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Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.


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53 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I like Baron Dominic. Its a shame the Koei design philosophy demanded he'd look like a generic paladin rather than a real character. 

That's the funny thing, he actually does manage to be a somewhat likeable character, by playing both sides of the conflict to ensure the minimum number of people get hurt. And while I can't recall his exact voice right now, I'm sure he had a decent voice actor for him to have such positive vibes in my mind. Three Houses's visual presentation and branched story telling might be a mess, but its voice acting is beyond solid.

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34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And while I can't recall his exact voice right now,

Pick a god and pray!

I think the good Baron felt quite human for a minor character. Well intended but not powerful or brave enough to do the right thing, but willing to make due with what chances he has. And he seems decent to Annette even if its more though love than open affection, which is a stance a noble would very well have if his charge was both a scatterbrain and in opposition to him.

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14 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Pick a god and pray!

I think the good Baron felt quite human for a minor character. Well intended but not powerful or brave enough to do the right thing, but willing to make due with what chances he has. And he seems decent to Annette even if its more though love than open affection, which is a stance a noble would very well have if his charge was both a scatterbrain and in opposition to him.

Though rather funnily, him not having a face has made him pretty memorable (for the wrong reasons). Like I'd say he's way more memorable than this guy

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/c/c0/Gwendal_portrait.png

He's basically the only generic boss in Part 2 and he's pretty forgettable. So having a face isn't a guarantee to make a character distinctive. Though of course we can see throughout the series that a one off boss definitely can be distinctive and I'd say it's far better to give them a palette swap than no face at all. Coming to think of it they probably could have given this face to Baron Dominick and had him be the Ailell boss in each route. This guy and the Baron are fighting for the same faction, as far as I can recall. Wouldn't have taken, basically any effort at all to merge the two characters.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah, so this is the situation they were meeting with Baron Dominic in. Alright. Still though, mentioning Annette's mother offscreen made me laugh. It's weird, because plenty of other games have characters mention family we never see in supports... but, like, they never go to anything approaching this level of “oh, you just missed her!” energy.

Clearly, she's hanging out with Holst. And Petra's grandfather.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Except no. Apparently we just beat him within an inch of his life... so that Cornelia wouldn't think he cooperated willingly. Interesting. Was Gilbert in on this? Were we? Why did we magically know to leave him alive? He's kinda talking like he's dying, but he's also promising to protect Gilbert's wife and Annette's mother in a continuous sense...

I'd like to imagine that he put some tape over the end of his HP bar. So he'd have to give up the fight early, but at least he could walk away alive.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

They call it a hammer, but it isn't effective against armor knights. ...Okay, it's magic, of course it's effective against armor knights, but you know what I mean. No slayer effect.

You can combine it with Helm Splitter to ruin an Armor Knight's day. That said, I find "Lightning Axe + Hammer" to be more cost-effective.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's kind of ridiculous that the enemies in this game are still struggling to break 100 hit, evasion being ignored. This means they have basically no hit rate on Dimitri, who has 79 avoid even without alert stance.

That's "Hard" Mode for ya.

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Uh... question... who's paying us to work at the stables of the Monastery? Presumably the Church was paying us before, but... uh... we're in charge of the Monastery now. We're in control of the war budget. Where is that 1,000 gold from working at the stables coming from?

Presumably, the same place that loose gold comes from after finishing a skirmish. Teach draws it out of the aether, thus ruining Fódlan's gold economy.

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7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Presumably, the same place that loose gold comes from after finishing a skirmish. Teach draws it out of the aether, thus ruining Fódlan's gold economy.

Obviously the loose gold from a skirmish comes from robbing the bandits after you slaughter them...which, uh, is kind of also banditry. Now how you manage to get any money from giant worms I can't imagine, at least for birds and pelts you could use the remains of their bodies (if they actually  leave any) to sell pelts and down, but who wants the slimey remains of a giant earthworm (wait, actually you don't actually get money for monster battles, only ore...but that just raises more questions!).

Edited by Jotari
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8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Obviously the loose gold from a skirmish comes from robbing the bandits after you slaughter them...which, uh, is kind of also banditry. Now how you manage to get any money from giant worms I can't imagine, at least for birds and pelts you could use the remains of their bodies (if they actually  leave any) to sell pelts and down, but who wants the slimey remains of a giant earthworm (wait, actually you don't actually get money for monster battles, only ore...but that just raises more questions!).

They already have some "bandit" enemies drop Bullions upon defeat, though, so I don't see the value in a separate "oh you also found more gold" screen. They could've just made dropped Bullions more plentiful if they wanted to replenish the player's gold stores. Although they don't need to; Auxiliary battles are valuable for the EXP and the ranks on their own.

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On 11/2/2021 at 5:49 PM, deskita said:

That's not exactly an option in early maps. For the Blue Lions they can use the Kingdom Archers which has a D rank requirement and can be obtained at Chapter 7 onwards (If I remember correctly) For the other routes the only batallion with that gambit is an A rank one which you're not likely to have access to until quite a bit later.

There's also the fact that using Hand Axes/Javelins boosts the corresponding weapon's Weapon experience which in my experience has helped me to train other things like Authority rank more since I'm getting more of my character's weapon rank requirements for classes from combat.

That's a good point, though honestly, I'd find myself using a bow anyways pretty much ten times out of ten, because javelins and hand axes are heavier, which might either cost me a chance to double my opponent or worse, enable them to double my units. It doesn't help that javelins and hand axes aren't useful for the main niche they had in past games, that being countering archers and mages. The player phase orientation of 3H really doesn't make things better for them, either.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...But yeah, now we have Annette's magic hammer, Crusher. I wonder if the combat art will be any good for Annette. I mean, it's magical, so maybe? But she's pretty devastating with conventional magic...

Two words: HELL NO! 

Speaking of, the Crusher is Exhibit A as to "relics aren't as great as the story tries to fool you into believing", because the damn thing is probably going to weigh Annette down to the point where she needs to actively fear being doubled. Combine that with its accuracy and the fact that it's a melee weapon, and there's a good chance that trying to use it does NOT end well for her. . .

Edited by Shadow Mir
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47 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

They already have some "bandit" enemies drop Bullions upon defeat, though, so I don't see the value in a separate "oh you also found more gold" screen. They could've just made dropped Bullions more plentiful if they wanted to replenish the player's gold stores. Although they don't need to; Auxiliary battles are valuable for the EXP and the ranks on their own.

Yeah, but then you'd have to remember to sell the bullion and then do so, which is yet another inconvenience.

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47 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, the Crusher is Exhibit A as to "relics aren't as great as the story tries to fool you into believing", because the damn thing is probably going to weigh Annette down to the point where she needs to actively fear being doubled. Combine that with its accuracy and the fact that it's a melee weapon, and there's a good chance that trying to use it does NOT end well for her. . .

Annette's enemy phase will suck no matter what, though (maybe not on Hard Mode, but certainly on Maddening). If you're putting in a position where she even has to worry about getting doubled on EP, you're using her wrong. As it stands, Crusher's Dust at least has an absurd Might, that can allow for one-shots Annette would otherwise miss. It's not great, but it has a niche.

19 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, but then you'd have to remember to sell the bullion and then do so, which is yet another inconvenience.

Hm, true enough. Perhaps they could do a system like Sacred Stones, where enemies drop gold that goes straight into the general fund?

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Annette's enemy phase will suck no matter what, though (maybe not on Hard Mode, but certainly on Maddening). If you're putting in a position where she even has to worry about getting doubled on EP, you're using her wrong. As it stands, Crusher's Dust at least has an absurd Might, that can allow for one-shots Annette would otherwise miss. It's not great, but it has a niche.

You're completely missing the point. It's a 1-range weapon, aka it has to be used from where Annette (who, being a mage, does not take physical attacks well) generally does NOT want to be in relation to whatever she's attacking. About the only times it's safe to use are against archers and paralyzed monsters, which is not a good track record. Dust in general reeks of "win-more", too, because that amount of power is mostly gratuitous overkill. And that's of course assuming she doesn't whiff.

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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

You're completely missing the point. It's a 1-range weapon, aka it has to be used from where Annette (who, being a mage, does not take physical attacks well) generally does NOT want to be in relation to whatever she's attacking. About the only times it's safe to use are against archers and paralyzed monsters, which is not a good track record. Dust in general reeks of "win-more", too, because that amount of power is mostly gratuitous overkill. And that's of course assuming she doesn't whiff.

The point is, you'd only be using it if doing so would secure the kill. Crusher is inaccurate, sure, but there are a lot of potential patches to this (i.e. hit-boosting battalions, Axe Prowess, Uncanny Blow). Re: "win more", there are absolutely lots of Maddening enemies with enough HP/Res to can survive any of her spells, or a ranged hit from Bolt Axe, thus providing value to a hard-hitting 1-range attack. Of course, if Annette can defeat the target at range, that's almost always preferable to coming in close with Dust (or Lightning Axe).

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2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Hm, true enough. Perhaps they could do a system like Sacred Stones, where enemies drop gold that goes straight into the general fund?

I did like that mechanic, it'd be nice. What I'd really like is the Genealogy steal skill back. I think giving pure gold is generally better than gems, simply because it cuts out steps and inventory management. Sellables have their place if the challenge is to steal them from an enemy, but a late game village giving you a white gem? Get outta here.

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Imagine if a game did the standard thing of giving you Colored Gems throughout the campaign, and you sell them since of course what else you'd do with them? Then at the end is like:

"Oh no, the world will be doomed if we don't restore this artifact to its original power!"

"How do we do that?"

"It needs to have the gems that got removed from it reattached. They're *describes the Colored Gems you sold*"

"... yeah, about that..."

So basically, the Binding Shield situation but instead of fancy orbs you know they're important to get rid of, it's the common vendor trash you likely sold for money because what else you were suppose to do with them? Cue Bad End. Or Normal End, with True End being the usual suspect of having kept those gems.

 

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On 11/5/2021 at 3:36 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The point is, you'd only be using it if doing so would secure the kill. Crusher is inaccurate, sure, but there are a lot of potential patches to this (i.e. hit-boosting battalions, Axe Prowess, Uncanny Blow). Re: "win more", there are absolutely lots of Maddening enemies with enough HP/Res to can survive any of her spells, or a ranged hit from Bolt Axe, thus providing value to a hard-hitting 1-range attack. Of course, if Annette can defeat the target at range, that's almost always preferable to coming in close with Dust (or Lightning Axe).

I don't know about you, but a hard-hitting 1-range attack isn't exactly valuable when you don't have much movement, which is true of most magic classes. Also, I don't know about you, but while I CAN restructure my loadout to fix the problems the Crusher, and by extension Dust, has, I'd rather use a set that doesn't need me running very specific stuff to be viable (and frankly, I'd probably be better off using a bread and butter mage set anyhow). In addition, when I talk about "win-more", I also mean, this only really shines in situations where I already had the advantage. Therefore, even on Maddening, it comes off as Awesome, But Impractical AT BEST.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about you, but a hard-hitting 1-range attack isn't exactly valuable when you don't have much movement, which is true of most magic classes. Also, I don't know about you, but while I CAN restructure my loadout to fix the problems the Crusher, and by extension Dust, has, I'd rather use a set that doesn't need me running very specific stuff to be viable (and frankly, I'd probably be better off using a bread and butter mage set anyhow). In addition, when I talk about "win-more", I also mean, this only really shines in situations where I already had the advantage. Therefore, even on Maddening, it comes off as Awesome, But Impractical AT BEST.

wyvern annette go brrr

Which is a joke, but is also central to the point that if you build around it, you're not restructuring your loadout at all, you're just... making a build. Warlock Annette with Crusher in her inventory? Sure, I might not agree that its bad but I can at least see where you're coming from. Wyvern Annette who is specifically built around hitting for res with her axes? The build basically becomes the standard physical class set up but with Fiendish Blow instead.

And of course, Wyvern Annette is very mobile. 

As for the whole win more thing, I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that its best suited for after a group has been baited and you just have to deal with them that player phase? If that's the case, isn't an attack that lets you one shot one of the enemies who you have to kill that player phase, thus maximising the actions you can take that turn, the very definition of practical?

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

In addition, when I talk about "win-more", I also mean, this only really shines in situations where I already had the advantage. Therefore, even on Maddening, it comes off as Awesome, But Impractical AT BEST.

Again, I am only advocating using Crusher, with the Dust combat art, in cases where you need to kill an enemy and have no other way to do so. That is to say, a situation where you don't already have the advantage. Crusher has 18 Might, and Dust adds 20, for an effective 38 Might. Even in Black Tomefaire classes, none of Annette's spells come close to this. If there's an enemy that Annette doesn't double, Crusher can open up a one-shot that wouldn't be available otherwise. 

Re: builds, it's all a matter of utility. Uncanny Blow is a nice bonus on all magical units (really on any unit in general), although I'd usually just pick it up on Dark Knight builds. I usually don't like doubling up on Prowess skills, but Annette might have a spot (i.e. Reason Prowess, Fiendish Blow, Magic +2, Uncanny Blow, Axe Prowess). This can vary with how much stock you put in the Rallies, whether you picked up Darting Blow, etc.

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41 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

As for the whole win more thing, I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that its best suited for after a group has been baited and you just have to deal with them that player phase? If that's the case, isn't an attack that lets you one shot one of the enemies who you have to kill that player phase, thus maximising the actions you can take that turn, the very definition of practical?

The term comes from Magic: The Gathering and the like. What I mean is that it won't extricate you from a shitty situation, and instead only is effective in cases where the situation was already advantageous for you - basically, making you win "by more". In other words, in cases where they might actually prove useful, they're unneeded, whereas if the situation is NOT favorable for you, they're not much help. Going back to Dust, as it's tied to a heavy, inaccurate weapon and requires the user to be in melee range, I'd be very, very, VERY hesitant about using it against anything other than an archer or a paralyzed monster (as otherwise, if Annette doesn't hit home, she's grass, and the enemy is the lawn mower) - in other words, in a situation where it probably doesn't help that much.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

The term comes from Magic: The Gathering and the like. What I mean is that it won't extricate you from a shitty situation, and instead only is effective in cases where the situation was already advantageous for you - basically, making you win "by more". In other words, in cases where they might actually prove useful, they're unneeded, whereas if the situation is NOT favorable for you, they're not much help. Going back to Dust, as it's tied to a heavy, inaccurate weapon and requires the user to be in melee range, I'd be very, very, VERY hesitant about using it against anything other than an archer or a paralyzed monster (as otherwise, if Annette doesn't hit home, she's grass, and the enemy is the lawn mower) - in other words, in a situation where it probably doesn't help that much.

But even in such a situation you'd have to already be able to one-shot the archer or monster for it to not make a difference- the former is fairly probable but its not unlikely that Dust will make the difference. You probably won't one-shot most late game monsters regardless but Dust could still make the difference between a 3RKO and a 2RKO. 

Also if you're in a situation where you need the damage to kill an enemy no matter how risky the hit rate, that seems like extricating you from a shitty situation to me. 

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Going back to Dust, as it's tied to a heavy, inaccurate weapon and requires the user to be in melee range, I'd be very, very, VERY hesitant about using it against anything other than an archer or a paralyzed monster (as otherwise, if Annette doesn't hit home, she's grass, and the enemy is the lawn mower) - in other words, in a situation where it probably doesn't help that much.

If it's a choice between "try to one-shot this enemy through a shaky hit rate" and "let this enemy move and probably kill one of my units", of course I'm going to choose the former. If it fails, I can pulse myself back to a position where I have another way to neutralize the enemy as a threat. And before you say "Crusher costing you a pulse means it's bad!", note that I'd likely still have to pulse if Annette didn't have Crusher (since the choice would then be between "let this enemy move and probably kill one of my units" and "fish for a Cutting Gale crit IDK").

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There's really not much point in arguing with Mir. You could present all the sound arguments in the world, provide video examples and a written confession and he'll still stubbornly refuse to consider an alternative.

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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

There's really not much point in arguing with Mir. You could present all the sound arguments in the world, provide video examples and a written confession and he'll still stubbornly refuse to consider an alternative.

Best I've ever seen is "point taken, but [I still think you're completely off base]".

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Three Houses Day 58: Chapter 17 Week 3-4

Okay, so... all of a sudden I have... some more questions about this whole “free time” thing.

There doesn't actually seem to be a lot of “free time”-y shit to do.

The closest things to recreation that you can actually do on your days off, y'know, like, fun stuff an actual human being would want to do every once in a while... is throwing fucking tea parties. Or fishing, I guess. Most of the stuff you can do at the Monastery is just... more work. And granted, sure, Professr is little miss stoic zombie god, workaholism makes sense from her, but uh...

...Can we have a moment of consideration for the ethical issues of giving Professr the power to arbitrarily veto their entire class's one day off a week to send them on multiple mandatory cross-continental treks?

Or the fact that rest improves everyone's motivation by 50%, not just Professr's, implying that Professr doesn't let anyone spend the day relaxing unless she does, and when she wants to explore the Monastery, she enforces some sort of anti-curfew just to make sure she can talk to everyone?

...Let's just get a move on.

Anyway, after some meals and faculty training, as usual, I went to exams, and happily, Seteth finally became a wyvern lord. Ingrid also managed to pass her valkyrie test. She's lost black tomefaire, unfortunately, though she does have higher range now. Hopefully I can get her uncanny blow quickly.

Now for the last week of exploration, and supports.

...Ah yes. The story scene about the “fog”. The fog that doesn't actually exist in the actual gameplay, and is only mentioned here as setup for the outrageously stupid excuse they're going to give for how this upcoming battle will go down.

So apparently Rodrigue found out that Lady Patricia (who they have to mention is the king's second wife because this is the first time we hear of her by name) almost certainly was abducted, rather than being killed, at the Tragedy of Duscur. ...If they revealed her eventual fate in another route, I'm sorry to say I do not remember.

...Also, judging by the backdrop, it seems we just magically teleported straight back to the bridge specifically for this story scene despite not setting out yet. So... we go to the bridge and back... twice in one day today.

...So... the Alliance apparently killed a Kingdom messenger? That obviously wasn't Claude, so either it was someone in the Alliance loyal to the Empire, or it's a false flag operation by Edelgard.

...And Dimitri seems to agree with me, which is surprising, because I assumed this was the excuse for why Dimitri would want to go genocidal on the Alliance too. But he has the usual attitude of “all who stand in my way will die”, and apparently that's gonna be enough.

But yeah, that's all the prep we have, so it's time to do supports and then finish up for today.

First, Dedue and Felix's B.

...Yet another “you saved me on the field of battle” support. We get so damned many of these, and there's nothing in here I couldn't have predicted between these two.

In fact... next time this happens, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and bullshit up a script for one, and see how on the money it is.

Seteth and Ingrid's B.

Seteth: The 10 Elites certainly possessed great power. But does that make them worthy of worship?

Isn't that... official Church doctrine, Seteth?

But yeah, it's some generic shit about how Crests shouldn't make you more important. The sort of thing that might show up if this were in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Anyway, Felix and Annette's A.

...Oh dear. More singing from Annette. Not nearly as catchy or well-constructed as her cake song. And she seems to agree, because she has other songs and she wishes she was caught singing basically any other one of them.

I love how stuck Felix is on the meaning of the lyrics, since the song seems to be about cleaning the library... by blowing it up.

...She says it's embarrassing, but her portrait is beyond delighted.

Okay, that's all for today. Tomorrow we will officially get this shitshow on the shitroad and tackle the Battle of the Eagle and Lion Part 2: Edelectric Boogaloo.

Stay safe, everyone.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Can we have a moment of consideration for the ethical issues of giving Professr the power to arbitrarily veto their entire class's one day off a week to send them on multiple mandatory cross-continental treks?

The cruel realities of homework 😛

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Or the fact that rest improves everyone's motivation by 50%, not just Professr's, implying that Professr doesn't let anyone spend the day relaxing unless she does, and when she wants to explore the Monastery, she enforces some sort of anti-curfew just to make sure she can talk to everyone?

Glib as I was above, that does have some really weird implications to it. I guess having Professr wandering around, and potentially intruding on the students' lives really stresses them out.

 

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