screenshot A relaxed Conquest playthrough (With Screenshots!)

DehNutCase · March 27, 2019

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

If it compares unfavorably to a healing item that eventually becomes obsolete, what does that tell you about it? Also, it's not like you'll always be able to afford to stall in hopes that Good Fortune happens to kick in......

Why in the name of Anankos would I have my Mercenary alone??? That's generally a big strategic no-no unless you outpower whatever you are going to face significantly.

You have seen how I've been using Selena, right? She's the unit I send out to take care of tasks a small amounts of units can handle, and she happens to do it cost efficiently due to her stat spread + all the resources I've pumped into her. (Mind, she's an entire Dragon Herb above even a fully tonic'd unit, but I'm not going to pretend I don't have a hilariously over-invested unit---being good at mowing down mooks is a perfectly viable role at this point in the game.)

And I don't need to stall for Good Fortune, is the thing. It's something you take advantage of when it happens, rather than expecting to use every time. Like, that's how I've been playing the entire game---I take advantage of high-rolls if and when they happen, but I don't go in with a plan that requires them to happen. Jakob having tons of stats is a high-roll I took advantage of, but my overall game plan did not require he have those stats. (I'd need someone else to bait Reina's pack in Chapter 13, for example, but he was going to trivialize the mage mooks on the left no matter what if he was level 15, due to Tome-Breaker.)

The reason I don't mind units with high variability is because I know how to ride my luck based advantages while also having a core game-plan that doesn't require me to have those advantages.* We're guaranteed high speed Camilla, but not guaranteed high speed Beruka, but that doesn't mean I don't take advantage of a high speed Beruka when that happens.

*This is a good offensive team tactics in a nutshell, incidentally. You don't need to rely on things like Odin rolling crits or Astra procs, but you can take advantage of them to save turns and resources when it turns a 2RKO into a 1RKO, or a 2HKO into a 1HKO (which would save him a fair amount of hp).

54 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

You're taking this resource management thing a bit too far - it ain't like we're talking about Shadow Dragon here, where you only had one 20 use healing staff that needed to last you two chapters...

Money is fungible---this means that 150g saved from any source is equivalent to a tonic you can shove down someone's throat. And, most importantly, you don't have to give it to the person who saved that 150g.

I don't really take advantage of tonics yet*---enemy stats aren't high enough to give me issue so far---but it gives me a very good guideline on how to evaluate units and skills. The reason I value people like Nyx and Arthur and Charlotte highly isn't because they do freakish, unfair things, but because they do ordinary things with far below ordinary investment.

*Although I do wish I used Def Tonics the few times they were more cost effective at 'healing' than Vulneraries. Which happens once you get hit more than 7 times in a map by physical units.

Nyx had gotten exactly 1 level up and a Master Seal for quite a while, and that was enough to push her into a Tier 1 unit for Chapter 10 & 11. She then got a Heart Seal and became comparable to a more 'ordinary' Jakob---mine happened to be a freak of nature. She also 'borrowed' 2k gold for a Bronze +2, but she'll free up that money once she doesn't need the Bronze Bow any more---it's not so much a cost as temporary freeze of 2k gold in your cash flow.

Selena is on the opposite end, she's doing far above ordinary things with far above ordinary investment. This means her being able to wipe maps if I wanted her to is the expected outcome. That is, she's being an ordinary unit despite the extraordinary things she's capable of doing. The investment vs. returns on her is very fair.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Too bad female units are in the minority, eh? Which, incidentally, is why it's so useless.

Charlotte has 75% Str, 50% Skill, 65% Speed, 50% Luck growths in fighter. Her personal's entire job is to get her through her rocky start, offensively speaking.

Once she's past that she's perfectly happy with a blank Personal because her stat spread takes over.

Shadow Mir · March 27, 2019

9 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Charlotte has 75% Str, 50% Skill, 65% Speed, 50% Luck growths in fighter. Her personal's entire job is to get her through her rocky start, offensively speaking.

Once she's past that she's perfectly happy with a blank Personal because her stat spread takes over.

Bold: How the hell is that supposed to happen in a game where 99.9%* of enemy units are male???

*Obvious exaggeration, but the point is, her personal gets no traction since female units are only a small minority, and the number of chapters where they're actually prominent can be counted on one hand. Spoiler alert: You just passed one such chapter, another came before Charlotte joined, and you won't see the last for a very, very long time (Charlotte will most likely have either been benched or reduced to pair up fodder by that point).

9 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

You have seen how I've been using Selena, right? She's the unit I send out to take care of tasks a small amounts of units can handle, and she happens to do it cost efficiently due to her stat spread + all the resources I've pumped into her. (Mind, she's an entire Dragon Herb above even a fully tonic'd unit, but I'm not going to pretend I don't have a hilariously over-invested unit---being good at mowing down mooks is a perfectly viable role at this point in the game.)

And I don't need to stall for Good Fortune, is the thing. It's something you take advantage of when it happens, rather than expecting to use every time. Like, that's how I've been playing the entire game---I take advantage of high-rolls if and when they happen, but I don't go in with a plan that requires them to happen. Jakob having tons of stats is a high-roll I took advantage of, but my overall game plan did not require he have those stats. (I'd need someone else to bait Reina's pack in Chapter 13, for example, but he was going to trivialize the mage mooks on the left no matter what if he was level 15, due to Tome-Breaker.)

The reason I don't mind units with high variability is because I know how to ride my luck based advantages while also having a core game-plan that doesn't require me to have those advantages.* We're guaranteed high speed Camilla, but not guaranteed high speed Beruka, but that doesn't mean I don't take advantage of a high speed Beruka when that happens.

*This is a good offensive team tactics in a nutshell, incidentally. You don't need to rely on things like Odin rolling crits or Astra procs, but you can take advantage of them to save turns and resources when it turns a 2RKO into a 1RKO, or a 2HKO into a 1HKO (which would save him a fair amount of hp).

At the same time, this IS a Selena who's been fed Duma knows how many stat boosters... so yeah.

9 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Money is fungible---this means that 150g saved from any source is equivalent to a tonic you can shove down someone's throat. And, most importantly, you don't have to give it to the person who saved that 150g.

I don't really take advantage of tonics yet*---enemy stats aren't high enough to give me issue so far---but it gives me a very good guideline on how to evaluate units and skills. The reason I value people like Nyx and Arthur and Charlotte highly isn't because they do freakish, unfair things, but because they do ordinary things with far below ordinary investment.

*Although I do wish I used Def Tonics the few times they were more cost effective at 'healing' than Vulneraries. Which happens once you get hit more than 7 times in a map by physical units.

Nyx had gotten exactly 1 level up and a Master Seal for quite a while, and that was enough to push her into a Tier 1 unit for Chapter 10 & 11. She then got a Heart Seal and became comparable to a more 'ordinary' Jakob---mine happened to be a freak of nature. She also 'borrowed' 2k gold for a Bronze +2, but she'll free up that money once she doesn't need the Bronze Bow any more---it's not so much a cost as temporary freeze of 2k gold in your cash flow.

Selena is on the opposite end, she's doing far above ordinary things with far above ordinary investment. This means her being able to wipe maps if I wanted her to is the expected outcome. That is, she's being an ordinary unit despite the extraordinary things she's capable of doing. The investment vs. returns on her is very fair.

Um...o...kay...?

Ad I don't really care for them because they're practically beyond salvaging, and anything that could help them do those ordinary things could instead be used to improve the units that are actually good. Like that Heart Seal you gave to Nyx, for example. You could have had a Wyvern Lord Camilla instead (personally, I think Malig Knight is a really bad class. Malig Knight does have Trample, but it's a level 15 skill, and thus isn't gonna be relevant until the game's pretty much over).

Edited March 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

DehNutCase · March 27, 2019

Chapter 15:

Pre-map Planning:

Another easy chapter this time around, although I still manage to get a Moral Reset because I'm stupid. (Even easy maps are pretty unforgiving in Conquest if you play sloppy.) It's pretty much the only map you'll ever get to use Replicate on in Lunatic*, and gives you a pretty good idea of the pros and cons. You double your best unit(s), but they also take double the combat damage if you don't manage them properly.

*Barring stuff like skill-buys and the Servant Trio.

Objectives: Feed as much exp to Corrin as reasonably practical. (I actually over-did this, turned out the boss mook doesn't actually count as 'promoted,' should've gave Gunter or Azura some more combats.)

2 Vulneraries, Goddess Icon, Spirit Dust, Speedwing. All of these are easily acquired by just playing the map. (The Vulneraries need you to finish the guys off before they run back and heal, but it's not hard.)

Mook stats are pretty low on this map, and this Villager even helps you out by giving Corrin WTA.

Do watch out for these guys, though. Neither Corrin nor Gunter have that much Res. (That said, it's still only a 3HKO so even magical weapons don't matter unless you rush things too much.)

More than a few ninjas with Poison Strike on this map, but their Atk and Speed are kind of terrible, and Corrin & Gunter have pretty damn high Def, so they're really only a issue if they come with other mooks.

Armored blow is interesting---but the fighters are far enough apart that even Armored Blow doesn't force you to fight both of them at once, and their stats aren't exactly threatening.

Vulnerary mook.

Other Vulnerary mook. The map involves a lot of chugging healing items, but you have 3 on the map (Gunter comes with 1), so it's pretty easy to end up with a net positive on Vulneraries at the end.

Goddess Icon mook.

Spirit Dust mook.

He's flanked by Seal Def javelin guys, but god damn are their stats terrible. Even with weapon triangle advantage and Seal Def Corrin shouldn't be taking enough damage to worry.

Steel Axe mook with Hand Axe & Seal Atk mooks flanking him.

This guy says he's promoted, but the exp he gives is kind of atrocious. He probably has like a -4 internal level or something. Also, Speedwing.

A quick look should tell you that 15 speed doubles just about the entire map without being doubled back by anyone. You only need 15 because Azura should be level 10 at this point, meaning you can dance Corrin for +3 speed---which carries over to Corrin's Replicate, so you should dance the main Corrin as one of the earlier moves in your turn if possible. And ~20 Def is probably enough to be literally indestructible.

Speaking of 20 Def. Gunter's bases are obscene, and he comes with a nice inventory for this map, covering the combat triangle nicely and providing 1-2 range support. Nobody important doubles him as long as he's not holding the Javelin, and his stats are high enough that he can probably solo the map if you wanted him to.

His growths are atrocious, but he does have something like -15 internal levels, meaning he picks up skills at a lightning fast pace. He's basically the physical version of Felicia, getting Mercenary and Wyvern as his Heart Seal options, and Troubadour from Jakob, meaning it's pretty trivial to load him up with breakers and wreck maps---if you rushed for it he could get Shuriken-Breaker by the end of this map, for example, and even without rushing he should be able to manage grabbing it before Chapter 17.

That said, his Great Knight class carries his bases pretty heavily, and his growths rely on the fact that he has like 10-15 more levels than he's supposed to and his terrible personal growths being 'rescued' by the fact that 0 stat level ups are illegal. I haven't used him much, but I don't feel like it's possible for him to be bad until enemy stats get truly absurd, thanks to the fact that he can grab Sword-breaker, Axe-breaker, Shuriken-breaker, and Tome-breaker pretty easily. (Don't use all of them on him at once, pick the ones he needs for his job on a particular map---he needs all the +stat skills he can hold.)

We also get the Grim Yato at this point, which gives +2 Def/+2 Res in the inventory. It's still a Katana, though, so equipping it gives +1 Spd at the cost of -1 Def/-1 Res.

My Castle Stuff:

Yeah, silver balls looking pretty typical now. Note the +2 Mag rather than +Def or whatever. The Levin is pretty strong on this map since it's a 1-2 range weapon that hits the non-ninjas pretty damn hard.

It hit Azura too, but that doesn't matter.

Got a Beruka C-rank from my room. (Getting C-ranks is pretty important for Supportive.)

We have no healers on this map, so the most cost-effective healing is Vulneraries, which is in-efficient enough that I'm willing to chug a defense tonic to reduce incoming damage.

I also use the Seraph Robe on Corrin, getting her to exactly 30 hp. (Meaning she heals 3 hp from Healing Descant rather than 2, plus it makes her bulk a lot better.)

The Map:

Dragon Vein to spawn the replicates, and then I dance Corrin to move her + get buffs.

Levin's pretty damn strong this map, assuming you weren't Mag & Speed gimped like crazy.

Note that the replicates spawn on a 3x3 square of healtiles, so if you really hated the idea of getting stat-boosters you could just sit all your replicates here to make the top half easier, and then escape rather than killing the boss. (At least, I think you can do that. I've honestly never used the escape option.)

Dancing top Corrin before moving her into range of the Vulnerary Ninja. Killing him during EP. (I separated Corrin & Gunter, and Gunter killed him with a crit.)

Bottom's like this.

The replica's Healing Descant doesn't work, by the way. (She also can't dance, but that's expected.)

Danced the top side for stats.

Then Gunter & Corrin finish some mooks.

Very good stats, the Speed is great in general, and the Def is great this map in particular. (As well as in general.)

The replica shares weapon as well as hp, so I swap the 'real' Corrin's weapon to Dragonstone and use a Vulnerary so that she has enough hp to survive the 30 Atk Axe Guy that's threatening the replica.

And then I fuck up by moving Gunter, who was blocking the magic weapon villager. If the axe guy and the village both attacked Corrin she's dead, but the dragonstone's +Res meant that the village would rather hit Gunter, and the axe guy went after the villager, probably because the villager gets to attack for free and he doesn't.

Moral Reset Counter: 5.5

Pretty damn close.

I dance the real Corrin and then retreat the replica, who also chugs a Vulnerary.

Azura's in a dangerous spot if Corrin doesn't body-block for her, so I pair Gunter with Corrin and steal his Vulnerary, chugging it to heal to full.

Gunter body-blocks for Corrin on the bottom side so she doesn't take too much damage.

He gets this level on EP, proving that Conquest is a game where everyone except Selena gets to get Speed levels.

Corrin counter-killed all the villager mooks up top, but the Ninjas are too fast to double, so she has to finish this one on player phase.

She really likes hitting things.

Note that it's C, B, A, and S that give weapon rank bonuses. E and D don't do anything aside from weapon access. This is +2 damage over a completely un-skilled mook when she's using swords.

Bottom side, the replica explodes the other Vulnerary mook.

Gunter backs off to sit on a heal-tile.

I should've separated Corrin and Gunter and then Danced Corrin for an Attack Stance KO, but I danced them while pair'd up so a free Dragonstone hit is the best I can get. (The mook goes for Corrin rather than Azura on EP, no idea why.)

First thing next turn I more the replica forward to be only in range of the lance guy, and then chug a vulnerary. Setting up this attack stance ORKO.

Top-side Corrin kills the Shuriken mook, and then I dance her with Azura to separate her & Gunter.

Danced Corrin for Azura's buffs.

I have no idea why they thought Azura needed good offensive stats if she doesn't even need to fight for exp.

Doop.

I equip the Steel Axe on the real Gunter so that the replica isn't holding the Javelin, and end turn.

Levin was the most inaccurate Sword I had---I was fishing for Attack Stance exp---but Forceful Partner gives 15% hit.

Dancing for buffs before ending turn like this.

Doop.

Corrin's actually caught up to Selena's speed at this point. (If we ignore her Dragon Herb speed.)

Got some free combat exp with Gunter before dancing Corrin to finish.

The ninjas are bulky (vs. the Levin), but do no damage, so I bait them like this.

No sense healing when they have Poison Strike, so I just fight them off while at critical hp.

All top side's doing is dancing for buffs and standing next to Azura for Healing Descant.

This was the Goddess Icon mook.

The Axe guys top-side start moving on turn 10, which is kind of a terrible idea when they're ORKOd by the Levin. (I think this is two different turns.)

Bottom side chugs a Vulnerary to start working on the last 2 packs of mooks. Corrin has 17 hp because of Healing Descant. (The Javelin guy did 0 damage before the Seal Def.)

I chug another Vulnerary to be safe before ending turn.

This is still an above average level for Gunter.

All the axe mooks died on EP, so all that's left is the last 2 lancers.

Corrin goes to level 20 on EP, catching up completely in speed with Selena.

She also got the Spirit Dust from the last lancer mook.

I convoy for the Master Seal and go Nohr Noble. Tomes are pretty interesting, but the fact that Corrin has Samurai means that it's pretty damn hard for a tome to beat a Levin.

I then dance the top Corrin for stats, and confirm that she doubles. I don't attack, although it's 100% safe since the only reason the counter is lethal is because of Strong Riposte, meaning Corrin's fine on EP.

She procs Dragon Fang on EP, and got like 17 exp or something, which is pretty disappointing.

Epilogue:

Corrin goes up a support rank with Azura and Gunter, and Jakob picks up a C-rank with Gunter. (From the prologue chapters.)

I buy some swords to forge Odin's sword to +3, since swords happened to be on sale.

I steal Gunter's Steel Axe to make a +1 for Charlotte. Not sure we'll have the spare unit slots to keep bringing her in, though. (But we have Camilla if she doesn't pan out, so it's a pretty safe forge.)

DehNutCase · March 28, 2019

Wow I should not play while tilted.

Crashed twice---which tilted me like crazy, since both runs were pretty close to finishing---and then I made my first lethal mistake of the run, somehow losing Selena of all people. (On the plus side, I found out she gets a point of speed at level 20, lul.)

Reset Count: 8

The whole random crash if I click too fast after taking screenshots thing is really taking its toll on me.

That said, Chapter 16 was far nicer than expected when it came to enemy exp---the mix of promoted enemies and level 16ish mooks means that it's pretty easy to feed your 2nd stringers a bunch of exp. The game really wants you to get everyone to 2nd tier, is what it feels like.

Edit: Oh man, Luma3DS hates my guts.

Reset Count: 9.

Crashed again, and this time I didn't even click that fast. (I think it's because I was charging the DS.) Guess I'll fully charge it and then play from battery.

Edited March 28, 2019 by DehNutCase

Shadow Mir · March 28, 2019

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

then I made my first lethal mistake of the run, somehow losing Selena of all people.

So... what happened there?

Armchair General · March 28, 2019

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

So... what happened there?

I'm guessing that they got combo'd by Seal Defense and overexpansion? IIRC the enemies were segregated by their classes on Hard and it kind of doable to go both ways on Hard; but I never played Conquest on Lunatic, so I'm in the dark here.

DehNutCase · March 28, 2019

Selena was 2HKOd from full, I don't remember if she had Enfeeble on her or not.

I repeat, Selena was 2HKOd from full (she even had a Xander pair-up for +2 Def/+2 Res), LUL. (Xander isn't 2RKOd on this map, he's straight up ORKOd, enemy stats are getting hilarious---this is one of the first nudges towards offensive teams, since you can't really expect to tank people and live anymore.)

But yeah, finally got the level finished, but the game crashed three more times, so my post will be more than a little disjointed near the middle + my team's levels will be a bit off.

Reset Count: 12, getting real tempted to use save-states so I don't have to play the entire chapter over just for a crash.

Will be a bit before I post it, though, busy today.

DehNutCase · March 28, 2019

Chapter 16:

I consider this map more or less the start of the 'mid-game' of Conquest. We got all our 1st gen units at this point---aside from the straggler trio of Shura, Flora, and Izana. One of whom we can choose to get this map. The other two needing us to upgrade certain buildings to level 3, and then do a map. (Flora wants Launcher, Ballista, or Fire Orb, Izana wants Hot Spring.)

Mechanically speaking, this map is fairly trivial---if you have the skills to handle chapter 10 you're fine on this map. Rather than testing the basics of Fire Emblem like the early-game maps, the mid-game starts testing the intermediate skills. This map, in particular, tests resource management. It doesn't actually care how you distribute your resources---as long as you aren't stupid about it---but rather the sheer amount of resources you can bring to bear.

This means it's completely trivialized if you just take a breather and do a child map or two, so feel free to go do that if you're having problems, just realize the game is going to expect the same level of resource management from now on*, meaning you're going to be doing a ton of child maps before you're done if you needed child map resources for this map.

*At least, I think it will. We'll see.

Objectives: ~7,000G (if we take around 10 turns, which is a fairly leisurely pace), Master Seal, Heart Seal. All of these are easily achieved by doing the map 'properly,' although I should mention that it takes more time to do the map if you're feeding kills, so if you care more about exp than gold you should feel free to take some extra turns to give your second stringers combats.

Like Chapter 10, there are roughly 4 areas of the map---top-left, bottom-left, top-right, and bottom-right. You can move easily between the middle of the map and other other part if you have flier mobility, but even fliers will take 2 turns to shift areas, and you're paying 300G a turn. (As an aside, I kind of wish we started with an uneven amount of Gold in our stockpile---like 12,100G at the start will tell us the par time is finishing on turn 8, since that's when you have 10,000G left.)

Enfeeble asshole. Enfeebles are upgraded from jerks to assholes now, thanks to the time crunch + high density of reasonably statted enemies.

Freeze person, he kind of sort of matters, but not really.

This guy ORKOs everyone on your entire team. You might not think so, seeing how he only has 33 Atk and 23 Speed.

This guy has 31 Atk, 25 Speed (Hero pair-up gives +3 speed), and hits Res.

Xander can survive one round if he's topped off and so is the adventurer, thanks to WTA and his personal, but one Enfeeble or even another mook hitting him and there's going to be problems.

And you have to kill both sides of this guy before your team stops being under hilariously heavy threat.

The 'normal' mooks are pretty much just bags of exp to be taken, though.

Sure, they OHKO Elise & Azura, but that's the kind of thing you just have to get used to.

Random effective damage, but again, fairly low stats.

The promoted mooks are all fairly strong in general---this guy is actually fast enough to double my Selena before I fed her a Speedwing. God she was Speed screwed.

116 hit, 35 Atk, and Seal Res just in case you think tanking things is a good idea.

Nosferatu, his bulk isn't exactly good, but it's best to order your combats so he doesn't heal from his tome.

3 Luck with Good Fortune, and 15 crit, both of them are more to make sure you aren't just rolling dice and praying than anything else. Note the 16 speed and garbage bulk---as long as you aren't being stupid, the left side is a huge exp fountain.

He doesn't really need Certain Blow that much---S rank axes already give him so much hit that he has 104 (Axes get 2 Atk, 15 Hit at S-rank), but it's there just in case you like dodge tanking.

This guy is mostly here to dissuade you from just para-dropping into the left side. His stats aren't anything special, but him having two health bars means that it's pretty annoying to para-drop safely, since his threat range overlaps pretty nicely with the two Berserkers without Certain Blow.

Felicia joined us at the end of the last map, and I want to feed Charlotte exp, so this means Keaton, Gunter, and Nyx are benched. Nyx because she doesn't really need exp to function, Keaton and Gunter because, as nice as both of them are, Keaton doesn't do anything special and I don't care enough about stacking breakers to have two people doing it.

The plan is pretty simple, divide the team into 4 teams and attack all four sides, retreating if necessary so that two teams can combine into one and push out again. The teams with units I'm planning to feed exp will have more units in them, to make up for the fact that their combats aren't as solid, while the teams with my 'main' units will be skeleton crews. Corrin & Jakob will be one team, Selena and Xander will be the other, and the other two will be pretty inter-mixed because of Camilla and Beruka allowing pretty simple member swaps if needed, thanks to flying mobility.

My Castle Stuff:

Bronzes do still happen in the lottery, but eh. Pretty low-rolls this time around. (Simple is pretty great if you run lots of children, though.)

Can't wait until I unlock level 3 Mess Hall so I don't have to show my units anymore, the list is getting pretty long.

Resource Distribution:

Like I said, the map doesn't really care about what kinds of resources you have, just how much you're using. You can pretty much forge up a bunch of whatever. This is 10k gold dumped into combat stuff.

Selena gets a Speedwing, because getting doubled by Mooks is kind of hard on her.

I also take Nyx's Bronze Bow and forge it into a +3 for Selena once she kills enough mooks to hit 20 & promote. Niles gets the other +3.

Beruka gets a +2 Iron Axe because I actually won enough of them from lotteries to forge one. She still keeps her bronze just in case she has to tank mooks with crit.

I buy a pair of Heart Seals and give Paragon to Felicia. She's definitely using at least one Heart Seal to get Inspiration, but the second Heart Seal may or may not be going to her.

I kind of want her in Great Lord for Awakening---Felicia is pretty much the only one who can take advantage of it properly, due to her critical mass of Breaker Skills, but even she has troubles getting below half hp safely. Especially when you consider that Hexing Rod means she needs to get below 25%. Main problem is that we have Paragon but not Discipline, meaning unless I Arms Scroll her she can't use her Mag for combats. That said, Great Lord has Charm, which stacks obscenely nicely with Inspiration and Demoiselle, so she's pretty amazing support even if her combat doesn't pan out due to weapon rank issues.

The fire tomes I got end up being forged into +3s for Felicia and Camilla.

(Note Felicia's inventory Dual Shuriken is for the very off chance she needs to hit axe mooks, Flame Shuriken is to get her to 15 before class Changing, and she also took Nyx's Heal staff.)

I actually forgot to do this my first run*, but afterwards I give my extra dual club to Charlotte so that she isn't facing WTD when smashing mages.

*I planned on it during planning, but I forgot about it once it came to giving people stuff.

The Map:

Dance Leo for the Speed buff.

*Fake Celebration Noises* We're deep enough in that we can just assume Azura dies to everything now.

Positioning at the end of turn 1 is like this.

Corrin gives 5 avoid from her B-rank support, and 2 def/res from Supportive, meaning Jakob is seeing 0% hit rates on the mages and has exactly enough bulk to survive 2 axes hitting him. (He also ORKOs the axes back, which is important---otherwise an Attack Stance from the axe from a Mage attack can still kill him.)

Selena and Xander are indestructible---I don't think I gave either of them healing items, they're that indestructible.

Felicia is holding the Flame Shuriken to counter-kill 3 mages with Rose's Thorns. (The Flame Shuriken is important, if I used one that can crit then she might high-roll two crits and then die from the third attack, with Flame she'll fill her Shield Gauge before the third attack happens.)

Elise is next to Leo with a Beruka pair-up so he gets enough Def to only bait the Mercenaries---and not the outlaw mooks.

Charlotte gets this level from Guard Stance exp.

These are the stats you'll be seeing on her for the entire game, just not always all of them at once. (Usually you get hp and then 2 of Str, Skill, Spd, or Luck.)

Felicia's stats don't really matter too much---her brokenness comes entirely from her hilarious skill-pool & access timing. She does have nice mage-killing specs, though.

She has Paragon, so her 3 counter-kills gets her 2 levels.

And Tome-breaker.

Start of turn 2, I swap from Nohrian blade to Bronze Sword and smack the Hero to death for 30 exp or so. (The promoted units on this map feel more like level 19 mooks than level 21 mooks in terms of exp, but don't quote me on that.)

Oh right, Selena did have 3 Vulneraries. (I didn't use any so I forgot). Anyway, I used Xander to trade swap Selena's weapon back to Nohrian Blade, then I explode a mook.

Note Xander is in range of the Enfeeble now, if he fights the Adventurer any time within the next 2 turns he gets ORKOd. (The red line on the screen is the Adventurer's 'Horrible Death Radius.')

Free kills. (But the enemy can do the same to you, a lot of your team will be ORKOd by an attack that has Attack Stance help.)

The Red line is all the promoted units on the left---don't step across unless you're ready.

I heal Jakob with Elise then pick up another free kill.

This is actually a picture from my second run---my first run used a Steel Axe with ~74% hit-rate. Reminder that Charlotte's level 12, it's trivial to train her up even from level 10 on this map. All she needs to ORKO the mages is a Str tonic or pair-up.

She's counter-killed if Felicia wasn't in a pair-up with her, incidentally. This is true of most units on this map.

I trade swap to the higher accuracy weapon and then explode the hand axe mook. (1-2 range is pretty god damn threatening when almost everyone is being ORKOd.)

Niles didn't really need his +3 forges if Camilla's around, but if she wasn't this turns into 13 * 2 rather than 16 * 2 and the kill, even with Attack Stance, becomes a lot shakier.

I use Odin to swap Felicia out of her pair-up and promote her to Strategist. She's pretty damn good at combat at this point, so I'm not sure if I want to switch her out just to pick up some skills, we'll see.

Like I said, pretty damn good at combat.

Oh man. Good thing Felicia's back-up plan when her stats don't pan out is better than the main plan of every other unit. (I value support very highly.)

Too lazy to use rallies. It's really good on Felicia, though, since you can easily stack obscene amounts of buffs on her.

End of turn two. The main speed limiting factor is the mook density on the right side + the Hero & Adventurer pair-up. Once the mooks are cleared out it should take 1 or 2 turns for the Shining Bow adventurer and then 1 turn to kill find and kill Shura. (Note that he spawns in the last place you look, so it's pretty easy to control his spawn spot so you can kill him immediately.)

I position Felicia to bait the sorcerer (she has 20 Luck, so it would've been safe even if Nosferatu didn't stop crits), and heal Camilla while I'm at it.

More mooks for the exp train. Xander and Selena don't really need to be together at this point, since everyone's low enough to be 1HKOd.

And god Selena's Speed Screwed. Normally with +3 speed from stat items she's doubling everything on the map, including the Shining Bow Adventurer. (Although she'll need to promote for the Adventurer.)

I give Leo to Camilla so that she deals 6 extra damage, which was needed to ORKO this axe guy.

Note how Elise rode up here without doing anything---I didn't want to risk Charlotte exploding to the counter, so Lily's poise was needed.

Typical Charlotte level.

And this is pretty much the only real 'issue' with Charlotte, you need to use Mends rather than Heals for healing, since her bulk is hp based. (Nobody can consistently survive multiple combats, so that part isn't a real issue on Lunatic---hell, half my team is ORKOd to average mooks in Attack Stance.)

End of turn 3. I can save like 2 turns if I started working on the bow mooks earlier, but I didn't want to start until Selena got Bow Knight, hence why she's still hanging out bottom rather than going top to murder bow mooks.

Counter-kill got her this. I don't like 2 stat levels at all, but Speed is what she needs right now, so I don't mind as much as I would normally.

She's -2 hp, -0.5 Str, + .5 Mag, - 1.5 Skill, - 4 Speed, + .5 Luck, - .5 Def, + 1.5 Res. Or completely, utterly screwed, right now. (Her stats are huge because her averages are pretty nice + the ton of stat boosters she ate.)

I'm probably feeding her a Dragon Herb later (I'd intended to, just after promotion so she wasn't at risk of capping things. But there was a decent chance she ends up blessed instead, which would've meant I could give it to someone else).

Level 20 means no need to stick around anymore, so I glue Xander to her and move her to get healed and get ready to counter-kill some archer mooks.

The pictures are in order, I actually had to dance Elise to trade swap so that Selena's holding her bow.

Neither Felicia nor Niles could fight this guy properly---their Atk stats aren't too great, so Nosferatu is real trouble for them---so I have Beruka air-lift Corrin in.

Full shield-gauge + using a Bronze weapon means that Camilla's fine taking 2 promoted unit combats on EP. (This is suicidal even for her if the shield-gauge wasn't full.)

Pretty slow pace, but 300g/turn isn't that expensive.

Camilla got this level on EP. Her -5 internal levels means that she's actually under-leveled compared to the rest of my main team.

Camilla was damaged, so I swap to Leo to kill this guy & bait the next batch of mooks.

Dancing Selena for buffs.

Only like 3 or so turns left at this point.

My game also fucking explodes like 8 different times around this point.

Reset Count: 12.

Only one of those of the 7 or so resets I got this map was from me fucking up. All the rest was Luma3DS crashing when I took a screenshot. Gods I hope this is a one map thing or the longer maps are going to be brutal.

This is the turn 5 of a run that got really close to the end without crashing. And then crashed. (I did not bother retaking all the screenshots since that's what causes all the crashes in the first place, sorry.)

You can see I'm a lot more pushed out in this screenshot, since I made more optimization after playing the map so many god damn times.

Big middle fingers to this guy, although the person who actually killed Selena in my one failed try was the Hero in the pair up, helped along by the other Hero top-side.

I'm perfectly happy not taking the promoted kills on Selena---Lunatic's exp penalty is so hefty that these guys only give like 17 exp or something, because of their low internal levels. (Danced her for this combat.)

God Charlotte is a pair-up monster. (Although, mind, Niles is speedy as hell to begin with.) And then Niles does the Niles thing and missed a shot.

I'm pretty sure I had another guy let who can kill this guy if Charlotte missed, otherwise I would've used Odin to KO. He drops the Heart Seal.

Master Seal. All that's left is talking to enough dudes to murder Shura.

All Swordmasters are god damn pansies. Seriously? The guy has 1% hit chance.

Doop.

The red line is the Nosferatu Sorcerer---didn't kill him this run.

2 or 3 turns left.

Just collecting the last bits of exp before I prepare to murder Shura.

Doop.

Don't think Niles needed the healing, but eh.

You can see from the map that the left side's cleaned up, and we have people in range to talk to the lancers, so this is pretty much the 2nd to last turn.

You don't get your gold stolen at the start of turn 1, IRRC, so I lost 2,100G in total.

Yeah she's really, really screwed stat-wise, but at least her Speed's being fixed.

Also, I crash again around this point. (LUL)

This is the turn 6 of the run that completed. As you can see my progress is about the same---the differences comes from who dodges counters and who doesn't, which affects where Felicia and Elise go, since they're the healers, so the sides that push out can be different every run.

Felicia got inspiration somewhere around this turn. With Paragon she gets this fairly fast, but even without you'd get it at the exact same time if you just class changed at 13 rather than 15.

That was from finishing the Hero/Adventurer pair-up on turn 7. Charlotte had a few more combats this run.

Just pretend I actually took screenshots of Selena gunning the guy down (sorry).

End of Turn 7, again this is the last turn before things are done, so I lost 2,100G total.

Selena didn't get hit by the Freeze staff this turn, so she was in range to reach the top lancer. (So I start picking up some last bits of exp.)

I don't know why I didn't screenshot how I talked to the right lance, but what I did was this:

I swapped the Niles/Camilla pair-up so that Camilla's in front, then I danced her and flew her in to talk to the lancer.

Pairing Xander with Selena got him here. Xander takes 0 damage at melee range due to his 27 Def, so I attack into Counter.

Then I move Felicia above Azura to provide Inspiration, before running Elise over to get Selena out of the pair-up. Finishing things by shooting Shura in the face.

Gods this was such a disjointed run. There was almost 0 chance I'd finish slower than turn 10, and turn 9 is probably where I'd be in most of the runs if they didn't just crash.

I could take a bit longer and feed my 2nd stringers more mooks---as you can see there are 4 mooks left + I could've let them had more combats if I didn't give them to my main team---but it's pretty easy to make up for an combat deficit due to low exp by paying gold (for tonics), and that's exactly what taking longer costs on this map.

Epilogue:

Boots is my favorite character. (Not really.)

The right choice was to kill him here since I have Nyx in Adventurer already, and Niles could be one if I cared, but I let him live anyway. He's pretty much exactly a pre-promoted Niles, so if you don't care about Capture you can just slow-roll your Niles and then replace him with this guy if you didn't mind losing half a pair of Boots.

Camilla and Niles pick up some random supports.

Xander and Selena go to C from all the mooks they murdered.

DehNutCase · March 29, 2019

Intermission II:

The last map being so... messed up, means that it's hard to tell what my team looks like right now, so I'll just give a few pictures to let you know their stats, levels, and stuff.

Also, I just found out that apparently stat items only sell for 1k gold. Wow. Yeah, never sell them. So much for buy at full sell at 50%.

Corrin and Azura you already know about, and their stats haven't changed from the level ups you've seen.

In the run that finished Camilla never got level 4, but Lunatic means that she'll get that level later anyway. Selena also didn't get level 2.

Odin's a tiny bit behind, and Niles is right about where the enemies had been, in terms of levels.

It's also kind of hard to be Odin right now since Jakob's just better. Similarly for being Niles vs. Shura. It's important to test Odin's viability so he'll have a spot on the team until it's obvious he's costing more than he gives back. (Which would tell me that Swordmasters would need to either be Jakob or get some stat boosters.)

Beruka managed to get 6 Speed in 7 Levels. I think she'll actually out-speed Camilla at this rate. Elise is being slow-rolled like crazy. (I don't really need her combat now since I slow-rolled her so hard that Felicia joined us, but Lily's poise and Inspiration stacking means that it's still nice to take them both into a map if possible.)

Charlotte's still behind---I didn't really focus on feeding her, but I didn't think she needed feeding. 2nd joining Felicia is basically Elise with bases (Inspiration might as well be Felicia's other personal skill), the Paragon was because I knew I wanted to use her and it makes exp management a tad easier.

Leo and Xander are both at base, I believe. Xander's still a bit over-leveled, I think, although Leo's -2 internal levels or whatever is kicking in now, so he'll be getting decent exp at last.

Nyx is in an odd spot where I need to either arms scroll her for Shining Bow, which is a total investment of either ~4.3k or ~8.3k, depending on whether I value Arms Scroll at sell price or at the 5k I think it costs from the level 3 shop, or just benching her for Shura or Niles. She's definitely better at supporting than either of them, though, because of Heartseeker and Malefic Aura. (Which also makes her Mag 2 higher than displayed for the purposes of Shining Bow, meaning she'd trounce both of them in using the bow.)

That said, if Niles gets a bit more Mag Shining Bow becomes viable for him as well, meaning I wouldn't actually need to count the full 3.3k of the Shining Bow against Nyx---since Niles would also like 1-2 range combat.

Shadow Mir · March 29, 2019

*looks at Niles's stats compared to Shura's* Ouch. Now you know why I don't bother with him outside of getting his daughter.

DehNutCase · March 29, 2019

Okay, looks like the crashes from Chapter 16 was a one time thing (hopefully). Chapter 17 was completed without problems in that department.

I did get 2 Resets, though---lost Selena and Jakob due to much higher than expected enemy phase damage, before I said 'fuck it' and just trapped Saizo in a box before doing the map with grindy, 37 turn-count playstyle. The map does seem do-able even while leaving Saizo as is, and just probing a bit ahead of him while you do stuff, but I'm not going to do spend the effort when I don't really have to. (Since it's fairly easy to trap him either in a room by himself or just at the starting area by forming a Conga line---I don't recommend the Conga line thing since it means you'll have to solo the map with like 4 characters or something. Not a problem of itself, but the map has very large amounts of exp for all your second stringers.)

Reset Counter: 14

Will be awhile before I post the chapter, though.

DehNutCase · March 30, 2019

Chapter 17:

Pre-map Planning:

Chapter 17 is in kind of a weird spot, in that it looks like the way it's 'meant' to be done is kind of... difficult. Mostly it's because the map is so well tuned that usually you'd have to choose between consistency, turn-count, and objectives. That is, if you want to do the map quickly while getting everything, then you probably don't have enough resources to do the map with a consistent plan---because you'd have to divide your team into two halves*. If you sacrifice one of the chests on the map, then you can just death-ball straight to the boss, getting a low turn-count while also being consistent. If you let Saizo die (or deal with him some other way), then you can just do whatever you want with regards to turn-count, trivializing the map.

*It feels like mechanical skill can compensate for this, though. My gut feeling is that you do get enough resources at this point that a two 6-man teams can both handle getting the chests on their side before joining together again, it just takes very good combat management on both phases---you don't get enough turns with only 6 or so units to cleanly wipe waves in one player phase, so you need to be able to handle mixed-phase teams very well, counter-killing enough that you can clean up the rest.

Needless to say, doing some child maps also trivialize this map, since you'd be able to stuff your team with outrageous amounts of resources. Once you get enough resources that ORKOs are consistent splitting into 2 teams stops being a problem.

I tried the two team strategy for a bit, and realized I'd need to pilot my team with a lot more finesse than I'm willing to bother with if I wanted to make sure both halves can manage their individual tasks. The main problem is that I don't want to bother predicting Saizo's movements, meaning both teams would need to be able to rush ahead of him. If you can predict the AI's movements properly you can divert a bit more resources to the team that's with Saizo, which makes resource distribution a lot more manageable, but I'm not willing to replay the map enough times to figure him out. So I just played the map normally for a bit before using a Dragon Vein to trap him inside a room and slow-rolled the map from there.

This is probably the first map where redundancy truly matters---that is, having multiple units capable of doing the same role. Enemy avoid is getting fairly high at this point, so combat is unreliable without multiple units capable of taking down the same thing, and there's a silence staff in the center of the map to make sure you have multiple healers on hand. You also want multiple Locktouch units or caltrops are going to give you a hard time, even ignoring the fact that you need them in both teams just to get the chests anyway. That said, redundancy matters a lot less when you're using a deathball strategy, which you can do by sacrificing either turn-count or one of the objectives.

Objectives: 5,000G, Master Seal, Speedwing.

If you had to ditch an objective I'd suggest ditching the Master Seal. The way the map is laid out before using Dragon Veins* you'd naturally get the 5,000g on the way to the boss, and if you're death-balling as one team staying ahead of Saizo shouldn't be a problem.

*Using them is too complicated for me, so I just used them once to trap Saizo and then pretended they didn't exist.

Here's Saizo, his stats are actually pretty amazing, and Immune Status means that unlike everyone else on your team his stats stay amazing. But his personal skill means that the moment he attacks into a bad combat he's going to be in lethal hp range. The Master Ninjas on the map also have positive crit rates on him, so have fun with that.

Even ignoring their fairly high stats---enough hp to be extremely difficult to OHKO, and 24 speed means you need to be someone like a highly invested Nyx or Charlotte to be able to double these guys---their skills means that you lose half your hp per combat. So basically everyone is 3RKO'd, the vast majority is 2RKO'd, and a small amount is ORKO'd.

Even the mooks have enough speed and hp that ORKOing them consistently is a problem. And poison touch is pretty much the reason I stopped trying my 2-team strategy. I think I'd be able to pilot it at the necessary level if I tried a few more resets, but that requires effort.

There's still some occasional effective weapons, but honestly the real killers on the map are the 40% post-combat damage, so I didn't actually pay too much attention to the Samurai Mooks.

Saws are kind of like melee Shurikens, except garbage. Not only do they leave your defensive stats alone, the Automatons are basically walking piles of exp due to their terrible stats.

Some of them have Elbow Room---mostly to make sure you're taking Caltrop level damage regardless of where you're standing. (Caltrops are -30 avoid, -3 def/res, IRRC.) Too bad their stats are too atrocious to be taken seriously.

This is the only remotely threatening Mechanist on the map, because of Life and Death. Everyone else, even the Silver Shuriken using ones, are just walking piles of exp.

One very nice thing about the map is that you can tell where the reinforcements spawn if you know what to look for. They only enter the map through these open paths that lead to outside the map, and, rather surprisingly, there aren't any reinforcements that spawn where your team did.

You'd still have to play the map at least once to be certain of where the reinforcements spawn, but it's nice that they gave you a heads-up like this anyway.

Unlike the Samurai mooks, the Swordmasters are actually dangerous. They're not as directly threatening as the Master Ninjas, but they tend to have dangerous weapons & skills. A bunch of them have Lunge to make choke-pointing and baiting tons harder than it needs to be.

His stats aren't bad, his kit's also decent, but the most mobile units (which are what you'll be using if you're under time crunch) are mounted, so trample doesn't really work. If you aren't rushed for time then it's trivial to kill his body-guard mooks first, meaning it'd be something like 13 v. 1 and that's not really winnable. Note that the Swordmaster has Lunge, and apparently nobody on his team wants to move outside his range, so if you don't kill the Swordmaster first thing he'll get a combat even though he can't move.

I dropped Leo because we need redundancy in terms of healers and Locktouch more than we need another decent combat unit.

My Castle Stuff:

I don't have any real lance users, but it's still free money. Note that I got the Chosen-y flair the first time, but I didn't take the screenshot of my units that got it. (Pressed B once too many---it's the same button that leaves the Luma3DS menu.)

Mag is a pretty low priority stat on this map, though, so losing the Chosen-y flair for something strictly worse doesn't really matter.

Bought a bunch of bows. In retrospect I should've just forged Nyx a +2 Bronze or something---the Master Ninja crit rates are fairly high---but at least it meant she had chip damage options on the few non-ninjas on the map.

Gave Odin the Dual Katana because of all the Ninjas on the map. (Selena didn't need it anymore because she's a Bow Knight now, so Ninja's aren't a problem.)

In retrospect I should've gave this to Jakob because Heartseeker meant Odin had 100% hit rates regardless---it was his damage that was the issue.

Dual Yumi for all the Samurai on the map. Note I dropped the other random bp/vp bows---the map doesn't have any magical enemies and I don't really need debuffs for my team to function. I'd like debuffs---if I had Butler Jakob still he'd be quite useful---but it's not worth sacrificing serious amounts of combat for, and +3 Bronzes hit quite hard.

Ganglari is her Attack Stance option for maximum damage. Bronze Bow +4 is 14 MT, though, so it's mostly for weapon triangle purposes even when it comes to Attack Stance.

It's also how I prefer to use Silvers---their damage per gold ratio is pretty high as long as you can afford paying a nice chunk of cash at once. The main problem with Silvers is that you can't really use them as a main combat option or else they stop being cost-efficient, so they're very niche*. I'd rather dump another 8k over Bronze +4 to forge an Iron +4 or Steel +3 rather than split my money into something like a Bronze +4 and a Silver +1, for instance. Hell, even Bronze +5 might be preferable.

*You can take like 2 combats before they stop being cost-efficient in terms of damage per gold. This limits them to being used on low-budget units that take low amounts of combats per map, but Silver are 4k at base so they don't really do low-budget. Plus they need B-rank in the weapon, which also isn't low-budget. I guess you can swap one really forged Silver across a bunch of low-budget units but god damn that's a lot of micromanagement.

With the Shining Bow unlocked after using an Arms Scroll she only needs to keep a physical weapon around for looks. In retrospect I'd rather she get a Bronze +0 or +1 for Dodge purposes rather than taking Niles' Iron Bow. (I can even sell the Iron for the 500G it costs to buy a Bronze.)

She also grabs the Bloom Festal from bp/vp rewards.

The Map:

This formation is pretty much the reason I like the 2-range personal skills of the Hoshido sisters over the Nohr ones. Elise or Camilla would get attacked if they want to buff Xander, defeating the whole point of the formation. They do still get to buff Selena, though, so more open maps would still have them contributing.

I think I did my combat math wrong, though, because nobody attacked into Selena.

Beruka is kind of hilarious on this map. I don't think she's affected by Caltrops either, since she flies, but don't quote me on that.

Xander's hit-rates are atrocious, though, so the Master Ninja was still alive.

And here's the level that got deleted from time on Chapter 16.

0% Crit rate since Charlotte is quite lucky + in a pair-up, so I go for this---since I don't mind if she misses.

But she doesn't.

Trade swapped to the lower MT weapon so I don't ORKO.

Which still gets her the level she missed last map---having a low internal level is pretty amazing.

Yeah, Odin really didn't need that Dual Katana.

Selena's standing in that square to bait the Master Ninja.

Like so. (Xander managed to actually hit the guy.)

I disarm the caltrops and then setup like this. This ends up getting Selena killed because I forgot to take into account the massive amounts of Attack Stance damage she's going to take. She needed a pair-up if she was going to do this. A +Speed pair-up and a dance is also enough for her to double the Ninjas back, I believe, which meant she would've killed them all and saved herself all the post-combat damage.

I did dance her, but in retrospect I needed to dance her somewhere else so I can get Elise next to her and Jakob 2 range away, to stack an extra +5 bulk if I was going to leave her unpaired. Whups. (Honestly I should've just gave her a Odin or Jakob pair-up and that would've been more than enough---it was the Samurai's Attack Stance that slowly chipped her to death.)

Reset Counter: 14

I get Jakob killed doing something similar the next attempt---I was being lazy about positioning and didn't realize he was in ranged to get attacked by 3 people, rather than place him where Elise is on this run.

As you can see she did thin-out basically all of them, though, meaning it doesn't actually take too much resources for me to handle a side, but I didn't want to bother with that when I had the obvious slow-roll deathball option available, so I swapped strategies.

This is how Jakob died if you were curious. I was being really lazy about positioning. Felicia wasn't even providing Inspiration and Demoiselle.

Anyway, in a parallel universe where nobody died. Nyx disarms the Caltrops and Beruka swings her Axe.

Doop.

Xander has an OHKO on the Ninjas, and even with debuffs on him Demoiselle + Inspiration still has him taking 0 damage, so it's fine for him to tank a counter.

Shura disarms the top Caltrops and Elise heals Beruka to full.

I play it safe this time and give Selena a pair-up.

Nobody bites on EP, though, all the AI does is move.

Shura's bases are pretty damn decent.

The Swordmaster has Lunge, so Xander can't afford to attack Ninjas anymore. I didn't do the combat math, but I think it would've pushed the Swordmaster into doing damage, meaning he would Lunge Xander out of the way and open the floodgates.

So I just start nuking mooks who can't fight back instead, like a proper Chivalrous person. (Xander totally smacks you around in both the Birthright and Revelation choose your path maps, so this is quite in character for him.)

Saizo's still lagging pretty far behind me, so I take it slow and setup choke-points on both sides.

I shouldn't have went for this, but Xander managed the hit, so it didn't matter. (And everyone had enough move to run away even if the AI gets past Xander, the main issue would be Saizo rushing up and attacking the AI.)

C-rank bows give +1 Atk, but B rank only gives 5% hit. It's not bad, especially on someone like Niles who tends to have accuracy issues, but hit rate is easier to get than Atk.

Doop.

This is 8/9 for speed, by the way. Don't go expecting your Beruka to be doing this, 1/9 is much more likely. (3/9 or 4/9 are most likely, though, since she does have 40% growths after class is factored in.)

Dancing Beruka got Azura this nice defensive level. Which matters all of jack all at this point.

Note that Saizo is heading top rather than right. This makes him really easy to trap inside a box.

Again, I have no idea why I'm going for this crap rather than smacking the Samurai.

Beruka can fly, so it's pretty easy for her to fly above Selena---who's next to a water reservoir thing that's not passable by land units---and I paired Charlotte with her to take Charlotte's Frying Pan for accuracy.

Yeah, like 90% of the damage Selena took was from the post combat crap.

Finally she starts getting Speed levels. No idea why she got Mag, though.

This is pretty much the issue with Odin (and my team in general) at this point in the game, he's very consistently 2RKOing people, which is actually better than expected at this point, but still not quite enough for me to be comfortable splitting into two teams.

I mean, technically the Mechanist does do damage. But he's still just free exp.

Niles gets the more important chest.

You can see now why death-balling and skipping the bottom chest won't be a problem if that's how you want to attack the map---the problem comes from having to push all the way to the bottom chest if you want to grab it. You could probably split the team into 2 at the junction before the boss and grab the chest, but that's kind of a time when you want your team together rather than split up.

Selena has 12 move, so it was trivial for her to dash all the way down here and snipe this mook. Who should've been dead like 2 turns ago if I wasn't being stupid about attacking Ninjas.

A heal wasn't enough to full heal Selena, so I do some shenanigans to get Shura's Mend into Felicia's inventory.

This is pretty much the formation I should've used before---Selena pair'd up and getting both Inspiration and Gentilhomme. Ideally she'd get Lily's Poise as well but at that point I don't think she'd get attacked even with debuffs on her.

And I put Saizo in a box. The map is won at this point as long as I make sure nobody gets into attack range of Saizo, which would cause him to be in attack range of 2 range units.

A new path opened that I need to block, so I send Beruka in.

Also it turned out that Selena already had overkill bulk with Inspiration and Gentilhomme---none of the Ninjas attacked her. So i just murder them.

Niles is like -3 Str from his averages, by the way. He does have +2.3 Speed, but usually his offenses are a bit more balanced than this.

I end turn like this.

And Beruka gets this level on EP. Making it 9/10 for Speed.

Beruka, of all people, capped Speed. I stop feeding her exp at this point so I can upgrade my Selena statue---which gives +1 Spd to C-rank or higher friends.

She has 5 Speed higher than her average right now, and her other stats are either above her averages or really, really close.

Hand Axing for exp. In retrospect I should've had Beruka give Charlotte her Frying Pan back, but I didn't think of it.

I'm not sure what caused the Master Ninjas to suicide into Selena last EP rather than the one before, but whatever.

Reinforcements had spawned last turn, so I moved Camilla to choke-point the top side. (Just in case they get into attack range of Saizo, which would ruin the nice box I have him in.)

Xander is fine bottom.

No more Lunge Samurai, so I feel free smacking mook Ninjas around. (Technically I could've saved him to feed my 2nd stringers exp, but eh.)

E and D weapon rank don't give any bonuses, unfortunately. (Only C, B, A, and S ranks give bonuses.) This means that D rank pretty much doesn't mean anything if you're like me and actually like bronze weapons.

Mushroom Staff is surprisingly good at healing---that or the Bloom Festal is just terrible.

Camilla doesn't ORKO without a crit, so I'm expecting the Mechanist to suicide into Selena on EP.

Which frees us up to break some exp pinatas.

Doop.

I mean, at least he's getting Speed and Strength.

Niles is probably going Bow Knight. (As an aside, I really like how Bow Knight plays like two different classes depending on your lead-in. Outlaw gives +1 move which makes you a player phase focused Bow Knight, and Mercenary gives you Strong Riposte for enemy phase. Both lead-ins make you decent on both phases, but they do specialize a bit.)

Charlotte missed her first combat, which meant she got a tad more exp since Camilla did manage her 2 damage hit. (I deliberately swapped Camilla to a low MT weapon just in case this happens.)

She got Def but not hp, which is a tad odd, but doesn't really matter.

Xander is really nice to use when turn-count isn't an issue. If turn-count is an issue then his imperfect accuracy and mediocre player phase can cause some problems, though.

Some minor topping off.

Not expecting any more problems from that entrance, so I prepare to gather everyone and start the deathball.

In retrospect a 14 MT bow might've been overkill. Odin could use another forge level, though.

Still pretty average Odin at this point.

I'm baiting with Corrin holding a dragonstone because I didn't heal Xander.

A 1-2 range sword that can double is damn nice offensively. The problem is that Speed is the hardest stat to fix. (And also the part where Xander's hit-rates aren't exactly jaw dropping.)

Shura at least has the excuse that he's using an unreliable weapon in Killer Bow. Although I should mention that Killer Bows are only 5% less accurate than Siegfried---it's 80% vs. 75%.

Doop.

Getting to the point where Mend is slowly taking over, now that we actually have people with hp stats.

Fast forward a few turns and we have this. As I've mentioned before, 1-2 range weapon + Bow Knight Selena is a pretty nice formation.

Still really want her to get some speed.

Doop. I find out that the Ninjas attack you even if they don't do damage as long as they don't get countered, which was interesting.

So much exp on this map.

Odin doing Odin things again. I'd like him to get a bit more Mag for Levin sword purposes, but he doesn't have to. We do have Corrin if we wanted a magic sword user.

Odin lost 5 hp since he was attacked on EP, but he goes in to chip and Charlotte kills a guy. Her Str is really coming along at this point, just need to wait until her growths fix her accuracy issues. (Not all maps will be as dodgy as this one, but not all maps will have Odin randomly giving you Heartseeker---then again, we do also have Leo and Nyx.)

*Fake Celebration Noises*

Shura gets the Master Seal, so all that's left is killing the boss without somehow getting Saizo, who's trapped in a box, killed.

Fast Forwarding a few turns, I setup like this to bait a ninja (who ends up not attacking because he was a 22 Atk mook).

Felicia's growths aren't nearly as nice as Elise's, but Felicia also doesn't have to go through Troubadour.

Slow and steady doesn't crash Luma3DS.

Reinforcements spawned from baiting the mook, so Corrin goes in to smash people in a single hit. (I don't want to change her into Swordmaster until she gets her level 5 skill---and even then losing Nohr Noble's good base Mag for Levin purposes kind of hurts---but her offenses should turn pretty crazy once she class changes.)

Yeah I don't even know why Mechanists bother existing.

And Camilla's growths are just rolling in.

Interesting tid-bit---you do Savage Blow damage even if you just learned it at the end of combat, which might be useful to know once per 100 maps or something.

Leo's a lot better now since we have a way to trigger his personal without really costing a turn. (Pity about his low Speed bases.)

Chipping with Felicia.

Getting Corrin this alright-ish level. It has Str and Def, which are pretty high value, but it's also only 3 stats.

Doop.

Oddly enough, Elise gets Hp and Skill rather than Luck, but it's still a pretty Elise level.

Chapter 17 Demoiselle, oh man. It's still really nice even if Felicia has a copy as well, since the two of them won't always be together.

I like how Corrin is almost doing almost as much damage as Odin's regular hit in her Attack Stance. Although obviously he's way more reliable in the accuracy department.

Doop.

Note the reinforcements top, we still have quite a few turns before they reach us, though.

Really wish we had 1 damage somewhere, but it's much better to save Felicia's turn to finish the guy off than to risk the hand axe accuracy.

I have no idea why she's getting Str.

I don't actually use Charlotte for the Attack Stance---I used Azura's 99% or so 4 damage instead.

Doop. And I disarm the caltrops so I'm not dealing with it when the reinforcements hit us.

Fast forward a turn and we have this. In retrospect this was a tad dangerous. The 2-range Wakizashi Swordmaster I'm baiting like this have Lunge, so if Selena misses a single shot she could be in some trouble. Wakizashis have -10% avoid, though, and Selena being next to someone gives her a bit of extra hit chance, so I think we're looking at something around 80-90% hit rates.

Which is only like a 65% chance to go well assuming 90% hit rate, since she needs to land 4 shots.

I could also just be over-estimating enemy avoid, though. (I couldn't get a chance to check her hit rates vs. Wakizashi Swordmasters since they kind of died on EP, and they were holding Silver Katanas or something before that.)

Anyway, Selena cleared out the 2-range Swordmasters without trouble, so we move in to smash some mooks.

Got both accuracy stats, which is great.

(She'll 90% be going hero, I'm too lazy to use Rally Strength and Sol can let me use Heal rather than Mend to heal her if it procs.)

Might change her into Beserker near level 15 to grab Axe-faire, but I really doubt someone with 70-75% strength growths needs more Atk. She has 75% in Fighter and 70% in Hero. Beserker has 80% but its bases are really iffy. It gets +20% crit but also -5% dodge---so pretty great with a Frying Pan, but hard to use with anything else. Keaton and Arthur have the Def to tank the occasional crit, Charlotte doesn't.

Doop.

Odin's going to be real fast, even outside of Swordmaster, at this rate.

Gonna take a detour to grab the Master Ninja exp before killing the boss, not like we're on a time limit---lul Saizo.

Xander has too much Def for mooks to attack into him, so I just blow up the Swordmaster on player phase.

She's been getting sub-par levels for quite a while now, but honestly I'm happy as long as a level has speed at this point.

I guess I'll use it when I'm setting up the Xander-Selena formation, since Xander does like some extra hit-rate, but this will be the first thing to go if Selena ends up class changing for skills.

Doop. (Danced her for the second combat.)

Everyone's pretty much caught up now, level wise. (I mean, except Elise.)

Slow and Steady gets the Speedwing.

Be careful when disarming---enemies aren't affected by the penalties, but they're still affected by the fact that they take some extra movement to cross.

Selena has 11 Mov so she easily barrels in to murder a mook and block the choke, though. The guy was 100% dead even if Selena was the only person who could hit him.

I start moving back towards the boss now.

The ninja was counter-killed on EP, so Charlotte moves in to kill a defenseless priestess.

Getting her this slightly weird level, with Defense in place of a 2nd offensive stat.

Yeah, as you can see, the bodyguard mooks really don't want to move out of their little hidey cave.

Azura got this great, but irrelevant level while I was messing around.

This is why I was worried about the Wakizashi mooks in retrospect, note the 65% hit chance. Wakizashi gives an avoid penalty and Selena's alone right now, so she's not getting +Hit from support bonuses, but it was pretty likely that things could go wrong. But unlike Ninjas Swordmasters neither deal post-combat damage nor debuff defense, so the fact Beruka was the one paired with Selena meant I don't really see her dying---it's more of an extraction problem, which might've cost a Rescue.

She hits both shots, incidentally. (I would've used a Freeze staff on him if she didn't.)

I also mess up a bit, here, accidentally putting Nyx in danger of one of the ninjas when Separating her. Her Luck is very low so even with a pair-up the Master Ninja had positive crit rates on her, and I didn't think to hand her Niles' Bronze Bow for some reason.

I also didn't bother using a Rescue staff to fix her positioning.

I don't give moral resets for really good odds like this, though, since this is only like 3 or 4% of a reset. It'll count as a full reset if she does die, but she does need to actually die to the 4% odds.

Anyway, everything goes well, so Selena and Odin both murder a mook, leaving the boss completely alone.

I wait a turn and then stack a bunch of stats on Selena (she's getting Rose's Thorns, Lily's Poise, and Inspiration), and just Shoot Kotaro without disarming the Caltrops. I even had a dance left if he somehow survived the round, but he didn't.

Didn't get the screenshot of the Speedwings, but I did get it.

Epilogue:

Beruka gets a bunch of supports, and Corrin gets 2 more. Corrin supports are important throughout the game because supportive is really good, so you'll want C-ranks on everyone. (Hence why I always use my room if it's available.)

Azura and Niles goes to B.

Edited March 30, 2019 by DehNutCase

DehNutCase · March 31, 2019

Invasion 2:

Pre-map Planning:

Man, I remembered the second Invasion being a lot better than this in terms of the resources it gives. Invasions are pretty much time-locked child maps because they don't scale, meaning you have to do them within a few chapters of unlocking them or else they become pretty pointless. (The first invasion gives a Goddess Icon, though, and according to one of the wikis the third one gives an Energy Drop.)

Objectives: Master Seal.

This is literally the only thing you get from the map, other than exp. Mind, the exp matters a lot, so I pretty much did a child map (just a really shitty one that doesn't give a kid or any decent items).

Looking at it, the second invasion looks almost unplayable because of hilarious enemy stats and the fact that the boss mook is in a pair-up with an Entrap staff Maid. S-rank Staves gives you +3 heal and +10 Hit, so despite the 60% hit rate on Entrap she's pretty good with it. If the boss was smart I think you'd pretty much have to abuse castle stat bonuses from accessories and buildings and such so that you can just send a guy in and murder the boss and his entourage, but apparently the boss simply doesn't swap to the maid side, meaning the Entrap maid only starts mattering once the front side goes down.

This is pretty much the only reason the map is playable without actually doing things like handing out accessories and actually optimizing your castle for an invasion.

The AI also knows about this---the mooks will deliberately not attack even if they do damage if they think the front side of the boss is about to die, letting them crowd around the Throne so the maid can Entrap and let them go for the capture. This map is so god damn weird.

The maid also has counter, but it's the Entrap that makes this map basically impossible to play if the AI wasn't hard-coded to be bad in a very specific way.

Like, this guy has 24 Str, a 12 MT bow, and +10 damage dealt, -10 damage taken for this first two offensive combats, and his other side also has 2 Gold Bars, I believe.

This guy would be a threat to an end-game unit.

And of course the other maids have jerkass staves and random effective damage as well. (On the plus side, they have stats that you're supposed to have at this point.)

Both the left and right sides have 1 freeze and 1 enfeeble each, and 1 Hunter's Knife. Castle fights favor high mobility, which means the Hunter's Knife is a real threat. (Thank god the maids don't have the Merchants' hilarious stats.)

These guys are pretty much just here for your unpromoted units to pick up their last levels before promoting.

Note that he has a Swordcatcher, but even with effective damage he still hits softer than the Merchants on this map.

The side mooks are very typical for units at this point, with good stats and occasionally relevant skills.

Between Armored Blow and Seal Strength it's a pretty good idea to send a bulky mage or two to the left side---you have 2 in Leo and Camilla.

Trample doesn't matter as much on Castle Maps because you should be using high-mobility units anyway, but note that this guy has a Brave Weapon. Lightning is the cheapest of the brave weapons, at something like 3,400G or something, and you can get it in the tier two weapons shop, so you can buy one already. In exchange for that it only has 1 MT and lowers your stats like a Silver Weapon.

That said, Conquest has tons of Spirit Dusts so it's quite good as a weapon, just stuff all your Dusts into one unit and give them Lightning. 3.4k is fairly cheap so even occasional combat use + general Attack Stance use should be worth the price.

Like I said, most mooks on the map have normal stats, it's just the Merchants that are outrageous for whatever reason.

This is the original team I went in with, thinking to get Odin, Beruka, & Charlotte to 20 so they can promote. And also to test the waters for a bit because the map looked like total bullshit, so I wanted to see if there's any oddities that meant I could beat it without having to resort to actual castle building and accessory using.

Here is when I found out the boss doesn't Entrap until the front side dies. This was a clean Entrap into capture---if we ignore the fact that Throne gives like 30 avoid*, meaning I did have a fair chance at dodging. I do get game over'd later because I swapped to Corrin and she can't tank like Xander.

*I'm not actually sure if terrain factors into staff accuracy, though.

Reset Counter: 15

The test run meant that I knew I wanted tons of mobility in order to take out as much mooks as possible before being forced to sit on the throne and kill everyone else. And my general game plan at that point is just to send exactly enough resources to each side to take care the intial waves & problematic reinforcements (only the left side had those, the right side reinforcements don't threaten a map loss), and everyone else tries to thin out the mook density in the middle so the final push doesn't just obliterate whoever's forced to stand on the throne.

The only two people with less than 7 move on this team are Corrin and Azura. Nyx is brought in because magic damage + effective vs. fliers meant that she can contribute very well in combat for both the left and right sides.

Leo and Camilla have the bulk to handle the left side, and Xander is the ideal Throne sitter due to high bulk in both directions (thanks to his own personal and Corrin's---Corrin's Supportive even gives him 15% hit to fix his accuracy issue) and 1-2 range sword, which lets him dodge the occasional Merchant shot while thinning out the mook numbers.

The plan is to send 4 people max to each of the sides, leaving me with 3 or so people I can send bottom to try to kill as much maids, merchants, and villagers as I could before the boss gets his reinforcements and marches down the middle, at which point all that's left is hoping Xander can carry my ass.

You don't have to do all of this, incidentally, the merchant stats are a lot more manageable if you outfit your carry with accessories & actually position your buildings properly. You can get +5 damage -5 taken from building at this point, and I think +2 damage -2 taken is pretty easy to get from accessories, so you can just stack enough stats that the Merchants turn into regular mooks.

My Castle Stuff:

I upgrade Selena's Statue (for Beruka, who capped Speed), and then notice Niles actually has more C-rank supports than Selena, so I upgrade his as well.

Note that it costs 3 dragon vein points to upgrade from bronze to silver, so if you're not doing castle visits you'd have to do a bunch of child maps just to get the points to afford a single silver statue. (I'd prioritize Corrin's if she has a relevant stat cap boost, since she should be getting C-ranks with as many people as possible anyway.)

I don't like Steel Tomes (doesn't feel like I have the exp to expect people to double consistently even with Bronzes or Irons), but it does sell for 1k so this is a very good roll. The food is just 'okay,' though. Note that I'm going offensive stats because there's no point trying to tank the 54 Atk Merchant boss & 48 Atk Merchant mooks on anyone except Xander and Selena.

Crisp isn't all that great, being only +1 stat and males only, but I'm fine with blank flairs so it's still nice.

Resource Distribution:

Niles goes Bow Knight since movement is what I need + we have a pair of Adventurers already. Bow Knight has more Str but less Speed than Adventurer, too, which is good for him since he's a bit Str screwed but a bit Speed blessed.

Beruka takes a Master Seal since she only needs one or two kills to promote.

We only get 2 more Master Seals as drops without considering Child Maps, I believe. 1 from this map and 1 from Chapter 18, so I'm going to need to buy Elise a Master Seal if I'm going to promote her.

I gave Charlotte her Frying Pan back, but she ends up benched for the real run so it doesn't really matter. Wish I gave Beruka Arthur's Hand Axe back, though, would've made killing maids a bit easier. (They have normal stats, meaning Beruka takes like 3 damage after debuffs---non-blessed Berukas tank while being doubled, so it's not like the -5 speed hurts her that much.)

The Map:

My buildings are positioned badly for dealing with the initial wave, so I needed to pair Azura with Felicia in order to dance Niles.

Nyx has 9% chance of dying---not because she'll get countered killed, but because I only sent 4 people to this side. Everyone else is needed elsewhere.

Turn 1 ends like this.

That's Camilla on the bottom left and Beruka and Selena on the bottom right---they're in range of debuff staves but not the boss Entrap Staff. Yes, the run banks on the boss never swapping to the maid, but I'm not going to force the issue until I can sit someone on the Throne. If the Throne avoid works on staves then I do have a reasonable chance of dodging both attempts anyway, although it'll be costly in terms of resets.

In retrospect I think I would've wanted Xander to be in a even more dangerous position, because half of the left side runs bottom to kill buildings---which means that the AI deathball would get humongous if I don't manage to intercept them.

Note the 31 damage vs. a 25 Res enemy, the Shining bow has 13 MT so even Res heavy fliers are destroyed.

Nyx has something like 65% Mag, 70% Speed growths in adventurer, so her main issues offensively are her 40% Skill and 30% Luck growths. Her offenses will probably be the 'barely there' variety rather than the 'massive overkill' you'd expect from a Nyx with a normal promotion timing.

Can't really be helped, though. Pretty sure Luantic doesn't have enough resources for you to give everyone levels. We're still riding the fact that the Royals start over-leveled, once they need levels as well the enemies will probably start out-leveling us. And they need levels at this point.

Leo counter-killed the Mechanist he fought with a crit, so he cleans this guy up on player phase.

Which gives him a nice level. Leo has 50% speed growths in Dark Knight, so in theory he can do the Beruka thing, but 15 base speed is low enough that you really shouldn't plan for him doubling people outside of using a brave weapon. Hell, even not being doubled is pretty much a happy surprise.

I should mention that he has 18 Speed in Butler---which he can Heart Seal into---and 60% Speed growths in that class. The fact that Flame Shuriken is a thing means that I can class change him and have basically a off-brand Jakob. Main issue is that 6 move is falling behind at this point, so being Dark Knight is important. Being able to ORKO is also pretty important, but you'd have to run some very specific people to do that in a low-resource situation.

Camilla dings a mook---Lilith was the one who got debuff staffed, so it's not safe for Camilla to be baiting the Maids right now.

Turn ends like this---the Merchant pair-up went right, and the Selena-Beruka pair-up is in position to counter attack. Their bulk is so high that she won't be able to finish them even on player phase.

These guys are just walking walls of stats. Beruka's 14 * 2 looks nice until you remember she's OHKOd on EP. And even if she wasn't, it'd be 4 * 2 if she somehow managed to counter attack a 2-range unit with an Iron Axe.

She's blessed enough that I don't mind levels like this nearly as much as if Selena got them. She's also ready to promote now.

There's really no good way to fight Merchants with this much stats---every mage except Leo* would get destroyed, and Leo isn't fast enough to double them anyway, meaning it's still just a 2RKO.

*Odin could also manage, but in Dark Knight he has about the same speed as Leo, meaning the main difference is that Leo started at level 2, promoted, with a +3.5 Bronze Tome, and Odin... didn't.

The Mechanist ran bottom to hit a building, I believe, and Xander didn't manage to finish the Great Knight, so Camilla does it for him.

The villagers are separated from the boss at this point, meaning there shouldn't be much problems getting rid of them without being in Entrap range. (I don't think the boss would switch to maid to Entrap, but I'd also rather not risking a Entrap into Freeze into Enfeeble while being next to the main deathball.) If you note the right side Beruka's actually in range of a Maid and a Villager. The Maid just debuffs, but the Villager gets smacked (although not for lethal).

The debuffs Beruka got were a bit annoying, so she promotes to get her stats back.

The thing about Wyvern Lord vs. Malig Knight is that Wyvern Lord makes the unit better whereas Malig Knight makes the team better.* Wyvern Lord has better combat stats but Malig Knight has Savage Blow and is a flying mage unit, which can play important roles. (Like, say, sniping down Wyvern Drops over a river.) Beruka doesn't have the Mag---or, ordinarily, the speed---to do the flying mage bit, so Malig Knight would only be for trample and a bit of extra Res---which is probably worth it, but class changing her into Malig Knight wouldn't let you change Camilla into another class. That's the main thing Wyvern Elise does, if you run both Wyvern Elise and Wyvern Beruka then you have units to fill the Malig Knight Camilla shaped hole in your team, which frees Camilla up to be other classes.

*Mind, Wyvern Lord does get Rally Defense. But then you're using your combat unit's turn to Rally rather than using it to fight and then deal AoE damage.

It's similar to why I didn't class change Jakob until we got both Adventurer Nyx and Leo. Sure, Paladin Jakob is far better as a combat unit, but unless you can fill the Butler Jakob shaped void your team isn't necessarily better at completing maps. If using Paladin Jakob didn't involve losing Butler Jakob then my team would have like 4 of them for the entire game.

My statues were making a convenient choke-point, so I snipe a mook for free.

I'm running my units to the left entrance now in preparation for the next wave of mooks. Left side spawns Lunge Wyverns---which, you know, Lunge you off the throne---so they're top priority.

A mook was running past Beruka, so I move Selena to take care of the leak.

Lots of sub-par levels, but at least she's getting speed.

Beruka moves back a bit and chugs a Vulnerary.

Corrin smashes a Mechanist. Xander smacks a maid---that's Chivalry for you. Don't believe his good hit rates here, it's because he got 25% from Corrin's support bonus and Supportive.

Xander has 45% Speed growths in Paladin, which isn't bad, but his bases are terrible and you don't have the exp to just feed him the levels to have actually relevant speed on Lunatic. His growths are really good in general, though, so he ends up fixing his accuracy problems---well, 'fixing' is a strong word, let's just say his accuracy doesn't get any worse---and his bulk remains decent throughout the game.

Defender's great, especially since he's about to be sitting on a throne soon, meaning he wants every point of bulk and avoid he can scrape up. Pity Supportive doesn't give 15% avoid just to make it even more overpowered.

Doing a bit of a fighting retreat to smash mooks without being in range of the boss man's staves. Reinforcements spawned in the middle, meaning it's crunch time soon.

Camilla gets another one of her typical Camilla levels. Her growths are great, but it's a in general kind of great, so her level ups won't have any themes other than 'good.'

Note that Luck is by far her lowest growth at 25%, so her 3.95 average stats are hilariously optimized.

Beruka gets B-rank axes, which is +5 hit. (C-rank is +5 hit as well.) Only A and S give Atk for axes.

Camilla roasts the most dangerous mook---everyone else is using Steel, I believe---and the Leo pair-up means she has more than enough stats to survive if the 2 Wyverns left decide to fight, and enough move to chase them down if they go for the throne.

Xander would survive with like 1 hp or something if both Wyverns went for him.

Note Selena and Beruka in the bottom-right. They're penned in between the right side reinforcements and the deathball marching down mid, so I had them retreat. (As a bonus, they happened to be in range of one of the Maids in the middle, which thinned the deathball out a bit.)

The mooks didn't fight, so I gun them down player phase.

Only the staves are in range of the throne right now, so I take my time healing Xander a safe distance away from the deathball---even if the boss would swap to the Maid to Entrap if he was out of combat range, next turn he'll be in combat range and combat usually takes priority over staves. Although not always---the maids Beruka end up fighting prioritize debuffing over combat if they would do 0 damage.

The Maid's damage isn't normally 0, but it is normally low enough that even a crit wouldn't kill 12 hp Beruka, so I use Beruka's axe to fish for crits.

God I hate Entrap's absurd range. Although that wouldn't have been as much of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that the Merchants have almost endgame stats for some reason.

Note the second red dot bottom left, that's the maid splitting off.

I use the Iron axe this time since it's a OHKO either way.

This is, what, 8/11 for Speed or something?

She's 1 Speed less than Camilla. (Although, mind, Camilla is lower leveled when it comes to exp, thanks to low internal levels being great, and Malig Knight has 1 less speed compared to Wyvern Lord.)

Xander sits on the throne.

Hate this maid, so much. Less than how much I hate the 2 merchant mooks & 1 boss merchant next to her, but still, god damn.

I'm not willing to risk the Entrap into utter bullshit before they get into throne range, and afterwards you have to somehow deal with her before she Entraps you off the throne.

Xander's bulk is amazing, though. Between the throne, Supportive, Defender, his own Personal, and the fact that I lured the Enfeeble maids away it meant that a Vulnerary almost tops him off from a full round of combat.

This was one of the Enfeeble maids.

Good riddance.

Nice level, especially considering he was Strength screwed.

The maid has a Freeze staff, and I didn't give Beruka a hand-axe, so I just let the Shield Gauge make Selena live.

The game is pretty much just thinning the mooks until the deathball becomes... something less than instantly lethal even to Xander if he wasn't on the throne.

Throne healing + avoid + defense is pretty good when it's on your side.

The maid attacked rather than Freeze staff'd (since she can damage Selena), so I'm free to move Beruka into melee range.

Doop.

These pictures are over multiple turns. Note how the mook did not attack even though he's in range and could deal damage, they know the boss is going to die soon, letting the maid Entrap Xander off the throne, and they want to be alive to capture.

Pretty meh level, but it does give maximum accuracy + more physical bulk.

Boss dies and drop the master seal, and I end turn like this to figure out if the maid would Entrap off the throne or not.

(She totally would, she moved like 4 squares right and tried to Entrap---good thing Xander dodged.)

Moral Reset Counter: 6.5

This map is so many layers of jackassery.

This is the picture right after the failed Entrap attempt, by the way. Yes, the mooks realized they might as well try and force Xander off the throne now, since the Entrap thing failed.

Whoever programmed the AI for this map was a jackass.

Corrin got this great level from Guard Stance exp.

Note the maid in the in the Selena picture. She moved aside to try and Entrap.

Azura got this level next turn from random dancing.

The maid ended up attacking Selena rather than using Entrap, not sure if it's because there aren't any mooks left to capture or if it's because she's only programmed to do the Entrap once.

Epilogue:

Corrin and Xander go to B from all the throne camping.

Edited March 31, 2019 by DehNutCase

Shadow Mir · March 31, 2019

20 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

The thing about Wyvern Lord vs. Malig Knight is that Wyvern Lord makes the unit better whereas Malig Knight makes the team better.* Wyvern Lord has better combat stats but Malig Knight has Savage Blow and is a flying mage unit, which can play important roles. (Like, say, sniping down Wyvern Drops over a river.) Beruka doesn't have the Mag---or, ordinarily, the speed---to do the flying mage bit, so Malig Knight would only be for trample and a bit of extra Res---which is probably worth it, but class changing her into Malig Knight wouldn't let you change Camilla into another class. That's the main thing Wyvern Elise does, if you run both Wyvern Elise and Wyvern Beruka then you have units to fill the Malig Knight Camilla shaped hole in your team, which frees Camilla up to be other classes.

*Mind, Wyvern Lord does get Rally Defense. But then you're using your combat unit's turn to Rally rather than using it to fight and then deal AoE damage.

Frankly, I struggle to consider Malig Knight worthwhile because of its awkward weapon combination (axes and tomes do NOT go well together). Not helping matters is that it's an offshoot of a physically inclined class, meaning that tome access is most likely not going to do you much, if any, good since most units that can access it are clearly physically inclined. Which goes into my next point - most units cannot hope to be good in hybrid classes because their stat leanings clearly trend toward one of physical or magical. Being good in a hybrid class requires being able to use both physical weapons and magic well, otherwise you might as well opt for the other (and better) class option, which is why I tend to reclass Camilla into Wyvern Lord almost immediately after chapter 10 is over - it gives her lances, a weapon that she can actually do damage with - tome access can be left to units that can actually do good magic damage. It doesn't help that Rally Defense is more useful than Savage Blow, either (AoE chip damage sounds great on paper, but isn't so good in actual practice...).

Edited March 31, 2019 by Shadow Mir

Lightcosmo · April 1, 2019

I'm enjoying this so far! It's always fun to see stuff about Fates, dunno why. Also,

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Frankly, I struggle to consider Malig Knight worthwhile because of its awkward weapon combination (axes and tomes do NOT go well together). Not helping matters is that it's an offshoot of a physically inclined class, meaning that tome access is most likely not going to do you much, if any, good since most units that can access it are clearly physically inclined. Which goes into my next point - most units cannot hope to be good in hybrid classes because their stat leanings clearly trend toward one of physical or magical. Being good in a hybrid class requires being able to use both physical weapons and magic well, otherwise you might as well opt for the other (and better) class option, which is why I tend to reclass Camilla into Wyvern Lord almost immediately after chapter 10 is over - it gives her lances, a weapon that she can actually do damage with - tome access can be left to units that can actually do good magic damage. It doesn't help that Rally Defense is more useful than Savage Blow, either (AoE chip damage sounds great on paper, but isn't so good in actual practice...).

I think that the choice of using magic+ axes isn't always about raw power, like a weapon effect like Nohrian blades defence bonus alone can make being able to wield swords worth going for in certain situations. That's kinda Fates style, odd mixes that just seem to mesh, I think. I could be wrong since i'm awful at this game, though. So take what i'm saying with a grain of salt. And you don't think Skills like Poison strike + Pyrotechnics is worth going for? it seems to be really effective if you ask me. With proper placing, those skills can do quite a bit of effortless damage with little risk.

Edited April 1, 2019 by lightcosmo

Shadow Mir · April 1, 2019

17 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

I think that the choice of using magic+ axes isn't always about raw power, like a weapon effect like Nohrian blades defence bonus alone can make being able to wield swords worth going for in certain situations. That's kinda Fates style, odd mixes that just seem to mesh, I think. I could be wrong since i'm awful at this game, though. So take what i'm saying with a grain of salt. And you don't think Skills like Poison strike + Pyrotechnics is worth going for? it seems to be really effective if you ask me. With proper placing, those skills can do quite a bit of effortless damage with little risk.

Poison Strike is on a class that's not exactly an offensive powerhouse. Pyrotechnics is linked to one unit, and it damages him (to be fair, though, if you're on the route where you have the character that uses it, you have ranged healing, which makes it not as risky at it might seem). Savage Blow sounds great on paper, but it rarely hits any amount of units worth mentioning without you making really risky moves. In any instance, the fact that Oni Chieftain, Basara and Malig Knight have next to nothing of note going for them makes me hope they cut down on the hybrid classes in Three Houses.

Lightcosmo · April 1, 2019

35 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Poison Strike is on a class that's not exactly an offensive powerhouse. Pyrotechnics is linked to one unit, and it damages him (to be fair, though, if you're on the route where you have the character that uses it, you have ranged healing, which makes it not as risky at it might seem). Savage Blow sounds great on paper, but it rarely hits any amount of units worth mentioning without you making really risky moves. In any instance, the fact that Oni Chieftain, Basara and Malig Knight have next to nothing of note going for them makes me hope they cut down on the hybrid classes in Three Houses.

Well yeah, I think that's the idea, you trade 20% for 40% on a lot of units around you. it's high risk high reward, when placed right, isn't that how most skills are utilized? Raw power/brute force isn't always for the best. I mean on paper, any good skill improperly used isn't going to seem that amazing. Fate's is actually pretty well set up with that, I think. Sure it's not perfect, but what Fire Emblem game is? That was just an example, I have no idea what's really well synergized in this game, as I don't really play seriously.

Edited April 1, 2019 by lightcosmo

Armchair General · April 1, 2019

@lightcosmo The ability to cook off roughly 40% of someone's sounds good...But it's an big gamble because you're cooking off Saizo's health and his personal requires him to be halfway dead to begin with. And I think that you can improve your accuracy by farming support conversations, but I think the bonus stays under 20%. About hybridization, unless you're playing SoV, only works if what you're after is built like an General or using it to attack from a distance.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Armchair General
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Shadow Mir · April 1, 2019

1 hour ago, lightcosmo said:

Well yeah, I think that's the idea, you trade 20% for 40% on a lot of units around you. it's high risk high reward, when placed right, isn't that how most skills are utilized? Raw power/brute force isn't always for the best. I mean on paper, any good skill improperly used isn't going to seem that amazing. Fate's is actually pretty well set up with that, I think. Sure it's not perfect, but what Fire Emblem game is? That was just an example, I have no idea what's really well synergized in this game, as I don't really play seriously.

It sounds great on paper, but... The trouble is, the 40% only goes for whoever he attacks, and second, Saizo needs to be half dead before Pyrotechnics can activate.

DehNutCase · April 1, 2019

Chapter 18:

Chapter 18 is in a bit of an odd spot, if you happened to be prepared for it it's almost trivial*, but if not there's a good chance the mooks will slap you around until you RNG your way to victory. Don't mind the 20 turn limit, you have far, far more than enough. There are three 'boss' units on the map, the 2 armors paired up in front of the jail, and Zola in the top room. Beating all 3 ends the map, so if you're farming exp I'd suggest leaving at least one boss alive until all the mooks are dead.

*I heavily recommend doing Ophelia's map if you aren't willing to use bp/vp items and aren't prepared. Ophelia herself doesn't really matter, but you'll get a nice chunk of exp and enough items to push Leo into carry the map territory, assuming you didn't just randomly dump your Spirit Dusts.

Objectives: Master Seal, Energy Drop, 10,000g.

The gold is guaranteed if you beat the map, and the Energy Drop is in the right room (which is a lot easier to get to), so if you have problems with the map for some reason feel free to skip the Master Seal---but you really shouldn't be having problems yet, and taking all the exp you can is kind of a really good idea at this point.

Pretty trivial mook guarding the Master Seal chest.

Even more trivial mook guarding the Energy Drop. He's actually stupid enough to get himself killed if you just send someone below him at the start.

Highlighted is the range of Enfeeble on this map. Enemy stats aren't high enough for Enfeeble to be a problem yet, and 20 turns is ridiculously generous, so you can feel free to either fight through the debuff or just wait it out.

The Freezes are positioned so that you can't really dodge tank the left side, but beyond that they only matter if you're the type that cares about turn-count.

30 Atk (after Malefic Aura), and he's holding a Brave Weapon.

32 Atk with 33% crit. Someone who's S-ranked with Keaton or Xander can still get 0% crit rates against this guy, but you're better off just pulling the brave weapon guy with someone who can handle it and then killing this guy on player phase.

This is the stats of the more 'typical' Sorcerer mooks on this map, a ton of Atk and Hit with Malefic Aura and Heartseeker boosting both---and be careful when fighting these mooks, some of them have Seal Res so take care of your bulk even after the Enfeeble uses are gone.

These guys are a real grind, with a ton of bulk and Wary Fighter to boot. Not every armor has Wary Fighter, but a lot of them do.

Also note that their Res is 15 lower than their Def, so bulky mages annihilate them. Just, you know, slowly. Don't expect to be killing them in one round, two rounds if you're a great mage and 3 rounds for a more typical one. Bulky physical units that aren't hit by the effective damage also work, just even slower.

Note the Spear. The armors tend to have either a 2-range option or an effective damage option, so be careful who you're using to tank these guys.

This means no Leo and no armors---one of the armors down here has a Hammer, I believe.

Beast Killer, so be careful when baiting these guys.

Silver Bow has 15MT, so don't use a flier for this pack.

The two main options are using a high-def unit that neither flies nor is on a horse, or else baiting outside of the range of the Beast Killer.

Two health bars. One side has Nos. (Note the Seal Def.)

Other side has Silver. Sorcerer pair-up gives 5 Mag, so add 5 to the 38.

Note the Seal Res.

Backside has Silver Axe for weapon triangle Shenanigans.

The Sorc pair-up and the Hero pair-up will only aggro if you pull both pairs, and it spawns reinforcements unless you stand on the stairs. (Which I don't---reinforcements are just more exp.)

Hilarious amounts of Atk and Def, although Res is paper enough that Leo has a serious shot at ORKOing with Lightning*. Note the Warding Blow---don't bother trying to counter-kill.

*Although you'll have to stack a decent bunch of buffs + feed him some levels/Spirit Dusts.

Both sides have 1-2 range, but uses different sides of the weapon triangle.

14 more Def than Res, and the pair-up adds 5 more, so it's really 19 more Def than Res. Hope you have bulky mages.

The Vengeance is less dangerous than it looks since Nosferatu disables crits and offensive skills, meaning if you KO him in one player phase you don't need to take Vengeance into account at all. And he's really easy to KO in one player phase, Nosferatu or not.

All in all, if you had the resources to handle chapter 16 you should have no problems on this map, enemy stats haven't really gone up. The crit tome & brave tome Sorcerers might be a problem, but even in the worst case you can just stack a bunch of Res on Leo and let him handle the entire map.

While the map is far faster if you attack four sides at once, 20 turns is plenty to join everyone up in the middle and deathball Zola to death before going down to clean up the stragglers. The left side is physical heavy, meaning ideally you want bulky mages, whereas the right side is hilariously deadly mages in the center room and a bunch of random cavalry in the bottom right. We can safely ignore the cavalry since they don't aggro until you walk down there, and you don't have any need to walk down there.

The bottom left side is a slightly different issue since you do need to either wait out the freeze staff uses on that side or kill the Strategist, since he has the range to make clearing the center room a minor issue. And in either case there's no real reason not to work on the armors on the bottom-left---you either have 4 turns free anyway or you're pushing towards the Strategist.

My initial plan was to just slowly and safely join my two separated groups into one deathball, but the left side ended up being more relaxed than expected, so I decided to work on the bottom-left armors while I waited out the Freeze staff uses. After that all that was needed was deathballing until the map is done---the enemy density is scaled so that splitting into four groups and completing the map in like 6 turns or something is perfectly possible even while routing everything, meaning it's quite trivial if the whole team is together.

If you can handle Chapter 16 then this map should give 0 problems. In the worst case just go do Ophelia's map and have Leo carry you.

We get to bring everyone on our main team except one. I ditch Shura because Nyx has better damage and support on this map, thanks to Shining Bow, and we have more than enough Locktouch thanks to Niles and Nyx both being capable.

My Castle Stuff:

A lot of my guys are just missing a tiny bit of speed before hitting 25, which would double just about everything on the map, so I went for Speed. The Res is because literally only the mages offer serious kill potential on this map---everyone else can be handled piecemeal, meaning I can afford to stack outrageous amounts of buffs for them.

Luck doesn't really matter, but it's better than nothing.

Beruka got the Str and Res. Selena got the Str and Spd.

My Room got me a C-rank with Camilla. Upgrading your room gives you more options on who you talk to, so if you allow castle visits upgrading it makes getting C-ranks on relevant targets faster. It's not worth the cost if you don't have castle visits, though, shops, mess hall, lottery, and statues are all more important. Not to mention the bath and fire orb or whatever if you want to get all Gen 1 units.

Resource Distribution:

Making a serious dent in my cash reserves, here, actually dropped below 5k.

Odin's close to promotion, so I give him the Master Seal to be able to promote mid-map for exp purposes.

I also forge him a Generic Sword with the 4 Iron Swords I've got lying around. Silas, Selena, Peri, and Leo all come with Iron Swords, so all it costs is 2k in cash-flow to do this, and I'm going back above 10k by the end of this chapter. I ditch the Sunrise Katana to make room, since I want to keep the no crit sword for controlling damage (both incoming and outgoing), and both the Dual Katana and Kodachi do important roles for him.

I give Felicia a pair of random rods since the Heal is getting a tad low on uses. I'm almost about to break my 2nd Heal Staff of the run.

Carry me, Leo.

Yeah, I have him chug all 3 Spirit Dusts---I got 2 naturally and 1 from bp/vp. Ophelia's map comes with Spirit Dust, Lightning, Horse Spirit, and Calamity Gate if you don't want to use bp/vp items. (It also saves you 3.4k since you don't need to buy the Lightning. Child maps are kind of ridiculous in terms of resources.)

The thing about Leo's +3.5 Bronze Tome is that you can't forge it, meaning it's not really 'saving' you 6k or so. Just like how forging a +2 Bronze Bow that someone's using temporarily doesn't actually 'cost' you 2k gold. Using Leo's Brynhildr gives you a 6k cash flow increase, but it'll disappear once you swap out of it. This means that Spirit Dusts actually end up being one of the more cost efficient ways to increase his damage, since even Bronzes are fairly pricey to forge up once you're get into the +4, +5, territory, especially when you consider you'd have to forge that tome up from scratch.

Plus it makes him great with Lightning.

I don't really need anyone to hold a Levin or whatever since I have Jakob and his +15 damage on swords basically whenever I feel like feeding him some levels, meaning Leo's pretty much the best choice to feed Spirit Dusts to even for the endgame, so I might as well use it now and benefit in the meantime.

Niles gets the Illusory Yumi again. And man does it feel overpowered to use. He casually sits at 33 Res with it. That said, the fact that enemies have S-rank tomes on Lunatic means that he's taking 2 more damage than normal. A-rank WTD is 1 damage, 15 Hit, but S-rank is 2 damage, 20 Hit when it comes to the weapon triangle. It's kind of interesting how Conquest made the weapon triangle matter more on higher difficulties whereas Radiant Dawn just removes it altogether on the higher difficulties.

One interesting thing about Selena is that she actually only has 2 less base Mag than Camilla (although 20% worse growths personally, and no growths in any of her classes except Falcon Knight, which has 10%. Malig Knight has 15%). This means that if you're used to using Camilla's mage side---which relies on doubles, forged tomes, and KOs over multiple rounds---a Malig Knight Selena can actually take her place fairly easily, especially one that randomly got 2 magic levels like mine did. (The single Dragon Herb she ate also helps.)

Camilla doesn't really care too much about Bow Knight skills, although getting Shuriken Breaker would be great, but I'd rather not be stuck with a bunch of infantry---Selena can get away with it since she's wearing a full pair of boots, and Outlaws have +1 move. Selena, on the other hand, is going to enjoy the Wyvern line's stuff a lot.

One nice thing about using Bronzes is that class changing doesn't really do anything to your offenses. I did have to pay 4k for the Bronze Axe, but everything else I already had.

Beruka takes Camilla's Dual Club.

Xander takes a Nohrian Blade and Ganglari, which might occasionally be useful. Siegfried is +4 Def in inventory, so you can stack another +3 with Nohrian if maximum bulk is required. Although note that Siegfried gives +10 dodge, so it's still better if crit rates are involved. Ganglari is just for Attack Stance purposes.

Corrin gets the Armorslayer because Odin and Jakob are kind of destroyed by armors if they don't dodge, and Jakob doesn't even have the weapon rank for it anyway.

The Map:

Bulky mages on the left, mage-killers on the right. Pretty straightforward setup considering how the map works. The dancer goes with the mage-killers because counter-killing mages without exploding is kind of difficult, meaning the right side is more player phase focused. You can always just stuff Leo with a bunch of Res and have him wipe every mage, though.

Danced Jakob for maximum avoid, and Niles goes to bait the stupid chest guarding Sorcerer. (Remember that Jakob has Tomebreaker, he can pretty much do whatever he wants on the right side.)

He does face positive hit rates if the mages are smart enough to use Heartseeker, but the AI tries to avoid getting countered if possible. Also note that his avoid won't actually be this nice on EP, because of Enfeeble.

Odin goes with Leo so that he has the Speed to avoid being doubled after being Enfeebled. He also holds the Horse Spirit for maximum bulk. (Technically he only needed the Horse Spirit or Odin, but pairing Odin with him means he can use other weapons without being doubled.)

Left side ends like this. Really nice that Elise has Demoiselle at this point, since that means Leo has effectively 21 Def and 26 Res after Enfeeble, which is plenty for the mooks on this map.

Leo kills the mage on player phase, which means the left side is entirely melee range mooks now, so I can just chip them down at leisure. Elise heals him back to nearly full.

I don't need my other guys for RNG problems now---since the mage was the only one who could cause problems---so I start working on the bottom-left armors while I wait out the freeze staff uses. Selena is holding the Fire for 1-2 range, and Nyx is range to Malefic Aura someone who melees Selena.

Doing this to set up Rose's Thorns on EP.

Getting Camilla this great level.

Camilla doesn't really have good Luck, but it saves a Mend use every once in a while. (I get to use Heal instead.)

I dance Jakob for the Speed & Luck and Niles smacks a mook. If I didn't have the Illusory Yumi I would've used Camilla next to him and just smacked the mage to death in 2 combats max.

Right side ends like this. The Sorcerers aren't in range to use Heartseeker, but either I'm bad at math or they try to attack at 0% hit rates anyway. The red line is a Paladin near the middle of the map, who smacks Jakob for quite some damage.

Eh, it's speed.

One more level for Swordfaire. I'll probably swap him to Master of Arms after Swordfaire rather than try fishing for more speed, and then swap Jakob to Paladin once he gets L&D. Really want mobility at this point. Un-equipped Vantage since he isn't really doing the Ryoma thing right now.

(I don't go for this.) Note the 2% hit odds.

105 Hit versus 53 + 30 (Duelist's Blow) + 50 (Tomebreaker ) = 133 Avoid. This means that the AI gets the +10 hit support bonus (133 - 20 - 10 - 105 = -2, or 2% hit chance). ~~It also means that the AI was attacking into -18% hit chance when Jakob wasn't in range of Heartseeker.~~ The AI would've had like 115 - 103 = 12% hit rate. Which meant it was possible for Jakob to just get nailed by some tome shots and die.

I swap to Beruka and murder a mook.

She's getting some iffy levels now, but 21 Speed is basically endgame Beruka levels of speed, so honestly she can get pretty much whatever levels she wants.

Weapon Triangle doesn't mean jack to Bronze weapons.

Mjolnir has -10 avoid, hence why Xander has 100% hit rates.

Not much to do so I just use Sakura's Rod to heal Niles to full over two unit-turns.

Enfeeble would drop Leo's Mag and Skill back down to -4 once the maid targets him again, so there's no reason not to use the Lightning here. (It even saves him the counter-attack damage if he fails the KO, since it's 2 hits.)

I do trade swap back to Horse Spirit before healing, though.

Chipping a mook for Shield Gauge before stepping Nyx back one square and healing. (She's OHKOd by the Spears.) Rods are pretty nice for situations like this.

Doop.

More of the same next time. I target the Spear because it has 2 more MT than Steel Lance, meaning this saves more hp. Not that it matters since I over-heal Selena.

Slow and steady over here in the middle-left.

Leo has 45% Strength Growths in Dark Knight, but it'll take a really weird enemy for a physical weapon to out damage his triple Spirit Dust magical offenses.

I trade swap back to Horse Spirit.

Camilla kills a maid.

Then this mook.

Decent, but almost a full point below average. (Bow Knight is also 3.95.)

Camilla can do the Xander-Selena formation a bit better than Selena herself, since she has Rose's Thorns for Xander, so this is pretty useful. (She also usually has better stats, thanks to being 5 levels higher forever + better growths.)

Random healing. I don't mind randomly using heal staff uses at this point, since they're nearing the end of their usefulness*. Maybe I should sell them and buy Mends, but eh.

*They don't even give decent exp anymore.

Just a bit of mop up left before we can join our team together. (You could also just start with all your team on one side using pair-ups, but there's not much point to that since it's not like you lose any reliability for splitting up + it's faster.)

Mopping up the last armor.

I'd prefer if she got Mag and Speed, but at least she got one of them.

The Adventurer Line has basically the best low turn-count skills. This is +20 hit +20 avo for the first 7 turns, and if you're doing maps quickly 7 turns is all you need to either fully clear or at least get into an effectively 'solved' state. Level 15 gives Pass, which lets you cheese a lot of maps. Nyx is early promoted so she'll have a very good chance of getting pass before the endgame, meaning I can use her for Bow Knight infiltration shenanigans if needed.

If Niles gets to level 13 I'll probably swap him to Adventurer to get Pass as well.

Doop.

In retrospect, I should've attacked before healing, since that would've given me 100% hit rate thanks to the Support Bonus.

Fishing for a crit with Beruka's Axe so that she doesn't get debuffed. It works and the maid is overkilled for 87 damage. (Beruka's does x4 on crits.)

Note Niles trying to bait the Sorcerer Pair-up without being attacked by the Heroes. Doesn't pan.

Oh well, I'll get Selena to do it.

The Vulnerary weapons aren't worth buying, but I like them a lot at half price.

End turn like this. If Selena didn't have a full shield Gauge I think I would've waited one more turn to stack all my buffs on her, but she didn't need it with a full Gauge.

Leo's offenses are basically 10 levels higher than they're supposed to be, meaning he's more or less an endgame unit in a mid-game map.

Pity his Speed is basically impossible to fix. It'd be nice if he gets to the point where he doesn't need a speed pair-up just to avoid doubles, though.

This skill... basically never matters. Better than an empty slot, but I can think of quite a few level 1 skills I'd rather run.

Needed both Lightnings to hit for the ORKO, but Leo missed one. So Odin tosses a sword for the finish.

Speed is basically the main stat I care about, since god damn Dark Knight does not have any, and it's Odin's only mounted class. I could work on getting him A+ with Niles for Bow Knight, but that requires me actually caring about support levels.

Doop.

Niles really needs some Atk.

...I have no idea why Jakob's worried, it's literally 0% hit. I was fishing for an Astra or Crit, but neither panned, so Camilla finishes. In retrospect I should've used Lunge to get that guy off the stairs---and not attacked on stairs myself.

Nosferatu has -20 avoid, hence Xander's 100% hit rates.

Danced Camilla for this.

And that's everything cleared out middle, other than the boss.

Doop.

Not many turns left in the map now---the bottom right is trivial, and if I wanted to save turns I could just rush for the two armored bosses without killing everything.

(He hit both shots.)

Swordmaster is just a straight upgrade to Samurai across the board, which catches Odin up with Jakob. (If we ignore the fact that he's getting Swordfaire and L&D in like 2 levels, and moving out of foot-lock soon.)

Here's his stats. He ate the +1 Spd, +1 Res, +1 Luck meal, so he's actually 26 Spd, 25 Luck, 15 Def. (Kodachi is a katana.)

Vengeance could be a problem if Zola survives to the next turn, but he doesn't. Note Xander below Selena, originally I planned to smack Zola with him, but even with Supportive he doesn't manage to reach 100% hit rates.

Camilla makes better use of the exp, anyway.

Too lazy to use rallies, plus we have one on Selena until it gets pushed out, and on Niles once he hits level 5.

Funds over 10k again, cheers.

I knew there was another wave of reinforcements, but didn't know the quantity or when they spawn, so I take things slowly.

Cheers.

Pretty annoying that the right side guy has Wary Fighter. (And I needed more people to be here for Lightning to be a ORKO, since Leo needed a bit more Atk for that.)

Not a problem, though, since the armor doesn't have a ranged weapon.

Moved Camilla in first so that this was an exact KO.

I can't use horses or fliers from this side (both the bow and the beast killer hits), so I just stack a bunch of defense buffs on Corrin and have her bait with a Dragonstone.

Doop.

Really easy to feed Charlotte exp at this point, thanks to her high Atk + good weapon selection.

She's about 2 points behind in Speed, and almost a point behind in Strength. Which says a lot about her averages. She's actually low-rolling every single stat.

Used the Kodachi to finish to give Camilla Attack Stance exp for herself and her weapon.

Patching up Niles just in case it matters for the reinforcements. I passed 40 uses of Heal at this point, but still haven't broken my second one since it's spread out between 2 staves.

I have no idea what triggers the reinforcements, so I just slow roll one pack of mooks at a time.

Xander gets this level from Guard Stance exp. It has Speed, so it's great.

Doop.

Charlotte's really low-rolling at this point, but whatever.

I have Leo go do Leo things.

Even taking it slowly like this we're extremely safe on the 20 turns thing, no idea why it's so high.

It has speed so it's a good level.

(He got this from counter-killing a guy with a Spear, the -5 Speed meant even Leo could double.)

I used Lunge for this, which was stupid in retrospect---it blocked a reinforcement, meaning less exp.

Eh, it's Speed. I'll take it.

Iron sword +2 has 0% crit, by the way. This is all Swordmaster bases + Odin's stats and personal.

Lightning + counter will fill up Leo's guage for EP, so he's perfectly safe.

I heal him anyway, though.

Note that I swapped him to Brynhildr.

Turns out attacking the boss is what triggers the reinforcements, so I make this guy disappear.

Odin's just doing typical Swordmaster things at this point.

Healing Leo again.

Heading left to pick up some free exp before finishing the map.

Doop.

Didn't want to use up any more turns this side, so I had Corrin smash the armor.

Gotta love endgame level offenses.

Speed, cheers.

Epilogue:

Corrin goes to B-rank with Selena, and Leo-Elise goes to C.

Beruka gets a pair of C-ranks, and Nyx gets B-rank with Niles.

Edited April 1, 2019 by DehNutCase

Punished Dayni · April 1, 2019

6 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Even more trivial mook guarding the Energy Drop. He's actually stupid enough to get himself killed if you just send someone below him at the start.

You know, I'm slightly embarrassed to not think to do this ever. It honestly feels like you should probably not be able to attack that mage.

6 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Camilla makes better use of the exp, anyway.

I have to ask, is Camilla blessed right now?

It's probably for the best you're not commenting on the story, because I'd consider this is the best chapter gameplay wise in the Journey to the East part of Conquest (16-21).

DehNutCase · April 1, 2019

6 hours ago, Dayni said:

I have to ask, is Camilla blessed right now?

Her averages at level 9 after class changing to Bow Knight at level 6 are: 33.5 hp, 23.05 Str, 7.75 Mag, 21.95 Skl, 28.1 Spd, 17.3 Lck, 18.3 Def, and 19.65 Res. (I use https://zekareisoujin.github.io/FEFatesStatCalc/ to get my average stats.)

My Camilla has 33 hp, 22 Str, 11 Mag, 23 Skill, 28 Spd, 18 Luck, 21 Def, and 20 Res. So, -.5 hp, - 1.05 Str, + 3.25 Mag, + 1.05 Skill, - .1 Spd, +.7 Luck, + 2.7 Def, + .35 Res.

Fairly blessed in Mag and Def, but about average everywhere else. Camilla's averages are outrageous.

Lightcosmo · April 2, 2019

20 hours ago, Armchair General said:

@lightcosmo The ability to cook off roughly 40% of someone's sounds good...But it's an big gamble because you're cooking off Saizo's health and his personal requires him to be halfway dead to begin with. And I think that you can improve your accuracy by farming support conversations, but I think the bonus stays under 20%. About hybridization, unless you're playing SoV, only works if what you're after is built like an General or using it to attack from a distance.

Oh, I know, it was just an example of something that wasn't really geared to raw damage. Like, if everything was about damage, then skills like Lunar would almost always be a top choice, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Fates just isn't always set up that way, at least from what I can tell. Not that strength isn't very important, of course It is. Don't get me wrong there, There a lot of other things to consider, like ninja stat drops, that affect strategies a lot. I really don't know that much about skill setups, so i'm just observing really. Also, this is played on Lunatic, right? I'm not really a hardcore strategist either but the ideas here seem pretty solid.

Edited April 2, 2019 by lightcosmo

DehNutCase · April 2, 2019

It's on Lunatic, yes, but bear in mind that I'm using a bunch of bp/vp rewards even if I'm not doing child maps, which makes the game a lot easier. I stuffed Selena with one of each stat booster except Spirit Dust (which I didn't use on her), and Boots (which I used two of), meaning she has +3 to every stat except Hp, Mag, Luck, and Move---she has +6 hp, +1 Mag, +5 Luck, and +2 move compared to normal, which means I basically have a second Camilla---if we ignore Selena's worse skill access timings.*

*Which matters, mind. The entire reason I rate Felicia as the most broken unit in the game is because the endgame of Conquest is more about skillbuilds than raw stats, and Felicia is the best unit to do skill-build stuff with, thanks to her absurdly low -20 internal levels + her very good class options.

The weapons you get from bp/vp also matter a lot. Stuff like Dual Weapons make it tons easier to specialize in one weapon type, since a normal weapon + a Dual basically covers the combat triangle.

Edited April 2, 2019 by DehNutCase

Johnnie · April 2, 2019

It really can't be stated enough how powerful and useful the bonus items are.

You get one of each kind of staff, one each killer/effective/dual/magic/blessed/special/brave weapon, and several joke weapons and staves some of which are hillariously overpowered. Also 2 3-range weapons and 2 of each stat booster except Boots and Arms Scroll. And if you're somehow short on cash, the battle and visit seals sell for 10 grand each.

screenshot A relaxed Conquest playthrough (With Screenshots!)

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