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Tips for a first playthrough of Binding Blade


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33 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

As much as I would want to agree with this, I cannot. This game is one where not everyone can be salvaged.

Just the other day I finished a hard mode run where I used Wendy. Wendy. And no, she wasn't just tagging along for the meme and doing nothing the whole time. Take a look. You can tell it's hard mode, he has 71 HP instead of 70 (why, IntSys...). If the worst unit in the game can be salvaged in hard mode, then anyone can be salvaged in normal mode.

And she wasn't even the sole bad unit in my team, it was a team comprised almost entirely of bad units: Ogier, Bors, Elen, Lot (though I don't consider him to be bad)... half my team was bad units, and only a couple of my units are considered "top tier". Once again, this is in hard mode. I know personal experience means nothing, but I think this proves that it can happen. And no, I didn't rig her levels. I suppose I can't really prove that, but why would I lie?

What you can't do is play efficiently with anyone. That much is true. But at a slow enough pace, everybody can be used, with more or less trouble. Since it's the man's first (blind) run, I very much doubt he's going for efficiency. I don't doubt that, given enough love, he could use anybody he wishes.

Edited by Saint Rubenio
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4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Just the other day I finished a hard mode run where I used Wendy. Wendy. And no, she wasn't just tagging along for the meme and doing nothing the whole time. Take a look. You can tell it's hard mode, he has 71 HP instead of 70 (why, IntSys...). If the worst unit in the game can be salvaged in hard mode, then anyone can be salvaged in normal mode.

And she wasn't even the sole bad unit in my team, it was a team comprised almost entirely of bad units: Ogier, Bors, Elen, Lot (though I don't consider him to be bad)... half my team was bad units, and only a couple of my units are considered "top tier". Once again, this is in hard mode.

What you can't do is play efficiently with anyone. That much is true. But at a slow enough pace, everybody can be used, with more or less trouble. Since it's the man's first (blind) run, I very much doubt he's going for efficiency. I don't doubt that, given enough love, he could use anybody wishes.

And just so we're clear, you didn't Level anybody up with Arena Abuse?

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4 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

And just so we're clear, you didn't Level anybody up with Arena Abuse?

Roy, for the money. And he still promoted at level 13 and remained at level 1 the rest of the game. I don't think that really matters, now does it?

Edited by Saint Rubenio
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@Von Ithipathachai Is there any point in arena abusing on normal mode? I'm up to chapter 12x and have just focused on a main team maybe swapping new characters in as I go. Roy, Allen, Lance, Lillina, Deke, Lugh etc. I've heard that chapter 16 is supposed to be a nightmare though. How many Gaiden chapters are there? I want to make sure I get the true ending on my first playthrough.

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4 minutes ago, Edegard1902 said:

@Von Ithipathachai Is there any point in arena abusing on normal mode? I'm up to chapter 12x and have just focused on a main team maybe swapping new characters in as I go. Roy, Allen, Lance, Lillina, Deke, Lugh etc. I've heard that chapter 16 is supposed to be a nightmare though. How many Gaiden chapters are there? I want to make sure I get the true ending on my first playthrough.

8x, 12x, 14x, 16x, 20x, and 21x. There are seven in all, but you will only play six because two are mutually exclusive.

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2 minutes ago, Edegard1902 said:

@Von Ithipathachai Is there any point in arena abusing on normal mode? I'm up to chapter 12x and have just focused on a main team maybe swapping new characters in as I go. Roy, Allen, Lance, Lillina, Deke, Lugh etc. I've heard that chapter 16 is supposed to be a nightmare though. How many Gaiden chapters are there? I want to make sure I get the true ending on my first playthrough.

I guess if you're short on money or want to train up an underleveled unit.

The side chapters are as follows:

  • Chapter 8x: The Blazing Blade (Lilina must be alive)
  • Chapter 12x: The Thunder Axe (Chapter 12 must be cleared within 20 Turns)
  • Chapter 14x: Scorching Reason (Chapter 14 must be cleared within 25 Turns and Sophia must be alive)
  • Chapter 16x: Glorious Ascension (Douglas must be alive; note that he will have to survive Chapter 16 as an enemy unit)
  • Chapter 20Ax: The Blizzard Spear (Chapter 20A must be cleared within 25 Turns and Zelot and Juno must be alive and recruited)
  • Chapter 20Bx: Bow of Swift Wind (Chapter 20B must be cleared within 25 Turns)
  • Chapter 21x: Elder Revelation (Chapter 21 must be cleared within 30 Turns and Melady and Zeiss must be alive and recruited)

20Ax is on the Ilia route, while 20Bx is on the Sacae route.

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13 minutes ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I guess if you're short on money or want to train up an underleveled unit.

The side chapters are as follows:

  • Chapter 8x: The Blazing Blade (Lilina must be alive)
  • Chapter 12x: The Thunder Axe (Chapter 12 must be cleared within 20 Turns)
  • Chapter 14x: Scorching Reason (Chapter 14 must be cleared within 25 Turns and Sophia must be alive)
  • Chapter 16x: Glorious Ascension (Douglas must be alive; note that he will have to survive Chapter 16 as an enemy unit)
  • Chapter 20Ax: The Blizzard Spear (Chapter 20A must be cleared within 25 Turns and Zelot and Juno must be alive and recruited)
  • Chapter 20Bx: Bow of Swift Wind (Chapter 20B must be cleared within 25 Turns)
  • Chapter 21x: Elder Revelation (Chapter 21 must be cleared within 30 Turns and Melady and Zeiss must be alive and recruited)

20Ax is on the Ilia route, while 20Bx is on the Sacae route.

Doesn't 12 x require Elphin to be alive if you recruited him, in addition to 20x Sacae requiring the nomads to be alive?

42 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Just the other day I finished a hard mode run where I used Wendy. Wendy. And no, she wasn't just tagging along for the meme and doing nothing the whole time. Take a look. You can tell it's hard mode, he has 71 HP instead of 70 (why, IntSys...). If the worst unit in the game can be salvaged in hard mode, then anyone can be salvaged in normal mode.

And she wasn't even the sole bad unit in my team, it was a team comprised almost entirely of bad units: Ogier, Bors, Elen, Lot (though I don't consider him to be bad)... half my team was bad units, and only a couple of my units are considered "top tier". Once again, this is in hard mode. I know personal experience means nothing, but I think this proves that it can happen. And no, I didn't rig her levels. I suppose I can't really prove that, but why would I lie?

What you can't do is play efficiently with anyone. That much is true. But at a slow enough pace, everybody can be used, with more or less trouble. Since it's the man's first (blind) run, I very much doubt he's going for efficiency. I don't doubt that, given enough love, he could use anybody he wishes.

Sure, but I'm not sure I'd want to play slow in a game that actively discourages playing slow... and matters aren't helped by this being one of the most unbalanced titles in the whole series (the only title that has worse balance than this one is Genealogy of the Holy War). Or by the Horse Emblem nature of the game.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sure, but I'm not sure I'd want to play slow in a game that actively discourages playing slow... and matters aren't helped by this being one of the most unbalanced titles in the whole series (the only title that has worse balance than this one is Genealogy of the Holy War). Or by the Horse Emblem nature of the game.

What you say is true however this is a first, mostly blind run of fe6, optimisation can be dun in subsequent runs, it's better that you have fun using whomever, as even the bad units do not get heavily punished by normal mode enemies. If you play optimally in your first run, you only set yourself up to play optimally every time. The game is to be enjoyed and using bad units or getting hilariously lopsided growths is part of the enjoyment, it's what makes a run unique, if you pick up fe6 solely for the sake of beating it and you never intend to play it again afterward, then you should optimise, but if you intend to play the game for fun, you should just play. 

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33 minutes ago, Pengaius said:

What you say is true however this is a first, mostly blind run of fe6, optimisation can be dun in subsequent runs, it's better that you have fun using whomever, as even the bad units do not get heavily punished by normal mode enemies. If you play optimally in your first run, you only set yourself up to play optimally every time. The game is to be enjoyed and using bad units or getting hilariously lopsided growths is part of the enjoyment, it's what makes a run unique, if you pick up fe6 solely for the sake of beating it and you never intend to play it again afterward, then you should optimise, but if you intend to play the game for fun, you should just play. 

The issue is, some units, like the aforementioned Wendy, require far more investment than the payoff you get from raising them. And her case isn't helped by the fact that she's almost unusable due to her shitty joining situation (unless you like the idea of fielding even more bad units - those being the other two Ostian armours - in a Horse Emblem game [and at that, one of the worst games to be an armored unit in], which I do not). This game also has a severe case of Archanea Syndrome (ergo, the term I use for having the best units mostly be early joiners), meaning that units like Wendy and Oujay (who, to be fair, has it a hell of a lot easier than her, but is outclassed hard by Dieck) don't even pay off well enough for all the trouble raising them is.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Sure, but I'm not sure I'd want to play slow in a game that actively discourages playing slow... and matters aren't helped by this being one of the most unbalanced titles in the whole series (the only title that has worse balance than this one is Genealogy of the Holy War). Or by the Horse Emblem nature of the game.

The game doesn't really punish the player that much for playing slowly. It depends on your definition of slow I guess, but the game doesn't expect the player to make full use of a character's movement every single turn or anything like that. I would also disagree that FE6 is one of the most unbalanced titles in the series. If we're talking about individual character balance maybe; but otherwise there are many other Fire Emblem games with more lopsided weapon and class imbalance. Warp doesn't trivialize the game nearly as much as it does in some other titles either.

Edited by samthedigital
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19 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

The game doesn't really punish the player that much for playing slowly. It depends on your definition of slow I guess, but the game doesn't expect the player to make full use of a character's movement every single turn or anything like that. I would also disagree that FE6 is one of the most unbalanced titles in the series. If we're talking about individual character balance maybe; but otherwise there are many other Fire Emblem games with more lopsided weapon and class imbalance. Warp doesn't trivialize the game nearly as much as it does in some other titles either.

Still, most side chapters (which, as I and many others stated earlier, are mandatory for the true ending) require finishing the preceding chapter within a turn limit. That's not good for slow playing. Neither is ambush reinforcements. Also, if you don't think this is one of the most unbalanced games in the series, then pray tell, enlighten me, because aside from Genealogy, I have a lot of trouble thinking of any FE games with worse balance (encompassing class, weapon and character balance all at once) than this one.

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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

...because aside from Genealogy, I have a lot of trouble thinking of any FE games with worse balance (encompassing class, weapon and character balance all at once) than this one.

Absence of Monks aside, Binding Blade's balancing of classes specifically doesn't seem that much different from, say, Blazing Blade, which is supposedly one of the better-balanced games in the series.

I'd pick out weapon and character balance as the more glaring balance issues, but aside from Axes being too inaccurate there aren't many "loser" weapon types except maybe Dark magic for its high Weight?  Bows are sort of redeemed by the presence of lots of dangerous flying enemies, but that may not be innate to them.

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Still, most side chapters (which, as I and many others stated earlier, are mandatory for the true ending) require finishing the preceding chapter within a turn limit. That's not good for slow playing.

Those are rather lenient. Ambush spawns and the like on hard mode make it a little less lenient sometimes, but it's not very consistent.

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I have a lot of trouble thinking of any FE games with worse balance (encompassing class, weapon and character balance all at once) than this one.

Not looking outside of the GBA titles FE6 has some more emphasys on player phase making bows and swords more useful. Bosses are also a consideration given that they are rather tough, so having a unit like Rutger can help a lot too. In 7 and 8 1-2 range is heavily favored, and the early game mounted units are better. Marcus is usable the whole game and Florina can contribute towards combat related tasks for example. FE8 has Seth who can practically beat the game on his own with ease. Path of Radiance mounted units are even more imbalanced, and I would guess that this is also true for Radiant Dawn, but I don't have as much experience with that one.

Edited by samthedigital
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25 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

Not looking outside of the GBA titles FE6 has some more emphasys on player phase making bows and swords more useful. Bosses are also a consideration given that they are rather tough, so having a unit like Rutger can help a lot too. In 7 and 8 1-2 range is heavily favored, and the early game mounted units are better. Marcus is usable the whole game and Florina can contribute towards combat related tasks for example. FE8 has Seth who can practically beat the game on his own with ease. Path of Radiance mounted units are even more imbalanced, and I would guess that this is also true for Radiant Dawn, but I don't have as much experience with that one.

Even so, in the other two GBA games, there's significantly less units that I would consider throwaway units than in FE6. Same for Path of Radiance. Radiant Dawn is a special case due to availability being all over the place, and the resulting fact that you'll be using a good portion of the cast for a while at least. Anyway, mounted units aren't as dominant in that game as in others due to low caps.

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Even so, in the other two GBA games, there's significantly less units that I would consider throwaway units than in FE6. Same for Path of Radiance.

We might have different definitions of throwaway units. There are about 10 really good units in PoR, and 10 more that are passable or have some utility. Most of the good characters are basically the same too. They're mounted paladins or flyers with good 1-2 range combat. It's a little more nuanced in FE6. Rutger is sword locked, Shin and Sue are effectively bow locked, Shanna doesn't have good combat, and Niime is mostly useful for her staff rank and magic stat rather than her combat. Those are all some of the best units in the game, and they all perform different tasks. If you can name more units that are useless in FE6 compared to others it is mostly because there are more units in the game.

 

Edited by samthedigital
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1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

We might have different definitions of throwaway units. There are about 10 really good units in PoR, and 10 more that are passable or have some utility. Most of the good characters are basically the same too. They're mounted paladins or flyers with good 1-2 range combat. It's a little more nuanced in FE6. Rutger is sword locked, Shin and Sue are effectively bow locked, Shanna doesn't have good combat, and Niime is mostly useful for her staff rank and magic stat rather than her combat. Those are all some of the best units in the game, and they all perform different tasks. If you can name more units that are useless in FE6 compared to others it is mostly because there are more units in the game.

Off the top of my head: I'd recommend against using...

  • Wolt
  • Bors
  • Wade
  • Lott
  • Chad (other than for chests)
  • Dorothy
  • Noah
  • Treck
  • Oujay
  • Wendy
  • Barth

That's about 40% of the units you get within the first third of the game alone. I cannot think of any other Fire Emblem game that gives you as much throwaway units as that within the earlygame.

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Your criteria is a little too picky. Noah is fine, and there are a few other characters that can definitely be decent out of that list. Otherwise I agree with you, character balance is lopsided, but it's mostly due to the fact that there are more characters in 6 compared to the others. There are still a similar amount of good units. Still, that's not really the point. Character balance is only one of several criteria. Overall the game isn't that badly balanced compared to other Fire Emblem games.

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1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

Your criteria is a little too picky. Noah is fine, and there are a few other characters that can definitely be decent out of that list. Otherwise I agree with you, character balance is lopsided, but it's mostly due to the fact that there are more characters in 6 compared to the others. There are still a similar amount of good units. Still, that's not really the point. Character balance is only one of several criteria. Overall the game isn't that badly balanced compared to other Fire Emblem games.

Yeah, well, I'd give in a big fat F in terms of class balance and weapon balance too. The long, winding maps blatantly favour mounts (to a greater degree than in most other Fire Emblem games) while knocking down armoured knights (and this is already one of the worst games to be an armoured unit in), to say nothing of other foot units. And weapon wise, axes are only slightly better off than in Genealogy of the Holy War, and lances aren't that great either.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Yeah, well, I'd give in a big fat F in terms of class balance and weapon balance too.

If you're willing to give it an F then you need to give a ton of other Fire Emblem games an F. I've given you examples of this already. You're neglecting every other weapon type while focusing on axes too. Axes are not that great in FE6, but they are not FE7 or FE8 bows (swords too to a lesser extent), and most weapon types see some use when there is a class available to use them.

 

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The long, winding maps blatantly favour mounts

The game has a Warp staff and bosses that require different weapons to kill properly. You're not going to beat the game very efficiently sticking to only mounted units.

 

I noticed that you edited this in:

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and lances aren't that great either

Why do you think that? Javelins are good for 1-2 range, and lances have a decent amount of usage in general given that they are strong and relatively accurate. If you want lopsided weapon balance then PoR is an easy example. At least 70% of the best combat units use axes. The class balance is terrible too, but I've mentioned that. Even inside of the GBA Fire Emblems FE6 is more balanced at least as far as the physical weapons go. In FE7 Hand Axes and Javelins are the best to the exclusion of just about everything else, and it would be the case in FE8 too if axes weren't restricted. Javelins take their place in that game.

Edited by samthedigital
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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Off the top of my head: I'd recommend against using...

  • Wolt
  • Bors
  • Wade
  • Lott
  • Chad (other than for chests)
  • Dorothy
  • Noah
  • Treck
  • Oujay
  • Wendy
  • Barth

That's about 40% of the units you get within the first third of the game alone. I cannot think of any other Fire Emblem game that gives you as much throwaway units as that within the earlygame.

If Chad is not used for combat purposes, I understand, the list is pretty accurate for the early game. However Dorothy is great, much better than Wolt. Her starting stats are not outstanding, but in long run only her defense will be too low on her. Of course Sue and Shin are always better than any other archers, thanks to their horses.

Later I'd add Cath, Cecilia, Sophia, Garret, Douglas and Dayan/Juno to this list. (although I'm not a fan of Hugh either, too expensive)

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2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

If you're willing to give it an F then you need to give a ton of other Fire Emblem games an F. I've given you examples of this already. You're neglecting every other weapon type while focusing on axes too. Axes are not that great in FE6, but they are not FE7 or FE8 bows (swords too to a lesser extent), and most weapon types see some use when there is a class available to use them.

You're exaggerating. Most of the other FE games make it significantly easier to use most of their units. And I'm largely fixated on axes because axes are pretty much universally terrible in this game (I'll pass on gambling every freaking attack, thank you very much; Armads aside, the most accurate axes only have 65 base hit. The brave axe could be useful, but it's heavy and inaccurate to the point where it's not worth it).

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

The game has a Warp staff and bosses that require different weapons to kill properly. You're not going to beat the game very efficiently sticking to only mounted units.

Have fun trying to get someone to A staves with weapon rank being as slow to raise as it is in this game. Not to mention it being very easy to miss due to it being in the desert, where you're timed if you want one of the gaiden chapters. In addition, Niime doesn't join until very late in the game (chapter 19 Ilia or 20 Sacae). 

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Why do you think that? Javelins are good for 1-2 range, and lances have a decent amount of usage in general given that they are strong and relatively accurate. If you want lopsided weapon balance then PoR is an easy example. At least 70% of the best combat units use axes. The class balance is terrible too, but I've mentioned that. Even inside of the GBA Fire Emblems FE6 is more balanced at least as far as the physical weapons go. In FE7 Hand Axes and Javelins are the best, and it would be the case in FE8 too if axes weren't restricted. Javelins take their place in that game.

And they're also really inaccurate, with 55 base hit. Hit rates are already one of the biggest complaints about this game. Between that and the fact that enemy units actually don't crumple in one round, using a javelin will most likely end with you chipping a lot of enemies, but not killing many, if any of them (or in the worst case scenario, them being completely untouched). Hand Axe and Javelin dominance in the other two GBA games is a product of their weak enemies (but at the same time, their having weak enemies also makes it easier to use most of the units in those games). Anyway, hand axes and javelins tend to flip-flop in terms of usability from game to game.

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You're exaggerating. Most of the other FE games make it significantly easier to use most of their units. And I'm largely fixated on axes because axes are pretty much universally terrible in this game (I'll pass on gambling every freaking attack, thank you very much; Armads aside, the most accurate axes only have 65 base hit. The brave axe could be useful, but it's heavy and inaccurate to the point where it's not worth it).

I'm not exaggerating though. 1-2 range is much more important in 7 and 8 than it is in 6, so bows and swords are not very good. You're criticizing axes alone when the other games have it worse. I also disagree that most other FE games make it easier to use other units. FE6 maps might be large, but the game does not give the player that much of an incentive to play quickly. If you want to play casually most units are fairly viable. If you want to play at a somewhat brisk pace there are a lot of options too. Turn count requirements for gaiden chapters are rather lax, and ranked is a joke especially compared to FE7.

 

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Not to mention it being very easy to miss due to it being in the desert, where you're timed if you want one of the gaiden chapters.

The turn requirement is 25, and it can be completed in 4 turns while getting the warp staff. There is a lot of time to get everything.

 

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In addition, Niime doesn't join until very late in the game (chapter 19 Ilia or 20 Sacae). 

There's also the option of using mounted units to help grounded ones traverse the map quickly. It is more important to do this in 6 because there are instances where mounted units are not the most suitable ones for combat.

 

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Between that and the fact that enemy units actually don't crumple in one round, using a javelin will most likely end with you chipping a lot of enemies, but not killing many, if any of them (or in the worst case scenario, them being completely untouched).

So you're saying that Javelins are not a catch-all solution to enemy phase combat. Don't you think that it makes it more balanced than in FE7? There are definitely situations where enemies will crumple to a Javelin though, and being lance locked isn't really a bad deal anyway. Miledy has amazing combat and uses lances. Most of the Paladins are going to use Lances when they need damage. There are definitely a lot of other examples too. There is no way everyone is using swords or bows all the time.

Edited by samthedigital
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5 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I'm not exaggerating though. 1-2 range is much more important in 7 and 8 than it is in 6, so bows and swords are not very good. You're criticizing axes alone when the other games have it worse. I also disagree that most other FE games make it easier to use other units. FE6 maps might be large, but the game does not give the player that much of an incentive to play quickly. If you want to play casually most units are fairly viable. If you want to play at a somewhat brisk pace there are a lot of options too. Turn count requirements for gaiden chapters are rather lax, and ranked is a joke especially compared to FE7.

I don't really care about ranked play, honestly. Anyway, you're ignoring that most units require more effort in this game and don't pay off enough to be worth it compared to superior alternatives (like Noah, who's never going to compare to Alan or Lance most of the time). The dearth of promotion items doesn't help matters; you only get two of most promotion items before chapter 16, and in most cases, you have to complete some difficult or obscure side objective to get one of them. I do agree that 1-2 range is dominant in the other GBA games, though.

5 hours ago, samthedigital said:

There's also the option of using mounted units to help grounded ones traverse the map quickly. It is more important to do this in 6 because there are instances where mounted units are not the most suitable ones for combat.

Bold: Like what? You keep saying that there are instances where mounted units aren't the most suited for combat, but you have yet to back it up.

5 hours ago, samthedigital said:

So you're saying that Javelins are not a catch-all solution to enemy phase combat. Don't you think that it makes it more balanced than in FE7? There are definitely situations where enemies will crumple to a Javelin though, and being lance locked isn't really a bad deal anyway. Miledy has amazing combat and uses lances. Most of the Paladins are going to use Lances when they need damage. There are definitely a lot of other examples too. There is no way everyone is using swords or bows all the time.

No, because other games made javelins such that they weren't the best weapon for most situations without forcing me to gamble on every freaking attack if I decide I want to counter archers or mages.

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