on turns 10 and 11, and iirc, Raven only killed Darin with the Lancereaver on turn 11, as well. At the very least, Legault was able to steal a one-use chest key to make up for missing the other secret shop? :D

TL;DR: Not the most Pro of Strats, but I always struggled with this chapter, so I'm not all that keen to try for a better outcome.

 

• Chapter 21 - 14/9 turns (138/128 in total) - 2290/1200 XP (16430/12600 in total)
  fielded: Hector, Eliwood, Serra, Priscilla, Lucius, Fiora, Dart, Legault, Ninian.

Spoiler

 

The other way around this chapter: Horrible turncount, but that XP though. Even considering that 540 XP went to Priscilla and Serra, I'm very happy with that XP/turn quota. Still, the Physics staves from last chapter helped quite a bit - I used 11 charges in total, so I think I was still halfway reasonable. After all, the wyverns make it kinda hard to keep your healers too close to the action.

MVP for this chapter has to be Lucius, though. He started (and, unfortunately, finished) the map with 15 speed, which is 2.6 above average at level 9, so he doubled all the wyverns, leaving them with low enough HP for even Eliwood to pick up the kill. The result are 279 XP for Lucius and 297 for Eliwood, not to mention that Lucius was by far the best non-Hector unit to deal with them, even though he's obviously still super frail. The most XP, however, went to Dart, who iirc was able to two-round every wyvern with a Steel Axe, so it's not like he was just there for the XP rank. He's actually doing pretty good in general (16 Str/13 Spd at level 13), so it shouldn't be too hard to get him to level 20 over the course of the game. Obviously still not worth the Ocean Seal, of course. ;)

Otherwise, there's not that much to say about this map. I skipped the Light Rune village because all my units were pretty busy all chapter and it's just a couple hundred gold anyway, but of course I got the other three villages and Oleg's Hero Crest. And I'm finally stocked up on javelins and heal/mend staves again, so that's nice, too. ;)

Combat-wise, I started with Fiora (who got the Restore on the way) and Dart killing the monks to the north and south on enemy phase, with the rest generally moving towards the east, trying to maximise PP damage on the flyers and - most of the time - keeping Ninan and the healers safe. Fiora had to go back to visit the shops towards the end of the chapter because I needed every bit of damage earlier - I would have loved to take Erk or Canas as a second magic user to help against the wyverns, but there's just no room. Eliwood's forced, two staffers are kinda mandatory, so is a flyer for the extra mobility, Dart was very useful as a frontline axe wielder (in fact, I would also have loved to bring Dorcas to double up on that role), and one thief was mandatory for the Hero Crest.

I also notice that my lords have a combined level of 42 now (19+12+11), which puts me closer to Linus' FFO than I anticipated. It probably would be the smarter choice, too, since Linus gives 11 additional turns in exchange for only 250 XP, but I still wanna go to Lloyd because Florete and Balcerzac didn't. I just bring this up because I recall Mekkah saying on Mangs' LP that he considers Lloyd's FFO to be the better choice for Ranked because leveling the lords too high hurts the XP rank because of HHM's steep XP curve, but at this point, I'm pretty certain that Linus' much nicer 5-star requirements easily make up for that.
Also, both FFO versions have the same turn requirement on the other modes, with Lloyd's demanding more XP and funds. Seems weird.

 

• And, finally, have some stats:

Spoiler

(used since ch.19)
		lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res	B/W	WRank
Hector		19.20	34  18  13  12  11  16  2	131/56	(A)
Eliwood		12.45	28  12  11  11  11  8   7	65/38	(A)
Lyn		11.35   22  8   12  17  10  2   3	14/8	(A)
Dart		13.82	38  16  9   13  3   7   1	34/20	(A)

Legault		14.83	29  9   15  19  11  9   4	17/5	(C+.5)
Priscilla	13.14	20  12  11  9   12  4   9	6/0	(A)
Serra		12.80	24  8   6   13  13  4   8	4/0	(A)
Lucius		12.04	23  13  11  15  3   3   11	46/23	(B)

Fiora		15.09	28  10  17  16  8   8   11	45/26	(B+.5)
Dorcas		11.54	36  12  8   8   4   6   0	55/22	(A)
Raven		12.55	35  15  16  20  4   6   3	31/18	(B+.5)
Matthew		16.30	28  6   10  20  11  5   2	77/23	(A)

Sain		13.83	31  13  8   13  9   7   3	60/33	(S: D+.7 | L: B+.5)
Marcus		4.27	34  15  17  11  9   10  8	76/47	(A A A) | L: +.8)
Guy		11.36	32  11  16  19  9   7   2	56/29	(B+.9)
Kent		10.76	27  9   10  11  4   7   1	26/9	(S: C+.5 | L: D+.5)

Ninian		5.22	(who cares?)			1/0	-



(not used after ch.19)
		B/W	WRank
Florina (huh)	50/30	(A)	
Wil		7/2	(D+.5)
Lowen		85/36	(S: C+.2 | L: C+.9)
Rebecca		25/11	(D+.9)
Erk		31/22	(B+.8)
Canas		20/11	(B+.6)
Oswin		51/19	(A)
Bartre		25/8	(D+.8)

 

Florina didn't get fielded mostly because she gained too much XP early on (she's level 16 now) and I never really needed two flyers. She'll probably see more use now that the rest of the team is approaching that level, as well.

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[ping]

• Chapter 22 - 11/11 turns (149/139 in total) - 1960/1700 XP (18390/14300 in total)
  fielded: Hector, Eliwood, Lowen, Guy, Priscilla, Lyn, Sain, Kent, Canas, Legault, Ninian + Isadora, Heath, Rath

Spoiler

 

That went well :) Good XP count, dead boss, a healthy stock of Physic and Barrier staves, and all the treasure (plus a 14-use lockpick, but no stolen door keys). I'm not sure yet whether I should be annoyed by the green units for hindering my movement, or thankful because they  were very good at dying so that my units wouldn't have to. There were an EP or two that could have ended badly if the AI had prioritized my own units. Still, I don't feel particularly bad for relying on an enemy mage to go for a green knight instead of Ninian (who still got attacked twice :/ ).

I don't plan to make this into a screenshot LP, but I think it's easier to explain the initial positioning that way.
First turn, Sain rescues Eliwood, gets danced and drops him in range to recruit Heath on the next turn. Sain's the only cav who has the Str to one-round the two fighters with an iron lance, which is why he is going this way. In addition, he also 3HKO's the wyverns, which also helps quite a bit.
Kent rescues Legault, Isadora drops him, takes an Iron Sword from Ninian and equips it, then gets into range of that armor knight.
Lowen rescues Lyn and moves to that specific tile so that Hector can drop her to his right.

Second turn, I try to clear out the western room as well as possible (results are shown ;) ), dancing for Canas so that he can get a shot against a wyvern that blocks Eliwood's path to Heath. Eliwood then talks to Heath (the hit from the boxed-in nomad is unfortunate and would've been avoidable in hindsight, but he survives that plus the mage's attack).

One of the wyvern has been dealt with by Sain alone, but Isadora has to come in and weaken the other one so that Canas can take the kill. I was a bit worried that the general commitment to the western front would get me overwhelmed in the center and T3 and 4 were indeed a bit dicey, but it all worked out fine in the end. ;)

Third turn, Legault steals the lockpick instead of killing the thief right away. Canas gets barriered up and blocks the western stairway - there will be a long string of enemies waiting, but Canas, Heath and Sain (taking turns frontlining) are able to block them and kill most of them before turn 11. Nosferatu was actually helpful here - once for the little bit of extra damage and once to save a healer action (which were precious because I didn't bring Serra). Some enemies, in particulare some Swordreaver fighters also hugged the wall so that Sain and Heath could throw javelins at them.

Also third turn, Lyn gets a lucky crit-kill against a wyvern, gets danced for and recruits Rath. It's so nice to have a dancer She and Guy are both doing quite well on this map, since the Axereaver guys have very low hitrates on them and the Swordreaver fighters can usually be avoided or blocked fairly well. Eliwood suffered a bit from my indecisiveness where to move him and didn't get as much combat as Lyn and Guy.

Rath was doing work, as well - 9 fights, 8 kills in the end - and I would definitely recommend grinding his bow rank to B if you're doing Lyn Mode. It doesn't take too long since Short Bows give 2 WExp and in this particular run, it allowed him to one-round two wyverns with the Brave Bow. Heath wasn't quite as deadly (10 fights, but only 4 kills), but his HHM bonuses seem to have rolled relatively high, so that's nice. Isadora, to mention all three new units in one go, channeled Jagen and had 21 fights with only 6 kills.

Turn 6 is when things were mostly under control. The point below the two ballistae was choked and I was able to move a little squad east to kill Eubans. I was a bit slow to do so - it wouldn't have worked if Eubans didn't move and I wasn't certain if he would - but Isadora (2x Silver Sword), Lowen (Horseslayer), Rath (to rescue Lowen out of the way), and Lyn (taking the kill) managed to do the job. It was somewhat risky because Lyn only had about 70% hit on him and obviously would have gotten one-shot in return, but it worked fine on the first try. :)

So those were 5 turns in one short paragraph, but they really weren't all that exciting. ;)

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[Balcerzak]

I seem to remember that map gave me a headache. Maybe I just had a shit RNG string or I don't know. At any rate, good job clearing it.

[ping]

Wouldn't surprise me (the part with the bad RNG string, that is). Things seemed to go my way in the first three turns - in particular the Lyn crit on T3, I don't think I would have been able to kill the same number of enemies without it, and the two following enemy phases were kinda reliant on the enemy killing the green units first as is. FE maps tend to be rather "front heavy" and small early advantages can really make a run so much easier. It's why I like to use a Killing Edge or the Devil Axe early in a chapter - just to fish, or even reset, for a lucky outcome.

Also, I do remember having trouble saving the 10000 gold on my previous, non-ranked playthrough without getting swarmed in the center. ;)

[ping]

Aww yeah

• Chapter 23 - 9/9 turns (158/148 in total) - 1113/1200 XP (19503/15500 in total)
  fielded: Hector, Priscilla, Florina, Fiora, Legault, Ninian, Heath, Rath + Hawkeye.

Spoiler

 

I honestly didn't expect the first complete run to be a keeper, but those are good numbers. And because I didn't expect it, my notes on this chapter are a bit scarce, too. :/

The most important part, though: The reset trick works, although apparently you mustn't rearrange your inventory after the reset. Thanks to that, Florina and Fiora were able to do all the digging-up, while Legault stole the Ring and the Gem and got a little combat XP in, as well.

Also fairly important: Hector capped. :( He was at 19.81 at the start of the chapter already, so it couldn't really be avoided.

Of course, "First complete run" means that I still had a fair number of resets - because I moved Fiora into the range of a Wyvern that I should have left for Pent, or because she and her sister really should have taken vulneraries with them when collecting the Light Brand and Hero Crest, stuff like that. And honestly, I'm glad that the turn and XP counts are good, because I really, really don't like this chapter, even though I don't hate FE6's FoW Desert map nearly as much as other people do, weirdly enough.

Both bosskills went to Axereavin' Heath after applying generous amounts of chip damage. As a result, he's the one who contributed the most for the XP rank with 376 points, despite not fighting all that much otherwise (iirc). On the other side, Rath only gained 110 XP and if I would have had to redo the chapter, he probably would have been switched out for a melee unit or a mage.

 

• Chapter 23x - 13/25 turns (171/173 in total) - 1841/650 XP (21344/16150 in total)
  fielded: Hector, Serra, Hawkeye, Legault (right) + Priscilla, Fiora, Ninian, Rath (left)

Spoiler

 

*insert (W)Rath joke here*, because holy shit, Rath is my highest-leveled combat unit now! :o Well, except for the prepromotes, of course, and Legault is closer to level 19 than Rath, but still. :o And all it took were 19 uses of the Brave Bow.

So yeah, Rath literally earned the XP requirements for this chapter by himself (he actually hit it precisely), putting him at Level 18.18. I think that's worth the Brave Bow uses? Really, if there's one archer-friendly map in the entire game, it's this one. Relatively low enemy density, walls galore and all enemies have 1-2 range, making 2-range EP actually worthwhile, and since the enemies hit like a truck, the uncountered Longbow chip is occasionally valuable despite its low power and AS.

This time, I do have rather detailed notes about each turn (or at least the first half or so) since I didn't want to forget a detail about a good opening after a Luna crit on turn 10. ;) And although Luna crits did not happen (I'm as surprised as anyone else about this!), I still had to restart because I gave the Restore to the wrong staffer, or because Hawkeye missed a crucial 80 hit with the Brave Axe, or simply because I mispositioned a unit so that the enemy could gang up for a kill. Still, I want to try and keep the recap short-ish:

Priscilla, not Serra, going left was actually an important decision because her higher movement allowed her to Physic Rath (who broke through the wall and got danced to Brave Bow-chip the Luna Druid) on turn 1 and still unlock the door to the south on T2, so that Rath and Fiora could kill the Bolting Sage before he could move out of Kishuna's zone.

Generally speaking, I used Brave weapons to one-turn most walls, and sometimes to avoid a counter if the respective healer was busy with someone else (and, of course, if it was needed for the kill). In total, I spent 15 BB and 7 BA uses this chapter - hopefully, this won't bite me in the ass come CoD. But here, it really helped keeping the long-range tomes under control and even so, Serra still had to dodge one out of two Purge strikes on turns 10 and 11.

I did not attack Kishuna - I could have with Hector or Hawkeye on turn 3 and 4, but I was not in a safe position to do so.

Since Hector was already capped, Hawkeye did most of the heavy lifting on their part, although Legault also managed to collect two full levels. However, I didn't really see an alternative to Hector dealing with the Shaman reinforcements, who took a hilariously long time before they finally killed Merlinus on turn 11 Too bad about the XP, but Hawkeye and Legault really didn't have the time to backtrack.

Speaking of capped: Priscilla reached level 20 on turn 11 without a Guiding Ring in her inventory, so I lost a little bit of staff XP. Oh well ;)

The Mage reinforcements were mostly dealt with by Fiora, all of them through the southern wall of that room. Rath only killed the very first one, after that, he positioned himself to successively pull and kill the hero, the swordmaster, and the sniper (in that order). None of them were able to 2HKO him, so there wasn't much risk here. And since the left group was considerably faster than the right one, he even found the time to get the chest in the SW corner. ;) The remaining Kishuna bodyguard (the General) went to Hawkeye, who 4HKO's and doubles with a hand axe, so there was no need to even open the door.

Like Balcerzak, I also lost a turn because the Berserk staff and the Secret Book are two tiles too far apart. :D

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by ping

[ping]

Aw maaan...

• Chapter 24 - 3/11 turns (174/184 in total) - 586/1650 XP (21930/17800 in total) - funds: 324355 in items + 27945 cash (352300/370400 in total)
  fielded: Hector, Serra, Priscilla, Sain, Florina, Fiora, Legault, Ninian, Isadora, Heath, Rath, Hawkeye + Wallace (RIP)

Spoiler

 

Well, it's not a huge surprise to drop to four stars at this point - I promoted Priscilla and sold the Ocean Seal to get the cash to go shopping in this chapter and to recruit Farina in the next one. Not the best choice in retrospective, since the Ocean Seal is a lot of worth in only one convoy slot. I did take this as a sign that I should bite the bullet and see how bad my deficit is at this point: Well, not too bad - if I don't recruit Farina and assume that I'll spend all the money in 31x, I'd be at 380245, which about 10k above the current 5-star requirement. I still want to recruit her because I like her both as a character and a unit, but I've made a copy of the save in case those 20k (or rather 40k, thanks to the magic of the Silver Card) will be needed in the end. Anyway, back to the chapter at hand-

-which I finished in three turns, instead of the two that I had planned beforehand. Like that, it's fairly easy and reliable to get both the Red Gem and the Earth Seal, while still visiting both Armories and the staves-selling Vendor. Quick recap:

Turn 1, Sain murders a tree, Legault moves east and lights up the environment to reveal the Purge bishop. Ninis graces Isadora with a Def boost, which she uses to safely kill the bishop and draw in the hero without dying horribly. The two Wyverns close to the starting position are killed by Priscilla (who easily one-rounds - Rath still chips with the Longbow for that sweet 7 XP) and Florina+Heath. The latter attacked from the north, which would have allowed him to get the Earth Seal on T2, if I had wanted to.

Turn 2, Fiora and Sain each kill one merc that had attacked Isadora and Legault, respectively. Legault steals the Red Gem; Isadora, Florina, and Heath kill the hero afterwards. Serra physics Rath (who got attacked by a ballista despite Heath being in its range) and Isadora (who got hit by Shine once and by the Hero twice - the Def boost was most definitely necessary). Hawkeye steps on the SE fort, Swordreaver at the ready, Priscilla kills another wyvern (which puts her into the range of two more wyverns and one ballista - completely unnecessary risk, but the chapter is short anyway), Rath sits there looking pretty.

At this point, I had to reset my first attempt not because Priscilla would die, but because Hawkeye crit-killed Lloyd . And I'm not going to lose that Earth Seal. Prissy just casually dodged all four wyvern attacks during the two runs. Unfortunately, Wallace did not dodge particularly well on the second take. At least he soaked a ballistae hit, I guess? Oh well, not like I would have recruited him either way.

Turn 3, the Silver Card gets traded around a bit so that I can buy a couple Reavers, a couple javelins and hand axes, and two restore staves. Fiora gets danced to so that she can get the village, Sain, Rath, and Priscilla get some XP in. Hawkeye takes the boss kill - no other alternative, really. Rath would have been able to Brave Bow him, but he would have had to hit two 50% attacks, while Lloyd very accurately doubles and one-rounds him in retaliation if he misses one of them. Not really worth it, imo, especially since Hawkeye still gets like 80 XP for the kill.

 

And finally, some new stats. ;) I have seriously not used Raven in the past five chapters now. :o He'll probably feast on the pirates in ch.15, though - he is most definitely planned to be a major contributor in the endgame.

Spoiler

	(used after ch.21)

		lv	HP  Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res	B/W	WRank
Hector		20.00	35  18  13  12  11  17  2	152/71	(A)
Hawkeye		8.19	52  20  15  11  16  17  11	24/17	(A+.75)
Ninian		8.85	20  1   0   15  17  9   11	4/0	-
Priscilla	1.50	26  16  17  12  18  8   16	15/5	(An. E+.5 | St. A+.3)	promoted @20
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legault		19.41	32  9   17  20  14  11  4	39/12	(B+.2)
Serra		15.00	25  8   9   14  15  5   10	8/0	(A)
Florina		17.24	36  15  15  15  20  5   11	63/35	(A)			both LHM boosters
Heath		13.65	35  18  14  13  8   14  2	23/15	(B+.8)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sain		15.17	32  15  8   13  10  8   3	75/43	(Sw. D+.9 | La. B+.95)
Fiora		17.88	29  10  17  18  9   8   12	65/34	(A)
Rath		18.34	34  13  16  15  8   9   6	40/19	(A)
Isadora		2.66	29  13  12  17  10  8   7	28/7	(A | B | D)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eliwood		13.08	29  13  12  12  11  9   8	72/42	(A)
Lyn		13.59	23  9   13  18  12  2   4	25/16	(A)
Canas		13.09	24  13  12  8   8   8   10	38/18	(A)
Kent		11.62	28  9   11  11  5   7   1	31/13	(Sw. C+.5 | La. D+.7)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lowen		14.71	33  8   9   12  9   13  4	101/40  (Sw. C+.4 | La. B+.2)
Guy		13.15	33  11  16  20  9   7   3	72/37	(A)


	(not used after ch.21)
Erk		12.14	31/22
Wil		4.45	7/2
Dorcas		11.54	55/22
Dart		13.82	34/20

Lucius		12.04	46/23
Raven		12.55	31/18
Matthew		16.30	77.23
Marcus		7.27	76/47

Rebecca		5.83	25/11
Oswin		12.96	51/19
Bartre		5.96	25/8

 

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by ping

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'm simply amazed Living Legend went swimmingly for you, how does a FoW desert battle with moving bosses, hidden treasure, an NPC you have to keep alive, EXP requirements for a gaiden chapter, and a turn limit because Ranked, not become hellish?

And if you're able to eek out 5 Star Funds even with the Ocean Seal sold, well there goes the one argument against selling it (save using Dart).

I also like Farina by the way, as both a character and unit too (and appearances). She is by far my favorite of the Blazing Pegasus Knights, greedy, but with some justification revealed in her Fiora and Hector supports. Her wealth obsession doesn't completely saturate everything either.

[ping]

Well, I wouldn't say "swimmingly". ;) I'm using fireemblemWOD, so FoW isn't all that bad for me, but I still goofed up a couple times by letting an injured peg knight be attacked by two wyverns and the suchlike. I'm still really glad that the first completed try ended up with good numbers for turns and XP so that I didn't have to try and optimize them.

I will say that the desert item reset trick was incredibly helpful, though. Not having to carry around Legault in order to get all the treasure saves a lot of time. It's only one action per item instead of three (rescue - drop - Legault's action), after all.

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And if you're able to eek out 5 Star Funds even with the Ocean Seal sold, well there goes the one argument against selling it (save using Dart).

It was still dumb because it's 50000 gold in one single item slot. ;) At that moment, I just didn't want to think about who I'm going to promote, but I still should have just sold, I dunno, two Hero Crests, the Orion's Bolt and one Guiding Ring (pretty sure that Canas/Lucius/Erk will remain unpromoted). That would have put me at 22k cash before chapter 25 and I'd have more room in the convoy.

But I don't think that the 5 Star Ranking will fail because of that - if inventory space will really be an issue, I can still sell low-value items like mines, partially-used torches and iron weapons and so on just to make room for some more Elixers (those are the most expensive item in 31x, right?).

[ping]

• Chapter 25 - 12/0 turns (186/184 in total) - 2947/0 XP (24877/17800 in total) - Funds: * * * *
  fielded: Hector, Matthew, Lowen, Serra, Dorcas, Erk, Priscilla, Raven, Dart, Ninian, Heath + Farina

Spoiler

Another on of those clears where the turncount sucks, but I'm still fine with it because the XP gain seem pretty good. ;) A good chunk of the share went to the scrub squad, too (most significantly, 429 XP on Dorcas), to a degree where I should really focus on getting some dudes of my A team to level 20. There's a bunch of units that are absolutely promoteable with their current stats (Raven, obviously, Heath, Sain, Fiora, Florina), but I want to go full Pitfall and milk all the unpromoted XP that I can before doing so, as long as I can get away with it - which is probably until before BBD.

Anyway, let's get to the chapter. Not terribly exiting, I guess - this is one of the easiest HHM chapters, after all. MVP of the chapter was clearly Heath who danced a gory dance with the Monks and Pirates on the eastern side of the map: Turn 1 - he gets barriered and gets into position to kill two Monks without getting attacked by the Pirate, turn 2 - he crit-kills the Pirate reinforcement, which leaves him in range of the east-most Pirate but noone else, turn 3 - he goes back north to kill some more monks, which puts im in Purging range without triggering the reinforcements (and also into Priscilla's Physic range if the Purge had hit), turn 4 - he kills the bishop, turn 5 - he goes back south to distract the second Pirate reinforcement. And afterwards, he helps Farina dealing with the remaining physical enemies. I had stopped making notes that point, but I think it was two peg knights and one cav? Farina also killed the 2nd reinforcement Pirate with an iron lance for better accuracy, so he let her equip a javelin afterwards so that she could counter the 2000000 remaining monks.

Speaking of Farina - Hector basically just chilled on that peninsula two tiles east of that ballista, which is just in range for Farina to reach him in one turn, then traded her some more Javelins that he happened to carry with him, and Farina went HAM on the monks, going through two full javelins in the process. She didn't proc a single Spd, unfortunately, which means that there were a couple monks that she didn't double, but does it really matter?

Well, no, to give the answer myself. The limiting factor was still breaking through the Cav swarm towards the west - I had Lowen and Dorcas take the frontline most of the time, both of which are very far away from one-rounding. Dorcas did two-shot with a Steel Axe, though, so he did fairly OK, while Lowen was honestly more on tickle duty while other units, such as Dart and Erk, secured a couple kills for themselves. Dart had killed one of the initial peg knights and the two pirates in the middle of the lake at the start of the chapter; after that (and Erk's case: for the entire map) they were purely there for XP purposes.

I pulled Pascal on turn 3 with Priscilla (somewhat risky, but she stood on the forest and noone except Pascal himself hit her) and killed him on T4 with Dorcas (Silver Axe) and another two hits by Priscilla (who dodged this time). Looking at fireemblemWOD right now, that probably stopped the Peg knight reinforcements, which most likely made life a lot easier for Farina, too.

Oh, and the pirates were dealt with by Matthew and Raven. Matthew's garbage Str means that he got especially much XP out of this because iirc, he only 5HKO'ed some of the pirates with an Iron Sword He's at 19.02 now, so while I might have an opportunity to get him those final 98 XP, I wouldn't feel too bad if this is all the XP he would earn. Meanwhile, Raven is still sitting at 14.56.

So yeah, not that difficult. I did have one or two points where Lowen had to dodge one out of three attacks in order to survive, but two of those were ballista shots, so I wasn't terribly worried. Oh, and the three archers were the only enemies to survive in the end. Lowen got some chip XP in against on of them, but I don't think it would have been worth delaying the chapter for another turn. It's a bit weird that they don't stay aggressive after their ballistae break.

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by ping

[ping]

• Chapter 26 - 12/11 turns (198/195 in total) - 2274/1500 XP (27151/19300 in total) - Funds: * * * *
  fielded: Dorcas, Florina, Serra, Ninian, Heath, Wil (LHS) | Fiora, Priscilla, Lucius, Raven, Sain (RHS) | the lords + Pent, Louise

Spoiler

Dumbest defense chapter in the series Y/N? I know that there's a bunch of defense chapters out there where the real objective is "get all the treasure and all the XP before the timer runs out", but Unfulfilled Heart still kinda stands out, imho. The premise seems quite menacing - it's a swarm of wyverns, ffs, but then most of the wyverns just chill out at the northern end of the map unless you move into their range. And you get a unit that can just casually one-round almost every enemy on the map (the only exceptions are the Luna Shaman and the Sage, I think) with a simple Fire tome, able to just roast like ten wyverns on EP because, let's be real, if you put Pent on a forest and find a safe spot within three tiles for Louise, he just won't die, either.

To be fair, much like with Marcus in the earlygame, a Ranked run gives a good reason not to rely on Pent too much, and it is possible to overextend when you pull the wyvern swarm from the castle. Still, my only reset was caused by Heath, who, as it turns out, needs someone to heal him up in order to solo the SW wyvern reinforcements. Pent and Louise weren't too busy, either - Pent chipped at the Sage and killed 7 wyverns, while Louse chipped agaist 6 wyverns (with Iron or occasionally with a Longbow to avoid doubling) and killed a seventh.

I'm going to spare myself from typing up a summary more detailed than "I tried to allow as many units to chip as possible" - the only remarkable thing in the chapter was honestly Wil's contribution to the XP rank. He shot 10 ballista arrows in total, killing seven enemies with it (which always required someone else to set that up, of course), earning 371 XP in the process. Other than him, the highest XP gain was Eliwood with 250. His 9 Def meant that he was much easier to safely take kills (and even do a bit of EP action) than Lyn, who only got 104 XP.

Other than that, the non-Farina flyers are getting close to promotion (Florina's at 19.22 now), and so does Serra (18.97). I'm still contemplating who to promote - Serra's staff XP is nice even though Pent just joins, I guess, but do I really need three staff users? Between the flyers, Florina and Heath are definitely going to be promoted, but I'm not so sure about the other two peg sisters. Farina's stats are still rather middling at level 16, and while Fiora is the only really fast unit on my team (Farina and Florina are both rather RNG screwed in that regard), she struggles in the Str department (10 Str, but 19 Spd @level 18). Lowen is another uncertain prospect - faster and even more bulky than on average, but only nine speed at level 17.

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by ping