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I turtled for a bunch of turns with everyone in their safe spots and nothing happened. So I moved Gilbert to aggro one thief and game over. Maybe I didn’t turtle for as long as I thought. I was in rage quit mode by that point.

Byleth can survive a couple of attacks but Dimitri only one. It looked like there were just too many mobs to get past. But maybe if I strategically sacrifice the other 4. Mercedes is equipped with Stride so if I can get them to meet. I’d hate to lose Mercedes but I have Marianne and Linhardt recruited, so I’ll manage. I’ll sure miss Fortify.

I could do this with Gilbert plus 3 from my roster if I could pick them. But Mercedes and a level 18 Annette are not going to survive in their spot. What level are other people at in chapter 13? My active roster is 25-28 and it would be tough but I could do it with them. But Gilbert/Ashe on the left and Mercedes/Annette on the right are terrible combos. Not enough healing to tank the left and not enough DPS to push through on the right. Dimitri is killed every time if he leaves his bush at the entrance.

Edited by Dillthepill
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I must be missing something in chapter 4 (BE). I figured the Death Knight wouldn't move unless I entered his attack range. Which held up until turn 9 when my units were about halfway across the map. Then he ran off to the left to lay the smackdown on me.

I'm confident that I didn't enter his attack range, on the first turn he was active he only moved since he couldn't reach my units. This gave me ample opportunity to check his stats and see that I was 100% screwed.

So uh, what? I wouldn't be able to take him down the DK even if I threw literally everyone at him. 

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1 hour ago, Dillthepill said:

I turtled for a bunch of turns with everyone in their safe spots and nothing happened. So I moved Gilbert to aggro one thief and game over. Maybe I didn’t turtle for as long as I thought. I was in rage quit mode by that point.

Byleth can survive a couple of attacks but Dimitri only one. It looked like there were just too many mobs to get past. But maybe if I strategically sacrifice the other 4. Mercedes is equipped with Stride so if I can get them to meet. I’d hate to lose Mercedes but I have Marianne and Linhardt recruited, so I’ll manage. I’ll sure miss Fortify.

I could do this with Gilbert plus 3 from my roster if I could pick them. But Mercedes and a level 18 Annette are not going to survive in their spot. What level are other people at in chapter 13? My active roster is 25-28 and it would be tough but I could do it with them. But Gilbert/Ashe on the left and Mercedes/Annette on the right are terrible combos. Not enough healing to tank the left and not enough DPS to push through on the right. Dimitri is killed every time if he leaves his bush at the entrance.

remember that you have access to your convoy, what I did was giving Dimitri a few speed stat boosters so he did not get doubled by the sword dudes (assassins still doubled obviously), then kind of put him on chokepoints while keeping him healthy with concotions/elixirs (again, convoy), his personal gives him 20 avoid when at full health, so avoid tanking on bushes is a viable strategy

 

gilbert is kinda ass on this chapter on maddening, he takes like 10x2 from sword dudes and has very poor hitrate (give him a lance from the convoy), but he can still be useful to block certain routes from the enemies, just remember not to aggro the first few enemies at the beginning or he gets swarmed and without byleth and dimitri helping out he stands little chance

also I'm pretty sure the game levels up your underlevelled units for this chapter, had a few level 25 dudes suddendly at level 27, and guys I recruited like Petra (recruited at level 17 and never used) suddendly at level 21 or so (not that I could use her in the chapter, just saying that timeskip definetly levels you up, probably by giving your units a set ammount of exp)

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I accidentally aggro’ed the DK in chapter 4 with Byleth. It didn’t happen until I was in the marked range for the DK. It was just a mistake on my part. But it didn’t turn out to be that difficult. He wasn’t able to one shot Byleth and she got in a counter. I think I healed up Byleth and attacked on her turn. She could survive a DK counter. Maybe I finished the DK off with Sylvain and the Ruin lance? Is it possible to have it that early? I don’t remember. Could have been Lysithea.

Funny thing is I’ve killed the roving DK in each fight before the time skip. I didn’t do that in my normal/hard play throughs. It’s been easier on maddening because he leaves his defensive position. Pre time skip, the battles have been harder but the bosses are usually easier they don’t turtle. Edelgard advanced and left herself exposed in the last battle before the time skip. That was a very fun fight.

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So maddening basically burnt me out from playing FE. I stopped for a week and decided to try the Ingrid & Dorothea paralogue and I think I'll stop playing for another week LOL. The endless reinforcements to the point that I can't even reach the mage to stop the reinforcements without using Ingrid and how the enemies are level 21 but my units (at that point) is hovering around 15 but I'm receiving SO LITTLE exp that I can't even level anyone up is really frustrating. 

At first, I thought maddening was sort of fun but challenging but it honestly is ruining the game for me....the endless AS checking, endless equipping of training weapons so I don't get doubled, turtling that is so bad but also not really effective because every enemy and their mother have pass so you have a conglomerate of units just sticking together (and getting into each other's way) and you can't even really split the team up to 'clean up' the units. 

I think the fact that each map takes an eternity to complete (and not even fun) completely takes away the immersion of the story. I should be excited for both the maps and the story but right now I'm kinda dreading the maps cause I really want to get on with the damn story. (My first BE playthrough is also on maddening)

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5 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

So maddening basically burnt me out from playing FE. I stopped for a week and decided to try the Ingrid & Dorothea paralogue and I think I'll stop playing for another week LOL. The endless reinforcements to the point that I can't even reach the mage to stop the reinforcements without using Ingrid and how the enemies are level 21 but my units (at that point) is hovering around 15 but I'm receiving SO LITTLE exp that I can't even level anyone up is really frustrating. 

At first, I thought maddening was sort of fun but challenging but it honestly is ruining the game for me....the endless AS checking, endless equipping of training weapons so I don't get doubled, turtling that is so bad but also not really effective because every enemy and their mother have pass so you have a conglomerate of units just sticking together (and getting into each other's way) and you can't even really split the team up to 'clean up' the units. 

I think the fact that each map takes an eternity to complete (and not even fun) completely takes away the immersion of the story. I should be excited for both the maps and the story but right now I'm kinda dreading the maps cause I really want to get on with the damn story. (My first BE playthrough is also on maddening)

Ingrid/Dorothea paralogue: move down the left side keeping a brisk pace to not get run over by the units spawning top right. Get Ingrid right next to the spot which causes reinforcement spawn on the south end of the map (it's like 6 spots away from the escape tiles). Use stride to get Ingrid into the escape zone without triggering the reinforcements. They will spawn, but the map will end because Ingrid escapes.

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1 hour ago, Radiant head said:

Started this NG+ with the deers and can't even get past the mock battle lol

How are yall feeling about maddening, is it worth sticking with or is the difficulty artificial 

Work with your highest AS units and use bows. Training swords/gauntlets come in handy for AS manipulation.

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59 minutes ago, Radiant head said:

Started this NG+ with the deers and can't even get past the mock battle lol

How are yall feeling about maddening, is it worth sticking with or is the difficulty artificial 

It takes patience but it's not that bad and doesn't feel cheap for the most part.

The main consensus is that the hardest missions are chapter 2, 5, 13(not CF, and if you have benched some students from your core house), paralogues (if attempted as soon as possible), and the last 2 chapters in each paths. But overall it's not that demanding, and you can get away with some risky setups.

Small tip for chapter 1 : take a large detour to the west to avoid agro-ing the north-east units .

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On 9/27/2019 at 2:38 PM, Wazoo said:

Yeah, Hunter's Volley is the main reason I don't promote my Bernie to Bow Knight. My first playthrough was a CF and I ended up pretty underwhelmed by her, but now in my Maddening SS playthrough she's one of my most useful units! +20 precision + Deadeye + Encloser + Persecution + Hunter's Volley, she can hit extremely far with very good aim, keeping herself out of trouble while efficiently chipping/killing ennemies, and Encloser allows her to endlessly neutralize one monster. She consumes her bows very fast, but that's not a big issue in this game. I just had to feed her some strength bonuses ofc.

Exactly. I really understimated her. Now I don't even want to promote her to BK. Her combat arts and skills are really strong. Hunter's Volley has been a lifesaver. +My Bernie was rng blessed. Her str is high and her dex is absurd. Great bow unit for maddening.

Edited by Spectrum
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Completed the first part of Blue Lions!

I have to admit the story chapters became a lot easier from chapter 8 on. I had no real trouble to survive. Only some paralogues were nasty because of the map design and / or non trained units I had issues to keep them alive like Manuela in her paralogue. 

Lys reached level 30 and S at the end what I could not do in lower difficulties. Byleth and her are my absolute MVPs. Lys for destroying in PP and Byleth for tanking in EP. 

 

Is part 2 of Blue Lions managable in maddening since I have not done this route yet?

Edited by Ingrid Brandl Galatea
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My previous question is already answered because my run is Over! 

For some reason the game does not let turn down difficulty for chapter 13 (at least I did not find it). The map is absolutely unplayable since I have no sword breaker and Dimitri is slow as fuck. And for some reason he has no horse anymore. There is no chance to keep Annette and Mercedes safe. The most dickish map combined with the most dickish map in FE. 

PS: I remember this map from GD run, and I had already massive trouble in normal. But at least Claude was a flyer, so way more useful than (useless) Dimitri. 

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22 minutes ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

My previous question is already answered because my run is Over! 

For some reason the game does not let turn down difficulty for chapter 13 (at least I did not find it). The map is absolutely unplayable since I have no sword breaker and Dimitri is slow as fuck. And for some reason he has no horse anymore. There is no chance to keep Annette and Mercedes safe. The most dickish map combined with the most dickish map in FE. 

PS: I remember this map from GD run, and I had already massive trouble in normal. But at least Claude was a flyer, so way more useful than (useless) Dimitri. 

I posted the same thing up above but I figured it out yesterday. First off, I used the convoy to give a training lance to Dimitri. Then I parked Byleth in the door for the first few turns. I made careful use of gambits and ranged attacks from Byleth to keep the mobs choked off. Dimitri would either help with his spear or hide in the bushes whining about his life.

Eventually, some mobs will get through because they have pass or I had to move Byleth. Dimitri had decent enough avoidance in the bush and the training lance was enough to kill some with counters that had already been softened with gambits. Also used Dimitri’s new gambit on mobs in the room.

Once Mercedes comes in you have to move Byleth towards her. She stays in the corner and heals. Annette stands there and looks cute. From there it’s a challenge but is straight forward positioning and target prioritizing. Your goal is to keep them off the mages and get to the corner to deal with the brawler that has them pinned in.

There is zero room for error and I had to DP a few times. The most annoying was a 30% gambit they landed on Byleth. That allowed the archer to get to Mercedes.

After saving the mages you work back to team up with Gilbert/Ashe and then towards the NW corner. If you’ve made it this far in the game on Maddening then you’ll be able to clear the rest of the map. I’d never used more than 3 DP’s before and I used 8 on this map.

Lysithea is also my star so not having her (or Hilda on a Wyvern) was difficult. Ashe and Annette are on my bench. It seems a lot people take Ashe down the Wyvern class path with BL. I liked Hilda from my GD run, but that would have made this easier to have a useful Ashe.

Thanks to @AxelVDP for reminding me I had the convoy. I was channeling Emo Dimitri and giving up.

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Yesterday, I managed to get two of Rhea's health bars on Chapter 18 on Crimson Flower Maddening down, thanks to Byleth, Edelgard, and Caspar. Getting the rest of my units from the left side of the map to meet up with the rest of them in the middle was a smart decision. Hopefully, I'll defeat Rhea eventually, it's just a matter of how long my units can dodge and take attacks, as well as survive Pegasus Knights and sometimes Paladins and Boltings, and she deals around 20 damage to some of them a piece, and she can't double Byleth, and, I think, Ashe, due to having 31 AS. Also, for some reason, Cyril doesn't attack me, even though I'm in his range, only attacking if anyone was at a lower corner of the map, but he just stands there as I attack Rhea.

Edited by VallaKnight12
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2 hours ago, Dillthepill said:

I posted the same thing up above but I figured it out yesterday. First off, I used the convoy to give a training lance to Dimitri. Then I parked Byleth in the door for the first few turns. I made careful use of gambits and ranged attacks from Byleth to keep the mobs choked off. Dimitri would either help with his spear or hide in the bushes whining about his life.

Eventually, some mobs will get through because they have pass or I had to move Byleth. Dimitri had decent enough avoidance in the bush and the training lance was enough to kill some with counters that had already been softened with gambits. Also used Dimitri’s new gambit on mobs in the room.

Once Mercedes comes in you have to move Byleth towards her. She stays in the corner and heals. Annette stands there and looks cute. From there it’s a challenge but is straight forward positioning and target prioritizing. Your goal is to keep them off the mages and get to the corner to deal with the brawler that has them pinned in.

There is zero room for error and I had to DP a few times. The most annoying was a 30% gambit they landed on Byleth. That allowed the archer to get to Mercedes.

After saving the mages you work back to team up with Gilbert/Ashe and then towards the NW corner. If you’ve made it this far in the game on Maddening then you’ll be able to clear the rest of the map. I’d never used more than 3 DP’s before and I used 8 on this map. 

Lysithea is also my star so not having her (or Hilda on a Wyvern) was difficult. Ashe and Annette are on my bench. It seems a lot people take Ashe down the Wyvern class path with BL. I liked Hilda from my GD run, but that would have made this easier to have a useful Ashe.

Thanks to @AxelVDP for reminding me I had the convoy. I was channeling Emo Dimitri and giving up.

What class was your Byleth?

And to everyone at large, how important is it for Byleth to fly in this chapter if I have a ton of fliers among the rest of the Blue Lions?

1 hour ago, VallaKnight12 said:

Yesterday, I managed to get two of Rhea's health bars on Chapter 18 on Crimson Flower Maddening down, thanks to Byleth, Edelgard, and Caspar. Getting the rest of my units from the left side of the map to meet up with the rest of them in the middle was a smart decision. Hopefully, I'll defeat Rhea eventually, it's just a matter of how long my units can dodge and take attacks, as well as survive Pegasus Knights and sometimes Paladins and Boltings, and she deals around 20 damage to some of them a piece, and she can't double Byleth, and, I think, Ashe, due to having 31 AS. Also, for some reason, Cyril doesn't attack me, even though I'm in his range, only attacking if anyone was at a lower corner of the map, but he just stands there as I attack Rhea.

I guess Cyril respects the sacred art of "Rhea calls dibs"?

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33 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

What class was your Byleth?

Enlightened One or whatever it’s called. The only flyer in my original BL team is Ingrid, and she comes in the far side of the map. What I described above wasn’t flying around or abusing some mechanic — just positioning and ability tactics. Not that I’m judging. I would have taken any advantage I could get.

It seemed unwinnable at first, but the key was to tank with Byleth in the door and use all my gambits to slow down and soften the mobs. I’m not sure if the lighter weapon ever was the difference in Dimitri not being doubled. But the training lance was enough to kill anyone already hit from a gambit.

Edited by Dillthepill
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My last post got me thinking if I’ve abused any mechanics to do this maddening run.

I used the +2 movement from the DLC on Byleth. That feels a little like cheating.

The mechanic I debatedly abuse is +3 range on Lysithea from early in the game. +2 is from Lorenz’s staff and +1 from using NG+ renown to buy up her reason skill.

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3 hours ago, Dillthepill said:

I posted the same thing up above but I figured it out yesterday. First off, I used the convoy to give a training lance to Dimitri. Then I parked Byleth in the door for the first few turns. I made careful use of gambits and ranged attacks from Byleth to keep the mobs choked off. Dimitri would either help with his spear or hide in the bushes whining about his life.

Eventually, some mobs will get through because they have pass or I had to move Byleth. Dimitri had decent enough avoidance in the bush and the training lance was enough to kill some with counters that had already been softened with gambits. Also used Dimitri’s new gambit on mobs in the room.

Once Mercedes comes in you have to move Byleth towards her. She stays in the corner and heals. Annette stands there and looks cute. From there it’s a challenge but is straight forward positioning and target prioritizing. Your goal is to keep them off the mages and get to the corner to deal with the brawler that has them pinned in.

There is zero room for error and I had to DP a few times. The most annoying was a 30% gambit they landed on Byleth. That allowed the archer to get to Mercedes.

After saving the mages you work back to team up with Gilbert/Ashe and then towards the NW corner. If you’ve made it this far in the game on Maddening then you’ll be able to clear the rest of the map. I’d never used more than 3 DP’s before and I used 8 on this map.

Lysithea is also my star so not having her (or Hilda on a Wyvern) was difficult. Ashe and Annette are on my bench. It seems a lot people take Ashe down the Wyvern class path with BL. I liked Hilda from my GD run, but that would have made this easier to have a useful Ashe.

Thanks to @AxelVDP for reminding me I had the convoy. I was channeling Emo Dimitri and giving up.

Thanks with the convoy tip. 

I could beat it with cost of six people's life. 

I gave all status items to Byleth, but there was no chance to save the two healers because ememies blocked Byleth's way. There was an enemy (assassin iirc)  who moved towards them automatically after Byleth had moved. They could take him out, but then fist enemies killed the healer ladies. Also I had to use Ashe, Gilbert, Felix and Sylvain (all more or less untrained) as canon fodder

 In the top right was only one safe spot for Ingrid who thankfully could ORKO the boss to end this farce. 

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5 minutes ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

Thanks with the convoy tip. 

I could beat it with cost of six people's life. 

I gave all status items to Byleth, but there was no chance to save the two healers because ememies blocked Byleth's way. There was an enemy (assassin iirc)  who moved towards them automatically after Byleth had moved. They could take him out, but then fist enemies killed the healer ladies. Also I had to use Ashe, Gilbert, Felix and Sylvain (all more or less untrained) as canon fodder

 In the top right was only one safe spot for Ingrid who thankfully could ORKO the boss to end this farce. 

I don’t remember how it played out but I was able to get Byleth out of the doorway. I think some mobs used pass to get to Dimitri. One of my DPs was a miss on the mob in the bush on the way to the mages. That one blocked my way and had to go down for this to work. I had to take down the archer who would one shot Mercedes.

I also pulled Dimitri out of the entrance room for one turn to use a gambit.

In my play Mercedes was able to heal for a few turns before they came after her. I think it was key that I aggro’ed the mobs on the first turn and had them clustered around the entrance before the others on my team showed up.

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2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

What class was your Byleth?

And to everyone at large, how important is it for Byleth to fly in this chapter if I have a ton of fliers among the rest of the Blue Lions?

I honestly believe Byleth is better off grounded in this map, dismounting lowering your speed is kinda bad here but it's necessary because if not they fuck you up (while Dimitri takes arrows pretty decently)

I had Byleth as a wyvern rider and I think it made things harder than they needed to be.

 

Glad I was able to help btw

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This game feels to me like they rebalanced it late in the dev cycle after the systems were in place. Maddening is closer to the intention but way too hard to be the default.

The biggest difference is that hit matters. On my first two play throughs I didn’t understand why the game had so many things to raise hit. I missed too rarely for it to be much of a factor. On maddening I’m looking for any +hit perks I can get. The breaker skills matter.

I also rarely used gambits for anything but breaking armor on beasts.

The combat arts didn’t matter so much in hard. I used them but doubling regular and brave weapons was often better. Now I use combat arts for the +hit as much as anything else.

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I think the mode is very unforgiving and I am okay with it. You really have to remember that time skip level is really hard. I trained Dimitri and byleth really hard before that with vantage and killer + . It did take me several resets after burning through my Divine Pulses cause sometimes you really need a crit to survive in the bushes. I had Byleth tank and crit the top section of the map to free Ashe and Gilbert and Dimitri tank crit the bottom half. Mercie was able to heal Dimitri to get his personal skill up for the avoid.

I think EO is a good class to stick byleth with, since easy to get + 10 crit with S, swords are lighter and accurate and you get Wo Dao/Cursed Sword. I am on Ch 18. BL and the units I used so far that has been carrying the team is obviously Dimitri and Byleth. But The canto swift strikes/volley for Seteth/Sylvain/Cyril using expensilve silver/killer/effective weapons are helpful. And the game seems to be smoother, just slower.

 

I think the unforgivingness is good. People should play hard beforehand or read up on it. Its like FE12 Lunatic mode where if you dont optimally use your rescues, you cant pass certain chapters and youll have to restart the game. You just got to think ahead of time, some experience is needed. Like planning for the good endings for FE12 or FE6 (need only roy sword not broken?) or FE 7 with splitting routes based on what units you train. Just have to plan in advance, sure some of these examples dont break your playthrough as FE16 but I think not going blind is necessary. 

 

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2 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

I honestly believe Byleth is better off grounded in this map, dismounting lowering your speed is kinda bad here but it's necessary because if not they fuck you up (while Dimitri takes arrows pretty decently)

I had Byleth as a wyvern rider and I think it made things harder than they needed to be.

Thank you very much! You had M!Byleth, I'm assuming?

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2 hours ago, Dillthepill said:

This game feels to me like they rebalanced it late in the dev cycle after the systems were in place. Maddening is closer to the intention but way too hard to be the default.

The biggest difference is that hit matters. On my first two play throughs I didn’t understand why the game had so many things to raise hit. I missed too rarely for it to be much of a factor. On maddening I’m looking for any +hit perks I can get. The breaker skills matter.

I also rarely used gambits for anything but breaking armor on beasts.

The combat arts didn’t matter so much in hard. I used them but doubling regular and brave weapons was often better. Now I use combat arts for the +hit as much as anything else.

You should try implementing retribution or wall gambits are helpful. I been finding gambits a life savior to damage multiple people or keeping enemies in place (75% this). Or fighting against a breaker skill 

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10 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Thank you very much! You had M!Byleth, I'm assuming?

Yup, thankfully I also used mostly my BL units too so I did not have any deadweight that chapter.

At that time I believe I had wyvern rider byleth/ashe, assassin felix, pegasus ingrid, paladin sylvain, bishop mercedes and warlock annette (wanted to make her a dark knight, also my thyrsus user), pretty standard team makeup I'd say.

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