fe8 FE8 auction #4: Seth enters the Matrix

[Sturm]

10 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

Technically speaking, staying out of combat isn't all they need to do:

10 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

trade/merch mid-chapter,

...Fuck...OK to be honest I completely forgot about that extra rule as it's not very typical, nothing to do with it being ambiguous, I'm pretty sure I said agreeing to that would come back to bite me, guess I was right about something at least. I think I need the Robe to be honest, Lute has to more or less solo the bottom area of the next map as far as I can tell and I'm pretty sure she needs both the Robe and the Shield to do it with some semblance of reliability. Oh well, fair's fair, I'll just have to go back and get the one from chapter three hopefully it wont mess up the RNG for the maps after that but I suspect it will.

 

 

[DarthR0xas]

Alright, it's a lot later than I would've liked it to be, but here we go, a few more chapters.

Oh, and I know I said I would be recording them from here on out, but the thing is some of my files got fully or partially corrupted, which is entirely on me for messing with them too much. Fortunately, I had foreseen this (as my computer is just that bad, and video files got corrupted on a previous project, long story) and made a few screenshots, although not enough to tell give the full impression of tactics. So I present to you, the chapters where I really begin to regret only having two combat units.

Spoiler

Chapter 8 11/85

I'll be perfectly honest here, I really don't know much of what I did. I only took one screenshot, since at this point I though my computer could handle it, and that it wouldn't be that important of a chapter. Now, what I do remember of my strategy was trying to keep the Christmas cavaliers from enemies was bogging down Ephraim, and I probably lost a turn due to poor Eirika management, since I always do that. Anyways, here's my screenshot, unsurprisingly of Seth murdering the boss

Now, what I do have saved are my units stats, because I have weird priorities. 

Unit     Class  Level  HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Stat Boosters
Eirika   Lord   15.78  26  11  18  20  17  9   5   Draco-Shield
Seth     Pali   9.31   38  18  15  18  14  12  10
Natasha  Cler   2.58   18  3   6   8   7   2   7   Secret-Book

Finally got Natasha a level, and later thanks to the power of the torch staff, she'll get a few more.

Chapter 9 14/99

Almost breached the triple digits, dear lord this map was bad. This is where I start hating my draft picks, since I only have two combat units right now. And I won't get another for awhile, Naga have mercy. Anyways, Seth took care of the bottom and side while Eirika took care of the pirates and top. Seth killed Jar Jar Binks (Shown below), and it was all really tedious and I'm thankful my emulator has a turbo button. 

 

I could've cleared it a turn or two faster, but Seth's Javelin broke, and I only brought one.

Chapter 10 7/106

Seth and Eirika blitz the castle, and Natasha, acts as moral support

 

I remembered to show the Status screen.

Chapter 11 (17/121)

It took me awhile to get a run that I was satisfied with. I never actually got said run, but my best was a 17 round run. I sent Seth down the left side to take out everything (Which actually got him killed a couple times as I tried to also take out the entire bottom of the map with him as well, mainly due to me running out of Javelins). Meanwhile, I sent Eirika, dancer girl, Natasha, and Colm (I brought him along for vision purposes) along the right side of the map into the building. This differs from an original plan of mine, to send Colm with Seth, which fails since I can't keep Colm out of combat, which does mean Seth gets ambushed. Torch staff spam, since I really need my healers to promote soon. I never actually recruited Axe dude, so he could help with killing and I would technically still be fine since he was a green unit. Does that kinda bend the rules, yeah, but I have two combat units give me a break. Eirika got to level 20 this map, but you'll see that with my last unit summary of the map.

Status screen

Unit      Class  Level  HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Stat Boosters
Eirika    Lord   20/--  29  13  20  20  20  10  7   Draco-Shield
Seth      Pali   13.42  42  19  17  19  16  14  11  
Natasha   Cler   5.62   20  5   6   9   8   3   9   Secret-Book
Tethys    Dncr   2.74   19  1   2   12  10  5   5 
L'Arachel Tbdr   4.38   18  7   8   11  13  5   8   Secret-Book

 

I am currently working on Chapter 12, but honestly, it's near impossible. With only Seth and Eirika as combat units, who need to protect two healers, a dancer, and ensure Saleh doesn't enter combat, it is an absolute nightmare, and I think I literally can't do it. If anyone has any advice for me in that regard, I'd be glad to give it a shot.

Edited December 13, 2018 by DarthR0xas

[Kruggov]

11 hours ago, DarthR0xas said:

I am currently working on Chapter 12, but honestly, it's near impossible. With only Seth and Eirika as combat units, who need to protect two healers, a dancer, and ensure Saleh doesn't enter combat, it is an absolute nightmare, and I think I literally can't do it. If anyone has any advice for me in that regard, I'd be glad to give it a shot.

IMO you should've went Ephraim route, cause earlier Duessel. Other suggestions - not deploy one of the non-combatants, or take Saleh penalty.

[DarthR0xas]

6 hours ago, Kruggov said:

IMO you should've went Ephraim route, cause earlier Duessel. Other suggestions - not deploy one of the non-combatants, or take Saleh penalty.

Well, in hindsight that probably is a better idea. Unfortunately, I don't have my old save-state from before the switch to do so. I'll probably just have to take the Saleh penalty, since my healers need experience.

[JudgeWargrave]

On 9/5/2018 at 7:50 PM, DarthR0xas said:

never actually recruited Axe dude, so he could help with killing and I would technically still be fine since he was a green unit. Does that kinda bend the rules

Nah, if that was bending the rules, then everyone who doesn't have Garcia/Ross would be bending the rules on chapter 2, or allowed Joshua to attack someone in chapter 5. Units that aren't player controlled don't have to follow any rules since, well, they aren't player controlled and sometimes its impossible to stop them from fighting. Having red Rennac open doors and chests is likewise fine.

For chapter 11, you could try deploying promoted Gerik, you can maybe save more than the 4-turn penalty cost, at least 12 turns should be possible.

On 9/5/2018 at 7:50 PM, DarthR0xas said:

With only Seth and Eirika as combat units, who need to protect two healers, a dancer, and ensure Saleh doesn't enter combat

For ensuring Saleh doesn't fight, you can pick him up with L'Arachel since she can do whatever you want, though you may just want to use him and take the penalty.

[DarthR0xas]

11 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

Nah, if that was bending the rules

Great, because I really abused that with Rennac.

 

11 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

you may just want to use him and take the penalty.

I ended up doing that.

Now, I ended up losing my video for Chapter 12, but 13-15 are in good condition, since I realized I could just record with the Xbox app on my computer. Chapter 12 was a 13 turn clear, with and added 4 for Saleh penalty, or at least that's what I wrote down. Saleh took care of the bottom-left, Eirika bottom-right Seth took care of the top. So chapter 12 is (13+4/138)

As for the others,

Chapter 13 was a five turn clear (5/143) Seth killed the boss, everyone else just farmed for experience.

Chapter 14 was a twenty-five turn clear since I severely messed up by going in the wrong door. However, since I got some good level-ups, I decided to stick with it. I know I am certainly not going to win this draft, but hey, if I'm going to fail at winning, I'm going to fail with decent units, and also a lot of physic staffs. (25/168)

I haven't actually ever played Eirika's route in Sacred Stones, always picked Ephraim's, but since I heard her route was faster, you know what I did. Plus Rennac is harder to recruit (at least in my experience.)

Chapter 15 Guess who got his healers to promote, this f-king guy. Mage Knight for L-Arachel, since anima magic is better than light. Bishop for Natasha since I like the sprite more, also Slayer I suppose. Druid for Knoll, because Druid is better than sorcerer, and the badass sprite. I gave the Swiftsoles to Seth because hey, 10 move Paladin, that's fun. (13/181)

Unit      Class  Level  HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Stat Boosters
Eirika    Lord   20/--  29  15  20  20  20  10  7   Draco-Shield Energy Ring
Seth      Pali   19.24  48  21  19  21  17  15  13  Swiftsoles
Natasha   Bshp   2.16   28  11  9   13  12  7   16  Secret-Book
Tethys    Dncr   8.28   21  1   3   16  14  8   9 
L'Arachel MgKn   2.17   24  16  13  13  18  8   12  Secret-Book
Rennac    Roge   3.02   28  10  17  19  5   10  12
Duessel   GrKn   11.12  44  18  13  13  8   18  9
Knoll     Drid   1.53   26  12  9   11  0   4   12
Ephraim   Lord   17.75  33  15  16  19  15  14  5

That 0 Luck, love you Knoll. Should be a decent staff bot.

Also, how does Warp work? It says that it instantaneously warps a unit anywhere, but it doesn't seem to obey that, since it's only magic halved. Don't really know how to make warp strats out of that, although I might just be thinking about it all wrong.

[Kruggov]

6 hours ago, DarthR0xas said:

Also, how does Warp work? It says that it instantaneously warps a unit anywhere, but it doesn't seem to obey that, since it's only magic halved. Don't really know how to make warp strats out of that, although I might just be thinking about it all wrong.

It warps the unit anywhere you point to within Mag/2 radius. Your guys need more magic to really make use of Warp, Knoll is unlikely to ger to A Staves within aunless you really abuse staves, and your Natasha has blegh magic.

That 0 luck though. He must be secretly a morph

Edited September 8, 2018 by Kruggov

[Sturm]

Ok, after a bit of procrastinating aka playing some Radiant Dawn, I decided to get back to redoing this. So first three maps were exactly the same seeing as Eirika is my only unit at that point, actually I found by chance that leaving Seth where he starts in Chapter 1 gives Eirika a Defence level instead of Resistance on the last turn which is better but that ended up meaning that the enemies attacked Garcia instead of her in Chapter 3 so I had to take the worse level anyway, c'est la vie.

First of Chapter 3, I realised that I might actually be able to five turn because I wasn't using Garcia's good starting position. The strategy would be Ross and Neimi break the first Wall, Eirika kills the Brigand and Garcia attacks the second Wall, Eirika then finishes the Wall and Garcia runs to the other side while Ross rescues Eirika so he can pass her to Garcia after Niemi clears his way so the can drop her 5 spaces below the boss on turn 3 for her to kill turn 4 and seize on turn 5. I tried it and it did work, however the five turn gets a lot less experience on everyone bar Eirika and also gets much worse levels in this map and the next and Ross gets like no Speed which is especially bad so I ended up choosing to stick with the original strategy after all.

Chapter 4, I tried seeing if I could make the Mogalls suicide on Niemi so she could get some extra experience but they prefer Garcia so this was the same. 

Chapter 5 and hence begins operation focus all experience into Lute, there's really nothing I could change here without sacrificing the five turn and it actually gets pretty near the maximum experience Lute can realistically get anyway so this remained the same.

Chapter 5x no change obviously.

So Chapter 6 is where we rejoin our regular programme:

Chapter 6: Victims of War.

Turns - 4/38

First of in theory this map could be three turned with my team I realised because if Ross were promoted he and Garcia could drop Artur on the Mountain on turn one and then he could be given Eirika to drop her next to the boss to kill on enemy phase three however the viability of this would be very limited because Artur would have to basically dodge everything and Eirika would need to somehow get to low HP when hardly any enemies can attack her on turn one so she could bait the Boss to attack her instead of Artur. In addition it would pretty much mandate taking at least one extra turn in previous maps to get Ross to level 10 anyway, so it's not really useful, just thought I'd point it out.

The change I made here was to have Lute go on the fort and pretty much dodge tank stuff while on low HP so she could get most of the experience, she had to use the Dragonshield to allow her to survive turn two in an ideal world I would be able to save it for Tana but she'll just have to manage Chapter 9 without it, Garcia killed the boss the same as last turn. Lute ended the map two levels higher than last time with most of her experience being taken from Garcia, everyone else is more or less the same level.

Unit    Class       Level  HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Weapon Level Stat Boosters
Eirika	Lord        11.80  22  11  14  16  11  05  04  B Swords  
Garcia  Fighter     09.84  29  13  07  10  06  07  04  B Axes
Ross    Journeyman  10.00  21  10  06  09  12  05  03  D Axes
Neimi   Archer      04.62  19  06  07  08  07  04  04  D Bows
Artur   Monk        05.55  20  09  09  11  03  02  07  D Light
Lute    Mage        06.56  19  11  09  10  11  06  07  C Anima      Dragonshield

Chapter 7: Waterside Renvall.

Turns - 5/43

I thought that I was being an idiot before and that the four turn was in fact doable by dropping Eirika to counter-kill the Soldiers on turn one enemy phase so she could be given Lute by Ross and she'd be able to drop her two spaces away to bait the boss into using the Javelin on turn three, however in order for Ross to give Lute to her he then ends up a space short of being able to get the kill with the Halberd. In theory he could drop Lute so that Eirika could pick her up but that would mean Eirika surviving two Soldiers, the Mage (twice), both Archers and the Ballista mostly while carrying Lute and I'm not about burning billions of RN's to make that happen, besides operation feed Lute all the experience is still in effect. Lute killed everything on the other side of the River with the exception of the Mage that Eirika needs to kill to clear a path, including the Boss kill which Ross managed to feed to her by hitting a 50% Hand Axe and then Steel Axe allowing her to finish off just barely, he could also have tried to hit a hatchet for a little extra damage then Eirika could trade equip him if I ended up a bit short on damage. Anyway the result of this was that Lute to my surprise managed to just barely reach level 10, I was hoping for high level 8 or level 9 so she could definitely be promoted for chapter 9 but having her be able to promote for next chapter was really nice.

Unit    Class       Level  HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Weapon Level Stat Boosters
Eirika	Lord        12.32  23  12  15  17  12  05  04  B Swords  
Garcia  Fighter     10.37  30  14  08  11  07  07  04  B Axes
Ross    Pirate      01.29  23  12  06  10  12  06  03  C Axes
Neimi   Archer      05.44  20  07  08  09  08  05  04  D Bows
Artur   Monk        06.53  20  10  09  11  03  02  08  D Light
Lute    Mage        10.09  21  13  12  12  12  07  10  B Anima      Dragonshield

Chapter 8: It's a Trap!

Tuns - 7/50

Mage Knight!Lute the true carry of the team, Lute > Artur confirmed? I'm not sure I'd necessarily go that far but I do think that if you don't have Franz or Vanessa she could actually be preferable for her Horse and generally better combat capabilities in the mid game section, she saved two turns straight away here, I'm pretty certain a promoted Artur couldn't make any difference here. It also seems not too hard to get her to promote seeing as I have a bunch of early units so it's not like It's Eirika and Lute solo or something.

Onto the map this one was a bit tricky needing a few tight rescue drops to pull off. Eirika full moved up the first two turns and then got rescued by Garcia so Ross could take her while opening the door the Lute moved above him to protect him from the Knights, Artur countered the Mercenary and Archer for Neimi to finish over turn two and three, and he also killed the Shaman with a crit, I didn't think about it at the time but the crit might have been important to clear the way but it occurred naturally so we take those, probably could have found a way around it if it came to it. Onto turn three Ross dropped Eirika to a space exactly three full moves away from Tirado and he then got rescued by Garcia so Lute could take him while using a Vulnererary and Canto down, Artur killed the two remaining Knights. Turn four Lute dropped Ross so they could both attack the wall on the next turn and Garcia rescued Artur so he could boost him forward two spaces so Artur could finish the Wall because Lute and Ross both need to advance for the chest. Rest of the map was Eirika owning Tirado and getting a perfect level of the thief I'm glad she got defence for once, I mean she probably does press ups with Garcia on her back at this point but she isn't exactly taking hits like a champ. Lute got three mends in here raising her and Artur up to A Staves will be a challenge, I think I'll go with Sage Artur my reasoning being that in order to one turn chapter 16 I need both of them with A Staves which would obviously be easier with Bishop!Artur however that means the one turn of chapter 20 is impossible because neither can reach 26 magic so the way I see it is Sage Artur either draws even or saves a turn. inb4 I fail at getting either of them to A Staves by Chapter 16, now that would be pretty funny.

Now as for the Chest Key debacle, Ephraim fought his way through towards the right this time. Giving both Chest Keys to Kyle and Kyle then got rescue chained up, Neimi took one of the keys for the Angelic Robe and Kyle eventually ended up riding Lute's horse so that Ross was able to take the other Chest Key after she opened the door for the Elysian Whip, thereby meaning that only drafted units (free in the case of Ephraim) actually did any trading unlike last time. I suppose this is kind of a loop hole and maybe something you didn't consider but if I'm going to be honest I think it's unnecessarily restrictive to make it so it's not possible to get items to where they're needed. I can definitely understand making it so you cannot trade equip drafted units using undrafted units or similar things though it doesn't bother me too much personally. I think say allowing an undrafted unit to give items once on the map that they join (the main party) and then disallowing them to trade thereafter would be more fair, I just don't think you should be penalised turns potentially for something you don't really have much control over, especially if it's something important like a stat booster or promotion item. In side news left some Lances with Ephraim in case he needs them in the desert. 

At this point Eirika is one level higher, Garcia two levels lower, Ross one level lower, Niemi one and a half levels lower, Artur one level higher and Lute two levels and a promotion higher. It's a shame about Neimi losing so much experience as the less time she spends as an Archer the better but sacrifices had to be made, she should be able to promote by chapter 11 for sure, having a third mount for next map would surely help but that's wishful thinking.

Unit    Class       Level     HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Weapon Level      Stat Boosters
Eirika	Lord        14.42     25  14  17  18  13  06  06  B Swords  
Garcia  Fighter     11.07     31  15  08  11  07  07  05  B Axes
Ross    Pirate      04.36     24  13  09  11  13  07  03  C Axes
Neimi   Archer      07.01     22  08  09  10  10  05  05  C Bows
Artur   Monk        08.86     22  11  09  12  04  04  09  D Light
Lute    Mage Knight 10/01.83  24  15  13  12  12  09  12  A Anima, D Staves Dragonshield

 

[JudgeWargrave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWi5xLIWJMk&index=13&list=PLtOZhNAJqDYkb0XV5Wsc2t9xxOMFsEu5k&t=0s

Ch 9: Fort Rigwald 10/54
Ch 10: Turning Traitor 4/58
Ch 11: Phantom Ship 6/64
Ch 12: Landing at Taizel 4/68

 

 

On 9/7/2018 at 8:26 PM, DarthR0xas said:

Druid for Knoll, because Druid is better than sorcerer

For LTC Summoner is better for killing eggs, D Anima and small stat differences aren't going to save a turn anywhere but a Summon might on chapter 18.

 

2 hours ago, Sturm said:

it's unnecessarily restrictive to make it so it's not possible to get items to where they're needed

It's still possible to get those item where you want, you just can't always do it as quickly with a limited team. Only using a limited list of units is a self imposed challenge, so its unnecessary and restrictive, but that's kind of the core concept we're working with.

2 hours ago, Sturm said:

I just don't think you should be penalised turns potentially for something you don't really have much control over, especially if it's something important like a stat booster or promotion item.

Being able to Warp or fly is more important than a stat booster, but people are penalized turns for teams that can't Warp or fly. Why should teams not be penalized for not being able to reach stat boosters as quickly, a far less critical function? Why should they get them for free? I don't get the logic.

Can't Warp? Too bad, take more turns, or take a penalty to use a Warper that isn't on your team.

Can't fly over terrain? Too bad, take more turns, or take a penalty to use a flying unit that isn't on your team.

Can't reach an Angelic Robe without losing turns? Too bad, take more turns, or take a penalty to use a unit that isn't on your team, or just don't get it. I don't see why "use as many units that aren't on your team as needed to get that robe at no penalty" really should be an exception. There are exceptions that need to be made for recruiting and promoting units, but moving around chest keys more quickly imo is not even close to that category of "required for basic gameplay so an exception should be made." I realize that in other races players typically had this luxury but in my opinion it's making an exception to the challenge of limited team size for no apparent reason.

[Sturm]

The Angelic Robe isn't the issue though, it's the Elysian Whip. I don't really see having the ability to bypass a bunch of terrain with warp or flight and killing enemies, etc. is the same as simply giving away your items, maybe that's just familiarity and it just feels odd to me. You say that exceptions have to be made for recruiting and promoting units, which I will agree with after all if you say to me that I can't promote Tana before Chapter 15 then obviously her value would decrease and maybe that is something to consider when bidding, I for one certainly didn't consider that sort of thing, though I suppose you could argue it's implicitly implied by units not being able to trade.

To me the challenge has always been 'get to the seize point or 'kill all the enemies as fast as possible' not 'spend extra turns because you can't reach a chest', I suppose it just seems like a rather petty thing to me, again maybe that's just familiarity speaking. If anything I think that having to spend extra turns simply to trade an item takes away from the challenge of actually coming up with a strategy to clear a map as fast as possible with what you're given, that's where I stand on the issue though of course it's your draft so your rules.

Anyway what I did was technically allowed under the rules as stated but if you really take exception to it I'll redo it, I don't want to create unnecessary friction.

In regards to your clear of chapter 10 could you not have dropped Franz in the Forest below Beran on turn two for a turn three clear, or would he get blocked?

[DarthR0xas]

Barring chapter 16, I'm to some easy chapters, thank god.

1 hour ago, JudgeWargrave said:

For LTC Summoner is better for killing eggs, D Anima and small stat differences aren't going to save a turn anywhere but a Summon might on chapter 18.

Summoner's the name, whoops. I doubt a summon would've helped much in my case, but who knows, maybe it could've. Not going back to see now though.

Chapter 16 (14/195)

Turn one, I warped Rennac up to take care of the berserkers. Also, I wanted the loot up there, and he needed a good position to get there. It took a bit luck (and slight RNG manipulation) so he doesn't get hit by the mage twice, but otherwise an easy strategy. You'll notice I try to use exclusively axes on Dussel, because I want his Axe rank to get to S, he is my only Axe unit and I want to use Garm. Anyways, Seth and Eirika take care of the top left area, meanwhile the magic squad with some help from Dussy take care of the mid-bottom, where Dussy then loops back around since I realized that Ephraim couldn't solo that entire cav/great knight squad. After a bit of baiting the siege tomes, I stroll in and casually murder everything. Kill Orson, witness necrophilia, remember how f-ed up Sacred Stones can get, and move on.

Chapter 17 (2/197)

Since this is just a defeat boss map, I just do some warp shenanigans, and kill Lyon on turn 2 of the enemy phase. I couldn't have possibly done a 1 turn clear with my current team, so I'm proud of this.

Chapter 18 (13/210)

Feed the egg kills to any unit who needs them, use Seth and Dussell to take care of the actually threatening enemies. Knoll got luck, so that's neat.

Chapter 19 (2/212)

Apparently giving the Swiftsoles to Seth was a brilliant idea. It took me ten attempts before I realized that "Hey, I could just blitz Riez". So that's what I did, and two attempts later, I got it. I sent Rennac right to distract the foes there, and Syrene went northward to distract some of the knights if they move first on turn 2. I dance for Ephraim so he and Seth can block off the bottom entrance in order to better control the torrent of enemies. Break through with my other units, damage Riez with Seth, who the suicides on him in the enemy phase. 

Video here

 

[DarthR0xas]

Forgot to put my unit stats in, and I can't edit my original post, so I'll throw'em here

Unit      Class  Level     HP  Atk Skl Spd Lck Def Res Stat Boosters
Eirika    GLrd   20/4.23   33  18  25  23  22  14  13   Draco-Shield Energy Ring
Seth      Pali   --/20.00  49  22  20  22  18  15  13  Swiftsoles
Natasha   Bshp   10/5.88   31  12  9   13  14  7   18  Secret-Book
Tethys    Dncr   10.69     26  1   3   17  15  8   11 
L'Arachel MgKn   10/7.58   27  19  16  15  21  9   17  Secret-Book, Talisman
Rennac    Roge   --/6.53   31  11  19  22  5   11  12
Duessel   GrKn   --/14.47  47  21  15  14  8   19  10
Knoll     Drid   10/2.38   27  12  10  12  1   5   13
Ephraim   GLrd   20/6.75   43  21  24  23  19  18  12
Syrene    FcKn   --/2.93   28  13  13  16  13  11  13

 

[JudgeWargrave]

23 hours ago, Sturm said:

if you really take exception to it I'll redo it

I don't really take exception to it and even if I did you shouldn't redo it for that reason, only if personally you are unsatisfied with it. I hope I never cause someone to play in a less fun way, and if I do it's a mistake on my part. I wouldn't tell you to redo what you did the first time, I only wanted to point out the wording of the rule for your consideration, which to be fair can definitely read as "taking exception" so the fault is on me. And I wouldn't tell you to redo what you did the second time (early promoting Lute is wonderful, mount>all holds true I guess), I only wanted to discuss what the rules should permit, and why I think they would be inconsistent if they made an exception for this kind of use of non-team members.

For example, what about the chapter 5 Guiding Ring? If a team without Vanessa can complete the chapter in 5 turns without the Guiding Ring, and 6 turns with the Guiding Ring, but can finish AND collect the Ring in 5 turns if Vanessa is used, then should the rules allow Vanessa to visit houses? I would say no, there's no reason to grant an exception to the general rule of "not using units not on your team" in this case. I don't see it "as simply giving away your items." I don't see it as only the main objectives are the challenge, and other resources are things the player is simply entitled to at the earliest opportunity regardless of how fast the team can achieve them on their own.

On 9/9/2018 at 6:37 PM, Sturm said:

I don't really see having the ability to bypass a bunch of terrain with warp or flight and killing enemies, etc. is the same as simply giving away your items

Neither do I, they aren't the same, the former is more important, and you said

On 9/9/2018 at 12:59 PM, Sturm said:

I just don't think you should be penalised turns potentially for something you don't really have much control over, especially if it's something important like a stat booster or promotion item.

It's not inconsistent because two equal things are being treated differently, it's inconsistent because the exception for "something important" is being made for the less important thing and not the more important. I think we would agree that Warp saves more turns than ferrying a chest key, correct? Players simply deal with the fact that their team must transport themselves. Teams dealing with transporting their own items isn't a more unreasonable rule, it's actually far less costly, it's simply one that hasn't been asked of them traditionally.

On 9/9/2018 at 6:37 PM, Sturm said:

if you say to me that I can't promote Tana before Chapter 15

Well I would never say that and can't imagine a sensible ruleset that would cause promoting Tana before chapter 15 to be impossible. Tana would be promotable before chapter 15 on either route even if non team members were totally undeployable on chapter 8. The player could just, you know, use their actual team to move that key.

 

On 9/9/2018 at 6:37 PM, Sturm said:

could you not have dropped Franz in the Forest below Beran on turn two for a turn three clear, or would he get blocked?

A good suggestion, I should have mentioned it in the video. It depends on how you move Vanessa, but generally it requires A. Vanessa to not die during her journey, B. Tana can recruit Cormag without entering combat, and C. Franz actually kills the boss in one round. If you move Vanessa into Cormag's range T1, B is much easier but A is much less likely given that Vanessa faces more combat, while her speed and skill are halved as well. If you don't move Vanessa into Cormag's range until turn 2 after she drops Franz, then she is more likely to survive, but Cormag tends to attack her from below, where Tana cannot reach on turn 3 without entering enemy range at some point. I didn't find way to achieve A, B, and C without burning RNs, though the option space is huge considering how the combats of the straggling units affect things so there's probably a way. I found it easier to just pursue a slower strategy where A and B were no issue. The fact that so many tiles around the boss are not only unwalkable but also impassible to fliers means that putting Franz in the west and taking an extra turn to reach the boss is really the only alternative.

[Sturm]

15 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

I don't really take exception to it and even if I did you shouldn't redo it for that reason, only if personally you are unsatisfied with it.

Quite the opposite, I'm very satisfied with getting Lute promoted and saving the two turns .

15 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

For example, what about the chapter 5 Guiding Ring? If a team without Vanessa can complete the chapter in 5 turns without the Guiding Ring, and 6 turns with the Guiding Ring, but can finish AND collect the Ring in 5 turns if Vanessa is used, then should the rules allow Vanessa to visit houses?

That's actually a very valid argument and more or less proves that my feeling on the subject is largely psychological considering that argument is applicable to my team. The difference between the two, as I see it, is that five turns is probably what I could expect from my team for chapter five, so visiting the houses didn't really cost me anything. Secondly visiting houses, at least those that give items, has never been allowed for undrafted units, at least not in any draft I've ever seen, whereas trading is usually an allowed action. For chapter eight on the other hand I've shown that my team can complete it in seven turns with both items under 'standard' draft rules so having to take lets say two extra turns to complete it without using undrafted units to move the Chest Key feels like I'm being 'cheated' out of the clear, so to speak. If I play through Ephraim's route I will probably do what you are suggesting, even though what I did the second time was 'technically' allowed, to see if my opinion on the matter changes. At the moment I view things like, to take an example from your clear of Living Legend of using NPC!Hawkeye to help rout the map as just being an additional tactic (indeed in this case there is a cost in the loss of experience though this is negligible in most cases especially in an experience rich game like FE7 so it's not absolutely free, though something like trade equipping a unit to a javelin, let's say, is completely free assuming you have an undrafted unit that is strong enough to not be prioritised by the AI) that one can utilise and similar such things, though as you say this is somewhat counter intuitive to the fundamental idea of using a predefined team, it's just standard fare.

15 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

It's not inconsistent because two equal things are being treated differently, it's inconsistent because the exception for "something important" is being made for the less important thing and not the more important.

I think we are seeing it from a different perspective, things like ability to fly/have high movement, use of Warp/Rescue Staves, killing enemies and the like are integral parts of the challenge of a draft, after all if these sort of things were all allowed it would just be standard LTC for all intents and purposes. On the other hand something like trading or shopping is more of a 'quality of life' feature and that would be my guess as to why these sort of things are the standard, though if you boil it down these are all fundamentally turn saving features at the end of the day. For example FE7 standard rules allows undrafted thieves to acquire 'necessary' promotion items, of course this is not something that needs to be there (indeed promoting is not 'necessary'), unless there's literally no way to get Chest Keys before a certain point or something similar but I don't think that's the case, it's there just as an enabler for players to promote their units in a timely manner. I wouldn't say either is intrinsically correct though, again, I would concede that what you're suggesting is more 'true' to the core concept of a draft.

15 hours ago, JudgeWargrave said:

Well I would never say that and can't imagine a sensible ruleset that would cause promoting Tana before chapter 15 to be impossible. Tana would be promotable before chapter 15 on either route even if non team members were totally undeployable on chapter 8. The player could just, you know, use their actual team to move that key

Sorry, I have a habit of speaking figuratively and not considering the fact other people can't read my mind, I wasn't trying to say that you could forbid me to promote a unit on my team, though that is literally what I said. What I was getting at here is that the rules (you) could make it very costly for (prevent) me (a participant) to promote a unit, especially so in the case of undrafted units being unable to trade. Let's say that there is an intrinsic cost of one turn to acquire the Elysian Whip, I'm fairly confident that that's correct and that you can't get the Elysian Whip in the minimum amount of turns it takes to complete the map (maybe in a full team run it is possible? I'm not 100% sure but for a draft almost certainly it's not) therefore Tana (and also Vanessa) cost a turn though they obviously pay that back and more, this sort of opportunity cost obvious to those familiar with drafts or LTC in general.

However, in this style of draft where you don't know what unit's you're getting, this changes. Let's take the extreme example that you only have Eirika and using Ephraim is banned by the rules. In this case the cost associated with promoting Tana goes up to let's say eight turns for Eirika to get to the chest by herself and then backtrack to seize. So what I was saying here is that Tana's , and other units that are in a similar position's, 'value' is less by a certain amount than what they might be considered to be at 'face value' because you cannot know the additional cost of promoting them, which is something you would have to evaluate when bidding, but not something that occurred to me at the time.

On a somewhat related note I realised something about my team, I was estimating how many turns I should realistically expect to be able to save and I'm 95% certain it's impossible for me to close the gap, though it's obvious it will shrink because I have access to Warp. It occurred to me though that actually I should expect to lose, at least I think this is logical. The reason being that if I go Eirika's route (maybe this just implies I should go Ephraim's though there are cons to that as well, harder to acquire Ocean Seal/Hero Crest/Guiding Ring and more difficult time raising Staff rank being the obvious ones) I won't recruit Cormag because it's fairly obvious, I would say, that he can't save the turns he takes to recruit and indeed would most likely be a net loss, however I'm still paying the price for him, so I'm just burning money so to speak. Now whether that means that I just overbid for him, or that some adjustment could/should be made to the rule set to cater for the route split, we touched on this before the draft though I don't think you took any measure to adjust for this, correct me if I'm wrong.

I imagine that the truth is that it's a bit of both. I'm not sure what should be done here, the easiest though in my opinion least desirable, would be to simply fix the route in the rules therefore completely removing the need for any sort of adjustment but I think we would agree that is not a desirable solution, food for thought. Essentially certain teams, mine being a pretty good example i think, are at an intrinsic disadvantage under the current rules by being torn between which route preferable, the most extreme cases as I said before the draft being something like having Saleh and Cormag.

Also:

Spoiler

Fuck Eirika route Chapter 9, that map is a bitch!  It's way harder than it looks at first, I'm beginning to think people are bullshiting and Eirika's route is in fact harder!  noKappa

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

So I've been workshopping my Chapter 5 strategy, and I've come to a bit of a dilemna- how many turns is that dracoshield worth?

Currently I let the bandits have it- going for it costs a couple of turns and invokes an undrafted unit penalty, which would double my turn count from 7 to 14 or so. I'm assuming I won't miss that dracoshield that much, right?

[DarthR0xas]

17 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm assuming I won't miss that dracoshield that much, right?

Probably not, you do have a pretty defensively balanced team. If it saves 7 turns, then I'm sure you'll be fine without it.

[DarthR0xas]

I feel I should mention I've finished my run, 222.3 turns if I did my math right. I've just been too busy to edit the final chapters into a video with decent commentary on my strategy, along with a unit review. I hope that I'll have the time to do that stuff soon.

[JudgeWargrave]

Congrats on coming in first in real time R0xas, probably will be a few more weeks before I reach the end.

Next four chapters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw-SFCxhTd0&t=0s&index=17&list=PLtOZhNAJqDYkb0XV5Wsc2t9xxOMFsEu5k

Ch 13: Fluorspar’s Oath 5/73
Ch 14: Father and Son 5/78
Ch 15: Scorched Sand 5/83
Ch 16: Ruled by Madness 6/89 No Warp :(

Quite concerned about how many turns I'll lose to Sturm on the six Warp chapters. If I average 2 turns lost per chapter Sturm will surpass the gap that exists as of chapter 8, hopefully my buffer grows in the route split.

[JudgeWargrave]

Finished.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Jehawar44&t=0s&index=21&list=PLtOZhNAJqDYkb0XV5Wsc2t9xxOMFsEu5k

Ch 17: River of Regrets 2/91
Ch 18: Two Faces of Evil 6/97
Ch 19: Last Hope 2/99
Ch 20: Darkling Woods 3/102
Ch 21: Sacred Stone 3/105

I think I only lost 8 - 10 turns due to not having Warp. Given Sturm's handicap, he will have to finish in fewer than 50 turns starting from chapter 9.

I'll make another post later reviewing my team etc.