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


Alastor15243
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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'd say Alear is my favorite of the avatars character-wise. He seems the most human, ironically, and I really like his straight-man attitude to the absurdity that is the rest of the cast. The fact that the worship is both justified and also acknowledged by Alear as weird as hell is pretty refreshing.

Guess when one of the very first people you meet (and one of your stewards, at that) is basically a total fangirl...

1 hour ago, joeygreedy said:

And I guess not being brokenly game-soloing helps too, lol

I was surprised my first playthrough in midgame when I looked at the stats on my Alear and found his strength barely comparable to Clanne, but at least you have speed aplenty. After Robin/Byleth/Corrin could be setup to solo their respective games, Alear ended up having middling growths, bad weapons and a middling class, with barely double digit strength. It just didn't really hit me because Marth carried that strength and speed score, but then Chapter 11 happened and suddenly, no more Emblem. 

Unironically would bench the Alear on Maddening if I could from chapter 12 onwards, until chapter 14 is finished and I can staple Byleth to the Dragon type.

Speaking of, I found it rather jarring that Alear was... to say the least, not on the level of the other three, who are at the least above average (unless in the case of Robin and Corrin, you do something like -Speed, that is; I actually did see someone do -Speed Robin. That Robin ended up being pretty bad, to say the least).

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I'd say, I actually find that a shame. The most justified case for MC worship... so of course they have to go the route of "humble MC would prefer they don't". Come on, feels squandered... let me go Actraiser all over this.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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  • 2 weeks later...

Small question, since the DLC is coming in about 1 week, will you be playlogging it or just giving a "What did I think of it" short review?

I do not expect a compelling plot from mirrorverse but I expect hilarity.

Oh, and if you have played the DLC, what did you think of the maps? Ignoring the obviously broken OP Emblems they just give you, because of course they do. 

Edited by joeygreedy
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1 hour ago, joeygreedy said:

Small question, since the DLC is coming in about 1 week, will you be playlogging it or just giving a "What did I think of it" short review?

I do not expect a compelling plot from mirrorverse but I expect hilarity.

Oh, and if you have played the DLC, what did you think of the maps? Ignoring the obviously broken OP Emblems they just give you, because of course they do. 

I haven't done the vast majority of the test of the DLC for the playlog so I don't wanna change that now, but I will tell you guys what I thought once I get it and play it.

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On 2/20/2023 at 2:19 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Kagetsu lost a battle with Ike

FAILURE

On 2/18/2023 at 4:39 PM, Alastor15243 said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! FUCK YOU! WE GOT YOUR RINGS! I WAS HOPING THIS HAPPENED WHEN THEY BUILT UP MARNI’S HUBRIS!

#SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome

On 2/21/2023 at 3:21 PM, Alastor15243 said:

And now I’m enduring a battle between Seadall doing 0 damage quadrice while Sigurd does 13 at a 52% hit rate. It took aaaaages.

Be glad the game steps in and gives you a DRAW.

On 2/21/2023 at 9:06 PM, Jotari said:

Old! She's only 35 XD

Speaking of old, how old is Lindon? He states to Hortensia that he was retired.

On 2/22/2023 at 10:49 AM, Alastor15243 said:

…I just tried using Leif’s master lance on a swordmaster, only to discover it is the single most inaccurate piece of bullshit I have ever seen. Goldmary barely cracks 100 hit, before taking evasion into account, when using it. What the actual fuck is wrong with this thing?

Nerfnerfnerfnerfnerfnerfnerfnerf!

...Seriously, I find that brave weapons are just not really worth it in this game, even the engage weapons. They have high weight and crappy damage, and they're expensive to forge to boot.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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9 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

...Seriously, I find that brave weapons are just not really worth it in this game, even the engage weapons. They have high weight and crappy damage.

Funny enough, now that the well actually gives playthroughs a reasonable amount of SP to work with, I gave Saphir axe power 5 when I drafted her and she's an absolute monster with her brave axe as a griffon knight.

Yes, I did in fact wind up making a flier out of the woman afraid of heights.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Funny enough, now that the well actually gives playthroughs a reasonable amount of SP to work with, I gave Saphir axe power 5 when I drafted her and she's an absolute monster with her brave axe as a griffon knight.

Yes, I did in fact wind up making a flier out of the woman afraid of heights.

I found the combination of a Brave Weapon, maybe an engraving to patch hitrates, Lunar Brace ( Preferably+ ), and Weapon Power ( +10 damage lol ) leads to anything you point said unit at just die. No questions about stats, just die. The weapon power skills are actually pretty great once you get the SP, seeing as it gives a whopping +10 attack. Too bad Arts and Bows and Tomes don't have those. 

Then you get doubled on enemy phase and die.  /s

Actually being able to mess around with builds with skills like Weapon Power 5, Sword Agility 5, weird Hold-Out/Nosferatu/Rewarping mage shenanigans, all Lunar Brace party, is just great fun, even if the best option probably is just slapping Canter and Speedtaker onto everyone lol. That thing is ludicrously underpriced. I have no clue why the speed skills are so cheap. 

I don't think there is a single unit that is so bad they are legit unsalvageable with dumping SP, it might not be worth it but it's fun trying to drag Vandar's old bones to fight the final boss despite falling off harder than Gunter.  

Edited by joeygreedy
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On 2/27/2023 at 2:24 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, Ragnarok Warp did 17 damage to Clanne, who has 30 res, and 32 damage to Kagetsu, who has 20. Which naturally doesn’t add up, so obviously the mystic multiplier is in play. However, the good news is that Yunaka has 30 res too, so I should expect Yunaka to only need to worry about taking 17 damage if she runs into Griss in a dark alley. Which means she can rush headlong towards the treasure with minimal concern.

Resonance+. Though that can't explain how Clanne takes 17 damage with 30 resistance.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes, I did in fact wind up making a flier out of the woman afraid of heights.

Lol

4 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

I found the combination of a Brave Weapon, maybe an engraving to patch hitrates, Lunar Brace ( Preferably+ ), and Weapon Power ( +10 damage lol ) leads to anything you point said unit at just die. No questions about stats, just die. The weapon power skills are actually pretty great once you get the SP, seeing as it gives a whopping +10 attack. Too bad Arts and Bows and Tomes don't have those. 

That's a truckload of investment, given that Lunar Brace+ is 5k, and the weapon power skills are equally as expensive at their highest (speaking of, the weapon power skills are a rip-off imho. For 1000 SP, I can either get +2 strength... or I can get +2 attack when using a specific weapon). Without some serious well luck, I have issues seeing these builds come online before the game is over (and that's not even getting into the bond fragments needed).

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's a truckload of investment, given that Lunar Brace+ is 5k, and the weapon power skills are equally as expensive at their highest (speaking of, the weapon power skills are a rip-off imho. For 1000 SP, I can either get +2 strength... or I can get +2 attack when using a specific weapon). Without some serious well luck, I have issues seeing these builds come online before the game is over (and that's not even getting into the bond fragments needed).

Lunar Brace+ is absolutely overkill, yeah, that's mostly a meme. 

Weapon Mt I value more in the long term, here's why. 

+1 Str = 500SP

+2 Str = 1000SP

+3 Str = 3000SP ( Massive jump, not entirely sure why, but it's the same with +3 Magic  )

+4 Str = 4000 SP

+5 Str = 5000 SP

+6 Str = 6000 SP

Vs 

+2 Mt = 1000

+4 Mt = 2000

+6 Mt = 3000

+8 Mt = 4000

+10 Mt = 5000 ( Linear +2 for 1000 SP )

Of the characters who give Weapon Mt, Roy, Ike and Sigurd,

You have Sigurd to get to +6 Lance Attack before Chapter 10, and if you feed books can give it to Chloe by chapter 8 if you save the 2 paralogues for more well rolls.

Roy can give +3 Str for 3000SP, or +6 Sword Attack for the same cost ( Bonus : Works with Levin Sword )

Ike can be unlocked Chapter 13, and his paralogue can be done immediately to get to +10 Axe Power.

Roy can be gotten back by chapter 19, but can only give +3 Str from chapter 8-10.

Overall, I'd say anybody who tends to be in a weaponlocked class, or favors one weapon will really benefit from the Mt.

Also, Str +2 or +3 cost about as much as Weapon Power at the same tiers, so not exactly more Bond Fragments.

10 Avoid tends to be quite a minor tradeoff for that much sheer offensive power. 

 

But yes, Lunar Brace+ is very overkill, very expensive in both SP and Bond Fragments, but still hilarious watching a Martial Monk punch a general to death. 

You're unlikely to get to Strength 6 anyway, it's expensive but compared to Strength? I'll take weapon power any day unless I want to take Str +2 as a budget option. 

 

Edited by joeygreedy
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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Resonance+. Though that can't explain how Clanne takes 17 damage with 30 resistance.

Lol

That's a truckload of investment, given that Lunar Brace+ is 5k, and the weapon power skills are equally as expensive at their highest (speaking of, the weapon power skills are a rip-off imho. For 1000 SP, I can either get +2 strength... or I can get +2 attack when using a specific weapon). Without some serious well luck, I have issues seeing these builds come online before the game is over (and that's not even getting into the bond fragments needed).

Forking out a tonne of SP for lunar brace isn't the only way to get it. Eirika is going to be equipped to someone, after all.

Edited by Jotari
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I guess, to some extent, do you want everyone having a 1k+2k skill, or do you want to give everyone cheap 500-1000 SP skills, except have 2-3 carry units with 4k+ SP pumped into making them monstrous? After a few runs, feels like either way works TBH

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18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Forking out a tonne of SP for lunar brace isn't the only way to get it. Eirika is going to be equipped to someone, after all.

Fair point, though Eirika's boosts give me mixed messages... Lunar Brace works with physical attacks, but her emblem boosts magic... The result is that I am conflicted about who uses it best. 'Course, there is the question of bond fragments to consider...

Edited by Shadow Mir
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13 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fair point, though Eirika's boosts give me mixed messages... Lunar Brace works with physical attacks, but her emblem boosts magic... The result is that I am conflicted about who uses it best. 'Course, there is the question of bond fragments to consider...

Brawlers, I'd wager.

Personally, I put her with Mauvier. The Mag boost helps for Staff and Flame Lance use, while the rest is for when using a physical weapon. Not to mention, as Royal Knight is Cavalry, he can make use of the 50% damage boost from Twin Strike's second hit.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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19 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

You have Sigurd to get to +6 Lance Attack before Chapter 10, and if you feed books can give it to Chloe by chapter 8 if you save the 2 paralogues for more well rolls.

Problem is, Chloe is already fragile as is, and I don't think it's worth her being that much more likely to get maimed on the counter.

19 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

Ike can be unlocked Chapter 13, and his paralogue can be done immediately to get to +10 Axe Power.

If you're playing on Maddening, I wouldn't consider that feasible, because being surrounded is like the absolute worst tactical position to start in.

19 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

Roy can give +3 Str for 3000SP, or +6 Sword Attack for the same cost ( Bonus : Works with Levin Sword )

Far as I can tell, most of the sword units in the game aren't exactly durable, and making them more likely to get hit doesn't sound great... 

19 hours ago, joeygreedy said:

10 Avoid tends to be quite a minor tradeoff for that much sheer offensive power. 

If you are someone like Louis, who doesn't really mind being more likely to take a hit, sure. But most units aren't.

 

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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fair point, though Eirika's boosts give me mixed messages... Lunar Brace works with physical attacks, but her emblem boosts magic... The result is that I am conflicted about who uses it best. 'Course, there is the question of bond fragments to consider...

Eirika is undoubtedly much better on a physical unit, as no only is Lunar Brace great but so is Seiglinde. I'm still glad she grants magic though, as, while she is undoubtedly better on physical units, the plain fact is that almost all Emblems are physical orientated,  so if you want to put her on a magical unit who doesn't have a lot of other optionsn she can at least provide somethong with her magic boost and wind sword.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Now then... how many effects over the course of the series require full HP? I can only think of 4 thus far, two in Engage (Perfectionist, Confidence, Chain Guard, and Wind God).

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On 4/11/2023 at 10:01 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Now then... how many effects over the course of the series require full HP? I can only think of 4 thus far, two in Engage (Perfectionist, Confidence, Chain Guard, and Wind God).

Engage has a third, Brave Assist. There's also Dimitri's Royal Lineage+.

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On 3/8/2023 at 1:31 PM, Alastor15243 said:

…Oh.

 

…Oh fuck.

 

…I failed a spot check, and Louis is about to get obliterated by a mage knight, getting doubled by bolganone. I had him hold one of the sides to leave my squishies room to huddle up in the center, and…

 

Christ. That was brutal.

 

…Who the fuck am I even going to replace him with?

 

Who am I going to give Sigurd to?

 

…This hurts. This really, really hurts. Not gameplaywise. He’s not nearly the pivotal defensive cornerstone he was in the earlygame, and even his player-phase offense has by this point become situational as hell. But… like… of the characters I’m still actively using, only Pepsiman, Clanne and Framme have been around longer. He carried me through so much of the early game, and he’s survived so much. And now he’s gone because of a single enemy I left him in range of. And I just got my last replacement units, so like… what am I even going to do?

Ohhhh noooo!

On 3/10/2023 at 9:47 AM, Alastor15243 said:

…Alfred completely screwed the pooch on the cooking, and the reactions were amazing.

 

Ivy: I did not know pain was a flavor. I suppose that’s what sweet, salty, spicy and bitter add up to.

 

Kagetsu: I dislike this very much. It tastes of nothing but failure.

 

AND WE GOT DEBUFFS TO MOST OF OUR STATS WHAT THE FUCK

OOF

On the flipside, the bad food reactions are still hilarious as heck.

On 3/10/2023 at 10:35 AM, Acacia Sgt said:

I once made an edit of the Spiderman pointing meme with one of them having a full red suit precisely for this reason... but can't find it to post it again, hahaha.

The funny thing about that is, for how famous that meme is, the cartoon where it originated is very hard to find.

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  • 8 months later...

...So. I've been playing Engage more lately, and I just made my way through the DLC. I didn't do a playlog or anything, but I figure my readers might want to know my long-belated thoughts about the Engage DLC, particularly the Fell Xenologue. I'm in the middle of a run where I use all of the DLC characters and classes, and I've completed all of the divine paralogues in a big binge between chapters 8 and 9, and then did the Fell Xenologue right before Chapter 10.

The divine paralogues... the level scaling wasn't a good idea. I like them, I had fun with them as I did them, but I know from experience with my initial attempt to do them postgame on my draft maddening file that they scale ATROCIOUSLY. You *really* want to do these things before enemies start promoting, which, due to the level scaling, you can just barely accomplish if you do all of them in a row exactly when I did them. Which really doesn't feel natural, especially since it gets a large amount of your party roughly a bajillion levels over what they should be. It really kills the hype of one of the best sets of chapters in the series when you not only have seven more emblems that the game doesn't take from you, but you also steamroll the whole thing.

I think they got it royally backwards. The divine paralogues should've had fixed levels balanced for post-11, so that you aren't pressured to do them all right away and ruin the earlygame balance. Meanwhile, the fixed-level units you get as a reward for doing the Fell Xenologue... should've been the ones that scale to your current progress in the game. The game desperately needs some way to inject a bunch of backup units into the recruit-poor lategame for ironmanning purposes, but instead they dump them at a fixed level for the point of the game most bountiful with new recruits.

...Now for the actual Fell Xenologue itself.

FUCK. IT.

I played through the whole thing on hard and it went from decently engaging to a meatgrinder of frustration that actually managed to make me snap and use rewinds for the final chapter. For those of you new to this thread, first of all, welcome, and second of all, for full context, I am notoriously reluctant to use those things. I hate them. Fell Xenologue 6 managed to make rewinding the lesser of two evils. Three if you count turning the difficulty down to normal. Which I also considered.

I wish I had been taking notes, because there were so many little things by the end that pissed me off. But the highlights:

1: They massacred Clanne. Nobody else on earth is going to notice this but me, so I'm going to put this on record here so it's on record somewhere: I'm not entirely sure what happened, but by the time of FX4, I was looking at Clanne's magic stat and going "No way. I know Clanne has a reputation for having poor magic, but I'm using the guy. I know, from experience, that it isn't that bad. I ran his averages for that level in sage. I was right. His magic at that level, in that class, should have been seventeen. It was instead twelve. Which is about where it would be if, say, the programmers had forgotten to add Clanne's class growths to his Fell Xenologue auto-level stats. Something his similarly-atrocious resistance bore out as well. I still managed to use him because Chrom is amazing for him, he had canter, he could double wyverns with excalibur, and I needed another rally bot, but holy cow did I, likely the one Clanne Stanne on the plannet, feel almost personally slighted.

2: I'm sure this isn't a hot take, but fuck the game forcing you to use nothing but big expensive heavy weapons as the game progressed, fuck the game not letting you kit out the xenologue characters with items like you can with emblems, and fuck the game not increasing the xenologue characters' default bond level with Emblems as the chapters progressed.

3: One positive thing I have to say about FX6: better final map theme than the main game. I like to imagine those opening notes, as well as the sampled chanting, are being played on a Sommie-decorated otamatone, part of a band of constructs puppeted by Xenologue Sommie doing his part to cheer you on.

4: Fell. Xenologue. 6. Took. Hours. It is the most meat-grind-y thing I have ever seen. It is an endless gauntlet of demonstrations that there are, in fact, gimmicks you can pull out where a turn of warning frankly isn't anywhere near enough. It's one of those things that feels like it was specifically designed to make rewinds feel necessary, and it succeeded. They are necessary for this. Even playing on hard mode, rewinds are vitally essential for retaining your sanity, lest you be forced to start the entire three-hour-map over because you overestimated how much time you had to deal with the FUCKING CORRUPTED WYVERNS standing between you and your next island of safety OH YEAH SPEAKING OF WHICH:

5: Fuck corrupted wyverns. Fuck them. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to create an enemy type with five range who can, regardless of whether they hit or not, reduce your defense to zero for the rest of the turn!? Maybe they're easier to deal with when you have all of the emblems and thus a shitton of movement tech and astra storm, but by then you can't actually use the by-then grossly underleveled DLC units, so I have to ask, WHYYYYYYYY!?

6: Easily the most memorable highlight of the FX6 run, my single favorite move, was realizing that three of the mage knights among the reinforcements I was being absolutely swarmed with on the last island, could be exactly taken out, all at once, by Gregory using Soren's cataclysm. He died soon after, but he helped ensure the necessary pieces survived.

7: Almost half of my army died in that exact moment I reached the final island. Which was after I started using rewinds. They send four bosses at you simultaneously while you're forced to cram your army through a tiny bottleneck, and I really do believe that I got through that with reasonably-acceptable losses. By the time it was just the boss left, I had Alfred, Zelestia, Chloe, Framme, Nel, Pepsiman and Alcryst. Pepsiman was supposedly supposed to be the key to taking out the boss. He was not. Even with his fancy empowered liberation, he still only did like ten damage, once, to the bastard, who had four 80-HP health bars. No, the real MVP was Alcryst. When rallied up with Pepsiman's rally spectrum, he could double, and when next to Pepsiman he could do a minimum of three damage, so I had him go at it turn after turn, chipping away with a killer bow, constantly praying for crits or lunas. After what felt like the entire previous duration of the fight over again just miserably chipping away that that ludicrously bulky son of a bitch while dealing with his occasional reinforcement summons and corrupted wyverns, Alcryst finally managed to finish him off with a luna crit.

8: I honestly wasn't nearly as impressed by the story as other people seem to be. There were a lot of moments, particularly the setup for the reveal of who the villain is, that made no sense whatsoever and had me groaning.

If you guys have any other questions about my experience that I didn't cover here, please, by all means, feel free to ask them. This kinda devolved into a ramble because it's late and I only just now thought to do this. I may remember additional stuff I completely forgot to discuss here if you ask the right question.

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Oh, right, the DLC hadn't been done.

I'll be honest, I don't mind about the Divine Paralogues. As someone who disliked that plot point, it felt cathartic instead to deny Veyle that satisfaction, even if the game still pretended otherwise.

As for the Fell Xenologues... yeah, not too hot on them either. Much as it pains the completionist in me, I don't think I'd ever want to replay it... ever again.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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100% agree on the level scaling. I personally would have made it so you get the DLC emblem rings from playing through Fell Xenologue (like what is actually happening with the plot there) and then the Divine Paralogues would just be the way to unlock Levels 11-20 like the other Emblems. That way the level scaling would be less of an issue since you don't actually have to do them until you choose, just like the main game (where imo the paralogues also have a bit of an issue with level scaling). That would also give us a paralogue for the Three Houses Lords, which on retrospect it's kind of weird they get nothing.

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