Chapter 13 in Blue Lions and Church on maddening gets the reward for being the most frustrating chapter in FE.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Yeah, the map is the same as in the Golden Deers route, but with the little dfference that the lord in GD has mobility and an actual speed stat.

This map is not even the worst, the worst is that there is no preparation menu and no way to lower the difficulty (as I planned). Byleth has access to an inventory to use status items without that the enemies will move, but this is all what can be done for her. The enemies cannot be taken down before the weaklings (Annette, Mercedes etc...) appear in their attack range, means sure death for them. And (slow) Dimitri has no horse anymore for some reason and cannot even move to a thicket in turn 1. And no way to hide him either since the mercenaries have pass. It means it is pretty much a Byleth-solo and using everyone else as canon fodder. One unit of the top right is not in an enemy's attack range, so technically safe (in my case Ingrid).

 

To see what I am talking about:

I hate maps where I have access to only 2-3 (bad) units like in 2-1 of FE10 (mainly Nephenee). But the amount of enemies here and their speed and evasion really take the cake here!

 

 

 

Edit: I could beat it because ngrid could ORKO the boss somehow, but no one aside of her and the two lords survived. 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Ingrid Brandl Galatea

[Dragoncat]

German.

[Captain Karnage]

Moved the thread for ya

[lucisferre]

It gets worse in Silver Snow. You get Seteth instead of your house lord and you are missing a character in the bottom left corner. It was amazingly stressful for my Maddening Run. I prepared deliberately 12 chapters for it but still ended up praying to RNG to save me as I plonked Byleth into a bush.

Pick a god and pray indeed.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Would it even matter if an unit less appeared in the bottom left? 

Unless there is a wyvern lord who can detract the fist guy, there is no way for them to survive.

Apparently the game expected from me to make Ashe a wyvern rider at this point because he would be the only one who could save Annette and Mercedes from death as far as I can think about. 

[Elephantus]

2 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

German.

Which is why I play all my video games in English instead. 😛 German is weird.

[lucisferre]

Oh right I forgot. Annette and Mercedes spawn in the bottom right. I am ready to get hurt again for my BL maddening run. Thanks for the heads up.

[Boomhauer007]

I made a rant topic about this map for GD on gamefaqs last night. Ch13 is the shining example of lazy difficulty and lack of play testing. I imagine it's even worse on BL without flying / pass / ashes and dust Claude to help you.

No prep screen, no knowledge of where allies spawn until the map is in full swing, ridiculous enemy stats (even at level 27 Byleth was doubled by the mercs and assassins), pass means you can't even turtle them. Stupidity just goes on and on. Only having 2 characters means divine pulse isn't even super useful since you can't always reroll RNG.

I think it took 4 hard resets / full runs of divine pulses to get through that intro. And I had the benefit of wyvern master Claude who had rushed alert stance+ specifically for this chapter, had wyvern Lord Hilda, and vantage wo dao+ on Byleth; none of that stops complete reliance on % misses. Now I'm mad all over again lol.

Edited September 29, 2019 by Boomhauer007

[Dragoncat]

Is this the first chapter after the timeskip? I guess hold out until the rest of the gang arrives. And make people run if they have to.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

This time I could spare Felix and Sylvain.

My healing and rally resources will be heavily restricted from now onw.

12 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Is this the first chapter after the timeskip? 

yes

1 hour ago, Elephantus said:

Which is why I play all my video games in English instead. 😛 German is weird.

I usually play in English too, but e-shop needs to be set up in my native language.

[Elephantus]

16 minutes ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

I usually play in English too, but e-shop needs to be set up in my native language.

Are you sure about that? Because mine is set to English.

Actually, it's not. I don't know why I thought it was. Weirdly enough, my physical copy of Three Houses came in English (thank God).

Edited September 29, 2019 by Elephantus

[eclipse]

What difficulty?  Maddening is understandable (especially since a tank is missing).  Hard requires some planning, but is doable if Sylvain went the tank route, and you leveled up Annette/Mercedes (your strategy is to rush to their spawn point, and have them take out the biggest threat).

This map didn't give me many issues.  GD's version. . .hoo boy. . .

[Okigen]

3 hours ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

 

70 turns! This makes my day😂 I'llget to this chapter soon so thanks for the heads up. 

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

German.

 

4 hours ago, Elephantus said:

Which is why I play all my video games in English instead. 😛 German is weird.

So ein mist!

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

This map didn't give me many issues.  GD's version. . .hoo boy. . .

Pray tell, how bad was it? Because I'm playing GD now, and I want to be ready.

[Von Ithipathachai]

...Well.  I guess not having this map is one advantage Crimson Flower has over the other routes.  I'm playing Blue Lions and now I'm scared.

[Jingle Jangle]

When I played ch13 on Blue Lions hard mode it hit me in the gut. My best units were Dimitri and Byleth with everyone else being moral support due to the high AS thieves have. If only the game took into account that not all the core route units will be at the same level.

[Von Ithipathachai]

I wonder how helpful making Byleth an Armored Knight/Fortress Knight would be?  What kind of enemy composition are we talking?  Mainly physical?

Edited September 29, 2019 by Von Ithipathachai

[Fabulously Olivier]

It really is a bad chapter.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Oh I didn't know Blue Lions had that map, yeah it was rough. Even on Hard, there was just such a jump in enemy strength that Claude and I had turtle up. I don't remember if there was a prep screen or not, but even if there was you didn't have access to adjusting inventory or promoting most of your units that show up later during the map.

Edited September 29, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Fabulously Olivier]

The lack of unit selection is what aggravates me. As I didn't use Ignatz or Raphael, I had two deadweight units. And Lorenz was a fragile mage put alongside said deadweight.

 

Also, the chapter is absolutely loaded with archers, which is obnoxious on GD, since you'll have Claude and likely Hilda as Wyverns.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

38 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I wonder how helpful making Byleth an Armored Knight/Fortress Knight would be?  What kind of enemy composition are we talking?  Mainly physical?

Physical. Units with incredibly high defense can make the chapter easier as the enemy composition is Swordies and Brawlers that have higher Speed than they have STR. A problem is that certain characters have no business fighting these "min-maxed" assholes without hiding behind a wall that can mitigate the damage.

I would concur that this map is worse on GD. Dimitri is generally tankier than Claude so he can help with protecting Byleth and Gilbert's always a tank for this.

Just now, Etheus said:

Also, the chapter is absolutely loaded with archers, which is obnoxious on GD, since you'll have Claude and likely Hilda as Wyverns.

Dismount. I very much hated this chapter because Byleth, Hilda and Claude were all on Wyverns and I didn't know how Dismount works in this game. The way that Dismount works in the game though makes it easy to get around the Bow weakness Wyverns have.

[Shiki]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

I would concur that this map is worse on GD. Dimitri is generally tankier than Claude so he can help with protecting Byleth and Gilbert's always a tank for this.

Let me one up you and say that Silver Snow Ch.13 manages to be even worse.

Seteth is a decent unit but he is not able to take that many hits and unlike Claude you can't really reverse roles with him and Byleth (who you can pump up to be able to stall the enemies).

BE is also the one route where cross recruitment is required because on Maddening the base roster is god awful.
Your first reinforcements are Dorothea and Caspar from the north-west corner, Petra south-west. Needless to say that doesn't cut it (GD has the opposite problem of giving you Hilda and Leonie from SW but Ignatz and lolenz NW) and if Petra isn't a Wyvern Rider she is super dead since she won't be able to handle all the enemies by herself.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

1 hour ago, Shiki said:

Let me one up you and say that Silver Snow Ch.13 manages to be even worse.

Seteth is a decent unit but he is not able to take that many hits and unlike Claude you can't really reverse roles with him and Byleth (who you can pump up to be able to stall the enemies).

BE is also the one route where cross recruitment is required because on Maddening the base roster is god awful.
Your first reinforcements are Dorothea and Caspar from the north-west corner, Petra south-west. Needless to say that doesn't cut it (GD has the opposite problem of giving you Hilda and Leonie from SW but Ignatz and lolenz NW) and if Petra isn't a Wyvern Rider she is super dead since she won't be able to handle all the enemies by herself.

Yeah I'll definitely concede that's worse then. The Black Eagles don't really have a good tank with their typical classes and it easily has the most units that won't survive 1 round of combat against those enemies. Yikes. Better make use of that Rally Defense from Seteh.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Dr. Tarrasque

[PrincessAlyson]

I didn't have too much trouble with it in BL, my first ever run. My Dimitri was doubling and either OHKO or ORKOing everyone who looked at him funny. Maybe I just did some grinding before the timeskip? Luck?? I'll see how it goes in my current (second) playthrough of Silver Snow NG+.

[Anathaco]

1 hour ago, Shiki said:

Let me one up you and say that Silver Snow Ch.13 manages to be even worse.

Seteth is a decent unit but he is not able to take that many hits and unlike Claude you can't really reverse roles with him and Byleth (who you can pump up to be able to stall the enemies).

BE is also the one route where cross recruitment is required because on Maddening the base roster is god awful.
Your first reinforcements are Dorothea and Caspar from the north-west corner, Petra south-west. Needless to say that doesn't cut it (GD has the opposite problem of giving you Hilda and Leonie from SW but Ignatz and lolenz NW) and if Petra isn't a Wyvern Rider she is super dead since she won't be able to handle all the enemies by herself.

Oh noes. I just picked Silver Snow Maddening and all of those units are extremely under levelled. Better promote Petra to Wyvern Rider before I finish chapter 12 then.

The other side of the map should have Ferdinand and Linhardt, yeah?

Edited September 30, 2019 by Anathaco